Zionists and Gulf Monarchs Ponder Pushing Al Qaeda to Take on Hezbollah

By Franklin Lamb for Information Clearing House and Counterpunch 

“This is one damn fine idea, what took us so long to see a simple solution that was right in front of our eyes for Christ’s sake”, Senator John McCain of “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” and “no-fly zones for Syria” notoriety, reportedly demanded to know from Dennis Ross during a recent Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) brain storming session in Washington DC.

Ross, a founder of WINEP with Israeli government start up cash (presumably reimbursed unknowingly, one way or another by American taxpayers) and currently WINEPs “Counselor”, as in “consigliere” reportedly responded to the idea of facilitating Al Qeada to wage jihad against Hezbollah with the comment: “Shiites aren’t the only ones seeking death to demonstrate their ‘resistance’ to whatever. Plenty of other Muslims also want to die as we saw last week in Boston. Let ‘em all go at it and Israel can sweep out their s— when it’s over.”

One Congressional staffer attending the WINEP event emailed to Beirut: “Dennis spoke in jest—well I assumed he did- but who knows anymore? Things are getting ever crazier inside some of these pro-Israel ‘think tanks’ around here.”

Featured on the front page of its 4/25/13 edition, the Zionist compliant New York Times writes that the Assad regime is apparently recovering but, “it must be understood that for all of the justified worries about the (al Qaeda affiliated) rebels “Assad remains an ally of Iran and Hezbollah.”

The Times adopts the views of Islamophobe, Daniel Pipes, who recommends that the US try to keep the two sides in Syria fighting as long as possible until they destroy each other. Pipes, now serving as an advisor to John McClain, wrote in the Washington Times of 4/11/13 “ Evil forces pose less danger to us when they make war on each other. This keeps them focused locally, and it prevents either one from emerging victorious and thereby posing a greater danger. Western powers should guide enemies to a stalemate by helping whichever side is losing, so as to prolong their debilitating conflict.”

Both Jeffrey Feltman, U.N. Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs and Susan Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N, have at a minimum impliedly joined in the intriguing idea of sic’ing Jabhat al Nusra on the Party of God. This scheme, if launched, would be Feltman’s 14th attempt to topple Hezbollah and defeat the Lebanese National Resistance to the occupation of Palestine since he first arrived in Beirut from Tel Aviv in 2005 to become US Ambassador to Lebanon. This observer, among others in this region sense that given the aura still enveloping the American Embassy here, that Jeffrey never really left his Lebanese ambassadorial post and continues to occupy this position from his new UN office.

This week Feltman warned that the spillover of Syria’s war continues to be felt in Lebanon as Susan Rice, echoed him and condemned Hezbollah for “undermining the country’s “dissociation policy.” The latter being a bit obscure in meaning but connoting something like sitting around doing nothing while this country is being shelled by jihadists from among the 23 countries currently fighting in Syria. Feltman informed the media on 4/22/13 that “The Secretary-General is concerned by reports that Lebanese are fighting in Syria both on the side of the regime and on the side of the opposition, hopes that the new government will find ways to promote better compliance by all sides in Lebanon with the “disassociation policy.”

Given current divisions in Lebanon that will not happen anymore than Lebanon’s June 9th Parliamentary elections will be held on time.

For her part, Susan lectured the UN Security Council that “Hezbollah actively enables Assad to wage war on the Syrian people by providing money, weapons, and expertise to the regime in close coordination with Iran.” This position was expressed also through a statement by US. State Department spokesman, Patrick Ventrell, who said that Washington “has always been clear concerning Hezbollah’s shameful role and the support it is providing for the Syrian regime and the violence it is inducing in Syria.” Ventrell added: “We were clear from the start concerning the destructive role played by Iran as well as the Iranian role.”

Several Israeli agents in Congress are today promoting a Jabhat el Nusra-Hezbollah war even as the Obama administration terror-lists the jihadist group. Meanwhile, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), McCain’s neocon Islamaphobe acolyte, goes a bit further and explains to Fox News, once Assad falls and Hezbollah is out of the picture “We can deal with these (jihadist) fellas.”

Recent history in Libya instructs otherwise. As Turkish commentator Cihan Celik recently noted: “A divorce with al-Nusra will not be easy in Syria.”

The past two years in Libya, that shadow of a country, reveals countless examples, three witnessed firsthand by this observer, during the long hot summer of 2011. What we saw was Gulf sponsors and funders offering young men, often unemployed, $ 100 per month, free cigarettes, and a Kalashnikov to do jihad. Plenty down and out lads still accept these offers in Libya, as they do in Syria. One reason why the militias proliferated so quickly in Libya and never melted away was the phenomenon of a wannabe jihadists deciding to be a leader and recruiting perhaps a brother or two, maybe a few cousins or tribe members, and presto, they have created a militia with power they never dreamed of. Their new life can offer many perceived benefits from running rough shod over the civilian populations and setting up myriad mini but potent criminal enterprises specializing in kidnappings, robberies, drugs, trafficking in women, and assassinations for cash. How many of these young men have turned in their weapons in Libya and returned to their former lives? Or will do so when instructed by the likes of McCain or Graham?

On 4/24/13 Jabhat Al-Nusra Front intensified its threats to officials here including the Lebanese president by releasing a challenge from its media office: “…we inform you – and you may think of that as a warning or an ultimatum – that you must take immediate measures to restrain Hezbollah, otherwise, the fire will reach Beirut. If you do not abide by this within 24 hours, we will consider that you are taking part in the massacres committed by the Hezbollah members and we will unfortunately have to burn everything in Beirut.” In addition they are calling for Jihad and the establishment of the “Resistance Factions for Jihad against the Regime in Syria” and also in Saida and Tripoli, Lebanon.

Israeli officials appear to be in agreement with the Ross/Pipes proposal to arrange for Al Qeada to launch a war against Hezbollah. The Director for External Affairs at “The Mosche Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, repeatedly claimed that the Shia are the real threat to Israel, not the Sunni and with the least threat coming from the Gulf monarchs. He offered the view recently that “Israel is now a partner of the Sunni Arab states.” Indeed, Israel hopes that Hezbollah will forget Israel when tasked with trying repel Al Nusra and other al Qaeda affiliate attacks.

According to various Israel officials who have issued statements on the subject, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan and several other members of the Arab League constitute an “alliance of anxiety for Israel” because they claim that “Sunni Arabs are not as competent as the Shia and Iran and as a result they express doubts that Israel can rely on the Sunni states in the same way that the Sunni states can reply on Israel.”

In a documentary about the Iraq war, an American soldier explains: “Actually, we don’t really have much of a problem with the Sunnis. It’s the Shias who we are afraid of. The problem has something to do with their leader who was killed centuries ago and these fellas are willing to lay their life down for the guy. Anyhow, that is that they told us in Special Ops class.”

Al Nusra fighters currently occupying parts the south west areas of Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in south Damascus, recently expressed eagerness to fight Hezbollah which they claim would give them credibility with Sunni Muslims and, oddly, in this observers view, “ credibility with western countries”, who supposedly are al Qaeda’s sworn enemies. It’s sometimes hard to know who precisely is whose enemy these days in Syria as the rebels continue using areas east and southwest of Damascus as rear bases and as gateways into the capital.

Despite boasts to the contrary from Jihadist types in Syria and Lebanon, it is not clear to this observer if Jihadist and al Qaeda-affiliated groups living among Hezbollah communities in Lebanon like Fatah al Islam, Jund al Sham or Osbat al Ansar which have been here for years would actually join the Zionist promoted anti-Hezbollah jihad.

But it is evident that some Lebanese Islamists and jihadists directly connected to al Qaeda do have the ability to target Hezbollah. Elements from each of these groups are startling to associate and identify with al Nusra inspired partly by the latter’s successful military operations of Jabhat al Nusra in Syria. Again, we saw the same thing in Libya. Enthusiastic, ambitious young men who want to improve their lot in life try to go with a winner. According to sources in the Ain al Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, jihadist leaders such as Haytham and Mohammed al Saadi, Tawfic Taha, Oussama al Shehabi and Majed al Majed are recruiting followers and fighters in Lebanon and offer a ticket out the the squalid army surrounded, Syrian refugee inflated camp.

Homs-based media activist Mohammad Radwan Raad claims that “the embattled residents of the rebel-controlled Homs province town of Al-Qusayr welcome Saida, Lebanon based Sunni Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir’s call for Jihad in Syria.” Claims Raad, “Al-Qusayr residents welcome Assir’s call and hope the Lebanese people help kick out Hezbollah members in the area…We need anyone who can get rid of them.” This week Assir urged his followers to join Syrian rebels fighting troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah. Al-Qusayr has been under rebel control for more than a year and on the scene reports indicate that it is about to be returned to central government control.

In response, two Salafist Sunni Lebanese sheikhs urged their followers to go to Syria to fight a jihad (religious war) in defense of Qusayr’s Sunni residents. “There is a religious duty on every Muslim who is able to do so… to enter into Syria in order to defend its people, its mosques and religious shrines, especially in Qusayr and Homs,” Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir told his followers. For now, experts say, such calls on the part of Lebanon’s Salafists are largely bluster because the movement is far from able to wield either the arsenal or the fighting forces of Hezbollah.
Local analysts like Qassem Kassir argue that Jabhat al Nusra and friends are not organized enough to fight against Hezbollah in a conventional war, but they could cause great damage by organizing bomb attacks against the Party of God’s bases and militants. The latter would be enough initially for Ross and WINEP and their Zionist handlers. Creating chaos in Lebanon being one of their goals but more importantly weakening the National Lebanese Resistance led by Hezbollah and also challenging Syria and Iran.

In a recent speech, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah offered his party’s view about a promoted Sunni-Shia clash with Al-Nusra, AlQaida and all the groups which flocked to Syria, saying that what was wanted of them by those who sent them was to kill and get killed in Syria, in a massacre which will only serve the enemies of the Arabs and Muslims.

The coming months will reveal to us if the several pro-Zionist Arab regimes and Islamophobes including those at WINEP and other Israel first “think-tanks” are delusional in believing a “simple solution” in John McCain’s words, to those resisting the Zionist occupation of Palestine would be to assist Jabhat el Nusra type jihadists to make war against Hezbollah. And whether they could defeat Hezbollah or even whether Jabhat al Nusra and friends are capable of igniting yet another catastrophe in this region.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and Syria and can be reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com

Targeted for Assassination by NATO? Will Seif Survive to See Court?

by Franklin Lamb for Al-Manar

During the late evening of 10/20/11 the White House, the Office of the Secretary of State, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Libyan Embassy in Washington, DC received a faxed communication from an American organized international legal team currently preparing their departure to Libya.

The international lawyers, whose assistance has been arranged through Gadhafi family members and friends, has accepted the obligation to represent Seif al Islam against charges filed by the International Criminal Court on June 26, 2011 and to represent him in any and all legal proceedings that the NTC government may bring against him in Libya.

They have been advised by Gadafi supporters in Libya and neighboring countries that the NTC at the direction of NATO, fully intends to see Seif al Islam killed before he can address the international media and his supporters, following the transfer of his father’s leadership authority to Seif on August 29, 2011. Seif has been planning to announce his candidacy in the planned coming election. Informal polls throughout Libya have shown him garnering close to 70% of the vote if he is allowed to stand for office under the now NATO controlled country.

This observer is a member of the group of international lawyers who seek justice for their client, Seif al Islam.

An excerpt of the communication served in Washington reads:

“We demand that our client, Seif al Islam al Gadhafi be immediately protected should he be arrested and that if injured that he be kept under the continual watch and care by the International Committee of the Red Cross until we are granted personal contact with him and have the opportunity to complete current efforts at arranging interim measures of protection to guarantee his safety.

We insist that our client not be questioned or interrogated by anyone including representatives of the current government of Libyan or by investigators from the ICC until he has had the opportunity for legal consultation and until he recovers from any wounds.

The rights of Seif al Islam must be protected in full compliance with international norms and we call on the United Nations Security Council and International Human Rights Organizations to act immediately to protect our client.

We respectfully request that the International Criminal Court take custody of the remains of Moammar and Mutassim Gadhafi, and conduct forensic examinations preparatory to filing criminal charges against those responsible for these extra-judicial killings.

Information arriving from family members and friends of our client Seif al Islam leaves no doubt that NATO has ordered his killing. His planned and we believe approved assassination is meant to spare NATO the international accountably that awaits them as the World learns from eyewitness accounts and reliable, competent and probative physical and demonstrative evidence compiled over the past six months, exactly what NATO has wrought on Libya and its civilian population.

Shortly we will file with the ICC our formal demand for our clients protection and his transfer to a sanctuary outside of Libya lest he be assassinated as was the fate today of his father, Colonel Moammar al Gadhafi.

We intend to hold the current governments of Libya and the United States as well as NATO fully responsible for the brutal assassination of our client’s father and brother Mutassim and for any abuse or harm that is directed at our client, Seif al Islam.

We intend to prove in Court that following the passage of UN Security Resolution by the United Nations Security Council on March 17, 2011, NATO has repeatedly targeted civilian targets with more than 9,000 bombing sorties in Libya as part of its campaign to assassinate the Libyan leader Colonel Gadhafi and his close aides and advisers.

We intend to prove in Court that NATO did repeatedly sanction others to carry out Moammar Gadhafi’s assassination and that his killers on October 20, 2011 knew that a large cash award awaited them if they killed Colonel Gadhafi thus silencing him from testifying against NATO officials and current Western leaders who led the eight month destruction of Libya.” Reportedly, Gadhafi funded French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign and has significant classified information vis-à-vis his relationship with world leaders; information that if compromised, could be disastrous for them and their political careers.

The next few days will be a major test for the international community and whether the application of international law will be applied to Libya, NATO and its member states. The outcome will also likely signal whether Libya descends more deeply into civil war involving as many as six African countries who are reportedly organizing troop units to be sent into Libya to help protect civilians from NATO forces who are today assembling to help re-build the country that NATO needlessly and criminally destroyed.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon. He is reachable c\o fplamb@gmail.com

He is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon. Dr. Lamb is Director, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Wash.DC-Beirut Board Member, The Sabra Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut-Washington DC

Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp

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Office: +961-01-352-127

Qaddafi's Missing Legions - The Siege of Tripoli

by Franklin Lamb for CounterPunch

This observer’s tentative appraisal of Tuesday’s events along the north Tripoli port area as of late afternoon 8/23/11 is that the “65,000 well trained and well-armed troops” hyped Sunday by the Gaddafi government don’t in fact exist and that the pockets of government troops here in Tripoli and across Libya that do, will continue to resist what it views as NATO aggression designed to usurp the country’s oil and add Libya to Africom.

NATO is widely viewed in Tripoli as having violated the three main terms of UNSCR 1973, to wit, NATO did engage in regime change, it did take sides in a civil war, it did arm one side, and it did refuse to allow a negotiated diplomatic settlement which many here and internationally believe could have been achieved by early April, thus saving hundreds Libyan lives. NATO’s more than 160 days of bombing are seen as egregious violations of UNSCR 1973, Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter and numerous provisions of international law, all part of its campaign to secure Libyan oil and this rich countries geopolitical cooperation for the US, UK, France, Italy and their NATO allies.

I am told that some Gaddafi loyalists are headed to the colonel’s home town of Serte to prepare to defend it. Some of my reasons for these tentative conclusions include the no show government troops, the intensifying NATO bombings of Tripoli, which is the only reason the rebels have not negotiated an end to this conflict last April, and my tentative conclusion that there is no reason for massive numbers of government troops, if they existed, not to challenge the increasing numbers of NATO rebels who appear to be sitting ducks as they tool around Tripoli’s troops. According to journalists who arrived at this hotel yesterday from the west, south and east, there appear to be no government forces moving toward Tripoli to join in an Alamo type last stand battle.

During the early afternoon of 8/23/11, power and Internet were cut from our hotel and again the sealed windowed rooms heated up fast and had to be essentially vacated unless one stayed in the bathtub filled with tepid tap water. We currently have no local or international phone service or information from outside Libya or any knowledge of what is being reported internationally about Libya.

On Monday night August 22, 2011 I met with Saif al Islam. He was not captured and he is not dead. At least not as of 11 p.m. 8/22/11 or roughly 24 hours after the NTC and the ICC claim he was captured and was being prepared for transport to The Hague. Saif was defiant and he gave assurances that his family was safe and that NATO would be defeated politically for its crimes against Libyan civilians.

Saif took a western camera man and reporter on a short tour of Tripoli showing them that NATO was not in control—not 95% in control of Tripoli as the NTC rep in London has been claiming since Sunday night and not 80% in control of Tripoli as the White House & NATO’s “Operation protect the Libyan civilians” CEO, Rasmussen, has claimed. But the rebels do appear to currently control large swatches of Libya’s capitol. A journalist from the UK Independent who has been with the rebels for the past more than two months and who seemed to literally sort of stumble into our hotel yesterday told me this morning that NTC claims made during the period he was with them were “complete bullshit.”

Saif, Colonel Gaddafi’s onetime heir apparent, was in good spirits and exuded confidence. In conversation with one Yankee who he knew earned his PhD at the London School of Economics, that contrary to media reports last spring that Saif bought his PhD from LSE, that it’s not true and he in fact worked hard for nearly three years researching and writing his doctoral dissertation on community development. He was offended by reports than he did not. I tend to believe him because I found the LSE academically tough and my advisor Professor David Johnson and his Thesis Examination Committee trio, to my chagrin, went over my dissertation, Pollution as a Problem of International Law, for nearly three hours, paragraph by paragraph during my oral Thesis defense, more than two decades ago. I am thinking and assuming that LSE has not lowered its academic standards since the days of Harold Laski and David Johnson.

My new “office” is located in the outside patio area above the swimming pool and gardens of the “7 star” Corinthia hotel. Wonderful sea view overlooking Tripoli harbor to the north and the old city of Tripoli to the south. When a bomb hits or sustained gunfire erupts the office quickly moves just inside the glassed in restaurant which features the ONLY ‘hot’ electric plug among the more than 6000 currently dead ones in this hotel. Nobody knows when the hotel generator will crash ending the last of the wattage here and exhausting laptop and mobile phone batteries.

The inside of the hotel is sweltering having had no A/C for more than 48 hours. Wanting some fresh air, I prop open a door to the former Japanese Sushi Bar on the outside patio, but Miss Lorraine, the hotel manager, scolds me. “You bloody American”, she seethed at me yesterday. “First your bloody government brings NATO to bomb us to pieces and now you fill my hotel with birds! Damn all of you!”

It’s true that Lorraine sometimes gets a little upset when a bomb goes off and some of the birds from the hotel garden fly into the hotel’s two level grand lobby complete with lots of plants and palm trees where the poor frightened birds seek safety. They seem to like it inside our hotel.

Concerning the outdoor hotel garden, for some reason the garden lights are always on (last night the only ones in all of north Tripoli that I could see) and the garden fountains continue pumping which of course uses up quite valuable generator fuel oil. Lorraine laments: “As you know Mr. Lamb, the staff has abandoned me and I don’t know where the switch is—I would be ever so grateful if you could find it. I think it’s out there in the garden somewhere, and turn it off. Really I would!” Well, I did find the switch, turned off the fountains and the garden lights and Lorraine suddenly likes me again. Would that all women were so easy to please.

Yesterday one of the few staff people around here offered me the leaders framed picture (way too big to transport!) and a green flag that had been removed from outside the hotel’s main entrance. Miss Lorraine became distressed because she thought if I was caught with a green flag I could be in trouble. So as not to cause her more stress I declined with the knowledge that I already have a few packed away as gifts for friends.

The green flags and the gold frame picture of Gaddafi that were removed two nights ago suddenly returned overnight. There had been a heated discussion by remaining senior hotel management staff— numbering two it appears– about the wisdom of removing them. For now they are back where they were.

9:25 a.m. Two NATO bombs blast nearby. Three “security guys” from resting on a lobby couch run outside to see what happened. More birds come in and I again move my table away from the patio door.

9:43 a.m. Anti-aircraft gun fire hits the side of the hotel chipping the concrete siding near the garden entrance so I move one flight downstairs to the lobby.

10:20 a.m. A very long convoy of 237 rebel pickups, some with mounted anti-aircraft guns and filled with young fighters with RPG’s and AK-47’s and heavier guns, pass within 100 yards of me and the hotel balcony above the swimming pool and the seaside road– driving east along the sea front. They passed in front of the Marriott and Bab al Bahar (“gate to the sea”) hotel complex of five tall buildings, apparently unaware that yesterday at about the same time 22 truckloads of government troops turned right into that same complex and at least some of them went underground. Last night there was gunfire from the government troop location but as of this moment the government troops are undiscovered (if they did not redeploy overnight) and did not fire on the passing rebel convoy although the rebels slow moving convoy must have presented an attractive target. Again one wonders if the government’s troops are laying an elaborate trap for their enemies or if they have decided to sit out this phase and wait to learn whether Gaddafi’s regime can hang on. Of if they even exist in significant numbers.

The three “battle hardened journalists” who just arrived at this hotel are debating if the rebel’s convoy was in retreat or was advancing. My own two cents worth is that they were advancing toward the Bab al Azizya (“splendid gate”) Gaddafi barracks which as of this morning NATO has bombed a reported 144 times. I base my view on the serious looks on the rebel’s faces, their evident adrenalin, the fact that their advance is slow and fairly ordered including five ambulances bringing up the rear and the fact that some of them seem to be checking their weapons and ammunition belts as if preparing for a firefight. Some fighters eye us sternly seemingly unsure whether we are friend or foe. We wave at them and some wave back. However, moments later we hear gunfire from our rear and it appears that someone is firing at us thinking we are supporting the rebels. Kim and I duck into the hotel foyer but he goes back out.

10:40 a.m. Heavy gunfire is heard from the direction of Bab al Azizia Kaddafi barracks.

10:55 a.m. 20 minutes of heavy small arms and mortar rounds erupt and appear to be fired toward Gaddafi’s compound. Maybe it is from the rebel’s convoy that just past but the three battles hardened journalists, including the UK Independent’s Kim, who I have joined up with for the time being, are debating the subject. Very close AK-47 gunfire. We come back inside.

12:35 p.m. Two “rebel representatives” arrived at the main entrance of our hotel and caused a stir inside the lobby at the front desk. This hotel has zero security now, the last two uniformed security guys left early yesterday. The two “rebel” guys offered protection for the handful of us here. There was shouting as the front desk guys refused their offer. Eventually the “rebels” left. The hotel guys said the visitors were indeed local rebel “criminals” and that they had come to loot the hotel and not to protect it. However, there are exactly 8 rooms currently being occupied and one of the journalist’s claims he was already robbed on route from Zawiyeh yesterday just in front of the hotel. His laptop and his cash were stolen. Front desk hotel staff claims that today the “rebels” stole one car, tried but failed to hot wire two others, and stole ten computers from the hotel office. They also reportedly set up a rebel checkpoint at Gate Two outside our hotel and replaced the green flags with rebel tricolors. I declined to go check.

The AP’s man, Martin, who also arrived yesterday, just told me that the rebels now control the North Tripoli port area where our hotel is situated. My thoughts move to the 22 truckloads of government fighters who I saw disappear yesterday morning among the seaside hotels near our hotel. Meanwhile, the UK Independent’s men Kim reported that visas are no longer required to enter Libya from Tunisia.

12:50 p.m. A shorter convoy of 47 rebel vehicles passed the hotel. Maybe part of the earlier group on a victory lap or just patrolling or flaunting their control or perhaps it was a new group. They did not appear in a hurry or very anxious. We photographed them without their objection as they waved and drove into West Tripoli.

1:30 p.m. Three rockets hit near what appears to be Bab al Azizia. Heavy gunfire and two more rockets or mortars follow. AP’s Martin and the Independent’s Kim go out to look. Two more mortars appear to hit in the direction of Bab al Azizia. Kim reported that for some reason no one seems to need a visa to enter now from Jerba, Tunisia and he also thinks that perhaps the Kaddafi regime may have set a trap and will close it when his forces see the whites of rebel’s eyes.

One rebel media representative who re-defected back to the Gaddafi regime from the rebels is being interviewed by a journalist this afternoon. He told us that the NATO office in Naples is writing or vetting all NTC communications and that they have on their staff Israel Defense Ministry of Information psych-warfare specialists who are producing “panic causing leaflets & mobile phone messages” as well as putting out false claims at key moments for maximum impact on international and local public opinion.

I’m not sure if NATO recalls how during the July 2006 war in Lebanon, Hezbollah took IDF and US Israeli lobby psych-war propaganda and wrapped it around Israel’s neck during the 33 day war. However, it appears from here that the West is gobbling up the fake NTC (NATO) “media advisories” being regurgitated by “Libya experts” interviewed ad nausea on CNN, BCC, FOX and other MSM outlets who pontificate about the NTC’s democrats stunning achievement.

The above noted interviewee also claims that he heard rumors that NATO has dropped hit teams to control the messages coming from non MSM reporters who depict NATO and rebel activities in a negative light. Time may tell.

4:14 p.m. It appears that the hotel generator crashed so there is currently no power whatsoever at the hotel including no elevator. I am not relishing the 18 floor hike up to my room especially given my throbbing right leg.

6:15 p.m. The young man who let me borrow his bicycle rushed into the Corinthia hotel to tell us that Gaddafi’s compound at Bab al Azizia has been taken by “NATO rebel” forces following the nearly 9 hour battle. A high ranking Gaddafi official advised me last night that he expected Gaddafi’s compound would be taken and that the Colonel will not be easy to locate and will continue to galvanize a counter revolution in the coming days. He also told me that during the night of Saturday August 20, 2011 Kaddafi issued orders for his troops and supporters not to bomb and fire tanks inside Tripoli for fear of killing civilians and destroying civilian houses.

Franklin Lamb is in Libya and can be reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com

What now for Lebanon?

by Franklin Lamb for Al Manar

(my comments added in the text in blue color - The Saker)

Beirut: Informed Congressional sources in Washington DC on 1/15/11 are confirming that the White House has informed Congressional Committee Chairpersons and American allies that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) will indict Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Wali al Faqih (jurisconsult or Supreme Religious Leader) for issuing the order to assassinate Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. (Wow! First they accused Syria just to get them out of Lebanon, now they accuse the Iranian Supreme Leader just to have one more pretext for war and begin yet another Iran-demonization campaign)

The US and Israel believe Iran’s motive was that PM Hariri was considered a serious threat to Tehran and Damascus because their intelligence agencies established that Hariri was conspiratorially linked to Saudi Arabia, France and the United States—and by extension, Israel.(Which, of course, is quite evidently true)

Key Congressional leaders have been advised that the execution order targeting Hariri was delivered by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds force chief Qassem Suleymani to Hezbollah’s military commander Imad Mughniyeh. The US, Israel and their allies intend to back with an international media campaign, the STL theory that Mughniyeh and his brother-in-law, Mustapha Badr al-Dine met on several occasions and handpicked the team that carried out the assassination.

Moreover, that Syrian President Bashar al-Aassad, and his brother-in-law, Syrian Intelligence Chief Assef Shawkat, also played key roles in organizing Hariri’s assassination. The US government expects that each of these named individuals, including several Hezbollah leaders, will be indicted and convicted, almost certainly in absentia. (So let's make a tally here.  The parties accused are: a) Syria b) Iran c) Hezbollah.  Why don't they add Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, the entire government of Sudan, the "New Antisemites", nefarious narco-terrorists, pedophiles and TSA-resisting passengers while we are at it?)

Within days the US Congressional lobby is expected to initiate in the House and Senate a total cut off of American aid to Lebanon unless resigned Prime Minister Hariri is immediately returned to office. (Good idea!  Since this 'aid' goes to the Hariri clan to begin with, let them cut it; and its not like Saudi Arabia will not step in to defend their proxy...) This aid cutoff will be vociferously demanded by AIPAC despite statements to the contrary by American Ambassador Maury Connelly in Beirut on 1/15/11. Ambassador Connelly spoke to reporters following a meeting with Hezbollah ally General Michel Aoun, leader of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc (FPM) at his residence in Rabieh. It was a rare visit indeed by an American Ambassador with the US Embassy labeled megalomaniac Aoun. The visit by the US Ambassador reflected Aoun’s newly enhanced political status this weekend. Ms. Connelly said that “the United States remains steadfast in its support for Lebanon's state institutions through our robust military, security, and economic development assistance. We expect a new government will emerge through constitutional procedures, and our strong partnership with Lebanon will obviously endure.”

Few in Lebanon, or the region for that matter, likely credit the Ambassador’s statement, particularly as Hezbollah is now the de facto new majority and can administer the government as its wants should it choose. The Lebanese Parliamentary lineup is probably, as of today, 64 seats for the US-Saudi team and 64 seats for the Lebanese National Resistance. Moreover, the momentum favors Hezbollah since it picked up support from Walid Jumblatt’s five member Progressive Socialist Party Parliamentary bloc, after Jumblatt broke with Washington in 2008 (Walid delayed announcing him switch until 2009 just in case Washington wanted to make emends which apparently they did not). (Jumblatt is an old fox who knows from where the wind blows; if he dumped the US it is clearly because the US is loosing its war for influence in Lebanon)  What caused Jumblatt to bolt from March 14 was his friends Jeffrey Feltman failure to deliver on promised support for Jumblatt’s very risky May 2008 political challenge to Hezbollah. His friend Feltman pledged “all the help you need Walid. You can take it to the bank.” Jumblatt has stated publicly that he felt ‘stiffed’ by the Americans but he still likes Jeffrey personally, if not politically.

The White House has made it plain that America expects Saad Hariri to be returned to his Prime Ministerial post (its amazing to see that the US Empire still believes that it can order everybody around). That event is unlikely to occur. Yet, the Hezbollah led opposition might allow Hariri to be a caretaker until the 2013 elections—but only if he fulfills their earlier demands and withdraws Lebanon from any association with the STL.

The Obama administration has informed Congress that it would view a Hezbollah-led coalition assuming power in Lebanon as a direct threat to its strategic interests in the region and would likely, at a minimum, respond with an intense destabilization campaign (Ha!  Like such an intense destabilization campaign has not already been underway for years already!). Frankly, there is little the Obama Administration can do that it has not tried before to squeeze Lebanon, and it has little influence over events here partly due to the facts that the US is way overstretched in the region and is barely taken seriously in Lebanon these days.

Moreover, President Obama is said by one Congressional source to believe that Hezbollah is not interested in the hands on, “Jimmy Carter” style of governing for Lebanon or being involved in dealing with every detail of Lebanon’s very complicated sectarian system. The White House is said to expect Hezbollah to play a major role in forming the next government and some State Department staffers believe that it may even play a constructive role in shaping a policy statement that will govern the day to day running of the government.

Few, but the Israel lobby in Washington believe, or even mention, the idea that Hezbollah has any interest in an Islamic Republic system for Lebanon, repeatedly disavowed by Hezbollah officials including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah (True.  Hezbollah has many times stated that in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society like the one in Lebanon an Islamic Republic is impossible to establish). Hezbollah is expected to increase its focus on Israel and continue to apply its skills and manpower to build a regional deterrence to Israeli aggression while working for domestic tranquility and stability.

“In short, as one Congressional staffer via email, “Washington is not panicked by events in Lebanon at this time. We have bigger problems in the region and we’ll watch the STL’s progress and see what happens as a result of the indictments. But for sure we will not sit on our hands if things get out of hand.” The White House is said to be considering French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s idea of creating a "contact group" comprised of United States, France, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to negotiate a solution to the latest crisis (Why stop here?  They might as well add Israel, the UK, Colombia, Micronesia and, say, Canada to this group)

There continues to be much speculation about the timing of the Special Tribunal indictments and what they will mean on the street (Nothing; nothing at all; everybody with an IQ at room temperature or above will know that this tribunal is nothing but a front for Israel)  Bookies at the Casino de Liban near Jounieh have odds that those indicted will be named publicly on next month’s Valentine’s Day, the 6th anniversary of the Hariri murder. Others are holding their bets arguing that using that date would make the STL prosecutor’s office appear too politicized, a charge Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare has been chafing under for more than a year. The STL has said that the names of those indicted will be kept sealed when prosecutor Bellemare sends them to Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen. The public will likely learn the names of those indicted when arrest warrants are issued by the Court.

Despite civil war still being talked about as a possibility here in Lebanon, it has proven impossible to ignite to date even though it would suit US-Israel political goals (I don't believe that will happen for two reasons: a) Hezbollah has never, and will never, target their fellow Lebanese except in self-defense and b) should Hezbollah be forced to defend itself it will crush any other force in 24-36 hours). The sage of Lebanon, former Prime Minister Salem el Hoss predicts Lebanon is now headed for a long period of governmental stagnation while domestic and foreign actor’s angle for political and military advantages. Dr. Hoss explained that a civil war is unlikely given the attitudes of the young generation and the fact that none of the sects could successfully confront the Opposition led by Hezbollah and western powers lack credibility here.

More likely would be Israel undertaking a White House green lighted invasion of Lebanon to degrade Hezbollah and Syria as a forward base-up weakening of Iran from ground level (Yep.  Except that the Israelis will get a beating even worse than in 2006). Congressional sources report that the Pentagon disagrees with Israel and intend to attack not from the base but from above the top of the Resistance pyramid which is Iran. The US will hit Iran hard thus hopefully opening up another attempt to peel away Syria and forced them to accept a peace deal with Israel (The result of a US attack on Iran will be very similar to the results of the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006 - a huge amount of destruction and no political or strategic gain achieved). The scheme would return the Golan Heights to the Assad regime minus the 100 meters strip along Syria’s Lake Tiberius. This sliver of lake front is where former Syrian President Hafez Assad told President Bill Clinton in 2000, he used to swim as a kid. He also told Clinton that Syria’s demand for its full return was non-negotiable, the same position adamantly held today by the Syrian government.

In Beirut, discussing the likelihood of street violence, a March 14th Hariri supporter attending Professor Norman Finkelstein’s public lecture at AUB last night told this observer that Lebanon needs stability and justice. ‘Let all the dead from Lebanon’s black civil war period rest in peace. It’s time to move on and rebuild our fractured country. I say all those who have been killed in Lebanon are equal.”

Well almost. 

The enthusiastic young man did not believe his counsel should apply to the case of former P.M. Rafik Hariri, who while not the first PM to be killed in office, is the first one to be killed with such powerful friends insisting on “justice.”

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com 

What is quite clear is the the US-Israeli Empire is both quite frustrated and quite clueless as to how to proceed.  In that situation, it can only resort to more of the same, even though that is exactly what got them into such a weak position to begin with.  I would credit the Obama Administration in being a far more effective Imperial high command than the Baby-Bush administration.  So far, Obama as succeeded in organizing a coup in Honduras, he brought Russia to heel over Iran, and his internal policies are turning the USA into a fascist country with a 3rd world socio-economic structure even faster than Baby-Bush ever dreamed of.  American's billionaires are making more money than ever.  But even with a far more shrewed leader at its helm, the US-Israeli Empire is rapidly running out of steam and 'Uncle Shmuel', as I like to call it, knows that its days are numbered.  Which, of course, makes it far more dangerous and prone to ill-conceived and  purely tactical (as opposed to strategic) policies.  Bottom line: we cannot expect that Uncle Shmuel will act in a truly rational way: its policies will be brutal and self-defeating.  Such is the sclerotic pathology of a collapsing empire.

How Israel And The US Hope To Destroy Hezbollah

By Franklin Lamb on Countercurrents

“I’ve got these [expletive deleted] just where we want them Maura! Watch the 1000 slow cuts as we shred Hezbollah–who do they think they are? And we’ll do it by using 1757 and this time we’re going all the way. I told Israel to stay out of Lebanon because the IDF can’t defeat Hezbollah plus the whole region would burn.

I will handle this and it will be my Christmas present to Lebanon.” So said Jeffrey Feltman in conversation with his former office staffer, now US Ambassador to Lebanon, Maura Connelly during October 17, 2010 visit with MP Walid Jumblatt at his Clemenceau residence.

On December 12, 2008, Naharnet.com reported that “Former US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman presented Prime Minister Fuad Siniora with what the American diplomat described as his personal Christmas present to Lebanon. Mr. Feltman assured PM Siniora that he will force Israel out of Ghajar village before the end of 2008.”

As it turned out, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and Lebanon never did receive Feltman’s promised 2008 Christmas present and Israel still has its tanks and troops in Lebanon’s Ghajar village even as pressure mounts for ending its four-year illegal occupation of North Ghajar which, in violation of UNSCR 1701, Israel invaded in July 2006 and from which it has refused to withdraw.

This holiday season Jeff is again assuring his Lebanese allies that he’s Santa Claus and Hezbollah’s head will adorn his sleigh during his Christmas eve rounds. The reason for his optimism is that US and Israel are quietly confident that they can achieve with UNSCR 1757 what was intended but fell short with UNSCR 1559, which is stripping Lebanon’s Resistance of its defensive weapons.

On November 11th, Vice Premier and Regional Development Minister Silvan Shalom predicted that “an STL (Special Tribunal for Lebanon) indictment against Hezbollah will lead to the implementation of Resolution 1559 and the forced disarming of the Party as well as the collapse of the effort at a Syrian-Lebanese-Iranian-Turkish alliance.

The grand trophy would be Hassan Nasrallah

The US-Israel project is said to be based on elaborate computer models among other calculations and includes the expectation that members of Hezbollah, possibly even Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, will be indicted, tried and convicted, in absentia of course, of involvement in the February 14, 2005 murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

The US State Department Office of the Legal Adviser has proudly assured the White House that because its office insisted back in 2005 that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon be established under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, anyone who the STL convicts will face sure UN justice. Chapter Seven allows for the use of unlimited international armed force to implement any verdict that the STL hands down. Washington and Tel Aviv intend that those convicted will not escape the full power of the United Nations system anymore than others earlier, including former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Israel, serial violator of international law including more than 60 UN Resolutions is also busy boasting that international law supports the Tribunal and that high priced law firms around the world can be hired if necessary to back up the legal work of the STL office of the Prosecution, led by Daniel Bellemare of Canada.

Within hours of Israel instructing Secretary of State Clinton, not to worry, that there is no way for the STL to be stopped or its final judgment sidetracked and all the US has to do is fund it, the White House announced an additional $ 10 million for the Tribunal and got the UK to pony up another $ 1.8 million. More cash is expected from France. Today the STL is flush with cash and it will likely remain so.

Based on interviews with two former staff members of the Office of the STL prosecution, as well as numerous public statements by US officials, there are reasons to take seriously the “all the way” intensions of Jeffrey Feltman and Silvan Shalom. Their governments assert the that STL is legitimate under both international law, given that it was established in accordance with a U.N. Security Council resolution issued under Chapter 7, and also under Lebanon’s legal and constitutional principles contrary to what is being claimed by Hezbollah and STL’s adversaries in Lebanon.

In addition, the US State Department points out that the preamble to the Lebanese Constitution provides that “Lebanon is a founding and active member of the United Nations Organization and abides by its covenants and by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Government shall embody these principles in all fields and areas without exception.” Moreover, the Charter of the United Natio ns obliges U.N. member states to “accept and carry out the decisions of the (U.N.) Security Council.”

According to one State Department lawyer, “If the STL indicts and convicts one member of Hezbollah we win. A driver, a boy scout, we don’t care. The Security Council can do a dozen things to topple Hezbollah. For example, can you imagine the effect of Iranian style sanctions if applied against Lebanon until the killers are handed over? The Lebanese only care about money and with all those sects hating each other anyhow, the country will quickly implode in recriminations and civil war if they’re forced to diet a bit…And very tough sanctions against Syria? The US and Israel will only have to collect the pieces and do what should have been done half a century ago and that was to install governments that understand regional and international realities.”

Efforts by Hezbollah and Syria to derail the STL are viewed in Tel Aviv and Washington as futile, because Lebanon is thought to have nothing to say about the STL. It is created by the UNSC and nothing the Lebanese Parliament, Cabinet or people do will affect it. The only reason Lebanon is in the picture at all is that it is the crime scene. And it happens to harbor some suspects. Apart from that Lebanon is essentially irrelevant to the STL work.

One congressional staffer advised: “What we will use are all the many tools, enforcement and other, available to the international community to bring down Hezbollah. The coming phase need not even look like the US and Israel have much involvement. We will just watch like football spectators from the sideline as the UN employs myriad legal and political measures to bring to justice those found to be involved. That’s the beauty of this and it’s also why Hezbollah is very, worried. Or for sure they should be.”

Another staffer in the same office added in an email: “Don’t you see, the STL is the perfect international law instrument to destroy Hezbollah, achieve regime change in Syria, create deadly Sunni-Shia conflicts everywhere, cause civil a war in Lebanon and topple the Mullahs in Iran. It’s going to be like Cheney never left office.”

Following the STL indictments, assuming they include Hezbollah, Washington sources expect that the Israel lobby will launch perhaps history’s most massive and expensive international media campaign of defamation against Hezbollah, Syria and Iran and they will be joined by the US government and some of its European allies, plus the ever-rentable Micronesia.

The objective will be to essentially unite the world’s population against the presumed Shia killers of the Sunni Prime Minister. More than a dozen US-Israel projects that failed in Lebanon over the past decade, from an airbase in Kleiat to street battles to cutting optic telecommunication lines may come back into play when stamped with the imprimatur of international law and full UN Security Council legitimacy.

The current project includes continuing the public threats and hyping threats that Israel is ready to attack Lebanon whereas the Pentagon believes Israel is not ready and may never be ready again and is being rejected regionally and internationally. According to Hezbollah MP Kamel al-Rifai U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, and U.S. Senator John Kerry informed Lebanese officials during their recent visits to Lebanon that Israel is serious in its threats to attack Lebanon and might just attack. Al-Rifai told the daily Asharq al-Awsat on 11/15/10 that Hezbollah was told that the American administration gave Israel the green light to do as it pleases in Lebanon, adding that Kerry sent this message to the Syrian leadership as well.

For these reasons the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is seen as an extraordinary US-Israel opportunity to maintain control of the region. The coming media campaign will employ especially sharp personal attacks on Hassan Nasrallah who the US and Israel fear as an Arab leader in the mold of Nasser and as a Muslim leader without modern parallel. Nasrallah is seen as a leader who has the potential to heal many Shia-Sunni divisions and for this he is viewed in Washington and Tel Aviv as very dangerous.

Hezbollah’s assessment

On November 11, 2010 Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah discussed the STL at a neighborhood Martyr’s day gathering in South Beirut. Offering his views on the US-Israel project, he told his audience that Hezbollah knows the US-Israel strategy, which he explained is:

“Let’s accuse Shiite men of assassinating the most important Sunnite leader and consequently issue an indictment in this regard. We will call on the Lebanese government which had signed an agreement with us to arrest these men. The latter would set to arrest them and dispatch army troops and security forces which would be engaged in a clash with the Resistance.”

Nasrallah continued, “Primarily this is the plot. It is not important for the Americans, the Israelis and the sponsors of the STL what would happen or what might happen in Lebanon. Lebanon in itself is not important, neither is martyr PM Rafiq Hariri, the Sunnites, the Shiites, the Muslims, the Christians, the Future Movement, March 14 Bloc nor March 8 Bloc. What is important is Israel, and Israel’s interest is that the Resistance be hit, eliminated, isolated, besieged, weakened, snatched away from its popular environment and its image be distorted. Its morals, belief and will must be harmed and consequently, it would be ready to be hit or to surrender to this plot.”

Hezbollah MP Nawaf Mousawi, one of the most sought after Hezbollah officials for discussions by visiting American and foreign delegations due to his intellect and clarity, advised the media a short time later that:

“The Resistance party is prepared for all scenarios,” adding that “nothing would surprise Hezbollah…. Hezbollah has prepared a series of responses.

Every option corresponds to a specific scenario. Thus if things are positive, we’re ready. But if things are negative and the efforts failed in reaching a solution to the crisis, we’re also ready. In brief, we’re ready to face all options,” Mousawi said.

Franklin Lamb is Director, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Beirut-Washington DC, Board Member of The Sabra Shatila Foundation, and a volunteer with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Lebanon. He is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon and is doing research in Lebanon for his next book. He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com

'Full Red Alert': Hezbollah Ponders Gaza Role

By Franklin Lamb for Palestine Chronicle

"The Resistance is one project and the resistance movement is one movement and has one course, one destiny, one goal, despite its different parties, factions, believes, sects and intellectual and political trends…Resistance movements in this region, especially in Lebanon and Palestine, complement one another and (Hezbollah and Hamas) are contiguous groups." -- Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, 7/18/08

"In Lebanon, we, the Islamic Resistance, are ready and prepared to confront any Israeli stupidity. We are prepared to face any foolishness. We have the wisdom to act calmly and we will not be dragged to any act of which we are not convinced. But we will not accept becoming a target for anyone. Hezbollah’s level of readiness is greater than the enemy’s imagination." -- Mohammad Raad, leader of the Hezbollah’s block in the Lebanese Parliament, 1/09/09

“Where is my friend Hussein?,” this observer asked some of the guys yesterday at my favorite motorcycle repair shop in Dahiyeh, the Hezbollah area in Beirut, as I helped, with my bandaged arm, off load my motorbike. “Silver”, sad to report, was not at all in good shape. In fact Silver needed a front end alignment, a new headlight, two turn signals, a new tail light and a new front wheel guard and at least the cracked windshield taped, before we could head off again and add the more than 11,000 miles we have logged crisscrossing Lebanon together.

The problem was Beirut’s flash hailstorm on Sunday. Immediately upon entering Verdun street near the Dunes hotel, Silver, not being used to a surface road mixture of oil and ice, and having a van cut him off from the right, tried to maneuver and skidded on his side and this observer went tumbling (again!). This time against a hotel protective barrier as some army guys jumped out of the way then courteously helped me up with a friendly “Welcome in Lebanon.”

“Isn’t this about your third ‘divine accident’ this year?,” one of Hussein’s mechanics, Ali grinned, as payback for me telling him a Sunni joke the other day about Hezbollah’s string of “divine victories.”

Again, I asked why my friend Hussein was absent. No response.

If one wants his motorcycle fixed cheap, well and quickly, even the pro government-anti Hezbollah Sunni repair shops in the central Beirut area of Hamra neighborhoods will tell you it’s best to take it to Ghouberi. “Ghouberi” is code language for the Hezbollah area of Dahiyeh/Haret Hareik, where most macho Hamra guys fear to tread as they continue to smart over “the events of May,” when Shia Hezbollah and some of their allies in Shia Amal and the Christian National Syria Socialist Party stormed parts of Sunni West Beirut and locked it down tight for around 72 hours before handing it over to the Lebanese Army. It was all about sending a message to the US-Israeli backed government not to mess with Hezbollah’s communication system or with their guys at the Beirut airport.

Once again the Hezbollah shop that took care of Silver did a great job. The mechanics, mainly Hezbollah reservists with ‘day jobs,’ apply the same work ethic of thoroughness and skill to their bike work as they do defending Lebanon against Israeli attacks. Space only allows for one example. As I inquired about the prospects that Hezbollah would open a second front, I noticed that a mechanic and his Palestinian dropout helper (quitting school is the growing pattern these days in Lebanon’s Refugee camps due to economic and political pressure), one with a screwdriver and the other with a wrench, literally checked and tightened every nut or screw on the bike. Never in 20+ years of riding and crashing motorcycles in more than a dozen countries had I seen mechanics do that.

Pastries or Pistachios as Clues

“So where was Hussein?” I asked for the third time. “He not in Beirut,” one of the mechanics said.

I immediately understood.

There is quite a lot of code language used in Lebanon these days, and “He’s not in Beirut” in Hezbollah parlance means, “He’s been called up,” he’s off somewhere for a few weeks doing ‘training’ or he’s been posted with his 5-6 man unit.

While Hussein is “not in Beirut.” it’s likely no one among his family or friends will hear from him. He may spend days or weeks in a tree along the Blue Line electronically eavesdropping on Israeli soldiers or recording their movements and habits or any one of hundreds of preparatory tasks. Hussein will return as if he just completed his day off but will answer no questions that begin with where, what, why, who, when, are, can, do, etc. Quite likely he will look leaner, stronger, more serious than when he left and will parry inquires with a smile and a question about “what’s new with you,” etc.

One might gain some inkling where he has been from what he brings back as gifts for his pals. For example, if Hussein brings special pastries acquired only from a certain village, which he did last time for this observer, obviously he had been posted in the Bekaa Valley. If he returns with a bag of oranges perhaps he was down south. Iranian candies or Iran’s famous Pistachios? For sure he was, well, the dear reader gets the idea.

Today, the Lebanese Resistance led by Hezbollah remains on full alert, in the 1/10/09 words of Lebanon’s Oppositions leader in Parliament, Mohammad Raad, “in case Israel does something stupid, we are ready.”

Some Hezbollah officials took note of what might be an Israeli record of some sort. They pointed out that whereas in the July 2006 War, Israel killed approximately 1,100 Lebanese civilians in 33 days of carpet, frenzied and indiscriminate bombing, in Gaza they have achieved the killing of approximately the same number of Palestinians, is about have the number of days. No doubt some kind of a lesson the Israeli military learned from their failure in the earlier conflict.

Many questions are being asked throughout Lebanon about whether the Hezbollah leadership will yield to growing pressure from all parts of Lebanon and within its ranks to force Israel to lift its destruction of Gaza? If so, are there ways it could be done without a igniting a sixth war in Lebanon?

Contemporary Wisdom in Lebanon

Every day brings more questions from Resistance observers inside and outside of Lebanon: when is Hezbollah going to deliver on all those speeches by Party leaders expressing Hezbollah’s ‘sacred commitment’ to the bloodstream issue for all Arabs and Muslims: the liberation of Palestine?

These days the Lebanese Resistance, led by Hezbollah is on Full Red Alert and there is a palpable sense of foreboding in many Hezbollah supporting neighborhoods.

In the bike shop, with its “town meeting” atmosphere, some Hezbollah members are more explicit.

“We can hit Dimona with hundreds of rockets on the first day, if we get the order,” the veteran Abass explains. “The Zionists are very lucky I do not have the authority or we would have joined the battle when the first bomb fell on Gaza. It is just a matter of when, not if, we join the Gazan Resisters.”

The largest of dozens of demonstrations in support of the Gaza Resistance Hamas have been organized by Hezbollah. Thousands of those in attendance at every demonstration bristle with anger along with hundreds of millions all over the World. In Lebanon, many, not only in the Palestinian camps and Hezbollah areas, but north and south ache to do something to help the trapped and dying Gazans.

Regarding the likelihood that Hezbollah will come to the military aid of Gaza, the local conventional wisdom, much of it likely wrong, includes:

* Hezbollah is still regrouping its base from the July 2006 Israeli aggression and rebuilding thousands of homes and businesses and doesn’t want them destroyed again.

* Hezbollah may not yet be prepared militarily.

* Hezbollah has not completed its redeployment to the Bekaa Valley and to the strategic mountain tops where the next war with Israel will be largely based. This includes towns such as Sajad near Al-Rihan Mountain, north of the Litani River with its clear view of all of South Lebanon and the upper Galilee of occupied Palestine, as well as part of the Golan and the Mediterranean coastline. The geographic location of Sajad between the Al-Zahrani and Litani Rivers give it strategic importance and links the South and the Bekaa. They need more time.

* The certain massive destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure of roads, bridges, schools, would turn the populace against it and undermine its great political progress since 2006.

* That Hezbollah, having recently consolidated its base and formed a political coalition with Christian and some Druze leaders wants time to see its alliances grow stronger and free of potential military and political “unintended results.”

* Hezbollah wants to win the currently scheduled June 9, 2009 elections, and being seen as sparking another massive destruction of Lebanon would give its rival parties plenty to beat it over the head with at the polls. Every time Israel issues a new threat against Lebanon and announces in advance that it intends to commit war crimes by destroying Lebanon, this helps Hezbollah’s rivals in the polls as they take to the airwaves and argue that Hezbollah wants another war and does not care about destroying Lebanon like last time. Or, as scholar Amal Saad-Ghorayeb observed last week, intense domestic pressures to disarm, and possible, more externally manufactured, locally-executed conspiracies hatched against it that could drag it into the kind of civil warfare that the movement found itself in during May 2008.

* Hezbollah does not want to risk losing the June 9 election and wants to keep its lead in the polls.

* Hezbollah is currently behind in the polls and needs peace in Lebanon in order to convince swing voters that it will be behave responsibly if the voters will allow it to govern.

* Hamas is assured of winning the war Gaza, given that Israel must win with its 1000 to 1 military advantage or it will be humiliated and, as Anthony Cordesman has pointed out, would likely in any case lose its deterrence position, likely for good.

* That the Israeli government and its supporters claim that Israel learned from their poor performance in July 2006 is wishful thinking and their performance to date strongly suggests Israel has learned nothing and will deliver to Hamas a silver platter with huge organizational and political gifts.

The “Varsity Squad” of Hezbollah has so trained the “Junior Varsity Squad” that there is no need to intervene unless Hamas is on the verge of total elimination which given its strong showing during the past 17 days appears very unlikely. As one Hezbollah reservist noted, “If Hamas survives to fire even one rocket into Israel after Israeli forces eventually withdraw from Gaza, the World will declare Hamas the winner.” Israel discovered Hezbollah expertise last weekend when it learned that the capabilities of Hamas are much more than they anticipated including its ability to strike Beer Sheba.

Based on conversations with several Hezbollah functionaries, Shia Hezbollah appears to have increasingly deep respect for Sunni Hamas. They share an ideology and a set of strategic goals that transcend their religious difference. Both were created as an alternative to failed Arab nationalist organizations in order to effectively confront the Zionist occupation. Hezbollah has been the primary role model, trainer, and “coach” of a “new” Hamas with apparent dramatic results.

Strategically, the fact that Sunni Hamas and Shia Hezbollah cooperate well, despite differing interpretations of some of the Koran, and the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Mohammad), leads some observers to believe that this display of Muslim unity dampens the effects of the fiery rhetoric of Egypt’s Mubarak and Jordan’s Abdullah, among others, who regularly raise the chicken-little alarm of an Iranian constructed “Shia crescent.”

Hezbollah’s “Parental Pride” in Hamas

When Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, was assassinated last February, one of the major projects he had been working on for nearly two years was to teach Hamas the lessons Hezbollah learned during the 22-year Israeli occupation of much of Lebanon as well as the 2006 Israeli aggression against Lebanon. The current conflict in Gaza may indicate how well Hamas learned from “Hajj Radwan,” Moghinyeh’s nom de guerre.

It was Israel that killed Imad. One reason was that he was deeply involved in training Hamas with the Hezbollah model of Resistance. He is known to have been very proud of the Palestinians and stated shortly before his death to Party colleagues: “They (Hamas) are becoming a very good resistance force.” Some in Lebanon refer to Hamas as the JV (Junior Varsity) or “red shirts” as opposed to the Hezbollah “Varsity” or “blue shirts,” and “Hajj Radwan” is the coach of both. In another Report to the Party, he expressed his admiration for their ability reporting that, “they are proving day after day that they are powerful people capable of facing all challenges.”

During Mughinyeh’s scores of tutorials, Israel was tipped off by certain Palestinians who had met with Imad and who knew or suspected his real identity from “the old days” when Imad spent years with the PLO and was close to Arafat and his inner circle. Most people, even those who worked closely with him, did not know his true identity and he tried to keep it that way even avoiding his home village where half the residents are Mughinyehs. Yet, some who met with him remembered him and ultimately betrayed him.

Some, including this observer, theorize this is why Mughinyeh was killed, almost certainly with the help of Syrians in Israel’s employ since every individual allowed in the Damascus “special security zone” where the killing occurred was closely vetted, examined and then carefully watched. A “full report” on the assassination was claimed to have been made by the Syrian government, which promised to release it within a few days. In two weeks the report will be exactly one year past the promised release date and no one claims to have seen it.

Yet Hajj Radwan is said to have helped revamp Hamas’ military command and replaced certain elements. One subject Mughinyeh is said to have stressed to Hamas during such meetings was the importance of “the communications network as a strategic weapon,” which included Hamas keeping in direct battlefield contact with other Resistance groups fighting Israel, and advising Hamas on ways of fighting Israel using a number of different tactics and bases in locations in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, according to the authoritative Beirut daily Al Akbar.

One of his communications to superiors in Hezbollah is said to have reported: “The way the bottom of the earth was transformed in (areas) around the Strip and inside cities indicates that if determination and leadership was provided to them (the Palestinians), they would achieve what hasn’t been achieved before.”

Other lessons Mughinyeh offered Hamas, based on the lessons from 2006, included that each Hamas small unit of approximately five fighters should be fully equipped and must have a clear plan to fight Israeli soldiers and to wage a long war of attrition until Israel withdraws. Another included instruction on ways to stockpile weapons that would allow Hamas to have quick access to them even if Israel occupied many areas in the Gaza Strip. It is some of these pre-positioned weapons that special Israeli search units try to find in order to exhibit them for propaganda purposes.

How well Hamas has learned from Hezbollah’s experience remains to be seen. Meanwhile plenty of suspicions and speculation remain concerning exactly who killed Hezbollah’s much loved Imad Mughinyeh and why.

As Hezbollah has leveraged its 2006 victory, Hamas will likely do the same, with the losers again being the American–Israel axis, the current PA leadership, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The winners, in addition to Hamas, are once more Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. Never in American history has one US administration delivered such a long and consistent string of political victories to its declared adversaries while assuring the eventual collapse of its most favored nation, and managing to turn most of the World, and its own country, against itself.

- Franklin Lamb, currently based in Beirut, drafted, for HOKOK, the International Coalition against Impunity, its Complaint/Submission filed, on December 10, 2008, the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the Internationally Criminal Court in The Hague. The Case charges Israel with continuing Rome Statue International crimes in Gaza and throughout Occupied Palestine. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. He can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org.

Why Hezbollah's Victory may lead to peace in the Middle East

Interview with Franklin Lamb by Mike Whitney for Global Research

Question: Between May 7 to May 10, Hezbollah took over Beirut, shut down the city's TV and communications facilities, blocked the main highways, closed the airport, and surrounded the homes of the leading political leaders with armed gunman. The action was taken in response to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's decision to outlaw Hezbollah's telecommunication network and sack the head of security at Beirut airport. Although the incident has been downplayed in the western media, it appears that Hezbollah achieved a total victory and is now recognized as the strongest group operating within Lebanon. What affect will Hezbollah's victory have on the political dynamic within Lebanon?

Franklin Lamb: I don't believe Hezbollah achieved a 'total victory' as the question suggests, but its achievements were certainly strategic and that sets out the future in many respects. As you rightly imply, Hezbollah's emphatic statement by its quick move into the March 14 areas was aimed at Israel, the Bush Administration and their agents and allies in Lebanon and the Middle East.

What provoked the precise timing of the action was the fact, as Sheik Naim Qassim, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General told this observer and a former American Ambassador and other US citizens who met with him on Monday May 10 in Dahiyeh, was a 10 hour "series of conference calls" from the Welch Club to the Serail (Government House) that immediately preceded the Siniora government decision to move against Hezbollah, its vital optic fiber phone system and the Airport security office. According to Hezbollah sources there were other US planned assaults on the Opposition which have not been made public.

According to Qassim during this frenetic series of conference calls involving several countries, the decision was made in Washington to move against Hezbollah. Hezbollah believes the Lebanese government is virtually occupied by the Bush Administration and all substantive decisions now announced in Beirut come from Washington.

The outcome of the May events as you implied in your question was devastating for the Bush administration and its allies. It not only led to withdrawal of the two government decisions against Hezbollah, it led to the Dora agreement and the current serious efforts to form a unity government and share power. For nearly two years the Opposition tried to achieve a unity government for Lebanon and may now have done so with its counterstrike against the Welch club move against it.

The May events led to agreement on holding a democratic election next year and the veto power of the opposition over US initiatives sent to the 'majority'.

Hezbollah's Sheik Naim Qassim stated to a US Delegation two days ago that the party and its allies expect to win 64 of the 128 seats in next years election. Others think the current opposition may win as many as 70 seats in the new Parliament. In either case Hezbollah and their allies will effectively be the next government of Lebanon.

Will the predicted Hezbollah electoral victory be the forth Democratic election in the Middle East rejected by the Bush administrations new Middle East project? Will the Bush administration accept the fact that Hezbollah will likely have the Ministries of Defense, Exterior and Finance (the others don't matter much) and be true to its daily claims that it wants to help Lebanon have a democratic and stable government which the Hezbollah government will bring? Very doubtful.

Hezbollah will face many challenges but the Party will also have the opportunity to demonstrate what it is capable of delivering in terms of social services to Lebanon's increasingly desperate population. Hezbollah's much anticipated Economic Plan may reshape the Middle East and the populations of Egypt, Jordan, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may demand a local version of the same.

On the downside of the May events, Hezbollah has yet to convincingly explain to the people of Lebanon why a convoy of its fighters advanced on Sweifeit and other villages in the lower Chouf. People died needlessly including this observers neighbor, Marwan Jurdi. Marwan was a teacher and had no business dusting off his rifile to fight Hezbollah who had no business entering Sweifeit. A tragedy which Hezbollah leader Nasrallah correctly stated at a rally a couple of weeks ago caused deep wounds which must be healed.

Presumably the fast strike was to neutralize Walid Jumblatt who during two recent interviews with Harvard students and the US Council for the National Interest is reported to be in bad shape and scanning the horizon for a new 'alliance'.

Hezbollah will likely not touch Walid because he is not reliable or predictable and is thought to be owned by the CIA. The 'socialist" Jumblatt has amassed a huge fortune ( which Lebanese warlord has not?)of land holdings with expansive vineyards above Khalde and may retire to survey and manage his estates. He knows he is a marked man from many quarters( who isn't around here these day?) In Beirut Jumbalt is known as the 'walking dead man'.

Question: How will it affect relations with Israel and the US? Does Hezbollah now pose a credible deterrent to a future Israeli invasion?

Franklin Lamb: Yes. There has been a fundamental shift in this respect. Hezbollah actually achieved its deterrent capacity following the July 2006 War. Some say as early as 1996 or 2000 when it forced Israel out of most of Lebanon.

Several times in the past 20 months Israel has "probed" Lebanon and Hezbollah has signaled thru back channels that it was ready for a ferocious response if Israel again attacked Lebanon.

Most recently Hezbollah's deterrence capacity was exhibited when Israel cancelled its attack on May 11 which was green lighted in Washington to assist the Siniora government allies in West Beirut. Frankly put. Israel is no longer able to attack an Arab country, Lebanon, with impunity. A historic first. Rather, it knows that it faces massive retaliation when it next attacks Lebanon. Recently there was a Report that Tel Aviv would receive 600 missiles each day following an Israeli attack on Lebanon. US Congressional sources have challenged that figure and have estimated the number at 1000 Hezbollah missiles per day against Tel Aviv is war breaks out.

Question: Hezbollah's takeover of Beirut was an amazingly swift and efficient military operation, and yet, it is nearly impossible to find any details about the operation itself. What really happened on the ground and how is it that a armed militia was able to carry out such a sophisticated "Green Beret" type operation (on a city-wide scale) with so few casualties? Can we expect that the "Hezbollah model" of resistance will be exported to other neighboring countries like Iraq, Jordan or Saudi Arabia?

Franklin Lamb: Contrary to Israeli reports, those who moved into Beirut did not come from the South of Lebanon, from the Bekaa nor were they necessarily the 'first team.' Most were reserves with regular full time jobs in Beirut and the surrounding area.

Most came in cars and vans just three miles south of Hamra from the Jnah, Ouzai, Ghoberi, Dahiyeh area. They moved along the seafront past the Coral Beach Hotel, along the only free public beach in Beirut, Ramlet al Baida, along Corniche Mazra and fanned out up the inclines to the right into West Beirut streets.

It did not require much more than 20 minutes to reach their forward positions. Others, including Amal and the National Syrian Socialist Party came from the new airport road and from the southeast and east.

Potentially the 'Hezbollah model' has application in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, if oppositions there can replicate the Hezbollah model of study, analysis, caution, patience and determined, disciplined execution. Hezbollah is not essentially a Shia phenomenon, it is a rapidly expanding resistance and justice movement and that it what makes it so lethal to colonialism and occupation enterprises such as Zionist Israel and hegemonistic America during the current period.

Question: Even before the takeover, Hezbollah chairman, Hassan Nasrallah was the most popular Arab leader in the world. Is Nasrallah really the "terrorist-extremist" he is made out to be in the western press? What affect has Nasrallah had on Arabs living in the region?

Franklin Lamb: Hezbollah under the leadership of Hasan Nasrallah has given the Arabs of the region restored self-respect following 60 years of humiliation and 41 years of repeated and voracious occupation and aggression. Hezbollah's sometimes spectacular success has inspired many in the younger generation throughout Lebanon among all the sects as well as the Middle East and far beyond. One sees this in the faces of the old and young…….in the market places and play grounds in the universities and middle schools.,,in the course also of interviews. The Middle East is standing up and reclaiming it pre-Crusade unity, spirit, purpose and culture. Nasrallah is the new Salaadin, Nassar and regional hope.

Question: Nasrallah has shown that he is capable of thinking strategically and politically. This appears to have put him at an advantage in dealing with both Israel and the United States. Israel's 34 Day war was not just a humiliating defeat; it was also seriously mismanaged from the beginning. In battles in cities and towns throughout southern Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters went toe to toe with the better-equiped IDF and turned them away. Is it possible that the real path to peace in the Middle East is a strong army--like Hezbollah-- on Isreal's northern flank to discourage further military adventurism?

Franklin Lamb: I see it certainly as one of the major elements because if takes away the first option that Israel has used in the past. Israel has committed aggression more than 40 times on the ground against Lebanon starting in 1967 to July 2006. This era is over. Soon even Israel's air force will be in peril from Hezbollah missiles as it attempts to add to its more than 6000 violations of Lebanese airspace and sovereignty since the 1960's.

Question: How do you respond to people who believe that Hassan Nasrallah is a religious fanatic who wants to install a "Iran-type" theocratic regime in Lebanon?

Franklin Lamb: I would ask them to study the subject a little more closely and they would learn that Hezbollah, in the words of PLO founder and longtime representative of the PLO in Lebanon, Shafiq al-Hout, recently discussed with this observor, Hezbollah is probably the most secular of the Parties in Lebanon. What he meant is that Hezbollah and its leaders rely on reason, dialogue, and empirical analysis not on what we often think in the West as blind application of Sharia.

Hezbollah believes in one God as you know. Having said that they are very secular in the ways they tolerate and respect others beliefs and rights to differ on issues of politics, philosophy, sociology, and personal beliefs. I personally know many Shia and Hezbollah members who are very secular and keep their religious views to themselves. Just yesterday, when my motorcycle was in the shop I hopped a taxi to Hamra and the Shia driver brought up the subject of religion and presented several of his arguments for why he has real doubts there is a God. Unfortunately there is deep and vast misinformation and disinformation about Hezbollah and their religious beliefs. They are very secular on a day by day basis and they are very tolerant of others views. In Dahilyeh, after a short period one does not feel that one in a religious enclave.

Nasrallah and Hezbollah, as Naim Qassim told former US Ambassador Richard Viets and his delegation a couple of days ago that there is no interest in an Islamic Republic in Lebanon. That idea was expressed back in 1985 in Hezbollah's 'open letter' announcing its formation. The relevant language was influenced by Ayatollah Khomeni and the then recent success of the Iranian revolution.

For years, Nasrallah has regularly stated that Lebanon is not Iran and never will be and if Lebanon wants an Islamic republic let 90% of the people vote for it and only then could it be considered. The Islamic Republic of Lebanon idea was a fantasy and virtually no one but the Zionist lobby and their pals even mention the concept anymore.

Question: General Michel Suleiman, Lebanon's army chief of staff, was sworn in as the country's new president last Sunday. The Bush administration did not send a delegation, which indicates the level of frustration with recent developments. It's clear now that the real center of power has shifted away from Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his allies in the "US backed" March 14th Coalition to Hezbollah. Nasrallah said in a recent speech that he has no interest in meddling in Lebanon's political affairs but will not disarm his militia. With Hezbollah currently at full strength and confident after their victory; do you think an Israeli attack on Iran less likely? If Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, will Nasrallah launch missile strikes on Tel Aviv?

Franklin Lamb: My personal belief is that Hezbollah would attack Tel Aviv is Israel or the US attacked Iran and perhaps even Syria.

I do not think either the US or Israel will attack Iran before Bush leaves office although both would very much like to.

The $4 per gallon gas prices in the States could rise to $12 per gallon if Iran shuts down the Gulf of Hormuz which it would almost certainly do.

Israel does not have the military power to take on Iran by itself and the still drowsy American public has no appetite for yet another war. Such a conflict might well destroy the State of Israel and it knows it.

Such an attack would likely cause Iraq to explode in a massive violence against American forces that would make the 1968 Tet Offensive appear mild in comparison. The populations of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia would likely attempt to overthrow their governments.

This would be for starters and things would escalate form there. The results are unpredictable but surely would be catastrophic on a scale never seen since World War II.

The United States is on its way out of the Middle East. Attacking Iran would quite simply accelerate its departure.

Question: The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz is reporting that Hezbollah and the Olmert administration are close to a deal on a prisoner exchange. There are also reports that Israel is negotiating secretly with Syria on the Golan Heights and that the Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has opened talks with Hamas. Is Olmert trying to divert attention from his own problems (bribery charges) or is Israel attempting to neutralize its potential enemies in the event of an attack on Iran?

Franklin Lamb: I think you are exactly correct on this point.

Question: Hezbollah has been supportive of labor strikes in Beirut. Are Lebanon's troubles really the result of sectarian problems (as the media suggests) or class divisions? Is this really a struggle between the wealthy Sunnis and Christians versus the poor Shia?

Franklin Lamb: More class divisions and the economy I would say. Skyrocketing prices increasing power cuts, poor job market, shortage of housing are all increasing tension and conflict. Plus outside actors continuing to meddle in Lebanese internal affairs and promote conflict. The exacerbation tensions here is cause less by whether one is Armenian, Druze,Chaldean, Maronite, Shia, Sunni etc. that the yawning economic gap.

With respect to the Saudi/Hariri owned Solidere Corp. This week in announced profits of $ 157 million dollars for the most recent reporting period. These are astounding and record figues when consumer good prices are rising. Under Rafik Hariri premiership, Lebanon borrowed more than $ 40 billion to rebuild parts of Beirut (now effectively owned by Solidere/Hariri Family and Friends). This interest alone on these loans payable partly to Hariri and Saudi banks keeps Lebanon stagnate and barely above water. Without a new economic plan Lebanon is lost. Hezbollah claims it has a plan and we will soon see what it looks like and if Hezbollah can transform Lebanon economically.

Question: Are the prospects for peace in the region better or worse with a well-armed Hezbollah?

Franklin Lamb: Better in the sense that there is for the first time in modern history an Arab/Muslim deterrence to Zionist and Western colonialism. Worse in the sense that the US and Israel are rapidly losing influence and viability in the Middle East and may once againresort to war to stem the breach.

Franklin Lamb, PhD is an author and Director of "Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace" who works from Beirut. His newest book "Hezbollah: A Brief Guide for Beginners" is expected soon in Arabic and English

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Mike Whitney