Richard Engel, Middle East bureau chief for NBC news, writes about how much can change in a matter of weeks.
A few weeks ago, I was here and working on just that story – it was even called “Beirut is back.”
It
was supposed to be about how the economy has revived, the restaurants
are full, the nightclubs are hopping, and the beaches are full of women
in bikinis.
Today I’m standing here wearing a flak jacket, watching the airport burning, and there are more strikes expected.
Thanks to Amanda Agan for the pointer.
I was going to vacation there…
“Sadly for Lebanon, Hizballah needs to be destroyed before it will really be “back”. Getting rid of Kid Assad would help too. Only then will the neighborhood be worth buying into…”
Just the way Baghdad is “back” now that Saddam and the Baathists are gone!
“Lebanon is a country that is especially entrepreneurial and not as shackled by the dilemmas of religious and ethnic identification as is much of the Middle East.”
Good grief.
Yes, the Lebanese are highly entrepreneurial, but anybody who knows anything about their history knows that “the dilemmas of religious and ethnic identification” are what make up the sorry history of Lebanon.
Libertarians need to understand that entrepreneurialism and ethnic murderousness are by no means mutually exclusive, as Lebanon has shown over and over.
Steve Sailer,
The Lebanese are very much involved in religious and cultural struggles (Shi’ite, Sunni, Maronite, pro-Arab, pro-West/French, pro-peace, pro-war). We do not intend to imply that all the spiritual/intellectual dilemmas are purely external.
The Lebanese culture, however, has a tendency to overcome such pains; enough to create a national character (inclusive of members from all the aforementioned) that looks beyond or beneath such matters and unites in its love for living richly and for the day and embracing its market-oriented nature.
To see evidence of this, compare the behavior of Lebanese expatriates in foreign countries to that of other nationalities.
Nacim Bouchtia, I hope you are joking, but if not, please look up the broken window fallacy and read Frederic Bastiat’s That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen.
One can only hope that Israel takes out Syria and Iran. Now is the perfect
opportunity to do so.
With Iran we have as president over there the new Hitler. He’s admitted
as much publicly, and yet some won’t take him seriously.
This is 1936 and the Rhineland all over again, where one nation can take
out a crazy dictator and prevent a horrendous war from happening in the
near future.
Isn’t it amazing how a non-state entity, Hezbollah, actually has missiles
and rockets, and that they are actually quite effective? In fact, I’d say
that Hezbollah rockets have been more effective than Saddam Hussein’s Scuds
in 1990 during the Gulf War. The technology of weaponry is the same as
all technology; it trickles down. That which is sophisticated today and in
the hands of an elite few eventually end up in the hands of the masses.
If Iran is not stopped now, then the next time a conflict occurs, and it will,
the Iranians will see to that, those missiles from Hezbollah will have
nukes on their tips.
WWIII will indeed break out, but only because the good fail to take strong action to stop the evil. And in this conflict, there is no mistake that Iran and Syria play the role of the evil.
I thing the ‘thank you card for breaking their windows’ was supposed to be the tipoff that Nacim Bouchtia:
A. Was joking.
B. Knows Bastiat well.
Hasn’t Beirut been oscillating between economic liveliness and utter destruction for, oh, five thousand years or so now? Why would one expect this century to be any different? Baghdad and Iraq in general, though, are definitely looking up. Unfortunately for those hoping for Bush’s comeuppance, large sections of the country keep being turned over to local control, for good or ill. The unpleasantness in Gaza and Lebanon is in large measure stimulated by desperation and panic on the part of Iran and Syria at the impending success of the new, more secular, more US-friendly Iraq. Both Iran and Syria are faced with modern, hostile armies on their East and West borders, thanks to GWB. Without the liberation of Iraq, Saddam would be cooperating in the assault on Israel and the situation would be far more likely to go nuclear.
Mr. thought:
Yes, it would be better if we could transform countries whose leaders want to destroy Israel into ones whose leaders behave otherwise, ceteris paribus. But trying to do that by bombing Iran’s White House runs the horrible risk of further agitating Muslim hostility to Western culture.
The beliefs and actions of a country’s leaders are in large part a reflection of popular sentiment. If antisemitic rhetoric got Iran’s current president (supreme leader? whatever) appointed, it’s not clear to me that blowing him one up will cause someone better to replace him.
Also, from what I understand, he’s a buffoon, with no control of the military in particular. That does not excuse what he says, but it weakens the case for blowing him up. The benefits of such actions are fuzzy at best, while the costs are clearly very great.
Or so it seems to me.
Let’s see. Lebanon has ethnic diversity, differential birthrates, and immigration (thank you Steve Sailer). As a consequence, it has suffered tragic wars and is now being shredded because one faction insists on the right to wage war irrespective of the opinions of the national government.
The sad reality is the diversity is weakness at best and frequently a prelude to disaster. The idea that America should import diversity is absurd. We have more than enough already. The Founding Fathers understood this. Our national motto “E Pluribus Unum” was an explicitly rejection of diversity. Sadly, this sound idea has been so greatly diminished that a candidate for President claimed it meant “out of one, many”.
tiener fisting in bed ^^^ students beffen in bad ^^^ bello lesbiche ^^^ giovane fotti nella camera ^^^ resolu serveuse baise en groupe ^^^ le plus chaud sympathique mama ^^^ frais mama galeries ^^^ plus chaud papa trente six ^^^ segretaria amore nella camera ^^^ beautiful giovane sex ^^^ skygg amator gruppen ^^^ gudalik sjukskoterska ligga ^^^ pallido segretaria azione ^^^ ritirarsi giovane ass to mouth ^^^ amateure chinoise sexy ^^^ masturbating visage dechirer ^^^ penis hermaphrodite porno ^^^ sukupuoli wwwcassa huora ^^^ kjoligere lengsel vagina ^^^ stokke gallerier ^^^ kjoligere omskjart mor ^^^ het nydelig jomfru ^^^ koritsi skata prothalamos ^^^ magoulo avnanismos sto spiti ^^^ fils hardcore ^^^ la plus chaude maman galerie ^^^ to pio zesto apofasistikos pateroulis ^^^ apofasistikos pateroulis ^^^
xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2 xoomer.xxxvideos2
Comments on this entry are closed.