May 16 2010
…bad news to follow. Here’s a short introduction Ray Close (retired CIA) added yesterday to a recent essay by a credentialed Republican: This short essay contains no particularly original ideas or deep insights, but in the simplicity and clarity of its logic and language, (and the credentials of its author), it is exceptionally helpful. It …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/05/16/part-1-of-3-first-the-good-news/
Jan 16 2010
Curious about the origins of Pat Robertson’s outrageous comments about Haiti’s latest agony, my research turned up this interesting nugget in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti): “In 1912 Syrians residing in Haiti participated in a plot in which the presidential palace was destroyed.” Syrians in Haiti? My spider-sense for all things Levantine was tingling, so I digressed from …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/01/16/haiti-the-lebanese-and-the-bat-crap-crazies/
Aug 30 2009
I’m almost finished with Charles Pierce’s “Idiot America — How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free” (Doubleday, June 2009). Just read the chapter on the 9-11 fiasco and the “sexing up” of the Iraq war and I’m so angry right right now that I feel compelled to share the following links …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/08/30/book-review/
Apr 27 2009
For the sake of argument, let’s suppose torture works… For the sake of argument, let’s also suppose that 9/11 was inevitable. Let’s suppose that it wasn’t a circus of errors and missed opportunities and hot pursuits that were allowed to grow cold. Let’s suppose that the CIA and the FBI were a model of harmonious …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/04/27/tortured-logic/
Mar 14 2009
My pastor John, methinks, probably wonders if I too often connect disparate ideas and events by the thinnest of threads. There is an old tradition in the Middle East regarding when the feasts of Ramadan begin and end; as long as there is enough daylight to discern between a black and white thread, fasting must continue. Once they …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/03/14/personal-reflections/
Feb 28 2009
Having just finished a book that extols the virtue of harmonizing right-wing elements of Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity (see http://tinyurl.com/b3levz and http://tinyurl.com/ahashg), I found the following Fisk commentary on papal perspective most interesting. And more than a bit alarming… http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-examine-the-popes-words-and-theres-only-one-thing-to-conclude-1634266.html and/or ttp://tinyurl.com/avwuz3 Fisk’s last paragraph And what do I make of all this? Well, I don’t think the …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/02/28/all-along-the-watchtower/
Jan 24 2009
Something I have not seen or heard discussed during the rape of Gaza or its prologue… Haven’t there been all kinds of funds and research expended on anti-missile technologies? Weren’t American systems installed in Israel? Why, after years of harassment by the pea-shooters of Hamas, and the rockets of Hezbollah and Saddam before them, hasn’t …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/01/24/a-question/
