In one way, I fear all Damascus is a dungeon. Or do you have to live here to appreciate that?

President Bush will come here and there will be new 'friends' of America to open a new relationship with the world, new economic fortunes for those who 'liberated' them.

Colleagues will malign you if you're a moderately successful journalist.

And it's true, you hear things in Damascus and, after a few hours, the human double-take stops operating.

A businessman admits that he 'let go' an employee because he was a Sunni Muslim. You simply have to look after yourself, he explains. I am shocked, like a good Westerner should be.

When you have a crime against humanity that is so awesome in scale and death, it is more than permissible to look around and say, who recently has been declaring war on the United States? Of course, the compass points straight to bin Laden.