Why the USS Cole is in the wrong waters now. What would Thomas Jefferson do?
How to spell relief:Y-E-M-E-N.
Arab media headlines and opinion on the conflict in Lebanon: different takes.
The Wall Streey Journal dumbs down its analysis of Lebanon.
A professor, a woman, a flogging, Mel Gibson, and the Clintons.

                              

Here are some Arab headline and opinion columns about recent events in Lebanon:
USS Cole returns to Lebanese waters for the second time this year. Will it interfere? Is it just a morale booster?
(Personally, I think the USS Cole should head down the Red Sea to Yemen, where al-Qaeda terrorists who blew her up are moving about freely after being released by the dictator of that country. The last of them was released only a week or two ago. It could do what the very first US Navy ships did to the rulers of the pirate coast of Barbary two centuries ago).

Hizbullah beseiges the allies of America and Saudi Arabia in Lebanon!

Saudi embassy closed. Ambassador leaves by sea to Cyprus!

Conflict moves north to Tripoli!

Shifting the fighting outside Beirut: is it to make up for failures and losses in the capital?

Hizbullah does not strike Christian areas!

Is it a Shi'a-Sunni battle, or a battle of the "resistence" against the surrender party?

The only solution is for Saniora to rescind the (unenforceable) decisions of the rump cabinet!

Jumblatt asks Nassrallah not to strike Druze regions!


The Saudi press and its allies in other Arab states had their own take:
The ideological army and the Party of Fitna! (A reference to Hizbullah: fitna is a term that means sectarian conflict).

Hizbullah and the memory of Taliban! (In fact Taliban was created by the Pakistani ISS with Saudi money, in their Quranic madrassas. Its murderous "govrnment" was quickly recognized by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. No other government did so).

Return to civil war!

Hizbullah...what an ugly image! (This by the chief editor of Asharq alawsat, mouthpiece of Saudi Prince Salman).

Wait for Gaza 3!

The militia...how it occupies the city!

After the Beirut coup: a party becomes the state....a party above the law!

How Iran transfers its Iraqi experience to Lebanon!

Regional conflicts and the coming Middle East wars!

A political conflict? No, it is a sectarian one!

Hizbullah in the footsteps of the Hamas in aggression and crime!

The monster of Beirut turns the table...more to come!

The dumbest non-Arab comment of the week:
The Wall Street Journal:"..a dramatic shift of power in the country: the U.S backed government of Lebanon isn't in charge anymore!" 
(Psst, WSJ: the rump-cabinet has never been in charge of anything important in Lebanon. Each warlord controls his own territory. They are all little and weaker Hizbullahs. Verstehen?)

On a more civilized note (since we are speaking of civilization and barbarism):
Amnesty International has appealed to the Saudi authorities to release a university professor who is in prison awaiting the carrying out of a sentence of 150 lashes. He was so sentenced for meeting with a woman in a public coffee shop! Meeting an unrelated woman, even in a public venue like a cafe or a sheep market, is a crime in Saudi Arabia. I guess Hillary will never be able to meet those uncommitted super delegates in Riyadh! Not unless Bill was with her!
I would imgine if the sentence is carried at once, there won't be much left of the professor. Any of you ever see Mel Gibson's films "Braveheart" and "The Passion of the Christ"? The professor may end up looking like that, but almost certainly not as brave and not as inspired. FYI: neither film was ever shown in Saudi Arabia: movie theaters (cinemas) are banned in the virtuous kingdom- just as they were under the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Saudi Minister of Inteior to the press: anyone who says women are disadvantegd in our country is a liar! Women have always obtained their "legal" rights in the kingdom!
Cheers
mhg