[ken5050]

I have a question for the Arab league..How many YEARS has Syria occupied Lebanon?

[Uncle Miltie]

"We are talking about problems that require real change in society - its position toward women, its position toward democracy, the role of civil society," Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian foreign minister, said at the meeting.

Easy.

Palestinian position toward women: blow them up; kill them for family honor; transportation for locked suicide belts.

Palestinian position toward democracy: interferes with kleptocracy; democratic choice between Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or Al Aqsa Brigades.

Palestinian position toward civil society: Hang suspected collaborators without trial; Selling land to Jews begets capital punishment; Teach kids hate.

Would the Palestinian Representative care to challenge his own dictatorship on these issues at the risk of his life, or is he comfortable representing the Palestinian position?

[68skylark]

The failure to establish a working model in Iraq seriously dented that effort.

To me, this sentence seemed badly out of place in an otherwise reasonably straight-forward report on the Arab League meeting.

The effort in Iraq could take years and decades, but the Times was calling it a failure almost from the day troops started rolling into Iraq for the initial invasion.