The Change and Reform bloc backed-off their demand for the finance ministry and they will be getting public works, telecommunications, agriculture, power and the seat of vice premier. Hezballah will be getting 3 ministries (labor, youth and sports and a minister without portfolio) but as I heard, 2 of them will be given to a non-Hezballah minister inside the opposition. Amal will be getting 3 ministries (foreign, health and industry). This way, the opposition's 11 ministries have been known but the cabinet is not formed. Can we now blame February 14 alliance for blocking the formation of the cabinet?

The problems in their alliance is not simple but I won't consider it as blocking the formation of the government even though they could have agreed about it during the time negotiation was being done with the opposition.
On May 23, I wrote a thread in LebSpy about the problem that February 14 alliance will be facing and many people ignored the thread. Now, we're in the same problem. How many Christian ministers will Future Movement get? What about the Lebanese Forces? Qornet Shehwan? Progressive Socialist Party?

Today, Geagea said the Lebanese Forces and Qornet Shehwan would be represented in the new cabinet in line with their real popularity and role. So with a small calculation considering each have 6 MPs in the parliament, each will be getting 1.4 ministers. So I suppose; Lebanese Forces, Kataeb and Qornet Shehwan would get 1 each leaving 1 Christian ministry (most probably the refugee ministry) for PSP and the rest (4 Christian ministries) for Future Movement.
The question is will Geagea be satisfied with 1 ministry and consider that his real size? (as he claimed in his interview today).

updated: Cabinet finally constructed, check it here!

In a recorded tape that is being distributed on the Internet, Shaker El-Aabsi asked the Sunnite population to join him to fight against the Shiites. In the same tape, he also criticized MP Saad Hariri and the Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Saniora. He called them traitors and connected them with the American plan in the Middle East.

Some of the words he used are similar to words used by the Lebanese people (specially Future Movement supporters on Internet). For example, he called Hezballah as Party of the Devil (Hezb al-Shitan) which is being used alot by many Future Movement supporters.

In my opinion, the attack on Hezballah by using the sectarian hatred and the criticism of February 14 leaders shows this man's real intention. (This is one possibility. He can also talk about some stuff to trick people).

I urge Lebanese people and specially Future Movement supporters to be careful from such organizations.

To read the whole article in Arabic, click here.

May 25; Resistance and Liberation Day

For the background on the struggle up to this historic day, see parts 1–4:

On the Road to May 25 Victory; Lest We Forget (Part 1)
On the Road to May 25 Victory; Lahd Militia Collapses (Part 2)
On the Road to May 25 Victory; Israel Betrays Lahd SLA (Part 3)
On the Road to May 25 Victory; Khiam Detainees Freed (Part 4)

The people of Lebanon are also rejoicing over their new, albeit tentative, unity government. General Michel Suleiman has officially assumed the office of president on this day. Friends of Lebanon provides a nice write-up on current events:

PRESIDENT MICHEL SULEIMAN
25 May 2008

"Lebanon is a country that deserves much from us. The Lebanese are a people who enjoy life. They have always proved that they are stronger than crises and pitfalls to which they have been subjected and for which they have paid blood, tears and sacrifices. We have a big challenge ahead of us”. --General Michel Suleiman

The success of the recent negotiations in Doha is a credit to the commitment of the Lebanese to work together, to move forward. Our sincere thanks to the government of Qatar for facilitating these negotiations, for being true friends of Lebanon—those who offer support in times of trouble and who at the same time let the Lebanese find their own means of forging a new peace.

After five days of talks in Doha, Lebanese leaders signed an agreement on 21 May to form a national unity government.  In a long awaited step toward restructuring Lebanon’s troubled system, the Lebanese Parliament convened today, 25 May 2008, to elect General Michel Suleiman President of Lebanon.  Having served as General of the Lebanese Army for nearly ten years, Suleiman dedicated the Army to “protect democracy and not as to be the Army of the Authority repressing its political opponents, but rather an Army that preserves the security of the citizen and his rights” (click here for biographical details). In November 2007 all Lebanese political parties agreed on General Suleiman as the consensus candidate for President.  He has remained firm in his pledge to foster reconciliation and understanding.  With a governmental strategy now in place to appease all parties, we welcome General Suleiman as President Suleiman.

The elected President General Michel Suleiman’s speech: “I thank the Arab leaders and especially the Prince of Qatar. Today we should start a national project to activate the constitutional institutions. I demand a workshop to have balanced powers, to immunize the internal political will by immunizing the consensus. Democracy’s characteristic is to communicate and we should accept the will of the people. We should activate the role of censorship to isolate the corrupt, to acknowledge the rights of the immigrants for Lebanese nationality because they deserve it more than those who got it in Lebanon, to achieve the return of those displaced, and, to close the file once and for all, we support the international tribunal”.

Hats off to the Lebanese people for this victory over decades of state tyranny and treacherous foreign intervention.

Lebanon is becoming a people's republic with governmental checks and balances; so naturally, the neocon-Likudnik empire's PR machine is approaching damage-control overdrive.

For today's exposé on journalistic fraud by AP (Absolutist Propaganda), I'll simply copy-and-paste paragraphs and emphasize the obvious empire-apologizing bias of the world's largest allegedly-fair-and-balanced new service, starting with the opening paragraph.

Lebanon's feuding factions ended an 18-month political crisis Wednesday after reaching a breakthrough deal that gives the militant Hezbollah and their allies veto power on any government decision.

Of course AP neglects to show how the other Lebanese political parties are not militant.

The agreement is a major triumph for Hezbollah, handing the armed Shiite guerrilla group increased political power and further eroding the government's frail command of the religiously and politically divided country.

Gee. When do Hizballah's opponents get to have three or more adjectives before their names? Darn!

"[T]he government's frail command of the religiously and politically divided country" is more aptly described as the gerrymandered executive power over a populace divided by imperial powers based on a now-backwards 1932 census.

"There are no losers," Lebanese Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh told The Associated Press, downplaying the concessions made to Hezbollah. "Lebanon is the winner."

If AP knows who won and who lost, and everything between, then why do they bother interviewing?

The resulting deal was a major victory for the Iranian- and Syrian-backed guerrilla group, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist group.

Again, AP will tell you what to believe, regardless of what their sources say. And now there's a five-word, two-adjective modifier. Nice. Oh, and don't forget: Big Brother says they're "terrsts!" I wonder how Hizballah would designate the U.S. terrorist-designators.

Hezbollah's chief negotiator, Mohammed Raad, also downplayed Hezbollah's win. "Neither side got all it demanded, but (the agreement) is a good balance between all parties' demands," he said.

Hmm. It looks to me like, if anyone "won," it was the Lebanese people—including those Hizballah constituents and others who have been neglected all this time by that "U.S.-supported" majority government which AP handles with kid gloves.

The two sides agreed on an electoral law, which divides the Mediterranean country into smaller-sized political districts that will influence the outcome of the next parliamentary elections in 2009.

Oh no! Now they're beginning to resemble a republic in the vein of... the United States! Egad! We don't want that! We want "democracy." Oops!

Now, all we need is one of those typical Orwellian quotes of a U.S.-approved quisling of state, preaching on civic etiquette in conflict resolution. Saniora's fellow majority government factions are in collusion with Israel, the United States, and Saudi Arabia, scheming and attempting armed insurrection, so it makes perfect sense that AP would give damage-controlling inches to them. Yeah. AP is always good for at least one of those in every report.

Saniora called on the Lebanese to reject violence and asked Arab states to help support Lebanon's army, which kept a neutral role during the latest clashes.

"We must ... pledge never to resort to arms to resolve our political differences," Saniora said, addressing the ceremony. "We should accept each other and hold dialogue to solve the problems. We want to live together and we will continue that. We have no other choice."

Bingo! What a hoot.

Good for you, Lebanon!

Jump in the lake, AP.

[Source: http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=178726]

IT LOOKED disturbingly like a sequel to Lebanon's bloody civil war of 1975-90: gun battles in city streets, kidnappings, execution-style slayings and tearful vows of vengeance. With at least 81 people killed so far, the violence of past days represents the most serious internal strife since those years. And it is unclear who can stop it.

The most striking scene was the invasion of the capital, Beirut, mounted by opponents of the government. This was not exactly a conquest of the city, but rather the takeover of one part, Sunni-dominated West Beirut, by another, the dense, gritty and largely Shia-populated southern suburbs. This act quickly rippled across the mountainous country's sectarian patchwork, setting off clashes to the north and south. Because of Lebanon's position as a cockpit for regional power struggles, it also reverberated further afield, from Washington to the Iranian capital, Tehran.

It was natural that this latest turmoil should carry echoes of the civil war. That contest was only fudgingly resolved, and the country has struggled to recover. Small triumphs have been notched up here and there. One was the physical revival of Beirut from a bomb-scarred wreck to a gleaming magnet for tourism; another the brave popular uprising of 2005, which forced neighbouring Syria to pull out its long-overstayed "peacekeeping" troops. For many Lebanese, too, the hounding of Israel by the guerrillas of Hizbullah, the Shia party-cum-militia, leading to the Israeli army's withdrawal in 2000 after 22 years occupying the southern borderlands, and its humiliation in the 33-day war of 2006, were epic victories.
Syria's role

Yet none of those achievements was solidly shared by all. Reconstruction generated corruption and a giant pile of debt. Syria's removal alienated its many allies inside Lebanon and prompted it to sponsor what looks like a campaign of sabotage, including assassinations. The Sunni-led, anti-Syrian factions that gained power through the 2005 uprising failed to accommodate dangerous rivals, and suffered by close association with America.

Meanwhile, Hizbullah's lock-step allegiance to Shia Iran frightened not just Lebanese nationalists, but also the predominantly Sunni Arab world and Western powers. The UN Security Council resolved in 2004 that all Lebanon's militias must be disarmed, but Hizbullah insisted its noble cause was resistance to Israel, despite the Jewish state's abandonment of all but a tiny corner of Lebanon. The party continued to receive a supply of heavy weapons from Syria and Iran. In the end, the fight with Israel that Hizbullah provoked in 2006 brought massive and needless ruin.

Such strains would have tested any country, let alone a small one with a violent history, a population made up of 18 jealous religious minorities and a weak central state built on power-sharing between them. The wonder may be that Lebanon has held together at all, and even maintained a veneer of democracy. But this veneer has grown steadily thinner since the end of the 2006 war, which, aside from leaving 1,200 Lebanese dead and 100,000 homeless, also widened the central fissure in Lebanese politics.

This division is often defined, for simplicity's sake, as a split between Hizbullah, backed by Syria and Iran in the interest of confronting Israel and blocking American influence, against the Western-backed, democratically elected government of Fuad Siniora, the Sunni prime minister. The reality is more complicated.

Mr Siniora's coalition of Sunni Muslims, right-wing Christian parties, liberals, and the main Druze faction led by Walid Jumblatt, did indeed win 72 of the Lebanese parliament's 128 seats in the spring of 2005, riding on sympathy generated by the assassination of Mr Siniora's patron Rafik Hariri, a billionaire and five-term prime minister. But the election was run under rules drafted during Syrian control, before Mr Hariri's fatal falling-out with the Syrian regime. Many Lebanese Christians, who had been the core of opposition to Syria, felt these rules diluted their influence.

Moreover, the winning coalition, which adopted the name of "March 14th" after the date of a large anti-Syrian rally, secured some districts through an electoral alliance with Hizbullah. The Shia party was rewarded with seats in Mr Siniora's cabinet, but also believed there was tacit agreement to provide political cover for its massive rocket arsenal-perhaps, at some distant point, by incorporating its guerrilla force into the Lebanese army.

This alliance quickly unravelled, as Mr Siniora's Western backers pushed him to contain what they regarded as a terrorist group, and Hizbullah responded by forging a growing opposition coalition. This came to include not only its rival Shia party Amal, but also some pro-Syrian Christian, Sunni and Druze factions that had flourished, many with vigorous armed wings, under Syrian tutelage. Surprisingly, it was also joined by the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the Christian party of Michel Aoun, a maverick former general who had led a rising against Syria at the close of the civil war.

Mr Aoun bore several grudges against March 14th. As a battle-hardened foe of Syria, he felt entitled to a leading role after Syria's hasty withdrawal. He wanted to replace Emile Lahoud, the garishly pro-Syrian president whose term was due to expire in November 2007. (By custom, Lebanon's president must be a Maronite Christian, its prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of parliament a Shia.) The FPM far outpolled the Christian parties inside Mr Siniora's coalition, reflecting wide distrust of the older, right-wing Christian parties who had gained a reputation for thuggery during the civil war.
In Hizbullah's embrace

Mr Aoun's abrasiveness, and March 14th's unwillingness to give him the presidency, ensured that the FPM remained in opposition. It was widely assumed that with his anti-Syrian credentials and largely pro-Western Christian constituency, the general would avoid Hizbullah, yet the two parties made an alliance in February 2006. Mr Aoun lost some Christian support over this, but then came the war with Israel.

Most Christians blamed Hizbullah for the fighting. Yet many also credited the FPM, which mobilised aid for thousands of Shias displaced by the war, with healing a historic rift between the traditionally dominant but dwindling Christians and the long-disenfranchised but now formidable Shias. In Hizbullah's view, the alliance with Mr Aoun allowed it to clothe its Iranian-tinted Islamist militancy in Lebanese nationalist colours.

Hizbullah emerged from the war with its prestige enhanced, and speedily boosted it further with a big and efficient Iranian-financed reconstruction programme. By contrast, Mr Siniora's government, reduced during the war to issuing vain pleas to its Western friends to fend off the Israeli onslaught, looked vulnerable. It was given little credit for helping secure the eventual ceasefire, and even less for winning massive pledges of aid from Sunni Gulf countries. Privately, supporters of March 14th believed Hizbullah had recklessly exposed Lebanon to disaster. Yet the trauma of the war, and the sight of Israel, for the first time, being mauled by an Arab force, kept them quiet.

Soon after the war's end, in November 2006, the opposition moved to cash in their political gains by demanding a national unity government, in which their members would have enough cabinet seats to block its decisions. Mr Siniora refused, suspecting a Syrian-inspired plot. The opposition responded by withdrawing the cabinet's six Shia members. This, they said, rendered the government illegal, since it was constitutionally required to represent all the main sects. The Shia speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, leader of Hizbullah's sister party Amal, refused to convene the legislature. Over subsequent months the opposition increased its demands, including a revision of electoral laws to address Mr Aoun's concerns that Christians were being cheated.

As the lame-duck presidency of Mr Lahoud came to an end in November last year, the opposition stalled talks over the successor to be elected by parliament. Agreeing at last on Michel Suleiman, who commands the non-sectarian army, it insisted that its other conditions be fulfilled before Mr Berri summoned parliament.

So, to the frustration of ordinary Lebanese, the factions have produced an 18-month stalemate. Hizbullah and its allies call the government an American stooge; March 14th blasts the opposition as a tool of Iran and a cat's-paw for Syria. Mediators, including Amr Moussa, chief of the Arab League, have come and despaired.
The galvanising moment

March 14th has naturally tried to drive a wedge between Hizbullah and its Christian allies. Earlier this month, citing alleged evidence of suspicious traffic monitoring at Beirut airport, it reassigned the pro-Hizbullah head of airport security. It also declared illegal the party's communications network. If this was intended to highlight to Christians and Western powers Hizbullah's rogue status, it backfired. On May 8th Hizbullah's carefully-spoken leader, Hassan Nasrallah, described the government's moves as "treachery", and said the time had come to defend the arms of the "resistance".

Within minutes, a combined force of Hizbullah, Amal and allied fighters blasted their way into Beirut's Sunni quarter, eventually surrounding the residences of Mr Hariri's son and political heir, Saad, and of his Druze ally Mr Jumblatt. By May 10th fighting moved to outlying areas, affecting Mr Jumblatt's stronghold in the Chouf mountains south-east of Beirut and the Sunni-dominated north, as Mr Hariri's allies exacted revenge on pockets of opposition fighters. In other tit-for-tat action, Hizbullah blocked access to Beirut airport, while Sunni militiamen sealed the road to Syria's capital, Damascus.

The opposition stopped short of overthrowing the government, though it probably could have done so. It also promptly handed over control of most areas it invaded to the Lebanese army, ushering in a nervous calm after five days of fighting. But the 70,000-man army, which is wary of being infected itself by sectarianism, is scarcely a match for Hizbollah's trained and hardened guerrillas.

Government leaders have declared they will not be cowed by force of arms. Yet they have already backed down on the immediate issues that angered Hizbullah. Other concessions are likely to follow, if the Arab League, which has sent in a hurried diplomatic mission, can find a face-saving formula. This might include swift passage of electoral reform, the installation of Mr Suleiman as president and the formation of a "technocratic" transitional government before fresh elections.

This may all prove a tall order, however. The sense of injury among non-Shias is powerful, as is the urge for March 14th to exploit for political advantage Hizbullah's breaking of a long-standing pledge never to use its arms in internal squabbles. Should the government refuse to bend, the chances are that its opponents will push back even harder. Such a result, tipping Lebanon back into full-scale conflict, would suit no one.

Sunday night, May 11, the Israeli army was poised to strike Hizballah. The Shiite militia was winding up its takeover of West Beirut and battling pro-government forces in the North. When he opened the regular cabinet meeting Sunday, May 11, prime minister Ehud Olmert had already received the go-ahead from Washington for a military strike to halt the Hizballah advance. The message said that President George W. Bush would not call off his visit to Israel to attend its 60th anniversary celebrations and would arrive as planned Wednesday, May 14 - even if the Israeli army was still fighting in Lebanon and Hizballah struck back against Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion airport. Read rest HERE

Franklin Lamb
Beirut

This week Israel's Military Intelligence Chief Major General Amos Yadlin complained to the Israeli daily Haaretz that "Hezbollah proved that it was the strongest power in Lebanon... stronger than the Lebanese and if it had wanted to take the government it could have done it." He said Hezbollah continued to pose a "significant" threat to Israel as its rockets could reach a large part of Israeli territory.

Yadlin was putting it mildly.

But what Intelligence Chief Yadlin did not reveal to the Israeli public was just how "significant" but also "immediate" the Hezbollah threat was on May 11. Nor was he willing to divulge the fact that he received information via US and French channels that if the planned attack on Lebanon's capital went forward, that in the view of the US intelligence community Tel Aviv would be subject to "approximately 600 Hezbollah rockets in the first 24 hours in retaliation and at least that number on the following day".

The Israeli Intel Chief also declined to reveal that despite Israel's recent psyche-war camping about various claimed missile shields "the State of Israel is perfecting", that this claim is being ridiculed at the Pentagon. "Israel will not achieve an effective shield against the current generation of rockets, even assuming no technological improvements in the current rockets aimed at it, for another 20 years. And that assumes the US will continue to fund their research and development for the hoped for shields", according to Pentagon, US Senate Intelligence Committee, and very well informed Lebanese sources.

The planned attack on Beirut

According to US Senate Intelligence Committee sources, the Bush administration initially green-lighted the intended May 11 Israel 'demonstration of solidarity' with the pro-Bush administration militias, some with which Israel has maintained ties since the days of Bashir Gemayal and Ariel Sharon.

In the end, "the Bush administration got cold feet", a Congressional source revealed. So did Israel.

Israel was not willing to proceed with the original Bush Administration idea which was to have Bush attend the May 15 Israel anniversary celebrations following the Israeli attack meant to hit Hezbollah hard, and give Bush the credit for coming to the dangerous region. The message was to be that Bush comes to the rescue on horseback and leads the US Calvary charge straight out of a B western movie where the bugle would sound and flag would be unfurled and the white hat good guys would show their stuff before riding into the sunset and back to Texas, leaving the results to the likely Obama administration to sort out.

The plan involved Israeli air strikes on South and West Beirut in support of forces it was assured would be able to surprise and resist Hezbollah and sustain a powerful offensive for 48 hours.

Also presumably disturbing to Israel was the report it received that Hezbollah had once again in all probability hacked its "secure" military intelligence communications and the fear that the information would be shared with others.

The Hezbollah rout of the militias in West Beirut plus the fear of retaliation on Tel Aviv, ruining 60th anniversary celebrations, forced cancellation of the supportive attack.

Israel limited its actions to sending two F-15's and two F-16's into as far North as Tyre, one of more of literally hundreds of violations of Lebanese airspace, sovereignty and UNSCR 170l.

Clearly frustrated, Cabinet Minister Meir Sheetrit said Israel should not yet take any action now, but warned "those things could change if Hezbollah takes over Lebanon". (A few minutes earlier he had declared that Hezbollah had done just that and had treated the Lebanese army as a doormat).

Later in the Sunday cabinet meeting, Minister Ami Ayalon called for an emergency meeting of the political-security cabinet to discuss "the ongoing crisis in Lebanon and why Israel was not assisting friendly forces."

Minister Yitzhak Cohen (Shas) said that "Israel must immediately ask the [United Nations] Security Council to hold renewed discussions over Resolution 1701". The minister was referring to the resolution that stopped the Israeli actions against Lebanon during the 34-day between in 2006, maintaining a fragile cease-fire.

Finally Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert informed Israeli supporters in Lebanon, through the media, and presumably other means that "Israel was following the violence in Lebanon closely, but would refrain from intervening". Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio Sunday that Israel was prepared for the possibility that the situation in Lebanon will deteriorate into another civil war (meaning future opportunities for Israeli influence and intervention in Lebanon) and that the current fighting could end with a Hezbollah takeover of the government. "We need to keep our eyes peeled and be especially sensitive regarding all that is happening there", Vilnai told Army Radio.

The Bush administration, also disappointed, switched tactics and is opting for domination of the narrative of the fairly complicated events of the past week and using their media and confessional allies to launch a media blitz (minus Future TV for a few days) to flood the airways with:

1. 'Hezbollah staged a coup d'état'. Even Israel, if not the Bush administration, concedes Hezbollah has no interest in taking over the Government. One observer, paraphrasing Winston Churchill's comment, deadpanned, "Some Hezbollah Coup! Some Hezbollah Etat!";
2. 'Hezbollah brought its forces from the South and occupied West Beirut': Hezbollah did not bring their forces from the South to Beirut, they remained on alert for an Israel attack down South;
3. 'Hezbollah broke its pledge not to use Resistance arms against Lebanese militias and shot up West Beirut': The facts are very different when viewed close up on the streets here. When the Lebanese Resistance took the decision during the early hours of Friday morning to engage in civil disobedience, it delayed its actions so as not to preempt the Labor movement strike for higher wages which it supported. When the marching strikers were prevented from moving into West Beirut the Opposition extended its civil disobedience manifestation.

Various militias, including the smartly outfitted Hariri "Secure Plus" with its distinctive maroon tee-shirts and beige trousers (now known locally by some as "Secure Minus" and a hoped for future Blackwater operation in Lebanon, disintegrated surprisingly quickly because many of its green recruits brought down from Tripoli felt misled and betrayed regarding their job description as they were handed weapons and instructed to fight Hezbollah. Snipers from anti-Opposition factions killed civilians from rooftops in Beirut trying to ignite a civil war.

Hezbollah, acting in self-defense according to and acknowledged by various officials including John Dockham at the office of Defense Intelligence-Middle East at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), quickly clamped down on the trouble makers, took control of the streets, within hours handed them over to the army, and virtually evacuated West Beirut, retaining one position near Bay Rocks manned by unarmed representatives.

Meanwhile, the Hariri influence has been greatly weakened in Akkar near the Palestinian Refugee camp of Nahr al Bared and in the Tripoli area. According to some political analysts, including Fida'a Ittani, a regular columnist for the independent pro-opposition newspaper Al-Akhbar writing on May 14, the Future Movement, defeated in Beirut, no longer has any serious influence in the North.

Several Salafi al Qaeda-admiring movements are present in Lebanon and like Fatah al Islam's declaration this week that they will fight for the Sunnis, they vary in their attitudes from silent opposition to Future leader Saad Al-Hariri to fully supporting him as the leader of the Sunnis. These groups are valued by certain 'leaders' in Lebanon because are the only ones with coherent structures at the ideological, political, technical, and field levels.

Judging from Saad Hariri's confused statements at his subsequent news conference and statements by other parties, the bitterness of promised but unforthcoming assistance was evident.

For two days following the debacle of his forces imploding, the head of the Future Movement said nothing. Finally on the 14th he broke his silence.

The Halba massacre, committed by Hariri's Mustaqbal militiamen who brutally and barbarically murdered 11 people from the opposition, did not seem worthy of discussion as he spoke. In a press conference on Tuesday, Hariri simply ignored what all the Lebanese had seen on TV from weapons, ammunition and alcohol found in Future movement offices, and instead listed a series of delusions.

"We awaited an open war on Israel, and yet here is an open war on Beirut and its people", he stated. Some interpreted this rather odd statement either as a subconscious slip of the tongue on Hariri's part expressing his frustration that the Israeli help did not arrive or that his reported earlier incoherent state persisted.

Hariri's original speech was reportedly so confused that the Saudi channel al-Arabiyya decided to cease broadcasting it and subsequently only read excerpts from what he said. It was only when US criticism resumed, and Hezbollah fighters drew back from the streets surrounding his house that Hariri was urged to stand up and speak again with a stronger tone: "This has been decided by the Iranian and Syrian regimes that wanted to play a political game in Lebanon's streets. For us nothing has changed. We will not negotiate with someone having a pistol pointed to our heads."

Anger at the Bush administration and Israel by certain warlords in Lebanon must feel much like the frustration of Secure Minus personnel who rushed from Tripoli and felt misled, abandoned and cheated.

Franklin Lamb can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com

You might also be interested in:
Franklin Lamb: Franklin of America-Arabia

Myth One: The root of the recent conflict is sectarian in nature.

The myth is deflated when we find that the Hizballah-led opposition is joined not only by Amal (Shiite), but also by Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM: secular/mostly Maronite Christian), the Syrian Social Nationalists Party (SSNP: secular/mostly Orthodox Christian), and non-partisan Christians and Sunnis everywhere—many of whom are also "anti-Syrian."

When Lebanese men, young and old, take up arms with Hizballah, it's not because they're a particular religious group or that they want to join Hizballah officially: they do it because they oppose the policies of the current puppet-government, and because Hizballah is the only militia that has performed the duty of defending Lebanon against aggression from Israel—a state whose presence in Lebanon an overwhelming majority of Lebanese people detest and violently resist.

In this sense, and in the case of the opposition's broad-based support, we can see that the current row in Lebanon is the people vs. the state, and not Shiite vs. Christian vs. Sunni vs. Druze.

Note: Media and political figures complement their myth with references to the 1975–90 Lebanese Civil War to reinforce the notion that the Lebanese people should be perpetually separated into religious groups per imperial mandate. In a nutshell, this explains the "U.S.-backed" or "anti-Syrian" position—one that seeks to retain the "pro-Western" advantages inherent in the current arrangement. This is what the opposition opposes when pushing for a unity government, minority veto power, and so on.

Myth Two: Hizballah is the only militia not required to disarm since the civil war.

This is a ridiculous claim. The last paragraph in this Reuters report reads:

"The group was the only Lebanese faction allowed to keep its weapons after the civil war to fight Israeli forces occupying the south. Israel withdrew in 2000 and the fate of Hezbollah's weapons is at the heart of the political crisis."

Hizballah's weapons are at the top of the list of those who would, once again, like to see Israel have a free pass to raze Lebanon in pursuit of Hizballahand permanent Israeli and U.S. influence in Beirut. Practicalexamples are U.N. Resolutions 1559 and 1701; both of which call for the disarmament of militias in Lebanon—courtesy of Israel and the U.S. and their puppet Lebanese parties in Lebanon.

Mainstream media prove themselves wrong when reporting that pro-government forces are "laying down their arms" after squaring off with opposition forces led by Hizballah and Amal.

There are many "pro-government" militias in Lebanon—the Kataeb (Phalange) Party, the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), the Future Movement (FM), et al.—and they seem to all be challenging the opposition's militias. So, who is funding and arming them? Or are they wielding toy guns and bottle rockets?

Note: Israel did not withdraw in 2000. Since their pseudo-withdrawal, Israeli overflights and border breeches are in the hundreds, and Israel still occupies small areas in South Lebanon. If not for Hizballah's keeping to the cease-fire in UNSCR 1701, those posts would eventually be Israeli-free as well, as also called for in 1701. In that sense, perhaps Hizballah's weapons are "at the heart" of the row (i.e., not because they are a danger to Lebanese interests).

Myth Three: Hizballah is carrying out a coup.

In the same, otherwise "fair and balanced" news report by Reuters, Iranian and Syrian backing of Hizballah is mentioned numerously to a fault (not an uncommon practice by major news agencies), as in the penultimate paragraph: "Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, has led a 17-month-long political campaign against Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's anti-Syrian cabinet."

This does three things: it 1) fails to mention the Hizballah-led opposition's popular support across all demographics—even those opposing Syrian influence—as revealed in the dissolving of Myth One, 2) attempts to replace that reality with the implication that Hizballah is acting primarily in the interests of Iran and Syria, and 3) omits even a hint at what is actually driving the opposition to protest all this time: corrupt and unrepresentative government in Beirut.

If Hizballah and supporters were carrying out a coup, then why did Hizballah volunteer to give up the cordoning of their defeated opponents to the Lebanese Army at every turn? Why did they take no hostages or maintain a lock-down of Jumblatt's and Hariri's residences? Why did they stand down militarily in ceding those and other key military strongholds to the Lebanese Army at every possible juncture? If they wanted to, Hizballah could have easily taken over the government entirely, expelling the majority from Parliament, but they didn't. Hizballah is probably the only non-corrupt party in Lebanon; their history is not one of turning their arms on fellow countrymen. Say what you want. They are against violent insurrection.

Also:

— In smashing Myth One, it's revealed that Hizballahis joined by Shiites, Christians, and non-partisan Sunnis. This in itself represents a moral and political defeat for a majority government barely holding on to power under the currently skewed system of representation based on an outdated census and mob-rules democracy. If the opposition is receiving 17 months worth of mass protest support across all political and religious lines, then the "U.S.- and-Israeli-backed" factions (puppets) would be right to fear defeat in fair and all-inclusive elections.

All of which gives the current majority factions incentive to suddenly bring Hizballah's intelligence system to the fore and threaten to have it removed—something they knew would elicit a strong and swift response from Hizballah—in the hopes of casting Hizballah's actions a being subversive ("state-within-a-state"), reactionary, and ultimately harmful to Lebanese interests. (Needless to say, the opposition has prevailed nonetheless.)

— What media won't tell us is that the Lebanese government had accepted the proprietary telecommunications system run by Hizballah for the last twenty years or so, and that Hizballah has been transparent and flexible with the state in that area. The moves to declare the system illegal and remove the airport security chief were tyrannical and arguably treasonous. They were a calculated pretext for, if not an act of, war against the Lebanese people's Resistance.

Do the majority factions wish to cripple the country's defense against foreign invasion and occupation? Disabling Hizballah's ability to communicate securely and discretely could have done just that. Imagine elements within the U.S. government doing deliberate damage to the only military group capable of defending the U.S. from foreign invasions.

— If a coup was being staged at all, it was being done politically by the U.S. State Department and the Bush Administration. Israel and Saudi Arabia also have incentive to keep the corrupt puppet government in power in Lebanon. On the same day Hizballah began overtaking pro-government militias, Condolleeza Rice & Co were frothing and ready, being the first of very few going on record to ridiculously claim that Hizballah is killing innocent civilians and carrying out a coup, and that Iran and Syria were behind it all. So, the U.S. puppet-masters cast the first stones, and they were whoppers.

The same scenarios played out in media coverage during the Hamas-Fatah conflicts of June 2007, wherein U.S., Israeli, and allied Arab entities planned and attempted a failed military coup against Hamas. MSM and neothugs flooded the press and airwaves with claims that Hamas was staging a "violent bloody coup." Also, recall the "birth pangs" comment from Ms. Rice at the beginning of Israel's five-week carpet-bombing of Lebanon; that war was planned with U.S. assistance as well.

So, who is really behind all the unrest in Lebanon?

Don't buy the MSM bill of goods: it's full of disinformation, absent of context, and zeroed-out at neocon-Likudnik foreign policy. Get your information from other than agency bureaus that are staffed with U.S. and Israeli propaganda agents.

When a rapist does the nefarious deed, he is basically telling the victim, "you're subhuman; you're expendable; I own you." This is also true when governments rape peoples: they dehumanize them through propaganda and violent actions displaying a total disregard for the victims' identity, sentiments, or livelihoods. The victim can not be thought of as having any control over the attacker. Emotional connections cause the attacker to think of the victim as having some human worth and ability to defend "itself."

Do you suppose U.S. warlords wanted to know the names or opinions of all the millions of Iraqi refugees the invasion and occupation have produced, or the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians they have killed, before invading and occupying Iraq? Of course not: the victims had to be made faceless and nameless lest the attackers might grow consciences (fat chance) over the immorality and illegality of the act they're conceiving.

In the case of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, it was the collective conscience of the American people that was numbed, as the false justifications for invading were permeating mainstream media airwaves, encouraging unwitting viewers to forgo the existence of the Iraqi people and the state-limiting rule of law. Discussions on the illegality and the potential damage to Iraqi society and suffering of the Iraqi people were virtually omitted from discussions. The would-be crime-preventers in Congress and in the streets were cast as novel and anti-American, and were given almost no voice in pre-war coverage.

During the build-up to the invasion, the Pentagon acted as a PR firm for retired and active U.S. generals and colonels who were contracted by cable news networks and mainstream press as war experts. Anti-war talk show host Phil Donahue was fired from MSNBC on the spurious grounds that the other, pro-invasion networks were killing them in ratings. The New York Times, in keeping with its rich tradition of all state-worship that is fit to print, committed felonious fraud by publishing lies sourced in the accounts of Mossad-allied Iraqi exiles and war-scheming think-tanks. Neocon-run mouthpieces like the New York Sun and Fox Noise Channel cast dissenters as traitors whose First Amendment rights ended where neocon foreign policy began.

The phony case for war was practically slammed shut in no small part by the infamous Saddam-WMDs speech given by Colin Powell at the United Nations in Fall 2002, aired live on C-SPAN, where he read the script of neocon-Likudnik disinformation to the world about the threat posed by third-world Iraq. If there was barely a trace of root-level policy discussion on the major networks prior to the Powell speech, then trust that those who attempted to give names and faces to the Iraqi people and the rule of law were now brazenly and completely marginalized. Sound bytes from the fraudulent Powell disgrace were incessantly re-aired by all the major networks with almost no accompanying critical discussion because, at this point, the invasion was a foregone conclusion.

Just a few month later, the U.S. military began invading and carpet-bombing Iraq upon the premise of enforcing U.N. Resolutions and the perceived national security threat of a WMD-armed Hussein. The worst subversions of the U.S. and international laws and the rape of the Iraqi people was officially underway.

For many years, another war has been waged through the U.N. and corporate media by U.S. and Israeli war hawks.

After Israel's invasion and and occupation of Lebanon in 1978, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) began carrying out peacekeeping missions in the South. The multinational group was deployed to be a buffer between the Israeli invader-occupiers on one end, and the Lebanese resistance on the other. Then, as now, it performed at least two primary tasks: peacekeeping and observation. The missions have been mostly well-intended and commendable undertakings, but have also produced unintended consequences: observers and peacekeepers have been victims and accomplices, and the U.N. has been both a whipping post and a tool for the U.S. and Israeli regimes in the military and political rape of Lebanon.

— On April 18, 1996, the headquarters of the Fijian battalion of UNIFIL, located in the Southern Lebanon village of Qana, came under fire from the Israeli military. More than 110 Lebanese civilians were killed and many others were wounded, including four U.N. workers. The massacre was part of Israel's 16-day war on Lebanon known in Israel as Operation Grapes of Wrath.

In the following days, Israeli officials offered conflicting excuses: outdated maps, misfire, etc. And when the U.N. investigation showed those excuses to be absurd, the old "stand-by's" given throughout were then re-upped and intensified by Israeli officials: It was the fault of the victims because they refused to flee (though 'fleeing" was impossible and the U.N. building was a safehaven); it was the fault of the supposed targets, the Lebanese resistance army Hizballah, for operating near the site of the attack; and it was the fault of the U.N. peacekeepers and investigators for "sympathizing" with Hizballah by allowing them within a certain range of the targeted building (like they could play traffic cop in a war zone). Still, the findings of the U.N. and independent groups concluded that the attack was unlikely a mistake.

Event Summary: The U.N. Charter was egregiously violated by the aggressor nation, Israel; the U.N. post was targeted; the victims were blamed; UNIFIL was blamed; and the state of Israel continued to rain fire upon civilian objects with impunity.

— On July 25, 2006, two weeks into Israel's long-planned invasion and carpet-bombing of Lebanon—which was cynically disguised as an attempt to rescue two IDF militants captured by Hizballah—the Israeli Air Force (IAF) shelled and bombed a U.N. observation post near the infamous IDF-Phalangist torture facility of Khiam. Four UNIFIL observers were killed and several more were injured when the IAF shelled the rescuers. The attack occurred despite more than a dozen communications over the course of six hours via telephone between the U.N. liaison and the IDF command center. Constant pleas were made for the IAF to stop firing near the facility.

When it was time to comment on the atrocity, Israeli officials again claimed it was “a mistake” and that they were targeting enemy fighters who were firing missiles from near the post. Of course, the “near-enemy” excuse is irrelevant in light of: the hours of desperate supplications from the eventual victims; the building being "well known and clearly marked"; and the IAF’s use of state-of-the-art, US-supplied, precision weaponry. But the state of Israel wasn’t satisfied with its instant exoneration of itself. The victims and their families had to pay for having the audacity to mention malicious intent. In keeping with an Israeli and U.S. government tradition of sociopathic guilt-transference, UN peacekeepers were accused of being—you guessed it—sympathetic to Hizballah.

Event Summary: The UNIFIL observers were targeted and killed by the IAF; U.N. and independent investigations were treated like toilet paper by the aggressors; U.S. veto power blocked U.N. condemnation and demands for a cease-fire from nearly all U.N. member states; and, as should be expected whenever any state investigates its own crimes, the rape was found to have been "an accident." Israeli aggression continued unchecked, and a chorus of jealous sighs could be heard from violent offenders everywhere.

Bouts of self-serving, absolutist Israeli lunacy were nothing new to Timur Goksel, former spokesperson and senior adviser for UNIFIL, who delivered a stinging response to the charge of Hizballah-sympathizing during a July 26, Democracy Now! interview:

"They don’t care if they kill a UN man or anybody on the Lebanese side. For them, their own life is sacred, their own troops are sacred. They have a mission, and if the UN gets in the way of their efforts over there, if the UN gets hit, so be it. . . .

"A peacekeeping force does not come here with pre-set enemies. . . . It’s not [an] Israeli combat force or an anti-terror force, as they would like it to be. As long as we don’t serve their direct interests, they are going to denigrate it as much as they can."

Goksel's assessment underscores something more odious: IAF war crimes against U.N. workers and other observers is an uncommonly common occurrence in the annals of Israeli warfare: it's been a reliable way for the Israeli government to make sure there are no witnesses to its crimes, intimidating anyone else who might otherwise be a willing testifier to the state's atrocities. Look up "attack on the USS Liberty" for starters.

— Just five days after the 25 July assault and ten years since the '96 Qana massacre, the IDF struck the people of Qana again. 28 civilians who had sought the shelter in the underground garage of an apartment building were killed; well over half the victims were children.

The same Israeli excuses were carted out in addition to a common Israeli cop-out claim that Hizballah was storing ammunition in the same building, causing it to explode and collapse on the people inside. The victims were to blame again for not fleeing—though fleeing was impossible for them, and the world knew it. The IDF also claimed that Hizballah were firing rockets from very near the building though U.N. and independent investigations were not convinced. The U.N. was then basically accused of holding to a single high standard: the kind that calls the spade a spade. It was the same old story all over again, contorted into such a controversy even though the deadly Israeli targeting of, and near, civilian objects from the air was the worst, and only provable, crime committed—a fact on which only agents of the neocon-Likudnik variety will disagree.

Event summary: Another one of countless civilian massacres was carried out by the IDF on Lebanese civilians; the U.N. investigators and independent witnesses were charged with colluding with Hizballah; Israel and U.S. officials and corporate media raked the victims, witnesses, and defenders over the coals in the ensuing moments and days; and the Israeli razing of S. Lebanon rolled on with no cease-fire in sight.

The state of Israel committed war crimes throughout its 2006 assault on Lebanon. On many occasions since hostilities began, the U.N. voted on a cease-fire resolution; each time, the wording was changed to appease Israel and its genocide-collaborators in the USA, and each time only a few U.N. member states voted against it. The tiny U.S.-Israeli coalition ultimately prevented peace until they could reluctantly agree on a resolution that benefited them sufficiently.

The Israeli aggression continued upon Lebanon, and so IDF tanks in Lebanon continued to be overturned and targets in Lebanon and N. Israel continued to be hit by artillery from the Resistance. But once it was clear that a unanimous cease-fire was near, the IDF intensified its use of illegal ordnance upon civilians.

From an August 31, 2006, Guardian UK report:

"Israel faced a stinging rebuke from the UN yesterday when the world body's humanitarian chief expressed shock at the 'completely immoral' use of cluster bombs in Lebanon and Kofi Annan called for a rapid end to the conflict in Gaza.

"Jan Egeland said civilians were facing 'massive problems' returning home because of as many as 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs, most of which were dropped in the last days of the war.

"'What's shocking - and I would say to me completely immoral - is that 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution,' Mr Egeland said. 'Every day people are maimed, wounded and are killed by these ordnance.'"

Untold numbers of of non-combatants have died, and hundreds more have been injured, by unexploded "bomblets" from those cluster bombs; amongst the victims, U.N. personnel. In all, an estimated one million bomblets remained unexploded in S. Lebanon. Three months after the cease-fire, the IDF actually admitted to using illegal and inhuman munitions during the assault on S. Lebanon. How many of those weapons came from the United States? Too many.

To this day, despite U.N. and international demands, the state of Israel has refused to release maps of the areas where the cluster bombs were dropped.

Irony and Hypocrisy: Disarmament and Peacekeeping

The U.N. has been powerless in the Levant against a veto-wielding superpower and its alliance of rogue states. UNIFIL has been used as a pawn and surrogate occupation force benefiting only U.S. and Israeli rogues. Lebanon expert Franklin Lamb notes:

"The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was created with the adoption of Security Council Resolutions 425 and 426 on March 19, 1978, primarily to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and 'to restore international peace and security.' Both goals have proved elusive these past three decades with Israel still in Shebaa Farms, the village of Ghajar, and violating Lebanese airspace and sovereignty at will.

"An examination of 30 years of UNIFIL’s presence in Lebanon reveals that UNIFIL, like its parent the UN Security Council, has been exploited by power politics conducted by the United States on behalf of Israel and unfortunately, frequently acquiesced in by the international community."

Those overflights and residual Israeli occupations are always overlooked in mass media because they represent decades of daily violations of international law by Israel. Hundreds of counts of Israeli overflights and other crimes against the Lebanese people have been reported since 2001, and they continue to this day.

For the past few decades, the U.N. presence in Lebanon was literally aimed at disarming the people and enforcing national governance through an international body (itself). All the while, that international body has feigned grave concern for the sovereignty of the national body in question (Lebanon), citing foreign intervention from Syria, with apparently no sense of irony.

Who is condemning the U.S. government for supplying weapons and vehicles to Israel for committing war crimes? U.N. measures are one-sided like that.

What the U.N., U.S., and Israel all know yet refuse to acknowledge is that U.N., U.S., and Israeli intervention into Lebanese affairs is precisely what has gotten them where they are now, as they were back in the 1980s.

The United Nations' so-called cease-fire resolutions concerning Israeli-Lebanese conflicts have been used toward: 1) disarming Israel's enemies; 2) isolating Lebanon's non-Israeli allies, Syria and Iran; 3) getting Israel off the hook using "1" and "2" to deflect focus away from Israeli crimes; and 4) maintaining U.S. control over its puppet politicians in Beirut and proxy militias in the region, thus rendering the people of Lebanon faceless and powerless in their own political system.

I'm not accusing the U.N. of malicious intent; but, it has been victim, enabler, and collaborator in the attempted rape of Lebanon and the shakedown of its allies. Freedom and self-rule shouldn't entail foreign and international occupation and mandates upon them. Let the people determine their fate and the fate of their government. You don't see the U.N. mandating disarmament of Israeli settlerists in the West Bank: they are illegal occupants who are armed to the hilt and committing terror upon the natives daily, with the IDF protecting them. They are allowed to decide not only their own fate, but also that of the Palestinians they occupy and terrorize.

The S. Lebanese Resistance is widely respected in the Arab world for living out its promise of liberating the people of Lebanon from U.S. and Israeli occupation and aggression. This helps to explain why the Lebanese army and a majority in government do not want to disarm Hizballah. But there are many reasons not to try to disarm the Lebanese Resistance; the obvious one being that they've been the only effective defense against aggression from common Lebanese enemies (the Israelis) over the last quarter-century.

In 1982, U.S. Marines were stationed in Beirut as "peacekeepers"; but to the resistance and most of the discerning world, their role was Israeli-allied occupiers. They certainly didn't act as a neutral force (as if they or any other "force" could have anyway). The mission itself was a highly ill-advised, dangerous, and un-American. The only parties benefiting from the U.S. occupation were the Israelis and the Israelis' seditious Lebanese allies, the Phalangist Party's South Lebanon Army (SLA). U.S. interests were definitely not being served while being occupiers and sitting ducks in the middle of an internecine hell. No matter how well-intended the mission, they were seen by most as collaborators and targets.

And they were targeted.

In 1983, a popular U.S. president and tool for the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC)—Ronald Reagan—committed one of the worst possible violations of the U.S. Constitution and his oath of office. Without Congressional approval, he "authorized" the most inhuman and illegal of military interventions in Lebanon. The United States—a supposedly "neutral" party in all Levantine conflicts—began raining death upon civilians from an indomitable position, shelling Beirut suburbs from the Mediterranean. At that time, there was no official Hizballah organization, and no formidable land-to-sea capability in Lebanon to counter the assault. What the USS New Jersey and others did was unbridled human target practice.

Around the same time, a suicide bombing was committed against the U.S. in Beirut—an act Hizballah has been conveniently if not totally wrongfully "blamed" for ever since. Michael Schwartz observes CIA and government-insider accounts:

"Many of us remember that in 1983, during a previous crisis there, an American military barracks was bombed, killing 241 marines who were part of an international peacekeeping force sent there in 1982. That bombing was, as [Roger] Morris tells the story 'itself a bloody reprisal for earlier American acts of intervention and diplomatic betrayal in Lebanon's civil war' which had been raging since 1975.

"No one in the American intelligence community knew for sure (and no one knows to this day) who was actually responsible for the bombing, but CIA director William Casey decided nevertheless to undertake reprisals. He chose as his target a Shia cleric, Muhammad Husain Fadlallah, 'because of his reputation for fiery sermons in favor of social justice and national independence -- and because allied spy agencies -- Israel's Mossad, Saudi Arabia's GID, and Phalangist informers -- claimed he led a militant Shiite group that bore responsibility for the attack on the Marines.'"

That event also turned out to be perhaps Reagan's greatest foreign policy lesson—an empirical argument against entanglements in other nations' affairs. But that lesson was slow to be learned, as Lamb details further:

"CIA agent Robert Baer, now a contributor to Time Magazine, was given the job of finding out who bombed the U.S. Embassy on April 18, 1983. During his March 2008 visit to Lebanon, Baer reminded reporters that his final report delivered to the White House more than 20 years ago concluded there was no proof to charge anyone, including Imad Mughniyeh, with either the April Embassy or the October 1983 Marine barracks attack. His conclusions are just as valid today, he advised interlocutors at the Beirut Vendome Hotel last month.

"The unpleasant fact for the Reagan administration was that gunboat diplomacy had been defeated by car bombs in Lebanon. The Reagan administration and especially CIA Director William Casey were left hungry for revenge — against someone. . . .

"With its new authority, the CIA set up 'counterterrorism units' similar to those Bush authorized in 2007. Casey quickly funded the "Foreign Work and Analysis Unit" (FWAU) inside Lebanon which had the assassination of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah as its first priority. Others targeted for death were Lebanese former Prime Minister Salim al-Hoss, Imad Mughniyeh and Walid Jumblatt, then supporting the PLO. The FWAU conducted a car bombing campaign in Muslim areas of Beirut and targeted the Cinema Salwa, Beirut's Raouche Market, Sabra Street, the Abu Nawwas restaurant, and the Druze Social Centre, among others, killing at least 280 civilians and wounding nearly 1,150. This mayhem was designed to ignite further internal strife and to send the Lebanese resistance a message and offer: "Support a new May 17 agreement with Israel and we can help you." When this 'offer' was unanswered, and on the Mossad's recommendation to Casey, Fadlallah was targeted on March 8, 1985.

"The BirAbed massacre was caused by an enormous car bomb outside Fadlallah's home as he was conducting a religious studies class for women. Had a neighborhood woman not detained him with questions, Fadallah would have been at nearly the exact spot where the rigged vehicle exploded according to Hizbullah investigators.

"The blast killed 83 people, mainly school girls, women and children, and wounded 283. The attempted assassination of Fadlallah, who is to this day Lebanon's most respected senior Shi'a cleric and social worker, enraged Lebanon, including Dahiyeh's two century old Christian community, long beneficiaries of his social services and respectful of his calls for religious dialogue and tolerance. Six months later, on September 12, in what appeared to be a tit for tat operation, the supposedly impregnable perimeter defenses of the new U.S. embassy in eastern Beirut was attacked, killing 23 employees and visitors.

"Eleven local individuals confessed to various roles in the Bir Abed bombing. The terrorist attack was based on now admitted faulty Israeli supplied 'intelligence.' Israel had advised the Reagan administration that Fadlallah was the founder, spiritual leader, and chief of operations for Hizbullah and was behind attacks on the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks as well as the kidnappings of Western hostages. Not one of the claims was true as the White House was later to learn. But at the time, CIA Director William Casey was beside himself that the U.S. had, less than a year earlier, been forced out of Lebanon by what he told the president were "third rate rabble-rousers."

The '83 barracks bombing and other attacks outside Lebanon have been conveniently "blamed" on Hizballah in the effort to make Hizballah and its allies into common U.S. and Israeli enemies when they're not. Notice that the "intelligence" cited is always from Mossad, the SLA, and other groups benefiting from such a contrived paradigm. The attack, by the way, was not a terrorist attack: it was an act of war.

Some of the same maniacs who participated in and promoted that mid-80s assault on Lebanese civilians based on Israeli disinfo and trumped up conjecture, namely current U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, are overseeing another U.S. terror mission—again, based on false or unsubstantiated charges—against not only Lebanese people, but the people of Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan as well.

The latest big news in U.S. and Israeli proxy-war hypocrisy is that George Bush enacted a directive of sorts for the official covert use of U.S.-designated terror groups. This means that now the funding doesn't have to be so indirect. Andrew Cockburn writes:

"Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, 'unprecedented in its scope.'

"Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department's list of terrorist groups.

"Similarly, covert funds can now flow without restriction to Jundullah, or 'army of god,' the militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan – just across the Afghan border -- whose leader was featured not long ago on Dan Rather Reports cutting his brother in law's throat."

If this is true, it is the most significant step taken by D.C. against Iran and Syria since the assist and cover-up of the Sept. 9, Israeli raid on Syria; the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization; or the condemnation in Congress against Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for genocide-incitement, which was based on a long-debunked mistranslation. Meanwhile, the Lebanese people's resistance and their militias ("terrorist groups") must not receive funding or training from Iran or Syria or any other country not approved by the Big Guns. Who's the U.N. working for?

Nuke-toting Israeli and U.S. figures are constantly calling for and committing illegal acts of aggression against second and third-world nations like Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and the Israeli-Occupied Palestinian Territories (IOPTs); yet somehow, the "official" time-line always begins with the extreme rhetorical sound-byte response from the object of the violent threat, replayed over and over, effectively making that enemy leader look like the perpetual aggressor when the opposite is true.

For several years now, factions of the U.S. government have been harboring, indirectly funding, arming, and safeguarding Iranian, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Pakistani entities that are designated by the U.S. State Department as terrorist groups. Some of which own the most prolific track records of committing terrorism and acts of war against U.S. targets. One such group, the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MeK), have been provided secure living and training grounds in Iraq where they are being protected by U.S. forces and who-knows-what-seditious-militant-group-from-North-Carolina-or-something. Spokesmen for the propaganda arm of the MeK—calling themselves the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)—have enjoyed uncritical appearances on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and C-SPAN, and have been widely published in the mainstream corporate press. Their agenda is and always has been unabashed regime-change: '53 coup-style.

In 2007, real state-sponsored terror was unleashed upon Palestinian refugee camps in North Lebanon, at the behest of entities within the U.S. and Lebanese governments. The botched-operation-gone-tragic has since been blamed on Syria and members of the Lebanese opposition, just like the assassinations of Hizballah operative Imad Mughniyeh (2/2008, Damascus) and former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri (2/2005, Beirut). None of those terrible events were particularly beneficial for Hizballah or Syria; both of whom supported the Lebanese army against the refugee camp aggressors.

But we’re supposed to be fazed by neocon-Likudnik fear-mongering, outraged that Hizballah would want to challenge Israeli and U.S. meddling in Lebanon and receive Iranian assistance in wars of defense of country, and at the same time, we're supposed to forget that, just a few years ago, the neocon-Likudniks received Iranian assistance for their foreign wars ("rooting out al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan" and "prosecuting the Afghan war on drugs"). This is just a chip off the block of hypocrisy when it comes to the issue of "proxy wars" in the Middle East.

Lebanese Don't Exist

What is a "Lebanese"? Is it someone of "Lebanese" descent? Someone born in Lebanon? Someone who assimilated into "Lebanese" society and eventually became a citizen of Lebanon?

Nope. Lebanese are actually pro-Syrian or anti-Syrian, pro-American or anti-American; Iranian-backed, Syrian-backed, or Western-backed; and just like Palestinians and other Arabs and Persians, they are militant, moderate, terrorist, secular, pragmatic, extremist, Islamist, Christian, Sunni, Druze, and Shiite.

But why aren't they simply "Lebanese"? After all, they call the land of Lebanon their home, and they are citizens of Lebanon. Why "pro-this country" and "anti-that country"? U.S. and Israeli entities are certainly not described as pro- or-anti-this-or-that, and rarely ever by religious designations. So what's the deal?

It's nothing to do with a collective desire to give up their sovereignty and national identity to nations that know better how to use them (though certain others might disagree). And though it does have a bit to do with Lebanon's confessional system of government (installed by imperial powers in 1943 and based on a 1932 census)—which doles out certain government positions to certain factions based on religious affiliation—that only reasons away the use of religious designations.

No. Lebanese people don't exist as simply "Lebanese" for one main, simple reason: the U.S. and Israeli governments and their public relations outfit—international corporate media—say so.

Lebanese people and their leaders are cast relative to the sentiments of neocon-Likudnik foreign policy. Syria and Iran are the chosen enemies of the U.S. and Israeli governments; therefore, an "anti-Syrian" leader gets favorable coverage in news agency reports, thus letting the readers and viewers know that they are the good guys (the "moderates") who are in line with U.S. policy in the region.

According to state-worshiping corporate media standards, Lebanese, Iraqis and Palestinians are never decidedly lawful in defending themselves, their families, and countries against aggressive invasions, belligerent military occupations, insurrections, and ethnic cleansings. At the very best, the status of those "militants" and their aims is made to seem contested or controversial.

But international law is very clear: armed resistance against foreign invasions and occupations is lawful. Nevertheless, corporate media get around this unfortunate fact by omitting it, as they do with all other people-empowering, government-incriminating truths.

It is mostly through the calculated use of language, combined with a constant barrage of lies and false history based on "official" U.S. and Israeli accounts that the U.S. and Israeli regimes have been able to effectively dehumanize the Lebanese people and demonize their leaders in order to politically and militarily rape Lebanon.

The U.N. has been a formidable tool in the shakedown, but if not for the overall influence and scope of media's whitewashing of Israeli and U.S. crimes, most Americans would form their own opinions of all those regional conflicts based on international law, common morality, and the historical record. At which point, Hizballah and the resistance would be seen as the lawful defenders of their people and country, and the rogue elements in Israeli and the USA would never recover from the resulting PR damage of being widely depicted as the global shakedown mafia they actually are.

Then, perhaps, the U.N. wouldn't feel such a need to occupy Lebanon and disarm its legtitimate resistance groups.

Resolutions to Nowhere

The U.N. is ineffectual to the point of being offensive. UNIFIL personnel and the peole of S. Lebanon get along on average, but the overall mission is insane and detrimental to the Lebanese people according to contemporary trends.

Of all the Israeli and U.S. officials who planned, authorized, and carried out any of the "operations" in '82, '96, and '06, or any of the innumerable war crimes they've committed or have been accused of committing along the way, not one of them has been prosecuted or meaningfully investigated by any international body.

On the other hand: Syria and Iran and their "pro-Syrian and "pro-Iran" allies in Lebanon (a.k.a., "most Lebanese") are implicated at almost every turn, for any major assassination or military attack against Israeli targets or targets perceived as being "U.S. interests."

The U.N. and its selective investigations are used as Israeli and U.S. tools for working over their chosen victims. After Rafiq Hariri's murder, there was a "U.S.-backed" uprising amongst his supporters, dubbed the Cedar Revolution. This, in addition to U.S. and Israeli pressure in the U.N., leading to a currently-ongoing U.N. investigation, effectively led to the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon later that year.

How often do the Israeli or U.S. occupiers leave when the government of the occupied nation asks them to, when faced with "international" pressure, or even when they realize their own true interests will be badly damaged otherwise?

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which made the August 2006 Israel-Hizballah cease-fire official, specified that all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias in Lebanon were to be disarmed, and that all hostilities were to end on both sides. UNIFIL's task was to monitor the S. Lebanon countryside, from the Litani River southward, observing militia activity and Israeli incursions and overflights.

Neither side has been all that willing to abide, because everybody knows the resolutions are just political tools for the aggressor states. The Israelis, who have a rich history of pissing on U.N. resolutions, have almost completely disregarded Res. 1701. Not one day has passed in which Israel hasn't violated Lebanese sovereignty by land, sea, or air. The IDF still occupies areas in S. Lebanon.

The double standards are plain to see. The most numerous and deplorable crimes are being committed by these superpower states; yet, the people they are invading, occupying and carpet-bombing must concede to them.

The whole Israeli- and-U.S.-conceived mandate to disarm Hizballah and "buffer" S. Lebanon is the defeated Israelis' way of stacking the deck to avoid total humiliation and take the focus of its serial violations. UNIFIL is not tasked to disarm the militias; the Lebanese Army is, but they refuse to, and for good reason. The people of Lebanon must be free to resist armed invasions and insurrections and move freely—not just within Lebanon, but also between and among other states. Even the Lebanese majority government, a.k.a., the "pro-American" alliance, does not dare try to disarm them; they know the consequences of being completely defenseless against neocon-Likudnik aggression and civil war incitement.

Without Iranian support all these years, Hizballah might not have existed as the only ones to make good on the promise to drive out the occupiers and provide services for the downtrodden they represent in their country. Israel has always received military equipment and funding from the United States and other countries for use in their invasions and occupations in Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. The U.S. borrows trillions from foreigners to finance its illegal wars and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the world. Yet the only the ones who are actually defending their own land must be disarmed?

If the USA was being invaded, it would be the lawful right and duty of each and every able-bodied male to take up arms against the invaders. What "patriotic" American would then fret over what country those arms came from? When people take up arms in self-defense within their own country, they have a common enemy and domestic and international laws are usually on their side. Lebanese, somehow, aren't afforded that honorable duty, or to experience nationality or self-government. The United States, Israel, the United Nations, and corporate media make sure of that.

The only proper course is to reject these heinous double standards. Governments should get out of the U.N. if they insist on flaunting it when convenient and cursing it when it limits their power. The United States should consider this seriously.

If U.S. leaders were actually serious about "peace," "freedom," "democracy," and "moderation," they would let the people achieve it from within. Opposition supporters, including those of Hizballah, have been mass-protesting in favor of a unity government in Beirut since December 2006. But whether it's a unity or other, the people want to determine their fate; they don't want it determined in Washington D.C., New York (U.N.), Tel Aviv, or even Damascus, for that matter.

For its own good and the good of the people of Lebanon, Israel, and the United States, the U.N. should get out of the business of surrogate occupation and keep its intervention into interstate conflicts to a bare minimum, respecting sovereignty and legitimate resistance instead of giving lip-service to it. Trade and friendship with Syria and Iran are Lebanese prerogatives—not those of the U.S., Israeli, or U.N. governments.

No peacekeeping mission or U.N. resolution will bring justice and peace; they never do. The people must be allowed to heal their nation. Each party, whether honorably or treacherously, will continue to ignore U.N. mandates for their own ends.

Like all violent offenders who have always gotten away with it, the neocon-Likudniks have developed a false sense of invincibility; they are carelessly determined to impose their will. The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is as bold and intense as ever, with the threatening U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf and off Lebanese shores, the contrived nuclear case against Syria, and the Bush directive for covert ops. The violent offenders are just looking for a pretext for the next "operation."

UNIFIL and the Lebanese people should expect to face more aggression at the hands of these judge-and-jury mafiosi. Recent explosions that have killed many U.N. workers in S. Lebanon are still a mystery. Now that Resident Bush has apparently given the official go-ahead on major covert terrorism, we should expect more of that and worse in the near future, and not just in Lebanon. To disarm the Lebanese people at this point would be conspiracy to commit mass rape and genocide.

The "persistent but unproven reports" have been published by various journalists and writers, most prominently by Seymour Hersh. Hariri funding (which means Saudi-directed which means US-approved) of sunni islamists in Lebanon is perceived to aim at countering the shia (read: Hezbollah) influence and military strength in Lebanon, as a part of the dangerous sectarian game the US, Israel and their allies are playing throughout the greater Middle East, with talk about a "Shia crescent" first started by King Abdullah of Jordan last year and then enthusiastically taken up by Mubarak and others. In the predominant Arab political analysis - persistently described in western media, if mentioned at all, as a "conspiracy theory", even while it is shared by many prominent analysts, journalists and writers who are definitely not "islamists"or even "fanatics" in any sense - the US/Israeli strategy for "a new Middle East" is seen as an effort to break up the more powerful Arab countries that are not "moderate" (i.e. not pro-US/Israel) and divide them into as many powerless sectarian statelets as possible. In that view, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the continuous threats and war-mongering against Iran and Syria and the July 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon, all fit into a strategy of "divide and rule" whereby Israel would emerge as the only viable and powerful state left in the Middle East, surrounded by small, isolated, easy-to-manipulate sectarian statelets locked in eternal fighting among each other. The US congress' recent "decision" (and how arrogantly colonial is that?) to partition Iraq pretty much corroborates that point of view.