Towards war

The following from Sursock
“Are we heading towards civil war? In some ways, we’ve already reached that point,” said a businessman who belonged to one of the Christian militias during the war and asked not to be named. “It remains to be seen what form it takes.”
This is what it looks like.

Face to Face with Hezbollah

 

By Dan Lieberman
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
They speak English, carry I-pods and listen to Santana and Guns and Roses. They don’t approach with anger and don’t behave overbearing. They seem well-educated, mostly from Beirut’s American University, and are alert to world happenings. They impress as being more secular than pious. They are spokespersons for Hezbollah – the [...]

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)

Whose Mission is it fulfilling?
Franklin Lamb
UN Headquarters
Naquora, Lebanon
peoplesgeography.com
Ever since one of this student’s favorite Professors, Dr. Ruth Widmeyer, an accomplished and rare beauty still, who was the first woman to receive a PhD in Soviet Studies from Harvard nearly a half century ago, announced to our Political Science class at Portland State University that [...]

Robert Fisk: Syria denies killing General in car-bomb attack

Published: 13 December 2007

 
So, they assassinated another one yesterday. A general, Francois El-Hajj by name, not known in Europe but a senior officer and the chief of the Lebanese general [...]

Robert Fisk: Secret armies pose sinister new threat to Lebanon

Lebanon is peopled with ghosts. But the phantoms now returning to haunt this damaged country –the militias which tore it apart more than 30 years ago – are real. Guns are flooding back into the country – $800 for an AK-47, $3,700 for a brand-new French Famas – as Lebanon security apparatus hunt desperately for [...]

US Aid Dependency: The Road to Ruin for Lebanon

Protecting Lebanon according to the Bush administration is achieved by undermining its ability to fight Israel

 
by Hicham Safieddine

Global Research, October 7, 2007

Electronic Lebanon - 2007-10-0

“We have received only a lot of promises and some ammunition but no equipment, as if they are telling us: Die first and back-up will arrive later.” -General Michael [...]

Electronic Lebanon: Shatila & Press Freedom

None of the people I spoke to in Shatila expressed any sympathy with Fateh al-Islam; they just showed concern and anger at the way the Lebanese Army is shelling the camp and destroying the houses of the people.
Nadia says that her cousin said seventy percent of his neighborhood in the camp is totally destroyed. “Maybe [...]

Blacksmiths of Lebanon: Syria’s Media Insurgency in Lebanon

An article exploring the issues of Hariri and the government supporting militias, trying to discount it or play it down.  I find anyone that considers the attrocities commited in Nahr Al-Bared as a victory or as something worth uniting behind has already lost credibility as a source.  This is still worth reading for an alternative perspective.
Almost as soon [...]

Franklin Lamb: Inside Nahr el-Bared

“Another Waco in the Making”
Inside Nahr el-Bared
By FRANKLIN LAMB
Bedawi and Nahr el-Bared Palestinian Refugee Camps, Lebanon.
With very intermittent internet access and this ancient pc with one lone wire running from the spaghetti wiring system tied to the ceiling and taped to a single bare light bulb socket, plus 8 toddlers, two babies, crawling over and [...]

Hezbollah urges political solution for north Lebanon

He talked about other means to deal with Fath-Al-Islam
The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب
“The problem in the north can be solved politically and through the judiciary in a way that protects the Lebanese army, our Palestinian brothers, the state and peace and stability without transforming Lebanon into a battleground in which we fight [...]

When the Israelis do this, we scream at the injustice, but when the Lebanese army does it we applaud them.

 ”In the first three days of the recent events involving the Lebanese army and Fateh el-Islam in the Nahr el-Bared camp, the Lebanese army committed what would amount to war crimes in a similar fashion to that of the Israeli army in Gaza and in Lebanon last summer, firing on a civilian population indiscriminately. When [...]

Franklin Lamb: Whos Behind the Fighting in North Lebanon

Great article I advise everyone to read.
Wearing a beat-up ratty UNCHR tee-shirt left over from Bint Jbeil and the Israeli-Hezbollah July probably helped. As did, I suspect, the Red Cross jersey, my black and white checkered kaffieyh and the Palestinian flag taped to my lapel as I joined a group of Palestinian aid workers and [...]

Nahr al-Bared « The Fanonite

Brief introduction to todays links from the Fanonite - 
Later, he adds [Lebanese Soldier], it was like being in a movie. “A drunk state in which you don’t care whether you’re shooting at children, the elderly or militants.”
Thats What War is Like « The Fanonite
EI: What triggered the violence in Nahr al-Bared?
ABUKHALIL: That’s where it gets really [...]

Nahr al-Bared: The Emerging Picture « The Fanonite

Thanks to the Fanonite for this great post.  Two other places to watch Democracy Now are Democracy TV and Chomsky Torrents 
Democracy Now! has extensive coverage of the developments in Lebanon today, with interviews with Seymour Hersh, Rania Masri and Alistair Crooke. Their analysis is somewhat similar to my own earlier impressions, however Hersh, Masri and Crooke do [...]

Ordinary Racism in Lebanon

Below is a translation of an article which appeared in the Arabic language lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar by Khalid Saghiyyeh. The original title is ‘Deep Rooted Racism in Lebanon’. I decided to translate this article after hearing this evening ordinary Lebanese on most world news channels giving to the press racist remarks about Palestinians. There was [...]