Selling weapons and shooting ourselves in the foot

The Bush administration has announced its decision to increase the amount of military aid to Egypt and Israel and a package to sell $20 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, as well as Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE.  Each time I hear about another arms deal, Eisenhowser’s parting words about the military-industrial complex [...]

Iraq and Saudi Arabia

No one does a better job of mixing politics and soccer than Tony Karon.  There is an excellent piece on tomorrow’s Asian Cup final between Saudi Arabia and Iraq on his blog Rootless Cosmopolitan. 
Technorati Tags: soccer, asian-cup, saudi-arabia, iraq

On a Mission in East Beirut

About a week after I arrived in Beirut, I read about a new boutique in East Beirut on the Time Middle East blog.  As soon as I finished the article, I wanted to go find the shop.  Even though I didn’t expect to buy anything, the place sounded like somewhere I had to check out.  [...]

Looking at the South of Lebanon

My summer Arabic program had Timur Goksel speak to us today about the south of Lebanon.  Goksel had been affiliated with UNIFIL since 1979 until just a few years ago.  He is now on the faculty at AUB.  His talk mostly described his experiences in the south of Lebanon over the last twenty plus years, [...]

Weekend in Syria

I went to Syria this past weekend.  It was a quick trip, but I had a great time.  It was also nice to visit some of the places I saw in 2003, but never really expected to visit again.We drove to Damascus on Friday evening.  We had a couple hour delay at the border as [...]

Who should control Iraq’s oil?

The proposed Iraq oil law is currently being discussed by the Iraqi Parliament after a series of amendments by the Shura Council to the original draft of the law. The law, as it now stands, would greatly benefit, western oil companies who would gain access to Iraq’s oil fields, which could easily be the [...]

Blaming Iran when the problem is elsewhere

For the last few months, it has seemed that Bush has been favoring Condoleezza Rice’s diplomacy in dealing with Iran, while letting Cheney pound his fists in the background.  But according to a report in today’s Guardian, Cheney may be gaining the upper hand in the internal White House debate over Iran.   Apparently, Bush is [...]

Museums and Monks

Yesterday was another day trip.  We started off with a new typically Lebanese breakfast called Knafi.  While the bread and cheese were delicious, the sticky super sweet syrup was a bit much.  I ended up eating around the syrup.

We first headed to the National Museum of Beirut.  I wish I could have taken some pictures [...]

“At my wedding, the belly dancer…”

With a first line like that, you can finish the sentence with almost anything.  That was how my Arabic teacher, Maha, began to describe her wedding while we were at her massive apartment in Beirut on Friday evening. 
The four of us in the class had to prepare Lebanese dishes and describe the ingredients and [...]

Weekend Trip – Saturday and Sunday

I’ve had a lot of work this past week, so I haven’t had time to post more pics from my trip last weekend.  Here’s a quick recap of the rest of the weekend trip.
Saturday morning began with a hike in the mountains around the Cedars.  We actually skipped hiking up the mountain and took a [...]