Archive for December, 2007
My article in Al-Akhbar: “The Impossibility of Democracy.”
Posted by As'ad at 2:37 PM 12/31/07
“Benazir’s last decision was in the same autocratic mode as its predecessors, an approach that would cost her – tragically – her own life. Had she heeded the advice of some party leaders and not agreed to the Washington-brokered deal with Pervez Musharraf or, even later, decided to boycott his parliamentary election she might still [...]
Posted by As'ad at 12:01 PM 12/31/07
Conspiracy? What conspiracy? Al-Arabiya TV is leading with the “news” that Olmert wants to limit the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements.
Posted by As'ad at 12:00 PM 12/31/07
Do you notice that the Syrian regime treats any visit to Damascus by any US official, even a city council member from Kansas, as a victory for the Syrian regime, or as a vindication for the stance of the regime? The press treatment of the visit by Sen. Specter is only one example, but [...]
Posted by As'ad at 11:11 AM 12/31/07
I have never seen Walid Jumblat challenged in an interview like he was by that Iranian journalist on Press TV. They aired a segment on New TV: and it was great TV moment. The guy asked him the obvious–and he asked his question without even hiding his contempt for the man sitting across [...]
Posted by As'ad at 10:58 AM 12/31/07
Dean of former Arab leftists, Hazim Saghiyyah, warns Lebanese Christians: if you undermine Harirism you will get Al-Qa`idah.PS Let me guess: Saghiyyah also believes that we should not oppose the Saudi government lest Al-Qa`idah takes over.
Posted by As'ad at 12:31 AM 12/31/07
A tribute to the first remote control.
Posted by As'ad at 12:25 AM 12/31/07
Abu Mazen’s representative in Lebanon, `Abbas Zaki, heaps praise on Saddam Husayn in a rally organized by Saddam’s Ba`thists in Lebanon. That would not be translated by MEMRI as the Zionists now approve of the Dahlan gang in the West Bank.
Posted by As'ad at 12:18 AM 12/31/07
Hariri newspaper reviews Hariri TV News channel and gives it very hight marks. In other news, all Saudi media agree: that King `Abdullah was the man of the year–just as they all agreed that King Fahd was the man of the year, every lousy year of his rule. And leave it to this [...]
Posted by As'ad at 12:10 AM 12/31/07
Still “liberating”…in Ba`qubah. (AP)
Posted by As'ad at 12:04 AM 12/31/07
Lebanese men are more likely to believe in astrology than women.
Posted by As'ad at 11:45 PM 12/30/07
Damning. In two months, Hariri propagandist, Hasan Sabra (reportedly a former propagandist for Libyan regime before becoming a propagandist for Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the 1980s), changes his view of Michel Sulayman.
Posted by As'ad at 11:11 PM 12/30/07
Julia Butrus banned from Al-Manar TV: ironies of religious media. Julia Butrus revealed in an interview on New TV that her song, Ahibba’i(My Beloved Ones, which is compiled from words used in a speech by Hasan Nasrallah–I don’t like the song, I prefer her song, Lebanon has Won (Intisara Lubnan) has been banned from [...]
Posted by As'ad at 4:07 PM 12/30/07
The military balance of force in the Middle East has been altered yet again. The Lebanese Army received 100 used trucks from the US government. 50 of the trucks will be used to supply the soldiers with their daily intake of Shish Tawuq.
Posted by As'ad at 4:04 PM 12/30/07
Mounzer Sulayman on the most frivolous lawsuit by Fakhri Karim (the (un?)official intellectual of the American occupation of Iraq, and its puppet president) against Samah Idris and Al-Adab. You have to read the full text of his ridiculous lawsuit (in the last issue of Al-Adab magazine): it reads as an addendum to Orwell’s 1984. [...]
Posted by As'ad at 3:51 PM 12/30/07
Khalid Saghiyyah on the New Year’s Eve party at Sanyurah Palace.
Posted by As'ad at 3:47 PM 12/30/07
“A 16-ounce cup of Starbucks coffee contains on average twice the amount of caffeine found in a similar cup purchased elsewhere (see The Journal of Analytical Toxicology, October 2006), sometimes approaching the amount in three NoDoz tablets. Starbucks in fact publishes the caffeine content of its brewed coffee: a venti cup has 415 milligrams.” [...]
Posted by As'ad at 12:56 PM 12/30/07
Here, Michael Husayn Young–do people still remember his articles in 2005 predicting that Shi`ite masses in Lebanon are going to shift toward his neo-conservative stance?–laments the decline of the neo-conservative influence in the US administration. Don’t cry for him, Lebanonesia. (thanks Amer)
Posted by As'ad at 11:11 AM 12/30/07
Is there somebody to tell the owners of Lebanese culture industry that the Karakalla dance performances–like the Mansur Rahbani plays–are a joke? A very embarrassing joke.
Posted by As'ad at 10:51 AM 12/30/07
“On the outer fringes of the throng around Benazir Bhutto that night in Larkana eight years ago were the local villagers who had somehow blagged their way in. They were welcome enough – as long as they stayed in their place. But one had a camera and took a picture. The flash [...]
Posted by As'ad at 10:28 AM 12/30/07
“Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning.” (thanks Yasmine)
Posted by As'ad at 10:18 AM 12/30/07
“Evidence of extremism in mosques ‘fabricated’” (thanks Kristoffer)
Posted by As'ad at 10:16 AM 12/30/07
In this presidential veto, Bush is not only protecting the Iraqi puppet government, but the government of Saudi Arabia as well.
Posted by As'ad at 9:09 PM 12/29/07
“Saudi Arabian officials have reportedly detained a blogger whose writing has criticized religious extremism in the country, according to the two press freedom groups and a regional human-rights organization.” (thanks Laayla)
Posted by As'ad at 8:36 PM 12/29/07
“Thousands of foreign workers have come to the Kurdish districts in the last three years, a huge turnaround for a place that had hardly any before, making it one of the fastest-growing Middle Eastern destinations for the world’s impoverished. They come from Ethiopia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Somalia, supporting an economic boom here that [...]
Posted by As'ad at 8:34 PM 12/29/07
Latest Fatwawawawa: The Prophet Disapproves of Um Kulthum. Question: Is it permissible to sell music (audio) cassettes, like cassettes of Umm Kulthoom and Fareed al-Atrash and that which is similar to them?Response: Selling these cassettes is haraam; because of that which they contain of music and songs which is haraam, and listening to it [...]
Posted by As'ad at 8:29 PM 12/29/07
Do you notice that Saudi prisoners from Guantanamo receive a hero’s welcome upon return to Saudi Arabia? See this festive coverage in Saudi newspaper, Ar-Riyadh.
Posted by As'ad at 8:16 PM 12/29/07
Does anybody know if this is true? Wi’am Wahhab told New TV that Shaykh Muhammad `Ali Al-Juzu was attacked by Walid Jumblat’s dog during a visit to Mukhtarah, and that he was hospitalized.
Posted by As'ad at 11:32 AM 12/29/07
Razzuk Al-Ghawi: his insights on US foreign policy. The guy is the Damascus correspondent for New TV. He was talking about the visit to Syria but Sen. Arlen Specter, and added–kid you not–that Specter is a critic of US Middle East policy implying that he is sympathetic to the Arabs. What this [...]
Posted by As'ad at 11:22 AM 12/29/07
Fifi `Abduh would be a much better choice as secretary-general of the Arab League than`Amr Musa. And Fifi is so tough: I can’t see her taking orders from Rice or Mubarak. We should start a Facebook group Fifi-for-secretary-general-of-the-Arab-league NOW.PS A group has just been created, Mazen informs me.
Posted by As'ad at 11:20 AM 12/29/07
“The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism.”
Posted by As'ad at 9:24 AM 12/29/07
Ful or Meat?, by Rami Zurayq. (The answer is Ful, of course).
Posted by As'ad at 9:17 AM 12/29/07
CSI Islamabad. The brilliant Interior Minister of Pakistan said that Bhutto died from hitting her head against the car roof, but in the same press conference it was said that Al-Qa`idah killed her. So are we being told that somebody from al-Qa`idah pushed her head against the car, now that the death is [...]
Posted by As'ad at 9:04 AM 12/29/07
“Who killed Benazir?” (I thank its author (a Pakistani journalist) who wrote under a pen name to protect his identity)
Posted by As'ad at 9:00 AM 12/29/07
Hariri News TV: Cry for Hariri 24 hours a day. So I was watching Hariri TV’s show, Transit. It is a weekly show on Future TV devoted to a discussion of the media hosted by the able Najat Sharaf Ad-Din–she is one of the few TV journalists in Lebanon who does not annoy [...]
Posted by As'ad at 8:46 AM 12/29/07
Iskandar Mansur on Fouad Ajami.
Posted by As'ad at 8:46 AM 12/29/07
A new Lebanese Maronite saint, Istifan Ni`mah. According to An-Nahar his performance of miracles continued after his death. He cured “completely” a person from cancer only 4 years ago.
Posted by As'ad at 8:35 PM 12/28/07
Walid Jumblat sends a list of his greeting cards to newspapers to report on them. Did you know for example that he received a season’s greeting card from the chair of the international committee of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party?
Posted by As'ad at 8:15 PM 12/28/07
I am not making this up. Hariri rag, Al-Mustaqbal, accuses Syria of murdering Bhutto. The newspaper quotes “Western sources” underling the similarities between the assassination of Hariri and the assassination of Bhutto. Does that mean that Rafiq Hariri died not from a car bomb, but that he also hit his head against [...]
Posted by As'ad at 8:13 PM 12/28/07
Mini-Hariri offered his condolences to…the Turkish people. He said that Bhutto was an effective prime minister of Turkey, and that the people of Turkey will miss her. He reiterated his call for Iran to stop enriching potassium.
Posted by As'ad at 8:10 PM 12/28/07
You have to read this pathetically sexist article by As-Safir’s culture editor, Lebanese poet `Abbas Baydun, on Bhutto. He sees in her a body and a face.
Posted by As'ad at 8:07 PM 12/28/07
“On Thursday night he told reporters in Orlando, Fla.: “We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.””
Posted by As'ad at 7:59 PM 12/28/07
“”She wrote me of how she admired Israel and of her desire to see a normalization in the relations between Israel and Pakistan, including the establishment of diplomatic ties,” the ambassador told Ynet.” It does not surprise me. She admired Israel and the Taliban.
Posted by As'ad at 7:57 PM 12/28/07
“”I knew her personally …. She was, as you know, glamorous, beautiful smart,” he said.”
Posted by As'ad at 1:56 PM 12/28/07
“She said that as the leader of a Muslim party, she was not free to marry for love, which would have “destroyed my political career,” she told The New York Times in 1994.”
Posted by As'ad at 1:55 PM 12/28/07
This John Burns’ obituary of Bhutto does not mention her sponsorship of the Taliban–prove me wrong this time NOW–. But it has interesting information that you need to remember: “The younger of Ms. Bhutto’s two brothers, Shahnawaz, died mysteriously of poisoning in 1985, in an apartment owned by the Bhuttos in Cannes, France. [...]
Posted by As'ad at 12:58 PM 12/28/07
So have the Arabs been demoted from thieves and beggars to terrorists in the coverage of the New York Times? A “news” article in the NYT on July 17th, 1884 had this headline–kid you NOT–: “Arabs dangerous around Banks.”
Posted by As'ad at 11:48 AM 12/28/07
An article in the New York Times on April 10th, 1884 had this headline: “Simple-Minded Arabs: A Party that Intends to beg its way from New York To Brazil.”
Posted by As'ad at 11:44 AM 12/28/07
The press conference of the Pakistani Minister of Interior was quite informative. He said that she did not die from the bullets, not did she die from the suicide bomber. She died because she hit her head getting into her car. OK.
Posted by As'ad at 9:54 AM 12/28/07
“U.S. Brokered Bhutto’s Return to Pakistan”
Posted by As'ad at 12:12 AM 12/28/07
“This figure represents over 16% of the entire NIS 314 billion state budget for next year, which the Knesset approved yesterday after passing the accompanying Economic Arrangements Law the day before. It also represents about 7% of gross domestic product.”
Posted by As'ad at 12:09 AM 12/28/07
I used to praise the Guardian newspaper. Here is its obituary of Bhutto: “People Magazine included her in its list of the 50 most beautiful people in the world.” The article said nothing about Bhutto’s administration sponsorship of the Taliban.
Posted by As'ad at 12:05 AM 12/28/07
How silly. Prince Salman’s mouthpiece, Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat leads with this headline about Bhutto: “She was a graduate of Oxford and Harvard.” Who cares? George W. has degrees from Yale and Harvard: if that is not enough to disabuse you of any assumptions about “elite” schools, nothing would. Also, King `Abdullah [...]
Posted by As'ad at 11:49 PM 12/27/07
The Muslim Brotherhood. One of the most consistent positions that I have adhered to over a lifetime is detestation and utter contempt for The Muslim Brotherhood, and all their offshoots. Take the Egyptian branch. They live under a ruthless dictator, class oppression is only getting worse, and the US and Israel issue orders [...]
Posted by As'ad at 11:42 PM 12/27/07
And who comes to the rescue of the reputation of Ashraf Marwan? Well, former Arafat’s lieutenant Amin Al-Hindi. How convenient.
Posted by As'ad at 11:40 PM 12/27/07
Will the US/UN call for an international tribunal to investigate the assassination of Bhutto? Will 10 UNSC resolutions be passed in her honor the way they did with the Hariri guy?
Posted by As'ad at 11:29 PM 12/27/07
“But the clean-up turned ugly after some of the Orthodox faithful stepped inside the Armenian church’s section, touching off a scuffle between about 50 Greek Orthodox and 30 Armenians.”
Posted by As'ad at 11:25 PM 12/27/07
This is Zionism. This Palestinian child is not royalty. She is not a darling of the Western media. She will not be on the cover of any Western magazine. You will not even read about her in your press. This Palestinian school child was hit by an Israeli missile in [...]
Posted by As'ad at 11:08 PM 12/27/07
“Foreign Office papers, just released by the National Archives in London, show that defence sales to Iraq in 1976 amounted to an estimated £70m.” (thanks Sinan)
Posted by As'ad at 10:27 PM 12/27/07
Shoes in Arab culture: “À l’Élysée, Sarkozy indisposa le souverain saoudien en lui montrant ses semelles une injure dans le monde arabe et en lui demandant le nombre de ses enfants.” (thanks Ziyad)
Posted by As'ad at 10:25 PM 12/27/07
