A step towards the final confrontation

The Turkish press reported that CIA head asked Turkey for support against Iran and Syria after warning Ankara of impeding threat. Well, it seems that the Americans are trying again to approach the Turks who refused to be used for attacking Iraq two years ago. Kurt Nimmo has more detail on the issue. The US is planning airstrikes against the two countries according to these reports.

On another note, Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that Damascus and Tehran signed an accord that include storing Iranian nuclear weapons in Syria. In return Iran would offer refuge for Syrians indicted in relation with the assassination of Rafiq Hariri.
Also,

The deal pens several other arrangements including:
• Syria continuing to help arm the Iranian-backed Hizbullah,
• financial aid from Tehran to Damascus,
• transferring Iranian WMD technological aid to Syria,
• upgrading Syrian ballistic missiles, and
• an Iranian offer to operate Syrian weapons systems if needed.

Wouldn’t just fit right in the ideological rethoric of the US and Israel if there was such a deal? What a perfect deal. Give me this i’ll give you that, although in a greatly uneven (Tehran doing all the work). And the press plays the game of mystifying.
Hey Syria, store my weapons (an easy task indeed), and you can send me the guys who killed Hariri. What kind of stupid deal is that? Tomatos for radio stations that’s what it is.
And the press is fooled because it is made up of fools or severe ideologues.

A thought on "Lebanese blogosphere" in general

I just received an email by a person who wants to unite the different Lebanese scattered around the globe through the posting of a text wishing merry christmas etc. on the respective blogs of expatriates.
I’m not into uniting Lebanese accross the globe. I am for Dissemination. Go breed and copulate with different species my friends. Forget your cancerous identities and live in the myriad of forms life and the different encounters will bring to you.
That’s my message to the Lebanese “blogosphere” who by the way, from what I read, is the most ideological right-wing nest ever nurtured after the couple of jewish-nazi extremist you find bashing Arabs and Muslims (They are more scary I agree).
In the meantime, we will try to unite the Lebanese leftovers in the little chunk of land they got from failed colonial policies.

Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and may the gods protect you and blow the wind of providence towards your torned-out cities of greed.

Ramzi’s blog

Friends, please check this interesting and diversified blog by Ramzi Mabsout. You may find that he is not the narrow political commentator I am which is always fine. From Conrad’s extracts to innocent feelings of fear when one mentions Michel Aoun, Ramzi’s blog takes you back and forth over many subjects. Here you have it: The Metaphysical Waiter.

Lebanon’s "Cedar revolution" revisited

I was forwarded this article I missed by Jonathan Steele from the Guardian (here published in the Nation) describing the US manipulation of election in countries udnergoing so-called popular upheavals. Steele looks at Ukraine orange revolution but by reading this article you can see how it totally relates to what going on in Lebanon. All the major components are here:
1- a divided society with two different patrons
2- two different patrons that manipulates political events with different tools (the US for example uses the democratic electoral tool).

GCC meeting

There is still a minimum of diplomacy in the Middle East judging from the lastest GCC meeting. As reported by Reuters:

U.S.-allied Gulf Arab leaders called on Monday for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, but singled out only Israel, not Iran, despite having voiced alarm at Tehran’s nuclear ambitions during their two-day meeting.
In a final statement, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) focused on Israel’s failure to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran has signed.
GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman al-Attiya, who said on Sunday the meeting would call on Iran to shun nuclear arms, declined to explain why the statement did not mention Tehran.
But one Gulf official said it was because the GCC — which groups Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates — wanted to keep diplomatic channels open.

The lessons of history

Is this ironic or what. The same day Gebran Tueni was assassinated (or one day after), amidst charges and pressures held against Syrians, a US-Syrian team excavated one of the first war-zones of history. The ruining of this Mesopotamian city was qualified by one scientist as a “shock and awe in the 4th millennium BC” operation.

The rest will need your imagination davidovich.

Political advocacy European style

I sometime wonder what these ‘think tanks’ are worth, judging from the inflated salaries their “scholars” get. Especially when they look moderate and all. It seems that ICG called:

on Beirut to coordinate efforts with donor nations to rebuild southern Lebanon and consult with the various Lebanese factions on how to implement Resolution 1559, which calls for disarming Hezbollah and Palestinian factions

Easier said than done… What about US pressures and political agenda in terms of Syria’s isolation and neutralization along its Iraqi side, and the Iranian challenge? These institutions don’t udnerstand that not only Lebanese are puppet on the regional strings but they also assume that current Lebanese politicians are statesman capable of such tough negotiating tasks that asks for wisdom and pragmatic virtues. These qualifications are not really found anywhere.

Oh, but you can’t say that they are pro-Israeli:

The ICG also called on Israel to stop meddling in Lebanon’s internal affairs and end its recurring violations of Lebanese air space and territorial waters.

Add to that, possible intelligence agencies meddling. In any case, ICG and the like present a new form of expertise that can be promising but remains weak in its broader understanding of geo-political events.

Just a small note on the side. UN 1559 resolution cannot be applied without international assurance that Israel, Iran, and the US are not ready to find a more diplomatic of solving their problems. Executive spheres and producers of knowlege are still looking for ways to isolate problems (whether consciously or as a result of a poor understanding of things), making them Lebanese, or Syrian.
More killing can be scheduled to exploit such analytical divisions that translate to divisions on the grounds between conflicting interests.

Meanwhile back in Washington

Some weird stuff is happening in davidovich’s homeland:

Israeli sued in Washington (JTA Daily Briefing)

A former Israeli military chief of staff was sued over his alleged role in the killing of more than 100 Lebanese civilians in 1996.
Someone tried to hand Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya’alon an envelope Thursday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he is a fellow. Ya’alon, scheduled to join a panel about the attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, did not want to accept the papers and let the envelope drop to the floor. The papers named Ya’alon as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by Lebanese families over a 1996 bombing, part of the Israeli response in southern Lebanon to Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel.

Israel, which said it was striking back at a nearby Hezbollah artillery battery but misjudged the target, ended the operation immediately.

It was the second such serving in a week: Avi Dichter, a former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, was served in New York last week over his role in a 2002 bombing in the Gaza Strip.

More depressing news…

Having dabbled — fumbled is probably more apt — in the newspaper business, I cannot for the life of me imagine how an editor could print this

Scary, very scary. Things like this bring out my inner conspiracy theorist, which cannot be good.

Disturbing and Scary…

Will sanity prevail…?

oil for guns

What a wonderful world it can be for people that have found a common language to speak:

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Dec. 8 (UPI) — China has become the top supplier of fighter-bombers to Sudan’s Muslim regime, whose attacks on Christian rebels in the south have made Khartoum notorious.

Sudan’s air force recently bought $100 million worth of Shenyang fighter planes, including a dozen supersonic F-7 jets, and also purchased 34 other fighter-bombers from Beijing, Middle East Newsline reported Thursday.

In exchange, Chinese oil companies have become big stakeholders in Sudan’s oil and natural gas fields.

The state-owned China National Petroleum Corp., for example, owns 40 percent of Sudan’s largest oil field.

“China rarely attaches any political strings to its assistance to Africa,” said a report from the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation.

“This has opened up space for China to deal quite profitably with some of the more heinous regimes on the continent. It is no coincidence, for example, that Sudan and Zimbabwe now play host to a very large Chinese economic presence.”