A source on politics, war, the Middle East, Arabic poetry, and art.
Friday, October 05, 2007
"THE PRESIDENT: King Abdullah is a personal friend of mine, and I respect him." Let me say that right-wing Lebanese, Elie Naquzi, is now always chosen for interviews with US officials and with Iraqi puppet leaders (he was (un?)officially in charge with `Allawi's campaign last time around). I noticed several things. That the questions posed in Arabic on the screen (in what was aired in the interview) were taped outside of the interviews: and some of the words did not match. Like the question on Palestine referred to as "central" but did not appear in the question that he posed in English (and printed in the White House transcript). Also, the entire question and answer dealing with Saudi Arabia was entirely censored from the interview. Also, I have said it before: there is still no evidence that this is a man who has been dealing with foreign policy for seven long years. He said that Rafiq Hariri was killed because he supported democracy? How is that? In fact, Hariri was more anti-democratic than the Syrian regime itself. When Rafiq Hariri was first installed as prime minister by the Syrian intelligence service in Lebanon, he officially requested that he be given extraordinary powers to rule by decree. Hafidh Al-Asad (the oppressive leader himself) thought that it was going too far.