{"id":5438,"date":"2011-03-06T08:13:42","date_gmt":"2011-03-06T08:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2011\/03\/06\/a-few-words-from-our-senior-mi\/"},"modified":"2011-03-06T08:13:42","modified_gmt":"2011-03-06T08:13:42","slug":"a-few-words-from-our-senior-mi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2011\/03\/06\/a-few-words-from-our-senior-mi\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few Words from Our Senior Middle East Correspondent"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been sticking to my “no Internet before writing something” quota fairly well the last several days, with a couple of exceptions: 1) writing or no writing, I read a bunch of RSS feeds on my phone when I’m putting SteelyKid to bed at night, and 2) I keep following events in the Middle East via Al Jazeera online, mostly their live blogging from Libya<\/a>. It’s fascinating to watch.<\/p>\n

Of course, this blog also has an official Senior Middle East Correspondent, namely my friend Paul, who is a journalist based in Cairo. When the Egyptian revolution started, he was out of the country on a family vacation (which he cut short, getting back to Egypt in time for Mubarak’s resignation), but this time he’s right in the middle of things, filing reports from Benghazi<\/a> and reports on the rebel advance through eastern Libya<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The rebel forces, for all their apparent disorganization and spontaneity that would seem to be disastrous for purposes of military strategy, do seem to have momentum on their side.<\/p>\n

The swift advance and comparatively light casualties suggest that, at least for now, government troops are not offering a great deal of resistance.<\/p>\n

“He has planes and bombs but I have a strong heart and I am defending my land,” said Capt. Abdel-Hamid Ali, while his fleet of six pickup trucks pulled over at a rest stop in the grim, featureless desert.<\/p>\n

Ali, who had no obvious rank insignia and wore wraparound sunglasses, camouflage pants, a down vest and a green army sweater, estimated that there were just 500 rebel forces involved in the push westward, but could not say when the next move would come.<\/p>\n

“I am awaiting orders,” he said, waving his ancient Nokia mobile phone in a desert country with often patchy reception.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The whole scene sounds completely crazy, and it’s hard to believe we’re watching this unfold. Let alone that I know somebody on the ground there.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I hope the rebel advance continues to go as smoothly as possible, and they manage to topple Gaddafi (who is a world-class nutjob) without anything horrific happening. And I hope to someday hear Paul tell war stories in person, because I bet the best stuff doesn’t make it onto the wires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been sticking to my “no Internet before writing something” quota fairly well the last several days, with a couple of exceptions: 1) writing or no writing, I read a bunch of RSS feeds on my phone when I’m putting SteelyKid to bed at night, and 2) I keep following events in the Middle East… Continue reading A Few Words from Our Senior Middle East Correspondent<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,28,46,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-politics","category-war","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}