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Strange
Goings-On Here in Lebanon ..
By Robert Fisk
09/01/07 "The
Independent"
-- - Stories that just don't seem to make it into print.
Did you know that the Hizbollah "Party of God" has installed
its own private communications network in the south of
Lebanon, stretching from the village of Zawter Sharqiya all
the way to Beirut? And why, I wonder, would it be doing
that? Well, to safeguard its phones in the event that the
Israelis immobilise the public mobile system in the next
war. Next war? Well, if there's not going to be another war
in Lebanon, why is Hizbollah building new roads north of the
Litani river, new bunkers, new logistics far outside the
area of operations of the Nato-led UN peacekeeping force in
southern Lebanon?
Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's leader, boasts of new
weapons. The Lebanese suspect that these include
anti-aircraft missiles. If this is true – and many Lebanese
who have spent their lives under Israel's cruel air attacks,
assaults which have often been war crimes, hope it is – then
the next war will be anticipated with dark but keen anxiety.
Since the Israeli army is incapable of fighting the
Hizbollah on its own ground – its collapse when faced by
Hizbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon last year proved
this – what happens if their awesome air power is also
neutered?
Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, ensconced in his
little "green zone" in the old Turkish serail, can do little
to alter the course of this coming battle. Supplied with
bombs by the Americans so that the Lebanese army can
continue to blast its way through the Palestinian Nahr
el-Bared refugee camp – one of the most uncovered stories of
the Middle East year – his government can do no more than
wonder at the resistance of the ruthless non-Hizbollah
Islamist insurgents who are still holding out there. The US
ambassador watches approvingly as the Lebanese army
continues to "advance" amid strongholds and bunkers at a
cost of almost 140 soldiers' lives although, after four
months of "advancing" – as one western NGO remarked to me a
few days ago – they might soon, at this rate, reach Cyprus.
One can only reflect on how the US ambassador to Tel Aviv
reacts when the Americans supply bombs to the Israelis which
are then used on the Palestinians of Gaza. Weapons are
always available to blast away at the Palestinians.
This is Fouad Siniora's predicament as Hizbollah tries to
destroy his government and prevent the election of a non-
partisan president next month. Locked into Washington's
embrace as the latest Arab country to prove the spread of
George Bush's fantastical version of democracy in the Middle
East, powerless in a country where the only functioning
institution is now the Lebanese army, the prime minister
finds himself on America's side in the "war on terror"
against Hizbollah's mentors in Iran. All Hizbollah needed
now, poor old Fouad was quoted as saying the other day, was
"a composer for a national anthem of their own".
But there are other fears creating shadows in Lebanon. One
of them is the sectarianism of Iraq. Lebanon's Shias and
Sunnis and Christians all have friends and family in Iraq.
Many have visited their loved ones who have appeared amid
the Iraqi refugee masses that have poured into neighbouring
Damascus. For their care, of course, the Syrians have
received not a scintilla of gratitude from the Americans who
were responsible for creating the hell-disaster of Iraq in
the first place. It's worth comparing the vital statistics
(though not on CNN or Fox News): Syria has accepted almost
one and a half million Iraqi refugees – caring for them,
providing them with welfare and free hospital services –
while Washington, when it isn't cursing Iraq's prime
minister, has accepted a measly 800 Iraqis.
And Lebanon? No one realises that this tiny Arab country has
accepted 50,000 Iraqis since the great refugee exodus began.
Of course, the Shia Iraqis have moved into the Shia southern
suburbs (home of Hizbollah), the Sunni into Sunni areas of
Beirut and Sidon, the Christians into Christian east Beirut
and the Metn hills. And because the Lebanese have always
called the Iraqis brothers and sisters, there has been no
friction between the different Iraqi groups – and this is
truly wondrous because only last January, Lebanon's Shia and
Sunni youths were stoning each other in their thousands in
the streets of Beirut.
So what else do the Americans have up their sleeve for us
out here? Well, an old chum of mine in the Deep South – a
former US Vietnam veteran officer – has a habit of tramping
through the hills to the north of his home and writes to me
that "in my therapeutic and recreation trips ... in the
mountains of North Carolina over the last two weeks, I've
noticed a lot of F-16 and C-130 activity. They are coming
right through the passes, low to the ground. The last time I
saw this kind of thing up there was before Bosnia, Kosovo,
and Afghanistan".
That was in early August. Two weeks later, my friend wrote
again. "There were a few (more) C-130 passes... I know that
some 75th Rangers have just moved out of their home base and
that manoeuvres have gone on in areas that have been used...
in the past before assaults utilizing [sic] aircraft guided
by small numbers of special operations people."
And then comes the cruncher in my friend's letter. "I think
that the Bush administration is looking for something to
distract Americans before the mid-September report on
progress in Iraq. And I believe that the pressure is
building to do something about the sanctuaries for the
Taliban and foreign fighters along the Pakistan/Afghanistan
border..."
A few days after my friend's letter arrived in Beirut, the
Pakistanis reported that the Americans were using pilotless
drones to attack targets just inside Pakistan. But it seems
much more ambitious military plans may now be in the works.
An all-out strike inside the North West Frontier province
before President Pervez Musharref steps down – or is
overthrown? A last throw of the dice at Bin Laden before
"democracy" returns to Pakistan?
Stand by for more disasters – from Pakistan to the shores of
the Mediterranean. But don't expect to hear about them in
advance.
© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited
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