Eric Umansky

"Network" Killed the Political Star

Least satisfying investigation ever. From the BBC:

UN Says 'Network' Killed Hariri

A UN commission investigating the death of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri says the evidence suggests a network of people was responsible for the attack.

No individuals were named, but the investigators said what it called the "Hariri Network" might also be behind other deadly attacks in Lebanon.

What exactly were the other possibilities? That it was a lone killer who, you know, figured out Hariri's schedule and detonated a sophisticated bomb as Hariri's car was passing.

A Little History Goes a Long Way

From super-duper counter-insurgency blogger Abu Muqawama:

In Lebanon, in September 1983, the U.S. lent direct support to what it assumed was a national institution, the Lebanese Army, in the battle at Souk el-Gharb. By doing so, it became, in the eyes of the rest of the Lebanese population, just another militia. The U.S. history in Iraq is more complicated, obviously, but what's happening now is the U.S. is throwing our lot in with ISCI in the upcoming elections.

The amazing thing is just how obviously folly is it that the U.S. is intervening on behalf of one faction, and yet it's still happening. Anyway, Abu Muqawama's reference to Lebanon strikes me as just right. In so far as people in the U.S. remember the U.S.'s intervention in Lebanon,  I'm sure we remember first the bombing of the Marines barracks and then, maybe, that the Marines were there as part of a peacekeeping mission. Except that's not how Lebanese remember it. They remember something closer to the reality, namely that the U.S. took sides. And that operation didn't end particularly well.

Mac in Town

Here's a story I wrote for Wired about our how Macs got stolen in Damascus--and then magically reappeared. 

Slacker Doesn't Even Begin to Describe It

But I have written some articles. And the other day, I did a Podcast interview with Nextbook about hanging at synagogue in Damascus:

How do I get one of these?

From the Los Angeles Times:

[Fabulous Lakers center] Andrew Bynum began running on a treadmill Tuesday, another step in his comeback from a knee injury that has sidelined him more than eight weeks.

Bynum ran for 20 minutes on an "anti-gravity" treadmill that allowed him to essentially decrease his weight via an air-pressure chamber that enveloped his lower body and reduced his impact on the treadmill.

Headline of the Day

"Researcher: Moses Was Tripping at Mount Sinai" - Haaretz

The Real Story Behind Hamas' Gaza Takeover?

Too tired to post much, but Vanity Fair has a pretty extraordinary (and deeply reported) article in its upcoming issue about how the U.S. tried last year to get Fatah to essentially mount a coup against Hamas:

Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a furious debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup.

Wurmser accuses the Bush administration of “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,” Wurmser says.

I actually wrote a piece for Slate last year about the U.S.'s arming of Fatah, a policy that struck me as completely  dunder-headed:

The idea is simple: Squeeze Hamas, fortify the opposition, and hope for the best. It's a tempting concept, but it's a bad idea. The United States and Europe employed a similar game plan through much of the 1990s—throwing cash at the Palestinian government, the security forces in particular, just as long as they opposed Hamas. It not only proved ineffective, it made things worse.

Go read for the Vanity Fair story and you'll see all the sordid details,including how the U.S. supported Mohamed Dahlan, one of the bigger sons-of-bitches in Gaza. 

Iraqi refugee update

The U.S. is still moving at a snail's pace in admitting Iraqi refugees:

WASHINGTON, March 1 (Reuters) - The United States admitted 444 Iraqi refugees in February, according to preliminary figures released by a U.S. official on Saturday, up from 375 in January but below the pace needed to meet its 12,000 annual target...

More than 2 million Iraqis are believed to have fled to neighboring countries such as Syria and Jordan since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled former dictator Saddam Hussein and eventually triggered a brutal insurgency.

In fiscal 2007, the United States admitted 1,608 Iraqi refugees, up from 202 the previous year.

Welcome to the Ballistic Intifada

Sixty-one Palestinians (about half civilians) and two Israeli solders have died since Israel launched a commando raid into Gaza. The raid was launched, of course, because  Hamas has begun firing  missiles on the previously out-of-range  city of Ashkhelon.  Israel is nearly stuck. It can't let missiles continue to hit one of its cities. Yet it's unlikely to be able to stop them. As even Israel's leaders recognize, re-occupying Gaza would probably hurt Israel more than it would help.

All which of reminds me of something I mentioned two years ago, when I first read a brief reference about the possibility of a ballistic intifada:

It is precisely because technology, such as missiles, is becoming cheaper and more accessible that political solutions are what's needed. In other words, if it's becoming ever-easier for movements and people to get the means to kill, then one of the best things you can do is try to remove their desire to kill.

Israel needs to do what it can to protect its citizens. But over the long run, the best chance of that happening  involves  Israel's leaders holding  their noses and negotiating with Hamas.

Our (flawed) anti-terrorism laws

I have a feature story in the new issue of Mother Jones exploring the U.S.'s "material support" laws", which have become the U.S.'s most frequently used anti-terrorism laws.  They have also served as the basis for many of the government's most questionable terrorism cases, for instance that weird purported plot by the "Seas of David" to blow up the Sears Tower. 

Basically,  these laws (there are two) are far more expansive than  most people realize. And I argue that one of the reasons these questionable cases keep getting prosecuted is that the material support provisions give prosecutors a shot at conviction even when the evidence adds up to quite little.  In any case, if you're interested here's the piece.

P.S. I've been on a couple of radio programs plugging the article. You'll eventually be able to hear the first show here (about one hour and 20 minutes in).  I was also on Air America last night but can't seem to find  that online, which, ahem, is just as well.