They say that jealousy is a ‘green-eyed monster’. I wonder what color of eyes paranoia and conspiracy-mindedness have? Asharq Alawsat runs a piece on how residents of various Lebanese coastal areas think international operations to recover the remain of those killed in the Jan. 25 crash of an Ethiopian Air plane are actually using that operation as an excuse to spy on Lebanon. I’m sure the Arab world, at some point, had a scholar who came up with the equivalent of Ockam’s Razor, the law of parsimony. Whoever he might have been, his lessons have been entirely forgotten.
Plane Victims’ Families Accuse US of Spying
Sawsan al-AbtahBeirut, Asharq Al-Awsat- A tense atmosphere prevailed in Lebanon yesterday after a US warship and the “Ocean Alert” ship failed to locate the black box on the eighth day of the ill-fated Ethiopian plane which crashed in a storm, with all 90 people on board presumed dead.
Anger flared up after a body and some limbs floated off Al-Naimah coast yesterday with many observers claiming that the foreign ships were wasting time or were not doing their work as required but instead were waiting for the bodies to float ashore by themselves. Some even considered the Western ships to be exploiting this chance to photograph the coast and depths which Hezbollah overlooks, especially as this sea area could be a possible site in any future battle between the party and Israel, and this is a golden opportunity for the Americans.
A commentator in the south says: “Even if they found the plane, they would not announce it and would continue their search. They will not leave anything but photograph it. They will not have a second chance to photograph this coast from where the Hezbollah missile was fired at the Israeli gunboat in 2006. They are operating alone without the presence of any Lebanese officer with them aboard the ship.”
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February:04:2010 - 15:40
As much as I think the US is there to find the Ethiopian plane, I am sure that they wouldn’t miss an opportunity to spy on Hezbollah. Hezbollah has been acting as a proxy for Iran and Syria. The US certainly wants to keep track of what is going on.
February:04:2010 - 20:20
It reminds me of all those German and British archeological digs in the Sahara, between world wars, and the value of the archeologists’ maps.
February:04:2010 - 23:36
If America wants to spy on anyone they can and they don’t have to be there physically there to do it. I think people forget about technology when they come up with these absurd ideas.
It is amazing to me how long the US military keep the internet away from the general public. I wonder what else they use that won’t be in the public domain for some time.
I think paranoia would be blackened eyes in an almond shape. Almost alien like.
February:05:2010 - 01:40
I don’t think the military kept the Internet away. It was primarily a tool for sharing university research with DARPA (the military R&D group). Academics found it useful. The general public was still working on Apple ][s and early PCs, and slow dial-up modems and weren’t at all ready for the Internet.
It didn’t become the Internet we know until Tim Berners Lee came up with the World Wide Web, out of one of those research facilities, CERN.
February:05:2010 - 03:51
I am just looking for my transportal…