[Al Arabiya Latest] Washington will evaluate its assistance to Lebanon based on policies of the new government to be formed after the June 7 parliamentary vote, United States Vice President Joe Biden said Friday.
"The U.S. will evaluate the shape of its assistance program based on the policies of the new government," Biden told reporters after meeting President Michel Suleiman on his first visit to the Middle East since taking office.
The June 7 vote will put the current U.S.-backed majority in parliament against a Hezbollah-led coalition backed by Syria and Iran.
Analysts say Hezbollah and its allies stand a good chance of winning the vote.
Biden said his visit to Lebanon, the first by a U.S. vice president in nearly three decades, was not aimed at interfering in the country's internal politics.
"I did not come here to back any party," Biden said.
"I urge those who think about standing with the spoilers of peace not to miss this opportunity to walk away," he added however, in an apparent reference to supporters of Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organization by Washington.
"It's not an accident that the president (Barack Obama) asked me to come to Lebanon to personally demonstrate to you (that) our commitment to Lebanon is meaningful and it's real," he said.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11136 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
Opinion piece by the BBC mistakenly labeled as 'news' ...
The last time a US vice-president came to Beirut was in 1983, when George Bush Senior flew hurriedly in following a suicide truck bomb attack which blew up a US marine barracks, killing more than 240 soldiers. That, and a similar demolition of the US embassy in Beirut, persuaded President Ronald Reagan to pull the marines out of Lebanon, a humiliating retreat in the face of local forces backed by Syria and Iran.
You know, I get really tired of reading that "humiliating defeat" stuff. We were in Leb at the time under UN auspices, something we should be bringing up every time somebody suggests we try it again. We and the Frenchies were the bulk of the Multinational Force positioned between the Israelis, who'd just chased the PLO out of the country, and the Leb militias. As our guys were being blown up, it turned out that there was no "mandate" to hunt down and kill the bastards who'd killed them. We were "peacekeepers," not there for military operations. Reagan quite sensibly said to hell with it and pulled our guys out. The "humiliating defeat" was the UN's, since the rules were jiggered sufficiently to make sure the "Multinational Force" was an ineffectual group of targets in uniform, not a fighting force. Subsequent "Multinational Forces" in which the U.S. has participated have been put together and led by the U.S. Nor were we Israeli puppets: one of my friends related a story -- backed up by a couple of his NCOs who'd been there -- about having to pull a rod on an Israeli officer to get his point across at a bridge. That was before the kaboom.
More than 25 years on, was Vice-President Joseph Biden visiting Lebanon in the hope of averting another big setback to US influence at the same hands - but this time at the polling booths?
Did he open his mouth?
After talks with President Michel Suleiman - who is regarded as neutral in the sharply-polarised Lebanese arena - Mr Biden insisted he had not come to back any Lebanese party or person, but rather to support the country's independence and sovereignty. But at the same time, he urged "those who think about standing with the spoilers of peace not to miss this opportunity to walk away from the spoilers" - a remark clearly aimed at Hezbollah and its allies.
Who in turn snickered at the buffoon ...
Although the outcome hinges on voting results in a few hard-to-predict constituencies, the Hezbollah-led opposition stands a good chance of coming out narrowly ahead of the Western-backed coalition that the Americans would clearly like to see win.
It's their country. They can vote for whom they please. It's our money. We can spend it on whom we please -- and we've got enough financial problems right now.
Mr Biden also warned of likely consequences if Hezbollah and its allies were to prevail in the 7 June poll and form the kind of government Washington would frown on. The administration, he said, "will evaluate the shape of our assistance programmes based on the composition of the new government and the policies it advocates."
He then went off to see the Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, who is an ally of Hezbollah, and the Prime Minister, Fuad Siniora, who belongs to the Western-backed coalition.
If that implied balance, the impression was swiftly undermined by a later, unpublicised meeting behind closed doors in a private home with leaders of the pro-Western coalition who hold no official posts.
But Mr Biden insisted that Washington's commitment was to Lebanon, its sovereignty and independence. To back that up, he appeared with the Defence Minister, Elias al-Murr, at a display of some of the military hardware the US has supplied to the Lebanese Army in recent years.
Mr al-Murr said that, in a visit to Washington last month, he had been given a written commitment by Defence Secretary Robert Gates to provide the Lebanese Army with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of arms and training over a five-year period, including helicopters and drones. Although that commitment might be reviewed in the light of the election results, Washington seems confident that the Lebanese Army can hold together and be built on as a neutral national institution despite the strain of coexistence with Hezbollah, whose military strength is greater.
Despite Mr Biden's protestations of neutrality, Hezbollah itself lost no time in dubbing his visit "a clear and detailed interference in Lebanese affairs" which raised "strong doubts about its real motivations."
As Mr Biden was showing off US military hardware in Beirut, Hezbollah was staging its own show of strength in Nabatieh, a provincial centre south-east of the capital. Thousands of supporters gathered to watch a relayed speech from their leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, to mark the anniversary of Israel's ignominious withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 under the pressure of Hezbollah attacks.
But US leaders may already have concluded that a narrow win by the Hezbollah-led coalition would not be the end of the world.
Hezbollah itself is only putting forward 11 candidates in the contest for 128 parliamentary seats. The other elements in the opposition coalition come from allies such as the mainstream Shia Amal movement, headed by parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri, and the Free Patriotic Movement of the Christian leader Michel Aoun, once a fierce opponent of Syria but now reconciled with Damascus and likely to do well in many Christian areas.
So, while generally unwelcome to the West, a narrow victory by the opposition would produce a picture very different from, for example, the Hamas takeover in Gaza, which was violent and absolute. The lines could be further blurred if Washington's diplomatic overtures to the Lebanese opposition's backers, Iran and Syria, were to produce results.
The Americans' closest ally, Britain, is already allowing its diplomats to hold official contacts with Hezbollah's "political wing", although the movement is still shunned by Washington as a "terrorist" group.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11133 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said Friday people arrested for spying for Israel within an expionage network should be executed. ...and also people who say he looks "fat".
"The Israeli approach should be scrutinized and we might reach a place linked to many explosions in Lebanon specially in the year 2005," Nasrallah said in a rally on resistance and liberation, organized by Hezbollah. Some spies, he said, played a role in inciting discord in Lebanese areas or between parties. "Some spies conducted surveillances ahead of killing someone, some of them brought Israelis (inside Lebanon) and got them out (of Lebanon) after a specific operation." He did not elaborate. Some of the spies are collecting information and some are executives in their ranks, said Nasrallah. Hmmmmmmmm. How do we know he's not a spy?
Hezbollah will fully cooperate with the government security authorities to clear Lebanon from spies, he said and called on the spies in Lebanon to surrender. I...don't think so.
Lebanese Parliament speaker Nabih Berri said in a meeting with US Vice-President Joseph Biden earlier today that Israel was launching a war of expionage against Lebanon. The Lebanese security authorities arrested three spies working for Israel, part of a campaign resulted in discovery of espionage networks. Surprised Joe didn't give them a list of names... Continued on Page 47
Something's going on in Lebanon. They have arrested a bunch of folks recently on charges of spying for Israel. And Nasrallah just announced that all spies should be executed. Are they trying to establish a casus belli or just purging the whiners?
Lebanese authorities detained on Friday four nationals on charges of spying for Israel, as part of an ongoing relentless campaign designed to nip these clandestine espionage networks in the bud.
Security sources said the government security personnel arrested "a leading member of the network of collaboration with the Israeli enemy." They added that the man, who hailed from the southern village of Al-Qusair, was detained on the coastal road south of Beirut after a cat-and-mouse operation that lasted for 36 hours. The detainee "is a notorious agent and a brother of one of the other arrestees," held on similar charges, the sources said. The sources said the man was nabbed after arresting two others, a man and a woman, in the southern region of Shebaa.
Earlier, the sources said a fourth suspect, nammed Mustafa Hassan Su'aid, who hailed from the village of Al-Qusair, located in the region of Marjayoun, was detained in South Lebanon and taken to a security station for interrogations. The sources said Su'aid was suspected of having links with another suspected agent, Nasser Nader, from the village of Al-Ghandouriah.
The detentions were the latest actions by the authorities against a network of espionage for Israel.
Lebanese permanent mission at the UN, on Wednesday, protested that the espioange activities in Lebanon for Israel constituted a violation of the UN resolution 1701. Beirut also called on the UN peace-keeping force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) to help bring back at least two Lebanese also suspected of espionage. The two Lebanese have recently fled to Israel across the borders. The authorities have declared discovering at least nine espionage networks spying for Israel in the country.
Continued on Page 47
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Washington will evaluate its assistance to Lebanon based on policies of the new government to be formed after the June 7 parliamentary vote, United States Vice President Joe Biden said Friday.
After talks with President Michel Suleiman - who is regarded as neutral in the sharply-polarised Lebanese arena - Mr Biden insisted he had not come to back any Lebanese party or person, but rather to support the country's independence and sovereignty. But at the same time, he urged "those who think about standing with the spoilers of peace not to miss this opportunity to walk away from the spoilers" - a remark clearly aimed at Hezbollah and its allies.
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said Friday people arrested for spying for Israel within an expionage network should be executed.
