My Laptop and I

have had a very close relationship since the beginning of the violence in Lebanon. And while I sit here and curse the American media firewall against all non-American news, I just want to show some undying love to the people who blog in English about the fighting for the non-Arabic speakers like me.

Sandmonkey
Charles Malik
and The Angry Arab News Service.

The latter which gave me my one and only moment of laughter during this horror:

Commenting on the Saudi propogranda war-
"AlArabiya TV rolls out advocates for Husni Mubarak and House of Saud and Hashemite Kingdom who state (without irony) that they are opposed to Hizbullah because the latter is not democratic."

I too wonder how they could say that with a straight face.

But what I want to know is why were the Sunni militia told to stand down? Whats the ultimate game here?

Charles Malik writes here that it is Syria backing Hezbollah with the plan of resuming control over Lebanese politics, hokay, and this seems to be a general consensus. As'ad Abukhalil (Angry Arab) wrote :

"You can't analyze the situation in the Middle East only in pure sectarian terms. For example: NBN TV (Nabih Birri TV) yesterday reported that `Adil `Abdul-Mahdi (a leader of the pro-US, pro-Iranian Badr sectarian militia which, among other crimes, largely orchestrated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Iraq) called Nabih Birri (the leader of the Amal sectarian militia which led the war on the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, when Palestinian brothers and sisters were forced to eat rats to survive). So the leader of a militia that is implementing the US plan in Iraq, called and congratulated (?) the leader of the militia that is fighting the US plan in Lebanon?"

Which would lead one to believe that this may have been US-backed, but how in the hell could someone be "pro-US" AND "pro-Iranian" at the same time?

I spoke Thursday evening with the clerk of the Lebanese-owned cornerstore by my house who talked about Hezbollah being backed by Syria, or more specifically the pro-Alouwite (or shall I say Alouwite majority?) government in Syria and Iran. Which was news to me as I had largely ignored Syria and did not know the president is an Alouwite (shi'a for those who don't know what Alouwite is.. crazy ass shi'a.)

Anyways, so one could with confidence assume that Hezbollah, Amal, and the SSNP were backed by Syria and Iran (which Iran is so much of a given that I almost forgot to mention it,) but why US-backed?

And why were the Sunnis told to back down?

Abukhalil quoted from the NY Times,

""On Friday, numerous men in the Sunni neighborhood of Tarik Jadideh complained that they had been given instructions not to fight, and now felt humiliated. “Saad Hariri let us down,” said one young man in Tarik Jadideh, where the streets were still littered with broken glass on Friday, and blackened building facades bore witness to fierce battles the night before with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. “We don’t want the Future Movement any more, or the whole Hariri family.” The man refused to give his name, because Mr. Hariri is such an important figure in the area. Another young man added: “What happened last night around midnight is that orders were given to desert our positions and go home.""

And Sandmonkey writes,

"I never thought that the Sunni neighborhoods would fall this quickly, nor that Hezbollah would control Beirut this easily. But here we are, and it all seems so…deliberate. Like M14 wanted this to happen. Like they wanted Hezbollah exposed. Their refusal to engage with the opposition fighters is making the latter look-and rightfully so- like thugs."

So who is playing who? Syria/Iran funds/arms the Shi'a militia with the idea of setting up a Shi'a-ruled puppet government (don't pay any attention to the sect behind the curtain...,) somehow with the backing of the US (never you mind the chest thumping the US has been doing about fighting Iran) and the Sunni officials tell the Sunni militia to back down and let Hezbollah make an ass of itself as the meanie on the playground.

Mmkay.

So my take out of all of this is that Hezbollah tried to take over Lebanon but, without an enemy to fight, found no ground... what is keeping them from completely over-running the government offices and setting up shop?

And the humiliation the Sunnis have endured, was it a master strike in this political game of chess?

Politics... oh politics.

I need to what?

So alhumdulillah I've gotten so much done this morning, I took a half day off from work and went to the chiropractor- my back was so tight it barely moved- and then I went to the DMV to renew my license and to hopefully get a new passport. InshAllah I'll be 25 next month (egads!) and my license expires, I wish I could keep my picture from when I turned 21 (Hottie McSteam) but alas I could not, nor would I want to since me now= hijab and me then= none.

I renewed a month early because I wanted to, at the same time, apply for a new passport because I look very little like I did when I was 18 and took the picture, and also again because of the hijab.

And my hijab is the reason I left the DMV without a new passport but with a brand new chip on my shoulder. Apparently if I would like to keep my headscarf on in the picture for my passport I must write a sweet little letter to the passport authorities on why I'm wearing it.

Excuse me?

If an Indian woman comes in with a bindi in the middle of her forehead and a massively huge gold nose ring, do you ask her to write a letter? If a punk rocker comes in with bright green hair and 15 facial piercings, is she asked to remove them? Or write a letter stating her anarchist belief system?

What the #&^$ does it have to do with you OR the passport authorities OR the US government whether I wear this headscarf for religious or purely fashionable reasons?

What do they expect me to write?

Dear US Government,

I wear this scarf around my head because I'm a terroristic extremist who will stop at nothing to see the pigs of the kuffar goverment fall to their knees.

Sincerely,
Me

PS- I know where Osama is.

No.

I am an American who was born in a country where state should be completely separated from religion, and where my choice to cover my head DEALS DIRECTLY WITH ME AND MY PERSONAL CHOICE.

If I want to shave my head and tattoo it completely, do I have to write a letter in with my passport stating why?

Do Menonite or Amish women have the same problem?

Or is this hand-written permission from me for them to delay my passport process and mark me, once and for all in their big book of no-no, a danger to my society?

F**K THAT.

I walked out with my old passport, which is current through 2011, and left that idea behind.

And I wonder why it is that America is looking less and less American each day.

Just Stating The Obvious: Why Bush Will Accomplish Nothing in Israel

So, the really funny thing to me is that even most news sources have pretty much written off Bush's visit to Israel. In fact except for reading the BBC and AlJazeera I probably would not have even known Bush was in Israel. Why? Because Britney losing her mind means a lot more to this country and this country's media, obviously, than a fake attempt to "bring peace to the Middle East." Although really, I don't think Bush or anyone involved actually believes that they are going to do anything of consequence on this trip let alone bring peace to the region. Especially when they are so keen and proactive on destabalizing it instead. And just to further unacknowledge the trip the media here is also now in the grip of the 2008 election primaries- they're so focused on who the next president might be that they've pretty much forgotten the old (who is still current and still f**ing our country up).

What they are trying to find an outlet in celebrity insanity for is to cover up whats really going on: the recession that this wonderful and imperishable country is currently in. We're losing jobs. Our currency has taken a complete nosedive to the point that Europeans have started to take vacations in the US because its so cheap. And there are a lot of people I know who are locked into houses they can't afford on a salary that hasn't risen in proportion to inflation and rising gas prices because the housing market is at an almost complete standstill.

The goverment won't admit that we're screwed because thats bad publicity. So far the Bush administration hasn't made any statements on Merrill Lynch's findings, Bush is focused on lessening the chance of the country falling into a recession rather than addressing the all too obvious proof that we're already there. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if Britney's convenient loss of rationality isn't gov't backed (in true wag the dog fashion) to distract the nation's focus.

But these are all issues here on the homefront. Nice cozy problems for Bush to ignore when he comes home from his tax-payer-sponsored vacation to the Holy Land. What I want to discuss is the curious and yet unsurprising disregard that the U.S. media is holding this trip to Israel in. I haven't heard a peep about it on the local news and a quick stop by CNN (no matter how painful it was to type that website in) turned up not a single mention of Bush in Israel (on the front page headlines at least). There was something about Bush calling Iran another bad name but nothing about the possibility of Bush solving all of the Middle East's problems.

One would think that the first presidential trip to this ravaged land in nine years would merit some kind of flurry of forecasted outcomes. But it seems that everyone has given it up for a lost cause. Why? Hm maybe it was because they all made a fuss about the Annapolis peace talks last month and the only response that got on Israel's part was to funnel more money into building more houses on an illegal settlement within the West Bank. Of course the end to the "peace talks" was blamed on the Palestinians and their inability to control Hamas. I only heard about the continuing construction of the illegal settlement by watching Link TV (check it out) finding a link about it was a bit more trouble.

So why will Bush accomplish nothing in Israel?

Because no one is willing to address the real problem.

Israel.

I told you it was obvious.

I'll let SubZero Blue wrap it up for me:

Of course in the end, the failure of any peace negotiations will be pinned on the Palestinians, as usual, and things will go on like they have been for years; until we approach the end of another US president's term and they suddenly feel like leaving on a bright note: that they at least gave Middle East peace a shot.

I don't know why we even bother let our hopes get lifted by these peace conferences, agreements, negotiations and crap anymore. It's obvious that until Israel is held accountable for its actions just like Palestinians are, there will be no peace!

Well said.