Iraqi Speaker, Defended By White House, Claims America Invaded Iraq ‘With A Pure Zionist Agenda’
Today's top Story at ... http://www.thinkprogress.org/
Last weekend, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, described the U.S. occupation of Iraq as “butcher’s work.” Confronted with those remarks on Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said he had met with al-Mashhadani privately and believes he has an “appreciation for the sacrifice so many Americans have made.”
If al-Mashhandi appreciates the sacrifices of Americans, he has a funny way of showing it. At a news conference, he said “I personally think whoever kills an American soldier in defense of his country would have a statue built for him in that country.” Also this:
Saying that the U.S. seeks to control oil fields in southern Iraq, Mashadani added, “America didn’t come to the country for our sake. America came with a pure Zionist agenda.“
Remember, the neoconservatives in the Bush administration promised us that invading Iraq and creating a democratic government would stabilize the Middle East. From Newsweek:
Last year’s invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam Hussein were supposed to bring prosperity and stability to the Middle East. “The road to Jerusalem,” the mantra went, led through Baghdad. Neoconservatives and other hawks within the Bush administration expected that the United States would win respect in the Arab world through a massive show of force, and that Israel would be more comfortable making peace with the Palestinians once Saddam was gone.
President Bush today will meet with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and present an image of the Iraqi government as a strong ally of the United States. In reality, there are powerful forces in the Iraqi government who are completely at odds with U.S. interests.
It’s a reality that the White House and Josh Bolten prefer to ignore.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I for one am tired of swallowing this Bush Retoric and Policy ... It's so obvious ... Even Iraq is Catching On !!!
My throat is RAW !!!
Full Version: AMERICA'S ROLE IN THE NEW MIDEAST CONFLICT
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06204/707729-192.stm
Editorial: The 'other' war / Being tied down in Iraq constrains America's role
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A byproduct of Israeli fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinians in Gaza in recent days is that people may have lost sight of what has become for the moment the "other" Middle East war, the conflict in Iraq.
It is important that Americans not be distracted. The United States lost 61 there in June alone, the U.S. death toll now stands at more than 2,500 and the war continues to cost more than $200 million a day. The 134,000 American troops committed there serve as a major constraint on what the United States might do as part of an international peacekeeping effort to end the fighting and nail down an accord between Israel and Lebanon, not to mention an overall Middle East peace agreement.
In fact, the situation in Iraq continues to worsen in terms of peace and stability. The Iraqis now stand in what could be described as armed polarization, with the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds divided and represented by heavily armed forces, enforcing what has become increasingly ethnically cleansed segregation of the different groups.
In that context, killing has increased. It is reported that the insurgents may now feel strong enough to wrest control of at least parts of Baghdad, the capital, from the control of the occupation-installed Iraqi government and U.S. troops. The U.S.-trained, so-called national Iraqi security forces are as divided into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish groups as the country itself and so are ill-suited to deal with the internal fighting.
A senior American general said the United States needs more, rather than fewer, forces in Iraq to deal with the growing insecurity. In the meantime, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has attacked what he called "Israeli aggression" in Lebanon, consistent with a unanimous vote of the Iraqi parliament, thus publicly biting sharply the hand of the ally of those who feed him. Mr. al-Maliki's position is certainly consistent with the sympathies of Iraq's 60-percent-Shiite majority, who identify with Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon.
As the Israel-Lebanon-Gaza war heats up, another reason is added to others for the United States to phase down its involvement in Iraq. If America is to have the resources to play a constructive role in peacemaking and peacekeeping in the Middle East, it has to free some of them from the quicksand that Iraq has become.
Editorial: The 'other' war / Being tied down in Iraq constrains America's role
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A byproduct of Israeli fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinians in Gaza in recent days is that people may have lost sight of what has become for the moment the "other" Middle East war, the conflict in Iraq.
It is important that Americans not be distracted. The United States lost 61 there in June alone, the U.S. death toll now stands at more than 2,500 and the war continues to cost more than $200 million a day. The 134,000 American troops committed there serve as a major constraint on what the United States might do as part of an international peacekeeping effort to end the fighting and nail down an accord between Israel and Lebanon, not to mention an overall Middle East peace agreement.
In fact, the situation in Iraq continues to worsen in terms of peace and stability. The Iraqis now stand in what could be described as armed polarization, with the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds divided and represented by heavily armed forces, enforcing what has become increasingly ethnically cleansed segregation of the different groups.
In that context, killing has increased. It is reported that the insurgents may now feel strong enough to wrest control of at least parts of Baghdad, the capital, from the control of the occupation-installed Iraqi government and U.S. troops. The U.S.-trained, so-called national Iraqi security forces are as divided into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish groups as the country itself and so are ill-suited to deal with the internal fighting.
A senior American general said the United States needs more, rather than fewer, forces in Iraq to deal with the growing insecurity. In the meantime, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has attacked what he called "Israeli aggression" in Lebanon, consistent with a unanimous vote of the Iraqi parliament, thus publicly biting sharply the hand of the ally of those who feed him. Mr. al-Maliki's position is certainly consistent with the sympathies of Iraq's 60-percent-Shiite majority, who identify with Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon.
As the Israel-Lebanon-Gaza war heats up, another reason is added to others for the United States to phase down its involvement in Iraq. If America is to have the resources to play a constructive role in peacemaking and peacekeeping in the Middle East, it has to free some of them from the quicksand that Iraq has become.
QUOTE(USA#1 @ Jul 25 2006, 09:25 AM)
Iraqi Speaker, Defended By White House, Claims America Invaded Iraq ‘With A Pure Zionist Agenda’
Today's top Story at ... http://www.thinkprogress.org/
Last weekend, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, described the U.S. occupation of Iraq as “butcher’s work.” Confronted with those remarks on Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said he had met with al-Mashhadani privately and believes he has an “appreciation for the sacrifice so many Americans have made.”
If al-Mashhandi appreciates the sacrifices of Americans, he has a funny way of showing it. At a news conference, he said “I personally think whoever kills an American soldier in defense of his country would have a statue built for him in that country.” Also this:
Saying that the U.S. seeks to control oil fields in southern Iraq, Mashadani added, “America didn’t come to the country for our sake. America came with a pure Zionist agenda.“
Remember, the neoconservatives in the Bush administration promised us that invading Iraq and creating a democratic government would stabilize the Middle East. From Newsweek:
Last year’s invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam Hussein were supposed to bring prosperity and stability to the Middle East. “The road to Jerusalem,” the mantra went, led through Baghdad. Neoconservatives and other hawks within the Bush administration expected that the United States would win respect in the Arab world through a massive show of force, and that Israel would be more comfortable making peace with the Palestinians once Saddam was gone.
President Bush today will meet with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and present an image of the Iraqi government as a strong ally of the United States. In reality, there are powerful forces in the Iraqi government who are completely at odds with U.S. interests.
It’s a reality that the White House and Josh Bolten prefer to ignore.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I for one am tired of swallowing this Bush Retoric and Policy ... It's so obvious ... Even Iraq is Catching On !!!
My throat is RAW !!!
Today's top Story at ... http://www.thinkprogress.org/
Last weekend, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, described the U.S. occupation of Iraq as “butcher’s work.” Confronted with those remarks on Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said he had met with al-Mashhadani privately and believes he has an “appreciation for the sacrifice so many Americans have made.”
If al-Mashhandi appreciates the sacrifices of Americans, he has a funny way of showing it. At a news conference, he said “I personally think whoever kills an American soldier in defense of his country would have a statue built for him in that country.” Also this:
Saying that the U.S. seeks to control oil fields in southern Iraq, Mashadani added, “America didn’t come to the country for our sake. America came with a pure Zionist agenda.“
Remember, the neoconservatives in the Bush administration promised us that invading Iraq and creating a democratic government would stabilize the Middle East. From Newsweek:
Last year’s invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam Hussein were supposed to bring prosperity and stability to the Middle East. “The road to Jerusalem,” the mantra went, led through Baghdad. Neoconservatives and other hawks within the Bush administration expected that the United States would win respect in the Arab world through a massive show of force, and that Israel would be more comfortable making peace with the Palestinians once Saddam was gone.
President Bush today will meet with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and present an image of the Iraqi government as a strong ally of the United States. In reality, there are powerful forces in the Iraqi government who are completely at odds with U.S. interests.
It’s a reality that the White House and Josh Bolten prefer to ignore.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I for one am tired of swallowing this Bush Retoric and Policy ... It's so obvious ... Even Iraq is Catching On !!!
My throat is RAW !!!
“I personally think whoever kills an American soldier in defense of his country would have a statue built for him in that country.” hmmmmmm
any mention of the Iraqis killing other Iraqis and what will be built in their honor? How about the foreign fighters killing Americans? What is their justification and rewards?
I can see how an Iraqi would want to kill American troops and I can see how Iraqis love the American troops. Yes some do. Iraq is having a nervous breakdown and the US is the catalyst but we are not the main source. The problems in Iraq existed before our "arrival" under the big lie of WMD.
Following is an article on Lebanon by Edward Luttwak in today's WSJ. He proposes an ingenious solution involving a renewed role for Syria which he describes as "merely humiliating" for the West and Israel rather than the military option which is "simply impossible." He also introduces a new principle of statecraft: "it is a mistake to follow the French even when they are right."
Come Back, Bashar . . .
By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK
July 25, 2006; Page A12
Last year, the U.S. followed France in applying maximum pressure to force Syria to withdraw its troops and intelligence units from Lebanon. As part of that effort, the French, the Americans and the British persuaded China and Russia to accept U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, which ordered Syria to leave Lebanon and Hezbollah to disarm.
The theory was that, once liberated from Syrian oppression, the Lebanese would unite and their parties -- Sunni, Christian, Druze and moderate Shiite -- would compete or even quarrel, but within a national framework. That, in turn, would allow the Lebanese armed forces to control the totality of the national territory. Hezbollah, for its part, would enter the political process by disarming and disbanding its armed forces.
Instead, many Lebanese political leaders put other priorities ahead of national unity. President Emile Lahoud, a Christian who has much influence over the armed forces, chose to remain an obedient servant of President Bashar Assad of Syria and his regime. Former President Michel Aoun, a Maronite and previously the hero of many Christians for his resistance to Syrian domination, also chose to ally himself with the Syrians and with Hezbollah, even supporting its refusal to disarm. Other politicians simply preferred to maneuver for personal advantage, instead of forming coalitions to pursue broader interests.
The result was the worst possible outcome. Syria was pushed out of Lebanon and, therefore, no longer has any responsibility over the country. But it continues to have much power in Lebanon, through Mr. Lahoud, among others, and of course through Hezbollah, which Syria supplies with its own weapons and those sent from Iran. Meanwhile, because the Lebanese state does not control its own territory, no responsible party is in control of Lebanon.
* * *
There is talk now of sending a multinational force to southern Lebanon. If so, it would have to be very different from the existing U.N. force (Unifil), whose 1,990 troops under a French general do nothing except take shelter from the fighting and collect generous U.N. salaries. At no point did Unifil even try to prevent Hezbollah from launching attacks, let alone take any action to implement Resolution 1559 by disarming them.
In the past, the Israelis were able to contain Hezbollah through Syria by announcing, from time to time, that if Hezbollah crossed specific "red lines" -- notably by launching rockets into Israel -- they would attack Syrian military installations. The regime in Damascus paid attention and Hezbollah followed the rules, confining its military action to mostly symbolic attacks within the very small territory of the "Shebaa farms" (which Hezbollah claims belongs to Lebanon, contrary to the U.N.'s yard-by-yard demarcation, and all the maps). No such threat could work against a Lebanese government which could not control Hezbollah.
Lebanon could still be bombed -- as is now the case -- but mostly to achieve logistic rather than political aims, specifically to close airports, ports and roads from Syria to prevent the resupply of Hezbollah. In addition, there were specifically Hezbollah targets: various headquarters, the residence of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, and hundreds of weapon depots.
This left only two options to the Israelis if Hezbollah did start a conflict. The first is the one they chose -- the systematic attack of known or suspected Hezbollah storage sites for rockets and missiles in basements, garages, caves, etc., by artillery fire, bombardment, commando raids and small-scale armored incursions. Because the inventory was huge (more than 12,000 rockets and 100 guided missiles) and very dispersed, its cumulative destruction would be a slow process, lasting weeks rather than days.
The second is an invasion of Lebanon as in 1982, in the hope of clashes with Hezbollah to reduce its numbers in direct combat, but mainly to find and destroy weapons-storage sites. That would require the Israelis to stay in Lebanon until Hezbollah were disarmed and disbanded, i.e., indefinitely.
While the Israelis pursue their options, outside powers also have two options. The military option would be to send a powerful multinational force well supplied with ammunition to disarm Hezbollah by force if necessary -- and with orders to be ready for guerilla fighting. At the G-8 meeting, for example, Vladimir Putin offered to send troops. But there are almost no other suitable forces. The Americans and British are insufficiently neutral; and while there are always countries willing to supply units to the U.N. if only for the financial rewards, they are invariably forbidden to fight in earnest, and most could not fight anyway. Another and larger Unifil, which would do nothing effective against Hezbollah while freezing the Israeli army in its tracks, would be much worse than useless.
Then there is the horrible-to-contemplate but irresistibly seductive diplomatic option: to invite the Syrians to disarm Hezbollah and persuade it to follow the political path. Hezbollah already has two ministers in the Lebanese cabinet and might claim more.
Naturally that would imply the recognition of Syrian suzerainty over Lebanon, and of course the thoroughly unworthy Bashar Assad would have to be treated as a leader of regional importance. Only that could tempt Mr. Assad to abandon his alliance with Iran -- along with the important rewards that would come his way more or less spontaneously. These rewards would include gifts from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, all three of which now fear Iran as the most dangerous threat they face; they would also include the approval -- or at least the diminished hostility -- of Syria's Sunni majority, which vehemently dislikes the alliance with Shiite Iran, especially now that the Iranians are supporting Iraq's Shiites in their bloody fight with the Sunnis.
For France, the U.S. and the U.K., it would, of course, be tremendously embarrassing to recognize that they made a gigantic error in expelling Syria without having put anything its place, thus leaving a vacuum of power in Lebanon that Hezbollah has exploited. (A new principle of statecraft thus emerges: It is a mistake to follow the French even when they are right.) But unlike the military option, which is simply impossible, the diplomatic option is merely humiliating. Having massacred their own Islamists very efficiently, the Syrians can do the job again, if sufficiently rewarded.
Mr. Luttwak, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is author of "Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace" (Belknap, 2002.)
Come Back, Bashar . . .
By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK
July 25, 2006; Page A12
Last year, the U.S. followed France in applying maximum pressure to force Syria to withdraw its troops and intelligence units from Lebanon. As part of that effort, the French, the Americans and the British persuaded China and Russia to accept U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, which ordered Syria to leave Lebanon and Hezbollah to disarm.
The theory was that, once liberated from Syrian oppression, the Lebanese would unite and their parties -- Sunni, Christian, Druze and moderate Shiite -- would compete or even quarrel, but within a national framework. That, in turn, would allow the Lebanese armed forces to control the totality of the national territory. Hezbollah, for its part, would enter the political process by disarming and disbanding its armed forces.
Instead, many Lebanese political leaders put other priorities ahead of national unity. President Emile Lahoud, a Christian who has much influence over the armed forces, chose to remain an obedient servant of President Bashar Assad of Syria and his regime. Former President Michel Aoun, a Maronite and previously the hero of many Christians for his resistance to Syrian domination, also chose to ally himself with the Syrians and with Hezbollah, even supporting its refusal to disarm. Other politicians simply preferred to maneuver for personal advantage, instead of forming coalitions to pursue broader interests.
The result was the worst possible outcome. Syria was pushed out of Lebanon and, therefore, no longer has any responsibility over the country. But it continues to have much power in Lebanon, through Mr. Lahoud, among others, and of course through Hezbollah, which Syria supplies with its own weapons and those sent from Iran. Meanwhile, because the Lebanese state does not control its own territory, no responsible party is in control of Lebanon.
* * *
There is talk now of sending a multinational force to southern Lebanon. If so, it would have to be very different from the existing U.N. force (Unifil), whose 1,990 troops under a French general do nothing except take shelter from the fighting and collect generous U.N. salaries. At no point did Unifil even try to prevent Hezbollah from launching attacks, let alone take any action to implement Resolution 1559 by disarming them.
In the past, the Israelis were able to contain Hezbollah through Syria by announcing, from time to time, that if Hezbollah crossed specific "red lines" -- notably by launching rockets into Israel -- they would attack Syrian military installations. The regime in Damascus paid attention and Hezbollah followed the rules, confining its military action to mostly symbolic attacks within the very small territory of the "Shebaa farms" (which Hezbollah claims belongs to Lebanon, contrary to the U.N.'s yard-by-yard demarcation, and all the maps). No such threat could work against a Lebanese government which could not control Hezbollah.
Lebanon could still be bombed -- as is now the case -- but mostly to achieve logistic rather than political aims, specifically to close airports, ports and roads from Syria to prevent the resupply of Hezbollah. In addition, there were specifically Hezbollah targets: various headquarters, the residence of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, and hundreds of weapon depots.
This left only two options to the Israelis if Hezbollah did start a conflict. The first is the one they chose -- the systematic attack of known or suspected Hezbollah storage sites for rockets and missiles in basements, garages, caves, etc., by artillery fire, bombardment, commando raids and small-scale armored incursions. Because the inventory was huge (more than 12,000 rockets and 100 guided missiles) and very dispersed, its cumulative destruction would be a slow process, lasting weeks rather than days.
The second is an invasion of Lebanon as in 1982, in the hope of clashes with Hezbollah to reduce its numbers in direct combat, but mainly to find and destroy weapons-storage sites. That would require the Israelis to stay in Lebanon until Hezbollah were disarmed and disbanded, i.e., indefinitely.
While the Israelis pursue their options, outside powers also have two options. The military option would be to send a powerful multinational force well supplied with ammunition to disarm Hezbollah by force if necessary -- and with orders to be ready for guerilla fighting. At the G-8 meeting, for example, Vladimir Putin offered to send troops. But there are almost no other suitable forces. The Americans and British are insufficiently neutral; and while there are always countries willing to supply units to the U.N. if only for the financial rewards, they are invariably forbidden to fight in earnest, and most could not fight anyway. Another and larger Unifil, which would do nothing effective against Hezbollah while freezing the Israeli army in its tracks, would be much worse than useless.
Then there is the horrible-to-contemplate but irresistibly seductive diplomatic option: to invite the Syrians to disarm Hezbollah and persuade it to follow the political path. Hezbollah already has two ministers in the Lebanese cabinet and might claim more.
Naturally that would imply the recognition of Syrian suzerainty over Lebanon, and of course the thoroughly unworthy Bashar Assad would have to be treated as a leader of regional importance. Only that could tempt Mr. Assad to abandon his alliance with Iran -- along with the important rewards that would come his way more or less spontaneously. These rewards would include gifts from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, all three of which now fear Iran as the most dangerous threat they face; they would also include the approval -- or at least the diminished hostility -- of Syria's Sunni majority, which vehemently dislikes the alliance with Shiite Iran, especially now that the Iranians are supporting Iraq's Shiites in their bloody fight with the Sunnis.
For France, the U.S. and the U.K., it would, of course, be tremendously embarrassing to recognize that they made a gigantic error in expelling Syria without having put anything its place, thus leaving a vacuum of power in Lebanon that Hezbollah has exploited. (A new principle of statecraft thus emerges: It is a mistake to follow the French even when they are right.) But unlike the military option, which is simply impossible, the diplomatic option is merely humiliating. Having massacred their own Islamists very efficiently, the Syrians can do the job again, if sufficiently rewarded.
Mr. Luttwak, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is author of "Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace" (Belknap, 2002.)
QUOTE(70sliberalism @ Jul 25 2006, 11:44 AM)
“I personally think whoever kills an American soldier in defense of his country would have a statue built for him in that country.” hmmmmmm
any mention of the Iraqis killing other Iraqis and what will be built in their honor? How about the foreign fighters killing Americans? What is their justification and rewards?
I can see how an Iraqi would want to kill American troops and I can see how Iraqis love the American troops. Yes some do. Iraq is having a nervous breakdown and the US is the catalyst but we are not the main source. The problems in Iraq existed before our "arrival" under the big lie of WMD.
any mention of the Iraqis killing other Iraqis and what will be built in their honor? How about the foreign fighters killing Americans? What is their justification and rewards?
I can see how an Iraqi would want to kill American troops and I can see how Iraqis love the American troops. Yes some do. Iraq is having a nervous breakdown and the US is the catalyst but we are not the main source. The problems in Iraq existed before our "arrival" under the big lie of WMD.
I guess you ignored some of these links re: "CLEAN BREAK" A Neo-Con Philosophy dating back to 1996.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&saf...reak%22+cheney+
Cheney wants to kill and turn the Mid-East into Zionist led, Muslim Puppets.
Enjoy !!!
Rice Seeks 'Durable Solution' to Mideast Conflict
By Scott Wilson, Robin Wright and Fred Barbash
JERUSALEM, July 25 -- As Hezbollah rockets fell on the Israeli city of Haifa Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice completed her talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials, rebuffing Palestinian calls for an immediate cease-fire in the Lebanese conflict and insisting instead on a...
To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle
By Scott Wilson, Robin Wright and Fred Barbash
JERUSALEM, July 25 -- As Hezbollah rockets fell on the Israeli city of Haifa Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice completed her talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials, rebuffing Palestinian calls for an immediate cease-fire in the Lebanese conflict and insisting instead on a...
To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle
QUOTE(70sliberalism @ Jul 25 2006, 11:44 AM)
I can see how an Iraqi would want to kill American troops and I can see how Iraqis love the American troops. Yes some do. Iraq is having a nervous breakdown and the US is the catalyst but we are not the main source. The problems in Iraq existed before our "arrival" under the big lie of WMD.
Well yes but we have an awful lot of responsibility for what has happened there since 2003. They cannot put it all on us, but they can put a lot on us. And it is only natural that they would blame us for too much. Everyone in the world blames outsiders for too many of their own problems. It is all the harder for Iraqis to avoid such a temptation.
Lori Price, over at Citizens for a Legitimate Goverenment, asks the following question:
Why is the US paying for Israel's bombs only to pay for an evacuation of people who are fleeing Israel's bombs?
Why is the US paying for Israel's bombs only to pay for an evacuation of people who are fleeing Israel's bombs?
QUOTE(Magmak1 @ Jul 25 2006, 11:55 AM)
Lori Price, over at Citizens for a Legitimate Goverenment, asks the following question:
Why is the US paying for Israel's bombs only to pay for an evacuation of people who are fleeing Israel's bombs?
Why is the US paying for Israel's bombs only to pay for an evacuation of people who are fleeing Israel's bombs?
That is OXYMORONIC now isn't it !!!
Compasionate Neo-Con Comes to Mind !!!
QUOTE(USA#1 @ Jul 25 2006, 09:50 AM)
I guess you ignored some of these links re: "CLEAN BREAK" A Neo-Con Philosophy dating back to 1996.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&saf...reak%22+cheney+
Cheney wants to kill and turn the Mid-East into Zionist led, Muslim Puppets.
Enjoy !!!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&saf...reak%22+cheney+
Cheney wants to kill and turn the Mid-East into Zionist led, Muslim Puppets.
Enjoy !!!
I know all about it. I do not see it that way. I know those things are influences but the Clean Break is not all bad on a humanitarian or intellectual level. I would argue the execution of their Neocon goals is at odds with their stated beliefs about democracy and freedoms.
______________
I am not in favor of pure democracies. I think they are nothing but mobocracies. I like the system we have for us as we are a melting pot with no shared history. I think a system of democracy tweaked to the mideast cultures is better than what they have now.
Many Israeli defense people are against the idiocy of bringing untemperred democracy to the region as it will invite a vote for theocracies.
The vast Zionist boogyman may be in this hunt but it is not the lead hound.
Cheney sucks.
QUOTE(Magmak1 @ Jul 25 2006, 09:55 AM)
Lori Price, over at Citizens for a Legitimate Goverenment, asks the following question:
Why is the US paying for Israel's bombs only to pay for an evacuation of people who are fleeing Israel's bombs?
Why is the US paying for Israel's bombs only to pay for an evacuation of people who are fleeing Israel's bombs?
Because when the bombs are sold we know ahead of time .________? Fill in the blank.
Irony is a part of living in the real world. I love it. Life is wonderful in all it's irony and idiocies.
SELECTED CRS REPORTS
New reports from the Congressional Research Service, not readily
available to the public, include these:
"Intelligence Issues for Congress," July 12, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33539.pdf
"Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah: The Current Conflict," July 21, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33566.pdf
New reports from the Congressional Research Service, not readily
available to the public, include these:
"Intelligence Issues for Congress," July 12, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33539.pdf
"Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah: The Current Conflict," July 21, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33566.pdf
Your right were not the lead dog ... Israel Is !!
We're just the leash ... !!!!
We're just the leash ... !!!!
QUOTE(Snuffysmith @ Jul 25 2006, 12:03 PM)
SELECTED CRS REPORTS
New reports from the Congressional Research Service, not readily
available to the public, include these:
"Intelligence Issues for Congress," July 12, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33539.pdf
"Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah: The Current Conflict," July 21, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33566.pdf
New reports from the Congressional Research Service, not readily
available to the public, include these:
"Intelligence Issues for Congress," July 12, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33539.pdf
"Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah: The Current Conflict," July 21, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33566.pdf
Can you synopsis this ... Thanks ...
QUOTE(USA#1 @ Jul 25 2006, 10:03 AM)
Your right were not the lead dog ... Israel Is !!
We're just the leash ... !!!!
We're just the leash ... !!!!
Whatever (I never thought I'd use this term, but the appropriateness of it screams out to me)
QUOTE(70sliberalism @ Jul 25 2006, 11:27 AM)
Whatever (I never thought I'd use this term, but the appropriateness of it screams out to me)
Rolling of the eyes works well to!
All in favor of Russia invading the USA, deposing George Bush, killing 1 million Americans, handing our arsenal to the Ku Klux Klan and setting off a Catholic-Protestant holy war, say Aye!
QUOTE(Arneoker @ Jul 25 2006, 07:53 AM)
Well yes but we have an awful lot of responsibility for what has happened there since 2003. They cannot put it all on us, but they can put a lot on us. And it is only natural that they would blame us for too much. Everyone in the world blames outsiders for too many of their own problems. It is all the harder for Iraqis to avoid such a temptation.
QUOTE(progressivephoenix @ Jul 25 2006, 10:39 AM)
All in favor of Russia invading the USA, deposing George Bush, killing 1 million Americans, handing our arsenal to the Ku Klux Klan and setting off a Catholic-Protestant holy war, say Aye!
Wasn't Jonathan Winters in that movie?
The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966)
The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming Directed by
Norman Jewison
Writing credits
Nathaniel Benchley (novel)
William Rose (screenplay)
Add this title to MyMovies Add to MyMovies IMDbPro Details
Genre: Comedy / War (more)
Tagline: It's A Plot!... to make the world die laughing!!
Plot Outline: Without hostile intent, a Soviet sub runs aground off New England. Men are sent for a boat, but many villagers go into a tizzy, risking bloodshed. (more) (view trailer)
User Comments: Funny and Reassuring (more)
Apologies if this is a double post... I was offline for four days and still have not caught up....
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14174.htm
Secret 2001 Pentagon Plan to Attack Lebanon
Bush's Plan for "Serial War" revealed by General Wesley Clark
By A Concerned Citizen
07/24/06 "GlobalResearch"
"[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]... a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark)
According to General Wesley Clark--the Pentagon, by late 2001, was Planning to Attack Lebanon
"Winning Modern Wars" (page 130) General Clark states the following:
"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.
...He said it with reproach--with disbelief, almost--at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either. ...I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned."
Of course, this wholly consistent with the US Neocons' master plan, "Rebuilding America's Defenses," published in August 2000 by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
And, as PNAC's website ( http://www.newamericancentury.org ) notes, that the lead author of that plan, Thomas Donnelly, was a top official of Lockheed Martin--a company well acquainted with war and its profit potential.
It's no surprise that Republicans are starting to talk about withdrawing troops from Iraq; the troops will be needed in Lebanon. And maybe Sudan and Syria?
Note:
More on General Clark--and his failure to mention all this in his pre-Iraq war commentary on CNN--is in Sydney Schanberg's 9/29/03 article "The Secrets Clark Kept: What the General Never Told Us About the Bush Plan for Serial War" at http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0340,schanberg,47436,1.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14174.htm
Secret 2001 Pentagon Plan to Attack Lebanon
Bush's Plan for "Serial War" revealed by General Wesley Clark
By A Concerned Citizen
07/24/06 "GlobalResearch"
"[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]... a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark)
According to General Wesley Clark--the Pentagon, by late 2001, was Planning to Attack Lebanon
"Winning Modern Wars" (page 130) General Clark states the following:
"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.
...He said it with reproach--with disbelief, almost--at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either. ...I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned."
Of course, this wholly consistent with the US Neocons' master plan, "Rebuilding America's Defenses," published in August 2000 by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
And, as PNAC's website ( http://www.newamericancentury.org ) notes, that the lead author of that plan, Thomas Donnelly, was a top official of Lockheed Martin--a company well acquainted with war and its profit potential.
It's no surprise that Republicans are starting to talk about withdrawing troops from Iraq; the troops will be needed in Lebanon. And maybe Sudan and Syria?
Note:
More on General Clark--and his failure to mention all this in his pre-Iraq war commentary on CNN--is in Sydney Schanberg's 9/29/03 article "The Secrets Clark Kept: What the General Never Told Us About the Bush Plan for Serial War" at http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0340,schanberg,47436,1.html
No, Patrick Swayze.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087985/
Red Dawn (1984)
Directed by
John Milius
Writing credits
John Milius
Kevin Reynolds (also story)
Add to MyMovies IMDbPro Details
Genre: Action / Drama (more)
Tagline: In our time, no foreign army has ever occupied American soil. Until now. (more)
Plot Outline: It is the dawn of World War III. In mid-western America, a group of teenagers bands together to defend their town, and their country, from invading Soviet forces.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087985/
Red Dawn (1984)
Directed by
John Milius
Writing credits
John Milius
Kevin Reynolds (also story)
Add to MyMovies IMDbPro Details
Genre: Action / Drama (more)
Tagline: In our time, no foreign army has ever occupied American soil. Until now. (more)
Plot Outline: It is the dawn of World War III. In mid-western America, a group of teenagers bands together to defend their town, and their country, from invading Soviet forces.
QUOTE(70sliberalism @ Jul 25 2006, 08:53 AM)
Wasn't Jonathan Winters in that movie?
The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966)
The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming Directed by
Norman Jewison
Writing credits
Nathaniel Benchley (novel)
William Rose (screenplay)
Add this title to MyMovies Add to MyMovies IMDbPro Details
Genre: Comedy / War (more)
Tagline: It's A Plot!... to make the world die laughing!!
Plot Outline: Without hostile intent, a Soviet sub runs aground off New England. Men are sent for a boat, but many villagers go into a tizzy, risking bloodshed. (more) (view trailer)
User Comments: Funny and Reassuring (more)
The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966)
The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming Directed by
Norman Jewison
Writing credits
Nathaniel Benchley (novel)
William Rose (screenplay)
Add this title to MyMovies Add to MyMovies IMDbPro Details
Genre: Comedy / War (more)
Tagline: It's A Plot!... to make the world die laughing!!
Plot Outline: Without hostile intent, a Soviet sub runs aground off New England. Men are sent for a boat, but many villagers go into a tizzy, risking bloodshed. (more) (view trailer)
User Comments: Funny and Reassuring (more)
another red dawn fan? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,
I've pretty much lost the religion from my Methodist upbringing. What I have left is just a method to my madness.
Nonetheless, This reflection on prayer might be a better way forward than rekindling hatred and rage going back to the Iranian hostage crisis, the suicide bombing of Marine barracks in Lebanon, 9/11, and the current violence in the Middle East. Anger hurts. I hope this helps.
GRIEF WORK
"Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord." Lamentations 2:19
There is one strong form of biblical prayer that has been almost completely overlooked by the Christian tradition, maybe because it feels more life pre-prayer than what we usually think of as prayer at all. Let's call it lamentation or grief work.
Lamentation prayer is when we sit and speak out to God and one another - without even knowing what to pray for - stunned, sad, and silenced by the tragedy and absurdity of human events. It might actually be the most honest form of prayer. It takes great trust and patience to remain in this state, so I think it is actually profound prayer, but most of us have not been told that we could, even should, "complain" to God,
The Jews were very good at it. I suspect we must complain like Job, Judith, and Jeremiah or we do not ever know what to pray for - or how to pray. Or we do not suffer the necessary pain of this world, the necessary sadness of being human. . . We forget that Jesus called weeping a "blessed" state (Mt. 5:5). We forget that only one book of the Bible is named after an emotion: Jeremiah's Book of Lamentations.
Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M.
from Radical Grace, Vol 19, No. 1)
Nonetheless, This reflection on prayer might be a better way forward than rekindling hatred and rage going back to the Iranian hostage crisis, the suicide bombing of Marine barracks in Lebanon, 9/11, and the current violence in the Middle East. Anger hurts. I hope this helps.
GRIEF WORK
"Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord." Lamentations 2:19
There is one strong form of biblical prayer that has been almost completely overlooked by the Christian tradition, maybe because it feels more life pre-prayer than what we usually think of as prayer at all. Let's call it lamentation or grief work.
Lamentation prayer is when we sit and speak out to God and one another - without even knowing what to pray for - stunned, sad, and silenced by the tragedy and absurdity of human events. It might actually be the most honest form of prayer. It takes great trust and patience to remain in this state, so I think it is actually profound prayer, but most of us have not been told that we could, even should, "complain" to God,
The Jews were very good at it. I suspect we must complain like Job, Judith, and Jeremiah or we do not ever know what to pray for - or how to pray. Or we do not suffer the necessary pain of this world, the necessary sadness of being human. . . We forget that Jesus called weeping a "blessed" state (Mt. 5:5). We forget that only one book of the Bible is named after an emotion: Jeremiah's Book of Lamentations.
Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M.
from Radical Grace, Vol 19, No. 1)
Yup. 
QUOTE(70sliberalism @ Jul 25 2006, 09:58 AM)
another red dawn fan? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,
Wonder what he knows that we don't?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060725/ts_nm/..._ahmadinejad_dc
Iran president warns of hurricane in Middle East 25 minutes ago
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned on Tuesday that the conflict between Lebanon and Israel could sweep through the entire Middle East like a hurricane.
"If (problems) are decided through the use of force, everything becomes double-complicated," Ahmadinejad said on a visit to Central Asian Tajikistan.
"He who sows the wind will reap a hurricane and this will be a very strong storm in the whole Middle East region, which will strike painfully," he told a joint news conference with Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov.
Iran is a key backer of Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group, whose capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12 sparked Israeli air strikes on Lebanon.
The United States and Israel see Hizbollah and its allies in Iran and Syria as the root cause of the conflict which has killed more than 400 people in Lebanon since the start of the confrontation.
Ahmadinejad said Tehran was against any form of violence in the Middle East.
"All questions on international security have to be settled only through dialogue because using force will not lead anywhere," he said.
Rakhmonov called for an immediate end to the fighting.
"We call for an immediate ceasefire, and Lebanon's territorial integrity and its independence should be taken into account when settling this issue," he said.
Ahmadinejad was in Tajikistan to foster closer relations with the strategically-important nation where Russia and the United States are also vying for influence.
His trip came just weeks after the visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who sought to deepen military and political ties with the country.
Tajikistan, an impoverished former Soviet nation with good ties to Washington, wants to use its warm relations with Iran to raise its international profile and attract Iranian investment into its fledging economy.
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Questions or Comments
Privacy Policy -Terms of Service - Copyright/IP Policy - Ad Feedback
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060725/ts_nm/..._ahmadinejad_dc
Iran president warns of hurricane in Middle East 25 minutes ago
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned on Tuesday that the conflict between Lebanon and Israel could sweep through the entire Middle East like a hurricane.
"If (problems) are decided through the use of force, everything becomes double-complicated," Ahmadinejad said on a visit to Central Asian Tajikistan.
"He who sows the wind will reap a hurricane and this will be a very strong storm in the whole Middle East region, which will strike painfully," he told a joint news conference with Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov.
Iran is a key backer of Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group, whose capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12 sparked Israeli air strikes on Lebanon.
The United States and Israel see Hizbollah and its allies in Iran and Syria as the root cause of the conflict which has killed more than 400 people in Lebanon since the start of the confrontation.
Ahmadinejad said Tehran was against any form of violence in the Middle East.
"All questions on international security have to be settled only through dialogue because using force will not lead anywhere," he said.
Rakhmonov called for an immediate end to the fighting.
"We call for an immediate ceasefire, and Lebanon's territorial integrity and its independence should be taken into account when settling this issue," he said.
Ahmadinejad was in Tajikistan to foster closer relations with the strategically-important nation where Russia and the United States are also vying for influence.
His trip came just weeks after the visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who sought to deepen military and political ties with the country.
Tajikistan, an impoverished former Soviet nation with good ties to Washington, wants to use its warm relations with Iran to raise its international profile and attract Iranian investment into its fledging economy.
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Questions or Comments
Privacy Policy -Terms of Service - Copyright/IP Policy - Ad Feedback
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Video_So...l_endtimes_0725.
Video: Some Christians see Biblical endtimes in middle east violence
David Edwards
Published: Tuesday July 25, 2006
The apocalypse is seen looming in two video clips--from CNN and Comedy Central.
In the first, CNN investigates why some Christians believe that the current violence in the Mideast is a sign of an apocalypse as predicted in The Book of Revelation.
The Colbert Report's similar take can be viewed here.
Go to link to see video clips
Video: Some Christians see Biblical endtimes in middle east violence
David Edwards
Published: Tuesday July 25, 2006
The apocalypse is seen looming in two video clips--from CNN and Comedy Central.
In the first, CNN investigates why some Christians believe that the current violence in the Mideast is a sign of an apocalypse as predicted in The Book of Revelation.
The Colbert Report's similar take can be viewed here.
Go to link to see video clips
The Hill's Blame Game
by Stephen Zunes, Foreign Policy in Focus
Dissecting Congress' blessing of the Mideast conflict.
http://www.tompaine.com/
by Stephen Zunes, Foreign Policy in Focus
Dissecting Congress' blessing of the Mideast conflict.
http://www.tompaine.com/
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/#39436
Peace in Lebanon -- now!
Posted by Rep. Dennis Kucinich on July 24, 2006 at 4:42 PM.
As the situation in the Middle East continues to rapidly deteriorate, the Administration is failing our nation's moral obligation to become actively involved, diplomatically, to resolve this conflict.
This Administration's stated policy of inaction has allowed the situation to degenerate and therefore has contributed to the increasingly violent conflict in the region. Their policy of inaction makes the region, and the world, less safe. It makes Americans more vulnerable here at home and abroad.
Everyday this Administration sits on the sidelines the chance for a peaceful resolution becomes less likely. Every day this Administration sits on the sidelines more innocent civilians on all sides are dying. Every day this Administration sits on the sidelines America's already poor reputation in the world community gets worse.
The region urgently needs diplomatic assistance. The only way the US can reclaim its role, as a mediator is to speak and act like a mediator.
The US must become involved immediately in seeking a peaceful resolution to the current conflict. To help accomplish this, I have introduced legislation, H.Con.Res.450, calling upon the President to appeal to all sides in the current crisis in the Middle East for an immediate cessation of violence and to commit US diplomats to multi-party negotiations.
My resolution is not about assigning blame, it is about seeking an end to the conflict.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side » Go to link
Peace in Lebanon -- now!
Posted by Rep. Dennis Kucinich on July 24, 2006 at 4:42 PM.
As the situation in the Middle East continues to rapidly deteriorate, the Administration is failing our nation's moral obligation to become actively involved, diplomatically, to resolve this conflict.
This Administration's stated policy of inaction has allowed the situation to degenerate and therefore has contributed to the increasingly violent conflict in the region. Their policy of inaction makes the region, and the world, less safe. It makes Americans more vulnerable here at home and abroad.
Everyday this Administration sits on the sidelines the chance for a peaceful resolution becomes less likely. Every day this Administration sits on the sidelines more innocent civilians on all sides are dying. Every day this Administration sits on the sidelines America's already poor reputation in the world community gets worse.
The region urgently needs diplomatic assistance. The only way the US can reclaim its role, as a mediator is to speak and act like a mediator.
The US must become involved immediately in seeking a peaceful resolution to the current conflict. To help accomplish this, I have introduced legislation, H.Con.Res.450, calling upon the President to appeal to all sides in the current crisis in the Middle East for an immediate cessation of violence and to commit US diplomats to multi-party negotiations.
My resolution is not about assigning blame, it is about seeking an end to the conflict.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side » Go to link
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072506B.shtml
A "New" Middle East? W's or Osama's
By Robert Parry
Consortium News
Monday 24 July 2006
On Oct. 29, 2004, just four days before the U.S. election, bin-Laden took the risk of breaking nearly a year of silence to release a videotape denouncing Bush. The CIA quickly reached a classified conclusion that bin-Laden knew that his anti-Bush tirade would spur more American voters to back Bush for another four years in office.
CIA analysts recognized that bin-Laden saw Bush's policies - such as the Guantanamo prison camp, the Abu Ghraib scandal and the Iraq War - as playing into al-Qaeda's hands by creating a new generation of Islamic jihadists and undermining pro-U.S. Arab governments.
"Certainly," CIA deputy associate director for intelligence Jami Miscik told a senior meeting of CIA analysts, "he [bin-Laden] would want Bush to keep doing what he's doing for a few more years," according to Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine.
As the CIA analysts reviewed this internal assessment, they grew troubled by its implications. "An ocean of hard truths before them - such as what did it say about U.S. policies that bin-Laden would want Bush reelected - remained untouched," Suskind wrote. [See Consortiumnews.com's "CIA: Osama Helped Bush in '04."]
Meanwhile, in the hours after the Osama videotape was released, pro-Bush pundits fell into the trap by defining bin-Laden's rant as an endorsement of John Kerry. Heading into the election, Bush's support jumped six percentage points in one poll.
Popular Rage
Today, bin-Laden's strategy makes even more sense. Bush's violent policies for reshaping the Middle East are spreading popular rage as the death toll mounts in Lebanon from Israeli air strikes against Hezbollah guerrilla strongholds and as Palestinians continue to die from Israel's crackdown in Gaza, following raids that captured three Israeli soldiers.
Just as Bush and his advisers see the carnage as "birth pangs of a new Middle East" - in the words of Condoleezza Rice - so bin-Laden perceives the same violence as crucial for his own vision of a "new Middle East," by isolating the dwindling number of pro-Bush leaders in the Arab world from the "Arab street."
Compounding this Arab political problem, the Bush administration has even boasted of the anti-Hezbollah positions taken by the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan - exposing those autocratic leaders to furious criticism from their citizens.
This dilemma appears to have contributed to a surprising development on July 23 after Bush invited some of his more reliable friends from the Saudi monarchy to a strategy session at the White House.
However, instead of simply endorsing Bush's hard-line support for Israel's Lebanese offensive, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal delivered a letter from Saudi King Abdullah beseeching Bush to pressure Israel to stop its attack inside Lebanon that have killed nearly 400 people, mostly civilians.
"We requested a cease-fire to allow for a cessation of hostilities," the Saudi foreign minister told reporters after the meeting. "I have brought a letter from the Saudi king to stop the bleeding in Lebanon."
White House officials said Bush rebuffed the king's appeal and remained adamantly opposed to the idea of pressuring Israel into a cease-fire. Though the Saudis and other Sunni governments see a threat from the rising influence of Shiite-ruled Iran, which backs Hezbollah, they also are worried about being viewed by their own populations as Bush's puppets.
"Bandar Bush"
Underscoring Bush's predicament - appealing for help from old friends who find their pro-U.S. positions more and more troublesome back home - the rocky White House meeting even included the longtime Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who is now the secretary-general of the Saudi National Security Council.
Over the past quarter century, the cigar-smoking Bandar has lent a hand to Republican administrations on operations from the Iran-Contra Affair in the 1980s to the response to the 9/11 attacks, which involved 14 Saudi hijackers working for bin-Laden, the scion of another prominent Saudi family.
In the hours after the 9/11 attacks, Bandar met with Bush and helped arrange an airlift of well-connected Saudis, including members of the bin-Laden family, out of the United States. Bandar has been such an intimate of the Bush family that he earned the nickname "Bandar Bush."
Yet not even "Bandar Bush" could keep the Saudi king from sending a letter that suggests a rift in the historic alliance between Riyadh and Washington.
While Bush's latest strategy was to use the Saudis to pressure Syria into splitting from Iran as well as abandoning the Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, the image of Saudi royals arriving for meetings with Bush also was perfect for bin-Laden's goal of radicalizing the Arab masses.
Bin-Laden has long targeted the Saudi royals because of their strategic support for the United States in the Middle East. But the Saudi princes now find themselves in a tight spot because even their favored Islamic clerics have denounced the intensity of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
Sheik Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, the senior Saudi imam, delivered a sermon from Islam's holiest site in Mecca on July 21 praising the bravery of the Palestinians and Lebanese in their confrontation with Israel and urging Muslim leaders to "unify their ranks."
In a swipe at Bush and his administration's lectures about freedom and democracy, Rahman asked, "Don't they fear that history will condemn them for their double standards?" [NYT, July 22, 2006]
Other Islamic clerics were even blunter in their criticism of pro-U.S. Arab leaders.
"Where are the Arab leaders?" demanded Sheik Hazzaa al-Maswari, an Islamist politician in Yemen. "Do they have any skill other than begging for a fake peace outside the White House? We don't want leaders who bow to the White House."
Mohamed al-Habash, a cleric who serves in the Syrian parliament, said the United States - in letting Israeli warplanes slaughter Lebanese women and children - was helping extremists attract more young Muslims to terrorism.
"The United States is creating more Zarqawis, more bin-Ladens in the Mideast every day," Habash said. [NYT, July 22, 2006]
So, bin-Laden may well have been executing a clever stratagem when he released his "October Surprise" video in 2004. At the time, even Bush recognized the odd fact that bin-Laden's video was a boon to his campaign.
"I thought it was going to help," Bush said in a post-election interview with Washington Times reporter Bill Sammon. "I thought it would help remind people that if bin-Laden doesn't want Bush to be the President, something must be right with Bush." [Consortiumnews.com's "Bush Agrees Bin-Laden Helped in '04."]
As Bush suggested, many undecided voters apparently did take bin-Laden's words at face value and assumed that bin-Laden really wanted Bush defeated. In secret, the CIA had reached the opposite conclusion, that bin-Laden was playing a double game, pretending to want Bush out when he really wanted Bush to stay in.
With the Middle East descending into bloody chaos - and the radical Islamists exploiting the anger of the Arab masses - bin-Laden appears to winning on his bet that Bush's war-like strategies would indeed create a "new Middle East," though not the kind the United States had once envisioned.
--------
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
A "New" Middle East? W's or Osama's
By Robert Parry
Consortium News
Monday 24 July 2006
On Oct. 29, 2004, just four days before the U.S. election, bin-Laden took the risk of breaking nearly a year of silence to release a videotape denouncing Bush. The CIA quickly reached a classified conclusion that bin-Laden knew that his anti-Bush tirade would spur more American voters to back Bush for another four years in office.
CIA analysts recognized that bin-Laden saw Bush's policies - such as the Guantanamo prison camp, the Abu Ghraib scandal and the Iraq War - as playing into al-Qaeda's hands by creating a new generation of Islamic jihadists and undermining pro-U.S. Arab governments.
"Certainly," CIA deputy associate director for intelligence Jami Miscik told a senior meeting of CIA analysts, "he [bin-Laden] would want Bush to keep doing what he's doing for a few more years," according to Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine.
As the CIA analysts reviewed this internal assessment, they grew troubled by its implications. "An ocean of hard truths before them - such as what did it say about U.S. policies that bin-Laden would want Bush reelected - remained untouched," Suskind wrote. [See Consortiumnews.com's "CIA: Osama Helped Bush in '04."]
Meanwhile, in the hours after the Osama videotape was released, pro-Bush pundits fell into the trap by defining bin-Laden's rant as an endorsement of John Kerry. Heading into the election, Bush's support jumped six percentage points in one poll.
Popular Rage
Today, bin-Laden's strategy makes even more sense. Bush's violent policies for reshaping the Middle East are spreading popular rage as the death toll mounts in Lebanon from Israeli air strikes against Hezbollah guerrilla strongholds and as Palestinians continue to die from Israel's crackdown in Gaza, following raids that captured three Israeli soldiers.
Just as Bush and his advisers see the carnage as "birth pangs of a new Middle East" - in the words of Condoleezza Rice - so bin-Laden perceives the same violence as crucial for his own vision of a "new Middle East," by isolating the dwindling number of pro-Bush leaders in the Arab world from the "Arab street."
Compounding this Arab political problem, the Bush administration has even boasted of the anti-Hezbollah positions taken by the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan - exposing those autocratic leaders to furious criticism from their citizens.
This dilemma appears to have contributed to a surprising development on July 23 after Bush invited some of his more reliable friends from the Saudi monarchy to a strategy session at the White House.
However, instead of simply endorsing Bush's hard-line support for Israel's Lebanese offensive, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal delivered a letter from Saudi King Abdullah beseeching Bush to pressure Israel to stop its attack inside Lebanon that have killed nearly 400 people, mostly civilians.
"We requested a cease-fire to allow for a cessation of hostilities," the Saudi foreign minister told reporters after the meeting. "I have brought a letter from the Saudi king to stop the bleeding in Lebanon."
White House officials said Bush rebuffed the king's appeal and remained adamantly opposed to the idea of pressuring Israel into a cease-fire. Though the Saudis and other Sunni governments see a threat from the rising influence of Shiite-ruled Iran, which backs Hezbollah, they also are worried about being viewed by their own populations as Bush's puppets.
"Bandar Bush"
Underscoring Bush's predicament - appealing for help from old friends who find their pro-U.S. positions more and more troublesome back home - the rocky White House meeting even included the longtime Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who is now the secretary-general of the Saudi National Security Council.
Over the past quarter century, the cigar-smoking Bandar has lent a hand to Republican administrations on operations from the Iran-Contra Affair in the 1980s to the response to the 9/11 attacks, which involved 14 Saudi hijackers working for bin-Laden, the scion of another prominent Saudi family.
In the hours after the 9/11 attacks, Bandar met with Bush and helped arrange an airlift of well-connected Saudis, including members of the bin-Laden family, out of the United States. Bandar has been such an intimate of the Bush family that he earned the nickname "Bandar Bush."
Yet not even "Bandar Bush" could keep the Saudi king from sending a letter that suggests a rift in the historic alliance between Riyadh and Washington.
While Bush's latest strategy was to use the Saudis to pressure Syria into splitting from Iran as well as abandoning the Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, the image of Saudi royals arriving for meetings with Bush also was perfect for bin-Laden's goal of radicalizing the Arab masses.
Bin-Laden has long targeted the Saudi royals because of their strategic support for the United States in the Middle East. But the Saudi princes now find themselves in a tight spot because even their favored Islamic clerics have denounced the intensity of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
Sheik Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, the senior Saudi imam, delivered a sermon from Islam's holiest site in Mecca on July 21 praising the bravery of the Palestinians and Lebanese in their confrontation with Israel and urging Muslim leaders to "unify their ranks."
In a swipe at Bush and his administration's lectures about freedom and democracy, Rahman asked, "Don't they fear that history will condemn them for their double standards?" [NYT, July 22, 2006]
Other Islamic clerics were even blunter in their criticism of pro-U.S. Arab leaders.
"Where are the Arab leaders?" demanded Sheik Hazzaa al-Maswari, an Islamist politician in Yemen. "Do they have any skill other than begging for a fake peace outside the White House? We don't want leaders who bow to the White House."
Mohamed al-Habash, a cleric who serves in the Syrian parliament, said the United States - in letting Israeli warplanes slaughter Lebanese women and children - was helping extremists attract more young Muslims to terrorism.
"The United States is creating more Zarqawis, more bin-Ladens in the Mideast every day," Habash said. [NYT, July 22, 2006]
So, bin-Laden may well have been executing a clever stratagem when he released his "October Surprise" video in 2004. At the time, even Bush recognized the odd fact that bin-Laden's video was a boon to his campaign.
"I thought it was going to help," Bush said in a post-election interview with Washington Times reporter Bill Sammon. "I thought it would help remind people that if bin-Laden doesn't want Bush to be the President, something must be right with Bush." [Consortiumnews.com's "Bush Agrees Bin-Laden Helped in '04."]
As Bush suggested, many undecided voters apparently did take bin-Laden's words at face value and assumed that bin-Laden really wanted Bush defeated. In secret, the CIA had reached the opposite conclusion, that bin-Laden was playing a double game, pretending to want Bush out when he really wanted Bush to stay in.
With the Middle East descending into bloody chaos - and the radical Islamists exploiting the anger of the Arab masses - bin-Laden appears to winning on his bet that Bush's war-like strategies would indeed create a "new Middle East," though not the kind the United States had once envisioned.
--------
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
Parry usually get's it right.
I don't think Bush can do it but if he does stop the violence in the Middle East it will bury the democratic party.
Bush is playing a high stakes poker game betting he can dismantle Hezbollah and clip Iran's foreign policy wings, if he succeeds it will be a major political coup for the republican party.
Bush is playing a high stakes poker game betting he can dismantle Hezbollah and clip Iran's foreign policy wings, if he succeeds it will be a major political coup for the republican party.
QUOTE(Marine @ Jul 25 2006, 03:21 PM)
I don't think Bush can do it but if he does stop the violence in the Middle East it will bury the democratic party.
Bush is playing a high stakes poker game betting he can dismantle Hezbollah and clip Iran's foreign policy wings, if he succeeds it will be a major political coup for the republican party.
Bush is playing a high stakes poker game betting he can dismantle Hezbollah and clip Iran's foreign policy wings, if he succeeds it will be a major political coup for the republican party.
I hate to say it in this particular context, but I think that the Democratic Party is quite safe.
http://www.wane.com/Global/story.asp?S=5193508&nav=0RYb
Saudis issue warning
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah is issuing an appeal to the world to stop Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
In a statement read on television, Abdullah said the Mideast could be plunged into war if peace efforts fail.
A royal court statement says the king has pledged one and a-half (
billion dollars to Lebanon -- half-a-( billion for the country's reconstruction and the remainder for Lebanon's central bank to support the economy.
While Abdullah calls the Israeli military "brutal," Hezbollah also has not been spared Arab criticism. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait have rebuked Hezbollah for the fighting in Lebanon.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Saudis issue warning
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah is issuing an appeal to the world to stop Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
In a statement read on television, Abdullah said the Mideast could be plunged into war if peace efforts fail.
A royal court statement says the king has pledged one and a-half (
billion dollars to Lebanon -- half-a-( billion for the country's reconstruction and the remainder for Lebanon's central bank to support the economy.While Abdullah calls the Israeli military "brutal," Hezbollah also has not been spared Arab criticism. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait have rebuked Hezbollah for the fighting in Lebanon.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=540825
Mathaba News Network
Cheney Unleashes the Dogs of War
Posted: 2006/07/24
From: Mathaba
Vice President Dick Cheney has ignited a new Middle East war that threatens to spread from Israel and Lebanon, to Syria and Iran.
By Dean Andromidas
Vice President Dick Cheney has ignited a new Middle East war that threatens to spread from Israel and Lebanon, to Syria and Iran. As EIR recently exposed, (EIR June 30, "Cheney and Netanyahu Conspiring for War"), this latest war was planned at a secret meeting between Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, during a conference organized by the American Enterprise Institute in June at Beaver Creek, Colorado.
This war is not intended to make Israel safe from Hamas, Hezbollah terrorism, or Iran's alleged intentions to build nuclear weapons, but is rather a drive by the synarchist financial forces represented by the likes of George Shultz and Felix Rohatyn, who stand behind Cheney and Netanyahu. Their aim is to escalate a global clash of civilizations, to maintain their political and financial hegemony, as their own global financial system crumbles.
Israel is their chosen instrument to launch a war against Syria and Iran, now that U.S. military forces are bogged down in Cheney's insane Iraq war. Their war plan is well known to readers of EIR, and is the policy the Bush Administration has been implementing, with disastrous results, for the last three years. This is based on the notorious policy paper, "A Clean Break: New Strategy for Securing the Realm," which was presented to Netanyahu when he became Israeli Prime Minister in 1996. Its authors included the "Prince of Darkness" Richard Perle, former Defense Department official Douglas Feith, and neo-conservative fanatics such as David and Meyrav Wurmser. That document called for a "clean break from the slogan 'comprehensive peace' to a traditional balance of power." They called for Israel to "seize the initiative along its northern border," against Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, including "STRIKING AT SELECT TARGETS IN SYRIA PROPER" (emphasis in the original).
Hezbollah is a Lebanese umbrella organization of Islamic Shi'ite groups, and the Shi'ites are the largest religious bloc in Lebanon.
ISRAEL'S WAR POLICY
Netanyahu came back from his meeting on the weekend of June 17-18 with Cheney at Beaver Creek, and announced that Israel must reject any form of negotiations with the Palestinians, and instead reassert its military "deterrence." This policy has been embraced by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a former Likudnik who enjoys many of the same U.S. financial supporters as does Netanyahu. The June 25 capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, served as a pretext to launch Netanyahu's policy of "rebuilding Israel's deterrence" against the Palestinians, by destroying Hamas. After rejecting political negotiations with the Hamas government of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah, as well as President Abu Mazen, the Gaza Strip was reoccupied, after chunks of its infrastructure were destroyed, leading to a humanitarian catastrophe.
Now a second front has been opened on the Israel-Lebanon border. Contrary to media reports, Hezbollah members did not cross into Israeli territory to "kidnap" two Israeli soldiers, as the media spin claims. The captured Israeli soldiers were part of a group patrolling inside Lebanese territory. Like the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, their capture became a pretext to launch a large military operation against Hezbollah. Another factor to be considered is that, according to the July 13 Jerusalem Post, the high-alert status that the northern border had been under since the capture of Shalit three weeks ago, was lifted only three days prior to the Hezbollah capture of two Israeli soldiers.
According to a report in the July 13 Israeli daily Ha'aretz, the Israel military had approved a plan for a major exercise along the Israeli-Lebanese border, based on a scenario of a Hezbollah capture of Israeli solders, after which Israel would respond with a heavy air and land assault into southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah. It is this plan which is now being carried out. As of this writing, Israel has begun to mobilize its reserves, including a full division, to be deployed on the already heavily fortified northern border.
The Israeli military has similar contingency plans for a strike against Syria. These plans have been the basis of exercises for the last two to three years.
While Israel has bombed targets in Beirut and put the entire country under a siege by air and sea, Hezbollah forces have launched Katyusha rockets into Israeli towns in northern Israel. The head of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has declared that the Israeli soldiers will be released only in an exchange of prisoners.
The conflict is now vectored to escalate, and spread to Syria. Israel's intention to attack Syria and Iran has been mooted by several Bush Administration spokesmen, each of whom immediately blamed Syria and Iran. Bush himself, while meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on July 13, declared that "Israel has a right to self-defense."
The most obvious proof that the Bush Administration wants a new war does not lie in its bellicose statements against Iran, Syria, Hamas, or Hezbollah, however. It lies in the fact that it has not lifted a finger either to stop, or even mediate the crisis. Through its Ambassador to the United Nations, the non-confirmable neo-con zealot John Bolton, the Bush Administration is even preventing the issue from being brought before the United Nations Security Council.
NO MILITARY SOLUTION
In comments to EIR, veteran Israeli military historian Col. Meir Pa'il (ret.) confirmed that a broad military escalation can be expected. From a military standpoint, Pa'il said, Israel will now have no choice but to occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, which means a return to the so-called "security zone" from which Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2000. Nonetheless, Israel will not be able to sustain a broad land war in Lebanon, as in 1982, or even a permanent occupation of the old security zone.
Although he doubted that Syria would offer Israel a pretext for an attack, he feared that if such a pretext presented itself, a military strike could not be ruled out. While asserting that Israel is not capable of launching a major land war against Syria, and thus would not do it, Colonel Pa'il warned that there has always been a "dream" held by a faction in the military security establishment to put Damascus within range of Israeli artillery. Since the Syrian capital is less than 40 kilometers from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, such an event is very much within the realm of possibility.
Colonel Pa'il warned that "the real problem is that Israeli leaders are only thinking in military terms," while what needs to be done is to build a political peace with Israel's Arab neighbors. Pa'il, who is a member of the pro-peace Meretz-Yahad party, said that the value of Israel's massive military superiority is to demonstrate to the Arab world that Israel cannot be defeated militarily. Nonetheless, that military must serve to set the stage for a real peace process. "The real issue is to raise the flag of a solution to the problem. I am crying and weeping because of the fact that this government has no political orientation to deal with the Arab world."
While the ex-lawyer Ehud Olmert and the ex-furniture salesman Benjamin Netanyahu are trying to sound like the ex-general Ariel Sharon, there are serious doubts within the Israeli security establishment over their drive to push Israel into a three-front, or even four-front war with the Palestinians, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran. Even prior to the new crisis with Hezbollah, Ha'aretz cited security sources who have dealt with these situations, saying that Olmert's policy of non-negotiation "infuriates" them. Ha'aretz even quoted slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who said, "When there is no military option, we do everything, including negotiations with the kidnappers, to free hostages."
Former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy expressed similar doubts, when speaking before a business luncheon on July 11. Asked how he would have acted in the current Israeli prisoner crisis, he replied, "I believe that one should never underestimate the enemy, and it always helps and never harms, when you approach your greatest tests with just a grain of humility."
A BASIS FOR NEGOTIATIONS
Many Israelis also know that the Bush Administration has given Israel a green light to crush Hamas, and now Hezbollah.
Hamas knows this also. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah, in a op-ed published in the July 11 Washington Post, under the title "Aggression Under False Pretenses," charged that both Olmert and the Bush Administration were colluding to destroy the Hamas government.
"The current Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to destroy the results of fair and free elections held early this year," Haniyah charged. "It is the explosive follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare directed by the United States and Israel. The stated intention of that strategy was to force the average Palestinian to 'reconsider' his or her vote when faced with deepening hardship; its failure was predictable, and the new overt military aggression and collective punishment are its logical fulfillment.
"The 'kidnapped' Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit is only a pretext for a job scheduled months ago. In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel wants to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion definitively. The Palestinian leadership is firmly embedded in the concept of Islamic shura, or mutual consultation; suffice it to say that while we may have differing opinions, we are united in mutual respect and focused on the goal of serving our people....
"We want what Americans enjoy—democratic rights, economic sovereignty and justice. We thought our pride in conducting the fairest elections in the Arab world might resonate with the United States and its citizens. Instead, our new government was met from the very beginning by acts of explicit, declared sabotage by the White House. Now this aggression continues against 3.9 million civilians living in the world's largest prison camps. America's complacency in the face of these war crimes is, as usual, embedded in the coded rhetorical 'green light': 'Israel has a right to defend itself.' Was Israel defending itself when it killed eight family members on a Gaza beach last month, or three members of the Hajjaj family on Saturday, among them 6-year-old Rawan? I refuse to believe that such inhumanity sits well with the American public."
Haniyah called for a prisoner exchange and put forward the principles for a negotiating process, writing that, "Palestinian priorities include recognition of the core dispute over the land of historical Palestine, and the rights of all its people; resolution of the refugee issue from 1948; reclaiming all lands occupied in 1967; and stopping Israeli attacks, assassinations and military expansion....
"Contrary to popular depictions of the crisis in the American media, the dispute is not only about Gaza and the West Bank; it is a wider national conflict that can be resolved only by addressing the full dimensions of Palestinian national rights in an integrated manner. This means statehood for the West Bank and Gaza, a capital in Arab East Jerusalem, and resolving the 1948 Palestinian refugee issue fairly, on the basis of international legitimacy and established law. "
Haniyah concluded, "If Israel is prepared to negotiate seriously and fairly, and resolve the core 1948 issues, rather than the secondary ones from 1967, a fair and permanent peace is possible. Based on a hudna (comprehensive cessation of hostilities for an agreed time), the Holy Land still has an opportunity to be a peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for all the Semitic people of the region. If Americans only knew the truth, possibility might become reality."
Olmert thinks his hard-line policies, backed by the Bush Administration, will create a new "balance of power" in the region. But Israel is facing an asymmetric war like the one the United States is conducting and losing in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there are no "balances." Already the Israeli military is warning that these operations could continue for many months, and for the first time, put hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians in the line of fire. Can Israel sustain this, economically and politically? The 1982 Lebanon War bankrupted Israel. Israel avoided bankruptcy in the six-year-long second Intifada of 2000 to 2005 only because the Bush Administration provided $10 billion in loan guarantees. Now, with the United States itself nearly bankrupt, will there be another bailout?
http://www.larouchepub.com
The short URL for this item is: http://mathaba.net/news/?x=540825
Mathaba News Network
Cheney Unleashes the Dogs of War
Posted: 2006/07/24
From: Mathaba
Vice President Dick Cheney has ignited a new Middle East war that threatens to spread from Israel and Lebanon, to Syria and Iran.
By Dean Andromidas
Vice President Dick Cheney has ignited a new Middle East war that threatens to spread from Israel and Lebanon, to Syria and Iran. As EIR recently exposed, (EIR June 30, "Cheney and Netanyahu Conspiring for War"), this latest war was planned at a secret meeting between Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, during a conference organized by the American Enterprise Institute in June at Beaver Creek, Colorado.
This war is not intended to make Israel safe from Hamas, Hezbollah terrorism, or Iran's alleged intentions to build nuclear weapons, but is rather a drive by the synarchist financial forces represented by the likes of George Shultz and Felix Rohatyn, who stand behind Cheney and Netanyahu. Their aim is to escalate a global clash of civilizations, to maintain their political and financial hegemony, as their own global financial system crumbles.
Israel is their chosen instrument to launch a war against Syria and Iran, now that U.S. military forces are bogged down in Cheney's insane Iraq war. Their war plan is well known to readers of EIR, and is the policy the Bush Administration has been implementing, with disastrous results, for the last three years. This is based on the notorious policy paper, "A Clean Break: New Strategy for Securing the Realm," which was presented to Netanyahu when he became Israeli Prime Minister in 1996. Its authors included the "Prince of Darkness" Richard Perle, former Defense Department official Douglas Feith, and neo-conservative fanatics such as David and Meyrav Wurmser. That document called for a "clean break from the slogan 'comprehensive peace' to a traditional balance of power." They called for Israel to "seize the initiative along its northern border," against Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, including "STRIKING AT SELECT TARGETS IN SYRIA PROPER" (emphasis in the original).
Hezbollah is a Lebanese umbrella organization of Islamic Shi'ite groups, and the Shi'ites are the largest religious bloc in Lebanon.
ISRAEL'S WAR POLICY
Netanyahu came back from his meeting on the weekend of June 17-18 with Cheney at Beaver Creek, and announced that Israel must reject any form of negotiations with the Palestinians, and instead reassert its military "deterrence." This policy has been embraced by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a former Likudnik who enjoys many of the same U.S. financial supporters as does Netanyahu. The June 25 capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, served as a pretext to launch Netanyahu's policy of "rebuilding Israel's deterrence" against the Palestinians, by destroying Hamas. After rejecting political negotiations with the Hamas government of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah, as well as President Abu Mazen, the Gaza Strip was reoccupied, after chunks of its infrastructure were destroyed, leading to a humanitarian catastrophe.
Now a second front has been opened on the Israel-Lebanon border. Contrary to media reports, Hezbollah members did not cross into Israeli territory to "kidnap" two Israeli soldiers, as the media spin claims. The captured Israeli soldiers were part of a group patrolling inside Lebanese territory. Like the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, their capture became a pretext to launch a large military operation against Hezbollah. Another factor to be considered is that, according to the July 13 Jerusalem Post, the high-alert status that the northern border had been under since the capture of Shalit three weeks ago, was lifted only three days prior to the Hezbollah capture of two Israeli soldiers.
According to a report in the July 13 Israeli daily Ha'aretz, the Israel military had approved a plan for a major exercise along the Israeli-Lebanese border, based on a scenario of a Hezbollah capture of Israeli solders, after which Israel would respond with a heavy air and land assault into southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah. It is this plan which is now being carried out. As of this writing, Israel has begun to mobilize its reserves, including a full division, to be deployed on the already heavily fortified northern border.
The Israeli military has similar contingency plans for a strike against Syria. These plans have been the basis of exercises for the last two to three years.
While Israel has bombed targets in Beirut and put the entire country under a siege by air and sea, Hezbollah forces have launched Katyusha rockets into Israeli towns in northern Israel. The head of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has declared that the Israeli soldiers will be released only in an exchange of prisoners.
The conflict is now vectored to escalate, and spread to Syria. Israel's intention to attack Syria and Iran has been mooted by several Bush Administration spokesmen, each of whom immediately blamed Syria and Iran. Bush himself, while meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on July 13, declared that "Israel has a right to self-defense."
The most obvious proof that the Bush Administration wants a new war does not lie in its bellicose statements against Iran, Syria, Hamas, or Hezbollah, however. It lies in the fact that it has not lifted a finger either to stop, or even mediate the crisis. Through its Ambassador to the United Nations, the non-confirmable neo-con zealot John Bolton, the Bush Administration is even preventing the issue from being brought before the United Nations Security Council.
NO MILITARY SOLUTION
In comments to EIR, veteran Israeli military historian Col. Meir Pa'il (ret.) confirmed that a broad military escalation can be expected. From a military standpoint, Pa'il said, Israel will now have no choice but to occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, which means a return to the so-called "security zone" from which Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2000. Nonetheless, Israel will not be able to sustain a broad land war in Lebanon, as in 1982, or even a permanent occupation of the old security zone.
Although he doubted that Syria would offer Israel a pretext for an attack, he feared that if such a pretext presented itself, a military strike could not be ruled out. While asserting that Israel is not capable of launching a major land war against Syria, and thus would not do it, Colonel Pa'il warned that there has always been a "dream" held by a faction in the military security establishment to put Damascus within range of Israeli artillery. Since the Syrian capital is less than 40 kilometers from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, such an event is very much within the realm of possibility.
Colonel Pa'il warned that "the real problem is that Israeli leaders are only thinking in military terms," while what needs to be done is to build a political peace with Israel's Arab neighbors. Pa'il, who is a member of the pro-peace Meretz-Yahad party, said that the value of Israel's massive military superiority is to demonstrate to the Arab world that Israel cannot be defeated militarily. Nonetheless, that military must serve to set the stage for a real peace process. "The real issue is to raise the flag of a solution to the problem. I am crying and weeping because of the fact that this government has no political orientation to deal with the Arab world."
While the ex-lawyer Ehud Olmert and the ex-furniture salesman Benjamin Netanyahu are trying to sound like the ex-general Ariel Sharon, there are serious doubts within the Israeli security establishment over their drive to push Israel into a three-front, or even four-front war with the Palestinians, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran. Even prior to the new crisis with Hezbollah, Ha'aretz cited security sources who have dealt with these situations, saying that Olmert's policy of non-negotiation "infuriates" them. Ha'aretz even quoted slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who said, "When there is no military option, we do everything, including negotiations with the kidnappers, to free hostages."
Former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy expressed similar doubts, when speaking before a business luncheon on July 11. Asked how he would have acted in the current Israeli prisoner crisis, he replied, "I believe that one should never underestimate the enemy, and it always helps and never harms, when you approach your greatest tests with just a grain of humility."
A BASIS FOR NEGOTIATIONS
Many Israelis also know that the Bush Administration has given Israel a green light to crush Hamas, and now Hezbollah.
Hamas knows this also. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah, in a op-ed published in the July 11 Washington Post, under the title "Aggression Under False Pretenses," charged that both Olmert and the Bush Administration were colluding to destroy the Hamas government.
"The current Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to destroy the results of fair and free elections held early this year," Haniyah charged. "It is the explosive follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare directed by the United States and Israel. The stated intention of that strategy was to force the average Palestinian to 'reconsider' his or her vote when faced with deepening hardship; its failure was predictable, and the new overt military aggression and collective punishment are its logical fulfillment.
"The 'kidnapped' Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit is only a pretext for a job scheduled months ago. In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel wants to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion definitively. The Palestinian leadership is firmly embedded in the concept of Islamic shura, or mutual consultation; suffice it to say that while we may have differing opinions, we are united in mutual respect and focused on the goal of serving our people....
"We want what Americans enjoy—democratic rights, economic sovereignty and justice. We thought our pride in conducting the fairest elections in the Arab world might resonate with the United States and its citizens. Instead, our new government was met from the very beginning by acts of explicit, declared sabotage by the White House. Now this aggression continues against 3.9 million civilians living in the world's largest prison camps. America's complacency in the face of these war crimes is, as usual, embedded in the coded rhetorical 'green light': 'Israel has a right to defend itself.' Was Israel defending itself when it killed eight family members on a Gaza beach last month, or three members of the Hajjaj family on Saturday, among them 6-year-old Rawan? I refuse to believe that such inhumanity sits well with the American public."
Haniyah called for a prisoner exchange and put forward the principles for a negotiating process, writing that, "Palestinian priorities include recognition of the core dispute over the land of historical Palestine, and the rights of all its people; resolution of the refugee issue from 1948; reclaiming all lands occupied in 1967; and stopping Israeli attacks, assassinations and military expansion....
"Contrary to popular depictions of the crisis in the American media, the dispute is not only about Gaza and the West Bank; it is a wider national conflict that can be resolved only by addressing the full dimensions of Palestinian national rights in an integrated manner. This means statehood for the West Bank and Gaza, a capital in Arab East Jerusalem, and resolving the 1948 Palestinian refugee issue fairly, on the basis of international legitimacy and established law. "
Haniyah concluded, "If Israel is prepared to negotiate seriously and fairly, and resolve the core 1948 issues, rather than the secondary ones from 1967, a fair and permanent peace is possible. Based on a hudna (comprehensive cessation of hostilities for an agreed time), the Holy Land still has an opportunity to be a peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for all the Semitic people of the region. If Americans only knew the truth, possibility might become reality."
Olmert thinks his hard-line policies, backed by the Bush Administration, will create a new "balance of power" in the region. But Israel is facing an asymmetric war like the one the United States is conducting and losing in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there are no "balances." Already the Israeli military is warning that these operations could continue for many months, and for the first time, put hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians in the line of fire. Can Israel sustain this, economically and politically? The 1982 Lebanon War bankrupted Israel. Israel avoided bankruptcy in the six-year-long second Intifada of 2000 to 2005 only because the Bush Administration provided $10 billion in loan guarantees. Now, with the United States itself nearly bankrupt, will there be another bailout?
http://www.larouchepub.com
The short URL for this item is: http://mathaba.net/news/?x=540825
DEBKAfile: Middle East war rhetoric escalates sharply with Rice’s exit from region
July 25, 2006, 8:57 PM (GMT+02:00)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DEBKAfile: Middle East war rhetoric escalates sharply with Rice’s exit from region
July 25, 2006, 8:57 PM (GMT+02:00)
Not surprisingly, the most extreme statement came from Iran: A Middle East storm is brewing and will strike violently, said the radical Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “The use of force in Lebanon could trigger a hurricane.”
He spoke after Riyadh released an official statement from King Abdullah asserting: “If the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no option but a war in the region.” The Saudi king was uncharacteristically unrestrained in his speech after seeing the US secretary come and go without allaying the Lebanese crisis.
At around the same time as the statement from Riyadh, huge explosions struck Hizballah targets in South Beirut for the first time since US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice landed in the Middle East for talks in Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Israeli positions along the Lebanese border also came under heavy Hizballah mortar fire on Tuesday afternoon, coinciding with an Israeli air bombardment of Hizballah rocket sites in Tyre. The IDF began closing some strategic roads to the Lebanese border to civilian traffic.
Hopes had been entertained In Cairo and Riyadh that the visiting US secretary would voice some sort of reproof for Israel’s extensive military action in Lebanon and apply the brakes in her private talks with Ehud Olmert. Instead, no sooner had she departed when Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz announced that Israel is clearing a security zone in South Lebanon that will remain under IDF fire control unless a multinational force assumes responsibility.
Given the enormous, time-consuming difficulties facing the assembly of such a force, his statement was taken as the first avowal of Israel’s intentions beyond the military operation. The term “security zone” was uttered for the first time since the Hizballah attack of July 12 sparked the current crisis.
Privately, the pro-Western rulers in Riyadh, Cairo and Amman were cheering Israel’s offensive in the hope of its crippling the extremist Shiite Hizballah and dealing Tehran its comeuppance. But Peretz’s statement gave Arab rulers the pretext for ignoring the fact that Israel was defending itself against attack and reviving their age-old accusations of Israeli ambitions to seize Arab lands with American support.
It was rumored in Cairo that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak plans to visit Syrian president Bashar Asad in Damascus this week to discuss the Lebanese crisis.
Copyright 2000-2006 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.
Not surprisingly, the most extreme statement came from Iran: A Middle East storm is brewing and will strike violently, said the radical Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “The use of force in Lebanon could trigger a hurricane.”
He spoke after Riyadh released an official statement from King Abdullah asserting: “If the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no option but a war in the region.” The Saudi king was uncharacteristically unrestrained in his speech after seeing the US secretary come and go without allaying the Lebanese crisis.
At around the same time as the statement from Riyadh, huge explosions struck Hizballah targets in South Beirut for the first time since US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice landed in the Middle East for talks in Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Israeli positions along the Lebanese border also came under heavy Hizballah mortar fire on Tuesday afternoon, coinciding with an Israeli air bombardment of Hizballah rocket sites in Tyre. The IDF began closing some strategic roads to the Lebanese border to civilian traffic.
Hopes had been entertained In Cairo and Riyadh that the visiting US secretary would voice some sort of reproof for Israel’s extensive military action in Lebanon and apply the brakes in her private talks with Ehud Olmert. Instead, no sooner had she departed when Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz announced that Israel is clearing a security zone in South Lebanon that will remain under IDF fire control unless a multinational force assumes responsibility.
Given the enormous, time-consuming difficulties facing the assembly of such a force, his statement was taken as the first avowal of Israel’s intentions beyond the military operation. The term “security zone” was uttered for the first time since the Hizballah attack of July 12 sparked the current crisis.
Privately, the pro-Western rulers in Riyadh, Cairo and Amman were cheering Israel’s offensive in the hope of its crippling the extremist Shiite Hizballah and dealing Tehran its comeuppance. But Peretz’s statement gave Arab rulers the pretext for ignoring the fact that Israel was defending itself against attack and reviving their age-old accusations of Israeli ambitions to seize Arab lands with American support.
It was rumored in Cairo that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak plans to visit Syrian president Bashar Asad in Damascus this week to discuss the Lebanese crisis.
Copyright 2000-2006 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.
July 25, 2006, 8:57 PM (GMT+02:00)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DEBKAfile: Middle East war rhetoric escalates sharply with Rice’s exit from region
July 25, 2006, 8:57 PM (GMT+02:00)
Not surprisingly, the most extreme statement came from Iran: A Middle East storm is brewing and will strike violently, said the radical Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “The use of force in Lebanon could trigger a hurricane.”
He spoke after Riyadh released an official statement from King Abdullah asserting: “If the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no option but a war in the region.” The Saudi king was uncharacteristically unrestrained in his speech after seeing the US secretary come and go without allaying the Lebanese crisis.
At around the same time as the statement from Riyadh, huge explosions struck Hizballah targets in South Beirut for the first time since US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice landed in the Middle East for talks in Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Israeli positions along the Lebanese border also came under heavy Hizballah mortar fire on Tuesday afternoon, coinciding with an Israeli air bombardment of Hizballah rocket sites in Tyre. The IDF began closing some strategic roads to the Lebanese border to civilian traffic.
Hopes had been entertained In Cairo and Riyadh that the visiting US secretary would voice some sort of reproof for Israel’s extensive military action in Lebanon and apply the brakes in her private talks with Ehud Olmert. Instead, no sooner had she departed when Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz announced that Israel is clearing a security zone in South Lebanon that will remain under IDF fire control unless a multinational force assumes responsibility.
Given the enormous, time-consuming difficulties facing the assembly of such a force, his statement was taken as the first avowal of Israel’s intentions beyond the military operation. The term “security zone” was uttered for the first time since the Hizballah attack of July 12 sparked the current crisis.
Privately, the pro-Western rulers in Riyadh, Cairo and Amman were cheering Israel’s offensive in the hope of its crippling the extremist Shiite Hizballah and dealing Tehran its comeuppance. But Peretz’s statement gave Arab rulers the pretext for ignoring the fact that Israel was defending itself against attack and reviving their age-old accusations of Israeli ambitions to seize Arab lands with American support.
It was rumored in Cairo that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak plans to visit Syrian president Bashar Asad in Damascus this week to discuss the Lebanese crisis.
Copyright 2000-2006 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.
Not surprisingly, the most extreme statement came from Iran: A Middle East storm is brewing and will strike violently, said the radical Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “The use of force in Lebanon could trigger a hurricane.”
He spoke after Riyadh released an official statement from King Abdullah asserting: “If the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no option but a war in the region.” The Saudi king was uncharacteristically unrestrained in his speech after seeing the US secretary come and go without allaying the Lebanese crisis.
At around the same time as the statement from Riyadh, huge explosions struck Hizballah targets in South Beirut for the first time since US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice landed in the Middle East for talks in Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Israeli positions along the Lebanese border also came under heavy Hizballah mortar fire on Tuesday afternoon, coinciding with an Israeli air bombardment of Hizballah rocket sites in Tyre. The IDF began closing some strategic roads to the Lebanese border to civilian traffic.
Hopes had been entertained In Cairo and Riyadh that the visiting US secretary would voice some sort of reproof for Israel’s extensive military action in Lebanon and apply the brakes in her private talks with Ehud Olmert. Instead, no sooner had she departed when Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz announced that Israel is clearing a security zone in South Lebanon that will remain under IDF fire control unless a multinational force assumes responsibility.
Given the enormous, time-consuming difficulties facing the assembly of such a force, his statement was taken as the first avowal of Israel’s intentions beyond the military operation. The term “security zone” was uttered for the first time since the Hizballah attack of July 12 sparked the current crisis.
Privately, the pro-Western rulers in Riyadh, Cairo and Amman were cheering Israel’s offensive in the hope of its crippling the extremist Shiite Hizballah and dealing Tehran its comeuppance. But Peretz’s statement gave Arab rulers the pretext for ignoring the fact that Israel was defending itself against attack and reviving their age-old accusations of Israeli ambitions to seize Arab lands with American support.
It was rumored in Cairo that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak plans to visit Syrian president Bashar Asad in Damascus this week to discuss the Lebanese crisis.
Copyright 2000-2006 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1188
Washington Expected an IDF Grand Slam to Dispose of Hizballah
DEBKAfile Special Report
July 23, 2006, 6:22 PM (GMT+02:00)
US officials are not yet saying so out loud, but in private and “on condition of anonymity,” White House circles are signaling disappointment.
It arises from the expectation that the Israeli Defense Forces, the most effective Middle East army, would dispose of Hassan Nasrallah and his Hizballah in a few days, presenting the Bush administration and Sunni Muslim Arab rulers with a dearly hoped-for smash victory against Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. Now, after 12 days of Israeli air, sea and ground assaults, it is beginning to look as though it will take a long, sustained effort to break Hizballah.
Therefore, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is coming to the Middle East Monday, July 24, brandishing a whip in the form of an implied deadline. She will assess the situation at close hand, talk to allies in Rome Wednesday and go back to Washington after setting a date to return in the week beginning July 30.
A really quick, crushing victory over the Hizballah could be achieved by the landing of American forces in northern Lebanon – at the invitation of the Beirut government. Nasrallah’s forces could then be strangled between US forces and the Israeli army coming up from the south.
But this is not on the cards for the simple reason that America is willing to fight in Lebanon to the last Israeli soldier, just as Iran is ready to fight to the last Hizballah combatant. Israel must beware of being hustled into taking imprudent steps by the proxy contest between the Washington and Tehran. Israel and its armed forces must pursue their own national agenda which is to cripple the Hizballah and inflict a defeat on Tehran, both of whom are sworn to destroy the Jewish state. It is necessary for Israeli commanders to proceed cautiously and set a pace that is commensurate with their military capabilities. Their best fighting men must not be place needlessly in harm’s way and Lebanese civilian casualties have to be avoided as far as possible in a situation in which Hizballah stores its men and weapons in domestic cellars, kitchens and banana groves. Above all, Israel must beware of being drawn into tailoring its arduous and dangerous campaign to the pressures of Washington’s disappointment. After four years in Iraq, US forces know the score and understand the challenges besetting Israel.
On Day Twelve of the war, Israel faces two major tactical difficulties:
1. The enemy the IDF is pursuing is not a regular army which moves divisions around, but a small militia of 4,000 hardened, highly trained jihadist guerrillas, who have reduced their offensive against Israel to two simple tactics: shooting rockets at population centers and lying in wait for a chance to take Israeli troops unawares.
It therefore behooves Israeli forces, which Saturday, July 22, launched a large-scale offensive to sanitize South Lebanon, to beat Hizballah at the game of catching the opposition unawares. There is no doubt that the Israeli army is badly in need of a success – and not only to impress the Americans. Israel’s home front, though solidly behind its servicemen, needs to be assured that the war is on course and will be fought “until the job is finished.” This is the mantra heard up and down Israel, most insistently from the one-third of the population taking the punishment of lives lost or disrupted and homes destroyed by daily rocket attacks, with very little complaint.
This assurance is beginning to wear thin as the Hizballah rocket blitz intensifies day by day. Saturday, they shot a record 160 rockets at dozens of towns and communities. Sunday, July 23, the ball bearings packed in the Katyusha warheads punched hundreds of holes in a car and a workshop, killing two men on the spot. Sirens were heard for the first time in Binyamina, Zichron Yaacov and Kfar Ada, 70 km from the Lebanese border and the deepest south yet. The buildings of Israel’s third largest city, Haifa, and many other towns of northern Israel, are severely battered and bear the scars of blasts which scatter the metal balls designed to maximize human injuries.
The week’s grace that Rice appears to be granting the Israeli government and armed forces for bringing the war to a successful conclusion is also a boon for Tehran, Syria and Hizballlah. It gives them time to engineer a nasty surprise to greet the US secretary’s second visit, hitting Israel at the very moment that the diplomats weigh in to start the process for ending hostilities. Israel will then be told to hold back on reprisals. This dead-end maneuver will be painfully familiar to the many peacemakers who tried their luck with the Palestinians, notably Condoleezza Rice’s predecessor, Colon Powell.
While Syrian officials angle for direct talks with the United States and call for a ceasefire, Damascus is preparing to step into the war. Damascus is preparing to step into the war. Syrian information minister Mohsein Bilal warned Sunday, July 23, that Syria will join the conflict if Israeli ground forces in Lebanon approach the Syrian border. But Bashar Assad also prefers to hide behind the back of a proxy. The ruling Syrian Baath suddenly “discovered” Sunday a new organization called the “Front for the Liberation of Golan,” claiming it launched its first attack last Thursday, July 20, on an Israeli army post. It was said to have killed 8 Israeli soldiers and taken two hostages to be held in Syria against the release of Golan Druzes in Israeli jails. The tale is made of whole cloth, but it is a straw that shows which way the wind is blowing in Damascus.
Neither Damascus nor Tehran – and certainly not the Hizballah - have any intention of leaving the diplomatic initiative in the hands of the US secretary of state. They will do their utmost to stay one step ahead of any American-led steps and keep Israeli forces from running away with a victory. The way events are going now, both the Americans and Israelis will soon be confronted with the necessity to cut both Syria and Iran down to size.
Washington Expected an IDF Grand Slam to Dispose of Hizballah
DEBKAfile Special Report
July 23, 2006, 6:22 PM (GMT+02:00)
US officials are not yet saying so out loud, but in private and “on condition of anonymity,” White House circles are signaling disappointment.
It arises from the expectation that the Israeli Defense Forces, the most effective Middle East army, would dispose of Hassan Nasrallah and his Hizballah in a few days, presenting the Bush administration and Sunni Muslim Arab rulers with a dearly hoped-for smash victory against Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. Now, after 12 days of Israeli air, sea and ground assaults, it is beginning to look as though it will take a long, sustained effort to break Hizballah.
Therefore, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is coming to the Middle East Monday, July 24, brandishing a whip in the form of an implied deadline. She will assess the situation at close hand, talk to allies in Rome Wednesday and go back to Washington after setting a date to return in the week beginning July 30.
A really quick, crushing victory over the Hizballah could be achieved by the landing of American forces in northern Lebanon – at the invitation of the Beirut government. Nasrallah’s forces could then be strangled between US forces and the Israeli army coming up from the south.
But this is not on the cards for the simple reason that America is willing to fight in Lebanon to the last Israeli soldier, just as Iran is ready to fight to the last Hizballah combatant. Israel must beware of being hustled into taking imprudent steps by the proxy contest between the Washington and Tehran. Israel and its armed forces must pursue their own national agenda which is to cripple the Hizballah and inflict a defeat on Tehran, both of whom are sworn to destroy the Jewish state. It is necessary for Israeli commanders to proceed cautiously and set a pace that is commensurate with their military capabilities. Their best fighting men must not be place needlessly in harm’s way and Lebanese civilian casualties have to be avoided as far as possible in a situation in which Hizballah stores its men and weapons in domestic cellars, kitchens and banana groves. Above all, Israel must beware of being drawn into tailoring its arduous and dangerous campaign to the pressures of Washington’s disappointment. After four years in Iraq, US forces know the score and understand the challenges besetting Israel.
On Day Twelve of the war, Israel faces two major tactical difficulties:
1. The enemy the IDF is pursuing is not a regular army which moves divisions around, but a small militia of 4,000 hardened, highly trained jihadist guerrillas, who have reduced their offensive against Israel to two simple tactics: shooting rockets at population centers and lying in wait for a chance to take Israeli troops unawares.
It therefore behooves Israeli forces, which Saturday, July 22, launched a large-scale offensive to sanitize South Lebanon, to beat Hizballah at the game of catching the opposition unawares. There is no doubt that the Israeli army is badly in need of a success – and not only to impress the Americans. Israel’s home front, though solidly behind its servicemen, needs to be assured that the war is on course and will be fought “until the job is finished.” This is the mantra heard up and down Israel, most insistently from the one-third of the population taking the punishment of lives lost or disrupted and homes destroyed by daily rocket attacks, with very little complaint.
This assurance is beginning to wear thin as the Hizballah rocket blitz intensifies day by day. Saturday, they shot a record 160 rockets at dozens of towns and communities. Sunday, July 23, the ball bearings packed in the Katyusha warheads punched hundreds of holes in a car and a workshop, killing two men on the spot. Sirens were heard for the first time in Binyamina, Zichron Yaacov and Kfar Ada, 70 km from the Lebanese border and the deepest south yet. The buildings of Israel’s third largest city, Haifa, and many other towns of northern Israel, are severely battered and bear the scars of blasts which scatter the metal balls designed to maximize human injuries.
The week’s grace that Rice appears to be granting the Israeli government and armed forces for bringing the war to a successful conclusion is also a boon for Tehran, Syria and Hizballlah. It gives them time to engineer a nasty surprise to greet the US secretary’s second visit, hitting Israel at the very moment that the diplomats weigh in to start the process for ending hostilities. Israel will then be told to hold back on reprisals. This dead-end maneuver will be painfully familiar to the many peacemakers who tried their luck with the Palestinians, notably Condoleezza Rice’s predecessor, Colon Powell.
While Syrian officials angle for direct talks with the United States and call for a ceasefire, Damascus is preparing to step into the war. Damascus is preparing to step into the war. Syrian information minister Mohsein Bilal warned Sunday, July 23, that Syria will join the conflict if Israeli ground forces in Lebanon approach the Syrian border. But Bashar Assad also prefers to hide behind the back of a proxy. The ruling Syrian Baath suddenly “discovered” Sunday a new organization called the “Front for the Liberation of Golan,” claiming it launched its first attack last Thursday, July 20, on an Israeli army post. It was said to have killed 8 Israeli soldiers and taken two hostages to be held in Syria against the release of Golan Druzes in Israeli jails. The tale is made of whole cloth, but it is a straw that shows which way the wind is blowing in Damascus.
Neither Damascus nor Tehran – and certainly not the Hizballah - have any intention of leaving the diplomatic initiative in the hands of the US secretary of state. They will do their utmost to stay one step ahead of any American-led steps and keep Israeli forces from running away with a victory. The way events are going now, both the Americans and Israelis will soon be confronted with the necessity to cut both Syria and Iran down to size.
Readers may be interested in the following commentary on Lebanon by Arnaud de Borchgrave. It comes from today's Washington Times and contains some interesting observations from experienced observers of the Middle East.
Discordant Mideast notes
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
Published July 25, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Congress was nearly unanimous in its hosannas for Israel's military campaign to uproot Hezbollah from Lebanon's body politic. Only Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican, was nuanced in his support, questioning Israel's disproportionate response to the capture of three Israeli soldiers. The intelligence community's Middle East experts -- both on active duty and in retirement -- were clearly on a different page.
The ones we queried either served in the region as CIA station chiefs or were responsible for Middle East departments in one of the 16 agencies that make up the 100,000-strong intelligence community. Those still on active duty would only respond to our question on condition their names be withheld.
The barometer of Hezbollah's post-conflict influence will be the most relevant measure of the success or failure of the massively disproportionate Israeli military, in which the Bush administration has also invested so much of its rapidly dwindling political capital. So will Hezbollah emerge from the current crisis weaker, or stronger, than before hostilities began?
• Graham Fuller, former vice chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council, an accomplished Arabic scholar and historian, and most recently author of the book "The Future of Political Islam": "Most of the U.S. thinks this crisis was started by Hamas and Hezbollah and that therefore those parties should be made to pay the price. A more objective reading of the situation would note U.S. and Israeli determination to strangle Hamas in the nest from Day One, to starve it, humiliate it and, typically and expectedly, to drive its radical wing to undertake a guerrilla operation against Israel. So the region does not view this conflict as prompted by Hamas and Hezbollah, but rather as one made inevitable and justifiable by unrelenting and merciless pressure from the U.S. and Israel. I fear in the end this will be one more bloody chapter in this now widening struggle. In the interim, unseen to our eyes, the radical jihadis are making silent recruits every night through the flickering television images of yet new regional horrors. But sadly we will be seeing those recruits as they turn to action in weeks, months or even years from now."
• Chuck Cogan, former chief of the CIA's Near East Division, and station chief in several countries, now lecturing at Harvard: "The irony in all this is that Israel has an interest in a multicultural Lebanon and not an Islamist Lebanon, and the high hopes for the former are being dashed."
• Ray Close, former CIA analyst for the Middle East: "Israeli actions in Lebanon are belligerently challenging the continued viability of the fragile coalition government that is struggling to achieve credibility and legitimacy at a critical period in Lebanon's history. Israeli actions are, even more importantly, threatening to revive the deep, sectarian divisions and intercommunal tensions that led to 15 years of tragic civil war (1975-90). American national interests will suffer more than Israel's if chaos results. Secondly, we Americans have other critical interests to worry about if we take a position that (continues to) support Israel's demand that Hezbollah must be totally defeated and disarmed (a futile objective in any case), and especially if Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the revered spiritual leader of Hezbollah, is physically harmed, the Shi'ite populations of Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East will be inflamed -- greatly undermining American prospects of working cooperatively and constructively with the Shi'ite religious parties in Iraq that control the overwhelming political power in that country. Open confrontation of Hezbollah with the U.S., allied with Israel, will have a powerful impact on the Iranian people, as well."
• A former CIA operative in the Middle East, now an analyst for the agency: "Even if the Israelis were again to occupy and hold a 20-mile defensive cordon sanitaire above Israel's northern border, then missiles of a 40- or 50- or 60-mile range, as the need demanded, would render that barrier obsolete and useless -- while Hezbollah guerrillas, using the other new set of super-weapons, the IED [improvised explosive devices] and the suicide bomber, would make Israelis just as vulnerable and just as miserable in that so-called 'protective zone' as they were during the 18 long years when they occupied the same swath of Lebanese territory the last time round. The same applies to Gaza. In 38 years, a large modern Israeli war machine, equipped with every high-tech weapon that modern military science can devise, has been unable to contain, much less defeat, a virulent and lethal resistance movement in tiny little Gaza."
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.
Discordant Mideast notes
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
Published July 25, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Congress was nearly unanimous in its hosannas for Israel's military campaign to uproot Hezbollah from Lebanon's body politic. Only Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican, was nuanced in his support, questioning Israel's disproportionate response to the capture of three Israeli soldiers. The intelligence community's Middle East experts -- both on active duty and in retirement -- were clearly on a different page.
The ones we queried either served in the region as CIA station chiefs or were responsible for Middle East departments in one of the 16 agencies that make up the 100,000-strong intelligence community. Those still on active duty would only respond to our question on condition their names be withheld.
The barometer of Hezbollah's post-conflict influence will be the most relevant measure of the success or failure of the massively disproportionate Israeli military, in which the Bush administration has also invested so much of its rapidly dwindling political capital. So will Hezbollah emerge from the current crisis weaker, or stronger, than before hostilities began?
• Graham Fuller, former vice chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council, an accomplished Arabic scholar and historian, and most recently author of the book "The Future of Political Islam": "Most of the U.S. thinks this crisis was started by Hamas and Hezbollah and that therefore those parties should be made to pay the price. A more objective reading of the situation would note U.S. and Israeli determination to strangle Hamas in the nest from Day One, to starve it, humiliate it and, typically and expectedly, to drive its radical wing to undertake a guerrilla operation against Israel. So the region does not view this conflict as prompted by Hamas and Hezbollah, but rather as one made inevitable and justifiable by unrelenting and merciless pressure from the U.S. and Israel. I fear in the end this will be one more bloody chapter in this now widening struggle. In the interim, unseen to our eyes, the radical jihadis are making silent recruits every night through the flickering television images of yet new regional horrors. But sadly we will be seeing those recruits as they turn to action in weeks, months or even years from now."
• Chuck Cogan, former chief of the CIA's Near East Division, and station chief in several countries, now lecturing at Harvard: "The irony in all this is that Israel has an interest in a multicultural Lebanon and not an Islamist Lebanon, and the high hopes for the former are being dashed."
• Ray Close, former CIA analyst for the Middle East: "Israeli actions in Lebanon are belligerently challenging the continued viability of the fragile coalition government that is struggling to achieve credibility and legitimacy at a critical period in Lebanon's history. Israeli actions are, even more importantly, threatening to revive the deep, sectarian divisions and intercommunal tensions that led to 15 years of tragic civil war (1975-90). American national interests will suffer more than Israel's if chaos results. Secondly, we Americans have other critical interests to worry about if we take a position that (continues to) support Israel's demand that Hezbollah must be totally defeated and disarmed (a futile objective in any case), and especially if Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the revered spiritual leader of Hezbollah, is physically harmed, the Shi'ite populations of Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East will be inflamed -- greatly undermining American prospects of working cooperatively and constructively with the Shi'ite religious parties in Iraq that control the overwhelming political power in that country. Open confrontation of Hezbollah with the U.S., allied with Israel, will have a powerful impact on the Iranian people, as well."
• A former CIA operative in the Middle East, now an analyst for the agency: "Even if the Israelis were again to occupy and hold a 20-mile defensive cordon sanitaire above Israel's northern border, then missiles of a 40- or 50- or 60-mile range, as the need demanded, would render that barrier obsolete and useless -- while Hezbollah guerrillas, using the other new set of super-weapons, the IED [improvised explosive devices] and the suicide bomber, would make Israelis just as vulnerable and just as miserable in that so-called 'protective zone' as they were during the 18 long years when they occupied the same swath of Lebanese territory the last time round. The same applies to Gaza. In 38 years, a large modern Israeli war machine, equipped with every high-tech weapon that modern military science can devise, has been unable to contain, much less defeat, a virulent and lethal resistance movement in tiny little Gaza."
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20edito...0Rob%20Kall.htm
How to Use Middle-East Conflict to Sell War With Iran, Take Iraq Failure off the Front Page and Salvage the 2006 Elections
By Rob Kall
Al-Jazeerah, July 25, 2006
How do you get Americans to support a war with Iran that has been on the agenda for neocons like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney?
If the right wing-- Republicans, religious extremists, the military industrial complex, top 1% tax avoiders, Transnational globalist corporations-- are going to have any chance of holding on to the congress, the war has to heat up, fear has to build and Karl Rove MUST have new material to use for his fear, terrorism, hold-the-course talking points.
How do you get Americans to support a war with Iran that has been on the agenda for neocons like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney?
If the right wing-- Republicans, religious extremists, the military industrial complex, top 1% tax avoiders, Transnational globalist corporations-- are going to have any chance of holding on to the congress, the war has to heat up, fear has to build and Karl Rove MUST have new material to use for his fear, terrorism, hold-the-course talking points.
Create a conflagration that is started in Israel Palestine that spreads.
Get the mainstream media to report over and over again the connection between Hezbollah and Syria and Hezbollah and Iran.
Do nothing about Israel's escalations of violence in Gaza and Lebanon.
Show loads of images of bombs exploding and fires burning. Fan the flames of fear.
Intimidate spineless democratic legislators into silence by making the attack on Iran about protecting Israel. It takes so little to cow the current herd of invertebrate democrats.
There are 36% of the population who will support any atrocities Bush does. Misguided patriots, trusting fools and misguided supporters of Israel will also be easy marks for the propaganda that is really spewing by now. Get them lathered up and excited.
In the media, forget about any kind of balance among the talking head pundits-- just use red-meat war hawks who emphasize the links between terrorists and Iran, terrorists and Syria, and build the tacit and implicit suggestion that Iran is to blame, Iran is the cause of the chaos, Iran is the danger, Iran is.... the target we should be focusing upon.
Get the well-trained and tamed mainstream media to ignore the growing discussion on how deer-in-the-headlights clueless and incompetent Bush is coming across.
Get the well-trained and tamed mainstream media to avoid discussing how, in the past, American presidents were able to use the power of the US to influence Israel in these times, but that Bush and the republican leadership have lost that power, by failing to take a tough love approach with Israel as past presidents have done, and by their general failure to function competently (beyond the idiot level, really) in foreign policy and diplomacy.
Get the well-trained and tamed mainstream media to totally ignore the clear reality that full blown civil war has erupted in Iraq, that Bush's vision of a greater, better Iraq is in the toilet.
Get the well-trained and tamed mainstream media to totally ignore the fact that Bush's talk and efforts to produce democracy in the middle east is not working, that Democracy and terrorism, democracy and Islamic extremist groups wanting Shariah to replace democratic law do not work.
And let's not forget that Bush and the right wing have been getting help from Iran. Why would Iran support an attack? Because they know the US can't win, but that by becoming the next victim of US aggression, it will bolster it's power and influence in the Arab world. Luring the US to attack Iran is a strategy that will weaken even further the USA's dwindling street credibility in ALL the world's capitols. Iran will also use all the drumbeats of war to build its own support base among younger Iranians who, like their right wing American counterparts, use the talk of war as a kind of Viagra, making them feel more like men.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, and organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. He is a frequent Speaker on a wide range of subjects. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
This article was first published by http://www.opednews.com on July 15, 2006
How to Use Middle-East Conflict to Sell War With Iran, Take Iraq Failure off the Front Page and Salvage the 2006 Elections
By Rob Kall
Al-Jazeerah, July 25, 2006
How do you get Americans to support a war with Iran that has been on the agenda for neocons like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney?
If the right wing-- Republicans, religious extremists, the military industrial complex, top 1% tax avoiders, Transnational globalist corporations-- are going to have any chance of holding on to the congress, the war has to heat up, fear has to build and Karl Rove MUST have new material to use for his fear, terrorism, hold-the-course talking points.
How do you get Americans to support a war with Iran that has been on the agenda for neocons like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney?
If the right wing-- Republicans, religious extremists, the military industrial complex, top 1% tax avoiders, Transnational globalist corporations-- are going to have any chance of holding on to the congress, the war has to heat up, fear has to build and Karl Rove MUST have new material to use for his fear, terrorism, hold-the-course talking points.
Create a conflagration that is started in Israel Palestine that spreads.
Get the mainstream media to report over and over again the connection between Hezbollah and Syria and Hezbollah and Iran.
Do nothing about Israel's escalations of violence in Gaza and Lebanon.
Show loads of images of bombs exploding and fires burning. Fan the flames of fear.
Intimidate spineless democratic legislators into silence by making the attack on Iran about protecting Israel. It takes so little to cow the current herd of invertebrate democrats.
There are 36% of the population who will support any atrocities Bush does. Misguided patriots, trusting fools and misguided supporters of Israel will also be easy marks for the propaganda that is really spewing by now. Get them lathered up and excited.
In the media, forget about any kind of balance among the talking head pundits-- just use red-meat war hawks who emphasize the links between terrorists and Iran, terrorists and Syria, and build the tacit and implicit suggestion that Iran is to blame, Iran is the cause of the chaos, Iran is the danger, Iran is.... the target we should be focusing upon.
Get the well-trained and tamed mainstream media to ignore the growing discussion on how deer-in-the-headlights clueless and incompetent Bush is coming across.
Get the well-trained and tamed mainstream media to avoid discussing how, in the past, American presidents were able to use the power of the US to influence Israel in these times, but that Bush and the republican leadership have lost that power, by failing to take a tough love approach with Israel as past presidents have done, and by their general failure to function competently (beyond the idiot level, really) in foreign policy and diplomacy.
Get the well-trained and tamed mainstream media to totally ignore the clear reality that full blown civil war has erupted in Iraq, that Bush's vision of a greater, better Iraq is in the toilet.
Get the well-trained and tamed mainstream media to totally ignore the fact that Bush's talk and efforts to produce democracy in the middle east is not working, that Democracy and terrorism, democracy and Islamic extremist groups wanting Shariah to replace democratic law do not work.
And let's not forget that Bush and the right wing have been getting help from Iran. Why would Iran support an attack? Because they know the US can't win, but that by becoming the next victim of US aggression, it will bolster it's power and influence in the Arab world. Luring the US to attack Iran is a strategy that will weaken even further the USA's dwindling street credibility in ALL the world's capitols. Iran will also use all the drumbeats of war to build its own support base among younger Iranians who, like their right wing American counterparts, use the talk of war as a kind of Viagra, making them feel more like men.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, and organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. He is a frequent Speaker on a wide range of subjects. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
This article was first published by http://www.opednews.com on July 15, 2006
Hardballs Chris Mathews ... Sums Up Bush Policy !!
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Imus-Matt...ast-7-25-06.wmv
MATTHEWS: I think we’ve completely lost the ability to be a power broker. Look at Condi Rice, it’s a joke. He trusted the pencil necks–it’s ideology with this crowd.
Imus asked him how do we change all of this and he said the magic word. "Election"
MATTHEWS: It’s all ideology with this crowd. All they care about is ideology. The President bought it, hook, line and sinker. He had– but you know, it was just put into his head, some time after 9-11, and his philosophy is what he has given it. He didn’t have to have any philosophy when he went in, and they handed it to him. These guys– the guys–you know, the guys that you used to make fun of at school–pencil necks, the intellectuals, the guys you never trusted. All of the sudden, he trusts the intellectuals, the guys you knew at school, yeah, they’re a bunch of pencil necks and now he buys–completely–their ideology, because he didn’t have one of his own coming in. That was his problem. I don’t know what Bush stood for, except I’m a cool guy and Gore isn’t, and that was our problem. We elected the guy because he was a little cooler than the other guy, and, I hope the next election, it isn’t a problem of who goes to bed with their wife at 9:30 at night, or who knows how to tell a joke on a stage. But it’s who had the sense of strength that comes from having read books, most of their life, tried to understand history
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Imus-Matt...ast-7-25-06.wmv
MATTHEWS: I think we’ve completely lost the ability to be a power broker. Look at Condi Rice, it’s a joke. He trusted the pencil necks–it’s ideology with this crowd.
Imus asked him how do we change all of this and he said the magic word. "Election"
MATTHEWS: It’s all ideology with this crowd. All they care about is ideology. The President bought it, hook, line and sinker. He had– but you know, it was just put into his head, some time after 9-11, and his philosophy is what he has given it. He didn’t have to have any philosophy when he went in, and they handed it to him. These guys– the guys–you know, the guys that you used to make fun of at school–pencil necks, the intellectuals, the guys you never trusted. All of the sudden, he trusts the intellectuals, the guys you knew at school, yeah, they’re a bunch of pencil necks and now he buys–completely–their ideology, because he didn’t have one of his own coming in. That was his problem. I don’t know what Bush stood for, except I’m a cool guy and Gore isn’t, and that was our problem. We elected the guy because he was a little cooler than the other guy, and, I hope the next election, it isn’t a problem of who goes to bed with their wife at 9:30 at night, or who knows how to tell a joke on a stage. But it’s who had the sense of strength that comes from having read books, most of their life, tried to understand history
QUOTE(USA#1 @ Jul 25 2006, 01:44 PM)
Hardballs Chris Mathews ... Sums Up Bush Policy !!
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Imus-Matt...ast-7-25-06.wmv
MATTHEWS: I think we’ve completely lost the ability to be a power broker. Look at Condi Rice, it’s a joke. He trusted the pencil necks–it’s ideology with this crowd.
Imus asked him how do we change all of this and he said the magic word. "Election"
MATTHEWS: It’s all ideology with this crowd. All they care about is ideology. The President bought it, hook, line and sinker. He had– but you know, it was just put into his head, some time after 9-11, and his philosophy is what he has given it. He didn’t have to have any philosophy when he went in, and they handed it to him. These guys– the guys–you know, the guys that you used to make fun of at school–pencil necks, the intellectuals, the guys you never trusted. All of the sudden, he trusts the intellectuals, the guys you knew at school, yeah, they’re a bunch of pencil necks and now he buys–completely–their ideology, because he didn’t have one of his own coming in. That was his problem. I don’t know what Bush stood for, except I’m a cool guy and Gore isn’t, and that was our problem. We elected the guy because he was a little cooler than the other guy, and, I hope the next election, it isn’t a problem of who goes to bed with their wife at 9:30 at night, or who knows how to tell a joke on a stage. But it’s who had the sense of strength that comes from having read books, most of their life, tried to understand history
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Imus-Matt...ast-7-25-06.wmv
MATTHEWS: I think we’ve completely lost the ability to be a power broker. Look at Condi Rice, it’s a joke. He trusted the pencil necks–it’s ideology with this crowd.
Imus asked him how do we change all of this and he said the magic word. "Election"
MATTHEWS: It’s all ideology with this crowd. All they care about is ideology. The President bought it, hook, line and sinker. He had– but you know, it was just put into his head, some time after 9-11, and his philosophy is what he has given it. He didn’t have to have any philosophy when he went in, and they handed it to him. These guys– the guys–you know, the guys that you used to make fun of at school–pencil necks, the intellectuals, the guys you never trusted. All of the sudden, he trusts the intellectuals, the guys you knew at school, yeah, they’re a bunch of pencil necks and now he buys–completely–their ideology, because he didn’t have one of his own coming in. That was his problem. I don’t know what Bush stood for, except I’m a cool guy and Gore isn’t, and that was our problem. We elected the guy because he was a little cooler than the other guy, and, I hope the next election, it isn’t a problem of who goes to bed with their wife at 9:30 at night, or who knows how to tell a joke on a stage. But it’s who had the sense of strength that comes from having read books, most of their life, tried to understand history
Way too late for that observation now Sherlock!
If he wants to help undo the damage he caused, he should say this every day from now until november.
QUOTE(TheRestofUs @ Jul 25 2006, 12:48 PM)
Way too late for that observation now Sherlock!
The spirit of resistance
By Pepe Escobar
As southern Lebanon is turned into a wasteland mirroring the Gaza gulag, Washington neo-cons may stridently celebrate the contours of a final solution for the Hamas-Hezbollah "problem". Or should they?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14187.htm
By Pepe Escobar
As southern Lebanon is turned into a wasteland mirroring the Gaza gulag, Washington neo-cons may stridently celebrate the contours of a final solution for the Hamas-Hezbollah "problem". Or should they?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14187.htm
White House Endorses Column Calling For Israel to Attack Syria :
“It’s Time To Let The Israelis Take Off The Gloves,”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14193.htm
White House Endorses Column Calling For Israel to Attack Syria
On Friday, the White House released a document entitled “Setting the Record Straight: President Bush’s Foreign Policy is Succeeding.” One section, headlined “Conservatives Stand Behind The President’s Policies,” contains just one example:
On Wednesday, Max Boot Wrote: “Our Best Response Is Exactly What Bush Has Done So Far – Reject Premature Calls For A Cease-Fire And Let Israel Finish The Job.” (Max Boot, “It’s Time To Let The Israelis Take Off The Gloves,” Los Angeles Times, 7/19/06)
So apparently, urging the Israelis to “take off the gloves” means you are endorsing the administration’s policies in the current conflict. Also, the Boot column that the White House views as an endorsement of their policies also calls on Israel to attack Syria:
Syria is weak and next door. To secure its borders, Israel needs to hit the Assad regime. Hard. If it does, it will be doing Washington’s dirty work.
Tim Russert confronted White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten about the release on Meet the Press yesterday. Bolten claimed the Boot column “was sent around as a reflection of some of the conservative columnists’ support for Israel.” In fact, it was sent around explicitly as reflecting support for administration policy.
Posted 07/25/06 - Think Progress
“It’s Time To Let The Israelis Take Off The Gloves,”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14193.htm
White House Endorses Column Calling For Israel to Attack Syria
On Friday, the White House released a document entitled “Setting the Record Straight: President Bush’s Foreign Policy is Succeeding.” One section, headlined “Conservatives Stand Behind The President’s Policies,” contains just one example:
On Wednesday, Max Boot Wrote: “Our Best Response Is Exactly What Bush Has Done So Far – Reject Premature Calls For A Cease-Fire And Let Israel Finish The Job.” (Max Boot, “It’s Time To Let The Israelis Take Off The Gloves,” Los Angeles Times, 7/19/06)
So apparently, urging the Israelis to “take off the gloves” means you are endorsing the administration’s policies in the current conflict. Also, the Boot column that the White House views as an endorsement of their policies also calls on Israel to attack Syria:
Syria is weak and next door. To secure its borders, Israel needs to hit the Assad regime. Hard. If it does, it will be doing Washington’s dirty work.
Tim Russert confronted White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten about the release on Meet the Press yesterday. Bolten claimed the Boot column “was sent around as a reflection of some of the conservative columnists’ support for Israel.” In fact, it was sent around explicitly as reflecting support for administration policy.
Posted 07/25/06 - Think Progress
I agree with this sentiment: “It’s Time To Let The Israelis Take Off The Gloves,”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0....html?gusrc=rss
Beirut dispatch
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rice lacks recipe for success
The US secretary of state believes in a New Middle East, but her narrow focus on security leaves little room for the aspirations of ordinary people
Brian Whitaker
Tuesday July 25, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
There's no denying her stamina. Less than 48 hours after painfully giving birth to a "New Middle East", Condoleezza Rice flew by helicopter into Beirut. At least, I think she did.
"There's no official confirmation that she's coming," a Lebanese government spokeswoman told me shortly after the BBC, CNN and just about everyone else had reported her arrival. "If she comes, there will be no press conference."
In fact, the only visible evidence that a Very Important Foreigner was in town came from the Lebanese army which, for the first time since this war began, showed its face on the streets of Beirut in significant numbers, with soldiers standing nonchalantly in ones and twos on corners.
Having failed to catch a glimpse of Ms Rice, I headed off to the UN building, where Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator, was due to announce an appeal for $150m (£81m) to alleviate the suffering caused by Israeli bombs.
It was a sunny afternoon and I decided to walk there. From the relative normality of Hamra district, I made my way downtown to what is supposedly the business and financial hub of Lebanon. It was closed.
The streets radiating from the normally throbbing Place de l'Etoile were eerily silent and utterly deserted apart from a soldier here and there and an occasional private security guard lounging in the shade. With the whole place to myself, I began to wonder if there was something everyone else knew that I didn't.
It resembled that scene in cowboy films where everyone has rushed inside and bolted their door before the gunfight. I half-expected John Wayne to swagger into view at one end of the street and Clint Eastwood at the other, twiddling revolvers around their index fingers.
But perhaps this wasn't a western after all - just my first glimpse of Ms Rice's New Middle East, where security is all and human beings figure nowhere.
And so into Riad el-Solh Square and the UN building, strolling leisurely across a road where normally you have to run for your life. The UN building is where the Nice People hang out: Swedes, Danes, liberal-minded Arabs - that sort of folk. Nice, well meaning, but sadly ineffective most of the time. But even the Nice People have got the security bug now.
You used to be able to wander in, announce yourself at the reception desk and talk to officials. In the New Middle East, though, you enter - one at a time - through a revolving cage, and they don't let the next person in until they've checked the previous one thoroughly.
Explaining the planned relief effort yesterday, Mr Egeland did not repeat his remark from Sunday about Israeli "violations of humanitarian law", but the description of civilian damage in an accompanying report made the picture very clear.
His calls for "safe passage" of essential supplies also underlined the humiliating position that the UN - and most of the world, for that matter - finds itself in: begging for Israel's permission to feed 300,000 Lebanese civilians who have been cut off by the bombing and to help half-a-million more who have been driven from their homes or affected by the onslaught in other ways.
This relief effort, of course, is short-term stuff. The initial $150m UN programme is scheduled to last for only three months. After that there may well be a need for more.
When the war eventually ends, there will be other questions about what the UN ought to be doing - American vetoes permitting.
The most recent parallel that I can think of in the Middle East, in terms of an attack on the civilians of a largely defenceless country, is Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. On that occasion, Iraq was ostracised, international sanctions were imposed and there were moves to indict the Ba'athist leaders.
I don't suppose it will happen in this case, though the thought of Ehud Olmert, the Israel prime minister, sharing a cell with Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader, for several years during their trial at The Hague is quite appealing.
The attack on Kuwait also led to the creation of the UN Compensation Commission to deal with millions of financial claims resulting from war damage. In Iraq's case, the money was recouped by taking control of its oil exports and making deductions from the revenue. If there were any justice, the same would happen now - but I can't see Israel being made to pay up, let alone Hizbullah.
Aside from whatever may lie in store for Lebanon politically, it is hard to imagine that the rest of the Middle East will be unchanged by all this. Washington's problem, as always, is that it fails to make the necessary distinction between regimes and their people. It does make the distinction with regimes it dislikes (such as Iran, where it blindly hopes the mullahs will be overthrown at any moment), but not with the regimes it likes.
And so we have the spectacle of the Egyptian and Saudi regimes hobnobbing with Washington and being broadly supportive, while their people are not. The Egyptian and Saudi regimes have their own reasons for wanting to clamp down on Hizbullah - partly to discourage armed militants at home, and partly because they are Sunni regimes and don't much like the Shia anyway.
Meanwhile, as a reward for their cooperation, and despite public statements to the contrary, Washington seems perfectly willing to take the heat off these regimes in terms of pressing for reform and democracy.
In a way, Condoleezza is right. We may indeed be witnessing the birth pangs of a New Middle East, but not the one she imagines. It is a Middle East in which the US, Israel and the "friendly" but moribund Arab regimes are becoming ever more discredited, leaving the populace at large ever more radicalised and disaffected.
Beirut dispatch
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rice lacks recipe for success
The US secretary of state believes in a New Middle East, but her narrow focus on security leaves little room for the aspirations of ordinary people
Brian Whitaker
Tuesday July 25, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
There's no denying her stamina. Less than 48 hours after painfully giving birth to a "New Middle East", Condoleezza Rice flew by helicopter into Beirut. At least, I think she did.
"There's no official confirmation that she's coming," a Lebanese government spokeswoman told me shortly after the BBC, CNN and just about everyone else had reported her arrival. "If she comes, there will be no press conference."
In fact, the only visible evidence that a Very Important Foreigner was in town came from the Lebanese army which, for the first time since this war began, showed its face on the streets of Beirut in significant numbers, with soldiers standing nonchalantly in ones and twos on corners.
Having failed to catch a glimpse of Ms Rice, I headed off to the UN building, where Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator, was due to announce an appeal for $150m (£81m) to alleviate the suffering caused by Israeli bombs.
It was a sunny afternoon and I decided to walk there. From the relative normality of Hamra district, I made my way downtown to what is supposedly the business and financial hub of Lebanon. It was closed.
The streets radiating from the normally throbbing Place de l'Etoile were eerily silent and utterly deserted apart from a soldier here and there and an occasional private security guard lounging in the shade. With the whole place to myself, I began to wonder if there was something everyone else knew that I didn't.
It resembled that scene in cowboy films where everyone has rushed inside and bolted their door before the gunfight. I half-expected John Wayne to swagger into view at one end of the street and Clint Eastwood at the other, twiddling revolvers around their index fingers.
But perhaps this wasn't a western after all - just my first glimpse of Ms Rice's New Middle East, where security is all and human beings figure nowhere.
And so into Riad el-Solh Square and the UN building, strolling leisurely across a road where normally you have to run for your life. The UN building is where the Nice People hang out: Swedes, Danes, liberal-minded Arabs - that sort of folk. Nice, well meaning, but sadly ineffective most of the time. But even the Nice People have got the security bug now.
You used to be able to wander in, announce yourself at the reception desk and talk to officials. In the New Middle East, though, you enter - one at a time - through a revolving cage, and they don't let the next person in until they've checked the previous one thoroughly.
Explaining the planned relief effort yesterday, Mr Egeland did not repeat his remark from Sunday about Israeli "violations of humanitarian law", but the description of civilian damage in an accompanying report made the picture very clear.
His calls for "safe passage" of essential supplies also underlined the humiliating position that the UN - and most of the world, for that matter - finds itself in: begging for Israel's permission to feed 300,000 Lebanese civilians who have been cut off by the bombing and to help half-a-million more who have been driven from their homes or affected by the onslaught in other ways.
This relief effort, of course, is short-term stuff. The initial $150m UN programme is scheduled to last for only three months. After that there may well be a need for more.
When the war eventually ends, there will be other questions about what the UN ought to be doing - American vetoes permitting.
The most recent parallel that I can think of in the Middle East, in terms of an attack on the civilians of a largely defenceless country, is Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. On that occasion, Iraq was ostracised, international sanctions were imposed and there were moves to indict the Ba'athist leaders.
I don't suppose it will happen in this case, though the thought of Ehud Olmert, the Israel prime minister, sharing a cell with Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader, for several years during their trial at The Hague is quite appealing.
The attack on Kuwait also led to the creation of the UN Compensation Commission to deal with millions of financial claims resulting from war damage. In Iraq's case, the money was recouped by taking control of its oil exports and making deductions from the revenue. If there were any justice, the same would happen now - but I can't see Israel being made to pay up, let alone Hizbullah.
Aside from whatever may lie in store for Lebanon politically, it is hard to imagine that the rest of the Middle East will be unchanged by all this. Washington's problem, as always, is that it fails to make the necessary distinction between regimes and their people. It does make the distinction with regimes it dislikes (such as Iran, where it blindly hopes the mullahs will be overthrown at any moment), but not with the regimes it likes.
And so we have the spectacle of the Egyptian and Saudi regimes hobnobbing with Washington and being broadly supportive, while their people are not. The Egyptian and Saudi regimes have their own reasons for wanting to clamp down on Hizbullah - partly to discourage armed militants at home, and partly because they are Sunni regimes and don't much like the Shia anyway.
Meanwhile, as a reward for their cooperation, and despite public statements to the contrary, Washington seems perfectly willing to take the heat off these regimes in terms of pressing for reform and democracy.
In a way, Condoleezza is right. We may indeed be witnessing the birth pangs of a New Middle East, but not the one she imagines. It is a Middle East in which the US, Israel and the "friendly" but moribund Arab regimes are becoming ever more discredited, leaving the populace at large ever more radicalised and disaffected.
Members may be interested in the attached clutch of articles assembled by
the London-based MEC Group. There is one delicious phrase from Rami Khoury
"Is Rice traveling to a new Middle East, or to a diplomatic Disneyland of
her own imagination?"
The articles address an issue we were debating in this forum a few weeks
ago: whether the neo-conservative tide had ebbed. It would be of interest to
hear member views on how Lebanon affects this assessment, though perhaps we
should avoid describing the Administration's policies as "cowboy diplomacy"
on the ground that this is an insult to cowboys.
MEC Analytical Group
26 July 2006
Lebanon: the wider picture
With international meetings on the Lebanon crisis today in Rome and
tomorrow in Washington we circulate three reports, the first from Reuters by
Jonathan Wright courtesy of Hugh Miles, the second from the Beirut paper
Daily Star by Rami Khoury courtesy of Basil Eastwood and the third from
Haaretz by Gideon Levy.
U.S. plan for Lebanon likely to fail, Arab analysts
24 Jul 2006
By Jonathan Wright
CAIRO, July 24 (Reuters) - A vision of a new Middle East emerging from the
conflict in Lebanon as outlined by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice
drew ridicule on Monday from mainstream Arab analysts and former Arab
diplomats.
Several of them said the United States and Israel had little if any chance
of achieving their stated goals of disarming the guerrilla group Hizbollah
and deploying the Lebanese army or an international buffer force along the
Israeli-Lebanese frontier.
"I think it's preposterous. From the beginning this is a plan that cannot
be
achieved," former Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher told Reuters.
In the meantime, by giving the green light to an Israeli offensive which
has
killed more than 300 civilians and done damage worth billions of dollars,
> the United States has helped stir up hatred and extremism in a troubled
region, they say.
Rice said that on her trip to the Middle East, which began on Monday, she
would not try to restore the status quo which existed before a Hizbollah
raid into Israel this month.
"What we're seeing here, in a sense, is ... the birth pangs of a new
Middle
East and, whatever we do, we have to be certain that we're pushing forward
to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one," she added.
Maher, who was also ambassador to Washington for many years, said: "In
fact
what the United States wants to have is a tame Middle East. That's what
they
call a new Middle East."
Mohamed el-Sayed Said, a political analyst who worked in Washington and
takes part in "civil society" meetings with visiting U.S. officials, said
he
was shocked by the latest twist in U.S. policy towards the region.
NEOCONSERVATIVES
"What kind of Middle East will be born from this destruction? The only new
thing we can get is new determination on the part of Hizbollah or the
people
of Lebanon to resist Israel and cause it as much pain as possible," he
said.
The Arab analysts drew parallels with the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the
U.S.
> refusal to back an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, which they said
amounted
> to endorsement of Israel's bombing campaign.
>
> Both policies are associated with the neoconservative school of thought in
> Washington, which holds that Israel is a natural ally of the United States
> and that preemptive force must be used to defeat threats in the early
> stages.
>
> Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, an expert on Iraq and Shi'a
Islam,
said the administration wanted to use the Israeli offensive against
Hizbollah "as a wedge to convince Syria to give up rejectionism and detach
itself from Iran".
But he added: "Syria is not going to give up its stance toward Israel
unless
it at the very least gets back the occupied Golan Heights."
Hesham Youssef, a close aide to Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa,
said U.S. policy on the Lebanese violence was incoherent because it could
not serve U.S. interests.
"I don't see where the benefit is for the United States, or even to
Israel,
because Israel has succeeded in creating a whole generation, if not more,
of
people who would continue to hate Israel much more than they can imagine,"
he told Reuters.
Said, who is also deputy director of the Ahram Centre for Strategic and
Political Studies, said it was out of the question that Hizbollah would go
along with the U.S. proposals.
"Why should they accept such a silly thing? They don't have internal
pressure inside Lebanon to accept this ... They still have an enormous
fighting capability," he said.
Emad Gad, an analyst who specialises in the Arab-Israeli conflict at the
Al-Ahram Center, said he took the new Middle East to be a retreat from the
democratic Middle East Washington said it wanted to a reliance on
traditional allied Arab governments.
"That's because the (old plan) brought Hamas in Palestine, brought a large
percentage for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The peoples in the Arab
world now are more radical and more hostile to U.S. policies than the
regimes," he said.
A new Middle East, or Rice's fantasy ride?
By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Monday, July 24, 2006
American officials are very good at vernacular descriptions, but lousy at
history and political reality in the Middle East. As US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice sets off Sunday on her short trip to a Middle East that
is
increasingly engulfed in violent confrontations and political turmoil, she
has described the massive destruction, dislocation and human suffering in
Lebanon as an inevitable part of the "birth pangs of a new Middle East."
From my perspective here in Beirut, watching American-supplied Israeli
lets
smash this country to smithereens, what she describes as "birth pangs"
look
much more like a wicked hangover from a decades-old American orgy of
diplomatic intoxication with the enticements of pro-Israeli politics.
We shall find out in the coming years if indeed a new Middle Easy is being
born, or - as I suspect - we are witnessing the initial dying gasps of the
Western-made political order that has defined this region and focused
primarily on Israeli national dictates for most of the past half-century.
The way to a truly new and stable Middle East is to apply policies that
deliver equal rights to all concerned, not to favor Israel as having
greater
rights than Arabs.
Rice declared that Israel should ignore calls for a cease-fire, saying:
"This is a different Middle East. It's a new Middle East. It's hard, We're
going through a very violent time."
Behind the American position to support Israel's massive attacks against
Lebanon's civilian infrastructure and Hizbullah positions is a sense -
widely reported from Washington in recent days - that the Bush-Rice team
wants to use this conflict to achieve short-term tactical aims and
long-term
strategic goals that serve the interests of America, Israel and their few
allies in the region.
Short-term, the US would like Israel to wipe out Hizbullah, allow the
Lebanese government to send its troops to the South of the country, ensure
the safety of northern Israel, cut Syria's influence down to size, and
apply
greater pressure on Hizbullah supporter Iran. The US opposes a cease-fire,
therefore, because, "a cease-fire would be a false promise if it simply
returns us to the status quo," Rice said.
This diplomatic position to support Israel's attacks on Lebanon, coupled
with rushing sophisticated precision-guided bombs to Israel from the US
arsenal, indicates that Washington seriously aims to fundamentally redraw
the political and ideological map of the Middle East in the longer term.
If
this means yet another Arab land goes up in flames and war, so be it,
Washington seems to be saying. So we now have three Arab countries where
American policies and arms have played a major role in promoting chaos,
disintegration and mass death and suffering: Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon.
You can watch them burn, live on your television sets.
Ironically, these were the three countries that Bush-Rice & Co. have held
up
as models and pioneers of the American policy to promote freedom and
democracy as antidotes to Arab despotism and terrorism.
Washington's desire to change the face of the Arab world requires removing
the last vestiges of anti-American defiance and anti-Israel resistance.
The
problem for Bush-Rice is that such sentiments probably comprise a majority
of Arab people. Most of them flock to Islamist parties and resistance
groups
like Hamas, Hizbullah, the Muslim Brotherhood and assorted Shiite groups
in
the Iraqi government.
Syria and Iran are the most problematic governments for Washington in this
respect. So there is further irony and much incoherence in the latest
American official desire for Arab governments to pressure Syria to reduce
its support for Hizbullah and other groups who defy the US and Israel. The
numbing fact that Bush-Rice fail to acknowledge - perhaps understandably,
given the alcoholic's tendency to evade reality - is that Washington now
can
only speak to a few Arab governments (in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
elsewhere)
who are in almost no position to impact on anyone other than their
immediate
families and many guards.
Washington is engaged almost exclusively with Arab governments whose
influence with Syria is virtually nonexistent, whose credibility with Arab
public opinion is zero, whose own legitimacy at home is increasingly
challenged, and whose pro-US policies tend to promote the growth of those
militant Islamist movements that now lead the battle against American and
Israeli policies. Is Rice traveling to a new Middle East, or to a
diplomatic
Disneyland of her own imagination?
If Rice pursues contacts in the coming five days that increase
Washington's
bias toward Israel, tighten its links with isolated, increasingly impotent
Arab governments, and further alienate the masses of Arab public opinion,
she will exacerbate the very problem she claims she wants to fix: the
spread
of violence and terror, practiced simultaneously by the armies of states
like the US and Israel, by police-state governments in the Middle East who
live by violence as a rule, and by non-state actors like Hizbullah and
others like it.
On her long flight from Washington to Palestine-Israel Sunday night,
someone
should give Condoleezza Rice a modern history book of the Middle East, so
that she can cut through the haze of her long political drunken stupor,
and
finally see more clearly from where the problems of this region emanate,
where the solutions come from, and how her country can become a
constructive
rather than a destructive force.
Haaretz, Jerusalem, 25 July
Stop now, immediately
By Gideon Levy
This war must be stopped now and immediately. From the start it was
unnecessary, even if its excuse was justified, and now is the time to end
it. Every day raises its price for no reason, taking a toll in blood that
gives Israel nothing tangible in return. This is a good time to stop the
war
because both sides can claim they won: Israel harmed Hezbollah and
Hezbollah
harmed Israel. History shows that no situation is better for reaching an
arrangement. Remember the lessons of the Yom Kippur War.
Israel went into the campaign on justified grounds and with foul means. It
claims it has declared war on Hezbollah but, in practice, it is destroying
Lebanon. It has gotten most of what it could have out of this war. The
aerial "target bank" has mostly been covered. The air force could continue
to sow destruction in the residential neighborhoods and empty offices and
could also continue dropping dozens of tons of bombs on real or imagined
bunkers and kill innocent Lebanese, but nothing good will come of it.
Those who want to restore Israel's deterrent capabilities have succeeded.
Hezbollah and the rest of its enemies know that Israel reacts with
enormous
force to any provocation. South Lebanon is cleaner now of a Hezbollah
presence. In any case, the organization is likely to return there, just as
it is likely to rearm. An international agreement could be achieved now,
and
it won't be possible to achieve a better deal at a reasonable price in the
future.
Israel's other goals - returning the captured soldiers and the elimination
of Hassan Nasrallah - will anyway be more difficult to achieve even if the
war goes on for weeks and months. The IDF is now asking for "two more
weeks"
and in another two weeks it will ask for "another two weeks." A decisive
victory is not in the offing.
On the other hand, the price is skyrocketing. Every day increases
international criticism of Israel and hatred of it. That is also an
element
in "national security." As opposed to the choir in Israel that makes a
false
presentation as if the world is cheering Israel, the images from Beirut
are
causing Israel enormous damage, and rightly so. Not only in the streets of
the Arab world is more and more hatred being sown, but also in the West.
Not
only hundreds of thousands of Lebanese but tens of thousands of Westerners
fleeing from Lebanon are contributing to the depiction of Israel as a
violent, crude and destructive state.
The fact that George Bush and Tony Blair are cheering Israel might be
consolation for Ehud Olmert and the media in Israel, but it is not enough
to
persuade millions of TV viewers who see the images of destruction and
devastation, most of which are not shown to Israeli audiences. The world
sees entire neighborhoods that have been destroyed, hundreds of thousands
of
refugees fleeing in panic, homeless, and hundreds of civilians dead and
wounded including many children who have nothing to do with Hezbollah.
The continuation of the war therefore is neither moral nor worthwhile. The
economic blow the war caused to Israel will even remain limited if the war
ends now. A lethal summer will exact a much greater economic price.
The Israeli rear, which has so far displayed impressive resilience, will
not
> remain indifferent in the shelters for much longer. Slowly, the cracks
will
open and citizens will begin to ask why we are dying and what we are
killing
for. That's just the way of war. At first, nobody asks why, but the more
entangled they become, the more difficult the questions become.
We've been here before, more than once. Wars began with broad national
approval and ended with a great crisis. Those who bask now in the
consensus
should know that nothing lasts forever. The war will become an imbroglio.
When it becomes apparent that the air force is not enough, the ground
invasion that has already begun will intensify. The cliche about the
Lebanese quagmire will be revalidated, and when the soldiers are killed,
as
is already happening daily, in house to house hunting, the protests will
rise and divide society.
Now Israel is hoping for the elimination of Nasrallah. That's an atavistic
impulse, even if understandable, which seeks the head of the enemy in
order
to prove our victory over him. There's no wisdom or practicality in it.
Once
again it is worth reminding ourselves of the dozens of people Israel
assassinated in Lebanon and the territories, from Sheikh Abbas Mussawi to
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, each replaced by someone new, usually more talented
and
dangerous than the predecessor. The goals of the war should not be
dictated
by dark impulses, even if they come in response to the wishes and demands
of
the mob. The only advantage that would benefit Israel from the elimination
of Nasrallah would be that maybe it would bring about an end to the
warring.
But it can be halted even without that. The other desired goal, the return
of the prisoners, will anyway
the London-based MEC Group. There is one delicious phrase from Rami Khoury
"Is Rice traveling to a new Middle East, or to a diplomatic Disneyland of
her own imagination?"
The articles address an issue we were debating in this forum a few weeks
ago: whether the neo-conservative tide had ebbed. It would be of interest to
hear member views on how Lebanon affects this assessment, though perhaps we
should avoid describing the Administration's policies as "cowboy diplomacy"
on the ground that this is an insult to cowboys.
MEC Analytical Group
26 July 2006
Lebanon: the wider picture
With international meetings on the Lebanon crisis today in Rome and
tomorrow in Washington we circulate three reports, the first from Reuters by
Jonathan Wright courtesy of Hugh Miles, the second from the Beirut paper
Daily Star by Rami Khoury courtesy of Basil Eastwood and the third from
Haaretz by Gideon Levy.
U.S. plan for Lebanon likely to fail, Arab analysts
24 Jul 2006
By Jonathan Wright
CAIRO, July 24 (Reuters) - A vision of a new Middle East emerging from the
conflict in Lebanon as outlined by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice
drew ridicule on Monday from mainstream Arab analysts and former Arab
diplomats.
Several of them said the United States and Israel had little if any chance
of achieving their stated goals of disarming the guerrilla group Hizbollah
and deploying the Lebanese army or an international buffer force along the
Israeli-Lebanese frontier.
"I think it's preposterous. From the beginning this is a plan that cannot
be
achieved," former Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher told Reuters.
In the meantime, by giving the green light to an Israeli offensive which
has
killed more than 300 civilians and done damage worth billions of dollars,
> the United States has helped stir up hatred and extremism in a troubled
region, they say.
Rice said that on her trip to the Middle East, which began on Monday, she
would not try to restore the status quo which existed before a Hizbollah
raid into Israel this month.
"What we're seeing here, in a sense, is ... the birth pangs of a new
Middle
East and, whatever we do, we have to be certain that we're pushing forward
to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one," she added.
Maher, who was also ambassador to Washington for many years, said: "In
fact
what the United States wants to have is a tame Middle East. That's what
they
call a new Middle East."
Mohamed el-Sayed Said, a political analyst who worked in Washington and
takes part in "civil society" meetings with visiting U.S. officials, said
he
was shocked by the latest twist in U.S. policy towards the region.
NEOCONSERVATIVES
"What kind of Middle East will be born from this destruction? The only new
thing we can get is new determination on the part of Hizbollah or the
people
of Lebanon to resist Israel and cause it as much pain as possible," he
said.
The Arab analysts drew parallels with the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the
U.S.
> refusal to back an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, which they said
amounted
> to endorsement of Israel's bombing campaign.
>
> Both policies are associated with the neoconservative school of thought in
> Washington, which holds that Israel is a natural ally of the United States
> and that preemptive force must be used to defeat threats in the early
> stages.
>
> Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, an expert on Iraq and Shi'a
Islam,
said the administration wanted to use the Israeli offensive against
Hizbollah "as a wedge to convince Syria to give up rejectionism and detach
itself from Iran".
But he added: "Syria is not going to give up its stance toward Israel
unless
it at the very least gets back the occupied Golan Heights."
Hesham Youssef, a close aide to Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa,
said U.S. policy on the Lebanese violence was incoherent because it could
not serve U.S. interests.
"I don't see where the benefit is for the United States, or even to
Israel,
because Israel has succeeded in creating a whole generation, if not more,
of
people who would continue to hate Israel much more than they can imagine,"
he told Reuters.
Said, who is also deputy director of the Ahram Centre for Strategic and
Political Studies, said it was out of the question that Hizbollah would go
along with the U.S. proposals.
"Why should they accept such a silly thing? They don't have internal
pressure inside Lebanon to accept this ... They still have an enormous
fighting capability," he said.
Emad Gad, an analyst who specialises in the Arab-Israeli conflict at the
Al-Ahram Center, said he took the new Middle East to be a retreat from the
democratic Middle East Washington said it wanted to a reliance on
traditional allied Arab governments.
"That's because the (old plan) brought Hamas in Palestine, brought a large
percentage for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The peoples in the Arab
world now are more radical and more hostile to U.S. policies than the
regimes," he said.
A new Middle East, or Rice's fantasy ride?
By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Monday, July 24, 2006
American officials are very good at vernacular descriptions, but lousy at
history and political reality in the Middle East. As US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice sets off Sunday on her short trip to a Middle East that
is
increasingly engulfed in violent confrontations and political turmoil, she
has described the massive destruction, dislocation and human suffering in
Lebanon as an inevitable part of the "birth pangs of a new Middle East."
From my perspective here in Beirut, watching American-supplied Israeli
lets
smash this country to smithereens, what she describes as "birth pangs"
look
much more like a wicked hangover from a decades-old American orgy of
diplomatic intoxication with the enticements of pro-Israeli politics.
We shall find out in the coming years if indeed a new Middle Easy is being
born, or - as I suspect - we are witnessing the initial dying gasps of the
Western-made political order that has defined this region and focused
primarily on Israeli national dictates for most of the past half-century.
The way to a truly new and stable Middle East is to apply policies that
deliver equal rights to all concerned, not to favor Israel as having
greater
rights than Arabs.
Rice declared that Israel should ignore calls for a cease-fire, saying:
"This is a different Middle East. It's a new Middle East. It's hard, We're
going through a very violent time."
Behind the American position to support Israel's massive attacks against
Lebanon's civilian infrastructure and Hizbullah positions is a sense -
widely reported from Washington in recent days - that the Bush-Rice team
wants to use this conflict to achieve short-term tactical aims and
long-term
strategic goals that serve the interests of America, Israel and their few
allies in the region.
Short-term, the US would like Israel to wipe out Hizbullah, allow the
Lebanese government to send its troops to the South of the country, ensure
the safety of northern Israel, cut Syria's influence down to size, and
apply
greater pressure on Hizbullah supporter Iran. The US opposes a cease-fire,
therefore, because, "a cease-fire would be a false promise if it simply
returns us to the status quo," Rice said.
This diplomatic position to support Israel's attacks on Lebanon, coupled
with rushing sophisticated precision-guided bombs to Israel from the US
arsenal, indicates that Washington seriously aims to fundamentally redraw
the political and ideological map of the Middle East in the longer term.
If
this means yet another Arab land goes up in flames and war, so be it,
Washington seems to be saying. So we now have three Arab countries where
American policies and arms have played a major role in promoting chaos,
disintegration and mass death and suffering: Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon.
You can watch them burn, live on your television sets.
Ironically, these were the three countries that Bush-Rice & Co. have held
up
as models and pioneers of the American policy to promote freedom and
democracy as antidotes to Arab despotism and terrorism.
Washington's desire to change the face of the Arab world requires removing
the last vestiges of anti-American defiance and anti-Israel resistance.
The
problem for Bush-Rice is that such sentiments probably comprise a majority
of Arab people. Most of them flock to Islamist parties and resistance
groups
like Hamas, Hizbullah, the Muslim Brotherhood and assorted Shiite groups
in
the Iraqi government.
Syria and Iran are the most problematic governments for Washington in this
respect. So there is further irony and much incoherence in the latest
American official desire for Arab governments to pressure Syria to reduce
its support for Hizbullah and other groups who defy the US and Israel. The
numbing fact that Bush-Rice fail to acknowledge - perhaps understandably,
given the alcoholic's tendency to evade reality - is that Washington now
can
only speak to a few Arab governments (in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
elsewhere)
who are in almost no position to impact on anyone other than their
immediate
families and many guards.
Washington is engaged almost exclusively with Arab governments whose
influence with Syria is virtually nonexistent, whose credibility with Arab
public opinion is zero, whose own legitimacy at home is increasingly
challenged, and whose pro-US policies tend to promote the growth of those
militant Islamist movements that now lead the battle against American and
Israeli policies. Is Rice traveling to a new Middle East, or to a
diplomatic
Disneyland of her own imagination?
If Rice pursues contacts in the coming five days that increase
Washington's
bias toward Israel, tighten its links with isolated, increasingly impotent
Arab governments, and further alienate the masses of Arab public opinion,
she will exacerbate the very problem she claims she wants to fix: the
spread
of violence and terror, practiced simultaneously by the armies of states
like the US and Israel, by police-state governments in the Middle East who
live by violence as a rule, and by non-state actors like Hizbullah and
others like it.
On her long flight from Washington to Palestine-Israel Sunday night,
someone
should give Condoleezza Rice a modern history book of the Middle East, so
that she can cut through the haze of her long political drunken stupor,
and
finally see more clearly from where the problems of this region emanate,
where the solutions come from, and how her country can become a
constructive
rather than a destructive force.
Haaretz, Jerusalem, 25 July
Stop now, immediately
By Gideon Levy
This war must be stopped now and immediately. From the start it was
unnecessary, even if its excuse was justified, and now is the time to end
it. Every day raises its price for no reason, taking a toll in blood that
gives Israel nothing tangible in return. This is a good time to stop the
war
because both sides can claim they won: Israel harmed Hezbollah and
Hezbollah
harmed Israel. History shows that no situation is better for reaching an
arrangement. Remember the lessons of the Yom Kippur War.
Israel went into the campaign on justified grounds and with foul means. It
claims it has declared war on Hezbollah but, in practice, it is destroying
Lebanon. It has gotten most of what it could have out of this war. The
aerial "target bank" has mostly been covered. The air force could continue
to sow destruction in the residential neighborhoods and empty offices and
could also continue dropping dozens of tons of bombs on real or imagined
bunkers and kill innocent Lebanese, but nothing good will come of it.
Those who want to restore Israel's deterrent capabilities have succeeded.
Hezbollah and the rest of its enemies know that Israel reacts with
enormous
force to any provocation. South Lebanon is cleaner now of a Hezbollah
presence. In any case, the organization is likely to return there, just as
it is likely to rearm. An international agreement could be achieved now,
and
it won't be possible to achieve a better deal at a reasonable price in the
future.
Israel's other goals - returning the captured soldiers and the elimination
of Hassan Nasrallah - will anyway be more difficult to achieve even if the
war goes on for weeks and months. The IDF is now asking for "two more
weeks"
and in another two weeks it will ask for "another two weeks." A decisive
victory is not in the offing.
On the other hand, the price is skyrocketing. Every day increases
international criticism of Israel and hatred of it. That is also an
element
in "national security." As opposed to the choir in Israel that makes a
false
presentation as if the world is cheering Israel, the images from Beirut
are
causing Israel enormous damage, and rightly so. Not only in the streets of
the Arab world is more and more hatred being sown, but also in the West.
Not
only hundreds of thousands of Lebanese but tens of thousands of Westerners
fleeing from Lebanon are contributing to the depiction of Israel as a
violent, crude and destructive state.
The fact that George Bush and Tony Blair are cheering Israel might be
consolation for Ehud Olmert and the media in Israel, but it is not enough
to
persuade millions of TV viewers who see the images of destruction and
devastation, most of which are not shown to Israeli audiences. The world
sees entire neighborhoods that have been destroyed, hundreds of thousands
of
refugees fleeing in panic, homeless, and hundreds of civilians dead and
wounded including many children who have nothing to do with Hezbollah.
The continuation of the war therefore is neither moral nor worthwhile. The
economic blow the war caused to Israel will even remain limited if the war
ends now. A lethal summer will exact a much greater economic price.
The Israeli rear, which has so far displayed impressive resilience, will
not
> remain indifferent in the shelters for much longer. Slowly, the cracks
will
open and citizens will begin to ask why we are dying and what we are
killing
for. That's just the way of war. At first, nobody asks why, but the more
entangled they become, the more difficult the questions become.
We've been here before, more than once. Wars began with broad national
approval and ended with a great crisis. Those who bask now in the
consensus
should know that nothing lasts forever. The war will become an imbroglio.
When it becomes apparent that the air force is not enough, the ground
invasion that has already begun will intensify. The cliche about the
Lebanese quagmire will be revalidated, and when the soldiers are killed,
as
is already happening daily, in house to house hunting, the protests will
rise and divide society.
Now Israel is hoping for the elimination of Nasrallah. That's an atavistic
impulse, even if understandable, which seeks the head of the enemy in
order
to prove our victory over him. There's no wisdom or practicality in it.
Once
again it is worth reminding ourselves of the dozens of people Israel
assassinated in Lebanon and the territories, from Sheikh Abbas Mussawi to
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, each replaced by someone new, usually more talented
and
dangerous than the predecessor. The goals of the war should not be
dictated
by dark impulses, even if they come in response to the wishes and demands
of
the mob. The only advantage that would benefit Israel from the elimination
of Nasrallah would be that maybe it would bring about an end to the
warring.
But it can be halted even without that. The other desired goal, the return
of the prisoners, will anyway