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P
I C T U R E O F T H E D
A Y
Niege
Pyrénéen
©2005Pierre-Paul
Feyte
The first reports a few days ago
piqued our interest, but they appeared only on fairly
small and innocuous news sites. Gradually however, the
story was carried by some of the bigger mainstream news
sites like the New York Times, appearing a few days
ago on the front page of the BBC News site:
I
Caught Eichmann
BBC News
05/03/05
The Israeli spy who captured Nazi war criminal Adolf
Eichmann approached him in a Buenos Aires street with
the words "one moment, sir", before bundling
him into a car to be smuggled to Israel.
The operation, which had involved months of preparation,
was over in 20 seconds - twice as long as Peter Malkin
had planned.
As an SS officer, Eichmann oversaw the logistics
of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews died.
He was put on trial in Jerusalem and hanged in 1962
- he remains the only person ever to be executed in
Israel.
The daring operation eventually made Malkin, who
died on Tuesday in New York aged 77, one of the Mossad
intelligence agency's most high-profile agents.
He was buried in Tel Aviv on Friday. [...]
Now you may be wondering why this story is of particular
interest, after all, the hunting down and executing
of Nazis became somewhat of a popular "sport"
in the aftermath of WWII, and it was not only the Mossad
that pursued the hunt with relish. The case of Adolf
Eichmann however, stands out not because Eichmann was
the man allegedly "in charge of implementing the
final solution", but rather because of what he
knew.
Author Lenni Brenner published a book
in 2002 entitled "51 documents: Zionist collaboration
with the Nazis". The book is a collection of actual
historical documents which show the close working relationship
that so-called "Zionists" enjoyed with leading
figures in the Nazi party during WWII. Among the evidence,
which includes pro-Zionist propaganda disseminated by
the Nazis, such as a medal for getting Jews to Palestine
and a Nazi board game where the object is to move Jews
to Palestine, there is the following most interesting
information
provided by Eichmann himself:
After the Holocaust began in 1942, Eichmann dealt
regularly with Dr. Rudolf Kastner, a Hungarian Jew,
whom he considered a "fanatical Zionist."
At issue then, however, was the bargaining over the
eventual fate of Hungary’s Jews, who were slated
for liquidation in the Nazi-run death camps. Eichmann
said this about Kastner, the Zionist representative,
"I believe that [he] would
have sacrificed a thousand or a hundred thousand of
his blood to achieve his political goal. He was not
interested in old Jews or those who had become assimilated
into Hungarian society. ‘You can have the others,’
he would say, ‘but let me have this group here.’
And because Kastner rendered us a great service by
helping keep the deportation camps peaceful. I would
let his groups escape."
Now keep in mind that the above is not hearsay but
taken from factual, historical documents. With the death
of his captor, most mainstream reports are rehashing
the story of Eichmann's capture and execution as simple
yet justified revenge for the horrible atrocities perpetrated
against the Jewish people. The reality however seems
to be that certain Israeli politicians wanted Eichmann
punished, not only for his past crimes against humanity,
but also for the threat that his knowledge of "Zionist"
dealings with the Nazis posed to the foundations and
justifcation for the modern state of Israel.
There is also the question of, why, of Eichmann was
such an evil man did the CIA see fit to employ Eichmann
and his associates:
CIA
employed Eichmann's men
Hilary Leila Krieger
Feb. 6, 2005
At least five Nazi associates of Adolf Eichmann worked
for the US Central Intelligence Agency following World
War II, according to CIA documents posted Friday by
The National Security Archive.
The Web site postings detail the US government's
relationship with Gen. Reinhard Gehlen, the German
Army's intelligence chief for the eastern front during
the war, who later developed a close relationship
with America. He was able to maintain his intelligence
network despite employing known war criminals, with
at least 100 former SD or Gestapo officers within
his organization, according to the records.
The archive is a non-profit group that seeks to bring
government documents to light under the Freedom of
Information Act. It has been pressuring the CIA to
release further information relating to its contacts
with Nazis under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act,
despite the embarrassing nature of that information.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, who heads the Jerusalem office
of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, welcomed the revelations,
though he noted that the CIA's relationship with former
Nazis has long been known.
"It's definitely high time that documents concerning
this practice be revealed and researchers be granted
access to them," Zuroff said, adding that this
recent disclosure likely comes too late to bring any
individuals to justice, since most of them have already
died. "It's a shame these documents weren't released
earlier."
He added, "It's a tragedy the US chose to use
some of the worst of Hitler's henchmen in the aftermath
of the war."
Zurhoff seems to be suggesting that the US government
practice of employing war criminals to do its dirty
work was some kind of anomaly, when in fact is was,
and to this day remains, a part of official government
policy. Indeed, it was all too natural for the US government
to give safe haven to Nazi scientists and military personnel,
given that there is much evidence to show that US government
officials and politicians such as Prescott Bush (the
current President's grandfather) along with the so-called
"Zionists" of the day, were instrumental in
building up the Nazi war machine.
The evidence suggests that "the Jewish question",
usually believed to refer to an insane and racist Nazi
plan to murder milions of Jews, was in fact the question
of how the Nazis were going to fulfill the requests
of the "Zionists" of the day to create the
conditions that would lead to the creation of an Israeli
state in Palestine and the en masse emigration of European
Jewry to settle it. |
Irish newspaper says Israel attempted
to assassinate expelled Palestinian militant who resides
in Dublin; Israel denies accusations
Irish intelligence authorities tracked down two Israeli
intelligence (Mossad) agents who were apparently attempting
to enter the country to assist in the assassination
of a senior Palestinian militant, Irish newspaper Evening
Herald reported.
According to the report, Irish intelligence authorities
tracked down the agents in January as they were gathering
intelligence for an operation that was supposed to culminate
with the Palestinian militant’s death.
The Palestinian militant, Jihad Jaara, was a senior
member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror organization
until he was expelled to Europe, along with 12 of his
counterparts, following a standoff with IDF troops at
the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002.
'I'm only afraid of God'
Israeli security authorities contend that Jaara, who
currently resides in Dublin, continues to support terror
attacks against Israel from abroad.
Irish officers visited him at his home and promised
not to let any harm come to him while on Irish soil,
Jaara told Ynet.
"I clarified to the officers I am not safe in
Israel and that the Israelis always violate their agreements
and committments," he said. "No official in
the world trusts Israel."
He said he was unable to obtain any specific details
from the officers regarding the incident reported by
the Evening Herald.
"The Israelis need to know I'm not afraid of them,
Sharon or the Mossad, he said. "I'm only afraid
of God."
Return of exiles delayed
The Foreign Ministry said in response the reports regarding
Israel’s plan to assassinate Jaara are false.
The Evening Herald said various officials
have attempted to keep the affair under wraps so as
not to obstruct the positive political atmosphere in
the Middle East.
Ireland has not filed an official complaint against
Israel as of yet, but Irish security sources said the
country is "concerned."
The remaining Palestinians who were expelled following
the standoff with IDF forces at the Church of the Nativity
in 2002 are expected to return to their West Bank homes
within the framework of Israel’s goodwill gestures
toward the Palestinians.
However, the return of the rest of
the exiles is delayed until the control over Palestinian
West Bank towns is transferred to the Palestinian Authority;
the transfer itself has been stalled due the recent
suicide bombing attack in Tel Aviv that left five Israelis
dead. |
Sometimes "the most likely
suspect" in an act of terrorism is actually a "false
flag" working for-or otherwise "framed"
by- those who are responsible.
Top U.S. Army analysts believe Israel's intelligence
agency, the Mossad, is "ruthless and cunning,"
"a wildcard" that "has [the] capability
to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab
act."
This eye-opening assertion about America's supposed
closest ally was reported in a front page story in The
Washington Times on September 10-just one day before
the terrorist attacks in America that are being blamed
on "Arabs."
The Times reported that this serious charge by U.S.
Army officers against the Israelis appeared in a 68-page
paper prepared by 60 officers at the U.S. Army's School
for Advanced Military Studies, a training ground for
up-and-coming Army officers.
Then, just hours after the terrorist tra gedies, a
well-known pro-Israel analyst, George Friedman, proclaimed
Israel as the primary beneficiary.
"The big winner today, intended or not, is the
state of Israel," wrote Fried man, who said on
his Internet website at stratfor.com that "There
is no question … that the Israeli leadership is
feeling relief" in the wake of the terrorist attack
on America as a result of the benefits that Israel will
glean.
Considering the U.S. Army's questions about possible
provocations by Israel, coupled with this noted intelligence
analyst's suggestion that Israel was indeed "the
big winner" on Sept. 11, a previous report in the
Aug. 3, 1993 issue of The Village Voice that Israel's
Mossad was perhaps involved in (or had foreknowledge
of) the previous "Arab terrorist" attack on
the World Trade Center, takes on new dimensions.
The events of Sept. 11 do require careful attention
in light of the fact that Israel has had a long and
proven record in planting "false flags"-orchestrated
assassinations and acts of terrorism for its own purposes
and pinning those atrocities on innocent parties.
Perhaps the best-known instance in which Israel used
a "false flag" to cover its own trail was
in the infamous Lavon Affair. It was in 1954 that several
Israeli-orchestrated acts of terrorism against British
targets in Egypt were carried out. Blame for the attacks
was placed on the Muslim Brotherhood, which opposed
the regime of Egyptian President Gamul Abdul-Nasser.
However, the truth about the wave of terror is found
in a once-secret cable from Col. Benjamin Givli, the
head of Israel's military intelligence, who outlined
the intended purpose behind the wave of terror:
[Our goal] is to break the West's confidence in the
existing [Egyptian] regime. The actions should cause
arrests, demonstrations, and expressions of revenge.
The Israeli origin should be totally covered while attention
should be shifted to any other possible factor. The
purpose is to prevent economic and military aid from
the West to Egypt.
Ultimately the truth about Israel's involvement became
public and Israel was rocked internally in the wake
of the scandal. Competing political elements within
Israel used the scandal as a bludgeon against their
opponents. But the truth about Israel's use of a "false
flag" had come to international attention and demonstrated
how Israel was willing to endanger innocent lives as
part of its grand political strategy to expand its influence
in the Middle East.
BLAMING 'RIGHT WING' EXTREMISTS
A shadowy "right wing" group known as "Direct
Action" was accused of the attack on Goldenberg's
Deli in Paris on Aug. 9, 1982. Six people died and 22
were injured. The leader of "Direct Action"
was Jean-Marc Rouillan who had been operating in the
Mediterranean under the cover name of "Sebas"
and had been repeatedly linked to the Mossad. All references
to Rouillan's Mossad links were deleted from the official
reports issued at the time.
However, the Algerian national news service, which
has ties to French intelligence, blamed the Mossad for
Rouillan's activities. Angry French intelligence officers
were believed to have leaked this information. Several
top French security officials quit in protest over the
cover-up of Mossad complicity in Rouillan's crimes.
However, other Mossad false flag operations also took
place on French soil.
FALSE CLUES
On Oct. 3, 1980, a synagogue on Co
pernicus Street was bombed in Paris. Four bystanders
were killed. Nine were injured. The media frenzy which
followed the incident was worldwide. Reports held that
"right wing extremists" were responsible.
Yet, of all the "right wing extremists" held
for questioning, none was arrested. In fact, all were
released. In the upper echelons of French intelligence,
however, the finger of suspicion was pointed at the
Mossad.
According to one report: "On April 6, 1979, the
same Mossad terror unit now suspected of the Copernicus
carnage blew up the heavily guarded plant of CNIM industries
at La Seyne-sur-Mer, near Toulon, in southeast France,
where a consortium of French firms was building a nuclear
reactor for Iraq.
"The Mossad salted the site of the CNIM bomb blast
with 'clues' followed up with anonymous phone calls
to police-suggesting that the sabotage was the work
of a 'conservative' environmentalist group-'the most
pacific and harmless people on earth' as one source
put it."
MORE OF THE SAME
On June 28, 1978, Israeli agents exploded a bomb under
a small passenger car in the Rue Saint Anne in Paris,
killing Mohammed Boudia, an organizer for the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO). Immediately afterward,
Paris police received anonymous phone calls accusing
Boudia of involvement in narcotics deals and attributing
his murder to the Corsican Mafia. A
thorough investigation subsequently established that
Mossad special-action agents were responsible for the
terrorist killing.
In October 1976 the same Mossad unit kidnapped two
West German students named Brigette Schulz and Thomas
Reuter from their Paris hotel. Planted "clues"
and anonymous phone calls made it appear that a Bavarian
"neo-nazi" formation had executed the abduction.
French intelligence established that the two
German youths had been secretly flown to Israel, drugged,
tortured, coerced into a false "confession of complicity"
in PLO activities, and then anonymously incarcerated
in one of the Israeli government's notorious political
prisons.
In February 1977 a German-born, naturalized U.S. citizen
named William Jahnke arrived in Paris for some secretive
business meetings. He soon vanished, leaving no trace.
Paris police were anonymously informed that Jahnke had
been involved in a high-level South Korean bribery affair
and "eliminated" when the deal went sour.
A special team of investigators from SDECE, the leading
French intelligence agency, eventually determined that
Jahnke had been "terminated" by the Mossad,
which suspected him of selling secret information to
the Libyans. Along with other
details of this sordid case, the SDECE learned that
Jahnke had been "fingered" to the Mossad by
his own former employer, the CIA.
BLAMING THE LIBYANS
One of Israel's most outrageous "false flag"
operations involved a wild propaganda story aimed at
discrediting Libyan leader Muamar Qaddafi. In the early
months of the administration of President Ronald Reagan,
the U.S. media began promoting a story that a "Libyan
hit squad" was in the United States to assassinate
the president. This inflamed public sentiment against
Libya.
Suddenly, however, the "hit squad" stories
vanished. Ultimately it was discovered
that the source of the story was Manucher Ghorbanifar,
a former Iranian SAVAK (secret police) agent with close
ties to the Mossad. Even the liberal Washington
Post acknowledged that the CIA itself believed that
Ghorbanifar was a liar who "had
made up the hit-squad story in order to cause problems
for one of Israel's enemies."
The Los Angeles Times had already blown the whistle
on Israel's scare stories. "Israeli
intelligence, not the Reagan administration," reported
the Times, "was a major source of some of the most
dramatic published reports about a Libyan assassination
team allegedly sent to kill President Reagan and other
top U.S. officials... Israel, which informed
sources said has 'wanted an excuse to go in and bash
Libya for a longtime,' may be trying to build American
public support for a strike against [Qaddafi]."
In other words, Israel had been promoting the former
SAVAK agent, Ghorbanifar, to official Washington as
a reliable source. In fact, he was a Mossad disinformation
operative waving a "false flag"-yet another
Israeli scheme to blame Libya for its own misdeeds,
using one "false flag" (Iran's SAVAK) to lay
blame on another "false flag" (Libya).
The Mossad was almost certainly responsible for the
bombing of the La Belle discotheque in West Berlin on
April 5, 1986. However, claims were made that there
was "irrefutable" evidence that the Libyans
were responsible. A U.S. serviceman was killed. President
Ronald Reagan responded with an attack on Libya.
However, intelligence insiders believed that Israel's
Mossad had concocted the phony "evidence"
to "prove" Libyan responsibility. West Berlin
police director Manfred Ganschow, who took charge of
the investigation, cleared the Libyans, saying, "This
is a highly political case. Some of the evidence cited
in Washington may not be evidence at all, merely assumptions
supplied for political reasons."
BLAMING THE SYRIANS
On April 18, 1986, Nezar Hindawi, a 32-year-old Jordanian
man was arrested in London after security guards found
that one of the passengers boarding an Israeli plane
bound for Jerusalem, Ann Murphy, 22, was carrying a
square, flat sheet of plastic explosive in the double
bottom of her carry-on bag.
Miss Murphy told security men that the detonator (disguised
as a calculator) had been given to her by her fiancee,
Hindawi. He was charged with attempted sabotage and
attempted murder.
Word was leaked that Hindawi had confessed and claimed
that he had been hired by Gen. Mohammed Al-Khouli, the
intelligence director of the Syrian air force. Also
implicated were others including the Syrian ambassador
in London. The French authorities
warned the British prime minister that there was more
to the case than met the eye-that is, Israeli involvement.
This was later confirmed in reports in the Western press.
BLAMING THE PLO
In 1970, King Hussein of Jordan was provided incriminating
intelligence that suggested the Palestine Liberation
Organization was plotting to murder him and seize power.
Infuriated, Hussein mobilized his forces for what has
become known as the "Black September" purge
of the PLO. Thousands of Palestinians living in Jordan
were rounded up, some of the leaders were tortured,
and in the end, masses of refugees were driven from
Jordan to Lebanon.
New data, coming to light after the murder of two leading
Mossad operatives in Larnaka, Cyprus, suggested that
the entire operation had been
a Mossad covert action, led by one of its key
operatives, Sylvia Roxburgh. She contrived an affair
with King Hussein and served as the linchpin for a major
Mossad coup designed to destabilize the Arabs.
In 1982, just when the PLO had abandoned the use of
terrorism, the Mossad spread
disinformation about "terror attacks" on Israeli
settlements along the northern border in order to justify
a full-scale military invasion of Lebanon. Years
later, even leading Israeli spokesmen,
such as former Foreign Minister Abba Eban, admitted
that the reports of "PLO terrorism" had been
contrived by the Mossad.
It is also worth noting that the attempted assassination
in London of Israeli ambassador Shlomo Argov was initially
blamed on the PLO. The attempted assassination was cited
by Israel as one excuse for its 1982 incursion into
Lebanon. In fact, the diplomat was one of Israel's "doves"
and inclined toward a friendly disposition of Israel's
conflict with the PLO and an unlikely target of PLO
wrath.
It appears that the assassination
attempt was carried out by the Mossad-under yet another
"false flag"-for two purposes: (a)
elimination of a domestic "peacenik" friendly
toward the Palestinians; and (b) pinning yet another
crime on the PLO. |
Israel has transcript of Jihad
attack order
'Sunday Times' reports Israeli intelligence provided
U.S. Secretary of State with evidence of Damascus-based
Islamic Jihad involvement in Tel Aviv strike
TEL AVIV - Israeli intelligence agents have provided
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with a phone
transcript in which Damascus-based Islamic Jihad leader
Ramadan Abdallah Shalah authorized the suicide bombing
at the Stage nightclub in Tel Aviv last month.
The report in London’s Sunday
Times also says that Israel has marked Shalah as a legitimate
target for an assassination attempt as a result of the
attack.
Last week, Rice said there was solid evidence that
Islamic Jihad was responsible for the suicide bombing
that killed five people and wounded dozens.
"There is firm evidence that Palestinian Islamic
Jihad sitting in Damascus not only knew about these
attacks, but was involved in the planning," she
told American ABC television.
Israeli spokesmen have also blamed Islamic Jihad for
the attack, and said that Syria also bears responsibility
for providing Hamas with protection.
No question
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said there
is no question the attack can be traced directly to
Islamic Jihad in Syria. In addition, Foreign
Minister Silvan Shalom said Syria bears overall responsibility
for terrorism in Israel, because "the attack may
have been carried out by Islamic Jihad, but Syria gave
the command." |
JERUSALEM -- Israel's
foreign minister said Sunday he would try to rally international
support for a full Syrian
withdrawal from Lebanon when he
travels to Washington this week.
On Saturday, Syrian President Bashar Assad announced
a two-stage pullback of his forces to the Lebanese border,
but failed to address calls to withdraw completely. U.S.
and French officials criticized Assad's pledges as insufficient.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said a Syrian withdrawal
would help promote stability and peace efforts in the
Middle East.
"The purpose is to act to get Syrian troops out
of Lebanon, include Hezbollah on the list of terror organizations,
dismantle their terror infrastructure," he told Israel
Radio.
"I think those things could also contribute to another
of our objectives - progress on the Palestinian front,"
he said. "If we do both simultaneously, it would
contribute much more to the stability of the Mideast,
and the possibility of us conducting a dialogue with many
more Arab and Islamic countries."
Shalom, who was to meet with Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley during
this week's trip, said he would raise the issue of Lebanon.
Israel accuses Syria of harboring Palestinian militant
groups and providing support to the Lebanese guerrilla
group Hezbollah. It has asked the European Union to place
Hezbollah on the European list of terrorist organizations.
Hezbollah already is on the U.S. State Department lists
of terrorist groups.
Syria has come under growing international pressure to
withdraw its 15,000 troops in Lebanon since the Feb. 14
assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri. Many Lebanese blamed the killing on the pro-Syrian
Lebanese government and its Syrian backers - a charge
the government and Syria denied.
Shalom, speaking at a joint news conference Saturday
with Jordanian Foreign Minister Hani al-Mulqi, dismissed
Assad's speech as failing to meet a U.N. resolution calling
for a "a complete withdrawal of all Syrian troops
from Lebanon."
Israel withdrew its forces from southern
Lebanon in 2000 after an 18-year occupation, and officials
now believe that Syrian pressure is the only thing preventing
Lebanon from joining Egypt and Jordan in making peace
with Israel.
"Syria does not have a strong army, but it has a
big appetite," Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres
said Sunday. "They are in Lebanon more because of
economic reasons than because of military reasons. Lebanon
can be the next candidate for peace."
The Jordanian minister also called on Syria to withdraw.
"Implementation of the resolution should result in
a stronger Lebanon and a Lebanon that is undivided,"
al-Mulqi said Saturday.
Al-Mulqi is making the first visit to Israel by a Jordanian
foreign minister in more than four years.
Amman withdrew its ambassador shortly after the outbreak
of Israeli-Palestinian violence in late 2000. Jordan's
ambassador recently returned its ambassador after a Feb.
8 Mideast summit where Israel and the Palestinians called
for an end to the violence.
In a sign of the warming ties, al-Mulqi invited Shalom
to visit Jordan. Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli
Foreign Ministry, said the trip would likely take place
in the next two or three weeks.
"We come here today after four years of boycott,
but we come back on a very strong basis of understanding
in order to strengthen our bilateral contacts," al-Mulqi
said Sunday after meeting Peres.
Al-Mulqi was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon and other top Israeli officials later Sunday.
Al-Mulqi is expected to raise Jordan's position on final
status issues in the Arab-Israeli peace process such as
borders, Palestinian refugees, the holy city of Jerusalem
and water resources. Al-Mulqi said he will also demand
the release of some 25 Jordanian prisoners from Israeli
jails.
Sharon's office, meanwhile, confirmed the Israeli leader
will travel to Washington next month for talks with President
Bush. A spokesman declined to confirm a report in the
Haaretz daily that the meeting would take place on April
12.
Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas both accepted
invitations to the White House from the U.S. secretary
of state when she visited the region last month. |
The United States is leading
continued pressure on Syria for a full withdrawal of its
troops from Lebanon.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announced on Saturday
a phased redeployment to the Syrian border, but Washington
says this is insufficient.
Israel, France and Britain have also called for a complete
pull-out.
Syria has been under intense pressure to withdraw from
Lebanon since the February car bomb death of former Lebanese
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Many Lebanese accused Syria of being involved in the
killing, but Damascus has strongly denied this.
'Cosmetic measure'
Facing intense international pressure and daily street
protests within Lebanon, Mr Assad told Syria's parliament
on Saturday that troops would be pulled back first to
the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, and then to the Syrian
border.
He said that would fulfil commitments to both the 1989
Taef accord that ended the Lebanese civil war, and a UN
resolution from 2004 calling for foreign forces to leave
Lebanon.
But the US said the announcement was insufficient.
"It's clear to us, not just the United States, but
the international community, that his words are insufficient,"
US spokesman Adam Ereli said.
"We have not heard the words: 'immediate and full
withdrawal'."
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom called the announcement
"unacceptable" and "purely a cosmetic measure".
He added: "Assad did not breathe a word about Syrian
secret agents who, in plainclothes, also occupy Lebanon."
Gunfire
Mr Assad told the Syrian parliament the military withdrawal
"does not mean the absence of Syria's role... its
role in Lebanon is not dependent on the presence of its
forces in Lebanon."
Shortly after Mr Assad's speech, a senior Syrian minister,
Buthaina Shaaban, said troops would be pulled back across
the Syrian border, and "in the nearest possible time".
Lebanon's main opposition leader, Walid Jumblatt, called
Mr Assad's announcement a "positive start" but
demanded a clear timetable for the withdrawal.
In the Lebanese capital Beirut, members of the public
watched the broadcast in a central square, shouting "Syria
out!" and denouncing the Syrian president.
Gunfire erupted late on Saturday after pro-Syrian protesters
arrived in the anti-Syrian Christian sector of Beirut,
but there were no reports of casualties.
Last week the Syrian-backed Lebanese government resigned
after two weeks of protests on the streets of Beirut by
tens of thousands of demonstrators angry at the killing
of the former prime minister.
Since Mr Hariri's resignation in October 2004, he had
become a rallying point for opposition to Syria's dominance
of Lebanon.
In his speech, President Assad called Mr Hariri's killing
"an atrocious crime... against the unity and stability
of Lebanon as well as Syria", and vowed to bring
the culprits to justice. |
Caught between the proverbial rock
and a hard place, President Bashar al-Assad finally
bowed to international pressure yesterday by announcing
a partial withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
At the back of his mind he will know that those forces
can easily be redeployed, but yesterday’s announcement
shows every sign that Assad is beginning to feel the
heat. In theory, he is implementing the terms of the
Taif Accord of 1989 which obliged Syria to redeploy
its 14,000-strong army to the eastern Bekaa valley,
but in practice he is buying time following a period
of sustained pressure. Even before he made his announcement,
US President George W Bush got his retaliation in first
by demanding “a complete withdrawal – no
half-measures”.
Assad’s decision will no doubt be hailed as a
triumph for the demonstrators who spent last week campaigning
in Beirut. Comparisons have been made with the orange
revolution in Ukraine which sounds good but it is not
the whole story. The so-called “cedar revolutionaries”
are mainly Druze and Maronite Christians prompted into
action by the recent assassination of the former prime
minister Rafiq Hariri. Without producing any evidence,
they blamed the Syrians for the murder and then deployed
their anger to demand a withdrawal of Syrian troops
from Lebanon. So, in a sense they have a reason to celebrate:
the pro-Syrian government has resigned, thereby forcing
an election, and now part of the Syrian army will withdraw
from their country.
That should be that and everybody should be happy,
but the wider picture is more alarming. Hariri’s
assassination was not just a spur for the demonstrations
in downtown Beirut; it also created a major upset in
the regional balance of power. And beyond the Lebanon-Syria
nexus there are greater ramifications. Assad did not
bow to the young Lebanese demonstrators with their cedar
flags. He made the move because he was under pressure
from Saudi Arabia, Russia, the US and Israel.
The first point of pressure is obvious. Last week Assad
was summoned to Riyadh where Saudi’s Crown Prince
Abdullah read him the riot act and told him that he
had to pull out of Lebanon or lose face in the Arab
world. The outcome of the meeting has been the subject
of claim and counter-claim but diplomats have put an
acceptable gloss on the meeting by selling it as an
Arab solution to an Arab problem. Except, of course,
there is more to the compromise than placating ethnic
pride. While Syria has found itself isolated in the
Arab world as a result of its old-style nationalism
and its alleged complicity in Hariri’s death,
it is also open to pressure from outside the Middle
East.
On Friday, a Syrian delegation was in Moscow where
Foreign Ministry officials told them that they had to
abide by a UN resolution urging the withdrawal and that
Russia would not tolerate any backsliding. Coming from
Syria’s oldest ally outside the Middle East this
was coercion of a high order and it carried the additional
weight that the sale of a sophisticated air defence
scheme was hanging on the outcome. Of course, the Russians
have their own axe to grind. Having been unable to influence
events in Iraq, they are anxious to play a more significant
role in the region’s peacemaking and apart from
the missile deal they had the trump card that they are
not the US. Assad will not mind paying heed to Moscow,
but Washington is another matter.
In demanding that the Syrians withdraw completely and
immediately from Lebanon, Bush was making it clear that
he has no intention of letting Assad off the hook. Nothing
would please the US president more than to see a regime
change in Damascus and that could still be on the cards.
First Hariri is murdered and the people take to the
streets. In the aftermath, the pro-Syrian government
falls. Assad is then put under pressure from the Arab
world and only finds a way out of the impasse by offering
what seems to be a compromise.
However that will not be the end of the matter. Syria
still has loyalists in Lebanon who believe that the
two countries have too many shared interests to separate
completely, but if the cedar revolutionaries have their
way in the May election their victory at the polls could
signal the end of 30 years of economic and political
co-dependence. It would also make Assad’s position
more shaky. Israel, too, is in a position to influence
events as they are keen to close down Syrian-based terror
operations once and for all. Should they decide to strike
against Hizbollah targets in Damascus, the US would
be unlikely to stop them. Once again it seems that the
affairs of the Middle East are about to be decided,
not by the participants themselves, but by forces outside
their control. |
After 9/11, Administration neo-cons
offered a "noble lie" to sell the public on
the need to invade and occupy Iraq (The Iraqis will
shower our troops with flowers and kisses). The same
group has invented a new "virtuous prevarication"
to build support for an attack on Syria. Ignoring recent
testimony by CIA Director Porter J. Goss that "Islamic
extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit
new anti-U.S. jihadists" (Washington Post, February
17, 2005), this group of high US officials in Defense,
State and the Vice President's office have organized
a "get Syria" movement.
Without evidence, US officials accused Damascus of
responsibility for the February 14 assassination of
former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut,
and of sponsoring terrorism in Iraq as well.
Anti-Syria rhetoric followed from the Iraq precedent.
Following the 9/11 attacks, Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz and then-Defense Policy Board Chair Richard
Perle found they could convince President Bush to switch
from traditionalist (do little) policy to aggressively
asserting naked military power.
Altering Teddy Roosevelt's policy advice by speaking
loudly and also carrying a big stick, these neo-cons
replaced truth with "myth-making." The neo-cons
shared a common guru, former University of Chicago political
philosopher Leo Strauss. Under Strauss' neo-platonic
model, a governing elite wields power and utilizes the
"noble lie" to guide imperial ideology. Beyond
sharing a common understanding of the Straussian fundamentals
of political rule, the neo-cons also share enthusiasm
for aggressive Israeli policies.
In the early 1990s, they sold Dick Cheney and Donald
Rumsfled on this strategy. After 9/11, Cheney and Rumsfeld
used their positions as Vice President and Defense Secretary
to sell Bush on the new approach. From that time on,
official statements utilized the neo-con "noble
lie": Saddam Hussein backed the 9/11 terrorists
and possessed WMDs and planned to share them with terrorists;
thus, the US had to stop him. Repeat it and report it
in the press and the public will believe it. Pro-Israel
media acolytes like the NY Times' Judith Miller obliged
the neo-cons in manufacturing "evidence" of
an "enemy" that the public could effortlessly
hate.
By late 2004, the White House admitted that Saddam
had neither WMDs nor links to the 9/11 fiends. Logically,
Bush should have fired this gang for involving the country
in the Iraqi morass. Instead, their disastrous Iraqi
performance brought the neo-cons even more clout in
the second Bush Administration. Using their spin-mastery
to inflame opinion, the neo-cons invented new "black
hats" Iran and Syria.
The neo-cons also stage-managed facts in the aftermath
of the February 14 assassination of Hariri, who had
demanded that Syrian troops leave Lebanon, so as to
point the accusatory finger at the Bashar al-Assad government.
Even after Assad condemned the murder as a "horrible
crime," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recalled
the US Ambassador to Syria for "consultations,"
while threats of possible US military action emanated
from neo-con offices in Washington.
Spun properly, Hariri's murder transcended the commonplace
assassinations in the Middle East and became an international
cause célèbre. The neo-cons correctly
counted on the media to maintain "temporal atrophy."
The press neither commented on how assassinating one's
"enemies" impacted the rule of law, nor on
how routine extra-judicial assassinations by Israel
and the United States had become. Bush revealed in his
2003 State of the Union address that "more than
3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many
countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let's
put it this way-- they are no longer a problem to the
United States and our friends and allies." What
a lesson to teach!
Had the media reported Hariri's assassination as just
another probable state-sponsored execution, it would
have stripped both shock value and the veneer of moral
indignation from Bush's reaction.
But it didn't. So, the anti-Syria theme escalated.
Bush had already used his February 2005 State of the
Union address to confront "regimes that continue
to harbor terrorists and pursue weapons of mass murder.
Syria still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon,
to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance
of peace in the region."
The next day, Wolfowitz told Senate Armed Services
Committee members that Syria should stop "destabilize[ing]
Iraq" as if Syria, not the United States, invaded
Iraq in March 2003 without UN Security Council authorization.
The Senate panel's curiosity did not extend to asking
Wolfowitz about Israeli destabilization of Lebanon during
the 1980s or how Israeli-backed Phalangist militias
massacred thousands of Palestinian refugees in 1982
at Sabra and Shatila.
Indeed, historical amnesia after Hariri's murder permitted
Bush officials to sanctimoniously demand that Congress
warn Syria to end her "occupation" of Lebanon
and support Lebanese "sovereignty." Even Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who commanded Israeli military
operations in Lebanon in 1982, made such a demand.
What Chutzpah! Sharon demands Syrian withdrawal while
Israel continues its 38-year occupation of Palestinian
territories, in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions
242 and 338. Indeed, Israel still occupies Syria's Golan
Heights in violation of UN Security Council resolution
497.
Another part of the "noble lie"
relates to the threat Syria's 14,000 troops poses to
Lebanese "sovereignty." In fact, the bilateral
agreement between Lebanon and Syria to station troops
resulted directly from the prior destabilization of
Lebanon by Israel, the United States, France and to
a lesser extent Syria whose interests are directly
affected by Lebanese instability.
But who benefits? Without a context,
official US language makes it seem as if Lebanon and
the United States would gain from hostility toward evil
Syria. On February 8, Secretary of State Rice called
Syria "unhelpful in a number ways." Did she
mean to include Syria's post 9/11 assistance in providing
US intelligence with information that saved American
lives by preventing an Al Qaeda attack on the US Fleet
in Bahrain?
Did she refer to Syria's help in arresting
Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a Syrian-born German citizen
accused of recruiting some 9/11 hijackers in Hamburg?
Indeed, did Rice also suffer terminal forgetfulness?
The State Department affirmed
on April 30, 2003: "The Government of Syria has
cooperated significantly with the United States and
other foreign governments against al- Qaida, the Taliban,
and other terrorist organizations and individuals."
More recently, Damascus cooperated by closing
holes in the porous Iraqi-Syrian border.
Syria learned: no good deed goes unpunished. Syria
still remains on the State Department's list of countries
sponsoring terrorism. In November 2003, Congress passed
without debate the Syria Accountability Act. No Member
publicly referred to Syria's anti-terrorist efforts.
Yet, the bill charged Syria without citing evidence
-- with "harboring terrorists," "developing
weapons of mass destruction" and "occupying
Lebanon." On May 12, 2004, Bush banned US exports
to Syria and Syrian aircraft from US territory.
Following Hariri's murder, anti-Syria rhetoric escalated.
Senator George Allen (R-VA) and Representative Eliot
Engel (D-NY) called for sending "a message"
by imposing "tough" new measures banning
US business in Syria -- on Damascus.
The verbal attacks coincided with demands to install
"democracy." Indeed, "democracy"
had already served to cover previous US aggression.
A month after the 9/11 events, Bush bombed Afghanistan
"they hate us because we're free"--despite
the fact that most of the 9/11 hijackers came from oily
Saudi Arabia, the US ally. Similarly, Bush "liberated
Iraq" by making war the most profound violation
of human rights -- against the human rights abusing
Hussein.
The democracy beat continues because the major media
doesn't question it. David Frum and Richard Perle (January
7, 2004 Wall St. Journal) contended in reference to
Syria that, "When the door [to democracy] is locked
shut by a totalitarian deadbolt, American power may
be the only way to open it up." In their 2003 book
An End to Evil, Frum and Perle advocated regime change
in Syria, Cuba, North Korea and Iran. In 1996, Perle
and fellow neo-con Douglas Feith had projected a policy
to facilitate Israel's shaping of "its strategic
environment...by weakening, containing, and even rolling
back Syria." In their report, "A Clean Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," Perle and
Feith argued for the removal of "Saddam Hussein
from power in Iraq, an important Israeli strategic objective
as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions."
If rogue elements in Syrian did the Beirut murder,
it was what Israeli journalist Uri Avnery's called "an
act of supreme folly, since it was obvious that it would
help the Americans build up the Lebanese opposition
and arouse a storm of anti-Syrian sentiment."
Regardless of who assassinated Hariri, the deed focused
world attention on a problematic Lebanese-Syrian relationship.
Hariri's death may indeed serve to catalyze a new round
of US and even some European intervention in Arab affairs.
The very threat of such a move has pushed Syria to talk
of withdrawing its forces from Lebanon.
But as Bush descended upon Europe last week to forgive
France and Germany for being right about Iraq, Europeans
indicated they would proceed "cautiously in blood,"
as Edmund Burke once advised.
The neo-cons awaited Bush's return to Washington so
as to proceed with their foreign policy script, oozing
with "sound and fury" (Shakespeare's "Macbeth"),
which calls for burying judicious voices and replacing
them with "noble lies."
Farrah Hassen recently spent 2 months working for
the United Nations Development Programme in Syria. She
can be reached at: FHuisClos1944@aol.com. Saul Landau
directs Digital Media at Cal Poly Pomona University.
He and Farrah Hassen made the 2004 film: Syria: Between
Iraq and a Hard Place. |
Bush’s administration gave
Israel the go-ahead to attack Syria in retaliation to
Tel Aviv bombing that took place last weekend, killing
5 Israelis, the Hebrew daily ‘Yediot Ahronot’
reported.
Also, the U.S. didn’t ask Tel Aviv to exercise
self restraint, as in past cases vis-à-vis the
Palestinian commando raids, the newspaper added.
‘Yediot Ahronot’, moreover, said that the
Israeli ambassador to Washington discussed with a senior
U.S. official intelligence information obtained by the
Israeli intelligence service claiming that Jihad Resistance
Movement had masterminded the Tel Aviv blast from inside
Damascus.
In his meeting with his Belgian counterpart in the
occupied Jerusalem, the Israeli foreign minister Silvan
Shalom said he had tabled an official request to the
Belgian government to include the Lebanese Hezbollah
Movement in the European list of “terror groups”.
The Israeli chief diplomat claimed that Hezbollah was
financially supporting the Palestinian resistance groups
and planning various military attacks targeting the
Israeli occupation forces. [...]
Meanwhile, a Bush administration official made a similar
statement in Washington, claiming
that the United States had obtained "firm evidence
that the bombing on the 25th of February was not only
authorized by Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders in Damascus
but that PIJ leaders also were actively involved in
planning."
However, the official refused to state
the evidence, only saying it was based on "U.S.
intelligence." |
What's
Happening in Lebanon
An Interview with Fadi K. Agha, Foreign Policy Advisor to
President Emil Lahoud |
Weekend Edition
March 5 / 6, 2005
By GARY LEUPP |
Mr. Fadi K. Agha is
a foreign policy adviser to Lebanese President Emile Lahoud.
I conducted the following interview with him via email
following the assassination of former prime minister Rafik
Hariri and the resignation of his successor, Omar Karami.
The capitalizations/emphases are his, and this is completely
unedited.
Q: Lebanon is a complex society, about 40% Christian,
40% Shiite Muslim, the rest Sunni Muslim, Druze, etc.
For those unfamiliar with the country, could you say something
about the historical relationships between these communities
and their ties with the former colonial power, France,
and with Israel, the Palestinians, Syria and so on?
A: Let me just say that, regardless of what a Lebanese
would think of Lebanon as a Nation, whether it was "carved
out," "gerrymandered" by the French mandating
power, or "rightfully" bequeathed on the deserving
Maronites, they came to agree on a Lebanon's "final
status" as an Arab country well within its actual
boundaries. It took2 major civil conflagrations (1958
and 1975) and many civil skirmishes for the Lebanese to
finally come to terms at Taef in 1989. The relationship
between the sects of Lebanon remains that between the
"dominant," the "newly assertive"
and the "intolerably assertive." This relationship
will remain precarious as long as Lebanon remains a purely
sectarian domain. Cohesion in Lebanon will remain oh so
elusive, as long as the opportunistic, highly corrupt
and self serving communities' leaders perpetrate this
system of sectarian spoils. I would add that many of the
leaders of the so called "Cedar Revolution"
(a term coined in Washington) are those who took Lebanon
to 17 years of civil strife.
Q: The point driven home relentlessly by the Bush
administration, and echoed in the U.S. press, is that
Syria must get out of Lebanon. Why are 14 or 15,000 Syrian
troops in Lebanon, and what do Lebanese in various communities
think about their presence?
A: The remaining Syrian troops in Lebanon (out of a 45,000
contingent) were part of a peace keeping force that entered
Lebanon at the REQUEST OF THE LEBANESE GOVERNMENT, and
ended the civil war in Lebanon. They have since 1990 been
gradually diminished by a series of withdrawals. These
withdrawals were determined and conducted by joint Lebanese
and Syrian authorities, as they fit the needs of both
countries. A vociferous minority has always opposed the
presence of Syrian forces (making much less of a deal
when ISRAEL OCCUPIED parts of Lebanon.) Today, this minority
has seen its ranks swell by the joining of a few opportunists
who were until YESTERDAY the beneficiaries of Syrian "largesse."
They have seen the wagons are circling, and are hoping
to live for another day. These are the same warlords,
sectarian barons and opportunists who lead us once before
to ruin. They have aligned themselves with the sincere
"boy scouts," exploiting their grief and concerns.
Since day one of his presidency, President Assad has committed
himself to withdrawing the troops from Lebanon, and we
have since seen a series of withdrawals. The remaining
contingent's withdrawal was very much on the table, but
it's timing is determined by the leaderships in Beirut
and Damascus.
Q: Why do you suppose that France, at loggerheads
with the U.S. over the Iraq invasion, cosponsored UN Security
Council resolution 1559, implicitly demanding withdrawal
of Syrian troops from Lebanon?
A: For France, it was obviously an opportunity to "manage"
the crisis with the United States, while recapturing some
of the lost luster of their Middle East presence. This
comes against a background of lost dominions in Africa,
and amid a growing American unilateralism. The US, on
the other hand, gained a much needed support, a sort of
fence mending, when only yesterday the UN declared the
War in Iraq "illegal" and France spearheaded
a world opposition to the US adventure in Iraq. However,
if one wants to play Devil's advocate, we have to remind
ourselves that France's "laundry list" includes
only one item: Lebanon, while the US's is wide, complex
and subject to "variance."
Q: To some of us, it looks like the U.S. is looking
for excuses to produce "regime change" in Damascus,
and the presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon is just one
such excuse. What do you think?
A: I hate to agree here, but the inexplicable and ever
increasing animosity towards Syria, is leading many to
believe that the "decision to harm" has been
taken in the US Administration. It is the US that has
suspended ALL SECURITY cooperation as it pertains to the
Iraqi theater, even against the advice of the top American
brass, preferring to up the tempo on Hezballah (also)
to do Israel's bidding. I recall that ONLY TWO YEARS ago,
President Chirac of France (from the pulpit of the Lebanese
Parliament) lauded the Syrian presence a very positive
element, and said that Syrian troops should withdraw only
when a comprehensive peace settlement is reached in the
area. Basically, you are right, Syrian troops in Lebanon
are a multi pronged excuse.
Q: There've been some large demonstrations in Lebanon,
well-reported in the U.S. press, demanding a Syrian pullout
and a new government. We know that U.S. NGOs and official
bodies have been deeply involved in what are depicted
as "democratic" upheavals in Georgia, Ukraine
and elsewhere. Do you see any foreign hand in these demonstrations?
A: Images of American and French Presidents, Ambassadors
and envoys running the full gamut of the so called opposition
leaders in Beirut and elsewhere, are pretty reminiscent
of the days of China's "privileges and concessions."
Listen. Until today, Lebanon remain a country where the
fate of the liberties and rights (so dear to the US) fares
much BETTER than in any country in the Middle East, Israel
included. Such "items" as open economy, women
empowerment, freedom of the press ... are leaps and bounds
ahead of other Arab countries where cosmetic reforms are
sources of praise in Washington. This leads us to one
conclusion: The daily harassment is beyond the presence
of Syrian troops, beyond civil liberties ... It is the
ulterior motives that disturb us.
Q: I believe that the initial Syrian deployment was
requested by or welcomed by the Christian community. Is
that right?
A: Absolutely. The Christians were on the verge of defeat.
Guided by realpolitik and by a belief that any alteration
in the fragile Lebanese fabric, would have dire consequences
for Lebanon, Syria and the REGION AS A WHOLE, Syrian troops
entered Lebanon to correct an aberration. What a few in
Lebanon seem to ignore today is that, Syria is not a "waste
management" service, and that Syria and its Lebanese
allies are seeing and hearing sounds and images reminiscent
of 1975.
Q: Why were the Syrians welcomed?
A: The Syrian initial intervention in 1976 was a blessed
endeavor by all international and regional powers. It
was an Arab and American recognition of Syria's strategic
interests As SYRIA PERCEIVES THEM, and later, an acceptance
of a Syrian exclusive role when it comes to the safeguard
of a cohesive and peaceful Lebanon. The Syrians tried
very hard (and to a certain extent, were successful) in
stabilizing the war torn country, by preventing the (imminent)
military defeat of the so called Christian forces. The
preservation of an equilibrium remains a top priority
for Syria in Lebanon. However, there are those "opportunists"
few who believe that an American Tsunami is overtaking
the Region with a strong "neo-conservative anti-Syrian"
bias, and who are seeing in this an occasion to turn back
the clock.
Q: Can you tell us more about the Israeli involvement
in Lebanon, and the current state of relations with your
southern neighbor?
A: Israel on the other hand, has always mounted murderous,
unprovoked campaigns against Lebanon, culminating in a
full scale invasion in 1982. You have to remember that
Lebanon still "hosts" over 350,000 Palestinian
refugees, adding further tear to the Lebanese social fabric.
Our current relations with Israel, is that between an
aggressor and aggressed. Israel STILL occupies Lebanese
territories in the Shebaa Farms, still performs all types
of incursions into Lebanese territory, while its secret
services are still hard at work in their attempts to undermine
our stability.
Q: What is the general sentiment in Lebanon towards
the U.S. at this point?
A: Borrowing from a brilliant Lebanese Journalist, Joseph
Samaha who writes in the Lebanese daily As Safir, he likened
the attempt to transfer Lebanon from its Camp A (rejecting
American hegemony) to Camp B (affiliation with Pax Americana,
with ALL ITS ULTERIOR MOTIVES) to "a fast moving
river." It would be rather easy to imagine what the
folks in Camp A feel towards the US, its disastrous involvement
in Iraq and its endemic bias towards Israel in its continued
occupation of Arab lands. However, Camp B includes a large
majority of sincere (and exploited) "boy scouts,"
who are unfortunately lexpolited by a horde of highway
robbers. Unfortunately, it is mostly in these opportunistic
sectarian warlords, that America finds its springboard
towards a "new Middle East." The Lebanese in
general have never felt enmity towards the United States.
However, "weary and distrustful" cannot begin
to describe their feelings towards the US's foreign policy.
If this is how the US believes it will win "hearts
and minds" in our Region, then it better num these
minds because it will not find many takers. However, we
are still hopeful (no harm here) that saner heads in the
US Administration (and they DO EXIST) will prevail. One
day.
Q: President Lahoud must be under considerable pressure,
represented in the western press as a Syrian puppet at
a time when Syria is labeled an "outpost of tyranny."
Could you please explain how he himself sees his position?
A: President Lahoud has been a subject for political
sniping since his election in 1998, and that for many
reasons. Firstly, the President is a staunchly secular
man in a country ruled by sectarian warlords. Secondly,
the numerous tries to "coopt" the President
(when he was Commander of the Armed Forces) have failed
miserably. Thirdly, the President remains a most sincere
Arab nationalist, at a time when the breed is under siege.
Fourthly, the President has hedged his bets and gone out
of his way to protect the "national resistance"
against Israeli occupation. This culminated in an Israeli
withdrawal in 2000'. It should be noted that this was
the first time ever, that Israel withdrew from Arab territories
"UNDER DURESS." Today, when the "whirling
Dervishes" of hegemony have reached an unprecedented
tempo, President Lahoud has become enemy number one. He
remains a major obstacle to the hegemons designs, hardly
a trait of puppets. However, I can say that the shadow
puppets of the hegemons are precisely those figures who
are calling for his resignation.
Q: The Lebanese Shiite organization Hizbollah is
characterized by the U.S. government and corporate press
as "terrorist," which is a way of associating
it with al-Qaeda. How would you describe that organization,
to Americans who don't know much about the Middle East?
A: The US's qualms with Hezbollah are purely a product
of bias. This is a political party with the biggest constituency,
part and parcel of the Lebanese polity. Characterizing
it as "terrorist" is characterizing over 1.8
million Lebanese citizens as "supporters of terrorism."
Hezbollah's achieved what ALL OTHER Lebanese parties never
tried. It refrained from entering the fray of Lebanon's
political stampede, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, it lead to the
first Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab lands UNDER
DURESS. This, and the fact that Hezbollah has been emblematic
of a "culture of resistance" in the Middle East,
has never been forgiven.
Q: Some of us who've followed the neocons (top-ranking
of whom is perhaps Paul Wolfowitz) think they have a plan
to topple, one by one, the governments of Afghanistan,
Iraq, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia---not necessarily
in that order. Do you, and/or President Lahoud, share
that assessment?
A: Incidentally, one of the leaders of the so called
"opposition," namely Mr. Walid Jumblat, was
not so long ago, if I recall, very vitriolic about Mr.
Wolfowitz. With a strike of a magical wand, Mr. Jumblat
(still persona non grata in the US) has become Washington's
long shot horse. The gods of neo-conservatism move in
mysterious ways. But seriously, one does not have to go
far back in time to get a glimpse of Washington Hawkish
thinking. "Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing
the Realm" dispels any notion that today's US Foreign
Policy is NOT guided by those who seek to "solve"
Israel's "problems." Basically, this would be
achieved by "rolling back ... destabilizing"
Israel's threatening neighbors. Closer to home, and after
"doing Iraq," it spells the steps for Israel
vis-a-vis Syria and Lebanon when it calls upon Israel
to seize the "strategic initiative along its borders
by engaging Syria Hizballah and Iran." With American
presence on Syria's borders in Iraq, Israel hopes that
US blood and money would do the trick. As I recall, a
great American journalist and patriot told me that when
the US boots entered Baghdad, Israel's foreign minister
silvan Shalom called him to tell him this was "indeed
a glorious day in Israel, because America was ALSO to
the east of Israel."
Q: Most Americans don't recall very clearly the Reagan-era
intervention of U.S. troops in Lebanon, that led to disaster.
Your thoughts on that episode?
A: It took us decades to revive, reunite and solidify
our Armed Forces in Lebanon. But one has to remember that
in 1984, a nucleic Lebanese Army took the bait of a highly
unpopular (American blessed) adventure, and in order to
subdue the "Shiites" forces in South Beirut,
the Army shelled the suburbs, becoming the SOLE casualty
of this American mis-adventure as it splinted along sectarian
lines. In a nutshell, we need to remember that the last
time "anyone" tried to shove a solution down
the throat of the Lebanese, without reaching a National
consensus, it lead to disaster. We are seeing such attempts
today with the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution
1559, and its most DANGEROUS stipulation, namely the disarming
of our National Resistance. Needless to say, that the
Lebanese are also NOT entirely united on the mechanisms
and schedules of a Syrian military withdrawal, as MANY
in the so called "opposition" have selectively
read the Taef Accords, when in reality it calls for withdrawals
to coincide with reforms and the ABOLITION of political
sectarianism.
Q: Could you characterize the present relationship
between Lebanon, Syria and Iran? Both Lebanon and Syria
are secular societies, while Iran is an Islamic republic.
What interests do you have in common?
A: With Syria, Lebanon shares a plethora of historical,
social, cultural, familial and geographic commonalities.
It is certainly a unique relationship. Most Lebanese,
few even in the opposition understand these factoids well.
However, there are also those emboldened few who found
commonalities with the American siege of Syria to implement
shortsighted agendas. They believe that once the Tsunami
(American) waves have receded, they will go back dividing
the sectarian spoils, concluding (perhaps too well) that
the US's qualms with Syria have nothing to do with Democracy
and Liberty.
Q: Why did Prime Minister Karami resign? Apparently
he took even members of his own party by surprise.
A: PM Karami's resignation came rather swiftly, when
he was geared to prevail in the vote of Confidence. The
PM acted on an impulse, having been subjected to a relentless
campaign of vilification since Day 1. In a nutshell, PM
Karami became "sensitive" to the fact that PM
Hariri's assassination happened during his watch. It was
his way in trying to diffuse the volatile situation that
arose after the assassination. What is striking here,
is the speed of the US response to the PM's resignation.
He believes that by qualifying the resignation (within
less than an hour) as a "positive" event, shows,
without a shred of a doubt that the US is "once again"
taking sides in Lebanon.
Q: Israel is attributing the recent suicide bombing
in Tel Aviv to Islamic Jihad, and asserting (rightly or
wrongly) that since Damascus supports Islamic Jihad, Syria
is responsible. If Israel again attacks Syria, as it did
in October 2003, how would the Lebanese government and
people react?
A: Tel Aviv, will not miss an opportunity to blame any
calamity that befalls it on Syria and Hezballah. The sad
part is that Israel produces "evidences" that
are always "bought" in Washington. Listen, Israel
remains the only world occupying force who gets away with
murder. Constantly blaming Syria, Hezbollah ... is a sorry
attempt by Tel Aviv to shift the blame for its unsuccessful
policy of "security first." Basically, one need
not be a wizard to determine that a despaired people,
a humiliated people a people in CONSTANT MOURNING, will
go to any length in extracting vengeance from those who
dislocate , humiliate and murder his brethren. |
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Gunfire
erupted Saturday in Beirut's anti-Syrian Christian sector
after pro-Syrian protesters arrived in the area, witnesses
said.
Volleys of gunfire were heard shortly after a convoy
of cars carrying pictures of Syrian President Bashar
Assad, which had earlier demonstrated in Muslim south
Beirut, headed later to the Christian sector of Ashrafieh,
a center of anti-Syrian sentiment.
People in the cars exchanged insults with about a dozen
men. Gunmen then opened fire from the cars as they drove
around, the witnesses said. There appeared to be no
casualties.
Elsewhere in the city, including the main Martyrs'
Square, protests for or against Syria continued peacefully
amid heavy Lebanese army presence.
Many Lebanese blame Syria for the Feb. 14 assassination
of their former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, and and
nations around the world have demanded that Syria withdraw
its 15,000 troops.
Assad on Saturday announced a two-stage pullback of
Syrian forces to the Lebanese border, but failed to
address broad international demands that he completely
withdraw the troops after nearly 30 years in the country.
|
NABLUS, West Bank (AP) - Tensions
between Palestinian Authority police and militant groups
erupted into violence Friday as Palestinian gunmen opened
fire at a police station, sparking a gunfight that left
three people wounded.
It was the second serious clash between Palestinian
authorities and armed groups this week, underscoring
the delicate task that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas
faces as he tries to rein in militants and restore law
and order in the West Bank.
Abbas has been trying to persuade armed men to lay
down their weapons while resisting calls from Israel
and the international community for a crackdown. Pressure
has increased on the Palestinian leader to take tougher
action since a Palestinian suicide bomber from the West
Bank killed five Israelis in Tel Aviv last weekend.
The gunmen belonged to al Awda, a small militant group
affiliated with Abbas' ruling Fatah party. Representatives
of the group said they acted in response to police attempts
to arrest one of their members who was driving a stolen
car. But a police spokesman said the group was upset
that one of its members had been beaten while in police
custody.
"We hope that Israeli will
withdraw soon from these cities so that we can control
security in these cities,'' Abbas said outside
his home in Ramallah. "As long as the Israeli army
is in the Palestinian West Bank, there will be breeches
and we will deal with it.''
Earlier this week, tensions between the Palestinian
Authority and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a larger
militant group linked with Fatah, sparked a confrontation
in the nearby town of Jenin. [...] |
Hazel Blears, the minister responsible
for counter-terrorism, said yesterday that Muslims will
have to accept as a "reality" that they will
be stopped and searched by the police more often than
the rest of the public.
Ms Blears told MPs that "there was no getting
away from it", because the terrorist threat came
from people "falsely hiding behind Islam".
Her comments, on the day when leading British Muslim
groups met to hammer out a strategy on maximising the
Islamic vote for the election, provoked immediate condemnation
from Islamic leaders.
Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights
Commission, said: "She is demonising and alienating
our community. It is a legitimisation for a backlash
and for racists to have an onslaught on our community."
The Home Office minister's comments come at an awkward
time for the Labour government. It is struggling to
pass anti-terrorism legislation through parliament and
preparing for a general election where the traditionally
loyal Muslim vote is threatening to desert the party.
Ms Blears was speaking at the Commons home affairs
committee inquiry into the impact of anti-terrorist
measures on community relations.
"If a threat is from a particular place then our
action is going to be targeted at that area," she
said, adding: "It means that some of our counter-terrorism
powers will be disproportionately experienced by the
Muslim community."
Statistics showed that of the
17 people found guilty of terrorist acts since 9/11
in the UK, only four of the 12 whose ethnic backgrounds
were known were Muslim, Mr Shadjareh said. [...]
|
Sir John Stevens, who retired from
the Metropolitan Police recently, wrote in the News
of the World that the threat of attacks was real.
He urged the government to press on
with its controversial anti-terrorist legislation as
quickly as possible.
Civil rights groups have criticised the government's
plans, calling for an end to detention without trial.
They say the principles of justice and human rights
are fundamental to British law and should not be lost.
But Sir John said any delay in enacting the legislation
would bring "comfort" to al-Qaeda.
He said there were small networks of militants who
had been trained by Osama bin Laden and had "spawned
and continue to fester" in British towns and cities.
The Prevention of Terrorism Bill would allow authorities
to impose curfews or tag suspects, as well as banning
them from using telephones or the internet.
"The main opposition to
the Bill, it seems to me, is from people who simply
haven't understood the brutal reality of the world we
live in and the true horror of the terrorism we face,"
Sir John wrote.
He said he his hair had been made to "stand on
end" reading reports of attacks militants planned
to carry out in Britain.
He said the conviction of British-born militants such
as Richard Reid and Saajid Badat showed the threat did
not just come from overseas.
"The brutal truth is that there
are more just like them, as much British citizens as
you and I, living here now just waiting to kill and
be killed in their awful misguided cause," he wrote. |
AMID a trans-Atlantic row over
its determination to resume arms sales to China, the
European Union has outlined plans to become a military
superpower and close the defence technology gap on the
US.
The EU would develop unmanned drones, new armoured vehicles
and advanced communication systems, the British head
of the newly created European Defence Agency said.
EDA chief executive Nick Witney said the 25-nation
EU would establish a joint fighter-pilot training program
and co-ordinate the testing of military equipment.
The initiatives represent the EU's first step in military
research and development.
They are aimed at transforming the
EU from being a political power, in charge of policies
such as agriculture and trade, to a military one, capable
of sending troops around the world to enforce a foreign
policy agreed by its member states.
The strategy is controversial. EU members such as Ireland
and Sweden fear their traditional neutrality is being
threatened, while in Britain there has been concern
that the initiative will undermine NATO and its close
military relationship with the US.
Moves to turn Europe into a military superpower will
also heighten concerns in Washington over the EU's plans
to lift a 15-year-old arms embargo on China. US President
George W.Bush and congressional leaders from both parties
presented a united front yesterday in opposition to
the plan for renewed arms sales.
The US Congress has warned it will consider retaliatory
trade action against European countries that start selling
military technology to China, a move Washington fears
would threaten Taiwan and US troops in the region.
Resuming arms sales to China "is a non-starter
with Congress", Joseph Biden, senior Democrat on
the Senate foreign relations committee, said after a
meeting with Mr Bush.
Republican senator Richard Lugar said that if the embargo
were lifted, Congress might impose "a prohibition
on a great number of technical skills and materials,
or products, being available to Europeans".
Mr Witney explained his plans to boost Europe's "defence,
technological and industrial base" by co-ordinating
EU members' military activity.
"Europe does not have the defence capabilities
that it ought to. I want to see what we can do to get
more bang for the buck and I am sure we can go a long
way applying all the separate defence lines across Europe
more coherently," he said.
Concern about Europe's military weakness came to the
fore in the 1990s when it was unable to prevent civil
war in the Balkans. Since then, the EU has been developing
a common foreign policy and has set up the EDA to increase
its military power.
Mr Witney said Europe's armies, as well as being fragmented,
had failed to move "to the information age"
of warfare.
"Is it really useful that we spend money in Europe
maintaining in service 11,000 main battle tanks? Just
what do we think we are going to do with those?"
he said. "Would it not be better to concentrate
on more modern technologies such as communication?"
|
March 3, 2005—The recent
scandal involving gay male escort and right-wing faux
journalist Jeff Gannon (a.k.a. James Dale Guckert and
possibly a few other aliases) is not welcome news for
the purported sadomasochistic hedonists in the White
House administrations of both George W. and George H.
W. Bush.
As with their fascist fellow travelers in Hitler's
Germany, Franco's Spain, and "The Colonels'"
Greece, many of the fascists associated with the Bush
family have a predilection for sex with children and
young recruits within the U.S. military. However, since
the 1980s, the Bush cabal has been able to keep the
GOP's dark secrets away from the disinfectant of sunshine
and media attention.
Except for the outbreak of news stories concerning
the Franklin Credit Union-Lawrence King-Craig Spence
child prostitution scandal in 1989 that involved midnight
tours of the White House for underage male sex slaves
from Nebraska and reached high into the upper echelons
of the elder Bush administration, little has been heard
about the sex crimes of top Republicans. That is, until
it was revealed that "Jeff Gannon" was intricately
tied to GOP operatives ranging from George W. Bush political
"Svengali" Karl Rove, to White House Press
Secretary Scott McClellan, and Texas GOP provocateur
Bobby Eberle. In typical Bush scandal fashion, Eberle's
"Talon News Service" has disappeared as fast
as Jeff Gannon from the James Brady Briefing Room and
Doug Wead's secret tapes of Bush from the public ear—tapes
that, at the very least, indicated Bush's prior use
of marijuana, cocaine, and LSD.
As this writer has previously reported, during the
early 1980s, a number of naval officers were implicated
in a child pornography ring that extended from Oregon
to the San Francisco Bay area and to Chicago and Washington,
DC. The story about that ring was covered up by then-Secretary
of the Navy John Lehman who engaged in similar cover-ups
of the Navy's "Tailhook" scandal involving
the sexual assault by naval aviators of women, including
at least one underage teen, and the gun turret explosion
on the USS Iowa, originally and erroneously blamed by
Navy investigators on a despondent gay sailor. The GOP
appointed Lehman to the 9-11 Commission, which issued
a final report that many victims' families and investigators
determined was a whitewash.
The fact that Gannon/Guckert, a male escort who adopted
a military theme for his clientele, was made privy to
classified information involving CIA covert agent Valerie
Plame and her husband's (former Ambassador Joseph Wilson)
trip to Niger to investigate possible uranium shipments,
has a precedent with prior GOP illegal sexcapades involving
national security breaches. The Franklin pedophile cover-up
was mirrored by the Navy pedophile affair that also
breached national security during the height of the
Cold War. The cover-up of the pedophile ring involving
senior naval personnel ran right up the chain-of-command
to the Pentagon offices of then-Secretary of the Navy
Lehman, Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle, and
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and the White House
offices of Vice President George H. W. Bush, and Reagan
Chief of Staff and close Bush confidant James Baker
III.
As someone intimately involved in the investigation
of the Navy case and as a victim of the cover-up, this
reporter is publishing for the first time correspondence
and documents on the Navy affair so that the current
Bush sex scandal, "Gannongate," does not go
the way of the Nebraska/Washington, DC, Navy, and Abu
Ghraib/Guantanamo scandals. (One note of interest: the
"X" in the Case Control Number 718XNA refers
to the FBI's cross referencing file numbering system.
The "X" means that the case is a "X"
case–meaning that the case is of extreme sensitivity,
the "NA" following the "X" refers
to the Navy. There are, in fact, "X Files,"
but they have nothing to do with aliens but very much
to do with high-level government officials engaged in
off-the-wall activities, like pedophilia and prostitution). |
Iran has warned that Gulf Arab
oil would be endangered by any U.S. attack on the Islamic
republic.
In the first such threat, a leading Iranian official
raised the prospect of Iranian retaliation against Middle
East oil exports. The official said such Gulf oil states
as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia could be threatened, Middle
East Newsline reported.
"An attack on Iran will be tantamount to endangering
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and – in a word – the
entire Middle East oil," Iranian Expediency Council
secretary Mohsen Rezai said on Tuesday.
About 40 percent of the world's crude oil shipments
passes through the two-mile wide channel of the strategic
Straits of Hormuz. Iranian forces are deployed at the
head of the channel. Oman and the United Arab Emirates
are located on the other side.
Teheran could easily block the Straits of Hormuz and
use its missiles to strike tankers and GCC oil facilities,
according to the new edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com.
Within weeks, the rest of the world would be starving
for oil and the global economy could be in danger.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects
that oil tanker traffic through the Straits of Hormuz
will rise to about 60 percent of global oil exports
by 2025.
Rezai, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps and a candidate for president, told the
Fars News Agency that any Western attack on Iran would
send oil prices rocketing to $70 per barrel.
He said such a significant increase in oil prices would
also be sparked by international sanctions on Teheran.
|
Signs Economic Commentary |
Donald
Hunt
March 6, 2005 |
The
dollar closed at .7553 euros (1.3239 dollars per euro)
up very slightly (0.03%) from last week's .7551 (1.3243).
Oil closed at $53.78 (40.62 euros) on Friday, up 4.4%
from last week's close of $51.49 (38.88 euros) . Gold
closed at $435.30 an ounce (328.78 euros), down a dollar
(0.23%) from last Friday's 436.30 (329.45 euros last week).
An ounce of gold would buy 8.09 barrels of oil, down 4.7%
from last week's 8.47, coninuing the trend of steeper
oil price increases than gold price increases. The Dow
closed at 10,940.55 (up 0.9% from last week's 10,841.75),
setting a post 9/11 high. The NASDAQ closed at 2070.61,
up 0.25% from last week's 2065.40. The ten-year US Treasury
bond closed at 4.31% up significanly from last week's
4.26% and 4.13% a month ago.
The pattern
we mentioned last week held for this week as well. Bad
economic news mid-week followed by some good news on Friday
to send everyone into the weekend optimistic. The good
news on Friday is usually some report about growth or
job creation that could be released any day of the week
while the bad news come from serious long-term trends
and world events. This week the good news was a jobs report
leading to a rise in the US stock market. The bad news
came from sharply rising oil prices, and from continuing
nervousness about the deficits. The problem for optimists
(bulls) is that all the good news comes from what happened
in the near past and the bad news are usually things which
portent a bad future.
A good example
of the bad news portending poorly for the future is the
news on US personal income and housing starts. That news
came out early in the week, of course. Here is a AP wire
service article from Monday, the 28th:
Personal
Incomes See Biggest Dip in Decade
By
MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON
- Personal incomes which had been bolstered by a large
stock dividend payment in December plunged 2.3 percent
in January, the sharpest decline in more than a decade.
Consumer spending was flat, the government reported Monday.
The
Commerce Department said the sharp January drop in incomes
followed a record 3.7 percent jump in incomes in December
with both months heavily influenced by a $3 per share
dividend payment that computer software giant Microsoft
made on Dec. 2.
Meanwhile,
the number of new single-family homes sold in January
fell 9.2 percent, the agency said in a second report.
The
worse-than-expected performance pushed new home sales
down to 1.11 million units at a seasonally adjusted annual
rate in January compared to a revised December rate of
1.22 million units. Last week, the National Association
of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes and
condominiums had fallen as well in January, dipping a
slight 0.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate
of 6.8 million units.
Both
sales of new and existing homes set all-time highs in
2004 for the fourth consecutive year. But economists are
forecasting a retreat from those highs this year as mortgage
rates are expected to start rising.
[...]
Economists are looking for both overall economic growth
and consumer spending to slow a bit this year as continued
interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve dampen
consumer demand. The Fed hiked interest rates for a sixth
time in early February and a seventh quarter-point increase
is expected when Fed policy-makers next meet on March
22.
The
report on new home sales showed weakness in every part
of the country except the West, where sales rose by 5.6
percent to an annual rate of 338,000 units.
The
biggest decline was a record 40.3 percent plunge in the
Midwest where sales dropped to an annual rate of 145,000
units. Sales fell 17.1 percent in the Northeast to an
annual rate of 63,000 units and were down 3.3 percent
in the South to a rate of 560,000 units.
The
drop in new home sales was accompanied by a fall in prices.
The median new home price — the point where half
the homes sold for more and half for less — was
$199,400 in January, down 13.2 percent from a median sales
price of $229,700 in December. It was the lowest new home
price since a median of $196,000 in December 2003.
Two things
of note here. When you combine lower incomes for consumers
with higher interest rates, there is trouble ahead. Also,
the drop in new house sales might be a signal that the
housing bubble will burst. Here is what Michael Kinsley
said about that this week in the Los Angeles Times:
Top
of the Market, Ma!
Michael
Kinsley
February 27, 2005
Pop!
That is the sound of the real estate bubble bursting.
And it's a good thing. It is obvious to me that today's
real estate prices are a speculative bubble that is about
to burst. Of course, this has been obvious to me for about
three decades, and I've been wrong almost all of that
time. Nevertheless.
One piece of evidence is the Dinner Party Index. The boom
is over when more people are bored by real estate anecdotes
("My next-door neighbor got three times her asking
price before she even put it on the market, from a professional
mind reader who divined that she might sell … ")
than have got new ones.
Another reason the value of your house is about to plunge
is that the L.A. Times, the New York Times and the Washington
Post all say that it isn't. A recent L.A. Times article
reported that the median price of a local house had gone
up only 17% in the last year. Headline: "L.A. County
Home Prices Cool Slightly." Subhead: "Slowdown
may not last." To describe a 17% annual increase
as a "slowdown" assumes that gains of 20% or
more are the norm. And the evidence for "may not
last" comes from realtors whistling in the dark.
You've got a bubble when today's prices assume large future
increases. If you think prices will be 20% higher in a
year, you'll be willing to pay 19% more today. But if
others share that assumption, today's price will already
be 19% higher. Betting on future appreciation makes sense
only if you are even more optimistic than other buyers.
Right now, that is hard to be.
In Washington, where house prices have doubled over five
years, the Post says, "Experts Predict Steady Gains
in 2005, but More Moderate Than in Past Years." But
whatever "experts" say, it is not the nature
of price explosions to segue gracefully into more moderate
growth. When today's run-ups are based on beliefs
about tomorrow's run-ups, the self-feeding frenzy goes
into reverse when those assumptions are dashed.
The New York Times also must be talking to experts. "In
Housing Sales, Frenzy Is Giving Way to Balance,"
it says. And it reports from suburban Westchester County
that "Housing Market Is Still Going Strong."
In 2004, the median sales price rose from $564,000 to
$645,000. "More and more families are seeing the
residential real estate market as the best and safest
place for their money," a realtor says. And the article
adds chirpily, "Even the ongoing problem of a lack
of houses for sale in Westchester eased somewhat last
year." Like a roller coaster, a financial bubble
has a moment of eerie stillness at the top. Buyers have
adjusted, sellers haven't. So sales dry up. When the
New York Times spins a surplus of unsold houses as a sign
that "the ongoing problem of a lack of houses for
sale" has been solved, it means that you had better
not count on the New York Times to tell you when it's
time to bail.
Let's step back a moment. All the housing in the U.S.
is worth about $14 trillion. If the value of existing
housing (not counting new construction) goes up 7% this
year, which is the recent national average, homeowners
will seem to be about $1 trillion richer. But will the
nation be $1 trillion richer? No. These are the same houses,
in the same place. That trillion comes partly from non-homeowners,
who must pay more to buy in. And it is partly illusory.
If many current homeowners tried to cash in, the drop
in prices would quickly wipe out that trillion.
When the price of something goes up, two things happen:
The economy starts to produce more of it, and existing
units are worth more. For most of what we buy, the first
effect overwhelms the second, and constrains it. An increase
in the price of a can of tuna does not produce many self-satisfied
anecdotes from people who have a third of their net worth
locked into Chicken of the Sea. But real estate is different,
mainly because it requires land. As the cliche goes, they're
not making any more of it.
Perusing the real estate ads like pornography and imagining
what our houses are worth is the great American pastime.
But a crash, if it comes, would have some advantages.
The 19th century political economist Henry George explained
how rising real estate values harm the economy by operating
as a tax on both labor and capital.
When the price of labor goes up, people work harder. When
the price of capital goes up, people save more. Both make
the country richer. But when the price of land goes up,
it just makes the owner richer. There are all sorts of
qualifications. But the basic point is a good one.
People do foolish things under the impression they are
getting richer because their houses are worth more. They
save less, they spend more. Egged on by TV commercials,
they "consolidate their debts" (i.e., buy a
new boat) with a second mortgage.
And who really gains from soaring house prices? First-time
buyers don't. Nor does anyone who plans ever to trade
up. The only beneficiaries are those who are selling their
last house, after a lifetime of appreciation. The bigger
the house, the bigger the windfall. This is yet another
thank-you from America to the so-called Greatest Generation.
I'm not sure it's necessary.
And I'm not sure it will continue. In fact, I'm pretty
sure it won't. So I'm going to sell my house right now,
before it's too late. Right?
Are you kidding?
Another troubling
sign in the US housing market is the large presence of
speculative investors. According to the Chicago Tribune,
Real
estate speculators are buying at a pace that far exceeds
previous estimates of their influence on the housing market,
according to a first-of-its kind report the National Association
of Realtors released this week.
Collectively,
investors and second-home buyers bought more than one
of every three homes sold in last year's record market,
the report said.
"I
am astonished," said David Lereah, the association's
chief economist. He said the data suggest a sea change
in the role of real estate in the nation's economy.
"What
we're seeing is that real estate is no longer just a place
to live. It's a viable alternative to stocks and bonds,"
Lereah said. "Sept. 11 changed real estate forever,
the way people look at it. They're nervous about stocks
and bonds and they're placing money in real estate, which
has proven to be a stable and wealth-building asset."
The
report, based on two surveys, found that investors accounted
for 23 percent of the nation's 2004 home sale transactions
and second-home buyers made an additional 13 percent of
all sales transactions. Previous estimates gleaned from
other databases had suggested that 8.5 percent of all
2004 sales transactions were investments.
The
report said that sales activity surged last year. Investor
activity was 14 percent higher than in 2003, and second-home
purchases topped the preceding year by nearly 20 percent.
Federal
Reserve officials and other economists have expressed
concern that scorching-hot investor activity in certain
markets may be inflating home-appreciation rates artificially,
which could lead to collapsing prices.
Fiserv
CSW, a Cambridge, Mass., firm that tracks price appreciation,
calculates that national home values, adjusted for inflation,
have appreciated about 40 percent since 1995, and some
metro areas, such as San Diego, are up as much as 160
percent.
[...]
"It's kind of alarming," said Stiff. "I
presume investor activity is concentrated in some metropolitan
areas, such as southern California, Florida, Las Vegas
and Phoenix. But even I am surprised that it's that high.
"It's
at the end of a housing cycle that you start to see people
investing irrationally," Stiff said. He singled
out increasingly widespread reports about homeowners cashing
out equity in their principal residences to invest in
properties around the country.
"If
anything is a sign of a price bubble, that is it."
All these
micro- and macroeconomic factors would be disturbing enough
without viewing them in the larger geopolitical context.
Here, of course, is where things get really scary. A former
Treasury official in the Reagan administration who worked
for the Wall Street Journal and The National Review (no
leftie, therefore), Paul Craig Roberts wrote the following
in an article entitled, “The
Last Waltz? The Coming End of the American Superpower”:
The
US economy is headed toward crisis, and the political
leadership of the country--if it can be called leadership--is
preoccupied with nonexistent weapons of mass destruction
in the Middle East.
The
US economy is failing. The afflictions are serious. They
could be fatal even if diagnosed and treated. America
is losing the purchasing power of its currency and its
ability to create middle class jobs.
The
dollar's sharp decline and projections of continuing trade
and budgetary red ink are undermining the dollar's role
as reserve currency. A number of central banks have announced
that they will be diversifying their currency holdings
and will not be buying dollars at the same rate as in
the past.
This
will put more pressure on the dollar. At some point the
flight will begin. Instead of buying fewer dollars, central
banks will sell dollars hoping to get out before the dollar
hits bottom.
Suddenly,
the advantage of being the reserve currency becomes a
nightmare as the world's accumulations of dollars are
brought to market. An enormous supply and weak demand
mean a very low exchange rate for the once almighty US
dollar.
Overnight
those cheap goods in Wal-Mart, which are the no-think
economist's facile justification for Wal-Mart's decimation
of communities, small businesses and employment, shoot
up in price.
Interest
rates will escalate as the government struggles to finance
its endless red ink. Heavily indebted Americans with adjustable
rate mortgages will attempt to sell homes just as rising
mortgage rates reduce buyers. Real estate assets, the
rising value of which have been keeping the economy going,
will give back gains.
The
US has lost its ability to create middle class jobs or
for that matter any jobs. During the last four years
the US has experienced a net loss of 760,000 private sector
jobs (January 2001 - January 2005). Think what this
means for graduating classes and people coming of age
to enter the work force.
Moreover,
the composition of jobs has changed away from high-value-added,
high-productivity jobs in tradable goods and services
toward lower productivity domestic service jobs that cannot
be outsourced.
Even
here in this last remaining area of employment for Americans,
the US work force is losing job opportunities to foreign
nurses and school teachers brought in on H-1b work visas
as a result of budgetary pressures on local school budgets
and hospitals.
No-think
economists and politicians continue to propose unemployment
insurance and education as remedies for the jobs problem.
These proposals are mindless to say the least. The same
incentive to outsource holds for all tradable skills.
If truth be known, job outsourcing and offshore production
sound the death bell for US higher education.
Americans
unable to find jobs in export and import-competitive sectors
find themselves searching for jobs in nontradable domestic
services, where their inflow into those labor markets
is augmented by illegal immigrants and foreigners on H-1b
visas. Obviously, the pressure on wages is downward.
[...]
Oblivious to reality, the Bush administration has proposed
a Social Security privatization that will cost $4.5 trillion
in borrowing over the next 10 years alone! America has
no domestic savings to absorb this debt, and foreigners
will not lend such enormous sums to a country with a collapsing
currency--especially a country mired in a Middle East
war running up hundreds of billions of dollars in war
debt.
A venal and self-important Washington establishment combined
with a globalized corporate mentality have brought an
end to America's rising living standards. America's
days as a superpower are rapidly coming to an end. Isolated
by the nationalistic unilateralism of the neoconservatives
who control the Bush administration, the US can expect
no sympathy or help from former allies and rising new
powers.
The United
States is losing control of its economic future to Asia,
and, nationalism aside, that may not be a bad thing. According
to an
analyst on Bloomberg, “These days, markets react
more to rumors about Asian central banks selling U.S.
debt than what Greenspan says about the economy.”
Alan Greenspan's
predecessor as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board,
Paul
Volcker said recently:
Below
the favourable surface [of the economy], there are as
dangerous and intractable circumstances as I can remember....
Nothing in our experience is comparable…But no
one is willing to understand [this] and do anything about
it… We are consuming… about six per cent
more than we are producing. What holds the world together
is a massive flow of capital from abroad… it's
what feeds our consumption binge... the United States
economy is growing on the savings of the poor…
A big adjustment will inevitably become necessary, long
before the social security surpluses disappear and the
deficit explodes…We are skating on increasingly
thin ice.
Marshall
Auerback commented on that quote by spelling out how
we are headed for something on the magnitude of the Great
Depression:
At the time of the 1929 stock market crash, total
US credit was 176 percent of Gross Domestic Product.
In 1933 with GDP imploding and the real value of debt
rising even faster, total credit rose to 287 percent of
what was left of GDP…. In 2000 at the top of the
late bull market, total credit was 269 percent of
GDP. An extraordinary statistic to be sure,
but dwarfed by today's figure, in which total
credit stands at a whopping 304 percent of GDP…The
obvious answer in such circumstances would be to restrain
US consumption. But were Americans to begin to significantly
pare their debt burdens, aggregate demand would likely
collapse and trigger something not unlike the 1930s.
It
may well be that people are starting to connect these
dots. George Bush has had such a hard time selling the
public on privatizing Social Security that even Republicans
are trying to back off the plan. Bush, of course, will
not back off but is intensifying his efforts to sell the
plan, even to the point of setting up a “war room.”
This shows the importance his administration places on
this. The reason is two-fold. First, the Wall Street investment
firms stand to make billions on fees for the private accounts.
Second, and perhaps more important, the Bush administration
follows a consistent policy of transferring government
liabilities to the public, in order to free up government
funds for militarization. The empire is starting to slip
away from them and they are feeling desperate. Will the
people wake up in time and put the top officials of the
Bush administration on trial for treason and war crimes,
or will another conveniently-timed terrorist event make
people forget the crimes and support further crackdowns
and wars? For now, since it has been over three years
since 9/11, the people may be getting restless. Here
is an account by Joseph Kay of a meeting with constituents
held in Southfield, Michigan by the Democratic congressman,
Sander Levin where the congressman was startled by the
intensity of the anger against Bush:
Throughout
the country, Congressmen from both the Republican and
Democratic parties are holding “town hall”
meetings on the Bush administration's plans for the introduction
of individual private accounts to replace government-guaranteed
Social Security pensions. The meetings—even those
held by Republican politicians—have generally been
an occasion for the venting of popular opposition to the
reform of Social Security, the linchpin of the limited
welfare system in the United States.
What
was most noteworthy about the meeting held by Representative
Sander Levin on February 24 was the contrast between,
on the one hand, the deep hostility and concern about
plans for Social Security reform coming from the audience
and, on the other hand, the attitude of the Michigan Democrat.
Levin, who is the leading Democrat on the Social Security
Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, was
more concerned about the possibility that the discussion
might get out of hand—transcending the narrow boundaries
in which he sought to contain it—than he was about
the attack on pensions in the US.
[...]
Many of those who asked questions or made comments voiced
a desire to find some way to fight against the attacks,
not only on Social Security, but all the policies of the
Bush administration. One older woman worker declared,
“Maybe what we need to do is converge en masse on
Washington” to demand that Social Security be preserved.
The Republicans, she said, were determined to destroy
social programs in the US. “They have a plan
in place.... If we lose Social Security, we'll return
to what it was like during the depression, with people
jumping off bridges because they have nothing to live
on. People like the wealthy Republicans, the Bushes, they
don't care” about us.
Others
voiced similar conceptions, and the audience responded
strongly to anyone who voiced such feelings. One individual
declared, “We need to investigate Bush as a criminal.”
There was clearly a social character to the anger expressed
by many participants. The opposition to Social Security
reform is part of a broader opposition to what is seen
as a right-wing policy of the rich to loot what is owed
to working people and the poor.
[...]
Though many in attendance certainly had illusions that
the Democratic Party would defend Social Security, some
voiced a concern that the Democrats would not put up a
fight on the issue. One audience member said, “Republicans
are going to push, and the Democrats are going to fall
all over themselves and compromise. This is the time for
Democrats to go on the offensive.”
An
elderly worker said, “Social Security was created
for a purpose: for people who didn't have jobs, for poor
people. When you worked and [the companies] didn't want
to pay for [your retirement] you had something to count
on. Why do you [Levin] let the Republicans steal our money?”
Levin's
response to all of these comments was an attempt to diffuse
the hostility and evade answering any challenge voiced
against the right-wing policies of the Democratic Party.
In response to any strong statement made by a member of
the audience, he urged repeatedly that the meeting not
be turned into a “political rally.” He said
that he wanted “to have an intensive, thoughtful
discussion. This is not a conspiracy [against Social Security].
It is a difference of opinion.” Levin never once
suggested that the attack on Social Security was motivated
by the interests of corporations or the wealthy.
It was
clear that Levin was not prepared to “go on the
offensive.” The last thing that the Democrats want
is the mobilization of mass opposition to the policies
of the Bush administration. There is no doubt that Levin
and the rest of the Democrats will prepare a compromise
with the Republicans to avoid this.
Equally
significant was Levin's repeated insistence that the war
in Iraq not be a subject for discussion at the meeting;
that it was completely separate from the question of the
privatization of Social Security. This conflicted
with the desire of many in the audience to discuss the
issue.
One
woman, who said she was 60 years old, declared, “I
don't trust anyone [in the government].” Addressing
not Levin, but the audience, she said, “I say no
to the billions of dollars spent on the war in Iraq. What
do you say?” The response was a unanimous and emphatic,
“No!”
Levin
insisted that the discussion not touch on Iraq because
he is well aware of the enormous hostility to the war
within his own constituency, a hostility that finds no
expression in the Democratic Party. If Levin were to respond
truthfully to the woman's question, he would have to reply
with an equally emphatic, “Yes!” Levin voted
for the October 2003 bill that granted $87.5 billion for
emergency spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He also voted for the $418 billion defense spending authorization
bill passed in June 2004.
In
their support for the war, the Democrats expose the worthlessness
of any promise they might make to defend Social Security.
The innumerable wars launched and planned by the American
government, the growing attack on democratic rights and
the assault on Social Security and other programs that
help ordinary Americans are part of a single policy. The
attack on social programs is mandated by the need to force
working people to pay for the wars planned and executed
in the interest of the American ruling elite. It is impossible
to oppose these attacks while supporting the war. |
The
teddy bear sitting in the corner of the child's room
might look normal, until his head starts following the
kid around using a face recognition program,
perhaps also allowing a parent talk to the child through
a special phone, or monitor the child via a camera and
wireless Internet connection.
The plush prototype, on display at Microsoft Corp.'s
annual gadget showcase Wednesday, is one of several
ideas researchers have for robots. The idea is to create
a virtual being that can visit the neighboring cubicle
for a live telephone chat even as its owner is traveling
thousands of miles away, or let the plumber into the
house while its owner enjoys a pleasant afternoon in
the sun.
Plenty of companies are already building robots for
the work place, and toy companies have created plush
dolls that know a child's name or can incorporate other
personal information. But Steven Bathiche, a research
and development program manager with Redmond-based Microsoft,
said his company's projects go further. |
Over 700 top US
scientists have protested at the massive funds being
ploughed into studying the handful of organisms considered
bioterror threats.
A letter signed by the experts suggests current funding
patterns undermine public health and national interests.
This is because research funds
are being diverted away from germs that are already
important causes of disease. [...] |
In a remarkable feat of modern
geoscience, researchers have pinpointed the date, hour
and size of a past earthquake that left "ghost
forests," still remaining in parts of the U.S.
West Coast.
Though clearly written in the earth, no written records
of this cataclysm exist in North America.
However, in Japan, officials had recorded a tsunami,
with waves up to 10 feet high along 600 miles of the
Honshu coast, at midnight Jan. 27, 1700.
By estimating the tsunami's speed, path and other properties,
researchers concluded that it was caused by a magnitude
9 earthquake that warped the seafloor off the Washington
coast at 9 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on Jan. 26, 1700.
The age of cedar tree remains from the ghost forests
have confirmed this finding.
Until recently, much of modern earthquake theory was
based on the idea that intervals between quakes were
fairly regular. Experience shows
that this is not the case.
Three hundred years of tectonic pressure has now built
up since the 1700 tsunami occurred.
A recent study estimates that 10 million people on
the U.S. West Coast would be affected by a Cascadia
subduction-zone quake. Today, the shaking from a quake
of the same magnitude would damage 200 highway bridges,
put Pacific ports out of business for months, and generate
shock waves capable of toppling tall buildings and long
bridges in Seattle and Portland.
In any event, Seattle is one of the world's worst places
for an earthquake. Part of the
city sits on a soft basin of poorly consolidated sedimentary
rocks, which could easily become unstable in a shock.
Adding to the problem, the city's harbor sits on mud
flats, which can liquefy if shocked.
"My colleagues and I describe this region as a
geological train wreck,"
says USGS geologist Ray Wells.
As a warning system, the U.S. government has set out
Pacific Ocean monitors to pick up signals from known
danger spots, not only in the Pacific Northwest, but
in Japan, Russia, Chile and Alaska.
This system is designed to transmit warnings to countries
across the basin within minutes. Similar networks are
planned for the Atlantic and Indian ocean |
CHIANG MAI, Mar 7 (TNA) - The governor
of Thailand's northern city of Chiang Mai this morning
rushed to reassure the public, amid widespread panic
over rumours that the northern province was about to
experience an earthquake on 12 March.
The rumours, which have been circulating for the past
couple of days, have put so much fear into some Chiang
Mai residents that a number have even moved out of tall
buildings in the city centre.
According to the owner of one Chiang Mai condominium,
foreign residents there are confused and afraid that
remaining in any tall building will not be safe.
But Chiang Mai Governor Suwat Tantiphat today urged
the public not to panic over what he insisted were mere
rumours, saying that the local authorities would issue
a warning should an earthquake really occur.
While noting the necessity of being prepared for an
earthquake, he stressed that the reports of an earthquake
on 12 March were false.
Confirming the falsity of the reports,
Mr. Adisorn Fungkachorn, head of the Chiang Mai earthquake
monitoring centre, noted that
even the most modern technology could not predict earthquakes
in advance. |
Research showed
area was ripe for temblor
PASADENA -- When the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and resultant
tsunami devastated Sumatra and much of the Bay of Bengal
on Dec. 26, Kerry Sieh's premonition became a nightmarish
reality.
The Caltech geology professor had studied the history
of giant earthquakes just south of the epicenter for
about a decade and knew full well the damage such a
major quake in that part of the world could inflict.
He had tried to get the word out that such an event
was imminent. Now that hundreds of thousands have died,
people are listening.
Sieh says people in Sumatra's other big cities know
what happened in Aceh: "They're terrified. But
they don't know what to do.'
Sieh's heightened desire to protect human lives, keen
eye for detail and appreciation
for what the historical record can foretell make
him a unique geologist.
"He feels very passionately about using the science
he does to protect people from earthquake hazards,'
said Ken Farley, the chair of Caltech's division of
geological and planetary sciences.
While Farley said much geological work is justified
as earthquake hazard assessment, he said the priority
Sieh places on others' safety makes him unusual.
By last summer, Sieh's concern that a major earthquake
would hit off the coast of Sumatra had reached a level
that prompted him to use some of his research funds
to produce and distribute pamphlets and posters on the
islands describing the threat along the subduction zone.
Sieh and his team had determined by slicing into corals,
and reading the natural record of water level they preserve,
that giant earthquakes along the zone to the south recur
about once every 200 years. The last major earthquake
to hit offshore of central Sumatra occurred in 1833,
was about magnitude 8.7 and produced large tsunamis. |
A moderate earthquake with a magnitude
of 4.5 on the Richter shook Romania's mountainous area
of Vrancea, home to a major fault line that has seen
dozens of quakes in recent years.
The quake was centered 175 miles northwest of Bucharest,
Romania's Earth Physics Institute said.
Authorities said there were no immediate reports of
injuries or damage.
In 1977, a 7.6-magnitude quake killed more than 1,000
people in the Vrancea area when dozens of buildings
collapsed. In October last year the region was rocked
by a 5.8 earthquake, but caused no injuries. |
A mild earthquake woke residents
in the Granite Falls area early Sunday, but no damage
was reported, a fire department officer said.
"It just woke me up, that's it," said Lt.
Eric Cole of Snohomish County Fire District 17.
The 3.5 magnitude earthquake occurred at 5:20 a.m.,
according to the University of Washington Seismology
Lab. It was centered eight miles southeast of Granite
Falls and 14 miles east-northeast of Snohomish, and
struck about eight miles below the surface. |
Two Japanese observatories have
started a probe to find signs of extraterrestrial life
using radio and optical telescopes, in Japan's first
government-backed search for aliens.
"I don't think it would be any wonder if life
like us exists somewhere else as space is vast,"
Mitsumi Fujishita, radioastronomy professor at Kyushu
Tokai University, said.
The five-day search is being done jointly at the Nishi-Harima
Astronomical Observatory, and the state-run Mizusawa
Astrogeodynamics Observatory in northern Japan.
The researchers say there have been earlier Japanese
efforts to detect signs of aliens but this is the first
such search involving a state-run organisation.
The Mizusawa observatory is using a radio telescope
with a diameter of 10 metres to try to find radio waves.
Rhe Nishi-Harima observatory, with a two-metre reflector
telescope, aims to detect light.
They will focus on the area near the Hydra constellation
where a US researcher detected radio waves in 1988.
Another researcher says it "will be very difficult
to find signs as we don't know which radio waves would
come at what time or from where."
"Even if they cannot detect anything, however,
it is important to find out what it (the lack of detection)
means scientifically," he said.
Japan is drafting an ambitious space program, with
a goal of a manned station on the moon by 2025, after
successfully sending into space a satellite last Saturday.
The launch came 15 months after a similar unmanned
launch failed disastrously. |
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