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Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: captainccs on July 16, 2006, 03:55:38 PM

Title: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on July 16, 2006, 03:55:38 PM
Since my friend Craft Dog likes to talk about politics I think it is appropriate to post these thoughts about Lebanon. The post was originally a comment I made at a Venezuela blog to a totally unrelated post that got to talk about the war in the Middle East. The post features a curious video titled: "The Extremely Abridged History of Venezuela."

http://caracaschronicles.blogspot.com/2006/07/extremely-abridged-history-of.html


My comments:

Lebanon is not the problem for Israel. Iran, Syria and their proxies Hamas and Hezbollah are the problem.

If you take a good look at what is being targeted in Lebanon you will realize that it is an effort to isolate and destroy Hezbollah. The targets besides Hezbollah proper are communications: airports, bridges, oil storage, gas stations, cell phone towers, radar and such. Israel is trying to prevent Iran and Syria from resupplying Hezbollah.

Unfortunately for the Lebanese, they have not had an independent country for decades. They have been occupied by Palestinians, Israel and Syria in turn. Until Lebanon can regain its full independence and that includes getting rid of Hezbollah, it will suffer from foreign intervention, it will continue to have to live with surrogate wars started by Iran and Syria.

Jordan and Egypt have learned to live in peace with Israel. Why can't Lebanon? Because Iran and Syria don't want it to and Lebanon is too weak to have its own way. If Jordan can control its Palestinian citizens, why can't Lebanon? Same answer, they are too weak.

You might have noticed that there has been no great international outcry for Israel to stop. This would be very strange indeed if it didn't have a realistic explanation. Not even the Arab summit in Cairo managed to call for a ceasefire and for a condemnation of Israel. The reason, at least for me, is clear: everyone except Iran and Syria would be very happy if Hamas and Hezbollah were destroyed because they, along with al Qaeda, are destabilizing the whole world.

Please be clear about my position. When it comes to the actual fighting, I'm on the side of Israel, no doubt about it. When it comes to the international scene, I would like nothing better than peace in the Middle East. Egypt and Jordan have managed to make peace with Israel. Turkey is most happy to trade with Israel. I guess we have to look at the motivation of Iran and Syria to keep the flames of war alive. How do they profit from it? Let's face it, Iran is trying to face down the Great Satan via its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. This is in part a distraction for the G8 meeting so they have something else to worry about besides Iran's nuclear ambitions. Clearly the Group of 8 is not buying it.

Coming back home (Venezuela), Chavez blames the Great Satan for all our ills and the Arabs blame Israel for all their ills. How is one different from the other? If Chavez is wrong then so are the Arabs. If the Arabs are right, then so is Chavez. We have to take responsibility for our actions and our destiny. We cannot blame others for everything and make progress at the same time. We make progress when we take responsibility for our lives and work to improve them.

Sorry about the long post but I had to get it off my chest. Thank you for listening.
Title: G8 Statement on the Middle East
Post by: captainccs on July 16, 2006, 11:44:36 PM
G8 Statement on the Middle East
July 16, 2006

Today, we the G8 Leaders express our deepening concern about the situation in the Middle East, in particular the rising civilian casualties on all sides and the damage to infrastructure. We are united in our determination to pursue efforts to restore peace. We offer our full support for the U.N. Secretary General's mission presently in the region.

The root cause of the problems in the region is the absence of a comprehensive Middle East peace.

The immediate crisis results from efforts by extremist forces to destabilize the region and to frustrate the aspirations of the Palestinian, Israeli and Lebanese people for democracy and peace. In Gaza, elements of Hamas launched rocket attacks against Israeli territory and abducted an Israeli soldier. In Lebanon, Hezbollah, in violation of the Blue Line, attacked Israel from Lebanese territory and killed and captured Israeli soldiers, reversing the positive trends that began with the Syrian withdrawal in 2005, and undermining the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

These extremist elements and those that support them cannot be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider conflict. The extremists must immediately halt their attacks.

It is also critical that Israel, while exercising the right to defend itself, be mindful of the strategic and humanitarian consequences of its actions. We call upon Israel to exercise utmost restraint, seeking to avoid casualties among innocent civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure and to refrain from acts that would destabilize the Lebanese government.

The most urgent priority is to create conditions for a cessation of violence that will be sustainable and lay the foundation for a more permanent solution. This, in our judgment, requires:
Title: Lebanon
Post by: xtremekali on July 17, 2006, 08:55:41 AM
MSNBC.com


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Israeli troops briefly enter southern Lebanon
Overnight incursion widened air assault; Israel denies aircraft downed
The Associated Press


Updated: 9:58 a.m. CT July 17, 2006
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli ground troops entered southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah bases on the border, a government spokesman said Monday, but rapidly returned to Israel after conducting their military operations.

Hezbollah, for its part, again fired rockets at the Israeli city of Haifa, destroying a three-story building and wounding at least two people, Israeli medics said.

The medics said other victims may be trapped in the rubble of the building in Israel?s third-largest city. The attacks came one day after a Hezbollah attack on the port city killed eight people.

Israel's six-day-old offensive against Hezbollah following the capture of two Israeli soldiers has been primarily an aerial campaign, but government spokesman, Asaf Shariv, said the Israeli army chief of staff confirmed that ground troops had gone into Lebanon, if only briefly.

A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said that a small group of Israeli troops had crossed into Lebanon overnight to attack a Hezbollah position, but then returned to Israel.

"There was a small operation in a very limited area overnight," the source said. "That is over."

Israel has been reluctant to send ground troops into southern Lebanon, an area that officials say has been heavily mined by Hezbollah and could lead to many Israeli casualties.

Meantime, Lebanese television stations reported an Israeli aircraft had been shot down over Lebanon and showed footage of burning debris falling from the sky. However, an Israeli security source denied the report to Reuters. "There was no such thing," the source said.

Earlier Friday, Israeli fighter bombers targeted Hezbollah's strongholds in southern Beirut and pummeled Lebanese infrastructure, firing missiles whose detonations shook the capital city.

But Hezbollah retaliated by firing rockets that flew further into Israel than ever before, with Katyusha rockets landing in the town of Atlit, six miles south of Haifa. Nobody was hurt in the Monday attack, but Hezbollah rockets had killed eight people in Haifa on Sunday.

G-8 summit
In Moscow, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called Monday for the deployment of international forces to stop the bombardment of Israel and to persuade the Jewish state to stop attacks on Hezbollah.

Speaking on the margin of the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Blair said the fighting would not stop until the conditions for a cease-fire were created. "The only way is if we have a deployment of international forces that can stop bombardment coming into Israel," he said.

The European Union said it was considering the deployment of a peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

Annan appealed to Israel to spare civilian lives and infrastructure.

A senior European Union official returned Monday from the Middle East and said he is pessimistic about the chance of a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah militants.

Javier Solana, the EU?s foreign and security chief, said the best that could be hoped for was a ?de-escalation? of the fighting. He was to brief a meeting of EU foreign ministers on his weekend talks in Beirut.


Olmert: 'Far-reaching consequences'
In overnight raids, Israeli planes and artillery guns killed 17 people and wounded at least 53 others, Lebanese security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israel said its planes and artillery struck 60 targets overnight. Its military sought to punish Lebanon for the barrage of 20 rockets on Haifa, the country's third largest city and one that had not been hit before the current round of fighting began on Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed "far-reaching consequences" for the Haifa attack, Hezbollah's deadliest strike ever on Israel.

Israel accused Syria and Iran of providing Lebanese guerrillas with sophisticated weapons. Israeli officials said the missiles that hit Haifa had greater range and heavier warheads than the previous rockets which Hezbollah has fired into northern Israel. Israeli military officials said four of the missiles were the Iranian-made Fajr-3, with a 22-mile range and 200-pound payload, and far more advanced than the Katyusha rockets the guerrillas rained on northern Israel in previous attacks.

In their raids on Beirut on Monday, Israeli planes killed two people in the harbor and started a large fire, that was later extinguished. A French ship was due to arrive in the port later Monday to evacuate Europeans.

The Israeli jets also set set fire to a gas storage tank in the northern neighborhood of Dawra, and another fuel storage tank at Beirut airport, sending plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. The airport has been closed since Thursday when Israeli jets blasted its runways.

Elsewhere in Lebanon, Israeli planes again hit the Beirut to Damascus highway, which has been targeted as part of a strategy of severing Lebanon's links to the outside world. Monday's attacks struck the highway in the eastern Bekaa Valley and killed two people.

In another attack, eight Lebanese soldiers who were killed when Israeli aircraft attacked a small fishing port at Abdeh in northern Lebanon near a highway leading to Syria. Witnesses and security officials said 12 Lebanese soldiers were wounded in the attack.

An Israeli army spokesman said his force was investigating the attack because, "in principle, the Israeli military does not target Lebanese soldiers."

Hezbollah: 'Stockpiles are still full'
Hezbollah is not known to operate in northern Lebanon, but the Israeli army said it had targeted radar stations there because they had been used by Hezbollah to hit a warship on Friday. It all but accused the Lebanese military of lending its support to Hezbollah.

"The attacks ... are against radar stations used, among other things, in the attack on the Israeli missile boat, by Hezbollah in cooperation with the Lebanese military," an Israeli army spokesman told The Associated Press.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday that despite Israel's attacks, the guerrillas were "in their full strength and power" and that their "missile stockpiles are still full."

"When the Zionists behave like there are no rules and no red lines and no limits to the confrontation, it is our right to behave in the same way," Nasrallah said in a televised address, looking tired. He said Hezbollah had hit Haifa because of Israel's strikes on Lebanese civilians.

The Israeli military warned residents of south Lebanon to flee, promising heavy retaliation after the Haifa assault.

In one airstrike on southern Lebanon early Monday, an Israeli missile missed its apparent target ? a Hezbollah site ? and hit a private house, killing two people, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Title: Editorial: Israel's response is self-defence
Post by: captainccs on July 19, 2006, 11:14:25 AM
Editorial: Israel's response is self-defence
The Australian
July 17, 2006

Lebanon should help disarm Hezbollah guerillas

IF there was ever any doubt that Israel's response to Hezbollah's hail of rockets was proportionate to the threat they pose to Israeli security, it has been dispelled by attacks launched from southern Lebanon deep into Israel. With Hezbollah guerillas apparently well-armed thanks to money and material from Iran and Syria, Israel has been obliged to strike back in self-defence and to protect its civilian population in the north, including Haifa and Tiberias, a city hitherto thought to have been beyond the range of Hezbollah's rockets. Reports that Hezbollah has an armoury of thousands of rockets capable of reaching Israel's heartlands - and conceivably its capital, Tel Aviv - leave it no option because, it's worth repeating, Israel is facing an implacable enemy that denies its right to exist and wants to wipe it from the map.

Hezbollah appears to have little sympathy for its host country, Lebanon. By attacking Israel - no doubt taking the opportunity to strike by snatching two Israeli troopers while Israel was preoccupied with its mission to free a kidnapped soldier in Gaza to the south - Hezbollah has invited a red-blooded reaction. No nation can sit back watching missiles rain down on its territory. Retaliation with a purpose has been Israel's modus operandi. It has hit key highways and Beirut airport to make it difficult for Syria to resupply or reinforce Hezbollah, while also attacking the source of the rockets and those who are launching them. If that includes the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah - reported yesterday to have been wounded in an Israeli air raid, reports denied by Hezbollah - then that's the brutal reality of what Israel must do to survive.

Moreover, Israel is doing Lebanon a favour by containing Hezbollah, a parasitic organisation that has outstayed its welcome in the new but fragile democracy that is Lebanon. Better late than never, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora says there can be no sovereign Lebanese state without disarming Hezbollah. Sadly, the Lebanese Government has been unwilling to take the hard steps necessary to achieve this end. Lebanon's army of about 70,000 soldiers is far superior to Hezbollah's guerilla force, estimated at about 6000, but does not appear to have the will to tackle the task of ridding Lebanon of its unwelcome guests. And given that the Lebanese army could spilt along sectarian lines if ordered to disarm Hezbollah, Mr Siniora should thank Israel further: he gets to keep a relatively unified army intact, while also watching Hezbollah arms and missile sites being destroyed, and its influence on Lebanese politics collaterally reduced.

Of course, disarming Hezbollah from within would be no easy task. With 12 MPs and two cabinet ministers, Hezbollah is a strong political entity. Nevertheless, if Lebanon is going to make progress and be embraced by the international community as a responsible and independent nation, it must face up to the malign influence of Hezbollah and take away the group's weapons - or at least help Israel to do so. Otherwise Lebanon will remain a hostage to the guerillas and their principal backers, Iran and Syria.

Israel's defensible military response coincides with yesterday's meeting of world leaders in St Petersburg for the annual G8 summit. As might be expected, US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin have called for restraint, and the other six leaders will probably fall into line. Coupled with the European Union's routine condemnation of Israel's response to aggression from its enemies, the opinion of the G8 should not deflect Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Israeli Government, which has resolved to make it clear to Hamas, Hezbollah and other militant groups that there is a heavy price to pay for cross-border raids, rocket attacks and the taking of hostages.

Mr Bush's call for restraint - while making it clear Israel has the right to defend itself - is partly prompted by a desire to see Lebanon remain a friend of the West and his hopes the country can strengthen its democracy. But what Mr Bush and his G8 colleagues should be doing is calling for Lebanon to abide by UN Resolution 1559 to disarm Hezbollah. The G8 leaders could also reflect on comments from the most powerful Arab country, Saudi Arabia, which last week accused Hezbollah of "uncalculated adventures" that could bring destruction to Arab nations. Hezbollah elements should "shoulder the full responsibility for this irresponsible behaviour and that the burden of ending the crisis falls on them alone". Stern words, indeed, and a guide for the rest of the world's nations - especially those that jump at the opportunity to attack Israel's right to self-defence.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19809776-7583,00.html
Title: Hezbollah: 'Cowardly Blending' Among Refugees
Post by: captainccs on July 24, 2006, 03:54:20 PM
This is certainly refreshing to hear. That the UN recognizes that the Hezbollah is acting improperly by putting civilians in danger is a great step forward in the war against terrorism.


U.N. Chief Accuses Hezbollah of 'Cowardly Blending' Among Refugees
Monday, July 24, 2006

LARNACA, Cyprus ? The U.N. humanitarian chief accused Hezbollah on Monday of "cowardly blending" among Lebanese civilians and causing the deaths of hundreds during two weeks of cross-border violence with Israel.

The U.N. humanitarian chief accused Hezbollah on Monday of "cowardly blending" among Lebanese civilians and causing the deaths of hundreds during two weeks of cross-border violence with Israel.

The militant group has built bunkers and tunnels near the Israeli border to shelter weapons and fighters, and its members easily blend in among civilians.

Jan Egeland spoke with reporters at the Larnaca airport in Cyprus late Monday after a visit to Lebanon on his mission to coordinate an international aid effort. On Sunday he had toured the rubble of Beirut's southern suburbs, a once-teeming Shiite district where Hezbollah had its headquarters.

During that visit he condemned the killing and wounding of civilians by both sides, and called Israel's offensive "disproportionate" and "a violation of international humanitarian law."

On Monday he had strong words for Hezbollah, which crossed into Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12, triggering fierce fighting from both sides.

"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children," he said. "I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."

"We need a cessation of hostilities because this is a war where civilians are paying the price," said Egeland, who was heading to Israel.

Hezbollah guerrillas crossed into Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12, triggering fierce fighting from both sides.

At least 384 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 20 soldiers and 11 Hezbollah fighters, according to security officials. At least 600,000 Lebanese have fled their homes, according to the World Health Organization. One estimate by Lebanon's finance minister putting the number at 750,000, nearly 20 percent of the population.

Israel's death toll stands at 36, with 17 people killed by Hezbollah rockets and 19 soldiers killed in the fighting.

During his visit to Lebanon, Egeland issued an urgent call for US$150 million (euro118.74 million) to help Lebanon through the next three months.

He said the first large U.N. convoy of humanitarian aid is expected to depart Beirut on Wednesday for the southern city of Tyre. Similar convoys will be scheduled every second day after that.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,205352,00.html
Title: . . . and then it's a farce.
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on July 25, 2006, 11:49:36 AM
Can?t Stop
Still unserious about Syria.

By Michael Ledeen

I suppose if you live long enough you get to see everything at least twice, and in recent days I?ve seen replays of two old blunders that I?d hoped I wouldn?t have to endure again. The first is the Friend Who Has Gone Too Far, and the second is the Enemy Who Is Really Our Friend.

The first time I saw the Friend Who Has Gone Too Far was in December, 1981, a very long quarter-century ago. Reagan was finishing his first year in office, and the first signs of the fall of the Soviet Empire were bubbling to the surface in Poland, where the Solidarity trade union was challenging the Polish Communist regime. Pope John Paul II was using the word ?solidarity? in some very provocative ways, and you could feel the earth shifting beneath the feet of the Soviets. It was pretty clear, even then, that if the Kremlin did not find an effective way of breaking Solidarity, the entire structure of the Soviet empire might well crack wide open. And so, late in December as I recall, military rule was declared in Poland, Soviet military forces were moved to the borders, and Solidarity leaders were rounded up and arrested.

Shortly afterwards, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Charles Percy, was on one of the Sunday talk shows, and had a blood-chilling exchange with a journalist. Solidarity went too far, didn?t they, Senator? And Percy nodded gravely and agreed. Yes, he said, they just went too far.

This was back in the days when I watched television news and talk shows, and I threw something at the screen, disgusted that an American leader would condemn brave workers for the sin of openly challenging the evils of Communism. The nerve of the man! Solidarity was our ally, we were supposed to support them, and instead here was this lout of a Senator condemning them, for what? For loving freedom too much.

Israel is getting the same treatment these days, more or less unanimously from the Europeans (rather less so from the Arabs, which is a big story indeed), and much too much from some American pundits. Israel is just going too far for these folks, who trot out the silly idea that a country under attack is only entitled to a ?proportional response.? So if Israeli casualties are dramatically lower than those in Lebanon, it proves that the Israelis have gone too far. So they are condemned, for what? For defending themselves effectively and fighting too fiercely against those who want them dead.

Both Solidarity and the Israelis were fighting against our common foes; the Soviets wanted us tossed into history?s garbage can, and Hezbollah wants to slaughter us. Both had the potential to fatally weaken our common enemies. Yet in each case there was a curious reluctance to embrace the idea of victory.

The Enemy Who is Really Our Friend is, in both cases, Syria. Henry Kissinger once said that he found Hafez al Assad the most fascinating leader in the Middle East, which prompted me to wonder what it was about certain dictators that so fascinated intellectuals. Mussolini, for example, was lionized by Stefan Zweig, one of the leading intellectuals of the inter-war period, and both Lenin and Stalin had their share of admiring journalists, historians and other deep thinkers. In any event, the first time I encountered the notion that Syria is really our friend was in the mid-Eighties, when I was working on counterterrorism. The synagogue in Vienna had been savagely attacked by terrorists carrying hand grenades and a machine gun. We had learned that the terrorists had gone to Damascus, and then directly from Damascus to Vienna. They had not stopped between the Vienna airport and the synagogue.

I suggested that we might contemplate doing something mean to Syria.

Oh, no, the CIA representative objected, we have no evidence to suggest that the Syrian government had anything to do with this.

I couldn?t believe it. You?re saying, then, that if a naked man walks up a hill into a house, and then comes out of the house with guns and grenades, and then kills people, the occupants of the house have no responsibility?

Exactly right.

Syria?s been a major player in international terrorism for a long time, but the Syrians are clever in their malevolent way; every now and then they give the CIA some useful information, and toss the Agency a real terrorist if they need to curry even more favor than is usual. So even when, as in the case of Hezbollah, it should be obvious to a blind man that the Syrians and the Iranians are totally in cahoots, it is nonetheless possible for our Syrian ?experts? to gainsay the obvious and whisper to the New York Times that we can somehow separate the Syrians from the terror masters in Tehran, and have the son of Assad play a constructive role in ?the search for peace.?

Both times, we had the Syrians dead to rights. Both times, it was obvious that Syria was actively involved in the murder of innocents. And both times, people who should have known better insisted on denying the evidence.

Marx put it best. First it?s tragedy, then it?s farce.

? Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute

National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGQxOTE5MTI1NzRiOTc0MTJkMjQ1OTFkMzEyODgyY2E=
Title: Hezbollah: We Didn't Expect Such Strong Reaction From Israel
Post by: captainccs on July 25, 2006, 07:37:38 PM
This admission by Hezbollah proves that the only language they understand is force, disproportionate force, overwhelming force. If that is the only language they understand then Israel should use that language. Clear communications are very important. Over the last few years, including the Camp David talks and the Oslo accords as well as the evacuation from Southern Lebanon and Gaza, have been interpreted by Hezbollah as weakness and lack of resolve, things they scorn.

There are valid arguments supporting the evacuation from Southern Lebanon and Gaza: defensible borders and fewer enemies within. But somehow these evacuations were not explained properly to Hezbollah who took them as visible signs of weakness. Unfortunately, it is always civilians who pay the price in blood and suffering for the militarist adventures.



Hezbollah: We Didn't Expect Such Strong Reaction From Israel
Tuesday, July 25, 2006


BEIRUT, Lebanon -- A senior Hezbollah official said Tuesday the guerrillas did not expect Israel to react so strongly to its capture of two Israeli soldiers.

Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of the Hezbollah's political arm, also told The Associated Press that his group will not lay down arms.

His comments were the first time that a leader from the Shiite militant group has publicly suggested it miscalculated the consequences of the July 12 cross-border raid in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and three were killed.

"The truth is -- let me say this clearly -- we didn't even expect (this) response ... that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," said Komati.

He said Hezbollah had expected "the usual, limited response" from Israel.

In the past, he said, Israeli responses to Hezbollah actions included sending commandos into Lebanon, seizing Hezbollah officials and briefly targeting specific Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon.

Komati said his group had anticipated negotiations to swap the Israeli soldiers for three Lebanese held in Israeli jails, with Germany acting as a mediator as it has in past prisoner exchanges.

He said Hezbollah captured the Israeli soldiers from a military area, but charged that Israelis had taken Hezbollah leaders from their homes at night.

"The response is unjustified," Komati said. He added that the Israeli offensive was planned in advance, and Israel was only "waiting for the right time" to carry it out.

Asked about reports that Hezbollah has been firing Iranian-made missiles on Israel, Komati said: "We don't deny nor confirm. We believe where the weapons come from is irrelevant."

Hezbollah leaders previously have denied that Iran was supplying them with weapons.

Komati said Hezbollah has weapons made in various countries, including the United States, France, China and Russia.

"Some of our fighters carry M16s. So you think we buy them from America?" he asked.

Komati said Hezbollah demanded an immediate end to Israeli attacks before agreeing to negotiate and rejected a plan proposed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to Beirut.

The plan calls for the deployment of international and Lebanese troops in southern Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah attacks on Israel before a cease-fire.

"No one can talk about politics while the fire rages, and killings occur," Komati said.

He said he didn't want to talk about the issues to be negotiated ahead of a cease-fire, including the deployment of an international force.

But he was adamant about Hezbollah's refusal to disarm because of what he said was Israeli occupation of Lebanese land, the "threat of Israeli aggression" and the Lebanese held in Israeli jails.

More... (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,205546,00.html)
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 27, 2006, 02:37:46 PM
Special Report: Behind the Israeli Cabinet's Decisions
After a long night of debate, the Israeli security Cabinet led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided the military campaign in south Lebanon would not be expanded, and that any modifications to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation, such as deploying more troops, would require Cabinet approval.

Israel is essentially broadcasting to the world that its political and military circles are severely divided over the current operation, and that it might have no choice but to cave in to diplomatic pressure to put an end to the fighting and draw up a cease-fire. This might not be true to Israeli thinking, but it is certainly a message they are trying to send to Hezbollah's chain of command. Which then raises the question: Why?

Israel is likely exaggerating the extent to which the military and Cabinet are divided over how to continue in this military campaign, but a real disagreement exists between those promoting a sustained air campaign and those pushing for a ground offensive because IDF forces are getting restive. A compromise might have been reached in the July 27 Cabinet meeting to bolster the air campaign but prepare ground forces for an invasion if it becomes apparent that the Israeli air force will be unable to deliver on its own.

There could be some faith within Israel's defense circles that an air campaign will eventually pan out and succeed in undermining Hezbollah's capabilities, but such an operation takes time and costs an exorbitant amount of money, since ground troops are standing by. As support for a continued air campaign is weakening by the day, something else must be factoring into Israel's war strategy.

The thought of Israel even considering scaling down its military operation at this point -- though golden news for Hezbollah -- carries devastating consequences for Israel. If the fighting were to come to a halt over the next few days, Hezbollah would claim victory and present itself as the only Arab force capable of standing up to Israeli aggression. Merely resisting and surviving a fight against Israel represents a major win for the Islamist militant movement and its sponsors in Iran and Syria -- something Israel, the United States and even the surrounding Arab regimes are unable to cope with. Moreover, an imminent cease-fire would allow Hezbollah to retain the capability to carry out attacks against Israel whenever the need arises.

Israel, therefore, cannot agree to a cease-fire. At the same time, the current operational tempo has not yet yielded a satisfactory outcome for Israel. Katyusha rockets continue to rain down over the northern part of the country as Israel continues its attempts to take out Hezbollah's rocket launch sites. Though Israel's massive air campaign could gradually wear down Hezbollah's offensive capabilities, it will take several weeks before any definitive results will come to light. Hezbollah, meanwhile, is locked in its own military strategy. Hezbollah commanders have long been preparing for this battle and are ready to stand their ground for an extended period of time and draw the Israelis into bloody insurgent combat.

And time does not appear to be on Israel's side. Israel has already incurred a steady barrage of rocket attacks over the past two weeks, and the IDF experienced one of its deadliest days in ground fighting July 26, when nine soldiers were killed in a battle against Hezbollah fighters in the village of Bent Jbail. The numbers of Lebanese civilian deaths are also escalating by the day, fueling worldwide criticism of the extensive Israeli air campaign. The United States is carefully buying Israel time to carry out its military objectives by postponing a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but political pressure on the U.S. government will mount over the next few days, following the argument that Israel cannot be given a blank check for a permanent air campaign against Lebanon. An end to the war in the next few weeks, without a dramatic improvement in effectiveness from the Israeli perspective, would leave Hezbollah in a prime position.

With this in mind, it strikes us as exceedingly peculiar that Israel, a country with a heavy track record of fighting experience despite its youth, is so intent on promoting the idea that its defense and political figures are running in circles trying to revise their military strategy while Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is brimming with confidence in his regular video appearances. It is simply not intelligent war strategy to expose your weaknesses in the midst of a major war campaign -- unless your objective is to spread disinformation to prepare for a larger surprise.

In making the decision to restrict the ground operation in southern Lebanon, the Israeli Cabinet carefully inserted a statement that said any future decisions regarding the IDF strategy would take into account "the need to prepare forces for possible developments." This nuance becomes especially critical in light of Israel's decision to call up three additional divisions of reservists July 27. The reservists are ostensibly being called up to "refresh" troops in Lebanon who have been on the battlefield for a short time, but will not be deployed until further notice. It is difficult to see how IDF troops on the front can be relieved if the additional forces have not even been deployed, unless Israel is quietly building up its ground forces for a major assault to clear Hezbollah positions south of the Litani River.

The Israeli Cabinet also agreed to send forces up to the Aouali River -- just north of Sidon in Lebanon -- as a necessary move to destroy Hezbollah's rocket-launching platforms, according to Israeli radio. This is an extensive reach into Lebanon that would place the IDF within striking distance of the Bekaa Valley -- Hezbollah's main base of operations. We also have received indications that reserves belonging to Israel's elite fighting force, the Golani Brigade, have already moved north up to the Bekaa Valley. Fighting on Hezbollah's turf in the Bekaa Valley will undoubtedly be the most difficult stage of Israel's military campaign. At the same time, moving ground forces into the Bekaa is also necessary for Israel to meet its objective of sterilizing Hezbollah's military capabilities.

Moving into the Bekaa Valley also complicates matters with Syria, which could very well view an Israeli push into the Bekaa as a trigger for a Syrian military response. Major smuggling routes for heroin and opium run through the Bekaa and provide a major source of income for Hezbollah forces and Alawite businessmen. Though Israel is not too worried about its ability to defeat Syrian forces, it is not interested in expanding its military campaign across Lebanon's western border into Syria for fear of the aftermath of such an attack. The crumbling of Syrian President Bashar al Assad's regime would create a new set of problems that Israel is not prepared to deal with, especially while a major upset is occurring in Lebanon. At the same time, al Assad wants to get out of this conflict unscathed and in a prime negotiating position so he can demonstrate his worth in brokering a cease-fire with Hezbollah while putting the issue of the Golan Heights back on the table. With these considerations in mind, the issue of keeping Syria in check will heavily factor into the timing of Israel's push into the Bekaa.

The Bekaa is crucial to Israel's ground campaign, but will have to be dealt with carefully and will likely require more time for major ground combat. In the meantime, Israel is carefully regaining the element of tactical surprise by reducing the war to routine and strongly suggesting that its forces are getting bogged down. Each day Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire, but no developments have dramatically changed the course of the war. While Israel may be developing an atmosphere of complacency around Hezbollah, it will launch its ground offensive when everyone least expects it.

The fact that a major ground offensive is the last thing on anyone's mind does not necessarily decrease the possibility -- it increases it. The movement of troops, rather than the public statements, will only tell if we are right.

www.stratfor.com
Title: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on July 27, 2006, 02:55:24 PM
Quote from: Winston Churchill
In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 27, 2006, 07:42:01 PM
BY JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, July 27, 2006 3:58 p.m. EDT

BB 'C' No Evil
When Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers two weeks ago, provoking the current conflagration, the Shiite terrorist outfit apparently intended to use them as bargaining chips to demand the release of prisoners. Press reports often discuss this as if there were an equivalence between the Israeli soldiers, who committed no crimes but were simply defending their own country within its borders, and Arab terrorists. So it's worth pointing out just who the "prisoners" in Israeli hands are.

According to the BBC "the prisoner Hezbollah wants most" is Samir Qantar. On April 22, 1979, Qantar murdered 28-year-old Danny Haran and his 4-year-old daughter and caused the death of another Haran daughter, age 2. Haran's widow, Smadar Haran Kaiser, describes the crime (she transliterates the murderer's name as "Kuntar"):

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border.

Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer.

As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat.

They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.

The BBC gives a rather more sanitized account of the crime: "Qantar . . . attacked a block of flats in Nahariha in 1979, killing a father and his daughter."
Title: E-Mail Casts Doubt on Claims of Israel Targeting U.N. Peacek
Post by: captainccs on July 27, 2006, 09:21:42 PM
E-Mail Casts Doubt on Claims of Israel Targeting U.N. Peacekeepers
Thursday, July 27, 2006


UNITED NATIONS ? An e-mail sent by a Canadian U.N. observer and obtained by FOX News casts doubt on claims by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the Israeli attack on a U.N. peacekeeper observation post along the Lebanese border was intentional.

The email from Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener warned that the post had come under "unintentional" artillery fire and aerial bombing several times in the previous weeks, and that several Hezbollah positions were in the area of the patrol base.

"It is not safe or prudent for us to conduct normal patrol activities," wrote Kruedener in the July 18th e-mail. "(The artillery and aerial bombing) has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."

Kruedener was one of four unarmed U.N. military observers killed in Tuesday's bombing.

"I think that e-mail is very important, because unfortunately these are practically the last words of somebody who eventually paid with his life,? said Israel's U.N. ambassador Daniel Gillerman. ?He's telling his commander that Israel was not targeting them and that there is Hezbollah activity around there."

This comes as the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a statement on Thursday expressing shock and distress at Israel's bombing of the U.N. post, but fell short of condemnation.

After a day and night of wrangling over a response to Tuesday's attack, all 15 council members agreed on the watered-down statement, which was the first by the Security Council since fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas began on July 12.

In the only reference to the wider conflict, the council expressed its "deep concern for Lebanese and Israeli civilian casualties and sufferings, the destruction of civil infrastructures and the rising number of internally displaced people."

The statement was read at a formal meeting by the current council president, France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere. Unlike press statements, presidential statements become part of the council's official record.

The United States, Israel's closest ally, insisted on dropping any condemnation or allusion to the possibility that Israel deliberately targeted the post in the town of Khiam near the eastern end of the border with Israel.

The initial draft proposed by China would have had the council express shock and distress at Israel's "apparently deliberate targeting" of the U.N. base and condemn "this coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked U.N. post."

In that draft, China was following Secretary-General Kofi Annan's statement late Tuesday that Israel appeared to have struck the site deliberately ? an accusation Israel vehemently denies.

Gillerman called the statement "very fair and balanced" and said it was right for the council to adopt it in memory of the four peacekeepers. He expressed "deep regret for the tragic accident," repeated Israel's dismay at Annan's statement, and stressed that "Israel would never, ever target U.N. personnel."

In a Security Council briefing on Wednesday, Assistant Secretary-General Jane Lute said the base came under close Israeli fire 21 times, including 12 hits within 100 meters (109 yards) and four direct hits. U.N. officials in New York and Lebanon repeatedly protested to Israel in the hours before a bomb leveled the building and killed the four observers, she said.

A revised draft dropped the reference to the "apparently deliberate targeting" but kept in the condemnation. It said "the Security Council condemns any deliberate attack against U.N. personnel and emphasizes that any such attacks are unacceptable."

That was still unacceptable to the Americans ? as was a call for a joint Israeli-U.N. investigation into the incident, which Annan called for.

The final text said "the Security Council is deeply shocked and distressed by the firing by the Israeli Defense Forces on a United Nations Observer post in southern Lebanon..."

The condemnation of Israel was eliminated, as was the call for a joint investigation.

In the final statement, the council called on Israel "to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into this incident, taking into account any relevant material from U.N. authorities, and to make the results public as soon as possible."

The council expressed deep concern about the safety and security of U.N. personnel and stressed that Israel and all concerned parties must comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law which include protecting U.N. personnel. It underlined "the importance of ensuring that U.N. personnel are not the object of attack."

The Security Council also extended condolences to the families of the victims and the governments of Austria, Canada, China and Finland whose peacekeepers were killed in the attack.

The widow of Maj. Kruedner, whose body has still not been recovered from the rubble, demanded an explanation from Israel. Cynthia Hess-von Kruedener, told reporters in Kingston, Ontario, that she believes the attack, which involved precision guided missiles, was intentional. She said her husband told her the base had been fired on for weeks, despite its clear U.N. markings.

Earlier Thursday, when it was unclear whether the council would agree on any statement, China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya warned that the council's failure to act could have an impact on other issues, including its current efforts to agree on a resolution that would make mandatory Iran's suspension of uranium enrichment.

"If we got stuck on this particular issue for political considerations, definitely I think that people will feel frustrated, and definitely I think it will affect smooth cooperation on other important issues, because I think this organization cannot discuss issues on a selective basis," he said.

"We feel that if the Security Council cannot send a strong political message supporting our guys on the ground, it will be very difficult for people to understand," Wang said. "If we do not do anything, I think that the message will be interpreted very negatively."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,205978,00.html
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 28, 2006, 12:20:26 AM
Denny-- good find that!  Glad to know that the chattering classes at the UN were wide of the mark.

Here's an angle on target selection that I hadn't seen before:
====================

Hezbollah banks under attack in Lebanon
Israel seeks to destroy group?s financial infrastructure
By Adam Ciralsky, Lisa Myers & the NBC News Investigative Unit


Updated: 11:25 a.m. MT July 25, 2006
WASHINGTON - Fifteen hundred times in the past two weeks, an Israeli jet has taken off with a load of bombs. But as NBC News has learned, the targets have not just been military.

Israeli intelligence sources tell NBC News that among the targets hit in Lebanon are as many as a dozen financial institutions ? part of a previously secret campaign to destroy Hezbollah's financial infrastructure. Some banks were demolished, others deliberately damaged but not destroyed. In one case, Israel also took out a bank manager's home.

In an exclusive interview, Israel's top counter-terror official says these attacks are a warning.

"The message is for all the Lebanese banks,? says Brig. Gen. Dani Arditi, advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister for Counterterrorism. ?Assistance to Hezbollah is direct assistance to terrorist organizations."

Among the targets: Eight offices of Hezbollah's unofficial treasury, called Beit el Mal. The Israelis claim the attacks caught Hezbollah by surprise.

"We know that they are looking for money. They are very desperate to have some cash and they don?t have [it],? Arditi says.

The Israelis say they also struck branches of two major banks ? Al Baraka and Fransabank ? which they claim help Hezbollah receive and move money around the world. A senior bank official at Al Baraka confirms one of his branches was bombed, and says several other nearby banks were hit, too. Arditi tells NBC News that a third bank ? the Middle East and Africa Bank ? also is on Israel's hit list.

All three banks deny any ties to Hezbollah.

"We have no relation to any organization like Hezbollah," says the Al Baraka official. The Fransabank General Manager tells NBC "We have no relationship with Hezbollah or any other political party anywhere. We don't have any relation and we refuse to have one." And the Administrative Manager for the Middle East and Africa Bank says someone tried to open a suspicious account with the bank, but no money was accepted and the bank employee involved has been fired.

But a fundraising appeal that aired last week on the Hezbollah-connected Al Manar television station asks that money for the Hezbollah resistance be sent a specific account at the Middle East and Africa Bank.

An Arabic speaking NBC News producer called the number listed on the television ad, and was told to go to any U.S. bank and wire the money. Our producer was advised to not tell anyone the money was meant for Hezbollah.

The Middle East Africa Bank has a relationship with the U.S. bank Wachovia. After NBC News informed Wachovia of the Hezbollah fundraising appeal, Wachovia immediately terminated the relationship.

In a statement, a Wachovia spokesman said, "Wachovia confirms that it has very stringent procedures and policies in place to monitor accounts and ensure compliance with the Patriot Act, including not conducting business with any organization identified by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization or supporting terrorism."


Later, NBC News called back the same number advertised on Al Manar and, this time, was provided with the name of a separate bank. Here's an edited transcript of that conversation:

NBC: I want to donate money to the Mujahideens [Hezbollah resistance], is this the right number?

Hezbollah Facilitator: You have to send to The Lebanese-French Bank.

NBC: Do you have the number?

Hezbollah Facilitator: There is an account number. You deposit the money and wire it to the Lebanese French Bank.

NBC: How can I know that this is accurate? I?m so worried to deposit the money, can you tell me and confirm that this money will be sent to the Mujahideen?

Hezbollah Facilitator: Yes, sure.

NBC: And where are you from? Are you from the bank or no?

Hezbollah Facilitator: No. I?m from the resistance.

NBC: How would we know? I?m so worried when I deposit the money it will reach Mujahideen.

Hezbollah Facilitator: You go to the bank and deposit the money, and they will wire it to the Lebanese French Bank. You have to go the bank. Where are you calling from?

NBC: I am from America.

Hezbollah Facilitator: You have to go to the bank ? any bank.

NBC: That for sure will reach the Mujahideen?

Hezbollah Facilitator: For sure. Do not mention resistance or anything like that. If you do, they won?t wire them.

NBC: Thank you - God be with you. Bye bye.

Hezbollah Facilitator: You are welcome. God be with you.

Tuesday, the head of the Corporate Banking Division of the Lebanese-French Bank (Banque Libano-Fran?aise) informed NBC News that it had closed the account that the Hezbollah facilitator had set up at his bank.

"With regard to the account referred to in your message, it appears that the said account belongs to an individual person and shows insignificant movements and balances. Following the information in your e-mail, our Compliance Unit has closed the said account," says Lebanese-French Bank official Maurice Iskandar.

He adds that the bank has strict anti-money-laundering policies and that the bank will not "open any account for, deal with, or transact on behalf of, any political or military organisation or their affiliated entities and/or known individuals."

The Lebanese-French Bank has a relationship with two prominent U.S. banks ? Citibank and the Bank of New York. A Bank of New York spokesman says: "We are aware of this situation and we have taken appropriate steps." A Citibank spokesman says, "Hezbollah has been designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization since 1995. If we received any payment from a correspondent bank that referenced Hezbollah it would be stopped and blocked."

U.S. intelligence officials confirm the Israeli bombing campaign against the banks. But how much difference can that really make?

"If they have a hard time moving money, they?ll have a hard time funding their operations,? says terrorism analyst Daniel Benjamin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

That means trouble paying fighters' salaries and providing services that engender support from the Lebanese people. The Israelis hope it also means more difficulty getting money from Iran.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14015377/

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Beirut bombshell
The assassination of a former Prime Minister may have been linked to the collapse of Lebanon's Bank al-Madina.
by Mitchell Prothero, FORTUNE Magazine
May 11, 2006: 12:00 PM EDT


(FORTUNE Magazine) - Last year, when Syrian intelligence operatives were implicated in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, their motive seemed clear: to neutralize a political opponent of Syria's three-decade occupation of Lebanon.

But United Nations investigators and other sources have told FORTUNE there may have been an additional reason for the hit. The February 2005 car bombing in Beirut, the sources say, may have been partly intended to cover up a corruption and bank fraud scandal that siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars to top Syrian and Lebanese officials.

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Bank documents, court filings, and interviews with investigators and other sources show that some of the officials were deeply involved from the late 1990s until early 2003 in a kickback scheme that supplied them with cash, real estate, cars, and jewelry in exchange for protecting and facilitating a multibillion-dollar money-laundering operation at Lebanon's Bank al-Madina that allowed terrorist organizations, peddlers of West African "blood diamonds," Saddam Hussein, and Russian gangsters to hide income and convert hot money into legitimate bank accounts around the world.

Despite efforts to cover up the details surrounding the bank's collapse in early 2003, these sources say, the Syrian and Lebanese officials allegedly involved in the fraud feared that Hariri could return to power and reveal their role in one of the biggest illegal banking operations in the Middle East since the Bank of Credit & Commerce International scandal in the early 1990s.

"Was the scandal part of the reason Hariri was killed?" asks Marwan Hamade, Lebanon's Minister of Telecommunications and a Hariri confidant who was himself the target of a car-bomb assassination attempt. "Absolutely. It was certainly one of the cumulative reasons. If he had been reelected, Hariri would have reopened the file, which we know goes directly to [Syrian President Bashar] Assad through the [Lebanese] presidential palace in Baabda."

UN investigators looking into Hariri's death, led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, became interested in the link to al-Madina on the suspicion that money stolen from the bank helped fund the plot, says a Lebanese security source who helped investigate the bank's collapse and later worked with the UN team.

After reviewing some of the banking records of suspects in both Syria and Lebanon, says the source, who asked not to be identified as he isn't authorized to talk about the matter, the UN team started looking into whether at least some of the plotters were motivated by a desire to obscure their roles in the al-Madina affair. "It goes all the way to the top people in Syria," the source says.

Mehlis's reports on the assassination make reference to financial fraud as a possible motive. "Fraud, corruption, and money laundering could have been motives for individuals to participate in the operation that ended with the assassination of Mr. Hariri," Mehlis wrote last December in his second report, referring specifically to the collapse of al-Madina.

Mehlis, who would not be interviewed, also mentioned in his report a taped conversation in which General Rustom Ghazali, Syria's top military official in Lebanon, accused Hariri of discussing Syrian corruption in a newspaper interview, apparently in violation of an agreement to remain quiet on the matter. In late April, noting UN findings, President George W. Bush ordered a freeze on assets held in the U.S. by anyone involved in the assassination, though the order did not cite names.

As part of the power struggle that ensued after Assad extended the term of Lebanese President and Syrian ally Emile Lahoud in 2004, Hariri resigned as Prime Minister with the intention of running for Parliament on an anti-Syrian platform. Hariri confidants say that, once returned to power, he planned to reopen the investigation into the bank's collapse. The case file and a trove of supporting documents were sealed in the vault of Lebanon's Central Bank in 2003 after threats by Ghazali, who appears to have made millions of dollars from the scheme himself.

The Syrian occupation of Lebanon from 1976 to 2005 has long been viewed as a geopolitical move designed to stabilize its smaller neighbor after decades of civil war and create a bargaining chip in the Arab-Israeli conflict. But over time, the occupation turned into a moneymaking operation for Syrian elites and their Lebanese allies.

"When the Syrians came to Lebanon," says Adnan Araki, a former Lebanese member of Parliament and Syrian loyalist, "they wanted the Golan Heights back and considered Lebanon and Hezbollah something to bargain with. We had to teach them how to steal."

Investigators looking into the looting at Bank al-Madina got a break in March, when Brazilian police arrested Rana Koleilat, al-Madina's former executive secretary. Koleilat, who jumped bail in Lebanon last year and eluded an international manhunt, is believed to have played a key role in the bank scandal.

She is alleged in lawsuits brought by the bank's owners to have used false withdrawals and bogus loans to enrich her family and pay off authorities. Even as al-Madina failed, she is said by investigators to have extracted millions of dollars from owner Adnan Abou Ayyash, a construction magnate who lives in Saudi Arabia, through a series of wire transfers and check exchanges. Koleilat denied the charges after her capture and said that the bank's owners had authorized all withdrawals and that Ghazali had blackmailed her into paying him for protection.

When the dust settled in the summer of 2003, after depositors were paid and assets liquidated, the Abou Ayyash family found itself about $1.5 billion poorer, a stunning turn of events for a Lebanese family that controlled a vast business empire. But as Koleilat and the Abou Ayyash brothers sued and countersued and the Central Bank grabbed whatever money was left to pay depositors, it became clear that no investigation would be forthcoming. The money was gone, and only questions remained, questions whose answers were locked away in a vault in the Central Bank.

In an interview last year, Central Bank governor Riad Salameh didn't deny reports that Ghazali had threatened him into closing the investigation. The general's family, records produced by the bank appear to show, got more than $32 million from al-Madina via transfers approved by Koleilat. But with a pro-Syrian Parliament and Justice Minister in place, then--Prime Minister Hariri was unable to force an investigation beyond the initial 2003 fraud claims.

It is only recently, a year after the departure of Syrian troops, that the bank files have been transferred to the Ministry of Justice for a proper investigation into how the money was stolen and who benefited from the bribes. Just a handful of bank documents have emerged, but they detail an impressive pattern of corruption and fraud on the part of Syrian political and security officials and their Lebanese allies.

Critical evidence of the extent of the money-laundering operation was unintentionally revealed during an investigation by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to ensnare an arms dealer with ties to the Islamic resistance movement Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, which the U.S. and several other governments consider a terrorist organization.

In 2004, U.S. prosecutors charged Naji Antoine Abi Khalil with attempting to purchase and ship night-vision goggles and other military equipment from the U.S. to Hezbollah. Khalil's ties to al-Madina's money-laundering operations came to light when he bragged to agents and informants that he traveled the world picking up cash to be delivered to the bank on behalf of Hezbollah and Russian mobsters. According to court papers, Khalil, who has since pleaded guilty, accepted $100,000 to launder from agents as part of a sting and told them the single biggest delivery he had made to the bank was $160 million in cash.

But those amounts pale when compared to the piles of cash laundered by Iraqi officials and their partners in illegally gaming the UN's oil-for-food program. Designed for humanitarian reasons to allow Iraq to sell oil through vouchers that could be used to purchase food and medicine, the program became a hotbed of corruption that Saddam and his loyalists used to earn illegal money.

By the late 1990s proceeds flooded the Middle East as favored allies of the regime received coupons good for oil purchases at lower-than-market prices. Investigations into the program found rampant corruption on the part of UN officials, Middle Eastern government officials, and oil companies. The son of Lebanese President Lahoud was implicated, as were other prominent Lebanese and Syrian officials and businessmen. And al-Madina served as a place for them to hide the proceeds.

Several sources, including one alleged conspirator in the oil-for-food scandal, who refuses to let his name be used for legal and safety reasons, put the amount transferred and laundered through al-Madina at more than $1 billion, with a 25% commission going to Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies. The source says that among the recipients of this money were Bashar Assad's brother Maher and the head of military intelligence in Lebanon at the time, Ghazi Kanaan. (Kanaan committed suicide last October after Mehlis questioned him about the plot to kill Hariri.)

To protect this operation, Koleilat had developed a network of graft that shocked even a Lebanese society comfortable with questionable business dealings. She threw dinners where guests received Rolex watches, and she gave luxury cars to friends and officials.

The graft was so widespread that one security official described the parking lot of his office during that era as a "Mercedes dealership." Some bank records point to 155 pieces of real estate--villas, apartments, hotels, and condos--purchased or distributed by Koleilat and her brothers. The Koleilats also had five luxury yachts and as many as 194 cars and motorcycles, not including the gifts to friends, associates, and greedy officials.

Koleilat and the al-Madina plotters needed protection and sought out high-level officials who could help them, says a former employee of the Koleilat family who witnessed many of their dealings. The source, who requested anonymity because the matter is still considered dangerous to discuss in Lebanon, says one of those was Jamil Sayeed, a former director of Lebanese internal security, since arrested on suspicion of plotting Hariri's murder. (Sayeed refused to comment.)

"Rustom Ghazali would receive money, cars, jewels, and hunting trips," the source says. "People used to come and wait in the office. The big shots would get checks; the lower people, like generals and officers, would get cash. This situation went much higher than Ghazali. It was a way for Maher Assad and others to profit from Lebanon and from the Iraq factor."

Several Syrian officials mentioned in the Mehlis reports can be tied to money from al-Madina by documents supplied to FORTUNE by the bank's owners. Ghazali's three brothers were issued four ATM cards linked to a fake account with a $2,000 daily limit for withdrawals, which they made each day from December 2002 to January 2003, according to one document. One of the four cards had a total yearly cash withdrawal of $8 million.

Ghazali's brother Mohammed also received a money transfer for $1,091,000 from the bank on Jan. 20, 2003. Investigators and lawyers for the bank's owners say that during these final months, Ghazali and other top officials decided that the bank's failure was inevitable and acted quickly to drain the remaining monies. One bank employee says that he witnessed Rustom Ghazali demanding a $300,000 payment just after the bank had been put under Central Bank management, a payment approved by regulators.

Among the 155 suspicious real estate transactions flagged by investigators is the transfer of an apartment valued at $2.5 million from the Koleilat family to a friend of Maher Assad's office manager--a transfer the bank's lawyers say they believe was intended to put it under Maher Assad's control. Lebanese political and security officials say that the sealed documents show far more money and property transferred to Maher.

"The entire file on Madina is now at the Ministry of Justice, except for the key parts that implicate Maher Assad, which are still being held in the Central Bank, because people are afraid of being killed over it," says Hamade, the Telecommunications Minister. "While there is not the same level of threats, the Syrian presence remains, and judges are very cautious about this case." (Efforts to reach Maher Assad and the Ghazalis for comment through several Syrian government agencies were unsuccessful.)

Other documents show transfers or transactions made by the bank to the benefit of Lahoud's son--allegations he refused to comment on--and to Lebanese security officials, including the four generals arrested last year on suspicion of participating in the plot to kill Hariri. Current Finance Minister Jihad Azour, a friend of Hariri's, insists that only today, with Syrian troops out of the country, can Lebanon commit to a full investigation. And he believes fear of such an investigation drove some of the murderers. "The risk of reopening the file could have led to this murder," Azour says. "Al-Madina reached the biggest people in Lebanon and Syria."

Azour says Hariri wanted to pursue an investigation into al-Madina and other cases of corruption and would have gone forward, even knowing the danger. "Hariri wanted this file to reach its conclusion," Azour says. "He was concerned about the scandal's ramifications. It has a very negative impact on the status of the Lebanese banking system. And it's important that the case be treated in an extreme way to fix this perception."

From the May 15, 2006 issue
Title: A Canadian soldier's report from South Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on July 28, 2006, 12:58:36 AM
Crafty:

I found a Canadian site with the full text of the email:

Quote
What I can tell you is this: we have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both artillery and aerial bombing. The closest artillery has landed within 2 meters of our position and the closest 1000 lb aerial bomb has landed 100 meters from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity.



A Canadian soldier's report from South Lebanon
Updated Wed. Jul. 26 2006 5:19 PM ET

After the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, and the subsequent bombing campaign began against Lebanon, CTV.ca received an email from Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, a Canadian Forces soldier serving with the UN in South Lebanon.

"If you are interested in a Canadian perspective on the events of yesterday and what is happening here in the area I am serving in, I can provide some concise info for you about the current situation," he wrote.

Major Hess-von Kruedener in South Lebanon in March, meeting with one of the Mouktars of a Druze village called Bourhoz.
With the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, Major Hess-von Kruedener was the only Canadian serving as a United Nations Military Observer in Lebanon.  He was stationed at the UN base about 10 kilometres from where the Syrian, Lebanese and Israeli borders meet. The UN's mission there is to report ceasefire violations.
On July 25, that base came under fire from Israeli artillery and was struck by a precision-guided aerial bomb. Four UN observers died. On July 26, the federal government said Hess-von Kruedener was missing and presumed dead.

Here is his full email, written July 18, with background on the mission and the current situation:



We have had a brief "tactical pause" in the action here, so I am taking this opportunity to provide you some information on the situation here in south Lebanon. At the outset, I will provide you with a brief background on who I am, What the Org and Mission is here and then answer some of the bank of questions you provided.

Background

My name is Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, and I am an Infantry Officer with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, of the Canadian Forces. I was sent to this Mission (United Nations Truce and Supervision Organization -UNTSO) last October 05, and am currently serving as an unarmed Military Observer. I have now been stationed here in south Lebanon for Approximately nine months.

I am currently writing to you from the UN Patrol Base Khiam, which is situated approximately 10 km from the nexus of the Israeli, Lebanese and Syrian Borders. I am serving with Observer Group Lebanon, or OGL, and I am on Team Sierra. The Patrol Base is named after the village it is situated in, El Khiam, which sits on one of four ridges which dominates both the Hasbani River valley, which then changes to the Houla Valley when it crosses the Lebanon-Israel border 10 km to our south.

A Canadian soldier mans a guard tower at Camp Ziouani, Golan Heights, in 2002. Thousands of Canadians have served in this border region since 1958. (Photo: MCpl Frank Hudec, Canadian Forces Combat Camera
The patrol base was initially an observation post and was built in 1972, but was later destroyed in 1976 during the fighting between the PLO and the South Lebanese Army (SLA). In 1978 it was rebuilt again and manned by elements of the Norwegian Battalion serving with UNIFIL. In 1980, Observer Group Lebanon (OGL) assumed responsibility for it. Historically, the area of the El Khiam and Hasbani valleys to the north and the Houla valley to the south have been the main axis for invasion in to Lebanon and Palestinian Territories.

Mission

The mission of Team Sierra and OGL within the greater context of UNTSO is to maintain the integrity of theWithdrawal Line (Blue Line), and report on any and all violations or activities that threaten the cease-fire and international peace and security here along the Lebanese/Israeli border, and Israeli Occupied Lebanon, and to support the UNSC resolution 1559, within our mission mandate.

Information Requested

(1) Currently, there are several nationalities that are here on the patrol base with me. I am serving with an Australian, Chinese, Finnish, Austrian, and Irish Officers. They come from various different backgrounds, levels of experience and services (Army, Navy and Air Force) from within their militaries.

(2) I have been here for nine months of a one-year tour of duty. Since I have arrived here in Lebanon, this current incident is the fourth I have seen and by far the most spectacular and intensive.
Title: Network Newspeak
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on July 28, 2006, 10:00:04 AM
The Vocabulary of Untruth
Words take on new meanings as Israel struggles to survive.

By Victor Davis Hanson

A ?ceasefire? would occur should Hezbollah give back kidnapped Israelis and stop launching missiles; it would never follow a unilateral cessation of Israeli bombing. In fact, we will hear international calls for one only when Hezbollah?s rockets are about exhausted.

?Civilians? in Lebanon have munitions in their basements and deliberately wish to draw fire; in Israel they are in bunkers to avoid it. Israel uses precision weapons to avoid hitting them; Hezbollah sends random missiles into Israel to ensure they are struck.

?Collateral damage? refers mostly to casualties among Hezbollah?s human shields; it can never be used to describe civilian deaths inside Israel, because everything there is by intent a target.

?Cycle of Violence? is used to denigrate those who are attacked, but are not supposed to win.

?Deliberate? reflects the accuracy of Israeli bombs hitting their targets; it never refers to Hezbollah rockets that are meant to destroy anything they can.

?Deplore? is usually evoked against Israel by those who themselves have slaughtered noncombatants or allowed them to perish ? such as the Russians in Grozny, the Syrians in Hama, or the U.N. in Rwanda and Dafur.

?Disproportionate? means that the Hezbollah aggressors whose primitive rockets can?t kill very many Israeli civilians are losing, while the Israelis? sophisticated response is deadly against the combatants themselves. See ?excessive.?

Anytime you hear the adjective ?excessive,? Hezbollah is losing. Anytime you don?t, it isn?t.

?Eyewitnesses? usually aren?t, and their testimony is cited only against Israel.

?Grave concern? is used by Europeans and Arabs who privately concede there is no future for Lebanon unless Hezbollah is destroyed ? and it should preferably be done by the ?Zionists? who can then be easily blamed for doing it.

?Innocent? often refers to Lebanese who aid the stockpiling of rockets or live next to those who do. It rarely refers to Israelis under attack.

The ?militants? of Hezbollah don?t wear uniforms, and their prime targets are not those Israelis who do.

?Multinational,? as in ?multinational force,? usually means ?third-world mercenaries who sympathize with Hezbollah.? See ?peacekeepers.?

?Peacekeepers? keep no peace, but always side with the less Western of the belligerents.

?Quarter-ton? is used to describe what in other, non-Israeli militaries are known as ?500-pound? bombs.

?Shocked? is used, first, by diplomats who really are not; and, second, only evoked against the response of Israel, never the attack of Hezbollah.

?United Nations Action? refers to an action that Russia or China would not veto. The organization?s operatives usually watch terrorists arm before their eyes. They are almost always guilty of what they accuse others of.

What explains this distortion of language? A lot.

First there is the need for Middle Eastern oil. Take that away, and the war would receive the same scant attention as bloodletting in central Africa.

Then there is the fear of Islamic terrorism. If the Middle East were Buddhist, the world would care about Lebanon as little as it does about occupied Tibet.

And don?t forget the old anti-Semitism. If Russia or France were shelled by neighbors, Putin and Chirac would be threatening nuclear retaliation.

Israel is the symbol of the hated West. Were it a client of China, no one would dare say a word.

Population and size count for a lot: When India threatened Pakistan with nukes for its support of terrorism a few years ago, no one uttered any serious rebuke.

Finally, there is the worry that Israel might upset things in Iraq. If we were not in Afghanistan and Iraq trying to win hearts and minds, we wouldn?t be pressuring Israel behind the scenes.

But most of all, the world deplores the Jewish state because it is strong, and can strike back rather than suffer. In fact, global onlookers would prefer either one of two scenarios for the long-suffering Jews to learn their lesson. The first is absolute symmetry and moral equivalence: when Israel is attacked, it kills only as many as it loses. For each rocket that lands, it drops only one bomb in retaliation ? as if any aggressor in the history of warfare has ever ceased its attacks on such insane logic.

The other desideratum is the destruction of Israel itself. Iran promised to wipe Israel off the map, and then gave Hezbollah thousands of missiles to fulfill that pledge. In response, the world snored. If tomorrow more powerful rockets hit Tel Aviv armed with Syrian chemicals or biological agents, or Iranian nukes, the ?international? community would urge ?restraint? ? and keep urging it until Israel disappeared altogether. And the day after its disappearance, the Europeans and Arabs would sigh relief, mumble a few pieties, and then smile, ?Life goes on.?

And for them, it would very well.

? Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.



National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjI4MWIzODNlYjM3Yzg1M2FiNTEzMWMyNzg1ZDIzNzQ=
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 28, 2006, 05:12:59 PM
TARGET: HEZBOLLAH
By RALPH PETERS

July 28, 2006 -- YESTERDAY, Israel's government overruled its generals and refused to expand the ground war in southern Lebanon. Given the difficulties encountered and the casualties suffered, the decision is understandable. And wrong.

In the War on Terror - combating Hezbollah's definitely part of it - you have to finish what you start. You can't permit the perception that the terrorists won. But that's where the current round of fighting is headed.

For the Israelis, the town of Bint Jbeil is an embarrassment, an objective that proved unexpectedly hard to take. But the town's a tactical issue to the Israeli Defense Force, not a strategic one.

For Hezbollah, it's Stalingrad, where the Red Army stopped the Germans. And that's how terrorist propagandists will mythologize it.

Considering only the military facts, the IDF's view is correct. But the Middle East has little use for facts. Perception is what counts. To the Arab masses, Hezbollah's resistance appears heroic, triumphant - and inspiring. We don't have to like it, but it's true.

So why is defeating Hezbollah such a challenge? Israel smashed one Arab military coalition after another, from 1948 through 1973. Arabs didn't seem to make good soldiers.

Now we see Arabs fighting tenaciously and effectively. What happened?

The answer's straightforward: Different cultures fight for different things. Arabs might jump up and down, wailing, "We will die for you Saddam!" But, in the clinch, they don't - they surrender. Conventional Arab armies fight badly because their conscripts and even the officers feel little loyalty to the states they serve - and even less to self-anointed national leaders.

But Arabs will fight to the bitter end for their religion, their families and the land their clan possesses. In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah exploits all three motivations. The Hezbollah guerrilla waiting to ambush an Israeli patrol believes he's fighting for his faith, his family and the earth beneath his feet. He'll kill anyone and give his own life to win.

We all need to stop making cartoon figures of such enemies. Hezbollah doesn't have tanks or jets, but it poses the toughest military problem Israel's ever faced. And Hezbollah may be the new model for Middle Eastern "armies."

The IDF's errors played into Hezbollah's hands. Initially relying on air power, the IDF ignored the basic military principles of surprise, mass and concentration of effort. Instead of aiming a shocking, concentrated blow at Hezbollah, the IDF dissipated its power by striking targets scattered throughout Lebanon - while failing to strike any of them decisively.

Even now, in the struggle for a handful of border villages, the IDF continues to commit its forces piecemeal - a lieutenant's mistake. Adding troops in increments allows the enemy to adjust to the increasing pressure - instead of being crushed by one mighty blow.

This is also an expensive fight for Israel in another way: financially. The precision weapons on which the IDF has relied so heavily - and to so little effect - cost anywhere from hundreds of thousands of dollars to seven figures per round. Israel has expended thousands of such weapons in an effort to spare its ground forces.

Theoretically, that's smart. But we don't live in a theoretical world. Such weapons are so expensive that arsenals are small. The United States already has had to replenish Israel's limited stockpiles - and our own supplies would not support a long war. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, a relatively easy win, we were running low on some specialized munitions within three weeks.

Precision weapons also rely on precision intelligence. It doesn't matter how accurate the bomb is if you can't find the target. And Israel's targeting has been poor. It even appears that Hezbollah managed to feed the IDF phony intelligence, triggering attacks on civilian targets and giving the terrorists a series of media wins.

The precision-weapons cost/benefit trade-offs aren't impressive, either. Killing a terrorist leader with a million-dollar bomb is a sound investment, but using hundreds of them to attack cheap, antiquated rocket launchers gets expensive fast.

Just as the U.S. military learned painful lessons about technology's limits in Iraq, the IDF is getting an education now: There's still no replacement for the infantryman; wars can't be won nor terrorists defeated from the air; and war is ultimately a contest of wills.

Those of us who support Israel and wish its people well have to be alarmed. Jerusalem's talking tough - while backing off in the face of Hezbollah's resistance. Israel's on-stage in a starring role right now, and it's too late to call for a re-write.

As a minimum, the IDF has to pull off a hat trick (killing Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, would be nice) in order to prevent the perception of a Hezbollah victory - a perception that would strengthen the forces of terror immeasurably.

If this conflict ends with rockets still falling on Haifa, Israel's enemies will celebrate Hezbollah as the star of the Terrorist Broadway (Ayman al-Zawahiri's recent rap videos were an attempt to edge into Hezbollah's limelight). Israel - and the civilized world - can't afford that.

Yes, Israel's casualties are painful and, to the IDF, unexpected. But Hezbollah isn't counting its casualties - it's concentrating on fighting. In warfare, that's the only approach that works.

Israel and its armed forces are rightfully proud of all they have achieved in the last six decades. But they shouldn't be too proud to learn from their enemies: In warfare, strength of will is the greatest virtue.

Ralph Peters' new book is "Never Quit the Fight."
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Bowser on July 28, 2006, 08:46:22 PM
American tourists in the middle east  :roll:

 Can't you stick to toting cameras and coca cola. . . . you are leaving too much trash and not enough historic buildings.

 Damn you !

  :!:

-------------------------

Folks:

Opinions from across the spectrum are welcome here, but the general tenor of Bowser's posts this evening is not what we are looking for.

CD
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 28, 2006, 10:23:19 PM
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5590257

An Arab commentator on NPR with some interesting things to say.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: xtremekali on July 29, 2006, 03:03:12 PM
Islamic Jihad: Israel killed militant head 1 hour, 12 minutes ago
 


Israeli troops killed two Islamic Jihad militants on Saturday, including the man the group described as the leader of its militant wing in the West Bank city of Nablus.

The group initially said in an announcement over mosque loudspeakers that the slain militant, Hani Awijan, 29, was the leader of its military wing in the West Bank. However, other members of the group later said Awijan headed gunmen in Nablus only.

Initial reports said Awijan was shot by Israeli undercover troops trying to arrest him while he played soccer with friends and relatives.

The army confirmed soldiers operated in Nablus and said a militant was killed in an exchange of gunfire.

Israel Radio said Awijan was responsible for a series of attacks on Israelis.

News of the arrest raid spread through Nablus, and large crowds gathered at the hospital. Militants burned tires in the streets and called for a general strike in the city. Shops were quickly closed.
Title: Thank You Israel
Post by: captainccs on July 29, 2006, 11:13:01 PM
Thank You Israel
By Brigitte Gabriel

For the millions of Christian Lebanese, driven out of our homeland, "Thank you Israel," is the sentiment echoing from around the world. The Lebanese Foundation for Peace, an international group of Lebanese Christians, made the following statement in a press release to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert concerning the latest Israeli attacks against Hezbollah:

"We urge you to hit them hard and destroy their terror infrastructure. It is not [only] Israel who is fed up with this situation, but the majority of the silent Lebanese in Lebanon who are fed up with Hezbollah and are powerless to do anything out of fear of terror retaliation."

Their statement continues, "On behalf of thousands of Lebanese, we ask you to open the doors of Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport to thousands of volunteers in the Diaspora willing to bear arms and liberate their homeland from [Islamic] fundamentalism.

We ask you for support, facilitation and logistics in order to win this struggle and achieve together the same objectives: Peace and Security for Lebanon and Israel and our future generations to come."

The once dominate Lebanese Christians responsible for giving the world "the Paris of the Middle East" as Lebanon used to be known, have been killed, massacred, driven out of their homes and scattered around the world as radical Islam declared its holy war in the 70s and took hold of the country.

They voice an opinion that they and Israel have learned from personal experience, which is now belatedly being discovered by the rest of the world.

While the world protected the PLO withdrawing from Lebanon in 1983 with Israel hot on their heals, another more volatile and religiously idealistic organization was being born: Hezbollah, "the Party of God," founded by Ayatollah Khomeini and financed by Iran. It was Hezbollah who blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in October,1983 killing 241 Americans and 67 French paratroopers that same day. President Reagan ordered U.S. Multilateral Force units to withdraw and closed the books on the marine massacre and US involvement in Lebanon February 1984.

The civilized world, which erroneously vilified the Christians and Israel back then and continues to vilify Israel now, was not paying attention. While America and the rest of the world were concerned about the Israeli / PLO problem, terrorist regimes in Syria and Iran fanned Islamic radicalism in Lebanon and around the world.

Hezbollah's Shiite extremists began multiplying like proverbial rabbits out-producing moderate Sunnis and Christians. Twenty-five years later they have produced enough people to vote themselves into 24 seats in the Lebanese parliament. Since the Israeli pull out in 2000, Lebanon has become a terrorist base completely run and controlled by Syria with its puppet Lebanese President Lahood and the Hezbollah "state within a state."

The Lebanese army has less than 10,000 military troops. Hezbollah has over 4,000 trained militia forces and there are approximately 700 Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. So why can't the army do the job? Because the majority of Lebanese Muslims making up the army will split and unite along religious lines with the Islamic forces just like what happened in 1976 at the start of the Lebanese civil war.

It all boils down to a war of Islamic Jihad ideology vs. Judeo Christian Westernism. Muslims who are now the majority of Lebanon's population, support Hezbollah because they are part of the Islamic Ummah-the nation. This is the taboo subject everyone is trying to avoid.

The latest attacks on Israel have been orchestrated by Iran and Syria driven by two different interests. Syria considers Lebanon a part of "greater" Syria. Young Syrian President Assad and his Ba'athist military intelligence henchmen in Damascus are using this latest eruption of violence to prove to the Lebanese that they need the Syrian presence to protect them from the Israeli aggression and to stabilize the country. Iran is conveniently using its Lebanese puppet army Hezbollah, to distract the attention of world leaders meeting at the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, from its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Apocalyptic Iranian President Ahmadinejad and the ruling Mullah clerics in Tehran want to assert hegemony in the Islamic world under the banner of Shia Mahdist madness. Ahmadinejad wants to seal his place as top Jihadist for Allah by make good his promise to "wipe Israel off  the map.

No matter how much the west avoids facing the reality of Islamic extremism of the Middle East, the west cannot hide from the fact that the same Hamas and Hezbollah that Israel is fighting over there, are of the same radical Islamic ideology that has fomented carnage and death through terrorism that America and the world are fighting. This is the same Hezbollah that Iran is threatening to unleash in America with suicide bomb attacks if America tries to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapon. They have cells in over 10 cities in the United States. Hamas, has the largest terrorist infrastructure on American soil. This is what happens when you turn a blind eye to evil for decades, hoping it will go away.

Sheik Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, is an Iranian agent. He is not a free actor in this play. He has been involved in terrorism for over 25 years. Iran with its Islamic vision for a Shia Middle East now has its agents, troops and money in Gaza in the Palestinian territories,Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Behind this is this vision that drives the Iranian President Ahmadinejad who believes he is Allah's "tool and facilitator" bringing the end of the world as we know it and the ushering in of the era of the Mahdi. He has a blind messianic belief in the Shiite tradition of the 12th or "hidden" Islamic savior who will emerge from a well in the holy city of Qum in Iran after global chaos, catastrophes and mass deaths and establish the era of Islamic Justice and everlasting peace.

President Ahmadinejad has refused so far to respond to proposals from the U.S., EU, Russia and China on the UN Security Council to cease Iran's relentless quest for nuclear enrichment and weapons development program until August 22nd. Why August 22nd? Because August 22nd, coincides with the Islamic date of Rajab 28, the day the great Salah El-Din conquered Jerusalem.

Ahmadinejad's extremists ideology in triggering Armageddon gives great concerns to the intelligence community.

At this point the civilized world must unite in fighting the same enemies plaguing Israel and the world with terrorism. We need to stop analyzing the enemies' differences as Sunni-Hamas or Shiite-Hezbollah, and start understanding that their common bond in their fight against us is radical Islam.


http://www.free-lebanon.com/LFPNews/2006/July/July16/July16a/july16a.html
Title: Lebanon
Post by: xtremekali on July 31, 2006, 07:47:42 AM
Daily Analysis
Crisis Sparks Fears of Wider War

 
The punishing Israeli offensive continues. (AP/Tsafrir Abayov)
Updated: July 27, 2006
Prepared by:  CFR.org Staff


After Israel suffers its bloodiest day since launching an offensive against Lebanon two weeks ago, the country's security cabinet decides not to expand its mission in Lebanon (Haaretz). The government does, however, call up thousands of reserve troops in preparation for a wider war (WashPost). The conflict could well spill into other regions; Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two leader, called July 27 for Muslims around the world to join in the fight against Israel (Guardian).

Talks in Rome between U.S., European, and Arab foreign ministers, joined by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, failed to find a formula for a ceasefire (MSNBC) between Israel and the Lebanon-based militia of Hezbollah. But a broad consensus emerged that a strong international peacekeeping force has to be part of the longer-term solution (al-Jazeera), and most argued over American objections that Syria and Iran had to be part of the discussion. CFR President Richard N. Haass tells cfr.org's Bernard Gwertzman in this interview that the United States should open talks with Syria and Iran, calling Washington's reluctance to deal with the two countries a major impediment to achieving U.S. objectives in the Middle East. This Washington Post analysis says the wide gap between the United States and Europe over how to deal with the ongoing crisis is yet another setback to President Bush?s foreign policy in a second term full of missteps and disappointments.

In Israel on Tuesday, Rice won conditional support from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the idea of a foreign peacekeeping force (LAT), possibly led by NATO, on the southern Lebanese border. But officials in Israel, and American officials in unattributed comments, underscored Washington's support (CSMonitor) for the Israeli aim of degrading Hezbollah militarily, even if there are disagreements on methods. Middle East expert Martin Indyk writes in the Financial Times that the United States should push for a UN-sanctioned ceasefire that forces Hezbollah to recognize the authority of the Lebanese government. But external forces have had a mixed history in the region. This Backgrounder examines the legacy of multinational intervention in the Middle East.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni tells Newsweek the military offensive is focused on weakening Hezbollah, and says Israel does not want a wider regional war. But the ferocity of the Israeli attack on Lebanon, which has driven more than 500,000 people from their homes and killed more than 400 civilians so far, is increasing support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and across the Middle East (CS Monitor).

Lebanese Foreign Minister Fouad Siniora has been desperately trying to get a ceasefire for his battered country. But his government is too weak to negotiate one on its own; the reasons behind that are examined in this Backgrounder. Lebanon's Daily Star points to increasing carnage in Iraq, as well as the continuing battering of Lebanon by Israel, as signs that George W. Bush's vision of democracy in the Middle East is being "engulfed in the flames of the current shortsighted American foreign policy." The Weekly Standard says Bush is just being consistent in his policy of support for Israel, but Judith Kipper writes in Newsday that Washington should use its clout to push not just for a resolution, but a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As many look to Iran and Syria?both of which are playing strong roles in the crisis?to help contain the violence, those two countries are facing problems of their own. TIME says many Iranians are angry at Hezbollah, rejecting the militia's attempts to turn the crisis into a regional conflict, and worrying that the violence is threatening Tehran's status in the world.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 31, 2006, 08:44:31 AM
Geopolitical Diary: A Cease-Fire and Possible Implications

Politics caught up with Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon on Sunday, where the U.S. State Department announced, and Israel later confirmed, a temporary halt to Israeli air operations. The 48-hour cease-fire, which appears to be unilateral, was a response to the deaths of 54 people -- including several dozen children -- who were killed when an apartment building collapsed in Qana following pre-dawn airstrikes.

News of the deaths emerged while U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Israel for meetings with national leaders. She also had planned a trip to Beirut, but that trip was canceled -- with both the United States and Lebanon claiming to have been the first to call it off. Rice, and Washington, have been under growing international pressure to intervene in the Israeli actions in Lebanon, and the timing of the Qana strike left them with little choice. Israeli leaders once again said they could complete their operations in two weeks, but they acquiesced to the cease-fire and allowed the United States to announce it first -- and thus take credit for intervening.

Leaders in Washington perhaps have faced more pressure than those in Israel during the current conflict -- or at least felt domestic pressures to a greater degree. Israeli leaders have domestic support for an intensification of operations: If anything, their restraint over launching a larger ground campaign defies popular domestic sentiment. But for the United States, tacit or overt support for Israeli actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon -- whether through supplying additional bombs or delaying calls for a cease-fire -- impacts its relations around the globe. Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a close ally of U.S. President George W. Bush, has stepped up his calls for U.S. intercession in Israel, thus giving voice to the pressures coming to bear on him from domestic and European audiences.

The temporary cease-fire brings an interesting dynamic to the conflict. In some sense, it is a cosmetic measure: It includes only Israeli air operations (not ground forces), does not appear to include Hezbollah, and does not preclude Israel from using its air assets if it sees Hezbollah forces even preparing to fire rockets or attack Israeli forces. It is, by and large, a political cease-fire more than a military one. But it could be used by Hezbollah to back Israel into a corner.

Israeli leaders are not expecting Hezbollah to abide by the cease-fire. Hezbollah forces have been firing ever-more numerous salvos of rockets over the past few days, despite Israeli claims that its air force had taken out key rocket command centers. If Hezbollah fires more rockets during the cease-fire or attacks Israeli forces in Lebanon, Israeli leaders will use the act as political leverage, seeking to escape some of the international pressures and to justify resumption of the air campaign.

On the other hand, if Hezbollah were to observe a cease-fire and refrain from rocket launches or engagements for 48 hours, Israel would find it politically more difficult to restart the campaign. During the lull, international discussions of ways to bring about a more permanent cease-fire would continue, new resolutions would be proffered and some progress perhaps could be made concerning the potential composition of an international peacekeeping force for southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah's silence and international diplomacy are not necessarily in Israel's interests at this point. The ground phase of Israel Defense Forces operations apparently was set in motion before the airstrike on Qana. If Israel should be stalemated now, the situation would be untenable for Israel's leaders: Hezbollah would have retained its command and control, communications and -- more significantly -- its weapons. Israeli forces would be sent back across the border from Lebanon, having failed to dislodge Hezbollah.

Even in the event that a peacekeeping force should move into southern Lebanon and act as a peacemaking force, actively confronting Hezbollah, the psychological damage to Israel's military image in the Middle East will have been complete. Israel's use of an air-dominant campaign to dislodge Hezbollah was bound to cause significant civilian casualties and, over time, lead to more controversies like the Qana attack and the recent strike against a U.N. post. Time and politics have now caught up with Israel, particularly as Rice was in the country when the Qana strike occurred.

In some sense, Hezbollah now holds the future of the conflict in its hands. If it can refrain from action during the Israeli cease-fire, it will gain a significant political boost and leave Israel to contend with more than just Hezbollah rockets and fighters. If this should occur, Israel would face stronger diplomatic pressures from the international community -- and the United States would find it more difficult to backstop Israel. An inconclusive withdrawal by Israeli forces following the cease-fire would spell political suicide for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and perhaps the end of the Kadima party as well.

For Hezbollah, restraint could prove the deadliest weapon in its arsenal.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 31, 2006, 11:45:18 AM
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,19955774-5007220,00.html
Title: Qana "Bombing" Deaths Faked?
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on July 31, 2006, 04:50:40 PM
I can't vouch for this source, but it's the most complete report of several I've found questioning the "bombing" at Qana.

Hezbollywood? Evidence mounts that Qana collapse and deaths were staged
By Reuven Koret  July 31, 2006
 
It was to be a perfect Hollywood ending for Hezbollah. Just as the Israeli bombing of the village of Qana in 1996 brought a premature end to Israel's Operation "Grapes of Wrath," so too a sequel of Qana II could change, once and for all, the direction of Israel's current summer blockbuster, "Change of Direction." Ten years ago, world condemnation of an errant Israeli shell that hit a civilian compound forced then-PM Shimon Peres to curtail the offensive against terror bases.

The setting was also perfect: Kana was again being used as a primary site for launching rockets against Israeli cities. The IDF reported that more than 150 rockets had been launched from Qana and its vicinity at Israeli civilians, wreaking destruction in Kiryat Shmona, Maalot, Nahariya and Haifa. It was only a matter of time before the Israeli Air Force would come for a visit, using pinpoint targeting of the sites used to launch rockets, Hezbollah logistical centers and weapon storage facilities.

On the morning of July 30, according to the IDF, the air force came in three waves. In the first, between midnight and one in the morning, there was a strike at or near the building that eventually collapsed.

Brent Sadler of CNN reports that the Israeli ordnance did not even hit the building but landed "20 or 30 meters" from the structure.

There was a second strike at other targets far from the collapse building several hours later, and a third strike at around 7:30 in the morning. There too the nearest hit was some 460 meters away, according to the IDF. But first reports of a building collapse came only around 8 am.

Thus there was an unexplained 7 to 8 hour gap between the time of the helicopter strike and the building collapse. Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of the Air Force Headquarters, in a press briefing, told journalists that "the attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear."

Gen. Eshel appeared genuinely mystified by the gap in time. He "I'm saying this very carefully, because at this time I don't have a clue as to what the explanation could be for this gap," he added.

The army's only explanation was that somehow there was unexploded Hezbollah ordnance in the building that only detonated much later.

"It could be that inside the building, things that could eventually cause an explosion were being housed, things that we could not blow up in the attack, and maybe remained there, Brigadier General Eshel said.

Eshel reported that as recently as two days ago, military intelligence reported the building area had been used by the terrorists for storage or firing of weapons. It was a bad place to cram dozens of women and children.

There are other mysteries. The roof of the building was intact. Journalist Ben Wedeman of CNN noted that there was a larger crater next to the building, but observed that the building appeared not to have collapsed as a result of the Israeli strike.

Why would the civilians who had supposedly taken shelter in the basement of the building not leave after the post-midnight attack? They just went back to sleep and had the bad luck to wait for the building to collapse in the morning?

National Public Radio's correspondent reported that residents of that building had left and the victims were non-residents who chose to shelter in the building that night. They were "too poor" to leave the down, one resident told CNN's Wedeman. Who were these people?

What we do know is that sometime after dawn a call went hour to journalists and rescue workers to come to the scene. And come they did, in droves.

While Hezbollah and its apologists have been claiming that civilians could not freely flee the scene due to Israeli destruction of bridges and roads, the journalists and rescue teams from nearby Tyre had no problem getting there.

Lebanese rescue teams did not start evacuating the building until the morning and only after the camera crews came. The absence of a real rescue effort was explained by saying that equipment was lacking. There were no scenes of live or injured people being extracted.

There was little blood, CNN's Wedeman noted: all the victims, he concluded, appeared to have died while as they were sleeping -- sleeping, apparently, through thunderous Israeli air attacks. Rescue workers equipped with cameras were removing the bodies from the same opening in the collapsed structure. Journalists were not allowed near the collapsed building.

Rescue workers filmed as they went carried the victims on the stretchers, occasionally flipping up the blankets so that cameras could show the faces and bodies of the dead.

But Israelis steeled to scenes of carnage from Palestinian suicide bombings and Hezbollah rocket attack could not help but notice that these victims did not look like our victims. Their faces were ashen gray. While medical examination clearly is called for to arrive at a definitive dating and cause of their deaths, they do not appear to have died hours before. The bodies looked like they had been dead for days.

Viewers can judge for themselves. But the accumulating evidence suggests another explanation for what happened at Kana. The scenario would be a setup in which the time between the initial Israeli bombing near the building and morning reports of its collapse would have been used to "plant" bodies killed in previous fighting -- reports in previous days indicated that nearby Tyre was used as a temporary morgue -- place them in the basement, and then engineer a "controlled demolition" to fake another Israeli attack.

The well-documented use by Palestinians of this kind of faked footage -- from the alleged shooting of Mohammed Dura in Gaza, scenes from Jenin of "dead" victims falling off gurneys and then climbing back on -- have merited the creation of a new film genre called "Palliwood."

There is increasing evidence that the Kana sequel is another episode in this genre, a variety which might be called Hezbollywood. The Hezbollah have evidently learned their craft well.

The current suspension of Israeli military air activity is supposedly intended, among other things, to be used for the investigation of what really happened at Qana. It is to be hoped that there are real journalists on the scene, and unbiased medical examiners, who will have the courage and intelligence to sort out the anomalies and contradictions, and get to the buried truth of what happened.

There is no shortage of victims in Lebanon and Israel these days. From this vantage point, at this time, it looks like in the case of Qana, the world's media was duped in a cruel and colossal hoax by a terror organization that knows no moral bounds in its exploitation of suffering and anti-Israel hatred. But, as usual, the only party expected to pay the full price will be Israelis.

Yes, it would be a Hollywood ending for it all to end in Qana, exactly as it did a decade ago. But perfect endings, and perfect crimes, are rarely pulled off in real life.

Israelis will not be able to investigate this claim directly. The question remains whether honest men and women of other nationalities will let this likely lie stand or press for the revelation of the improbable and inconvenient truth.

http://web.israelinsider.com/articles/diplomacy/8997.htm
Title: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on July 31, 2006, 06:24:13 PM
I posted the link at a blog I frequent and someone posted two related links:

Note: If you are squeamish, don't go there, lots of dead bodies:

Who is this man?

If he had been a genuine rescue worker, he would deserve a medal. Mr "Green Helmet" is everywhere at Qana, rushing around pulling children out of the rubble, carting them to ambulances and even, on the front page of the Guardian, escorting "White Tee-shirt", who also performs his own cameo role, carting round the body of another unfortunate girl, emoting freely while he does so.

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/07/who-is-this-man.html


Milking it?

Certainly, the photographs are distressing, and indeed they are meant to be. As this piece tells us:

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/07/milking-it.html
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 02, 2006, 10:48:04 PM
nation / world news | middle east crisis
Israelis' goal isn't clear, says strategy expert
Ex-Pentagon official says Jewish state now "has only one ally, and that's the United States"
By Bob Deans
Cox News Service
DenverPost.com
 
Washington - Former Pentagon official Anthony Cordesman, who also has held NATO and State Department security posts, is an expert on military strategy for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. He discussed the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict Tuesday.

Q. It seems Israel's goal is to essentially cleanse southern Lebanon of Hezbollah. How do you do that militarily?

Cordesman: It isn't clear that's the goal at all. So far this is a very limited set of military actions. But without being able to target virtually every element of the Hezbollah, all you can do is use the best intelligence you have, try to find clusters of fighters, hope they don't disperse, or hide or bury or move their weapons, and do the best you can.

Q. How much do you think Hezbollah has been weakened in southern Lebanon by these attacks?

Cordesman: We have absolutely no idea. Hezbollah, obviously, denies it. Israel has made surprisingly moderate claims. If you look at the casualties they've claimed, they'd probably be less than a tenth of Hezbollah's strength. It's almost impossible at times to know how much damage has been done.

Q. What about the price that Israel is paying for this offensive?

Cordesman: There is obviously a human cost. It's an extraordinarily expensive operation. It's often using weapons that cost close to $100,000 to hit weapons that cost $2,000 or $3,000 - and that's if it's successful. It's lost some aircraft. We're talking about very quickly things in excess of $100 million. And that, compared to the cost of maintaining Hezbollah forces or reconstituting them, is a very high price indeed. The political cost is not new to Israel, but certainly most of Europe sees this as excessive and unnecessary. Anger in the Arab world and a good part of the Muslim world as well as much of the rest of the world had been significantly increased. Israel at this point has only one ally, and that's the United States.

Q. Is there any chance that the Israeli incursion would result in new sympathy, new support, new recruits for Hezbollah?

Cordesman: Over time there is a very good chance that it will. Hezbollah had a core strength of anywhere from 300 to 1,200 full-time fighters and 3,000 to 12,000 reservists. It doesn't take many volunteers to make significant differences.

The real problem here is never how many fighters there are, it's how many skilled people actually can carry out ambushes, can use bombs, can conduct specialized raids. This isn't a matter of body counts or boots on the ground. That's largely irrelevant.

Q. What about an international peacekeeping force?

Cordesman: Sending in a peacekeeping force is easy in one sense. But if it actually has to fight, take casualties and kill people, it's going to be perceived as the enemy, not the liberator, and Hezbollah can attack it as well as conduct raids and sabotage and bombings.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: rogt on August 03, 2006, 01:10:10 PM
Carrying this over from the "dialogue with Muslims" thread.

buzwardo wrote:

Quote

BTW, do you feel Israel has a right to exist in peace?


I'd say they have a right to live in peace, but not unconditionally. As the saying goes, everybody wants peace on their terms. My issue with Israel is not that they're wrong and the Palestinians/Hezbollah are right, but that they take US support as meaning they don't have to negotiate or treat their adversaries with any respect, which they would have to do if left to deal with this on their own.

We constantly hear about how Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. deny "Israel's right to exist", that they want to "destroy Israel", or "exterminate all Jews". The source is a statement (in Arabic or Farsi) supposedly from the Hamas charter. It would be interesting to see a US news agency interview an actual Hamas leader, tell him how this statement is being interpreted in the US, and ask him directly if this is what they really mean.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on August 03, 2006, 01:36:55 PM
Quote from: rogt
We constantly hear about how Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. deny "Israel's right to exist", that they want to "destroy Israel", or "exterminate all Jews". The source is a statement (in Arabic or Farsi) supposedly from the Hamas charter. It would be interesting to see a US news agency interview an actual Hamas leader, tell him how this statement is being interpreted in the US, and ask him directly if this is what they really mean.

Right!

Ahmadinejad's call to destroy Israel draws French condemnation

By The Associated Press

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday the solution to the Middle East crisis was to destroy Israel, Iranian state media reported.

In a speech during an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders in Malaysia, Ahmadinejad also called for an immediate cease-fire to end the fighting between Israel and the Iranian-back group Hezbollah.

"Although the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this stage an immediate cease-fire must be implemented," Ahmadinejad said, according to state-run television in a report posted on its Web site.

More... (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/746081.html)
Title: Lebanon
Post by: rogt on August 03, 2006, 01:45:28 PM
OK, "elimination of the Zionist regime" can mean a lot of things.  What I want to know is whether these Muslim leaders really mean "exterminate Jews" instead of just replacement of the current Israeli government.  Considering that 25,000 or so Jews still live in Iran, I'm especially skeptical of that interpretation coming from their president.

A discussion of people's views on this would be more interesting than a bunch of articles.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on August 03, 2006, 01:54:46 PM
Quote from: rogt
OK, "elimination of the Zionist regime" can mean a lot of things.  What I want to know is whether these Muslim leaders really mean "exterminate Jews" instead of just replacement of the current Israeli government.
Well, sum it up:

Suicide bombings
Kidnappings
Rocket attacks
Calls for boycotting Israel
Flying into the Twin Towers
The London bombing
The Madrid bombing
The Beirut US Embassy bombing
The Bali bombing
The USS Cole bombing
The Buenos Aires bombing

Does this sound like a love fest of some sort?

Some people just don't want to see reality. What proof do you want? The extermination of Israel?
Title: Chavez withdraws Venezuelan envoy citing Israeli 'genocide
Post by: captainccs on August 03, 2006, 05:58:35 PM
Chavez withdraws Venezuelan envoy citing Israeli 'genocide'

By The Associated Press

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday he has recalled his country's ambassador to Israel to show his "indignation" over the military offensive in Lebanon.

"We have ordered the withdrawal of our ambassador in Israel," Chavez said in a televised speech, calling Israeli attacks in Lebanon "genocide."

"It really causes indignation to see how the state of Israel continues bombing, killing ... with all of the power they have, with the support of the United States," Chavez said after a military parade in the northwestern state of Falcon.

The leftist Venezuelan leader has repeatedly criticized Israel's offensive aimed at Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, noting mounting civilian deaths and saying the United Nations should act to halt the violence.

"It's hard explain to oneself how nobody does anything to stop this horror," said Chavez, whose government has until recently said it had good relations with Israel.

Chavez, an outspoken critic of Washington, also criticized what he called a relentless "campaign" by the U.S. government to keep Venezuela from obtaining a seat on the UN Security Council. U.S. officials have backed Guatemala for the seat, saying Venezuela would be a disruptive influence on the council.

The Venezuelan leader, a close ally and protege of Cuban President Fidel Castro, spoke after returning from an international tour that took him to Argentina, Belarus, Russia, Qatar, Iran, Vietnam, Mali and Benin. While in Iran, Chavez called the Israeli offensive in Lebanon a "fascist outrage."

"The Israeli elite repeatedly criticize Hitler's actions against the Jews, and indeed Hitler's actions must be criticized, not just against the Jews but against the world," Chavez said during his visit to Iran, adding: "It's also fascism what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people ... terrorism and fascism."

Venezuela has both Arab immigrant and Jewish communities, and officials have insisted the government will continue to fully respect the Jewish community despite its strong opposition to Israel's war in Lebanon.

Some in Venezuela have protested against the fighting in Lebanon, including one group that burned an Israeli flag outside the Israeli embassy last month.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/746265.html


But we also support coexistence:
http://captainccs.blogspot.com/2006/08/coexistence.html
Title: Iran's Strategy Is Crudely Obvious--Why Can't We Fight It?
Post by: captainccs on August 03, 2006, 10:34:46 PM
August 01, 2006

Iran's Strategy Is Crudely Obvious--So Why Can't We Fight It?

By Robert Tracinski

The new Lebanon War, like much of the War on Terrorism, has a strange character. It is a war in which everyone knows the enemy's strategy, in which it is child's play to see through all of his ruses and propaganda tricks--and yet our leaders, rather than devising their own counter-strategy, fall for every ruse and play along with the enemy's game.

You hear a lot of talk these days about the "clever" Iranians and what good "chess players" they are in the contest of international diplomacy. But the Iranian strategy is, in fact, crudely transparent and obviously morally bankrupt. Everyone can grasp this--yet our leaders keep falling into the Iranian traps.

Everyone knows that Iran is using Hezbollah's war in Lebanon to distract attention from its nuclear weapons program. The Iranians were given a July 5 deadline to suspend uranium enrichment or face "serious consequences." The contemptuous Iranians declared that they wouldn't reply for another six weeks, on August 22. Then Hezbollah--a wholly-owned subsidiary of Iran's Revolutionary Guards--initiated their war in Lebanon, and no one has paid attention to the Iranian nuclear program for the past three weeks. Now, finally, we are sending a new resolution to the UN Security Council--giving Iran until August 31 to agree to talks or face another months-long debate about whether we will impose sanctions against them.


The Iranian strategy to buy time is utterly transparent and not especially clever. It is simple to defeat: declare that Hezbollah's aggression against Israel is proof of Iran's evil intentions and that we don't require any further diplomatic justification to bomb Iran's nuclear sites and bring down its regime.

Instead, Western leaders fell for the Iranian strategy, and the Iranians have pretty much gotten what they wanted.

Everyone knows that Syria is using Hezbollah's war as a way of propping up its security and influence after it was forced to retreat from Lebanon in disgrace last year. By initiating a new war against Israel, the Syrians hope to appeal to the venomous hatred of Israel on the "Arab street," regaining Arab support Syria had lost by assassinating pro-independence leaders in Lebanon. By initiating the war on Lebanese soil, Syria hoped to justify its former military presence there, "proving" that the Syrian withdrawal led only to anarchy and bloodshed--proving it, that is, by causing the bloodshed. Finally, Syria's Baathist regime is using its alliance with the Islamist fanatics of Hezbollah to replace its fading secular ideology with a new, religious foundation. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1834114,00.html)

Again, this is all obvious, and the answer is obvious. By bringing the war home to its Syrian sponsor, we could make it clear that initiating this war will topple the Syrian regime, rather than propping it up.

Instead, American commentators and diplomats have fallen for the Syrian strategy, declaring that this conflict makes it necessary to re-establish negotiations with Syria, offer Syria territorial concessions, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/26/AR2006072601496.html) and even to compete with Iran for Syria's affections. (http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00612FB3F5B0C708EDDAE0894DE404482)

Everyone knows that Hezbollah initiated a war with Israel in order to justify its status as a military "state within a state," billing itself as a defender of Lebanon against Israel--even while, far from defending Lebanon, Hezbollah is causing Lebanon to be torn apart. And everyone knows that Hezbollah deliberately operates among Lebanon's civilian population, cynically exploiting the resulting civilian casualties as propaganda.

This has already been ruthlessly dissected by many American and Israeli commentators. See, for example, an excellent editorial (http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060730-093558-9976r.htm) in Monday's Washington Times on Hezbollah's use of "human shields," which includes a link to photos of Hezbollah guns and missile launchers positioned in residential apartment blocks. Even better, a hard-hitting column in an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, quotes (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/744436.html) an Israeli paratrooper who sums up Hezbollah's tactics: "They are a lousy army. They only win when they hide behind baby carriages."

Both of these articles identify the proper response: point out that Hezbollah is responsible for all civilian casualties in this war, and refuse to allow those casualties to hobble the war effort. Stop rewarding Hezbollah for using civilians as human shields.

Instead, faced with a gory new story about civilian casualties, our own Secretary of State panicked and pressured Israel to agree to a mini-cease-fire, suspending its air war for 48 hours (which Israel, thankfully, did not fully do (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/world/middleeast/31cnd-mideast.html?hp&ex=1154404800&en=02e8af7295cabdd1&ei=5094&partner=homepage)). According to the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/world/middleeast/31diplo.html?ref=middleeast) when Condoleezza Rice heard about a new group of Lebanese civilians killed in an Israeli airstrike--with images of the corpses splashed across TV screens in Lebanon and across the Arab world--she "appeared shaken." She then immediately pushed for the Israeli cessation, while "American officials scrambled to try to counter the wrenching TV scenes of the devastation at Qana."

Secretary Rice has a reputation as an intelligent, hard-charging woman who doesn't scare easily. Over the past few months, she has blown that reputation, caving in to Iran and its European sympathizers--and now allowing herself to be panicked into appeasement by predictable images of Lebanese civilian casualties. The Iranians have not been playing a sophisticated diplomatic game--yet they have consistently outplayed Secretary Rice.

Just as obvious as the strategy of the Iranian Axis are the destructive consequences of America's diplomatic retreat in the face of Hezbollah's war.

The French government has taken advantage of Rice's abdication and stepped in to assert a leading role in the crisis--as a defender of Iran. The French foreign minister, speaking today in Beirut, hailed Iran (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/world/europe/31cnd-france.html) as the potential savior of Lebanon, describing Iran as "a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region." If the French are to be part of a "multinational force" in Southern Lebanon, will they be there to disarm Hezbollah--or to protect it?

The joke going around all the blogs recently is that it's not a World War until France surrenders. But it's not really a World War until the French become collaborators.

Similarly, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who sat on the fence for the first few weeks of the war, complaining about Israel but also calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed, sensed the shift in the political winds and threw in with Hezbollah, (http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast.html) thanking terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah for "all those who sacrifice their lives for the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon.''

And remember that every charge made against the Israelis in Lebanon can be applied equally to the Americans in Iraq--which means that Secretary Rice has just given a green light for Iranian-backed firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr to emulate Hezbollah and orchestrate another uprising against the US in Iraq.

The tirades of the Angry Left to the contrary, our leaders are not stupid or incompetent. If the rest of us can figure out the Iranian strategy and see through Iran's tricks, so can they. But something is neutralizing their knowledge. Something is preventing them from turning that knowledge into corresponding action.

Part of what is crippling Western leaders is the sacrifice-worship of the altruist morality, (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/06/the_suicide_bomb_morality.html) which programs them, in response to human suffering, to suspend thinking and react emotionally. Natan Sharansky recounts a discussion he had with former president Jimmy Carter about why the Palestinian-Israeli "peace process" kept failing. Carter responded, "You know, you are right, but don't try to be too rational about these things. The moment you see people suffering, you should feel solidarity with them and try to help them without thinking too much about the reasons."

But even more insidious is a kind of cognitive altruism that tells men to sacrifice, not just their interests, but their judgment, subordinating their knowledge to the opinions and prejudices of others. That is what seems to be operating here. Whatever Secretary Rice knows about the Iranians' strategy is discarded the moment lurid images of civilian casualties are splashed across the front pages of European newspapers and the broadcasts of Arab television stations. Just as, in this self-abnegating morality, you have to consider the interests of everyone except yourself--so, in this morality of cognitive self-abnegation, you have to consider everyone's opinion except your own. Thus, faced with the united force of "world opinion," the formerly "tough-minded" Secretary of State was flustered into an ignominious surrender of American interests.

This is a strange kind of war, in which we have more than enough military capability to crush the enemy's "lousy army." Nor do we lack the intellectual power to understand and counteract the enemy's strategy. But we lack the moral confidence to use both our power and our knowledge.

But in the life-and-death struggle with totalitarian Islam, there is no room for Western self-abnegation. On the contrary, what we need is a proud, righteous self-assertion, the unapologetic pursuit of America's and Israel's vital interests, unbowed by appeals to pity or to "world opinion."

In recent months, there has been a rebellion brewing on the right in protest against the Bush administration's appeasement of Iran. Secretary Rice's recent capitulation, if it goes uncorrected, ought to be the event that brings that rebellion to the boiling point, threatening President Bush with the defection of his remaining political "base." It will be a bruising political rebellion, and it should probably require the firing of Condoleezza Rice--a crushing concession for George Bush to make--to satisfy a justified fury against the administration's recent policies.

But if our leaders won't provide an assertive American national defense on their own power, we will have to demand it of them. If they won't lead the way against our enemies, we will have to lead and force them to follow.

Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/08/irans_strategy_is_crudely_obvi.html
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 04, 2006, 06:19:29 AM
Many good points there, but FWIW Stratfor.com says that overthrowing the Syrian regime will result in a worse one.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: rogt on August 04, 2006, 08:30:55 AM
Quote from: captainccs
Quote from: rogt
OK, "elimination of the Zionist regime" can mean a lot of things.  What I want to know is whether these Muslim leaders really mean "exterminate Jews" instead of just replacement of the current Israeli government.
Well, sum it up:

Suicide bombings
Kidnappings
Rocket attacks
Calls for boycotting Israel
Flying into the Twin Towers
The London bombing
The Madrid bombing
The Beirut US Embassy bombing
The Bali bombing
The USS Cole bombing
The Buenos Aires bombing

Does this sound like a love fest of some sort?

Some people just don't want to see reality. What proof do you want? The extermination of Israel?


Above you list mostly stuff committed by AQ, which has nothing to do with whether or not "exterminate all Jews" is what is really, literally meant by "eliminate the Zionist regime".  Like I said, 25,000 or Jews (BTW, that's the largest concetration of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel) are still living in Iran, so it's unlikely that Iran's president is out to exterminate Jews.

"Calls for boycotting Israel" are to be lumped in with flying planes into buildings?  If so, then I guess people who called for boycotting apartheid South Africa were also guilty of terrorism.

Yes, Hezbollah did kidnap some Israeli soldiers, and under international law if it's done in the course of armed conflict, they are required to treat the soldiers humanely.  It's not a crime in the same league as kidnapping civilians.  When you consider the crimes Israel commits in Gaza on a daily basis (economic strangulation, military attacks on civilians, assassinations), kidnapping a soldier just doesn't rank very high on the atrocity scale.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on August 04, 2006, 09:10:43 AM
Hamas, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, radical Islam, it's all the same for me. They all have the same purpose vis a vis Israel so I need make no distinction among them. They attack, we strike back and, on occasion, we strike preemptively when the danger seems extraordinary.

There is nothing wrong with preemptively strikes. It's much the same as vaccinating babies so they don't get sick later. Radical Islam is a virus that needs to be combatted at every level before they can cause the mayhem they set out to cause.

What does that have to do with the exact meaning of "Exterminating Israel?" I don't worry about it. You do, so you explain it. Getting bogged down in hair splitting while people are dying is an absurdity. Stop the war and then we can split hairs.

Sorry, no apologies coming from me on this issue.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: rogt on August 04, 2006, 09:52:57 AM
Quote from: captainccs
Hamas, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, radical Islam, it's all the same for me. They all have the same purpose vis a vis Israel so I need make no distinction among them.


Hamas and Hezbollah, at least, enjoy the status of legitimate political parties in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon, whereas AQ cannot make this claim.  So whether or not you consider it significant, the distinction has consequences in terms of international law.

Quote

What does that have to do with the exact meaning of "Exterminating Israel?"


No, I'm asking for the exact meaning of "eliminate the Zionist regime", which you see as clearly meaning "exterminate Jews".  It's not clear that it really means this, but it's a popular interpretation among people looking to justify a particular policy.

I've mentioned the Iranian Jews twice now and you've had no response.  How do you explain 25,000 Jews choosing to live in a country you claim wants their extermination?
Title: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on August 04, 2006, 10:41:54 AM
Quote from: rogt
I've mentioned the Iranian Jews twice now and you've had no response.  How do you explain 25,000 Jews choosing to live in a country you claim wants their extermination?

I think it's irrelevant to the issue, and I doubt very much that, given a choice, today they would choose to live in Iran. My family chose to live in Venezuela and for many years it was a good choice until the advent of Hugo Chavez. Today, given the choice, I would not pick Venezuela. Things change. At one time Jews were captives in Persia. Later they were an important part of Persian society. Same in Germany. My father was a German soldier under Bismarck. But under Adolph Hitler he was considered a non-human. Things go around in circles. When we left Germany in 1939 we lost our German citizenship based on a NAZI law that stripped German Jews living outside Germany of their birthright German citizenship. For years this made no difference to me because we were more than welcome in Venezuela. Then with Chavez things changed. He preaches class warfare, not just against Jews but against America, against landholders, against the rich, against anyone or anything that he perceives as an opportunity to vent his venom. As a consequence, I have reacquired my German citizenship. I now have dual citizenship. Germans went from the most advanced and most civilized people on earth who gave us Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, to the scum of the earth under Hitler. Now they have made a comeback into the fold of civilized nations.

The 25,000 Jews is Iran is what is left over from a much larger Jewish community. They have to conform to Sharia law in public. They have one member of parliament who must have a picture of a Mullah in his office. They are not treated as people, they are pets in a zoo for exhibition purposes, for the world to see how civilized the zoo keepers are. Humans are funny that way: we love elephants so we put them in a cage. We love birds so we put them in a cage. We love flowers so we cut them to put in a vase. We love to exhibit Jews so we put them in a virtual cage. Jews wanted out of the Soviet Union, they were not allowed to leave. How is Iran different?
Title: Lebanon
Post by: ppulatie on August 04, 2006, 10:57:44 AM
Rogt,

Time for me to step in for a bit. You keep asking about what the "elimination of the Zionist regime" means?

Why not look to the words that are spoken by both the leaders and followers of Hezbollah, the Iranian President, Hamas, OBL and others.  They all state that the goal is the destruction of Israel, drive the Jews into the sea.

Why is this so hard for people to understand? Why must there be hidden meanings and the so called need to read between the lines for hidden messages. If a person or group of people keep repeating the same message time and again, doesn't it seem likely that they are saying what they desire?

Then, if the words are not good enough, look to the actions that the groups take. Suicide bombings targeting civilians. Mass rocket launches targeting anyone, not just military targets.

What are Arafat? He received 87% of everything he wanted with negeotiations with Israel the first time. He turned it down. The second time, he received 97%, and he turned it down. And the PLO gave him complete support. Does this sound like a group of people will to live with and co-exist with Israel?  I don't think so.

What about the recent pullout of troops and people from Gaza? This was what Hamas and the PLO wanted. One would expect that they would have settled down and worked to create their vision for the area. Instead, they still attack Israel. Does this sound like a desire for co-existence?

Again, hear their words, watch their actions. And accept that what they say is true.
Title: Chavez breaks up with Israel
Post by: captainccs on August 04, 2006, 12:04:32 PM
Chavez breaks up with Israel

Dear Israeli friend who might happen to read this blog

The title of this post means exactly what it means: it is Chavez that is breaking up with Israel, not Venezuela. (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/758B61AA-7D24-470F-83D2-78633DA88019.htm) The people of Venezuela are much smarter than that. Or ignorant as the case might be. But Venezuelans of good faith, of good name, of good will, do not break relations either with Israel, or Lebanon, or Iran, or Palestine, or Egypt.

See, Venezuelan people of good will know that the Middle East is a very complicated situation, and we know that we have no business involving ourselves in there, except for trying to help in any way we can, without taking sides, in reaching peace one way or the other. Just as Israel has no business meddling in border problems between Venezuela and Colombia over FARC crossing over as they please.

See, Venezuela is a gorgeous mosaic of people. We have plenty immigrants form diverse areas of the Middle East. But we also gave refuge to many Jews fleeing the horrors of Nazism, or the horrors of Europe diverse forms of intolerance. We know that we all get along, blacks and whites, natives and mestizos, Jews and Muslims, Catholics and Evangelical, commies and democrats. That is, until Chavez was elected president in 1998 and started forcing upon us divisions that were alien to our gentle tropical culture.

Since his election race has become an issue. Useless social warfare has become an issue. Civil rights have become an issue. And none for the good. Now anti semitism is becoming an issue. This blog has reported whenever it could about the creeping anti semitism in Venezuela these days. But do not take only my word: read yesterday's column from Milagros Socorro (http://venezuela-documents.blogspot.com/2006/08/no-ms-polarizacin-tarek.html) in El Nacional where she picks up the same disgusting add (http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2006/07/addenda-to-previous-post.html) that appeared in El Nacional last week. Her words on how our beautiful country is torn apart by the vices of a few are only too eloquent.

Now Chavez in his megalomania has turned his gaze to the Middle East where he wants to become a player. I can assure you, dear Israeli leader, or even dear any Middle East reader, that it is a decision of Chavez alone with his camarilla. We, as a people, have never been consulted on what should be Venezuela's policy in the Middle East. And I can assure you that we will never be consulted on that topic by Chavez. In fact, he has long stopped consulting with anyone on anything except perhaps the soon to be corpse of Castro.

I can also assure you one thing: Chavez does not know much about the Middle East and its very complicated history. Nor does he care much about you. See, the only thing he wants is to screw the US in any which way he can, even if it means a close association with the Iran regime of fanatic and intolerant Ayatollahs who have no problem in subjecting women to all sorts of second class citizenship, hanging gay teenagers, persecuting Baahist faith, financing any pro Shia terrorist organization and what ever else uncivilized that one can come up with. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a country as opposed to Venezuelan values of freedom and carefree lifestyle as Iran is. That is why it is so objectionable of Chavez (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/744034.html) not to even notice that the only thing that Ahmedinejad has not yet said is "a good Jew is a dead Jew". Never in our history we have had a president that openly supported a country whose aim is the elimination of another country.

If you can read Spanish I will recommend an article on how the news was reported in Venezuela. (http://www.eluniversal.com/2006/08/04/pol_art_04106AA.shtml) First, he used the commemoration of some local independence event of 1806 to announce the withdrawal of our ambassador to Israel. Funny, because already Venezuela had only a "chag? d'affaires". But Chavez always needs to be bombastic and the charg? became ambassador for a few seconds before he was removed anyway. Then on the same protocol act he decided to change one of our national holydays by moving it from March 12 to August 3. Just like that, because he has decided to rewrite Venezuelan history in a way that satisfies him better, regardless of what really happened in a given date. See, he is like that, changing names, dates, places, at will, like any fascist of commie dictator. All of course duly surrounded by many generals in full drag.

It is important for you to understand that Chavez has long stopped being considered as someone sane. Nobody so obsessed about his glory, his safety, nobody so blindeded by his US hatred can long remain sane. Venezuela is now a military controled regime with someone cetifiable at the helm. You of all people know about these type of guys. So please, do not harbor ill will against the Venezuelan people, keep in mind that any ill advised move of Venezuela in the Middle East comes from Chavez feverish brain alone. We are trying our best to control him but he has too much money and too many amoral cowards getting rich around him, at home as well as abroad. But this shall pass and we will become friends again as we have been friends with all countries in the world. That is what we really are, a friendly people, not the hateful crowd that Chavez would like you to beleive he represents.

--- --- --- --- --- ---
The news is spreading fast. Fausta has a complete summary of Chavez recent eccentricities, (http://faustasblog.com/2006/08/hugo-recalls-venezuelan-ambassador-to.html) break up included. Plus a great photo montage of Chavez and any dictator around, courtesy of Miguel. (http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2006/08/03.html#a2977)



http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2006/08/chavez-breaks-up-with-israel.html
Title: Iranian official admits Tehran supplied missiles to Hezbolla
Post by: captainccs on August 04, 2006, 12:36:59 PM
Iranian official admits Tehran supplied missiles to Hezbollah

By Amos Harel and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents

A senior Iranian official admitted for the first time Friday that Tehran did indeed supply long-range Zelzal-2 missiles to Hezbollah.

Mohtashami Pur, a one-time ambassador to Lebanon who currently holds the title of secretary-general of the "Intifada conference," told an Iranian newspaper that Iran transferred the missiles to the Shi'ite militia, adding that the organization has his country's blessing to use the weapons in defense of Lebanon.

Pur's statements are thought to be unusual given that Tehran has thus far been reluctant to comment on the extent of its aid which it has extended to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah warned Thursday night in a televised broadcast that his organization would target Tel Aviv if Beirut was attacked by Israel.

"If our capital, Beirut, is attacked, we will attack your capital, Tel Aviv," Nasrallah threatened.

The Hezbollah leader issued his warning after Israel Air Force aircraft dropped leaflets over the Lebanese capital, calling on residents of three Shi'ite neighborhoods in southern Beirut to evacuate their homes.

Israeli security sources assessed that Nasrallah's threats are serious.

On Wednesday evening, the IAF attacked Beirut for the first time after a hiatus of nearly five days. The dropping of the leaflets yesterday is considered to be a precursor to new air strikes on the city.

Military Intelligence estimates that Nasrallah would like to end the war with a dramatic move, such as the firing of missiles against Tel Aviv.

The range of the Iranian-made Zelzal missiles is estimated to be 210 kilometers, enabling Hezbollah to target the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv and its environs. Last week, the IAF deployed Patriot anti-aircraft missiles near Netanya as part of the overall effort to foil a possible Zelzal attack.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/746631.html
Title: Lebanon
Post by: xtremekali on August 04, 2006, 02:55:58 PM
rogt,

I have to admit I for one do not understand your support of Hamas and Hezbollah.  Or maybe you have a personel dislike for the State of Israel.

Do you believe Israel has the right to defend itself? or is it you dislike the U.S.'s support of Israel.  If this is the case then you need to put the blame on the Kennedy admin.  It was he who set the policy that the U.S. what defend Israel since in his view Israel was seen as the only true "friend" in the region.

As for Iran's tolerance of Jew's.  What do you think would happen if the Terrorist President of Iran start slaughtering these Jew's.  Israel would not stand for it.  Then the S would hit the fan.

I my have missed it and if so I apoligize but could you flesh out your arguement against what Israel is doing and please do so without the leftist propaganda.

I have to admit I am old school when it comes to middle eastern fanatics.  Having been involed in a war against Hamas and Hezbollah as well as their forefathers.

I must have been asleep for some time who ever came up with the idea that terrorist are political parts.  Most recently the IRA, Arafat and now H and H.  

Sorry for the rambling.  Just want to understand your position.

Myke Willis
Title: Lebanon
Post by: rogt on August 04, 2006, 04:22:08 PM
Quote from: xtremekali
rogt,
I have to admit I for one do not understand your support of Hamas and Hezbollah.  


What "support"?  I hear people saying "eliminate the Zionist regime" definitely means "exterminate Jews", and I'm saying why I think that may be a misinterpretation.  You'd certainly disagree with somebody who said our policy of "regime change" in Iraq meant "exterminate Arabs".

Quote

Do you believe Israel has the right to defend itself?


Yes, but it's not like history somehow gets reset anytime Israel gets attacked and the only issue is whether or not they have a right to self-defense.  

[edit]
Has Israel ever attacked anybody *not* in self-defense?  Or is pretty much anything they do considered self-defense?
Title: Lebanon
Post by: ppulatie on August 04, 2006, 07:13:09 PM
Rogt,

Again, what about the words of Hezbollah and Hamas calling for the destruction of Israel? This can only mean one thing.

Perhaps the following quote from Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah  on 12-31-1999 should clarify things.  He said peace deals between Arabs and Israel would not bring stability to the Middle East or legitimacy to the Jewish state.

"There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel," he told the crowd. "Peace settlements will not change reality, which is that Israel is the enemy and that it will never be a neighbor or a nation.

Since 1948, every action that Israel has taken has been in self defense. They have been in a perpetual war since inception, with the arab world desiring their destruction.


From your comments, I surmise that you believe that Israel has taken actions not in its own self defense. Can you please name some such actions? I will be more than happy to refute them.

BTW, if you would like more quotes from H & H leadership calling for the destruction of Israel, then I will gladly provide them. Hopefully there will be enough bandwidth to hand all of them.

I also feel that your comments tend to be supportive of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on August 04, 2006, 07:39:46 PM
Quote from: ppulatie
Since 1948, every action that Israel has taken has been in self defense. They have been in a perpetual war since inception, with the arab world desiring their destruction.


From your comments, I surmise that you believe that Israel has taken actions not in its own self defense. Can you please name some such actions? I will be more than happy to refute them.

The Anglo-French-Isaeli attack on Suez:

Anthony Eden, the British prime minister, feared that Nasser intended to form an Arab Alliance that would cut off oil supplies to Europe. On 21st October Guy Mollet, Anthony Eden and David Ben-Gurion met in secret to discuss the problem. During these talks it was agreed to make a joint attack on Egypt.

On 29th October 1956, the Israeli Army, led by General Moshe Dayan, invaded Egypt. Two days later British and French bombed Egyptian airfields. British and French troops landed at Port Said at the northern end of the Suez Canal on 5th November. By this time the Israelis had captured the Sinai peninsula.

President Dwight Eisenhower grew increasingly concerned about these developments. On 30th October he decided to take action and announced he was going to suspend aid to Israel in protest against its invasion of Egypt. The following day Eisenhower's secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, criticised Britain and France for trying to take the Suez Canal by force.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDsuez.htm
Title: Lebanon
Post by: ppulatie on August 04, 2006, 08:58:38 PM
You got me on that. However, that was in conjunction with the Brits and France.

By themselves, Israel has only responded to threats to their nation and people, whether it be the 7 Day War, excursions into Lebanon or Gaza, etc. Of course, these are often pre-emptive attacks which some may not consider as self defense.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 04, 2006, 10:31:00 PM
Analysis

A week ago, Israeli foot patrols in Lebanon were spotted using llamas, an especially quiet beast of burden that can go several days without eating while carrying about as much weight as one Israeli soldier can carry. This, combined with an airstrike on a power station supplying an area of the southern Bekaa Valley, signals Israel is about to make a significant move.

At first glance, it appears like an odd role-reversal when Israeli reconnaissance units are leading pack animals into battle while Hezbollah fighters are wielding modern anti-tank weapons. But as U.S. special operations forces calling in airstrikes from horseback in Afghanistan showed, mountain and fourth-generation warfare present new challenges that must be met on the ground.

Sustained special operations deep inside enemy territory have always meant heavy loads of food and ammunition, now compounded by the need to haul modern communications and surveillance equipment. While raids based on intelligence can be inserted by helicopter, move to the target and pull out, pack animals indicate invaders plan an extended stay. This is generally indicative of long-range patrols and reconnaissance units setting up observation posts deep inside enemy territory. Even in the era of surveillance satellites, some of the best intelligence still comes from human observation. Israeli patrols fitting this description were spotted returning from Lebanon a week ago. We suspect many more are now well-positioned to observe much of the southern Bekaa Valley.

Elsewhere, on Aug. 4, the Israeli air force (IAF) knocked out a power station supplying the Kiraoun area at the southern end of the Bekaa. Every power plant in Lebanon has been available as a potential target for the IAF for more than three weeks now, yet Israel did not strike the Kiraoun station until now. In air campaigns, attacks on power infrastructure often signal impending ground assaults, since such attacks wreak havoc on command-and-control infrastructure -- but usually only temporarily, as those experiencing such attacks bring generators on line and make other adaptations. Thus, attacks on power-generating infrastructure are an excellent way to knock the enemy off-balance immediately before a major escalation.

Such a strike also forces generators into use. In order to run the most rudimentary command-and-control infrastructure (PCs, radios, satellite phones, etc.), Hezbollah will require power. No matter how briefly those generators are turned on, they create a detectable electromagnetic signature and thermal exhaust plume. And Hezbollah posts in the area now will be forced to burn through limited fuel supplies that cannot easily be replaced.

Of course, long-range patrols and an airstrike on a power station could mean many things. But we view these developments in the context of a massive IDF force waiting in northern Israel around Qiryat Shemona and Metulla, U.S. President George W. Bush's August vacation, an unprecedented raid and the importance of the Bekaa Valley itself. Israel is up to something significant in the Bekaa.
Title: Cutting Losses along the Warrior's Path
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on August 04, 2006, 11:14:13 PM
Rogt:

I view this forum as a place where the cerebral aspects of a warrior?s path can be honed in a manner similar to the way physical skills are honed on the training floor. Alas, no sharpening occurs when I deal with you. As such, I?m not going to engage in further debate. It?s as though some well armored beginner with an angle or two in his repertoire plods forward swinging a predictable stick, oblivious to being smacked dozens of ways from a dozen directions. ??Islamo Fascist? is a mean thing to say,? might make for a fine mantra, but it?s little more than repetitious twaddle when used as a lone talking point in a larger debate. I derive no value countering your two-dimensional snivels and hence plan no more exchanges.

Though I?ve no desire to engage the rhetorically inept in debate, standing mute when gross stupidity is spouted isn?t my end either. The training floor is a place where effective technique is modeled and poor technique exposed for what it is; this forum can serve a similar function where a warrior?s intellectual underpinnings are concerned. For instance, you posted the following astoundingly inane comment:

Quote
Like I said, 25,000 or Jews (BTW, that's the largest concetration (sic) of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel) are still living in Iran, so it's unlikely that Iran's president is out to exterminate Jews.


Iran has a population in excess of 66 million, Jews have lived in the Middle East for thousands of years, yet they only make up a miniscule proportion of the Iranian population and, according to you, that miniscule proportion is the highest ?in the Middle East outside of Israel,? a fact you brandish like a light saber when in reality not only does it undermine your argument, but reveals you are also wholly ignorant of the fact it does.

Tell me, Rogt, if 25,000 German Jews managed to evade the concentration camps in 1943, would that be a measure of Hitler?s magnanimity? There are some Cambodians still living in Cambodia so that Pol Pot must have really been a swell fellow, eh? Plenty of Jews left in Russia after the Czars? pogroms, and Stalin left a kulak or two so they are clearly humanitarians all. I?m curious though at what demographic point does a miniscule percentage of a dwindling population becomes an oppressed minority enduring genocide? After all, as long as there is one Jew in Iran the government can?t be bent on oppression to the point of extermination, right?

Though your simpleminded warblings provide more fodder than I have time to chew, I can?t let pass your comment that ?Yes, Hezbollah did kidnap some Israeli soldiers, and under international law if it's done in the course of armed conflict, they are required to treat the soldiers humanely.? I trust this is the glib and insipid standard you also apply to the prisoners being held at Guant?namo? Do you think the Israeli prisoners have been provided a Torah? Does the Red Cross have access to them? Think they spend any time in an exercise yard? Ever hear of Nachshon Wachsman, and do you understand how his sad tale applies here? Are you able to apply a standard consistently or are you so lost to the knee-jerk left that every ethic is a situational one focused toward a political end? It?s not like I don?t know the answer to these questions, but do they ever even occur to you?

I presume, in closing, you posses at least a modicum competence with a stick, and perhaps have even endured a training partner so ignorant of his ineptitude he can?t even identify his mistakes, much less learn from them. I?ve been there, and though I?ll try to prod a poor partner along, there comes a point where I cut my losses. I hope you become acquainted with the tenets of expository prose, learn how to identify logical fallacies, manage to remove the blinders ardent ideology imposes, and move toward enlightenment overall. Unless I sense movements towards those goals I won?t engage you in debate again, though I will point out your mistakes to the list in the hope others learn what you are clearly unable to.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on August 04, 2006, 11:14:52 PM
Quote from: Crafty_Dog
A week ago, Israeli foot patrols in Lebanon were spotted using llamas, an especially quiet beast of burden that can go several days without eating while carrying about as much weight as one Israeli soldier can carry.


Llamas on patrol (http://captainccs.blogspot.com/2006/08/llamas.html)
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 05, 2006, 06:34:20 AM
A War Crime at Qana?

By ORDE F. KITTRIE
August 5, 2006; Page A11

The Qana tragedy has intensified accusations that Israel's actions in Lebanon violate international law. Every death of an innocent person is extremely regrettable; but there is no evidence Israel has committed any war crimes. In contrast, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria have clearly violated international law in this conflict. Moreover, Israel's conduct compares favorably to how its most powerful accusers have behaved when their own interests have been threatened.

International law has three major prohibitions relevant to the Qana incident. One forbids deliberate attacks on civilians. Another prohibits hiding forces in civilian areas, thereby turning civilians into "human shields." A third prohibition, the proportionality restriction that Israel is accused of violating, involves a complicated and controversial balancing test.

Geneva Convention Protocol I contains one version of the proportionality test, the International Criminal Court Statute another; neither is universally accepted. As a result, the proportionality test is governed by "customary international law," an amalgam of non-universal treaty law, court decisions, and how influential nations actually behave. It does not hinge on the relative number of casualties, or the force used, however, but on the intent of the combatant. Under customary international law, proportionality prohibits attacks expected to cause incidental death or injury to civilians if this harm would, on balance, be excessive in relation to the overall legitimate military accomplishment anticipated.

At Qana, Israeli aircraft fired toward a building to stop Hezbollah from shooting rockets at its cities. The aircraft did not deliberately target civilians; but Hezbollah rockets are targeted at civilians, a clear war crime. U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland last week called on Hezbollah to stop its "cowardly blending" among women and children: "I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this." If Hezbollah used Lebanese civilians in Qana as "human shields," then Hezbollah, not Israel, is legally responsible for their deaths.

If Israel was mistaken and Hezbollah was not firing from or hiding amongst these civilians, the legality of its action is assessed by the proportionality test. Because the test is vague, there have been few, if any, cases since World War II in which a soldier, commander or country has been convicted of violating it. In the absence of guidance from the courts, determining whether Israel's military has failed the proportionality test depends on an assessment of what civilian casualties it expected, what its overall military goals are, the context in which the country is operating, and how the international community has in practice balanced civilian risk against military goals.

Israel did not expect civilian casualties; it warned civilians to leave Qana, and Israel's official investigation has concluded its military attacked based on "information that the building was not inhabited by civilians and was being used as a hiding place for terrorists." The law of war recognizes that mistakes are inevitable, and does not criminalize soldiers who seek in good faith seek to avoid them.

Israel's overall military goal is to survive attacks by enemies determined to annihilate it. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has stated: "Israel . . . is an aggressive, illegal and illegitimate entity, which has no future. . . . Its destiny is manifested in our motto: 'Death to Israel.'" Thus Israel is attempting to prevent Hezbollah from using its 10,000 remaining rockets, and to implement the requirement of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 that Hezbollah be disarmed.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah and Iran -- which provides this terrorist group with arms, direction and over $100 million a year -- are in continual violation of international law. Their calls for Israel's destruction violate the international genocide treaty's prohibition of "direct and public incitement to commit genocide." Iran's effort to develop a nuclear arsenal that could obliterate Israel, or deter its responses to future Hezbollah attacks, violates the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iranian (and Syrian) support for Hezbollah violates U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373, requiring states to "refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts." Hezbollah began the armed conflict with rocket attacks on Israeli towns and the abduction of Israeli soldiers: unprovoked acts of war violating an internationally recognized border.

Israel is acting in self-defense and avoided killing civilians, even giving advance notice by phone to the occupants of homes targeted for attack as Hezbollah hideouts. While Hezbollah deliberately maximizes harm to Israeli and Lebanese civilians, Israel puts its soldiers at risk to minimize Lebanese civilian casualties.

The track record of many of Israel's most powerful accusers -- including China, Russia and the European Union -- is not nearly as good at balancing civilian risk against military goals.

China killed hundreds of peaceful Tiananmen Square protestors in 1989. It has for five decades occupied Tibet, slaughtering tens of thousands; and it vows to invade Taiwan if it declares independence. Neither the Tiananmen protesters nor Tibet nor Taiwan has ever threatened to "wipe China off the map."

Russia has fought since 1994 to suppress Chechnya's independence movement. Out of a Chechen population of one million, as many as 200,000 have been killed as Russia has leveled the capital city of Grozny. Chechen rebels pose no threat to "wipe Russia off the map." All of the leading EU countries actively participated in NATO's 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. The military goal was to stop Yugoslavia from oppressing its Kosovar minority. NATO bombs and missiles hit Yugoslav bridges, power plants and a television station, killing hundreds of civilians. Yugoslavia posed no threat to the existence of any of the EU countries that bombed it.

Compared with how China, Russia, and the EU have dealt with non-existential threats -- and despite the law-flouting behavior of Hezbollah, Iran and Syria -- Israel's responses to the threats to its existence have been remarkably restrained rather than disproportionately violent.

Mr. Kittrie is professor of international law at Arizona State University and served in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department from 1993 to 2003
Title: Re: Cutting Losses along the Warrior's Path
Post by: rogt on August 05, 2006, 04:36:38 PM
Quote from: buzwardo

??Islamo Fascist? is a mean thing to say,? might make for a fine mantra, but it?s little more than repetitious twaddle when used as a lone talking point in a larger debate.


Translation: I have the right to be as insulting as I want as long as I see the insult as an accurate description.  

Quote

I derive no value countering your two-dimensional snivels and hence plan no more exchanges.


Judging from your long-winded replies and patronizing tone, I too agree that any further discussion between us would be pointless.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 06, 2006, 10:34:53 AM
Pondering, Discussing, Traveling Amid and Defending the Inevitable War
BERNARD-HENRI L?VY
Published: August 6, 2006
Today's NY Times

When I arrived in Israel, it was the anniversary of the day the Spanish Civil War began. It was 70 years ago that the Spanish generals set off the war ? civil, ideological and international ? that the fascist governments of the time wanted. And I could not help thinking about this as I landed in Tel Aviv. Syria in the wings. . .Ahmadinejad?s Iran maneuvering. . .Hezbollah, which everyone knows is a little Iran, or a little tyrant, taking Lebanon and its people hostage.. . .And behind the scenes, a fascism with an Islamist face, a third fascism, which is to our generation what the other fascism, and then communist totalitarianism, were to our elders?. As soon as I arrived; yes, from the very first moment I visited with my old friends in Tel Aviv, whom I had not seen so tense or so anxious since 1967; from my first conversation with Denis Charbit, an ardent peace activist who did not, it seemed to me, doubt the legitimacy of this war of self-defense; from my first discussion with Tzipi Livni, the young and talented Israeli foreign minister, whom I found strangely disoriented in this new geopolitics, I sensed that something new, something unprecedented in the history of Israeli wars, was being enacted. It was as if Israelis were no longer in the framework of Israel and the Arabs alone. It was as if the international context, the game of hide-and-seek between visible and invisible players, the role of Iran and its Hezbollah ally, gave the whole crisis a flavor, a look, a perspective that were entirely new.

 

Before I went to the northern front, near the border with Lebanon, I traveled to Sderot ? the martyred city of Sderot ? to the south, on the border with Gaza. Yes, the martyred city. Because the images that reach us from Lebanon are so terrible, and because the suffering of Lebanese civilian victims is so unbearable to the conscience and the heart, it is hard to imagine, I know, that an Israeli city could also be a martyred city. And yet. . .these empty streets. . .these gutted houses, riddled by shrapnel. . .this mountain of exploded rockets piled up in the courtyard of the police headquarters, all of which fell in the last few weeks.. . . Even that day (it was July 18), a rain of new bombs fell on the center of town and forced the few people who wanted to take advantage of the summer breeze to scurry back down into their basements.. . .

And then, finally, piously pinned on a black-cloth-covered board in the office of Mayor Eli Moyal, these photos of young people, some of them children, who have died under fire from Palestinian artillery. One thing obviously doesn?t erase the other. And I?m not one to play the dirty little game of counting corpses. But why shouldn?t what is due to some also be due to others? How come we hear so little, at least in the European press, of those Jewish victims who have died since Israel pulled out of Gaza? I have spent my life fighting against the idea that there are good deaths and bad deaths, deserving victims and privileged bombs. I have always agitated for the Israeli state to leave the occupied territories and, in exchange, win security and peace. For me, then, there is a question here of integrity and fairness: devastation, death, life in bomb shelters, existences broken by the death of a child, these are also the lot of Israel.


Haifa. My favorite Israeli city. The big cosmopolitan city where Jews and Arabs have lived together ever since the country was founded. It, too, is now a dead city. It, too, is a ghost city. And here, too, from the tree-covered heights of Mount Carmel down to the sea, the wailing of sirens forces the rare cars to stop and the last passers-by to rush into the subway entrances. Here, too, it is clear that this is the worst nightmare in 40 years for Israelis.

Zivit Seri is a tiny woman, a mother, who speaks with clumsy, defenseless gestures as she guides me through the destroyed buildings of Bat Galim ? literally ?daughter of the waves,? the Haifa neighborhood that has suffered most from the shellings. The problem, she explains, is not just the people killed: Israel is used to that. It?s not even the fact that here the enemy is aiming not at military objectives but deliberately at civilian targets ? that, too, is no surprise. No, the problem, the real one, is that these incoming rockets make us see what will happen on the day ? not necessarily far off ? when the rockets are ones with new capabilities: first, they will become more accurate and be able to threaten, for example, the petrochemical facilities you see there, on the harbor, down below; second, they may come equipped with chemical weapons that can create a desolation compared with which Chernobyl and Sept. 11 together will seem like a mild prelude. For that, in fact, is the situation. As seen from Haifa, this is what is at stake in the operation in southern Lebanon. Israel did not go to war because its borders had been violated. It did not send its planes over southern Lebanon for the pleasure of punishing a country that permitted Hezbollah to construct its state-within-a-state. It reacted with such vigor because the Iranian President Ahmadinejad?s call for Israel to be wiped off the map and his drive for a nuclear weapon came simultaneously with the provocations of Hamas and Hezbollah. The conjunction, for the first time, of a clearly annihilating will with the weapons to go with it created a new situation. We should listen to the Israelis when they tell us they had no other choice anymore. We should listen to Zivit Seri tell us, in front of a crushed building whose concrete slabs are balancing on tips of twisted metal, that, for Israel, it was five minutes to midnight.

We should also listen to the bitterness of Sheik Muhammad Sharif Ouda, the leader in Haifa of the little Ahmadi community, a Muslim sect; his family has lived here for six generations, and he welcomes me into his home, in the hilly Kababir neighborhood, dressed in a Pakistani turban and shalwar kameez. Hezbollah?s crime, he says, was its decision to strike indiscriminately. It was to kill Jews and Arabs alike ? consider the massacre at Haifa?s train depot, where there were 8 dead and more than 20 wounded. And it was also to establish a climate of terror, of anxiety every instant, as in Sarajevo, where people used to speculate about the fact that all it took was a stroke of luck, a change of plans at the last minute, a meeting that went on longer than expected, or that was cut short, or that miraculously changed its venue, to escape being at the point of impact when a rocket landed. Creating such conditions is a crime.

Ouda insists, however, that there is another crime: Hezbollah has in effect relegated the Palestinian question to the background. As indifferent as the traditional Arab leaders may have been, in their innermost selves, to the fate of the inhabitants of Gaza and Nablus, at least they still pretended they cared. Whereas the Hezbollah leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, doesn?t even try to pretend. The suffering and rights of the Palestinians are no longer, in his own Islamo-fascist geopolitics, either a cause to fight for or even an alibi. You just have to read the very charter of his movement, or listen to his proclamations on Al Manar, the Hezbollah TV channel, to see that he has little concern with that relic from ancient eras that is Arab nationalism in general and Palestinian nationalism in particular. (Only the naked hatred remains.) Instead, he dreams of a reconciled Islamic community, a new umma, with Iran as the base, Syria the armed branch and Hezbollah the invading spear tip. He will employ the means of war without the usual practical goals of war. There remain the three neglected casualties of this new Iranian-style jihad: Israel, Lebanon and Palestine.

ore rockets. I have traveled from Haifa to Acre and then, along the Lebanese border, to a succession of villages and kibbutzes and other cooperatives that have lived, for 10 days by this point, under Hezbollah fire. There?s a veritable rain of fire today over these biblical landscapes of Upper Galilee, not to speak of a storm of steel. ?I?ve never really known what you should do in these cases,? Lt. Col. Olivier Rafovitch says to me, forcing himself to laugh, as we approach the border town of Avivim and as the noise of the explosions seems also to be coming closer. ?You tend to speed up, don?t you? You tend to think that the only thing to do is get away as fast as possible from this hell.But that?s stupid, really. For who can tell if it isn?t exactly by speeding up that you come right to where it?s. . .?? In response, we speed up all the same. We rumble through a deserted Druze village, then a big farming town and a completely open zone where a Katyusha rocket has just smashed up the highway.



Page 2 of 3)



The damage these rockets can do, when you see them up close, is insane. And insane, too, is the racket you hear when you?ve stopped talking and are just waiting for the sound they make to blend with the noise of the car?s engine. A rocket that falls in the distance leaves a dull thud; when it goes over your head, it creates a shrill, almost whining detonation; and when it bursts nearby, it shakes everything and leaves a long vibration, which is sustained like a bass note. Maybe we shouldn?t say ?rocket? anymore. In French, at least, the word seems to belittle the thing, and implies an entire biased vision of this war. In Franglais, for example, we call a yapping dog a rocket, roquet; the word conjures a little dog whose bark is worse than his bite and who nibbles at your ankles.. . .So why not say ?bomb?? Or ?missile?? Why not try, using the right word, to restore the barbaric, fanatical violence to this war that was desired by Hezbollah and by it alone? The politics of words. The geopolitics of metaphor. Semantics, in this region, is now more than ever a matter of morality.

 

The Israelis aren?t saints. Obviously they are capable in war of Machiavellian stratagems, operations, even denials. In this war, though, there is a sign that they did not want it and that it landed on them like an evil fate. And this sign is the Israeli government?s choice of Amir Peretz as defense minister: a former activist for Peace Now, long committed to the cause of sharing the land with the Palestinians, Peretz was head of the trade union Histadrut and was in principle much better prepared to organize strikes than to wage war. ?I didn?t sleep a wink all night,? he tells me, very pale, his eyes red, in the little office in Tel Aviv where he welcomes me, along with Daniel Ben-Simon, a writer for the Israeli paper Haaretz. This office is not at the ministry but at the headquarters of the Labor Party. ?I haven?t slept because I spent all night waiting for news of a unit of our boys who were caught in an ambush yesterday afternoon in Lebanese territory.? Then a young aide-de-camp who also looks like a union activist holds out to him a field telephone. Without a word, his eyes lowered, his big mustache trembling with ill-contained emotion, Peretz receives the news he has been dreading. He looks up at us and says: ?Don?t spread the news right away, please, since the families don?t know yet ? but three of them died, and we still haven?t heard about the fourth one. It?s terrible.. . .?

I have known many of Israel?s defense ministers over the past 40 years. From Moshe Dayan to Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon and others, I have seen heroes, demi-heroes, tacticians of genius and talent, skillful or poor or mediocre men succeed one another. What I have never seen before is a minister who was so ? I won?t say ?human? (the sanctification of the life of every soldier fallen in combat is a constant in the country?s history), or even ?civilian? (Shimon Peres, after all, didn?t really have a military past either), but one so apparently unprepared to command an army in wartime (wasn?t his first decision, unique in the annals of Israeli history, to cut the budget of his own ministry by 5 percent?). What I have never seen before is a defense minister answering so exactly to the famous saying by Malraux about those miraculous commanders who ?wage war without loving it? and who, for this very reason, always end up winning.

Amir Peretz, like Malraux?s commanders, will probably win. He?s facing a tougher enemy than expected; he will experience heavier casualties as well; there will be growing doubts, throughout the country, about the wisdom of his strategy; but he will probably win. And in any case, the point is here: the very fact that he was appointed to the post shows that Israel believed that after withdrawing from Lebanon and Gaza it was entering a new era when it would have to wage not war but peace.


I met another war leader, also a member of the Labor Party and a supporter, like Peretz, of a negotiated peace with the Palestinians. It was in the field that I met him, near the Lebanese border, in a place called Koah Junction, which means ?junction of the force? and is for the kabbalists one of the places where, when the day comes, the Messiah will become manifest and pass through. His name is Ephraim Sneh. In his youth he was a medical officer with the paratroopers, the commander of an elite army unit and then commander of the Southern Lebanon Military Zone from 1981 until 1983. And he has the air of a calm father, at once friendly and gruff, that reserve generals often have in Israel when they come back to the service ? which in the present circumstances takes the form of a kind of inspection mission for the defense committee of the Knesset. Why this meeting? Why here, in this landscape of dry stone, brought to a white heat by the sun, to which he has invited me but where I can?t see a living soul aside from ourselves? Does he want to show me something? Explain to me some detail of army strategy that would be visible to me only here? Will he take me to Avivim, less than a mile north of here, where a battle is taking place? Does he want to talk to me about politics? Will he, like Peretz, like Livni, like almost everyone in fact, tell me about Israel?s disappointment with France, which could have played a great role in the region by pushing for the refoundation of the Land of the Cedars and for the disarmament of Hezbollah, as demanded by United Nations Resolution 1559, but which prefers, alas, to confine itself to opening up humanitarian corridors?

Yes, he does tell me that. A little of it. In passing. But I quickly see that he had me come here to talk, first of all, about a matter that is not related, at least apparently, to the present war: nothing other than my book about the kidnapping, captivity and decapitation of Daniel Pearl.. . .A conversation about Danny Pearl at a stone?s throw from a battlefield.. . .An officer with a literary bent deciding that, with our two cars immobilized in the blazing scree, nothing is more urgent than discussing jihad, enlightenment Islam, the trouble with Huntington?s theory of the clash of civilizations, Karachi and its terrorist mosques.. . .I had never seen anything like this before ? for it to be conceivable, it took this expedition to the front lines of a war in which Israel and the world are entangled as never before.


At the same time.. . .It would seem that history has, sometimes, less imagination than we would like, and that old generals don?t have such bad reflexes after all. For the fact is that a few miles to the south, in the commune of Mitzpe Hila, near Maalot, I will not long after experience a deeply moving reminder of the Pearl affair. I visit the home of the parents of the soldier Gilad Shalit, whose capture by Hamas near the town of Kerem Shalom, along the border with Gaza, on June 25, was one of the things that brought about this war. I wonder about the irony of history, which has placed this young man, without any special distinctions, just an ordinary individual, at the origin of this enormous affair. We are sitting now in the sun on the lawn where Shalit played as a child and where you can hear, very close, a few hundred yards away maybe, Katyusha rockets falling, to which his parents seem to have stopped paying attention. We are sitting outside around a garden table, discussing the latest news brought by the U.N. envoy who visited the Shalits just before me, and I find myself thinking that if this war has to last ? if the Iranian factor will, as I have sensed since the instant I arrived, give it new scope and duration ? then this modest army corporal will be the new Franz Ferdinand of a Sarajevo that will bear the name Kerem Shalom.. . .

What is happening, then? Is it his mother Aviva?s expression when I ask her about what she knows of her son?s captivity? Or his father Noam?s look when he tries to explain to me, a faint gleam of hope in his eyes, that the young man has a French grandmother, Jacqueline, who was born in Marseille, and that he hopes my government ? that of France ?will link its efforts with Israel?s? Is it the debate, which I can guess is raging inside Noam, between the father who is prepared for any kind of bargaining to get his son back and the former army soldier who, out of principle, will not give in to blackmail by terrorists? Is it my visit to the corporal?s childhood bedroom? Is it the house itself, so similar, all of a sudden, to Danny Pearl?s house, in Encino, Calif.? Whatever the reason, I am overcome by a feeling of d?j? vu; over the faces of this man and this woman it seems to me as if the faces of Ruth and Judea Pearl, my friends, have been superimposed, the courageous mother and father of another young man, like this one, kidnapped by religious fanatics whose ideological program wasn?t very different, either, from that of Hamas.. .



Published: August 6, 2006
(Page 3 of 3)



Up north again, near the Lebanese border, I travel from Avivim to Manara, where the Israelis have set up, in a crater 200 yards in diameter, an artillery field where two enormous batteries mounted on caterpillar treads bombard the command post and rocket launchers and arsenals in Marun al-Ras on the other side of the border. Three things here strike me. First, the extreme youth of the artillerymen: they are 20 years old, maybe 18. I notice their stunned look at each discharge, as if every time were the first time; their childlike teasing when their comrade hasn?t had time to block his ears and the detonation deafens him; and then at the same time their serious, earnest side, the sobriety of people who know they?re participating in an immense drama that surpasses them ? and know, too, they may soon pay a steep price in blood and life. Second, I note the relaxed ? I was about to say unrestrained and even carefree ? aspect of the little troop. It reminds me of reading about the joyful scramble of those battalions of young republicans in Spain described, once again, by Malraux: an army that is more friendly than it is martial; more democratic than self-assured and dominating; an army that, here, in any case, in Manara, seems to me the exact opposite of those battalions of brutes or unprincipled pitiless terminators that are so often described in media portraits of Israel. And then, finally, I note a strange vehicle. It resembles the two self-propelled cannons, but it is stationed far behind them and doesn?t shoot: this is a mobile command post that you enter, as in a submarine, through a central turret and down a ladder; there are six men in it, seven on some days, and they are busy working with a battery of computers, radar screens and other transmission devices. Their role is to determine the parameters of the firing by collecting information that will be transmitted to the artillerymen. Here, at the root of Israeli firepower, is a veritable laboratory of war where soldier-scholars deploy their intelligence, noses glued to the screens, trying to integrate even the most imponderable facts about the terrain into their calculations. Their goal is to establish the distance to the target and how fast the target moves, as well as to consider the proximity of the civilians, whom they want to avoid at all cost.

 
Does it work? And are these soldier-scholars infallible? Of course not! There is no way, everybody knows, to wage a clean war. And the fact that Hezbollah long ago made the strategic choice to establish its fighters in the most populated areas and thus to transform Lebanese civilians into human shields obviously doesn?t help matters. The fact remains that at least an effort is being made to avoid civilian targets. Here at least, in Manara, that is the Israeli approach. And, as distressed as we may be by the suffering of the Lebanese civilian population, the terrible deaths of hundreds, you cannot conclude that the Israelis have the strategic intention or the will to harm civilians.


hen I met David Grossman, it was in an open-air restaurant in the Arab village of Abu Gosh, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, which seems like a garden of Eden after the hell of the last few days ? bright sunshine, the buzz of insects rather than airplanes or tanks, a casualness in the air, a light breeze.. . .We talk about his latest book, which is a retelling of the myth of Samson. We talk about his son, who was just called up for duty in a tank unit, and about whom he trembles with anxiety. We talk about a statistic he has just read, which worries him: almost a third of young Israelis have lost faith in Zionism and have found tricks to try to get themselves exempted from military service.

And then of course we discuss the war and the huge distress it seems to have plunged him into, along with other progressive intellectuals in the country.. . .For on one hand, he explains to me, there is the terrible extent of the destruction, women and children killed, the humanitarian catastrophe under way, the risk of civil war and of Lebanon burning ? and the government?s mistake of, at first, setting the bar so high (destroy Hezbollah, render its infrastructure and its army incapable of doing any more harm) that even a semi-victory, when it comes, risks having a whiff of defeat. But, on the other hand, there is Israel?s right, like any other state in the world, not to sit by in the face of such crazy, groundless, gratuitous aggression; there is the fact, he adds, that Lebanon plays host to Hezbollah and permits it to participate in its government: where could an Israeli counterattack have taken place but on Lebanese soil?. . .I observe David Grossman. I examine his handsome face, the face of the former enfant terrible of Israeli literature, who has aged too quickly and is devoured by melancholy. He is not just one of the greatest Israeli novelists today. He is also, along with Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and a few others, one of the country?s moral consciences. And I think that his testimony, his firmness, his way of not yielding, despite everything, on the essential soundness of Israel?s cause, ought to convince even the most hesitant.


And then, finally, Shimon Peres. More than ever I did not want to end this journey without going, as I do each time, to visit Peres ? the country?s elder statesman. I met him in the company of Daniel Saada, an old friend and founding member of the French progressive organization SOS Racisme, who has now settled in Israel and become a diplomat as well as a friend of Peres. Shimon, as everyone here calls him, is now 82 years old. But he hasn?t lost any of his handsomeness. Or the look of a prince-priest of Zionism. He still has the same face, all forehead and mouth, that emphasizes the melodious authority of his voice. And I even have the impression, at times, that he has adopted a few of the mannerisms of his old rival Yitzhak Rabin: a slight bitterness in his smile, a gleam in his eyes, a way of carrying himself and, sometimes, of shading his words.. . .

?The whole problem,? he begins, ?is the failure of what one of your great writers called the strategy of the general staff. No one, today, controls anyone else. No one has the power to stop or overpower anyone else. So that we, Israel, have never had so many friends, but never in our history have they been so useless. Except.. . .?

He asks his daughter, who is present as we talk, to go to the neighboring office and find two letters, one from Mahmoud Abbas and one from Bill Clinton. ?Yes, except for the fact that you have them,? he then continues. ?The men of good will. My friends. The friends of enlightenment and peace. The ones who will never renounce peace because of terrorism, or nihilism, or defeatism. We have a plan, you know.Still the same plan for prosperity, for shared development, which will end up triumphing.Listen.. . .?

Shimon, a young man who is 82 years old, has had a dream. His invincible dream has lasted, in fact, for 30 years; the present impasse, far from discouraging him, seems mysteriously to stimulate him. So I listen to him. I listen to this Wise Man of Israel explain to me that his country must simultaneously ?win this war,? foil this ?quartet of evil? made up by Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah and clear the way for ?paths of speech and dialogue? that will, one day, lead the Middle East somewhere. And as I listen to him, and let myself be lulled by his oft-repeated, indefinite prophecies, I find that, today, for some reason, those prophecies have a new coefficient of obviousness and force. I, too, catch myself imagining the glory of a Jewish state that would dare, at the same time, almost in the same gesture and with the same movement, to deliver two things at once: to some, alas, war; to others, a real declaration of peace that would be recognized as such and accepted.


Bernard-Henri L?vy, a French philosopher and writer, is the author, most recently, of ?American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville.? This article was translated by Charlotte Mandell from the French.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 06, 2006, 12:43:25 PM
Rogt:

Does this help?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmnpMXOpaM4&NR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaUftcRJ5wo

CD
Title: Reuters admits image of Beirut after IAF strike was doctored
Post by: captainccs on August 06, 2006, 02:07:19 PM
Reuters admits image of Beirut after IAF strike was doctored

By Assaf Uni, Haaretz Correspondent

The Reuters news agency admitted Sunday that it had published a doctored photograph of Beirut after an Israel Air Force strike on Saturday morning.

In the original image, thin smoke can be seen rising over the Lebanese capital, but in the second photograph, thick, black smoke can be seen billowing over the buildings.

Reuters said that it has fired Adnan Hajj, the Lebanese photographer who submitted the image. The organization also said that it is investigating the incident.

"The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under," said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.

"This represents a serious breach of Reuters' standards and we shall not be accepting or using pictures taken by him," Whittle said in a statement issued in London.

Hajj worked for Reuters as a non-staff freelance, or contributing photographer, from 1993 until 2003 and again since April 2005.

He was among several photographers from the main international news agencies whose images of a dead child being held up by a rescuer in the village of Qana, south Lebanon, after an Israeli air strike on July 30 have been challenged by blogs critical of the mainstream media's coverage of the Middle East conflict.

Claims that the photograph had been doctored were published on a number of blogs, which rushed to prove that the image had been retouched in using the PhotoShop program.

All photographs taken for Reuters around the world are sent to Singapore, where they undergo certain editorial processes before being distributed to the agency's many clients. On Sunday, Reuters removed the retouched picture from its catalogue and replaced it with the original.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/747018.html


Little Green Football explains the fraud (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21956_Reuters_Doctoring_Photos_from_Beirut&only)
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 06, 2006, 04:17:14 PM
Here's one to add to my previous post.  Together they paint quite a picture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM-XeaIn06g&NR
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 06, 2006, 05:53:13 PM
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_opinion_letters/2006/07/the_weapons_mus.html
Ben Caspit, an Israeli journalist wrote this proposed speech for Prime Minister Olmert:

July 31, 2006
Ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world. I, the Prime Minister of Israel, am speaking to you from Jerusalem in the face of the terrible pictures from Kfar Kana. Any human heart, wherever it is, must sicken and recoil at the sight of such pictures. There are no words of comfort that can mitigate the enormity of this tragedy. Still, I am looking you straight in the eye and telling you that the State of Israel will continue its military campaign in Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces will continue to attack targets from which missiles and Katyusha rockets are fired at hospitals, old age homes and kindergartens in Israel. I have instructed the security forces and the IDF to continue to hunt for the Katyusha stockpiles and launch sites from which these savages are bombarding the State of Israel.

We will not hesitate, we will not apologize and we will not back off. If they continue to launch missiles into Israel from Kfar Kana, we will continue to bomb Kfar Kana. Today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Here, there and everywhere. The children of Kfar Kana could now be sleeping peacefully in their homes, unmolested, had the agents of the devil not taken over their land and turned the lives of our children into hell.

Ladies and gentlemen, it?s time you understood: the Jewish state will no longer be trampled upon. We will no longer allow anyone to exploit population centers in order to bomb our citizens. No one will be able to hide anymore behind women and children in order to kill our women and children. This anarchy is over. You can condemn us, you can boycott us, you can stop visiting us and, if necessary, we will stop visiting you.

Today I am serving as the voice of six million bombarded Israeli citizens who serve as the voice of six million murdered Jews who were melted down to dust and ashes by savages in Europe. In both cases, those responsible for these evil acts were, and are, barbarians devoid of all humanity, who set themselves one simple goal: to wipe the Jewish race off the face of the earth, as Adolph Hitler said, or to wipe the State of Israel off the map, as Mahmoud Ahmedinjad proclaims.

And you - just as you did not take those words seriously then, you are ignoring them again now. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, will not happen again. Never again will we wait for bombs that never came to hit the gas chambers. Never again will we wait for salvation that never arrives. Now we have our own air force. The Jewish people are now capable of standing up to those who seek their destruction - those people will no longer be able to hide behind women and children. They will no longer be able to evade their responsibility.

Every place from which a Katyusha is fired into the State of Israel will be a legitimate target for us to attack. This must be stated clearly and publicly, once and for all. You are welcome to judge us, to ostracize us, to boycott us and to vilify us. But to kill us? Absolutely not.

Four months ago I was elected by hundreds of thousands of citizens to the office of Prime Minister of the government of Israel, on the basis of my plan for unilaterally withdrawing from 90 percent of the areas of Judea and Samaria, the birth place and cradle of the Jewish people; to end most of the occupation and to enable the Palestinian people to turn over a new leaf and to calm things down until conditions are ripe for attaining a permanent settlement between us.

The Prime Minister who preceded me, Ariel Sharon, made a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip back to the international border, and gave the Palestinians there a chance to build a new reality for themselves. The Prime Minister who preceded him, Ehud Barak, ended the lengthy Israeli presence in Lebanon and pulled the IDF back to the international border, leaving the land of the cedars to flourish, develop and establish its democracy and its economy.

What did the State of Israel get in exchange for all of this? Did we win even one minute of quiet? Was our hand, outstretched in peace, met with a handshake of encouragement? Ehud Barak?s peace initiative at Camp David let loose on us a wave of suicide bombers who smashed and blew to pieces over 1,000 citizens, men, women and children. I don?t remember you being so enraged then. Maybe that happened because we did not allow TV close-ups of the dismembered body parts of the Israeli youngsters at the Dolphinarium? Or of the shattered lives of the people butchered while celebrating the Passover seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya? What can you do - that?s the way we are. We don?t wave body parts at the camera. We grieve quietly.

We do not dance on the roofs at the sight of the bodies of our enemy?s children - we express genuine sorrow and regret. That is the monstrous behavior of our enemies. Now they have risen up against us. Tomorrow they will rise up against you. You are already familiar with the murderous taste of this terror. And you will taste more.

And Ariel Sharon?s withdrawal from Gaza. What did it get us? A barrage of Kassem missiles fired at peaceful settlements and the kidnapping of soldiers. Then too, I don?t recall you reacting with such alarm. And for six years, the withdrawal from Lebanon has drawn the vituperation and crimes of a dangerous, extremist Iranian agent, who took over an entire country in the name of religious fanaticism and is trying to take Israel hostage on his way to Jerusalem - and from there to Paris and London.

An enormous terrorist infrastructure has been established by Iran on our border, threatening our citizens, growing stronger before our very eyes, awaiting the moment when the land of the Ayatollahs becomes a nuclear power in order to bring us to our knees. And make no mistake - we won?t go down alone. You, the leaders of the free and enlightened world, will go down along with us.

So today, here and now, I am putting an end to this parade of hypocrisy. I don?t recall such a wave of reaction in the face of the 100 citizens killed every single day in Iraq. Sunnis kill Shiites who kill Sunnis, and all of them kill Americans - and the world remains silent. And I am hard pressed to recall a similar reaction when the Russians destroyed entire villages and burned down large cities in order to repress the revolt in Chechnya. And when NATO bombed Kosovo for almost three months and crushed the civilian population - then you also kept silent. What is it about us, the Jews, the minority, the persecuted, that arouses this cosmic sense of justice in you? What do we have that all the others don?t?

In a loud clear voice, looking you straight in the eye, I stand before you openly and I will not apologize. I will not capitulate. I will not whine. This is a battle for our freedom. For our humanity. For the right to lead normal lives within our recognized, legitimate borders. It is also your battle. I pray and I believe that now you will understand that. Because if you don?t, you may regret it later, when it?s too late.
Title: The Last Western Stooge
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on August 06, 2006, 07:37:57 PM
Careful Crafty, pointing out people's oratory excesses might be seen as insulting, and it's not nice to insult people. At least that's what I've been told over and over and over again.

The useful idiots Stalin use to snigger about are certainly alive and well. What totally befuddles me is that if the global caliphate many Islamo Fascists advocate ever came to pass, the first ones they'd hang from the soccer goal posts would be the western lunatic lefties currently carrying their water. Perhaps it's time to update Lenin's quote that "we'll hang the last capitalist with a rope he sells us." How does "we'll garrote the last western stooge with the shemagh he wears in greeting" work?
Title: Olmert chides European leaders for slamming Israel's offensi
Post by: captainccs on August 06, 2006, 11:08:51 PM
This is what Olmert told them:


Olmert chides European leaders for slamming Israel's offensive

By Reuters

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told European leaders to stop preaching to him about civilian war casualties in an interview published on Sunday in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

Olmert also said it would not be possible to completely destroy Hezbollah and insisted he did not underestimate them.

"Where do they get the right to preach to Israel?" Olmert said when asked about criticism from European capitals of Israeli military operations that have led to a heavy civilian toll.

"European countries attacked Kosovo and killed ten thousand civilians. Ten thousand! And none of these countries had to suffer before that from a single rocket.

Some 10,000 Albanians died in Serbia's 1998-99 counter-insurgency war and there were allegations of random brutality by both sides.

"I'm not saying it was wrong to intervene in Kosovo. But please: Don't preach to us about the treatment of civilians."

Kosovo became a U.N. protectorate in June 1999 after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign forced out Serb security forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians during a rebel insurgency by separatist Albanian guerrillas.

In the Welt am Sonntag interview, Olmert was asked if he had underestimated Hezbollah.

"No, we know that they have only fired 3,000 rockets so far and that they have 15,000," he said. "The question is more: If Hezbollah knew what the consequences of their attack would be, would they nevertheless have done it? I don't think so."

Olmert said Hezbollah was being defeated but it was not possible to eradicate a grass-roots guerrilla movement.

"They are beaten but it is not possible to completely destroy them. Israel has nevertheless been more successful than any other country in the battle against a guerrilla organization."


http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/posting.php?mode=reply&t=886
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 07, 2006, 07:53:27 AM
Geopolitical Diary: A War Measured in Half-Miles
August 07, 2006 09 10  GMT



The war in Lebanon continues. Israel continued to send confusing signals during the weekend, with the Jerusalem Post reporting that the Israelis do not intend to go as far north as the Litani and the Syrians saying they would join the war if the Israelis bomb Syrian territory. The United States and France offered a cease-fire proposal that was rejected by the Lebanese and the Syrians, but not by Hezbollah, and the United Nations proceeded at its own stately and inefficient pace. The war appears to be moving forward at a pace as slow as molasses, as the saying goes.

This view is, in fact, deceptive. The war is going as quickly as it can under the circumstances. Hezbollah is clearly well armed, well motivated and, above all, well dug-in. The Israelis do not plan to take any more casualties than are needed. That means extremely slow going, as strong point after strong point is systematically attacked while the Israelis try to avoid tactical mistakes. That sort of careful, meticulous attack against competent forces takes a long time.

Hezbollah has the advantage of the defense. It also is configured that Hezbollah is, in any reasonable time frame, immune to Israel's favorite mobile tactics. It is not dependent on lines of supply or communication. This is also Hezbollah's disadvantage: It will not be re-supplied or reinforced, nor will it be able to move to the offensive. Israeli firepower and its concentration of force are too great for that. But it is clear that Hezbollah's bunkers are also its launch sites, or that the two are collocated. That means that the Israelis cannot simply ignore the bunkers. They must systematically and in detail destroy them, and do so with minimal exposure to Hezbollah fire.

That is a war that takes a long time. A great deal is happening, but all of it measured tactically and strategically in half-miles, not in dozens of miles. If the Israelis are going to eliminate the threat in southern Lebanon, it must be eliminated in very small steps, which is why the war appears to be at a standstill. But it is at a standstill only from the outside. Inside it is a slow, brutal meat-grinder, and it will take as long as it takes.

But in the end, even if the Israelis do go to the Litani, they will not have solved their strategic problem. As we have discussed, to the point that we are as bored with it as you, the rocket threat does not stop at the Litani. Nor does the existence of Hezbollah depend on south Lebanon alone. In fact, if Hezbollah units are defeated in south Lebanon after weeks of fighting and other units survive in the Bekaa Valley and around Beirut, Hezbollah will have won a singular victory -- having fought and, as a group, survived a battle with the Israelis.

Israel has the force to defeat Hezbollah if it is prepared to expend the time and casualties needed to do so. What the Israelis cannot do -- or more precisely, what Hezbollah has made impossible -- is the kind of rapid victory that it has always been able to claim before. Hezbollah has learned the lessons of the past and is not giving the Israelis the kind of centralized command structure and complex lines of supply needed for sudden victory.

Israel appears to be faced with the choice of a war that could last months or a political settlement with Hezbollah that brings in a peacekeeping force. It can be papered over as a U.N. cease-fire resolution or a U.S.-French proposal or a Confucian paradox. What it comes down to is indirect negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah, an agreement and a cease-fire, which means that Hezbollah retains its military capability.

We assume that what Israel wants to do is to reach a point where Hezbollah will agree to disarm or the Lebanese government agrees to disarm Hezbollah. We doubt that Hezbollah fighters will disarm of their own accord, and we doubt that the Lebanese government can disarm them when the Israelis cannot defeat them. Even if they disarmed, so long as they exist, they can re-arm. Therefore, in the end, it will be a negotiated settlement on terms to be determined.

Or the Israelis will pull a rabbit out of the hat and suddenly crush them. But we suspect that if the Israelis had any rabbits, they would have appeared before now. The Israelis may well choose to fight for as long as it takes and go as deep as needed to destroy Hezbollah. Given time and effort, we suspect Israel can do this. No one seems in a hurry to end the fighting, so this may be what is being considered. But it seems to come down to that or negotiating. And a cease-fire agreement that leaves Hezbollah in place will be a victory for Hezbollah.
Title: Re: The Last Western Stooge
Post by: rogt on August 07, 2006, 01:04:17 PM
Quote from: buzwardo
What totally befuddles me is that if the global caliphate many Islamo Fascists advocate ever came to pass, the first ones they'd hang from the soccer goal posts would be the western lunatic lefties currently carrying their water.


Not getting back into this debate, but I will say that the "Islamo Fascists" aren't the ones I worry about hanging people from goal posts.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Howling Dog on August 07, 2006, 01:20:11 PM
Rog, I agree!! Hanging is not the norm for the Islamo fascists, I'am pretty sure beheadings is more to their liking. :wink:
                                        TG
Title: Re: The Last Western Stooge
Post by: milt on August 07, 2006, 02:13:04 PM
Quote from: buzwardo
What totally befuddles me is that if the global caliphate many Islamo Fascists advocate ever came to pass,


You bedwetting conservatives sure spend a disproportionate amount of time fretting about these ridiculous "Red Dawn" type takeover scenarios.

Quote
the first ones they'd hang from the soccer goal posts would be the western lunatic lefties currently carrying their water.


Of course they would!  I see that even you agree that the "Islamofascists" have much more in common with the American right wing than the left.

-milt
Title: Re: Cutting Losses along the Warrior's Path
Post by: milt on August 07, 2006, 02:17:58 PM
Quote from: buzwardo
??Islamo Fascist? is a mean thing to say,? might make for a fine mantra, but it?s little more than repetitious twaddle when used as a lone talking point in a larger debate.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamofascism

Criticism of the use of the term

Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the
University of Michigan, argues that the term is offensive and tantamount
to hate speech, because it is a desecration that is profoundly insulting
to Muslims.

    "It is hard to see the difference between the bigotry of
anti-Semitism as an evil and the bigotry that [Michael] Medved displays
toward Islam. It is more offensive than I can say for him to use the word
"Islamo-fascist." Islam is a sacred term to 1.3 billion people in the
world. It enshrines their highest ideals. To combine it with the word
"fascist" in one phrase is a desecration and a form of hate speech. Are
there Muslims who are fascists? Sure. But there is no Islamic fascism,
since "Islam" has to do with the highest ideals of the religion. In the
same way, there have been lots of Christian fascists, but to speak of
Christo-Fascism is just offensive."

Others argue that grouping disparate ideologies into one single idea of
"Islamofascism" may lead to an oversimplification of the root causes of
terrorism.

    "The idea that there is some kind of autonomous "Islamofascism" that
can be crushed, or that the west may defend itself against the terrorists
who threaten it by cultivating that eagerness to kill militant Muslims
which Hitchens urges upon us, is a dangerous delusion. The symptoms that
have led some to apply the label of "Islamofascism" are not reasons to
forget root causes. They are reasons for us to examine even more
carefully what those root causes actually are." He adds "'Saddam, Arafat
and the Saudis hate the Jews and want to see them destroyed' . . . or so
says the right-wing writer Andrew Sullivan. And he has a point. Does the
western left really grasp the extent of anti-Semitism in the Middle East?
But does the right grasp the role of Europeans in creating such hatred?"
Richard Webster, author of A Brief History of Blasphemy: liberalism,
censorship and 'The Satanic Verses' writing in the New Statesman.

According to New York University professor Chris Matthew Sciabarra,
writing about the influence of Sayyid Qutb, "(w)hatever totalitarian
echoes one sees in the Qutbian vision, there are distinctions that
disqualify the usage of the word "Islamofascism" to describe it, or to
describe Islamic fundamentalism in general." See Neofascism and religion.

Others argue that movements characterized as "Islamofascist" are
dissimilar to fascist movements of the past. According to Roxanne Euben,
a professor of political science at Wellesley College,

    "Fascism is nationalistic and Islamicism is hostile to
nationalism. Fundamentalism is a transnational movement that is appealing
to believers of all nations and races across national boundaries. There
is no idea of racial purity as in Nazism. Islamicists have very little
idea of the state. It is a religious movement, while Fascism in Europe
was a secular movement. So if it's not what we really think of as
nationalism, and if it's not really like what we think of as Fascist, why
use these terms?"

Islamists, however, consider the community of Muslims, or Ummah, as a
nation. The use of the term "Islamofascist" by proponents of the War on
Terror has prompted some critics to argue that the term is a typical
example of wartime propaganda.

    "Islamofascism is nothing but an empty propaganda term. And wartime
propaganda is usually, if not always, crafted to produce hysteria, the
destruction of any sense of proportion. Such words, undefined and
unmeasured, are used by people more interested in making us lose our
heads than in keeping their own." - Joseph Sobran, syndicated
columnist.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 07, 2006, 03:13:39 PM
Gentlemen:

It seems I need to yank the leash here.

As best as I can tell, a lot of people come to read these threads because the material posted and the comments made are found thoughtful, containing intel, observations and a level of analysis not commonly found.

Please post only what intelligent, thoughtful people seeking intelligent, thoughtful conversation will probably find worth their time.  That recent exchange, while common on other forums, does not measure up here.

Rogt, your final post, the one from wikipedia, although I disagree with it, would have been a far better first post for you on this subject.

Forward,
Crafty Dog
Title: Confessions of a Bedwetting Iconoclast
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on August 07, 2006, 03:14:49 PM
Milt avers:

Quote
You bedwetting conservatives sure spend a disproportionate amount of time fretting about these ridiculous "Red Dawn" type takeover scenarios.


I don't fret over it, though some Islamo Fascists certainly advocate it. Alas, clearly the difference is lost on you. As for the "bedwetting conservative" claim, I'm one that would legalize drugs, advocates against a militarized police force, supports abortion rights, I?m agnostic to the point of atheism, and so on. It's something of a point of pride that orthodox airheads on both ends of the political spectrum find me horribly annoying.

Now explain to me again how identifying those who use Islamic scripture to further Fascist ends is the same as hating everyone of a particular heritage or faith. We clearly haven't spent enough time running laps on that track and why contend with meaningful discourse when you can instead lament at length the terms of debate?
Title: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on August 07, 2006, 03:38:31 PM
Not to join in the mud slinging but how is "Islamo-Fascist" any more hate speech that calling people sons of pigs and monkeys and calling nations "The Great Satan?"

But what really interests me is why using the term "Islamo-Faschist" is denounced by people who seem to ignore the hate speech coming from the Islamo-Fascists.

Talking about hate speech, here is an interesting take on it:


When anti-Semitism is a big story ? and when it isn't

By Jeff Jacoby

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Two anti-Semitic incidents occurred on July 28. Both took place on the West Coast; both involved an American venting his hostility to Jews. But only one of them became in the days that followed a big national story about anti-Semitism. The other was treated as a serious but local matter, and drew only modest coverage around the country.

Incident A involved nothing more dangerous than a guy spewing crude anti-Semitic slurs when he was arrested for drunk driving; once sober, he publicly and profusely apologized. Incident B involved a Muslim gunman's premeditated assault on a prominent Jewish institution; his attack left one woman dead and sent five to the hospital, three of them in critical condition.

Which would you say was the bigger story?

Unless you've spent the past week submersed in the Mariana Trench, you know that the intoxicated driver in Incident A was Hollywood's Mel Gibson, who railed at the Los Angeles County police officer who pulled him over about the "(bleeping) Jews" and how "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Details of Gibson's tirade leaked quickly and the story was soon everywhere. In the first six days after his arrest, the media database Nexis logged 888 stories mentioning "Mel Gibson" and "Jews." And that didn't include the countless websites, talk shows, and smaller publications where the story also played.

By any rational calculus, Incident B was far more significant.

According to police and eyewitness reports, the killer, a 30-year-old named Naveed Haq, forced his way into the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle by holding a gun to the head of a 13-year-old girl. Once inside, Haq announced, "I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel," and opened fire with two semi-automatic pistols. Pam Waechter, 58, died on the spot. Five other women, one of them 20 weeks pregnant, were shot in the abdomen, knee, or arm. When one of the wounded women managed to call 911, Haq took the phone and told the dispatcher: "These are Jews and I'm tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East."

This was no spur-of-the-moment meltdown. The police say Haq, who holds an engineering degree from Washington State University, had purchased the two guns and waited 10 days before picking them up on July 27. He selected his target by searching online for Jewish sites. And as his declarations make clear, he was impelled to kill by his antipathy toward Jews and his convictions as a Muslim.

At a time when jihadist murder is a global threat, and when some of the most malevolent figures in the Islamic world ? Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah chieftain Hassan Nasrallah, to name just two ? openly incite violence against Americans and Jews, the attack in Seattle should have been a huge story everywhere. Yet after six days, a Nexis search turned up only 236 stories mentioning Haq ? about one-fourth the number devoted to Gibson's drunken outburst. Why the disparity?

No doubt part of the answer is that Gibson is a celebrity, and that "The Passion," his 2004 movie about the crucifixion of Jesus, was criticized by many as a revival of the infamous anti-Semitic motif of Jews and Christ-killers. Gibson, who belongs to a sternly traditionalist Catholic sect, was already suspected of harboring ill will toward Jews. His crude remarks on July 28 confirmed it, and pushed the subject back into the spotlight.

Fair enough. But if previous behavior and religious beliefs explain the burst of interest in the Gibson story, they only deepen the question of why the Seattle bloodshed was played down. After all, Naveed Haq is not the first example of what Daniel Pipes has dubbed "Sudden Jihad Syndrome," in which a seemingly non-violent Muslim erupts in a murderous rampage.

Just this year, for example, Mohammed Taheri-azar, a philosophy and psychology major at the University of North Carolina, deliberately rammed a car into a crowd of students, saying he wanted to "avenge the death of Muslims around the world." Michael Julius Ford opened fire in a Denver warehouse, killing one person and injuring five. "I don't know what happened to him yesterday," his sister Khali told the Denver Post. "He told me that Allah was going to make a choice and it was going to be good and told me people at his job was making fun of his religion."

Other cases in recent years include Hasan Akbar, a sergeant in the 101st Airborne Division, who attacked his fellow soldiers at an American command center in Kuwait with grenades and rifle fire, killing one and wounding 15; Hesham Ali Hadayet, who killed two people when he shot up the El Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles airport in 2002; and Ali Hasan Abu Kamal, who was carrying a note denouncing "Zionists" and others who "must be annihilated & exterminated" when he opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

If the Catholic Mel Gibson's nonviolent bigotry is a legitimate subject of media scrutiny, all the more so is the animus that has spurred Muslims like Naveed Haq to jihadist murder. And yet that is a line of inquiry that few seem willing to pursue. "No one wants to propagate bias or jump to conclusions," the New York Sun noted the other day. But how many more Haqs must erupt in a homicidal rage, it asked, before we stop assuming that these are merely random incidents and open our eyes "to the possibility that they are part of a war in which understanding the enemy is a prerequisite for victory?"


http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby080706.php3
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 07, 2006, 03:49:13 PM
Woof:

Concerning the point in the Wikipedia piece about fascism being a term for nationalism and therefor inappropriate here because it is a relgious movement:  

This seems to me to be an academic nitpick to me in that in general terms most people understand fascism to mean "Might makes right", but accepting the point for the moment, it remains irrelevant I think because Islam seeks to merge religion and state.

The question remains though Rogt, what term are we to use?  Even the most sanguine estimates have about 10% of the world's Muslims believing in this philosophy (and 2-3x more being sympathetic)  If there are 1 Billion Muslims world wide, this is a movement of 100 million people (and 2-3x as many sympathizers who presumably are willing to look the other way if not give aid and comfort) who believe in targeting civilian infidels as a suitable tactic with any means available including WMD.  It is an extremely grave problem.  For me I reify it by picturing Flight 93 being flown into the nuclear reactor in Three Mile Island PA.   These people declared war on us and the danger is real.  I'm sorry you think my name for them is too mean, but I'm curious:  What name would you give them?

Bringing these links over from a post of mine in the "Dialog with Muslims" thread:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmnpMXOpaM4&NR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM-XeaIn06g&NR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=&mode=related&v=19mpJRq11Hg

(These were posted earlier in the thread and addressed specfically to you BTW, but without reply so far)

I make the point that these sure seems to me like the fascisms of the 1930s.  Do you have a different reaction to watching these?  WHAT KIND OF PERSON WOULD BE OFFENDED BY CALLING THIS FASCISM?

You are jewish, yet you doubt that they come for you?  I find this imcomprehensible.


CD
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 07, 2006, 07:55:23 PM
Returning to the subject of the thread now:

www.stratfor.com
ISRAEL, LEBANON: Hezbollah is nowhere near defeat, Israeli army Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser said. Kuperwasser said political considerations might have hampered stronger, more effective action against the Lebanese group. Kuperwasser also said complete elimination of Hezbollah rocket-launch sites would not happen soon.
Title: Lebanon
Post by: ppulatie on August 08, 2006, 09:32:11 AM
Milt, Rogt,

Re-establishing the Calphiate and uniting the world under Islam is the stated goal of the fundamentalist. How can this be denied? They state it every day.

I don't fear a military takeover. But I do fear the following.

You want to pretty much destory the US? Just hit New York City downtown with one nuke, however it is brought into the country and whatever the size. Many major corporations are headquartered there. Financial markets and banks. Hit the city and the economy is in complete ruins for decades. The corporations are gone. Financial system is gone. The US is in an immediate depression which it may never recover from.

Think that this would not happen? Just remember that NYC has not yet recovered from 9-11. And that was only two buildings and 3000 people dead.

BTW, Rogt. I am still waiting to hear why you do not accept the terrorists at their words when they claim to want to destroy the US, Israel, and take over thw world.  If it were GWB making the same claims, you would be all over that, I am sure.
Title: Stage Managed Incitements
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on August 08, 2006, 12:00:20 PM
A horrible truth

I?ve touched upon ?just war? several times in this space, during the last few weeks. I will continue touching it today. The issue is already an urgent one; its significance can only grow in the foreseeable future, as the encounter between fanatical Islam and the West spreads from mere terror incidents to open guerrilla warfare on various fronts.

We see in the Middle East just now, how the conflagration is spreading. Hezbollah enjoyed little support in the Arab world, when it kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, and began firing rockets at an unprecedented rate into northern Israel. The Arabs feared Hezbollah?s aggressive sponsors -- Iran, principally -- even more than they hated Israel. The Saudi and Egyptian governments were among those which actually criticized Hezbollah more sharply, at first.

But the conflict in Lebanon has gone on for nearly a month, and the hatred of Israel comes back to the fore. Both Western and Arab media have had the opportunity to direct rage against Israel, over the deaths of civilians. Neither make an issue of the fact Hezbollah?s whole fighting strategy involves the use of women and children as ?human shields?, or in some cases of which I am aware, as ?live bait? to lure Israeli soldiers into ambushes.

The Israeli military policy is to hold fire against any building in which soldiers believe civilians are sheltering, even if they believe Hezbollah fighters are also present. This policy goes well beyond the Geneva Conventions, which anyway don?t apply to combat with irregular fighters. Moreover, by slowing Israeli progress in destroying Hezbollah, it grants time for pressure against Israel to be built, internationally.

The entirely predictable result of the media effort, to sensationalize ?Israeli atrocities? -- including one at Qana last week that was probably faked -- has been to trigger waves of anti-Semitic rage, across the Muslim world, and on the Left side of the political spectrum throughout the West. (Events, such as the shooting spree in the Seattle Jewish Federation office the Friday before last, do not give sufficient pause. But was that not a natural consequence of anti-Israel incitements?)

As I write, Shia demonstrators are now rioting against Israel in Iraq. Add this to the effect of constant terrorist attacks, on Shia targets, by Sunni ?insurgents? -- supplied, like Hezbollah, by Iran and Syria -- and the prospect of a civil war becomes real. One which can only serve Iran?s interests.

Meanwhile, those of you who missed the Nuremberg rallies, and Herr Hitler's progress through Germany in the 1930s, may now review President Ahmadinejad?s latest speech this week in both video clip and translation at memritv.org. Before a huge crowd, chanting ?Death to Israel?, and then ?Death to America?, he dwells upon various blood-libels against the Jews, mixing these together with a reprise of what the media have been reporting from Lebanon. He boasts of Iran?s nuclear technology, and looks forward to the imminent ?Fire of the Wrath?.

What difference has been made, by Israel?s, and the West?s, ?just war? policies -- with either the enemy, or the media? Every allied accident is presented as purposeful, and where there was no accident, ?collateral damage? is made up. Moreover, the object of Hezbollah?s fight is not to defeat Israel -- it can?t -- but rather to whip up an international ?anti-Zionist? frenzy, and turn it specifically to the advantage of Iran. They ?think globally, but act locally?.

The way Israel is now fighting -- and the U.S. and allies are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan -- must be reconsidered. The enemy is himself quite indifferent to civilian suffering, as he shows by using his own people as pawns. He consciously uses our own, Western, moral reticence against us.

By openly stating that we will, under no circumstances, attack targets where civilians are present, we ?hand the foe a blueprint of our acts, incite him to step over our carefully drawn line, encourage his vice and incur our own defeat.? (I am quoting a priest who has considered the broader implications of the Catholic just war doctrine.)

Even ?just war? acknowledges that, as in medicine, real mercy can sometimes require ruthlessness. We have forgotten this in the West. If we want to save civilians, over the longer run, we must resolve to call the enemy?s bluff. Show him by our actions that hiding behind baby carriages will not save him. For the enemy will only stop using ?human shields? when they cease to serve his purposes.


David Warren

http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?artID=632
Title: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 08, 2006, 09:32:10 PM
THE ABDICATION OF LEBANESE LEADERS.
State of Denial
by Michael B?h?
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 08.07.06

[ Editor's Note: This article was originally published by the Metula News Agency, for whom it was translated from the French by Llewellyn Brown, and is reprinted with permission. ]

Beirut , Lebanon

he politicians, journalists and intellectuals of Lebanon have, of late, been experiencing the shock of their lives. They knew full well that Hezbollah had created an independent state in our country, a state including all the ministers and parallel institutions, duplicating those of Lebanon. What they did not know--and are discovering with this war, and what has petrified them with surprise and terror--is the extent of this phagocytosis.

In fact, our country had become an extension of Iran, and our so-called political power also served as a political and military cover for the Islamists of Teheran. We suddenly discovered that Teheran had stocked more than 12,000 missiles, of all types and calibers, on our territory and that they had patiently, systematically, organized a suppletive force, with the help of the Syrians, that took over, day after day, all the rooms in the House of Lebanon. Just imagine it: We stock ground-to-ground missiles, Zilzals, on our territory and the firing of such devices, without our knowledge, has the power to spark a regional strategic conflict and, potentially, bring about the annihilation of Lebanon.

We knew that Iran, by means of Hezbollah, was building a veritable Maginot line in the south, but it was the pictures of Maroun el Ras and Bint Jbail that revealed to us the magnitude of these constructions. This amplitude made us understand several things at once: that we were no longer masters of our destiny; that we do not possess the most basic means necessary to reverse the course of this state of things; and that those who turned our country into an outpost of their Islamic doctrine's combat against Israel did not have the slightest intention of willingly giving up their hold over us.

The national salvation discussions that concerned the application of Resolution 1559, and which included most of the Lebanese political movements, were simply for show. Iran and Syria had not invested billions of dollars on militarizing Lebanon in order to wage their war, simply to give in to the desire of the Lebanese and the international community for them to pack up their hardware and set it up back home.

And then, the indecision, the cowardice, the division and the irresponsible behavior of our leaders are such that they had no effort to make to show their talent. No need to engage a wrestling match with the other political components of the Land of Cedars. The latter showed themselves--and continue to show themselves--to be inconsistent.

Of course, our army, reshaped over the years by the Syrian occupier so it could no longer fulfill its role as protector of the nation, did not have the capacity to tackle the militamen of the Hezbollah. Our army, whom it is more dangerous to call upon--because of the explosive equilibrium that constitutes each of its brigades--than to shut up behind locked doors in its barracks. A force that is still largely loyal to its former foreign masters, to the point of being uncontrollable; to the point of having collaborated with the Iranians to put our coastal radar stations at the disposal of their missiles, that almost sunk an Israeli boat off the shores of Beirut. As for the non-Hezbollah elements in the government, they knew nothing of the existence of land-to-sea missiles on our territory ... that caused the totally justified destruction of all our radar stations by the Hebrews' army. And even then we are getting off lightly in these goings-on.

It is easy now to whine and gripe, and to play the hypocritical role of victims. We know full well how to get others to pity us and to claim that we are never responsible for the horrors that regularly occur on our soil. Of course, that is nothing but rubbish! The Security Council's Resolution 1559--that demanded that our government deploy our army on our sovereign territory, along our international border with Israel and that it disarm all the militia on our land--was voted on September 2, 2004.

We had two years to implement this resolution and thus guarantee a peaceful future to our children, but we did absolutely nothing. Our greatest crime--which was not the only one!--was not that we did not succeed, but that we did not attempt or undertake anything. And that was the fault of none else than the pathetic Lebanese politicians.

Our government, from the very moment the Syrian occupier left, let ships and truckloads of arms pour into our country. Without even bothering to look at their cargo. They jeopardized all chances for the rebirth of our country by confusing the Cedar Revolution with the liberation of Beirut. In reality, we had just received the chance--a sort of unhoped-for moratorium--that allowed us to take the future into our own hands, nothing more.

To think that we were not even capable of agreeing to "hang" ?mile Lahoud--Al-Assad's puppet--on Martyrs' Square and that he is still president of what some insist on calling our republic. ... There is no need to look any further: We are what we are, that is to say, not much.

All those who assume public and communicational responsibilities in this country are responsible for this catastrophe. Except those of my colleagues, journalists, and editors, who are dead, assassinated by the Syrian thugs, because they were clearly less cowardly than those who survived. And Lahoud remained at Baadb?, the president's palace!

And when I speak of a catastrophe, I do not mean the action accomplished by Israel in response to the aggression against its civilians and its army, which was produced from our soil and that we did strictly nothing to avoid, and for which we are consequently responsible. Any avoiding of this responsibility--some people here do not have the minimal notions of international law necessary to understand!--means that Lebanon, as a state, does not exist.

he hypocrisy goes on: Even some editorialists of the respectable L'Orient Le Jour put Hezbollah's savagery and that of the Israelis on a par! Shame! Spinelessness! And who are we in this fable? Poor ad aeternum victims of the ambitions of others?

Politicians either support this insane idea or keep silent. Those we would expect to speak, to save our image, remain silent like the others. And I am precisely alluding to General Aoun, who could have made a move by proclaiming the truth. Even his enemy, Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader, has proved to be less ... vague.

Lebanon a victim? What a joke!

Before the Israeli attack, Lebanon no longer existed, it was no more than a hologram. In Beirut, innocent citizens like me were forbidden access to certain areas of their own capital. But our police, our army, and our judges were also excluded. That was the case, for example, of Hezbollah's and the Syrians' command zone in the Haret Hreik quarter (in red on the satellite map). A square measuring a kilometer wide, a capital within the capital, permanently guarded by a Horla army, possessing its own institutions, its schools, its cr?ches, its tribunals, its radio, its television and, above all ... its government. A "government" that, alone decided, in the place of the figureheads of the Lebanese government--in which Hezbollah also had its ministers!--to attack a neighboring state, with which we had no substantial or grounded quarrel, and to plunge the United States into a bloody conflict. And if attacking a sovereign nation on its territory, assassinating eight of its soldiers, kidnapping two others and, simultaneously, launching missiles on nine of its towns does not constitute a casus belli, the latter juridical principle will seriously need revising.

Thus almost all of these cowardly politicians, including numerous Shia leaders and religious personalities themselves, are blessing each bomb that falls from a Jewish F-16 turning the insult to our sovereignty that was Haret Hreik, right in the heart of Beirut, into a lunar landscape. Without the Israelis, how could we have received another chance--that we in no way deserve!--to rebuild our country?

Each Irano-Syrian fort that Jerusalem destroys, each Islamic fighter they eliminate, and Lebanon proportionally starts to live again! Once again, the soldiers of Israel are doing our work. Once again, like in 1982, we are watching--cowardly, lying low, despicable, and insulting them to boot--their heroic sacrifice that allows us to keep hoping. To not be swallowed up in the bowels of the earth. Because, of course, by dint of not giving a damn for southern Lebanon, of letting foreigners take hold of the privileges that belong to us, we no longer had the ability to recover our independence and sovereignty. If, at the end of this war, the Lebanese army retakes control over its territory and gets rid of the state within a state--that tried to suffocate the latter--it will only be thanks to the Tsahal [Israeli Defense Force], and that, all these faint-hearted politicians, from the crook Fuad Siniora, to Saad Hariri, the son of Lebanon's plunderer, and general Aoun, all know perfectly well.

As for the destruction caused by the Israelis ... that is another imposture: Look at the satellite map! I have situated, as best I could, but in their correct proportions, the parts of my capital that have been destroyed by Israel. They are Haret Hreik--in its totality--and the dwellings of Hezbollah's leaders, situated in the large Shia suburb of Dayaa (as they spell it) and that I have circled in blue.

In addition to these two zones, Tsahal has exploded a nine-storied building that housed Hezbollah's command, in Beirut's city center, above and slightly to the left (to the north west) of Haret Hreik on the map. It was Nasrallah's "perch" inside the city, whereby he asserted his presence and domination over us. A depot of Syrian arms in the port, two army radars that the Shiite officers had put at Hezbollah's disposal, and a truck suspected of transporting arms, in the Christian quarter of Ashrafieh.

Moreover the road and airport infrastructures were put out of working order : they served to provide Hezbollah with arms and munitions. Apart from that, Tsahal has neither hit nor deteriorated anything, and all those who speak of the "destruction of Beirut" are either liars, Iranians, anti-Semites or absent. Even the houses situated one alley's distance from the targets I mentioned have not been hit, they have not even suffered a scratch; on contemplating these results of this workyou understand the meaning of the concept "surgical strikes" and you can admire the dexterity of the Jewish pilots. Beirut, all the rest of Beirut, 95 percent of Beirut, lives and breathes better than a fortnight ago. All those who have not sided with terrorism know they have strictly nothing to fear from the Israeli planes, on the contrary! One example: Last night the restaurant where I went to eat was jammed full and I had to wait until 9:30 p.m. to get a table. Everyone was smiling, relaxed, but no one filmed them: a strange destruction of Beirut, is it not?

Of course, there are some 500,000 refugees from the south who are experiencing a veritable tragedy and who are not smiling. But Jean Tsadik, who has his eyes fixed on Kfar Kileh, and from whom I have learned to believe each word he says, assures me that practically all the houses of the aforesaid refugees are intact. So they will be able to come back as soon as Hezbollah is vanquished.

The defeat of the Shia fundamentalists of Iranian allegiance is imminent. The figures communicated by Nasrallah's minions and by the Lebanese Red Cross are deceiving: firstly, of the 400 dead declared by Lebanon, only 150 are real collateral civilian victims of the war, the others were militiamen without uniform serving Iran. The photographic report "Les Civils des bilans libanais" made by St?phane Juffa for the Metula News Agency constitutes, to this day, the unique tangible evidence of this gigantic morbid manipulation. Which makes this document eminently important.

Moreover, Hassan Nasrallah's organization has not lost 200 combatants, as Tsahal claims. This figure only concerns the combats taking place on the border and even then the Israelis underestimate it, for a reason that escapes me, by about a hundred militiamen eliminated. The real count of Hezbollah's casualties, that includes those dead in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, Baalbek and their other camps, rocket and missile launchers and arms and munition depots amounts to 1,100 supplementary Hezbollah militiamen who have definitively ceased to terrorize and humiliate my country.

Like the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, I pray that no one puts an end to the Israeli attack before it finishes shattering the terrorists. I pray that the Hebrew soldiers will penetrate all the hidden recesses of southern Lebanon and will hunt out, in our stead, the vermin that has taken root there. Like the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, I have put the champagne ready in the refrigerator to celebrate the Israeli victory.

But contrary to them--and to paraphrase [French singer] Michel Sardou--I recognize that they are also fighting for our liberty, another battle "where you were not present"! And in the name of my people, I wish to express my infinite gratitude to the relatives of the Israeli victims--civilian and military--whose loved ones have fallen so that I can live standing upright in my identity. They should know that I weep with them.

As for the pathetic clique that thrives at the head of my country, it is time for them to understand that after this war, after our natural allies have rid us of those who are hindering us from rebuilding a nation, a cease-fire or an armistice will not suffice. To ensure the future of Lebanon, it is time to make peace with those we have no reason to go to war against. In fact, only peace will ensure peace. Someone must tell them because in this country we have not learnt what a truism is.

Michael B?h? is a writer for the Metula News Agency.
Title: Israeli Military Internal Dissent?
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on August 10, 2006, 02:40:02 PM
Not acquainted with this source, but if true it bears close scrutiny.

Analysis: Government and IDF racked by unprecedented leadership crisis
By Jonathan Ariel  August 9, 2006

 
     Relations between the country's political and military leadership are at the lowest point in the country's history, on the verge of a crisis. In addition, there is a growing lack of confidence between Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, the first CoS to hail from the air force, and many of his general staff colleagues from the ground forces, who say he and his "blue clique" [blue being the color of the air force uniform-ed] do not fully appreciate the nature of ground warfare.

According to informed sources, there is an almost total breakdown in trust and confidence between the General Staff and the PM's office. They have described the situation as "even worse than the crises that followed Ben Gurion's decision to disband the Palmach, and Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan's cynical decision to place all the blame for the Yom Kippur fiasco on the IDF's shoulders.

Senior IDF officers have been saying that the PM bears sole responsibility for the current unfavorable military situation, with Hezbollah still holding out after almost a month of fighting.
 
According to these officers, Olmert was presented with an assiduously prepared and detailed operational plan for the defeat and destruction of Hezbollah within 10-14 days, which the IDF has been formulating for the past 2-3 years.

This plan was supposed to have begun with a surprise air onslaught against the Hezbollah high command in Beirut, before they would have had time to relocate to their underground bunkers. This was to have been followed immediately by large scale airborne and seaborne landing operations, in order to get several divisions on the Litani River line, enabling them to outflank Hezbollah's "Maginot line" in southern Lebanon. This would have surprised Hezbollah, which would have had to come out of its fortifications and confront the IDF in the open, in order to avoid being isolated, hunted down and eventually starved into a humiliating submission.

This was exactly what the IDF senior command wanted, as Israeli military doctrine, based on the Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg doctrine, has traditionally been one of rapid mobile warfare, designed to surprise and outflank an enemy.

According to senior military sources, who have been extensively quoted in both the Hebrew media and online publications with close ties to the country's defense establishment, Olmert nixed the second half of the plan, and authorized only air strikes on southern Lebanon, not initially on Beirut.

Although the Premier has yet to admit his decision, let alone provide a satisfactory explanation, it seems that he hoped futilely for a limited war. A prominent wheeler-dealer attorney-negotiator prior to entering politics, he may have thought that he could succeed by the military option of filing a lawsuit as a negotiating ploy, very useful when you represent the rich and powerful, as he always had. Another motive may have been his desire to limit the economic damage by projecting a limited rather than total war to the international financial powers that be.

Whatever his reasons, the bottom line, according to these military sources, is that he castrated the campaign during the crucial first days. The decision to not bomb Beirut immediately enabled Nasrallah to escape, first to his bunker, subsequently to the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

The decision to cancel the landings on the Litani River and authorize a very limited call up of reserves forced the ground forces to fight under very adverse conditions. Instead of outflanking a heavily fortified area with overwhelming forcers, they had to attack from the direction most expected, with insufficient forces. The result, high casualties and modest achievements.

This is the background of yesterday's surprise effective dismissal of OC northern Command Maj. General Udi Adam. According to various media sources, Olmert was incensed at Adam's remarks that he had not been allowed to fight the war that had been planned. Adam allegedly made these remarks in response to criticism against his running of the war, and the results so far achieved.

Olmert's responsibility for inaction goes much further. The US administration had given Israel the green light to attack Syria. A senior military source has confirmed to Israel Insider that Israel did indeed receive a green light from Washington in this regard, but Olmert nixed it.

The scenario was that Syria, no military match for Israel, would face a rapid defeat, forcing it to run to Iran, with which it has a defense pact, to come to aid.

Iran, which would be significantly contained by the defeat of its sole ally in the region, would have found itself maneuvered between a rock and a hard place. If it chose to honor its commitment to Syria, it would face a war with Israel and the US, both with military capabilities far superior to Iran's. If Teheran opted to default on its commitment to Damascus, it would be construed by the entire region, including the restless Iranian population, as a conspicuous show of weakness by the regime. Fascist regimes such as that of the ayatollahs cannot easily afford to show that kind of weakness.

As previously mentioned, Iran's military capabilities are no match for Israel's. Bottom line, all Iran could do is to launch missiles at and hit Israel's cities, and try and carry out terror attacks. If there is one thing history has shown, it is that such methods do not win wars. Israel would undoubtedly suffer both civilian casualties and economic damage, but these would not be that much more than what we are already experiencing. We have already irreversibly lost an entire tourist season. Any Iranian and Syrian missile offensives would be relatively short, as they are further form Israel, and therefore would have to be carried out by longer range missiles. These, by their very nature are much bigger and more complex weapons than Katyushas. They cannot be hidden underground, and require longer launch preparations, increasing their vulnerability to air operations. In addition it is precisely for such kinds of missiles that the Arrow system was developed.

The end result would be some additional economic damage, and probably around 500 civilian casualties. It may sound cold blooded, but Israel can afford such casualties, which would be less than those sustained in previous wars (for the record, in 1948 Israel lost 6,000, 1% of the entire population, and in 1967 and 1973 we lost respectively 1,000 and 3,000 casualties).

The gains, however, would be significant. The Iranian nuclear threat, the most dangerous existential threat Israel has faced since 1948, would be eliminated. It would also change the momentum, which over the past two decades as been with the ayatollahs. This could also have a major impact on the PA, hastening the demise of the Islamist Hamas administration.

Instead, according to military sources, Israel finds itself getting bogged down by a manifestly inferior enemy, due to the limitations placed on the IDF by the political leadership. This has been construed by the enemy as a clear sign that Israel is in the hands of a leadership not up to the task, lacking the required experience, guts and willpower. In the Middle East this is an invitation to court disaster, as witness by Iran's and Syria's increased boldness in significantly upping the ante of their involvement in the war.

Some senior officers have been mentioning the C-word in private conversations. They have been saying that a coup d'etat might be the only way to prevent an outcome in Lebanon that could embolden the Arab world to join forces with Syria and Iran in an all out assault on Israel, given the fact that such a development would be spurred entirely by the Arab and Moslem world's perception of Israel's leadership as weak, craven and vacillating, and therefore ripe for intimidation.

Seeing the once invincible IDF being stalemated by Hezbollah's 3,000 troops is a sure way to radiate an aura of weakness that in the Middle East could precipitate attacks by sharks smelling blood.

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/9116.htm
Title: Israeli Military Internal Dissent?
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on August 10, 2006, 02:42:53 PM
Not acquainted with this source, but if true it bears close scrutiny.

Analysis: Government and IDF racked by unprecedented leadership crisis
By Jonathan Ariel  August 9, 2006

 
     Relations between the country's political and military leadership are at the lowest point in the country's history, on the verge of a crisis. In addition, there is a growing lack of confidence between Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, the first CoS to hail from the air force, and many of his general staff colleagues from the ground forces, who say he and his "blue clique" [blue being the color of the air force uniform-ed] do not fully appreciate the nature of ground warfare.

According to informed sources, there is an almost total breakdown in trust and confidence between the General Staff and the PM's office. They have described the situation as "even worse than the crises that followed Ben Gurion's decision to disband the Palmach, and Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan's cynical decision to place all the blame for the Yom Kippur fiasco on the IDF's shoulders.

Senior IDF officers have been saying that the PM bears sole responsibility for the current unfavorable military situation, with Hezbollah still holding out after almost a month of fighting.
 
According to these officers, Olmert was presented with an assiduously prepared and detailed operational plan for the defeat and destruction of Hezbollah within 10-14 days, which the IDF has been formulating for the past 2-3 years.

This plan was supposed to have begun with a surprise air onslaught against the Hezbollah high command in Beirut, before they would have had time to relocate to their underground bunkers. This was to have been followed immediately by large scale airborne and seaborne landing operations, in order to get several divisions on the Litani River line, enabling them to outflank Hezbollah's "Maginot line" in southern Lebanon. This would have surprised Hezbollah, which would have had to come out of its fortifications and confront the IDF in the open, in order to avoid being isolated, hunted down and eventually starved into a humiliating submission.

This was exactly what the IDF senior command wanted, as Israeli military doctrine, based on the Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg doctrine, has traditionally been one of rapid mobile warfare, designed to surprise and outflank an enemy.

According to senior military sources, who have been extensively quoted in both the Hebrew media and online publications with close ties to the country's defense establishment, Olmert nixed the second half of the plan, and authorized only air strikes on southern Lebanon, not initially on Beirut.

Although the Premier has yet to admit his decision, let alone provide a satisfactory explanation, it seems that he hoped futilely for a limited war. A prominent wheeler-dealer attorney-negotiator prior to entering politics, he may have thought that he could succeed by the military option of filing a lawsuit as a negotiating ploy, very useful when you represent the rich and powerful, as he always had. Another motive may have been his desire to limit the economic damage by projecting a limited rather than total war to the international financial powers that be.

Whatever his reasons, the bottom line, according to these military sources, is that he castrated the campaign during the crucial first days. The decision to not bomb Beirut immediately enabled Nasrallah to escape, first to his bunker, subsequently to the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

The decision to cancel the landings on the Litani River and authorize a very limited call up of reserves forced the ground forces to fight under very adverse conditions. Instead of outflanking a heavily fortified area with overwhelming forcers, they had to attack from the direction most expected, with insufficient forces. The result, high casualties and modest achievements.

This is the background of yesterday's surprise effective dismissal of OC northern Command Maj. General Udi Adam. According to various media sources, Olmert was incensed at Adam's remarks that he had not been allowed to fight the war that had been planned. Adam allegedly made these remarks in response to criticism against his running of the war, and the results so far achieved.

Olmert's responsibility for inaction goes much further. The US administration had given Israel the green light to attack Syria. A senior military source has confirmed to Israel Insider that Israel did indeed receive a green light from Washington in this regard, but Olmert nixed it.

The scenario was that Syria, no military match for Israel, would face a rapid defeat, forcing it to run to Iran, with which it has a defense pact, to come to aid.

Iran, which would be significantly contained by the defeat of its sole ally in the region, would have found itself maneuvered between a rock and a hard place. If it chose to honor its commitment to Syria, it would face a war with Israel and the US, both with military capabilities far superior to Iran's. If Teheran opted to default on its commitment to Damascus, it would be construed by the entire region, including the restless Iranian population, as a conspicuous show of weakness by the regime. Fascist regimes such as that of the ayatollahs cannot easily afford to show that kind of weakness.

As previously mentioned, Iran's military capabilities are no match for Israel's. Bottom line, all Iran could do is to launch missiles at and hit Israel's cities, and try and carry out terror attacks. If there is one thing history has shown, it is that such methods do not win wars. Israel would undoubtedly suffer both civilian casualties and economic damage, but these would not be that much more than what we are already experiencing. We have already irreversibly lost an entire tourist season. Any Iranian and Syrian missile offensives would be relatively short, as they are further form Israel, and therefore would have to be carried out by longer range missiles. These, by their very nature are much bigger and more complex weapons than Katyushas. They cannot be hidden underground, and require longer launch preparations, increasing their vulnerability to air operations. In addition it is precisely for such kinds of missiles that the Arrow system was developed.

The end result would be some additional economic damage, and probably around 500 civilian casualties. It may sound cold blooded, but Israel can afford such casualties, which would be less than those sustained in previous wars (for the record, in 1948 Israel lost 6,000, 1% of the entire population, and in 1967 and 1973 we lost respectively 1,000 and 3,000 casualties).

The gains, however, would be significant. The Iranian nuclear threat, the most dangerous existential threat Israel has faced since 1948, would be eliminated. It would also change the momentum, which over the past two decades as been with the ayatollahs. This could also have a major impact on the PA, hastening the demise of the Islamist Hamas administration.

Instead, according to military sources, Israel finds itself getting bogged down by a manifestly inferior enemy, due to the limitations placed on the IDF by the political leadership. This has been construed by the enemy as a clear sign that Israel is in the hands of a leadership not up to the task, lacking the required experience, guts and willpower. In the Middle East this is an invitation to court disaster, as witness by Iran's and Syria's increased boldness in significantly upping the ante of their involvement in the war.

Some senior officers have been mentioning the C-word in private conversations. They have been saying that a coup d'etat might be the only way to prevent an outcome in Lebanon that could embolden the Arab world to join forces with Syria and Iran in an all out assault on Israel, given the fact that such a development would be spurred entirely by the Arab and Moslem world's perception of Israel's leadership as weak, craven and vacillating, and therefore ripe for intimidation.

Seeing the once invincible IDF being stalemated by Hezbollah's 3,000 troops is a sure way to radiate an aura of weakness that in the Middle East could precipitate attacks by sharks smelling blood.

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/9116.htm
Title: Lebanon
Post by: rogt on August 10, 2006, 08:38:20 PM
Posted by a friend of mine to another mailing list.  I think he puts it a lot better than I did.

--------

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060810/us_nm/security_usa_muslims_dc

To the extent that Bush or his people ever acknowledge publicly the
existence of Christian terrorists who seek to blow up abortion clinics,
kill or harass abortion clinic staff, or commit hate crimes against
gays, do they ever mention that they are Christian?

I mean, if in the unlikely circumstance that Bush was to announce a new
federal program to protect abortion clinics from attack or harassment,
could you imagine him including a line about the dangers of Christian
terrorists, or Christian fascists?  Timothy McVeigh was unabashedly
Christian, in his own mind at least, and a member of the Christian
identity movement, at the time did anyone specifically come out and warn
of the dangers of Christian terrorists?  There was a huge crackdown
across the U.S. after Oklahoma City and the groups that were subjected
to the most attention were generally referred to as "survivalists" or
"right-wing militias" or "neo-Nazi" or whatever.  That is in spite of
the fact that the one thing they had in common is Christianity, or some
perverted version of it.

Sure these terrorists are all Muslim, but if we aren't going to be
honest enough to refer to people like McVeigh, the abortion clinic
bombers and so forth as "Christian terrorists" or "Christian fascists"
then we shouldn't keep throwing the word "Islamic" around to describe
these freaks.  They are to Islam as McVeigh is to Christianity.
Title: Double Standard
Post by: captainccs on August 11, 2006, 06:48:56 AM
Asymmetrical warfare or double standard?

Siniora cries during a press conference while denouncing the death of 40 "innocent" Lebanese yet a short time later he recants admitting there were two people killed in the action. But the press has already told the world about this new Jewish atrocity.

Lebanese sources stage the death of children at Qana denouncing the death of 56 "innocent" Lebanese yet the Red Cross only finds 28 bodies in the action. The Lebanese have scored another public relations triumph over the Jewish state based on bald faced lies.

The terrorists have plenty of friends in the western press who, like Ruters, are quite happy to publish doctored images and staged casualties.

But there is no need to go that far afield to find cases of double standard in this struggle. We have a case right here in this thread.

rogt started a discussion with the post:
http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=6741#6741

to which I replied with an article from the Associated Press:
http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=6742#6742

rogt suggested:
Quote from: rogt
A discussion of people's views on this would be more interesting than a bunch of articles.

Fair enough, this was my reply:
Quote from: captainccs
Quote from: rogt
OK, "elimination of the Zionist regime" can mean a lot of things.  What I want to know is whether these Muslim leaders really mean "exterminate Jews" instead of just replacement of the current Israeli government.
Well, sum it up:

Suicide bombings
Kidnappings
Rocket attacks
Calls for boycotting Israel
Flying into the Twin Towers
The London bombing
The Madrid bombing
The Beirut US Embassy bombing
The Bali bombing
The USS Cole bombing
The Buenos Aires bombing

Does this sound like a love fest of some sort?

Some people just don't want to see reality. What proof do you want? The extermination of Israel?
http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=6744#6744

I got no sensible reply to this exposition but a short while later rogt writes:
Quote from: rogt
Posted by a friend of mine to another mailing list.  I think he puts it a lot better than I did.
http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=6847#6847




So, what will it be, a bunch of articles by other people when it suits rogt's convenience to cover his admitted lack of debating skills but no such props for people taking a contrary view?

This is a very minor example of the double standard applied to this struggle to the point of being insignificant but it does reveal at close quarters the double standard imposed on Israel and the Jews by her enemies and by her enemies' groupies.



In any case, the post linked by rogt compares apples to elephants. While the purpose of radical Isalm's Jihad is to convert the whole world to Islam and force Sharia law on all, the abortion fighters just want to stop one particular act that they oppose. Agreed, both do it by illegal violence but the goals are so disparate that there is no way to compare the two as rogt's friends suggests. The abortion fighters do not want to replace the American Constitution with Sharia law, they do not want to destroy a whole country and all its citizens which is the stated objective of Islamo Fascist Radical Islam.



Composed by Denny Schlesinger, not by some friend or ghost writer.
Title: Re: Double Standard
Post by: rogt on August 11, 2006, 10:51:51 AM
Not addressing the articles vs. opinions point, as it's basically a flame war.  Articles are fine where they're relevant, but I simply want to avoid a discussion where somebody presents an argument in their own words and somebody follows up with an article as a reply.  As for this or that attack being staged or body count exaggerated, I know nothing about it so I'm not going to comment.

Quote from: captainccs
Asymmetrical warfare or double standard?
Agreed, both do it by illegal violence but the goals are so disparate that there is no way to compare the two as rogt's friends suggests. The abortion fighters do not want to replace the American Constitution with Sharia law, they do not want to destroy a whole country and all its citizens which is the stated objective of Islamo Fascist Radical Islam.


Really?  I think you'd have a hard time finding many "abortion fighters" who wouldn't also like to see prayer in public schools, the teaching of "intelligent design theory" alongside evolution (as if the two stood on more or less equal scientific footing), a ban on stem cell research, a constitutional ban on gay marriage, and a general elimination of church/state separation, i.e. the transformation of the US into an explicitly Christian state.  So I think the comparison is perfectly appropriate.

The point is that if Bush ever used the term "Christian fascists", a lot of Christians would (rightly) feel that he was equating Christianity with Nazism, no matter how many times he said he really meant the extremists.  I've heard a lot of moaning about how American Muslims aren't stepping up to the plate to be translators or whatever to help out in the war on terror.  How psyched would any of us be to aid in an effort to defend people who were trashing our religion and (on the extreme end) calling for our internment or the right to racially profile us?
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 11, 2006, 07:00:56 PM
Woof Rogt:

The violent element of the Christian Right is quite small and it seeks to target abortionists.? This is morally and legally quite wrong, but quite different from a world wide movement of at least 100 million that beats women into burkhas, prohibits them from learning to read or to drive a car, cuts off their clitorises, punishes them for being raped, gang rapes them as punishment (yes, this has happened in Pakistan) kills them to defend familiy honor, proudly beheads innocent civiliians and broadcasts the videos thereof, deliberately targets civilians, etc etc etc.

Again I invite you to respond to the hatred on display in those clips I posted above.

BTW, here's something from today's WSJ that shares my perspective:


==========

'Arc of Extremism'

By WILLIAM SHAWCROSS
August 11, 2006; Page A12

LONDON -- It took President Bush to tell the truth to Britain about the alleged massive plot to blow U.S.-bound airliners out of the sky. In his first comment on the apparently foiled attempt, he put it simply: "This was a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists."

He is right, but in the first news reports in Britain yesterday, the words "Islamic" or "Muslim" were hardly mentioned, let alone the dread word "fascist." Instead the common code-words on television were that the 24 men arrested were "British-born" and "of Pakistani origin." No mention of their Islamist ideology. Does the BBC think they might turn out to be from Pakistan's embattled Christian minority? I don't think so.

In Europe, the truth is so terrible that we are in denial. Perhaps it is understandable. We simply do not know how to deal with the fact that we really are threatened by a vast fifth column, that there are thousands of European-born people, in Britain, in France, in Holland, in Denmark -- everywhere -- who wish to destroy us. You see this denial in the coverage of Israel's war against Hezbollah. The deaths in Lebanon are utterly tragic. But if you watched only British television, particularly the BBC, you would be hard-pressed to understand that Israel has been forced into a war for its survival. Last weekend people marched in an anti-Israel march though London carrying banners proclaiming "We are all Hezbollah Now."

As the historian Victor Davis Hanson recently pointed out, there is a moral madness at work here. We refuse to admit there is a pattern to global terrorism. We are terrified of being called "Islamophobic." European papers are frightened to publish cartoons which some Muslims demand we censor, but are happy to portray the Israelis as latter-day Nazis. Not for nothing does Mr. Hanson say that we have forgotten the lessons of 1938.

In a live BBC interview recently I called Hezbollah "Islamofascists." The charming interviewer said nervously, "That's a very controversial description"; I replied that it was merely accurate. She brought the interview to a swift close. But it's not just Hezbollah, of course. The same ideology of hate inspires al Qaeda, the inspiration if not the controller of the British bombers.

In Britain we are actually quite lucky. We have a prime minister who, in my view, has committed many errors at home; but abroad Tony Blair has a clear vision, both moral and pragmatic, of the threat that we face. And for this he is mocked and abused as nothing more than George Bush's "poodle."

In a thoughtful recent speech in Los Angeles, Mr. Blair spoke of fighting an "arc of extremism." That is Islamic extremism, whether it is inspired al Qaeda or by Tehran, whether its footsoldiers are Sunni or Shiite, whether they were born in Britain or southern Lebanon or Iran or Saudi Arabia. As Mr. Blair said, the battle is over the values that are to govern the future of the worlds. "Are they those of tolerance, freedom, respect for difference and diversity or those of reaction, division, hatred?"

"This is war" said Mr. Blair. Alas, it is. Wherever they were born, the men who want to blow up airliners, who want to destroy Israel and, not coincidentally, who want to kill all hope of a decent society in Iraq -- are Islamofascists who are united in hatred of us. The sooner we in Europe understand that, and that they must be defeated, the safer everyone -- Christians, Jews, Muslims, nonbelievers -- will be.

Mr. Shawcross is author of "Allies: Why the West Had to Remove Saddam" (PublicAffairs Press, 2005).


=======================

All:

I just received a call upon returning from a family trip telling me that Olmert has caved in to a UN Resolution?!?!?!?

Whether this call is true or not, the following piece should shed a lot of light on what has been and will be happening:

-----


Analysis:?
By Jonathan Ariel? August 9, 2006
 
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/9116.htm
?
Relations between the country's political and military leadership are at the lowest point in the country's history, on the verge of a crisis. In addition, there is a growing lack of confidence between Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, the first CoS to hail from the air force, and many of his general staff colleagues from the ground forces, who say he and his "blue clique" [blue being the color of the air force uniform-ed] do not fully appreciate the nature of ground warfare.

According to informed sources, there is an almost total breakdown in trust and confidence between the General Staff and the PM's office. They have described the situation as "even worse than the crises that followed Ben Gurion's decision to disband the Palmach, and Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan's cynical decision to place all the blame for the Yom Kippur fiasco on the IDF's shoulders.

Senior IDF officers have been saying that the PM bears sole responsibility for the current unfavorable military situation, with Hezbollah still holding out after almost a month of fighting.?
According to these officers, Olmert was presented with an assiduously prepared and detailed operational plan for the defeat and destruction of Hezbollah within 10-14 days, which the IDF has been formulating for the past 2-3 years.

This plan was supposed to have begun with a surprise air onslaught against the Hezbollah high command in Beirut, before they would have had time to relocate to their underground bunkers. This was to have been followed immediately by large scale airborne and seaborne landing operations, in order to get several divisions on the Litani River line, enabling them to outflank Hezbollah's "Maginot line" in southern Lebanon. This would have surprised Hezbollah, which would have had to come out of its fortifications and confront the IDF in the open, in order to avoid being isolated, hunted down and eventually starved into a humiliating submission.

This was exactly what the IDF senior command wanted, as Israeli military doctrine, based on the Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg doctrine, has traditionally been one of rapid mobile warfare, designed to surprise and outflank an enemy.

According to senior military sources, who have been extensively quoted in both the Hebrew media and online publications with close ties to the country's defense establishment, Olmert nixed the second half of the plan, and authorized only air strikes on southern Lebanon, not initially on Beirut.

Although the Premier has yet to admit his decision, let alone provide a satisfactory explanation, it seems that he hoped futilely for a limited war. A prominent wheeler-dealer attorney-negotiator prior to entering politics, he may have thought that he could succeed by the military option of filing a lawsuit as a negotiating ploy, very useful when you represent the rich and powerful, as he always had. Another motive may have been his desire to limit the economic damage by projecting a limited rather than total war to the international financial powers that be.

Whatever his reasons, the bottom line, according to these military sources, is that he castrated the campaign during the crucial first days. The decision to not bomb Beirut immediately enabled Nasrallah to escape, first to his bunker, subsequently to the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

The decision to cancel the landings on the Litani River and authorize a very limited call up of reserves forced the ground forces to fight under very adverse conditions. Instead of outflanking a heavily fortified area with overwhelming forcers, they had to attack from the direction most expected, with insufficient forces. The result, high casualties and modest achievements.

This is the background of yesterday's surprise effective dismissal of OC northern Command Maj. General Udi Adam. According to various media sources, Olmert was incensed at Adam's remarks that he had not been allowed to fight the war that had been planned. Adam allegedly made these remarks in response to criticism against his running of the war, and the results so far achieved.

Olmert's responsibility for inaction goes much further. The US administration had given Israel the green light to attack Syria. A senior military source has confirmed to Israel Insider that Israel did indeed receive a green light from Washington in this regard, but Olmert nixed it.

The scenario was that Syria, no military match for Israel, would face a rapid defeat, forcing it to run to Iran, with which it has a defense pact, to come to aid.

Iran, which would be significantly contained by the defeat of its sole ally in the region, would have found itself maneuvered between a rock and a hard place. If it chose to honor its commitment to Syria, it would face a war with Israel and the US, both with military capabilities far superior to Iran's. If Teheran opted to default on its commitment to Damascus, it would be construed by the entire region, including the restless Iranian population, as a conspicuous show of weakness by the regime. Fascist regimes such as that of the ayatollahs cannot easily afford to show that kind of weakness.

As previously mentioned, Iran's military capabilities are no match for Israel's. Bottom line, all Iran could do is to launch missiles at and hit Israel's cities, and try and carry out terror attacks. If there is one thing history has shown, it is that such methods do not win wars. Israel would undoubtedly suffer both civilian casualties and economic damage, but these would not be that much more than what we are already experiencing. We have already irreversibly lost an entire tourist season. Any Iranian and Syrian missile offensives would be relatively short, as they are further form Israel, and therefore would have to be carried out by longer range missiles. These, by their very nature are much bigger and more complex weapons than Katyushas. They cannot be hidden underground, and require longer launch preparations, increasing their vulnerability to air operations. In addition it is precisely for such kinds of missiles that the Arrow system was developed.

The end result would be some additional economic damage, and probably around 500 civilian casualties. It may sound cold blooded, but Israel can afford such casualties, which would be less than those sustained in previous wars (for the record, in 1948 Israel lost 6,000, 1% of the entire population, and in 1967 and 1973 we lost respectively 1,000 and 3,000 casualties).

The gains, however, would be significant. The Iranian nuclear threat, the most dangerous existential threat Israel has faced since 1948, would be eliminated. It would also change the momentum, which over the past two decades as been with the ayatollahs. This could also have a major impact on the PA, hastening the demise of the Islamist Hamas administration.

Instead, according to military sources, Israel finds itself getting bogged down by a manifestly inferior enemy, due to the limitations placed on the IDF by the political leadership. This has been construed by the enemy as a clear sign that Israel is in the hands of a leadership not up to the task, lacking the required experience, guts and willpower. In the Middle East this is an invitation to court disaster, as witness by Iran's and Syria's increased boldness in significantly upping the ante of their involvement in the war.

Some senior officers have been mentioning the C-word in private conversations. They have been saying that a coup d'etat might be the only way to prevent an outcome in Lebanon that could embolden the Arab world to join forces with Syria and Iran in an all out assault on Israel, given the fact that such a development would be spurred entirely by the Arab and Moslem world's perception of Israel's leadership as weak, craven and vacillating, and therefore ripe for intimidation.

Seeing the once invincible IDF being stalemated by Hezbollah's 3,000 troops is a sure way to radiate an aura of weakness that in the Middle East could precipitate attacks by sharks smelling blood.
 

 
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on August 11, 2006, 08:31:03 PM
I have just listened to Condi Rice and Kofi Annan at the UN and I would not call Olmert's acceptance of the cease-fire "a caving in." Politics is the art of the possible and I think Olmert has been a very fast learner. Just hours before the cease-fire vote, he authorized the IDF to roll into Lebanon at full speed. Lebanon will discuss the cease-fire on Saturday and Israel will do the same on Sunday giving the IDF at last? 48 hours to continue sweeping up Hezbollah.

I think the cease-fire makes sense, at least on paper. Israel can only hope to make a peace treaty with Lebanon if Hezbollah is disarmed and the Lebanese government takes control of their whole country. Clearly the Lebanese army, by itself, cannot do it. This was the proposal that Hezbollah accepted and Israel and the US rejected out of hand. The new agreement calls for a reinforced UN peace keeping force of 15,000 men to back up the 15,000 Lebanese soldiers to be posted to the south of Lebanon.

What needs to be watched is the ability of this combined force to disarm Hezbollah and the commitment of Lebanon's government to disarm Hezbollah and take control of their country.

I wonder how Iran and Syria will react.

The idea that the IDF can easily take on Iran is a stretch. Iran is a long ways off and has no common borders with Israel. Israel could take on Syria if the US took on Iran but the US is already committed to Afghanistan and Iraq. Unless the Europeans wake up to the tragedy that is on their door step, Iran will have a few more months before it faces an attack.

Title: Text of U.N. Draft Resolution
Post by: captainccs on August 11, 2006, 09:20:10 PM
Text of U.N. Draft Resolution
Friday, August 11, 2006

UNITED NATIONS???The Security Council,

PP1. Recalling all its previous resolutions on Lebanon, in particular resolutions 425 (1978), 426 (1978), 520 (1982), 1559 (2004), 1655 (2006) 1680 (2006) and 1697 (2006), as well as the statements of its President on the situation in Lebanon, in particular the statements of 18 June 2000 (S/PRST/2000/21), of 19 October 2004 (S/PRST/2004/36), of 4 May 2005 (S/PRST/2005/17) of 23 January 2006 (S/PRST/2006/3) and of 30 July 2006 (S/PRST/2006/35),

PP2. Expressing its utmost concern at the continuing escalation of hostilities in Lebanon and in Israel since Hezbollah's attack on Israel on 12 July 2006, which has already caused hundreds of deaths and injuries on both sides, extensive damage to civilian infrastructure and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons,

PP3. Emphasizing the need for an end of violence, but at the same time emphasizing the need to address urgently the causes that have given rise to the current crisis, including by the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers,

PP4: Mindful of the sensitivity of the issue of prisoners and encouraging the efforts aimed at urgently settling the issue of the Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel,

PP5. Welcoming the efforts of the Lebanese Prime Minister and the commitment of the government of Lebanon, in its seven-point plan, to extend its authority over its territory, through its own legitimate armed forces, such that there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon, welcoming also its commitment to a UN force that is supplemented and enhanced in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operation, and bearing in mind its request in this plan for an immediate withdrawal of the Israeli forces from Southern Lebanon,

PP6. Determined to act for this withdrawal to happen at the earliest,

PP7. Taking due note of the proposals made in the seven-point plan regarding the Shebaa farms area,

PP8. Welcoming the unanimous decision by the government of Lebanon on 7 August 2006 to deploy a Lebanese armed force of 15,000 troops in South Lebanon as the Israeli army withdraws behind the Blue Line and to request the assistance of additional forces from UNIFIL as needed, to facilitate the entry of the Lebanese armed forces into the region and to restate its intention to strengthen the Lebanese armed forces with material as needed to enable it to perform its duties,

PP9. Aware of its responsibilities to help secure a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution to the conflict,

PP10. Determining that the situation in Lebanon constitutes a threat to international peace and security,

OP1. Calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations;

OP2. Upon full cessation of hostilities, calls upon the government of Lebanon and UNIFIL as authorized by paragraph 11 to deploy their forces together throughout the South and calls upon the government of Israel, as that deployment begins, to withdraw all of its forces from Southern Lebanon in parallel;

OP3. Emphasizes the importance of the extension of the control of the government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory in accordance with the provisions of resolution 1559 (2004) and resolution 1680 (2006), and of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, for it to exercise its full sovereignty, so that there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon;

OP4. Reiterates its strong support for full respect for the Blue Line;

OP5. Also reiterates its strong support, as recalled in all its previous relevant resolutions, for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognized borders, as contemplated by the Israeli-Lebanese General Armistice Agreement of 23 March 1949;

OP6. Calls on the international community to take immediate steps to extend its financial and humanitarian assistance to the Lebanese people, including through facilitating the safe return of displaced persons and, under the authority of the Government of Lebanon, reopening airports and harbours, consistent with paragraphs 14 and 15, and calls on it also to consider further assistance in the future to contribute to the reconstruction and development of Lebanon;

OP7. Affirms that all parties are responsible for ensuring that no action is taken contrary to paragraph 1 that might adversely affect the search for a long-term solution, humanitarian access to civilian populations, including safe passage for humanitarian convoys, or the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons, and calls on all parties to comply with this responsibility and to cooperate with the Security Council;

OP8. Calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:
? full respect for the Blue Line by both parties,
? security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11, deployed in this area,
? full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27, 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state,
? no foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government,
? no sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government,
? provision to the United Nations of all remaining maps of land mines in Lebanon in Israel's possession;

OP9. Invites the Secretary General to support efforts to secure as soon as possible agreements in principle from the Government of Lebanon and the Government of Israel to the principles and elements for a long-term solution as set forth in paragraph 8, and expresses its intention to be actively involved;

OP10. Requests the Secretary General to develop, in liaison with relevant international actors and the concerned parties, proposals to implement the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), including disarmament, and for delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including by dealing with the Shebaa farms area, and to present to the Security Council those proposals within thirty days;

OP11. Decides, in order to supplement and enhance the force in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operations, to authorize an increase in the force strength of UNIFIL to a maximum of 15,000 troops, and that the force shall, in addition to carrying out its mandate under resolutions 425 and 426 (1978):
a. Monitor the cessation of hostilities;
b. Accompany and support the Lebanese armed forces as they deploy throughout the South, including along the Blue Line, as Israel withdraws its armed forces from Lebanon as provided in paragraph 2;
c. Coordinate its activities related to paragraph 11 (b) with the Government of Lebanon and the Government of Israel;
d. Extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations and the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons;
e. Assist the Lebanese armed forces in taking steps towards the establishment of the area as referred to in paragraph 8;
f. Assist the government of Lebanon, at its request, to implement paragraph 14;

OP12. Acting in support of a request from the government of Lebanon to deploy an international force to assist it to exercise its authority throughout the territory, authorizes UNIFIL to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces and as it deems within its capabilities, to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind, to resist attempts by forceful means to prevent it from discharging its duties under the mandate of the Security Council, and to protect United Nations personnel, facilities, installations and equipment, ensure the security and freedom of movement of United Nations personnel, humanitarian workers, and, without prejudice to the responsibility of the government of Lebanon, to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence;

OP13. Requests the Secretary General urgently to put in place measures to ensure UNIFIL is able to carry out the functions envisaged in this resolution, urges Member States to consider making appropriate contributions to UNIFIL and to respond positively to requests for assistance from the Force, and expresses its strong appreciation to those who have contributed to UNIFIL in the past;

OP14. Calls upon the Government of Lebanon to secure its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel and requests UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11 to assist the Government of Lebanon at its request;

OP15. Decides further that all states shall take the necessary measures to prevent, by their nationals or from their territories or using their flag vessels or aircraft,
(a) the sale or supply to any entity or individual in Lebanon of arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and spare parts for the aforementioned, whether or not originating in their territories, and
(b) the provision to any entity or individual in Lebanon of any technical training or assistance related to the provision, manufacture, maintenance or use of the items listed in subparagraph (a) above,
except that these prohibitions shall not apply to arms, related material, training or assistance authorized by the Government of Lebanon or by UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11;

OP16. Decides to extend the mandate of UNIFIL until 31 August 2007, and expresses its intention to consider in a later resolution further enhancements to the mandate and other steps to contribute to the implementation of a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution;

OP17. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Council within one week on the implementation of this resolution and subsequently on a regular basis;

OP18. Stresses the importance of, and the need to achieve, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on all its relevant resolutions including its resolutions 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 and 338 (1973) of 22 October 1973;

OP19. Decides to remain actively seized of the matter.
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 11, 2006, 10:07:38 PM
Granted there is some subtlety to the resolution (thank you for providing it), but ultimately the IDF was ready to go change the facts on the ground.  The enemy will use acceptance of the resolution to inspire throughout the region (transcending Sunni-Shiite divide?) that they are the strong horse.  Iran will accelerate disruption in Iraq.  Russia will improve Iran's ground missile to air capabilities (contract already signed btw).  Maybe Pak's ISI sold out the UK air plot to distract attention from its new nuke production plant being built that will give it 25-50 nukes a year-- whether it did or did not the Paks are now following a new line after Bush's nuke deal with India-- and the Taliban is bubbling over the border.  What are implications of Pak becomer a nuclear actor again? And what a pefect moment for NK to play its tag team game with Iran.

To lose the opportunity to change the facts on the ground in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley would have removed Iran's counter threat to any Israeli action against it.  A price has already been paid in civilian deaths.  What is the logic of leaving them now on the field instead of having the military settling that must be had?
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 12, 2006, 06:29:07 AM
Also, what if due to recent events Hasrallah becomes PM?  Or, at the very least what if Hez integrates into the Lebanese army?  Israel then has no legal basis to act and Hezballah gets free reign.

Even if this does not significantly happen, if the Israelis are unwilling to take on Hezballah, what rational basis is there for thinking that the French or the UN will?

My initial impression is that this is a grave historic mistake.

CD
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on August 12, 2006, 08:32:31 AM
Crafty:

Never before in its history has Israel been given such wide latitude to destroy a terrorist enemy organization. Israel flubbed the opportunity by not acting decisively from the start. Now its too late, now Israel has to accept the deal cooked up in the UN. I think Rice has done a great job. I hate to think want the deal might have been with Colin Powell still in place.

Pakistan and Iran are American worries, not something Israel can do anything about directly. As for Hasrallah becoming PM, that would not be unusual, the winners of political infighting rise to the top and Hasrallah is the de facto Shia chief in Lebanon. The Shia have been out-breeding, out-fighting, out-terrorizing and out-maneuvering the other ethnic and religious groups in Lebanon. That is a reality on the ground and it has to be accepted and dealt with. Again, if you want to play the blame game, blame Israel for letting it happen but the reality is that back then Israel was either unable or unwilling to do it so now it's the new reality you need to deal with.

I'm an optimist. With luck, Hebollah can remain a minority partner in the Lebanese government but can be disarmed or at least removed from Israel's border. How effective will the French be at this task? Hard to say. Like most colonial powers, they have won some and lost some. The French have a lot of pressure back home to favor Arabs over Israelis so I don't really trust them. In a way this would be a repeat? of the Brits favoring the Arabs over the Jews at the time of the partition of Palestine. But the 800 pound gorilla is on Israel's side so I would not worry about it too much.

The main issue, not just for the Middle East but for the whole world is how you handle the clock. Some people want to turn the clock back: return Israel to the 1948 lines, return Islam to the glory of Muhammad and Saladin. I'm against this kind of thinking because it is entirely futile. We need to keep moving forward, not backward. How about returning Manhattan to the Dutch. Or returning Haiti to the Tainos. Or returning Peru to the Quechuas? Or returning Palestine to the Ottomans, to the Phoenicians or maybe to the Romans or to the Hittites. The only objective reality is the present and we need to move forward from the present. There is no turning back the clock. Turning back the clock implies ethnic cleansing.

Instead of worrying about the current Middle East settlement, you need to worry about Islam out-breeding you in the USA. After they out-breed you they will out-legislate you. You ready for Sharia law yet? Just as Islam requires adherence to their laws, America must require all nationals and resident aliens to adhere to American law, specifically to the Constitution. If they don't, they need to be dealt with swiftly.
.
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 12, 2006, 09:18:03 AM
1)  I don't see why its "too late".

2)  If Nasrallah becomes PM, then under this resolution doesn't Lebanon have the right to import arms, etc from Syria and Iran and have the protection of 15,000 UN troops to complicate Israel's life?
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on August 12, 2006, 10:02:09 AM
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on August 12, 2006, 09:18:03 AM
1)? I don't see why its "too late".

Because the window of opportunity that the Sunnis gave Israel is gone. Israel squandered it it. if Hezbollah stops the rocket attacks, Israel can go back on the offensive only as the aggressor, not as the defender. If Iran does not allow Hezbollah to cease and desist, then Israel is free to continue military action under the current resolution.

Quote from: Crafty_Dog on August 12, 2006, 09:18:03 AM
2)? If Nasrallah becomes PM, then under this resolution doesn't Lebanon have the right to import arms, etc from Syria and Iran and have the protection of 15,000 UN troops to complicate Israel's life?

Yes. Now you are stating why the prosecution of this war was such a big goof on Israel's part. I don't want to sound bloodthirsty? but only around 1,000 people have died in 30 days of fighting and the world is calling it a massacre. In Tokyo 100,000 people died in one air raid in less than 24 hours. The Tokyo fire-bombing was two or three orders of magnitude greater butchery than the present war.? Why did Israel start the war with such restraint? To protect its soldiers. Big mistake. The purpose of war is to win, to make the other side pay a price it is not willing and able to pay. If your side is not willing to pay the price for extracting victory then you might as well not go to war at all.

The message has to be, "Don't mess with me. If you do, you'll be sorry. If you don't, we can get along" Hezbollah's perception was that Israel valued life too much to take on Hezbollah and, at the start of the war, they were almost right, Israel did take them on but timorously. It was only after three weeks of floundering that Israel saw the light but by then the window of opportunity was fast closing.

I'm going to quote Churchill again, he seems to be one of the few who gets it right.

"Owing to the neglect of our defences and the mishandling of the German problem in the last five years, we seem to be very near the bleak choice between War and Shame. My feeling is that we shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a little later, on even more adverse terms than at present."
Winston Churchill in a letter to Lord Moyne, 1938

Tell me how 2006 Israel is different from 1938 Britain in this respect?

.
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 12, 2006, 10:12:06 AM
Agreed Olmert's vascillations have been a disaster.? To start something you are not willing to finish is the height of foolishness.? That said, Hez is still shooting missiles.? Why not reject the resolution for any and all of the variety of good reasons for doing so and simply allow the IDF to apply its plan?

The Churchill quote is dead on.
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: captainccs on August 12, 2006, 10:48:06 AM
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on August 12, 2006, 10:12:06 AM
Why not reject the resolution for any and all of the variety of good reasons for doing so and simply allow the IDF to apply its plan?

The Churchill quote is dead on.

Because it is not necessary to reject it. As long as Hezbollah continues for fire missiles, the IDF can continue to wage war -- something we agree on as the right thing to do -- while all the time claiming the high ground by accepting the UN resolution. I had to chuckle when Kofi Annan had no choice but to say that Hezbollah was the aggressor, that Israel had the right to defend herself and that Israel was in compliance with the UN resolutions. For Kofi that must have been like taking bitter medicine.?

Crafty, I can see you are a fighter, not a diplomat, that you don't have what in Spanish we call "mano izquierda."

For quite some time now I've had the feeling that Olmert and Rice have put on a fantastic show, they have been a fantastic dancing couple. Rice has been firm in her defense of Israel. Rice has been flexible in her dealings with France and Lebanon. Rice has been polite to the UN. Yet, I have a feeling that Rice told Olmert when to launch the latest attack before the UN acted on the latest resolution. The timing was just too perfect.


Now Israel has the best of both worlds, a meat grinder eating up Hezbollah while accepting the UN resolution because Israel is a peace loving country. I find it brilliant!


Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 12, 2006, 11:47:16 AM
Special Report: Israel Launches Major Offensive
The confusion of yesterday has been clarified. Israel has moved, in force, into southern Lebanon. Whatever the political crisis was yesterday, Israel has clearly decided to invade southern Lebanon, at the very least. The apparent battle between those who oppose a full invasion and those who support one appears to have been settled in favor of the latter.

After the U.N. cease-fire resolution was approved, Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz said that operations in Lebanon were expanding, and that he expected to conduct offensive operations there for another week, despite the resolution. Brig. Gen. Alon Friedman, IDF's Northern Command chief of staff, told reporters he expects combat operations to push all the way to the Litani River and other areas that Hezbollah has used to launch rockets into Israel. So far, he said, the political leaders "have not instructed us to stop the operation."

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Halutz and other senior IDF officers visited Northern Command headquarters in Safed late Aug. 11. This meeting appears to have been to approve last-minute changes to the expanded offensive, and to coordinate the initial phase of the attack.

IDF troops began advancing from their staging areas in Israel north and west across south Lebanon toward the Litani River and the Mediterranean. IDF said taking the area would take several days and clearing it could take weeks. The Israeli air force struck Hezbollah positions in the south and other targets all across the country. Power was cut off in Tyre and Sidon, probably to degrade Hezbollah's command, control and communications. Bottom line: Whatever the U.N. Security Council might have intended, the outcome in Israel was an IDF order to disarm Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. At present, there is only air action in the Bekaa Valley.

For IDF ground forces, the fighting has been intense as units have engaged entrenched Hezbollah positions. IDF reports killing 20 Hezbollah fighters Aug. 12, and Hezbollah claims to have destroyed 21 Israeli armored vehicles and killed or wounded a large number of IDF troops. It appears that the IDF westward advance is pushing west from Taibe and Qantara, on an axis about five miles from the Israeli border. In the largest IDF airlift in 30 years, troops were airlifted into battle by some 50 helicopters.

In one of their deepest incursions into southern Lebanon, Israeli commandos supported by air power assaulted the village of Al Ghandourieh, approximately 10 miles southwest of the Israeli-held town of Marjayoun, early Aug. 12, meeting stiff resistance. This area overlooks valleys used by Hezbollah to conceal and launch their rockets, and can be expected to be heavily contested. The IDF advance appears to have disrupted Hezbollah rocket artillery operations, with no rockets launched during the morning and only 30 launched at Qiryat Shemona and Amirim. Hezbollah had been launching an average of 200 artillery rockets into northern Israel per day.

The advance seen thus far is methodical and, in spite of reports, fairly conservative. The Israelis do not seem to be carrying out slashing armored attacks, but are concentrating on combined arms operations to isolate and destroy strong points. It is now clear that, unless another shift takes place among Israeli leadership, the destruction we expected in the south is taking place. This has already diminished rocket fire into Israel, but we remain doubtful that all rocket attacks can be shut down by attacking the south. Further operations remain an option, although that option is uncertain in this political environment.

The issue now is Hezbollah's response. The group clearly knows it will be defeated by IDF in the south. One of its goals is obviously to inflict maximum casualties. Another must be to impose as many delays as possible. Hezbollah has been under sustained air attack for more than a month, so the resilience of its forces is a question mark.

However, broader than this issue is the strategic response of Hezbollah. A defeat in the south would obviously hurt Hezbollah greatly. It would not, however, eliminate Hezbollah's warfighting ability, since we assume it holds reserves in the Beirut area and the Bekaa Valley. The group also claims to have longer-range rockets in its arsenal -- we assume with only conventional warheads, but we don't know that for certain. With Israel committed, two questions arise: First, how far does Israel go? And, second, what is Hezbollah's response?

www.stratfor.com
Title: Hezbollah torpedoes Lebanese gov't meeting on disarmament
Post by: captainccs on August 13, 2006, 03:28:00 PM
Hezbollah torpedoes Lebanese gov't meeting on disarmament

By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent

A meeting of the Lebanese government on the disarming of Hezbollah south of the Litani River was canceled on Sunday following an announcement by the Shi'ite organization that it was not willing to discuss the subject. Hezbollah informed the government of its stance through the speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Beri, who serves as a conduit to the organization.

Beri informed Prime Minister Fuad Siniora of Hezbollah's decision, and Siniora decided to cancel the meeting.

This is the first time in weeks that a rift emerged in the official Lebanese stance. Officially, the government of Lebanon denied reports that any dispute has emerged.

But in an interview to Al Jazeera yesterday, Joe Sarkiss, Lebanon's minister of tourism, said that "the army will not deploy in the south unless there are no arms in the south except those of a legitimate military force and UNIFIL."

A Lebanese government source wrote on the Arab internet site Ilaf that "when it comes to crunch time, Hezbollah is refusing to give up its arms."

The same source said that the Lebanese government had opted to cancel the meeting so that the disputes will not cause a rift between the Shi'ite ministers and the rest.

Last week, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah announced that the organization had reservations regarding the UN resolution, suggesting that the group would find it difficult to meet the cease-fire decision.

On Sunday, Minister Marwan Hamada, one of the bitter opponents of Hezbollah, told the Voice of Lebanon radio station that if Lebanon is interested in liberating southern Lebanon, it would have to be the sole player in the area that is armed.

Meanwhile, analysts in Lebanon believe that the rocket attacks against the Galilee will cease today, as the cease-fire agreement goes into effect.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/750015.html
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 14, 2006, 04:03:35 AM

Comment: An unmitigated disaster

Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST
Aug. 13, 2006

There is a good reason that Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah has accepted UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which sets the terms for a cease-fire between his jihad army and the State of Israel.
The resolution represents a near-total victory for Hizbullah and its state sponsors Iran and Syria, and an unprecedented defeat for Israel and its ally the United States. This fact is evident both in the text of the resolution and in the very fact that the US decided to sponsor a cease-fire resolution before Israel had dismantled or seriously degraded Hizbullah's military capabilities.
While the resolution was not passed under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter and so does not have the authority of law, in practice it makes it all but impossible for Israel to defend itself against Hizbullah aggression without being exposed to international condemnation on an unprecedented scale.
This is the case first of all because the resolution places responsibility for determining compliance in the hands of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan has distinguished himself as a man capable only of condemning Israel for its acts of self-defense while ignoring the fact that in attacking Israel, its enemies are guilty of war crimes. By empowering Annan to evaluate compliance, the resolution all but ensures that Hizbullah will not be forced to disarm and that Israel will be forced to give up the right to defend itself.
The resolution makes absolutely no mention of either Syria or Iran, without whose support Hizbullah could neither exist nor wage an illegal war against Israel. In so ignoring Hizbullah's sponsors, it ignores the regional aspect of the current war and sends the message to these two states that they may continue to equip terrorist armies in Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq with the latest weaponry without paying a price for their aggression.
The resolution presents Hizbullah with a clear diplomatic victory by placing their erroneous claim of Lebanese sovereignty over the Shaba Farms, or Mount Dov - a vast area on the Golan Heights that separates the Syrian Golan from the Upper Galilee and is disputed between Israel and Syria - on the negotiating table. In doing so, the resolution rewards Hizbullah's aggression by giving international legitimacy to its demand for territorial aggrandizement via acts of aggression, in contravention of the laws of nations.
Moreover, by allowing Lebanon to make territorial claims on Israel despite the fact that in 2000 the UN determined that Israel had withdrawn to the international border, the resolution sets a catastrophic precedent for the future. Because Lebanon is receiving international support for legally unsupportable territorial demands on Israel, in the future, the Palestinians, Syrians and indeed the Jordanians and Egyptians will feel empowered to employ aggression to gain territorial concessions from the Jewish state even if they previously signed treaties of peace with Israel. The message of the resolution's stand on Shaba Farms is that Israel can never expect for the world to recognize any of its borders as final.
By calling in the same paragraph for the "immediate cessation by Hizbullah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations," the resolution treats as equivalent Hizbullah's illegal aggression against Israel and Israel's legitimate military actions taken in defense of its sovereign territory.
Operational Paragraph 7, which "affirms that all parties are responsible for ensuring that no action is taken contrary to paragraph 1 [which calls for a cessation of hostilities] that might adversely affect the search for a long-term solution, humanitarian access to civilian populations, including safe passage for humanitarian convoys, or the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons," all but bars Israel from taking military action to defend itself in the future. Any steps Israel takes will open it to accusations - by Annan - of breaching this paragraph.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had let it be known that Israel's conditions for a cease-fire included the institution of an arms embargo against Hizbullah. The government also insisted that the international force it wished to have deployed along the border would work to dismantle Hizbullah.
However, paragraph 8 puts both the question of an arms embargo and Hizbullah's dismantlement off to some future date when Israel and Lebanon agree to the terms of a "permanent cease-fire." In addition, it places the power to oversee an arms embargo against Hizbullah in the hands of the Lebanese government, of which Hizbullah is a member.
While the resolution bars Israel from taking measures necessary to defend its territory and citizens, by keeping UNIFIL in Lebanon it ensures that no other force will be empowered to take these necessary actions. Furthermore, paragraph 2 "calls upon the government of Israel, as that deployment [of the Lebanese military and UNIFIL] begins, to withdraw all of its forces from southern Lebanon in parallel. This means that Israel is expected to withdraw before a full deployment of Lebanese and UNIFIL forces is carried out. As a result, a vacuum will be created that will allow Hizbullah to reinforce its positions in south Lebanon.
Finally, the resolution makes no operative call for the release of IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev now being held hostage by Hizbullah. By relegating their fate to a paragraph in the preamble, which then immediately turns to Hizbullah's demand for the release of Lebanese terrorists held in Israeli jails, the resolution all but eliminates any possibility of their returning home.
Aside from the resolution's egregious language, the very fact that the US has sponsored a resolution that leaves Hizbullah intact as a fighting force constitutes a devastating blow to the national security of both Israel and the US, for the following reasons:

It grants the Lebanese government and military unwarranted legitimacy. The resolution treats the Lebanese government and military as credible bodies. However, the Lebanese government is currently under the de facto control of Hizbullah and Syria.
Moreover, the Lebanese army is paying pensions to the families of Hizbullah fighters killed in battle, and its forces have actively assisted Hizbullah in attacking Israel and Israeli military targets.
Indeed, the seven-point declaration issued by the Lebanese government, which the UN resolution applauds, was dictated by Hizbullah, as admitted by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and Nasrallah last week.

It incites Shi'ite violence in Iraq. From a US perspective, the resolution drastically increases the threat of a radical Shi'ite revolt in Iraq. Hizbullah is intimately tied to Iraqi Shi'ite terrorist Muqtada al-Sadr.
In April 2003, Hizbullah opened offices in southern Iraq and was instrumental in training the Mahdi Army, which Sadr leads. During a demonstration in Baghdad last week, Sadr's followers demanded that he consider them an extension of Hizbullah, and expressed a genuine desire to participate in Hizbullah's war against the US and Israel.
It should be assumed that Hizbullah's presumptive victory in its war against Israel will act as a catalyst for violence by Sadr and his followers against the Iraqi government and coalition forces in the weeks to come. Indeed, the Hizbullah victory will severely weaken moderate Shi'ites in the Maliki government and among the followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

It empowers Iran. Iran emerges as the main victor in the current war. Not only was it not condemned for its sponsorship of Hizbullah, it is being rewarded for that sponsorship because it is clear to all parties that Iran was the engine behind this war, and that its side has won.
The UN resolution does not strengthen the US hand in future Security Council deliberations regarding Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program because the states that object to any action against Iran - Russia and China - will continue with their refusal to sign on to any substantive action.
Indeed, Russia's behavior regarding the situation in Lebanon, including the fact that a large percentage of Hizbullah's arsenal of advanced anti-tank missiles was sold by Russia to Syria and Iran, exposes that Moscow's role in the current conflict has been similar to the position taken by the Soviet Union in earlier Middle East wars.
Furthermore, because the resolution strengthens the UN as the arbiter of peace and security in the region, the diplomatic price the US will be forced to pay if it decides to go outside the UN to contend with the Iranian threat has been vastly increased.
Many sources in Washington told this writer over the weekend that the US decision to seek a cease-fire was the result of Israel's amateurish bungling of the first three weeks of the war. The Bush administration, they argued, was being blamed for the Olmert government's incompetence and so preferred to cut its losses and sue for a cease-fire.
There is no doubt much truth to this assertion. The government's prosecution of this war has been unforgivably inept. At the same time it should be noted that the short-term political gain accrued by the US by forging the cease-fire agreement will come back to haunt the US, Israel and all forces fighting the forces of global jihad in the coming weeks and months.
By handing a victory to Hizbullah, the resolution strengthens the belief of millions of supporters of jihad throughout the world that their side is winning and that they should redouble efforts to achieve their objectives of destroying Israel and running the US out of the Middle East.


This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525859901&pagename =JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Title: The Real War
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on August 14, 2006, 01:19:44 PM
The Real War ...
?one more time.

By Michael Ledeen

Watching the war in Lebanon and listening to the debate about it, is just like watching the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its attendant debate. Israelis are demanding the resignation of Olmert, just as Americans are demanding the head of Bush. Israeli military experts, real and self-proclaimed, are explaining how the Lebanon war could have been won, if only the ground campaign had started earlier, or had been more ambitious. American strategists of varying competence are explaining how the Iraq war could have been won, if only there were more boots on the ground, or if only a different strategy had been employed, or if only the Baathist army had been kept intact.
I think it?s nonsense. Both campaigns and both debates suffer from the same narrow focus, the same failure of strategic vision, the same obsession with a single campaign in a single place, when the war itself ? the real war ? is far wider. Our leaders and our pundits are fighting single battles, and, since their strategies are not designed to win the real war, they are doomed to fail. The failure of strategic vision is not unique to politicians, or pundits, or military strategists; it seems common to them all. It is extremely rare to hear an authoritative voice addressing the real war.

The terror masters in Syria and Iran are waging a regional war against us, running from Afghanistan and Iraq to, Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon. Alongside the ground war in the Middle East, they are conducting fifth-column operations against us from Europe to India and on to Indonesia, Australia, and the United States; the plot just dismantled in Great Britain provides the latest evidence.

Israel cannot destroy Hezbollah by fighting in Lebanon alone, just as we cannot provide Iraq and Afghanistan with decent security by fighting only there. The destruction of Hezbollah requires regime change in Damascus. Security in Iraq and Afghanistan requires regime change in Damascus and Tehran. Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, and Afghanistan are not separate conflicts. They are battlefields in a regional war.

Even if the Israelis had conducted a brilliant campaign that killed every single Hezbollah terrorist in Lebanon, it would only have bought time. The Syrians and Iranians would have restocked, rearmed and resupplied the Hezbollahis, and prepared for the next battle. But if the Assad regime were replaced with a government opposed to terrorism and committed to freedom, Hezbollah would die of logistical starvation, cut off from money, weapons, training facilities, and the crucial support of Syrian and Iranian military and intelligence organizations.

In like manner, even if we continue to win every battle in every region of Iraq and Afghanistan, we will only prolong the fighting. The Iranians and their various allies inside Iraq, from the Baathist remnant to the Sadrists to Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and other foreign terrorists, would continue to infiltrate the country, buy agents within Iraq, develop new generations of IEDs and smuggle ever more accurate rockets and missiles to use against us and the Iraqi forces of order. They will do the same in Afghanistan. But if the mullahcracy is replaced by a government empowered by the tens of millions of pro-American and pro-democracy people now oppressed by the evil terror masters in Tehran, the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan would be quickly transformed into a manageable operation with the balance of power overwhelmingly on the side of the governments.

The longer we wait, the larger the real war becomes. Iran has been at war with us for 27 years and we have yet to respond. As time passes, and our fecklessness is confirmed, the mullahs? confidence grows. Surely they must believe that their moment has come, that we will never respond, that they can bloody us and force us to retreat. That is the clear lesson of Lebanon, and they are undoubtedly raising the stakes for the next round. The Iranian missiles used against Israeli warships off the coast of Lebanon are now pouring into Somalia, and will be used against our ships in one of the most strategically sensitive areas of the world economy. The clandestine network rolled up in London surely extends to this country, and it is only a matter of time until they get lucky. Just a few weeks ago, the Germans fortunately discovered powerful bombs on their railroads. The French found similar weapons a couple of years ago. The Italians have arrested 40 people, are expelling many others, and have more than a thousand under surveillance.

These are the outlines of future events in the real war. We have a president who, despite his many weaknesses, speaks as if he understands it. But we have a secretary of state who speaks and acts as if she did not, a secretary of defense who has manifestly failed to grasp the true strategic dimensions of our peril, and an intelligence community that is still obsessed with the failed theories of the recent past, notably the nonsense about the unbridgeable Sunni-Shiite conflict. The president has finally begun to speak the truth about Islamic fascists, but he has yet to level with the American people about the magnitude of the real war, and ask them to support a strategy for victory.

That strategy does not, even today, require greatly expanded military action against the terror masters. Our most potent weapon against them remains the rage and courage of their own peoples. We must support those people, we must openly call and work for regime change in Syria and Iran. Heartbreakingly and foolishly, our failure to support revolution makes military action more and more likely. If we do not do the logical and sensible things, if we do not deploy the massive political weapons at our disposal, we will end by doing terrible things. Or, shrinking from the consequences of such action, we will suffer defeat, and the world will be plunged into a darkness the likes of which any civilized person must dread.

Faster, please.

? Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.



National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDg1ZmVlYzNlODk0ODNmNGYxYzkxNTg2MjI3ODFjZDM=
Title: Arab Press on Lebanon
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on August 14, 2006, 07:23:47 PM
August 15, 2006   No.1249

Arab Media Accuses Iran and Syria of Direct Involvement in Lebanon War
The war between Israel and Hizbullah has revealed profound disagreement in the Arab world between countries that support Hizbullah and those that oppose it, headed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The disagreement was reflected in the Arab media, which published articles supporting Hizbullah along with harsh criticism and accusations against it.

One of the accusations leveled against Hizbullah was that the organization does not serve the interests of the Lebanese people, but acts in the service of Syria and Iran, thereby jeopardizing Arab interests. Many articles argued that Syria and Iran had manufactured the crisis in order to draw world attention away from the Iranian nuclear issue and away from the results of the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri. It was also claimed that Iran was working to destroy the Arab countries from within by encouraging armed militias to rebel against the Arab regimes.

Supporters of Hizbullah in Syria and Lebanon rejected the claim that Hizbullah was serving Syrian and Iranian agendas. They countered that it is Israel that is acting in the service of the West, which aims to redraw the map of the Middle East.

The following are excerpts from articles published in the Arab media:



Articles in the Arab Press: Hizbullah is Acting in the Service of Iran and Syria


*The Abduction of the Israeli Soldiers was Planned in Advance by Syria and Iran

Lebanese columnist Huda Al-Husseini wrote in the London Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat: "These two countries [Syria and Iran] want to leave their troubles behind, and both of them are holding some of the same cards, including Hamas and Hizbullah. Syria wants to break out of its isolation and to wreak havoc [in the region] in order to avoid the consequences of the investigation into the murder of [former Lebanese] prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri, and Iran wants to avoid giving any response to the European-American proposal [regarding its nuclear program]...

"Iran dispatched the head of its nuclear negotiations team, 'Ali Larijani, [to Europe] in order to postpone the date on which it would have to stop its uranium enrichment activities, and when it heard that the matter would be referred to the Security Council, the abduction of the two Israeli soldiers was carried out... Larijani made a surprise visit to Damascus and consulted with Syrian Vice-President Farouq Al-Shar', after receiving instructions from Tehran to instigate a regional crisis which would draw attention away from Iran. [Larijani] spoke of the need for a war against Israel, and [Farouq Al-Shar'] replied that the occupation justifies resistance [activities] in Lebanon and Palestine... Syria speaks of resistance, even at the cost of Lebanon's destruction, and Iran speaks in the name of all Muslims. Lebanon has [thus] been taken hostage by Hizbullah, Syria and Iran, and Islam [itself] has almost become a hostage to Iran's aspirations... Why must Lebanon always pay the price for the adventurism of local forces that are supported by regional forces?" [1]


*The Timing of the Operation - on the Same Day That Iran's Nuclear Dossier was Referred to the Security Council - Indicates Direct Iranian Involvement

'Abd Al-Rahim 'Ali, director of the Arab Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy in Cairo, wrote in the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram: "When Hizbullah responded to Iran's promptings and to incitement by other regional [forces], it knew that it was starting a war between two unequal forces - [a war] whose full price would be paid by the Lebanese people alone... When [Iran] saw that its [nuclear] dossier would soon be transferred to the Security Council, it decided to use Lebanon, along with Iraq, as a bargaining card to increase the pressure on the Americans. The question is whether the Lebanese people must [really] be subjected to all this destruction for the sake of a campaign in which they have no part. If the abduction of the two Israeli soldiers had been carried out during an Israeli offensive in South Lebanon, or during fighting between [Israel] and Hizbullah, this escapade might have been justifiable. But the timing of the operation was puzzling, and clearly indicates Iranian involvement in the crisis." [2]

Lebanese columnist Fuad Matar wrote in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat: "Hizbullah has placed the [Arabs] in a questionable situation, [since its] operation was meant to serve Iran's interests, [as is apparent from its] timing: on the very same day that the five permanent [Security Council] members and Germany referred Iran's nuclear dossier back to the Security Council." [3]


*Our Resources Must Not Be Destroyed in the Service of Foreign Agendas

Tareq Al-Humeid, editor-in-chief of the London Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, wrote: "It is inconceivable that our abilities and resources should be destroyed and eliminated [just] because [some] group has decided to set the region on fire in the service of foreign agendas... Those who wish to fight Israel should bear the consequences [for their own actions] - especially since, in his speeches, Nasrallah presents himself as the ultimate Arab leader and says that he 'is not asking for anyone's help.' The same goes for [Hamas Political Bureau head] Khaled Mash'al. You two [i.e. Nasrallah and Mash'al] should bear responsibility [for the situation you have created] and suffer the consequences yourselves." [4]


*Egyptian Government Daily: "The Next Struggle in the Arab World Will Be... Between Two Axes... The Iranian [Axis] and the American [Axis]"

Muhammad 'Ali Ibrahim, chief editor of the Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhuriyya, wrote: "We are faced with two plans, each more dangerous than the other. The first is the Israeli-American plan which seeks to destroy the Arab countries from without, either through military operations or by means of economic restrictions. The second is the Iranian plan which seeks to destroy the Arab states from within [by using] Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine [as proxies], and by swallowing Iraq, [an aim] which seems to have already been realized... Iran wishes and plans to turn the entire Arab world into a [assortment of] armed militias like Hizbullah.

"The next struggle in the Arab world will be a struggle between two axes or camps - the Iranian [axis] and the American [axis] - and Lebanon seems to be the first instance of a struggle between the two... These two axes are seeking to wage war on their own behalf, or by employing proxies so as to not dirty their own hands. These wars will deepen the rift between the movements and the states [in which they operate], or between the insurgents and the Arab regimes - or, to be explicit, between the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hizbullah [on the one hand] and the Arab governments [on the other]. The proof of [the truth] of my statement is the demonstration at which Sheikh Mahdi 'Akef, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, called for jihad against Israel. This is an Iranian jihad, which aims to destroy Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan from within by turning them into [a battleground] for various militias, as is occurring in Lebanon..." [5]

Egyptian columnist Hazem 'Abd Al-Rahman wrote in the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram: "[Let me say it] for the thousandth time - all Iran wants is to extend its hegemony over the eastern Arab countries, and it is trying to use Hizbullah as a Trojan horse to achieve this aim. [Hizbullah] is paying [the price] in [sacrificing] the lives of its leaders, activists and supporters, and in the future [it will pay the price] by [sacrificing] the people and resources of Lebanon. Iran, [on the other hand], only reaps the benefit, and Iranian President Ahmadinejad contents himself with making fiery speeches about a new Middle East without Israel." [6]


*Hizbullah's Actions Aim to Strengthen Iran's and Syria's International Status

Ashraf Al-Ajrami, columnist for the PA daily Al-Ayyam, wrote: "It may be said that the Damascus-Tehran axis, which includes Hizbullah and Hamas - who are supporting actors but are playing a primary role - wanted to wreak havoc in the region, and [carried out this plan] in two main arenas - Palestine and Lebanon. [They] used the Palestinians and the Lebanese as pawns in the international game, in order to promote the interests of Tehran and Damascus in their conflict with the U.S. and in order to strengthen their international status..." [7]


*"The Arab Countries Should Have... Disarmed Hizbullah Before [the War]"

Jamal Hashukji, former editor of the Saudi daily Al-Watan, characterized the Saudi objection to Hizbullah's actions as "courageous," but said that it had come too late, since the Arab countries should have worked to disarm Hizbullah in advance [of the war]. "Saudi Arabia," he wrote, "was not the only one who [woke up] too late. So did the other Arab states, which neglected [to do anything about] Hizbullah's special status that has been prevailing for many years, waiting for firm Arab intervention to put an end to it. The U.S. also [woke up] too late, and should be held responsible for generating the present crisis by neglecting the peace process...

"One did not have to be a prophet or a psychic to foresee a [future] crisis in Lebanon... Hizbullah is the primary [side] that had an interest in the recent escalation. Political forces in Lebanon demanded its disarmament even before Israel and America [made this demand]. [So] Hizbullah extended its military life by kidnapping the two [Israeli] soldiers and setting the region on fire. Iran, [for its part], was interested in drawing attention away from its nuclear project. And Syria - angry, anxious, and hurting because of the loss of its hegemony over Lebanon - was interested in drawing attention away from the investigation into the assassination of [former Lebanese] prime minister [Rafiq] Al-Hariri...

"Some Lebanese politicians courageously suggested to disarm Hizbullah, [arguing that], with Lebanon liberated, there was no longer any need for resistance. But [Hizbullah] justified [its status as an armed organization] by claiming that the liberation was not complete as long as Israel still held on to the Shab'a Farms... The Syrians cooperated with this pretext by refusing to submit a document that either recognized the Shab'a Farms as Lebanese... or declared them to be Syrian. [Had they declared the Shab'a Farms to be Syrian], the Shab'a Farms would have become part of the occupied Golan. There would have been a formal announcement [declaring] that Lebanon's sovereignty [over all its territories] had been restored, and that its territories had been fully liberated. Hizbullah would have then given up its arms in a dignified ceremony, and the Lebanese army would have absorbed some of its men and [received] all of its military equipment. The party [i.e. Hizbullah] would have been free to devote itself exclusively to its political function, [namely] serving the Shi'ites in South [Lebanon] who are always complaining about their marginal status in society.

"We all made a mistake by not pressuring Syria to resolve this question [of whether the Shab'a farms are Syrian or Lebanese]... [The entire problem] could have been resolved through an agreement or an understanding involving Iran, Syria and the various interested parties in Lebanon." [8]


*Editor of the Kuwaiti Daily Arab Times: "Hamas and Hizbullah... Represent the Interests of Syria and Iran"

Ahmad Al-Jarallah, editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti dailies Arab Times and Al-Siyassa, wrote in the Arab Times: "Forgetting the interests of their own countries, Hamas and Hizbullah have gone so far as to represent the interests of Iran and Syria in their countries. These organizations became representatives of Syria and Iran without worrying about the consequences of their action...

"The fact that Hamas and Hizbullah gave the same reason for kidnapping the Israeli soldiers gives us a glimpse of their agenda, which is similar to the agenda of Syria and Iran in their conflict with the United States." [9]


Syria Responds: Israel is the One Who is Fighting Islam in the Service of the West

The Syrians denied that Hizbullah was acting in the service of Syria and Iran, and claimed that Israel is the one acting in the service of the West, which aims to redraw the map of the Middle East. Lebanese President Emile Lahoud endorsed the Syrian position, and told Fox News in an interview that "Hizbullah is Lebanese, and its demands are [made] in the service of Lebanese sovereignty... Its fighters are Lebanese, and its demands are Lebanese, not Syrian or Iranian." [10]


*Syrian Minister: The War in Lebanon is the Arabs' War of Independence Against the West

Syrian Minister of Expatriate Affairs Buthayna Sha'ban wrote in her column in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat: "The war in the Middle East is [indeed being fought] through proxies. But it is not Hizbullah which is a proxy, fighting on behalf of Syria and Iran, as some [have claimed] in attempt to mislead the Arabs. Israel is the one which is fighting the Arabs and Muslims on Lebanese soil on behalf of the U.S., Britain and the entire West...

"The first indication [of this] was [the fact that] that the Western countries began simultaneously to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon. Washington, London and Paris sent warships, while Canada, Australia and other countries hired ships in the area in order to speed up the evacuation of their citizens. [They did this] after they decided to give Israel the go-ahead to commit any war crimes it wants to commit in order to stamp out the resistance once and for all...

"This means that the war in Lebanon is not just Lebanon's war of independence, but is the [the independence war] of all the Arab masses, from the [Atlantic] Ocean to the Gulf. [They] must now [wage] their real war of independence in order to prove to various Western forces - which have instructed Israel of wage this war against the Arabs and against Islam - that the Arabs and Muslims are entitled to live in dignity upon their land, and that Israel's terrorist crimes, and the support it receives from the superpowers, will not keep the Arabs from expressing their rage...

"The plan, as [U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza] Rice said, is [to create] a 'new Middle East' in which the Arabs will have no honor, no rights and no voice. Do you accept [this]?... The aim of this political move is to bring the Arab existence in the region to an end, and to turn the Arabs in the region into refugees, exiles or second-rate citizens. Therefore, the outcome of the [present campaign] in the region [will determine] whether the Arabs will be here [in the future] or not." [11]


*This is a New Imperialist War

An article in the Syrian government daily Teshreen claimed that it is the American administration that is making the decisions in this war against Lebanon, while Israel only carries out its instructions: "[Today,] on the 13th day [of the war], it is becoming more and more clear that the American administration is not only a partner to the Israeli aggression, but that it is calling the shots, while the implementing mechanism is strictly Israeli...

"This imperialist war to which Lebanon and the [Muslim] nation are being subjected proves that these new imperialists do not respect the U.N. resolutions or the Convention on Human Rights... Their only goal is to divide our Arab region and carve it up into smaller and smaller [pieces] in order to implement their [plan for a] 'New Middle East'. [Israeli Minister] Shimon Peres announced [this plan] one day, and the American administration then directed Israel to begin the implementation of its first phase. The disturbing question in this context is this: Will the [Muslim] nation wake up [in time] to defend its identity and honor before we all sink?..." [12]


*The War is an American Initiative Meant to Compensate for America's Failure in Iraq

Syrian columnist Muhammad 'Ali Boza wrote in the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra: "[The actions of] targeting Lebanon, changing its face, and redrawing its map are merely another stage in the series of hasty, foolish and reckless actions taken by the neo-conservatives in the U.S. and by their ally Israel with the aim of suborning the region to their authority, defeating it, and breaking its will. It is the Bush administration that is running... this destructive and murderous war, which moves [from one country to another in the Middle East], while Olmert's government supplies the mechanism [for carrying it out]. [In light of] the failure of [the American] strategy in Iraq and its helplessness [there] after so many years... America [has decided] - in order to compensate itself and cover up [its failure]... - to expand the circle of fire and death by aiming all this criminal, blind hatred at Lebanon..." [13]

Columnist 'Adnan 'Ali wrote in the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra: "The repeated statements by U.S. Secretary of State [Condoleeza Rice] about the birth of a new Middle East expose the [real] intentions of those who planned this war against Lebanon and who wanted to [use] it as an opportunity to overthrow the existing paradigms and create a new reality based on America's and Israel's perception of the region... The Americans began at an early stage to spread [the idea] of the new reality that they hoped would emerge [in the region] over the dead bodies of Lebanon and of Hizbullah. They allotted roles to various players - some of them, unfortunately, Arab [players] - with the aim of [creating] a docile Middle East in which there would be no resistance [movement] and no opposition to the American-Israeli plans..." [14]


*"The War... [Proves] That Israel and the U.S. are Behind the Assassination of Al-Hariri"

Another article in the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra said: "The war that is currently waging [in Lebanon], with its declared and undeclared goals, makes us more certain than ever that Israel and the U.S. are the forces behind the assassination of [former Lebanese prime minister] Rafiq Al-Hariri. The assassination was part of an unsuccessful attempt by the U.S. to enforce U.N. Resolution 1559. The aggression [we see] today began because Israel, as it turns out, is the only one who benefits from this resolution and from Al-Hariri's assassination..." [15]

[1] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), July 15, 2006.

[2] Al-Ahram (Egypt), July 18, 2006.

[3] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), July 15, 2006.

[4] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), July 15, 2006.

[5] Al-Gumhuriyya (Egypt), July 27, 2006.

[6] Al-Ahram (Egypt), August 6, 2006.

[7] Al-Ayyam (PA) July 14, 2006.

[8] Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), July 18, 2006.

[9] Arab Times (Kuwait), July 15, 2006, http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/opinion/view.asp?msgID=1242.

[10] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), August 3, 2006.

[11] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), July 24, 2006.

[12] Teshreen (Syria) July 25, 2006.

[13] Al-Thawra (Syria), July 27, 2006.

[14] Al-Thawra (Syria) July 27, 2006.

[15] Al-Thawra (Syria) July 27, 2006.

http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD124906
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 15, 2006, 05:51:33 PM
Cease-Fire: Shaking Core Beliefs in the Middle East
By George Friedman

An extraordinary thing happened in the Middle East this month. An Israeli army faced an Arab army and did not defeat it -- did not render it incapable of continued resistance. That was the outcome in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982. But it did not happen in 2006. Should this outcome stand, it will represent a geopolitical earthquake in the region -- one that fundamentally shifts expectations and behaviors on all sides.

It is not that Hezbollah defeated the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It did not. By most measures, it got the worst of the battle. Nevertheless, it has been left standing at the end of the battle. Its forces in the Bekaa Valley and in the Beirut area have been battered, though how severely is not yet clear. Its forces south of the Litani River were badly hurt by the Israeli attack. Nevertheless, the correlation of forces was such that the Israelis should have dealt Hezbollah, at least in southern Lebanon, a devastating blow, such that resistance would have crumbled. IDF did not strike such a blow -- so as the cease-fire took effect, Hezbollah continued to resist, continued to inflict casualties on Israeli troops and continued to fire rockets at Israel. Hezbollah has not been rendered incapable of continued resistance, and that is unprecedented.

In the regional equation, there has been an immutable belief: that, at the end of the day, IDF was capable of imposing a unilateral military solution on any Arab force. Israel might have failed to achieve its political goals in its various wars, but it never failed to impose its will on an enemy force. As a result, all neighboring nations and entities understood there were boundaries that could be crossed only if a country was willing to accept a crushing Israeli response. All neighboring countries -- Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, prior to the collapses of central authority -- understood this and shaped their behavior in view of it. Even when Egypt and Syria initiated war in 1973, it was with an understanding that their war aims had to be limited, that they had to accept the probability of defeat and had to focus on postwar political maneuvers rather than on expectations of victory.

The Egyptians withdrew from conflict and accepted the Sinai as a buffer zone, largely because 1973 convinced them that continued conflict was futile. Jordan, since 1970, has been effectively under the protection of Israel against threats from Syria and internal dangers as well. Syria has not directly challenged the Israelis since 1973, preferring indirect challenges and, not infrequently, accommodation with Israel. The idea of Israel as a regional superpower has been the defining principle.

In this conflict, what Hezbollah has achieved is not so much a defeat of Israel as a demonstration that destruction in detail is not an inevitable outcome of challenging Israel. Hezbollah has showed that it is possible to fight to a point that Israel prefers a cease-fire and political settlement to a military victory followed by political accommodation. Israel might not have lost any particular battle, and a careful analysis of the outcome could prove its course to be reasonable. But the loss of the sense -- and historical reality -- of the inevitability of Israeli military victory is a far more profound defeat for Israel, as this clears the way for other regional powers to recalculate risks.

Hezbollah's Preparations

Hezbollah meticulously prepared for the war by analyzing Israeli strengths and weaknesses. Israel is casualty-averse by dint of demographics. It therefore resorts to force multipliers such as air power and armor, combined with excellent reconnaissance and tactical intelligence. Israel uses mobility to cut lines of supply and air power to shatter centralized command-and-control, leaving enemy forces disorganized, unbalanced and unsupplied.

Hezbollah sought to deny Israel its major advantages. The group created a network of fortifications in southern Lebanon that did not require its fighters to maneuver and expose themselves to Israeli air power. Hezbollah stocked those bunkers so fighters could conduct extended combat without the need for resupply. It devolved command to the unit level, making it impossible for a decapitation strike by Israel to affect the battlefield. It worked in such a way that, while the general idea of the defense architecture was understood by Israeli military intelligence, the kind of detailed intelligence used -- for example, in 1967 -- was denied the Israelis. Hezbollah acquired anti-tank weapons from Syria and Iran that prevented Israeli armor from operating without prior infantry clearing of anti-tank teams. And by doing that, the group forced the Israelis to accept casualties in excess of what could, apparently, be tolerated. In short, it forced the Israelis to fight Hezbollah's type of war, rather than the other way around.

Hezbollah then initiated war at the time and place of its choosing. There has been speculation that Israel planned for such a war. That might be the case, but it is self-evident that, if the Israelis wanted this war, they were not expecting it when it happened. The opening of the war was not marked by the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Rather, it was the persistent and intense bombardment of Israel with missiles -- including attacks against Israel's third-largest city, Haifa -- that compelled the Israelis to fight at a moment when they obviously were unprepared for war, and could not clearly decide either their war aims or strategy. In short, Hezbollah applied a model that was supposed to be Israel's forte: The group prepared meticulously for a war and launched it when the enemy was unprepared for it.

Hezbollah went on the strategic offensive and tactical defensive. It created a situation in which Israeli forces had to move to the operational and tactical offensive at the moment of Hezbollah's highest level of preparedness. Israel could not decline combat, because of the rocket attacks against Haifa, nor was it really ready for war -- particularly psychologically. The Israelis fought when Hezbollah chose and where Hezbollah chose. Their goals were complex, where Hezbollah's were simple. Israel wanted to stop the rockets, break Hezbollah, suffer minimal casualties and maintain its image as an irresistible military force. Hezbollah merely wanted to survive the Israeli attack. The very complexity of Israel's war aims, hastily crafted as they were, represented a failure point.

The Foundations of Israeli Strategy

It is important to think through the reasoning that led to Israeli operations. Israel's actions were based on a principle promulgated by Ariel Sharon at the time of his leadership. Sharon argued that Israel must erect a wall between Israelis and Arabs. His reasoning stemmed from circumstances he faced during Israel's occupation of Lebanon: Counterinsurgency operations impose an unnecessary and unbearable cost in the long run, particularly when designed to protect peripheral interests. The losses may be small in number but, over the long term, they pose severe operational and morale challenges to the occupying force. Therefore, for Sharon, the withdrawal from Lebanon in the 1980s created a paradigm. Israel needed a national security policy that avoided the burden of counterinsurgency operations without first requiring a political settlement. In other words, Israel needed to end counterinsurgency operations by unilaterally ending the occupation and erecting a barrier between Israel and hostile populations.

The important concept in Sharon's thinking was not the notion of impenetrable borders. Rather, the important concept was the idea that Israel could not tolerate counterinsurgency operations because it could not tolerate casualties. Sharon certainly did not mean or think that Israel could not tolerate casualties in the event of a total conventional war, as in 1967 or 1973. There, extreme casualties were both tolerable and required. What he meant was that Israel could tolerate any level of casualties in a war of national survival but, paradoxically, could not tolerate low-level casualties in extended wars that did not directly involve Israel's survival.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was Sharon's protege. Olmert was struggling with the process of disengagement in Gaza and looking toward the same in the West Bank. Lebanon, where Israel learned the costs of long-term occupation, was the last place he wanted to return to in July 2006. In his view, any operation in Lebanon would be tantamount to a return to counterinsurgency warfare and occupation. He did not recognize early on that Hezbollah was not fighting an insurgency, but rather a conventional war of fixed fortifications.

Olmert did a rational cost-benefit analysis. First, if the principle of the Gaza withdrawal was to be followed, the last place the Israelis wanted to be was in Lebanon. Second, though he recognized that the rocket attacks were intolerable in principle, he also knew that, in point of fact, they were relatively ineffective. The number of casualties they were causing, or were likely to cause, would be much lower than those that would be incurred with an invasion and occupation of Lebanon. Olmert, therefore, sought a low-cost solution to the problem of Hezbollah.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz offered an attractive alternative. Advocating what air force officers have advocated since the 1930s, Halutz launched an air campaign designed to destroy Hezbollah. It certainly hurt Hezbollah badly, particularly outside of southern Lebanon, where longer-range rocket launchers were located. However, in the immediate battlefield, limited tactical intelligence and the construction of the bunkers appear to have blunted the air attack. As Israeli troops moved forward across the border, they encountered a well-prepared enemy that undoubtedly was weakened but was not destroyed by the air campaign.

At this point, Olmert had a strategic choice to make. He could mount a multi-divisional invasion of Lebanon, absorb large numbers of casualties and risk being entangled in a new counterinsurgency operation, or he could seek a political settlement. He chose a compromise. After appearing to hesitate, he launched an invasion that seemed to bypass critical Hezbollah positions (isolating them), destroying other positions and then opting for a cease-fire that would transfer responsibility for security to the Lebanese army and a foreign peacekeeping force.

Viewed strictly from the standpoint of cost-benefit analysis, Olmert was probably right. Except that Hezbollah's threat to Israel proper had to be eliminated, Israel had no interests in Lebanon. The cost of destroying Hezbollah's military capability would have been extremely high, since it involved moving into the Bekaa Valley and toward Beirut -- let alone close-quarters infantry combat in the south. And even then, over time, Hezbollah would recover. Since the threat could be eliminated only at a high cost and only for a certain period of time, the casualties required made no sense.

This analysis, however, excluded the political and psychological consequences of leaving an enemy army undefeated on the battlefield. Again, do not overrate what Hezbollah did: The group did not conduct offensive operations; it was not able to conduct maneuver combat; it did not challenge the Israeli air force in the air. All it did was survive and, at the end of the war, retain its ability to threaten Israel with such casualties that Israel declined extended combat. Hezbollah did not defeat Israel on the battlefield. The group merely prevented Israel from defeating it. And that outcome marks a political and psychological triumph for Hezbollah and a massive defeat for Israel.

Implications for the Region

Hezbollah has demonstrated that total Arab defeat is not inevitable -- and with this demonstration, Israel has lost its tremendous psychological advantage. If an operational and tactical defensive need not end in defeat, then there is no reason to assume that, at some point, an Arab offensive operation need not end in defeat. And if the outcome can be a stalemate, there is no reason to assume that it cannot be a victory. If all things are possible, then taking risks against Israel becomes rational.

The outcome of this war creates two political crises.

In Israel, Olmert's decisions will come under serious attack. However correct his cost-benefit analysis might have been, he will be attacked over the political and psychological outcome. The entire legacy of Ariel Sharon -- the doctrine of disengagement -- will now come under attack. If Israel is thrown into political turmoil and indecision, the outcome on the battlefield will have been compounded politically.

There is now also a crisis in Lebanon and in the Muslim world. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has emerged as a massive political force. Even in the multi-confessional society, Hezbollah will be a decisive factor. Syria, marginalized in the region for quite a while, becomes more viable as Hezbollah's patron. Meanwhile, countries like Jordan and Egypt must reexamine their own assumptions about Israel. And in the larger Muslim world, Hezbollah's victory represents a victory for Iran and the Shia. Hezbollah, a Shiite force, has done what others could not do. This will profoundly effect the Shiite position in Iraq -- where the Shia, having first experienced the limits of American power, are now seeing the expanding boundaries of Iranian power.

We would expect Hezbollah, Syria and Iran to move rapidly to exploit what advantage this has given them, before it dissipates. This will increase pressures not only for Israel, but also for the United States, which is engaged in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in a vague confrontation with Iran. For the Israelis and the Americans, restabilizing their interests will be difficult.

Now, some would argue that Israel's possession of weapons of mass destruction negates the consequences of regional perception of weakness. That might be the case, but the fact is that Israel's possession of such weapons did not prevent attacks in 1973, nor were those weapons usable in this case. Consider the distances involved: Israeli forces have been fighting 10 miles from the border. And if Damascus were to be struck with the wind blowing the wrong way, northern Israel would be fried as well. Israel could undertake a nuclear strike against Iran, but the threat posed by Iran is indirect -- since it is far away -- and would not determine the outcome of any regional encounter. Certainly, the possession of nuclear weapons provides Israel a final line from which to threaten enemies -- but by the time that became necessary, the issue already would have shifted massively against Israel. Nuclear weapons have not been used since World War II -- in spite of many apparent opportunities to do so -- because, as a weapon, the utility is more apparent than real. Possession of nuclear weapons can help guarantee regime survival, but not, by itself, military success.

As it stands, logic holds that, given the tenuous nature of the cease-fire, casus belli on Israel's part can be found and the war reinitiated. Given the mood in Israel, logic would dictate the fall of Olmert, his replacement by a war coalition and an attempt to change the outcome. But logic has not applied to Israeli thinking during this war. We have been consistently surprised by the choices Israel has made, and it is not clear whether this is simply Olmert's problem or one that has become embedded in Israel.

What is clear is that, if the current outcome stands, it will mean there has been a tremendous earthquake in the Middle East. It is cheap and easy to talk about historic events. But when a reality that has dominated a region for 58 years is shattered, it is historic. Perhaps this paves the way to new wars. Perhaps Olmert's restraint opens the door for some sort of stable peace. But from where we sit, he was sufficiently aggressive to increase hostility toward Israel without being sufficiently decisive to achieve a desired military outcome.

Hezbollah and Iran hoped for this outcome, though they did not really expect it. They got it. The question on the table now is what they will do with it.
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 17, 2006, 05:48:40 PM
HASSAN NASRALLAH and Ehud Olmert both say they won. But in asymmetrical warfare, the test of victory is asymmetrical too. Israel's prime minister set himself an absurd aim?the complete demolition of Hizbullah's power in Lebanon?and failed to achieve it. The shrewder Mr Nasrallah said victory would consist merely of surviving, and Hizbullah, however battered, did survive. On the last day it was not just standing, it also fired a record 246 rockets into Israel.

Hizbullah being what it is, Mr Nasrallah lost no time claiming that this was ?a strategic, historic victory?; crowds in Tehran chorused that Israel had been ?destroyed?. Did Hizbullah not kill 159 Israelis, including 116 Zionist soldiers? Israel being what it is, Mr Olmert's political foes lost no time denouncing the prime minister's failings as Israelis sank into a collective despond about the disappointing showing of their army and the blunting of their country's long-term deterrent power.

Mr Olmert, echoed by George Bush, says that Israel won because it has transformed Lebanon. Under Security Council Resolution 1701, which brought the fragile ceasefire, Hizbullah is to withdraw north of the Litani river, make way for the Lebanese army plus a strengthened UN force, and disarm. That would, Israel says, put an end to Hizbullah's ?state within state?. And so it would?if it happened. But it may not. Within days of the ceasefire, Mr Nasrallah said it was ?too early? to discuss disarming. Syria's president, Bashar Assad, said so too. And the likelihood of the Lebanese army or a UN force trying to disarm Hizbullah against its will is zero. Two years ago, the UN passed a splendid resolution, 1559, demanding the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon. If Hizbullah did not comply then, why should it do so now, flushed with self-declared victory and with Israel's army still inside Lebanon?

 

Lebanon could lose too

The plain fact is that if Hizbullah is ever to give up its weapons and become just another political party, it will be through the pressure of the other Lebanese, not as a direct result of Israel's war. The diplomacy should therefore not be built on the pretence that Israel won a war it didn't. The more that Israel and America claim otherwise, the less able the caught-in-the-middle Lebanese government of Fouad Siniora will be to extract favours from Mr Nasrallah. A better idea would be to deprive Hizbullah of the pretexts it has invented for keeping up its war. It would be useful, for example, if Israel gave up the Shebaa Farms, the bit of Syrian territory Hizbullah says is Lebanon's, and accepted a prisoner swap.

However, Israel needs to save face too. Mr Olmert has no interest in concessions that reinforce the idea that he led his warrior nation to defeat. Israelis feel they dare not let their country look weak. And now come ominous signs that it does. Mr Assad has started talking again about liberating the Golan Heights. Having previously denied arming Hizbullah, Iran this week started to boast about the weapons it sent. If Israel is to give up Shebaa at such a time it must have something big in return, such as the actual removal of Hizbullah's arms?not just their concealment?in the south at least. Since America is not seen as an honest broker, closing such a deal may well require some new mediator. France? Turkey? Germany? Without an agreement, the war could resume at any moment.

 

When will they ever learn?

If a deal is done, what lesson will Israel take from this war? Probably something along the lines of: more infantry, fewer tanks. Those who preach sagaciously from afar that Israel should learn something bigger?the necessity of making peace instead of relying on force?have not been paying attention.

The hubris that blinded Israel after its great victory of 1967 cleared decades ago. Since the 1980s at least two prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, gave their all in the search for peace. The first paid with his life and the second with his job. Even the hawkish Ariel Sharon budged. He pulled Israel out of Gaza and knocked the legs from under Israel's settler movement. The trouble for Israel is that in peacemaking, as well as in war, the enemy gets a vote. What the well-meaning protesters who have been marching in Europe in praise of Hizbullah refuse to acknowledge is that today, as in the 1940s, Israel still has some neighbours who continue to deny its very right to exist as a Jewish state.

This is not to say that Israel is blameless. It has made mistakes aplenty down the years. This war was probably just that: a mistake after a provocation and not a plot cooked up either by Israel and America against Iran, or by Iran against Israel and America, as the rival conspiracy theories go. It followed a bigger blunder: Israel's failure after Yasser Arafat's death to work seriously with his moderate successor, Mahmoud Abbas.

But peace does not depend only on Israel. Six years ago Israel withdrew from Lebanon to a border painstakingly demarcated by the UN. Hizbullah fought on anyway. Like Iran, it says its aim is Israel's destruction. Though an authentic political movement with a domestic agenda in Lebanon, it is also blatantly anti-Semitic. Mr Nasrallah once reflected that collecting the Jews in Palestine made them easier to wipe out. Its al-Manar TV station is a beacon of hate: one series purported to show Jews murdering Christian children to use their blood for Passover bread. Whether Hizbullah and Iran seriously propose to destroy Israel is hard to tell, but it is what they keep saying?and they have imitators. The Palestinians' ruling Hamas movement has not yet dared to say out loud that it accepts even the principle of sharing Palestine with a Jewish state.

Following Mr Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza, Mr Olmert hoped to follow his example by uprooting Israeli settlements from much of the West Bank. Hizbullah has now killed stone dead the idea of Israel giving up territory again without cast-iron security assurances. So there will be no leaving any of the West Bank until there is a deal. Israel must find some way to re-engage with the Palestinians. But right now it is not even talking to Hamas?and Hamas, after the Lebanon war, is in danger of subscribing anew to the old illusion that Palestine can be liberated by force. Black days ahead for the Middle East.
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?Victory? for Hizbullah is not quite the same as victory for Lebanon, whatever its divided politicians feel they have to say

?DIVINE Victory?No Trespassing.? So says the message, in English and Arabic, printed on the yellow crime-scene tape that cordons off bomb sites in Haret Hreik, the Beirut suburb that is Hizbullah's firmest stronghold. The speed with which the Shia party, emerging bruised but triumphant in spirit after a month-long war, produced its own jaunty tape for this particular purpose says much about its efficiency. As the shaky ceasefire that started on August 14th took hold, party workers stole a march on the Lebanese government, fanning out across the country to give away victory sweets, clear debris, pull bodies from the rubble, and process claims for compensation from the estimated 15,000 householders who lost their homes to Israel's bombing.

Impressive in peace as in war, Hizbullah's tenacity carries heavy costs, however. The main one is that it is preventing the government of Lebanon from implementing the terms of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which it gratefully accepted in order to bring the fighting to an end. The core of this resolution is that Hizbullah should no longer operate as a military force in southern Lebanon, of which it was undisputed master before the war erupted. In its place, under the resolution and in the imagination at least of Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's prime minister, the official Lebanese army is supposed now to hold sway?assisted by a new international force that will give some bite to the toothless UNIFIL force that has been deployed ineffectually in the south for years.

As a part of the government, Hizbullah too has notionally accepted 1701. But now that the guns are silent and it has declared itself the victor, the organisation is in no hurry to implement its part of the deal. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader who evaded Israel's bombs for a month, is riding high on a region-wide wave of enthusiasm. In a typically soft-spoken but caustic television address, he called his Lebanese critics ?immoral? in their haste to see Hizbullah defanged. ?At this emotionally difficult and fateful time, some individuals speaking with wooden tongues sit behind desks in their air-conditioned offices and talk about these issues,? he said. One could virtually feel Lebanon's other politicians and grandees, none of whom now rivals him in popular standing, squirm.

If Mr Nasrallah refuses to disarm, even in the south, who can make him? He has the support of Iran, his chief armourer, which denounced 1701 as ?a Zionist document?. He also has the support of Syria. Its president, Bashar Assad, made this clear in a speech celebrating Hizbullah's ?victory?. Those Lebanese who were demanding that the group lay down its arms were ?Israeli creations? who wished to provoke civil war, he said in a fire-breathing peroration. The ramshackle Lebanese army is no match for Hizbullah, and the parts of the army recruited from the Shias of south Lebanon would probably refuse to fire on Hizbullah even if they were ordered to. The new international force may have robust rules of engagement, but it will not try to finish Israel's job for it.
 

That leaves Israel. Since the fighting ended, it has withdrawn many of its soldiers from Lebanon. But many remain?and may stay on for months, according to Israel's top general, if Lebanon's government fails to disarm Hizbullah or assert its authority in the south. Israel may also keep up the air and sea blockade that has throttled Lebanon's import-dependent economy. However, beyond its strenuous insistence that the Lebanese government has a duty to honour the agreement it signed, Israel does not seem eager to resume the war. For the present, its soldiers and Hizbullah's remain edgily intermingled in the south. There have been some lethal skirmishes. But neither army seems to relish another round just yet.

The man who is in the toughest predicament of all is Mr Siniora. Lebanon's prime minister is in a fix. Lebanese patriotism obliges him to celebrate Mr Nasrallah's great victory. But most of the coalition government over which he presides wants to seize the opportunity, enshrined in 1701 (and made possible by Israel's deplorable bombs), to turn Lebanon into a normal country, not one in which Iran and Syria maintain the Hizbullah fief. Behind the victory talk, many non-Shia Lebanese are appalled by the cost to Lebanon of Mr Nasrallah's war. They would love to use 1701 as a tool to strip Hizbullah of its arms and power.

Which is precisely why Mr Nasrallah is unlikely to oblige. In the eyes of many Shias, who were until recently Lebanon's most downtrodden sect, military strength is a guarantor of influence against the historically dominant and wealthier Christians and Sunni Muslims. Hizbullah's own leaders hold an even more paranoid worldview, regarding their fighting strength as a buffer that protects not just Lebanese Shias, but Arabs and Muslims at large, from American hegemony.

On paper, Mr Siniora's coalition of Sunni, Druze and right-wing Christian parties commands a strong parliamentary majority. His government, a product of the ?cedar revolution? that resulted last year in the eviction of Syria's army and looked set to recapture Lebanon for the West, enjoys the backing of the oil-rich Arab Gulf states, the United States and Lebanon's former colonial master, France. Yet its street-level power is hardly a match for Hizbullah's. Though pro-government businessmen have pledged to pay for rebuilding bridges across the country, their efforts are likely to be eclipsed by the door-to-door thoroughness of Hizbullah charities, augmented by the deep pockets of Iran.

At best, it seems, Mr Nasrallah will allow the Lebanese army to deploy to the south, aided later perhaps by the new international force. But his consent will be based on an agreement to conceal Hizbullah's weapons, not actually to remove or hand them over. He will pretend to comply with 1701, and the world may pretend to believe him. This fictitious construct may give Israel the cover it needs to withdraw its own army. But all the conditions will exist for a resumption of the war.

Title: Lebanon: an IDF Contrarian View
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on August 27, 2006, 05:24:40 PM
Prelude to Apocalypse
August 27th, 2006

Contrary to what is now the accepted wisdom in the media, Hezb?allah in its recent offensive against Israel neither ?badly bloodied the Israel Defense Force,? nor ?fought it to a standstill? in Southern Lebanon. In fact, the opposite is the case. By any legitimate measure Hezb?allah was handed a resounding military defeat by the IDF in the recent fighting, and while the cancer that is Hezb?allah was not cured by Israel?s soldiers, it was put into remission.

Hezb?allah is not your father?s terrorist organization. This is not a group of loosely affiliated cells of would-be hijackers or suicide bombers. Hezb?allah is a terrorist army, trained like an army, organized like an army, funded and equipped like an army, with one glaring difference.  The main use of its arsenal was terror aimed at Israel?s civilian population while hiding behind Lebanon?s civilian population. Its intent was to cause maximum civilian casualties amongst both.  This was not by accident. This was by design.

This was Hezb?allah?s war, planned and prepared for six years, funded by close to a billion dollars by Iran, aided by Syria. One of the great benefits to the West to come out of this war (if they choose not to turn a blind eye to it) is the certain knowledge that Hezb?allah is Iran?s terrorist operational arm. It is the terrorist extension of Iran?s expressed foreign policy.

It is not a coincidence that Hezb?allah launched its totally unprovoked attack across Israel?s internationally recognized border, killing and kidnapping Israeli soldiers and dragging Lebanon and Israel into a war which neither one wanted at exactly the moment when the international community had issued its ultimatum to Iran. That ultimatum was: ?Cease your efforts to develop nuclear weapons or face the sanctions of the International Community.? Iran?s response was Hezb?allah?s war.

Even a cursory examination of Hezb?allah?s statements, captured documents, the weapons it procured over six years and instantly deployed, provides an insight into their war aims and the battle plan to achieve those aims. Hezb?allah announced in the clearest possible way that it was its intent to turn Southern Lebanon into a graveyard for the IDF. This was not mere rhetoric. It was their plan.

Hezb?allah?s Sigfried Line

Much has been made, and rightly so, of the arsenal of some 15,000 short, medium and longer range rockets which Hezb?allah stockpiled for its offensive. What has gone largely unmentioned is the equally impressive number of anti-tank weapons Hezb?allah not only acquired but deployed throughout its system of fortresses, strongholds in literally every village in Southern Lebanon.

Hezb?allah?s spin was that it built this Siegfried Line-like series of fortifications to defend Southern Lebanon from an Israeli invasion.  The truth is both Hezb?allah and everyone else in the world knew perfectly well that when Israel left every centimeter of Lebanese soil in 2000, it did so with the intent never to return.  It not only had no designs on Southern Lebanon, it dreaded doing so.

In addition Israel had made a strategic decision to sacrifice whatever advantages the buffer zone of Southern Lebanon offered for the perceived advantages of international legitimacy.  Now, the logic went, should Hezb?allah attack us it will not be an attack against our troops in their country, rather they will be violating Israel?s internationally recognized border and the world will have no choice but to recognize clearly who was the aggressor and who was the victim.

To a degree, that logic prevailed. Especially in the beginning of the conflict, though not (of course) in the U.N. where Israel had so painstakingly sought to achieve the legitimacy the Secretary General so quickly ignored.

In preparing its offensive, both Hezb?allah and Iran knew that Hezb?allah?s terrorist army could never mount a successful ground invasion against Israel.  The advantages they possessed for their offensive lay in their rockets and missiles which could hit Israel?s civilian population and inflict mass casualties, and control of its own terrain and preparation of its own battle field.  The idea was not to fight the IDF in Israel?s territory, but to set a trap for the IDF in Hezb?allah?s carefully prepared and massively fortified Siegfried Line of fortresses, strongholds and offensive positions connected by a series of truly impressive tunnel networks and bunkers meant to withstand and offset Israel?s air advantage.

There was one other indispensable element to their war plan; the centering of their offensive capability against Israel?s civilian population within Lebanon?s civilian population.  Much has been made in the Western press of Hezb?allah?s benign social services function in Lebanon, of the hospitals and schools it has built.

The Press as Hezb?allah?s Tool

Almost no notice, however, has been paid to the large numbers of these hospitals and schools which were built over its military bunkers and rocket launching sites.  This was perhaps both the most cynical and barbaric disregard for innocent civilian lives of all of Hezb?allah?s and Iran?s strategic choices.  It was also the most successful.

The decision was predicated not on its knowledge of its enemy (Israel) but its true genius lay in its knowledge of the press.  The calculus was simple: launch a rocket from within a civilian population; if you kill Jews that?s a victory. If the Jews hit back and in so doing kill Lebanese civilians, that?s a victory. If they don?t hit back because they?re afraid to hit civilians, that?s a victory. Now repeat the process until you kill so many Jews they have to hit back and in so doing kill more Lebanese civilians.  That?s the ultimate victory, because they know that in striking just those chords exactly what music the press will play.

The awful truth, which the Western Press was manipulated to ignore or downplay, was that Iran, through its terrorist operational arm Hezb?allah, had invaded Lebanon from within.  Hezb?allah did not protect Lebanon, they occupied it and they used those Hezb?allah-occupied territories to launch Iran?s offensive in response to the West?s ultimatum to cease development of nuclear weapons.

Hezb?allah?s Military Failure

From a military prospective there can be absolutely no doubt as to the results of Hezb?allah and Iran?s offensive against Israel.  It was a defeat. Every part of their war plan except the manipulation of the media failed.

Hezb?allah expected and planned for a massive charge of Israeli armor into Southern Lebanon.  The amounts and type of anti-tank weapons they acquired and had operationally deployed in their forward positions as well as their secondary and tertiary bands of fortresses and strongholds through Southern Lebanon attest to this fact.

They intended to do in mountainous terrain what Egypt had so effectively done in the Sinai desert in the Yom Kippur war.  In that war, Sinai indeed became a graveyard for Israeli armor.  Hundereds of tanks were destroyed. Whole brigades were decimated in single battles by the Egyptians? highly effective anti-tank missile ambushes.  In that war almost three thousand Israeli soldiers were killed.  That was Hezb?allah?s plan.  It was a good one.  And it failed.

Far from the prevailing impression in the media, the IDF was not ?badly bloodied? nor ?fought to a stand still,? much less ?handed a defeat.?  Just prior to the cease fire, Israel suffered twenty nine tanks hit. Of those, twenty five were back in service within twenty four hours.  Israel suffered one hundred and seventeen soldiers killed in four weeks of combat.  As painful as those individual losses were to their families and to the Israeli collective psyche which views all its soldiers as their biological sons and daughters, those numbers in fact represent the fewest casualties suffered by Israel in any of its major conflicts. In 1948, Israel suffered six thousand killed.  In 1967, in what was regarded as its most decisive victory, Israel lost almost seven hundred killed in six days.  In 1973, Israel lost two thousand seven hundred killed and in the first week of the first war in Lebanon, Israel suffered one hundred seventy six soldiers killed.

Misapprehension of Casualties

Why then the impression of massive Israeli casualties in clear contrast to the actual numbers of those killed?  It is because of the uniquely inverse relationship between the Israeli public and its army.  The Israeli army is a citizen?s army.  It is made up of everyone?s child, everyone?s brother or sister, aunt or uncle.

On its television networks not only the names but the photographs of the fallen and the times and places of each funeral were announced repeatedly.  Scores of reports dealing with individual soldiers and the shattered families they left behind were aired repeatedly.  The nation as a whole mourned the loss of its children quite literally as if they were the sons and daughters of each and every family.

Were I, as an Israeli officer in the Military Spokesperson?s Unit, to have made a statement to the Israeli press about the actual lightness of Israel?s casualties, I would at the least have been relieved of duties, if not also of rank.  Indeed, members of my unit volunteered to a man to go into Lebanon under fire to help retrieve the bodies of four fallen soldiers and make sure that reporters (who by that time were reported to be simply driving into Lebanon) could not broadcast pictures before the families were notified.  We provided an additional covering force as well against Hezb?allah while medics and a Rabbi safeguarded the sanctity of the remains of four kids, younger than my twenty two year old son.  We did so not only not under orders, but in violation of orders, because we were all of us fathers as well as soldiers, and these were not only our comrades in arms, but our sons. We were there to bring them home.

That is the emotion.  But the numbers are different.  They are the lightest casualties suffered by the IDF in all of its wars.  Military historians will spend years deciphering why exactly this was so.  Was Israel?s government and its general staff, by its refusal to commit large numbers of forces for the first three weeks of combat, in fact making a highly intelligent strategic choice?  Possibly.

Three Conclusions

Possibly it was dumb luck or devine intervention.  Either way it meant three things:

1. Hezb?allah?s ambush never happened because Israel didn?t take the bait.  Instead it used air power and then a series of probing raids, primarily by infantry to methodically, slowly identify and root out the enemy positions.

2. It meant that those small numbers of troops deployed into Lebanon in the first weeks of fighting had to do more with less than perhaps any other Israeli fighters in any other war.  Certainly in other wars there were many individual battles in which so much was expected of and accomplished by so few.  But no war comes to mind in which so few soldiers were deployed across an entire front.  They performed brilliantly and with uncommon courage in the face of withering fire from heavily fortified and prepared positions.

These were draft-age soldiers: eighteen and nineteen year olds, commanded on the platoon and company levels by twenty something?s, none of whom had ever faced anything remotely like the combat against Hezb?allah?s terrorist army.  In spite of what many see as the logistical and command failures of their superiors, they performed brilliantly and achieved their objectives.

3. When the vast bulk of Israel?s force was finally deployed, made up primarily of its reservists, these soldiers achieved in forty eight hours what many believe they should have been given weeks to accomplish.  Despite logistical failures, some times fighting without food or water, Israel?s soldiers, regular army and reserves alike, handed Hezb?allah a decisive military defeat.  All of Hezb?allah?s Siegfried Line-like system of fortresses and strongholds, their network of command and control bunkers along Israel?s Northern border were destroyed, abandoned or under the control of the IDF by the end of the hostilities.  Hezb?allah?s mini terrorist state within a state south of the Litani had been dismantled.

Israel?s War Aims Achieved

Its a terrorist capital within a capital in Beirut, its command and control center and infrastructure were in ruins.  In the end it sought and accepted a cease fire resolution in the United Nations which provided the framework for Israel to achieve all of its stated war aims.

This last point is of no minor consequence both in terms of what Israel achieved and failed to achieve in the counter offensive it waged against Hezb?allah.  I can speak to this subject with some degree of expertise since I was one of the people tasked with putting into a simple declarative sentence what the IDF?s mission was as handed down to it by Israel?s democratically elected political leaders.  The sentence defining the IDF?s mission read as follows.

?To bring about the conditions on the ground which will enable the International Community and the government of Lebanon to live up to their obligations under UN resolution 1559, to end the rocket attacks against Israel?s civilian population in the North and to bring about the release of Israel?s kidnapped soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regeve.?

That was the IDF?s stated mission and that is exactly what it did.

Whether as a result of the decisions of its political leadership and general staff, or in spite of them, Israel?s soldiers, sailors and airmen brought about the conditions on the ground which enabled a U.N. Resolution that, on the face of it, provided for the implementation of the majority of UN Resolution 1559, called for the extension of Lebanon?s sovereignty and the deployment of its army along Israel?s border for the first time in thirty years, and called for a fifteen thousand troop strong U.N. force to back up the Lebanese army and help it disarm Hezb?allah, as well as enforce an arms embargo on its terrorist army.

France, in recognition of its special relationship with Lebanon would boldly announce that it would head up such a force with thousands of its troops.  Instead it landed fifty soldiers in rubber dinghies; until shamed by Italy into upping its ante. What of the International Community and the Government of Lebanon, in whom Israel?s political leadership placed so much faith to turn their words into actions?  To use the applicable Yiddish phrase:  gornischt.

Just as the Spanish Civil War was a preview of what European Fascism had in store for the world, so do I believe, that Iran?s offensive against Israel carried out by its Terrorist Army operational arm, was a preview of what Islamofacsism has in store not only for the West but for the moderate regimes of the Middle East, which in case anyone forgot to notice, controls the oil on which the West survives.

What they failed to gain militarily they accomplished through the manipulation of the Western Media, which were their willing dupes and through the ineptitude and weakness, if not down right appeasement of the political leadership of the International community. This has all but guaranteed that this war will be but round one.

The Larger Stakes

The soldiers of the IDF bought their country?s and the International Community?s political leadership a chance to keep the Iranian/Hezb?allah cancer in remission. If that opportunity is squandered, no future Israeli political leadership will dare to limit its war aims again to simply creating conditions on the ground that will enable the International Community not just to protect Israel?s legitimate rights and interests but their own.  When one is faced with an apocalyptic fascist enemy which not only employs a terrorist foreign legion to do its bidding, but seeks to acquire nuclear weapons which it clearly announces will be part of its strategy to wipe you and your country, your family and all your loved ones off the face of the earth, there is no proportional response.

If this indeed was the equivalent of the Spanish Civil War, then the world must know that what followed was one last chance before the abyss. For the Jewish people and the State of Israel, that abyss contains the very Holocaust which Ahmadinijad both denies and vows to complete.  We will not accommodate the International Community by acquiescing to our own destruction.

This situation, however, is not just Israel?s problem. We are but the Little Satan.  America and the West to the Islamofascists are the great Satan.  It would be a simple matter indeed for Iran, in flexing its muscles against America, to dispatch Hezb?allah terrorists to Northern Mexico. There, equipped with little more than the very same rockets used to target Haifa, Hezb?allah could target Los Angeles. Now picture that scenario with even a modest nuclear payload. It would no longer be a question of how we stop terrorists from getting into the United States. With the same rocketry they used against Israeli citizens, Iran?s terrorist army would only need to get into Northern Mexico in order to hit America?s second largest city with a nuclear device. What then would America do? Invade Mexico?

If through appeasement the West fails to take action to prevent the conflagration which looms on the horizon, then let there be no doubt that its flames will engulf us all. For its part, this time Israel must be ready, and it must entrust its fate into no one?s hands but its own.

Dan Gordon is the writer of such films as The Hurricane, Murder in the First, Wyatt Earp, and The Assignment.  He served as a captain in the reserves in the IDF during the recent war.

Title: Tour de Force
Post by: captainccs on August 27, 2006, 10:47:27 PM
Beirut Dispatch

Tour de Force
by Annia Ciezadlo
Post date: 08.24.06
Issue date: 09.04.06

Who says Lebanon's tourism industry is dead? Come to Beirut these days and you can take a guided tour of Hell, with Hezbollah as your escort. Every day, the Party of God welcomes visitors to Haret Hreik, in the heart of the city's mostly Shia southern suburbs. Once home to Hezbollah's headquarters and Beirut's most densely populated neighborhood, Haret Hreik is now a smoking swath of wreckage. For the thousands of families who used to live here, the devastation is almost unimaginable. But, for Hezbollah, the ruins of this once-bustling neighborhood have become a tourist attraction--and an invaluable propaganda tool.

Hezbollah began offering tours of Haret Hreik during the war, assembling every morning at eleven o'clock. I went on the first of these excursions on July 20, along with the bulk of the international press corps--about 100 correspondents, from well-known TV anchors to grubby freelancers. Longtime Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Naboulsi showed up with his entourage and delivered a running patter of outrage. "On a daily basis, they come here and turn buildings into rubble, as you see," he shouted, in his frantic, high-pitched voice. "This is where we live! If the Israelis dare to confront us face to face, let them do it on the border, not come with jet fighters from high above in the sky, and just hit civilian targets!" He strode off into the wreckage, still shouting, and we scrambled to keep up.

Every once in a while, as we marched through the rubble, a man (never a woman) would pop out of a destroyed building to shout with carefully rehearsed rage. All of these appearances were orchestrated by Hezbollah for our benefit. Al Arabiya, a Saudi-funded satellite channel that many Lebanese view as U.S.-backed propaganda, even merited its own personal heckler. "Where is Al Arabiya?" demanded a short, angry man, flailing his arms in the middle of the street. "I have something to tell them." When a microphone with the station's logo appeared in front of him, he shouted, "The Saudis want this to happen! These missiles were made in USA, made in Saudi Arabia, made in Jordan, made in Egypt!"

A telling omission from this litany of oppressors was the country that had actually fired the missiles: Israel. (The Saudis don't make missiles, after all.) You can always rely on Hezbollah leaders for anti-Israel rhetoric. But, ever since the war ended, they've been less fixated than usual on their neighbor to the south. Instead, they're cultivating hatred for a larger, more world-historic enemy: the United States. By focusing on the Great Satan, Hezbollah can avoid the delicate subject of who, exactly, started this particular war--and promote itself instead as a defender of the Muslim world against U.S. aggression and the West generally.

Today, the sea of mangled concrete that was once Haret Hreik is a surreal fairground, complete with souvenir stands and parades. Backhoes and cranes are busily clearing the roads, dumping detritus onto the mountains of rubble that mark where buildings used to be. Hezbollah has adorned most of these mounds with giant, red-and-white banners bearing English-language slogans like new middle beast, the divine victory, and made in usa (below which, in smaller letters, it says trademark). Of the hundreds of signs in the shattered neighborhood, only a few mention Israel.

Now that the war is over, Haret Hreik is a popular day trip. If Hezbollah's wartime press tours were all about obtaining sympathy from the outside world, the current carnival is about stoking domestic outrage. As the United States wades back into Lebanon, promising $230 million in aid, Hezbollah offers Haret Hreik up as a graphic reminder of how the United States helped destroy their country--and of how Hezbollah is rebuilding it. Hundreds of Lebanese walk through the rubble, some with cameras and video recorders, many of them families with kids. Most have come to inspect the ruins of their homes and businesses. Others, including a few Christian families, are simply here to sightsee.

The main attraction is the headquarters of Al Manar, Hezbollah's satellite TV station. To get to it, you pass through a little tent Hezbollah has set up, with flyers directing people to eight registration centers where the party will reimburse them for their lost homes and possessions. There's even a bouquet of flowers on a little table. Outside the tent, dozens of sightseers--all Lebanese, many wearing dust masks--press up against a metal railing, pointing and taking pictures. The mood is weirdly festive, with some people holding up their children and others snapping photos with the latest cell phones. Between the souvenir stands, the dust masks, the earth-moving equipment, and the solemn air of commemoration, it's a bit like Ground Zero in the year after September 11. The smell is the same, too: chalky and toxic, utterly inescapable. It's the smell of the insides of things--pulverized concrete, plaster, asbestos, burnt plastic, cordite, and acrid chemicals. A few veiled women hold headscarves over their mouths to keep out the dust.

The spot where Al Manar used to be is a mountain of charred cement, topped with the remains of people's lives: children's books, pillows, pieces of chairs, an ancient manual typewriter. The apartment buildings from which all this flotsam fell loom above the rubble, ringing the site of the station. Some were destroyed, but others only had their outer walls sheared away so that you can see into the individual apartments: In one, a TV set totters on the edge of the void, its back facing what used to be a wall; in another, an old lady fills a plastic can with oil.

Jutting rakishly from the wreckage, a billboard-sized banner touts the staying power of Hezbollah's radio station--which, like Al Manar, never went off the air despite numerous Israeli bombings of its offices and transmitters. Al nour radio, it proclaims, a voice stronger than the aggressor. "We've been broadcasting live from here all day, from ten in the morning until three," says Ahmed Naeem, the Hezbollah functionary in charge, with pride. "We had everyone! NGOs, ambassadors, even the Turkish foreign minister." According to Naeem, Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister, said the damage was worse than that from the Turkish earthquake of 1999.

"We prepared for this," explains Naeem. "We never kept a lot of people in the main building, even before the soldiers were kidnapped. We were always prepared for attack without provocation. We have a couple of different studios, and we evacuated all of them."

A handful of middle-age men in spotless suits clamber up the mountain: It's the Beirut Chamber of Commerce, coming for a photo-op. Two days later, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora would visit the bomb site as well. Standing in the ruins, flanked by Shia politicians, he denounced Israel's "barbaric acts against Lebanon." As usual, Siniora was in a tight political spot: As a member of the U.S.-backed Future bloc in parliament, he couldn't very well criticize the United States.

Curious to see where all the colorful bunting comes from, I go in search of Hezbollah's graphics unit. I find the army of artists relaxing under a tent, sitting in plastic chairs, while a team of young men pass out posters. These are the guys in charge of the banners and signs that hang everywhere. They've also designed the bright-red trucker hats that many Hezbollah employees are wearing. In Arabic script, the hats declare: nasr min allah--literally, "Victory from God," but also a play on the name of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. They've been cranking out the Hezbollabilia the whole time, even while the bombs were falling, preparing for their divine victory ever since the war began.

"The slogans--we've been getting them from the war itself," says Ghassan Darwish, one of the graphic designers. "They're the slogans that the Americans and Israelis are using." In his hands, for example, Condoleezza Rice's "New Middle East" becomes the new middle beast, with the word beast splattered across the poster like blood. I ask Darwish why so many of the signs are in English. "It's normal for them to be in several different languages, because there are foreign journalists here, asking questions," he replies.

I ask him how people are reacting to the giant signs. "People knew during the war that these were American bombs falling on us, in Israeli hands," he says. "People were receptive to it--especially made in usa."

Annia Ciezadlo is a Beirut-based writer.


http://www.tnr.com/user/nregi.mhtml?i=20060904&s=ciezadlo090406
subcription required
Title: Gaza caught in anarchy and thuggery
Post by: captainccs on August 28, 2006, 06:42:24 AM
Gaza caught in anarchy and thuggery'
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
                              
"When you walk in the streets of Gaza City, you cannot but close your eyes because of what you see there: unimaginable chaos, careless policemen, young men carrying guns and strutting with pride and families receiving condolences for their dead in the middle of the street."

This is how Ghazi Hamad, spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority government and a former newspaper editor, described the situation in the Gaza Strip in an article he published on Sunday on some Palestinian news Web sites.

The article, the first of its kind by a senior Hamas official, also questioned the effectiveness of the Kassam rocket attacks and noted that since Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip, the situation there has deteriorated on all levels. It holds the armed groups responsible for the crisis and calls on them to reconsider their tactics and to stop blaming Israel for their mistakes.

"Gaza is suffering under the yoke of anarchy and the swords of thugs," Hamad wrote. "I remember the day when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and closed the gates behind. Then, Palestinians across the political spectrum took to the streets to celebrate what many of us regarded as the Israeli defeat or retreat. We heard a lot about a promising future in the Gaza Strip and about turning the area into a trade and industrial zone."

Hamad said the "culture of life" that prevailed in the Strip has since been replaced with a nightmare. "Life became a nightmare and an intolerable burden," he said. "Today I ask myself a daring and frightening question: 'Why did the occupation return to Gaza?' The normal reply: 'The occupation is the reason.'"

Dismissing Israel's responsibility for the growing state of anarchy and lawlessness in the Gaza Strip, Hamad said it was time for the Palestinians to embark on a soul-searching process to see where they erred.

"We're always afraid to talk about our mistakes," he added. "We're used to blaming our mistakes on others. What is the relationship between the chaos, anarchy, lawlessness, indiscriminate murders, theft of land, family rivalries, transgression on public lands and unorganized traffic and the occupation? We are still trapped by the mentality of conspiracy theories - one that has limited our capability to think."

Hamad admitted that the Palestinians have failed in developing the Gaza Strip following the Israeli withdrawal and in imposing law and order. He said about 500 Palestinians have been killed and 3,000 wounded since the Israeli pullout, in addition to the destruction of much of the infrastructure in the area.

By comparison, he said, only three or four Israelis have been killed by the rockets fired from the Gaza Strip over the same period.

"Some will argue that it's not a matter of profit or loss, but that this has an accumulating effect" he said. "This may be true. But isn't there a possibility of decreasing the number of casualties and increasing our gains by using our brains and making the proper calculations away from demagogic statements?"

The Hamas official said that while his government was unable to change the situation, the opposition was sitting on the side and watching and PA President Mahmoud Abbas was as weak as ever.

"We have all been attacked by the bacteria of stupidity," he remarked. "We have lost our sense of direction and we don't know where we're headed."

Addressing the various armed groups in the Gaza Strip, Hamad concluded: "Please have mercy on Gaza. Have mercy on us from your demagogy, chaos, guns, thugs, infighting. Let Gaza breathe a bit. Let it live."


http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525954624&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 28, 2006, 07:42:21 AM
Media participates in/is duped by Hez fraud again:  http://www.zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 29, 2006, 01:38:01 PM


   
 
 
 What did you do in the war, UNIFIL?
You broadcast Israeli troop movements.
by Lori Lowenthal Marcus
09/04/2006, Volume 011, Issue 47

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DURING THE RECENT month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel, U.N. "peacekeeping" forces made a startling contribution: They openly published daily real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to Hezbollah, on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli troops in Lebanon.

UNIFIL--the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a nearly 2,000-man blue-helmet contingent that has been present on the Lebanon-Israel border since 1978--is officially neutral. Yet, throughout the recent war, it posted on its website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of their construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old.

Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah "fired rockets in large numbers from various locations" and Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in significantly larger numbers from various locations" are as precise as its coverage of the other side ever got.

This war was fought on cable television and the Internet, and a lot of official information was available in real time. But the specific military intelligence UNIFIL posted could not be had from any non-U.N. source. The Israeli press--always eager to push the envelope--did not publish the details of troop movements and logistics. Neither the European press nor the rest of the world media, though hardly bastions of concern for the safety of Israeli troops, 
provided the IDF intelligence details that UNIFIL did. A search of Israeli government websites failed to turn up the details published to the world each day by the U.N.

Inquiries made of various Israeli military and government representatives and analysts yielded near unanimous agreement that at least some of UNIFIL's postings, in the words of one retired senior military analyst, "could have exposed Israeli soldiers to grave danger." These analysts, including a current high ranking military official, noted that the same intelligence would not have been provided by the U.N. about Israel's enemies.

Sure enough, a review of every single UNIFIL web posting during the war shows that, while UNIFIL was daily revealing the towns where Israeli soldiers were located, the positions from which they were firing, and when and how they had entered Lebanese territory, it never described Hezbollah movements or locations with any specificity whatsoever.

Compare the vague "various locations" language with this UNIFIL posting from July 25:

Yesterday and during last night, the IDF moved significant reinforcements, including a number of tanks, armored personnel carriers, bulldozers and infantry, to the area of Marun Al Ras inside Lebanese territory. The IDF advanced from that area north toward Bint Jubayl, and south towards Yarun.
Or with the posting on July 24, in which UNIFIL revealed that the IDF stationed between Marun Al Ras and Bint Jubayl were "significantly reinforced during the night and this morning with a number of tanks and armored personnel carriers."

This partiality is inconsistent not only with UNIFIL's mission but also with its own stated policies. In a telling incident just a few years back, UNIFIL vigorously insisted on its "neutral ity"--at Israel's expense.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/622bqwjn.asp
Title: Amnesty Int'l redefines 'war crimes'
Post by: captainccs on August 31, 2006, 10:46:20 AM
Amnesty Int'l redefines 'war crimes'
By ALAN DERSHOWITZ
                                 
The two principal "human rights" organizations are in a race to the bottom to see which group can demonize Israel with the most absurd legal arguments and most blatant factual mis-statements. Until last week, Human Rights Watch enjoyed a prodigious lead, having "found" - contrary to what every newspaper in the world had reported and what everyone saw with their own eyes on television - "no cases in which Hizbullah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack."

Those of us familiar with Amnesty International's nefarious anti-Israel agenda and notoriously "suggestible" investigative methodology wondered how it could possibly match such a breathtaking lie.

But we didn't have to wait long for AI to announce that Israel was guilty of a slew of war crimes for "widespread attacks against public civilian infrastructure, including power plants, bridges, main roads, seaports, and Beirut's international airport."

There are two problems with the Amnesty report and conclusion. First, Amnesty is wrong about the law. Israel committed no war crimes by attacking parts of the civilian infrastructure in Lebanon.

In fact, through restraint, Israel was able to minimize the number of civilian casualties in Lebanon, despite Hizbullah's best efforts to embed itself in population centers and to use civilians as human shields. The total number of innocent Muslim civilians killed by Israeli weapons during a month of ferocious defensive warfare was a fraction of the number of innocent Muslims killed by other Muslims during that same period in Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Algeria, and other areas of Muslim-on-Muslim civil strife. Yet the deaths caused by Muslims received a fraction of the attention devoted to alleged Israeli "crimes."

This lack of concern for Muslims by other Muslims - and the lack of focus by so-called human rights organizations on these deaths - is bigotry, pure and simple.

AMNESTY'S EVIDENCE that Israel's attacks on infrastructure constitute war crimes comes from its own idiosyncratic interpretation of the already-vague word "disproportionate." Unfortunately for Amnesty, no other country in any sort of armed conflict has ever adopted such a narrow definition of the term. Indeed, among the very first military objectives of most modern wars is precisely what Israel did: to disable portions of the opponent's electrical grid and communication network, to destroy bridges and roads, and to do whatever else is necessary to interfere with those parts of the civilian infrastructure that supports the military capability of the enemy.

That's how the American and Britain militaries fought World War II. (In fact, Israel shows far more restraint than Britain did during World War II. Prime Minister Winston Churchill directed the Royal Air Force to bomb the center of towns with the express purpose of killing as many civilians as possible.) Had the Allies been required to fight World War II under the rules of engagement selectively applied to Amnesty International to Israel, our "greatest generation" might have lost that war.

The strategy of destroying some infrastructure was particular imperative against Hizbullah. Israel first had to ensure that its kidnapped soldiers would not be smuggled out of the country (as other soldiers had been and were never returned), then it had to prevent Hizbullah from being re-armed, especially given that Hizbullah damaged a ship using advanced radar technology provided by the Lebanese army and rockets provided by Iran.

Hizbullah was being armed by Syria and Iran - as those countries themselves admitted - and the president, government, and population of Lebanon overwhelmingly supported the militia's indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israeli civilian population centers. The Lebanese army actively supported Hizbullah's military actions. Israel was, in a very real sense, at war with Lebanon itself, and not simply with a renegade faction of militants.

HERE'S HOW law professor David Bernstein answered Amnesty's charge:

The idea that a country at war can't attack the enemy's resupply routes (at least until it has direct evidence that there is a particular military shipment arriving) has nothing to do with human rights or war crimes, and a lot to do with a pacifist attitude that seeks to make war, regardless of the justification for it or the restraint in prosecuting it [at least if it's a Western country doing it], an international "crime."

In other words, if attacking the civilian infrastructure is a war crime, then modern warfare is entirely impermissible, and terrorists have a free hand in attacking democracies and hiding from retaliation among civilians. Terrorists become de facto immune from any consequences for their atrocities.

THE MORE troubling aspect of Amnesty's report is their inattention to Hizbullah. If Israel is guilty of war crimes for targeting civilian infrastructure, imagine how much greater is Hizbullah's moral responsibility for targeting civilians! But Amnesty shows little interest in condemning the terrorist organization that started the conflict, indiscriminately killed both Israeli civilians (directly) and Lebanese civilians (by using them as human shields), and has announced its intention to kill Jews worldwide (already having started by blowing up the Jewish Community Center in Argentina.) Apparently Amnesty has no qualms about Hizbullah six-year war of attrition against Israel following Israel's complete withdrawal from Southern Lebanon.

As has been widely reported, even al-Jazeera expressed surprise at the imbalance in the Amnesty report:

During the four week war Hizbullah fired 3,900 rockets at Israeli towns and cities with the aim of inflicting maximum civilian casualties.

The Israeli government says that 44 Israeli civilians were killed in the bombardments and 1,400 wounded.

AI has not issued a report accusing Hizbullah of war crimes.

Amnesty does not even seem to understand the charges it is making. Take, for example, this paragraph from its report:

Israeli government spokespeople have insisted that they were targeting Hizbullah positions and support facilities, and that damage to civilian infrastructure was incidental or resulted from Hizbullah using the civilian population as a "human shield". However, the pattern and scope of the attacks, as well as the number of civilian casualties and the amount of damage sustained, makes the justification ring hollow.

But the issue of human shields and infrastructure are different. The first relates to civilian casualties; the second concerns property damage. Of course Israel intentionally targeted bridges and roads. It would have been militarily negligent not to have done so under the circumstances. But it did not target innocent civilians. It would have given them no military benefit to do so.

The allegations become even more tenuous, as when Amnesty writes, "a road that can be used for military transport is still primarily civilian in nature." By this reasoning, terrorists could commandeer any structure or road initially constructed for civilian use, and Israel could not touch those bridges or buildings because they were once, and still could be, used by civilians. This is not, and should not be, the law.

Consider another example: "While the use of civilians to shield a combatant from attack is a war crime, under international humanitarian law such use does not release the opposing party from its obligations towards the protection of the civilian population."

Well that's certainly nice sounding. But what does it mean? What would Amnesty suggest a country do in the face of daily rocket attacks launched from civilian populations? Nothing, apparently. The clear implication of Amnesty's arguments is that the only way Israel could have avoided committing "war crimes" would have been if it had taken only such military action that carried with it no risk to civilian shields - that is, to do absolutely nothing.

For Amnesty, "Israeli war crimes" are synonymous with "any military action whatsoever."

The real problem with Amnesty's paper is that its blanket condemnations do not consider the consequences of its arguments. (It doesn't have to; it would never advance these arguments against any country but Israel.)

Amnesty International's conclusions are not based on sound legal arguments. They're certainly not based on compelling moral arguments. They're simply anti-Israel arguments. Amnesty reached a predetermined conclusion - that Israel committed war crimes - and it is marshalling whatever sound-bites it could to support that conclusion.

Amnesty International is not only sacrificing its own credibility when it misstates the law and omits relevant facts in its obsession over Israel. It also harms progressive causes that AI should be championing.

Just last year, for example, Amnesty blamed Palestinian rapes and "honor killings" on - you guessed it - the Israeli occupation. When I pointed out that there was absolutely no statistical evidence to show that domestic violence increased during the occupation, and that Amnesty's report relied exclusively on the conclusory and anecdotal reports of Palestinian NGOs, Amnesty stubbornly repeated that "Israel is implicated in this violence by Palestinian men against Palestinian women."

This episode only underscored AI's predisposition to blame everything on Israel. Even when presented with an ideal opportunity to promote gender equality and feminism in the Arab world, it preferred to take wholly unrelated and absurd shots at Israel.

Amnesty International just can't seem to help itself when it comes to blaming Israel for the evils of the world, but rational observers must not credit the pre-determined conclusions of a once-reputable organization that has destroyed its own credibility by repeatedly applying a double standard to Israel.

The writer is a professor of law at Harvard. His most recent book is Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways.


http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525974885&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Title: The media war against Israel
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on September 01, 2006, 12:24:03 PM
August 30, 2006
The media war against Israel

Early in the recent Lebanon war, the blogosphere revealed the fabrication of images by Reuters, whose reputation is now in shreds among those dwindling numbers in the western mainstream media who still acknowledge there is such a thing as the truth. Since then, the nature and scale of the various frauds perpetrated by the media during that war put those doctored Reuters pictures into the shade. The western media are no longer merely producing questionable professional practices in reporting a war. They are now active participants in it ? and on the wrong side of history.

One of the very few politicians to voice concern at this phenomenon is Australia?s foreign minister Alexander Downer, who said:

What concerns me greatly is the evidence of dishonesty in the reporting out of Lebanon. For example, a Reuters photographer was forced to resign after doctoring images to exaggerate the impact of Israeli air attacks. There were the widely-reported claims that Israel had bombed deliberately a Red Cross ambulance.

In subsequent weeks, the world has discovered those allegations do not stand up to even the most rudimentary scrutiny. After closer study of the images of the damage to the ambulance, it is beyond serious dispute that this episode has all the makings of a hoax. Yet some of the world?s most prestigious media outlets, including some of those represented here today, ran that story as fact - unchallenged, unquestioned. Similarly, there has been the tendency to report every casualty on the Lebanese side of the conflict as if a civilian casualty, when it was indisputable that a great many of those injured or killed in Israeli offensives were armed Hezbollah combatants.

My point is this: in a grown-up society such as our own, the media cannot expect to get away with parading falsehoods as truths, or ignoring salient facts because they happen to be inconvenient to the line of argument - or narrative - that particular journalists, or media organisations, might choose to adopt on any given controversy or issue.

Can anyone imagine the British Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, saying this? Of course not. The level of anti-Israel, anti-American madness has reached such a pitch in Britain that any similar expression of alarm at the manifestly blatant mendacity in the reporting of the Middle East has simply become unthinkable. Yet thanks to the efforts of the blogosphere ? notably Little Green Footballs, Powerline, Zombietime and EU Referendum, we can see that the behaviour of the western media during the Iranian/Syrian/Hezbollah war against Israel has constituted a major, world-wide scandal, and one which has the capacity to derail the efforts of the west to defend itself.

The major incidents of apparent media fraud are these.

* The claim that Israeli aircraft intentionally fired missiles at and struck two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances performing rescue operations, causing huge explosions that injured everyone inside the vehicles. This claim, which gave such incendiary traction to the lie that Israel deliberately targeted civilians, was repeated by ITV News, Time Magazine, the Guardian, Boston Globe, The Age, NBC News, the New York Times and thousands of outlets around the world.

Zombietime, however, convincingly exposed this claim as a fraud. It is worth reading its analysis in full in order properly to grasp both the enormity of the libel and the way it was not only uncritically accepted but gleefully embellished by respected media outlets, whose journalists either didn?t know or care that they were transmitting an outright fabrication. Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the kind of missiles used by the Israeli air force would grasp immediately that the hole in the roof of the ambulance whose picture went round the world could not have been caused by such a missile. If a missile had indeed hit it there would have been no roof remaining to inspect; nor would there have remained an ambulance. Yet the rest of the ambulance in the pictures, although damaged, was pretty well intact ? and the allegedly seriously injured ambulance driver not only was pictured with minor injuries, but even these had miraculously disappeared without trace in pictures taken a few days later.

In short, the whole claim was patently risible. As Zombietime revealed, the hole was almost certainly made by an air vent in the roof. It was part of the ambulance. There was no attack on the ambulance. The whole claim was a lie, a hoax, a fraud. Yet this lie has gone round the world, been ?shown? on TV, been embellished by familiar trusted commentators and thus has attained the status of unchallengeable truth. But it is a lie.

Now the Red Cross has rebuked Australian Foreign Minister Downer for relying on an ?unverified? blog for his claim. As Little Green Footballs observes, this was the same Red Cross which ? as LGF previously reported ? once the ?unverified? blog started using those vanishing journalistic attributes such as eyesight and brain activity to state the overwhelmingly obvious, quietly removed from its website the high-resolution image of the ambulance that had allegedly been struck. For if these pictures were indeed a lie, then the Red Cross itself is squarely in the frame for disseminating it.

* The claim that Israel fired a missile which hit a Reuters vehicle and wounded two cameramen. One was a Reuters employee, Fadel Shana; the other, Sabbah Hmaida, was described by Reuters as working for a ?local news website?; although as Little Green Footballs noted, he was also reported variously as working for

1) a local news web site, 2) an Arabic network, 3) Palestinian Media Group, and 4) Dubai TV

? and now Caroline Glick has revealed in the Jerusalem Post that he was actually working for none other than Iran.

But as Powerline has reported here, here, and here, pictures of this Reuters vehicle suggest that it was not hit by anything remotely resembling a missile. There was a modest and rusty gash in the roof and a windscreen that was shattered (although even that is in doubt in another picture). That was it. As with the Red Cross claim, the notion that such damage was consistent with a missile strike is simply ludicrous.

* The claim that the Israelis deliberately perpetrated a massacre of civilians at Kana. Apart from the fact that the initial claimed casualty rate here was subsequently all but halved by the Red Cross (to 28), there is significant evidence that many of the most harrowing pictures of the victims, which did so much to turn public opinion against Israel in this war, were staged. EU Referendum has now assembled a compendium of its considerable investigative efforts over three weeks entitled The Corruption of the Media, which it has submitted to the Press Complaints Commission. Again, the whole thing repays study. In summary, it says:

?many of the incidents recorded in visual form by the media were indeed staged. In fact, we feel we can go further. In our view, the bulk of the relief effort at Khuraybah on 30 July was turned into a perverted propaganda exercise. The site, in effect, became one vast, grotesque film-set on which a macabre drama was played out to a willing and complicit media, which actively co-operated in the production and exploited the results.

EU referendum concludes:

?what we do see from Qana is the sheer scale of the staging - not the occasional picture of the many. The majority seems to have been either posed or staged, or both. Given the large AP team present, this suggests that we are looking at more than just a rogue photographer - the malpractice seems institutionalised as normal practice.

And even more devastatingly:

In defence of the media, if it can be considered thus, one can only postulate that staging scenes such as these is so common a practice, and so deeply embedded in the whole fabric of photo-journalism (and not just locally in the Middle East), that no one at the incident saw anything wrong with what transpired. Either that or, so familiar were they with the techniques used that they simply did not register what was happening. As for the others, in their air-conditioned offices, hundreds and thousands of miles away from the action, did they care one way or the other? After all, Shane Richmond of The Daily Telegraph implied, the greater truth was being served. ?Is the child dead??, he asked. ?Was the child killed by Israeli bombs?? Thus, did he say: ?If so, the picture illustrates the story. If the picture does not alter the truth of the story, we?re not being disingenuous. And the truth of the story is this: Israeli bombs killed several civilians in Qana, many of whom were children.? That is the nearest to an admission we have that it is acceptable to stage photographs.

In short, much of the most incendiary media coverage of this war seems to have been either staged or fabricated. The big question is why the western media would perpetrate such institutionalised mendacity. Many ancillary reasons come to mind. There is the reliance upon corrupted news and picture agencies which employ Arab propagandists as stringers and cameramen. There is the herd mentality of the media which decides collectively what the story is. There is the journalists? fear for their personal safety if they report the truth about terrorist outfits. There is the difficulty of discovering the truth from undemocratic regimes and terrorist organisations. There is the language barrier; there is professional laziness; there is the na?ve inability to acknowledge the depths of human evil and depravity; there is the moral inversion of the left which believes that western truth-tellers automatically tell lies, while third world liars automatically tell the truth.

But the big answer is that the western media transmit the lies of Hezbollah because they want to believe them. And that?s because the Big Lie these media tell ? and have themselves been told ? about Israel and its place in history and in the world today has achieved the status of unchallengeable truth. The plain fact is that western journalists were sent to cover the war being waged against Israel from Lebanon as a war being waged by Israel against Lebanon. And that?s because that?s how editors think of the Middle East: that the whole ghastly mess is driven by Israel?s actions, and that therefore it is only Israel?s aggression which is the story to be covered. Thus history is inverted, half a century of Jewish victimisation is erased from public consciousness, victims are turned into aggressors and genocidal mass murderers turned into victims, and ignorance and prejudice stalk England?s once staunch and stalwart land.

That?s why the fact that hundreds of thousands of refugees from the north of Israel fled to the shelter of strangers in the south; that within one third of Israel, those too poor or old or handicapped or disadvantaged to seek refuge elsewhere were forced to live in shelters for a month in great hardship; that the entire economy of northern Israel was effectively shut down for a month; that thousands of rockets were fired at northern Israel, hundreds every day, many times more than were daily fired at Britain during the Blitz ? that?s why none of this was reported in Britain (where as a result such facts, when now related, are received with open-mouthed astonishment) because journalists were told to ignore it all since that wasn?t the story their editors wanted. Israel?s victimisation simply was not, could not, be the story. The only story was Israel?s aggression. But that story is a Big Lie. So a host of lies were transmitted to support it.

Certain conclusions are now inescapable. First, hatred of Israel and the irrationality associated with that hatred have now reached unprecedented proportions within Britain and the west. Second, with a few honourable exceptions the mainstream media are no longer to be believed in anything they transmit, either in words or pictures, about the Middle East. It is only the blogosphere which is now performing the most elementary disciplines of journalism: to aspire to objectivity, to separate facts from prejudices, to apply basic checks to claims being made by partisans to a conflict, and to be particularly wary of those with a proven track record of lying. Third, the mainstream media must now be regarded as active accessories to the war being waged against the free world and therefore as a fifth column in that world ? an enemy within. Fourth, the impact of the lies and distortions transmitted by the mainstream media in inflaming the already pathological hatred of the west within the Arab and Muslim world is incalculable. Fifth, the mainstream media?s vilification, demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel, based on outright fabrications and malevolent distortions, is imperilling the very existence of the country that is the front line of defence of the free world. Sixth, that vilification is also imperilling the safety and well-being of Jewish communities around the world, subject now to the double victimisation of attack by Islamists and attack by non-Muslims for belonging to a Jewish people that refuses to submit passively to a second attempt at genocidal slaughter and instead fights to defend itself.

To date, as far as I can determine, not one mainstream editor or proprietor has acknowledged this corruption of the western media. The scale of this corruption now threatens to have a lethal impact on the course of human history. Hatred now drives not just the jihadists but their western dupes, too. Truth and freedom are indivisible. The deconstruction of the former inevitably presages the destruction of the latter. This is the way a civilisation dies.

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1316
Title: Middle Israel: To Hassan Nasrallah
Post by: captainccs on September 01, 2006, 08:31:23 PM
Middle Israel: To Hassan Nasrallah
By AMOTZ ASA-EL


Mr. Nasrallah - There was something refreshing in your admission this week that you had failed to predict Israel's reaction to the attack you ordered July 12, and that you would not have ordered it had you known its consequences in advance.

Frankly, that's a lot more responsibility than our own leaders are for now prepared to assume, not to mention the political norm across the Arab world, where presidents, princes, monarchs and Generalissimos, like Catholic popes, never err.

Your admission is even more impressive concerning your frequent boasts to have studied us thoroughly. Well Hassan, since at least this one time you actually realize you have still got what to learn about us, let me draw your attention to a few more aspects of the situation of which you are apparently unaware, and which may help you avoid more mistakes in the future.

FIRST, you must understand that the whole world and its sister saw through your statements. They realized that the situation at which you have arrived, whereby you are constantly on the run, is even more difficult for you than it might have been for others, because publicly addressing large audiences has become for you a way of life and a source of energy. Otherwise why did you dedicate to that TV reporter - a poorly veiled blonde female, God forbid - a full two-and-a-half hours of your time?

Similarly, it took no Arabist to understand that the confession you made was meant to address the growing displeasure across Lebanon with the Israeli counterattack's impact, the one you now admit having both caused and failed to predict. Yes, curiously enough the Lebanese masses to whom you promised so conceitedly "a share in the victory" are unhappy, very unhappy, to foot the $10-billion-bill of damages with which your war games have left them, not to mention their displeasure with their human toll.

In other words, Hassan, unlike what you and your Iranian masters believe, even where freedom is scarce there is a limit to the abuse that ordinary folk are prepared to take; at the end of the day they do speak their minds, and those minds in their turn seek life, opportunity and prosperity much more than the bickering, triumphalism, belligerence, chauvinism and eye-rolling piety that you offer them instead.

Secondly, now that you concede having misread us, the question is in what way?

WHAT YOU would like the Lebanese people to believe is that you have merely failed to predict Israel's response to one specific situation, but otherwise you remain convinced, as you have boasted many times, that no one knows Israel better than you. Well, the fact is that what you have misread runs deeper than one situation, and demonstrates that with all due respect to your efforts on this front, too, you are still in no position to say you know us.

Yes, we may now be engaging in the kind of soul-searching which you and your puppeteers in Teheran think you can forever flee, and in the coming months we will be busy probing, despite our leaders' shameful trickery, various aspects of their conduct that we found unsatisfactory. Still, none of this should change the fact that beyond Israel's response to the attack you now admit you regret having launched lurks a popular will to fight that refutes your famous gloating that Israel had lost its will to fight.

Evidently, Hassan, diligent though you may have been in studying the situation you are so obsessed with reinventing, here too you have been doing something fundamentally wrong.

First, you completely misunderstood the very concept of democratic protest. Back in 2000, when you saw ordinary Israeli citizens both protest Israel's Lebanese policy and affect it, you mistook all this for weakness. Well, it turns out that this analysis was no more valid than Vietnam's illusion that it had beaten America - a conventional wisdom that proved so unfounded that the Vietnamese soon afterwards shed their ostensibly victorious communist faith, and in fact begged the US to restore its ties with them.

Never mind the fact that we Jews are convinced that your fundamentalism's aftermath will be the same as communism's, fascism's, and all the other isms that were bent on oppressing their own people and conquering everyone else. What I wonder is - just what makes you think you know us; how do you go about studying us before you jump to your sweeping conclusions?

Do you really think that by getting a daily digest of headlines written somewhere within the journalistic Bermuda Triangle that lies between Yediot, Ma'ariv and Haaretz you can purport to know us? The Jews? How much do you know about our origins, how long we have been around, what we have been through, how many swords have been smashed on our heads over the centuries, and how many pens have been broken in efforts to besmirch, debilitate or even just decipher us?

Surely, no one here expects you to now start exploring, say, Exodus, Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, Philo and Maimonides, or Marx, Spinoza, Freud and Einstein, or S.Y. Agnon, Natan Alterman, Moshe Shamir and A.B. Yehoshua, or even just Ben-Gurion's memoirs, so as to get a somewhat broader perspective about us. Nor do I see you contemplating the many premature eulogies of the Jewish nation delivered by assorted scholars from Hegel to Toynbee, people who were probably even more learned than you.

What we do urge you to do, as long as you live off your current diet of intellectual fast food, is to not take too seriously Israeli admirers on the one hand or European anti-Semites on the other. Your journalistic admirers here are the same ones who only yesterday hailed, and now condemn, our current political and military leaders. As for those Europeans, yes, they may happily accept this baloney about you being merely after the Jews, but they are taking you for a ride when telling you they are still in the business of shaping the Jews' history. In fact they have even given up on shaping their own destiny.

Courting the devil has long been a European specialty, so much so that it took foreigners to save Europe from both fascism and communism. Back in the 1930s, most Europeans remained deaf to warnings that Hitler was after them, preferring to delude themselves he was "merely" after the Jews, and that the beast could be soothed by feeding it the Jewish prey it just could not resist. When Europe finally understood that the Jews were merely Fascism's warm-up act, it was too late.

Today you and your Iranian masters are cleverly following that script, telling Europe all you want is the Jews, while what you are really after is Beirut, the most Western corner of the Arab world, the Paris of the Middle East, the metropolis whose takeover by Iran would be equal in its impact to Constantinople's fall to the Ottomans in 1453.

Unfortunately, many Europeans still respond to all this with the same moral apathy and political appeasement that only a few decades ago set their continent ablaze. Even more unfortunately from your viewpoint, we Jews - that stiff-necked lot you thought you knew so well - are no longer prepared to play our part in the script: We fight.


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Title: Two clowns and a country
Post by: captainccs on September 07, 2006, 12:17:22 PM
Two clowns and a country
By YOSSI AHIMEIR

Saniora and Nasrallah led Lebanon to brink of destruction but the Arab world has no inquiry commissions



During the war in Lebanon, Israel faced two protagonists: A robe-wearing ranter and a crybaby in a suit. Terrorist chieftain Hassan Nasrallah and Prime Minister Fuad Saniora are both genuine representatives of the Land of the Cedars. It's a state very different from the mighty tree that so proudly symbolizes it on its flag.

The Lebanese character - with all its strengths and weaknesses - was set out in sharp relief during the war. It was a war in which the Lebanese again brought destruction crashing down on their own heads, led by these two leaders, the prevaricator and the nice guy, each competing with the other over who despises Israel more.

Sheikh Nasrallah - enough has been said about him. The leader of the Party of God and the Shi'ite minority is a unique phenomenon. Only in fragmented Lebanon, with its multitude of competing ethnicities and religious sects, could a cleric like him rise to such prominence, set up his own army, and be given free rein.

South Lebanon was turned into what the Golan Heights were in the 1960s under Syrian rule - a military compound threatening Israel's northern border. For six years, the area was dug up and tunneled, turned into a combat zone to threaten the Israeli enemy. Everything was in place, waiting for the right opportunity, the right moment to surprise and attack the complacent Israeli army.

And as in the Golan Heights, the IDF took control of the Hizbullah combat zone too, despite its mistakes and losses and despite the stammering hesitation of the government that sent it. The price of Nasrallah's arrogance is being paid by the entire Lebanese people.

He can console himself with one thing: Nasrallah himself is still breathing and still holding two abducted Israeli soldiers, and consequently he can continue to bargain over the price of their release and cruelly and obdurately stretch the nerves of their families. But that same Hizbullah snake can no longer raise his head. Nasrallah is hiding just like the Sunni terrorist chieftain Osama bin Laden. Nasrallah can no longer afford to give live interviews. He has lowered his profile.

BUT WONDER of wonders: The prime minister of Lebanon, the man with the tears, the leader that wept at the conference of Arab foreign ministers at what was done to his country and especially Beirut its capital, who did not lift a finger to halt the Hizbullah war machine, has now stood up to take the reins of power.

Saniora is trying hard. His good friends in Europe and the United Nations pity him and he is pinning his hopes on their help to rebuild his country. No commission of inquiry threatens him. No one in Lebanon is demanding that he pay the price and resign for his failure to lead, for making possible the destruction of substantial parts of his country. And if anyone expected that perhaps now, after the cease-fire, now that Nasrallah has admitted that he erred and is hiding like a rat in some Lebanese hole, that Prime Minister Saniora would rise up and courageously settle accounts with him - such a person would be very wrong.

Signor Saniora has complaints to only one side - Israel. The very idea that after the cease-fire the man would screw up his courage and try to introduce law and order in his country, that he would send Nasrallah and his suicidal murderers packing, is ludicrous. The man talking about rebuilding is in fact preparing the ground for the next catastrophe.

IT SHOULD not surprise anyone that Lebanon's pathetic excuse for a prime minister is pointing an accusatory finger in just one direction - toward Israel. As he sees it, it is not Hizbullah, which on July 12 crossed Israel's sovereign border, a border recognized by the United Nations, and carried out an unprovoked act of terror, or which has for six years taken control of Lebanese territory, that is to blame. Nor are Nasrallah's hate-filled, inflammatory speeches against Israel and the Jewish people to blame; or those meddling in Lebanon's affairs from Damascus and Iran.

Israel is the one that "started" the war; it is Israel that destroyed 15 years of development and progress, as he put it. Saniora is is frustrated. He is trying to stand tall; to rehabilitate his personal image through attempts to mobilize aid from the West and support from among Arab countries. And even though he and the sane elements in Lebanese society know in their heart of hearts who is really responsible for erasing 15 years of development, the Lebanese premier nevertheless aims his arrows at the neighbor to the south.

And in order to earn a place of honor among the proud Arab leaders, while winking sideways in the direction of Lebanon's true patrons - Ahmadinejad and Bashar Assad - he adds a "threat" to Israel: There will be no peace until it withdraws from Jerusalem, from Lebanon, from the Golan Heights and from all the "occupied territories." And in order to give added weight to his declarations, he valiantly pledges: Lebanon will be the last Arab country to sign a peace agreement with Israel.

FECKLESS, INEFFECTIVE leader? Whining crybaby? Not the remodeled, post-war Fuad Saniora; no way. An intrepid and determined Arab leader has suddenly materialized like a phoenix from the ashes. He is not to blame for anything and neither is Nasrallah.

Here in Israel, the war will be investigated, those culpable will be identified, heads will roll. People want to know how we were surprised, why we had difficulty fighting, why the war's goals were not attained.

None of this will happen in Lebanon, which will continue on the same path, without commissions of inquiry, in the same mafia-like style and with the same Levantine hypocrisy, the same well-known powerlessness - and the same unwillingness to foster a relationship between Beirut and Jerusalem that would benefit both sides of the blue line.

And in a short time, after the current prime minister in Beirut has left the stage, most likely not naturally, but rather in the way most natural in Lebanon, Beirut may once again find itself - because of the irresponsible parties within it and the lack of a strong, central government, and because of some new Nasrallah that may crop up - under the boots of the IDF. Once again, years of development and progress will be erased... and the beat goes on.

WE CAN only hope that Israel doesn't repeat the mistakes of the second Lebanese war - neither on the northern front, nor on the other fronts; nor on the nuclear front, whose frightening clouds are approaching us, and the entire world.

And to Saniora, we will say: Even without a Lebanese commission of inquiry, even if you continue (for a while) as prime minister, even if you strut and swagger in Stockholm or Paris with your finger pointed high - you, more than Nasrallah, are to blame for the fall of the Land of the Cedars.

The writer, director-general of the Jabotinsky Institute, is a former Likud MK. He was chief of staff to former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir.


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Title: Russia to probe Hizbullah weapons
Post by: captainccs on September 08, 2006, 12:00:56 PM
Russia to probe Hizbullah weapons
By JPOST.COM STAFF
                              
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, at her meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday, reiterated Israel's concerns that Russian-produced weapons sold to Syria reached Hizbullah.

Israel has complained that Hizbullah had Russian-made anti-tank missiles - which it bought from Syria - in its possession and that these weapons caused many of the casualties the IDF suffered in the war in Lebanon. IDF forces that captured Hizbullah positions found weapons with Russian markings - among them Kornet guided anti-tank missiles - stashed in the group's bunkers. Russia has previously assured Israel that none of the weapons it sold to Syria would reach Hizbullah.


However, Lavrov said at a press conference after Friday's meeting that his country was now investigating the possibility. "We have clear rules under which a country cannot transfer weapons we sell it to a third party," he said.

Livni said that Lebanon had "a clear and unconditional responsibility to enforce the weapons embargo called for by the Security Council. If Syria does not comply with the resolution, it should face sanctions. Syria must understand that a condition for its acceptance in the international community is ending its support for terror and for Hizbullah."

Addressing the overall situation in the Middle East, Lavrov expressed support for an Arab League initiative proposed earlier this week for an international peace conference under the auspices of the UN Security Council that would bypass the Road Map plan and call for direct negotiations between Israel and its neighbors - Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians.

Livni said that Israel was opposed to the Arab proposal, and that an international conference was not the right move under the current circumstances. She added however, that Israel was in favor of resuming dialogue with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and that a meeting with him should take place soon. "That doesn't mean there will be peace tomorrow morning, but we've got to see what we need to do to talk about the future," the foreign minister said.


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Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 08, 2006, 06:38:57 PM
Israel, Lebanon: Olmert's Loaded Land Offer
Summary

Israel might be willing to hand over the disputed Shebaa Farms to Lebanon should all provisions of the cease-fire that ended Israeli-Hezbollah hostilities be carried out, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sept. 8. Even hinting at giving up the Shebaa Farms to Lebanon, however, further damages Olmert's credibility while providing Hezbollah with another claim to victory against Israel. In spite of this, Israel's symbolic offer is intended to strip the militant group of its legitimacy as a resistance movement and to set Hezbollah up for an Israeli assault in the Bekaa Valley.

Analysis

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sept. 8 that Israel would consider handing over the disputed Shebaa Farms to Lebanon, provided the Lebanese government follows through on its commitment to fully disarm Hezbollah.

The Shebaa Farms is a small area claimed by Lebanon stretching less than 10 square miles between the Israeli, Lebanese and Syrian borders. Israel seized the territory during the 1967 Six-Day War. The area later was declared part of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights of Syria by the United Nations in 1974. In his discussions with Lavrov, Olmert stipulated that the United Nations must officially declare the Shebaa Farms Lebanese territory before Israel will negotiate the land transfer.




The Shebaa Farms is of strategic value to Israel, given its location on Mount Hermon, approximately 5,000 feet above sea level. The territory provides Israel with a vantage point to monitor Hezbollah strongholds in the Bekaa Valley to the north. The Shebaa Farms was also crucial for Israel in the 1967 and 1973 wars against Syria. Israel has used the area primarily as an observation post for signals intelligence and electronic warfare. With Hezbollah having solidified its positions in the valley below the Shebaa Farms, Israel would be sacrificing a key outpost that could potentially be turned over to Hezbollah through its aides in the Lebanese army, giving the militant group the high ground.

Such an elevated position would allow artillery and rocket fire to be targeted by line of sight rather than calculated using a magnetic azimuth. It would also allow adjusted fire to bring northern Israeli cities, such as Qiryat Shemona, a major staging ground for the Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon, into target range. Hezbollah would, however, use the territory with caution in the event of another conflict. The militant group's true effectiveness in the conflict came from drawing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into unknown fields of fire and close combat in urban areas. In other words, for Hezbollah, a well-defined fortified position with which Israeli forces are intimately familiar could well bring any Hezbollah forces in the Shebaa Farms under heavy shelling and airstrikes.

Beyond its military value, the issue of retaking the Shebaa Farms is grounded on Hezbollah's purpose as a resistance movement. Hezbollah maintains that it has a right to keep its weapons in order to defend Lebanon against Israeli aggression and to retake the disputed area. By hinting at negotiations over the Shebaa Farms, Olmert is looking to strip the resistance movement of its purpose and expose Hezbollah's true intent to retain its military credentials.

Removing the Shebaa Farms cause will amplify Lebanese government pressure on Hezbollah to completely dismantle its military arm, in an effort to prevent another devastating conflict with Lebanon's southern neighbor. Hezbollah has steadily entrenched itself in the Lebanese political system to prepare for this day of reckoning, and its fighting days are still far from over. The group has already successfully manipulated the cease-fire demand that it remove its military presence in the south.

Meanwhile, Iran is in the middle of an aggressive campaign to assert its influence throughout the arm of the Shiite crescent extending into the Levant, and will be unwilling to sacrifice its potent military asset in Lebanon at this time. Moreover, Hezbollah is fully aware Israel will not allow its military prowess against a guerrilla group to remain in question. Once Israel sorts itself out internally -- in the form of a major government upheaval that likely will see Olmert replaced -- IDF will revisit its objective of crippling Hezbollah by launching an assault against the group's strongholds in the Bekaa Valley. Recent Hezbollah movements indicate the group is already preparing for this eventuality.

The Shebaa Farms offer also allows Israel to destabilize Syria's relationship with its proxies in Lebanon, as the Syrian regime will be sweating over the idea of Israel cementing a separate deal with Lebanon while the Syrian claim to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights is left in the dust.

Given these considerations, Olmert's offer to negotiate over the Shebaa Farms appears to be largely disingenuous. If Hezbollah ignores the offer and retains its arms by sticking to its right to defend Lebanon in future conflicts, as Olmert expects, Israel will be able to brand Hezbollah as an Iranian agent. Olmert can then try to shore up international support for Israeli action to neutralize Hezbollah forces in the Bekaa. In the meantime, however, he will be taking a political hit by discussing a deal regarding the Shebaa Farms; the move will make him look weak on national security by appearing to award the symbolic Hezbollah feat of forcing an Israeli compromise on the disputed territory.
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 25, 2006, 04:17:53 AM
From today's NY Times:

===============

U.N. Force Is Treading Lightly on Lebanese Soil
 Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Italian soldiers in Lebanon say that for now, they cannot even set up a checkpoint. Instead, they alert the Lebanese Army of any suspicious cars.

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By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: September 25, 2006
TIBNIN, Lebanon, Sept. 24 ? One month after a United Nations Security Council resolution ended a 34-day war between Israel and Lebanon?s Hezbollah militia, members of the international force sent to help keep the peace say their mission is defined more by what they cannot do than by what they can.

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The New York Times
United Nations officials in Tibnin say part of their job is to stay neutral.
They say they cannot set up checkpoints, search cars, homes or businesses or detain suspects. If they see a truck transporting missiles, for example, they say they can not stop it. They cannot do any of this, they say, because under their interpretation of the Security Council resolution that deployed them, they must first be authorized to take such action by the Lebanese Army.

The job of the United Nations force, and commanders in the field repeat this like a mantra, is to respect Lebanese sovereignty by supporting the Lebanese Army. They will only do what the Lebanese authorities ask.

The Security Council resolution, known as 1701, was seen at the time as the best way to halt the war, partly by giving Israel assurances that Lebanon?s southern border would be policed by a robust international force to prevent Hezbollah militants from attacking. When the resolution was approved, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, one of its principal architects, said the force?s deployment would help ?protect the Lebanese people and prevent armed groups such as Hezbollah from destabilizing the area.?

But the resolution?s diplomatic language skirted a fundamental question: what kind of policing power would be given to the international force? The resolution leaves open the possibility that the Lebanese Army would grant such policing power, but the force?s commanders say that so far, at least, that has not happened.

?There?s a lot of misunderstanding what we are doing here,? said Lt. Col. Stefano Cappellaro, an Italian commander with the San Marco Regiment.

The force, known as the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or Unifil, now has 5,000 troops on the ground, including 1,000 from Italy, and is stepping gently as it tries to carve out a role in a country that is feeling its way through the postwar period. It is early in the United Nations mission, but officials say that their most difficult task, and one they are adamant about achieving, is not being drawn into any power struggles between the religious and political factions in Lebanon. ?We will not get involved in any domestic or regional politics,?? said Milos Strugar, senior adviser to the force.

The force is larger and better equipped than an earlier Unifil contingent, which has been on the border with Israel for years. But at the moment, the Lebanese government and the United Nations have a similar agenda in trying to win the trust of the Lebanese people and not have the force become a tool of political factions looking to incite domestic conflict. The goal is to be viewed as a peacekeeping force, not an occupier.

So while there may have been some expectation that the international force would disarm or restrain Hezbollah, or search for hidden weapons caches, the commanders on the ground say very clearly that those tasks are not their job for now. ?We will advise, help and assist the Lebanese forces,? said Col. Rosario Walter Guerrisi, commander of the San Marco Regiment, referring to the Lebanese Army.

But the challenges facing their determined neutrality are significant and often beyond their control. In Syria, for example, President Bashar al-Assad was reported in the Lebanese news media to have told a visiting Lebanese delegation that the strengthened United Nations force, with its heavy European contingent, resembled a force from NATO. In Lebanon, the United Nations force found its credibility questioned when German officials said that their country would contribute to the naval patrols off the coast of Lebanon as a means to protect Israel.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has also questioned the purpose of the expanded force.

?Thus far, I have not heard any country participating in the Unifil say that it sent its sons and soldiers to defend Lebanon and the Lebanese,? he said in a speech Friday before hundreds of thousands of his supporters. ?They are ashamed of us, brothers and sisters. They are ashamed of saying they came to defend us, but they talk about defending Israel.?

Hezbollah has so far acted in accordance with the cease-fire terms of 1701, which prohibits the deployment of weapons south of the Litani River, close to the Israeli border.

When the United Nations Security Council passed 1701, which set up the cease-fire, it outlined basic principles with few specifics. One of those principles was that militias were to be disarmed in compliance with earlier agreements and resolutions. It did not say, though, that the United Nations force would carry that out.

Hezbollah, the only militia that did not lay down its weapons after the Lebanese civil war ended, has made it clear that it is not going to surrender those weapons now. And Sheik Nasrallah made it clear that the international forces had better not even think about trying.

(Page 2 of 2)



In Israel, skepticism about the effectiveness of the enlarged United Nations force has always been high, particularly about disarming Hezbollah or enforcing the arms embargo on it. Israeli military officials have said that if they find evidence that trucks from Syria are resupplying rockets and launchers to Hezbollah, Israel will be justified in bombing those trucks. Israel also notes that Unifil is barely 5,000 troops now, just 3,000 more than the old Unifil, still a long way from the 15,000 foreseen in the U.N. resolution.

The United Nations officials here say their primary duty, and the one that carries the most long-term benefits for both sides, is to help strengthen the Lebanese Army. At the moment, officials say the first priority is to make sure that all of the Israeli Defense Forces withdraw from land occupied during the war. United Nations officials said the process should be completed by the end of the month. The process involves weekly meetings along the border to set up a schedule that allows Israel to withdraw and the United Nations forces to move in, followed by the Lebanese forces. So far 85 percent of Israel?s forces have withdrawn, the United Nations said.

The formula for ending the war was also contingent on the state?s asserting its authority in the south, primarily by dispatching 15,000 Lebanese troops to the area. The resolution called for the Lebanese Army to be supplemented by up to 15,000 foreign troops. Officials say that the ultimate size of the foreign force will be determined based on need ? and one United Nations adviser said that meant it was unlikely the number of troops would ever exceed 10,000.

But however large the force, its officers said it would never be large enough if the population began to view it as an occupying force. The United Nations first set up an international force here in 1976, and so the people of the region are accustomed to seeing foreign troops in the blue berets of the United Nations.

But the new troops have stepped into Lebanon at a particularly tense time, as Hezbollah and the American-supported government are jockeying for position and power. If the Lebanese government did decide to expand the responsibilities of the troops now, they would risk turning them into targets of attack. These forces are much better equipped than past forces, and that has people a bit nervous about their mission.

?If these troops are going to clash with the resistance, they are going to clash with the people,? said Abu Rowda Noureddin, 64, as he collected free blankets and food supplies from the Red Crescent Society. He lives in the village of Burj Qalawiyah, a community of just 1,000 year-round residents in southern Lebanon that took heavy fire from Israeli jets.

The village is about 70 miles from Beirut and a short drive from a base staffed by Italian forces. Like most residents of neighboring villages, the people were essentially ignored by their government for many years. There is one school, no high school and few jobs. Villagers said that five times since 1972 the Israeli military had invaded their village, and so even those who said they did not count themselves as Hezbollah members said they counted themselves as Hezbollah supporters.

?The people here will fight against anybody who tries with force to take Hezbollah?s weapons away,?? said Ibrahim Noureddin, another villager.

Up the hill, past houses pocked by shrapnel, the mukhtar, a kind of village administrator, was busy taking an inventory of the damage to crops and olive and fruit trees. He said that the Italian forces recently gave his community $3,000 to buy aluminum and glass to repair the school, which was damaged in an Israeli raid. ?It was a very nice gesture on the part of the Italians,? he said.

But like everyone else, he said that for the forces to remain welcome they must demonstrate they are there to protect the Lebanese from Israel ? not to police the Lebanese on behalf of Israel.

Not far away, on a busy road heading toward Beirut, Colonel Cappellaro stood beside two armored personnel carriers and 11 of his soldiers as cars sped by. He said that they were conducting a ?static point,? as opposed to a checkpoint. If they saw anything suspicious they would notify the Lebanese Army. But the Lebanese Army was a good way up the road. At this point, he said, it would be impossible for the two forces to actually staff a check point together.

?When you don?t know each other?s procedures, you can not overlap,? he said before climbing into his jeep and driving off.
Title: GPO warns press on doctored photos
Post by: captainccs on September 28, 2006, 09:58:33 AM
GPO warns press on doctored photos
By ADINA GREENE
                                 

The Government Press Office held a meeting with heads of foreign news agencies earlier this month to protest the doctoring of photographs of the recent Lebanon war and the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, and warned them that action could be taken against them if this practice continued, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The director of the Government Press Office, Danny Seaman, told the Post Israel reserved the right to act against any media outlets working out of Israel if they "fail to conduct themselves in a professional manner."

The foreign journalists' coverage of the Lebanon war was discussed, with the meeting focused on doctored photographs used by news agencies, Seaman said.

"This was something new to the world, but we've seen it before," he said. "We expect them to take precautions in the future. If they are not taking the necessary measures to maintain professional standards then we reserve the right to take action against their offices in Israel."

The GPO cannot act directly against foreign press services, but it can make recommendations to the Communications, Foreign and Defense ministries, Seaman said.

The only action taken by the government against the news agencies during the recent war was to send complaints to their main offices.

Seaman spoke of staged photos from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, such as people standing in front of destroyed homes and falsely claiming ownership and instances in which photographers asked people to "recreate" reported incidents. He also said Palestinian photographers would sometimes tell children to throw rocks or have adults carry children pretending to be injured.

He also referred to photos making damage in Lebanon appear worse than it actually was.

After American Web blogs publicized the doctoring of a Reuters photograph, Reuters put the freelance photographer on leave and removed the photo from its Web site. The photograph showed a smoky, bombed area in southern Beirut. While the area had been hit in IAF air raids, the photographer added billows of smoke and additional damage to buildings using computer-imaging technology.

Reuters said it took the matter seriously and that its policy was not to alter photos.

Seaman said he had met with the bureau chiefs of Reuters, The Associated Press and the Foreign Press Association in his Jerusalem office to discuss actions that he described as "fueling anti-Israel sentiment."

All the bureau chiefs were barred from commenting on the meeting by their organizations.

Speaking on behalf of AP, international editor John Daniszewski said if one of their photographers was caught doctoring photographs, he would be fired immediately.

"I heard about it in regard to the Reuters stringer," he said in a phone interview from New York. I think they're trying to tar everyone with the same brush.

He said both Israelis and Palestinians often criticized the way they were covered, but that the agency had its own "gold standards" of accuracy and fairness to meet.

"It's such a contentious part of the world and other organizations and parties are going to want to pull coverage into one area or another," said Daniszewski. "We try to go straight down the middle. If anyone wants to raise issues, we are always willing to talk about it."


http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1159193337299&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 08, 2006, 09:47:56 AM
The Accidental Prime Minister
Fuad Siniora: "We managed to stop Israel from winning."

BY MICHAEL YOUNG
Saturday, October 7, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

BEIRUT--There was a time, not so long ago, when Fuad al-Siniora was the most vilified man in Lebanon. As the person in charge of the nation's finances under the late prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, he was regarded by the Lebanese as the abominable taxman. On the evening of Hariri's assassination on Feb. 14, 2005, it was another Mr. Siniora I recall seeing among a gathering of anti-Syrian opposition figures at the Hariri mansion--a proper technocrat, seemingly misplaced amid the promenading politicians. Yet when the opposition elected a majority to parliament later in the year, Mr. Siniora emerged, almost naturally, as the successor to his onetime boss. For now, despite efforts by an array of forces to bring his government down, Mr. Siniora remains firmly in place.

There is an urban Sunni merchant's litheness in that metamorphosis from staid number-cruncher to persuasive prime minister. A native of the southern port city of Sidon who started his career as a Citibank executive, Mr. Siniora is velvety and unflappable, as befits a maven of the Levantine marketplace. He avoids hard angles in favor of nods, winks and baroque compromises--qualities essential for herding the fat cats that make up Lebanese government.

Mr. Siniora receives me in his cavernous office in the Grand S?rail, an Ottoman barracks that after World War I housed the French Mandatory authorities. The vast structure, built in 1853, was destroyed during Lebanon's civil war, before Hariri rebuilt it as a headquarters for the prime minister. Mr. Siniora now works as well as lives there, with his family. These days, like most of Syria's Lebanese foes, he spends much time indoors, to avoid assassination.





During the summer war between Hezbollah and Israel, Mr. Siniora walked a tightrope. A seven-point plan he devised was instrumental in creating a framework for an exit from the conflict and the extension of Lebanese state authority to the southern border. But this little endeared him to Hezbollah, which controlled an autonomous area in the south from which the Lebanese Army had been excluded. As Israel began bombing after the abduction of two of its soldiers on July 12, the prime minister had to balance conflicting interests: to use the violence as leverage to loosen Hezbollah's hold over the south, but without appearing to betray the party, which controls two ministers in his cabinet.
The high-wire act is continuing. That's why Mr. Siniora will admit that "it's definitely difficult now for Hezbollah to conduct any military operation south of the Litani River"--but he won't gloat. On the contrary, he insists, "We managed to stop Israel from winning, for the second time since the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war. This is important in the conscience of the Arabs." When I point out he is being disingenuous, that he and his allies in the parliamentary majority were never keen to see Hezbollah make gains, let alone endorse its claim of having scored a "victory" against Israel, Mr. Siniora says: "There were heroic efforts by [Hezbollah] combatants and by Lebanese who received the displaced. But I don't claim we won a victory. We could have sent the army south without this war, and we've now done so for the first time in 35 years. But here were the negatives: My country was reoccupied; it was destroyed; Israel took us back 10 years [economically]; and we must comply with international resolutions that affect Lebanese sovereignty."

I bring up a prickly moment two weeks ago when Hezbollah's secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, speaking at a rally in Beirut's southern suburbs, mocked Mr. Siniora. Last August, during an Arab League foreign ministers' summit in Beirut at the height of the fighting, the prime minister dissolved into tears in the midst of a speech defending Lebanon's Arab bona fides. In his address, Mr. Nasrallah affirmed: "Tears don't liberate [land]." What did Mr. Siniora think of the statement? "I don't react to every word I hear. I take it easy. I have a high degree of serenity. . . . Yet the impact of those tears on all the Arab world was greater than a thousand rockets [Hezbollah] fired on Israel."

There was a less obvious subtext to the exchange. The Arab summit was very much an effort by the predominantly Sunni Arab states to contain Shiite Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Their way of doing so was to support the Siniora plan, which sought to remove excuses for new wars in the south. This succeeded: Aspects of the seven-point plan, including Lebanon's declaring a desire to return to the 1949 Armistice Agreement with Israel, were integrated into the U.N. resolution that ended the fighting, and Hezbollah agreed to them, albeit reluctantly. Mr. Nasrallah, in ridiculing Mr. Siniora, was expressing antipathy for his attachment to a Sunni Arab order that Hezbollah loathes.

As for a return to the armistice, I suggest to Mr. Siniora that this is easier said than done. Some experts argue the agreement is no longer valid, given its repeated violations; others say it needs to be updated. More importantly, Hezbollah and Iran don't like it. Mr. Siniora is dismissive: "It doesn't have to be updated or renegotiated. It was approved by the government, and will be implemented de facto." But going back to an armistice first requires a resolution of the disputed Shebaa Farms issue. The U.N. says the farms area, occupied by Israel, is Syrian; the Lebanese say it is part of Lebanon. Mr. Siniora wants to place it under U.N. auspices until this is decided, in effect forcing the Israelis out. His aim is to deny Hezbollah a reason to pursue armed resistance there. But the U.N. is not enthusiastic. Won't this only encourage Hezbollah to say Mr. Siniora's methods have failed, justifying the guns again? "What can armed resistance bring?" he retorts. "Israel recently reoccupied Lebanon. Only diplomacy made them withdraw."

Would Hezbollah play along, given its Iranian agenda? "I must assume that, and act as if Hezbollah has a Lebanese agenda," he answers. However, his government is not taking chances: "There are no restrictions on the Lebanese army's movements in the south. It has clear instructions to prohibit the appearance of weapons or uniforms, and to confiscate them." More worrying is that the U.N. force helping the Lebanese might be attacked by al Qaeda, or by Islamists supported by Syria. Does Mr. Siniora consider this likely? "I don't think so," he answers, adding, far less reassuringly, "but we should take our precautions."





The prime minister tells me once again that he has "a high level of serenity," but he does seem unsettled by the increasing pressure from Hezbollah, Christian leader Michel Aoun, Syria and Iran for him and the parliamentary majority to accept a new "national unity" government. He even sounds mildly irritated: "Change is unwarranted. Our performance this summer was outstanding. We passed the seven-point plan, reworked the U.N. resolution on Lebanon in our favor, ended the hostilities, sent the army south, forced Israel out, and gained international support, including financial support. What more could be done?"
Some discern more sinister designs in the effort to bring the government down. A few days ago, on Wednesday, the influential Christian Maronite bishops issued a statement implying that the call for a broader cabinet was a furtive way of blocking progress in the Hariri investigation. In the coming weeks the government must consent to guidelines for a mixed tribunal to try those accused of involvement in the late prime minister's murder. Syria is the leading suspect, and Mr. Siniora's allies fear the push to change the government is meant to ensure there are enough pro-Syrian ministers to block any cabinet vote on the tribunal--or impose a limper court.

The prime minister is sanguine. "This is a tempest in a teapot. My experience in this cabinet is that in a very limited number of cases did we resort to voting. The tribunal was agreed upon [in a national dialogue between Lebanese leaders], and it's in no one's interest to make an issue of it." But his last phase is plainly a warning to Hezbollah, one Mr. Siniora repeats: "If someone tries to stop the legal process, then we must make sure we don't go back on what was agreed." When I ask whether Syria is the Svengali behind the new government plan, he sidesteps only slightly: "The effort is being made by people who are pro-Syrian."

But Mr. Siniora's strongest argument against a cabinet change comes in an anodyne phrase: "Nabih Birri says it might be difficult to form a new government, and could take Lebanon into a crisis to no one's advantage." Mr. Birri is the parliament speaker, and a Shiite. By invoking him, Mr. Siniora is using one powerful Shiite to offset the demands of another, Mr. Nasrallah, in warning that a political vacuum might ensue.

Politics are not the only thing the prime minister has to worry about. With a $40 billion debt, a GDP estimated at only $18 to $20 billion, and losses from the July-August conflict estimated by some U.N. agencies at over $10 billion, Lebanon is in dire financial straits. Mr. Siniora says the situation was already "unsustainable" before the "catastrophe," making reform imperative. What he outlines, however, is a dilemma.

Lebanon's credit rating is set to go down in the near future, and the government urgently needs revenue. However, Mr. Siniora is first to admit that, given the country's dark mood, "we cannot raise taxes, this would lead to a recession. We need alternative sources." He means privatization, particularly of the lucrative fixed and mobile telecommunications network.

Fair enough, except that unless the government shows tangible progress on financial reform soon, particularly on privatization, a long-anticipated international donor conference to help Lebanon out of its debt noose will not materialize. And like so much else, privatization remains vulnerable to political discord. So, when Mr. Siniora says the conference might happen "I hope before the end of the year," I have my doubts.

A government priority is compensating those whose homes were destroyed in the recent fighting. Hezbollah garnered publicity by handing money to victims out of suitcases, an approach it sought to contrast with the slowness of the state's reaction. Does Mr. Siniora see himself in competition with the party? "No. We have an obligation toward the people. It was not their mistake that they suffered." He accepts that "Hezbollah might politicize the relief effort against the government," and when I ask whether the party's distribution of funds had provoked problems in certain villages, Mr. Siniora probably sees an opportunity to get one back: "I've heard there are problems. Giving more aid to certain people and less to others creates a great deal of sensitivity."

As we wrap up, the inevitable question provokes an inevitable answer. I ask Mr. Siniora what it feels like being a marked man. "I'm a believer. I know that if anything must happen, it will happen. But I take my precautions. I'm afraid of God. My mother once said: 'Don't be afraid of whoever is afraid of God.' " Many of Mr. Siniora's enemies will readily admit, of course, to a fear of God. What he must worry about is that they will increasingly fear Fuad al-Siniora, the accidental prime minister who may have turned out to be more than they bargained for.

Mr. Young, a Lebanese national, is opinion editor at the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut and a contributing editor at Reason magazine.

Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 06, 2006, 10:38:58 PM
The Syrian-Iranian Agenda for Lebanon
Summary

Opposition protests in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, entered their sixth day Dec. 6 as Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora continued to hold his ground against hundreds of thousands of demonstrators calling for his resignation. Hezbollah and its allies plan to continue with the sit-ins for the time being, but are looking at other options to meet their objective of toppling the government. Meanwhile, Syria and Iran are devising plans to determine who will be the next target for assassination in Lebanon.

Analysis

Hundreds of thousands of protesters staged demonstrations in the heart of the Lebanese capital of Beirut for a sixth consecutive day Dec. 6. Most of the protesters belong to the pro-Syrian March 8 alliance composed primarily of youth supporters of Hezbollah, led by Hassan Nasrallah; the Amal movement, led by Shiite Speaker of the House Nabih Berri; and the Free Patriotic Movement, led by Maronite Christian leader Gen. Michel Aoun.

The demonstrations are one of the instruments the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance is using in an effort to meet its wider objective of undermining the Lebanese government, which is dominated by the anti-Syrian bloc with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora at the helm. Protesters have spent the past six days chanting slogans -- "Down with the U.S. government in Lebanon" is a favorite -- and also studying, smoking hookahs, praying, dancing and sleeping in makeshift camps in the streets. While the demonstrations have had a paralyzing effect on the capital, negotiations have failed to progress and the Lebanese government has yet to cave in to the opposition's demands. Siniora is already under considerable pressure from Arab allies in the region, Europe and the United States not to allow Hezbollah to further consolidate its power and fortify Shiite influence in the region.

Hezbollah had made extensive plans to prevent the protests from turning violent by organizing security squads to break up any clashes along the Sunni-Shiite and Shiite-Druze border areas in and around Beirut. Though these Hezbollah control units have been busy breaking up street fights, violent clashes picked up steam in west Beirut between rival factions, leaving one Shiite demonstrator dead. Sources in the Amal movement's security apparatus have revealed that the clashes in the Qasqas area -- which straddles west Beirut and the southern suburbs where the Shiite protester died -- also spread to the nearby Al Shuhada cemetery. At the cemetery, fighting reportedly broke out between unidentified assailants from the Palestinian Shatila refugee camp and Hezbollah fighters. Four Hezbollah members and two unidentified men from the Shatila camp were killed, though police records made no reference to the deaths since they involved combatants and not civilians. These clashes arising out of the Palestinian camps are indicative of Syria's hand in the Beirut street fights to stoke sectarian violence and show the extent to which Lebanon has devolved into chaos without a strong Syrian security presence in the country.

The demonstrations also have dealt the Lebanese economy a serious blow, with estimates that the country will lose more than $30 million a day if the political crisis continues. To lessen the financial impact, Hezbollah organized the protests to begin on Friday, Dec. 1, after most of Beirut's residents received their paychecks and were off work for the weekend. The economic impact as well as the potential for violence to spread throughout the capital, however, have factored into Hezbollah's calculus in continuing these demonstrations. The Shiite militant and political movement is determined to show it is working in the interests of Lebanese citizens, and not only for its own Shiite sect -- as demonstrated by the strict rules given to protesters to wave only Lebanese national flags and refrain from violence. Particularly after the summer war with Israel, the group is already facing criticism for inviting the war onto Lebanese territory and harming Lebanese business interests.

Hezbollah is still in the process of deciding its next plan of action should the Siniora government fail to accede to the demands. Sources within Hezbollah claim the group's next move will be to have more parliament and civil service members resign and to block access to the Rafik al-Hariri International Airport by sending around 70,000 demonstrators to camp on the main highway. While the Lebanese army commander has made it clear that the airport will remain open and is off limits to the protesters, Hezbollah members believe the army will be unable to restrain a mob of 70,000 people.

Syria, meanwhile, has been looking at its own agenda for Lebanon. Following the assassination of Lebanese Ministry of Industry Pierre Gemayel, a Syrian security delegation made its way to Tehran to discuss at length the assassination of anti-Syrian and anti-Iranian Lebanese figures. To cover up Syria's suspected involvement in the spate of killings, Iran allegedly has suggested killing one or two second-tier Lebanese allies of Syria to confuse the ongoing investigation, led by Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz, who is due to release a report on the political assassinations in mid-December. The prime targets for assassination in this scenario include Najah Wakim, a Greek Orthodox, who is an outspoken supporter of Syria and fierce critic of slain former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, as well as Nasser Qandil, a Shi'i, who is associated with Berri's Amal movement. Both Qandil and Wakim are suspected of playing a role in the al-Hariri assassination, and their killings would give opposition forces an excuse to accuse the March 14 anti-Syrian alliance of the act.

A new Palestinian movement that has appeared in Beirut is expected to aid the Syrians in these assassinations. The group calls itself Harakat Fatah al-Islam, a splinter group of Fatah al-Intifada, which itself split from the Fatah movement in 1983. About 200 members of the new movement have entered Lebanon lately -- some 150 to the Badawi refugee camp near Tripoli and about 50 to the Burj al-Barajneh camp in the southern suburbs.

Evidently, the political assassinations in Beirut are far from over, and Hezbollah is feeling bold enough to escalate the demonstrations to cripple the Siniora government, leaving Lebanon in an all-too-familiar state of chaos. The opportunity for negotiations still exists, but plenty of AK-47s will be passed out to various sects in Beirut to prepare for a worst-case scenario.

www.stratfor.com
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 05, 2007, 06:36:23 PM
stratfor.com

Lebanon: A Tempestuous Anniversary Approaches
Summary

Feb. 14 marks the second anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. Lebanon's Shiite, Sunni, Druze and Christian factions are busy preparing for the event in traditional Lebanese fashion -- by gun shopping.

Analysis

Feb. 14 will be a tumultuous day in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, as the country's various rival factions pour into the streets for the second anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. With Lebanon's various factions busily arming themselves for a potential confrontation, the anniversary is likely to be an explosive event.

Nearly two years ago, al-Hariri was killed in a massive car bombing that sparked widespread protests and forced Syrian troops out of Lebanon. Though Syria suffered a great deal of humiliation in being evicted from its western neighbor, it has managed to maintain a strong presence in Lebanon's political, military and economic apparatuses to serve Syrian interests. Syria's main militant asset, Hezbollah, is now in the middle of a campaign to undermine the Western-oriented Lebanese government led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Damascus is working to expand Hezbollah's political prowess forcefully while ensuring Syrian allies are safeguarded from an international tribunal that would potentially implicate the Syrian regime in the al-Hariri assassination.

With communal tensions steadily rising in the capital city, Hezbollah's lengthy protest campaign has led Lebanon's sectarian communities to return to old habits from Lebanon's 1975-1989 civil war and to prepare for the worst by mounting a massive armament campaign.

The best-equipped of these groups is the Shiite bloc led by Hezbollah and the Amal movement. Sources in Beirut say hundreds of Hezbollah fighters armed with automatic rifles and hand grenades have arrived from the south and from the Bekaa Valley to replace civilian protesters in Beirut. Armed groups from Hezbollah, the Amal movement and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) already have begun reconnaissance missions to explore buildings overlooking downtown and place snipers on top floors to prevent any members of the anti-Syrian March 14 alliance from firing at SSNP supporters. Should any attempts be made to cut off Hezbollah supply routes on the coastal highway or the Beirut-Damascus highway that connects Beirut's southern suburbs to southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah has indicated it will use Katyusha rockets to remove any blockades. Hezbollah's ability to accurately aim a Katyusha at a specific target remains in doubt, however.

Hezbollah is also busy monitoring the steady armament of Lebanon's Sunni faction, which is led by Saad al-Hariri (the slain former prime minister's son) and is heavily supported by Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Truckloads of arms including automatic rifles, guns, grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and mortars, ammunition and military uniforms are being regularly unloaded in building basements in mostly Sunni west Beirut. Saad al-Hariri is procuring arms paid for by Saudi Arabia to give the essentially urban Lebanese Sunnis the means for self-defense. In addition to Arab suppliers, the Lebanese parties associated with al-Hariri's anti-Syrian March 14 bloc are purchasing arms through Eastern and Southern European agents. Sources say popular items on their shopping lists include sniper rifles, night-vision binoculars, land mines and short-range missile launchers. Providing further evidence of the arms buying frenzy, used AK-47 prices in the local market already have risen from $200 to $700 since the 2006 summer war with Israel. Al-Hariri loyalists also have conducted training exercises on light and medium arms in schools, mosque yards, parking lots and social clubs in Beirut.

During the Lebanese civil war, Lebanon's Sunnis primarily relied on the Palestine Liberation Organization for their protection. In the aftermath of the war, the late al-Hariri believed it was the duty of Lebanese Sunnis to restore law and order in the country and to demilitarize the various factions. To this end, he created the Saudi-funded Hariri Foundation to provide an opportunity for Lebanese youths from all sectarian backgrounds to pursue a college education. His assassination and the summer 2006 conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, however, shook things up and gave the Sunnis under Saad al-Hariri's leadership a wake-up call to create their own militia. In Tarik al-Jadidah (a predominantly Sunni working-class neighborhood in Beirut), graffiti reveals the changing attitudes of Lebanese Sunnis: "Saad, you are as precious as our eyes; arm us and we will take care of the rest."

Meanwhile, Maronite Christians and Druze have maintained their own militias since the early 19th century. These two factions recognized the importance of self-defense in their Lebanon Mountain enclaves, which were autonomous from the Ottoman Empire. During the 1970s, the Druze and Maronites were among the most heavily armed groups in Lebanon as they sought to counter the rapid militarization of the Shiite community under Imam Musa al-Sadr, who founded Amal. The Druze today are actively arming their Sunni allies in Beirut with light arms and are contracting arms deals on Saad al-Hariri's behalf.

Maronite Christians, however, are seriously divided between the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance and the al-Hariri-led March 14 alliance. Gen. Michel Aoun, a prominent figure in the Maronite community, is currently allied with Hezbollah's group along with Lebanon's pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud. Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces, on the other hand, are bitter foes of Aoun's movement and are allied with al-Hariri's bloc. Rumors suggest Maronite supporters of Lahoud and Aoun will lead an effort with their allies in the Lebanese army to confront the Lebanese Forces militarily in an attempt to weaken al-Hariri's alliance and prevent Geagea, an anti-Syria candidate, from becoming a serious contender for the presidency once Lahoud's term ends.

Escalating arms sales on all sides make a political compromise between the March 8 and March 14 factions unlikely in the near future. On Feb. 14, government loyalists will hold massive protests in downtown Beirut to commemorate the anniversary of al-Hariri's death, namely Riad al-Solh and Martyrs' squares. The presence of both the Hezbollah-led opposition and the March 14 alliance is bound to cause friction -- and could easily result in violent clashes in the capital. Though Hezbollah has an interest in containing the protesters and preventing violent outbreaks, a number of actors have an interest in allowing the protests to spiral out of control. For Damascus, a major destabilization in Beirut could legitimize a Syrian military intervention in Lebanon to restore its influence. Segments of the pro-government March 14 alliance are also interested in provoking clashes with Hezbollah supporters to give the Lebanese army an excuse to intervene and evict protesters from downtown and end Hezbollah's protest campaign.

Though a civil war repeat is still unlikely in the near future, the high potential for violence and the charged atmosphere in Beirut will certainly raise the bar for Hezbollah in the negotiations it conducts with the al-Siniora government. Saudi-Iranian competition over Beirut also will intensify, as Iran makes it clear that any political resolution in Lebanon will have to be negotiated with Hezbollah's patrons in Tehran.

In any case, it would be advisable to stay out of Beirut this Valentine's Day.
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 09, 2007, 12:27:59 PM
LEBANON: A truck transporting weapons to Hezbollah from the Bekaa Valley was intercepted in Beirut, Lebanon, and government forces seized the weapons. Though Hezbollah has demanded that the truck and weapons be released, Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr has refused to turn the weapons back over to Hezbollah. According to unconfirmed reports, rocket launchers and rockets were among the weapons found concealed in the truck.

stratfor.com
Title: Pending Civil War in Lebanon?
Post by: Body-by-Guinness on July 09, 2007, 09:38:08 AM
Lebanon 'to erupt in 1 week'

Syria calls on citizens to evacuate Lebanon, reports say; Expert: Civil war possible
Yaakov Lappin

Syria has called on its citizens to leave Lebanon ahead of an expected "eruption" in that country, Arab and Iranian press reports have said.
 
The media reports were translated and made available by MEMRI in a special dispatch on Sunday.
 
"In the past few days, Arab and Iranian media reports have pointed to the possibility that Lebanon's current political crisis may become a violent conflict after July 15, 2007," the MEMRI dispatch said.
 
July 15 comes one day before a special UN Security Council meeting which is expected to discuss the possibility of stationing international experts on the Syria-Lebanon border, in order monitor the ongoing illegal cross border arms traffic to Hizbullah, thought to be originating from Iran and Syria.
 
The UN Security Council is also expected to meet next week to discuss a key report on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a development which may bode badly for Syria.
 
"On July 5, 2007, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported that Syrian authorities had instructed all Syrian citizens residing in Lebanon to return to their country by July 15, 2007. The next day, the Israeli Arab daily Al-Sinara similarly reported, on the authority of a Lebanese source close to Damascus, that Syria was planning to remove its citizens from Lebanon. Also on July 5, the Lebanese daily Al-Liwa reported rumors that Syrian workers were leaving Lebanon at the request of the Syrian authorities. In addition, the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra reported that Syrian universities would accept Syrian students who were leaving Lebanon due to the instability there," MEMRI said in its report.
 
Within Lebanon itself, the Hizbullah-led opposition threatened to establish a "second government" through "historical steps" in mid July, according to senior Hizbullah officials quoted in the Lebanese media, MEMRI added.
 
'Civil war possibility'
A violent clash next week in Lebanon is a real possibility, but would not be aimed at Israel, General (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a former senior officer in the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate, told Ynetnews. He added, however, that such an internal conflict could "deteriorate" to the point where Israel is targeted by rocket fire.
 
"This is a warning and a threat, directed not towards not us, but towards the Lebanese government, and against activities by the UN, the US, and the Europeans in Lebanon," Amidror said. "Can this deteriorate to the point of firing on Israel? It doesn't look like it now, but it can get there," he said.
 
"This signals distress more than power," Amidror said. "If they (Iran, Syria and Hizbullah) were confident, they wouldn't go for such extreme maneuver that would expose them to the fury of Sunnis and Christians in Lebanon. Few in Lebanon want Nasrallah to take power. Shiites are the largest sect, but they make up 40 percent of the population. There are 60 percent who don't like the idea of a Shiite takeover at all," Amidror explained. He added that tensions could erupt into a full scale civil war in Lebanon, with Shiites on one side and Sunnis, Christians, and Druze on the other. "Civil war occurred in Lebanon in the past, there is no reason to think it can't happen again," he warned.
 
Amidror added that Shiites were determined to take power in Lebanon out of an ideological motivation, and a wish to mimic events in Iraq.
 
"What's happening in Lebanon is part of a wider Middle Eastern conflict in which Shiites are trying to push Sunnis out of power. This is part of a conflict against Israel in a wider context, but it is primarily a Shiite-Sunni struggle. This is more proof that Israel is not the source of strife in the Middle East, but rather it is the Sunni-Shiite conflict," he added. 
 
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3422565,00.html
Title: Syria seizing pieces of Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 24, 2007, 04:26:57 AM
Syria Occupies Lebanon. Again.
A land grab proportionally equivalent to a foreign power occupying Arizona.

BY BRET STEPHENS
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.

The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the U.N. Because of the sensitivity of the subject, the authors have requested anonymity and have circulated the report only among select government officials and journalists. But its findings cannot be ignored.

In meticulous detail--supplemented by photographs, satellite images, archival material and Lebanese military maps predating Syria's 1976 invasion (used as a basis of comparison with Syria's current positions)--the authors describe precisely where and how Lebanon has been infiltrated. In the area of the village of Maarboun, for instance, the authors observed Syrian military checkpoints a mile inside Lebanon. In the Birak al-Rassass Valley, they photographed Syrian anti-aircraft batteries. On the outskirts of the village of Kossaya they found a heavily fortified camp belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in violation of U.N. resolutions and Lebanese demands.


This is a story to which I can contribute my own testimony. In May 2005 I paid a visit to Lebanon, just a month after Syria had announced that it had fully withdrawn its 14,000 troops from Lebanon in compliance with Resolution 1559. The rumor in Beirut was that a company of 200 or so elite Syrian soldiers remained encamped within Lebanon near the Druze village of Deir al-Ashaer. I decided to have a look. After a long drive over rutted roads, I found it.
Or rather, what I found was a hillside outpost that I was able to enter without crossing any apparent international border. The man in charge was a Syrian intelligence officer who "invited" me into a sweltering tent while he phoned his commanders for instruction. After a few tense minutes of silence with the soldiers inside, the officer reappeared, explained that the camp was 50 yards inside Syrian territory, and ordered me to go. From there I went to the village, where the mayor insisted the camp was several hundred yards inside Lebanon.

Who was right? Inclined as I was to believe the mayor, it was hard to sort out contending claims over remote parcels of land. A week later, then Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced the U.N. had "verified all [Syrian military units] had withdrawn, including [from] the border area." It seemed that was the end of the story.

I should have known then that anything "verified" by the U.N. must be checked at least twice. I should have known, too, that anything to which Mr. Annan devoted his personal attention would inevitably become worse. Last September, Mr. Annan paid a visit to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad after the latter had declared he would treat any attempt by the U.N. to deploy peacekeepers along the Lebanese-Syrian border as a "hostile act." To defuse the impasse, Mr. Annan simply accepted Mr. Assad's assurances that Syria would police its border and prevent arms smuggling. "I think it can happen," said the diplomat at a press conference. "It may not be 100%, but it will make quite a lot of difference if the government puts in place the measures the government has discussed with me."

What happened, predictably, was the opposite. In May, Fatah al-Islam, a terrorist group whose leadership was imported from Damascus, attacked Lebanese army outposts outside the Palestinian refugee camps of Nahr El-Bared and Biddawi, causing a bloody standoff that continues till this day. In June, current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a report citing numerous instances of arms smuggling from Syria to Hezbollah and the PFLP. Yesterday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah boasted that he once again has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv--missiles he could only have obtained via Syria. Israel confirms his claims.

Mr. Ban's report is notable for its clarity and seriousness. Taken together with the border report, it paints an alarming picture. Though the land grabs are small affairs individually, they collectively add up to an area amounting to about 4% of Lebanese soil--in U.S. terms, the proportional equivalent of Arizona. Of particular note is that the area of Syrian conquest dwarves that of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms. The farms, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and which amount to an area of about 12 square miles, are claimed by Hezbollah as belonging to Lebanon--a useful pretext for it to continue its "resistance" against an Israeli occupation that ended seven years ago.

Needless to say, Hezbollah--which purports to fight for Lebanese sovereignty--makes no similar claims against Syria. For his part, Mr. Assad refuses to agree to a demarcation of his border with Lebanon, just as he refuses to open an embassy in Beirut. The ambiguity serves him well: He can seize Lebanese territory without anyone appearing to take notice, supply terrorist camps without quite harboring the terrorists, and funnel arms to Hezbollah at will--all without abandoning the fantasy of "Greater Syria" encompassing Lebanon, the Golan Heights and Israel itself.


It would, of course, be nice to see the Arab world protest this case of illegal occupation, given its passions about the subject. It would also be nice to see the media report this story as sedulously as it has the controversy of the Shebaa Farms. Don't hold your breath on either score. In the meantime, the only countries in a position to help Lebanon are France and the U.S. They could strike a useful blow by closing their embassies in Damascus until such time as Damascus opens an embassy--with all that it implies--in Beirut.

Mr. Stephens is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. His column appears in the Journal Tuesdays.

Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 25, 2007, 10:02:55 AM


This does seem to be getting a tad less coverage than when the Israelis go after one of these camps , , ,


1114 GMT -- LEBANON -- The Lebanese army's military operation has entered the final phase against Fatah al-Islam militants at the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, Reuters reported July 25, citing a political source.

stratfor.com
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 19, 2007, 09:11:13 PM
Summary

Lebanon's fractured government has until Nov. 23 to elect a new president that is acceptable to both the pro-Syrian Hezbollah-led opposition and the pro-West March 14 coalition. With no compromise in sight, Hezbollah and its Syrian allies are readying plans to set up a shadow government in Beirut. Even by Lebanese standards, this is one political crisis that has the potential to plunge the country into all sorts of craziness.

Analysis

Emile Lahoud's term as Lebanon's president expires Nov. 23. Under the country's constitution, the government has until that date to elect a new Christian president.

There are a few not-so-minor problems with this state of affairs, however. First and foremost, it must be remembered that this is Lebanon, where legalities do not generally take precedence in the political system. Hezbollah and its allies in the Shiite Amal Movement and Michel Aoun's Christian faction already have boycotted the government. Technically speaking, the pro-West faction led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora can elect a new president on its own through a very narrow, simple majority. But without the votes of Hezbollah and its allies, the election of the new president easily can be labeled illegitimate and illegal by a sizable political force in the country.




There are weighty issues at stake in this election, particularly for Syria. The Syrians steadily have reasserted their presence in Lebanon since the government was forced to withdraw its troops from the country in the wake of the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. Naturally, the Syrian regime wants to ensure that the new president -- who must be a Maronite Christian, according to the constitution -- is amenable, to say the least, to serving Syrian interests in Lebanon. At the same time, Syria's militant proxy, Hezbollah, is seeking to expand its political presence in the government and ensure that it faces no long-term threats to its survival as a movement.

The Siniora-led March 14 alliance, however, is on an entirely different page. This coalition is being heavily backed by the U.S., French and Saudi governments to counter Hezbollah and keep a tight rein on Syrian and Iranian influence in Lebanon. Though diplomats from the region, the United States, Europe and Russia have been flying in and out of Beirut in an effort to come up with the ultimate political resolution, the feuding factions are nowhere near a compromise, with only four days left until Lahoud's term expires.

Hezbollah and Syria essentially have drawn a red line. If a compromise cannot be reached and the Siniora-led faction calls a special session of parliament to elect its preferred candidate independently, plans likely will be activated to set up a shadow government in Beirut.

According to sources in the city, a security meeting recently took place between Syrian officials and Hezbollah to go over these contingency plans at the residence of Hussein Khalil, Hezbollah's political consultant, in the eastern Baalbek region. The plan that was agreed on involves the occupation of 20 ministries and public institutions in the greater Beirut area by a combined military-civilian force provided by Hezbollah. It also calls for storming the Sarai, the headquarters of the prime minister, and reopening by force the coastal highway between Beirut and Sidon, as well as the Damascus highway -- both of which lie within the Druze stronghold of Walid Jumblatt, who is allied with the anti-Syrian March 14 alliance. Controlling these key highways is central to Hezbollah's plans to set up a rival government. The Damascus highway links Hezbollah strongholds in the central and northern Bekaa Valley with Beirut's southern suburbs, while the coastal highway between Beirut and Sidon connects Hezbollah bases in the South with Beirut's southern suburbs.

Occupying ministries by force undoubtedly will be a complicated affair if this plan actually goes into effect. By law, the Lebanese army would have to step in to defend these institutions. But here again we have another problem, in that Lebanon's army already is deeply fractured and lacks the will to stand up to civilian protesters, much less to Hezbollah. Moreover, nearly half the army is comprised of Shia who will not necessarily go against their patrons in Hezbollah. Any foreign force that even attempts to intervene in such a scenario very rapidly will become bogged down in a domestic fight in which Hezbollah most likely will take the upper hand.

This plan by Hezbollah has long been in the making. Recently, Hezbollah replaced the party official in charge of the sit-in protest camps in downtown Beirut. While Hezbollah circulated rumors that the official was replaced because several of its members were caught smoking hashish in the downtown camp, the real reason was to prepare Hezbollah operatives for the coming confrontation by inserting a strong officer capable of mobilizing the group's human resources in downtown Beirut. Recruiting and training efforts by Hezbollah also have picked up speed in recent months, with hundreds of men from the militias of Lebanese opposition groups undergoing training in the area of Wadi al-Nabi, between the villages of Brital and Hour Taala in the Bekaa Valley.

There is no guarantee -- as of yet -- that Hezbollah's plan will be activated. After all, Syria traditionally plays politics in Lebanon via car bombings. If Damascus wants to deprive the March 14 alliance of its slim majority in parliament, it can take out another parliamentarian as a stopgap measure. There also is the possibility that Lahoud will appoint Lebanon's army chief, Michel Suleiman, to run the country in order to prevent Siniora's government from taking over. Suleiman has been singing a pro-Syrian tune in the past few months, making this a potentially viable option for Damascus.

In any case, the situation is turning explosive, even by Lebanese standards. The conflict will not be confined to Lebanon, either. The Iranians, the Syrians, the Americans, the French, the Saudis, the Jordanians and even the Turks will in a variety of ways become entangled in this crisis as the country further destabilizes. For a country whose government was designed to rule by consensus, the probability of a consensus candidate getting elected in the next few days is dangerously low, bringing Lebanon even closer to the dark days of civil war.

stratfor
Title: Hezbollahstan
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 13, 2008, 07:07:16 AM
From Lebanon to Hezbollahstan
May 13, 2008; Page A15
On Friday, Hezbollah gunmen set fire to the Beirut offices of Future TV, a Lebanese broadcaster. On a purely symbolic level, it was an apt demonstration of where the Party of God stands in relation to the future itself.

But that wasn't the worst of what has happened in the past week in Lebanon, where scores of people have been killed in interfactional violence. More ominous was the role of the Lebanese army, avowedly neutral and nominally under civilian control. "An army officer accompanied by members of Hezbollah walked into the station and told us to switch off transmission," an unnamed Future TV official told Reuters. So much for army neutrality.

 
AP 
Shiite gunmen patrol the streets in Chouweifat, south of Beirut, May 11.
The army also countermanded government orders to dismantle Hezbollah's telecommunications network at the Beirut airport and remove the brigadier responsible for airport security, who is said to be a Hezbollah pawn. "I have called on the army to live up to its national responsibilities . . . and this has not happened," Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's increasingly irrelevant prime minister, said on national TV.

Future historians will look for the precise moment the Lebanese Republic began to transmogrify into Hezbollahstan. Was it the June 2005 murder of anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir – the earliest sign that Syria, whose 29-year military occupation of its neighbor had ended just two months before, intended to reinsert itself by stealth and terror (and with the connivance of Hezbollah)? Was it the role played by the Maronite Gen. Michel Aoun, a hero of the last Lebanese civil war, who returned from exile in 2005 intending to play the part of de Gaulle only to become, after striking a bargain with Hezbollah, another Pétain?

Was it the summer war of 2006, when Israel failed to destroy Hezbollah militarily and, in so failing, gave Hezbollah an aura of invincibility? Was it the unwillingness of international peacekeepers to patrol the Lebanese-Syrian border, thereby allowing Hezbollah to rearm itself after the war? Was it the absence of an effective, or even intelligible, American policy toward Lebanon, epitomized by Condoleezza Rice's decision to rehabilitate Damascus by inviting it to November's Annapolis Middle East conference?

The answer is all of the above: An accumulation of policy mistakes, political dodges and moral atrocities that have nearly killed the "new" Lebanon in its crib.

Demography has also played a role. Christians in particular have been fleeing Lebanon for decades. And though a census hasn't been taken in Lebanon in 75 years, Nizar Hamze of the American University of Beirut estimates that there are between eight and nine live births per Shiite household. The comparable figure for Lebanon's Sunnis is about five; for Christians and Druze, about two. These numbers must ultimately count against an outmoded constitutional order geared to favor Christians first, Sunnis second, Shiites third.

But even if Lebanon cannot escape its Shiite destiny, it is not ordained that it must also become a Hezbollah state, taking its orders from Tehran. So what are the U.S.'s policy options?

Inside Lebanon, they are few. No American president will send American troops back to Beirut and risk a reprise of 1983. Supplying the Lebanese army is a nonstarter; it is no longer clear whose side that army is on. Should the U.S. arm the anti-Hezbollah factions in the event of an all-out civil war? Some of them, like Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces, have well-earned reputations as war criminals.

A more productive thought comes from Dwight Eisenhower, who observed that "if a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it." The reason the U.S. lacks for options in Lebanon is because it has no policy toward Syria.

In 2003, Congress passed the Syria Accountability Act, but the administration has observed only its weakest provisions. They could be enforced in full. A Syria Liberation Act, similar to the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, would be a step forward. So would international sanctions for Syria's violations of the Nonproliferation Treaty, exposed by Israel in its raid last year on an unfinished nuclear reactor. Bombing the runway of the Damascus airport for the role it plays in serving as a conduit for Iranian arms to Hezbollah would also be an appropriate signal of American displeasure.

None of this is likely to happen, however. U.S. policy toward Syria will continue to vacillate between partial engagement and partial ostracism, achieving neither. And Lebanon will continue its transformation into Hezbollahstan, a sad fate for a country that might have stood for something fine.

Write to bstephens@wsj.com

Title: stratfor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 13, 2008, 07:09:44 AM
Post two of the morning:

Two days after Lebanon’s Shiite Islamist movement Hezbollah took over western Beirut, the Syrian- and Iranian-backed militia and its allies on Sunday defeated Sunni and Druze forces allied with the United States and the Arab countries (particularly Saudi Arabia) in other areas such as Bekaa, Tripoli and Mount Lebanon. Back in the capital, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora met with the charge d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and then held an emergency Cabinet meeting. An Arab League delegation is supposed to arrive in the country May 12 to try and broker a negotiated settlement.

In many ways, these developments are to be expected, given that Lebanon is a nonfunctioning state where pro- and anti-Syrian factions have long been struggling for power. But what makes these latest clashes significant is that one side — the side allied with Iran and Syria — appears to be gaining the upper hand. Furthermore, the Lebanese army has not come to the aid of the government.

For the longest time, Lebanon was caught in a stalemate between the Shiite- and Sunni-led camps, which manifested in the gridlock over the election of a new president. Having defeated its opponents on the battlefield and then worked skillfully with the Lebanese military to try and avoid the perception of a complete takeover, Hezbollah is now in a position to not just dictate terms on the issue of the vacant presidency but also possibly force a new power-sharing agreement — one in which it has a significant advantage.

Put differently, Hezbollah has demonstrated that it is the premier political force in the country. Its performance in the war with Israel in 2006 and the attitude of the Lebanese army in recent days underscores Hezbollah’s status as much more than a typical paramilitary organization. The government’s indication that it is willing to reverse its decision to try and dismantle Hezbollah’s communications array — the decision that triggered the events of the past several days — shows that it has all but capitulated.

So, what we have now is a Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, which has significant geopolitical ramifications for a number of players in the region and beyond. Israel will have the most immediate concerns; it has been oscillating between peace talks with Syria and the need to reverse the outcome of the 2006 war with Hezbollah. Furthermore, Israel now has to deal with hostile forces taking over areas on two fronts: Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. All of this is materializing as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government is trying to survive amid a bribery scandal.

Hezbollah’s control over Lebanon is something that the Syrians have been waiting for ever since Damascus was forced to withdraw its troops from the country in the wake of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri’s assassination. Similarly, for Iran, which is seeking to assert its regional player status, Hezbollah’s gains greatly enhance its position in the region.

Saudi Arabia’s position has been doubly weakened. First, the events in Lebanon represent a reversal of sorts for Riyadh, which has spent a great deal of energy trying to weaken Damascus’ influence in Lebanon and pry Syria away from the Iranian orbit. More importantly, the Saudis now have to worry about pro-Iranian Shiite forces gaining dominance not just in Iraq, but also in Lebanon.

Far more important is the U.S. calculus for the region. Washington has been working hard to contain the rise of Iran and its radical alliance consisting of Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. The key theater in this respect has been Iraq, where the United States has been engaged in excruciatingly complex and difficult negotiations with Iran to stabilize Iraq. Hezbollah gaining the upper hand will allow the Iranians to drive a much harder bargain with the Americans on not just Iraq, but also the nuclear issue.

This emerging configuration on the regional chessboard is clearly out of line with U.S. interests. Thus, the key question is whether the situation in Lebanon will prompt the United States to deal with Iran in a much more aggressive manner than it has for the past five years.

Title: Lebanon's 300
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 13, 2008, 07:11:04 AM
Post three of the morning;
==================

Lebanon’s “300″
By Walid Phares (bio)

While the West is busy living its daily life, a beast is busy killing the freedom of a small community on the East Mediterranean: Lebanon. Indeed, as of last week, the mighty Hezbollah, armed to the teeth with 30,000 rockets and missiles and aligning thousands of self described “Divine soldiers” has been marching across the capital, terrorizing its population, shutting down media, taking its politicians and the Prime Minister as hostages, and looting at will. The hordes of Lebanon’s “Khomeinist Janjaweeds” have conquered already half of the Middle East’s cultural capital, Beirut. As I have reported before, Hezbollah has occupied West Beirut and has since sent its storm troops in multiple directions to resume the blitz.

 The burning of TV stations in Beirut
Unstoppable, including by the Lebanese Army which Commander Michel Sleiman has allowed the slaughter to occur the Pasdaran-founded militia is now hurdling towards the Druze Mountain and positioning its forces against the Sunni North and the Christian Mount Lebanon. Ironically, the geographical bases of Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon, are well guarded by the United Nations Interim Forces (UNIFIL). Per a UNSCR 1701 in 2006, more than 10,000 international troops are stationed across the southern parts of Lebanon, technically protecting the 200 Shia towns and villages from where the bulk of Hezbollah fighters came from. Hence, free from guarding their own areas, a dozen thousands well trained “Hezbollahis” have marched north to join another 5,000 already based in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
This huge force, by Lebanon’s standards, was joined by an undetermined number of real Iranian Guards, shipped from Tehran to man sophisticated weapons offered by the Khamanei regime as a gift to topple the democratically elected Government of Fuad Seniora. In addition, from the four corners of the country, Jihadist and ultra radical organizations have joined the fray including: The Nazi-like SSNP, the Amal Movement, the Wi’amWahhab pro-Syrian militia, and many others. And to top it, Damascus was able to neutralize the Lebanese Army which has been equipped recently by the United States. Its Commander, a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic was “convinced” by the Assad regime to open the passages to Beirut and all other regions for the hordes to thrust into their enemies’ backyards. Reminding us of the tales of Greek Antiquity, this Xerxes –Khomeinist- Army burst into the capital, whipping out the thin internal security forces and reigning with brutality.

Hezbollah’s “Immortal Guards” against the “300″?

After securing the Muslim side of the city, the “Immortal Guards” –since most of the Hezbollahis believe in martyrdom as a path to eternal after-life, encircled the mostly Druze Mountain from all directions. Closing in from the coast, the south and the Bekaa, thousands of fighters and their heavy artillery were ordered into battle this week end. The massive “Persian” Army is now attempting to take these passes into the Bekaa and from there into the North and the Christian Mountain. In a sense these may become Lebanon’s Thermopylae: A vast Hezbollah Iranian-backed Army unleashing its power against few Lebanese Spartans, to dislodge them and open the paths for the rest of the country. Indeed, it looks like the few hundred Druze fighters in Aley and the Shuf –who have decided to fight on their own, may become Lebanon’s “300”.  The vision is chilling. Despite the calls by their leader Walid Jumblat, now hostage to the Pasdaran in Beirut, to desist from resisting, the mountainous peasants decided to fight and resist the onslaught. The balance of power is terribly uneven. The forces of Hassan Nasrallah, hyper armed by “Xerxes” Ahmedinijad, line up thousands of soldiers, Special Forces, missiles and endless containers of ammunition. They have hardened their battle experience through years of fighting against a powerful Israeli Army, Air Force and Navy. Nasrallah is convinced that his Army of Suicide-bombers has defeated the region’s nuclear super power in 2006. Hence, a few “hundreds” of Druses won’t even stand for a day. Logically, he is correct. The Lebanese Army was tamed by Hezbollah, the Sunnis of Beirut collapsed in few hours, the Christians are intimidated, the U.S and Europe fears Hezbollah’s Terror and the Arab regimes are terrified by his myth. Who on Earth will resist the Khomeinist Xerxes? Well so far, Lebanon’s 300 have.

The Grand Hezbollah PlanThe first waves of attacks launched by the Iranian backed forces aimed at seizing the first portion of the strategic Damascus Highway (the I-70 of Lebanon) linking Beirut to the Syrian border via the Mountain. The offensive began from Kayfoun towards Baysur. Instead of seizing terrain, Hezbollah lost Kayfoun with heavy casualties (about 23 killed) and the Druze fighters of the Socialist Party planted their flag on the enemy bunker before they pulled back to their positions. The Iranian commanders were stunned by these mountain “Rangers.” But the Druze had only AK 47 with one or two clips of ammunitions; rarely an RPG. While the whole of Lebanon was watching with fear, awaiting their turn, the “300” were repelling the waves of “Immortal Hezbollah” who in fact got very mortal in 24 hours. Another battle raged in Aley and the “Persians” lost again: 9 casualties or so: Among the bodies, three Iranians.  Near Aley the strategic hill 888 was assaulted repetitively but the defenders repelled the “Guards.” Later on, the Druze transferred the hill to the Lebanese Army. Nasrallah’s troops then stormed Deir Qubal but were pushed back towards the surrounding hills. Hezbollah tried to seize Ein Unub but again the attack failed. 

 Druze clerics   Hezbollah Guard

Then Hezbollah ordered its forces to advance on the coastal axis towards Shueifat. There, the Druze pulled back inside the town allowing the “Hezbos” to take the control of the beaches and the adjacent roads. But when the Iranian backed militias moved toward the neighborhoods, their advance was stopped. Frustrated the “Xerxes” War Room decided the grand assault by early Monday: More than 2,000 Khomeinist-trained commandos took the back roads to the Baruk Mountain coming from the southern Bekaa. Their target are the Maaser heights and from there to the district capital of the Shuf, Mukhtara. From south Lebanon, the hordes of Hezbollah are marching across Jezzine, Tumate heights into the southern frontiers of the Druze lands. According to reports, 5000 Hezbollah/Iranian/Syrian infantry, backed by rockets and artillery are to close in from the south. The Druze, youth and elderly, have mobilized all they could, but are isolated with little ammunition. Their adversaries are numerous, well equipped, fanaticized and have their supply lines opened to Syria and via Damascus, to Iran. The tableau looks like a real collection of small Thermopylae where the “300” of Lebanon will be fighting a Goliath.

 Pasdaran and Hezbollah’s forces

But irony is that the United States and other Democracies, whose forces are present in the area and ships cruising the waters along the Eastern Mediterranean, and who have committed to fight terror around the globe may be watching these “300” falling in this epic fight. The greater irony is that these peasants of Mount Lebanon have withstood the mighty machine of Hezbollah for three days and maybe for a few more, while the standing myth internationally was that no one on Earth can defeat this Terror force. Well, for few days the myth of invincibility of Hezbollah was shattered. Eventually if the powers -who have already spent 500 billion dollars on the War on terror- would fail the Lebanese “300” in their mountains, the legend will be owned by the those little intrepid and courageous peasants. But if Washington and Paris would quickly assume their strategic responsibilities –which they initiated by voting UNSCR 1559 to liberate Lebanon- then perhaps Khomeinist-Terror won’t plant its banners on the Eastern Mediterranean.

                                                           ******************

Dr Walid Phares is the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the author of The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad.


Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: G M on May 23, 2008, 08:34:15 AM
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2008/05/print/millions_in_criminal_proceeds.php

Counterterrorism Blog

Millions in Criminal Proceeds + Iran's Oil Millions = Hearts, Minds, Votes for Hezbollah

By Andrew Cochran

Our future national counterinsurgency or asymmetric threat strategy must take into consideration the success which Hamas, Hezbollah, and other segments of the jihadist community have had in building and operating a social services network which influences the local populace. Matthew Levitt has written extensively on that success; see his post here on November 21, 2007, "Zakat-Jihad Activism," in which he discusses an excellent "Military Review" article, "S.W.E.T. and Blood: Essential Services in the Battle Between Insurgents and Counterinsurgents." Matt noted, "(t)his tactic (sometimes also described as dawa activities) not only produces significant grassroots support, it also creates an ideal means to launder and transfer funds as well as a means of providing activists day jobs and a veneer of legitimacy. It many cases, it also serves as a logistical support network for less altruistic activities."

Hezbollah already has such a network in Lebanon, as Matt pointed out in a Washington Institute article. Nothing the U.S. has done has prevented Hezbollah from providing such services outside of Lebanese government channels. For instance, despite the Treasury Department's designation in 2007 of Jihad al-Bina, Hezbollah's construction company in Lebanon, that company is operating with little hindrance; David Schenker tells me that the company's subsidiary is rebuilding much of Dahyia. Hezbollah's diplomatic victory this week will enable further development of that network.

Hezbollah has two sources for hundreds of millions of dollars. First, it has a long history of using criminal activities around the world, including inside the U.S., to raise funds, as Matt wrote on November 8, 2007 and as Dennis Lormel wrote on July 16, 2006. I was told this week by two experts that recent estimates of the funds raised through such activity run from $100 to 300 million. Second, of course, it is the ward of the Iranian regime; Walid Phares recently put that support level at upwards of $1 billion, thanks to the extraordinary price of oil. And we should have no doubt that Hezbollah will use a considerable portion of those funds to buy popular support inside Lebanon. No other group there has that type of financial muscle, and in my opinion, it will enable Hezbollah to maintain and expand its power through the 2009 parliamentary elections and beyond.

By Andrew Cochran on May 22, 2008 4:37 PM
Title: Re: The Last Western Stooge
Post by: G M on August 13, 2014, 07:08:45 AM
Quote from: milt on August 07, 2006, 02:13:04 PM
Quote from: buzwardo
What totally befuddles me is that if the global caliphate many Islamo Fascists advocate ever came to pass,

You bedwetting conservatives sure spend a disproportionate amount of time fretting about these ridiculous "Red Dawn" type takeover scenarios.

Quote
the first ones they'd hang from the soccer goal posts would be the western lunatic lefties currently carrying their water.

Of course they would!  I see that even you agree that the "Islamofascists" have much more in common with the American right wing than the left.

-milt


http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-adviser-jihadists-caliphate-absurd_802853.html?utm_campaign=Washington+Examiner&utm_source=washingtonexaminer.com&utm_medium=referral

I think we all know about the mass decapitations that take place in America's Bible Belt...

Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 13, 2014, 07:35:21 AM
Nice find, but I'm not seeing why it is posted in this thread.

How about the FUBAR thread?
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: G M on August 13, 2014, 07:48:29 AM
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on August 13, 2014, 07:35:21 AM
Nice find, but I'm not seeing why it is posted in this thread.

How about the FUBAR thread?


Just pointing out how smart the left is. Best to use their own quotes when doing so.
Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 13, 2014, 09:10:11 AM
OK, Cognitive Dissonance of the Left then  :-)  but not Lebanon  :lol:
Title: Clarion Project: Hezbollah has 500,000 rockets!
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 16, 2018, 09:50:17 PM
https://clarionproject.org/terrorist-organization-500000-rockets/
Title: Beirut blast
Post by: ccp on August 05, 2020, 05:06:17 AM
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2020/08/04/breaking-mysterious-massive-explosions-rock-beirut-n749962
remember when I was in Grenada had roommate from Lebanon.  He was a Christian.

when muslims massacred Christians he told me there would be revenge.

there was within from what I recall not long later.

That was one reason he worked hard to get to the US
I looked him up.
he did great a kidney specialist in Pennsylvania

Title: GPF: Lebanon blast
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 05, 2020, 09:32:17 AM
   
    More Questions Than Answers Over the Beirut Blast
Lebanon was already a country on the brink. Things will likely get worse.
By: Hilal Khashan

There is no sense in trying to make sense of what happened in Beirut on Tuesday. We will never know the full truth about the massive explosion that destroyed the country’s major harbor, caused incalculable damage throughout the capital, inflicted more than 4,000 casualties and left unknown the fate of scores of missing people.

Military analysts say the explosion occurred accidentally in an area where public safety measures did not exist. Welders were repairing the door of an adjacent warehouse storing firecrackers when the excessive temperature precipitated by hot and humid weather and welding caused some ammonium nitrate to evaporate and mix with wheat dust released from nearby wheat silos. The reaction probably triggered the disastrous explosion. We know for sure that the blast that happened amid an unprecedented economic crisis and hyperinflation will further complicate Lebanon's political stalemate.

Even so, we have more questions than answers. Why was a shipment of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at the harbor for six years, and who owned it? Why was this dangerous chemical stored in a warehouse so close to the business and residential areas?

The explosion comes at a particularly bad time. Lebanon was already a country on the brink, and things will only get worse. The only beneficiary from what happened on Tuesday is Hezbollah, which has been reluctant to answer the Israeli air raid that killed one of its fighters in Syria. On Friday, the International Tribunal looking into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will announce its verdict on four Hezbollah operatives implicated in the high-profile killing. No one in Lebanon is in a mood right now to ridicule Hezbollah for its defensiveness vis-a-vis Israel or question its role in Hariri’s assassination.   


Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: ccp on August 05, 2020, 10:38:27 AM
ammonium nitrate
same ingredients as the timothy McVeigh bomb .

Title: Re: Lebanon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 05, 2020, 01:55:34 PM
Sitting in storage for six years , , ,
Title: What happened in Beirut?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 09, 2020, 03:06:41 PM
Someone of proper background recommends this analysis:

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/08/what-happened-in-beirut.php
Title: GPF: Lebanon's Breaking Point
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 10, 2020, 11:13:03 AM
August 10, 2020   View On Website
Open as PDF



    Lebanon’s Breaking Point
Conditions are ripe for an uprising, which would have profound geopolitical consequences for the region.
By: Caroline D. Rose

Roughly this time last year, I spent a week in Beirut for field research. I was there to learn about drug markets, specifically how drugs make their way into Lebanon from Syria. I left Beirut with an even greater impression of the country’s burgeoning political crisis. Even in 2019, you could feel Beirut was reaching its breaking point. Frequent electricity cuts, trash-littered streets, high inflation, a paralyzed government, sectarian infighting and waning protection of civil liberties created an aura of doom and gloom. The hopelessness was tangible. Whoever you asked, the answer was generally the same: Lebanon was on the precipice of collapse.

It got worse as the year went on. A combination of poor living conditions and chronic governmental mismanagement sparked months of nationwide protests and crackdowns. Frequent resignations and low public trust in officials created a leadership deficit that current Prime Minister Hassan Diab is still struggling to fill. The economy, meanwhile, fell into disrepair. Rampant inflation, sky-high fuel and food prices, and an 80 percent decline in the lira created new levels of destitution. And to top it all off, Lebanon was also devastated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Throughout the year many believed nationwide protests, a currency collapse, or even then-Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s resignation would send the country over the edge. Yet none did. Its breaking point came last week, when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stockpiled for six years at the Port of Beirut exploded – with a yield estimated equal to about 15 percent of the Hiroshima bombing – and quite literally shattered the city. It exposed new levels of government negligence, fueling resentment that has simmered for a year and costing the country an estimated $15 billion.

Conditions are ripe for an uprising, which would have profound geopolitical consequences for the region. Expansionist powers like Iran and Russia would likely use the instability to their advantage. Violence and political infighting could easily spill over into neighboring countries, too, drawing in Western nations, most notably France, in an effort to stabilize the region. Put simply, insecurity in Lebanon will threaten the Middle East with a new dimension of instability and further demand countries’ attention.

Little Confidence

Lebanon’s economy was in disarray even before the Port of Beirut was leveled in last week’s blast. The port handles about 60 percent of imports for a country that relies heavily on imports. Some 90 percent of wheat consumed in Lebanon comes from foreign imports – 80 percent of which enters through the Port of Beirut. Its largest grain elevator (which held 85 percent of the country's grain) was also ruined, making Lebanon’s food crisis even worse. The damage done to commercial and residential infrastructure will take years to recover from.
 
(click to enlarge)

For those familiar with corruption in Lebanon, the inattention that led to the explosion comes as little surprise. Gridlock and insufficient oversight are hallmarks of Lebanese politics. Soon after the incident, reports emerged that Lebanese customs officials appealed six times between 2014 and 2017 about disposing of the stored stocks. All were ignored.

What little confidence the Lebanese people may have had in the government has all but disappeared. Public outrage is clear. When people learned that the appeals were ignored, hashtags that translated to “hang up the nooses” began trending on Lebanese Twitter. Protests are everywhere in Beirut. Upset has turned into rage, the financial crisis has turned into financial collapse, and calls for reform have turned into demands for a systematic overhaul.

Into the Hands of France

Whatever happens next will affect the rest of the Middle East. Its commercial links to the region will affect some of its top export recipients, particularly the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Syria and Iraq, and will undercut the capabilities of countries that use Lebanese ports. Political violence and unlivable conditions create migrant flows into nearby countries and increase the risk of violent spillover, particularly with Syria and Israel.

As in Iraq and Syria, insecurity in Lebanon will practically invite more external influence. With a foothold already in the country, anchored by its relationship to Hezbollah, Iran will perceive Lebanese instability as both a risk and opportunity. Iran will try to secure its access to the Mediterranean Sea, control over local formal and informal markets, and support of Lebanon’s Shiite political leadership. Israel, in turn, would become more active on its border with Lebanon as it seeks to counter Hezbollah, especially in hotspots such as the Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms.
 
(click to enlarge)

Russia, already a major trade partner and supporter of the Lebanese Orthodox Christian community, has been steadily trying to increase its influence in Lebanon. For Moscow, instability can open up opportunities to profit from future shares in Lebanese natural gas and construction contracts and leverage its ample wheat supplies. Not to mention the fact that Russia wants additional ports outside Syria that can be used for commerce and naval buildup against the U.S. Sixth Fleet.

Perhaps most notably, the conditions in Lebanon play into the hands of France, which has had a key interest in keeping a foothold in the Middle East to secure natural resources, vital trade routes and maritime power. After World War I, France and Britain signed the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, a deal that laid the groundwork for 23 years of French administration in Lebanon and 26 years of French military occupation. But even after France’s official departure, its imperative to retain influence in Lebanon has remained. As France builds up its naval capabilities in the Mediterranean to counter threats to energy assets, it is committed to protecting its influence in the Levant through Lebanon.

In the wake of the explosion, Paris has led the charge for increased assistance and political intervention in Lebanon, made evident by President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the country days after the blast. (Ironically, many Lebanese protesters have begged their former colonizer to intercede as a guarantor in a new political system.) Macron’s visit wasn’t made purely out of sympathy, of course. France intends to reassert political stability through arbitration. Following meetings with government officials, Macron made sure to publicly criticize the government in Beirut, meeting with the Lebanese people in the streets, where he promised to return on Sept. 1 to ensure a new “political pact” was enacted. France also announced it would launch an external tribunal into the government’s ties to the explosion, hoping to create an opportunity that can reset the Lebanese political system before the situation devolves much more.

France will likely act alone in Lebanon, though, with tacit, indirect support from the West. Over the past year, the U.S. has adjusted its Middle East policy, opting for a more distanced, transactional approach toward Lebanon and its peers. Earlier in the year, the U.S. tried to tie aid to conditional austerity measures, withholding assistance so that Lebanese federal funds don’t find their way into Hezbollah’s pockets. The urgency of Beirut’s economic and political crisis, though, has prompted the U.S. and others to dispatch relief supplies and financial aid to Beirut with no strings attached.

Still, Western governments have not budged on reconstruction aid, and it's unlikely that they will support France’s campaign for political intervention. While the U.S. is interested in keeping Lebanon stable, it’s tried its hand in intervention before to little effect. Mounting political pressure at home and coronavirus-related financial constraints have begun to rule out more adventurous policies. The U.S. is trying to reduce its global military footprint, especially in the Middle East. Absent an all-out conflict between Iran, Saudi Arabia or Israel, the U.S. will resist greater engagement in the Levant and offer France quiet, indirect support.

Of course, even that may not be enough to save Lebanon from itself. The atmosphere of resentment and dissatisfaction I encountered a year ago in Beirut has, inevitably, metastasized. Beirutis have started the long road to recovery, sweeping away broken glass, volunteering in field hospitals and with aid deliveries, and helping each other collectively process the trauma of Aug. 5th. It’s become clear that the incident at the Port of Beirut is not just another chink in the government’s armor. Instead, the blast made things so much worse, with the potential to destabilize the region at large.   



Title: Glick: Lebanon Hezbollah's Potemkin Village
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 14, 2020, 09:10:07 AM
http://carolineglick.com/lebanon-hezbollahs-potemkin-village/
Title: MEF: Is Turkey moving into Northern Lebanon?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 30, 2020, 07:49:56 PM
https://www.meforum.org/61435/is-turkey-moving-into-northern-lebanon?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=7a041699ac-MEF_Spyer_2020_08_31_02_09&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-7a041699ac-33691909&goal=0_086cfd423c-7a041699ac-33691909&mc_cid=7a041699ac