Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah Cannot Refuse?

Part II: Why the Bush administration wants to negotiate now with Hezbollah

Franklin Lamb,
Dahiyeh

“These fools do not learn from their past mistakes. When they withdrew from Lebanon, they continued to occupy the Shebaa Farms and kept our brothers in custody. Had they released them when they left Lebanon, there would not now be a ‘prisoner issue’ between Lebanon and the enemy. They opened the door for us.”
– Hassan Nasrallah, January 2004, during a welcome home ceremony for Lebanese and Arab detainees as a result of a Hezbollah-Israel swap.

Creating the proper atmosphere to do ‘business’

As discussed below, and contrary to conventional wisdom, the Bush administration is prepared to concede that Hezbollah keep its weapons. Even though it encourages its marionettes to foment this issue, and does so itself publicly, the Bush Administration knows that Hezbollah is not going to disarm until the Question of Palestine is settled to the satisfaction of the Palestinians. Yet it feels that focusing on Hezbollah’s militia is still a good pre-negotiation bargaining chip. Read the rest of this entry »

————————————–

Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah cannot refuse?

Part I: Historical context and current posturing

Franklin Lamb,

Dahiyeh

“The Bush administration parking a flotilla from its US 6th fleet off the coast of Lebanon was made necessary, it claims, to demonstrate Washington’s ‘commitment to stability in the region’. This provocation, aimed at Hezbollah and also Syria, is the equivalent of a Sicilian fish wrapped in newspaper with a white rose—left on a doorstep: “This is business. It is not personal. Here is an offer you cannot refuse“.

– Italian officer seconded to UNIFIL outside his Tebnine HQ, South Lebanon

Background to the Offer: the writing on the wall

Recent US back channel feelers to Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah’s decision makers are sometimes present, reflect US calculations that given current trends in the Middle East, Hezbollah will play a major regional role.

According to US Senate Intelligence Committee sources, the efforts to date have run tepid and less ‘qualitative’ than informal Iran-USA contacts. US diplomat Thomas Pickering has revealed that he has been a participant in secret Iran-US ‘back channel’ discussions for the past five years. The subjects discussed include Iran’s nuclear program, the broader relationship between the two and US relations with Hezbollah. Other participants include former US diplomat William Luers and MIT nuclear expert Jim Walsh. While “unofficial”, the discussions, organized by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the UN Association of the USA, are thought to be useful.

Dismissive of Republican Presidential candidate John McCain’s pledge to “drive Hezbollah out of Lebanon”, serious US officials want to engage the Lebanese Resistance partly because they are concerned with Israel remaining a Jewish state in the region. Read the rest of this entry »

Investigative reporting hits the mark from within the corporate mainstream media: a NYTimes report on how the compliant media companies spins the media by reproducing the Administration’s own talking points; David Barstow examines primary source documents detailing the Pentagon’s response to criticism of then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld by a group of prominent retired generals. Could this possibly signal that sections of the establishment are furnishing a basis for the US military to finally withdraw from Iraq?

The Generals Revolt Part 1 (8 minutes)

Read the rest of this entry »

Anthony Arnove talks to Dahr Jamail, author of Beyond the Green Zone, at the Winter Soldier hearings in Silver Spring MD in a very worthwhile view (14 minutes).

See also this inspiring 2 minute clip of an Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) action at the National Archives Building: Read the rest of this entry »

Al Jazeera has produced a few programs recently that engage with the topic of the Israel Lobby; the Inside Iraq program features a short debate between John Mearsheimer and Norman Finkelstein; Frontline America also recently examined the influence of the Israel Lobby on Capitol Hill.

Inside Iraq - Motives for war - 04 April 08

Inside Iraq examines the ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ reasons the US invaded Iraq.

Part 1 (12.09)

Read the rest of this entry »

Some time-pressed picks and recommended reads on this reprehensible fifth anniversary of the US neocon-led invasion. Cartoon credit: Carlos Latuff, Iraq war: Five Years

• Salon Iraq Roundtable, Robbing the cradle of civilization, five years later

• Jim Lobe, Reasons Revisited: Why Did the U.S. Invade Iraq?

• Dahr Jamail, Five Years, And Counting

• Patrick Cockburn, This is the war that started with lies, and continues with lie after lie after lie

• DN!, Half a Decade of War: Five Years After Iraq Invasion, Soldiers Testify at Winter Soldier Hearings

• Juan Cole, Five years of Iraq lies

• John Ross, What Do We Owe Iraq?

• Seamus Milne, There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy

• Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, ‘We live in a nightmare. Death and carnage is everywhere’ Ali, Baghdad resident Read the rest of this entry »

(Sgt Don L Maes/AFP/Getty Images)

The Welch Club ups the ante in Lebanon

Bush dispatches a flotilla to the Eastern Mediterranean

by Franklin Lamb

Ein el Helwe Palestinian Refugee Camp
Sidon, Lebanon

By this observer’s count there are no fewer than 8, and perhaps half again that number, of Al-Qaeda inspired, Salafist orientated groups now organizing and operating in Lebanon. Most are represented in one form or another in Ein el Helwe, the largest of Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian Refugee Camps. Teenagers appear to be among their most ardent supporters.

These Islamist groups secretly organize and operate in this and other camps, for the same reason Bill Clinton messed with Ms. Monica Lewinsky: “Because I could”, as Bill finally owned up, when his denials fueled comedy on late night TV. Read the rest of this entry »

Though choosing and upholding a single piece from all of last year would be too difficult from such a fertile field of good writing, I recently revisited this short article penned by author, historian and travel writer William Dalrymple in October, ‘A lesson in humility for the smug West’, one of my picks from 2007. This piece represents one of the central themes and messages of his work, that of fruitful cross-fertilisation and interdependency between ‘civilisations.’

A list of selected articles from Dalrymple is appended.

A lesson in humility for the smug West

Many of the western values we think of as superior came from the East and our blind arrogance hurts our standing in the world

William Dalrymple | The Times | 14 October 2007

About 100 miles south of Delhi, where I live, lie the ruins of the Mughal capital, Fateh-pur Sikri. This was built by the Emperor Akbar at the end of the 16th century. Here Akbar would listen carefully as philosophers, mystics and holy men of different faiths debated the merits of their different beliefs in what is the earliest known experiment in formal inter-religious dialogue.

Representatives of Muslims (Sunni and Shi’ite as well as Sufi), Hindus (followers of Shiva and Vishnu as well as Hindu atheists), Christians, Jains, Jews, Buddhists and Zoroastrians came together to discuss where they differed and how they could live together. Read the rest of this entry »

Thank you, Matt Howard, for courageously speaking up and speaking out against abuses in Iraq. Matt attained the rank of corporal in the United States Marine Corps and is head of the Vermont chapter for Iraq Veterans Against the War. He gave this statement at a recent protest at the Statehouse. The International Red Cross has just released a report entitled Humanitarian Tragedy In Iraq, detailing how at least 375,000 people have gone missing: the tip of the human rights crisis iceberg.

Iraq war is a betrayal of American democracy | Rutland Herald | November 11, 2007

In 2003 I illegally invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq with 1st Tank battalion 1st Marine Division. My commander in chief unleashed the world’s fiercest fighting force upon the country and people of Iraq, and now those of us used and betrayed by him are demanding justice.

Four and a half years after our opening “shock and awe” Bush’s lies are known throughout the world, and yet he continues to act with impunity. Four and a half years later the Bush regime has unleashed a hell upon the country of Iraq that only those who have been there can truly understand.

As a two-tour combat veteran of this brutal war, I have a responsibility to speak honestly and openly about what has been done and what continues to be done in our name. We veterans know that this war is not the one being sanitized on the nightly news. It has nothing to do with the liberation of the people of Iraq; instead it has everything to do with the subjugation and domination of these people in the name of U.S. imperial economic and strategic interests.

We did not go to war with the country of Iraq, we went to war with the people of Iraq. During the initial invasion we killed women. We killed children. We senselessly killed farm animals. We were the United States Marine Corps, not the Peace Corps, and we left a swath of death and destruction in our wake all the way to Baghdad.

Let me say again so that there is no misunderstanding. I stand here today as a former U.S. Marine saying we are killing women and children in Iraq. This is the true nature of war. War lends itself to atrocities. Don’t think you can use an organization designed to kill other human beings for anything humanitarian. That has never been our mission. That was crystal clear from the moment I was forced to bury the crate of humanitarian food given to me in Kuwait. Read the rest of this entry »

See also:

• Meeting Resistance home page
• Iraq’s Wounded: Photo Essay with captions of their stories
• Democracy Now interview with Meeting Resistance film-makers, Molly Bingham and Steve Connors.

TRAILER

CLIP FROM THE MOVIE

More refreshing plain-speaking from Paul Craig Roberts (excerpted):

… Bush’s private Waffen SS known as Blackwater has taken to gunning Iraqi civilians down in the streets. How do Blackwater and Custer Battles killers escape the “unlawful combatant” designation?

One can only marvel at the insouciance of the US Congress to the current Iraqi Genocide while condemning Turkey for one that happened 90 years ago.

People seldom see the beam in their own eye, only the mote in the eyes of others. Every member of the Bush Regime is busily at work denouncing Iran for causing instability in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the US has invaded two countries, throwing them into total chaos, while beating the drums for war with Iran and conspiring with Israel to invade Lebanon and to attack Syria.

The indisputable facts are that the US and Israel have attacked four Middle East countries and are determined to attack a fifth. Yet, it is peaceful Iran, at war with no one, that Bush and Israel blame for causing instability in the Middle East.

Not content with its many wars in the Middle East, the Bush Regime is sponsoring wars in Africa and is setting up an African Command. The US government has been bombing and attacking other countries ever since the cold war ended. Instead of peace, the gang in Washington DC chose war.

Other than the Israel Lobby, the greatest supporters of Bush’s wars are Christian evangelicals, specifically the “rapture evangelicals” and the “Christian Zionists.”

I remember when Christianity was about saving one’s soul. Today it is about bringing on Armageddon. While the various evangelical Christians preach war in the Middle East, they condemn Islam for being a “warlike religion.” Read the rest of this entry »

Mondoweiss, via the Fanonite, is calling it the Walt and Mearsheimer perestroika — some overdue restructuring coming about in tandem with greater glasnost about the flagrantly hawkish role and financial clout wielded by a group of unrepresentative American Jews, as crystallised in key Lobby groups. In this case the “openness” comes from Sy Hersh in a comment made in the last seconds of a Democracy Now interview this week (see video clips below). Philip Weiss writes:

This is a significant moment. Hersh is a wild man, wild and brilliant. Yet in all his anti-Bush and -Cheney interviews about Iraq over the last few years, I’ve heard him talk code on this issue. He’s attacked the neoconservatives as a crazy band of thinkers; but he’s never put the blame fully where it belongs–on a broader segment of the Jewish community that has immunized the neocons from blame for the war, on the Israel lobby, which includes many Democrats too. Now he’s done so (though apparently not in the New Yorker, which regards Walt and Mearsheimer as fueling hysteria).

This is a beautiful moment, too. Hersh is a progressive Jew. Now he is turning on other Jews. “New York Jewish money,” he says. The soulsearching that I have called for within the Jewish community has begun …

This is what the cause for applause is: after being showed a clip of Hillary Clinton being told off by fellow Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel comes Hersh’s admission that her hawkish position on Iran is shaped by New York Jewish money — something Wesley Clark got into trouble last year when he told Arianna Huffington that “You just have to read what’s in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided, but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office-seekers.”

AMY GOODMAN: [after short clip] That was Hillary Clinton laughing. Fifteen seconds, Seymour Hersh. Your response?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Money. A lot of the Jewish money from New York. Come on, let’s not kid about it. A significant percentage of Jewish money, and many leading American Jews support the Israeli position that Iran is an existential threat. And I think it’s as simple as that. When you’re from New York and from New York City, you take the view of — right now, when you’re running a campaign, you follow that line. And there’s no other explanation for it, because she’s smart enough to know the downside.

Read in full. Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATED LINKS 

A compelling video reportedly from the Iraqi Resistance group 1920, inasmuch as anyone can vouch for the veracity of its provenance.

Entitled Hidden Facts, it is produced by the Media Bureau of the 1920 Revolution Brigades كتائب ثورة العشرين, the narration is in English and it runs for 16 minutes.

The video transcript follows after the fold (available here in English and Arabic). Video also available at YouTube: Part 1 and Part 2.

Read the rest of this entry »

I present Hersh’s latest New Yorker article in full here not because I treat his articles as gospel — one should always treat every piece, especially those who purport to have insider knowledge, critically — but because of the salient facts and administration ‘mood’ gleaned from the following.

Shifting Targets: The Administration’s plan for Iran

Seymour M. Hersh
October 8, 2007 edition of The New Yorker

ILLUSTRATION: GUY BILLOUT

In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran.

“Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people,” Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in August. “The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased. . . . The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And, until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops.” He then concluded, to applause, “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.”

The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.

The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq. Read the rest of this entry »