Category Archives: Lebanon

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Lebanon, Libya, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy

Oh Oh Lockerbie, and STL of Lebanon, and Tony Blair, and the Fab Four………

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“Four U.S. senators visiting Libya say they talked to the country’s new rulers about the need for justice in the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing. The four are part of the highest-ranking American delegation to travel to Tripoli since Moammar Gadhafi was ousted last month. Libya was implicated in the bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people, many of them Americans. Scotland has asked the new transitional leaders of Libya for help tracking down those responsible now that Gadhafi is no longer in power. Sen. John McCain of Arizona said Thursday he is confident the new Libyan government will help. “We’d like to know who else was connected with this”…….….”

These four senators are ‘an item’ now. Let’s call them the unfabulous Fab Four.
I can tell him who was involved. At least two Western governments, only one of them British. Several Western corporations and major banks. Many two or three faced politicians who feigned concern for the victims of Lockerbie and their families while winking and nodding at the deal the British government made with Libya. Then there is Tony: just follow your nose. Tony the Poodle Blair, the one man “have bank account, will travel; no deal is beneath me” show.
Not that I am convinced anymore that Mr. al-Megrahi was the perpetrator. These “international” investigations and courts sometimes have methods and ways that are not kosher (in almost any religion). Not always, but sometimes. Look how they truly fucked up the STL Hariri investigation of Lebanon: most Lebanese don’t believe that they did an honest non-political investigation, nor do I, nor does any other half-wit who has followed the case. Most also think they and their “findings” are irrelevant now: most except for the March 14 in Lebanon and a gaggle of Saudi Gulf journalists.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Politics, Hezbollah, Iraq, Lebanon, Muqtada al-Sadr

Iraq: Muqtada al-Sadr on the Hezbollah Trail…….

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“The men, once members of the Mahdi Army, the militia of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, fought the Americans in the first years of the occupation and say they will again if Mr. Sadr gives the order. But for now they have come to wage a different battle in the ranks of the Mumahidoon, the successor to the Mahdi Army that, besides offering its members lessons in the Koran, organizes soccer teams, provides circumcision for the babies of poor families, picks up trash after religious pilgrimages and teaches computer literacy. On the eve of what is likely to be a nearly complete withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq, one of the great questions is what Mr. Sadr is going to do. The Mumahidoon is one possible direction. Created after Mr. Sadr disbanded the Mahdi Army in 2008, it is a lesser-known spoke of an Islamist movement that, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and in the West Bank, has used political, military and social arms — with financial support from Iran — to galvanize a Shiite underclass and stake out a prominent role in public life………….”

Muqtada al-Sadr seems to be moving on the trail first blazed by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Years ago, while the potentates and the elite warlords in Beirut were busy looking after their own interests, with the traditional Shi’a politicians doing the same thing, Hezbollah emerged quickly on the heels of Amal. Hezbollah, and Amal, filled a role the Lebanese government had never cared to fill: it provided education, health care, and social services to the neglected poor of southern Lebanon and increasingly to the inhabitants of south Beirut. Both groups together now represent a plurality of Lebanese. The Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon further strengthened Hezbollah with volunteers, as did the inflow of Iranian money.

Hamas, on the other end of the spectrum of Islamic fundamentalism, the Sunni end, did almost the same thing. While the Fatah kleptocrats in Ramallah were fighting over the division of foreign aid among themselves, Hamas provided many of the services the PA was supposed to provide, and ended up winning the last Palestinian elections.

Now the Sadrists clearly see a need that is neglected by the warring and grasping politicians in Baghdad. If they continue on this path, the Sadrists will control the city of Baghdad, if not in name then in every other way that counts. They will not have the distraction of a border conflict with Israel.
Cheers
mhg


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Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon

A Song of Lebanon: Oh Cluster Bombs, Oh Cluster Bombs…………..

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“Lebanese Army General Mohammad Fahmy, chairman of the Lebanese Mine Action Center, knows by heart the names and types of cluster bombs and landmines scattered across southern Lebanon. They have killed over 3000 Lebanese. Since Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon, Fahmy has realized that the road to clearing the country from these weapons is a going to be a long and winding one………. Even though we have not yet achieved what we aspire to, we have made much progress in the past five years. At the very least, we are now able to give an approximate date for the completion of land clearance. We have worked for years to identify contaminated areas and have drawn up a comprehensive technical survey. We have divided the land into 1,277 sectors, of which 815 have been cleared so far. We prioritized areas of social and economic value for obvious reasons. The estimated number of landmines is 400,000. …………”

They were dropped over ‘select’ parts of Lebanon, mainly in the south, and over ‘select’ parts of Beirut, mainly the Southern Suburb. They were clearly aimed at the Shi’a (Shi’ite) population centers exclusively, with a couple of forays into other areas just as warnings. The goal was to keep the Hariri and Phalange base content, as well as some of the Arab oligarchs (al Saud, Mubarak) who openly sided against the Lebanese. That was when Condi Rice stated that the explosions and screams were the “birth pangs of the New Middle East”. Of course she was wrong, and if there is a new Middle East it will not be created with cluster bombs. A new Middle East is in the process of being created now, with the people in the streets taking back their usurped rights from the despots, be they dictators or absolute kings.
Cheers
mhg


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Al-Qaeda, Islamophobia, Lebanon, Middle East, Muslims, Racism, Religion, WTF

United States of Paranoia? Imported Baggage, “Native” Baggage, Pakistani Beaver Hunters……………..

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“Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, America’s Muslims have become the country’s internal enemy. Conservative forces have seized upon the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” as a rallying point. Amid all the hate, Americans have lost sight of the real problem: the fact that their country has become paranoid………. Indeed, Gabriel, who emigrated to the US years ago from Lebanon, is America’s siren on all things Islamophobic……… Gabriel’s position can be summarized as follows: The US is suffering from terminal cancer and is infected with rampant Islamist cells that are eating away at the country, its liberties and its constitution. “Our enemy,” writes Gabriel, “is not an organization of people living overseas plotting to attack. Our enemies are the neighbors next door, the doctors practicing in our hospitals, and the workers who share our lunch break. Our enemies are terrorists driven by a dangerous ideology and clothed in deception who operate under cover and laugh about the advantages our sensitivity training, gullibility, and political correctness give them.” Some 300,000 copies of Gabriel’s first book, which contains these sentences, have been distributed. TV stations now set aside ample airtime for her and her ideas. She has been invited to give presentations to US Senate committees, the FBI, the US Special Operations Command, the Joint Forces Staff College, the Republican Party, the Tea Party movement and Christian conferences…………….”

This Lebanese right-wing chick represents the imported half of American paranoia. She arrives on these shores (well, lands at an airport) with more than one kind of baggage. We all do so, or most of us who arrive from our baggage-rich Middle East. We carry our racial, ethnic, sectarian, and historical prejudices and sometimes hatreds. Whether we come to settle, to study, to medicate, or just to visit. Most of us move on “into America”. Some of us hang on to the old baggage, urged on by ongoing events back home. You can see, hear, and read our baggage, our sectarian and confessional and ethnic prejudices, in our actions and our statements (and our blogs, like this one). That applies to many of us, to this lady and to me, but to different degrees. It seems she is re-fighting a lost Lebanese civil war, re-fighting a lost demographic war, living a Lebanon that did not exist for most Lebanese outside the capital region. But that was a war that also pitted Muslims against Muslims and Christians against Christians. It was a war of the warlords and before it ended it gave birth to Hezbollah.

Besides, there are many benefits to doing the right-wing talk and conference circuit: Sarah Palin isn’t doing bad on the circuit, nor is Glenn Beck and many others who peddle fear-mongering to simple worried folks. Fear-mongering is the gold rush of these people and they have discovered their own mother lode and are milking it for all its worth.

Remember
that old commercial for Salem cigarettes that said “You can take Salem out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of Salem”? We are like that Salem cigarette. Sometimes the baggage and the ghosts await a new generation to throw them in the dumpster.

(Okay,
 that was our excuse, but what is behind all these crazy native Americans going paranoid? And I don’t mean “real” native Americans; just the new arrivals of the past three centuries. It takes many born natives to create this mad frenzy and fear by millions of a few hundred ragtag shaggy mountain men, dare I say beaver trappers, in the allied states of Pakistan and Afghanistan.)
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey

Syria and Iraq and the Arabs: the New Iranian-Turkish Regional Rivalry………….

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“President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls for dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition and urges the government to respect people’s rights. “We are of the opinion that that nations and governments should resolve their problems with each other (through dialogue),” Ahmadinejad tells Portugal’s Radiotelevisao Portuguesa when asked about Iran’s position toward uprisings in Syria. Ahmadinejad adds, “Governments and nations should respect rights and freedom.”……….” Mehr News Agency (Iran)

“Iran criticizes Turkey for agreeing to host NATO’s missile defense system, saying Iran does not expect Turkey as a neighbor and friendly country to adopt policies that would create tension in the region. “We expect our friendly countries and neighbors to show more vigilance and by considering the region’s security interests do not pave the way for policies that create tension that will definitely lead to ‘complicated consequences’,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast says. Turkey has recently agreed to host an early warning radar as part of NATO’s missile defense system which is allegedly aimed to counter missile threats by Iran. Mehmanparast says Iran believes the deployment radar system in Turkey will not serve “regional stability and security” even for the host country……….” Mehr News Agency

These two news items from Iran reflect newly reshuffled cards in the game of musical chairs in our region. There is no doubt now that the Iranians are bracing for change in Syria. Even if the protests in Syrian cities are crushed, regimes like the Ba’ath one in Syria are considered an anomaly now (as are other regimes, but that is for another post). Change is coming and not just in Syria, but whether it is ‘change you can believe in’ depends on your view and your politics.
The Iranians have looked at the players in Syria and probably decided to get ready for any eventuality. It is likely that they have decided to adopt their own Syrian faction: everyone else seems to have their own “Islamist” factions in Syria these days. Sect is not an issue when it comes to politics: the Iranian mullahs are not as ‘pure’ as the Wahhabi potentates in Saudi Arabia, or maybe they can’t afford to be that pure given the demographics of most countries in the region by sect. They may be getting ready to throw the secular Ba’ath regime under the bus, hoping for another “Hamas”. What favors this tack is that the mullahs also know that they have one important card in Syria no matter who comes to power in Damascus: the Golan Heights. The Likud or Kadima will never give up the Golan, which means any new Damascus regime will probably keep its Iranian (and hence its Lebanese) options open. The Iranians invented the game of chess and that is how they play the regional politics, yet they are not immune to the unrest.
Then there is Turkey, which had been sympathetic to the Iranian position on the nuclear issue. Until now. The Arab Spring has reshuffled the regional cards and created new opportunities, and it is not done yet. Silent and latent rivalries, dating back to the Persian-Ottoman struggle over Arab territories like Iraq, are warming up. This is exacerbated by the total paralysis of the Arab system and the inability of the Arab oligarchs to shape events in the region. Despite the billions spent on weapons and on international networking, the region’s fate is still determined by three non-Arab parties and the West. Egypt may regain its pre-Mubarak role as a major regional player, as “the” Arab player, but that depends on how things develop in Cairo. The Iranian-Turkish rivalry in Iraq is more commercial than political since the Iranians seem to have an overwhelming political and cultural and geographic advantage. The Iranian hand in Iraq has been strengthened by the loud disapproval of some Arab regimes of the new order in Iraq.
Syria is another matter: it is a smaller and poorer country. But Syria also has its own issue with Turkey: the small region of Alexandretta that the Syrians claim should be theirs.
When the dust settles on this new Arab Spring, and that may be a few years from now, what we shall see will most likely be quite different from what we now expect. This also includes developments inside Iran.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia

Petro- Elections of Pakistan and Elsewhere……..

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“KARACHI: ISI asked Saudi Arabia not to fund Nawaz Sharif for his election campaign, a secret cable of 2008 revealed. According to WikiLeaks, National Security Adviser Tariq Aziz told Asif Zardari that after being elected as a prime minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi could challenge his authority, as Zardari was considering Qureshi as a PPP candidate for prime minister. Aziz told US Ambassador Anne Patterson on February 15 that Saudi Arabia has provided heavy funds to Nawaz Sharif for his election campaign in order to defeat Pakistan Peoples’ Party. In the same meeting, he also told Patterson that ISI requested Saudi Ambassador to stop funding Nawaz Sharif. ………..” Pakistan is a huge country, population wise. The Saudis must have spent multiple what they spent (and still do) in Lebanon and Iraq and other places for election and coup campaigns. Reports indicate they outspent the Iranians, actually swamped them, in terms of spending in the last Lebanese elections (they did get to control the parliament, briefly). I bet they will have to spend much more in Egypt in the coming elections. Then there is Libya, whenever it ever gets to elections (NTC promises to hold them in 2013), and Syria if it ever gets to having elections. Of course there is still Saudi Arabia (aka Arabian Peninsula): if they ever decide to hold opsn elections, sometime on the other side of doomsday……
Cheers
mhg


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Al-Qaeda, Arab Politics, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Syria

Al Qaeda in Lebanon: Who Killed Hariri? Who Really Knows? Who Really Cares?…………

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“In focusing entirely on the alleged links between four Hezbollah activists and the 2005 bombing that killed Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the indictment issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon earlier this month has continued the practice of the U.N investigation before it of refusing to acknowledge the much stronger evidence that an Al-Qaeda cell was responsible for the assassination. Several members of an Al-Qaeda cell confessed in 2006 to having carried out the crime, but later recanted their confessions, claiming they were tortured. However, the transcript of one of the interrogations, which was published by a Beirut newspaper in 2007, shows that the testimony was being provided without coercion and that it suggested that Al-Qaeda had indeed ordered the assassination. But the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC) was determined to pin the crime either on Syria or its Lebanese ally Hezbollah and refused to pursue the Al-Qaeda angle…………”

An interesting angle introduced about the Hariri assassination. This adds yet more “parties of interest” to the whole tedious boring saga. Let’s see what we have now:


  • Originally Syria was accused and convicted in (some) media of the assassination in 2005. That created pressure on the Syrian regime to evacuate its forces from Lebanon (they had overstayed their welcome anyway). For some time the Syrian angle was the one pushed by the March 14 right-wing Lebanese bloc and by the Saudi and Israeli and Western media. Hariri allies went all over Western media swearing that the Syrians were behind the assassinations.
  •  
  • In 2006 the war between Israel and Lebanon (actually Hezbollah) erupted. The Israelis, who usually trounce regular Arab armies easily, were humiliated for the second time in six years by an Arab guerrilla army.

  • The West started to cozy up to the Assad regime in Syria in recent years (before the Arab Spring and Summer). The Saudi King visited Damascus and he and Assad flew together into Beirut.  They looked almost sweet together.

  • Lo and behold, suddenly news leaked that in fact it was not Syria that was being suspected, not anymore. It was Hezbollah or more accurately some Hezbollah officials who were suspected of the assassination of Hariri. Some reports in Middle East right-wing media even threw in the names of Iranian leaders like Khamenei and others as possible suspects.

  • Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah hinted, nay strongly suggested, that the Israelis may have been behind the assassination. He noted that Israel stood to gain the most from it (getting the Syrians out of Lebanon, dividing the Lebanese, dividing the Arabs to the extent that some regimes supported Israel in the war of 2006).

  • Now al-Qaeda is being introduced as yet another suspect.

  • Most Lebanese seem to have lost faith in the Hariri tribunal and think, probably quite rightly, that it is being used as a political tool. Now where would they get this idea?

  • Most Arabs, those who care at all, look at the tribunal through the prism of their own political (and sectarian) inclinations. These are the Arabs of the East, of the Asian side: Lebanon, Syria, and the Gulf GCC states. These are the Arab regions were sectarian passions are strong.

  • The other Arabs (Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, North Africa, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti) don’t give a rat’s ass about the whole Hariri STL thing.

  • Who killed Hariri and so many others who were nearby in 2005? I haven’t the foggiest idea. But I do suspect one thing: the STL tribunal may not know anymore than I do. Possibly only the killers know.
  • (No, Hugo Chavez had nothing to do with it).

Cheers
mhg


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Lebanon

Lebanon’s Hariri Chooses Paris over Riyadh………….

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“One week after Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced his new Hizbullah-dominated cabinet, Lebanon’s opposition is already feeling menaced by the country’s new leadership and its Syrian ally. Saad Hariri, the previous prime minister and leader of the pro-West March 14 Alliance, fled the country nearly two months ago following an attempted car bomb assassination on him, the French daily Libération reported on Monday. Hariri has been hiding in Paris after being informed by American and Saudi intelligence agencies that his life was in real danger in Lebanon, the daily claimed…….”

So the prime minister of Lebanon, at the time, escaped to live in Paris for a couple of months, leaving the country to its own devices. Never heard of ahead of government fleeing the country he runs for fear of assassination (his father was out of office when he was assassinated). If he feared for his life, why not resign in protest? Why not move to Riyadh where he has homes as well, and is always welcome and is certainly better protected? I have some doubt about this Jerusalem Post report. No doubt even if the Syrian side entertained any idea of assassinating this Hariri, they would be afraid of international retribution. That would have been the last straw, and it would give the West a casus belli to restructure Lebanese politics by force, as they are doing in Libya and probably wish to do in Syria.
Cheers
mhg


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Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon

Pro-Saudi Lebanese Shi’a Cleric Charged as Israeli Spy……….

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“News agencies have named Mohamed Ali al-Husseini as the suspect, but the authorities have not officially confirmed his identity. Sheikh al-Husseini is known to be critical of Hezbollah, the Syrian-backed Shia militia and movement. Several prominent Lebanese figures have been arrested over the last two years, accused of being spies for Israel. The suspect was picked up at his home in the city of Tyre, in the south of the country, report said. He leads an organisation called the Arab-Islamic Resistance . ……”

““Military intelligence officers last Saturday arrested the head of the Arab Islamic Council Mohammed Ali al-Husseini on charges he was conspiring with the Israeli enemy,” the National News Agency reported. Husseini, a Shiite cleric known for his staunch opposition to Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, was arrested during an army raid on his home in the southern coastal city of Tyre, it said. The Arab Islamic Council is a small group of Shiite Muslims whose aim is to “reclaim Shiite decision-making from those who have hijacked it in the name of our confession,” or Hezbollah, according to its mission statement……….”

This cleric Mohamed Ali al-Husseini is a regular guest on Saudi television channels, especially the semi-official Alarabiya. His writings have also been all over Saudi semi-official newspapers like Asharq Alawsat. He was widely known to have been financed by the al-Saud, he and his ragtag organization. He is a severe critic of Hezbollah and an advocate of the House of al-Saud. The Saudis, and by extension some elements in the USA, were promoting him as the Shi’a alternative to Hezbollah or Amal (actually both) in Lebanon.
I have repeatedly told in this blog that he was a hopeless case: hardly any Shi’a in Lebanon would listen to him: I suspected that even some of his “followers” took the Saudi money and voted for Amal or Hezbollah. He himself and Saudi media and some Gulf media used to call him the “Religious and/or Political Guide of Arab Shi’as”. Even the al-Khalifa of Bahrain invited him to the country last February or March on the idiotic assumption that the people of Bahrain would listen to him. I wrote last year that if this guy runs in a Lebanese election he might get a handful of votes and that even his own wife may not be among them.
Apparently the Lebanese reportedly have been gathering evidence against him as an Israeli spy. The plot thickens: an al-Saud ally who spies for Israel. Who would have thunk it?
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia

Hariri Family Affairs: of Saudi Masters and Money Troubles………

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Al-akhbar daily (Lebanese secular and liberal) reports that the management of the Arab Bank have refused to confirm or deny reports that outgoing PM Sa’ad Hariri is selling part of his share in the bank to former PM, and Hariri aide, Fouad Saniora. The newspaper cites knowledgeable banking sources that this is true. It notes that Mr. Hariri, a billionaire, is facing liquidity problems after suffering heavy business losses, to the extent that he is facing some difficulty making loan payments in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Al-akhbar reports that his liquidity problems are affecting his relationships with “influential Saudis”, usually a code word for al-Saud princes.
It reports that his difficulties extend to his own family relationships and that it came to light after his sister Hind could not deposit three checks issued by him for US$ 150 million as payment of part of her share from their father’s estate. There were apparently insufficient funds to cash them. The reports claims his huge firm, Saudi Oger has suffered US$ 3 billion in losses and that many “influential Saudis” are angry at him.
Mr. Hariri got into serious trouble with the family of the de facto Saudi ruler, Prince Nayed the Interior Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, etc etc, after calling prince Mohammed, his son and deputy, a “bloodthirsty butcher”. He seems to have lost some of his magic to the Saudis, whose nationality he holds.
Cheers
mhg


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