I was an exchange student in the mid-seventies, while attending tUSC. Four Lebanese Christians, one Dubai Christian and I became lifelong friends.

I spent seven weeks in Beirut with Antoine's, Fadi's, Kamal's and Nadhem's family ... and three weeks in Dubai with Walid's family.

Lebanon was having problems at the time with the Palestinians, having been driven out of Israel, constantly warring aganst Native Christian and Muslim Lebanese. But still, Beirut was the jewel of the region, full of great people, great night clubs and restaurants, great venues for sight seeing, etc.

Dubai was incredible and Walid's Father owned the Hilton there ... one of the best times of my life.

All of them were students at tUSC, all of them graduated with honors. Antoine and his brother Fadi are both Engineers living in Lebanon, TN. Kamal owns a number of Subway Sandwich locations in Central SC. Nahdem owns a large foreign auto repair outfit in Columbia that services Porsche, Mercedes and BMW.

My wife and I visited Beirut in 2004. It was a shell of its old self. Totally Muslim except for a few small pockets, run down, a shithole on the magnitude of the Bronx, Southside Chicago, Revere, Mass, etc.

The people where we stayed in Lebanon in 2004 were, for the most part okay ... although there were more American haters there than most places we visited during that Middle Eastern summer.

The country is in constant turmoil because of the Palestinians. We had to have armed security with us at all times.

The tanker ship blowing up there a couple of years ago sent the city over the edge. It's never recovered. It's basically been a shite hole for four decades (except in small pockets).

There's a huge African population there ... think Congo, Somalis, etc. They're only allowed to live and work there if they practice Islam and work at slave wages.

It's a shame. It used to be an absolute paradise.

A lot of people are going to be caught in the crossfire with nowhere to go when Israel lays siege. All those tall buildings, all those old luxury hotels, are going to be impossible to clear ... MOUT is a bitch as any combat engineer or infantryman knows and this could end up being a much rougher and tougher fight than even Faluja was for our guys.

However, this is waaaaaaay past due, it's past time. This was inevitable since the 70s .... it was bound to happen sooner or later. The government of Lebanon, especially in Beirut, is as inept and corrupt and under control of radical terrorists (sic: PLA, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran) as you could possibly imagine.

This thing is dangerous for the world beyond most people's understanding.

I've also spent a lot of time in Tel Aviv. I went to Israelis Jump School there in the early 80s. My wife and I have vacationed there a half dozen times in the past 25 years and had planned to go back next summer.

Everything that happens between Tel Aviv and Beirut over the course of the next few weeks, (I'm talking about that specific stretch of land), will reverberate, not only throughout the Middle East but, throughout the world.

And I'll finish with this. Bibi Netanyahu has said since he was a soldier that this was going to have to happen eventually. He's always been looking for a reason ... 7 October gave him that reason. He just had to clear Gaza first.

This is going to be interesting to watch from afar.

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The perfect storm is happening.

China is poised to take Taiwan the moment we get seriously involved in the Middle East.

Ukraine is going to use NATO missiles to counterattack Russia ... no telling where that might go.

Turkey has put its army on alert ... and they have a serious army. I spent time there training with them. You would be shocked to know how many American trained, duel American-Turkish citizens fight for Turkey and they are very well capable of making things tough on Israel.

Iran is going to be hit regardless.

We're in the throws (sp?) of a Presidential election with idiots currently in charge and our military is a mess, worse than most realize.

Economy issues. 10s of 1000s of military aged men are now in our country with sleeper cells everywhere. Our infrastructure and grid is vulnerable. Confidence is our society and government is waning.

Any early 20th Century history buffs already know that this is all very reminiscent of the pre-WWII days. Different names and places but it's still the same, only worse.

Anyways TL:DR .... still no power here, although I am fortunate to have generators and fuel. Had some time and thought I'd share some thoughts fwiw.