Diou, Qué Marinade!

In France, the bananas of the nouveau regime are no smarter than the tired cabbages of the ancient. One of those legumes, Osif sénateur UMP de l'Oise, fired up a little gem:

"President Assad told me he exerted his influence to ensure Hezbollah adopted a responsible attitude and showed restraint during the events in Gaza, Syria's role has been positive " President Nicolas Sarkozy's envoy Senator Philippe Marini told reporters in Beirut. after a visit to Damascus.

Has Le petit Nicola really been convinced that his investment in Bashar was still worth it, he would have sent him a bigger banana. However, the rants of this second fiddle sound just like a stockbroker talking up some junk bond. But that maintains the link just enough, in case the Obama(-Clinton?) administration decides to keep Syria "showered with incentives to tempt it away" from Iran.

Or maybe Le petit Nicola has assurances that Bashar will still respect him in the morning, too. But maybe not the morning after...

Or will hassouna confirms that little tall tale?

...Mais que diantre alloit-il faire dans cette galére!

Tabarnak!

The news this past couple of weeks has been replete with drunkenness. Faced with the latest demonstration of Israel’s illusion of living without its neighbours, our local Saint Jihad Chrisosphobos decided to retaliate…

So, unable to do anything south of Nakoura, he sent his partisans take over Churches.

Turn the other Cheek, eh?

This led some of his Ninjas, Modi Viarge Grises for the occasion, to deliver some esti de sacrament d'agrat, at the Church in Haret Hreik, with the full regalia of Ôstie and and tabarnak achalandé.

And now he has manufactured a Modit Rosaire.

What’s next; an Ostie with Saint-Ciboire de Nasrallo’s effigy on? Well, Khomeiny tried to emulate the Saint Charbel look, but Shater Hassan's pushing too hard. Even with all ClAoun’s support behind him, I am not sure that it would sell in Lebanon. The Lebanese may not have more than mere words to oppose him, but some can have subversive power…

Modit Côlisse…!!

Never before has religion been so enmeshed with politics as in Lebanon. Thanks to Nasrallah and his goons, we may be in the Middle Ages, but fear not; to everything there’s a season…

… La Révolution Tranquille n’est pas loin.

Ibn Khaldoun's Lesson

The middle is a hard place to be, and a harder place to remain. To some, I sound like a “Zionist Apologist”, to others, like a “Naïve Idealist”. I am neither.

I am a realist.

There is no such a thing as “Military Solutions”; it is a logical fallacy. The Military is a tool, and should be used in the service of a specific policy, itself the implementation of a longer term vision.

The current situation is not new. The process we find ourselves stuck in has been described much earlier by Ibn Khaldun, the great Arab historian. Whenever a community united by ethnicity or common interest (“العصبيٌة”; or “Assabiya”), needs to reach power and maintain its hold on it (“المك”; or “Mulk”), it relies on a religious or political ideology (“الدٌعوة”; or “Daawa”).

So, In countries like Syria and Iraq, clans founded their claim to power on a “Daawa” such as the “Popular Democracy” and “Socialist Equality”, co-opting Arab nationalism of the Baath Party. And today’s Israelis are not much better, having mostly moved far away from early ideals. Across the region, all those nice members of the “Assabiya” have now secured their “Mulk” well in hand, and are focusing on securing power by all means, focusing on narrow self interests.

This was made easy in all our countries.

We have all inherited from colonial times an apparatus that had invested many more resources in military-security apparatus than in civil-legal institutions to maintain control either over restive societies or unaccommodating neighbours. In some countries, the mokhabarat enforce the prevailing orthodoxy. In others, a common ideological groupthink takes care of that.

Care to move on?

Then Challenge your own mindset…

Only there will you find the real “Infrastructure of Terror”.

...Before this BF mess moves north...