[LCM Articles] Lebanon’s Descent into Hell

[Abdallah Jabbour]

*08/10/06 "**Information Clearing House*<http://informationclearinghouse.info/>
*" - --- *The assassination of Lebanese businessman Rifik Hariri now looks
like the hoax that many suspected from the very beginning. Israeli
newspapers have already admitted that the current invasion had been planned
for over a year, so how can anyone still believe that Syrian agents killed
Hariri?

Syria had nothing to gain by killing Hariri and everything to lose. Israel,
on the other hand, could use the murder as an excuse to push Syrian troops
out of Lebanon, invoke UN resolution 1559 to attack Hezbollah, and bomb the
country into submission annexing the south according to a Zionist scheme
that dates back more than 60 years.

Game, Set, Match.

The UN investigation, which was led by American-stooge Detlef Mehlis, was a
pure, unalloyed fraud that never produced a shred of evidence despite the
relentless media innuendo and the finger-pointing at Damascus.

Consider the extent to which American NGOs and Israeli intelligence must
have worked together to topple the Emile Lahoud government, force Syrian
troops from Lebanon, foment the "made-for-TV" Cedar Revolution, and catapult
the blubbering "Israel-friendly" Fouad Siniora into the presidency. The
scope of the conspiracy is mind-boggling but it gives us some grasp of the
impressive level of collaboration between the Washington imperialists and
the Tel Aviv Zionists. The calculated destruction of Lebanon is the polluted
vision of both parties; they are equally culpable.

So far, the only obstacle to Israel's plan has been Hezbollah, an
organization that has remained steadfast in its preparedness for the
inevitable Israeli onslaught. Under the guidance of Hassan Nasrallah, the
group has stubbornly refused to be "disarmed" by the American-run United
Nations or to evacuate their homeland south of the Litani River. That has
forced US/Israel to scrap the pretense of "democracy-building" and resort to
the "always reliable" carpet-bombing strategy.

After 4 previous invasions and countless border skirmishes, Nasrallah was
wise enough not to trust its war-mongering neighbor to the south. And, of
course, events have now proven that he was right. Israel stormed Lebanon
with 10,000 troops following a withering month-long bombing campaign, but
has had to scratch and claw for every inch of Lebanese soil it has taken,
incurring heavy losses in the process. So far, Hezbollah has held fast;
giving up less than 8 km of ground to the most technologically-advanced army
in the Middle East. It's been a major "black-eye" for the IDF.

Israel has been limited to doing what it does best; pelting unarmed
civilians with American-made ordinance from 30,000 ft. Fortunately, Lebanon
is not Gaza where 1 million people are corralled in a desert-gulag waiting
for Israel to lob bombs into their midst.

The Olmert regime has already decimated most of Lebanon; setting the
nation's infrastructure back 20 years, triggering an environmental
catastrophe on the coast (an 80 mile oil slick), and creating a humanitarian
disaster. Still, Israel's ground-offensive has sputtered to a near
standstill, unable to overcome the ferocious resistance of a handful of
well-disciplined, fierce-fighting guerillas who are willing to die defending
their country. Their performance has been an inspiration to the entire Arab
world.

There's no doubt that Hezbollah is the de-facto National Lebanese Army and
the only military force that is willing to defend Lebanese sovereignty. In
Beirut, the simpering President Siniora has become a regular embarrassment
to his people with his weepy appeals to the international community and
Israel. His sniveling recital may be welcome in Tel Aviv, where Arabs are
already considered untermenschen, but it detracts from his ability to
mobilize his people for the struggle ahead. Siniora would be better off
replicating Arafat's "Kalashnikov-waving" performance at the United Nations
some years ago, when he offered the world a choice between the olive branch
or endless war. Instead, he persists with his clownish hand-wringing that
only gratifies his adversaries and undermines his cause.

Show a bit of spine, man.

Siniora's task is crystal clear; demand an immediate withdrawal of all
Israeli forces, deploy his 70,000 troops to the south, and order the
immediate conscription of all combat-age men between 16 and 65 years old.
These are the same expectations we would have of our leaders in the United
States if we were under siege.

Siniora should ignore the UN. The US-British-French ceasefire is nothing
more than "neo-colonial" scheme to divide Lebanon by conceding the southern
portion to Israeli occupation.

The international community did nothing to discourage Israel's 18 year
occupation of Lebanon (1982 to 2000) and they'll do nothing now. It is a
meaningless debating society meant to provide international cover for
imperial adventurism and war crimes; nothing more.

Siniora should resign and hand-over Lebanon's army under Hezbollah. At least
Nasrallah understands what needs to be done when the country is at war.

The Art of Ethnic Cleansing Israeli-style

Can killing innocent people be justified if it saves the lives of countless
others?

Isn't this what happened at Qana?

Israel was warned repeatedly to stop firing on the UN facility at Qana but
continued its assault until the building was eventually leveled by an
American-made bomb that killed 57. The attack was clearly "deliberate" (as
Kofi Annan said) and produced the reaction in the media that would have been
expected from such a obvious atrocity.

Did the Israeli high-command know what the public reaction would be when
they bombed the building or do they simply take these things in their
stride?

Qana was the most successful Israeli operation to date.

Why?

Because it spread fear and terror throughout the south just as it was
designed to do; precipitating an immediate and massive migration of some
750,000 mostly poor Shias.

It was the most carefully-calculated, precisely-executed act of terror since
9-11.

No one in the western media would ever dare to accuse Israel of terrorism,
but the facts are hard to deny. By pulverizing Qana (as well as by bombing a
few fleeing mini-busses full of civilians) Israel triggered a stampede which
drove the entire indigenous population northward over the Litani River. At
the same time, Israel managed to keep casualties below 1,000, which is a
nearly a miracle given the immensity of the devastation.

Wasn't that Israel's plan from the beginning; to evacuate the people but
keep the dead toll down?

When historians reflect on the IDF maneuverings in the Lebanon war, they
will certainly credit Olmert and his staff with the most successful
ethnic-cleansing operation in history.

This is new-world, high-tech ethnic cleansing, not the messy Darfur-type,
where carnage is splattered all over the screen and terrified villagers are
seen scurrying from their homes in a hail of artillery-blasts.

NO, no, no; this is the fully-sanitized, meticulously-executed military
operation intended to purge the land of its unwelcome occupants and expand
the perimeters of Greater Israel.

Israel has elevated ethnic cleansing to an art-form. The mass exodus was
carried out with Germanic-precision and less than 900 total casualties. That
must be a record, for those who care to document such dubious achievements.

Civil War on the Horizon

Israel understands Lebanon's ethnic dynamic as well as anyone. By thrusting
750,000 Muslim refugees into Christian and Druze areas, we can anticipate
that traditional antagonisms will resurface leading eventually to another
civil war. The blistering attack on the south and cutting off humanitarian
aid creates the perfect laboratory-setting for incubating a new round of
sectarian violence. This is what Israel wants. In fact, the new world order
requires endless cycle of internecine, Muslim on Muslim violence. As Henry
Kissinger said, "I hope they all kill each other." American-Israeli foreign
policy has never evolved beyond Kissinger's callous axiom, in fact, it is an
apt summary of the racist themes and homicidal doctrine which animates the
entire war on terror.

Bush and Olmert agree that the "real enemy" is Arab nationalism and Muslim
solidarity; the 2 vital threats to the US/Israeli occupation strategy. The
same solution applies to Lebanon as Iraq; divide and conquer; pit one group
against the next until the whole society is torn apart in a paroxysm of
bloodshed.

Will Israel succeed in inciting chaos and civil strife or will they have to
jump-start the process by packing explosives in the trunks of cars and
detonating them in marketplaces and mosques like counterinsurgency
operations in Iraq? We'll have to wait and see.

Lebanon is at the beginning of a long descent into hell. Every opportunity
for peace has been foreclosed by the Bush administration. The failures in
Iraq and Afghanistan have done nothing to slow the machinery of state
terror. The ghastly specter of mutilated corpses crushed beneath the twisted
iron and powdery debris of bombed-out buildings only whets the appetites of
the imperial warlords. They won't be happy until the fire they started in
Iraq consumes the entire Middle East in a pyramid of flames.
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