Ariel Sharon suffers major stroke. Executive power temporarily transferred to his deputy as doctors operate to drain blood from his brain. Say what you will about Sharon's tenure, his death now would send shockwaves through the Israeli political establishment and through the region.
posted by LondonYank on Jan 4, 2006 - 177 comments

Sri Lankan Maids Pay Dearly for Perilous Jobs Overseas The teacher held up an electric cake mixer and told the class of wide-eyed women before her to clean it properly. If it smells, "Mama," as the aspiring maids were instructed to call their female employers, "will be angry and she will hammer and beat you." Sriyantha Walpola for The New York Times More than a million Sri Lankans - roughly 1 in every 19 citizens - now work abroad, and nearly 600,000 are housemaids. Sriyantha Walpola for The New York Times Some maids being trained in Kegalla, Sri Lanka, will find brutal work conditions in the Middle East. "This is where you go wrong," the teacher continued. "That is how Mama beats you and burns you - when you do anything wrong."
posted by kmtharakan on May 8, 2005 - 27 comments

Great Salon interview with Marjane Satrapi (author of Persepolis). via
posted by Tlogmer on Apr 26, 2005 - 6 comments

Frontline: Rumsfeld's War, a PBS/Washington Post joint documentary that aired earlier this week is now online. It is the inside story of Rumsfeld's battle to assert civil control over the military.
posted by stbalbach on Oct 30, 2004 - 15 comments

Sleeping with the president is not a good idea. Bush had no answers to big questions, such as 'what happens on the morning after.' The Daily Telegraph reports that documents show Prime Minister Tony Blair signed up to the U.S. policy of regime change in March 2002, a year before the conflict started... after he was warned that postwar stability would be difficult and the U.S. had few answers. Oh, no problem. This week, Bush said he is 'pleased with the progress' in Iraq.'
posted by fleener on Sep 19, 2004 - 14 comments

The Moral Case Against the Iraq War
Also on the moral tip, Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings
internal January 25, 2002, memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales (PDF)
posted by y2karl on May 18, 2004 - 36 comments

Doomed to failure in the Middle East. 52 former senior British diplomats, probably the most experienced people on Middle East issues in Britain, sent a letter to Tony Blair, telling him he is very close to fucking up big time. Tony is trying to pass this as just «right of opinion». What next? Are we going to see foreign office people demonstrating outside Downing street?
posted by acrobat on Apr 27, 2004 - 64 comments

The Push For War (by Anatol Lieven). "The most surprising thing about the Bush Administration's plan to invade Iraq is not that it is destructive of international order; or wicked, when we consider the role the US (and Britain) have played, and continue to play, in the Middle East; or opposed by the great majority of the international community; or seemingly contrary to some of the basic needs of the war against terrorism. It is all of these things, but they are of no great concern to the hardline nationalists in the Administration....The most surprising thing about the push for war is that it is so profoundly reckless....What we see now is the tragedy of a great country, with noble impulses, successful institutions, magnificent historical achievements and immense energies, which has become a menace to itself and to mankind."

Excecutive summary: Lord Acton foretold all fruit of "military superiority".
posted by fold_and_mutilate on Oct 4, 2002 - 44 comments

Pariah dogs of the Middle East No, not these two jokers, but the real thing: Canaan dogs. Like the more refined Saluki, Sloughi, Azawakh, Afghan Hound and "barkless" Basenji (among many others), Canaan dogs have been known for thousands of years. They guard herds for modern Bedouins like they did for ancient Israelites. During the 1930s, when traditional "war dogs" were having trouble adapting to Palestine, Zionists carefully redomesticated the semi-wild animals, turning them into seeing eye dogs and guards for isolated settlements. Canaan dogs became one of the first breeds trained to detect mines effectively, although their use for bomb-sniffing remains a touchy subject [LAT, reg'n]. You also might enjoy pondering the provocative question raised by this detailed essay: Why have all three major monotheistic religions considered dogs "a threat to the authority of the clergy"?
posted by mediareport on Jul 15, 2002 - 8 comments

Bush's speech today revealed the basis of what the current administration believes is the roadmap to peace in the Mideast. After looking at the major points of the plan, I feel it's about as good of a deal as the Palestinians are ever going to get and pretty much the only way out for the Israeli's also. What do you think?
posted by RevGreg on Jun 24, 2002 - 58 comments

Voices, Explosions, Silence: The Middle East Turmoil On (And Off) The Air. "We apologize for the discontinuation of the transmission of the Voice of Love and Peace. The offices, studios and transmission equipment were destroyed totally by Israeli forces in their last invasion of Ramallah." (from Radio Nederlands, more...)
posted by tpoh.org on May 20, 2002 - 6 comments

*tiptoe in*
*carefully and gingerly point out Douglas Rushkoff's Mideast blog entries as objective, detached viewpoint on the whole ugly mess*
*tiptoe out, thanking cris for the link, and apologizing for the Mideast link, but hey, it's good*
posted by solistrato on Apr 19, 2002 - 7 comments

An Israeli-Palestinian Peace Coalition. "For the founders of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Coalition, there is a possible way out of the present murderous impasse in the region: a return to the agreement drawn up at Taba in January 2001. Two of those who drew it up, one Israeli and one Palestinian, propose an alternative way forward."
posted by talos on Apr 16, 2002 - 1 comment

The Million Prayer March was set up to collect one million prayers for peace in the Middle East. James Twyman, author and Peace Troubadour, set up this website after Arafat said that peace will not come to Middle East without a million strong prayers. Once the site has collected one million prayers, Twyman will travel to Israel with all the prayers to present them to Arafat and Barak. I was prayer no 78536.
posted by tamim on Nov 29, 2000 - 9 comments