I Wouldn't Say I Was Part Of

When I Arrived In Beirut From Europe, I Felt The Oppressive, Damp Heat, Saw The Unkempt Palm Trees And Smelt The Arabic Coffee, The Fruit Stalls And The Over-spiced Meat. It Was The Beginning Of The Orient. And When I Flew Back To Beirut From Iran, I Could Pick Up The British Papers, Ask For A Gin And Tonic At Any Bar, Choose A French, Italian, Or German Restaurant For Dinner. It Was The Beginning Of The West. All Things To All People, The Lebanese Rarely Questioned Their Own Identity.

The [israelis] Believed - They Were Possessed Of An Absolute Certainty And Conviction - That 'terrorists' Were In Chatila. How Could I Explain To Them That The Terrorists Had Left, That The Terrorists Had Worn Israeli Uniforms, That The Terrorists Had Been Sent Into Chatila By Israeli Officers, That The Victims Of The Terrorists Were Not Israelis But Palestinians And Lebanese?

Some Of The Guys In The Northern Alliance Are War Criminals. One Of The Northern Alliance Commanders Ran A Slave Girl Network In Kabul In 1994. Remember That There Was A Period When Every Woman On The Streets Was At Risk Of Being Raped. This Was The Northern Alliance Period Of Glory.

Wasn't Saddam Destroyed? Wasn't Gaddafi Liquidated? Didn't Milosevic Go To The Hague? All True. But Stalin Survived. Kim Jong-un Isn't Doing Too Badly, Either - Though That's Probably Because He Actually Has Nuclear Weapons, As Opposed To Iran Which Might Or Might Not Be Trying To Acquire Them And Thus Remains On The Israeli-american Target List.

Bin Laden Is Not Well Read And He's Not Sophisticated, But He Will Have Worked Out Very Coldly What America Would Do.