In her pre-Iraq War book Just War Against Terror, Jean Bethke Elshtain explores the concept of a "just war" and what it means for America to fight a just war against terrorism. Whilst advocating the Afghan War, Elshtain lays down characteristics of a just war one by one. The following are among the most important of these characteristics: First, a just war must be a response to a direct attack or an imminent threat. Second, a just war is a war waged only as a last resort. It is a war begun only once every kind of diplomatic action has clearly failed. Third, a war that is fought for any type of "aggrandizement"¹  is not a just war. Fourth, the means implemented in war must correspond to the end desired; that is, the country waging the war should strive for measured justice as opposed to brutal and unbounded revenge. America's war in Iraq has been lacking in all of the above stated criteria of a just war.

Helene, a daughter to Mansour Chahine Chahine and Christine Karam, was born the year 1894 in Kaftoun during the period of the harsh Ottoman rule of Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909). This was a period generally characterized by a laissez-faire policy of corruption. Lebanese Christians were mainly restricted to the mountains by the mutasarrifiyah arrangement. They were unable to make a living, and thus many of them were forced to emigrate to Egypt and the Americas in search of a better life.

(Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 7, 1995)

Khalil was born in I919 in Shwayr', Lebanon. The files at the American University of Beirut indicate 1925 as his birth date. In the 'Arab Studies' magazine, No. 4, Year 21, May 1985, Dr. Michel Jeha relates that Iliya, Khalil's brother, affirms the date as 1919 while Khalil's mother mentioned 1920. The same correction is also due concerning his birth place; official documents indicate 'Shwayr'; but Khalil's brother and mother confirm that he was born in 'Huwaya', Syria, as his father was working there.