I read this in English way, way back when it came out. The book that inspired Munich, perhaps my favorite Spielberg film. The book is good, the film iI read this in English way, way back when it came out. The book that inspired Munich, perhaps my favorite Spielberg film. The book is good, the film is great.
Even when I read the book way back in 1984, the parts outside of those that could be verified sounded like fiction. Still, it’s a great story and sort of a David and Goliath tale, except when it drags down into a pointless blood feud between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
On that front, nothing has changed in the entire history of this conflict that I’m tired of hearing about, to be honest.
That's it for this review as I'm just trying to clean out my "Currently Reading" file as mine was looking like a hillbilly's garage.
P.S. I had no Fourth of July plans so I bought some great bockwurst and some lovely small loaves of bread yesterday so I can have a couple of hotdogs. That counts as American, right?...more
Here is the important message to take away from this incident. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had nothing to do with the attack the deaths of three Here is the important message to take away from this incident. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had nothing to do with the attack the deaths of three Americans. The ambassador to Libya, Chris Stephens, who died in the attack knew more about the situation in Libya than anyone in our entire government which includes the CIA, the NSA, and the State Department. He was wildly over-optimistic about our chances to restore relations in that inferno (shit hole) or country. We should not have had people there, at least not without anything less than a Ranger battalion with armor.
All of the chimpanzees harping about Hillary and Barack’s culpability in this tragedy are...monkeys led by Fox News....more
Iran was among the first countries in the modern era to weaponize Islam (which begins with the total subjugation of women) and no country is better prIran was among the first countries in the modern era to weaponize Islam (which begins with the total subjugation of women) and no country is better proof of the destructive nature of this policy than Lebanon. U.S. policy in Lebanon and most of the ME was catastrophic at worst, and ineffective at best throughout the 1980s, almost worse than our foreign policy blunders in the GW Bush era. The British, for all of their condescension towards America about our inexperience in global diplomacy, cocked things up pretty royally when they ran things and literally drew the map of the modern Middle East. If you had to vote on which country has the best record in the region, you'd have to put your money on Israel for the simple fact that they have survived this long.
Lebanon is more or less a metaphor or a reflection of the Arab and Muslim world when it comes to building a modern society. They are just crap at it. They're all about 1,000 years behind the modern social democracies of Western Europe. Perhaps Muslims should begin at the beginning and adopt habeas corpus and see how things go from there.
This book was an excellent review of the hellfire that has been the Levant for the past forty years or so, in which invasion has been followed by assassination, followed by horrific car bombings, followed by reprisals, ad nauseam.
Iran has been behind the curtain during most of the war of terror erupting from Beirut during this period, fueled by petrodollars from Ayatollah Khomeini’s Shia dictatorship.
If people in America’s intelligence services take one thing away from this book (and I hope they all read it) it should be that there is no military or violent solution to the quagmire we have greatly helped to create. But we never seem to learn this, time after time.
I said that we should have launched a war against ignorance after 9/11 by bombarding the ME with cheap computers and internet access for all. We should have dropped plane-loads of books on the Shia ghettos in Beirut and the Sunni slums of Damascus. The only way out of the violent darkness that has engulfed the entire region is by light created by enlightenment. We should be backing the most liberal and forward-thinking clerics just as the Saudis have been financing the most fanatical religious leaders whose answer to any problem is violence.
We have to make a counter-offer to the people there who now are only presented with fanaticism and the empty, childish promise of religion.
Back in my military service days we heard the apocryphal story of the Soviets castrating one of those responsible for kidnapping one of their people. I remember the right-wing knuckle-draggers and mouth-breathers in my unit expressing how that’s how we should have gone about business in Lebanon. These are probably the same creeps who are in favor of torturing our prisoners. If we are going to be the same sort of animals as the Syrians and Iranians, they why are we fighting against them? We should just join sides and roll over everyone on the planet.
Or…we could actually stand for something as a nation, things like human rights and dignity for all. I think we could do that and still flourish as a people....more
Leftbanker
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middle-east
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