War in The Middle East

[The Abyss]

Re: War in The Middle East

Guys today it was very calm, there was no raids on beirut , but if you watch the TVs over here, they are telling us that Israel is hiting trucks on the road towards the Bekaa Valley. They even prevented a convoy of ambulances offered to the Lebanese red cross from United Emirates reaching Beirut via Syria( another Geneva convention violated) , what they did is that they blew up the first truck that was full of medicaments that was infront of the ambulances, even though all of the trucks and ambulances had flags on them, so that they may know that these are not trucks smuggling guns.
I hope the night stays calm as well.....

[The Abyss]

Re: War in The Middle East

Abyss, can you give us an update on what's going on with the Armenians in Beirut.

Thanks

Well armenians are fine untill now, because i highly doubt any armenian living in south Lebanon nor in southern suburbs of beirut( the majority of the population in this area are Shia's).

[karoaper]

Re: War in The Middle East

Abyss, are any Armenians serving in Lebanese Army? I know few confused Armos serve in IDF. What a complete xxxx it would be if Armos on either side fired even a single bullet at each other in this confict.

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

Syria and Iran masterminded last week's Hizbollah operation to draw Israel and America in a new conflict in an already conflict saturated region in order to divert attention from Tehran's nuclear ambitions. This was a genius plan by Syria and Iran. By using the Hizbollah to attack Israel:

They have forced the hand of a trigger-happy Tel Aviv to commit atrocities against the civilian population of Lebanon. And by doing so, they have yet again disgusted the international community and turned Lebanese public sentiments totally against Israel.

Syria has been pushed effectivly back into Lebanese politics as protectors.

Hizbollah has gainded international recognition as a potent fighting force.

Iran has come on top as a major regional - soon to be nuclear - power.

And all international pressure upon Theran and Damascus has been diverted.

This was a win-win for Syria, Iran and their military organisation in southern Lebanon the Hisbollah. Israel's barbarbaric actions are actually serving Irans regional interests. And, as usual, Washington DC will make matters worst because it is run by zionists.

Nonetheless, we will see the total destruction of the Zionist state of Israel withn our life times.

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

Will We Go to War for Israel?

Israel says "Jump!" Americans ask: "How high?"

by Justin Raimondo

Listening to Newt Gingrich bloviate on Meet the Press, advocating U.S. intervention on Israel's behalf against Syria and Iran – and the pathetic Joe "Me Too" Biden effectively agreeing with him – one can only wonder how or why anybody listens to these crazies. As Newt, the megalomaniacalhas-been, gleefully declares that "World War III" is in progress, and weaves a conspiracy theory linking Iran, Syria, North Korea, Hezbollah, and – believe it or not! – Venezuela, old Joe just sits there nodding out. Given a chance to reply, his only objection to Gingrich's vision of war on all fronts is that, yes, we need to go to war, but we have to do it with the support of our allies. "Fighting Joe" Biden is no weenie: his voice hardens as he avers we should tell the North Koreans that we have the capacity to "annihilate" them. Gingrich smiles.

He has good reason to smile. Aside from his fondness for the concept of annihilation, he knows that the War Party's "liberal" Democratic wing is falling into line. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon – which many predict will include the de facto annexation of a southern "buffer zone" – has the fulsome support of both parties. When the Israelis tell the Americans to jump, the only question Biden and the Democratic party leadership have is: How high?

What Israel wants is what they have always wanted: to use American power, American tax dollars, and American lives to advance their own expansionist agenda. Twenty-five thousand Americans are in Lebanon at the present moment, all of them at risk from Israeli bombs – but that didn't factor into Tel Aviv's calculations, any more than Lebanese or Palestinian lives matter one whit to them. The Israelis put Israel first – and so does Washington. If all 25,000 American tourists and others have to perish in the flames of Israeli air strikes, then so be it. No sacrifice is too great – just as long as our Israel-centric foreign policy remains firmly in place.

Unleashed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the presence of a substantial American force in the midst of Mesopotamia, the Israelis are the tip of an American spear aimed at Syria and Iran. And Israel's amen corner in Washington and the media are doggedly pushing the talking point that these two spokes on the "axis of evil" are churning the Lebanese waters. MSNBC assures us that Iran "created" Hezbollah: knowledgeable analysts can only laugh at this agitprop – but then they aren't cited in this piece. Only a former Israeli general is.

Hezbollah, of course, was "created," not by Iran, but by the Israeli invasion of 1982. The group gained prestige and adherents as it drove the invading Israelis back over the border and set up an elaborate network of social service organizations, standing candidates for office and entering the Lebanese Parliament. The mere sight of an Arab entity successfully defying Israel, and not only living to tell the tale but also prospering, is impermissible: Russian President Vladimir Putin was not alone in saying that there was more to the Israeli agenda than merely getting back their captured – um, I mean "kidnapped" – soldiers.

Another war, a silent war, is going on in the corridors of power, and the fighting in the Middle East, in an important sense, is merely a reflection of a long, bitter internecine struggle in Washington. Those Republican "realists" we hear so much about – holdovers from the Bush I regime, "realist" policy wonks, and those Republicans who look at the polls – have their champion (or best hope, at any rate) in Condoleezza Rice. Her personal relationship with the president and her elevation to head of the State Department have led severalcommentators to equate this as a victory for the "realists."

The neoconservative ideologues, who have been the radical vanguard of the War Party all along, certainly believe this, which is why Richard Perle recently took her on in the Washington Post. The Condi faction temporarily gained the upper hand when they came out with a policy on Iran that had been worked on in secret and took the road of negotiation rather than outright military confrontation and "regime change."

The Israeli answer: invade Lebanon, force the issue, and go for the throat. With the Israel lobby going full-bore and the propaganda mills churning, the invasion undermines the Rice faction and puts the issue of regime-change back on the administration's agenda. While that change of regime will, initially, be limited to southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah operates a de facto independent state, it will eventually – the neocons hope – extend to the whole of the country, topple Bashar al-Assad in Syria – and, eventually, spill over into Iran.

Dan Rather said on Chris Matthews' Sunday show that the road is littered with the corpses of those who underestimated xxxx Cheney, and the reassertion of the neoconservative voice within this administration – a voice that many thought had been nearly stilled by the grotesque failure of our Iraqi disaster – is a testament to the validity of his thesis.

The neocons' comeback is made possible by the Democrats' complete prostration before the Israeli offensive. Biden's babbling that our lack of allies has crippled our ability to mediate the Middle East conflict is completely wrong – and beside the point, in any case. To begin with, all the Arab killer regimes – the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the dictators, the kings, the petty tyrants and emirs – are taking the line that Hezbollah, and not Israel, is to blame. The Lebanese, they say, have brought this on themselves and now have to bear the consequences of Hassan Nasrallah's actions.

Yet a state of war still exists between Israel and Lebanon – no peace treaty was ever signed. And the border is closely watched by both parties: it's hard to imagine the Israelis failed to realize that sending in a few unguarded troops so close to Hezbollah positions would likely result in their capture. Hezbollah took the bait, and the trap snapped shut.

The question boils down to this: can the Israelis win a war with Hezbollah without American intervention? The answer, clearly, is no: look what happened last time. The Americans, lured into Beirut, suffered 241 casualties – after bombing Beirut's suburbs – and Reagan wisely withdrew. Israel, in the end, was driven out. The neocons are determined that, this time, the Americans will not only stay – they'll go for Damascus.

The call for American military intervention is bound to come up, rather shortly, and get louder as the long "precision" bombing of the Lebanese continues. The Israelis will pound Lebanon in a display of U.S.-backed military power, and the only debate in Washington will be over to what extent we ought to intervene, rather than whether we ought to get involved at all.

In the end, some combination of UN-NATO-American military intervention will do for the Israelis what they could never accomplish on their own: neutralize all opposition to their conquest of Palestine coming from the Levant. The "debate" in Washington is only over how to achieve that goal: the Democrats say we have to do it "multilaterally," and the Republicans, with Jacksonian disdain, say we don't have to answer to anybody (except the Israelis, of course).

There is no "solution" to the Middle East's many conflicts, and American attempts to formulate one are doomed to failure. Some problems are just not solvable by human efforts, and this is one of them. Our intervention only serves to exacerbate the situation and spread the conflict – with blowback that can and did have deadly consequences as far as our own interests are concerned.

American interests play little or no role in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and we all know why. What scholars John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt said in their now famous study [.pdf] of "the Lobby," as they call it, is being confirmed in spades by this latest episode:

"For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of U.S. Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only U.S. security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?"

Their answer: "The unmatched power of the Israel Lobby."

That Lobby is now furiously demanding – and getting – unconditional support for the violation of Lebanon's sovereignty not only from the president, but from the leaders of both political parties and the major mandarins of the commentariat. The Mearsheimer-Walt thesis has now been confirmed. The question is: what do we do about it?

America's real interests in the Middle East are in securing two primary goals: (1) Making sure that war and political factors don't obstruct the free flow of commerce – and oil – to American markets, and (2) neutralizing the Osama bin Ladens of the Middle East ideologically, not necessarily in that order. Regarding the first goal, I merely refer you to current oil prices. On the second matter, our unconditional support for Israel's brazen invasion is now the chief recruiting tool for bin Laden and his gang.

While the War Party runs roughshod over authentic American interests, the U.S. political landscape, at this point, lacks anything remotely resembling a Peace Party. Don't look to the Democrats, as a party, to come to our rescue. They won't. "The Lobby" works both sides of the partisan fence, and, as we all know, "politics ends at the water's edge" – which is how we've been dragged into every war of modern times, despite popular opposition.

Perhaps, some day, an administration and a Congress that puts America first will regain control of Washington. That prospect, however, appears dim at the moment. As Americans wake up to World War IV on the horizon, however, it is not completely out of the question. War teases out new trends and creates new patterns in the politics of a nation, and it does so rather rapidly. In any case, we have to hope – because the alternative is so unappealing.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

I apologize for sounding a note of weariness, and even despair, in the above paragraph. It is provoked, I fear, by the sheer repetition involved in writing a column such as this. In pointing out the dangers inherent in our foreign policy, and underscoring the probable consequences of our reckless arrogance, I sometimes think I am writing the same column, over and over again, and that the real trick is in introducing some variation of language. So, rather than simply saying "I told you so!", I have compiled a few quotes from previous columns on the subject of Israel, Lebanon, and the prospect of a gathering regional war.

Note: I have left the original links in, in spite of the maddening practice of many news organizations in deleting or moving their online content.

May 7, 2003

"Will this same gang of warmongers entrap us in a war with Syria, and drag us back into Lebanon, where we are sure to confront the ghosts of our past errors? The battle-cry has already been sounded: Stay tuned as we hear news of Syria's 'weapons of mass destruction" and the inevitable question: 'Is Saddam in Syria?'

"As Yogi Berra once said: 'This is like deja-vu all over again!'"

Feb. 16, 2005

"Wars don't respect national borders, and it's only a matter of time before the Americans' ongoing battle against the Iraqi insurgency spills over into Syria. As I predicted in September 2003, 'We are a border incident away from taking the war into Syria, and beyond,' and that analysis seems borne out by events.

"All the elements of a regional conflagration are now in place, and the assassination of Hariri has set the fuse to burning. How long before the troops move out is anyone's guess, but make no mistake about it: Syria is next on the War Party's agenda.

"As I have said from the very beginning, the war in Iraq was and is just a means to the ends of finally securing Israel's 'security' – by making it the dominant power in the region. This is now being confirmed as the U.S. takes aim at Syria and moves against Hizbollah."

Dec. 12, 2005

"Syria is now girding for the imposition of economic sanctions and trying to head off the campaign to destabilize the country on two fronts: by restarting talks with Israel, and by cooperating with the request to permit Syrian officials to be questioned in the Hariri investigation. I have the funny feeling, however, that this is not going to do them a lot of good, as far as their enemies in the West are concerned. As we have seen in the case of Iraq, when the U.S. wants to manufacture a case for war, it can be done pretty easily: Congress is not likely to ask inconvenient questions until it's too late, and the American people can hardly be expected to keep up with arcane doings in faraway Lebanon, the scene of the intrigue and obscure religious-ethnic rivalries that could spark another Mideast war. Acting pretty much without either congressional or public scrutiny, this administration thinks it can get away with anything when it comes to Syria – and in that, they are probably right."

March 2, 2005

"Two years after the invasion and conquest of Iraq, and what have we gained? An Islamic state in Iraq, a looming confrontation with Syria, and the increasingly likely prospect of Lebanon reverting to a state of civil war."

Feb. 23, 2005

"We are in for a long buildup to direct intervention in Lebanon, and Syria. … It's all so predictable, and boring, that I can't even write about it for another minute, except to say: They've only just begun…"

Continue: http://antiwar.com/justin/

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

IRAN AND SYRIA TO FORM A NEW ANTI-AMERICAN-ISRAELI AXIS

DAMASCUS-TEHRAN 8 Oct. (IPS) Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and his Syrian host Bashar Asad discussed best ways and means to form a new anti-American-Israeli axis to take off pressures Washington and Tel Aviv are putting on them.

The embattled Iranian President confirmed on Friday that the two countries would expand their cooperation in the face of mounting pressures from the United States and Israel as well as foster peace in the troubled region of Middle East.

The Iranian embattled President arrived in Damascus early Thursday morning at the end of an official visit to the neighbouring kingdom of Muscat and Oman, the last leg of a weeklong trip to African Arab nations of Algeria and Sudan.

The unscheduled visit came at a time that both countries, staunch opponents of the United States and Israel, are under increased international pressures, accused of derailing peace efforts by providing military, logistic and financial assistance to Palestinian and Arab radical groups opposed to peace with the xxxish State.

A new high command is taking shape, formed by the Hezbollah, HAMAS, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

While the Iranian ruling ayatollahs are suspected of leaving no stone unturned in order to become a nuclear power, Syria, for its part, is under international pressure because of its “satellisation” of Lebanon.

"These pressures have always existed and we have to neutralize them through our cooperation", the official news agencies of both countries reported Khatami as saying in Damascus at the start of his visit to Syria.

Both Tehran and Damascus are also suspected by Washington of being behind Iraq’s insurgency by leaving their porous borders open to Arab and Muslim fighters, known as “jihadis” the remnants of Osama Ben Laden’s “Al-Qa’eda” network that masterminded the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C.

According to Mr. Patrick Seale, a well-known British journalist based in Paris, under the auspices of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a new and “much dangerous” alliance is taking shape uniting for the first time Sunni and Shi’a Muslims in the one hand and Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah with hard line Palestinian groups assisted by Damascus.

“A new high command is taking shape, formed by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’a movement that booted out Israel from southern Lebanon, HAMAS, the Palestinian resistance movement that has overshadowed the Palestinian Authority of Yaser Arafat as a spearhead of resistance to Israel, the Muslim Brotherhood, represented in the occupied territories by the Islamic Jihad and last but not least, the Islamic Republic of Iran”, Mr. Seale, author of a biography of the former Syrian strongman Hafez Asad wrote in the last edition of “Jeune Afrique-L’Intelligent” dated 3 to 9 October 2004.

“The particularity of this new alliance is that first of all, it abolishes the Shi’a-Sunni division among Muslims and also reunites Arab nationalists and islamists under one common flag. There is no more differences between resistance and jihadis”, he added, quoting one western intelligence source.

Khatami-Bashar talks also focused on ways of maintaining stability in the Middle East in view of escalated Israeli violence and developments in neighbouring Iraq, where both Syria and Iran strongly oppose the presence of American forces.

"In our meetings we will try to cooperate toward ensuring calm and stability in the crisis-ridden Middle East region", Khatami said. "The situation is getting more perilous because of the inhuman and violent actions of the Zionist regime", he added.

“The visit took place at a time when great pressure is being exerted on Syria, as a significant regional country, by the US, Zionist regime and some Western countries”, the official Iranian news agency IRNA commented, referring to a recent UN-based measure, sponsored by Washington and Paris, urging Syria to pull its 40.000 strong troops out of neighbouring Lebanon.

Khatam-Bashar talks also focused on ways of maintaining stability in view of escalated Israeli violence and developments in neighbouring Iraq.

Bowing to the move, Syria returned around 10.000 soldiers from around Beirut.

Syria's support for Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups and allegations Damascus was pursuing weapons of mass destruction were among key reasons behind U.S. economic sanctions in May.

“Political experts call Khatami’s visit to Syria as being “important”, believing that it would consolidate Syrian position in this critical situation”, the agency added, failing to mention Iran’s growing troubles with the United States, European Union’s so-called Big trio of Britain, France and Germany and the the International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear projects as well as Iran’s isolation in both the international community and the Arab and Muslim worlds.

In the past two decades, Iran and Syria have been enjoying close strategic relations based on their bilateral interests, as Damascus ruled by a rival faction of the Ba'th Party, was the only Arab nation that sided with non Arab Iran when the now toppled Saddam Hussein attacked it on September 1980.This is Khatami’s fourth trip to Syria.

Both presidents condemned the massacre of innocent Muslims in the occupied Palestine and called on the international community to react against the Zionist regime’s crimes, IRNA reported, as Mr. Khatami returned to Tehran on Friday.

This was Khatami's fourth official visit to Syria. The younger Asad came to Tehran three times.

According to Mr. Seale, American unilateral and systematic backing of Israel’s hard line Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in crushing the Palestinians in the one hand and American-Israeli’s menaces against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear ambitions are among major factors “explaining” the new mobilisation, “better organised and more determined.

http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2004/october/iran_syria_81004-2.shtml

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

Energized Neocons Say Israel's Fight Is Washington's

by Jim Lobe

Seeing a major opportunity to regain influence lost as a result of setbacks in Iraq, prominent neoconservatives are calling for unconditional U.S. support for Israel's military offensives in Gaza and Lebanon and "regime change" in Syria and Iran, as well as possible U.S. attacks on Tehran's nuclear facilities in retaliation for its support of Hezbollah.

In a Weekly Standard column entitled "It's Our War," editor William Kristol Sunday called Iran "the prime mover behind the terrorist groups who have started this war," which, he argued, should be considered part of "the global struggle against radical Islamism."

He complained that Washington recently has done a "poor job of standing up and weakening Syria and Iran" and called on President George W. Bush himself to fly directly from the "silly [Group of Eight] summit in St. Petersburg … to Jerusalem, the capital of a nation that stands with us, and is willing to fight with us, against our common enemies."

"This is our war, too," according to Kristol, who is also a founder and co-chairman of the recently lapsed Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

"All of us in the free world owe Israel an enormous thank-you for defending freedom, democracy, and security against the Iranian cat's-paw wholly-owned terrorist subsidiaries Hezbollah and Hamas," echoed Larry Kudlow, a neoconservative commentator, at the Standard's right-wing competitor, National Review.

"They are defending their own homeland and very existence, but they are also defending America's homeland as our front-line democratic ally in the Middle East," according to Kudlow who, like Kristol and other like-minded polemicists, also named Syria, "which is also directed by Iran," as a promising target as the conflict expands.

The two columns are just the latest examples of a slew of commentaries that have appeared in U.S. print and broadcast media since Israel began bombing targets in Lebanon in retaliation for Hezbollah's fatal cross-border attack last Wednesday. They appear to be part of a deliberate campaign by neoconservatives and some of their right-wing supporters to depict the current conflict as part of global struggle pitting Israel, as the forward base of Western civilization, against Islamist extremism organized and directed by Iran and its junior partner, Syria.

This view was perhaps most dramatically expressed by former Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, in an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday when he described the conflict as "the early stages of … the Third World War."

The effort to frame the current round of violence as part of a much larger struggle – and Israel's role as Washington's most loyal front-line ally – recalls the neoconservatives early reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Just nine days after 9/11, Kristol and PNAC – whose charter members included Vice President xxxx Cheney, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and half a dozen other senior Bush administration officials – released an open letter to Bush that called for the U.S. to retaliate not only against al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, but also against Israel's main regional foes, beginning with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman Yasser Arafat.

In addition, the letter advised, "any war against terrorism must target Hezbollah. We believe that the administration should demand that Iran and Syria immediately cease all military, financial, and political support for Hezbollah and its operations. Should Iran and Syria refuse to comply, the administration should consider appropriate measures of retaliation against these state sponsors of terrorism."

"Israel has been and remains America's staunchest ally against international terrorism, especially in the Middle East," the letter asserted. "The United States should fully support our fellow democracy in its fight against terrorism."

While the Iraqi and Palestinian components of PNAC's agenda were soon adopted as policy and essentially achieved, neoconservative hopes that Bush would move on Hezbollah – as well as Syria and Iran – eventually stalled as U.S. military forces became bogged down in an increasingly bloody and costly counter-insurgency war in Iraq.

As the situation in Iraq worsened, neoconservative influence in and on the administration also declined to the benefit of "realists" based primarily in the State Department who favored a less aggressive policy designed to secure Damascus' and Tehran's cooperation in stabilizing Iraq and strengthen the elected Lebanese government of which Hezbollah was made a part.

In that context, the current conflict represents a golden opportunity for the neoconservatives to reassert their influence and reactivate their Israel-centered agenda against Hezbollah and its two state sponsors.

"Iran's Proxy War" blazed the cover of this week's Standard, which also featured no less than three other articles, besides Kristol's editorial, underlining Iran's sponsorship of Hezbollah and Hamas and the necessity of the U.S. standing with Israel, if not taking independent action against Tehran and/or Damascus as recommended by Kristol himself.

A major theme of the new campaign is that the more-conciliatory "realist" policies toward Syria and Iran pursued by the State Department have actually backfired by making Washington look weak.

"They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago," wrote Kristol. "Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak," he went on, adding that, "[T]he right response is renewed strength," notably "in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran [and] consider[ing] countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities."

The notion that U.S. policy in the region has become far too flaccid and accommodating is echoed by a number of other neoconservatives, particularly Michael Rubin, a prolific analyst at the hard-line American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and protégé of Cheney confidante and former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle.

In a companion Standard article, Rubin qualified recent State Department policy as "All Talk and No Strategy" that had emboldened enemies, especially Iran, to challenge Washington and its allies.

In another article for National Review Monday, bluntly titled "Eradication First," he elaborated on that theme, arguing diplomacy in the current crisis will only be successful "if it commences both after the eradication of Hezbollah and Hamas, and after their paymasters pay a terrible cost for their support."

"If … peace is the aim, it is imperative to punish the Syrian and Iranian leadership," he wrote.

Above all, according to the neoconservatives, the U.S. position in the region is now inextricably tied to the success or failure of Israel's military campaign.

In yet another Standard article, titled "The Rogues Strike Back: Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah vs. Israel," Robert Satloff, executive director of the hawkish, pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argued that "defeat for Israel – either on the battlefield or via coerced compromises to achieve flawed cease-fires – is a defeat for U.S. interests; it will inspire radicals of every stripe, release Iran and Syria to spread more mayhem inside Iraq, and make more likely our own eventual confrontation with this emboldened alliance of extremists."

Inter Press Service: http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=9323

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

Spirits Are High in Syria’s Capital as Leaders Openly Show Support for Hezbollah

By KATHERINE ZOEPF

DAMASCUS, Syria, July 15 — The mood here in Syria’s capital was defiant, even gleeful, on Saturday as Hezbollah continued its rocket attacks on northern Israel. Pop radio stations played jingoistic military marches, and the state-run daily newspaper, Tishreen, reported on a meeting of the ruling Syrian Baath Party by saying, “participants expressed Syria’s firm stance in support of the Lebanese national resistance.”

A Damascus businessman who would give only his first name, Mustafa, said: “I am 100 percent very happy. All of the Syrian people are happy, because we consider Hezbollah as being one of us.” Though Syria has long supported militant anti-Israel organizations, including Hamas and Hezbollah, a radical Shiite militia in Lebanon with strong ties to Syria and Iran, such public directness on the subject is new, analysts say. They say the government is voicing such sentiments in an attempt to appeal to the Syrian masses.

“Yesterday the Syrian Baath party expressed its full support and sympathy for Hezbollah,” said Marwan Kabalan, a political science professor at Damascus University. “It is overt now, because this is no longer something the government wants to hide. People here are very emotional about the whole situation, and many of them wish that Syria would get up and join Hamas and Hezbollah in their battle against Israel.” A half-dozen Syrians interviewed at random in Damascus cafes all said that they admired Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, for using military action to back his anti-Israeli remarks.

“Nasrallah has caused a great deal of embarrassment among the Arab leaders,” Dr. Kabalan continued. “He is seen as the only Arab leader who can stand by his words and resist Israel.” Imad Fauzi Shueibi, a political analyst who often works as a consultant to the Syrian government, laughed as he said that he believed that Israel was being drawn into a trap if it thought it could successfully fight on two, or even three, fronts.

Israel and the United States have said that they attribute a supporting role in Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel to Syria, and many Syrians are now talking about the possibility of a battle with Israel in the Golan region. “I am laughing because I am so happy to see that in Israel there are these very stupid leaders,” Dr. Fauzi Shueibi said. “Israel has nothing to gain by changing the balance of power in the region. To fight on two fronts at the same time is stupid; if they try to open three fronts, that will be madness.”

“No one can believe that this will stop without a huge victory for Hezbollah and for Syria,” he added. “I haven’t felt so optimistic since 1973. I think we are closing the noose on Israel. This may be the last battle, and we may be able to redraw the map of the Middle East, but not on the schedule of America’s plan for the greater Middle East.”

As Israel continued its airstrikes on Lebanon, many Lebanese began flooding into Syria over the past several days, leading some Syrians to worry about a possible refugee crisis. Syria already serves as a temporary home for hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees, and according to Syrian government figures, more than 17,000 Lebanese refugees crossed into Syria on Friday alone.

At Jdayat-Yabbus, a Syria border town, Lebanese refugees said Friday that the price of a taxi from Beirut to Damascus, normally about $50, had been driven up to $500 or more for what is usually a two-hour ride but could now stretch to five hours or more. Those who could not afford taxis crammed into flatbed trucks; others took the bus to Chtaura, a Lebanese border town, and then crossed on foot, walking several miles in the brutal sun and carrying their luggage on their heads.

Many were from the southern suburbs of Beirut, which have come under heavy attack by Israeli warplanes because of Hezbollah’s strong presence there. Hassan, an automobile mechanic from southern Beirut who declined to give his last name, was traveling Friday in a flatbed truck brimming with 15 young children, all looking tired and miserable in the midday sun. He said he was bringing the children — two his own and the rest nieces and nephews — to stay with distant relatives in Syria.

“We haven’t slept in three days,” he said. “The Israelis are bombing shopping malls and television stations. The children are very frightened, and so we are bringing them to Syria for their safety.” Syrian analysts noted with some pride that Syria will have a central role in any peace agreement, and that the United States may now be forced to make a deal with Syria because of Hezbollah’s actions. “Syria has demonstrated once again that it can’t be marginalized,” said Dr. Kabalan, the political science professor.

“It has succeeded in turning the tables on the Americans. Syria has demonstrated successfully that it is still here and still in control.”

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/wo...gewanted=print

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

What I am watching in Lebanon each day is an outrage

By Robert Fisk in Mdeirej, Central Lebanon

07/15/06 "The Independent" -- - - The beautiful viaduct that soars over the mountainside here has become a "terrorist" target. The Israelis attacked the international highway from Beirut to Damascus just after dawn yesterday and dropped a bomb clean through the central span of the Italian-built bridge a symbol of Lebanon's co-operation with the European Union sending concrete crashing hundreds of feet down into the valley beneath. It was the pride of the murdered ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri, the face of a new, emergent Lebanon. And now it is a "terrorist" target.

So I drove gingerly along the old mountain road towards the Bekaa yesterday - the Israeli jets were hissing through the sky above me - turned the corner once I rejoined the highway, and found a 50ft crater with an old woman climbing wearily down the side on her hands and knees, trying to reach her home in the valley that glimmered to the east. This too had become a "terrorist" target.

It is now the same all over Lebanon. In the southern suburbs - where the Hizbollah, captors of the two missing Israeli soldiers, have their headquarters - a massive bomb had blasted off the sides of apartment blocks next to a church, splintering windows and crashing balconies down to parked cars. This too had become a "terrorist target.

One man was brought out shrieking with pain, covered in blood. Another "terrorist" target. All the way to the airport were broken bridges, holed roads. All these were "terrorist" targets. At the airport, tongues of fire blossomed into the sky from aircraft fuel storage tanks, darkening west Beirut. These too were now "terrorist" targets.

At Jiyeh, the Israelis attacked the power station. This too was a "terrorist" target.

Yet when I drove to the actual headquarters of Hizbollah, a tall building in Haret Hreik, it was totally undamaged. Only last night did the Israelis manage to hit it.

So can the Lebanese be forgiven - can anyone here be forgiven - for believing that the Israelis have a greater interest in destroying Lebanon than they do in their two soldiers?

No wonder Middle East Airlines, the national Lebanese airline, put crews into its four stranded Airbuses at Beirut airport early yesterday and sneaked them out of the country for Amman before the Israelis realised they were under power and leaving.

European politicians have talked about Israel's "disproportionate" response to Wednesday's capture of its soldiers. They are wrong. What I am now watching in Lebanon is an outrage. How can there be any excuse for the 73 dead Lebanese blown these past three days?

The same applies, of course, to the four Israeli civilians killed by Hizbollah rockets. But - please note the exchange rate of Israeli civilian lives to Lebanese civilian lives now stands at 1 to more than 15. This does not include the two children who were atomised in their home in Dweir on Thursday and whose bodies cannot be found. Their six brothers and sisters were buried yesterday, along with their mother and father. Another "terrorist" target. So was a neighbouring family with five children who were also buried yesterday. Another "terrorist" target.

Terrorist, terrorist, terrorist. There is something perverse about all this, the slaughter and massive destruction and the self-righteous, constant, cancerous use of the word "terrorist". No, let us not forget that the Hizbollah broke international law, crossed the Israeli border, killed three Israeli soldiers, captured two others and dragged them back through the border fence. It was an act of calculated ruthlessness that should never allow Hizbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to grin so broadly ay his press conference. It has brought unparalleled tragedy to countless innocents in Lebanon. And of course, it has led Hizbollah to fire at least 170 Katyusha rockets into Israel.

But what would happen if the powerless Lebanese government had actually unleashed air attacks across Israel the last time Israel's troops crossed into Lebanon? What if the Lebanese air force then killed 73 Israeli civilians in bombing raids in Ashkelon, Tel Aviv and Israeli West Jerusalem? What if a Lebanese fighter aircraft bombed Ben Gurion airport? What if a Lebanese plane destroyed 26 road bridges across Israel? Would it not be called "terrorism"? I rather think it would. But if Israel was the victim, it would also probably be Word War Three.

Of course, Lebanon cannot attack Tel Aviv. Its air force comprises three ancient Hawker Hunters and an equally ancient fleet of Vietnam-era Huey helicopters. Syria, however, has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv. So Syria - which Israel rightly believes to be behind Wednesday's Hizbollah attack is not going to be bombed. It is Lebanon which must be punished.

The Israeli leadership intends to "break" the Hizbollah and destroy its "terrorist cancer". Really? Do the Israelis really believe they can "break" one of the toughest guerrilla armies in the world? And how?

There are real issues here. Under UN Security Council Resolution 1559 - the same resolution that got the Syrian army out of Lebanon - the Shia Muslim Hizbollah should have been disarmed. They were not because, if the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, had tried to do so, the Lebanese army would have had to fight them and the army would almost certainly broken apart because most Lebanese soldiers are Shia Muslims. We could see the restarting of the civil war in Lebanon - a fact which Nasrallah is cynically aware of - but attempts by Siniora and his cabinet colleagues to find a new role for Hizbollah, which has a minister in the government (he is Minister of Labour) foundered. And the greatest now is that the Lebanese government will collapse and be replaced by a pro-Syrian government which could re-invite the Syrians back into the country.

So there's a real conundrum to be solved. But it's not going to succeed with the mass bombing of the country by Israel. Not the obsession with terrorists, terrorists, terrorists.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle14000.htm

[Fedayeen]

Re: War in The Middle East

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3252642434022358005&q=paul+findley