Archive for January 8, 2007
This brilliant mind identifies the problem of Iraq, and marks the beginning of the end: “Once the State Department and the CIA argued that they don’t want Chalabi…”it went down hill. So if only Chalabi was allowed to rule Iraq. Let him wonder for the rest of his life.
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
Angry…American
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
“Five years on, no end to the horror that is Guantanamo” (There is more attention to Guantanamo violations in the US press than in the (pro-Saudi) Arabic press).
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
Jubilation in Israel: an Israeli wins…an Israeli prize. In other news, Saudi magazines select the Saudi King as the “Man of the Year” every year.
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
News from dictatorships that you like: “Moroccan journalists face 5 years’ jail for joke offending Islamists”
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
Degas, Edgar, L’absinthe, 1876.
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
“DI: Tell me something about yourself:YH: First of all, I’m not a Muslim…”
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
“Liberate” by land; “liberate” by sea; “liberate” by air. “A U.S. Air Force gunship has conducted a strike against suspected members of al Qaeda in Somalia, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports exclusively.”
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
The Syrian government feels the need to remind Israel that it wants to resume talks…on a daily basis. OK. I know.
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
All the Syrian writers that I like don’t write in An-Nahar. And all the Syrian writers that I don’t like, write in An-Nahar.
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
More annoying than the Lebanonese political class is the Lebanonese “intellectual” class. In this cultural section of An-Nahar (the right-wing, sectarian Christian, anti-Syrian (people), anti-Palestinian (people)) newspaper, there is a regular feature in which an artist or a writer describes a day of her/his life. It is amazing how unreal they are in how they [...]
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
Is Clovis turning New-agy?
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
The Initiative for an Open Arab Internet
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
Among the many sins of Rafiq Hariri was his obstruction of Ilyas Hrawi’s 1998 civil marriage law for Lebanon. Back them, as Niqula Nasif reminds us today in Al-Akhbar, Hariri Mufti declared that whoever supports that law “has defected from religion.”
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
Hizbullah: joining the Please-the-House-of-Saud camp. So Hizbullah not only asked to be invited by the House of Saud, but it also took measures to prevent any political protests during the Hajj.
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
An excellent critique of the Paris III Plan for Lebanon by Joseph Samahah–by far my favorite Arab columnist.
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
Zalmay Khalilzad rose through the ranks of this administration not due to any special insights that he has on the Middle East but due to a long established record of subservience and submissiveness to his bosses. And notice that Iraq is supposed to be his best work. Are you impressed?
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
This will not be circulated in the Saudi (pro-Dahlan) media: Sultan Abu Al-`Aynayn said that “every slap that we [in Fath] get, will be replaced by a thousand bullets.” He should have added that Fath will respond to Israeli bullets by making more concessions, capitulations, and prostrations.
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
Yesterday, I ran into a colleague from Georgetown University. He knew that I would be interested, he told me that Sa`d Hariri took two courses with him at Georgetown. He said that mini-Hariri sat in class (and it was a discussion-style class) silently, without ever uttering a word. He took him aside one time and [...]
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad
Between Michel `Awn and Hizbullah: there is no question that `Awn is much more intelligent in his reading of the Lebanese political situation. Hizbullah (especially in that recent speech by deputy secretary-general, Na`im Qasim) still naively and foolishly assumes that Hariri Inc is “neutral” and that mini-Hariri can be distanced from Ja`ja` (pronounced Ga`ga` in [...]
Posted on January 8, 2007 by As'ad