Iran MPs condemn US ‘terrorists’

The guards force was established after the Islamic revolution in 1979

Iranian MPs have voted to classify the US armed forces and the CIA as terrorist groups. A statement signed by 215 Iranian MPs cited the bombing of Japan during World War II, and the invasions of Vietnam and Iraq, as “terrorist actions”.

The largely symbolic move comes days after the US Senate urged the White House to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation.

The foreign ministry in Tehran said it backed the MPs’ motion.

Correspondents say the ministry’s support is significant because government bodies are generally not as hardline as the parliament.

REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS Officially the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Formed after 1979 revolution Loyal to clerics and counter to regular military Estimated 125,000 troops Includes army, navy, air force, intelligence and special forces Iran President Ahmadinejad is a former member Source: Globalsecurity.org US turns heat up on Iran Timeline: US-Iran relations

While the Iranian motion is seen as largely symbolic, the labelling of a group as a terrorist organisation by the US could have financial implications for the guards.

Any assets within US jurisdiction would be frozen and the US Treasury Department could move against firms subject to US law that do business with the guards.

The Revolutionary Guards force was established after the Islamic revolution toppled the Shah and brought hard-line clerics to power in Iran in 1979.

It is estimated to have 125,000 active members and operates separately from Iran’s main armed forces.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7020603.stm

US, NATO and Israel Deploy Nukes directed against Iran

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, September 27, 2007

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Note: Readers are welcome to cross-post this article with a view to spreading the word and warning people of the dangers of a broader Middle East war. Please indicate the source and copyright note. In late August, reported by the Military Times,  a US Air Force B-52 bomber flew from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana with six AGM advanced cruise missiles, each of which was armed with a W-80-1 nuclear warhead. “… Missiles were mounted on the pylons under its wings. Each of the warheads carried a yield of up to 150 kilotons, more than ten times as powerful as the US bomb that leveled Hiroshima at the close of the  Second World War.”  (See Bill Van Auken, Global Research September 2007) The Military Times byline was “B-52 mistakenly flies with nukes aboard”. The issue was casually acknowledged by The Washington Post and the New York Times. The reports quoted a US Air force spokesman. The matter was offhandedly brushed aside. The incident represented “an isolated mistake” and that “at no time was there a threat to public safety.” (Ibid) : “As far as is known, the incident marked the first time that a US plane has taken off armed with nuclear weapons in nearly 40 years. … … The transport of weapons from one base to another, however, is normally carried out in the holds of C-17 and C-130 cargo planes, not fixed to the wings of combat bombers. Someone had to give the order to mount the missiles on the plane. The question is whether it was a local Air Force commander—either by mistake or deliberately—or whether the order came from higher up. B-52s from Barksdale have been used repeatedly to strike targets in Iraq, firing cruise missiles at Iraqi targets in 1996 and 1998, and in the “shock and awe” campaign that preceded the 2003 invasion, carrying out some 150 bombing runs that devastated much of the southern half of the country. Moreover, the weapon that was fixed to the wings of the B-52 flying from Minot air base was designed for use against hardened targets, such as underground bunkers. Given the ratcheting up of the threats against Iran and the previous reports of plans for the use of “tactical” nuclear weapons against Iranian nuclear installations, there is a very real possibility that the flight to Barksdale was part of covert preparations for a nuclear strike against Iran. If this is indeed the case, the claims about a “mistake” by a munitions officer and a few airmen in North Dakota may well be merely a cover story aimed at concealing the fact that the government in Washington is preparing a criminal act of world historic proportions by ordering—without provocation—the first use of nuclear weapons since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki more than sixty years ago. (Bill van Auken, op. cit). In recent developments, Wayne Madsen (September 27) has suggested, based on US and foreign intelligence sources, that the B-52 carrying the advanced cruise missiles with bunker buster nuclear warheads was in fact destined for the Middle East.  Is the B-52 Barksdale incident in any way related to US plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran?  Madsen suggests, in this regard, that the operation of shipping the nuclear warheads was aborted “due to internal opposition within the Air Force and U.S. Intelligence Community”, which was opposed to a planned US attack on Iran using nuclear warheads.  Without downplaying the significance of the Barksdale incident, if Washington were to decide to use nuclear weapons against Iran, they could be launched at short notice from a number of military bases in Western Europe and the Middle East, from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, from a submarine or from a US Aircraft carrier. Turkey has some 90 B61 tactical nuclear weapons which are fully deployed. (See details below). (Moreover, with regard to the Barksdale incidenct, it should be noted that the W-80-1 nuclear warheads mounted on the B-52s are not the type of nuclear weapon contemplated by the US military for use in the Middle East conventional war theater.) To grasp the seriousness of the “Barksdale incident”, it is important to understand the broader context of nuclear weapons deployment respectively by the US, NATO and Israel.   We are not dealing with a single aborted operation of deployment of nuclear weapons to the Middle East.  There are indications that a large number of US made nuclear weapons are currently deployed in Western Europe and the Middle East including Israel.  Coordinated Military Operation We are dealing with a coordinated military operation in which US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) plays a central role. The main coalition partners are the US, NATO and Israel. There are four interrelated “building blocks” pertaining to the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in the Middle East war theater:  1. CONPLAN 8022 formulated in 2004. CONPLAN integrates the use of conventional and nuclear weapons.   2. National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 35, entitled Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization  issued in May 2004   3. The deployment of Israeli nuclear weapons directed against targets in the Middle East 4. Deployment of Nuclear Weapons by NATO/EU countries, directed against targets in the Middle East   1. CONPLAN 8022 CONPLAN 8022 under the jurisdiction of USSTRATCOM sets the stage. It envisages the integration of conventional and nuclear weapons and the use of nukes on a preemptive basis in the conventional war theater. It is described as “a concept plan for the quick use of nuclear, conventional, or information warfare capabilities to destroy–preemptively, if necessary–“time-urgent targets” anywhere in the world.” CONPLAN became operational in early 2004. “As a result, the Bush administration’s preemption policy is now operational on long-range bombers, strategic submarines on deterrent patrol, and presumably intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).” (Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022 now consists of  “an actual plan that the Navy and the Air Force translate into strike package for their submarines and bombers,’ (Japanese Economic Newswire, 30 December 2005, For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, op. cit.). “CONPLAN 8022 is ‘the overall umbrella plan for sort of the pre-planned strategic scenarios involving nuclear weapons.'” 2. Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization: NSPD 35 (2004) National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 35, entitled Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization  was issued in May 2004.   The contents of this highly sensitive document remains a carefully guarded State secret. There has been no mention of NSPD 35 by the media nor even in Congressional debates. While its contents remains classified, the presumption is that NSPD 35 pertains to the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in the Middle East war theater in compliance with CONPLAN 8022. There are unconfirmed reports that  B61-11 type tactical nuclear weapons have been deployed to the Middle East following NSPD 35. According to a report published in the Turkish press, the B-61s could be used against Iran, if Iran were to retaliate with conventional weapons to a US or Israeli attack (See Ibrahim Karagul, “The US is Deploying Nuclear Weapons in Iraq Against Iran”, Yeni Safak,. 20 December 2005, quoted in BBC Monitoring Europe). In this regard, NSPD-17 of December 2002 entitled National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, quoted in the Washington Times (January 31, 2003) points to possible use of nuclear weapons in retaliation, if US or allied forces are attacked:   “The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force — including potentially nuclear weapons — to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.” (emphaisis added, this section quoted by the WT pertains to the classified version of NSPD) 3. Israeli Nukes Israel is part of the military alliance and is slated to play a major role in case  the planned attacks on Iran were to be carried out. (For details see Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Jan 2006 ). Israel possesses 100-200 strategic nuclear warheads . In 2003, Washington and Tel Aviv confirmed that they were collaborating in “the deployment of US-supplied Harpoon cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads in Israel’s fleet of Dolphin-class submarines.” (The Observer, 12 October 2003) . Coinciding with the 2005 preparations to wage air strikes against Iran, Israel took delivery of  two new German produced submarines “that could launch nuclear-armed cruise missiles for a “second-strike” deterrent.” (Newsweek, 13 February 2006. See also CDI Data Base) The Israeli military and political circles had been making statements on the possibility of nuclear and missile strikes on Iran openly since October, 2006, when the idea was immediately supported by G. Bush. Currently it is touted in the form of a “necessity” of nuclear strikes. The public is taught to believe that there is nothing monstrous about such a possibility and that, on the contrary, a nuclear strike is quite feasible. Allegedly, there is no other way to “stop” Iran. (General Leonid Ivashov, Iran Must Get Ready to Repel a Nuclear Attack, Global Research, January 2007) At the outset of Bush’s second term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell. He hinted, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was “right at the top of the list” of the rogue enemies of America, and that Israel would, so to speak, “be doing the bombing for us”, without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it”.  “Rather than a direct American nuclear strike against Iran’s hard targets, Israel has been given the assignment of launching a coordinated cluster of nuclear strikes aimed at targets that are the nuclear installations in the Iranian cities: Natanz, Isfahan and Arak.(Michael Carmichael, Global research, January 2007) Israel is a Rottweiler on a leash: The US wants to “set Israel loose” to attack Iran. Commenting the Vice President’s assertion, former National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in an interview on PBS, confirmed with some apprehension, yes: Cheney wants [former] Prime Ariel Sharon to act on America’s behalf and “do it” for us: …”And the vice president today in a kind of a strange parallel statement to this declaration of freedom hinted that the Israelis may do it and in fact used language which sounds like a justification or even an encouragement for the Israelis to do it.” Beneath the rhetoric, what we are dealing with is a joint US-NATO-Israeli military operation directed against Iran and Syria, which has been in the active planning stage since 2004. US advisers in the Pentagon have been working assiduously with their Israeli military and intelligence counterparts, carefully identifying targets inside Iran ( Seymour Hersh, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/HER501A.html ) In recent developments, at the September 2007 meetings of the Vienna based IAEA, a critical resolution, implicitly aimed at Israel, was put forth which would put Israel’s nuclear program “under international purview.” The resolution was adopted with the US and Israel voting against it.  4. NATO Nukes. Nuclear Weapons Deployment by Five Non-nuclear States Several Western European  countries, officially considered as “non-nuclear states”, possess tactical nuclear weapons, supplied to them by Washington. The US has supplied some 480 B61 thermonuclear bombs to five non-nuclear NATO countries including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey, and one nuclear country, the United Kingdom. These weapons are ready for delivery to “known military targets”.   Source: http://www.nukestrat.com/us/afn/nato.htm  See Details and Map of Nuclear Facilities located in 5 European Non-Nuclear States As part of this European stockpiling, Turkey, which is a partner of the US-led coalition against Iran along with Israel, possesses some 90 thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs at the Incirlik nuclear air base. (National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005). These military facilities are part of the war plans directed against Iran.    B61-11 NEP Thermonuclear Bomb Consistent with US nuclear policy, the stockpiling and deployment of B61 nuclear weapons in Western Europe are intended for targets in the Middle East. Confirmed by “NATO strike plans”, these thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs (stockpiled by the “non-nuclear States”) could be launched  “against targets in Russia or countries in the Middle East such as Syria and Iran” ( quoted in National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005)  Moreover, confirmed by (partially) declassified documents (released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act): “… The approximately 480 nuclear bombs in Europe are intended for use in accordance with NATO nuclear strike plans, the report asserts, against targets in Russia or countries in the Middle East such as Iran and Syria. The report shows for the first time how many U.S. nuclear bombs are earmarked for delivery by non-nuclear NATO countries. In times of war, under certain circumstances, up to 180 of the 480 nuclear bombs would be handed over to Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey for delivery by their national air forces. No other nuclear power or military alliance has nuclear weapons earmarked for delivery by non-nuclear countries.” (quoted in  http://www.nukestrat.com/us/afn/nato.htm emphasis added) Moreover, the U.S. military made arrangements in the mid-1990s for the use of these nukes outside the area of jurisdiction of European Command (EURCOM). For EUCOM, this would mean responsibility for the delivery of nukes within CENTCOM’s (Central Command) area of jurisdiction, meaning that nuclear attacks on Iran and Syria could be launched from military bases in non-nuclear EU/NATO countries: The report also documents that the U.S. military in 1994 made arrangements for nuclear targeting and use of nuclear weapons in Europe outside European Command’s (EUCOM) area of responsibility. For EUCOM, this means CENTCOM (Central Command) which incorporates Iran and Syria .. It is unclear whether [the] parliaments [of EU/NATO countries] are aware of arrangements to target and potentially strike Middle Eastern countries with nuclear weapons based in Europe.(http://www.nukestrat.com/us/afn/nato.htm     Source: http://www.nukestrat.com/us/afn/nato.htm   Nuclear Weapons’ Double Standards. Where is the Nuclear Threat? While these “non-nuclear states” casually accuse Tehran of developing nuclear weapons, without documentary evidence, they themselves have capabilities of delivering nuclear warheads, which are targeted at Iran and Syria.  To say that this is a clear case of “double standards” in the process of identifying the threat of nuclear weapons is a gross understatement. France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy Endorses Bush’s Pre-emptive Nuclear War Doctrine France accuses Tehran of developing nuclear weapons against mountains of evidence that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.   The Sarkozy government favors a military operation directed against Iran. Ironically, these threats by President Sarkozy and his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner were formulated immediately following the release of the IAEA Report. The latter confirms unequivocally the civilian nature of Iran’s nuclear program.   According to President Sarkozy in his September 26,  2007 address to the UN General Assembly:   “There will be no peace in the world if the international community falters in the face of nuclear arms proliferation … Weakness and renunciation do not lead to peace. They lead to war,”   France has also confirmed that it could use its own nuclear warheads estimated at between 200 and 300, on a preemptive basis. In January 2006, (former) President Jacques Chirac announced a major shift in France’s nuclear weapons policy.  Without mentioning Iran, Chirac intimated that France’s nukes should be used in the form of  “more focused attacks” against countries, which were “considering” the deployment of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).  He also hinted to the possibility that tactical nuclear weapons could be used in conventional war theaters, very much in line with both US and NATO nuclear doctrine (See Chirac shifts French doctrine for use of nuclear weapons , Nucleonics Week January 26, 2006). Chirac’s successor, Nicolas Sarkozy has embraced the US sponsored “War on Terrorism”.  France supports the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in the conventional war theater, broadly following the principles formulated in the Bush Administration’s nuclear doctrine, which  allows the use of nukes (against Iran or Syria) for purposes of  “self-defense”. A Note of Caution The existence of war plans, which are currently in an advanced state of readiness, does not imply that war will occur. But at the same time, these war plans and their consequences must be forcefully addressed. An all out war, which would engulf the entire Middle East Central Asian region, cannot be excluded. Moreover, a political consensus in favor of a war directed against Iran is building up in the US. This war agenda is now supported by several of America’s European allies including Britain, France and Germany. Public opinion is not informed due to a media blackout. The war on Iran using nuclear weapons is not front page news. The legitimacy of the war criminals in high office remains intact. There is visibly no mass movement against this war as occured in the months leading up to the Iraq invasion.  Moreover, concurrent with the development of the war agenda, the Western countries are developing their “Homeland Security” apparatus with a view to to curbing public protest against the war. In the months ahead, we can expect the media propaganda war against Iran to go into high gear with a view to galvanising public opinion in support of a military intervention. It is absolutely essential that people in America and around the World take a firm position against a war, which in a very real sense threatens the future of humanity. Note: Readers are welcome to cross-post this article with a view to spreading the word and warning people of the dangers of a broader Middle East war. Please indicate the source and copyright note. media inquiries crgeditor@yahoo.com

Why did Israel attack Syria?

by Jonathan Cook

Global Research, September 27, 2007

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Israel’s air strike on northern Syria earlier this month should be understood in the context of events unfolding since its assault last summer on neighbouring Lebanon. Although little more than rumours have been offered about what took place, one strategic forecasting group, Stratfor, still concluded: “Something important happened.” From the leaks so far, it seems that more than half a dozen Israeli warplanes violated Syrian airspace to drop munitions on a site close to the border with Turkey. We also know from the US media that the “something” occurred in close coordination with the White House. But what was the purpose and significance of the attack? It is worth recalling that, in the wake of Israel’s month-long war against Lebanon a year ago, a prominent American neoconservative, Meyrav Wurmser, wife of Vice-President Dick Cheney’s recently departed Middle East adviser, explained that the war had dragged on because the White House delayed in imposing a ceasefire. The neocons, she said, wanted to give Israel the time and space to expand the attack to Damascus. The reasoning was simple: before an attack on Iran could be countenanced, Hizbullah in Lebanon had to be destroyed and Syria at the very least cowed. The plan was to isolate Tehran on these two other hostile fronts before going in for the kill. But faced with constant rocket fire from Hizbullah last summer, Israel’s public and military nerves frayed at the first hurdle. Instead Israel and the US were forced to settle for a Security Council resolution rather than a decisive military victory. The immediate fallout of the failed attack was an apparent waning of neocon influence. The group’s programme of “creative destruction” in the Middle East — the encouragement of regional civil war and the partition of large states that threaten Israel — was at risk of being shunted aside. Instead the “pragmatists” in the Bush Administration, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the new Defence Secretary Robert Gates, demanded a change of tack. The standoff reached a head in late 2006 when oilman James Baker and his Iraq Study Group began lobbying for a gradual withdrawal from Iraq — presumably only after a dictator, this one more reliable, had again been installed in Baghdad. It looked as if the neocons’ day in the sun had finally passed. Israel’s leadership understood the gravity of the moment. In January 2007 the Herzliya conference, an annual festival of strategy-making, invited no less than 40 Washington opinion-formers to join the usual throng of Israeli politicians, generals, journalists and academics. For a week the Israeli and American delegates spoke as one: Iran and its presumed proxy, Hizbullah, were bent on the genocidal destruction of Israel. Tehran’s development of a nuclear programme — whether for civilian use, as Iran argues, or for military use, as the US and Israel claim — had to be stopped at all costs. While the White House turned uncharacteristically quiet all spring and summer about what it planned to do next, rumours that Israel was pondering a go-it-alone strike against Iran grew noisier by the day. Ex-Mossad officers warned of an inevitable third world war, Israeli military intelligence advised that Iran was only months away from the point of no return on developing a nuclear warhead, prominent leaks in sympathetic media revealed bombing runs to Gibraltar, and Israel started upping the pressure on several tens of thousands of Jews in Tehran to flee their homes and come to Israel. While Western analysts opined that an attack on Iran was growing unlikely, Israel’s neighbours watched nervously through the first half of the year as the vague impression of a regional war came ever more sharply into focus. In particular Syria, after witnessing the whirlwind of savagery unleashed against Lebanon last summer, feared it was next in line in the US-Israeli campaign to break Tehran’s network of regional alliances. It deduced, probably correctly, that neither the US nor Israel would dare attack Iran without first clobbering Hizbullah and Damascus. For some time Syria had been left in no doubt of the mood in Washington. It failed to end its pariah status in the post-9/11 period, despite helping the CIA with intelligence on al-Qaeda and secretly trying to make peace with Israel over the running sore of the occupied Golan Heights. It was rebuffed at every turn. So as the clouds of war grew darker in the spring, Syria responded as might be expected. It went to the arms market in Moscow and bought up the displays of anti-aircraft missiles as well as anti-tank weapons of the kind Hizbullah demonstrated last summer were so effective at repelling Israel’s planned ground invasion of south Lebanon. As the renowned Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld reluctantly conceded earlier this year, US policy was forcing Damascus to remain within Iran’s uncomfortable embrace: “Syrian President Bashar al-Assad finds himself more dependent on his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, than perhaps he would like.” Israel, never missing an opportunity to wilfully misrepresent the behaviour of an enemy, called the Syrian military build-up proof of Damascus’ appetite for war. Apparently fearful that Syria might initiate a war by mistaking the signals from Israel as evidence of aggressive intentions, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, urged Syria to avoid a “miscalculation”. The Israeli public spent the summer braced for a far more dangerous repeat of last summer’s war along the northern border. It was at this point — with tensions simmeringly hot — that Israel launched its strike, sending several fighter planes into Syria on a lightning mission to hit a site near Dayr a-Zawr. As Syria itself broke the news of the attack, Israeli generals were shown on TV toasting in the Jewish new year but refusing to comment. Details have remained thin on the ground ever since: Israel imposed a news blackout that has been strictly enforced by the country’s military censor. Instead it has been left to the Western media to speculate on what occurred. One point that none of the pundits and analysts have noted was that, in attacking Syria, Israel committed a blatant act of aggression against its northern neighbour of the kind denounced as the “supreme international crime” by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. Also, no one pointed out the obvious double standard applied to Israel’s attack on Syria compared to the far less significant violation of Israeli sovereignty by Hizbullah a year earlier, when the Shia militia captured two Israel soldiers at a border post and killed three more. Hizbullah‘s act was widely accepted as justification for the bombardment and destruction of much of Lebanon, even if a few sensitive souls agonised over whether Israel’s response was “disproportionate”. Would these commentators now approve of similar retaliation by Syria? The question was doubtless considered unimportant because it was clear from Western coverage that no one — including the Israeli leadership — believed Syria was in a position to respond militarily to Israel’s attack. Olmert’s fear of a Syrian “miscalculation” evaporated the moment Israel did the maths for Damascus. So what did Israel hope to achieve with its aerial strike? The stories emerging from the less gagged American media suggest two scenarios. The first is that Israel targeted Iranian supplies passing through Syria on their way to Hizbullah; the second that Israel struck at a fledgling Syrian nuclear plant where materials from North Korea were being offloaded, possibly as part of a joint nuclear effort by Damascus and Tehran. (Speculation that Israel was testing Syria’s anti-aircraft defences in preparation for an attack on Iran ignores the fact that the Israeli air force would almost certainly choose a flightpath through friendlier Jordanian airspace.) How credible are these two scenarios? The nuclear claims against Damascus were discounted so quickly by experts of the region that Washington was soon downgrading the accusation to claims that Syria was only hiding the material on North Korea’s behalf. But why would Syria, already hounded by Israel and the US, provide such a readymade pretext for still harsher treatment? Why, equally, would North Korea undermine its hard-won disarmament deal with the US? And why, if Syria were covertly engaging in nuclear mischief, did it alert the world to the fact by revealing the Israeli air strike? The other justification for the attack was at least based in a more credible reality: Damascus, Hizbullah and Iran undoubtedly do share some military resources. But their alliance should be seen as the kind of defensive pact needed by vulnerable actors in a Sunni-dominated region where the US wants unlimited control of Gulf oil and supports only those repressive regimes that cooperate on its terms. All three are keenly aware that it is Israel’s job to threaten and punish any regimes that fail to toe the line. Contrary to the impression being created in the West, genocidal hatred of Israel and Jews, however often Ahmadinejad’s speeches are mistranslated, is not the engine of these countries’ alliance. Nonetheless, the political significance of the justifications for the the Israeli air strike is that both neatly tie together various strands of an argument needed by the neocons and Israel in making their case for an attack on Iran before Bush leaves office in early 2009. Each scenario suggests a Shia “axis of evil”, coordinated by Iran, that is actively plotting Israel’s destruction. And each story offers the pretext for an attack on Syria as a prelude to a pre-emptive strike against Tehran — launched either by Washington or Tel Aviv — to save Israel. That these stories appear to have been planted in the American media by neocon masters of spin like John Bolton is warning enough — as is the admission that the only evidence for Syrian malfeasance is Israeli “intelligence”, the basis of which cannot be questioned as Israel is not officially admitting the attack. It should hardly need pointing out that we are again in a hall of mirrors, as we were during the period leading up to America’s invasion of Iraq and have been during its subsequent occupation. Bush’s “war on terror” was originally justified with the convenient and manufactured links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, as well as, of course, those WMDs that, it later turned out, had been destroyed more than a decade earlier. But ever since Tehran has invariably been the ultimate target of these improbable confections. There were the forged documents proving both that Iraq had imported enriched uranium from Niger to manufacture nuclear warheads and that it was sharing its nuclear know-how with Iran. And as Iraq fell apart, neocon ideologues like Michael Ledeen lost no time in spreading rumours that the missing nuclear arsenal could still be accounted for: Iranian agents had simply smuggled it out of Iraq during the chaos of the US invasion. Since then our media have proved that they have no less of an appetite for such preposterous tales. If Iran’s involvement in stirring up its fellow Shia in Iraq against the US occupation is at least possible, the same cannot be said of the regular White House claims that Tehran is behind the Sunni-led insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. A few months ago the news media served up “revelations” that Iran was secretly conspiring with al-Qaeda and Iraq’s Sunni militias to oust the US occupiers. So what purpose does the constant innuendo against Tehran serve? The latest accusations should be seen as an example of Israel and the neocons “creating their own reality”, as one Bush adviser famously observed of the neocon philosophy of power. The more that Hizbullah, Syria and Iran are menaced by Israel, the more they are forced to huddle together and behave in ways to protect themselves — such as arming — that can be portrayed as a “genocidal” threat to Israel and world order. Van Creveld once observed that Tehran would be “crazy” not to develop nuclear weapons given the clear trajectory of Israeli and US machinations to overthrow the regime. So equally Syria cannot afford to jettison its alliance with Iran or its involvement with Hizbullah. In the current reality, these connections are the only power it has to deter an attack or force the US and Israel to negotiate. But they are also the evidence needed by Israel and the neocons to convict Syria and Iran in the court of Washington opinion. The attack on Syria is part of a clever hustle, one designed to vanquish or bypass the doubters in the Bush Administration, both by proving Syria’s culpability and by provoking it to respond. Condoleezza Rice, it emerged at the weekend, wants to invite Syria to attend the regional peace conference that has been called by President Bush for November. There can be no doubt that such an act of détente is deeply opposed by both Israel and the neocons. It reverses their strategy of implicating Damascus in the “Shia arc of extremism” and of paving the way to an attack on the real target: Iran. Syria, meanwhile, is fighting back, as it has been for some time, with the only means available: the diplomatic offensive. For two years Bashar al-Assad has been offering a generous peace deal to Israel on the Golan Heights that Tel Aviv has refused to consider. This week, Syria made a further gesture towards peace with an offer on another piece of territory occupied by Israel, the Shebaa Farms. Under the plan, the Farms — which the United Nations now agrees belongs to Lebanon, but which Israel still claims is Syrian and cannot be returned until there is a deal on the Golan Heights — would be transferred to UN custody until the dispute over its sovereignty can be resolved. Were either of Damascus’ initiatives to be pursued, the region might be looking forward to a period of relative calm and security. Which is reason enough why Israel and the neocons are so bitterly opposed. Instead they must establish a new reality — one in which the forces of “creative destruction” so beloved of the neocons engulf yet more of the region. For the rest of us, a simpler vocabulary suffices. What is being sold is catastrophe. Jonathan Cook is a journalist and writer based in Nazareth, Israel. He is the author of “Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State” (Pluto Press). His forthcoming book is “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East”. His website is www.jkcook.net

‘Israeli warplanes raid’ Lebanon

Israeli warplanes have flown at low altitude over southern Lebanon in defiance of a United Nations resolution, reports from Beirut say.The fighter jets allegedly caused sonic booms as they flew over the cities of Sidon and Tyre, as well as the towns of Bint Jbeil and Marjayoun. Israel has so far made no comment on the Lebanese claims. Israel has been criticised by the UN for making a number of overflights in Lebanon in recent weeks. Israel says they are necessary to monitor activities by the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants. ‘Hezbollah stronghold’ Lebanese police said six Israeli aircraft violated Lebanon’s airspace at 0700 GMT, according to the AFP news agency. Police said the jets swooped low over the port cities of Sidon and Tyre as well as the Bint Jbeil region, a Hezbollah stronghold. Last August’s UN ceasefire followed a resolution by the world body that ended a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah.

A history of Europe, Arabs and Islam

This is an episode of a TV course titled : “The Western Tradition”, presented by Professor “Eugen Weber” at UCLA (usa) (University of California at Los Angeles):

“While religious disputation has became the Byzantine Empire’s favorite sport – more so than chariot racing – a powerful force did burst onto the world stage. It was called : ISLAM.”

Letter from Lebanon: Where Justice Seems Very Far Away

The summer break is officially over in Lebanon. At about 5pm yesterday, a roughly 40 kg bomb placed in a Mercedes was detonated in a bustling part of Sin el-Fil district of Beirut. The immediate target was member of Parliament (MP) Antoine Ghanim of the right-wing Phalange party and pro-government March 14 coalition, the fourth MP to be assassinated since former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri’s murder in March 2005 split the country and paralyzed the state.

Six other civilians were killed and over 50 wounded in the blast, with the vast majority of Lebanese both apprehensive and disgusted with a political class that has failed them politically, socially, economically, and security-wise.

The real target of yesterday’s assassination, however, was the apparently not-far-off consensus among key government and opposition players seeking to resolve the crisis enveloping the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for next week. March 14 currently holds a slim (though disputed) Parliamentary majority-now, tragically, made even slimmer-and has hinted that it could break from the traditional constitutional interpretation and elect a president by a simple majority rather than the customary two-thirds required quorum. This has infuriated opposition figures who consider the current pro-US government of Fouad Siniora to be illegitimate and supportive of US-Israeli desires to disarm the resistance.

Following several months of futile negotiations and bitter recriminations from both sides, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri recently launched a last-ditch compromise initiative which was widely seen to have achieved a break through. As former President Amin Gemeyal correctly noted: “This is how Lebanese politics work. At the last quarter-hour, everybody realizes that the bargaining time is up, and they would put all the papers on the table and agree on a compromise that would save the country. The alternative is disastrous.”

Berri’s compromise requires the opposition–which includes Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement lead by General Michel Aoun, the most popular Christian leader in Lebanon–to participate in a Parliament session on 25 September to elect a new President in return for explicit recognition by March 14 that a two-thirds parliamentary majority is indeed required for the election as per the Lebanese Constitution. After this, a national unity government would be appointed.

After receiving the blessing by the leader of March 14 coalition, Saad Hariri, Speaker Berri was due to meet with the Maronite (Christian) Patriarch, who serves as a power broker among the competing presidential candidates (who must be Maronite Christian according to Lebanon’s power-sharing agreement). Such a meeting, if successful, could have paved the way for a consensus Presidential candidate and, just maybe, the beginning of a wider resolution of the Lebanese crisis that has deepened since Israel’s bloody invasion of Lebanon last summer.

This week’s car bomb, then, must be read against this context. While we will never know who actually masterminded this murder-such cases stretching back many years have never been solved by Lebanese investigators, usually for political reasons-it did not take long for accusations to be bandied about.

Live on TV, several MPs and officials from March 14 stated clearly that “everyone” knows who is behind not only this heinous murder, but all the others of the past two and a half years: Syria. Saad Hariri even, bizarrely, accused Syria of assassinating Ghanim in retaliation for Israel’s recent aerial strike in Syrian territory. Some March 14 politicians also seized the opportunity to openly accuse any opposition MP who does not attend the 25 September parliamentary session of treason, and thus indirectly of being complicit with Ghanim’s assassination.

Lebanese opposition figures and Syrian spokesmen, who had all unequivocally condemned yesterday’s terrorist act, angrily rejected such logic and accused anyone who took advantage of this tragedy for political gains of fomenting discord and serving “foreign” interests. For them, these attacks on March 14 MPs always come conveniently whenever the momentum seems to be swinging away from US and Israeli interests and towards internal consensus.

It is too early to tell what the precise fall out from this latest murder will be. Alas, genuine statesmen capable of rising above petty interests are in short supply here, and Lebanese will now expect more assassinations as Lebanon head towards a worst case scenario, namely the formation of two governments (in case no consensus is reached before the current President’s term expires on 24 November) and the effective partition of the country, not to mention state institutions. If this is allowed to happen, the future could be grim indeed.

Yesterday’s events cannot be taken out of the larger regional context. Just as prospects for Lebanon’s unity was taking a beating-and Iraq continues its violent spiral towards partition-Palestine was being further divided with Israel officially declaring Gaza, now a huge prison with 1.5 million people living in atrocious conditions, a “hostile territory” (with American blessing). Leaving aside the obvious legal and humanitarian considerations of such a provocative move by Israel, as noted by the UN Secretary General, it is clear that the Arab region is undergoing yet another round of internationally-sponsored violence and perhaps even partition, redrawing the regional map along the line fantasized by some neocons. The objective of such policy is to establish a string of “pro-US” (and neoliberal) regimes across the region and punish the “bad guys,” those state (e.g., Iran, Syria) or non-state (e.g., Hizbullah, Hamas) actors who reject Pax Americana and Israeli regional hegemony.

It is customary to end such an article with a plea to sane people everywhere to ensure that just settlements are reached in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq. However, my feeling today is that we have only just begun a particularly violent stage of our history here, and lasting settlements–let alone justice–seems very far away indeed.

Karim Makdisi is an Assistant Professor of International Relations in the Dept. of Political Studies and Public Administration at the American University of Beirut. He can be reached at: makdisi007@yahoo.com

The Iran Offensive Builds

Former New York Times journalist (they only became readable once they part with the paper) and author of the best book on CIA’s overthrow of Mossadegh, All the Shah’s Men, offers sober warnings of imminent war.

When President Bush took his place in front of television cameras last Thursday to deliver his latest assessment of conditions in Iraq, one thing was certain. He would utter the word “Iran” more than once.

Sure enough, Bush blamed “Iranian-backed militants” for much of the violence in Iraq. He said the United States had to keep fighting in Iraq in order to “counter the destructive ambitions of Iran.” Then he warned that Iran’s efforts to influence events in Iraq “must stop.”

This came just two weeks after Bush asserted that Iran is placing the Middle East “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust” and announced: “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.”

We have now entered a season in which every speech by an official of the Bush administration that has anything to do with Iraq or the Middle East includes threats against Iran. This intensifying drumbeat suggests that, incredible as it may seem, the United States is seriously considering launching a military attack on Iran.

The day before President Bush’s recent speech, the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, told Congress that his forces were already fighting a “proxy war” against Iran. He told reporters at the National Press Club that the power of the anti-American insurgency in Iraq “would by no means be possible without Iranian support.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described Iran as Iraq’s “very troublesome neighbor”. Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador in Baghdad, said Iran was pursuing a “fairly aggressive strategy” in Iraq, and added, “It needs to stop”.

This latest round of saber-rattling comes in the wake of more concrete evidence that the US is marshaling its forces for an attack on Iran.

Two prominent British specialists recently issued a report asserting that US military planners have identified an astonishing 10,000 bombing targets in Iran. Private contractors report that the Pentagon has asked them to prepare cost estimates for ground support and reconstruction in an unnamed West Asian country.

A former CIA analyst, Bob Baer, published an article predicting that the US will use Iran’s activities in Iraq to justify a massive bombing campaign, and concluded: “There will be an attack on Iran.”

Most Americans, like most people around the world, still doubt the US will launch such an attack. The reason is obvious. It seems too unbelievable. Logic leads us to wonder: Why would the United States, bogged down in a disastrous quagmire in Iraq, want to widen the scope of the disaster rather than try to reduce it?

The prospect of attacking Iran seems even more far-fetched when one considers its likely effects.

Iran would probably respond to an attack by launching missiles at Israel, Saudi Arabia, US positions in Iraq and American vessels in the Persian Gulf. That might well lead Israel to retaliate against both Iran and pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon. These conflicts could set off a series of explosions around the world, ranging from an uprising against President Pervez Musharraf’s pro-American government in Pakistan to a decision by Venezuela to cut its vital oil supplies to the United States. Iran could also close of the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil passes, and thereby force a sharp increase in oil prices around the world.

Worst of all, an attack on Iran would turn an entire new generation of Muslims into bitter enemies of the United States, sworn to revenge at any cost. This will have unimaginable consequences for decades to come.

President Bush and his allies have used one justification after another to explain their decision to invade and occupy Iraq. They now seem to have settled on the one they will use to justify attacking Iran. They will say that Iran brought devastation on itself by meddling in Iraq and refusing to curb its nuclear ambitions.

The Iranian regime is, as the Bush Administration asserts, both brutally oppressive and highly destabilizing. There may come a time when outside powers will need to use military force against it. That could only be justified under two conditions: first, that all diplomatic means be exhausted, and second, that a decision to attack be made by a broad coalition of nations, not the United States alone.

The Bush administration has repeatedly ruled out the option of opening direct, unconditional talks with Iran. As long as it refuses to test the diplomatic option, it has no moral basis for launching a new war. That, however, means little or nothing to President Bush and his comrades.

The message of this past week is chilling. A massive US attack on Iran has become a very real possibility.

When General Petraeus was asked on Wednesday whether his charges against Iran were meant as a prelude to an attack, he replied, “Absolutely not.”

Don’t believe him.

Source: Fanonite

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy

Walt and Mearsheimer’s book on the Israel Lobby has now been published.  For anyone thats not read it yet, I recommend their article “The Israel lobby,” then I’m sure you’ll have to get the book.

 Mondoweiss wrote a good review of it that mentions its relevence to Lebanon –

I realize I have not mentioned one fact from the book. Let me do that. I will pick out one story that tells it all.
Halfway through the 2006 Lebanon War, Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen–having heroically knocked off a Republican in 2004 over the incumbent’s Iraq War vote–wrote a sharp letter to Condoleezza Rice urging the U.S. to pressure Israel to cease fire. Israel had caused “large loss of civilian life, and produced over 750,000 refugees.” It had weakened the Lebanese government and strengthened Hezbollah.  “We have squandered an opportunity to isolate Hezbollah…” Etc.

The bravery of Van Hollen’s letter was that an antiwar congressman was speaking the truth at a moment it needed to be spoken. If America could have served any purpose in that war, it should have been to hold Israel back, or say, This is not good. Van Hollen was stomped on. Right after the letter, Schmuel Rosner clucked in Haaretz that Van Hollen was to meet with AIPAC and “he will hear that this was an unacceptable move.” An unacceptable move for a U.S. Congressman to open his mouth against an Israeli war, having gained his seat by opposing the Iraq War. Then Van Hollen issued an apology. This wasn’t enough. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Washington said he had to reach out to the Jewish community to undo the damage. The ADL said the apology wasn’t convincing in light of the anti-Israel character of the letter. After the war, Van Hollen duly went to Israel on a special AIPAC-affiliated junket, to learn the error of his ways.

And meanwhile, AIPAC’s president crowed in a letter to supporters:  “Look what you’ve done!… Only ONE nation in the world came out and flatly declared: Let Israel finish the job. That nation is the United States… and the reason it had such a clear, unambiguous view of the situation is YOU and the rest of American Jewry.”

Look what they’d done. The Lebanon war stopped two weeks later, and we all know now what had taken place: a disaster. Something like 50 Israelis killed and 1000 Lebanese, the southern Lebanese infrastructure destroyed, including hospitals and stores and bridges–for what, for nothing. As Van Hollen understood, Hezbollah was empowered. Nasrallah became a hero. The IDF hostages weren’t released. And Israel has since experienced a sense of desperate waste. The Israeli army chief of staff, who called in his stock sales just before the war began, was dismissed. And southern Lebanon was strewn with illegal cluster bombs, so that Lebanese children are dismembered to this day.

African maids abused in Lebanon

“Driven by poverty and conflict in their home countries, women from Africa travel to Lebanon only to find themselves hungry, abused, raped and subjected to conditions akin to slavery.”

• African maids abused in Lebanon
• BBC News: Burundian’s ordeal in Lebanon
• BBC News: Ethiopian maids ‘abused in Middle East’

What’s next for Nahr al-Bared

Jamal Ghosn, Electronic Lebanon, Sep 6, 2007

A young refugee from Nahr al-Bared fills up water in the Baddawi refugee camp, August 2007. (Razan Ghazzawi)

Victory celebrations are dominating the Lebanese airwaves for the foreseeable future and presidential election “campaigns” here are in full swing. The issue of reconstructing the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp will never see the light of day in any of the Lebanese media outlets, whether pro-government or opposition — just like the humanitarian crisis at Baddawi refugee camp has failed to capture any front page headlines over the past three months. The sole exception being when the disgruntled double-refugees attempted to return home, only to find themselves accused of attacking the Lebanese army. Shots from unidentified sources resulted in the death of three returning Palestinian refugees. Apparently human suffering with no potential political gain is not newsworthy.

Living conditions in the Palestinian refugee camps have never been easy. Lack of basic amenities, sub-par health care, and overcrowded schools are the common denominators between all the camps on Lebanese territory. None of the densely populated camps are in a condition to host a sudden influx of tens of thousands of twice-displaced refugees. Naturally, the overflowing Baddawi will not be a viable home for the Nahr al-Bared residents who will move back to their homes (reconstructed or not). The skeletons of buildings will be patched up, most likely by the refugees themselves with the help of the handful of activists that still care about the plight of Palestinians. These death-infested, bomb-riddled structures will make for a more dignified living than the pre-fabricated cardboard boxes, designed for nuclear families rather than traditional Palestinian extended ones, that have surfaced as alternative homes courtesy of some generous donors. Of course, the sea-front strip of the camp will be kept off-limits by the Lebanese army for questionable future development.

Hopes for real aid materializing from the Lebanese or other Arab governments for the reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared are delusional. The precedent was set by the snail-paced reconstruction of south Lebanon following the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon. And unlike the residents of south Lebanon, the Palestinian refugees do not enjoy the strong political backing of any major Lebanese or regional power. No propaganda machines will be mobilized for their sake. History shows that media coverage of the camps only occurs when it means casting Palestinians in a negative light. Never has a media campaign been dedicated to addressing the cyclical victimhood of the residents of the camps. They are on their own and at the mercy of often failed, albeit generous, promises.

Sadly, the repopulation without proper reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared would not lead to standards of living much different than those in Ein al-Hilwe or Sabra. The lack of utilities and infrastructure will not be missed much as the residents of Nahr al-Bared faced the same problems even before the birth of Fatah al-Islam and the destruction of the camp. Over the years, Palestinian refugee camps have been decked with a constant dose of heavy artillery of Lebanese government, Arab, and international neglect. Neglect as ravaging as the half-ton bombs airlifted from the US and other third-party allies like Jordan to be dropped on Nahr al-Bared. The attention given to Nahr al-Bared will rapidly wane, and as always none of the humanitarian or political issues associated with the Palestinian camps will be addressed. Meanwhile, a new generation of Palestinians can now claim their own painful memories of the ongoing struggle for existence. The refugees from Nahr al-Bared and elsewhere are left, until further notice, with only hopes and prayers that the next incident involving one of their camps will not be as bloody and devastating as previous episodes.

Jamal Ghosn is a 28-year-old strategy consultant from Beirut. He has covered Lebanese affairs on his blog for over two years.

The 25th Anniversary of the Massacre at Sabra-Shatilla

Will anyone remember? Does anyone really care anymore?

Franklin Lamb

Martyrs Square
Sabra-Shatilla Palestinian Refugee Camp
Beirut

A Letter to Janet

Dearest Janet,

It’s a very beautiful fall day here in Beirut today. Twenty-five years ago this week since the September 15-18, 1982 Massacre at the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra-Shatilla. Bright blue sky and a fall breeze. It actually rained last night. Enough to clean out some of the humidity and dust. Fortunately not enough to make the usual rain-created swamp of sewage and filth on Rue Sabra, or flood the grassless burial ground of the mass grave (the camp residents named it Martyrs Square—one of several so named memorials now in Lebanon) where you once told me you that on Sunday September 19, 1982, you watched, sickened, as families and Red Crescent workers created a subterranean mountain of butchered and bullet-riddled victims from those 48 hours of slaughter. Some of the bodies had limbs and heads chopped off, some boys castrated, Christian crosses carved into some of the bodies.

As you later wrote to me in your perfect cursive:

“I saw dead women in their houses with their skirts up to their waists and their legs spread apart; dozens of young men shot after being lined up against an ally wall; children with their throats slit, a pregnant woman with her stomach chopped open, her eyes still wide open, her blackened face silently screaming in horror; countless babies and toddlers who had been stabbed or ripped apart and who had been thrown into garbage piles”.

Today Martyrs Square is not much of a Memorial to the upwards of 1,700 mainly women and children, who were murdered between Sept. 15-18. You would not be pleased. A couple of faded posters and a misspelled banner that reads: “1982: Saba Massacer”, hang near the center of the 20 by 40 yard area which for years following the mass burial was a garbage dump. Today, roaming around the grassless plot of ground is a large old yellow dog that ignores a couple of chicken hens and six peeps scratching and pecking around.

Since you went away, the main facts of the Massacre remain the same as your research uncovered in the months that followed. At that time your findings were the most detailed and accurate as to what occurred and who was responsible.

The old 7 storey Kuwaiti Embassy from where Sharon, Eytan, Yaron, Elie Hobeika, Fradi Frem and others maintained radio contact and monitored the 48 hours of carnage with a clear view into the camps was torn down years ago. A new one has been built and they are still constructing a Mosque on its grounds.

I am sorry to report that today in Lebanon, the families of the victims of the Massacre daily sink deeper into the abyss. No where on earth do the Palestinians live in such filth and squalor. “Worse than Gaza!” a journalist recently in Palestine exclaims.

A 2005 Lebanese law that was to open up access to some of the 77 professions the Palestinians have been barred from in Lebanon had no effect. Their social, economic, political, and legal status continues to worsen.

“It’s a hopeless situation here now,” according to Jamile Ibrahim Shehade, the head of one of 12 social centers in the camp. “There are 15,000 people living in one square kilometer.” Jamile runs a center which provides basic facilities such as a dental clinic and a nursery for children. It receives assistance from Norwegian People’s Aid and the Lebanese NGO, PARD. “This whole area was nothing before the camps were here and there has been very little done in terms of building infrastructure,” Shehade explained.

Continued misery in the camps has taken a heavy psychological toll on the residents of Sabra and Shatilla, aid workers here say. Tempers run high as a result of frustration from the daily grind in the decrepit housing complex. In all 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon tensions and tempers rise with increasing family, neighborhood, and sect conflicts. Salafist and other militant groups are forming in and around Lebanon’s Palestinian camps but not so much here in the Hezbollah controlled areas where security is better.

In Sabra-Shatilla, schools will run double shifts when they open at the end of this month and electricity and water are still a big problem.

According to a 1999 survey by the local NGO Najdeh (Help), 29 percent of 550 women surveyed in seven of the 12 official refugee camps scattered across Lebanon, have admitted being victims of physical violence. Cocaine and Hashish use are becoming a concern to the community.

There is some new information about the Sabra-Shatilla Massacre that has come to light over the years. Few Israelis but many of the Christian Lebanese Forces, following the national amnesty, wanted to make their peace and have confessed to their role. I have spoken with a few of them.

Remember that fellow you once screamed at and called a butcher outside of Phalange HQ in East Beirut, Joseph Haddad. At the time he denied everything as he looked you straight in the eye and made the sign of the cross. Well, he did finally confess 22 years later, around the time of his youngest daughters Confirmation in his local Parish. Your suspicions were indeed correct. His unit, the second to enter the camp, had been supplied with cocaine, hashish and alcohol to increase their courage. He and others gave their stories to Der Spiegel and various documentary film makers.

Many of the killers now freely admit that they conducted a three-day orgy of rape and slaughter that left hundreds, as many as 3,500 they claim, possibly more, of innocent civilians dead in what is considered the bloodiest single incident of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a crime for which Israel will be condemned for eternity.

Your friend, Um Ahmad, still lives in the same house where she lost her husband, four sons and a daughter when Joseph, a thick-set militiaman carrying an assault rifle bundled everyone into one room of their hovel and opened fire. She still explains like it was yesterday, how the condoned slaughter unfolded, recalling each of her four sons by name, Nizar, Shadi, Farid and Nidal. I asked Joseph if he wanted to sit with Um Ahmad and seek forgiveness and possible redemption since he has now become a lay cleric in his Parish. He declined but sent his condolences with flowers.

Do you remember Janet, how we used to walk down Rue Sabra from Gaza Hospital to Akka Hospital during the 75 day Israeli siege in ‘82, as you used to say “to see my people”? Gaza Hospital is gone now. Occupied and stripped by the Syrian-backed Amal militia during the Camp Wars of ‘85-87. Its remaining rooms are now packed with refugees. One old lady who ended up there recited how it’s her fourth home since being forced from Palestine in 1948. She survived the Phalangist attack on and destruction of Tel a Zaatar camp in 1976, fled from the Fatah al Islam Salafists in Nahr al Bared Camp in May of this year and wore out her welcome at the teeming and overwhelmed Bedawi camp near Tripoli last month.

Most of your friends who worked with the Palestine Red Crescent Society are gone from Lebanon. Our cherished friend, Hadla Ayubi has semi-retired in Amman; Um Walid, Director of Akkar Hospital, finally did return to Palestine following Oslo, still with the PRCS. And its President, Dr. Fathi Arafat, your good friend, passed away in December of 2004 in Cairo less than a month after his brother Abu Ammar died in Paris. They both loved you for all you had done for their people.

That trash dump near the Sabra Mosque is now a mountain. Yesterday I did a double take as I walked by because I saw three young girls–as sweet and pretty as ever I have seen –maybe 7 to 9 years old in rags picking through the nasty garbage. Their arms were covered with white chemical paste. Apparently whoever sent them to scavenge sought to protect them from disease. As I climbed through the filth to give them my last 6,000 LL ($4) they managed a smile and giggle when I slipped on a broken thin plastic bag of juicy cactus fruit skins and plunged to my knees.

In some areas of the camps there are mainly Syrians. Selling cheap ‘tax free’ goods. Still some Arafat loyalists. Mainly among the older generation. Palpable stress among just about everyone it seems. One young Palestinian explained to me his worry that with the upcoming Parliamentary election to choose a new President scheduled for September 25, there may be fighting and his October 6th SAT exams may be cancelled and he won’t be able to continue his studies.

When you and I last spoke Janet, it was on April 16th of that year and I was en route to the Athens Airport to catch a flight to Beirut to be with you, you told me you were working on evidence to convict Sharon and others of war crimes.

Twenty years later, lawyers representing two dozen victims and other relatives attempted to have Ariel Sharon tried for the massacre under Belgian legislation, which grants its courts “universal jurisdiction” for war crimes.

There had been great expectations about the case among the Palestinians and their friends, since as you remember, Sharon had already been found to bear “personal responsibility” in the massacres by an Israeli commission of inquiry which concluded he shouldn’t ever again hold public office. But hopes were dashed when the Belgium Court, under US and Israeli pressure, decided the case was inadmissible.

I regret to report that all those who perpetrated the Massacre at Sabra-Shatilla escaped justice. None of the hundreds of Phalange and Haddad militia who carried out the slaughter were ever punished. In fact they got a blanket amnesty from the Lebanese government.

As for the main organizers and facilitators, their massacre at Sabra-Shatilla turned out to be excellent career moves for virtually all of them.

Arial Sharon, found by the Israeli Kahan Commission Inquiry “to bear personal responsibility” for allowing the Sabra-Shatilla massacre resigned as Minister of Defense but retained his Cabinet position in Begin’s Government and over the next 16 years held four more ministerial posts, including that of Foreign Minister, before becoming Prime Minister in February, 2001. Following the Jenin rampage US President Bush anointed him “a man of peace.”

RAFEL EYTAN, Israeli Chief of Staff, who shared Sharon’s decision to send in the Phalange killers and helped direct the operation was elected to the Knesset as leader of the small ultra rightwing party, Tzomet. In 1984 he was named Agriculture Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in 1996. He currently serves as head of Tzomet and is jockeying for another Cabinet position in the next government.

Major-General YEHOSHUA SAGUY, Army Chief of Intelligence: found by the Kahan Commission to have made “extremely serious omissions” in handling the Sabra-Shatilla affair later became a right-wing Member of the Knesset and is now mayor of the ultra-rightist community of Bat-Yam, a little town near Tel Aviv.

Major-General AMIR DRORI, Chief of Israel’s Northern Command: found not to have done enough to stop the massacre, a “breach of duty”, recently was named as head of the Israeli Antiquities Commission.

Brigadier-General AMOS YARON, the divisional commander whose troops sealed the camps to prevent victims from escaping and helped direct the operation along with Sharon and Eitan was found to have “committed a breach of duty”. He was immediately promoted Major-General and made head of Manpower in the army, served as Director-General of the Israeli Defense Ministry and Military Attaches at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. He is currently working for various Israeli lobby groups as a scholar in ‘tink thanks’.

Elie Hobeika, the Chief of Lebanese Forces Intelligence, who along with Sharon master-minded the actual massacre fell out with the Phalange in 1980s under suspicion that he was involved in killing their leader, Bachir Gemayal. He defected to the Syrians, acquired three Ministerial posts in post-civil war Lebanon Governments, including Minister of the Displaced (many thought he know a lot about this subject) of Electricity and Water and in 1996, Social Affairs.

On January 24, 2002, twenty years after his involvement at Sabra-Shatilla he was blown up in a car bomb attack in East Beirut. Two of his associates who were also rumored to be planning to ‘come clean’ regarding Sharon’s role were assassinated in separate incidents.

A few days before Hobeika’s death he stated that he might reveal more about the massacre and those responsible and according to Beirut’s Daily Star staff who interviewed him, Hobeika told them that his lawyers had copies of his files implicating Sharon in much more than had become public. These files are now is the possession of his son who following Sharon’s death may release the files.

They still remember you in Burj al Burajneh camp. A few weeks ago one old man told me: “Janet Stevens? No, I didn’t know her. He paused and then said, “Oh!..you mean Miss Janet! She spoke Arabic…I think she was American. Of course I remember her! We called her the little drummer girl. She had so much energy. She cared about the Palestinians. That was so long ago. She stopped coming to visit us. I don’t know why. How is she?”

And so, Dearest Janet, I will be waiting for you at Sabra-Shatilla, at Martyrs Square, on Saturday, September 15, 2007.

You will find me patting and mumbling to that old yellow dog. He and I have become friends and we will pay our respects to the dead and I will reflect on these past 25 years and we will watch for and wait for you. You will find us behind the straggly rose bushes on the right as you enter.

Come to us, Janet. We need you. The camp residents need you, one of their brightest lights, on this 25th anniversary of one of their darkest hours. You were always their mediator and advocate…and until today you are their majorette for Justice and Return to their sacred Palestine.

Forever,

Franklin

NOTE:

Janet Lee Stevens was born in 1951 and died on April 18, 1983, at the age of 32, at the instant of the explosion which destroyed the American Embassy in Beirut. Twenty minutes before the blast, Janet had arrived at the Embassy to met with US A.I.D. official Bill McIntyre because she wanted to advocate for more aid to the Shia of South Lebanon and for the Palestinians at Sabra, Shatilla, and Burj al Burajneh camps, stemming from Israel’s 1982 invasion and the September 15-18 massacre. As they sat at a table in the cafeteria, where she had planned to ask why the US government has never even lodged a protest following the Israeli invasion or the Massacre, a van stolen from the Embassy the previous June arrived and parked just in front of the Embassy. Almost directly in front of the cafeteria. It contained 2,000 pounds of explosives. It was detonated by remote control and tons of concrete pancaked on top of Janet and Bill, killing 63 and wounding 120. Remains of Janet’s body were found two days later, unidentified in the basement morgue of the American University of Beirut Hospital by the author. She was pregnant with our son, Clyde Chester Lamb III. Had he lived he would be 24 years old. Hopefully taking after his mother he would, no doubt, be a prince of a young man.

Franklin Lamb’s book on the Sabra-Shatilla Massacre, now out of print, was published in 1983, following Janet’s death and was dedicated to Janet Lee Stevens. He was a witness before the Israeli Kahan Commission Inquiry, held at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Lamb, Franklin P.: International legal responsibility for the Sabra-Shatila-massacre / Franklin P. Lamb – Montreuil: Imp. Tipe, 1983 – 157 S. Ill., Kt.

He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com.

Israel harassing the regional peace and security

“This is a very dangerous provocation little short of wantonly violating the sovereignty of Syria and seriously harassing the regional peace and security.” spokesman for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry from the Fanonite

“Maybe Israel decided to send the Syrian government a message that it would understand. ” BBC News

Excellent journalism from the BBC again.  Regional peace is threatened by Israeli aggression which there’s been no official explanation for, where there’s been no positive outcomes, yet in the eyes of the BBC its legitimate.  Why?  Because Israel did it. 

Ask yourself this, if Hezbollah launched a raid into Israel firing missles would the BBC describe it as “sending a message?”

Elephant Cemetery : The UN in Lebanon

The main ideological battlefield in the Middle East is Lebanon. However much United States media cover the situation in Iraq (and one should remember the only thing they worry about is the number of their dead soldiers), that country is not the one where the region’s future is at stake, but rather a small Mediterranean country, also Arab : Lebanon. This has been the case since last year produced the most important event so far in the 21st century : the defeat of Israel in the second Lebanese war. That defeat not only frustrated the neocolonial plans of the US – already very shaky thanks to the war in Iraq – to create a “new Middle East” pliant to imperialist designs and made up of diverse permanently antagonistic religious, ethnic and racial visions without a strong central power, visions which, being weaker, would to a large degree accept an indefinite US presence.

Added to the frustration of that goal was the collapse of the myth of an invincible, all-powerful Tsaal (Israel’s armed forces, trans.) and with that began the process currently under way which is nothing less than peoples’ realization that they are capable of taking their destinies into their own hands. That is the source of the situation we see now in Lebanon, in Palestine and in occupied Iraq, although that country has further to go and is beset with numerous variables.

The whole world is intervening in this ideological war : France, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iran, the forever inoperative and ineffectual Arab League and even the timid Spanish government, converted into a Bush regime pimp in Afghanistan and Lebanon after an initial courageous and honest move in withdrawing troops from Iraq. All these actors, if we except Russia, which maintains its political, economic and military accords with Syria and has recently received the main leaders of Hamas, play a role in the same script, in line with Pentagon strategy from 2006 known as “frontiers of blood” (1) : controlling what they regard as “the Shi’ite menace” and avoiding the influence of Syria and Iran in the region.

A poor screenplay, but with an impressive budget that guarantees great special effects. The US godfather, a great producer, offers around US$60bn to ensure a spectacular show, with the reservation that in this case the dead will not be fictitious, but real. Arming the Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians, the Gulf countries and Israel is no chimera. On the one hand it calms down regimes feeling their peoples’ breath hot on their necks more and more and, on the other, it hands an oxygen mask to the self-same US economy by reviving the industrial-military complex and trying in that way to arrest the forecast economic slowdown.

This slowdown is forecast right now in the wake of the property market crisis but has still not happened yet. Already in 2004 US economists predicted their country could suffer structural deficits until 2009 as a result of spending on the Iraq war. For their part European economists reckon that the crisis will come when the dollar falls to 1.50 against the Euro. (2) In January 2007 the rate was 1.32. Eight months later it is at 1.36. Crisis yes, but not for the moment, so long as China decides against. Given the incredible amount of dollar reserves it holds, the key to the crisis is in that country’s hands.

But let’s stick with Lebanon. This screenplay on an Arab theme, as well as moves behind the scenes, make clear that the great US godfather is very worried. It cannot get out of the Iraqi morass. It sees how its Palestine strategy is breaking up. Only Lebanon offers a possible victory – via clear international tutelage – to prevent the imperial megalomania falling into the sea like a sandcastle at high tide. Hence the obstinacy on Lebanon and the consequent abuse of the UN so as to cover its policy with a gloss of legitimacy.

At the great patron’s behest

The Bush regime has been noted for its demolition of the UN multinational system, especially with its neocolonial invasion and occupation of Iraq, but like a shameless loudmouth, it now uses the UN to serve its purposes. Individuals like Michael Ignatieff and Robert Kagan already suggested in 2002 “acting at the margins of the UN when it may be useful and resorting to it when it serves our interests.” They were the ideologues of the New Security Strategy pompously presented by Bush that same year which sanctioned the renowned “preventive war”. In Iraq they dispensed with the UN : in Lebanon they are are mis-using it to the point of nausea.

For that reason nothing the UN has done lately is innocent, certainly not in the matter of Lebanon. Just in the last four years the anti-democratic Security Council – with its enduring right of veto and rejection of democratic expansion to include new permanent members – has approved 26 resolutions on Lebanon, an average of 6 resolutions a year, one every two months. Not a bad average, beaten only by African countries like the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sudan or the Congo. Not even Iraq received so many Security Council resolutions (only 9 have been passed on that country since 2004, an index we have noted in relation to Lebanon ever since the first resolution that concerns us on this issue, number 1559) which supports the argument made at the start of this article : at the moment Lebanon is much more important strategically for the US than Iraq.

It may be true that the plan to dominate the Middle East began with the slogan “the war on terror” after 9-11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a country that is the weakest link in the plan for strategic rearrangement, which also included Saudi Arabia and Egypt ( the US-Arab Country Plan for Association presented by Condoleezza Rice on December 12th 2002) and the intention of seeking a final solution to the Palestinian problem in accordance with the interests of Israel. The failure in Iraq forced the turn towards Lebanon. Clearly, without the struggle by Iraqi patriots the original plan would have worked to begin with. So the slowing down of that plan is to the credit of the Iraqi patriots. But it is the Lebanese patriots who have stopped it in its tracks, increasing the empire’s difficulties with their victory in the war last summer.

Of those 26 UN resolutions, 9 are technical, extending the mandate of the UNIFIL forces to stay in Lebanon allegedly to monitor respect for the Blue Line (the frontier between Israel and Lebanon) and also, since August 2006, the cessation of hostilities following last summer’s second war. The other resolutions are clearly political. Since passing resolution 1559 in October 2004 (demanding that Syria withdraws its forces from Lebanon, the disarming of Palestinian militias protecting refugee camps and of Hezbollah’s armed forces) and with the exception of those referring to the international tribunal to investigate the assassination of Rafik Hariri, former Lebanese Prime Minister, all have the same common denominator. But since the passing of resolution 1701 in August 2006 which set up the “end of hostilities” one has got used to hearing a new argument : arms are travelling from Syria to Hezbollah and Palestinian groups, so the frontiers are insecure and that has to be dealt with.

This is also the argument of the latest initiative, a Presidential announcement – approved this August 3rd – which is going to be the prelude to a new resolution in favour of international intervention on Lebanon’s frontier with Syria. The current president of the Security Council is the representative of the Democratic Republic of Congo, someone more amenable to US pressures than his predecessors, the Chinese and South African ambassadors. It is worth pointing out that South Africa has repeatedly opposed and toned down harder resolutions on Lebanon put forward by France and Britain. In fact the South African position is described by the US media as “betrayal” (3) not only for what is regarded as “obstruction” of US initiatives in the UN but for its relations with Iran and the fact that a year ago, during the second Lebanese war, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, South Africa’s Foreign Minister expressed solidarity with Hezbollah’s struggle against “Israeli aggression”.

So now, with a more docile Security Council President, the US and France have managed to get approval for a declaration which in its most important aspects calls for “full support for the legitimate democratically elected Lebanese government” (here once more the argument of the supposed democratic legitimacy of the government ignores constitutional rules, that the resignation of Shi’ite and Christian ministers denies the government authority to take decisions) expressing “serious concern at violations of the arms embargo along the length of the Syrian-Lebanese border” (mentioning expressly Hezbollah, Fatah-Intifada and the popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command) and showing “profound concern” for the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah in July 2006, asking for them “to be returned immediately and unconditionally”. The same as usual, in other words. More so, given that the declaration restricts itself to admonishing Israel for the increase in violations of Lebanese air space and “encourages” it to resolve the issue of Lebanese priosners detained in its jails. That encouragement is very different to the threats applied to Hezbollah.

The imperialist offensive on Lebanon – a recent chronology

The imperialist powers are worried, and worried a lot, about Lebanon. At the end of September it holds presidential elections whereby, according to the constitution, the candidate has to be a Christian. So there are just three possible candidates : one from the neoliberal bloc – divided itself with three pre-candidates – which supports the Prime Minister Fouad Siniora; another from the opposition bloc around Hezbollah whose visible prime candidate is Michel Aoun; and thirdly, one who might be a consensus candidate, current army chief Michel Suleiman. The last two are not to the liking of the United States, although they see Suleiman as the lesser evil. One should not forget that contrary to the government’s official version, Suleiman has denied that Syria is behind the Fatah al Islam organization with which the Lebanese army has fought hard since May in the Nahr al Bared Palestinian refugee camp. (4) And he said something else: “Fatah al Islam is a branch of Al Qaeda which had planned to use Lebanon and the Palestinian refugee camps as a haven from which to launch attacks in Lebanon and abroad”. A timely dissociation from the Siniora government and a clear wink towrds Hezbollah, from whom he had distanced himself since the political-military movement’s communique making clear their position on the fighting in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al Bared (5)

So then, all the measures being taken have the same common denominator of aiming to control Lebanon. It is worth making an exhaustive chronological review of the initiatives that have been set in train so everyone can draw their own conclusions:

a) May 7th : UN Secretary general Ban Ki-Moon reports on Lebanon repeating the arguments it has been sought to realise since the end of the war in the summer of 2006, namely those of the penultimate initiative of the current president of the Security Council mentioned above. Ban Ki-Moon’s report was disclosed after the failure by the US, Britain and France to get a new resolution on Lebanon approved so as to reinforce the Siniora government and accusing Syria and Iran of continuing to support Hezbollah with arms and money. The attempt to pass a new resolution was blocked by Russia and China as well as other member countries of the Security Council like Ghana and South Africa. In the draft that was blocked, the UN Security Council was asked to form an “independent mission” composed of “a committee of UN experts” to control the frontier. (6) A mission that was to have been made up of European countries and inviting participation from Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries in the region to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel.

b) May 10th : the Siniora government signs an agreement to supervise Lebanese State expenditures, something fiercely criticised by Hezbollah, Amal and the Free Patriotic Movement (the majority organization among Christians made up of that religion’s middle and lower middle classes). That agreement is an effort to create a buffer so as to calm the feelings of countries that committed aid worth US$8bn in a conference in Paris in January, right at the moment when the country was paralysed by strikes against government neo-liberal measures.

c) May 20th : appearance of the Islamist group Fatah al Islam and the beginning of armed exchanges in the Palestinian refugee camps of Nahr al Bared. From that day on, both the forces supporting the Siniora government and their Western patrons have rushed to accuse Syria of being behind that group with the aim, according to them, of obstructing the opening of the tribunal investigating the death of ex-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. For almost two years the issue of Hariri ( a Sunni multi-millionaire closely linked to the Saudi regime and Bandar bin Sultan in particular, now Saudi Arabia’s Security Minister) is the only government explanation for what happens in Lebanon and is simply a sign of blind obedience to the neo-liberal policies designed by the IMF and the World Bank and of their own corruption and incompetence. In fact, according to Lebanese trade unions, 200,000 internal refugees still remain of the million people forced to abandon their homes under Israeli bombardment. Some 120,000 workers have lost their jobs as a result of the war and reconstruction of the bombed areas of the Shia majority continues by Hezbollah, with no sign of any government presence.

d) May 30th : the UN Security Council approves resolution 1757 setting up an international tribunal to investigate and bring to trial those responsible for the attack on Rafiq Hariri. It does so based on Chapter 7 of the UN Charter (which includes the right to use force) and is directed against Syria.

e) June 2nd : on government orders, 300 members of the Internal Security Forces deploy along the Syrian Lebanese frontier to support the Lebanese army in border patrol tasks. Those forces, known in Lebanon as the Hariri militia, are loyal to Saad Hariri, the strong man of the governing coalition that supports Siniora and son of the assassinated ex-Prime Minister. At the end of the war they received US$60m from the US government. (7) Weeks later, US military aid would arrive for the Lebanese army.

f) June 11th : Terje Roed-Larsen, UN Middle East envoy, presents a report to the Security Council which expresses his “profound concern at the illegal movement of arms” along the frontier with Syria. This man, known for his sympathy to Israel, did not conceal that he had sent similar reports to the Lebanese and Israeli governments as well as “other states” that he did not specify.

g) June 24th : attack on Spanish troops of UNIFIL. This contingent has the worst reputation among local inhabitants in the south of Lebanon thanks to their aggression when patrolling communities in the area and their intrusion on reconnaissance in search of Hezbollah positions and arms caches among hills and locations used by local people. Despite that, the attack should be seen as an action directed against Hezbollah and the stability of the south of the country, in contrast with what has been happening in the north with the fighting in Nahr al Bared and the instability in Tripoli.

h) June 28th : Ban Ki-Moon publishes a new report on Lebanon in which he laments that the measures proposed in Resolution 1701 have not been implemented, insisting on the porosity of the borders and the delivery of weapons both to Hezbollah and to Palestinian organizations (mentioning specifically the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command) and gently rebuking Israel for daily violating Lebanese air space, sometimes 20 times a day. Mention of Resolutions 1559, 1680 and 1701 is repeated on numerous occasions, accusing Hezbollah of non-compliance. (8)

i) June 29th : publication of a declassified CIA report which acknowledges that the Lebanese Shi’ite leader Muhammad Husain Fadlallah was targeted and a plan concocted to assassinate him in the 1980s. An attack failed – although various people died and around 200 were wounded. Fadlallah was considered , the same as today, the main religious reference point for HEzbollah, not just for the Shi’ite community. The report aimed at reminding the leaders of Hezbollah that they are in the sights of the US secret services, especially since the end of last year when Bush gave the all clear for covert operations against Hezbollah.(9)

j) July 13th : the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, citing “official sources from the government in Jerusalem” publishes that “the UN cartographer has confirmed to Israel that the Shebaa Farms are Lebanese territory, for which reason Israel should withdraw from the area which would become international territory controlled by UNIFIL” (10)

k) July 16th : another bomb attack on UNIFIL troops, this time from Tanzania. It caused no more than light material damage.

l) July 17th : Miklos Pinte, the UN cartographer studying the Shebaa Farms territory reckons that its area extends over from between 20 to 40 square kilometres, but the Israelis occupy 70 square kilometres. (11) This is an area Lebanon claims for itself while the Israelis say it belongs to Syria and the Syrians say it is Lebanese.

ll) July 18th : Ban Ki-Moon quickly sallies forth to recover the situation and says “the UN cannot confirm that the Shebaa Farms are Lebanese territory”. (12) According to the Lebanese daily the “Daily Star” “Israel has warned the UN that carrying out the mapping (of the Shebaa farms) could reignite the conflict (with Hezbollah)” and Farhan Haq, the UN spokesperson in New York , buries the matter saying “the cartographer has still not completed his work”. At the same time he announces a visit by the cartographer to the area without specifying a date. Docile Ban Ki-Moon faces a great dilemma since if the UN reckons that the Shebaa Farms are Lebanese territory occupied by Israel, as the cartographer indicates, it will concede legitimacy to Hezbollah as a political military movement of national liberation, leaving null and void all the Security Council resolutions ordering the Islamic Resistance to disarm. Hence the speed with which Ki-Moon rushed in effect to gainsay the cartographer.

m) August 1st : George Bush signs an executive order in the form of a decree freezing the financial assets of individuals, institutions and businesses that oppose the neoliberal government of Fouad Siniora. (13) This decree leaves out nothing since it considers that opposition to the Siniora government “contributes to the political and economic instability of Lebanon and the whole region” and therefore ” (the individuals, institutions and businesses that oppose Siniora) constitute an extraordinary and unusual threat to the national security and the foreign policy of the United States” (Section 1) Coming just a few days ahead of the by-elections to fill the seats of two assassinated Christian deputies, this is a clear provocation and shameless interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, as well as being an explicit threat to the opposition.

n) August 2nd : UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Michael Williams, admits that he has held “about 20 meetings” with leaders of Hezbollah with regard to the exchange of the Israeli soldiers captured last summer and Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli prisons. (14) Those meetings proved fruitless because for one thing Hezbollah refuses an exchange in stages, which the Israelis are so fond of (a few prisoners released in exchange for “good behaviour” from the other side, something they have always done with the Palestinians) and for another because in those conversations those meetings covered not just the matter of prisoners of one side or the other but “many other components” according to Ha’aretz (15) although which ones remain unspecified.

ñ) August 5th : elections in two mainly Christian districts of Beirut. The Free Patriotic Movement, a Maronite Christian organization allied with Hezbollah and other Lebanese organizations opposed to the government of Fouad Siniora wins in one, Metn. against Amin Gemayel, former President of the country and historical leader of the Lebanese Phalange. It is worth stressing that the seat in question had belonged to Gemayel’s murdered son, Pierre. The correlation of forces changes and the future Lebanese President cannot be elected without the approval of the FPM. The vote of the Armenian community, represented by the Tsahnag party, is decisive and indicates cooperation between anti-government forces. Tsahnag argued their vote was “a protest against the marginalization (of the Armenian community) by the (Siniora) government”. (16)

o) August 6th : Siniora’s pro-Western supporters call fraud in the Metn elections and threaten to designate a Lebanese President with a simple parliamentary majority (half plus one of the total number of members of parliament), which they have, and not with the two-thirds parliamentary majority demanded by the Constitution. The inconstitutionality of such a decision would mean the formation of a new government by the opposition for which reason a sector of the government, led by Siniora himself, proposes as a “transition” that the Prime Minister, himself, assumes the presidential prerogatives.

p) August 10th : Prime Minister Fouad Siniora meets with US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman to analyse the situation and discuss US aid for the Lebanmese army.

q) August 13th : Lebanese army chief Michel Suleiman, accompanied by Nabih Berri, Shi’ite president of parliament, meet with the Maronite patriarch to talk about the presidential elections and sound out the chances of the general becoming a consensus candidate.

r) August 14th : Suleiman affirms publicly that he will put himself forward to lead an interim government if no consensus can be reached to elect a President. His role would be transitional pending the development of matters overseas, in particular the US presidential elections in 2008. The opposition would only view this candidacy kindly if it established a transitional government able to guarantee the expected calling of new parliamentary elections. However, for Suleiman to succeed he needs calm in every sense, which is why an end to the fighting in the Palestinian refugee camps of Nahr al Bared is vital. This explains the speeding up of the issue, acceptance of negotations for the exit of relatives of Fatah al Islam fighters and the intensification of the fighting.

s) August 16th : France presents a draft UN Security Council resolution to extend the UNIFIL mandate for another year. It suggests new prerogatives for UNIFIL forces, such as greater presence in the villages and an increase in patrols, cut back to a minimum after the mortal attack on the Spanish troops.

t) August 24th : the Security Council approves the French resolution unanimously. Still, the text had to be modified because countries like Russia and South Africa criticised the fact that what should be a technical resolution extending the UNIFIL mandate included “sensitive issues” such as the matter of Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah, whom the UN describes in this resolution as “kidnapped”. (17) A day beforehand, Israel again violated Lebanese air space with eleven flights at both high and low altitude, according to the Lebanese army.

u) August 30th : the French UNIFIL contingent carries out an exercise in the village of Tiri, near the Israeli frontier. It aimed at “intercepting an enemy trying to cross the Blue Line (Israel-Lebanon frontier) and attack areas under UNIFIL protection”. Leclerc tanks were used in that military exercise which ended in “the capture of dozens of terrorists”. According to Colonel Chaptal, leading the exercise, the term “enemy” referred to”anyone in southern lebanon threatening or obstructing implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701″. (18)

Plans frustrated by popular resistance

The imperialist offensive is under way and increases as September 25th, start of the presidential elections, gets closer. The anti-imperialist counter-offensive does the same. Israel’s defeat in the second Lebanese war last summer frustrated US plans in the area. With Hezbollah converted into a leading actor on the Lebanese political scene, the US has had to redirect its strategy through the UN. Just as the UN has been changed into an adjunct of US foreign policy, so UNIFIL troops have become a part of the global struggle for control of the Middle East, not just Lebanon.

The Siniora government is skeletal and brittle, incapable even of putting in motion its neoliberal agenda – the economy has shrunk by 2% in the first semester of this year (19) – and with key executive functions paralysed. The pompous commitments of Paris 3, trumpeted in January, have not materialized and the collapse of the State is a fact. So the US has two alternatives : either to carry out a “palace coup” along the lines of Abbas in Palestine, namely by prompting Siniora to assume the faculties of the country’s President or to reinforce what Roberto Satloff, the Bush regime’s new guru has called “constructive instability”. Or what amounts to the same thing : “neutralizing radical forces” (Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon) even when they have popular support. For the moment that effort is being carried out benevolently via the UN.

But this body has been little more than a fraud ever since the invasion of Iraq, justifying and concealing imperialist interests. That is without mentioning the anti-humanitarian crime against the Iraq, victim of an embargo that killed more than a million people, the great majority of them children, after the first Gulf War in 1990. However, today the UN is getting its own medicine in Lebanon. What the Security Council considers “non-compliance with resolutions” mainly by Hezbollah is no more than getting paid in their own coin for cases like Israeli exceptionalism and the non-application of tens of resolutions on Palestine, without mentioning other examples. The UN in Lebanon is like an elephant heading for its cemetery. It goes around in circles (the single-issue obsession of the resolutions) sensing death as it settles on a spot to drop. But unlike elephants about to die, the UN’s image lacks all dignity.

– Notes –

(1) Alberto Cruz, “El grito de la calle árabe, sin justicia no hay paz” http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=36850
(2) Alberto Cruz, “Veinte céntimos” http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=44199
(3) The Wall Street Journal, 8 de agosto de 2007.
(4) The Daily Star, 13 de agosto de 2007.
(5) Alberto Cruz, “La nueva estrategia de EEUU en Líbano: la guerra secreta contra Hizbulá” http://www.nodo50.org/ceprid/territorios/mo/mo6.htm
(6) The Daily Star, 20 de abril de 2007.
(7) Ibid.
(8) Informe del Secretario General sobre la aplicación de la resolución 1701 (2006) del Consejo de Seguridad. S/2007/392. 28 de junio de 2007.
(9) The Telegraph, 23 de diciembre de 2006.
(10) Haaretz, 13 de julio de 2007.
(11) Haaretz, 18 de julio de 2007.
(12) The Daily Star, 18 de julio de 2007.
(13) www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070802-1.html
(14) The Daily Star, 3 de agosto de 2007.
(15) Haaretz, 3 de agosto de 2007.
(16) The Daily Star, 5 de agosto de 2007.
(17) Resolución 1773 aprobada por el CS en su sesión nº 5733. S/RES/1773 (2007)
(18) The Daily Star, 1 de septiembre de 2007.
(19) The Daily Star, 24 de agosto de 2007.

Alberto Cruz is a journalist, political analyst and witer specializing in international relations.
contact via albercruz (arroba) eresmas.com .

Thanks to Agustín Velloso for suggestions on the text. Translation copyleft Tortilla con Sal, Centro de Estudios Políticos para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Desarrollo

Syria ‘fires on Israel warplanes’

Something we should all understand – “Israel in fact does not want peace,” he said. “It cannot survive without aggression, treachery and military messages.”

Last Updated: Thursday, 6 September 2007, 15:16 GMT 16:16 UK   Syria has said its air defences opened fire on Israeli warplanes after they violated its airspace in the north of the country.Syrian officials said the defences forced the jets to drop ammunition over deserted areas and turn back, according to the official news agency, Sana. Israel’s military said it would not comment on the reports. Israel and Syria remain technically at war and tensions between them have been rising in recent months. The Syrian government has insisted that peace talks can be resumed only on the basis of Israel returning the Golan Heights, which it seized in 1967. Israeli authorities, for their part, have demanded that Syria abandon its support for Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups before talks can begin. ‘Military messages’ A Syrian spokesman said the Israeli aircraft had flown into Syrian airspace from the Mediterranean Sea at around 0100 local time on Thursday morning, Sana reported. They were then engaged by Syrian air defence forces in the Tall al-Abyad, an area 160km (100 miles) north of Raqqa and near the border with Turkey, witnesses said. Israel in fact does not want peace – it cannot survive without aggression, treachery and military messages Mohsen Bilal Syrian Information Minister “Air defence units confronted them and forced them to leave after they dropped some ammunition in deserted areas without causing any human or material damage,” the spokesman said. Pilots sometimes jettison extra fuel to make their aircraft lighter and easier to manoeuvre. Syria’s Information Minister, Mohsen Bilal, told al-Jazeera TV that his government was “seriously studying the nature of the response”. “Israel in fact does not want peace,” he said. “It cannot survive without aggression, treachery and military messages.” Tensions Officials in Damascus said Syrian forces last fired at Israeli warplanes in June 2006, when they flew over the summer residence of the Syrian president in Lattakia, while he was inside. Over the past few months, the leaders of both countries have both stressed that they do not want war. But both sides have also been preparing for possible conflict. In June, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted his country did not want war with Syria, and that he had communicated this to Damascus through diplomatic channels. He also repeated his warning that a “miscalculation” could spark hostilities between the two. Mr Olmert’s statement came after the Israeli military staged major exercises in the Golan Heights.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6981674.stm

The worst threat ever faced by the Lebanese?

Fatah Al-Islam the worst threat ever faced by the Lebanese? I hardly think so. Why is he making them such a big deal? To justify the senseless killing of at least 42 civilians (probably more), misery of thousands of refugees and destruction of a camp perhaps? You know a crime has taken place when exaggerated claims like this are used to justify the attack.

Lebanese troops killed at least 222 Islamist militants in three months of fighting at a refugee camp in northern Lebanon, the defence minister says.

Elias Murr said 202 militants from the Fatah al-Islam group were captured since fighting erupted in May.

A number have been charged with murder and terrorist offences.

The Lebanese army finally took control of Nahr al-Bared camp on Sunday. At least 160 soldiers died in Lebanon’s worst internal violence since 1990.

At least 42 civilians were also killed in the fierce fighting, bringing the death toll to more than 400.

Mr Murr added that “an undetermined number” of Fatah al-Islam members were buried in mass graves in the camp by their comrades.

“This victory allowed us to put an end to the worst threat ever faced by the Lebanese,” he said.

“Fatah al-Islam could have spread throughout the country like cancerous cells.”

On Monday, there was a brief eruption of gunfire and explosions near the eastern edge of Nahr al-Bared as army units patrolled through the camp in search for remnants of Fatah al-Islam.

BBC News