Archive for December 31, 2006

This must have been a very sad month for Donald Rumsfeld. Just think about it. I mean, he lost his job; he then lost Gerald Ford, for whom he had worked. And then came the news of the execution of Saddam, with whom he established that famous and tender US-Iraqi honeymoon of the 1980s.

Posted on December 31, 2006 by As'ad

If Hizbullah really wants to fight the sectarian machinations of Hariri Inc (and Saudi Arabia behind it) it would take a strong stance against the Shi`ite sectarian death squads of Iraq, which are terrorizing Sunnis and Palestinians.

Posted on December 31, 2006 by As'ad

I am told that the latest rumor in Baghdad is that Saddam was not killed, but that his look-alike was hanged. (Life must have been very tough or those look-alikes).

Posted on December 31, 2006 by As'ad

I read a two-page spread in the New York Times: a biography of Saddam Husayn by (the thin-skinned) NEIL MacFARQUHAR. What is striking about it that it does not make references to the support that Saddam was getting from Gulf governments and from Western governments for much of the 1970s and 1980s. It does not [...]

Posted on December 31, 2006 by As'ad

Saudi media give the impression that Muslims from around the world come to Saudi Arabia not to perform pilgrimage but to say hi to the royal family. And would it kill the royal family to train the king on reading the few lines that he has to read once every two weeks?

Posted on December 31, 2006 by As'ad

“U.S. trainers prepare Ethiopians to fight: As soldiers of Ethiopia’s Christian government continued to rout Islamist militiamen in southern Somalia this week, 2nd Cpl. Wonderfraw Niguse celebrated his own victory on the parched scrublands of eastern Ethiopia hundreds of kilometers to the north.” (Notice the language of the Stars and Stripes). (thanks Laleh)

Posted on December 31, 2006 by As'ad

How token Arabs get hired at the New York Times: the case of Hassan Fattah. When token Arab get hired, by the New Republic, CNN, or the New York Times, they have to try harder. I don’t mean that they have to work harder, no. But they have to try harder to prove their allegiance [...]

Posted on December 31, 2006 by As'ad