Siege

THE ARAB FACTOR has been badly misunderstood in the debate about our strategic options and objectives in the Gulf. Those who advocate a strategy of siege have asserted that an assault would cause the United States to lose the precious Arab coalition that has coalesced around it, or that it would unleash a tidal wave of hostility against America that would sweep away the regimes we are trying to defend. If anything, a siege strategy entrails greater risks of complications.The bulk of the Arab peoples don't know much about the business of developing options.

Even if Bryant McKinnie does not prove to be an upgrade over Michael Oher, his return to the Ravens and the left tackle position should at least strengthen the Ravens at left guard and right tackle, where Oher will likely play. Make no mistake, though, Oher will still be in the crosshairs of formidable NFL pass rushers over at right tackle. In a story I wrote in December about Oher's future with the Ravens, I mentioned the theory that in today's NFL, the left tackle position, while still the most important position on the offensive line, might not be as valuable as it was a decade or so ago when Jonathan Ogden was steering pass rushers clear of Ravens quarterbacks.

MOSCOW -- Fifty years ago today, the valiant people of Leningrad emerged, transformed, from 900 days of darkness and death. They were ordinary people made heroic by their simple refusal to give up.By Jan. 27, 1944, when the German blockade of Leningrad was lifted, 1 1/2 million people had died from starvation and illness, ravaged by cold, disease and nearly constant bombardment. Two and a half million somehow survived.There were more Russian deaths in the siege of Leningrad than American deaths in all the wars the United States has ever fought.

Early Monday, Israeli navy commandos attacked a flotilla of humanitarian aid destined for the occupied Gaza Strip in international waters. The ships were carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian supplies that are banned from Gaza under Israel's directives, including toys, wheelchairs, athletic equipment and medicines. The multinational aid convoy to Gaza included a former U.S. ambassador, a U.S. Navy veteran and 10 other U.S. citizens. The Memorial Day massacre left nine people dead and dozens more injured.

Why stay?It's the logical question to put to any Sarajevan who has had a chance to leave the city during its 20-month siege. It's the one that newspaper columnist Zlatko Dizdarevic answers in this powerfully evocative, disturbingly beautiful collection of essays taken from Sarajevo's daily paper, Oslobodenje (Liberty).The answer, like these essays, is profoundly simple: because they led a civilized life before the war, and decent people do not let themselves be bullied out of doing the right thing.

LOS ANGELES -- As cleanup efforts began for the mess left by a powerful Pacific storm that killed four people, rain-soaked Southern California got some good news: A weeklong siege of record-breaking storms may be over.Another large storm initially expected to arrive Saturday probably won't materialize, which means overnight showers may signal the end of a procession of storms that left the region reeling, forecasters said yesterday."We have a little disturbance off the coast that looks like it will move through overnight.

"The Siege," which has Islamic terrorists causing chaos in New York, has already been decried by Arab and Islamic groups who fear it will fan the flames of prejudice and mistrust.But director Edward Zwick's real targets are the politicians and law enforcers fighting them. Zwick and co-screenwriters Lawrence Wright and Menno Meyjes are asking: Can a free society exist when it's under attack by a group pledged to destroy it?The answer is ultimately ambiguous, because the film turns on one of Hollywood's favorite cop-outs: people who do the right thing, even when doing so is totally out of character.

QUICK, WHILE THE movie's still in local theaters! Some of you rush out and see "The Siege" and tell me if its critics are right -- that it paints all Arabs as terrorists -- or if they simply watched a different film from the one I saw.Edward Zwick, who directed the film, and screenwriters Lawrence Wright and Menno Meyjes bent over backward to say just the opposite: that the overwhelming majority of Arab-Americans are loyal and law-abiding. That phrase isrehashed so many times throughout the movie that you could lose track of the number of times it's said.

It may be that after his last film, the dreadful "On Dangerous Ground," Steven Segal had nowhere to go but up. Still, his "Under Siege 2: Dark Territory" isn't half bad.But it isn't more than half good either. It's pretty much the basic Segal thing saved from the star's vanity and tuned professionally to young male audience tastes: a big, stupid plot, lots of mean-spirited violence, some dim repartee, a fair amount of synthetic excitement. For $7, you could get a lot less.This time, it's "Die Hard on a Train."

MOSCOW -- Fifty years ago today, the valiant people of Leningrad emerged, transformed, from 900 days of darkness and death. They were ordinary people made heroic by their simple refusal to give up.By Jan. 27, 1944, when the German blockade of Leningrad was lifted, one and a half million people had died from starvation and illness, ravaged by cold, disease and nearly constant bombardment. Two and a half million somehow survived.There were more Russian deaths in the siege of Leningrad than American deaths in all the wars the United States has ever fought.

There's but one plausible explanation for the arrest of 24 Hispanic men by federal immigration agents outside a Fells Point convenience store in 2007 - racial profiling. A recently released videotape and government documents detailing the incident provide a vivid look at how easily law enforcement can run amok when officers are only interested in making their numbers look good. The officers were agents of the U.S. Homeland Security Department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, and they were supposed to be looking for illegal immigrants who had been ordered to leave the country.

Dead Certain The Presidency of George W. Bush By Robert Draper Free Press/ 480 pages/ $28 When a national magazine correspondent first sought White House cooperation for a real-time biography of President Bush, it was no surprise that the most secretive administration in memory said no, even to a fellow Texan. But, 18 months later - his presidency beset by an unpopular war, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the lowest poll numbers of his career - George W. Bush opened the doors to the Oval Office, ignoring the advice of his wife and his chief strategist in an attempt to shape his legacy even before he packs his bags.

Mario Armstrong knows exactly where he will be at 5:50 p.m. tomorrow - perched in a lawn chair outside an AT&T store north of Towson with a supply of food and water and a Mac PowerBook on his lap, fired up and ready to go. His mother in Towson and brother in Washington will be manning their home computers, poised to click on "confirm purchase" when the clock ticks 6 - the witching hour for one of the most anticipated and hyped technology launches ever,...

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- The sit-in staged by Hezbollah supporters so far has done little to dislodge the U.S.-backed government, but it has managed to turn the Lebanese capital inside out - literally. Some of the poorest and most marginalized people in the country, Lebanon's Shiite Muslims, have abandoned their homes in suburban slums to camp out on the nation's most expensive bit of real estate. Often trudging through Lebanese history as war refugees, they have managed to displace Lebanon's wealthiest shop owners.

OAXACA, Mexico -- Hundreds of federal riot police officers and soldiers took up positions outside this besieged tourist city in southern Mexico yesterday, poised to end an increasingly violent protest that has shut the downtown for five months and left a dozen people dead. Tension hung heavily in the air as night fell. Protesters appeared to be digging in at the barricades that they had constructed around town from sand bags, old tires, barbed wire and burned-out vehicles. The federal government issued a statement ordering the protesters to "immediately hand over streets, plazas, public buildings and private property" so that officials could "guarantee public order and adherence to the law, as well as preserve respect for the population's individual guarantees."

Opera-goers are used to time travel. These days, conceptual directors think nothing of moving characters from 18th-century Seville in a Mozart opera to, say, Trump Tower. Or 19th-century Italian peasants in a Donizetti comedy to a 1950s American diner. Or mythological figures in Wagner epics to the Victorian era and even outer space. A case of backward motion, however, is something of a rarity. And, it's something of a misstep in the Baltimore Opera Company's valiant, but uneven, production of a neglected Rossini work, The Siege of Corinth.

WASHINGTON -- A Senate subcommittee will begin shining the spotlight today on critical issues flowing from the government's 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.One of the biggest is: Have the judgment and competence of U.S. law enforcement officials been compromised in cases involving people who hold strong anti-government views?The hearings come on the heels of recent House hearings into the 1993 Waco tragedy, the ill-fated Texas standoff that occurred six months after the Ruby Ridge siege. The Senate panel will explore how white separatist Randy Weaver was first confronted by federal agents, what led to efforts to arrest him, and whether mistakes, miscalculations and a lack of professionalism by federal marshals and FBI agents preceded their fatal shooting of Mr. Weaver's wife, Vicki, and 14-year-old son, Sammy, after a U.S. marshal was killed.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The Israeli army abruptly stopped its assault on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's compound yesterday after the White House said the siege would not curb terrorism. Shortly before dusk, giant bulldozers and other heavy equipment rumbled out of the once-sprawling complex, leaving just a few buildings and stories-tall piles of smoldering rubble. Arafat and up to 250 people have been confined since the Israeli army stormed the Mukata compound Thursday night in retaliation for Palestinian suicide bombings that killed seven people last week.

MOSCOW -- A court in southern Russia sentenced the only known surviving hostage-taker in the Beslan school siege to life in prison yesterday, a ruling that failed to appease many victims' families who had hoped the trial would expose the role negligence by Russian authorities played in the siege's deadly outcome. The court convicted Nur-Pashi Kulayev, 25, on charges of terrorism and murder for his role in the September 2004 siege that killed 331 people, 186 of them children. Judge Tamerlan Aguzarov said Kulayev deserved the death penalty but explained the court was bound by Russia's moratorium on capital punishment, issued a decade ago when it became a member of the Council of Europe.

Bonnie S. Copeland inherited the top job in the Baltimore school system in the midst of a financial collapse in 2003. In the years since, the system has achieved financial stability, and elementary schools have shown significant academic gains. But the performance of many middle and high schools remains dismal, and the flurry of controversy surrounding the city schools has never ceased. Now more than ever, Copeland is a woman under siege. Last summer, a federal judge ordered nine state managers to oversee all school system departments that affect special education.