Tag Archives: Arabic

Hateful Hamas and Friendless Fatah

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FatahHamas and Fatah. Do you know which is which? I try to keep abreast of the people’s struggle, so I find it strange and disappointing that in the news I so often cannot differentiate the two. I blame a slanderous media intent on confusing us about which are the Honest representatives of Palestine, and which are the Fake.

Fatah stands for Palestinian National Liberation Movement in Arabic backward, and they came First. Though they emerged from Yasser Arafat’s PLO, they settled into the bureaucracy of the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s Kapos in the occupied territories. Fatah now enforce Western Foreign interests in the Middle East and as concerns representing the oppressed Palestinians, Fatah have become Frauds.

That’s how in a landslide election last year, Hamas came to take the reins, and why Israel which holds the purse strings, refuses to give Hamas its due tax revenues.

Hamas, or Islamic Resistance Movement, may sound like Hotheads to you, but who are we to say what will work best for the Palestinians? Their land has been stateless for going on sixty years, they remain in permanent dislocation, made worse forty years ago under direct Israeli occupation. But I oversimplify. Israelis seem satisfied to create a Palestinian Diaspora same as was done to the Israelites in 500 BC, or let the non-Jews die in refugee camps in the meantime, but for Hamas.

Still uncertain? Watch how the corporate media covers Palestine. If there’s something Favorable to say, it’s about Fatah. If it’s Horrible, it’s about Hamas. Perhaps my continued disorientation grows from the optimism that one day the media will show some respect and Hope for the Palestinian people.

Hamas are considered terrorists, and like the IRA and Sinn Fein, they lead Palestine’s fight for independence from colonial empire. Those who do not want to condone armed struggle should ponder Occupied France under the Nazis, a cakewalk compared to Gaza. With whom would Gandhi or Mandela have sided, the Resistance or Vichy?

MTA and the ‘failure to communicate’

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There is a sad but funny commentary on Alternet titled, ‘The Iraq Debacle- Failure to Communicate?‘ I took a semester of Modern Standard Arabic ages ago and this article and the subsequent commentaries discuss the lack of available Arabic translators amongst ‘our troops’ and the various causes for that.

Following is my comment under one of the threads discussing this article.

Nothing new here…
Posted by: logansafi on Apr 9, 2007 7:14 PM

There’s nothing new here with our clownish military and our clown CIC. Nobody knew how to speak Albanian or Serbo Croat either, and God save us if they ever go into Darfur-Chad-Sudan! ‘Saviours’ without a clue they always are.

It is obvious why the US military is so in bed with Israel. Israel is the only country that has some Arab linguist ability, especially when you count their Falangist Lebanese killer friends.

MTA should be what this lingua franca should be called. Modern Torture Arabic. Good for use while stealing Iraqi oil.

New Iraqi oil laws made in USA

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There is since the days of legal slavery, probably no worse example of theft written into law than the proposed new Iraqi oil laws will be when passed. Written first in English by the US oil companies and their US government co-conspirators, they were recently re-translated back into our home tongue from Arabic by an Iraqi blogger, Raed Jarrar. Key word here is PRIVATIZATION, and it won’t be for the benefit of any minuscule Iraqi companies still in existence.

To the hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars already robbed from the US treasury for the benefit of the US armament crowd, like CS homey company Lockheed et al, now will be added hundreds of billions of dollars to be robbed by corporations like Halliburton and Exxon-Mobil from the decimated people of Iraq. A perfect picture of modern predatory capitalism in action. Sick. See Democracy Now- New Iraqi Oil Law to Open Iraq’s Oil Reserves to Western Companies

Bush ‘renders’ US citizen to Israel

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Israel extradites a dissidentFawaz Damra, a US citizen was stripped of his citizenship, held in jail for months for no crime what-so-ever, and finally ‘rendered’ to Israel 2 weeks ago, possibly to be tortured?. His crime? He was born a Palestinian.

He was deported to Israeli military forces without being allowed contact with either his family or his lawyer beforehand. He has 3 teenage daughters and a wife, all who are also US citizens. I bet they are really glad to enjoy the benefits of American citizenship? What a grand civics lesson they are receiving.

It is apparent to more and more American Muslims now, that it is barely legal to be a Muslim here. Muslims do not now have to wear a Crescent like the Star of David that Jews once had to wear for Germans, but that’s more due to advances in surveillance technology. But you really are taking your life in your hands as an American Muslim, to enter your place of worship or to make a charitable donation to a church cause. I bet the family of Damra are really impressed by what religious freedom us Americans have? How protected they must feel in being citizens, too.

Fawaz, upon immigrating to the US, became a moderate imam and headed up the Cleveland mosque. Just the type of person that the US people as a whole need most amongst us, to counter the threats of future terrorism. I’m sure that stripping this man of his citizenship and then deporting him into the custody of Israeli military torturers, is certainly going to do wonders for our National Security, the Bush neo-con Klan are so fond of barfing on about so continuously! They are brilliant strategists for sure!

It shouldn’t surprise us at all, I guess? The US was very good under the Democrats of FDR at turning back Jews trying to escape from the Nazis. But the Zionist Jews of Israel are now our Aryan Empires allies, and so things are the same as back then, yet so very topsy turvy. It is now the Jews that run the show and Arabs that are in ghettos. Looking over all this, of course, is the great Christian Church of imperialism.

Let me mention here, that my last name is really Arabic, though I am really totally Aryan. I wonder how I fit into the computers of our new national security state observation deck? But just for the record let me state, that I am still for jailing the terrorists that run our country. Oh how anti-US I must be with my Arab last name! How suspect my politics.

And to you fascistic dittohead thugs out there? Well, I am ashamed of the US. If you weren’t such ignorant backward bastards, so would you be, too. I wonder just how far out nutty this government terrorism against us will go? Let’s just say, I don’t think I can just go down to the airport and hop on a plane nowadays. But why should I leave? This is my country, and the Right Wingers should get out of it and Go to Hell, not me. They are nothing but traitors to everything decent, they are, and are not the real patriots out there, not in the least. All their good Americanism is a big fat sham, same as the good Germans back 90 years ago were with their ‘patriotism’..

To follow more the history of this case somewhat, go to the Cleveland newspaper’s coverage page on Fawaz Damra

Pizza Patron shows that Tancredoista Right Wingers have no good taste

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Patron means bossThe Right Wing are such ignorant nuts. Any decent red blooded American would be rushing down to the local Pizza Patron restaurante and trying out their chain’s pizzas with flair. Where else can one get a barbacoa pizza, a chorizo pizza, or chicken wings with limon y queso?

Hey! What about the one I make at home, too, with hamburger, tomates, onions, and nopalitos? And I suggest for all the nutty Right Wing racists now aghast with rage at Pizza Patron for accepting pesos when their pizzas are bought… How ’bout a pizza con sesos in the barbacoa for you taste-retarded, racist gringo types? They should give that one out free even, and help get y’alls, Conservative, gasoline powered brains recharged some! You dittoheads are in dire need for sure. Hey! Free pizza for the Gavachos, please!

Pizza Patron is even receiving death threats, and other assorted attentions from all the usual Right nutter sources. Not only are they accepting pesos, printing their menus in both Spanish and English, and sponsoring good Hispanic causes, but the owner also has an Arabic last name (he’s half Lebanese)! Now that’s just too damn much for the idiot American nationalistic Right to take. Right, Sir Tom? (Tom Tancredo is Colorado’s Congressional HouseNut serving his patria sin sesos.)

Let’s pass a law where only hamburgers can be served in restaurants for Homeland Security reasons, of course. And only if any vegetables are deep fried Tancredo style. I think even Taco Bell is too spicy and unAmerican for our Zieg Heil Right. Poor people. They are so challenged about everything, it seems.

Blue Monday, ah blue Monday

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so ok. I somehow knew that Monday morning would bring the follies of a political writers wildest dreams. The first, y’all heard tell of that bomb scare at the Port of Miami, well, it was a false alarm.
The po-po’ s were talking about the incident in which 3 Arabic men, who didn’t speak much English, were detained and their container truck searched and probed and scanned and all kind of ugly nasty things… but they are claiming that the incident wasn’t spawned by the fact that the men were swarthy and arabic. No, it was a miscommunication at the front gate, which had cleared the truck to pass, and counted all the men inside, but the next checkpoint didn’t see but one of them as they pulled up to it. Nope, no racism involved, and America can rest easy knowing their Homeland is Secure. This reminds me eerily of the Shoney’s incident of 5 years ago.

The second story, a great victory for Saddam, the charges were dropped in court today… Of course the only reason they were dropped was a formality, of course also the conviction for which he was hanged still stands.

and on to the Third… Prince William, Billy the Kid so the Queen can sue me… (she specifically demanded at the announcement of his birth that no one was to call him anything but William, and particularly not Bill or Billy.)

Well, he has finished Military School and about to take up residency and duties in the Blues and Royals Household Cavalry. He is expected to familiarize himself with the regiment he is to command. He will eventually, after training, be the leader of an armored vehicle squadron.
Good Show, Bill! A large question looms in all our minds, and I suppose you know what it is, Bill.
Are you going to lead the troops by example, and volunteer to be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan?

Here’s a better plan, and within the prerogatives of Royalty, and in your family, it was never very uncommon.

ooohh royalty and un”common” all in the same sentence heehee I make a funny…

But seriously, Mr Bill, why not off your daddy and grandmum and just make off with the whole pie?
Be a self-made orphan and put yourself on the fast track to the Crown. It is fox hunting season, you know.

There have been hunting …accidents… in your family before, you know.

Then declare victory in Iraq and get the fuck out. The decision to make war rests with the Crown, does it not?

You would need Commons to fund it, the Lords to sit around looking silly, in order to start a war.
On the other hand you need no such approval to STOP your subjects’ participation in it. Even Tony “the Poodle” Blair would be powerless to prevent it.

Suck it up, lad! Do it for your Patriotic Honor! Your grand-mum is a senile old bitch and your Pater is a dangerously inbred idiot who isn’t fit for the throne either. Keep a stiff upper lip and show some Royal guts! Literally.

Nancy Pelosi’s new dog, Silvestre, fails IQ test

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Democratic Party exINS police dog, Silvestre Reyes, flunked his IQ test this week. The new head of the House Intelligence Committee was given a series of basic questions about the Middle East by the journal Congressional Quarterly Today, and scored ZERO on their IQ test for him. Yes, truth is stranger than fiction, it seems. But Pelosi’s pick for the spot didn’t seem to even know the difference between the Sunnis and the Shia! Unbelievable! Maybe they should rename it the House Ignorance Committee instead?

Even the CQ interviewer didn’t quite believe what he was hearing when he sat down with Reyes to talk about this newest advance in his career as Democratic Party top hack. Hint hint. Now go and give this test to Obama, too. We want some more fun. This is much better than watching Sasha Cohen play Borat. And even much more fun than a vactaion to Tehran to do a philosophy conference, even! Can we get Cheney tested now? Pleaseeeee….

Doesn’t it boggle the mind to think that this bipartisan DP-RP insane asylum trying to run another culture without a clue to what’s going on, could possibly succeed? Nobody speaks Arabic or Pashto, nobody in the country other than Pat Robertson, Billy Graham Baby, and Glenn Beck know anything about Islam (just kidding), and 99% of the US public that supports this fiasco overseas can’t locate their asses from a hole in the ground on a map! Yes, our leaders are all as stupid as rocks. Good going Democrats with picking Reyes for his post. He might be even stupider than Dubya? No mean feet. duh.

Look, to be fair, the liberal voters even to the Left of the Democratic Party politician hacks try to play Risk with other people’s lives while being totally clueless. How many of these nitwits want to go rushing in with US troops from Djibouti (I guess?) into Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic? Give these good hearted fools an IQ test about the region, and they would be out of their Risk game within secs due to brain infarcts.. Most of these liberal wannabe admirals so ready to Trotsky into areas like that, probably have already forgotten their Kosovan Albanian. It is sad, this US desire to control the world. When will it stop?

Look at it

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Suspended by feet pants offSomeone’s leaked video footage of an interrogation/torture session in Iraq. Information Clearinghouse has a short clip, thankfully not completely explicit. I’m of two minds about whether to look. Because the scene will haunt you, I advise not looking. On the other hand, what about the poor victims of torture? Are they given such a choice? Look at the outrage we are perpetrating. Be queasy. Live with it. So long as we permit torture, condone it, and subject others to it, the least we can do is have it haunt us.

A word about this clip. Is it real? Who are the torturers? Are those American shouts among the Arabic? Who filmed this session? Could these have been Saddam’s thugs at work previous to the US invasion?

I would submit that those details matter only to the voyeur getting off on the clip. I could care less. No matter what and who we are seeing, we know it depicts what we Americans are doing. We’ve approved torture for use by our military, and American contractors are conducting interrogation sessions beyond what even has been tacitly approved. We know this. We know that our Denfense Department’s definition of permitted duress is the infliction of pain which falls just short of causing organ failure. That’s a lot of pain. The guys in the clip are just getting started.

Starbucks vs. the birthplace of coffee

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Oldest coffee in the worldWant an afficionado’s tip? The mother of all coffees is Ethiopian Harrar. Literally. The insight is as olfactory as it is scientific. History records that the first coffees were cultivated in Ethiopia/ Abyssinia on the Red Sea. Every current variety of Coffea Arabica is believed to have originated from those plants. Colombian Juan Valdez picks coffee beans introduced to the New World by the Spaniards. Indoneasian javas were planted by the Dutch. Each of those famous varieties were transplanted Arabica. Starbucks wants to transplant the names.

It might be fitting now that Ethiopian farmers are asking for the right to control their unique varietal names. Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe are considered premium coffees and refer to the regions of Ethiopia where they are grown. It is estimated that trademarks could generate an additional $90 million for impoverished Ethiopian growers who currently receive just three cents per cup of coffee. The problem is from whose profit they would have to wrestle the extra money: Starbucks.

Starbucks has been opposing Ethiopia’s trademark applications on the grounds that giving a higher value to the farmers would result in a decreased demand for the premium beans. Do you buy that? Even if Starbucks passed the increased cost unto the customer, would a few cents deter their caffeen addicted connoisseurs from the world’s most potent coffee? Ethiopia’s control over the branding of their product is likely only to increase their coffee’s visibility and prestige.

Bean counters versus the bean growersStarbucks denies having asked the US National Coffee Association to block the Ethiopian trademark bid. But in fact Starbucks has been trying to trademark Sidamo for itself.

I can’t find an etymology record to link the term bean-counter with coffee beans. In any case the expression denotes someone who values quantity over quality. I’d say they have the wrong beans.

Update: Le Monde article translated at Truthout.

Hezbolla is HizbAllah

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Hizb’Allah means the Party of God. The party of Allah. The allegiance to god is clear in the spelling Hizb’Allah. This is the way Moslems spell it, this is how al-Jazeera spells it. Even Hizballah or Hezballah is more clear.

The western press however likes to call it Hezbolla. Why? Ebola?

Hizb’Allah is a legitimate political party with popular support in Lebanon and wide support from Shia Moslems throughout the region.

What if al-Jazeera started spelling Christian Coalition as the Coalition of Cretins? How would Americans feel? Would we be insulted that Moslems would see us less as warriors for Jesus and more like self-righteous ignoranuses?
It is not.

Allah, by the way, is not the name for the god of Islam. It is not a proper noun like Yahweh or Jehovah. It is the Arabic word god.