Standing on the front lines in Aleppo you can't just smell the gunpowder, you can smell the depression. It hangs in the air far thicker than smoke, and with far worse effects. The fighters have a hard time seeing through it but they push forward anyway, having no choice.
"Should...
(2) Comments | Posted August 8, 2012 | 11:35 PM
A force of 20,000 Syrian troops have encircled Aleppo and are preparing to retake it from Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels. Assad's army has softened their targets with barrages of artillery, aerial bombardment, and strafing by helicopter gunships for weeks.
The men of the FSA who volunteered for...
(27) Comments | Posted July 20, 2012 | 3:41 PM
Naysayers and second-guessers of NATO intervention in Libya, and of possible intervention in Syria, take your seats at the back of the room. Analysts and pundits who recklessly spread the uninformed opinion that the Muslim Brotherhood would claim victory in the elections, submit your resignation letters.
Those who have...
(3) Comments | Posted June 5, 2012 | 4:13 PM
The lapdog of a brutal dictator versus an Islamist in Egypt's presidential elections sure makes our Presidential elections look boring.
Egypt, the heart of the Arab Spring and the catalyst for subsequent revolutions in Libya and Syria, will know in two weeks which of these ridiculous paths the...
(10) Comments | Posted May 1, 2012 | 4:36 PM
I didn't learn that Osama bin Laden was dead until August 24, 2011, nearly four months after he was killed. I had just escaped from Abu Salim prison in Libya a few hours earlier and was talking to my girlfriend on the phone for the first time in...
(3) Comments | Posted April 17, 2012 | 10:15 AM
In the past few months the Syrian rebels have gone from manning checkpoints in the Damascus suburbs to being routed from Homs and Idlib. Horrific videos have been smuggled out of Syria that rival what I saw when I was fighting in the Libyan civil war. Journalists are...
(92) Comments | Posted April 2, 2012 | 7:36 PM
Journalists, pundits and politicians seem increasingly obsessed with fears that Islamists winning elections in the wake of successful Arab Spring uprisings will prove detrimental to democracy, regional security, and the War on Terrorism.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Having spent years studying and living in the Arab world,...
(18) Comments | Posted January 8, 2013 | 4:34 PM