Archives for August 2006

Interior Minister Narrowly avoids bombing; Bush faces Choice of Withdrawal or Draft The Bush administration’s call-up of 2500 US Marine reservists who have already given 4 years of service shows how desperate it is becoming for military manpower in Iraq. A veterans’ organization maintains that this sort of thing is unsustainable, and that Bush will […]

Beirut War Diary Rasha Salti’s Beirut War Diary. Syria is threatening to close its borders with Lebanon if UN troops are stationed along the borders of the two countries. Lebanon is extremely vulnerable to this threat, since Syria is key to its hinterland trade routes, to Jordan, Iraq, and the Gulf. Currently its sea trade […]

McGreevy: Beautiful Beirut Patrick McGreevy writes from Beirut: ‘ Beautiful Beirut Is a moment of crisis a time to understand a place? Or only a time to romanticize or demonize because our vision is hopelessly clouded by desire or fear? Are desires and fears ever disseverable from the places we experience and shape? As a […]

Oil Workers Strike in Iraq Inflation Rate hits 70% amid stagflation Reuters reports on civil war violence in Iraq. Among the worst incidents: ‘ *MOSUL – Gunmen killed a family of five, including two children, after entering their home in the al-Zanjeeli district of Mosul 390 km north of Baghdad . . . MADAEN – […]

Helman Guest Editorial: Peril in Lebanon Ambassador Gerald B. Helman writes: ‘ The momentum that was imparted by the Security Council’s cease fire resolution (1701) on August 11, is in danger of dissipating. The initial deployment of Lebanese troops to the south seems stalled at an inadequate 3,000 men. Potential European troop contributors to a […]

Bush’s Arab Dream Palace Is it Narcissism? Bush said again on Monday that he would keep US troops in Iraq until 2009 and argued that for the US to withdraw would send a bad message to reformers in the region. He said he is concerned about that talk of civil war in Iraq and seemed […]

JonBenet Ramsey and Abeer al-Janabi Overseas readers who don’t watch US-based cable news may not know that there is a news blackout on the 24 hours news stations, which have shown endless hours of useless speculation on a ten year old small town murder case. Why the cable news channels in the US behave in […]

Sunni-Shiite Conflict takes New Turn CNN reports the civil war violence in the Baghdad-Diyala corridor. Al-Zaman/ DPA report that two members of Iraqi military intelligence were shot dead in the southern port city of Basra. [Al-Zaman says it is the third largest city in the country after Baghdad and Mosul, but I thought Basra was […]

McGreevy Guest Editorial: Lebanon: The Transnation Patrick McGreevy writes from Beirut: ‘ Some Western leaders are profoundly disturbed that Hezbollah, a non-state entity, should have such autonomy to act within and even beyond the borders of Lebanon. It seems an affront to Lebanon’s sovereignty and to the presumed foundations of a world in which citizens’ […]