AFTER GADDAFI

A Libyan child with the rebel flag. (AP)

At this moment, I am glued to my laptop and television watching events unfold in the Libyan capital as Gaddafi's tyranny comes to an end.  As people rightfully celebrate, I can't help but think of what the next 40 years hold for the Libyan people.  I will write more about this very quickly, but for now, I wanted to repost A Note to the Arab People from a few months back, which is about building nations after the fall of dictators. 

I sincerely hope the people of Libya will show the world how to build a nation on a rock solid foundation. 


Here the post:

A Note to the Arab People

As an immigrant to the United States from your part of the world, I am so thrilled that your sacrifices, courage and persistence are bearing fruit. I am following your efforts and cheering you on every day. I should also tell you that every American I know is cheering you on.

We are filled joy and hope for your future, and we are determined to help you and stand with you. You see our country was born out of a revolution too. The early Americans fought, organized and struggled against tyranny. They started with nothing and from nothing. They, like you, took huge risks and suffered countless casualties to reach that day of unlikely victory. But, while our independence from Great Britain was a major turning point in our history, it was only the beginning of a lot of work that shaped this country.

What followed independence was simply awesome! The land’s best minds came together to create the pillars upon which this great nation stands today. It was a messy process with a number of false starts and much disagreement and debate, but what resulted has sustained this great country for more than 223 years. Those pillars didn’t eliminate all injustice and free the enslaved; they didn’t immediately produce peace and prosperity; and they sure didn’t solve every social ill. But they have guided us toward a more perfect nation with every passing year. They are solid, strong and unshakable pillars that have withstood a bloody civil war, much strife, economic devastation, and many social and political movements of both the violent and nonviolent kind.

So, as you risk everything and turn your world upside down in the quest for freedom and democracy, I hope you deliberately choose strong foundations that will last for hundreds of years as ours have. Our founding fathers were far from perfect, but they were intent on creating a country in which its people are its epicenter. I pray that this is only the beginning of your progress and that you, the people, are the epicenter of your new systems of government.

I heard the criticisms when I went back home some years ago, especially this one: “The U.S. is only 200+ years old but we have thousands of years of history and culture. What can you possibly teach us?” I also heard much about U.S. foreign policy not being true to the ideals we hold sacred inside our country and that the U.S. exploits the rest of the world for its own gain. There's more than one kernel of truth in those and many other criticisms, and our nation is not yet perfect. But our founding fathers were principled and honorable as you are, and the results of their work speak for themselves. So for the sake of your nations' next 200 years, I hope you take a look at what has worked here, liberally copy from our founding principles and consider embracing any or all of our ideals. I'm fairly confident today's Americans won't mind one bit.

Lastly, in the coming months and years, please don’t forget that you are our brothers and sisters in struggle—no matter your religion, skin color or political convictions. We share your hopes and dreams and we stand with you with open hearts and minds.

 Godspeed!

 A Lebanese-American

p.s.: The documents outlining the pillars of our great democracy make for inspiring reading material. The links are below, but I have to warn you that you may very well get emotional reading. I know I do.

1. The Declaration of Independence--The document that started it all.
2. The Constitution--Solid but flexible enough to remain at the core of our nation.
3. The Bill of Rights--This is central to many of the freedoms we enjoy. It is truly an amazing document.

Images of all three original documents are available in case you want a little extra magic and inspiraton. 

Tom Friedman on Hama

For those following the appalling developments in Syria, I wanted to share a recent column by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman whose work I've referenced in two previous posts, the Syrians' Turn and Still Angry.  Of all people who write about the Middle East, he gets it best.  Here's his column from August 2.

 

The New Hama Rules

August 2, 2011

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

What a difference three decades make. In April 1982, I was assigned to be the Beirut correspondent for The Times. Before I arrived, word had filtered back to Lebanon about an uprising in February in the Syrian town of Hama — famed for its water wheels on the Orontes River. Rumor had it that then President Hafez al-Assad had put down a Sunni Muslim rebellion in Hama by shelling the neighborhoods where the revolt was centered, then dynamiting buildings, some with residents still inside, and then steamrolling them flat, like a parking lot. It was hard to believe and even harder to check. No one had cellphones back then, and foreign media were not allowed access.

That May I got a visa to Syria, just as Hama had been reopened. It was said that the Syrian regime was “encouraging” Syrians to drive through the town, see the crushed neighborhoods and contemplate the silence. So I just hired a cab in Damascus and went. It was, and remains, one of the most chilling things I’ve ever seen: Whole neighborhoods, the size of four football fields, looked as though a tornado had swept back and forth over them for a week — but this was not the work of Mother Nature.

This was an act of unprecedented brutality, a settling of scores between Assad’s minority Alawite regime and Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority that had dared to challenge him. If you kicked the ground in some areas that had been flattened, a tattered book, a shred of clothing, the tip of a steel reinforcing rod were easily exposed. It was a killing field. According to Amnesty International, up to 20,000 people were buried there. I contemplated the silence and gave it a name: “Hama Rules.”

Hama Rules were the prevailing leadership rules in the Arab world. They said: Rule by fear — strike fear in the heart of your people by letting them know that you play by no rules at all, so they won’t ever, ever, ever think about rebelling against you.

It worked for a long time in Syria, Iraq, Tunisia, etc., until it didn’t. Today, Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, Hafez’s son, is now repeating his father’s mass murdering tactics to quash the new Syrian uprising, again centered in Hama. But, this time, the Syrian people are answering with their own Hama Rules, which are quite remarkable. They say: “We know that every time we walk out the door to protest, you will gun us down, without mercy. But we are not afraid anymore, and we will not be powerless anymore. Now, you leaders will be afraid of us. Those are our Hama Rules.”

This is the struggle today across the Arab world — the new Hama Rules versus the old Hama Rules — “I will make you afraid” versus “We are not afraid anymore.”

Good for the people. It is hard to exaggerate how much these Arab regimes wasted the lives of an entire Arab generation, with their foolish wars with Israel and each other and their fraudulent ideologies that masked their naked power grabs and predatory behavior. Nothing good was possible with these leaders. The big question today, though, is this: Is progress possible without them?

That is, once these regimes are shucked off, can the different Arab communities come together as citizens and write social contracts for how to live together without iron-fisted dictators — can they write a positive set of Hama Rules based not on anyone fearing anyone else, but rather on mutual respect, protection of minority and women’s rights and consensual government?

It is not easy. These dictators built no civil society, no institutions and no democratic experience for their people to work with. Iraq demonstrates that it is theoretically possible to go from an old Hama Rules tyranny to consensual politics — but it required $1 trillion, thousands of casualties, a herculean mediation effort by the U.S. and courageous Iraqi political will to live together — and even now the final outcome is uncertain. Iraqis know how vital we were in this transition, which is why many don’t want us to leave.
Now Yemen, Libya, Syria, Egypt and Tunisia are all going to attempt similar transitions — at once — but without a neutral arbiter to referee. It is unprecedented in this region, and we can already see just how hard this will be. I still believe that the democratic impulse by all these Arab peoples to throw off their dictators is heroic and hugely positive. They will oust all of them in the end. But the new dawn will take time to appear.

I think the former foreign minister of Jordan, Marwan Muasher, has the right attitude. “One cannot expect this to be a linear process or to be done overnight,” he said to me. “There were no real political parties, no civil society institutions ready to take over in any of these countries. I do not like to call this the ‘Arab Spring.’ I prefer to call it the ‘Arab Awakening,’ and it is going to play out over the next 10 to 15 years before it settles down. We are going to see all four seasons multiple times. These people are experiencing democracy for the first time. They are going to make mistakes on the political and economic fronts. But I remain optimistic in the long run, because people have stopped feeling powerless.”

STILL ANGRY

Anders Behring Breivik

In the last few days, I've accumulated some rage and writing this post may be my only outlet.  

Here's one of the reasons:

My 9-year-old son walked into the dining room the other day waving a newspaper and screaming.  Alarmed, I asked what the matter was.  He was almost breathless. For the first time, he had just seen the headline about the Norway tragedy.  "Mom, can you believe this? This guy actually shot at kids," he said in a panic. "Yes, he did," I replied. "So, mom, kids my age had to run while this guy was shooting at them and some even drowned trying to escape," he said.  You see he follows the news fairly closely for his age, but I thought this particular event was so tragic that my husband and I kept it from him and his sister.  We thought explaining why and how such a tragedy could be possible can wait.  Now the secret is out and he's so angry.

As I see it, anger is the proper reaction to this horrible massacre, so let's get some things straight:

1. Killing children is not a form of protest, no matter the cause. It's criminal--pure and simple.
2. Not all Muslims are extremists by any stretch of the imagination, just like not all Jews are oppressors of Palestinians and not all Christians are crusaders.
3. No one religious group holds the moral high ground. We're all guilty of something some time in our history.
4. Human rights are universal. They're not reserved for any one ethnic or religious group.
5. Hate and brutality do not advance a just cause. They're cowardly, pathetic and always destructive.

The second reason is a frequent theme on this blog:  The Syrian government's brutality and continued criminal existence.



Hafez Al Assad

Over the last several days, the regime has stepped up its crackdown on innocent civilians, especially in the city of Hama, the site of the infamous 1982 massacre.  In that first Hama massacre, rivers turned red from the blood of thousands killed by the regime, and that's not an exaggeration.  The elder Assad used tanks, artillery and air bombardment to level Hama after the Muslim Brotherhood revolted in the early 1980s.  (See Thomas Friedman’s 2005 reflection in the New York Times HERE.)  Now, the world is witnessing a second Hama massacre.  (See this NEWS report from Reuters and keep in mind events continue to unfold.)
 


Bashar Al Assad

I guess nearly 30 years later, some things haven’t changed.  The people of Hama are still oppressed, brave and demanding basic rights, and the young Assad is proving to be no less brutal than his father.  I fear the news reports aren’t telling the whole story as the number of victims climbs by the hour, but thanks to social media and reports by brave Syrians, the world is watching this time.  The only question is whether the outcome will be any different.

In case you’re wondering, writing this post didn’t help.  I’m still angry at hateful, brutal criminals, and I’m getting angrier at the world for continuing to watch them.

More on Congressman Dennis Kucinich

I want to share two articles from The Plain Dealer, Cleveland's daily paper, about my Congressman, Dennis Kucinich. I won't say much more than I said in my last post about his recent inept attempt at diplomacy in Syria. Please read these and make up your own mind about his credibility. Thanks to Plain Dealer politics writer Mark Naymik for sharing these.

(Click on the headlines to go to Cleveland.com, The Plain Dealer's online home.)

Kucinich sees UFO, new book claims

Published:  Monday, October 22, 2007

By Mark Naymik, The Plain Dealer

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has seen a UFO, writes Shirley MacLaine in her new book, "Sage-Ing While Age-Ing."

Kucinich, she writes on page143-144 of the book, "had a close sighting over my home in Graham, Washington, when I lived there. Dennis found his encounter extremely moving. The smell of roses drew him out to my balcony where, when he looked up, he saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent, and observing him. It hovered, soundless, for ten minutes or so, and sped away with a speed he couldn't comprehend. He said he felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind."

Representatives of Kucinich's presidential campaign and congressional office have not responded to calls and e-mail asking whether the Cleveland Democratic congressman in fact saw a UFO or if there is another explanation for MacLaine's recollection.

MacLaine is a well-known believer of UFOs and reincarnation. And she's been close to Kucinich for decades. MacLaine is the godmother of Kucinich's daughter and attended Kucinich's 2005 Cleveland wedding to third wife, Elizabeth, who's often campaigning by his side.

MacLaine also recommended in the 1980s that Kucinich visit New Mexico spiritual adviser Chris Griscom, whom MacLaine featured in her then-best-selling book, "Dancing in the Light," describing how Griscom helped her communicate with trees. (Kucinich has insisted that Griscom was not his spiritual adviser but a "teacher and a very good friend.")

MacLaine, who shares Kucinich's opposition to using weapons in space, doesn't shed any more light in her book on Kucinich's close encounter, including when it happened. But to read more about MacLaine's beliefs, pick up a copy of the book. It goes on sale next month -- on Election Day.

© 2011 cleveland.com. All rights reserved.

Many Kucinich backers are out there – way out

Published:  Monday, March 12, 2003

By Mark Naymik, The Plain Dealer

Some of Dennis Kucinich's politics are a long way from polka, bowling and kielbasa. Kucinich, now in his fourth term in the U.S. House, has added a constituency - one likely to appreciate crystals and incense more than the ethnic icons he frequently cites to highlight the character of his hometown.

Known for crusades to keep open local steel mills and hospitals and to improve safety near railroad crossings, Kucinich remains rooted in a pro-labor populist social agenda.

But he also can claim the support of a network of peace activists and New Age gurus, from those who practice meditation to those who embrace alternative religions. They are attracted to his message of spirituality and peace. He is relying on this cultivated network - even at risk of being tagged the "Moonbeam Congressman" - to help him win the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

Kucinich, a strict vegetarian whose friends include a New Mexico spiritual adviser, has won converts specifically with his legislation to ban the use of weapons in space and to create a U.S. Department of Peace.

The legislation itself has garnered little support from his congressional colleagues, but it has become Kucinich's calling card, remaining at the center of his anti-war campaign and speeches about the need to view the world "in a way that is interconnected."

He took that message to a Malibu, Calif., home last year, for instance, where about 250 people - including futurist and author Barbara Marx Hubbard, former astronaut and lecturer Brian O'Leary and "Bionic Woman" actress Lindsay Wagner - turned out to meet him.

"We are here tonight to talk about a dream, a vision, which we can make a reality, to create for ourselves a world of peace by making sure that the heavens themselves are never going to be marred by weapons," he said.

Carol Rosin, a peace activist who runs the Institute for Cooperation in Space, sponsored the event. In 1997, Rosin helped arrange to send the cremated remains of her friend - LSD guru Timothy Leary - into space, fulfilling his final wish. Today, she's just as dedicated to Kucinich's cause. "I am out working for him, day and night, and I'm not getting paid," she said. "I'm doing everything I can because I think he is the only chance we have got to enter into a new paradigm, or otherwise we are all going to die."

She sells videotapes of Kucinich's Malibu speech and of one he gave at the Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City, Calif., one of nation's largest multicultural churches. The tapes, which include Kucinich's Web site information, cost $40. The money benefits the space institute, which heavily promotes Kucinich's peace-related activities.

Disciples of peace

Kucinich said Rosin is just one of thousands of "enthusiastic supporters" and insisted his politics are "mainstream." "I don't start at the margins," he said. "I started in the ward clubs of Cleveland, and I don't forget that. My politics come from the neighborhoods of the city."

Kucinich also has forged a relationship with self-help and pop-religion author Marianne Williamson, whose books frequently top the bestseller lists. "She's an amazingly gifted person" whose talent is reaching out to people, he said.

Williamson has her own peace organization, Global Renaissance Alliance, through which she promotes her books - and Kucinich's effort to create a Department of Peace. She advertises a lobbying boot camp for peace activists that will feature an appearance by Kucinich next month in Arlington, Va. "Train in the principles of deep democracy, then lobby your congressperson and senators to create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace," reads her promotion for the event, which costs $225.

The workshop coincides with Kucinich's plans to reintroduce legislation to create the department.

In an event this month billed as "Imagine America," Williamson and healthy living author John Robbins will join Kucinich in Kentucky to discuss how to create a better America. The rally will cost $5.

Kucinich cites a number of other authors and lecturers as confidants, including Chris Griscom, whom he described as a close friend and adviser. Griscom is a well-known spiritual adviser whose Web site describes her institute as an "enchanting center for spiritual healing and multi-incarnational exploration."

Kucinich traveled to Galisteo, N.M., to meet her in the mid-1980s, a time when he was an unemployed politician.

The MacLaine factor

Kucinich's friend Shirley MacLaine, who is also the godmother of Kucinich's daughter, recommended he visit Griscom. MacLaine had featured Griscom in her then-best-selling book, "Dancing in the Light," describing how Griscom helped her communicate with trees. At the time, Kucinich insisted that Griscom was not his spiritual adviser but a "teacher and a very good friend."

Kucinich also has built a relationship with John Hagelin, a Harvard-trained physicist and the Natural Law Party's 2000 presidential candidate. Hagelin, who follows the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the leader of the transcendental meditation movement, attended Kucinich's presidential campaign stop last month in Fairfield, Iowa, home of the Maharishi University of Management. Hagelin said Kucinich can count on getting volunteers from Fairfield.

"He's got a lot of natural silence, and an open and clear mind," said Hagelin. "A lot of members of both parties get this. Dennis Kucinich is a little bit more expressive, bolder and less political."

Hagelin is director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy at Maharishi University, whose Web site also promotes Kucinich's Department of Peace legislation. The institute also claims it helped Kucinich draft legislation aimed at providing a possible solution to terrorism, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The legislation - an amendment to a military appropriations bill - called for spending $60 million to train military personnel how to meditate and utilize other stress-relieving techniques backed by scientific studies, Hagelin said. Hagelin believes that mass meditation can reduce conflict worldwide.

Kucinich said he never had any direct involvement with the proposed amendment, which was never accepted and submitted. "There was a discussion at a staff level that occurred," he said. "I get hundreds of requests for amendments."

Kucinich, however, said he welcomes the Natural Law Party's support under his umbrella. He said the Democratic Party created the third parties "by running to the middle."

"What I'm trying to do is go back to the big tent so that everyone who felt alienated . . . could come back through my candidacy."

Embracing the New Age

Kucinich clearly has targeted alternative audiences by speaking at New Age conventions and giving interviews to non-mainstream publications.

Kucinich, for instance, appears on the August 2002 cover of Whole Life Times, billed as a "Journal of the Holistic Lifestyle," which is published in Malibu.

In it, he also responds to the question of whether he supports "full disclosure by the government of information on UFOs and other anomalous space sightings?"

"I'm in favor of expanding opportunities for people to have a deeper understanding of the universe. . . . I don't think we could ever discount the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe," he said.

Kucinich's willingness to listen to non-mainstream groups has created some controversy. For instance, in his original 2001 bill to ban the use of weapons in space, Kucinich listed a series of weapons that should be outlawed. The list went beyond the interceptor missiles and subatomic particle beams often associated with government's "Star Wars" programs. His bill banned "other energies" directed at individuals or targeted groups for the purpose of "mood management or mind control."

It also banned "chemtrails."  The term chemtrails is part of a conspiracy theory that has been at the center of lively Internet chat room debates and radio talk shows. Its supporters believe the white streaks jets leave in the sky - known as contrails, which are formed by condensed water vapors - are actually toxic substances the government is spraying on people.

After being questioned about the bill last year, Kucinich rewrote it, removing the controversial language. "I'm not into that," he insisted. "Understand me. When I found out that was in there, I said, 'Look, I'm not interested in going there.' "

Kucinich said that whether he is talking to auto workers or patrons of a New Age expo, his message is the same and never far from home. "We cannot repair our communities, for health care and retirement securities, if we are going to spend money on a war," he said. "Peace is the path toward rebuilding America."

Plain Dealer reporter Tom Diemer and news researcher Jo Ellen Corrigan contributed to this story.

© 2003 The Plain Dealer.

KUCINICH IS OUT OF LINE, OVER HIS HEAD

My Congressman, Dennis Kucinich, is at it again. He's trying to grab headlines to make himself relevant on the national scene.  From UFO sightings and a national contest to find a wife, to his "fact-finding mission" to Syria last month and his frequent outlandish ideas and statements (not to mention his miserable record as legislator and former mayor), for many of us in Ohio's 10th Congressional District, he's been nothing but an embarrassment for many years.  I know Syrian President Bashar Al Assad is running out of friends by the day, but if I were in his shoes, I'd try for more credible allies.

A note to my Congressman:  You clearly have no idea what you’re doing when it comes to Middle East affairs.  The tyranny of the last several decades is no child’s play.  It’s a complicated web of geopolitics, hatred, sectarianism, oppression and brutality.  As a constituent and a Lebanese American who lived through the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, I respectfully ask you to stick to what you know.  I sincerely hope and pray you will take no more trips to Syria and make no more statements about the Syrian uprising, Bashar Al Assad or the effect of the current situation on Lebanon. 

I may say more about this in the coming days, but for now, the Washington Post said it well in this editorial a few days ago.

 Published in the Washington Post on June 29, 2011

Rep. Kucinich takes the side of Syria’s murderous dictator

DENNIS KUCINICH claims he was misquoted. And perhaps it’s true: Maybe the Democratic representative didn’t exactly say, as the official Syrian news agency reported, that “President Bashar al-Assad cares so much about what is taking place in Syria . . . and everybody who meets him can be certain of this.” It could be that another quotation attributed to him, that “President al-Assad is highly loved and appreciated by the Syrians,” was a “mistranslation,” or a reflection of “the degree of appreciation and affection [the] state-sponsored media has” for the president, as a statement from Mr. Kucinich’s office delicately put it.

This much, however, appears to be uncontested: Mr. Kucinich, who has fiercely opposed the U.S. intervention against Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi, traveled to Damascus over the weekend to huddle with Syria’s dictator, who is desperately seeking to avoid being isolated and labeled illegitimate by the outside world. Thanks to the slaughter by his security forces of at least 1,400 people — the vast majority of them unarmed civilians — Mr. Assad has few friends these days: The European Union and United States have sanctioned him personally, and even his regime’s most faithful allies are close to abandoning him. On Tuesday, for example, a senior Russian diplomat met with leaders of the Syrian opposition, then declared that “Russia has only one friend — the Syrian people.”

But Mr. Assad still has a friend: Mr. Kucinich. The Cleveland lawmaker chose not just to meet with the ruler but also to hold a “press conference. ” Though he might not have heaped praise on Mr. Assad, Mr. Kucinich did endorse the regime’s latest propaganda strategy, which is to claim that it intends to engage opponents in a “dialogue” and then carry out reforms. “I have found a strong desire to make a substantial change,” the Xinhua news agency quoted Mr. Kucinich as saying. “People want President Bashar al-Assad to carry out reforms.” If the Chinese agency is also misrepresenting the congressman, his office hasn’t said so.
In fact, the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have risked their lives to take to the streets since March are not seeking reforms from Mr. Assad — they are demanding the end of his regime. The idea that, having slaughtered so many of his people, Mr. Assad would agree to a political transition that would allow Syrians to vote for or against his ruling party — which is dominated by a minority ethnic group — is absurd.

That’s why the only people who take the regime’s rhetoric seriously are those who wish to defend it, who excuse its horrendous crimes and who oppose genuine democracy in Syria. Mr. Kucinich has just made himself one of the more conspicuous members of that camp.

© The Washington Post Company

The Syrians' Turn - Take 2

I wrote The Syrians' Turn a few months back before the uprising against the Assad regime began. Today, a United Nations tribunal issued indictments of four Hezbollah members (or affiliates, but really what's the difference?) for the 2004 killing of Rafiq Hariri, the country’s former prime minister.  It may have been more appropriate to skip the middle man and indict Bashar and Maher and Al Assad.  As the death toll of peaceful protesters rises in Syria, I thought to repost the piece from February 25, 2011. 

***************************************************

February 25, 2011

The Syrians' Turn

 As the Arab people rise up in one country after another, I can't help but think of Syria every day. I'm one of the lucky Lebanese who escaped the Syrian snipers, Syrian checkpoints and Syrian bombs. During Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, thousands of Lebanese were killed and thousands of others just disappeared and were never heard from again. Where did they go? The Syrian army and intelligence service rounded them up and we assume tortured and murdered them.


Their crimes also include the murder of a Lebanese president-elect, a Lebanese prime minister and many other politicians, writers and journalists. They have devastated Lebanon and the Lebanese in so many ways and continue to do so even though it’s less obvious today.


In case you’re thinking I’m bitter because of what side of that war my family was on, you should know this: The Syrian regime hasn’t been any kinder to its own people. Much like Egypt's Mubarak, Libya's Gaddafi and Iraq's Hussein, the Assad family has ruled with an iron fist to keep its people down. Rivers have turned red from the blood of those massacred by the authorities, and that's not an exaggeration. The elder Assad used tanks, artillery and air bombardment to level the city of Hama after the Muslim Brotherhood revolted in the early 1980s, killing thousands. (See Thomas Friedman’s reflection on the Hama massacre from 2005 in the New York Times.)


Then there's the small matter of Syria’s dictators backing and doing the dirty work of the Iranians, Russians, Hamas, Hezbollah and any other government or terrorist group looking for support or an intermediary to do its evil deeds.


So, what now? The Syrians are good people who have suffered far too long. I hope and pray they seize this historical moment and rise up against the lies, greed, crimes and tyranny of their dictator. It won’t be easy, but life is far too short to suffer quietly for all these decades and all these generations. I pray they muster the courage to reclaim their dignity and their country.


Peace, my brothers and sisters, is indeed overrated.


A Lebanese-American

Welcome and Thank You

I want to take a moment to thank all of you who are reading this blog.  You're reading from all corners of the globe and I'm so grateful.  I particularly welcome readers from my beloved Lebanon whose struggles are never too far from my thoughts. 

Although my graduate school work is dominating my time for the moment, I promise new posts in the near future. In the meantime, I would love your thoughts and comments on what you read. 

With gratitude,

Laura