How do I post things I haven't read?

Yeah, I would think that would generally be a bad idea. But considering that they were sent to me by those PhD and masters students in Beirut who I got to know at AUB and that I think on the same wave-length as these people, I decided they would be worth posting. Also, I did skim them, but I didn't really READ them.

As for Wally being a pain in the ass. . . No way. I am so much appreciating Wally. He's asking good questions, and keeping me on my toes, and really wanting to think about these things. I am so happy there are still some people reading this. And enough people with open minds to really want to learn. Wally keeps asking what I think. And as we already established, I'm not a Middle East expert. Another gracious reader pointed out that I'm just an "English teacher". Actually, I'm certified to teach Social Studies and Spanish as well as English and ESL. And that my being an "English teacher" made me especially unqualified to voice any opinions about these matters.

I lived there for two years and did study some things as an undergrad. I worked at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard for a while and read some more things and talked to a lot of experts. That's pretty much all my qualifications. And I can say that a woman who works at AUB said my Arabic was better than most of the students she works with--which I thought was pretty crazy, since my Arabic is pretty bad. So that's it. Those are my qualifications. (I decided to apply to doctoral programs, by the way.)

As for my opinion of Hizbollah, that Wally keeps asking me for, I feel like I've already said it a million times. More than a religious group, they are a resistance group. Started in 1982 to fight Israeli occupation and the illegal Khiam prison, and they succeeded in kicking out the Israelis in 2000. In that first article in my website, it talks about how they are a political party with Members of Parliament and they provide important social services that the government has not provided to this traditionally disenfranchised population.

I've said before--Israel has a right to defend herself, and so does Lebanon. And that's what Hizbollah did. The weak, post-Civil War Lebanese government and military couldn't fight Israel. So they never complied with U.N. Resolution 1559 calling for all militias in Lebanon to disarm. Of course, the Lebanese government has allowed Hizbollah to continue and to run Southern Lebanon as if it were its own little mini-state within a state.

The word "terrorist" is useless. It obscures everything. I can call both sides of this war terrorists. And as Chavez likes to say, Bush is the ultimate "terrorista del mundo."

But thanks for all those people posting comments and asking questions. Believe me--this is what encourages me the most. Going to protests and seeing the people there just makes me want to cry. They care about stuff that they don't have to care about. My friends are stuck on mountains just waiting -- for what? a worse bomb, more disasters. The world is letting it all happen. They feel abandoned. So just having anyone care is encouraging. Believe me--when I tell my friends that I talked to some people, or that there are people reading my blog, they are so encouraged. It feels like this kind of support is just as important as money. Keeping some hope alive is absolutely critical right now.

So, thank you Wally, for caring. It gives me some hope and encouragement. And my friends need that from me when I call them.