Follow workers.org on
RED HOT: TRAYVON MARTIN
CHINA,
AFGHANISTAN, FIGHTING RACISM, OCCUPY WALL STREET,
PEOPLE'S POWER, SAVE OUR POST OFFICES, WOMEN, AFRICA,
LIBYA, WISCONSIN WORKERS FIGHT BACK, SUPPORT STATE & LOCAL WORKERS,
EGYPT, NORTH AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST,
STOP FBI REPRESSION, RESIST ARIZONA RACISM, NO TO FRACKING, DEFEND PUBLIC EDUCATION, ANTI-WAR,
HEALTH CARE,
CUBA, CLIMATE CHANGE,
JOBS JOBS JOBS,
STOP FORECLOSURES, IRAN,
IRAQ, CAPITALIST CRISIS,
IMMIGRANTS, LGBT, POLITICAL PRISONERS,
KOREA,
HONDURAS, HAITI,
SOCIALISM,
GAZA
|
|
LEBANON
An 'Operation Condor' in the Middle East?
By
Bill Cecil
Published Jan 30, 2007 9:44 PM
Is the Bush regime paying death squads to murder protesters in Lebanon? At
least six Lebanese died in the last week in January in rightist gang attacks on
students at the Arab University of Beirut and on striking workers.
Is this Washington’s answer to the mass democratic movement that has
mobilized millions of Lebanese against the U.S.-backed regime of Prime Minister
Fuad Siniora?
On Jan. 10, the British Daily Telegraph revealed that the CIA “has been
authorized to take covert action against Hezbollah as part of a secret plan by
George Bush to help the Lebanese government.” Bush’s
“finding” directs the “CIA and other U.S. intelligence
agencies to fund anti-Hezbollah groups in Lebanon and pay for activists who
support the Siniora government.”
The plot was reportedly cooked up in Washington before Christmas after talks
between Bush’s deputy national security adviser Elliot Abrams and Saudi
Arabian prince Bandar Ibn Sultan. That was after 2 million people—nearly
half of Lebanon’s population—rallied in Beirut Dec. 10 to demand a
greater voice for opposition parties in Lebanon’s government.
Abrams was Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for inter-American
affairs in the 1980s, when U.S.-trained death squads slaughtered tens of
thousands in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Abrams also arranged Saudi
funding for terrorist operations against Nicaragua after the Boland Amendment
cut off direct U.S. aid to the contras.
‘Democracy’ or secret government?
Details of the Lebanon plan’s “existence” are “known
only to a small circle of White House officials, intelligence officials and
members of Congress,” the Telegraph reported. So much for democracy in
the United States. “The secrecy of the finding means that U.S.
involvement in the activities is officially deniable.”
In December the Toronto Globe and Mail reported that the U.S. was secretly
building up Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces, a paramilitary force
directly controlled by Siniora. Arms acquired in East Europe were being shipped
to Lebanon via the United Arab Emirates. The Pentagon is also shipping
equipment directly to the ISF.
In his State of the Union speech Jan. 23, Bush accused “Hezbollah
terrorists backed by Iran and Syria” of “seeking to undermine
Lebanon’s legitimately elected government.” Bush is no more honest
about Lebanon than he was about Iraq.
Hezbollah foiled Israeli invasion
Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization. It is a political party that enjoys
broad support not only among Shiites, Lebanon’s largest and poorest
group, but among many Christians, Druse and Sunnis as well. It led the freedom
struggle that drove Israel’s brutal U.S.-funded occupation forces out of
South Lebanon in 2000.
In July 2006 Hezbollah-led forces repelled Israel’s U.S.-backed attempt
to reconquer South Lebanon. Over 1,000 Lebanese civilians—women, children
and men—were killed and thousands more maimed by U.S.-made munitions in
last summer’s Israeli attack.
Lebanese children are still being killed or maimed by the 1.4 million U.S.-made
cluster bomblets that litter South Lebanon. On Jan. 29, the Bush regime
admitted to Congress that Israel’s use of cluster bombs “may have
violated U.S. guidelines.” On the same day the Jerusalem Post reported
that Israel plans to purchase thousands of “smart bomb”
kits—Joint Direct Attack Munitions--from the Boeing Corp.
In a speech Dec. 7 Hezbollah General Secretary Sayid Hassan Nasrallah revealed
evidence that officials in the Siniora government had asked the U.S. to give
Israel the go-ahead to attack South Lebanon, where the vast majority of people
support the Opposition. In one scandalous episode, the Lebanese ISF served tea
to invading Israeli troops.
Hezbollah’s work is not only military. It builds hospitals, clinics,
schools and libraries and provides social services for Lebanon’s poorest
and most oppressed. It has provided relief funds to hundreds of thousands of
Lebanese whose homes were destroyed by Israeli bombs and missiles.
Today Hezbollah is allied with the largely Christian Free Patriotic Movement
and Marada parties, the Druse-based Democratic Party and Movement for Unity and
leftist forces such as the Movement of the People, the Popular Nasserist
Movement, the People’s Democratic Party and the Lebanese Communist Party.
Together, they make up a broad movement to demand political reform and early
democratic elections.
This movement has united Lebanese across sectarian lines in a protest campaign
that recalls the civil rights movement in the United States.
The ruling classes in the U.S., Britain and France, on the other hand, have
united with the absolute monarchs of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf,
Egypt’s president-for-life Mubarak and the apartheid regime in Tel Aviv
to crush this movement.
In a speech at Israel’s Herzliya Institute Jan. 22, Democratic
presidential hopeful John Edwards echoed Bush’s war threats against
Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
General strike against Siniora
On the very day of Bush’s State of the Union address, the majority of
Lebanon’s workers took part in an opposition-backed general strike that
shut the country down. They were protesting Siniora’s Wall Street-backed
plan to privatize health care, electricity and telecommunications, impose a
huge sales tax and end fuel subsidies.
Gunmen from Samir Geagea’s openly fascist Lebanese Forces, the Future
Movement of millionaire real estate speculator Saad Hariri, and Walid
Jumblatt’s misnamed Progressive Socialist Party opened fire on strikers
blocking roads in Beirut, the Shouf and North Lebanon. Three people died and
hundreds were injured, but the strike was not broken. In a press conference,
Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun showed photos of masked gunmen
attacking strikers in North Lebanon.
On Jan. 25, a conference of “international donors” convened in
Paris under U.S. and French auspices raised $7 billion to prop up the
debt-ridden Siniora regime. The same day, pro-Siniora gangs invaded the campus
of the Arab University of Beirut and murdered two students. A Shiite man
bicycling through the neighborhood was also gunned down by goons from
Jumblatt’s PSP.
Opposition supporters rushed to the campus and drove off the attackers before
the army intervened to clear the streets. Al Manar television, which the Bush
regime has banned in the United States, released pictures of snipers on
rooftops firing at protesters.
The stakes in Lebanon go beyond Washington’s desire to prop up a
banker-friendly regime in a country with a $45 billion debt. For the White
House and the Pentagon, Lebanon is a pawn in their plans for wider war in the
region.
The Bush regime hopes Iraq’s new hydrocarbon law, drafted by U.S.
contractors, will give oil corporations a lock on Iraq’s vast oil
reserves. If the U.S. bombs Iran’s oilfields, the value of Iraqi oil
could double. But getting that oil to market in the West requires reactivating
old pipelines that run to the Mediterranean through Syria and Lebanon.
The Iraqi Resistance is unlikely to allow U.S. firms to ship oil through the
southern port of Basra. To loot Iraq, Big Oil needs to impose subservient
regimes on Syria and Lebanon. As the mass movement that has arisen in Lebanon
shows, that’s not likely to happen.
In a speech Jan. 30 to hundreds of thousands of Muslims gathered in southern
Beirut to mark the Shia festival of Ashura, Nasrallah warned that the U.S. aims
to instigate sectarian civil war in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq.
“George Bush wants to punish you because you have triumphed and, in the
American era, you are not allowed to keep your heads raised.” But,
he added, “We are people who refuse humiliation and disgrace. Lebanon has
been and always will be the graveyard of invaders.”
Bill Cecil was in Lebanon in November and December covering the growing
people’s movement there.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: [email protected]
Subscribe [email protected]
Support independent news DONATE
|
|