Beirut Emigre

Before the Storm...

2007-11-12T20:40:00.001-08:00

I'm hoping my ambition didn't overload my meager talents in this post. Good luck, reader(s).

Beirut, Lebanon - kind of...

My ringtone wakes me up. I pick my head off the sofa cushion and paw at the table feeling for my phone. The display tells me it's a long distance call. I answer.
"Hello."
On the other end I hear muffled gunfire, lots of it.
"Listen to this," I'm told, "I'm going to stick the phone out the shebehk (window)."
The crackle of Kalashnikovs morphs into a loud hiss of feedback; the tiny ear speaker can't handle the noise. I yank the phone away from my ear.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yes, I heard it, how could I have not? What's going on?"
"It's Hezbollhah!"
The phone's back outside the window again, more feedback, then slowly the shots ebb and then a new sound, cars honking, takes over. I briefly picture a nightmare scenario, firefights in streets, Hezbollah fighters crossing the airport road into a Sunni neighborhood. That can't be, I think, it's too soon. Plus, why are honking their horns?
"What's going on?"

Baghdad, Iraq - Bab al Sheikh neighborhood

The neighborhood is calm. People feel free to play music, drink arak, and hang in the barbershop talking politics... frankly. The vitriol directed at the central government, the insurgents, the militias, the Americans, the terrorists is withering but witty. The people here still smile. This is old Baghdad; the Baghdad that dates back to the times of the Caliphate, the grand libraries and the luscious gardens - to a time when it was the jewel of the world. The resident families have lived here for generations, they have intermarried, their children have grown up along side each other. They know each others sectarian affiliation but it doesn't matter; in this place you are from the neighborhood first, and everyone looks out for each other, no matter what.

Baghdad, Iraq - Ghazaliyah neighborhood, ground zero of the Petraeus surge

This is the Western edge of Baghdad. From here it's a straight shot to Fallujah and Ramadi, right through Abu Ghraib. To the north is the Shiite neighborhood and Sadrist stronghold of Shula. Ghazaliyah, before the invasion, was a mostly Sunni middle class neighborhood. Now it is an exclusively Sunni neighborhood, and poor. The Shiites were driven out or killed and the Sunnis with enough money have fled the fighting. The entire neighborhood is surrounded by miles of concrete blast barriers, and the only ways in and out are manned by U.S. soldiers and "Ghazaliayh Guardians," a U.S. armed and funded "concerned citizens brigade" (the current euphemism for militias allied with the Americans). This seems to have slowed, if not stopped, the flow of Shiite Jeish-al-Mahdi (aka JAM aka the Mahdi Army) fighters from Shula pouring south into Ghazaliyah, sweeping in and leaving mutilated bodies dumped in the ditches and empty lots between the two neighborhoods. It has also eliminated the need for Al-Qaeda and other Sunni Islamist militias, invited into the neighborhood to counteract JAM. Al-Qaeda and their ilk, the cure, tuned out to be worse than the disease; demanding money, enforcing rules that made life unbearable and killing anyone who disagreed. Most of their members are gone now, those that have stayed behind have joined on with the Guardians; working closely with the Americans. The talk among many of them is of revenge. They have exacted some, but there are still many blood debts to be paid. The thirst has yet to be quenched. Revenge against the Shiites to the north, revenge against the central government. (The Americans, until recently charter members of this list, are now glaringly left off.) They talk of retaking Baghdad, which after years of fighting and ethnic cleansing is a predominantly Shiite city. They plan for the next act, a bloody one. But for now, it's calm.

Baghdad: B denotes Bab el Sheikh, and G, Ghazaliyah

Beirut, Lebanon

It turns out that Nasrallah has just made a fiery speech. In the speech he pledged Hezbollah would never disarm, demanded that the cabinet be sacked and declared that early parliamentary elections are the only way out of the current impasse. He also suggested that the head of the military should be a nationalist who would fight Israel. (The man has clearly lost his mind - if the army can barely take on a trapped Islamic militia what can they do against the IDF? They'd be wiped out inside a week.) After the television address concluded, Hezbollah members took to the streets, firing volleys into the air to send a message - we may be hidden but we are numerous, ubiquitous, armed to the teeth and not to be be trifled with. For them laws don't apply, international resolutions don't apply, the constitution doesn't apply, logic doesn't apply - only brawn applies and they have it and are not about to give it up.
And Hezbollah are not the only ones in the region unwilling to give up their arms.

Before Edward Wong, a New York Times correspondent, left Baghdad for a new assignment, he wrote his first and only analysis/opinion piece about the situation in Iraq. He concluded the political parties of Iraq were not laying the groundwork for peace, they were arming for war.
(Recent example: The Iraqi government, Shiite dominated, just spent millions dollars on a huge order of Chinese weaponry, most of it destined for the National police and the Interior Ministry. The same police who are, for all intends and purposes, the uniformed arms of Shiite militias - state sponsored death squads. And the same Interior Ministry that was caught red-handed holding Sunnis without cause and torturing them. The Iraqi government turned to the Chinese after the US balked at providing weapons to organizations with such - deserved - reputations.)
I wrote Mr. Wong an email thanking him for all the reporting he'd one over the years and mentioned to him that I grew up in Lebanon during the civil war and compared it to present day Iraq. Here's my exact quote (please excuse the righteous indignation):
"The suits talk, the militias fight, the generals and presidents come and go. The ceasefires and promises of peace come and go too (but at a faster clip than the generals). On the ground, for you, John Q. al-Aziz, nothing changes. Like a hurricane, you just have to wait it out and hope your roof doesn't get blown off. Only this hurricane is not blowing away for a long time."

Mr. Wong wrote me back, saying that the people of Iraq were basically doing just that. Waiting for the storm to pass, and they are not optimistic that it will be over soon or that the worst has passed.

Iraq is now in the eye of that hurricane. The surge, destined to end in a few months, has only brought certain parts of the country under control. The eastern countryside is as wild and violent as as any part of Iraq has ever been. And even where it is calm, the situation is extremely fragile.

There is a precedent for the current U.S. tactics and their results; the French counter-insurgency campaign in Algeria under the command of Général Maurice Challe.

Challe was brought in at a critical moment. The FLN, the Algerian resistance, seemed absorb heavy blows from the French military and continue on, virtually unaffected. The French military, meanwhile, was short on manpower after years of fighting. It had lowered the criteria to enter the army in order to increase the number of recruits. And at home, the French population grew restless as more blood and treasure was sank into the sands with little effect. A change in tactics was needed.
Under Challe, the French army was was moved off its static and dispersed bases and put into the field, and concentrated into the resistance strongholds. The goal was to push the resistance out of its safe havens. Mass arrests were curtailed, seen as cumbersome and counter productive. The use of informers and French-allied Algerian militias was emphasized. The military plan was coupled with a political plan, whose aim was to improve the the image of the French occupation among the general population. The public works programs were intensified. In the field, with the help of Algerian eyes, the enemy, previously invisible, could be targeted. The resistance decreased significantly under the pressure; there were even mass purges after the first few informers were discovered (ironically, the purges did more damage than any informer could have dreamed). The FLN was pushed out of the large cities (walls were built up during the battle for the capital, Algiers, and access to certain neighborhoods strictly controlled) and the FLN was confined mostly to the countryside. The French went to work, building up areas they now controlled.
This, by now, should all sound eerily familiar. And it should. General Petraeus has read the history, and he knew a tactical success when he saw one. He has modified these tactics brilliantly to fit Iraq and the tactics have been, just like in Algeria, largely effective.
But there is a reason the French are no longer in Algeria. The tactics outlined above provided a tactical success but not a strategic one. The factor fueling for the war remained unchanged; most Algerians wanted the French out of Algeria. And today in Iraq the fuel is plentiful, the political factions are still armed and still bent on destroying each other and unless they're Kurdish, Iraqis have little appetite for the "South Korean model" that many American generals and politicians are proposing; an open ended, large-scale military presence.
Al-Qaeda are weaker, but not defeated. The level of sectarian strife, mostly carried out by armed wings of political groups, has slowed but not stopped. The situation could reverse very quickly, and it most likely will. A tragedy has five acts; I'm sure we haven't reached the fourth and it's possible we're still haven't seen the third.

More on this film soon.

Lebanon is now still mired in act one; it has yet to be struck by the full force of the storm. The only thing holding the country together is the army. But for how long can it hold together? How long before an order is refused? How long before Hezbollah brands it as loyal to a government of spies and traitors?

In Iraq and Lebanon, the problem is not between sects (who have previously lived alongside each other peacefully), or inside the societies (which were relatively coherent until recently) or some backwardness in the culture (American women in the 1890s couldn't vote or hold most jobs, but that didn't seem to hurt the peace or slow the growth during the Gilded Age). The problem is the political groups are also armed groups. These parties will never give give up their arms because their arms are a central pillar of their party platform. Without the guns, they wouldn't be important, because their parties are not built on ideas but on strength. They are protectors of their followers, not advocates for them. These parties don't have policies papers, or reforms to champion; their only goal is to rule. The politics practiced are distinctly of the zero-sum variety. Compromise is weakness, victory through strength and unyielding resolve is seen as the only way forward. This has knock-on effects. First, the parties fight amongst themselves for power. Second, the large and organized armed groups weaken the government, hurting its ability (to say nothing of its desire) to function normally. Third, the people, unable to get justice from an impotent government (if it's even trying to deliver it, that is) mete it out themselves, with all the obvious complications that entails.
The populations are left sitting there, waiting, while outside civil strife rages with no one strong and neutral enough to put a lid on it, the normal business of government is left unattended and blood feuds and clan rivalries drag on endlessly.
The conflicts have a momentum of their own. Nobody wants them except the people fighting in them.

AN ASIDE:

Lebanon and Iraq are starting to feed off each other.

Watch this video for proof.

Just like in the 1970s with the Palestinian militias, Syrian intelligence is slowly making links, arresting, interrogating, and co-opting key elements of the insurgency. Damascus main transfer point for the Sunni jihadis and the Syrians have taken full advantage. Some of the most dangerous and the most useful jihadis have been deposited in Lebanon, mostly in and around Tripoli and the inside the Palestinian refugee camps. There can be little doubt that the Syrian intelligence apparatus would love turn some groups into their clients.

Sources/inspirations:
- A beautifully written article in the Nov 12 New York Time by SABRINA TAVERNISE and KARIM HILMI
- Jon Lee Anderson's Nov. 19 New Yorker article about the surge.
- Alistair Horne's A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (a powerhouse of a book)
- Unnamed sources in Beirut and Baghdad
- That NYT video linked above (quite frightening, huh?)
- The film, The Battle of Algiers (an overlooked masterpiece)

R.I.P. Norman Mailer

2007-11-10T07:48:00.000-08:00

1923 - 2007

An Interview

Infatuated

2007-10-31T20:46:00.000-07:00

Well, it happened again. I fell in love. It only took 5 minutes. I'm now head over heels.
Unfortunately, it's a book.

I was hacking away deep in the jungle that is yet another novel when I picked up my new obsession. After a few pages I immediately abandoned my failed expedition through the lands of fiction - Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential had me. I bought it a while ago and I did try to read it once but I started in middle (nasty habit) and quickly lost interest when I started another book before fully committing myself to it (nastier habit, which I just perpetuated). Now, I read it whenever I can; on the commute, on the way to a friend's house, at lunch, late at night when I should be sleeping. The other day I made the mistake of placing the book on my desk at work. It was torture; the temptation too great - I really wanted to read it. The book beckoned...
"Not now, they'll see us!" I thought. I had to put in a drawer.
Or what about when I brought it out to a pub on Friday night? I could squeeze in at least 15 minutes of reading time on the subway before I reached my destination, I figured. I had to stash it in a friend's purse when I got there and explain why I brought a book out with me on a Friday night.

I know, I know... "A book by and about a cook? That sounds sleep inducing." But you're wrong. It's actually one of the wildest and most entertaining books I've ever had the privilege to read.
Don't believe me? Here's an excerpt (from a chapter describing the first time Bourdain and his friends get to run a New York kitchen):
--
We were high all the time, sneaking off to the walk-in at every opportunity to 'conceptualize'. Hardly a decision was made without drugs. Pot, quaaludes, cocaine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms soaked in honey and used to sweeten tea, Seconal, Tuinal, speed, codeine and, increasingly, heroin, which we'd send a Spanish-speaking busboy over to Alphabet City to get. We worked long hours and took considerable pride in our efforts - the drugs, we thought, having little effect on the end-product. That was what the whole life we were in was about, we believed: to work through the drugs, the fatigue, the lack of sleep, the pain, to show no visible effects. We might be tripping out on blotter acid, sleepless for three days and halfway through a bottle of Stoli, but we were professionals, goddammit!
--
See, not exactly the Julia Child biography (but it does have good recipe ideas inside).

There are plenty of reviews of Kitchen Confidential available online, so I won't delve into the details; this is more of a personal slant. Suffice to say boy falls in love with food, boy gets kitchen job, boy drops out of college and goes to chef school, boy moves to New York, works in a collection of restaurants of varying quality (most go bankrupt), boy becomes drug addict, gets clean, redeems himself with chef job at Les Halles.
Also, there's a chapter about dick jokes and a couple more about his right hand men in the kitchen (men so badly behaved it's a miracle they are not in jail or dead). Some of events and people that populate the book are so outlandish that it's difficult not to think that the author went James Frey on us; embellishing for our entertainment.

I found the cook as rock star and the kitchen as insane asylum to be irresistible lures. It helps too, that Bourdain is a francophile with an appreciation for bandes-dessinés. Reading the book, for me, is like hanging out with a kindred spirit. Anyone who refers to vegans as a "Hezbollah-like splinter faction" of vegetarians is clearly my kind of guy.

And like Bourdain, I've always been fascinated by cooking from an early age. Lebanese food was my first love; those childhood Sunday afternoon lunches at my grandmother's were the highlight of my week. I can still taste those dishes; warak einab (stuffed grape leaves), coossa ma dibis remayhn (meat stuffed zucchini with pomegranate syrup), shish-barak (meat wrapped in dough and cooked in yogurt). Crowding around that dining room table with my extended family on Sundays was my atheist church.
Some of my best food experiences also happened in Lebanon even after I started living in Canada. That calf's brain, warm and spread on bread with sliver of garlic. Or the first time I had cracked open a fresh sea urchin and scooped up the succulent, salty, bright orange roe. All the food too weird or too dangerous to be served in Canada is one the things I look forward to when I get off the plane in Beirut.

The cooking, while interesting, was not what I enjoyed the most. It was the Bourdain's descriptions of another favorite hobby of mine that really kept me turning the pages: general debauchery. As I get older my nocturnal activities have grown more tame and the majority of the miscreants have been culled from my stable of friends. Things are slowing down; like an aging power-pitcher, I'm losing my fastball (but don't be fooled, like Schilling I can still get the outs). That's why I had so much fun to living vicariously through the documented misdeeds of others in Kitchen Confidential, however unbelievable. Which leads to the coincidence that occurred on Friday night and why I now believe all the tall tales Bourdain recounts in the book.

Friday night, post-pub, after retrieving my book from it's purse prison:

I was on the subway, riding home, when I overheard a girl engaged in an animated discussion with two Japanese proto-punks and I, in my infinite wisdom, chimed in. Thirty seconds later I was getting off the subway at a station that wasn't mine and following three people I didn't know to God knows where. The trio turned out to be cooks at Flow, and I, surprised by the apparent serendipity of the moment and spurred on by Kitchen Confidential, was tagging along on whatever late night unwinding these kitchen workers had planned. I soon found myself in a stranger's dark and smoky living room, swallowed up in a mushy futon, drinking pilfered eau de vie, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and listening to several lengthy treatises delivered by people of questionable sanity. The finer points of pharmaceutical drug abuse, why shoplifting isn't stealing is you really need it, how dumpster diving (aka freeganism) is great way to procure fresh produce, how much GHB it takes to reander someone unconscious - the topics discussed and behavior described varied between the odd, the worrying and the outright criminal. Later I, unwisely, tried to read a passage of the book to one cook (maybe she'd find it/me funny?) but she quickly cut me off - "The only thing I read is the funnies." (I'm going to assume she skips over Doonesbury ... and who under 60 still calls comics funnies?). She then went ahead to display ADHD behavior straight out of a textbook. And as she told endless stories with no point or conclusion, switching topics without warning and at full speed, I realized Bourdain wasn't embellishing - these people are nuts. When he calls his line cooks "a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths" he is not exaggerating.

The next night I went to a concert. After the show we ended up at a boisterous after-party in a 2 story studio on Queen west (see, like Schilling, I'm still effective). The party was populated by Latin Americans, mostly from Columbia and Argentina, the music was a disjointed mix of house and cumbia and the drinks ($5 a pop) were strong enough to strip paint. The party was fun but the atmosphere was vaguely threatening (as it usually is when people start arguing loudly in a language you barely understand), most the people there were high on more than one drug, and I almost got myself into trouble when I conversed with the wrong girl (her boyfriend was, to put it charitably, unimpressed). That being said, it was still more normal than hanging with those three cooks. Even though we were just sitting around, those three line cooks had more intrinsic menace than a whole room of drunk, posturing Latin men.

And since this entry seems to have no rhyme or reason... two simple recipes everyone should have in their repertoire and that are usually made incorrectly:

Bolognese sauce (a modified version of Mario Battali's):
Handful chopped pancetta.
Some hot pepper flakes.
A big onion, chopped.
Same volume as chopped onion of chopped carrots and chopped celery.
Few cloves of garlic.
1/2 pound of ground beef (medium)
1/2 pound of ground pork
1 cup of white wine
1 cup of milk (full fat)
2 - 3 cups of chicken broth (make it yourself if you can, it makes a big difference)
2 Tablespoons of tomato paste or preferably some Pomi (boxed pureed tomatoes)
2 bay leaves
Lots of thyme (fresh is better)
Olive oil

Fry pancetta and flakes with oil, add carrots, celery, onions and garlic. Fry until softened (don;t brown them). Add meat. When meat is cooked add wine. When dry add milk. When dry again, add stock, tomato paste and bay leaves. Simmer for at least 1 hour, preferably 2. When done, finish with fresh thyme and olive oil.

Gazpacho:
4 large tomatoes, stemmed and seeded.
two handfuls of white bread (crusts cut off)
Garlic (2 to 5 cloves, depends how much you like garlic)
Handful of parsley
1 shot glass sherry wine vinegar (can use other types, but balsamic should be a last resort)
1 normal cucumber or half an English one, peeled
1 red pepper (seeded, skin it if you want, but it's a pain in the ass)
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Salt
1/2 cup olive oil
A good blender

Soak the bread in water for a couple of minutes, squeeze out the water. Blend everything (pulse the bread a little first) except the olive oil until smooth. Slowly pour in the olive oil as the blender is mixing (your goal is to emulsify the oil). The soup should be a peach colour when you're done. Serve alone or with croûtons, chopped boiled egg, chopped cucumbers, etc.

The colour you're after is on the left.
If you've ever seen gazpacho that wasn't that colour, it wasn't gazpacho.

And a quit tidbit about learning to cook.
Learning that creating good food was not magic and that I, even I, could do it was has been and till one of my great joys. All it took was many idle hours, no one to cook for me, copious amounts of green, and the Food Network. I never actually cooked anything that I saw, but watching some smooth-talking, bloated, self-satisfied publicity hound whip up a meal in 22 minutes coupled with the munchies provided me with enough motivation to walk into the kitchen and try to make something. Since then I've become a quite competent cook; definitely still an amateur, not close to the speed or precision of needed in a professional kitchen, but confident enough to feed family and friends well without too much stress.
It wasn't easy though. Along the road to competency, there were many hapless attempts and failed experiments due to inexperience and over-reaching. Other frustrations were brought on when an urge for adventure out-grew my tolerance for manual labor.
I still vividly remember an ill advised calamari fry with my roommate (another food lover) that ended well past midnight. We spent hours cleaning, washing, cutting, breading and then frying a box of squid the size of a small desktop commuter. Not exactly a clean job; I ended up covered in squid guts and hot oil. We then stayed up late drinking beer and eating so much squid that I though tentacles would sprout out of my urethra.
Or last fall, I committed myself to feeding 8 people with fresh, hand-made ravioli. If I had any idea how long it takes to make and roll out (by hand, with a rolling pin) enough dough for 100 ravioli, I would never have tendered the invitation. After that experience, whenever I see old Italian widows wandering through my neighborhood, with their black clothes, golden crucifixes and unsteady gaits, I'm tempted to kiss the rings of these high priestesses of pasta.

A Banana-less Republic

2007-10-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

Lebanon is living a deranged version of Groundhog Day as two rival political groups fight for control of the presidency. Meetings are held, gabbers gab, and everyday the headlines are the same. What no one notices is that while the two groups fight to get their man in the lead role in the play, the producer is running out of money, the theater is on fire and no tickets have been sold. That's why I hate writing about the place now. It's just too depressing.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

When I last lived in Lebanon, my aunt and I would meet once or twice a week or so and go down to the Corniche for a walk along the seaside, a berd'aan (orange juice) and the occasional pistachio ice cream.
She has a doctorate in Middle East history and knows Lebanon intimately (she's lived there from birth and never left during the war).
Our conversations were often political, and when they were no country's politics were more discussed than Lebanon's. As two (we think) reasonable people we were often bewildered by what passed as acceptable behavior from our politicians.
A line that that I often repeated was that "Lebanon is like a banana republic without any bananas." I always drew a laugh, but it's a lot less funny right now.

It's a country with a population of medium sized metropolis and with an area akin to some American and Canadian national parks. Running the place is not exactly the most difficult logistical challenge governance has to offer. That being said Lebanon teeters on the edge of self-annihilation.

Lebanese national debt tops 50 billion dollars. I'm going to write that in full, along with population and GDP, so you get the full picture (the zeroes bring to life).
Debt:
50,000,000,000 $
GDP
22,000,000,000$
Population:
4 ,000,000
That means that each man, woman and child owes approximately 12,500$ but makes less than half of that year. That's not even the worst part. The worst part is that most of that debt is owed in at interest rates in the neighborhood of 20% and in American dollars. And, just as a topper, the government is still running annual deficits in the billions of dollars. So, the debt will continue to grow, and become more and more difficult to service every fiscal year. No country on Earth faces such a macroeconomic problem. Without foreign assistance Lebanon would already be in default.

But wait... there's more. The country's infrastructure is crumbling. Population density is almost 350 per square km (putting Lebanon in the top twenty densest nations) but much of the infrastructure was built before the civil war and is simply not equipped to deal with the extra input. Sewage is dumped out of an overloaded system directly into the sea. The electricity grid, powered by some of the most economically inefficient generating systems in the world, lurches along, Frankenstein-like, somehow still delivering electricity - but for how long? Garbage is brunt as there is no room for it. Tap water isn't potable. One third of the population lives below the poverty line. And those are just some of the problems... education and health haven't even been mentioned.

How is it possible that after 60 years of independence we have still not figured out how to rule ourselves semi-competently? China and India have populations made up of a variety of ethnic groups and surpass 1 billion and manage to self-govern. Vietnam's population is 87 million, has survived a devastating civil war and now boasts a surging economy. Meanwhile tiny Lebanon cannot even organize itself in a rudimentary manner.

Honestly, I'm tired of it. Lebanon is a basket case. It's a prize barely worth fighting for, yet our politicians fight over it like mangy dogs struggling over a carcass. I'd like to call such behavior irresponsible but I don't think the word fully encompasses the moral depravity of their actions. The real danger in Lebanon is not falling into one sphere of influence or another but that the country will collapse into an unlivable giant ghetto.

We don't need resistance or pride or freedom. At the end of the day all three and a dollar will buy you a cup of coffee. What Lebanon needs is a modicum of competency and sanity. It's not our place to be the flag bearer for Islam or liberal democracy. We are a tiny country with gigantic problems. Let's try and solve those first. They'll be plenty of time for fighting and foreign affairs later. Use all the clichés you want - now or never, the last chance, crunch time, etc - if we don't get our act together soon, the whole edifice of state will come crashing down on our heads and we won't be able to dig ourselves out.

Frontline Rules

2007-10-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

Frontline, to me, has gone beyond being a great show, it's become an institution. When I hear those first few bars with their string and the brass staccati, I get goosebumps. It's the only show that I'm currently watching by myself (I watch a couple of other shows but those are with friends and more of a social event).

On the Frontline website you can watch new programs as soon as they come out as well as 61 archived episodes.

There are two episodes that demand to be watched:

Tank Man: The story of Tiananmen Square and its role in shaping the economic reform of China

I was still a child when the protest were staged and then crushed, but the memory has stuck with me and led to intense curiosity about that time in 1989. I still remember the day when I first watched this online. I was absolutely hypnotized. The events surrounding Tiananmen Square are crammed with such extremes of human behavior, it's dizzying. I have never been more proud of humanity than when I saw Chinese protesters confront the the fisrt divisions of the Chinese army not with guns, or Molotov cocktail or even anger but with reason and compassion. They turned back armed men sent their to kill them, if necessary, with nothing but their minds and hearts.
I have never been more ashamed of humanity, though, than when another division of troops, more hard-line this time, came a few days later and shot and killed people whose only crime was asking for the rights of free speech and assembly. A section where unarmed protesters were shot at but refused to retreat, resulting in volley after volley of gunfire forced me to pause the show, sit in the dark, and regroup before I could continue.
The last third of the documentary, dealing with the economic liberalization of China, while lacking in drama, is still equally compelling.

If you want to know what's happening in Burma right now, watch this episode... I imagine it the Burmese military is not behaving much differently than their Chinese counterparts.

The Persuaders: exploring the cultures of marketing and advertising in America

Not quite as weighty but still fascinating. It's worth watching just observe to Clotaire Rapaille in action. A French psychiatrist who lives in the a Versailles-like mansion located in American suburbia, he is what would happen if Dr. Strangelove climbed out of his wheelchair and walked into the boardrooms of Madison avenue.

There's also the hilariously absurd story of Song, an airline with an advertising campaign so clever that consumers could not figure out what it was Song did or sold.

Flower Lamps, Turtle-Necked Dancers and the Awkward Segue Game

2007-10-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Thursday night was art night. I had two invitations from two different friends to two different art exhibitions.
The first I attended was a traditional gallery showing where friend A (a Dutch, mutton-chopped, beret wearing Luddite - and yes, he is as eccentric as he sounds) was exhibiting some lamps he made (pictured on the left at another gallery).

I like his lamps; bright metallic and glass flowers growing out of junk computers and other assorted electronics. Most of the other work on display were classical still life paintings (look, a pomegranate!). One painting could only be described as a close-up of a gaping, swollen anus.

After that, I jumped on the subway, rode it across town to the Tranzac for Sensory Lab for (according to the poster) a night of art, dance and music where friend B (tech-savvy PhotoShop master, illustrator, film editor and Ottawa transplant) was the film curator and print designer. He showed me how he made the poster. I'm not a good enough writer to describe the technical aspects of its design interestingly but rest assured, it's awesome.

The event featured short films, dance, musical acts and some other more nebulous artistic endeavors (I'll save you trouble vicariously living through those by omitting them).

Interpretative dance... I've tried and I don't get it. The only way I can sit through it quietly is to let my mind wander or to view it from a completely anthropological perspective, and therefore reduce the participants to analogs for chimps at a zoo ("I wonder what that one's doing? Oh... he's picking lice off this thigh."). All the reaching, head in the hands and running circles is to me, a little ridiculous. Yearning, an emotion rooted in stillness and introspection, is very difficult to get across through motion. I'm sure there's something I'm missing but for me the whole art form doesn't compute. Whatever, personal opinion. (This is more my style - no yearning here. I wonder if any other possible pandemics have dances named after them?)

The best musical act featured at Sensory Lab was Chinawoman, a local female singer/songwriter with an unfathomably deep voice.
Her live performance isn't nearly as dour as her recorded work (which makes Cat Power sound like the Venga Boys). Live, there were even a few stretches that were (dare I say it?) fun and light-hearted. In sum, an enjoyable set. The musical highlight was an upbeat Russian folk song she played as a finale. The crowd approved, clapping to beat... I was tempted to order cold vodka shots for our group to complete the experience but the the song ended before I could follow through on that ill-fated idea.

Another moment stood out too, but for entirely different reasons. After her song "Party Girl," a quirky song performed with a smirk and a hint of playfulness (and with lyrics that repeat the words Party Girl about 60 times throughout) she addressed the audience and deadpanned:
"That last song was called 'Party Girl.' (pause) And now for my next song 'I Kiss the Hand of my Destroyer.'"
This immediately led to our table breaking the record for most knowing glances in a two-minute span while she earnestly belted out a ditty that, I can only imagine, was inspired by some awful event that involved an-ex boyfriend and was quickly followed by a deep depression. We are still not sure whether Chinawoman meant the segue to be as funny as it was but we were in no doubt that is was indeed hilarious, intentional or not.

Any way, the next day, the "Awkward Segue" game was born. It's easy - basically mad libs via email. Someone starts and then everyone tries to top each other. For example:

"Sugarplum, Sugarplum, Sugarplum, Sugarplum, Sugarplum...
Thank you. That last song was song was called 'Sugarplum'. And now for my next song, 'The Razor Blade Feels Cold against my Wrist.'"

or

"Sweetness and light, sweetness and light, sweetness and light, sweetness and light...
Thank you. That last song was song was called 'Sweetness and light'. And now for my next song,
'You Cheated on me with my Sister when I was Pregnant.'"

Or how about this: "Day at the Beach" and "I Swallowed 80 Sleeping Pills in a Motel Room and had my Stomach Pumped." The possibilities are endless. So play along at home.

Movie Review - Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case

2007-10-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

In today's Russia a man yells "Aux barricades!" and the mob replies with all the enthusiasm of a herd of cud-chewing cows.

I like my Russian intellectuals iconoclastic and Andrei Nekrasov fits the bill; a savage, greasy gaggle of keratin that passes for a hairdo, a scarf slung haphazardly around his neck, brow in a perpetual furrow, eyes that suggest relentless insomnia and a demeanour that alternates between despair and effervescence - the man is a pleasure to watch and listen to. He has produced a first person advocacy documentary of the highest caliber. It's passionate, outrageous and riveting. Through the prism of the Litvinenko poisoning filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov tells the story of post-communist Russia and the role the FSB (the Russian secret service and successor to the KGB) has had in shaping it.
This is the movie Michael Moore would have made if he was (a) Russian and (b) talented.

Film rests on three pillars - Nekrasov's personality, charm and energy, the great archival footage he has amassed and the intense interviews (the ones with Litvinenko and now deceased journalist Anna Politkovskaya standout more then the others). All of them are interesting to watch but they also give a glimpse of larger trends in modern Russia.

In one memorable vignette, Nekrasov tries and fails to find a copy of the Novaya Gazeta, an independent opposition newspaper, among the numerous newsstands that surround the central square in St. Petersburg. All he came up with is mountains of Russian Maxim and FHM. He does run into a fellow cynic, an old and almost toothless man. The old man is holding a book about Russian history. Nekrasov comments that's it's a very good book. To which the old man replies "You know what this book is? It's bullshit." Nekrasov, confused, insists that the book is worth reading. The old man clarifies "You know why this book is bullshit? Because it's interesting and in this country anything that's interesting is called 'bullshit.'" And with that he stumbles off, looking for what looks like the 6th or 7th vodka of the morning.

Nekrasov also includes an astonishing segment from a town-hall style show that aired on NTV (the last independent TV station, since shut down by the Kremlin) after a showing of his film about the war in Chechnya. The film was highly controversial as it graphically depicted the civilian toll of the war on the Chechen people. When the crowd is asked to comment on the film a middle-aged man is the first to volunteer. He states his name and occupation (he's a professor of political science at a Moscow university) and goes on to comment, matter of factly, that killing Chechen children is OK because "they will grow up to be terrorists." As the host and some of the audience stare on in stunned silence he goes on to reassert his point. (I would love to sit in on that guys classes... I can only guess what his views on the Khmer Rouge or Stalin are, but I'm sure they'd just as enlightened as his views on Chechnya.)

Litvinenko appears throughout the film, in excerpts from several interviews, some with Nekrasov, others with Russian journalists and in an excerpt from a famous press conference where he led a group of dissident FSB agents, who refused illegal orders, in exposing corruption inside the bureau. With Nekrasov, Litvinenko explains the system used for bribing, corrupting and then owning judges by the FSB. A judge is first asked to return a guilty verdict in a case with marginal evidence in exchange for money, or a better assignment or a better flat. Later, the judge is shown a document accusing him of bribery. An FSB agent explains to the judge that since he's a friend of the service he won't need to worry about it and tears up the document in front of the judge. The judge is now trapped, he can either continue to accept bribes in exchange for greater and greater perversions of justice or he can refuse the bribes and be charged with corruption (and be tried in front of another corrupt judge). It's just one way the FSB slowly choked the fight out of the Russian system. Litvinenko describes other ways too but his main claim underpinning his narrative is that near the end of Yeltsin's presidency, the FSB staged a silent coup and took control over the main levers of power. Not a very controversial claim, Putin himself was a KGB and FSB member since high school, but it's something that's rarely talked about in the press and never spoken about publicly in Russia.

The portrait of Russian society that emerges is of a place that has traded freedom and morals in exchange for order imposed with brutal, corrupt force and that the country seems content with the bargain although unaware of the bargain's full consequences. Incorporation of Western culture may be visible throughout Russia but the non-commercial aspects, (debate, questioning of authority, civil society) are clearly having a harder time catching on.

The most eye-popping aspect of the movie are the harsh accusations leveled at the FSB and Putin. The evidence for some of these charges barely rise above the level of conjecture but others are backed with official documents.

Here's a sampling:

- FSB bombing Moscow and blaming Chechen terrorists in order to justify the war and then the inevitable harsher security measures that come with conflict.

- FSB staging an attack against it's own military in downtown Grozny, Chechnya.

- FSB and the Russian military selling Russian arms and even Russian soldiers, who were used as slave labor, to Chechen leaders.
- Putin and his cronies siphoning millions from the fund set up to buy food for poor St. Petersburg residents during his stint as mayor (this charge has documents to back it up).

- FSB killing journalists critical of them and government policies (Anna Politskaya, interviewed in the film before being gunned down in an elevator, being the most famous example).

- FSB ordering the murders of political opponents of the Kremlin (in an interview Litvinenko alleges he was ordered to kill Boris Berezovsky. This is later corroborated by by some colleagues of his.).

Nekrasov admits when he doesn't have the goods to back all these accusations but he also makes it clear that if the evidence was out there, the FSB keeps it very well hidden.
At the end of the film, though, one is left in no doubt about two things: first, that the FSB killed Litvinenko and that, second, he was a decent man. It was the end of a long struggle that started with him exposing corruption and ended with his poisoning by an ex-FSB agent in a London hotel (the accused assassin is also interviewed for the film and even has the gall to offer his guest tea). I was left with the impression that true liberal democrats have four possible roles in Russia, powerless mutes, exiles, prisoners or martyrs and that the dividing lines between those roles can be very thin.

The movie's not out yet - but it will be soon (I hope) - so when it does, it's definitely worth a gander (even if I just spoiled half of it).

Here's the closest thing I could find to a clip: it's in French, a TV interview is mixed in and it doesn't give you any kind of reasonable facsimile of what the film is like, and all in all, it's fairly useless. But hey, I'm doing this for fun, so standards are pretty low here.

Toronto

2007-10-08T14:13:00.000-07:00

It's not Paris or Vienna (understatement) but every now and then Toronto surprises you.

Even if it's in that dreary, industrial, L.A. river kind of way.

Mercenaries - An Unregulated Free Market

2007-10-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

As the controversy around Blackwater and other private military companies (hold on, isn't that the definition of mercenary?) has started to die down I'm reminded of an anecdote I read in Rajiv Chandrasekaran's excellent Imperial Life in the Emerald City.
(A great book. Funny, tragic, serious and easy to read. I remember pounding it out in a few days last Christmas. Well worth the effort.)

You can find it in its entirety on pages 142-146, I'll summarize it here.

It starts off with a portrait of Ben Thomas, an ex-Navy SEAL who was struggling to make ends meet as a mix martial art fighter in Florida. On a friend's recommendation he applied to work for Custer Battles, a mercenary group hired to to protect the Baghdad airport. They promised high pay, top of the line equipment and important work.

Aside:
Please check out the C.B. website. Absurdity on a a remarkable scale (combined with horrid web design). Here's a direct quote: "Iraq is a nation and marketplace wrought with challenges, obstacles, and malevolent actors. However, Iraq offers contractors, traders, entrepreneurs as well as multi-national enterprises an unprecedented market opportunity. The ability to identify, quantify, and mitigate this myriad of risks allows successful organizations to transform risk into opportunity."
Well then, sign me up! Anyway...

Well it turns out that Custer Battles may have misled Mr. Thomas. He soon found himself poorly equipped and picking up seized Iraqi weapons for "recycling" (he suspected the company just sold them off on the black market). One day the inevitable happened, his team was ambushed. Thomas found himself pinned under their S.U.V. being fired at from multiple directions. He spotted one of his attackers, squeezed off one shot, hitting the Iraqi in the hip. The others insurgents scattered. After a moment, Thomas and his co-workers went in to take a closer look at the Iraqi he had just shot.
According to Thomas, "[the victim's] guts were spewed out like someone has uncoiled him and spread him out."
Now a bullet to the hip doesn't usually do this. Frequently, with proper medical care, a bullet to the hip is quite survivable. But this was not a normal bullet. Thomas was using a super-charged soft-point bullet (extra gun powder without a full metal jacket). These softer bullets do not hold their shape when they enter flesh but instead mushroom creating large and horrific exit wounds. The U.S. military forbids the use of these bullets. Doing so could result in a court-martial.
But Ben Thomas isn't covered by military regulations. He isn't covered by Iraqi law either (thanks to this Iraqi law put into place by American administrator L. Paul Bremer). And until today, Ben Thomas wasn't covered by American law.

That's why when the military ordered U.S. mercenaries to stop using non-standard ammunition the order was ignored. They couldn't make them. These mercenaries were a law unto themselves.
"Out here, there are no rules," Thomas said. "You do whatever you have to do to protect yourself."
___________________________________________________________

Now that's just one story and a fairly tame one at that. There are thousands more that are a thousand times worse. The documentary No End in Sight (referred to in an earlier post) contains a video made by the employee of one these companies firing a hail of bullets at every every car that come to close to his convoy. No warning, just death... and all tastefully accompanied by the Elvis classic "Mystery Train." (see below)

This is a dirty war and Blackwater et al. are the dirtiest thing the Americans bring to it. Throughout history rich countries have used mercenaries when their own troops are either too few or are considered too valuable for a certain task. And throughout history mercenaries has always been more ruthless and less disciplined than the army they support. (Too bad no one in the White House seems to be a revolutionary war buff.) For the most part, nations have discovered mercenaries to be a high cost, low reward stop gap. In the U.S. the cost is money, in Iraq it's people.

No Comment Necessary

2007-09-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

General warns of Iraq being overrun by Iraqis

2007-09-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

Also reports "major improvements."

Washington - Over two days of testimony General Petraeus delivered dire warnings to Congress on the consequences that would result from a US military withdrawal from Iraq.
"If we leave they'll be running the whole place, without any input from us," he said in a reply to a question from Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE).

"Instead of massive sectarian unrest and general chaos going on under our noses we'll have to watch helplessly from the outside. I mean not making much of difference from the inside is one thing - but making no difference from the outside is unacceptable. Additionally, without us there who are they to blame for the lack of electricity, security or jobs? Leaving them in such a state of confusion would be cruel."
The general went on to point out that during the surge the mood among Baghdad residents has improved drastically, going from suicidally depressed to merely an acute sense hopelessness.
"At this rate Iraqis will be terribly unhappy be the end of the decade. I think that's a significant achievement."
He concluded his remarks with a prediction for his next report, due in six months time.
"The next time you see me, I really believe we will be down to a thousand murders a month. But maybe I'm being too optimistic. Don't hold me to that."
Ambassador Crocker, also testifying in committee sessions, told congressmen that the passing grade in Iraqi schools would be lowered to 30%, in line withe new definition of success being used in the country.
"You have to keep up with the times. This is exactly the kind of dynamic and flexible educational system we envisioned in 2003. Realistically, reaching less than 50% of your goals is still clearly a success."

And that ends the Onion rip-off portion of this blog.

Monday morning will be a doozy...

2007-08-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

No one knows what's going to happen on Monday morning but a lot (A LOT) of brokers are going to get ulcers worrying about it this weekend. If you're walking down Wall street just remember to look up if things are go badly. Nobody wants to be killed by falling overweight trader in Bruno Magli's.

I have family members who work in the finance in Hong Kong, Paris and New York and none of them are sleeping well tonight.
Imagine a whole office doing this:

As a tip for next time: Maybe it's not a good idea to rate loans without enough collateral given to unreliable borrowers as AAA or AA. Just an idea. It's not like these defaults came out of nowhere. I saw a loan on American TV with an ungodly interest rate and NO CREDIT CHECK! That's insanity. This lesson had to be learned, hopefully it won't be too costly.

And as a mild pick me up:

What makes this video really cool is the setting and the huge cast. What makes it disturbing in the bald middle-aged guy playing the teenage girl role.

_______________________________________________________________________________

As an add on. The chicken/egg thing was an argument hashed out over some Budweisers... and my opponent still thinks my argument is circular. I stand by it. And by the fact that I can type drunk.

The drunk dial. With a keyboard.

2007-08-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

Q: What came first - the chicken or the egg?

A: The egg.

Rationale:
1. The first egg did not contain a chicken.
2. The first chicken was hatched from an egg.

There. I just had to get that off my chest. Now if you'll excuse me, i have a big meeting with a hang-over in 8 hours or so.

Professor Murder
(random music link)

Dizzee Rascal - Sirens (I just like the horse)

No End in Sight

2007-07-26T19:05:00.001-07:00

Why is it so bad in Baghdad?
Don't like to read incredibly depressing, long winded books?

Someone made a movie.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Swift Boats anyone?

2007-07-11T17:08:00.000-07:00

Running for president in the US is a full contact sport. John Kerry found out the hard way. Now it looks like it's Rudy's turn.

Iraqi Refugees

2007-07-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

I found this on the the excellent Healing Iraq blog. A story about the Iraqi refugees in Jordan and the circumstances that led them to leave.
Originally aired on Dateline on SBS Australia.

Sometimes I fell like Iraq is an immense reservoir of suffering that is always being filled with new tears. What a heart-breaking place.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Hammering a Screw

2007-06-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

Canada day is July 1st. Canada is at war but life goes on here undisturbed. We have little idea of what's happening in Afghanistan. In most of most of the country the central government is nothing more than a rumor and in the east the American military is racking up a high civilian body count creating widespread unhappiness among Afghans. This path will only lead to trouble.

Canadians are posted in the province of Kandahar (15), birthplace of the Taliban.

As an immigrant Canadian from a war-torn country I find it strange to think that our country is at war. Every week we hear about more soldiers dying in Afghanistan while at home most Canadians couldn't point to Kandahar on a map or tell you the difference between Pashtuns and Tajiks.
Many are under the misconception that Canada is engaged in "peacekeeping operations." That Canadians are dying to provide security and stability and help the Afghan government stand alone. Well Canada is not.
The Canadian military is fighting a, so far, low level insurgency (if Iraq is high level). The goal, as stated publicly, is to wrestle control Kandahar province away from the the Taliban and other local militias.
That's all well and good but the fight is going on in complete opacity. The NATO and Canadian spokespeople only offer vague platitudes espousing "progress" and "good-will." Reporters covering the conflict rarely leave the military bases and when they do they are accompanying a military mission or patrol. If they do ever run into locals they do so within eyesight of soldiers. Additionally locals probably don't see much difference between the foreign troops and the reporters along for the ride. Odds are neither group will ever discover the true local sentiment.
And when fighting insurgencies unvarnished information from locals is crucial.

Fighting a war against and army is like hammering a nail. The more force the better. In this situation the military is trying, as I heard a US soldier say once, "to break things and kill people."
Fighting an insurgency and against a guerrilla force is like tightening a screw. The right tool and precision is key to success. Counter insurgency depends more on small, correctly calibrated actions than large scale shows of force.
From a NATO perspective, there is one big problem in Afghanistan right now. First is that both strategies (counter-insurgency and traditional war-fighting) are active in the theater at the same time. In the east Americans are bombing, attacking villages trying to kill any opposition.
Meanwhile Canadian, British and Dutch troops are trying to mount a classic counter-insurgency in the south with a limited number of soldiers.
Both these regions are majority Pashtun, the biggest ethnic group in Afghanistan and the ethnicity of the majority of Taliban fighters. Any heavy handed measure undertaken by the US military (like killing school children last week) is going to have blow back all across the Pashtun heartland. No matter how careful the Canadian, British and Dutch troika try to be as they try to drain Taliban support they will be continuously undermined by inevitable errors in the US controlled zone.
(Errors are inevitable when bombing from from the air in civilian areas. Even a success rate of 90% in picking out and hitting the right targets will result in many civilian casualties.)

It's also important to point out that not all Afghans shooting and bombing Canadians are Taliban.
The new western-backed central government in Kabul is dominated by warlords who made up the Northern Alliance, an organization made up of mostly Tajiks and Uzbeks, although President Karzai is a Pashtun. The Northern Alliance fought a long civil war against the majority Pashtun Taliban for a long time (which they won thanks to American air support after 9/11). So trying to to bring the south and east under government control will inspire some ethnically based resistance (which will probably only be expanded by civilian casualties). In addition to, there are probably many drug-lords in the area who dislike foreign eyes snooping around.
Fighting an insurgency requires dividing your enemies and co-opting as many groups as possible. Lumping together all resistance under the moniker of Taliban is a self-fulfilling prophecy, it will unify the resistance and make it harder to defeat.
Events in Anbar province in Iraq are perfect example of this. During the Rumsfeld era all Iraqi resistance was labeled al-Qaeda or terrorists and not to be talked to or negotiated with. During this period resistance was fierce and Anbar fell completely out of US control. Recently the American military has managed to co-opt several militias -Islamic Army, 1920 Revolutionary brigades, etc- so that they are now shooting at al-Qaeda and not Americans. Anbar has gone form al-Qaeda safe haven to a contested area again.
Just because someone shot at you before doesn't mean they have to shoot at you forever. In tribal societies switching sides during a conflict is a deeply rooted tradition.

The Canadian mission in Afghanistan is trouble. Undermined by American tactics and our own denial. But it can be turned around.
We live in a democracy, a democracy were politicians are extremely sensitive to changes in public opinion. By becoming more informed and demanding more lucid, more truthful and detailed information from our government a change in policy is still possible (putting pressure on the US to be more discriminate would help, for one).
Unless the Canadian public becomes more involved this endeavor is likely to end in failure. That would be a black mark on us all and a tragedy for Afghanistan.

"You don't send an army to war. You take a country to war."
- Tim Russert, NBC

A Guardian article about one of many raids in Afghanistan showing how hard it is to get at the true facts.

Played with fire, got burned.

2007-06-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

That's what should be written on the gravestone of Fatah in Gaza.

Fatah got exactly what it deserved.
That may seem a bit harsh but let's review the recent history:

Hamas won the legislative elections and that victory granted them the right to form a government and rule the "country."
This was a big problem because in Fatah's eyes it is the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. In the aftermath of the elections Fatah members, who make up the vast majority of state employees, refused to accept the results. They had powerful allies: Israel, the US and other Western powers. A plan was set into motion.

- Starve the Hamas government of funds.
- Arm and train security forces loyal to Fatah only.
- Work through President Abbas and ignore Hamas in all political dealings.
- Encourage Fatah (who did not need much encouragement) to stonewall Hamas at every turn.
- Hope these policies cause a crisis, then Abbas could call for early elections which Fatah would win.

So, from the beginning Fatah bureaucrats and soldiers refused to take orders from Hamas ministers and used all means (legal and illegal) to thwart Hamas.
This led to the first round of factional fighting which ended with a Saudi brokered peace and a Hamas led unity government containing several Fatah and independent ministers.
This agreement was supposed to allow Hamas to rule but in a more tempered manner with more Fatah input. It was hoped, unwisely as it turned out, that with this new government that foreign aid would begin to flow again. It did not. The Bush administration repeated that any government containing Hamas would not be acceptable to them or their allies.
(I listened to a lot of American speeches about democracy in the middle east. I must have missed the part where they mention that they get to pick the winners.)
Many Fatah hardliners also did not agree with the new arrangement. The hardliners with American help continued to confront Hamas. The biggest hardliner of them all, Mohamed Dahlan (the Fatah military man in Gaza and Abbass' national security advisor), began working with the Americans and the Egyptians to train and arm a "Presidential Guard" in Gaza, with the tacit support of the Israelis, that would report directly to him and and not to the Hamas cabinet. This was direct a military challenge to Hamas in their stronghold.
The fact that this challenge was led by Dahlan added to the affront. Hamas and Dahlan have a history.
He not only spent the 1990's arresting Hamas members and having them tortured in the some of the very buildings overrun by Hamas yesterday, but he is an excellent example of Fatah corruption. He owns several opulent villas in the territories, he's a millionaire several times over, and has a reputation of always looking out for number one, party and country be damned.
When Dahlan's men crossed the border from their Egypt , where they were training, into Gaza during the first few days of fighting their was now no turning back. Hamas was never going to back down to Dahlan and his private militia. A decision was then made at the top levels of Hamas, if we cannot convince them to recognize our strength and let us rule, we will force them. Total victory was now the goal.
Hamas fully released their military brigades (the Qassam brigades), while holding back their executive force (the "legal" security forces) as a reserve. It wasn't needed. The Qassam brigades proved to be too strong for Fatah's disorganized and unmotivated fighters.

Fatah played with fire by not allowing Hamas to run the government through the official channels. Fatah got burned when Hamas removed all obstacles to their rule. Hamas members may not be the sophisticated, urbane politicians that the Fatah men are but they are not stupid. They knew what was going on. They could read the papers. They could read the plan in motion against them.

Hamas leaders saw this plan in action and when they felt themselves cornered they came out swinging. Borrowing from the Israelis it used a provocation (Dahlan's military build up) in order to create facts on the ground. Now Hamas cannot be ignored. No matter what happens now (like when Abbas dissolved the cabinet and ignored the parliament this morning), at a bare minimum Hamas will control Gaza.

There's new sheriff in town: a Hamas fighter in Mohamed Dahlan's office in Gaza.

What's next?
Collective punishment on a massive scale.
From the NYT:
In security terms, Israel would like to seal off Gaza from the West Bank as much as possible, to prevent the spread of Hamas military power there, where Israeli troops still occupy the territory. Israel would also like to confront Hamas with the responsibility for governing Gaza: providing jobs, food and security for its people.
Political Moves as Calm settles over Gaza, Steven Erlanger and Mike Nizza, June 15th

An Op-ed by Matrin Indyk (former US ambassador to Israel) in the Washington Post:
The failed state of Gaza that Hamas controls is wedged between Egypt and Israel. Its water, electricity and basic goods are imported from the Jewish state, whose destruction Hamas has declared as its fundamental objective. One more Qassam rocket fired from Gaza into an Israeli village and Israel could threaten to seal the border if Hamas did not stop its attacks.

The Israeli government will make sure that Hamas will be unable improve conditions in Gaza. The American administration hopes that Gazans will blame their misery on Hamas and turn on the party and weaken it. The Israelis spout this line publicly too (although they probaly don't believe it).

What will actually happen? The tight restrictions imposed on Gaza will give Hamas any easy excuse and and a group to blame for the conditions in the Strip (see Fidel Castro's script). They will probably become more militant. After a while rockets will be fired from Gaza. "Resistance operations" will probably start in the West Bank to support the "brothers" in Gaza. Etc, etc.

The sigh inducing ballet of violence continues.

Blood in the Water

2007-06-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

Part of a phone conversation I had today with someone in Beirut:

Me: How are things?
Beirut: Eh.
Me: Do you think its going to get bigger?
Beirut: Probably.
Me: No, I mean… isn’t this how it started last time?
Beirut: (silence)
Me: This is how it started last time.
Beirut: Yeah it is… (longer silence)

What a strange feeling. Vacationing with my brother in Provence in a an old stone house with a pool, a garden containing fig and olive trees, rosemary bushes big enough to hide in, mint so abundant that every breeze carries with its sweet perfume. Meanwhile, through newspapers and snippets of news programs you watch your homeland disintegrate. And make no mistake that’s exactly what’s happening. The state is weaker than ever and close to ceasing to function. Three hundred Islamists of unknown origin and even more mysterious motives and sources of support are giving the army as much as it can handle. Other groups in other camps are threatening reprisals raising the possibility of several other fronts opening up. And what’s more, other bigger sharks are circling this sinking ship of state: Hezbollah, Iran and Syria.

A little surreal being here.

And hearing about this.

Lebanon sat at a historic crossroads. After March 14th everything was possible, many of them good. Now many things are still possible, most of them disastrous.
The euphoria of the moment blinded everyone to the fact that Lebanon was still in a state of crisis. Our problems did not leave on the backs of Syrian tanks. The opportunity was not to start anew but fix the problems of the past. Decades of civil war and Syrian oppression had frozen the country in a political stasis with multiple simultaneous crises. We just forgot they were crises because we had been living with them for so long.
- A sectarian system of government whose only products are deadlock, clan politics, and increased sectarianism.
- Palestinian refugees with fewer rights than their brethren in Israel.
- Hezbollah armed and dangerous.
- Massive and commonplace flouting of civil authority (not paying electricity, water and tax bills was considered normal).
- A civil service based on the twin colonial models of the two previous empires ruling Lebanon (French and Ottoman) in need of serious reform.
- A government with a vast majority of its members had shown themselves during the civil war to be completely incapable of putting anything ahead of their little fiefdoms.

Maybe there wasn’t enough time to address these problems before last summer’s war. Maybe solving these problems in a country like ours is out of the question. And maybe not trying hard enough is why we have a country like ours.

The Lebanon of my teens and early twenties is gone. It wasn’t perfect, far from it, but it provided me with some of the happiest days of my life. The Lebanon of my childhood is back, and all that Lebanon provided me with was terror, exile and exasperation.

Iraqi Journalists interviewed by Charlie Rose

2007-05-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

Many times the western media forgets that the real story is happening in Iraq and instead choose to concentrate on fights between the American President and Congress, or how the war affects the legacy of a retiring British PM. While these seem important for Iraq and Iraqis they are about as as irrelevant as the score of the Red Wings game.

Skip ahead to the 35:00 mark for the segment in question.

The American Dream on Television... and The Wire

2007-03-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

The Wire is best television show I've ever seen. The reason why lies at the core of the American psyche.

The American dream is the core of American national mythology. We all know it by heart: work hard, choose correctly and America will reward you. The pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the foundation of American government and society. The dream is based on freedom of choice, hard work and justice triangulating in such a way that make success and happiness possible for anybody.
The dream is present and disseminated, in one form or another, on almost every TV show made in the U.S.

Nowhere is this more in evidence than on reality TV competitions such as the Apprentice, Survivor, America's Next Top Model and American Idol (to name 4 among dozens). On these shows a bunch of competitors duke it out for a dream job/prize. It is basically an American dream narrative in miniature with commercials. Work hard and choose correctly the dream is yours. But these shows are not a proper exploration of the American dream (except in proving that the dream is still alive in the general public). Reality TV competitions are rigged. Rigged, not in terms that the winners are predetermined, but rigged because the fact that there will be a winner is predetermined - someone has to win. At the end of the Apprentice Trump is not going to announce that nobody was impressive enough and therefore no competitor will get the job. In real life the odds that someone among 30 aspiring singers one will sell 100,00 records are highly unfavorable. On American Idol, two singers or more selling millions of records is inevitable. There will be a happy ending for someone, guaranteed.

This guarantee is also present on the TV version of chic-lit (Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy and Sex and the City, etc.). These women-oriented shows are based off the premise of freedom of choice and happiness. The core question in these shows is simply this: who will the women choose to date/sleep with/mary/etc in their quest for happiness? On these shows a happy outcome is certain; the girl will always end up with her price charming - it's hard to imagine Sex and the City wrapping up with Sarah Jessica Parker being alone. The drama on these shows is rooted in the ups and downs on the way to bliss (and by the audience suspending logic and believing that these women risk ending up alone). So here too happy endings are guaranteed.

Crime/action drama is a little different. The American dream is prominent here also but another American obsession is in the foreground: the battle between good and evil. On these shows here "good" characters must defeat "evil" characters in order to preserve American society and the keep the dream alive. "Good" guys might do some bad things (see 24's Jack Bauer) but its all in the name of freedom, justice and the American way. The line between "good" guys and "bad" guys is clearly delineated and characters stand on on side or the other (no straddling please) with skin color and accents sometimes helping the viewer out as to whom is on each side. On most shows victory inside the hour or series is certain; 24, Prison Break, CSI, Shark, etc. On some of the of the more sophisticated shows (let's say Law and Order) the bad guys sometimes get away, but the essential ingredients are the same: good vs evil in form of good guys vs bad guys with the survival of the American dream hanging in the balance.

The Wire is different. Characters are not good or bad. And the show does not center around the protection of the American dream from nefarious villains. On the streets of Baltimore the dream is dead. In fact, it's been dead so long that people do not even complain that it is gone; it has been forgotten - completely and utterly.
The struggle between drug dealers and police is not viewed through the prism of justice or good vs. evil - it is just presented to us straight up. We do not cheer for a side and one side is not better than the other. Most of the time the top levels of the drugs gangs behave more ethically that the executive levels of the police and their political bosses.

The characters are not free to choose, and their hard work guarantees nothing. Life in the American slum is arbitrary and merciless. The characters are trapped; their fates certain all they can do is rage against the heavens.

Drug dealers will die violently or in prison. Poor children will grow up to sling drugs on the corners. Good police officers will upset the political establishment and be punished. Reforming politicians will be stonewalled at every turn. Good friends will be forced into betraying each other. Choices are illusions disguising the truth; they are at best are limited and usually lead to dead ends.

Intitutions limit the individual's choice to such a degree that the walls close in around him. This one of the main themes of the show.

The only winners are not people but these institutions with their inherent hypocracy and corruption. On the show, institutions force compromise on individual at every level of organizations with the sum of the compromises being a complete dilution of the original goal. The political system goes on, corrupt and inept, not benefiting anyone or anything but itself - no matter who is elected. The drug economy and its sister the drug war will go on indefinitely fueled by economics and fed by a constant source of fresh drop-outs and rhetoric and .

In Baltimore happiness is not guaranteed, nobody looks out for the little guy, choices are absent and the only inevitabilities are struggle and death. Many things make the show great - plot density, the great acting, multi-faceted stories, characters being believable representations of flesh and blood people and any other number of strengths. But The Wire's treatment of the American dream in contemporary America, clear-eyed, serious and honest, is its trump card.
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Here's some proof of the show's brilliance. Two monologues delivered by one of my favorite characters, Bunny Colvin, talking more sense than it's safe to.

Civil War on its Way

2007-01-28T22:08:00.000-08:00

The conversation that convinced me...

A civil war is coming. I’m convinced of it and I have been for some time.
This week’s events were just another predictable bump on the path of the incremental dissolution of civil life into civil strife. The path may still be long and it will be winding but it has only one terminus: a new national nightmare. Someday the army will lose neutrality and dissolve and we’ll once again be witness to a Somalia on the Mediterranean.
But enough gloomy predictions, how was I convinced?
It wasn’t a result of an article or watching some TV. It was due to a conversation I had…

(The rest may will be a little vague, with names and locations kept to a minimum to protect the participants.)

A couple of mornings after I arrived in Beirut I went to a friend’s place of business to chit-chat and have some coffee. I arrived at my friend’s and was welcomed warmly as we have known each other since I was born. In the middle of some serious catching up we were interrupted. A mustached man got out of his chauffeured car and entered. He was dressed in the Hezbollah-casual uniform: black leather jacket, button-up shirt, dark jeans and patent-leather loafers. We were introduced and I was told he was a high ranking Lebanese army officer (I’ll leave the rank vague too, but it was quite high). I sat and quietly and tried to discern what kind of relationship existed between the two as my friend doesn’t usually have any contact with the military. I soon discovered this was a marriage of convenience as the two began to barter favors in true Lebanese fashion. I also discovered my clothing-based Hezbollah diagnosis was bang-on when a deal was struck and the conversation turned to politics and friction from a rather innocuous question.
“So how’s business?” The army officer asked.
“What do you think? When are you going to send your people downtown home? Then I could make some money,” my friend replied.
The officer’s demeanor quickly went from buoyant to stern. “My people? Who taught them these things anyway? Who? Remember who introduced these habits.”
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room.
The officer went on; “This is a country ruled by consensus and you should not have gone to the street when you had a disagreement.”
I sat quietly and tried to understand how opposition to the Syrian occupation after the assassination of Rafiq Harari could be described as a simple disagreement.
My friend stepped in.
“I just want what’s best for the country.”
The officer shot back; “What’s best for the country? Who are you with? The Americans? The Israelis?”
“No, I’m not with the Israelis.”
“Are you not with the Americans? How can you deny that?” The officer insisted, he was not going to take no for an answer.
My firend relented; “OK, I’m with the Americans.”
“With Israel then.” The officer leaned back, confident in his position and continued, “We take orders from the Americans now. Rice says jump and we do. Like this thing with the airplane from Ben-Gurion…”

He was referring to a report being disseminated on al-Manar about a plane landing in Beirut on the day of Pierre Gemayel’s assassination. The report highlighted that this plane, carrying Portuguese diplomats, had previously been in Israel. The facts and the report ended there… al-Manar let its viewers fill in the rest. It didn’t matter that the plane was probably never in Israel or the fact that the Portuguese would hardly be likely candidates to transport an Israeli hit squad; people believed what was convenient and the proof was sitting across the table from me, sipping coffee and spewing diatribes. He mentioned how he thought the Israelis had a hand in all the assassinations.

I piped up. I mentioned the army raid against SSNP raid a few days previous, which netted many weapons, explosives and detonators. I was hinting that they were probably the real killers of Gemayel (I out right accused them here ).

The officer clearly understood what I was doing, “We all have our suspicions but we cannot act without evidence,” he said.
“Evidence? What the pile of dead Greek Orthodox bodies in the Metn? What about the weapons cache?” I immediately realized that my mouth might get me into trouble here.
“Every party has weapons. You want weapons? I can go into any house around here and find you weapons.” He was probably right.
“But what about the explosives?” I asked.
“Which party doesn’t have explosives? What’s the big deal? That’s the problem with you people… you look at the country through only one eye.”
I could have answered. I knew what the “big deal” was; that these explosives were meant for other Lebanese. I could’ve said that most of his positions were dependent on large flights of fancy (or flights from Tel-Aviv). But I didn’t. I bit my tongue.
“Well I guess we aren’t going to convince each other.” I said.
We agreed on that at least.
He went on to mention that my time in Lebanon should be pleasant. The opposition was going to wait until the end of the holidays before the next step. Only in Lebanon, I thought, is civil turmoil planned so civilly.
The conversation drifted off into the apolitical after that. Soon the officer’s driver returned and the army man clambered back into his car and disappeared.

His demeanor convinced me that civil war was a distinct possibility. He, and others like him, viewed this not as struggle against other Lebanese but against the Israelis. Easy explanations were dismissed in favor of far-fetched conspiracies. All opponents are tarred as friends of Israel which also allows any criticism from them to be ignored.

It became clear. When you're protecting the Arab and Muslim nation all is allowed. Hezbollah, its foreign backers and its political allies are playing for keeps. They are not going to relent until they get what they want. After the “divine victory” this summer they are confident in their abilities and capabilities. They view their goal, to become the dominant political force in Lebanon, as possible in the short-term and they plan to push hard in pursuit of that goal.
And that’s the problem. They are too confident. Too confident that they can intimidate their adversaries, too confident that they can control a volatile situation, too confident the population would accept their victory. They seem to be blind to the fact the government supporters are willing to fight for what they believe in.
Like this summer, I’m afraid that Hezbollah will realize only too late that volatile situations that were “under control” can quickly flare up into full-scale war (just like that cafeteria a few days ago).
This is not to say that the current deadlock is all Hezbollah’s fault. The government must offer some concessions so all can save face and Lebanon can exit this abyss but Hezbollah and company must be receptive to them. So far they have made ever-larger demands and refused anything less than full acquiescence, confident in their eventual victory and oblivious to reality.

Like a game of chicken played at night between two opponents wearing sunglasses, this looks headed for a bad outcome.

How are 20 thousand troops going to stop this nonsense?

2007-01-22T10:16:00.000-08:00

Missing the Point

2007-01-10T15:11:00.000-08:00

I saw this ad has running fairly often on LBC during my stay in Lebanon. While the sentiment behind it is commendable it misses the point.
After talking to many Lebanese across the confessional spectrum they all claim to being first Lebanese and a member of their community second. On the other hand when it comes to talking about other groups that's when the non-Lebanese labels come out. I heard it all.
The protesters claim to to represent all the Lebanese people and that the March 14th movement is anti-Lebanese and pro-Israel.
The government responds that they are the true Lebanese and won't let the opposition stage a coup. The protesters downtown are backed by Iran who don't care about their country.

And those are just the official statements, in private I heard crazy things being said (although in fits of anger). Two quotes that will stick with me:
"The army should go down to Martyrs' Square and kill all of them."
"They should have killed all the Maronites politicians who are with Israel."

All of those statements are soaked in self-delusion and can only lead to trouble .
So while everyone agrees that they, themselves are Lebanese, no one is willing to concede that the political groups they don't agree with are just as Lebanese as they are.
Nasrallah and that bleach-blond bikini clad silicone-stuffed women at the Coral Beach are equally Lebanese. Claiming otherwise is stupid and dangerous, no matter who is doing it - Hezbollah or Saad Hariri.
Both sides view the other as illegitimate, unworthy and treasonous.
Until that changes reconciliation and stability will remain a long way off.

By the way thanks for commenting on my last post. Much appreciated.

Lebanon: Dysfunctional Relationship

2007-01-08T15:06:00.000-08:00

I spent the bulk of my last night out in Beirut at a bar in Gemayzeh; that long skinny street were Ferraris and nightspots intermingle with Ottoman architecture and Maronite grandmothers. The bar in question, Torino Express, is a tiny, crowded, smoky closet of a place with a feel that's simultaneously welcoming and aloof. Owned by a middle-aged lefty and manned by a friendly trio (two tend bar one spins tunes), it was the kind of place I lose track of time in. And I did, somewhere between that first Almaza and the over-cooked hot-dogs with mayonnaise that the bartenders and I ate it got late. Closing time. I swigged back my last Dewars on the rocks low-ball, butted out yet another Marlboro Red, tipped the bartenders, said goodbye to a few, got a kiss on the neck and I was off.

As we flew over the Ring overpass blaring the Decemberists, I took one last look at the khiam (what many call the tent city up by opposition protesters) that I had waded into out of curiosity a week earlier.
It was then then that I realized something fundamental about myself: I love Lebanon unconditionally. I thought my feelings were waning as I aged but my trip revealed to me that the opposite is true. This mad, tiny, beautiful slice of land on the Mediterranean that passes itself off as a country will keep me coming back no matter how many times it disappointments, angers or perplexes me.
Lebanon has broken my heart many times over my relatively short life but despite it all I love it more now than I ever have. I lived most of my life outside Lebanon but whenever I step off the plane in Beirut I feel like I'm home.
Why is this? I don't know. I can't explain it. In fact, I'd rather I wasn't so attached. But I can't help it.
I tried to find a parallel to my relationship with the place.
Is Lebanon that beautiful, cool, crazy girl that's great in bed but is prone to disastrous tantrums that you always forgive?
Or is Lebanon that gifted funny child with so much promise that keeps infuriating his parents with his/her self-sabotaging behavior?

I soon gave up. Beirut nor I had time for existential dilemmas and metaphoric flourishes - it was late and I had to pack in the morning.

The Arz after a Big Snowfall

2007-01-05T15:38:00.000-08:00

Just got back from Lebanon. I got a bunch of ideas bouncing around inside my head which I'll regurgitate when I'm not terribly jet-lagged. In the meantime here's some pictures.

Recommendations

2006-12-04T14:46:00.000-08:00

My favorite ways to not work (not including writing here and running).

Bands:
The Black Keys
- Like the White Stripes, a Midwestern two piece with a monochromatic name. Much more raw, much less shticky and just plain awesome.
Quantic Soul Orchestra & Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra
- Two similar brass bands that specialize in funkifying old standards (check Antibalas' version of Hector Lavoe's Che Che Cole). Both are technically proficient without losing that sense of unbridled enthusiasm and spontaneity. Antibalas is much more latin oriented while Quantic leans more to the soul side and both are great.

My Space bands:
Get its own category because their records are not for sale at HMV.
Bravo Silva
- From what I hear they have recently broke up. Too bad. I discovered these guys while surfing the net on a doobie fueled insomnia and was blown away. The next day I listened to them again expecting to be disappointed, as many of my late night epiphanies turn out less than stellar in the unforgiving light of the sun, but was surprised that the band had lost nothing in the intervening hours. I still can't decide whether Strawberry Blonde or City I Love You is my favorite song or theirs.
Moonlight Cruisers
- A relatively unknown college band out of hispanic LA. Lyrics strictly in spanish, which I speak maybe 3 sentences of. Blending the previously unfused sounds of psychobilly with Rigo Tovar style cumbia. Good stuff. Try and get Baila out of your head, took me a week.
LUmi & Scrambled Eggs
Gotta represent for my home town. Lebanon's not all assassinations and protests.

Podcasts:
Ever listen to the radio and wish you could pause it, cut out the commercials, fast-forward it or outlaw that "radio DJ voice"? With podcasts you all of that is possible.

Guardian Unlimited Football Weekly - Feed here
Last show started with this line "More glowing reviews than a Piccadilly sushi restaurant."
- I really love soccer. It's probably my favorite sport to watch and to play. Unfortunately I live in the one continent in the world where soccer is a niche sport which fights for TV time with lacrosse, bowling, and darts. So keeping up to date with the goings on in the European super leagues is kind of a chore - who wants to wake up at 8 AM on a Saturday to watch a weekly wrap-up show? That's why I love this show; it's downloaded to my iPod automatically and once a week and for a half hour I'm transported to a roundtable in the Guardian's London office with a bunch of English wise-asses busting each other up while I pick up gems like the reason Ronaldinho hadn't been scoring much at the start of the year was that he was recently single and spent too much time chasing girls in the clubs of Barcelona.

Live from the WB - Feed
- Broadcasting live from the epicenter of North American hipsterdom, Williamsburg Brooklyn. This show reminds me of listening in on the cool kids table in the junior high cafeteria.

Keith and the Girl - Feed
- Another NY borough show, though this from the distinctly unhip Queens (home to the Mets and George Costanza's parents). A morning show for people who hate morning shows. Usually recorded in the wee hours by the nocturnal stand-up comic Keith Malley and his Israeli singer/girlfriend Khemda Khalili it's a nice way to spend your commute. Not for the faint of heart - heavy on the swearing and filth. Funny.

BBC Documentary Archive - Feed
- The BBC is a world treasure (as long as they're not dwelling on the Royal family). This podcast is a collection of their long audio pieces. Really good stuff most of the time. Last week's interviews of people's personal experiences with Saddam Hussein was a particularly good one.

East Village Radio
- Has a full lineup of shows that run the gamut of contemporary music; everything from disco and funk to indie and drone. I'm partial to The Let Out w/ the Fader Crew but there's something here for everyone; Q-Tip guest host Authentic Shit last friday. Listen live or download/subscribe to listen at your convenience. Broadcats from the southern tip of Manhattan.

Video Podcast:
theburg.tv
A sitcom spoofing the smugness of above mentioned Williamsburg. Hit and miss but the hits make it worth it. Plus if the girl who plays Courtney was any easier on the eyes she'd be a walking corrective vision procedure.

Websites
PBS Frontline
I'm rarely organized enough to sit down in front of a TV at a specific time so being able to catch the world's premier TV news magazine online at nay time is like manna from heaven.

Blogging Beirut
My favorite Beirut site... lots of pics.

Books
Heat by Bill Buford
- the fantasy of every amateur chef (with some nightmares thrown in)
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
- best graphic novel ever (Maus included)
Pity the Nation by pre-radicalized Robert Fisk
- best Beirut in the eighties book ever (Beirut to Jerusalem included)
See No Evil by Robert Baer
- CIA memoir, the basis for Syriana (a terrible mess of a movie)
The Assassin's Gate by George Packer
- the BEST Iraq book (Fiasco and Cobra II included)

Ads in Lebanon against Sectarianism

2006-11-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

This ad states the case against sectarianism better than I'm capable of writing it.

We're all Lebanese and we all have to live together whether we like it or not.

"Stop sectarianism before it stops us"

Pick-me-up

2006-11-27T13:35:00.000-08:00

Whenever the world get you down it's always nice to look at some Miro works...

Either Miro or some inexplicable YouTube video. Both do the trick.

J'accuse - Who's doing the killing in Lebanon?

2006-11-23T10:28:00.000-08:00

Over the past two years Lebanon has seen a surge in the number of political assassinations. The targets have all been members of the "March 14" anti-Syrian coalition and, with exception of ex-PM Rafiq Hariri, Christians from the Metn area.

The question is on most people's minds is: who is doing the killing and how can they be linked back to the Syrian Baath regime who is trying to retake Lebanon after their ignominious departure following the Hariri bombing.

Before delving further I'll state my first hypothesis: That the actors who carried out the Hariri assassination, while they be linked to, are not the same actors who killed the other politicians and journalists after that assassination.
Why? The Hariri assassination was from an operational point of view much more complicated, riskier and bigger than the ones following it.
Hariri spent a fortune on security. He had several heavily armored cars with identical license plates, signal jammers and a whole host of other high tech equipment along with a full complement of trusted bodyguards. Killing him needed coordination between a large group of people, a huge amount of explosives, technical expertise, heavy surveillance and possibly a suicide bomber. The following assassinations (like the one of Pierre Gemayel this week) have been much smaller and simpler affairs. For example: a small, pre-assembled under a car seat or a simple shooting of an unarmored car.

The Hariri assassination required operational planning on a military scale - hence I suspect that the Syrian secret police was directly involved. Circumstantial evidence points in that direction too with a truck that was used in the bombing had crossed over from Syria in the few days previous to the bombing.

The other assassination could be carried by very small cells with little training. They are completely different in character and execution.

Onto the suspects:

Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran)
The Iranian contact to Hezbollah providing training and equipment. The elite of the Islamic regime in Iran.
Highly unlikely. They do not really operate outside of the Shiite areas and therefore have little contact with the Christian and Sunni communities. They try to keep as low a profile as possible and getting involved in the day-to-day operations against the March 14 group would risk blowing their cover. Their main focus tends to be Israel and America anyway.

Syrian Intelligence (aka Mukhabarat)
There is no real doubt that they have been involved on some level. They probably pick the targets and without doubt provide the material (bombs and guns) but are most likely not directly involved in the killings. They pass them off to a Lebanese sub-contractor under control and tutelage. The reason for this is simple: plausible deniability. If Lebanese get caught Syria can still deny any involvement; that would be impossible if a Syrian was caught. Additionally most of the big bombings and killings in Lebanon during the past thirty years have been carried out by Lebanese (and mostly with the backing of outside powers).
-The US Embassy and marine barracks bombing - carried out by the Mughniyeh cell, the nucleus of what would later become Hezbollah with help from Syria and Iran.
-The attempted killing of Shiite cleric Fadlallah - carried out by a Christian militia with backing of the US.
-I could go on... but why bother... lots of killing and mostly by Lebanese.

Possible subcontractors:

Lebanese Intelligence
The probability of this is next to zero. After the fall of the pro-Syrian government they are no longer trusted with such sensitive missions. Many top figures from the service were indicted for serious crimes relating to the Hariri murder; a high price to pay and one that would probably not be paid twice. While the Lebanese intelligence has been stuffed with many Syrian sympathizers over the years it contains many who have contacts with March 14 coalition. So while parts of it still carry out surveillance and such on behalf of the Syrians they won't be asked to do any of the killing.

Amal
The smaller of the two pro-Syrian Shiite parties. Led by speaker of the house Nabih Berri. Receives support from Syria and Iran but on an order of magnitude less than Hezbollah.
This party is barely hanging on. It has positioned itself as the "moderate" pro-Syrian party, acting as a buffer between Hezbollah and the other parties. This position is coming very difficult to hold as the strain between Hezbollah and the other parties increases (as it does with every assassination). The killing of opponents does not strengthen the party but weakens it. Additionally their military wing is all but defunct and they never possessed any serious special operations capabilities.

Hezbollah
Biggest Shiite party. Founded in the 1980s under Iranian tutelage. Fought Israel for 20 years and is the only Arab force ever to force an Israeli pullback without negotiation (in 2000). Currently trying to topple the government and force fresh elections or, forgoing that, have veto power over all cabinet decisions. Biggest armed group in Lebanon and one of the biggest employers in the country.
Definitely have the motive and the means. They are trying to topple the government and every dead minister brings them closer to that goal. They have special operations capabilities (through training and armament by the Pasdaran). That said, while they may have advanced knowledge of the assassinations I'm no longer sure they really play a part in them. First of all, the discovery of a Hezbollah role in political assassinations would immediately spark a civil war something Hezbollah does not want (at least right now). And second of all, Hezbollah has zero presence in the communities and areas where the assassinations are taking place. A car full of young Shiites driving around in Sin-il-Fil (where Pierre Gemayel was killed) would attract quite a bit of attention in these tense times. Also the people who killed Gemayel knew his schedule and security precautions inside and out. This suggests long term surveillance - knowing which route he takes, which car he's in (he switched cars frequently), what his schedule is like. This kind of surveillance needs an unseen presence in these heavily Christian areas. Hezbollah does not have such a presence. Also the killing of Pierre Gemayel has hurt Hezbollah (for now), robbing them of their political momentum and forcing them to temporarily cancel street protests.

General Aoun
Christian ex-General in the Lebanese army. Spent the Civil War fighting against the Syrians and their allies. Recently returned from exile and has recast himself as a pro-resistance Hezbollah ally in a bid to become the next President.
Does have a large presence in the Christian communities of the Metn. But while the killing of anti-Syrian Christian politicians eliminates his rivals it, on balance, does not help him. After the news of Gemayel's death pictures of Aoun were burnt in the streets and his name cursed in Christian neighborhoods where he previously enjoyed some support. He is now in an impossible position of having to back the Syrians and Hezbollah while at the same time condemning actions that help them (and eliminate his sworn enemies). Has been seriously damaged by the events of the past few days. Highly unlikely that he would approve of the Gemayel assassination. Also, after such a long absence from the country and the destruction of his military forces in 1990 he no longer controls a serious armed group capable of carrying out political murders. Below you'll find a video of his posters being burned in East Beirut.

Syrian Nationalist Socialist Party (SSNP)
A Lebanese political party (despite the name). Has almost non-existent public support. Founded in the thirties, in modern times has become an extension of the Syrian regime in Lebanon. Has a very strong relationship with Syrian intelligence. Most of its members are part of the Greek Orthodox sect. Before the Cedar Revolution controlled various ministries through cabinet appointments and had deputies in the parliament. No longer present on any level in the Lebanese government - a big loser in the Cedar Revolution. The similarities in name and insignia to the Nazi party are not coincidental - the SSNP was modeled after it.
For the past years has basically been an extension of the Syrian intelligence apparatus. Has a history of being involved in the cloak-and-dagger world of political assassination (for example the killing of president-elect Bashir Gemayel in 1982 - Pierre's uncle). Its members have a strong motivation to bring Lebanon back into Syria's sphere of influence; not only it that their stated ideology of the party but it would return them to power and prominence. The party also - through Syrian training - maintains a shadow force of surveillance personnel, intimidators and the like. Additionally they are present in most of the heavily Christian areas (being Greek Orthodox Christians themselves for the most part and are based out of the Metn area) and could move around without too much suspicion. Also many of the assassin's targets have been Greek Orthodox:
Anti-Syrian politician George Hawi, ex-head to the Communist party - killed by a car bomb.
Anti Syrian journalist and politician Gibran Tueni - killed by a car bomb.
Anti-Syrian journalist Samir Qasir - killed by a car bomb.

All this leads to an obvious conclusion: the SSNP and its operatives are by far the most likely suspects in the wave of assassinations against Christian leaders.

Analyzing Hezbollah

2006-11-21T12:58:00.001-08:00

(I hope it makes sense it was written in a haste and with probably too much passion to allow clear thought.)
Thoughts about what the $@%* they’re thinking.

I always thought that Hezbollah, at least on some basic level, was working for what they perceived to be the best interests of their constituents. It appears that either I was wrong or something has changed. The Shiite community is the backbone of Hezbollah and has paid dearly in this summer’s conflict with Israel. What is best for the Shiites now is a period of calm, rebuilding and hopefully some type of economic rebound. This will allow the pledged grant money to roll in from the outside, pay for some rebuilding and possibly pave the way to a return to normal. Hezbollah is pushing the country in the opposite direction, dangerously close to a civil war, by making unreasonable demands of the government while at the same time leveling ludicrous and inflammatory accusations at it.

Currently Hezbollah is in trouble and in more ways than one. The summer war, while providing the Party of God with a temporary boon, has created many structural problems for the group. The war has left the group in a weaker state strategically and politically.

Strategically the war, while a big propaganda victory, turned out to be a disaster in the short and medium term (how it will be viewed in the long term depends on what happens now). They lost many of their best fighters, used much of their arsenal, spent a lot of money, had many of their bunkers and other infrastructure destroyed, revealed many surprise tactics and have nothing to show for it. Actually less than nothing – they now have ten thousand international UN troops and the Lebanese army deployed in the south (previously a Hezbollah only zone). Also, while the militia can still rearm via Syria it has become much more difficult to do so with all those eyes watching every move it makes. Additionally while they don’t control the government they cannot risk being discovered bringing large amount of weapons through the sea ports via Iran.

Hezbollah’s political situation, while appearing stronger than ever, is tenuous. While their supporters are proud of the military performance exhibited this summer they are also unhappy – with homes flattened, family members dead and an economy destroyed for a purely symbolic victory, who wouldn’t be? Winter is coming soon, and with some families living tents and with others without heat and electricity it is not going to be a happy season. There are two groups to blame for the heavy burden the Shiite populace has been asked to carry; the Israeli government and the Hezbollah politburo. Blaming Israel is easy, common and frankly, quite useless. After 50 years, it’s pretty clear that the Israeli government’s behavior towards and view of the general Arab population is not going to change. But Shiites blaming Hezbollah for its major miscalculation on the other hand would be groundbreaking and a very dangerous development for the party brass. Hezbollah has been doing all it can to deflect blame. Recently the party’s public pronouncements have taken a turn to the absurd – the leaders have been suggesting that the anti-Syrian government planned the war with the Israelis and was secretly encouraging the Israeli army throughout. (In reality Hezbollah started the war with rocket fire, the killing of Israeli soldiers and the capture of others. Additionally without the hard work of the anti-Syrian coalition and their contacts with the West the war would not have ended as quickly and unfinished as it did. And, most importantly Hezbollah was part of the government, holding several cabinet positions making some kind of pro-Israeli chicanery next to impossible.) This accusation is being made to attach blame to the government and to divide the population even more along sectarian lines in what is increasingly becoming a no-holds barred struggle for the control of Lebanon. The politics of fear and conspiracy is something Hezbollah practices with aplomb.

(The absurdities are endless. They call themselves the protectors of Lebanon and accuse others of subverting Lebanese sovereignty while accepting the murder of their enemies by foreign intelligence services and their Lebanese agents. They demand veto power over the cabinet while withholding the right to drag the country into war at whim.)

So Hezbollah is trying to regain the upper hand by exchanging the loss of homes, lives, and hard won autonomy in their areas into political gains. Hezbollah is demanding a veto over all cabinet decisions (even though last year’s election results clearly do not warrant such a prize) and the squashing of the international tribunal investigating the assassination of ex-PM Rafiq Harriri by Syrian agents (which they privately applauded, and possibly had a hand in). Other demands include early elections (in order to attempt to secure control of the parliament before it votes for a new president next year) and possibly a constitutional revisal allowing a Shiite president (currently he must be a Maronite Christian).
The logic of these positions hinges on new polls (conducted by Hezbollah) showing that Hezbollah would win elections if they are held today and the fact that the Shiites are a plurality of the populations but do control the cabinet, parliament, presidency or prime-minister’s office. This all sounds reasonable unless you think about it (thinking has never been a problem for Nasrallah and the boys). Elections are held at regular intervals or when the government fails to win a vote of confidence not whenever a minority party believes it can win or the polls change (I won’t bother to point out the rest of the errors in the logical gymnastics routine that is that Hezbollah argument). In free and fair parliamentary elections held in the summer of 2005 Hezbollah and its allied parties did not win enough seats to control the government but after negotiation the ruling coalition gave them cabinet appointments anyway (but not enough to veto cabinet decisions). The parliament votes in the PM and the cabinet explaining the legitimate control of those instruments by groups other than Hezbollah. As for Hezbollah's leaders often heard complaint that the Shiite plurality is under-represented; that they, as the largest group, should rule the country - it too is fundamentally flawed. While Shiites are about 35% to 40% of the populations as long as Hezbollah cannot convince some part of the rest of the country to agree with them it is pretty unrealistic to demand control of the executive - at least without making any kind of concessions.
And meanwhile back in the real world one big problem in Lebanon is that Hezbollah and its allies (foreign and domestic) control the presidency now and are using it to paralyze the government. Maronite President Emile Lahoud is a Syrian lapdog, a holdover from the previous parliament (and from what I hear as closeted as a pair of flared slacks) and could not be more pro-Hezbollah is he spoke farsi. The real danger for Hezbollah comes next year when Lahoud’s term is up and a new president will be elected. If that election is held by the current parliament the new president won’t be as friendly to Damascus, Tehran or Hezbollah as Lahoud. This would leave Hezbollah in a weaker position but one that it could definitely recover from as a political party but it is a situation that will probably erode some of its military power.

But Iran and Syria are not interested in Hezbollah as a political party in the long term – they’re interest lies in Hezbollah the military force (a useful tool for poking the Americans and Israelis without much risk to them). They believe that the time of America’s hegemony over the Middle East is over and they want to push it out the door. A well-armed and dominant Hezbollah is key to that strategy even if it means breaking Lebanon (Shiites included) to get it. Hezbollah’s brass is emboldened by their foreign support and more than willing to play along. As long as Iran keep the oil money flowing into party coffers Hezbollah feels that it can punch above its weight in Lebanon, making unreasonable demands and spewing venomous insults. Nasrallah and company don’t care if these actions hurt their people, after all they are adept at using their supporters’ fears and prejudices to deflect attention away from unsavory party business. Strangling the last bits of progressiveness out of Lebanon and rearming to take on the their blood enemy Israel seems to be the only goal now. Hezbollah seems to be saying we're taking over and if you don't like it fight us, shut up or leave.

So that’s were we are today: a wounded and belligerent Hezbollah being encouraged by outside actors to take a reckless course to achieve unwarranted dominance over Lebanon. And so the assassinations begin anew. Today Pierre Gemayel. Tomorrow, who knows? Probably Walid Jumblatt.

And a new worrying development:

This new assassination seems different in character from the others (see 2005 below). While the others were about elimination and intimidation this seems to have the added goal of provocation. The last time a Gemayel was assassinated it caused a bloodbath (Sabra and Shatilla massacres included) that did not end for eight years (see 1982 below). It is unclear if Hezbollah is inviting reprisal in order to justify violence or just sending out a clear message that the civil war option is not one they are afraid of but either way these are bad times for Lebanon.

That’s it for now – but more soon.

FROM THE NYT (more than a few overgeneralizations but whatever):
APRIL 1975 -- Clashes that are later seen as the start of Lebanon's 15-year civil war erupt in Beirut.
JUNE 1976 -- Syrian troops enter Lebanon to restore peace.
OCTOBER 1976 -- Arab conferences establish a predominantly Syrian peacekeeping force.
JUNE 1982 -- After repeated Palestinian incursions from southern Lebanon, Israel begins a full-scale invasion. The Syrian Army is ousted from Beirut.
SEPTEMBER 1982 -- President-elect Bashir Gemayel was killed when a bomb shattered the headquarters of his Lebanese Christian Phalangist Party in east Beirut.
MAY 1983 -- Israel and Lebanon sign a peace accord detailing the withdrawal of Israeli troops.
MARCH 1984 -- Under intense pressure from Syria, the Lebanese government cancels its peace agreement with Israel.
MARCH 1989 -- The Maronite Christian leader in Lebanon, Gen. Michel Aoun, declares a ''war of liberation'' against the Syrian presence.
OCTOBER 1989 -- The Lebanese National Assembly takes a step toward ending the civil war by endorsing the so-called Taif Accord, which calls for Syria to pull its troops back to the eastern Bekaa region but does not set a date for a full pullout.
OCTOBER 1990 -- In one of the last moves of the civil war, Syria's Air Force attacks the Lebanese presidential palace, and General Aoun takes refuge in the French Embassy. Through the early 90's, Syrian dominance in the country becomes less overt.
OCTOBER 1998 -- Emile Lahoud, a general who is backed by Syria, is elected president by Parliament.
MAY 2000 -- Israel ends its occupation of southern Lebanon.
DECEMBER 2000 -- In a surprise move, hundreds of Syrian soldiers leave Beirut and settle in the Bekaa region near the border, though thousands still remain in the country.
2003 -- Syria carries out two partial troop withdrawals, in February and July, bringing its force in Lebanon to about 16,000 soldiers, down from about 30,000 troops in mid-2000.
SEPTEMBER 2004 -- Despite criticism from the U.N. Security Council, Parliament bows to Syrian pressure and extends Mr. Lahoud's presidential term by three years.
OCTOBER 2004 -- Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and his cabinet resign in protest over Syria's dominant role in Lebanese government.
DECEMBER 2004 -- A united Lebanese opposition denounces the Syrian presence and calls for a new government. Later, Syria for the first time admits the presence of its secret service in Lebanon and says it will dismantle the operation.
FEBRUARY 2005 -- Mr. Hariri and 14 others are killed in a car bombing in Beirut.
JUNE 2 -- Samir Kassir, journalist opposed to Syria's role in Lebanon, is killed in Beirut by bomb in his car.
JUNE 21 -- George Hawi, a former Communist Party leader and critic of Syria, is killed in Beirut by bomb in his car.
DECEMBER 12 -- Gebran Tueni, a staunchly anti-Syrian member of parliament and Lebanese newspaper magnate, is killed by a car bomb in Beirut.
NOVEMBER 21 -- Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel is killed by gunmen as his convoy drives through the Christian Sin el-Fil neighbourhood of Beirut.

Not toilet trained

2006-11-18T14:54:00.000-08:00

Now this is funny. Check the link: Floor Dumper

In the age of the internet it's impossible to get away with stuff like that. Sorry Frank... it's a new world.

The greatest thing about the internet... aka the many moods of Bill Shatner

2006-11-11T08:22:00.000-08:00

Having things like this freely available online is to me what makes the internet great...

I first saw it a few months ago and was quoting it for days afterward.

What a video. Many have seen it but for those who haven't - you must.

Just a tour-de-force in terms of obliviousness; I think his ego crashed my internet connection - it was just too big.

"I'm a rock IT MAN!"

Mea Culpa, Conservative Style: Not good for anyone

2006-11-07T18:51:00.000-08:00

It's usually nice to hear "I told you so." I especially love it when a pea cocking desktop warrior like Richard Perle admits he was wrong (see these exerts from a Vanity Fair article). But when good people like David Brooks give up, I start to give in to despair. As an open-minded and intelligent man I always viewed in him the best of America. He is well read without being effete (he loves the NFL and Proust), he has an intuitive understanding of theory but never takes his eyes of the messiness of the real world. Cool, funny and still a complete geek. Basically encompassing the duality and oxymoronic quality that make America so endlessly fascinating and confusing.
If Americans such as he are giving up on Iraq... God save the Iraqis and the whole Middle East because this could get very ugly.
I hate the US military occupation, I hate the Dept of Defense planning bureau, and I hate the cocksure attitude of Pres Bush in front of unspeakable violence and unimpeachable facts.
At the same time I cannot square these attitudes with a push for an immediate American withdrawal. The emerging consensus in the American center seems to be "we opened up a can of worms we didn't understand, we should get out and let them figure it out."
Unfortunately for the Iraqis "figuring it out" means letting fearsome militias roam their streets and kill civilians with impunity. "Figuring it out" means the collapse of even the hope of central authority. "Figuring it out" means a rivalry ridden and unstable Shiite theocracy in south. "Figuring it out" means the Kurdish north being used as a terrorist base against Turkey. "Figuring it out" means setting back al-Anbar (the Sunni Arab west) several centuries with clan warfare, al-Qaeda havens and a medieval and arbitrary justice system.

All of these trends are already on the march in Iraq and the question the American political class has to ask itself is "Is abandoning ordinary Iraqis to these trends the best we can do?"
I believe it's not, I still believe America is better than that (as it turns out I may be a slow learner). But my opinion is irrelevant and more and more of the relevant people think nothing more can be done. The policy papers with bold new ideas have disappeared and been replaced with articles resembling the one below; long excuses on why its OK to let Iraqis (and some foreigners) butcher Iraqis in hope that someday, somebody will take power and provide stability. Saddam 2.0 or even Ho Chi Min 2.0 - anything or anybody is better that this.
Well Iraq is not Vietnam. Today's Iraq is not 1970s Iraq. There is no large politically integrated armed force ready to take over. Iraq today resembles 1990s Somalia and if left to its own devices it will disintegrate, just like Somalia did, and ooze problems into the rest of the region for years to come .

Same Old Demons
By DAVID BROOKS

Policy makers are again considering fundamental changes in our Iraq policy, but as they do I hope they read Elie Kedourie’s essay, “The Kingdom of Iraq: A Retrospect.”

Kedourie, a Baghdad-born Jew, published the essay in 1970. It’s a history of the regime the British helped establish over 80 years ago, but it captures an idea that is truer now than ever: Disorder is endemic to Iraq. Today’s crisis is not three years old. It’s worse now, but the crisis is perpetual. This is a bomb of a nation.

“Brief as it is, the record of the kingdom of Iraq is full of bloodshed, treason and rapine,” Kedourie wrote.

And his is a Gibbonesque tale of horror. There is the endless Shiite-Sunni fighting. There is a massacre of the Assyrians, which is celebrated rapturously in downtown Baghdad. Children are gunned down from airplanes. Tribal wars flare and families are destroyed. A Sunni writer insults the Shiites and the subsequent rioters murder students and policemen. A former prime minister is found on the street by a mob, killed, and his body is reduced to pulp as cars run him over in joyous retribution.

Kedourie described “a country riven by obscure and malevolent factions, unsettled by the war and its aftermath.” He observed, “The collapse of the old order had awakened vast cupidities and revived venomous hatreds.”

In 1927, a British officer asked a tribal leader: “You now have a government, a constitution, a parliament, ministers and officials — what more can you want?” The tribal leader replied, “Yes, but they speak with a foreign accent.”

The British tried to encourage responsible Iraqi self-government, to no avail. “The political ambitions of the Shia religious headquarters have always lain in the direction of theocratic domination,” a British official reported in 1923. They “have no motive for refraining from sacrificing the interests of Iraq to those which they conceive to be their own.”

At one point, the British high commissioner, Sir Henry Dobbs, argued that if Britain threatened to withdraw its troops, Iraqis would behave more responsibly. It didn’t work. Iraqis figured the Brits were bugging out. They concluded it was profitless to cultivate British friendship. Everything the British said became irrelevant.

The Iraq of his youth, Kedourie concluded, “was a make-believe kingdom built on false pretenses.” He quoted a British report from 1936, which noted that the Iraqi government would never be a machine based on law that treated citizens impartially, but would always be based on tribal favoritism and personal relationships. Iraq, Kedourie said, faced two alternatives: “Either the country would be plunged into chaos or its population should become universally the clients and dependents of an omnipotent but capricious and unstable government.” There is, he wrote, no third option.

Today Iraq is in much worse shape. The most perceptive reports describe not so much a civil war as a complete social disintegration. This latest descent was initiated by American blunders, but is exacerbated by the same old Iraqi demons: greed, blood lust and a mind-boggling unwillingness to compromise for the common good, even in the face of self-immolation.

The core problem is the same one Kedourie identified decades ago. Iraq is teetering on the edge of futility. Perhaps a competent occupation could have preserved it as a coherent entity, but now the Iraqi national identity is looking like a suicidal self-delusion.

Partitioning the country would be traumatic, so after the election it probably makes sense to make one last effort to hold the place together. Fire Donald Rumsfeld to signal a break with the past. Alter troop rotations so that 30,000 more troops are policing Baghdad.

But if that does not restore order, if Iraqi ministries remain dysfunctional and the national institutions remain sectarian institutions in disguise, then surely it will be time to accede to reality. It will be time to effectively end Iraq, with a remaining fig-leaf central government or not. It will be time to radically diffuse authority down to the only communities that are viable — the clan, tribe or sect.

A muscular U.S. military presence will be more necessary than ever, to deter neighboring powers and contain bloodshed. And the goals will remain the same: to nurture civilized democratic societies that reject extremism and terror.

But the boundaries may have to change. The war was an attempt to lift a unified Iraq out of its awful history, but history has proved stubborn. It’s time to adjust the plans to reality.

Yo La Tengo

2006-11-06T16:27:00.000-08:00

This was a good time - although I was half-asleep and left early. If you want to see a band that knows how to play, doesn't run around like innebriated adolescents and still pounds out loud ball-busting rock, this is one such group.

From the Phoenix in Toronto - "Pass the Hatchet, I think I'm Goodkind":

Robert Kagan - voice of reason

2006-11-06T16:08:00.000-08:00

Nobody takes the long view like Kagan. Even though many classify him as a "neo-con" he is, for me at least, the best foreign policy analyst alive today. Deliberate and insightful he has a way of bringing unnoticed long term trends into sharp focus. From the Washington Post.

Staying the Course, Win or Lose

By Robert Kagan
Thursday, November 2, 2006; A17

BRUSSELS -- Here in Europe, people ask hopefully if a Democratic victory in the congressional elections will finally shift the direction of American foreign policy in a more benign direction. But congressional elections rarely affect the broad direction of American foreign policy. A notable exception was when Congress cut funding for American military operations in support of South Vietnam in 1973. Yet it's unlikely that a Democratic House would cut off funds for the war in Iraq in the next two years.

Indeed, the preferred European scenario -- "Bush hobbled" -- is less likely than the alternative: "Bush unbound." Neither the president nor his vice president is running for office in 2008. That is what usually prevents high-stakes foreign policy moves in the last two years of a president's term. In 1988 Ronald Reagan had negotiated a clever agreement to get the dictator Manuel Noriega peacefully out of Panama, but Vice President George H.W. Bush and his advisers feared the domestic political repercussions of cutting a deal with a drug lord at the height of the "war on drugs," so they nixed the plan. The result was that Bush had to invade Panama the very next year to remove Noriega -- but he did get elected.

This President Bush doesn't have to worry about getting anyone elected in 2008 and appears to be thinking only about his place in history. That can lead him to act in ways that please Europeans -- for instance, the vigorous multilateral diplomacy on Iran and North Korea. But it could also take him in directions they will find worrisome if that diplomacy fails.

There is a deeper reason this election, and even the next presidential election, may not change U.S. foreign policy very much. Historically, and especially in the six decades since the end of World War II, there has been much more continuity than discontinuity in foreign policy. New administrations change policy around the margins, and sometimes those changes prove important -- George H.W. Bush temporized about the Balkans; Bill Clinton temporized and then sent troops. Clinton temporized about Iraq and then bombed. George W. Bush temporized and then invaded. But the motives behind American foreign policy, and even the means, don't differ all that much from administration to administration. Republicans berated the Democrats' "cowardly" containment until they took the White House in 1952, then adopted that strategy as their own.

This tendency toward continuity is particularly striking on the issue that most divides Americans from Europeans today: the use of military force in international affairs. Americans of both parties simply have more belief in the utility and even justice of military action than do most other peoples around the world. The German Marshall Fund commissions an annual poll that asks Europeans and Americans, among other things, whether they agree with the following statement: "Under some conditions, war is necessary to obtain justice." Europeans disagree, and by a 2 to 1 margin. But Americans overwhelmingly support the idea that war may be necessary to obtain justice. Even this year, with disapproval of the Iraq war high, 78 percent of American respondents agreed with the statement.

This broad bipartisan conviction is reflected in U.S. policies. Between 1989 and 2003, the United States engaged in significant military actions overseas on nine occasions under Bush I, Clinton and Bush II: Panama in 1989, Somalia in 1992, Haiti in 1994, Bosnia in 1995-96, Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq three times -- 1991, 1998 and 2003, an average of one major military action every year and a half.

The reasons for this prolific use of military force have to do with the nation's history -- Americans have been fighting what they considered just and moral wars since the Revolution and the Civil War. And it has to do with Americans' relative power. It is no accident that the United States began to use force more frequently after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Those who imagine that the Iraq imbroglio may change this approach could be right, but the historical record suggests otherwise. Less than six years after the defeat in Vietnam, Americans were electing Reagan on a promise to restore American military power and engage in a concerted arms race with the Soviet Union.

Even today leading Democrats who oppose the Iraq war do not oppose the idea of war itself or its utility. They're not even denouncing a defense budget approaching $500 billion per year. While Europeans mostly reject the Bush administration's phrase "the war on terror," leading Democrats embrace it and accuse the administration of not pursuing it vigorously or intelligently enough. Nor do leading Democrats reject the premise of the United States as the world's "indispensable nation" -- a notion that most Europeans find offensive at best and dangerous at worst.

In this respect, there is even less debate over the general principles of American foreign policy than during the Vietnam era. In those days, opponents of the war insisted that not just President Richard Nixon was rotten but that the "system" was rotten. They did not just reject the Vietnam War, they rejected the whole containment strategy of Dean Acheson and Harry Truman, which, they rightly claimed, helped produce the intervention in the first place. They rejected the idea that the United States could be a benevolent force in the world.

Today Democrats insist that the United States will be such a force as soon as George W. Bush leaves office. Although they pretend they have a fundamental doctrinal dispute with the Bush administration, their recommendations are less far-reaching. They argue that the United States should generally try to be nicer, employ more "soft power" and be more effective when it employs "hard power." That may be good advice, but it hardly qualifies as an alternative doctrine.

Many around the world will thrill at the defeat of Republicans next week. They should enjoy the moment while they can. When the smoke clears, they will find themselves dealing with much the same America, with all its virtues and all its flaws.

Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, writes a monthly column for The Post. He is the author of "Dangerous Nation," a history of American foreign policy.

How Saddam ran Iraq

2006-11-06T15:56:00.000-08:00

I'm back... kinda... even though close to nobody reads this... more explanation later.

- This is how Saddam ran Iraq; like a paranoid tribal sheik from the twelfth century. Western Iraq, a place with a strong nomadic tradition, was always a violent place. It's the kind of place that sharia brought brutal but fair order to long ago. Saddam expanded on that tradition - expanded in its methods and results (more violence in terms of amount and intensity) and its geographical reach (to the rest of the country). Here's a small insight into the way he thought. Whether the world likes it or not - we are seeing the fruits of Saddam's Iraq today. His legacy is going to a dominant and bloody factor for a long time.

From the BBC:

By Jeremy Bowen
Middle East editor, BBC News
The American journalist Bob Woodward, in his third book about the Bush administration at war, State of Denial, relates a story told by Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, who was the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States.

Prince Bandar recalls a conversation that Saddam Hussein had with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia after a group of extremists took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979.

The rebels had been caught and thrown into jail, and this was the Iraqi leader's advice: "In my mind, there is no question that you are going to kill all 500, that's a given.

"Listen to me carefully, Fahd. Every man who in this group who has a brother or father - kill them. If they have a cousin who you think is man enough to go for revenge, kill them.

"Those 500 people are a given. But you must spread the fear of God in everything that belongs to them, and that's the only way you can sleep at night."

That seems to have been the tactic that Saddam Hussein used at Dujail in 1982, when - after an attempt to assassinate him - 148 people were killed. It is the crime for which he has been sentenced to hang.

Perhaps Saddam Hussein will accept his fate on the gallows as an occupational hazard of being a despot. Or maybe he never intended his own rules to apply to himself.

UNSC DRAFT RESOLUTION LEBANON

2006-08-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

This is it. The only binding parts are in the operating paragraphs (OPs). Both the Shebaa Farms and the Israeli prisoners are in the preamble (where pretexts belong).
-Beirut Emigre

The Security Council,
PP1. Recalling all its previous resolutions on Lebanon, in particular resolutions 425 (1978), 426 (1978), 520 (1982), 1559 (2004), 1655 (2006) 1680 (2006) and 1697 (2006), as well as the statements of its President on the situation in Lebanon, in particular the statements of 18 June 2000 (S/PRST/2000/21), of 19 October 2004 (S/PRST/2004/36), of 4 May 2005 (S/PRST/2005/17) of 23 January 2006 (S/PRST/2006/3) and of 30 July 2006 (S/PRST/2006/35),

PP2. Expressing its utmost concern at the continuing escalation of hostilities in Lebanon and in Israel since Hizbollah's attack on Israel on 12 July 2006, which has already caused hundreds of deaths and injuries on both sides, extensive damage to civilian infrastructure and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons,

PP3. Emphasizing the need for an end of violence, but at the same time emphasizing the need to address urgently the causes that have given rise to the current crisis, including by the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers,

PP4: Mindful of the sensitivity of the issue of prisoners and encouraging the efforts aimed at urgently settling the issue of the Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel,

PP5. Welcoming the efforts of the Lebanese Prime Minister and the commitment of the government of Lebanon, in its seven-point plan, to extend its authority over its territory, through its own legitimate armed forces, such that there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon, welcoming also its commitment to a UN force that is supplemented and enhanced in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operation, and bearing in mind its request in this plan for an immediate withdrawal of the Israeli forces from Southern Lebanon,

PP6. Determined to act for this withdrawal to happen at the earliest,

PP7. Taking due note of the proposals made in the seven-point plan regarding the Shebaa farms area,

PP8. Welcoming the unanimous decision by the government of Lebanon on 7 August 2006 to deploy a Lebanese armed force of 15,000 troops in South Lebanon as the Israeli army withdraws behind the Blue Line and to request the assistance of additional forces from UNIFIL as needed, to facilitate the entry of the Lebanese armed forces into the region and to restate its intention to strengthen the Lebanese armed forces with material as needed to enable it to perform its duties,

PP9. Aware of its responsibilities to help secure a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution to the conflict,

PP10. Determining that the situation in Lebanon constitutes a threat to international peace and security,

OP1. Calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations;

OP2. Upon full cessation of hostilities, calls upon the government of Lebanon and UNIFIL as authorized by paragraph 11 to deploy their forces together throughout the South and calls upon the government of Israel, as that deployment begins, to withdraw all of its forces from Southern Lebanon in parallel;

OP3. Emphasizes the importance of the extension of the control of the government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory in accordance with the provisions of resolution 1559 (2004) and resolution 1680 (2006), and of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, for it to exercise its full sovereignty, so that there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon;

OP4. Reiterates its strong support for full respect for the Blue Line;

OP5. Also reiterates its strong support, as recalled in all its previous relevant resolutions, for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognized borders, as contemplated by the Israeli-Lebanese General Armistice Agreement of 23 March 1949;

OP6. Calls on the international community to take immediate steps to extend its financial and humanitarian assistance to the Lebanese people, including through facilitating the safe return of displaced persons and, under the authority of the Government of Lebanon, reopening airports and harbours, consistent with paragraphs 14 and 15, and calls on it also to consider further assistance in the future to contribute to the reconstruction and development of Lebanon;

OP7. Affirms that all parties are responsible for ensuring that no action is taken contrary to paragraph 1 that might adversely affect the search for a long-term solution, humanitarian access to civilian populations, including safe passage for humanitarian convoys, or the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons, and calls on all parties to comply with this responsibility and to cooperate with the Security Council;

OP8. Calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:

- full respect for the Blue Line by both parties,

- security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11, deployed in this area,

- full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27, 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state,

- no foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government,

- no sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government,

- provision to the United Nations of all remaining maps of land mines in Lebanon in Israel's possession;

OP9. Invites the Secretary General to support efforts to secure as soon as possible agreements in principle from the Government of Lebanon and the Government of Israel to the principles and elements for a long-term solution as set forth in paragraph 8, and expresses its intention to be actively involved;

OP10. Requests the Secretary General to develop, in liaison with relevant international actors and the concerned parties, proposals to implement the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), including disarmament, and for delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including by dealing with the Shebaa farms area, and to present to the Security Council those proposals within thirty days;

OP11. Decides, in order to supplement and enhance the force in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operations, to authorize an increase in the force strength of UNIFIL to a maximum of 15,000 troops, and that the force shall, in addition to carrying out its mandate under resolutions 425 and 426 (1978):

a. Monitor the cessation of hostilities;

b. Accompany and support the Lebanese armed forces as they deploy throughout the South, including along the Blue Line, as Israel withdraws its armed forces from Lebanon as provided in paragraph 2;

c. Coordinate its activities related to paragraph 11 (b) with the Government of Lebanon and the Government of Israel;

d. Extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations and the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons;

e. Assist the Lebanese armed forces in taking steps towards the establishment of the area as referred to in paragraph 8;

f. Assist the government of Lebanon, at its request, to implement paragraph 14;

OP12. Acting in support of a request from the government of Lebanon to deploy an international force to assist it to exercise its authority throughout the territory, authorizes UNIFIL to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces and as it deems within its capabilities, to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind, to resist attempts by forceful means to prevent it from discharging its duties under the mandate of the Security Council, and to protect United Nations personnel, facilities, installations and equipment, ensure the security and freedom of movement of United Nations personnel, humanitarian workers, and, without prejudice to the responsibility of the government of Lebanon, to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence;

OP13. Requests the Secretary General urgently to put in place measures to ensure UNIFIL is able to carry out the functions envisaged in this resolution, urges Member States to consider making appropriate contributions to UNIFIL and to respond positively to requests for assistance from the Force, and expresses its strong appreciation to those who have contributed to UNIFIL in the past;

OP14. Calls upon the Government of Lebanon to secure its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel and requests UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11 to assist the Government of Lebanon at its request;

OP15. Decides further that all states shall take the necessary measures to prevent, by their nationals or from their territories or using their flag vessels or aircraft,

(a) the sale or supply to any entity or individual in Lebanon of arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and spare parts for the aforementioned, whether or not originating in their territories, and

(b) the provision to any entity or individual in Lebanon of any technical training or assistance related to the provision, manufacture, maintenance or use of the items listed in subparagraph (a) above, except that these prohibitions shall not apply to arms, related material, training or assistance authorized by the Government of Lebanon or by UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11;

OP16. Decides to extend the mandate of UNIFIL until 31 August 2007, and expresses its intention to consider in a later resolution further enhancements to the mandate and other steps to contribute to the implementation of a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution;

OP17. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Council within one week on the implementation of this resolution and subsequently on a regular basis;

OP18. Stresses the importance of, and the need to achieve, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on all its relevant resolutions including its resolutions 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 and 338 (1973) of 22 October 1973;

OP19. Decides to remain actively seized of the matter.

From the NYTimes... I had to post it.

2006-07-23T22:34:00.000-07:00

To Flee or to Stay? Family Chooses Too Late and Pays Dearly
By HASSAN M. FATTAH

SIDIQEEN, Lebanon, July 23 — Muntaha Shaito’s eyes rolled back as the paramedics screamed at her to stay awake and implored her son Ali to keep her engaged, as she teetered near death from shrapnel wounds inflicted by an Israeli rocket.

“Pray to God!,” one paramedic shouted at her as she writhed in Ali’s arms.

“Don’t go to sleep Mama, look at me!,” Ali shouted, tears streaking his bloodied face. “Don’t die, please don’t die!”

It was the scene that members of the extended Shaito family said they had feared most, the real reason they had held out for days in their village of Tireh in southern Lebanon, terrified of the Israeli bombardment, but more terrified of what might happen if they risked leaving. On Sunday they gave up their stand, and all 18 members crammed into the family’s white Mazda minivan. They planned to head north toward the relative safety of Beirut.

Within minutes they became casualties of Israel’s 12-day-old bombardment of southern Lebanon, which the Israelis say they will continue indefinitely to destroy the military abilities of Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group. By the Lebanese official count, Israel’s attacks have killed more than 380 Lebanese.

An Israeli rocket, which Lebanese officials said was likely fired from a helicopter, slammed into the center of the Shaitos’ van as it sped round a bend a few miles west of their village, and the van crashed into a hillside. Three occupants were killed: an uncle, Mohammad; the grandmother, Nazira; and a Syrian man who had guarded their home. The missile also critically wounded Mrs. Shaito and her sister. Eleven others suffered less severe wounds.

“They said leave, and that’s what we did,” said Musbah Shaito, another uncle, as his niece, Heba, 16, cried hysterically behind him for her dead father, whose head was nearly blown off. This reporter watched as paramedics struggled to remove the dead from the van, but soon gave up, as an Israeli drone hovered overhead.

“This is what we got for listening to them,” Mr. Shaito said, speaking of the Israelis.

The Shaitos came from a farming village about five miles from the Israeli border in a region known for tobacco, citrus and olive crops. They had waved a white flag from the van, signifiying to Israeli aircraft that they were non-threatening, Mr. Shaito told reporters later.

The Israeli military said in a statement that its aircraft operations over southern Lebanon on Sunday had targeted “approximately 20 vehicles” suspected of “serving the terror organization in the launching of missiles at Israel, and were recognized fleeing from or staying at missile-launching areas.” The military did not comment on specific bombings, but cited the area south of Tyre, where the Shaitos were driving, as “an area used continuously by Hezbollah to fire missiles.”

Bombing victims, witnesses and officials interviewed in the area on Sunday said Israeli warplanes hit people escaping by vehicle from their villages at least six times in a day of fierce bombardments. Lebanese Red Cross ambulance drivers complained about narrowly avoiding Israeli fire themselves as they cleared out the wounded, and a Lebanese freelance photographer, Layal Najib, 23, was killed when an Israeli missile struck near her car, about five miles from near the scene of the Shaito family bombing.

Israeli forces have sought to clear the area of all residents, in what seemed to be an attempt to separate the civilians from Hezbollah fighters hidden in the hills and villages. Just days earlier leaflets dropped by Israeli planes warned residents to leave the area and head north of the Litani River, effectively making the area a free-fire zone.

A drive through the southern villages on Sunday morning was like a tour through a string of ghost towns, with most residents having cleared out or holed up in their homes, as Israeli aircraft continued their bombardment. Roads were bombed, making passage difficult or impossible, and fields were scorched as the hulks of bombed cars littered the roads. All but a few stores were shut, with glass and rubble littering the streets.

The families in Tireh had preferred to stay home, but with dwindling supplies and Israel’s warning to evacuate, many of them decided it was time to go.

There were only about 52 people left in Tireh when most left for Beirut in a convoy this weekend, leaving the Shaitos largely to fend for themselves. Without much food or water, the family gave up its stand early Sunday.

Family members included Muntaha Shaito and her boys, Ali, 13, and Abbas, 12; her brother in-law Mohammad and his two daughters, Heba, 14, and Kawther, 17; and several other relatives.

They packed into their van, with all their money and valuables, and raced toward Tyre, the big southern seaport about 15 miles west.

It proved a day of carnage for the Zabad and Suroor families, too, said family members and medical staff members who treated them.

The Zabad family and their relatives, the Suroors, who were desperate enough to break into shuttered stores to steal food in the town of Mansoureh a few miles away, gave up their stand, too, on Sunday.

Minutes before Red Cross ambulances carted away the Shaito family, the Suroor family barreled down the road headed toward Tyre, with the Zabad family right behind.

When the Zabads spotted a wounded man on the road, they stopped and picked him up in their Nissan sport utility vehicle. They stopped again to pick up two men who had been attacked on a motorcycle and got even farther behind the Suroors.

Suddenly a missile hit the Suroors’ Mercedes sedan, killing Mohammad Suroor, the father, and Darwhish Mdaihli, a relative, and severely burning Mohammad’s son, Mahmoud, 8, and wounding his two brothers and sister.

As soon as the Zabads saw the car hit, they sped past, hoping to get to the Najm Hospital, less than a mile away. But a minute later a missile struck near them, setting the car on fire, and the family jumped out. .

The scene was chaotic at Najm hospital, on the outskirts of Tyre, which has been flooded with wounded from the bombing campaign. Doctors rushed to X-ray several of the victims, checking for shrapnel, as others where treated for burns and other injuries. For a short while, the hospital nurses rubbed cream on an 8-month-old baby for burns until they found her mother, Mrs. Suroor.

Despite the severe burns on his face, Mahmoud Suroor turned to his mother while in the emergency room and asked where his father was. She did not respond. Then he turned again to his mother.

“Don’t cry Mama, we’ll all be O.K.,” he said.

What a bomb sounds like

2006-07-23T18:16:00.000-07:00

Beirut on the 21st of July.
It set off a car alarm despite being miles away...

Links about Lebanon Israeli conflict

2006-07-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

The IDF now holds the village of Maroun al-Ras. The link is a sat map of the town (you may have to zoom it out a bit).

Maroun al-Ras

Haaretz

-A good and accurate Israeli paper

Daily Star

-The only english language daily in Lebanon

How it feels to live in Beirut right now.

Blogging Beirut

I pulled this off that site:

What I am now watching in Lebanon each day is an outrage

By Robert Fisk in Mdeirej, Central Lebanon

Published: 15 July 2006

The beautiful viaduct that soars over the mountainside here has become a " terrorist" target. The Israelis attacked the international highway from Beirut to Damascus just after dawn yesterday and dropped a bomb clean through the central span of the Italian-built bridge a symbol of Lebanon's co-operation with the European Union sending concrete crashing hundreds of feet down into the valley beneath. It was the pride of the murdered ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri, the face of a new, emergent Lebanon. And now it is a " terrorist" target.

So I drove gingerly along the old mountain road towards the Bekaa yesterday the Israeli jets were hissing through the sky above me turned the corner once I rejoined the highway, and found a 50ft crater with an old woman climbing wearily down the side on her hands and knees, trying to reach her home in the valley that glimmered to the east. This too had become a " terrorist" target.

It is now the same all over Lebanon. In the southern suburbs where the Hizbollah, captors of the two missing Israeli soldiers, have their headquarters a massive bomb had blasted off the sides of apartment blocks next to a church, splintering windows and crashing balconies down on to parked cars. This too had become a "terrorist" target.

One man was brought out shrieking with pain, covered in blood. Another " terrorist" target. All the way to the airport were broken bridges, holed roads. All these were "terrorist" targets. At the airport, tongues of fire blossomed into the sky from aircraft fuel storage tanks, darkening west Beirut. These too were now "terrorist" targets. At Jiyeh, the Israelis attacked the power station. This too was a " terrorist" target.

Yet when I drove to the actual headquarters of the Hizbollah, a tall building in Haret Hreik, it was totally undamaged. Only last night did the Israelis manage to hit it.

So can the Lebanese be forgiven can anyone here be forgiven for believing that the Israelis have a greater interest in destroying Lebanon than they do in their two soldiers?

No wonder Middle East Airlines, the national Lebanese airline, put crews into its four stranded Airbuses at Beirut airport early yesterday and sneaked them out of the country for Amman before the Israelis realised they were under power and leaving.

European politicians have talked about Israel's "disproportionate" response to Wednesday's capture of its soldiers. They are wrong. What I am now watching in Lebanon each day is an outrage. How can there be any excuse any for the 73 dead Lebanese civilians blown apart these past three days?

The same applies, of course, to the four Israeli civilians killed by Hizbollah rockets. But please note the exchange rate of Israeli civilian lives to Lebanese civilian lives now stands at one to more than 15. This does not include two children atomised in their home in Dweir on Thursday whose bodies cannot be found. Their six brothers and sisters were buried yesterday, with their mother and father. Another "terrorist" target. So was a neighbouring family with five children who were also buried yesterday. Another "terrorist" target.

Terrorist, terrorist, terrorist. There is something perverse about all this, the slaughter and the massive destruction and the self-righteous, constant, cancerous use of the word "terrorist". No, let us not forget that the Hizbollah broke international law, crossed the Israeli border, killed three Israeli soldiers, captured two others and dragged them back through the border fence. It was an act of calculated ruthlessness that should never allow Hizbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to grin so broadly at his press conference. It has brought unparalleled tragedy to countless innocents in Lebanon. And of course, it has led Hizbollah to fire at least 170 Katyusha rockets into Israel.

But what would happen if the powerless Lebanese government had unleashed air attacks across Israel the last time Israel's troops crossed into Lebanon? What if the Lebanese air force then killed 73 Israeli civilians in bombing raids in Ashkelon, Tel Aviv and Israeli West Jerusalem? What if a Lebanese fighter aircraft bombed Ben Gurion airport? What if a Lebanese plane destroyed 26 road bridges across Israel? Would it not be called " terrorism"? I rather think it would. But if Israel was the victim, it would probably also be World War Three.

Of course, Lebanon cannot attack Tel Aviv. Its air force comprises three ancient Hawker Hunters and an equally ancient fleet of Vietnam-era Huey helicopters. Syria, however, has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv. So Syria which Israel rightly believes to be behind Wednesday's Hizbollah attack is not going to be bombed. It is Lebanon which must be punished.

The Israeli leadership intends to "break" the Hizbollah and destroy its "terrorist cancer". Really? Do the Israelis really believe they can "break" one of the toughest guerrilla armies in the world? And how?

There are real issues here. Under UN Security Council Resolution 1559 the same resolution that got the Syrian army out of Lebanon the Shia Muslim Hizbollah should have been disarmed. They were not because, if the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, had tried to do so, the Lebanese army would have had to fight them and the army would almost certainly have broken apart because most Lebanese soldiers are Shia Muslims. We could see the restarting of the civil war in Lebanon a fact which Nasrallah is cynically aware of but attempts by Siniora and his cabinet colleagues to find a new role for Hizbollah, which has a minister in the government (he is Minister of Labour) foundered. And the greatest danger now is that the Lebanese government will collapse and be replaced by a pro-Syrian government which could reinvite the Syrians back into the country.

So there's a real conundrum to be solved. But it's not going to succeed with the mass bombing of the country by Israel. Nor the obsession with terrorists, terrorists, terrorists.

Stuck in Beirut

2006-07-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

My brother is stuck in Beirut, Lebanon right now and he has no way out. The airport has been bombed, the roads out are being bombed and the Israeli navy has imposed a marine blockade. The country’s gasoline and food stores are decreasing because of the blockade plus running water and electricity have been reduced so they are only available for a fraction of the day. This is all bad enough without bombs dropping all around the city. Worrying about his well-being has monopolized my time. I can think of nothing else at home, at work, or hangin with friends. Getting through on the phone has been a nightmare. I had to try about thirty different times spread over 4 hours to finally get through to him. He’s now sitting trapped in our apartment with only the sound of Israeli bombs to keep him company.
I’m hoping the Canadian government can get him home soon, but right now it looks like it can take a while.
Hopefullay a ceasefire will come soon and stop this madness.

Hizballah winning, Israel losing right now.

2006-07-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

According to public statements the Israeli military is attempting to destroy Hizballah and eliminate the “infrastructure of terror.” But most of the targets struck by the Israeli air force (IAF) are not Hizballah infrastructure; the most common targets are roads, bridges, power plants and civilian fuel depots. Also now the IAF has moved on to private business and industry. The road south from Beirut is now dotted with blown out gas station and factories. In fact just yesterday a milk processing plant and a toilet paper factory were both completely destroyed (as reported by the BBC).

As for the people the cost to the civilian population is far greater. So far about 240 Lebanese civilians have died. Of those the estimate of how many Hizballah members have died is less than ten. In percentage terms that means that more than 95% of the Lebanese killed are innocent. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) is more efficient at killing civilians by accident than the terrorist group Hizballah is on purpose. So far Hizballah has killed 25 Israeli of which 12 were military personnel. This bombing campaign has a zero percent chance of destroying Hizballah. Its main effects is to sow sectarian division in Lebanon, weaken the democratic Lebanese government and increase support for Hizballah in its Shiite constituency.

So what does this all mean? Simple, Hizballah is winning and Israel is losing. Support for Hizballah is growing not shrinking. Hizballah ability to fire rockets has not been significantly affected. Every day of bombing makes the Lebanese army’s deployment on the southern border less likely as the continuing conflict weakens the central government. Now there are rumors that Israeli is going to launch a major incursion. The Israeli’s can see that their tactics are not achieving their stated aims. So now they must push the envelope and go in. This is exactly what Hizballah wants. A face to face fight with the enemy they were created to defeat. The current tactics of the IDF has prevented both sides from engaging in a direct confrontation. The Israeli government was trying to avoid such a direct confrontation in order to avoid Israeli military casualties.
Hizballah fighters have been waiting for this oppotunity for six years. They have lost brothers, fathers and comrades in previous fighting with the IDF throughout the 18-year occupation of south Lebanon. They want to bloody the nose of their sworn enemy and they are confident they have the ability to do so. They live for this. Apart from being well armed and well organized, Hizballah has a vast array of supremely experienced guerrilla fighters. The same fighters that slowly bled the Israeli army in the south of Lebanon until they finally withdrew in 2000. All these veterans are still armed and active in the south. They know how the IDF operates, their tactics have been refined over many years of guerilla warfare. Additionally Hizballah has been preparing for a ground war for six years. They have laid mines, built hidden positions and developed defense plans. Proof of this is abundant. I saw many Hizballah positions in the south when I visited south Lebanon a few years back. So far every time IDF ground forces have entered in the past 10 days it has suffered losses in terms of lives and material. (One skirmish yesterday resulted in the loss of a tank, the death of two soldiers and injuries to six other soldiers. All this without the destruction of the target and the killing of only two militants.)
The Israeli army on the other hand has lost many veterans of the dirty war. New conscripts have replaced them. Also back during that long 18-year guerilla war Israel armed and funded pro-Israeli Lebanese militia: The South Lebanese Army (SLA). The SLA provided tactical intelligence, Arabic speakers and local knowledge while also fighting Hizballah. The SLA no longer exists. Israel no longer has acquaintances let alone friends in Lebanon to aid it.
So, in sum you have an inexperienced but powerful first world infantry with little or no local knowledge running into a confident, motivated and entrenched guerilla movement. We have seen this movie before. We have two possible outcomes. One is that the IDF is drawn into a quagmire and takes losses. The other is that the IDF unleashes its full military force against southern Lebanon resulting in massive damage to infrastructure and even larger civilian casualties. Neither of these outcomes will destroy Hizballah. But neither of these outcomes are military victories for Hizballah. But both are political victories for the group. They will absorb the blow, declare victory, announce themselves are the main Arab resistance against Israel, rearm (through Syria and Iran) and live to fight another day. Any damage they can do to the Israeli military will be seen as a great victory; they struck a blow against the Zionist enemy. Any damage Israel does to Hizballah is expected.
That is the crux of the problem. For Hizballah, victory is confrontation and survival. For Israel victory is the destruction of Hizballah as a viable fighting force. As you can see on threshold is much lower for one than the other. I am not confident that Israel can clear that higher threshold. And a large incursion that fails to destroy Hizballah will lead to a situation where a political solution is going to be very difficult to find.

Editors LIVE

2006-07-10T19:35:00.000-07:00

This was recorded on my cell at their show. If you ever get the chance to go see them live do it. I went when a friend told me I HAD to go. I was not (and am still not) a huge fan of their record but their live show was great. Loud, fast-paced, impeccably played and most essentially - fun. They even got a Toronto crowd to get into it. In a town where people yawn at metal shows and get yelled at by Mod Def for being "too cool"; that's saying something.

Why I love Vice Mag

2006-07-08T19:06:00.000-07:00

I'm risking looking like a hipster wannabe but here goes...
Nothing on the web makes me laugh more consistently than the Vice's "Dos and Don'ts" section. That's why I link to Vice on this page (if I've figured out the html code).
Just check this pic and blurb.

"Oh Lord. When nerds discover their inner babe and unleash about a decade of unused libido on the world it makes every hot girl you know seem like a haggard old spinster whose pussy is sealed shut with venereal warts. This girl would be the Farberge Egg of blowjobs."

ATM TKO

2006-07-08T18:24:00.000-07:00

I was witness to this scene the other day. I don't really have a comment, just find it strangely poetic.

Why?

2006-07-08T18:02:00.000-07:00

I'm going to assume no one will ever read this thing...
Anyway why am I blogging? Because I consider writing to be a hobby of mine and the only writing I do is professional/academic (dry/boring) or in long, meandering emails to friends (which probably come off as pompous and annoying). Therefore why not have a place where I can write all I want without bothering anyone?

Any way as I write this I'm doing my best to disrupt a low-budget play being performed in the school parking lot next door. I believe it has something to do with the Fringe Festival that takes place in Toronto every year. It's set is a series of cars and basically involves a lot of yelling, cursing, car horns and bad acting. I've been trying to ignore it for a few evenings but today I'm fighting back using the tried and true method of the asshole: blatant passive-aggressiveness. I dragged a large speaker out my backdoor, pointed it directly at the lot and played my music loudly. I've been playing jazz; I don't want to be that much of an ass. At this instant Jean Jacques Perrey's E.V.A. (sampled by DJ Premier for Gangstarr's Code of the Streets - great song) seems to have drowned out the random "light's green asshole!" and "watch where you're fuckin' going!" emanating from the play.
So I'm happy... I figure that if I have to put up with a loud theatre troupe two doors down then the troupe might have to put up with some ambient neighborhood noise.
Wow, I'm a terrible writer.