Archive for May 3, 2007

This is rather funny. An Iraqi puppet bluntly says: “Don’t Abandon Us.” He forgot to add: look at what happened to Antone Lahd.

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

“The number of attacks with the projectiles rose to 65 in April, said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who oversees day-to-day U.S. military operations in Iraq. “The overwhelming majority” were in predominantly Shiite eastern Baghdad, Odierno said in an interview this week. Officials have said the projectiles are used almost exclusively by Shiite fighters against [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

As Mr. Bush brags about the formation of Iraqi security forces, “Beleaguered Iraqis now fear their own security forces more than the insurgents”

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

Arming Dahlan gangs: “The document demands, among other things, that Israel approve and support in an “immediate and ongoing” manner the requests of U.S. security coordinator Dayton for the provision of required armaments, ammunition and equipment for security forces under the control of and reporting to the PA chairman in the West Bank and Gaza.” [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

“On paper 46,000 recruits have joined the Afghan national army (ANA); President Hamid Karzai’s government hopes to hit 70,000 by the end of 2008. America, anxious to ensure an exit strategy for its own troops, is footing the bill – $2bn (£1bn) so far with another $2bn promised for new M-16 guns, Ford trucks and [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

“A retired British army general says Iraq’s insurgents are justified in opposing the occupation, arguing that the US and its allies should “admit defeat” and leave Iraq before more soldiers are killed. General Sir Michael Rose told the BBC’s Newsnight programme: “It is the soldiers who have been telling me from the frontline that the [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

The Syrian foreign minister is treating his meeting with Rice as if it was akin to the liberation of the Golan heights.

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

You would be amazed to know how much tips and help I often receive from readers. Just last week, somebody told me to press the reset button on the garbage disposal, and it worked. So I need help NOW. I am trying to download mobile blogger to my phone/pda. But the site asks for a [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

AlArabiya TV is now airing a “documentary”–it is a bitterly anti-Palestinian pro-Israeli military propaganda feature (with translations and subtitles in Arabic).PS Perhaps realizing that their handlers asked them to go too far with this propaganda piece, AlArabiya hosted a discussion of the movie after it was aired. The PFLP’s Maher At-Tahir and As-Safir’s Hilmi Musa [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

This just in. Martin Indyk will be hosting Amr Khalid at Saban Center. Do you think that it will surprise me if Yusuf Al-Qaradawi speaks at AIPAC? These are the people who offer fatwawawas-to-go (for a fee).

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

“Aerial bombing of a valley in western Afghanistan several days ago by the American military killed at least 42 civilians, including women and children, and wounded 50 more, an Afghan government investigation found Wednesday. A provincial council member who visited the site independently put the figure at 50 civilians killed. President Hamid Karzai said at [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

I regularly read books by authors who adhere to an ideology of hostility against Arabs and Muslims. Efraim Karsh is an example. When I saw his Islamic Imperialism: A History book, I thought that it could be interesting. I finished it on the plane yesterday. What a failed project: an interesting idea but so badly [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

“More than 50 percent of the Lebanese population is suffering from income deprivation in the wake of the July 2006 war due to the absence of social safety nets to protect communities most vulnerable to poverty from its consequences, according to a report released by Oxfam UK last week.” (And I had assumed that the [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

“HOURS after being sentenced to death by a sharia court in Somalia last May, Omar Hussein was publicly executed. He was hooded, tied to a stake and stabbed to death by the 16-year-old son of the man he had admitted stabbing to death three months earlier. In Kuwait, a Sri Lankan was executed last year [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

““Walid Phares has long been among the most knowledgeable and incisive scholars of the Middle East–its peoples, its cultures, its religions, and its radical movements.” –U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman”.Who more than Senator Lieberman can judge scholarship on the Middle East. Really. (Phares in the book claims that I blamed the US “war on terrorism” on [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

It is all over. The mayhem and violence in Iraq has ended. I know. I know. I have said this before, but this is different. No, seriously. Tow things made me certain that the turmoil in Iraq will finally end. 1) Prince Harry is going to Iraq and that should bring about the kind of [...]

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad

The Egyptian foreign minister has spoken: he called for an end to foreign intervention in Iraq, with the exception of American intervention because it has been good for Iraq and the region. A Fox News reporter has more influence over Egyptian foreign policy than the Egyptian foreign minister.

Posted on May 3, 2007 by As'ad