In this issue: 1) Washington's interests in Israel's war. 2) Colbert: Lamont's Extremist Supporters 3) As Mideast Smoke Clears, Political Fates May Shift 4) Israel Seeks Hint of Victory 5) Hard-line Neo-Cons Assail Israel for Timidity 6) Hezbollah gaining strength where democracy once dwelt 7) Breaking An Impasse; In a Political Move, Lebanon Offers an Army That All of Its Sects Can Accept: Its Own 8) Editorial; Still Spinning 9) The Cease-Fire; U.N. Council Backs Measure to Halt War in Lebanon 10) The UN Mideast Ceasefire Resolution Paragraph-by-Paragraph 11) Bye-Bye, Joe: Now Hillary's the Target 12) Rally Near White House Protests Violence in Mideast 13) Cease-Fire Takes Effect; More Fighting Expected 14) US neocons hoped Israel would attack Syria 15) What the Hell has happened to the Army? -Avnery 16) Iranian Dissident Akbar Ganji, at Liberty to Speak His Mind, at Least Until He Goes Back Home 17) Is an Armament Sickening U.S. Soldiers? 18) Lieberman, Cheney and the War in Iraq 19) Iranian President Lambasts US on New Blog 20) Mexican Runner-Up Sees Years Of Protest
Contents: 1) Washington's interests in Israel's war. Seymour M. Hersh New Yorker Issue of 2006-08-21 Posted 2006-08-14 http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060821fa_fact Interview today on Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/14/1358255 The Bush Administration was closely involved in the planning of Israel's retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Cheney were convinced that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah's heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.
2) Lamont's Extremist Supporters Stephen Colbert The Colbert Report http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=72810 Lamont's supporters are against the war, a position so extreme, only 86% of Democrats agree with it.
3) As Mideast Smoke Clears, Political Fates May Shift Robin Wright Washington Post Sunday, August 13, 2006; A10 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/12/AR2006081200995.html The future of the Middle East may be markedly different as a result of the bloody drama that erupted July 12 after the seizure of two Israeli soldiers by Lebanon's Shiite militia. So, too, the image of the United States. Big losers at this stage appear to be Israel's government, the Lebanese people, and the Bush administration's struggle against terrorism and its campaign for democracy. The big winner may be Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah -- for now. One surprise has been the strong leadership of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. "This is a war that has not had a clear logic, but it does have a large number of casualties and losers," said Robert Malley of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "Israel's government is in trouble. Lebanon as a country has lost a lot. U.S. standing is worse. Democracy promotion has been hurt. The credibility of the U.N. Security Council has been eroded. Even the anti-terror agenda has lost. So on almost every count, you see diminished assets and credibility." Israel lost by failing to achieve its strategic objectives in response to the capture of its soldiers. "The pressure is rising in Israel to interpret this as a debacle. Israel is nowhere close to having achieved its goal of destroying Hezbollah or its arsenal. It will also have to deal with the moral and humanitarian crisis that it caused," said Ellen Laipson, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center.
4) Israel Seeks Hint of Victory Steven Erlanger New York Times August 13, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/world/middleeast/13israel.html Israel's significant increase of its ground forces in Lebanon a day before accepting a cease-fire has two goals: to damage Hezbollah and to conclude the conflict with something that could be called a victory for an Israeli government under domestic pressure. [Elsewhere it was speculated that the Israeli government wanted to have a force in Lebanon equal in number to the combined UN/Lebanese force, so that it could trade withdrawal for deployment one-for-one; see the paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the ceasefire resolution, item #10 below. -JFP] Having begun the war proclaiming that the aim was the destruction and disarmament of Hezbollah, Prime Minister Olmert will be able to claim only that Hezbollah is badly hurt and effectively restrained, even without the robust new international force or disarming of the militia that Israel initially demanded. Olmert and Defense Minister Peretz have been wounded by the perception that they mishandled the war. The life of the government is likely to have been shortened. In a familiar pattern of backbiting - the best indication that the war has not gone well - the army leadership is complaining that the politicians did not let the military do its job, and the politicians are complaining that the army promised that the task could be accomplished in a week or two and largely with air power. The army's performance against Hezbollah will lead to considerable introspection and criticism. There will also be sharp criticism of governmental preparedness, with the image of many thousands of poorer Israelis huddling for a month in decrepit bomb shelters with inadequate public services and supplies. Itamar Rabinovich, a former ambassador to Washington, said bluntly: "Two notions have died. First, unilateralism, and second, separation by the fence. Missiles dwarf the fence." Israelis also fear there has been damage done to their relationship with the US, where some may complain that the Israelis were given time to clobber Hezbollah and did not get the job done. "Part of the reckoning will be our reputation as a strategic partner, when we tell the Americans, 'Give us the tools and we'll do the job,' " he said. "Part of our self-image is of military miracle workers, and we didn't do that this time."
5) Hard-line Neo-Cons Assail Israel for Timidity Jim Lobe Inter Press Service Saturday, August 12, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0812-04.htm While much of the world has criticized Israel for carrying out a "disproportionate" war in Lebanon, neo-conservatives have attacked the government of Prime Minister Olmert for timidity. As noted by diplomatic correspondent Ori Nir in this week's edition of The Forward, the Israeli government has been subjected to unusually harsh criticism, including the charge that, by failing to wage a more aggressive war, they were jeopardizing Israel's long-term strategic alliance with Washington. "(Hezbollah) is today the leading edge of an aggressive, nuclear-hungry Iran," wrote Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer earlier this week. "...(Olmert's) search for victory on the cheap has jeopardised not just the Lebanon operation but America's confidence in Israel as well." Krauthammer and other leading neo-conservatives have assailed Olmert for not launching a massive ground invasion from the outset which, in their view, could have effectively crushed Hezbollah's military capabilities. "Hezbollah can only be destroyed by a ground campaign," wrote National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg. "If Israel doesn't launch one, it will be worse off." Still others attacked him for failing to widen the war beyond Lebanon to Hezbollah supporters, Iran and Syria.
6) Hezbollah gaining strength where democracy once dwelt Rashid Khalidi, professor of Arab studies at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University Chicago Tribune August 13, 2006 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0608130457aug13,1,1047240.story President Bush recently said that it was necessary to get to "the root of the problem" in Lebanon. By this, Bush certainly did not mean Israel's 18-year occupation of south Lebanon that created Hezbollah following the 1982 invasion. Nor did he mean Israel's 39-year-plus occupation in Palestine. For him, the problem is Hezbollah's nature as a "terrorist organization," which is how it is framed in most of the American media. It is worth considering how Hezbollah is now regarded elsewhere. A month after Israel unleashed its air force against Lebanon, killing more than 700 civilians, there is near-unanimity among Lebanese in supporting Hezbollah's resistance to the grinding advance of Israeli troops in the south, the third such invasion in 28 years. Hezbollah is once again seen by almost all Lebanese as a resistance movement, as it was after it succeeded in 2000 in forcing Israel to evacuate occupied territory.
7) In a Political Move, Lebanon Offers an Army That All of Its Sects Can Accept: Its Own John Kifner And Jad Mouawad New York Times August 14, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/14/world/middleeast/14lebanon.html Prime Minister Siniora's offer to send the Lebanese Army into the Hezbollah-dominated south proved central to breaking the diplomatic impasse over Israel's invasion. But it is an almost entirely political gesture. The army, for many years the least bellicose group of armed men in a country otherwise filled with them, is more suited to internal security than to facing outside threats. It has no modern tanks, no air force, and its modest budget goes mostly for salaries. The resolution on a truce adopted by the United Nations Security Council on Friday calls for 15,000 Lebanese soldiers to patrol southern Lebanon, once Israeli troops withdraw, in concert with an international peacekeeping force of the same size. The Lebanese Army has about 3,000 crack troops, Lebanese officers say, in units that specialize in tasks like commando operations and hostage rescue, aimed primarily at dealing with fractious local elements like Palestinian or Islamic militants. The army was once divided into brigades by religion — the Sixth Brigade, made up of Shiites trained by Americans, was saddled with the motto "we serve and defect" when it went over to local militias in the early 1980's. But in recent years, the army has been transformed into a national force, with the various sects integrated in the units. Its deployment, some hope, could help soothe Lebanon's fragmented politics and strengthen the government's shaky legitimacy.
8) Still Spinning Editorial New York Times August 14, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/14/opinion/14mon2.html President Bush — who just days ago was trumpeting the war in Lebanon as an opportunity for remaking the Middle East — may find a nuclear-empowered Iran his real legacy. Iran is acting as if it has won already, with officials calling the Security Council's resolution legally and morally void. Looking more responsible than President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shouldn't be hard. But it is a measure of how much damage Iraq and now Lebanon have done to America's standing that the United States would find itself competing.
9) THE CEASE-FIRE; U.N. Council Backs Measure to Halt War in Lebanon Warren Hoge And Steven Erlanger New York Times August 12, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/12/world/middleeast/12nations.html The Security Council agreed unanimously on Friday on a measure calling for a full cessation of hostilities in Lebanon, deploying 30,000 Lebanese and United Nations forces in southern Lebanon and calling upon Israel to withdraw its forces "in parallel."
10) The UN Mideast Ceasefire Resolution Paragraph-by-Paragraph Anthony Amato, Leighton Professor of Law at Northwestern University Jurist, University of Pittsburgh School of Law August 13, 2006 http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/08/un-mideast-ceasefire-resolution.php Hezbollah's surprising television announcement accepting the terms of the UN Ceasefire Resolution means that the precise wording of the Resolution will be under strict diplomatic scrutiny for weeks or months to come. The following is my paragraph-by-paragraph commentary (in regular text) on the complete text (in italics) of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 (11 August 2006).
11) Bye-Bye, Joe: Now Hillary's the Target Sarah Baxter Sunday Times/UK Sunday, August 13, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0813-05.htm The defeat of Joe Lieberman by an anti-war political novice was a spectacular coup for the "netroots": the grassroots, anti-establishment, anti-war left that had mobilised opposition on the internet to the political grandee. The same activists are now seeking to bend Senator Hillary Clinton to their anti-war side or face defeat in the Democratic presidential primaries. Her supporters are concerned that the "jihadist" left, galvanised by the victory Ned Lamont, are on the rise in the Democratic party, starkly affecting its national electoral prospects.
12) Rally Near White House Protests Violence in Mideast Robert Pear New York Times August 13, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/washington/13protest.html Thousands of people rallied near the White House on Saturday to protest what they described as Israeli aggression in Lebanon and the United States' unwavering support for Israel. The diverse crowd included many Arab-Americans and Muslims, college students and families, as well as veterans of prior demonstrations against the war in Iraq.
13) Mideast Cease-Fire In Effect Amid Skirmishes Olmert Heckled During Parliament Address Molly Moore and Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, August 14, 2006; 1:10 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/14/AR2006081400179.html The Israeli military halted combat operations in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah rockets stopped raining on Israel early Monday morning as a tenuous U.N.-imposed cease-fire took effect. Tens of thousands of displaced Lebanese began streaming back toward their ruined villages and towns in the south despite Israeli military warnings that it is still banning vehicles from using roads in southern Lebanon. Israeli military officials also said aerial and naval blockades in Lebanon "will remain in effect until a system is established to monitor and prevent the smuggling of weapons into Lebanon." The U.N. resolution calls for 15,000 foreign troops and 15,000 Lebanese soldiers to be deployed in southern Lebanon. The resolution also calls for the causes of the current conflict to be addressed "urgently," but it leaves Hezbollah's fate and a dispute over the Shebaa Farms area to a future political settlement. Israel pummeled the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sunday with bombardments that rattled the city, while Hezbollah fired 220 rockets into Israel, killing an 83-year-old man. The ground combat in southern Lebanon was also some of the most violent of the war as Israeli forces struggled to dominate as much territory as possible before the cease-fire deadline at 8 a.m. Monday. At least 17 people were killed Sunday in Lebanon. On Saturday, 24 Israeli soldiers were killed -- Israel's heaviest single-day toll in the war. On Sunday, at least five more were killed. Many of the soldiers were killed by Hezbollah antitank missile fire. Beirut residents who had been buoyed by news of the U.N. cease-fire agreement were shaken back to the reality of more fighting by the first brace of blasts.
14) US neocons hoped Israel would attack Syria Israel considered expansion of conflict in Lebanon 'nuts.' Tom Regan Christian Science Monitor August 9, 2006 at 12:00 a.m. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0809/dailyUpdate.html The White House, and in particular White House advisors who belong to the neoconservative movement, allegedly encouraged Israel to attack Syria as an expansion of its action against Hizbullah, in Lebanon. The progressive opinion and news site ConsortiumNews.com reported Monday that Israeli sources say Israel's "leadership balked at the scheme." One Israeli source said Bush's interest in spreading the war to Syria was considered "nuts" by some senior Israeli officials.
15) What the Hell has happened to the Army? Uri Avnery Gush Shalom 08/12/2006 http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1155419483/ SO WHAT has happened to the Israeli army? This question is now being raised not only around the world, but also in Israel itself. Clearly, there is a huge gap between the army's boastful arrogance, on which generations of Israelis have grown up, and the picture presented by this war.
16) Iranian Dissident Akbar Ganji, at Liberty to Speak His Mind, at Least Until He Goes Back Home Robin Wright Washington Post Monday, August 14, 2006; Page C01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/13/AR2006081300718.html Akbar Ganji is free -- for now. He does not expect his liberty to last long. Ganji is an Iranian writer who has taken on the world's mightiest theocracy and its thundering ayatollahs. Released in March after six years in prison -- a good chunk of that time in solitary confinement -- he is today the most radical democrat in Tehran. Ganji is no fan of the White House. Bush administration support is dangerous for Middle East democrats these days. "I was in solitary confinement in prison and had no contact with anyone when Bush announced support for me," Ganji recalled. Interrogators, however, "talked to me as if I had had dinner with Bush the previous evening." U.S.-backed wars in the Middle East, he added, are not helping democrats in the region. In a speech last month, Ganji warned that Iran's democracy movement does not support military action by either local or foreign forces to produce change. "Violence and force can never by themselves create genuine beliefs," he noted. During a conversation in Washington, Ganji reflected: "No one trusts Western governments now. Many world leaders wanted to meet me. But all the dissidents in Iran asked me not to. This shows the Iranian perception of Western governments." Ganji also scoffs at the $75 million that the Bush administration has allocated for programs to encourage Iran's democracy movement. He said the funds would be better used for Iranian- or Islamic-studies centers at American universities.
17) Is an Armament Sickening U.S. Soldiers? Deborah Hastings Associated Press Saturday, August 12, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0812-06.htm An estimated 286 tons of depleted uranium munitions were fired by the U.S. in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. An estimated 130 tons were shot toppling Saddam Hussein. About 30 percent of the 700,000 men and women who served in the first Gulf War still suffer a baffling array of symptoms. Depleted uranium has long been suspected as a possible contributor to Gulf War Syndrome, and in the mid-90s, veterans helped push the military into tracking soldiers exposed to it. It will take years to determine how depleted uranium affected soldiers from this war. In 2002, Congress established the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses — comprised of scientists, physicians and veterans advocates. Its mandate is to judge all research and all efforts to treat Gulf War Syndrome patients against a single standard: Have sick soldiers been made better? The answer, according to the committee, is no.
18) Lieberman, Cheney and the War in Iraq The White House recognizes a vote of noconfidence. Editorial Minneapolis Star Tribune Sunday, August 13, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0813-21.htm Someday Americans will know for sure whether Joseph Lieberman's defeat was a turning point in American attitudes toward Iraq or just a footnote in Connecticut history. But it's plain that the Bush administration has drawn its own conclusions and regards the election as an important and worrisome vote of no-confidence in its own foreign policy. Exhibit A is the astonishing behavior of Dick Cheney. The normally reclusive vice president took time off from vacation in Wyoming to conduct a conference call with reporters on Wednesday and accuse Connecticut Democrats of subverting national security and giving comfort to "Al-Qaida types." It's bizarre enough that a sitting vice president would decide to meddle in the politics of the opposition party and try to tell Democrats how to choose their own candidate for U.S. Senate. But it's downright outrageous that Cheney would yet again try to draw misleading parallels between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaida. Time and again White House officials have backed off that assertion when challenged frontally -- only to find some new way to insinuate it again a day or a week later. For the record, one investigation after another has shown that Saddam regarded Osama bin Laden as a rival, not an ally, and that Al-Qaida took root in Iraq only after the U.S. invasion created fertile soil for terrorists there. If Ned Lamont's victory does have any lasting significance it's precisely because it was a referendum on the Bush policy toward Iraq. Americans now understand that the invasion of Iraq was not crucial to the fight against Al-Qaida; it was a terrible and costly distraction from it. They understand that the Bush administration has made a gross miscalculation about the way to advance democracy and stability in the Middle East.
19) Iranian President Lambasts US on New Blog Reuters August 13, 2006 Filed at 12:21 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iran-president-blog.html Iran's president has launched a Web log, using his first entry to recount his poor upbringing and ask visitors to the site if they think the United States and Israel want to start a new world war. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose speeches are riddled with anti-U.S. rhetoric, also described how he was angered by American meddling in Iran even when he was at elementary school. Ahmadinejad swept to a surprise victory in last year's presidential race by promising the country's poor a fairer share of Iran's oil wealth and emphasizing his own humble origins that led many to vote for him as an "outsider'' to Iran's ruling elite. As well as promising a better life to the poor, Ahmadinejad has sought to bolster support by refusing to bow to Western pressure to stop Iran's civilian nuclear program. His defiance in the stand-off with the West has often played well in the Muslim world, where many are angered by U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Analyst Saeed Laylaz said the site -- available in Persian, Arabic, English and French at www.ahmadinejad.ir -- may be seeking to win support from abroad.
20) Mexican Runner-Up Sees Years Of Protest Manuel Roig-Franzia Washington Post Monday, August 14, 2006; A14 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/13/AR2006081300367.html Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Sunday that the protests that have shackled this city's downtown could last for years even though a partial recount appears to be confirming his narrow loss. The recount, which was expected to end late Sunday or early Monday, has barely budged the 244,000-vote, or half-percentage-point, lead of Felipe Calderón. Still, López Obrador told followers Sunday that enough evidence of irregularities has been unearthed to warrant an annulment of votes cast in 5,000 of Mexico's 130,000 polling places. "We will not accept an illegitimate government and a counterfeit president," López Obrador told supporters. López Obrador's battle to overturn the results of the July 2 election has recently shown signs of losing momentum. His crowds have been dwindling, dropping from estimates of more than a million to as few as 20,000 on Sunday. López Obrador, of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, and his top lieutenants say the recount has confirmed their fraud suspicions and exposed the "disappearance" of 80,000 ballots. Arturo Sarukhan, a top Calderón adviser, painted a different picture in an interview Sunday, saying the recount revealed no changes in more than 90 percent of the recounted polling places. Mexico's special electoral court has until Sept. 6 to certify a winner. López Obrador said Sunday that if Mexico tries to install Calderón as president, he and his followers will be there to block the way.
-------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org