Khaled and Siba, a middle-aged Christian couple, left Baghdad on tourist visas to Egypt, fully expecting to return within months. Their volatile neighborhood, Doura, had become a bloody sectarian battlefield, and some of their closest friends had been kidnapped. They needed a reprieve.

They left the keys to their spacious villa in Iraq with a trusted neighbor; most of their belongings were still inside. They rented a large home in Maadi, one of Cairo's most exclusive districts, for $500 a month. A month or so into their break, Khaled decided to return to Iraq and check on the family's air conditioning business. His wife, Siba, stayed behind in Egypt with their two children, 20-year-old Waleed and 16-year-old Mena.

During his trip home, Khaled was abducted by gunmen on his way to cash a paycheck at a bank in Baghdad. The family paid a ransom and the kidnappers released him within a week. Terrified by the incident, Khaled and Siba decided on the spot to stay in Egypt for good.

"We left everything. The house, the car, my jewelry," Siba said. "All we could think about was the children."

The abduction took place two years ago. The family is still in Cairo, where their savings is quickly dwindling and jobs are nonexistent. They gave up the house in Maadi and moved to a tiny but clean apartment in Zaitouna, a Cairo district with a growing Iraqi enclave. Their rent is about $100, and any money left over after groceries goes to keeping Mena in a private Christian high school and Waleed in medical school at Ain Shams University.

A large portrait of Christ is the only artwork on the walls of their narrow apartment, where the couple was interviewed today. Siba had just gone grocery shopping and had lugged her shopping bags up 11 flights of stairs rather than take the elevator. She's became extremely claustrophobic after being trapped in elevators during power outages in Baghdad.

"There, before the war, we were in heaven," Siba said. "Now, we're on the ground."

They receive news about Doura from family members who remain in Iraq. Siba said her husband cries on the phone with his sister. His mother died six months ago and he wasn't able to attend her funeral. The couple's relatives tell them Sunni insurgents still run the district, which is known for kidnappings, illegal checkpoints and frequent gun battles. The neighbor with their house keys has disappeared.

"For two months I've been trying to reach him," Khaled said. "Maybe he's dead, maybe he's left the country, I don't know. I'm not that worried about the keys. I worry because he's my friend."

Khaled has not found work in Cairo, so he's considering looking for a job in Sudan. He prefers to remain in Egypt but the authorities rarely grant Iraqis permits to open businesses in Cairo. Or, bureaucrats solicit bribes then fail to come through with the promised work permits. Khaled refuses to take handouts or even to consider himself a refugee.

"I'm not a refugee here in Egypt. I'm not a refugee," he said. "I left Iraq because I'm afraid for my children, but that's my country and I hope it gets better. My father and mother died in Baghdad, and I want to go back there." 

Siba takes care of the house and maintains a cheery, gracious demeanor despite her family's reversal of fortune. The year of medical school Waleed completed in Iraq didn't count in Egypt and he's had had to start from scratch. Mena is embarrassed that her name is a boy's name in Egypt -- an instant sign that she's a foreigner even though she prides herself on a flawless Egyptian accent.

"For now, I can cover rent and the school fees, but for how long?" Khaled asked. "We just say thank God we're here, we're safe."

"We're here, lost," Siba said. "We can't go home, we can't stay, we can't go abroad. I feel like we're just floating, neither here nor there."

Here's a round-up of some of the Middle East happenings that made the headlines over the weekend, followed by some photos of a unique dance performance that just debuted in Cairo. Enjoy!

OMAN ELECTIONS (from AFP) Muscat, Oman_None of the 21 women competing for election to Oman's consultative council won positions on the 84-seat body, state media reported on Sunday....The advisory council, which was created in 1991 and has a four-year term, questions ministers and advises government on socio-economic issues but has no legislative power or role in defense, internal security or foreign policy. Political parties remain banned.

LABOR STRIKE IN DUBAI ((from Reuters) Dubai, United Arab Emirates_Thousands of South Asian construction workers went on strike Sunday over harsh working conditions in the latest threat to a spectacular building boom already endangered by a falling currency and labor shortage.

IRANIANS, SYRIANS MEET (from IRNA) Damascus, Syria_Foreign Minister of Iran Manouchehr Mottaki discussed major regional developments, particularly Iraq-Turkey border tensions, in a meeting here Monday with his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Mouallem....A member of the Iranian delegation told IRNA at the end of the meeting that the two FMs also exchanged views on the political crisis in Lebanon and issue of Palestine.

TURKEY-KURDISTAN UPDATE (from AP) Ankara, Turkey_Turkish troops killed 15 Kurdish guerrillas in fighting Sunday far from the increasingly tense Iraq border region where some of the separatists have sought refuge, a news report said. Turkey's prime minister called for unity between Turks and Kurds against the rebels...Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops, backed by warplanes and tanks, on the border between the two countries for a possible offensive against an estimated 3,000 Iraq-based rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

ISRAELI AIR RAID IN SYRIA (from AP) Jerusalem_In the closest that Israel has come to confirming a mysterious air raid in Syria, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged to his Cabinet on Sunday that Turkish airspace might have been violated during the operation.

And, now, for your treat!

Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based journalist and human rights researcher took these lovely photos at the premiere this weekend of a unique Spanish-led performance that blends the spinning dance of dervishes with the acrobatics of breakdancers. (The troupe is made up of both Spanish and Egyptian b-boys.)

Buddha Bar enthusiasts might be familiar with this kind of fusion, but it's probably safe to say this was the first time there was popping and locking across a stage at the Cairo Opera House.

The show, Desordances 3: Break to Dervish Madrid-Cairo Project, was created by Dani Pannullo, a choreographer from Madrid who immersed himself in Cairo's Sufi community to explore similarities between traditional dances and breaking.

As the performances continue and move to other countries, snippets of the dances probably will pop up on YouTube. High energy, great beats, lots of fun.

This week, the U.N.'s refugee agency announced that nearly 4.5 million Iraqis have fled the country or have been displaced inside Iraq.

The agency's latest report says 1,000 Iraqis are still leaving their homes every day, either for the relative safety of communities segregated by sect within Iraq, or to try their luck at crossing into Syria or Jordan, which already have an estimated 2.2 million Iraqi refugees. In other words, the recent drop in major insurgent attacks has done little to stem the flow of refugees.

More bad news for Iraqis desperately seeking a sanctuary comes out of Syria, which until recently had been the sole Arab nation to admit Iraqis without a visa.

Now, reports are emerging that Syria is sealing its borders to most Iraqis and implementing new visa rules that could result in the deportation of some 1.5 million refugees. Some of my Iraqi friends in Damascus tried to remain optimistic that Syria would cave to UN pressure and refrain from beginning deportations, while others said the threat of a one-way ticket to Baghdad is easily removed by greasing the right palms. Nobody sounded especially confident.

This week, I got an inkling of the panic that's breaking out among Iraqis over what they'll do if they find themselves trapped in Baghdad or forcibly returned to their bloody homeland from Damascus or Amman. In the space of four days, I've heard from several Iraqi friends seeking escape routes.

They were from all different backgrounds -- Sunni/Shiite, rich/poor, professional/blue collar -- but the conversation was the same. They began with Eid greetings, polite inquiries about Cairo weather, and then tearful pleas as to whether I could help them finagle visas to Egypt.

Sadly, the answer was no.

I've tried for our own staff members in Baghdad, I told them. My Egyptian colleague and I visited the foreign ministry and were told that Egypt is closed to Iraqis now because so many had come in on tourist visas and stayed. The Cairo districts of 6th of October and Nasr City are flooded with Iraqi refugees, mainly Sunnis who got out early and with the contents of their savings accounts.

In a few cases, we resorted to unofficial methods. A good friend, a wealthy Iraqi businessman who's lived in Cairo for 16 years, once offered to sponsor some of my Iraqi colleagues by listing them as employees of his construction company in order to get them work visas. He paid bribes to Egyptian interior ministry officials and invented job titles for the "employees" he'd never met. Alas, another dead end: large companies operating in Egypt have to fill a certain quota of Egyptian employees before they can bring in labor from abroad, and the businessman didn't have enough.

Again and again, I recounted these stories this week to my friends on the other end of crackly Iraqna phone lines. Sitting in my bright, air-conditioned office, I felt the distraught voices cut right to my heart as I listened to Waleed, Musab, Rana, Mohammed, and so many others.

I wish I could do something. You know I would do anything for you after all the help you gave me in Baghdad. We haven't forgotten you, please believe me. If I see any opportunity...

Words meant to be reassuring sounded empty, especially after they were repeated so many times to so many people who risked their lives -- as correspondents or sources -- to make sure our readers in Wichita or Sacramento or Miami got a daily update from the front lines.

There was never anger on the other end of the line -- just the resigned acceptance of yet another "no" by Iraqis who've grown very familiar with the word. No security, no electricity, no school, no Sunnis, no Shiites.

The conversations invariably ended with heavy sighs and an Iraqi expression: "Shi'nsawwi? Allah kareem."

What's there to do? God is generous.

Want to send a dozen red roses to someone in Esfahan? See the latest scores from your favorite Iranian soccer team? Or maybe you'd just like to get your news about Iran straight from the source, unfiltered by Western correspondents?

If so, then check out the Web sites listed below, where you can get news and lifestyle notes straight from Iranian reporters, bloggers and analysts. If you have suggestions for other good sites on Iran, please submit links in the comments section. This is by no means a comprehensive list -- just a good starting point.

Unfortunately, some of the boldest, semi-independent papers in Tehran have been shut down or persecuted into self-censorship, so what's on offer from inside Iran is pretty much the official government line. There are also news services dedicated to sports and some sites that offer online shopping, such as the flower delivery company that promises it can get your bouquet "to any city in Iran within 24 hours." (Don't call me if the FBI rounds you up for suspicious credit-card transactions!)

The sites below don't offer much in the way of fashion or entertainment news; young, upwardly mobile Iranians tell me they'd much rather read Perez Hilton, anyway. They just have to use a "proxy unblocker" (at least that's what they called it) to circumvent the government bans on sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, most opposition Web sites, celebrity gossip sites, almost anything related to Israel, many homegrown blogs, and so on.

How effective are the bans? Well, as of today, there were 6,634 members of the "Iran" network on Facebook. Two of the most recent posts are "Tehran 4 Life baby" and "Hello anyone from Shiraz?"

On the news front, the sites offer some fascinating reading. The topics are the same as you'll find in the West -- Iraq war, Iran nuclear program, Mideast conflict -- but the language and tone are starkly different.

I also like to see how Iran covers the West. Today, a photo and news story about the San Diego wildfires ran right below a nuclear negotiations update on the front page of Iran Newspaper, which is in Persian so I didn't link to it. (Incidentally, the fires burned down a castle belonging to the super-wealthy daughter of a former Iranian oil minister. She was unharmed, and even managed to escape with her prized Elvis memorabilia.)

Other notable headlines from one Iranian government news site today: "Israeli brutality shocks the world," "Iran designs Persepolis video game," "The U.S. is no angel of peace."

Without further ado, here are some Iranian official and independent English-language sites for you to peruse:

IRNA: Islamic Republic News Agency
(also available in Turkish, Arabic, Spanish and French, among other languages) http://www2.irna.com/en/

Iranian Students News Agency

http://www.isna.ir/Main/Default.aspx?Lang=E

Payvand Iran News

http://www.netnative.com/news/

Iran Daily

http://www.iran-daily.com/1386/2973/html/index.htm

IranMania                                                                                               http://www.iranmania.com

PressTV, Iran's new 24-hour English-language TV station

http://www.presstv.ir/

Egyptian students clutched their "Introduction to Farsi" workbooks as they strode to class. Elegant snippets of Persian could be heard in the corridors. The course schedule was taped to a desk: "Elementary Persian," "Modern Iran," "The Ways of Iranians."

This was the Eastern Languages section of Ain Shams University in Cairo, which we visited today for an interview with one of Egypt's leading scholars on Iran. Dr. Mohamed el Said Abdel Mo'men, a professor of Iranian studies, turned out to be an affable, humble academic with amazing stories about his research stint in Iran during the 1970s, when the seeds of dissent were growing into the movement that would culminate with the Islamic revolution of 1979.

The professor, who speaks fluent Persian, claims to have been the first Egyptian to study at an Iranian university during Anwar Sadat's administration. As the sole Arab on an Iranian campus, Abdel Mo'men said, he experienced both the legendary Persian condescension toward their Arab neighbors, as well as the equally legendary Persian hospitality to guests.

Back then, student dissidents who didn't dare confide in fellow Iranians for fear of being sold out to the shah's security forces often showed up at their Egyptian classmate's dorm room, eager to discuss their yearning for political Islam, for revolution, for an end to the decadence that marked the Western-backed shah's regime. The professor said the student activists trusted him, a Sunni, with some of the earliest underground recordings of Ayatollah Khomeini's speeches, as well as banned pamphlets and important Shiite literature.

"Students are always at the core of revolution," Abdel Mo'men said. "When I lived in the dorms in Iran, I would see police and security guards come at dawn and take away groups of students...I think the students trusted me because they knew I wouldn't tell the police. I was a foreigner, and neither a leftist nor an Islamist."

When the unrest increased, Abdel Mo'men said, he was forced to return to Egypt after two years in Tehran. He brought home piles of recordings, documents and literature, which he translated and then wove into one of the Arab world's first books about those heady days: "The Issue of the Iranian Revolution," published in Arabic in 1981.

Abdel Mo'men found that the open gates of learning and cultural exchange had swung shut after the revolution, which sent the shah into exile in Egypt, where he died in 1980. Sadat gave him a state funeral and the shah's tomb is in a Cairo mosque. (At the request of the Egyptian government, Abdel Mo'men had accompanied the shah in Cairo and even translated the deposed ruler's will.)

The professor has visited Iran since it became a Shiite theocracy; all the trips were for official academic conferences. However, with diplomatic relations between Egypt and Iran frozen since just after the revolution, Abdel Mo'men can no longer nurture the close intellectual relationships he once enjoyed with Iranian counterparts.

"I am, after all, Egyptian, and I have to serve my country," the professor said.

As we prepared to leave his office, we asked for contact details for other Egyptian experts on Iran. The professor happily obliged. Then we asked how to get in touch with Iranians living in Cairo, and whether he could arrange meetings for us.

For the first time in our long interview, Abdel Mo'men became visibly uncomfortable and evasive.

"Of course there are Iranians living here," he said, "but we aren't allowed to talk to them."

We told him we could just take the names and track down the Iranians ourselves. The professor continued to shake his head.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I just can't."

A mural outside the former U.S. embassy, Iran

Call me paranoid, but everyone was just a little too nice today at the Interest Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Cairo. The men looked me in the eye. The women smiled and struck up conversations. A visa officer came out from behind his desk and personally helped me fill out extra forms.

What's the deal? Even the curmudgeon of a guard offered a little half-grin.

Typically, applying for a visa to Iran from Cairo is not the most pleasant of experiences, especially when you whip out the magic blue passport stamped with "United States of America." Apart from the kind and efficient Madame Mirvat (an Egyptian who is married to an Iranian; they have a daughter at Georgetown), the staff mostly grumbles and narrows their eyes at you. In the past, some of them seemed to have taken a perverse pleasure in telling me, day after day, "No, not yet approved from Tehran. But do come back again tomorrow."

Iran has an interest section in Egypt instead of an embassy because of the breakdown in diplomatic ties after Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979. Also, the Iranian government voiced support for the militant Islamist who led the group that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. The Iranians named a street after Khaled al Islambouli and painted a big mural to commemorate him.

On the other hand, the Iranians have plenty of their own beefs with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak: his cozy relationship with the White House, an unpopular peace treaty with Israel and his secular authoritarian regime. Please forgive this oversimplification of the issues that divide the region's Shiite powerhouse from its most populous Sunni nation. Anyway, we're hearing again that Egypt and Iran will restore full diplomatic relations "in the very near future," a perennial promise that never seems to materialize.

I haven't been to Iran in a year, in large part because the last time I was there I was robbed of every shred of identification I owned. Then came the realization that neither of my countries of citizenship -- Egypt and the United States -- had diplomatic relations with Iran. I was directed to the Swiss embassy in Tehran to plead for emergency travel documents and thus began a nightmare. It was especially disappointing because my first trip to Iran had been so professionally fulfilling.

Ready to give Iran a third try, I went to the interest section today to check on the status of my visa application (the response came in a truly apologetic tone: "No, Miss, no visa application from you. We have no record. You must do over!") So I did over. But there were new forms. This application was much simpler than the previous one, which had a lengthy section on whether you had ever visited the Zionist Entity formerly known as Palestine. That question was gone. Maybe President Ahmadinejad is pushing a Don't Ask, Don't Tell campaign. Nope, no gays in Iran. And no one here has ever visited Israel, either. As far as we know.

Madame Mirvat was still on holiday. A tall, friendly trilingual guy was helping me through the forms when a striking veiled woman walked in. Because diplomatic protocol deems the property a little slice of Iran, it's mandatory to wear a modest jacket and headscarf when you visit the interest section in Cairo. This woman's long, black hair hung out from under her scarf. The visa officers left their posts to welcome her; she had the aura of a VIP.

She greeted everyone in fluent Persian and presented the staff with a bouquet of red roses for the Eid holiday. Then she turned and spoke to someone else in flawless Arabic. Turns out she is half-Egyptian, half-Iranian -- a mix you don't see every day given the tensions between the countries.

When I asked her whether she prefers living in Egypt or Iran, she said she loves both her countries, and described how she adores the saffron used in Persian cuisine and the fresh meat in Egyptian kebabs. Then her voice dropped to a whisper and she said, referring to Cairo, "You know how it is. You can be more natural here. Fewer restrictions." She smiled brightly again and our talk turned to sharbat, a fruity Persian beverage.

A British man was also filling out forms for a tourist visa, as I gleaned from eavesdropping. The visa staff was just as friendly to him, and also to an American journalist friend who filled out her application just after I left. Let me stress this: I'm not saying the good treatment today was bizarre because Iranians are inherently mean people so it's startling when they actually smile. On the contrary, I've encountered some of the warmest, kindest souls in Iran and in the Iranian diaspora.

But Iranian government officials are renowned for their fussiness, their protocol, their bureaucracy. That is the natural order of things. They're not supposed to smile, to recommend a stop at Persepolis, to wish you well in the application process, to actually help you. Do they know something I don't? Was it just a collective case of taarof, that fine Persian tradition of empty flattery? Did they believe he was serious when Ahmadinejad invited Western reporters to Iran at an appearance during his much-publicized trip to New York?

Something tells me this is not a good omen for my visa.

It's a rainy day here in Cairo, where autumn showers have washed away the grime of the city and freshened up the smoggy air.

The region's news is still pretty dreary, however, with student dissidents sentenced to prison time in Iran, the Turkish parliament poised to defy international calls and approve a cross-border raid into Iraq, and the release of a new report on Syria's human rights violations.

On the upside (or is it?), Libya won a seat on the powerful UN Security Council.

The most interesting item to appear in my inbox today was a news release from the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based watchdog group for press freedoms.

[Let me take a second to applaud the committee's work because few other organizations have been as dedicated to tallying up the media worker deaths in Iraq, keeping the names of kidnapped reporters in the news, and condemning rollbacks of press freedoms throughout the world. I hope CPJ continues efforts in the case of Sami al-Haj, the al Jazeera journalist who's been held at Guatanamano without charge or trial for five years.]

In a report released today, CPJ recalls the mysterious disappearance of Reda Helal, a senior editor at Egypt's leading state-run daily newspaper. I've included an excerpt below, but urge you to follow this link and read the whole story. The CPJ site also includes an interesting audio slideshow about press freedoms in Egypt.

From the CPJ report, "The Forgotten Man"

...Despite appearances, Helal, a senior editor at Egypt’s leading daily, the Arabic-language Al-Ahram, seems no closer to returning home than he did on the sweltering summer day of August 11, 2003. That afternoon, Helal was said to have headed home from a routine day at Al-Ahram. And then he simply vanished. No one has heard from him since, and there are few clues as to his fate.

“The way he disappeared is baffling,” said Wael Abrashi, editor of the independent weekly Sawt al-Umma, who has followed Helal’s case. “It’s as if the earth suddenly gaped open and swallowed him.”

Despite Egypt’s shoddy human rights and press freedom record, the “enforced disappearance” or murder of a journalist is rare. One involving senior staff at a prominent, pro-government paper such as Al-Ahram—its chief editor is appointed by President Hosni Mubarak—is unheard of. Helal’s family and a few journalists have searched for answers to no avail, and Egypt’s vast security apparatus claims it hasn’t been able to crack the case. The near-total absence of information about his fate has perplexed and unsettled Egyptian journalists....

A lot of readers didn’t take too kindly to my observations about Blackwater USA, the private security firm that’s come under scrutiny after a string of civilian shooting deaths. Perhaps I didn’t stress enough that these were only my personal recollections, limited to the Blackwater personnel I encountered. If you have your own stories involving Blackwater, please send them in.

Sure, an American diplomat who depends on Blackwater every time he or she leaves the safety of the Green Zone might have a different take. However, one place you’ll find similar criticisms of Blackwater’s conduct is the U.S. military. I can’t tell you how many service members and officers have complained that Blackwater and other private security firms “make all Americans look bad to Iraqis” or “undercut the military’s efforts.” Of course, soldiers also resent the fact that they perform many of the same tasks as private contractors yet get paid only a fraction of what the guns for hire make.

A perfect example of the military’s disdain for contractors’ cowboy behavior can be found in John F. Burns’ recent piece in The New York Times, where he describes a senior American officer flying in a Black Hawk and watching the daredevil gunners hang out of Blackwater’s tiny support helicopters:

As the Blackwater machines cleared the landing zone’s fence that day, the American officer leaned toward a companion and, over the thwump-thwump of the Black Hawk’s rotors, voiced his contempt. “If I’ve got one ambition left here,” he said, “it’s to see one of those showboats fall out.”

Blackwater has plenty of defenders out there as well, as I’ve learned from my inbox this week. After the Sacramento Bee published my blog post in the paper, I was inundated with letters from angry readers who said I was biased, lying, liberal, unpatriotic, etc. One even said Blackwater missed its chance to kill me. I guess a death wish counts as a cogent counterpoint in today’s marketplace of ideas.

In the name of said marketplace, here’s a sampling of some reactions from California-based readers. The letters are edited only for space.

Eric Chevreuil: First let me salute the courage of Hannah Allan for being there. But that is about all she will get from me. Her article should have been called something like ”The Blacwater guys that shared my hotel”. She could have also done a more balanced piece after riding along with them and sharing their daily risky life, before telling us about their nightlife. One would have explained the other…or at least, readers would have had a bigger picture. Anyways, the piece was just about her views and what her own British “mercenary” thought about those young testosterone-full night time party goers…but what about their daily job? What about the rides in “roadside bomb alley”, ambushes, knowledge that even your dead body will be desecrated, sliced, burnt, mutilated, hung….knowledge that death is better than being captured alive, knowledge that the enemy does not wear the uniform and arms in the open as requested by the Geneva convention in order to be treated as a combatant and later as a prisoner of war. Asymmetric warfare….one side held to higher standards than the other!

Mkando: Blackwater security gives our side some strength and support while our soldiers fight with 2 hands tied behind their back in Iraq, and die for the Iraqi people. Blackwater uses force, which is the only thing that many Iraqis understand after years of rule under Saddam. As is typical for a liberal reporter, you make the Blackwater forces appear like they are pillaging and plundering in Iraq. You dont like strong Americans that will eventually bring peace to Iraq. Im sure you enjoy seeing our American soldiers die there for the freedom of the Iraqi people, and one day soon we will leave Iraq and let you fight with each other until the end of time.

Chuck Cross: Read your article on Blackwater - Either you don't understand or don't care or maybe both. If Blackwater was in Charge of the war, it would have been over long time ago. It is nescessary kill lot of people who don't like americans. This was how we ending World Two. When you write - get it right.

Micki Bishop-Stultz: As far as Blackwater, and all the other private security forces, in Iraq are concerned, I probably believe that they are a little too "gung ho".  BUT remember this, many of these men are "hired" immediately after their listings are up with the promise of lots of money (before they ever think about returning home).  I don't mean a little more than they were making, but double/triple digit numbers for a month's worth of work.  The "things" the enlisted men are taught are still in their"systems".  Protect and kill.  This is why they get hired.  From what I hear many stay because they "know" what goes on regarding road bombs, real human bombs (for which some are paid, or pay is given to the families of those of strap on the bombs).  They have seen, and probably trusted (at least once) a foreign face ( be it a man/woman/child) and then had to protect themself…To go on with this story.....have you ever talked to any of these "men" after they have returned home.  Are you aware of the many serious injuries the enlisted men have had?  The rage that must be in they heads for being injured etc.  We still have Viet Nam vets with many mental disabilities.  We are just seeing damage to our me/women that were in Desert Storm.  How much "deprogramming" to these men get before companies like Blackwater hire them?  I bet not much. I have a dog that to this day still barks at a high honored vet from the Iraq war.  I believe that this man still has the "watch my back/kill" "syndrome, and the dog can sense it. I believe in everybody's right to believe what they want, but I believe there were some "holes" missing in your article today.Peace to all.

Tony Rohl: As one who lived through WW2, the Brits should be glad they had American "Rambo's" to save their butts back then. As for your condemnation of Blackwater personnel, did you also feel an 'indescribable outrage when they sent their members into crowded marketplaces wearing suicide belts that they ignited, killing innocent women and children. Oh wait, that wasn't Blackwater. They were too busy buzzing hotel swimming pools, that is, the one ones that weren't dangling dead from bridges. And they "almost killed you"? Given the tone of this article, they missed a golden opportunity

Steven Smith: Yes, you panicked and chickened out. The two truths in your hit piece. While it is not safe to mock or disrespect American military folks, you don't have to hold back with Blackwater. My guess is you fabricated or stretched the truth. The press no longer has any public respect. I think you are at about 21%, the same as congress. Leering? Wow a left wing looker.

I spent the Eid holiday weekend visiting Egyptian relatives in the hardscrabble towns and villages of the Nile Delta, where my father grew up as the eldest of 13 children – not counting the offspring of my grandfather’s second wife. With so many aunts and uncles and, by extension, something like a gazillion cousins, Eid is the only time of year when I get to see most of them on one trip.

We typically start at my Tante Fawzia’s house and work our way through the branches of the family tree, with each stop like an installment of a Ramadan TV series – misfortunes, feuds, love stories and lots of music. This year, every relative’s home was abuzz with the saga of Tante Atiyat and the rat.

"She was bitten by a rat, as big as my arm, God help us all!” wailed Tante Fawzia on the first stop of the day. “Oh, black day!”

"In Ramadan, the poor woman prayed from sunset to sunrise, all night long, and she was still bitten by the rat!” cried Tante Saadiya, on the second stop.

Accustomed to the flowery “enhancements” my relatives add to mundane stories, I was sure that Tante Atiyat had simply encountered a domestic mouse. My father and I set off for her home to get the real story.

We snaked through dusty alleyways and unpaved roads toward a village outside Bilbeis, where many of my relatives live. Bilbeis is famous for two reasons, one divine and the other dubious: it’s said to have been a place of refuge for the Holy Family in ancient times; and Bilbeis is widely known as Egypt’s main supplier of bango, a cheap local form of marijuana.

Eid festivities were in full swing in Bilbeis. Children in frilly dresses or button-down shirts played at carnivals. Fathers bought their children firecrackers and plastic guns from street vendors. Families took rides in colorful hantours, horse-drawn carriages. Everyone wore at least one piece of new clothing, for luck.

Massive, bloody camel carcasses hung from butcher’s storefronts; camel meat is a seasonal delicacy. Women ambled through the streets balancing huge baskets atop their heads. The baskets were filled with sugar-dusted kahk, the crumbly cookies families bake this time of year. Groups of men lounged at cafes, smoking water pipes and chewing the rubbery, cardamom-flavored products of the Samarkand Gum Factory.

Unlike cosmopolitan Cairo, every single woman here was veiled, with many of them even in the full facial veil known as the niqab. The men sported bushy beards and most of them wore cropped galabiyas, the shortened gowns typically favored by ultraconservative Muslims. Campaign posters for local politicians showed bearded men with dark zabibas, marks on the forehead that come from prayer rugs.

The Delta is a heartland for supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the powerful Islamist group that’s emerged as Egypt’s main opposition bloc. Many members of my family lauded the Brotherhood’s charitable programs and reputation for shunning the corruption that is emblematic of the Mubarak administration.

We had to park the car several blocks from Tante Atiyat’s house because she lives at the end of a trash-filled alleyway deep in the village. Her daughters, my cousins, greeted us at the door. My father, the first member of his family to attend college, is especially proud of Tante Atiyat’s daughters – Noura just graduated from law school and Marwa is studying commerce at the local university.

Tante Atiyat hobbled to the door (her limp is a vestige of childhood polio) and sprayed us with kisses and Eid greetings. Her hands weren’t bandaged and I began to wonder about the truth of the rat story. It’s frowned upon to begin a conversation by asking about bad luck, so we couldn’t ask about the rat until Tante Atiyat and her daughters had laid out a table of fresh guava slices, salted peanuts, plump pomegranates, crimson unripe dates, honey-soaked fateer and the raw fava beans called termes.

When enough time had passed, my father got to the point: “So, what exactly happened with the rat, may God keep you?”

Tante Atiyat started at the beginning: the abandoned piles of trash on her block. She’d begged the municipal authorities to send garbage crews, her husband had written letters to the city council, her daughters had called the local authorities. The best explanation she’d received, Tante Atiyat said bitterly, was that there was no money left in the budget for trash collection in her district.

This is a familiar refrain for Egyptians, whose complaints about their standard of living often fall on deaf ears unless they have what’s known locally as wasta, connections or influence. Such grievances – blackened bread, lack of clean water, no clinics, low wages – fester until they explode into protests such as the one staged by textile workers last month in Mahalla el Kubra.

To Tante Atiyat and her neighbors, the piles of trash that accumulated in the neighborhood were symbols of government neglect as well as breeding grounds for disease. She told us that local children had developed coughs and other respiratory problems. The stench was nauseating and the tableau an eyesore.

And then there were the rats. Tante Atiyat was talking about fat, Egyptian beladi rats, not the furry, Ratatouille-cute house mice of the first world. After they’d gnawed through several piles of garbage, these rats would boldly march right into homes in the neighborhood.

That’s what happened to Tante Atiyat, during the last week of Ramadan. She was cooking and cleaning, working hard throughout her day of fasting. She noticed a flash of fur and filth racing into her home. The rat took refuge under her bed.

Tante Atiyat has a deep-seated fear of rats, but she was determined to drive out the creature. She kneeled down beside the bed, said a prayer and reached her hand underneath the frame. The rat lunged at her, as she tells the story, and sank its fangs into her left hand. She showed us her hand – there were deep puncture marks on her palm.

"Blood was pouring out everywhere and I felt so dizzy,” Tante Atiyat said. “I went to Noura and asked her to take me to the hospital, but she didn’t believe me at first. Then she knew I really meant that a rat had bitten me.”

My aunt went to the hospital, where she had to undergo the first in a painful series of rabies vaccinations. She couldn’t fast for the rest of Ramadan because she had to swallow powerful antibiotics three times a day.

Tante Atiyat is on the mend now, and a little richer because her misfortune made the other relatives extra generous in their holiday gifts to her. The piles of trash still fill the alleyways outside her home. Children had strung up paper lanterns in an attempt to bring a little Eid cheer to the vermin-infested gloom.

And the rat?

“Our brother killed it,” Noura said.

“No,” Marwa corrected, “he murdered it.”

Is anyone else intrigued – or alarmed – by the level of anti-Muslim sentiment spewing from elected U.S. officials these days? During my recent trip to the States, I was taken aback at how acceptable it has become to publicly disparage Islam and Muslims.

I’d heard of the brouhaha over Barack Obama’s Muslim grandfather, but not about these other comments until I received an email with a short compilation. If you do the classic “replace-Muslim-with-any-other-minority” thing, you can see how jarring it is. Here are some examples:

• There are “too many mosques in this country.” Rep. Peter King (R-NY), ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee and Giuliani adviser. September 2007
• "If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina." Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), GOP presidential candidate. August 2007
• A Muslim congressman “was not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers.” Rep. Bill Sali (R-Idaho); he also objected to opening Senate with a Hindu prayer. August 2007
• "If American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration, there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Quran.” Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.), during the flap over the swearing-in of the first Muslim congressman, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) December 2006

Even something as seemingly innocuous as a little House resolution recognizing Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month, was enough to elicit grumbles from some Republicans this month. The resolution, sponsored by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), acknowledged Islam as one of the world’s great religions and rejected “hatred, bigotry and violence directed against Muslims, both in the United States and worldwide.” It also praised Muslims who speak out against interpretations and movements within Islam that encourage “hatred, violence and terror.”

The vote? Well, nobody voted against the resolution, but 20 percent of Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to support it, and therefore voted “present.” Tancredo (see above) even issued a news release that called the resolution “political correctness gone too far.” Other lawmakers, such as Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), said they refused to vote in favor of the resolution because they don’t think moderate Muslims are doing enough to speak out against radical subsets of their faith. A commenter on a political blog likened this argument to condemning all Catholics because some clerics sexually abuse altar boys.

Does campaign season necessarily mean open season on Muslims? Here in Egypt, I feel a little removed from domestic U.S. politics. I’m interested in following this topic and would appreciate links to other such comments from elected officials – or, links to comments aimed at courting the Muslim vote.