a well rounded blog.
by the end of the day, i hope i leave a marc.
Baroness Margaret Thatcher attends the G7 summit at Rice University in Houston, Texas in 1990 with other G7 leaders including U.S. President George HW Bush.
Twitter Devolutions
by Marc Lynch
Tahrir Square launched a thousand dissertations on how social media drove the frenetic mobilization of the Arab Spring. Egyptian activists may rage at the notion that the revolution was driven by technology rather than by their determined efforts, but there’s a good case to be made that social media did matter — at least a bit — in shaping the uprisings across the Arab world. But the celebratory narrative about social media needs to be tempered by the reality of the struggles that have befallen most of these countries in transition. Whether or not Twitter made the Arab revolutions, is it now helping to kill them?
When is Obama gonna try on foreign policy?
by Daniel Drezner
“Politics isn’t only about winning — sometimes it’s just about making the effort. And the truth of the matter is that when it comes to dealing with Congress, this administration hasn’t made the effort.”
Middle East Lost
by Shadi Hamid
The Arab Spring gave Barack Obama the perfect opening to reorient U.S. policy in the Middle East. Too bad he blew it.
Syria After the Fall
by Vali Nasr
THE conflict in Syria has reached a tipping point, but not one that promises a quick end to the fighting. With or without Bashar al-Assad as its leader, Syria now has all the makings of a grim and drawn-out civil war: evenly matched protagonists who are not ready for a cease-fire, and outside powers preoccupied with their own agendas and unable to find common ground.
Yesterday, four million Coloradans went to work and played football in their front yard; strangers opened doors for each other; people gave blood, offered shelter, served hot meals, held grandkids, played pick-up basketball and committed unnumbered acts of kindness and gentleness. One Coloradan dressed up like a villain and believed that by showing up at the site of America’s mythical hero he could slay our actual heroes.
It’s true there was no Batman sitting in the theater to fly down and tackle James Holmes, as he hoped there might be. He had tactical assault gear covering his whole body, ready for America to fight back.
But love is more organized than that. Love has cellphones and ambulances, nurses and doctors, complete strangers and policemen and emergency responders always at the ready. Love has nurses who will jump out of bed in the middle of the night and get family members to watch their children so they can rush to the hospital and save the life of someone they’ve never met. Love has first responders who will walk into a booby-trapped building to save the lives of neighbors they will never meet.
It must be lonely being James Holmes, spending the first part of your life planning alone for an act that will leave you sitting alone for the rest of your life. For the rest of us, life is crowded. Love is always only three numbers and one movie seat away.
We have lived our country’s history as a chapter of wars, and many of those wars we have been blessed to win. We are a team that loves each other and will fight for each other, and if you punch us in the mouth, we will fight back.
That is one of our obvious strengths, but it is not our greatest strength. America’s awesome strength to fight is overwhelmed by its irrepressible strength to love. James Holmes took twelve lives last night. Love saved fifty-nine lives. Policemen on the scene in minutes, strangers carrying strangers, nurses and doctors activated all over the city.
But we didn’t stop there. Love saved the 700 other people who walked out of the Aurora movie theater unhurt.
But we didn’t stop there. Love saved the 5,000 who went to see Batman all over Colorado, and the 1.2 million who saw it all over the country, who walked in and out safely with their friends, arm in arm.
But we didn’t stop there. Love claimed the four million other Coloradans who went to bed peacefully last night, and who woke up this morning committed to loving each other a little deeper.
The awe of last night is not that a man full of hate can take twelve people’s lives; it is that a nation full of love can save 300 million lives every day.
I sat this morning wondering what I could do to help: give blood, support victims, raise money, stop violence. How could we start to fight back?
My friends were texting me that they had plans to take their kids to Batman tonight but were now afraid to go. Others who were going to play pick-up basketball or go out to dinner were now afraid to leave home. They thought they would bunker down in their home and wonder, “How do we fight back?”
The answer is we love back. We live back. We deepen our commitments to all the unnumbered acts of kindness that make America an unrendable fabric. We respond by showing that we will play harder, and longer. We will serve more meals, play more games, eat more food, listen to more jazz, go to more movies, give more hugs, and say more “thank yous” and “I love yous” than ever before.
So while James Holmes settles into the cell where he will spend the rest of his life, wondering what we will do to fight back, we will love back. We will go to a park this afternoon and play soccer, we will go to the playground and restaurants and movie theaters of our city all weekend and all year.
He should know not only that he failed in his demented attempt to be the villain, but that Batman didn’t have to leap off the screen to stop him, because we had a far more organized and powerful force than any superhero could ever have. Even the twelve lives that he took, this nation will love so strongly and so deeply that we will ensure they get a lifetime full of love out of a life he tried to cut short.
And the fifty-nine lives we took back will be so overrun with love that they will live their lives feeling blessed every day, and everyone who ever meets them will pass on in an instant a love they never knew they earned but we will never let them forget.
In a movie theatre in Aurora 50 years from now, one of last night’s survivors will be waiting in the popcorn line and mention that he was in Theatre 9 on that terrible summer night in 2012. And inexplicably, with an arm full of popcorn, a total stranger will reach out and give that old man a huge hug and say, “I’m so glad you made it.”
Love back. We’ve already won.
—mike johnston, senator from colorado, on last friday’s massacre in aurora.
Syrian Defense Minister Killed as Rebels Strike at the Heart of Power
by Tony Karon
The fighting in Damascus is not quite an indication that the Assad government is about to fall. But it is a sign of how balkanized Syria is—and is likely to be.
(Source: TIME)
Pressure valve off in al-Assad's Syria
by Fareed Zakaria
Over the past sixteen months of bloody conflict in Syria, observers have been waiting for one key development: top-level defections from within President Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle. Suddenly, it seems a pressure valve has gone off. Pilots, ambassadors, and even one general have defected. What does it mean?
Analysis: Bound by conflict, the Syrian-Lebanon crisis | IRIN News
For more than a generation, the northern Lebanese town of Tripoli has been a divided city, home to most of Lebanon’s Shia Alawi community, but also a stronghold of Sunni conservatism.
The two sects, in their respective neighbourhoods of Jebel Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh, have been at odds since the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, with hundreds dying in the worst bloodshed in 1986. The road separating the two entrenched factions - appropriately called Syria Street - is the only demarcation line that still exists in Lebanon 22 years after the war ended.
In recent months, the outbreak of conflict in Syria and the influx of thousands of Syrian refugees into Lebanon has renewed and increased those tensions between Shia Alawis generally supportive of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Sunni sympathizers of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the opposition.
More than 30 Lebanese from both sides have been killed in fighting between the two communities since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in March 2011. While a fragile ceasefire in Tripoli - agreed in early June - seems to be generally holding, sporadic clashes happen on a daily basis and it is common to see civilians carrying weapons.
While there are clear risks of Lebanon being caught up in the Syrian conflict, the reverse is also true: Syrian antagonists are equally in danger of being dragged into age-old Lebanese sectarianism.
The Syrian conflict has already killed at least 10,000, according to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and displaced as many as 500,000 people inside the country, according to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, and another 86,000 are registered refugees in neighbouring countries. Basic services are not running properly, and the economy has been hard hit, not only by the conflict, but by far-reaching economic sanctions, pushing up unemployment and the price of food. Lebanon, which has already suffered decades of war, is rife with poverty and political instability. Both countries have much to lose.
Photo: Anja Pietsch/ IRIN
After the Arab Spring: A crisis of leadership
by Marc Sabbagh
My latest blog post on the leadership deficit in Egypt and lessons for Syria.
Egypt's Parliament Disbanded: A Coup, or More Regime Bumbling and Chaos?
by Max Fisher
First Mubarak and now his military say they offer a choice between their own stern rule or chaos, but it looks increasingly as if they are the source of the chaos.
On Assad's Doorstep
by Julien Barnes-Dacey
The revolution is finally coming to the once quiet, now tense streets of inner Damascus.
If there is anybody at all who has a dream, then they can definitely make it happen…There are no excuses. It depends on you and no one else.
—dawn loggins, reflecting on her recent acceptance to harvard university after being abandoned and homeless.
Five Sobering Questions About the Situation in Syria
by Tony Karon
The scale of the violence on the ground is amplifying calls for Western intervention. But it also points to the complexity of stopping the bloodshed.
(Source: TIME)
NIGHTNIGHT by DEDDY
