SpiralDragon's Blog

According to an article from the UK based The Guardian . It would seem that the US has been poking its head where it does not belong again, back dealing with the Syrian regime at the expense of the Syrian people. The US, the article claims, is promoting a roadmap for Syrian reforms, which is a good idea in itself, but not when it involves keeping Bashar al-Assad in power. The proposal does not even mention any Syrian official by name. How can the US propose such an unacceptable notion after the atrocities perpetrated by the Syrian Bathist regime of Bashar al-Assad and his butcher of a brother, Maher al-Assad? How can the US make such a preposterous proposition when the blood of more than 1,300 civilians is still freshly spilt on the streets of Syria? How can the US even suggest the idea of keeping Assad in power when he and his regime stand accused of torturing the Syrian people for voicing their grievances? How can such a proposal even leave the table when children are being tortu...

The Palestinians have begun to learn a very important lesson . One that Gandhi preached and practiced following in the footsteps of one Jesus of Nazareth. While the Palestinians have every right to be angry and an unquestionable right to fight for their right to exists without the oppression of a merciless occupation force, the methods Palestinian freedom fighters have employed have proven to be fruitless over the last few decades. Resorting to violence and terrorism never got anyone anything, nor does a nation stand firmly when its foundations are socked with blood. Violent methods also delegitimize an otherwise just cause, especially when the casualties are innocent civilians, women, children, elderly and peace loving individuals, not just because its bad for public relations, but because the murder of innocents is out right wrong (haram), and unacceptable. The way to peace is through peaceful means. The majority of Palestinians are Muslims, but Islam is a religion that reveres Je...

Relativity from a dyslexic dragon's perspective. Or at least from this specific dyslexic’s perspective. While most dyslexics have far too much in common, each dyslexic is unique. Dyslexics have a gift that allows them to understand things in multiple perspectives. It is a little bit like multidimensional thinking only we dyslexics see and understand things from a relative multi perspective. For instance. The word love has multiple meanings and more often than not when we use that word it can mean multiple all those multiple meanings. Loving a friend can mean many things like physical love, maternal love, puppy love, brotherly love, sisterly love, romantic love, painful love, ecstatic love, and so many more. When we use the word love we mean it in all its forms even when it means just one or is directed at a person with one kind of love. The reason every dyslexic is unique is because each one of us understands how things like’s events, concepts, ideas, culture, customs, mannerism...

What a load of crock.  Let me be clear on one thing before I start ranting; I do not doubt the findings of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) or that Hezbollah members were involved in the assassination of Rafic Hariri. But to hear the slain ex-prime minister’s son, Saad Hariri, who also is an ex-prime minister, spewing hypocrisies out of his orifice I feel compelled to say a few words. "Today, I find myself closer than any time before to my family and the people of my country. I am with them in all cities, towns and homes. I am with the families and crowds who rushed to the Freedom Square and the grave of Martyr Premier, filling the squares all over Lebanon, defying desperation, intimidation and threats, and vowing not to surrender to the will of the killers and criminals. Today, I find myself closer than any time before to my family and the people of my country. I am with them in all cities, towns and homes. I am with the families and crowds who rushed to the Freedom Squ...

The US has, so far, spent in excess of four (4) trillion dollars on the Afghan and Iraqi wars in the last 10 years. Four Trillion Dollars. that’s $4,000,000,000,000.00 in numeric values. It is a mind boggling cost for two wars that have, in essence, failed. Afghanistan is not really better off than it was before the war and neither is Iraq. Sure, Sadam Husain was deposed, Bin laden killed, and the Taliban ousted. But conditions have become worse for the average Afghani and Iraqi citizens. Only a handful few have benefited from these wars. 4 trillion dollars is the value of the lives of 6,051 US soldiers, 2,300 contractors, 18,000 members of the Iraqi and Afghan security forces, 3,520 Pakistani soldiers, and the number to trump them all, 137,000 civilians. All killed because of these two meaningless wars. 4 Trillion dollars distributed evenly among the entier population of the wolrd of 6,775,235,700 would have given everyone of us $590. 4 Trillion dollars that could have been us...

Like this article from Haaretz claims, that the United States Senate "Resolution 185 calls on Palestinians to halt bid for unilateral recognition at UN" I believe this is a mistake on the part of the US senate in just proves that the US government and all its branches do not learn from their mistakes. For all the promises that Obama made in his 2009 Cairo speech now seem to be, more so than before, empty words. Granted that the Palestinians have resorted to barbaric methods to fight for their lands, killing innocent Israeli citizens, one should not deny the very real fact that the Israelis are guilty of the same barbaric acts against the Palestinians and the Lebanese. The difference is that Israel always had, and always will have, the upper hand with their American funded, technologically advanced, morally deficient military. Granted that the Israeli citizens have suffered greatly at the hands of Palestinians. But the Palestinians have suffered far more and continue to do...

Money: Every one wants it and those who have it want more of it. Money: Has more to do with numbers than anything else. Numerical value of the note, numerical value of the cost, numerical value of its quantity. Cost: The amount of money has to pay for a service or product.  Everything costs money. The system we live in is based on money. Everything is valued with it. Value goes up and down with supply and demand. Which means that a billionaire has more rights because he can afford something that has high demand but low supply while a person who is in more dire need of it cannot. We pick up the phone to talk to an old friend, we pay the cost. We live in a house or apartment, we pay the cost. Transportation, costs. Keeping good health, costs. We take a dump and flush the toilet and we pay a cost, the cost of the water we just used to flush the toilet, the cost of waste our body generates from the food we bought over the phone for delivery to eat at the house we live in. appa...

Gaza is a Palestinian territory that is administered by Hamas, the extremist Palestinian resistance group. Hamas is designated as a terrorist group though the truth is they are an extremist resistance group that utilizes terror to drive the Israeli occupying force back. There is no doubt that the methods employed by Hamas are barbaric at best, indiscriminately killing innocent civilians, children women and elderly. However, it is important to note that the Palestinian people have been subjected to a slow genocide by the Israeli Defense Force also. When a more powerful and better equipped aggressor comes by and begins to bulldoze ones family home , burn your crops, drive you out of your country, shoot dead innocent children, women and elderly, one’s mind can no longer see reason and thus resorts to any means necessary to fight back. Both Israelis and Palestinians have a valid, albeit immoral, reason to terrorize and kill each other. The cycle of violence did not start 60 or so odd y...

Some, in the Arab world, think that Israel is preparing for another war with Lebanon. Well, with Hezbollah more specifically, but Hezbollah operates from within Lebanese lands so… Hezbollah’s methods are not what the most Lebanese have in mind. Most of us do not condone Hezbollah’s violent methods of resistance. The Lebanese also know that civilians do not stand a chance against an old enemy who will bombard them indiscriminately in order to fight Hezbollah. Many civilians will die and Israel will never achieve its objective without resorting to genocide. Because the only way to stop a gorilla style enemy like Hezbollah, with violent means, would be to exterminate them all. And with the history of the Israeli people it would be unthinkable for them to resort to such a method openly nor would be an acceptable solution ever. Genocide has never achieved anything positive and never will. This, however, does not mean Israel, the state (not the Jewish people and let’s make that distincti...

If the Lebanese have any more doubt about the necessity to secularize Lebanon, or that they should reduce the power and influence of the patriarchs of Islam and Christianity and all other patriarchal religious denominations of Lebanon, the this little tidbit should hopefully begin to wake them up. Dar al-Fatwa has rejected a law that would grant Lebanese women protection from domestic abuse as a matter of civil law rather than religious law, which more often than not means that the male is favored, be he in the right or wrong. Dar al-Fatwa argues that introducing a "western" law in to Lebanese society means giving in to western style decadence and the destruction of Lebanese society as women would wiled the power to brake a family by threatening to send the husband that is beating her, or abusing, her or being cruel to her, with prison. They seem to think that this would traumatize the kids. So in other words they would prefer to condone that the woman, the wife, the mot...

I am dyslexic. By definition this means I have difficulty with words.... and numbers... and handwriting... and motor coordination... and.... well to be honest describing dyslexia can be complicated. Some call it a learning disability but I beg to differ. It’s just that dyslexics have a different learning style than most people and when placed in an environment that is rigid in its instructional manner... you know... the assembly line style of learning that almost every school and academic institution employs... then yes it becomes a problem. But this problem is can be compared to a tall man trying to enter through a door that was made for someone half his high. Being dyslexic can be cumbersome when dealing with daily life stuff. Like paying bills, keeping grocery lists in check, dealing with government bureaucracy (though admittedly almost everyone finds that process troublesome) and so on. Because we have difficulties dealing with such things some people might see us as "stup...

Slavery in the Arab world still exists to this day. Of course they do not call it "cleaning service". At least in Lebanon they do. Basically it is an off where people go and flip through a catalog of Asian and east African women and men, the client selects the one they like best and soon thereafter the unsuspecting individual leaves their home and family behind with the promise that they will be sending home money monthly for sustenance. The bewildered person arrives at Beirut airport and is whisked away to the new employer’s house where he or she ends up living in a small bathroom sized room with nothing more than a matters. The maid is then instantly required to learn all of madam's wishes and to comply with them at all times. Many of these "maids" are locked in the house; they rarely get a chance to leave the house or apartment lest they run away. And if they do run away they cannot go back to their country because their employer would be in possession of t...

So the not so great Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has come up with a decision to, not only toughen up on Palestinian "terrorists" in Israeli jails, but also making sure that when and if these "terrorists" are released they will not have a chance at a new life.  Like most conservatives, Netanyahu probably thinks that education is "absurd " especially when given to prisoners and more so if they are Palestinian prisoners. Maybe he does not know that the key to get these "terrorists" to stop being "terrorists" is to give them an alternative to what they already know... an education that will enable them to change their lives and take up jobs as productive citizens. Obviously Netanyahu, in my opinion, will achieve the following by doing what he has proposed: 1. Insure that when the Palestinian prisoners are returned to whatever new Palestinian is standing at that moment that they will be unproductive trouble makers. 2. Insure that when ...

The Arab Spring started in Tunisia. All though it was an ARAB spring, the entire world was captivated and enthralled in the bravery of those who stood in the face of brutal suppression of the Arab regimes with their tear gas, bullets and tanks. It started in Tunisia and spread to Egypt and then Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria. Absent still are the voices of the Iranian protesters, but their time will come soon enough. The world watched with horror as people where slaughtered and despots deposed. Despite the continuing agony of the Libyan and Syrian people, and despite the heavy crack down in Bahrain, the aspirations of the people did not diminish. And the world watched with amazement with western powered too confounded to react. For decades they have tried to instill such change in the east and failed. They failed because they advanced such motions as means to advance their own interests rather than that of the people, and they failed bec...