Showdown at the Levantine Corral

http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/OPED/11-2006/Article-20061116-f0fb0c35-c0a8-10ed-01a4-77dff3ba1d17/story.html

Isn't this just more the same BS we've always seen in Lebanon?
Yeah, except now it's nuclear-powered BS and Iran is flush with oil dollars.
Brings REM to mind: "It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fiiiiiine."

Divided loyalties amonst the Lebanese still abound and nothing has really changed since Lebanon was a set of city states called Phoenecia (when these cities competed with each other by backing external powers like Persia (them again?!) or Egypt or the Hittites), or when Lebanon was in the midst of a collapsing Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century (when various Lebanese groups backed external powers like France or Prussia or Great Britain)...

So now it's Israel, Iran and the US... big whup... how unoriginal...

History tells us that the Lebanese will eat sh** for some time (while some profit handsomely from the incoming petrodollars from Iran and Saudi) and then take a short breather and move on to the next squabble.

No biggie. Really.

War Pollution Isn't All in Your Heads

"Thanks" to the Israeli bombing of the Beirut fuel depots, we have a new ecological disaster on our hands in the Eastern Mediterranean...

Click on individual pictures to expand.

Edde Sands Beach in Jbeil (Byblos)

Ramlet el Bayda Beach in Beirut (not far from the AUB campus)

The port of Jbeil (Byblos)

Apologies to George Lucas

Bashar "the Beesie" Assad accused the Cedar Revolution of causing the latest war because they "incited strife by asking Hizballah to disarm". (link)

Hassan Nasrallah vows that HA "would not be disarmed by force" by either the Lebanese Army or the UN. (link)

Y'all getting the message?
It ain't over 'til the Sith Empire (a.k.a. Iran/Syria) and Darth Vader (a.k.a. Nasrallah) say so.

Ceasefire, my ass.

PS: For you non-Lebanese, "Beesie" means "little kitty"

Hersh Watching Lebanon

Famed investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, has a very interesting article.
He alleges (from his sources) that Israel had told the US much ahead of time of its intention to attack Hizballah by air and that the US was studying this campaign in order to better evaluate a similar option it wanted in attacking Iran. HA supposedly gave Israel the excuse by staging their cross-border attack and kidnapping of 2 IDF soldiers. And the rest, as we know, is history (repeating itself).

His story is intriguiging, and may not be totally off-the-mark (wow! Israel and the US administration are friends!), but Hersh is known for being a bit of a sensationalist.

Hersh is an interesting guy because even though his biases tend to run Liberal (Richard Perle has called him a "terrorist" on CNN!), he's targeted both Conservatives and Liberals in his books and articles. For example, he wrote about Reagan allowing Pakistan to illegally arm itself with nuclear weapons which almost led to an all-out nuclear war with India and he also wrote about a corruption-laden (kinda Mafia-like) John F. Kennedy. Reagan and JFK are idolized within their respective followings and both Conservatives and Liberals have heavily derided Hersh in public.

For what it's worth (and it's a little long), this is a link to his article: here.

Bob Takes on Israel & Hizballah

From Bob the Angry Flower
Website at: http://www.angryflower.com

Click on the picture to expand it.

Hizballah's Media Machine

Controlling the media out of the South and the Dahiyeh (Beirut's southern suburbs) is a speciality of Hizballah (no surprises there).

Here is an write-up on someone's website with some proof of this (re: the Reuters photo scandal and others). You'll see some obvious photographic set-ups (in other words, fakeries). Basically, any reporter trying to cover these aforementioned areas in Lebanon, has to have Hizballah handlers with him/her and and is sometimes even given directions on how to take pictures by the militia. Shameful, but again, not surprising.

In any case, this behavior isn't limited to those partisans of God (is He rolling His eyes somewhere and shaking His head?). Wars have always been PR opportunities for the combating parties (cynical, I know). Over the last decade, wars have increasingly become media events, replete with over-the-top dramas, scandals, shocks and glossy visuals, and that trend will probably not diminish in time.

So You Want to Understand This Mess?

There's an excellent article by Michael Young (the opinion editor of The Daily Star, an English-language newspaper published in Beirut, and a contributing editor at Reason magazine) in the NY Times - linked below.

Although it's on the long-ish side, I highly recommend reading it. He provides excellent analysis and re-cap of what Lebanon's gone through in the last few years that led to this current mess... and why it might lead to a potential future mess too...

Hezbollah's Other War
By Michael Young

Israel Bombs Christian Heartland of Lebanon

Israel bombed bridges in the Christian area of Lebanon today, further isolating parts of the country from each other. If there's a strategic or military reason for this, I'd sure like to hear it!
I'm all for Israel disabling Hizballah - but this does not conform to that goal. Again, if I'm wrong on this point, someone please explain why.

This area is miles and miles away from the Lebanon-Israel border, does not in any way, shape or form support Hizballah and could've been counted on (before this mess) to be pro-Israeli even. It boggles my mind why they attacked that area (and killed half a dozen civilians in the process) - again: there are no Hizballah in Jounieh or Halat.

The one explaination I can think of is: Israel does not really care who in Lebanon are its enemies and who its friends are. They are lumping all the Lebanese in one bag.

Don't you just hate being labeled?

From Naharnet (sources AP-AFP-Naharnet):
"...for the first time, the strikes early hit the affluent Christian area of Jounieh north of Beirut. The bombing against the picturesque coastal resort marked a sharp expansion of Israel's attack on Lebanon, which now threatens Christian areas where Hizbullah has no support and no presence.

"The whole war, essentially, was bad but this, in the heartland of Christian Lebanon, is not clever politically," said a furious Camille Shamoun, an architect who lives in the hills above Jounieh. "Initially I was not supporting Hizbullah but I'm sure this will change public opinion dramatically," he added. " (emphasis mine).

The entire article can be found here.

Propaganda

From the AFP, Aug. 3rd 2006:
"On Thursday...Lebanese officials reduced the Qana toll to 28 dead, including 16 children".

This does not diminish the atrocity (that's 16 dead children too many), but we went from 52 dead/36 children to 28 dead/16 children?? I can't help but think that someone is using dead babies for propaganda, which really disgusts me.

Michel Aoun article in the WSJ

Link:
'History Will Judge Us All On Our Actions'
July 31, 2006; Page A10 of the Wall Street Journal

I keep trying to figure Aoun out.

In the late 1980's, in his wars against the Syrian army and the Lebanese Forces militia, he was immensely popular with most Christians (and others) in Lebanon who desperately wanted an end to Syrian hegemony and a return of a strong centralized government (as opposed to the fracticious militia-ruled country that Lebanon had become). After he was driven out by the Syrians in 1990, he escaped to France while his followers in Lebanon (the Free Patriotic Movement, or FPM) led the way - sometimes painfully alone - in demanding Syria to leave Lebanon. Aoun in the 1990's was a leader in lobbying his anti-Syrian stance in the West, especially in the USA. He continued to have a very strong base of support among Lebanon's Christians, both in Lebanon and abroad.

Aoun only returned to Lebanon after PM Rafiq Hariri was assasinated and the Syrian army was expelled in 2005. He then set about trying to re-enter political life, only to be rebuffed by many in the 'Cedar Revolution'. Aoun, for better or worse, did not compromise with these politicians (Jumblatt, Hariri, among others) and instead fixed himself as an "opposition leader". This further fragmented the political landscape in Beirut and earned Aoun a lot of ire and confused ex-followers, especially when he started consorting (politically) with pro-Syrian dwarfs like Franjieh and Karami, and most especially after he sat down and formed a memorandum-of-understanding (MOU) of sorts with Hizbollah (HA).

I've personally both admired and reviled the guy over the years - but I can say the same exact thing about Jumblatt, Hariri and Geagea. I've always seen HA as a threat to Lebanon, as I always felt that their loyalties did not lie with Lebanon (just like all the other war-time militias of Lebanon).

In the WSJ article, Aoun admiringly (although a little Pollyana-ishly) states:
"I ask, will other Arab countries and leaders have the courage to acknowledge that Israeli life is equal to Arab life? Will Israel have the courage as well to acknowledge that Lebanese life is equal to Israeli life, and that all life is priceless? I believe that most Israeli and Arab citizens would answer in the affirmative. Can we get their governments and their leaders to do the same?"

But then he lost me in explaining his MOU with HA. He says:
"We also agreed that...all Lebanese political groups should disengage themselves from regional conflicts and influences."

Aoun, didn't you see that you were making a deal with the devil? HA went ahead and did just what you thought they agreed not to do: they engaged (hell, they forced) themselves in dictating Lebanon's foreign policy and attacked Israel.

On the matter of his alienation with the "anti-Syrian" politicos in the Lebanese government (read: Hariri, Jumblatt, etc...), he quite correctly claims:
"Rather than help us to resolve the weapons issue peacefully and avoid the current agony our country is now enduring, the international community and Lebanese government flatly ignored the proposed solution. Many of Lebanon's main political players cast us aside as "pro-Syrian" "allies" of Hezbollah. No matter. These are the same individuals who -- only a year before -- branded me a "Zionist agent" and brought treason charges against me when I dared to testify before a Congressional subcommittee that Syria should end its occupation of my country."

So while Aoun can be a contradictory man, he nevertheless brings up two very salient points that I like: the Arab world and Israel need to view each other with more humanity, and Lebanon's current roster of politicians are ninnies (yeah, even Aoun).

My take?

1) The current HA/Israeli conflict was inevitable because HA doesn't give a second thought about what's "good for Lebanon". They take their cues from Iran and Syria anyway. I mean, what was Israel going to do with HA's continuing menace??? And, trust me, regardless of the emotional rhetoric you hear today, most Lebanese know and understand this.

2) Lebanon's fracticious, alienated, weak and sectarian government is its biggest failing and if addressed correctly, will solve 99% of the problems vis-a-vis Israel (eventual peace), Syria (deliniation of the border and prosperous and fair commercial ties), and the sectarian rift that continues to bleed the country dry and threaten a new civil war.

We need a new Rebuplic in Lebanon. This one has failed miserably.

My Lebanamerica

I hope to make this blog about my experiences with/in Lebanon and America, the two pillars of my identity.

I was born in Lebanon, but for the last 17 years, have made the USA my home. I lived through a good chunk of the Lebanese Civil War (1974-1990) and, like many others with the same experience, was forever marked and haunted by it. The latest troubles in Lebanon, preceeded by multiple assassinations, Syrio-Israeli-PLO-sectarian hegemony, Civil War, etc...etc... were the proverbial straw that broke my resistance to publish my thoughts here and try and be a voice of reason in the blogosphere amidst cries of desperation, anger, hatred and ignorance.

I am also a newly minted American citizen (finally!) and am really looking forward to voting - even in the mundane community races... Clearly my political stake in the US just went up a big notch and you can be sure I'll be pontificating on politics as well! ;)

So wish me luck.