Tag: us

Former Leb PM al-Hoss: Bush is a terrorist

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Salim al-Hoss in an open letter to George W. Bush in the Daily Star:

You repeatedly claim that Israel is acting in self-defense. How preposterous! Self-defense on other people’s occupied territory is tantamount to one thing: blatant aggression.

You call Hizbullah a terrorist organization. We call it a legitimate resistance movement. There would have been no military wing of Hizbullah if there had been no Lebanese territory under Israeli occupation, if there had been no Lebanese hostages languishing in Israeli jails, and if Lebanon had not been exposed to almost daily Israeli intrusions into its airspace and territorial waters, and to sporadic incursions into Lebanese land and bombardment of civilian targets.

You cannot eliminate a party by demolishing a whole country. This would have been achieved peacefully by Israel withdrawing from the land it occupies, releasing Lebanese prisoners, and desisting from further acts of aggression against Lebanon.

Israel is the most horrendous terrorist power. And you, Mr. President, are unmistakably a direct partner, and hence a straight terrorist.

Pentagon to train Lebanese army?

The interesting thing about this AP story about US military training for the Lebanese army, written by hardcore pro-Israel hack Barry Schweid, is that it makes absolutely no mention of the Lebanese reaction to the proposal — whether in the Lebanese government or Lebanese army. It’s clear what the idea is, though:

The administration is striving for a resolution that would end the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, now in its fourth week, and also establish conditions for a lasting cease-fire. Many other countries favor an immediate cease-fire.

I put this paragraph in just to show Barry Schweid’s work: no question of the administration’s definition of a “lasting ceasefire,” and a throwaway about what other countries want — the implication being they want an immediate, but not a lasting, ceasefire.

But I digress. It continues:

The military training would be designed to help the Lebanese armed forces “exercise control and sovereignty over all of Lebanese territory once we have an end to the fighting in such a way that is durable,” McCormack said.

So how are we to know that the White House or Pentagon has even discussed this with the Lebanese armed forces? And who exactly is going to disarm Hizbullah? A US-trained Lebanese army? Will they train them like they did many armies and security services across the region — SAVAK in Iran during the 1960s and 1970s for instance? Or just supply them with tools like tear gas (riot-control police in Egypt) and legcuffs or electric batons (Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, used for torture? Is US policy really encouraging the Lebanese army to take on Hizbullah — i.e. start another civil war? I’m not surprised we don’t see a Lebanese general confirming this.

Bush didn’t know about Muslim sects

Absolutely nothing surprising about this:

Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, Galbraith, the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, claims that American leadership knew very little about the nature of Iraqi society and the problems it would face after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites.

Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam–to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

I bet he thought the word “Shiite” was pretty funny, too.

Fries now French again

No more freedom for fries, or so Congress has decreed. The congressmen who backed the original name-change are not commenting, but I wonder if the right-wing bloggers who backed the name change against cheese-eating surrender monkeys will not take up the cause.

Could this be a sign of a return from Bizarro World for American politicians?

Darell Issa weighing in?

Not a single conversation thesedays about US policy in the region, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, and what have you–that does not end with the question, where are the Arab Americans, and why aren’t they as organized as the pro-Israel lobby. Issandr has blogged several postings about this subject before.
Anyways, Zazou posted some critical comments on Darell Issa, the US congressional representaive from Lebanese decent, who is no stranger for us here in Cairo, with his regional visits that usually include meetings with Hosni, Gamal, and the NDP posse…

Worth checking out: Poor Lebanon…

Israel to suspend aerial operations for 48 hours, US says

I’m watching Al-Jazeera now. The channel has just announced that the US State Department said Israel agreed to suspend aerial operations for 48 hours, and will investigate what happened in Qana.

UPDATE: Now Al-Jazeera is saying that “Israel’s temporary suspension of aerial bombardments does not cover missile launch batteries.”

Proposed terror detainee bill rings bells

It seems the democratization domino effect Bush expected following the War on Iraq is working the other way around. The US is increasingly inspired by its Arab “allies.” Bush’s proposed detainee bill is a worrying development for anyone who cares about civil liberties. It sounds a bit like the Egyptian emergency law…

Bush submits new terror detainee bill
By ANNE PLUMMER FLAHERTY
Fri Jul 28, 6:53 PM ET

(AP) U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.

Continue reading Proposed terror detainee bill rings bells