The US is outraged that Russia would use its economic muscle to influence other nations. I mean, the US would never ever do that

"Yanukovych defended his choice by saying that Russian trade sanctions, some already imposed and others threatened, were too painful to endure. Russia also reportedly offered to lower gas prices that were keeping Ukraine deeply indebted to Moscow and to provide billions of dollars in loans if Ukraine would abandon the European deal."

If the person is `Alawi, you have to say he/she belongs to Bashshar Al-Asad's sect--ALWAYS

"The Bab al-Tabbaneh district is largely Sunni Muslim, as are most of the rebels fighting in Syria. Residents of Jabal Moh­sen, a neighborhood perched on a hill, are mostly of Assad’s Alawite sect."  OK, you want to remind readers that Bashshar is `Alawite is fine, but why not refer to Sunnis thus: "are mostly of Usamah Bin Laden's sect"?

The Washington Post on Al-Haram Ash-Sharif

This long article in the Washington Post basically wants to tell you that Jewish religious freedoms in Israel are fundamentally curtailed by Muslims there and that the Muslims in the holy land have too many religious freedoms.  Basically.

Holy Sanctuary in the Washington Post

You have to see this graph in the Post. It is entirely based on mythical perceptions of how the temple was and how it was evolved.  There is absolutely no evidence of this specific rendering shown in the graph. It is entirely a Zionist artistic imagination.

Gen. Dr. Engineer Salim Idriss is coy

"The CIA is said to be training about 200 fighters for Idriss each month, though the commander wouldn’t acknowledge this support."

bribe diplomacy

"Prince Bandar bin Sultan met with the Russian president in Moscow in July 2013. Back then The Times claimed that the Saudi side had offered Moscow 15 billion U.S. dollars and no rivalry in natural gas supplies to Europe in exchange for Russia's refusal to support Syrian President Bashar Assad."

the goodwill of colonial powers

France is fed up.  "France will tell African leaders at a Paris summit on Friday it will no longer play policeman on the continent, even as it prepares to act in a new conflict in Central African Republic after its Mali intervention this year."

Yes, they are qualified to liberate Muslim women, damn it

""Female soldiers at Fort Hood testified Monday that they were recruited for a prostitution ring set up by a sergeant involved in the sexual assault and harassment program at the Central Texas post.""

Vatican is not responsible for its clergy when they rape children

""The Vatican refused to provide a United Nations rights panel with information on the Church's internal investigations into the sexual abuse of children by clergy, saying on Tuesday that its policy was to keep such cases confidential." "But it indicated the Vatican could not be held responsible for the behavior of institutions or individual Catholics around the world and said local bishops had the responsibility of ensuring children were protected."" (thanks Amir)

Biden in China

From Adam:  "I was curious how Obama and Biden would feel if the word "Biden" were exchanged with the name of a foreign political leader, and "Chinese" was replaced with "American" in this line:

"U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is opening a visit to China by urging Chinese students to challenge their government, teachers and religious leaders."
I doubt they'd approve. "  Yes, of course. Because students in the US challenge their teachers and religious leaders on regular bases.  

Did you know that the Syrian secular "revolution" has a proselytizing office? I am so glad that my hands have never been dirtied with his "revolution"

"In another move that underscore the fears of beleaguered minorities, al-Qaida-linked rebels who rule the northeast town of Raqqa converted a church into a center for proselytizing their extreme interpretation of Islam, and another into an administrative office, said the Observatory’s Abdurrahman.
Rebels of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant had previously set fires in the two churches and knocked the crosses off them, replacing them with the group’s black Islamic banner.
Abdurrahman sent photographs of the Church of Armenian Martyrs, with a black ISIL flag flying from where the cross once stood.
Below, a black banner read, “The proselytizing office, region of Raqqa.”" (thanks anonymous)

Who says that Ms. Barnard in not learning on the job?

"Al Manar, a Hezbollah television channel".  This is a great sign of progress in Ms. Barnard's knowledge of the Middle East.  Only a few weeks ago she thought that Al-Manar was a male broadcaster who had ties with Hizbullah. Kid you not.

This is the expert on Hizbullah that Anne Barnard from Lebanon relied on

"Matthew Levitt, the author of “Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God,” said that in the late 1990s Mr. Laqees had been a “very, very senior” figure".  Now if there is an expert with a precise knowledge of Hizbullah it is this guy.  I mean, look at the precision in which he located Hassan Laqqis.  As you all know, within Hizbullah there are those ranks; very senior figure, and then there is very very senior figure, and then there is very very very senior figure, and then there is very very very very very senior figure.  And This Levitt guy can specifically and precisely tell you what status each Hizbullah commander occupies.  It takes years and efforts (and a lot of propaganda work mixed with ignorance) to attain the knowledge level of this guy, who spots Hizbullah members trying to sneak from the Mexican border almost on an hourly bases.  According to this guy, Hizbullah network in Latin American is much larger than Hizbullah's network inside Lebanon.  

Anne Barnard's effort to absolve Israel of the assassination

"Israeli officials denied involvement, and Israeli analysts said they believed that Mr. Laqees was targeted by radical Sunnis in Lebanon as part of sectarian tensions over Syria. ".  Who are those Lebanese analysts, Ms. Barnard? Is it Abe Foxman? Or some other Zionists at WINEP who you categorized as "Lebanese analysts"? Or do they happen to be conveniently placed in the Saudi intelligence camp in Lebanon?

Anne Barnard in her most honest role ever: a propagandist for Israel

In this entire article, especially in the first version of it, she only cited "Israeli sources" and a Hizbullah "expert" from the WINEP shop but only to deny that Israel was behind it.  In the later edition, she added a Lebanese Shi`ite economist (and she bizarrely called him a Hizbullah expert although he never once wrote a word about Hizbullah):  Look at the effort to absolve Israel of responsibility:  "Hezbollah did not say how Mr. Laqees had been killed but accused “the Israeli enemy” of targeting him and said Israel would have to “bear all the responsibility and ramifications of this vile crime.”
Yet at the same time, memorial images circulating on social media framed his death as part of the conflict in Syria, showing him against a backdrop of the Sayida Zeinab shrine near Damascus, Syria, a site particularly revered by Shiites that Hezbollah has helped to defend. " Now my favorite part is "yet at the same time".  Why would she think that the posting of his pictures with the backdrop of Sayyidah Zaynab means that Israel is not responsible? How did you go from A to B except on an express train of Israeli propaganda?

Internet problems

Internet problems. 

Israel's foreign minister

Israel's foreign minister has been in the job for days now, literally, and the New York Times managed to write a long glowing profile saying that he is a changed man already.  

A new Libyan militia

"Deepening divisions among Libya’s myriad armed groups are increasingly stirring conflict in the North African state. Now the United States and its allies are prepared to add a new force to the toxic mix.

U.S. officials say the hope is that theGeneral Purpose Force — a trained Libyan military organization — will start to fill the country’s festering security vacuum, initially by protecting vital government installations and the individuals struggling to make this country run. The Obama administration hopes the force eventually will form the core of a new national army."

Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright is Thomas Friedman's ideal Secretary of State: like him, she is shallow and uses the language of school children and has a very limited vocabulary which appeals to the general public.

Are you kidding? The US would never ever use economic pressures

"Afghan military and police commanders are accusing the U.S.-led coalition of withholding fuel and other support in an attempt to pressure President Hamid Karzai into signing a security agreement with the United States."

Israel explains why it kills Palestinians

"During the same period, 24 Palestinians have died at the hands of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In each Palestinian death, Israeli officials say, security forces were responding to a potential threat."

Are Syrians invited to this US Institute of Peace's Shindig?

"PeaceGame Participants include: Peter Ackerman, Henri Barkey, Esther Brimmer, Daniel Brumberg, Ambassador Maura Connelly, Ambassador  Paula Dobriansky, Andrew Exum, Nelson Ford, Ambassador Edward "Skip" Gnehm, Karen House, Lise Howard, Ambassador James Jeffrey, Ambassador Ted Kattouf, Mark Katz, Kemal Kirisci, Steven Koltai, Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, George Lopez, Kristin Lord, Colum Lynch, Firas Maksad, Robert Malley, Sharon Morris, Robert Mosbacher, Jr., Ambassador George Moose, Mouaz Moustafa, Manal Omar, Carina Perelli, Kenneth Pollack, Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, David Rothkopf, Paul Saunders, Mark Schneider, Jeremy Shapiro, Randa Slim, Julianne Smith, Andrew Tabler, Ambassador William B. Taylor, James Traub, Robin Wright, Casimir Yost, Radwan Ziadeh."

Sen. Feinstein explains Islam

"There is a real displaced aggression in this very fundamentalist jihadist Islamic community, and that is that the West is responsible for everything that goes wrong and that the only thing that's going to solve this is Islamic shariah law." (thanks Michele)

Returning Iranian loot?

"Officials believe it was looted from an Iranian cave and imported illegally. It was seized by U.S. customs in 2003 and stored ever since in a shroud of cotton in a federal warehouse in Queens. " (thanks Basim)

He was innocently spying

""Gross, a 64-year-old Maryland native, was detained while distributing communications equipment to Jewish groups in Cuba under a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID]. He was convicted in 2011 of crimes against the Cuban state and sentenced to 15 years." "At the time of his arrest, Gross was on his fifth trip to Cuba, where he had been subcontracted to secretly distribute Internet equipment to the island's small Jewish community under a U.S. democracy-¬building program."" (thanks Amir)

church scandals in Lebanon: notice the severe punishment

"The Catholic Church can breathe a sigh of relief this time: for once, it isn’t them.


Just two months after the Maronite priest Father Mansour Labaki was found guilty by the Vatican of sexually assaulting three minors (and given the typically severe punishment of “prayer and penitence”), the head of a Greek Orthodox monastery in Koura, Archimandrite Panteleimon Farah, has been discharged by Mount Lebanon Bishop George Khodr and sentenced to isolation inside his monastery for committing “practices contrary to Christian life and the monastic calling” – later revealed to be the molestation of youths." (thanks Laure)

So were the nuns kidnapped in Ma`lula?

From Ali, Angry Arab's chief correspondent in Turkey:  "For Guardian, Syrian 'opposition fighters' 'seize' nuns... So what are the meanings of kidnapping or abducting according to their unique dictionary?
PS: Even kids perfectly know that Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra attacked the Christian town of Maloula..."

Joseph Massad on suffering

Comrade Joseph:  "Thus, it seems to me that if one cannot criticise Israel's use of the holocaust without condemning anti-Semitism at the same time, lest the anti-Semites use one's criticisms to justify their rhetorical or physical attacks on Jews, it stands to reason that given the history of the use of the holocaust to justify Israeli and Zionist crimes, one should not be able to speak about the holocaust without condemning Israeli and Zionist crimes either, lest one's invocation of the holocaust be used by Zionists to justify their on-going crimes against the Palestinians. "

Ahmad Fu'ad Najm: his place

It is a sign of the quality of Western media coverage of the Middle East that they don't appreciate the popular significance among the youth (and among the old) of the leftist poet, Ahmad Fu'ad Najm. His name and poetry are everywhere this morning on Facebook and Twitter.

The Middle Eastern Cuisine application: a rip-off

Somebody please tell Sima Osman Yassine and Sadouf Kamal that there IPad application, Middle Eastern Cuisine is a ripoff.  After you buy "the full version", you are prompted to buy the full version every you open the application.  So you buy it, and the application does not remember that you did.  

Battle fronts in Tripoli

Look how Jabal Muhsin (the predominantly `Alawite area--or in the language of Western media: the area where people share "the religion of Bashshar Al-Asad") is surrounded from all sides. (As-Safir)

Syrian rebels did not kidnap nuns: they merely "moved" them

From Hikmat:  "I believe that you'd appreciate NBC news description of the kidnapping of the nuns in maaloula as "moving".  Incidentally, Lebanese racist, right-wing newspaper, An-Nahar, used the same word in Arabic for the kidnapping.  

Ahmad Fu'ad Najm dead

Egyptian folk poet, Ahmad Fu`ad Najm is dead.  His popularity among the Arab youth for over four decades has been significant.  

Potatoes in the Middle East

If there is no such course being taught anywhere in the world, I am willing to teach a course on Potatoes in the Middle East. I can do it, if I put my mind to it. Like the first month we can slice potatoes. The second month, we can just stare at potatoes in class. The third month we can just eat potatoes. And the fourth month would be about Potatoes and terrorism. And the last month would deal with the religious impulses of potatoes. I just need to find the right textbooks, though. Let me work on it.

Loveday Morris and propaganda, again

You have to read this: notice that she makes no mention that `Irsal is now a haven for the Bin Ladenites of the Syrian "revolution".

"men of the people" in the American political elite

Read this first before you read this passage:  "But Campbell said the U.S. delegation later learned that their Chinese hosts were concerned that “the contrast between the extravagant trappings of Chinese leadership style and Biden’s man-of-the-people approach was unfavorable.”"

How the Pentagon judges Afghan public opinion

" the Pentagon said in response to questions that the endorsement of a follow-on force by a gathering of tribal elders that Karzai convened in late November “indicates overwhelming support from the people of Afghanistan to continue the partnership that has brought us this far.” "  Yes, there is no measure of Afghan public opinion than the collection of US occupation cronies appointed to the council by the chief puppet of occupation himself.  If the Afghan public is overwhelming in favor of occupation, why are US troops needed in the country in the first place?

national interests, stupid

"Bass’s charges rest on a singular focus on human rights at the expense of U.S. national interests"

Americans and rich people

"Forty-three percent of respondents said rich people are more likely than the average American to be intelligent, and 42 percent believed that the rich worked harder than everyone else. The good rich! But 55 percent said wealthy people were more likely to be greedy, and 34 percent thought they were less likely to be honest. The bad rich."

less famous sayings by Alexis de Tocqueville: American love of money

"“I do not mean that there is any lack of wealthy individuals in the United States. I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold.”"

(Medicine for the Poor and Destitute)

Medicine for the poor and destitute.

Arab/Islamic science in Europe

"With us ther was a Doctoour of Phisyk
In al this world ne was ther non hym lyk
To speke of phisik and surgerye,...
Wel knew he olde Esculapius,
And Deyscorides, and eek Rufus,
Old Ypocras, Haly, and Galyen,
Serapion, Razis, and Avycen"

Chaucer, Canterbury Tales.

Threats of genocide against `Alawites in Tripoli don't bother Western human rights organizations

"The so-called anti-Assad ‘axis leaders’ in the Sunni-majority Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood issued a statement threatening to target the Alawi-majority Jabal Mohsen residents until the head of the pro-Assad Arab Democratic Party, Ali Eid, was handed over to authorities. “All Jabal Mohsen residents are a target until the criminals from the Eid family involved in Tripoli bombings are handed in to authorities,” the statement said." (thanks Basim)

forgotten Gaza

""The UN issued a report last week saying Gaza is becoming uninhabitable and the humanitarian conditions are deteriorating – sadly that is true. We wake up to terrifying sonic booms and try to sleep while the Israeli navy is shelling. Simple things like daily running water and a full day of electricity have now become luxuries." "Our life lines – the tunnels from Egypt – have been severed. Without them we don't have a consistent flow of food, medicine and fuel.""

Syrian regime media fabrications

I can't keep up with the fabrications of the two warring sides of the Syrian conflict. This alleged letter by King Faysal is fabricated by Syrian regime media.