How Many Violations of US Arms Laws are Too Many? By Franklin Lamb It depends whether the miscreant enjoys “We will always have your back regardless” status. On March 6, 2012, the US Congressional Research Service released a report to the US Congress concerning Restrictions on the use of American weapons by recipient countries. For [...]
The US drone hell on earth! by Nour Rida Seems like “predator-prey” is the best game ever played by the United States of America, an old game with which the world is getting fed-up. The US personnel, however, no longer tend to exist in battlefield. Unmanned drones took over and have become the most [...]
A Society of Resistance In recent months, local Lebanese media outlets have been recounting stories of backroom political manoeuvrings and shuttlings during the 2006 war. The western hemisphere, together with Israeli society, has been tight-lipped on the day-to-days, lasting impacts and legacies of the war. A war that is widely read to be of joint [...]
The thin intersection between Obama’s actions and words Even to his most loyal supporters, the American president has proved to be little more than a gifted talker. Having campaigned as an audacious visionary driven by a commitment to overhaul US stewardship, Mr. Obama has been reduced to a dry functionary whose words of idealism seem [...]
29 years after the Massacre at Sabra Shatila By Franklin Lamb “The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind” was the general consensus following a discussion between this observer and a gathering of Palestinian refugees in Sabha, Libya, many of whom would very much like to travel to Shatila camp in Beirut this week and [...]
(Beirut, 16 September 2011) The Second Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions ended in Beirut today with a strong international declaration to rid the world of cluster munitions. The 90 States Parties and signatories to the Convention at the meeting adopted the Beirut Declaration, which notes the lifesaving gains made already [...]
Afghanistan ratifies cluster bomb ban despite U.S. pressure Country where cluster bombs have killed hundreds becomes State Party on eve of international conference by the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) (Beirut, Lebanon, 12 September 2011): Afghanistan, which has witnessed the devastation cluster munitions cause, has become the 62nd state party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions [...]
Remembering Qana, five years on by Helena Cobban On this day five years ago, at 1:30 am Lebanon time, Israel’s U.S.-supplied warplanes attacked houses in the south Lebanese village of Qana, killing more than 60 civilians, 37 of them children. Go watch this soberly reported video clip from Britain’s Channel 4 to get [...]
Dark Humour at the WSJ Such have become the cavalier standards of modern western media that one no longer needs to dig into the archives to find duplicitous instances of yellow journalism on the Middle East. It’s now a daily occurrence. Due to the ironies of fate and geography, as well as its dignified [...]
