Archive for November 16th, 2015
Lebanese Food: From A to Z. This table of varied food dishes is called Mezzeh
Posted on: November 16, 2015
Lebanese Food: From A to Z.
This table of varied food dishes is called Mezzeh.
Not Mazzeh as the famous prison in Syria.
And people still feel obliged to order a few main dishes, in addition to this flood of dishes where there are no more empty spaces to insert your finger.
I suggest they include a few Chinese, Japanese or South Asia sea weed stuff.
Food, food, glorious food.
Warning: this post will cause extreme hunger.
A is for Arak
B is for batata 7arra (spicy potatoes)
C is for cracked wheat (burghol)
D is for djeij (chicken)
E is for eggs with awarma
F is for falafel
G is for ghanouj, baba ghanouj
H is for hummus
I is for ice cream 3a Ashta
K is for knefe
L is for labne
M is for masheweh (skewered meats)
N is for nammoura
O is for olive oil
P is for pistachios
Q is for qatayef
R is for Riz (Rice)
S is for shawarma
T is for tabboule
U is for uncooked meats
V is for vegetables
W is for Wara2 3inab (stuffed grape-leaves)
X is for X-tra toum
Y is for yakhne (stew)
Z is for Zaatar
Isis or Daesh in Paris? How this conflagration that lingered 5 years in Syria skipped continent and seas?
Posted on: November 16, 2015
Isis or Daesh in Paris? How this conflagration that lingered 5 years in Syria skipped continent?
So ISIS has claimed the attacks as a response to France bombing the ‘caliphate’ in the Middle East.
That Hollande/Valls are warmongers is beyond dispute
Apparently, the French President read a long report on the atrocities of the Syrian regime before 2011, and wanted revenge from the civilized western world.
(Note: France in all its political institutions hate the Syrian people: They resisted the French mandate after WWI. France even bombed Damascus for 6 months)
By Tariq Ali / 14 November 2015
Ironically they were preparing to topple the Assad regime (till Washington insisted on a delay) which would have made them ISIS allies in the region.
In fact the bulk of the opposition in Syria regard Assad as the primary contradiction and were also hoping the West would deliver another regime change.
(The problem was: who on the field was to take control and rule the Syrian people after the regime falls?)
Had they done so a new civil war would have erupted between rival jihadi groups and who knows which of them the US/EU would have supported.
ISIS has hit the French capital and killed over a hundred citizens with double that number injured.
I know the West does the same and, in fact, kills tens of thousands, but this clash of fundamentalisms leads nowhere.
The West is NOT morally superior to the jihadis.
Why is a public execution with a sword worse than an indiscriminate drone attack?
Neither can nor should be supported.
Andrew Bossone shared this link
The point has often been made that both al Qaeda and ISIS are the result of imperial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and this is undoubtedly the case, but its not enough.
The suicide of secular nationalism and the impotence of the tiny progressive groups as a result of both local repression and decline in mass support has to be taken into account.
This process has pushed the Saudi regime to the fore and both al-Qaida and ISIS are under the strong influence ofwhich is a tiny minority within Sunni Islam.
There are three important pre-requisites to re-stabilising the region:
1. End of Western support to the extended Saudi royal family;
2. End of all Western intervention in the region;
3. Resolve the Israeli/Palestinian dilemma: End Israel apartheid policies
As long as this doesn’t happen, political freaks and monsters will continue to proliferate.
Nothing justifies the killing of innocents in Paris or in any other country
Curriculum of Intolerance: Saudi Wahhabi monarchy
Since 2001 our policy for fighting Islamic terrorists has been missing the elephant in the room.
Sort of like treating symptoms and completely missing the disease.
Policymakers and slow-thinking bureaucrats stupidly let terrorism grow by ignoring the roots.
We lost a generation: someone who went to grammar school in Saudi Arabia (our “ally”) after September 11 is now an adult, indocrinated into believing and supporting Salafi violence, hence encouraged to finance it –while we got distracted by the use of complicated weapons and machinery.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb posted on FBEven worse, the Wahabis have accelerated their brainwashing of East and West Asians with their madrassas (thousands of Wahhabi brand of religious schools), thanks to high oil revenues, and that since 1980 and the fight against the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan.
So instead of invading Iraq, blowing up Jihadi John and individual terrorists, thus causing a multiplication of these people, it would have been be easier to focus on the source of all problems: the Wahabi/Salafi education and promotion of intolerance by which a Shiite or a Yazidi or a Christian are deviant people.
If we absolutely need to put people in Guantanamo, it is the Salafi preachers, Wahhabi clerics, not just the people swayed by their teaching.
And if we need to correct Saudi problems, we need to start by sending to them OUR preachers, educating them into tolerance, explaining the very concept of the separation of church and state.
Or, better even, encourage Muslim preachers who promote religious tolerance (laka dinak wa li dini: You have your religion and I have mine) — instead of seeing them ostracized.
And if you find violence unavoidable, it should be directed at the Saudi and Qatari funders of violence, as well as the Salafi theorists, rather than the young performers.
PS: Beware the usual ISIS crypto-sympathizer who sort of “explains” (that is, justifies) what happened (intentionally killing civilians) with some other Western event that can go all the way to the crusades…
Otherwise it is “biased”.
You cannot condemn ISIS without at the same time trying to be “balanced“? Who are they fooling?
This is the technique of bundling problems that can be treated independently and you need to learn to deal with them by forcing them to discuss the problem of ISIS on its own.
Adonis Diaries 