Salmiya

http://youtu.be/BwQuMUe5hfk Please see the video here . Where have I been ten years ago? Well, I don’t know. Ten years ago, Ahmad Shah Masoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance, had been assassinated by Al Qaeda, but I have learned about that critical event long time after the killing. I suppose I have written about my whereabouts two days later already. It was one of these significant emotional events in life you won’t ever forget (and no one in the world did). I had actually been filling packing boxes all day looking forward to a critical move, to the Middle East. I had got a job offer at Kuwait University. My new colleagues were awaiting me (but, honestly, after the Twin Towers and Pentagon had been hit and hit again, not anymore). The first TV commentators mentioned the world wouldn’t be the same after the assault. They had been right, of course. When having arrived in Kuwait, I and my colleagues (who were surprised that I had made it) were eagerly or skeptically awaiting t...

Where had I been 7 years ago? Well, I had been busy the whole day. It was 10 days before my intended significant translocation. In FOD, Kuwait, my new colleagues were waiting for me. I had read a book about the small country’s recent history with the title “A New Beginning,” and I had got a feeling that this might even apply to my upcoming move. I had bought a copy of the Holy Qur’an as well and already tried to read in it. I arrived at my flat at 7 pm, with cardboard boxes for shipping my personal effects later that week. When I had switched on my TV, I first thought that I was in the wrong movie. The Twin Towers in New York were burning? The news anchor’s voice had a shrill tone. America had been attacked by Islamic terrorists. Well, I cannot exactly tell what I was thinking, but already half an hour later I got the first telephone call from a friend telling me that I will go to Kuwait and not change my mind! It would be safe whatever is going to happen in the next days. When bidding...

About 10 years ago, the infamous impeachment attempt of former President Bill Clinton took place. The public scandal started when Linda Tripp provided Kenneth Starr with her surreptitiously recorded tapes of talks with Monica Lewinsky. On February 12, 1999 the attempt to remove Clinton from office eventually failed. Clinton’s impeachment was based on an alleged, negligible sin; not of having sex with a trainee, but rather not admitting that in public. His prosecutor Kenneth Starr as well as Monica Lewinsky later vanished from the scene. Starr himself was applying the morals of a hypocrite. When focusing on tackling foreign affairs, Clinton was certainly one of America’s weakest presidents. Only 5 weeks after his inauguration, on February 26, 1993, the New York’s World Trade Center was shaken by an enormous bomb blast in the underground garage. The explosion yielded a 60 meter wide crater in the car park. One may wonder what Clinton would have done if the Twin Towers had actually co...