I apologies to the readers of my blog as I am going to get serious on you all. This blog started as a gaming venue so I could work towards getting my ideas ready for publication. This area of the world always interested me. So much so that I am a recent (although very bad) student of Hebrew.
While I did not get over the eastern Mediterranean until after the USMC debacle, I understood the passions that are involved in this area of the world.
As a student in high school I wrote a journalism piece dealing with the assassination of President Sadat. I remember it well as I had a though time reading it aloud. I would never of guessed that his successor would be in power almost 30 years latter. It should give every American pause as not only is Egypt one of America’s largest benefactor of aid under the Camp David Accords, but we support its defense through offering our M1 Abrahams tanks. Egypt is second only to the US Army in the number of M1s in inventory.
These wars of my youth, Lebanon, Yemen, the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War are all still with us. Some of the players have changed, but only the names. This year Lebanon’s government, never very stable falls and is held together by Hezbollah, Tunisia the home of the PLO after they left Beirut has overthrown their President of many years. Yemen is fractured with Saleh being President of one part of Yemen since 1978.
Remember back to the late 70s and think what you were up to. Did you think things would always stay the same? Try to watch the news coming out of the Middle East and ask can anyone make a difference?
American made M60s and M113s in Egypt during the demonstrations.
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