Set the Generals Free

I don’t have time  to return to my part-time blogging until May 18, but this is too important  not  to write about.  I just finished watching the Special Tribunal’s first sitting, as Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen read his judgment ordering the release of the four Lebanese generals who had been arrested in April 2005 on [...]

The sky is not falling….

Despite the sudden surge in armchair Pakistan  experts predicting the country’s  imminent collapse, Peter Bergen, rightly,  points out that it’s  not_true:
 In the past few weeks as the Pakistani Taliban have marched ever closer to the capital, Islamabad, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has sounded the alarm about the threat posed by the militants, who she said in [...]

So maybe they won’t go back…

Nir Rosen, one of the few Americans  anywhere (and that includes the US Army)  with the cultural/language skills to go into sensitive areas of Iraq and get  ”the skinny,” has some mildly  good_news in The National.   As readers probably are aware, I’ve been worried that  members of the Sunni Awakening (former insurgents who for reasons that still aren’t [...]

Fadl’s New Book: Blame the Brothers

Dr Fadl has a new_book called  “The Disasters the Muslim Brotherhood Has Caused Muslims: From Hama to Hamas.”  Maybe someone else has a better translation but this is the basic idea:  The Muslim Brotherhood’s “Adventurism” is to blame for  Arab “disasters.”  The esteemed professor Lynch  says  it looks suspiciously like Zawahiri’s 1980s book The  Bitter Harvest but I would [...]

The Five Rules of Understanding ‘Revisions’ – UPDATED

I’ve seen  heavy interest in Jihadist Revisions lately so I’ve developed five rules analysts should follow as they try gauge their significance.  Ignore them at your peril. 
1)  View Jihad as a means, not an ends.    
Far too often in the US, analysts treat Jihad as  an “ends” or a “state of being” but not merely a tool or [...]

Coming up on Al-Jazeera

 Dr Faysal is a Media_Shack_reader so I’ll try to be as delicate as possible:  his wildly popular Al-Jazeera talk-show (The Opposite Direction) seems to be avoiding the most controversial topics, perhaps because of diplomatic pressure.  Recent episodes have debated the implications of the financial crisis, Arab-Latin American relations, and whether the guy who threw the shoe at [...]

“The Last Great Frenchman”

I recommend this biography of Charles de Gaulle, arguably the greatest pure leader in contemporary Western history.

Scheuer vs Dershowtiz

For those who were wondering how that debate went, read about it here.

The US has a presence in Somalia

When people talk about solutions to the Piracy problem, one thing needs to be acknowledged: The US definitely has a presence in Somalia and the Horn of Africa.  Geography and logistics are not adequate reasons for why the US and the West can’t stop the pirates.  Does anyone think those Special Forces that took the Pirates [...]

Sending a message?

Special props to the US Special Forces who successfully resolved the Hostage situation in Somalia.   Politico raises  some interesting questions about the ending:
President Barack Obama twice issued a standing order that authorized U.S. Navy Seals to kill the pirates who held an American captain in a standoff on the high seas, according to White House aides [...]

“Teaching History in Lebanon”

Here’s a pretty good BBC  article on the difficulty of teaching history in Lebanon:
In Lebanon, children are not taught modern history because adults cannot agree on it.
Even the country’s ancient history is a thorny issue here.   There are dozens of the government-approved history textbooks that offer different takes on the past.
Depending on their religious affiliation, schools [...]

Something in the water?

Much to my disappointment high-profile Western rock acts rarely come to Cairo.   Read Inanities description of  last month’s Akon disaster to find out why.   However, there  does seem to be an unusual number of major musicians who spent time in the Egyptian capital growing up.   The first would be Miles Copeland, the drummer from  The_Police, whose dad [...]

Tuesday morning reading

1)  The 4/4 episode  of Al-Jazeera’s What’s Behind the News  discussed “The Future of the Relationship between the Iraqi Government and the Awakening Councils.”
2)  We’ve had  several discussions at MediaShack about Egyptians ability or inability to speak Classical Arabic.  Sheikh Al-Qaradawi feels the decline of competence in Classical Arabic is enough of a problem to dedicate  an [...]

Word on the street….

is that Kill Khalid:  The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas has must-read status.  See a review here.  The author conducted extensive on-the-ground interviews including 50 hours of face-time with Mishal  himself.  This is definitely a book I will be reading.

Who needs a safe haven?

In a post that can only be described as dope, Matt Yglesias  synthesizes a number of recent  articles and posts on the signifigance of safe havens in plotting terrorist attacks against the US:
And as per Spencer’s point, not only is a safe haven not necessary, it’s not sufficient either. A safe haven in the mountains in Central [...]

Al-Qaeda Infiltrating the Awakenings?

A good article in TIME on some developments in Iraq: 
Sheik Hamid al-Hayess is not optimistic. A burly man with a thick black mustache and closely knitted brows, he is one of the founding members of the AnbarAwakening. The grouping of Sunni tribal sheiks in the once al-Qaeda–infested western province turned against the insurgents and sided [...]