'Lebanon crisis an international conspiracy'

[bemildred]

---

As'ad AbuKhalil, author of Bin Laden, Islam, and America's New 'War on Terrorism' as well as The Battle for Saudi Arabia: Royalty, Fundamentalism, and Global Power, believes the recent violence is a symptom of an international conspiracy under way to enforce UN resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of militia groups in Lebanon - a reference to Hezbollah.

A professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, and visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley, AbuKhalil just returned from Lebanon. He also maintains the Angry Arab blogsite (http://angryarab.blogspot.com/ ).

Aljazeera.net: Israel says its assault on Lebanon is in self-defence against Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket attacks and the capture of two of its soldiers.

Hezbollah says southern Lebanon has long been an area of conflict with Israel occupying Lebanese land and that it wants indirect negotiations to secure the release of its prisoners in Israeli jails. How did the situation deteriorate so rapidly and so violently?

As'ad AbuKhalil: This particular conflict, and Israel's act of aggression on Lebanon, did not take place in a vacuum, and Israel did not act in some spontaneous fashion.

Hezbollah did not surprise Israel with the capture of the two Israeli occupation soldiers. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has repeatedly warned that if Israel does not release its Lebanese prisoners, he will be compelled to take Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips.

al Jazeera

[The Magistrate]

1. An International Conspiracy To Enforce A United Nations Resolution, Sir?

The horror!

[bemildred]

2. Compare and contrast, Sir:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x223845

[The Magistrate]

4. People See What They Want To See, My Friend

A sort of "beer goggles" permanently affixed, that show just what they desire to be before them....

It was not my intention, by the way, Sir, to suggest you subscribed to the line you put before us here. It was simply such a startling charge that it engaged the imp that serves me for a sense of humor.

One seldom sees the claim that there is a conspiracy to enforce the law; it is like announcing in shocked tones parents expect children to eat their vegetables before serving dessert.

[bemildred]

7. Another fine example:

CAN ISRAEL WIN?

NOT THE WAY IT'S FIGHTING


July 22, 2006 -- ISRAEL is losing this war. For a lifelong Israel supporter, that's a painful thing to write. But it's true. And the situation's worsening each day.

A U.S. government official put it to me this way: "Israel's got the clock, but Hezbollah's got the time." The sands of the hourglass favor the terrorists - every day they hold out and drop more rockets on Israel, Hezbollah scores a propaganda win.

All Hezbollah has to do to achieve victory is not to lose completely. But for Israel to emerge the acknowledged winner, it has to shatter Hezbollah. Yet Israeli miscalculations have left Hezbollah alive and kicking.

Israel has to pull itself together now, to send in ground troops in sufficient numbers, with fierce resolve to do what must be done: Root out Hezbollah fighters and kill them. This means Israel will suffer painful casualties - more today than if the Israeli Defense Force had gone in full blast at this fight's beginning.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/can_israel_win__opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm

[bemildred]

3. Without accepting his characterization of the situation,

he does seem to have some elements of the situation correct, as to who is on what side and so on:

The diplomatic pressure on Israel, the first signs of which will become clear this coming week, is not detached from the feeling among Arab leaders - particularly Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah - that they must lead the international diplomatic effort.

The upshot is that this weekend Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abd Al-Aziz and Lebanese MP Sa'ad Hariri, son of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, drew up the outlines of a diplomatic agreement together with France's president and foreign minister, and on Sunday President George W. Bush can expect the Saudi foreign minister to tell him about the pressure and dissatisfaction in the Arab states regarding America's overly pro-Israeli position.

Two "road maps" are currently on the table. The American proposal calls for a significant drawdown of Hezbollah armories in southern Lebanon, prior to a cease-fire offer conditioned on a Lebanese commitment to deploy its army. This would be followed by the creation of an international mechanism to enforce the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for disarming Hezbollah.

---

Hezbollah rejects all proposals for an agreement or a cease-fire, and will allow the Lebanese government to broker only a prisoner exchange. Hassan Nasrallah seems to think he can continue to control the situation. Lebanese observers believe that by concentrating on this issue, Nasrallah gives himself a political escape hatch: at any moment he can offer a solution to a relatively easy problem and strip Israel of its legitimate reason for fighting in Lebanon without paying too dearly.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/741403.html

[The Magistrate]

5. It Is Certainly True, Sir

That full enforcement of that resolution would be desireable, and is desired by many, and that its existence does provide Israel with a species of cover in its current actions, that would be absent, say, in a strike against Hamas offices in Damascus.

Nasrallah, too, is playing his hand pretty shrewdly.

[bemildred]

8. I can't really make up my mind about Nasrallah (how "clever" he is).

Not enough information. I did see one fellow on a blog who argued that theories that envision political leaders pursuing convoluted strategies are unlikely to be true, since most political leaders are not particularly subtle people. That seemed a good argument. OTOH is seems clear that both Hizbullah and Israel have been preparing for this for some time. But as you point out these things quickly assume a logic of their own; and as I pointed out, it's pretty early yet.

[Turbineguy]

6. That's what Robert Fisk

refers to this as "The Plot".

No matter what, there is always some evil mastermind at work. Like Professor Moriarty.

Nothing is ever simple and straightforward.

[bemildred]

10. Well, it really isn't that contentious to say governments get together and

conspire against each other in various ways, they do. And the same goes for private organizations and groups, they do. They pursue their goals and they try to "shape their information environment" while they do so. It's much easier to get your way if those that oppose you are confused as to what you are up to. This is true in war and in peace. The problem is that people assume or feel that it is automatically reprehensible to do that, when the truth is that it can be perfectly OK, or not, depending on what boundaries you respect, what rules you follow. For example, there is a moral distinction between lying and not telling everything you know.

[DELUSIONAL]

9. Apples and Oranges --

My take on this after reading the article.

Apparently we in the US are relatively unaware that Israel continued to harass the citizens of Lebanon even after the supposed withdrawal in 2000 -- the bit quoted below was unsettling :

Furthermore, Israel has adamantly refused to give to Lebanon a map of the more than 400,000 land mines that it left behind in South Lebanon, and which continue to kill Lebanese children in the region.

So on one side we have Hizbolla -- the almost comic book Western image of the villain (without any humor implied). These nasty terrorists lob rockets into Israel -- nasty thing to do.

On the other side we have Israel -- well armed thanks to sugar daddy -- USA. They violate the air space -- and let's not forget they invaded another country and left around 30,000 bodies the last time. And since I'm a typical American -- Lebanon being "over there" I've not paid much attention to the politics of that region for about 20 years.

The US media did report the civil wars in Lebanon -- nearly always neglecting to mention that the REASON for the civil wars was because Israel had invaded Lebanon and destabilized lebanon.

When the US did take sides in THAT mess (the 1980 Israeli invasion of Lebanon) a few hundred US Marines were killed. I remember that the USS Missouri was taken out of mothballs or removed from being a floating museum in order to lob shells into Lebanon.

So Israel pulls out of Lebanon -- only after sort of helping Hizbolla come to power (the comic book type villains -- because they are so nasty looking and they do mean and nasty things -- really mean -- like kidnappings etc.) Politics is like nature -- power vacuums will be filled -- and not by powers friendly to the super power (Israel compared to Lebanon).

The Israelis and Lebanese have very long memories -- unlike Americans who have attention deficit disorder. Which means that both sides have scores to settle -- as the subject of this interview, As'ad AbuKhalil, makes very clear.

Therefore it is very stupid for the US to take sides in any regional disagreements in the Middle East.

If anything we should know by now is that heaping more violence into an already violent situation will not solve the violence. Lobing massive artillery shells from a massive warship -- got a whole lot of US Marines killed in Lebanon.

Israel is trying to be even more violent than the Hizbolla -- or so it seems--in order to win this game of who can be the baddest meanest SOB in the region.

I vote that the US not take sides -- but then my vote doesn't count because this is America.