The USS Cole, along with other ships of the Sixth Fleet, has been moved close to the Lebanese shores. The Cole has a sad history behind it, as most people know, or should know. It was attacked in the fall of 2000, by citizens of allied soon-to-be New Middle East countries, in a seaport of another New Middle East moderate ally. Nineteen people died in that suicide attack, most of them American victims.

The emergence of the Cole, target of al-Qaeda at the port of Aden, off the Lebanese shores has raised speculation. Fouad Saniora, PM of the rump cabinet in part of Beirut, was quick to deny that he had requested its presence. He said that US officials had not informed him of the deployment of the Cole, then added that "it will remain outside Lebanese waters", without explaining how he knew that it will. Other members of the Saniora coalition hinted at things to come, perhaps hopefully.

The Shi'as and their Christian Maronite allies are predictably pissed. Hizbullah said that it was part of an American campaign of threats and intimidation, and that it will not work. Perhaps: warships are not normally sent anywhere unless the purpose is to use them or to threaten their use. Hizbullah TV was quick to say that this move showed who were the real leaders of the pro-government forces.

Some media sources reported that the Cole is there because of worries about Syria. But Syria seems boxed in now, mostly laying low, so it is not likely to attack, say, Israel, or the realm of King Abdul in Jordan. And it does not send supplies and men to Hizbullah by sea. as a clever Arab analyst noted. Hassan Nassrallah does not seem to be getting ready to escape Lebanon through the Mediterranean. And I doubt that the rump cabinet is about to seek political asylum en masse in Dearborn anytime soon.
Some say that it is a show of force designed to stiffen the backbon of the Hariri-Saniora alliance- the next best thing to putting ground troops in harm's way. This is a mystery.

Ali al-Kemawi, R.I.P:
The Iraqi Presidential Council has approved the death sentence of "Chemical" Ali Hassan al-Majeed, mass murderer of Kurds and others, once Governor of occupied Kuwait and Ba'ath regime big man. Like some other Iraqi Ba'athist butchers, he was also once looked up to in some limited Arab circles, especially in some Gulf states, as an Arab folk hero because he tended to butcher mostly the "right kind' of people- just like his wilier and more famous cousin.
He is to be executed within a month.

He served a tribal and largely sectarian regime with a modern veneer that often deceived willing Westerners. It used as its front a party that was originally modeled after the National Socialists of a Germany gone berserk about a perverted Austrian former corporal in the Kaiser's army.

Later, the "Party" sensed the changing winds and adopted some of the ideologies of the socialist co-victors of the European war. The party was never popular in Iraq before 1968, when it took over through a military coup and started a bloody reign of terror that spared no group, sect or party in Iraq. Kurds were bombed, gassed, and uprooted- Shi'as were tortured, stripped of their citizenship and deported- Jews were hung in public squares to die slowly of asphyxiation not of broken necks- Sunnis were tortured, executed and exiled. It was a party of Equal Opportunity Persecution for those who did not toe the line or were suspect.
In the end very few Arab people, mostly among those who never had to live under its rule, were saddened by the demise of the party.
May that nightmare never ever revisit any nation.
Cheers, most likely
Mohammed