مدونة د. منصور عمر الكيخيا * Dr. Mansour Omar El-Kikhia Blog

 News of the death of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto reached much of the world within minutes of her demise. She was giving a speech at a rally at Rawalpindi when she succumbed to assassins’ explosives and bullets.

By coincidence, her father, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister and President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was executed in 1979 by Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in the same location.

The general who ascended to power through a coup was killed in an airplane explosion in 1988.

In 1988, at the age of 35, Bhutto became the first female prime minister of a Muslim nation. She held that position for two years and again in 1993 for another three years, at the end of which she was removed from office for corruption. She moved to London in a self-imposed exile, fleeing a number of lawsuits accusing her and her husband of siphoning off $1.5 billion from the Pakistani treasury.

Irrespective of what she was accused of and how much one disagreed with her, her methods or her politics, it is sad to see a life lost in this way. What have the assassins achieved short of aborting the process of democracy in Pakistan? But maybe that is exactly what they were aiming for.

Until now, the conflict in Pakistan has been restricted to elites jockeying for power and usin

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I often disagree with hard-boiled realists, such as the late political scientist Hans Morgenthau, who is considered the father of American realism. His writings reduced all interaction between nations to "power."

Some political scientists still advocate this line of thinking and see power as organic, capable of assuming tangible and intangible shapes. And while there is some truth to that, one can legitimately disagree with this "one size fits all" approach.

However, one important issue that all realists agree on is that power is fragile and needs to be treated with delicate hands.

One can lose power by losing face or losing a war, because of miserable leadership, a decline in the economy, a shift in the age of population to the very young or the very old and a variety of other situations. Interestingly, few have the ability to recognize that a loss of power is occurring, only doing so after the fact.

This brings me to next year’s elections in the United States. Eight years of mediocrity have been a disaster for America. Regaining its lost power will be difficult but not impossible.

First, Americans need to wise up and be smart by putting in the White House and Congress competent

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القصيدة

مازلـت ناء هو نــاء  ** إرهابي قديم .. ما ليش أي دواء !

غير خيركم ؟؟؟

مازلت في موالي 

 ومازلت نا هو نا وهك أفعالي

ورا الأولي مازال هو الـــتالي

يجرح ويقتل .. مافيش عزاء !

مازلـت ناء هو نــاء  ** إرهابي قديم .. ما ليش أي دواء !

غير خيركم ؟؟؟

مازلت هكي ديمه

غير أسألوا عني أصحاب حليمه

لا يوم طــبعـي نغـيره ولا نقيـمـه

وتصليح طبعي مافيش رجاء !

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Last week a few of my friends in France were able to create a miracle for me. They convinced a large number of their colleagues in the French Parliament to boycott Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s speech, and as a result only about a third of the 80 lawmakers invited to hear the Libyan dictator speak attended.

Another embarrassment to the dictator followed this important snub when the Socialist deputies left their seats for a short time to display their displeasure at not being given the opportunity to question the government on the dictator’s visit.

Despite ongoing demonstrations opposing French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s policies, Sarkozy is desperately trying to show that he is precisely what France needs if it is to get out of what he described as its economic slump and corruption crisis, as well as attract foreign investment and new business. Therefore, it is not surprising for him to go where the money is. Libya and China are flush with money and in dire need of new technology and markets.

China, in particular, is growing at a 12 percent annual rate with huge surpluses with the United States. China is worried about the recent downturn in demand for its products in the United States and Europe due to shoddy manufacturing. The choice of France as its new advertising agent is a good one and well worth a huge order of European Airbus passenger jets.

Two issues, on the other hand, propel the Libyan dictator. The first is narcissistic. Over the years, his ego has grown many fold and in his own

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 For the past few days, two issues have been nagging at me. The first is nuclear power and Iran, and the second is the fate of the Bush administration’s foreign guests at Guantánamo Bay.

Neither bodes well for the United States, and both are demonstrating huge shortcomings of America’s intelligence community and legal structures.

After four years of beating the war drums, the Bush administration was finally forced to admit that Iran has given up on its nuclear bomb development in 2003. Why all the fuss and threats of World War III is beyond all comprehension.

Yet that doesn’t seem to be enough to convince the Bush administration that it needs to come clean with America and the world. It still insists that Iran poses a major threat to the security of the United States. How? Short of Iranian support to forces opposed to the American presence in Iraq, we have no idea.

Iran is in trouble. Its oil output, while adequate, is not sufficient to develop a new military infrastructure as well as change the living standards of Iranians in any noticeable way. Iran’s dependence on refined fuel and consumer goods continues to increase.

But more important is the rise in popular expectations of a better life. The regime is archaic and unwilling to compromise. Indeed, it has found willing allies among conservative Arab regimes that feel uncomfortable bec

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Like every recent president preceding him, President Bush put on a showpiece of diplomacy at Annapolis where Israelis and Palestinians met in the presence of representatives from several Arab countries, the United States and others as witnesses to "peace talks."

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The Thanksgiving holiday is perhaps one of the most popular events Americans celebrate every year. And while for some it is a holiday of relaxation and gluttony, for many it is also an important event in re-establishing and strengthening the bonds of kinship and friendship.

Few countries are as fertile as America, and even fewer have America’s abundance in food, water and other natural resources. Americans can’t imagine how lucky they are and how privileged their position is among the inhabitants of the planet. Indeed, they have plenty to be thankful for, especially the security they enjoy.

In a world disproportionately dominated by tyrannical regimes, even with the Bush administration in power America is still a breath of fresh air. And Americans need to be thankful for this freedom from tyranny because it enabled them to fight the current regime tooth and nail in all its attempts at abridging their freedoms, and they are winning. Additionally, in a few months, the current administration will be relegated to the heap of insignificance and Americans will undoubtedly elect a new, less divisive regime that respects their rights.

However, as a student of international relations

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Pakistanis are hopping mad at dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf for declaring a state of emergency, suspending the constitution and firing the country’s Supreme Court justices.

To their credit, thousands have been taking to the streets to defy the regime. Newspapers and other media outlets defied government orders and ran stories critical of Pakistan’s strongman and deplored the violence against Pakistani protesters.

Musharraf came to power in a coup and promised to relinquish the reins of authority after one term, claiming he needed to weed out corruption and bureaucratic excesses.

Well, it seems he lied. He loved the seat too much to relinquish it. Instead, he created a democratic façade by keeping the constitutional structure under his tight personal control.

When he encountered parliamentary opposition to his dictatorial edicts, he imprisoned his prominent political opponents with fabricated private and public charges. The charges were ultimately dismissed by Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which also ordered the release of the detainees. In retribution, Musharraf dismissed the Supreme Court’s chief justice and banished the detainees to locations outside Pakistan.

Musharraf has been riding President Bush’s "war against terror" wave. American money has been po

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This week, a Spanish court passed jail sentences on seven defendants after finding them guilty of involvement in the Madrid commuter train bombings.

Three were sentenced to thousands of years in prison, but they will probably serve a maximum of 40 years. Most surprising was the acquittal of an accused ringleader of all charges.

I am surprised at the verdicts and strongly feel that if they are really guilty, they should have been dealt with more sternly for such a crime against humanity. What gives them the right to take innocent lives by hijacking my faith and subjugating it to this act of violence?

In such situations, I wish these trials were taking place in Saudi Arabia, where if found guilty, they would have to pay with their heads for murdering innocents. What did the Spaniards, who have usually been very sympathetic to Arabs and Arab causes, do to deserve such treatment?

I find it difficult to comprehend such behavior, let alone rationalize it. Indeed, I have come to loathe what these guys do and look with extreme suspicion at what they say.

The term in Arabic to describe this unfortunate state of affairs is "Jahilliya," which means a state of ignorance. Islam has supposedly come to lift people from this Jahilliya, yet these ter

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الإخوين سفيان اعميش وعبدالله اعميش

http://www.occupation101.com

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watc

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV8N9J9gJ9c

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM1ruYCS6JY

Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg0ql9tA1-I

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