When an ostensible ally like Lebanon faces down surprisingly fierce resistance from an al Qaeda-affiliated group of radical Sunnis, it hardly seems unreasonable to ask for a little help from America. On the one side is a democratic government who we enthusiastically supported when they ripped themselves free of Syria’s grip. The guys theyre fighting attacked us on 9/11. Every day the friends of these militants blow up Americans and destabilize Iraq. Lebanon has them cornered and fighting out in the open, an opportunity that most American units have not seen since the Republican Guard folded. Everything points to a ludicrously easy call.
The United States said it was considering an urgent request from Lebanon for more US military aid to battle Islamist fighters and warned Syria against meddling in its neighbor’s affairs.
State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said Lebanon’s government had asked for additional funds as fighting intensified, but declined to name an amount or predict when a decision would be made on the request.
Huh. Given the property damage from the recent Israel war I think one could call our existing aid something akin to life support. God knows if we can afford to essentially throw $12 billion in c-note bricks out the back of a low-flying cargo plane we can afford to next-day air some sort of aid to the Lebanese. I’m fairly sure that Israel would appreciate it.
What’s going on? Let’s ask Seymour Hersh.
Last March, Hersh reported that American policy in the Middle East had shifted to opposing Iran, Syria, and their Shia allies at any cost, even if it meant backing hardline Sunni jihadists.
A key element of this policy shift was an agreement among Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser, whereby the Saudis would covertly fund the Sunni Farah al-Islam in Lebanon as a counterweight to the Shia Hezbollah.
[…] When asked why the administration would be acting in a way that appears to run counter to US interests, Hersh says that, since the Israelis lost to them last summer, “the fear of Hezbollah in Washington, particularly in the White House, is acute.”
As a result, Hersh implies, the Bush administration is no longer acting rationally in its policy. “We’re in the business of supporting the Sunnis anywhere we can against the Shia. … “We’re in the business of creating … sectarian violence.” And he describes the scheme of funding Fatah al-Islam as “a covert program we joined in with the Saudis as part of a bigger, broader program of doing everything we could to stop the spread of the Shia world, and it just simply — it bit us in the rear.”
So now we’re arming the institutional pals of the guys who attacked us on 9/11 because we need them to counterbalance Hezbollah and Iran. Hezbollah and Iran have massively gained in mideast stature because we removed the premier Sunni power in the region (also, conveniently for al Qaeda, no friend of bin Laden) and replaced him with Iran-friendly Shiites. Sort of finishes the circle, doesn’t it? Assuming that invading Iraq had something to do with 9/11 (unlikely but hell, they all claim it does), that basically means that everything that we did since jilting the Afghan war went directly to serve not one but both of our major adversaries in the mideast, al Qaeda and Iran. We basically rewarded them for attacking us. Our leaders have pulled off a disaster hat trick that may yet put the Athenian Syracuse expedition to shame.
***Update***
Memo to practically everybody in broadcast news – please stop referring to the Palestinian militants as al Qaeda affiliates if you don’t know whether that is true. Via a commenter, this mideast expert thinks that everybody is pulling that particular datum out of their ass.
Israel Yzaguirre
Are you saying that the US should help an ally that has a bunch of men, women and children surrounded? Therein lies the problem. You want a fast easy solution where none exists. How many innocent civilians are you willing to sacrifice?
There are innocent people on both sides, but it probably does not matter to you as long as it benefits you.
Rick Moran
The US pledged $750 million at the Paris Roundtable in March toward Lebanese reconstruction and an additional $50 million in military aid – including training. This makes Lebanon the 4th largest recipient of US foreign aid per capita.
But then, you knew this right? You just didn’t mention it because you didn’t think it important.
And anyone who believes Seymour Hersh about anything is a ninny.
Wilfred
As recently as today McCormack was backing off any claims of AQ inolvement, despite Fox News hysterics to the contrary. Here’s Pat Lang on the situation:
Lang was DIA for the Middle East for years, he knows as much about Lebanon as anyone. Check his blog at http://www.turcopolier.typepad.com/
In any case, who gives a fuck about more a few more dead Palestinians, right?
Pb
Well, let’s see… how many have died already? Let’s look through the lists of innocent civilians whose deaths we really could have done something to prevent, yet didn’t. It’s in the millions, easily.
Tsulagi
Not by a long shot. Don’t forget, we’re in the corner-turning business.
Perry Como
It’s true. Everyone knows that Hersh is a Looney Leftist Liberal with BDS. When has he ever written a story that has been true? All Seymour Hersh articles should automatically be filed under fiction.
Agent Axis
’10 Million Dead Brown People’ has always been near the top of the list of Best Case Scenarios for Iraq. It came promptly into play after the mass-appealing ‘Liberators Hailed with Kittens and Candy’ scenario, put forth by the Chalabi coalition, fell apart.
Andrew
Maybe we can start issuing American birth certificates for all of the Iraqis who have died. It would make Pauls Wolfowitz and Bremer feel better about their incomplete birthing process.
Rick Moran
A little Sy Hersh debunking of that very article in the New Yorker quoted by Tim from Michael Young, editorial page editor of the Daily Star in Lebanon and Middle East scholar Anton Efendi from the blog Across the Bay:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/118922.html
http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/2007/03/young-on-hersh-piece.html
Hersh isn’t a loony lefty. He’s a dishonest hack of a reporter who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Rick Moran
A more accurate description of Fatah al-Islam rather than al-Qaeda “affiliate” would be “franchisee.”
They share the ideology but have no operational or finanical connections – that we know of. They are small but deadly. And according to Walid Phares, they are trying to duplicate in Lebanon what al-Qaeda was able to do in Iraq – create a Sunni triangle of violence that would undermine the Lebanese government:
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/05/al_qaedas_new_front_in_lebanon.php
Redhand
Boy I have to agree with this one. Looks to me like Moran’s arguments in support of the proposition are spot on. They certainly add to my perception that one must instinctively mistrust anything Hersh writes: to me he has as much credibility as Peter Arnett.
This isn’t to say I disagree with Tim’s observation that: “everything that we did since jilting the Afghan war went directly to serve not one but both of our major adversaries in the mideast, al Qaeda and Iran.” Invading Iraq has to be the biggest disaster in American foreign policy since Vietnam, and a debacle fueled by even less justification than our involvement there.
Wilfred
Moran quotes Michael Young as if he were an unbiased source on Lebanon, the same Young who cheered on the Israeli destruction of Shia Beirut – a true Lebanese patriot, i.e. a Christian fifth columnist for the Israelis. He has had an ongoing debate with Prof. Joshua Landis, another American who actually knows something about both Arabs and Muslims, at http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/
To quote Walid Phares (another Lebanese, pseudo-Muslim ‘houseman’ to the neo-cons) about anything is to solicit the ‘jihad fa-evah’ spiel that has made him the essential go to guy for bedwetters like Moran. This is priceless:
Wasn’t this what we were told Hezbollah was trying to do, as recently as a month ago? Only then it was the Shia ‘arc’ of violence, terror, fascism or whatever crap they are pitching to justify the killing of Muslims. ‘Careful targeting’ with pre-Vietnam tanks. Right.
A couple of days ago I predicted this. To draw attention from the humanity shown to one set of brown people (Mexicans) it would be necessary to kill a bunch of others. Moran and the rest of the right got their cum-shot – scenes of tanks shelling civilian internment camps – lots of dead Muslims. Get out your handkerchief and clean yourself up Rick.
Pug
Hersh isn’t a loony lefty. He’s a dishonest hack of a reporter who doesn’t know what he’s talking about
When has he ever written a story that has been true? All Seymour Hersh articles should automatically be filed under fiction.
Yeah, he got that whole My Lai thing wrong during Vietnam, right?
Wikipedia:
Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, after extensive conversations with Lt Calley, broke the My Lai story on 12 November 1969; on 20 November, Time, Life and Newsweek magazines all covered the story, and CBS televised an interview with Paul Meadlo. The Cleveland Plain Dealer published explicit photographs of dead villagers killed at My Lai. As is evident from comments made in a 1969 telephone conversation between United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, revealed recently by the National Security Archive, the photos of the war crime were too shocking for senior officials to stage an effective cover-up. Secretary of Defense Laird is heard to say, “There are so many kids just lying there; these pictures are authentic.”
Sometimes these “hacks” report things we’d just rather not hear, methinks. My Lai certainly doesn’t mean everything Sy Hersh writes is true, but it does lend him an air of credibility, no? Hardly a “hack”. Nothing against bloggers, OK, but this guy is the real deal. He’s an investigative reporter who breaks real news, not a blogger who offers opinions, oftentimes relatively uninformed opinions.
Barry
It’s amazing how many people don’t like Hersh. It’s a useful tool for spotting liars and scum.
Going back up to the start of this thread – Tim, when Israel had a beef with a faction in Lebanon, it deliberately attacked the whole country. The immediate reaction of the Bush administration was to rush fuel and cluster bombs to Israel, lest it slacken the killing pace. Meanwhile, the Bush/Cheney dead-enders who were soooooo happy about the ‘Cedar Revolution’ switched attitudes as fast as communists did when Germany attacked the USSR in 1941. They cheered the bombing and asked for more.
It’s quite clear that the only way in which Lebanon matters to US politcs is in relation to Israel, which likes to pummel it.
Pb
Pug,
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
The Other Steve
You didn’t really refute anything. Perhaps you could go into more detail, and actually make an argument instead of quoting random websites that from my reading don’t seem to really refute anything substantial.
This is one of the problems with the right today, they are so intent on disproving everybody else that they don’t even bother to acknowledge what they agree with. They just rail against the world, and claim it’s all wrong, with no proof, no evidence, no logic.
The Other Steve
You didn’t really refute anything. Perhaps you could go into more detail, and actually make an argument instead of quoting random websites that from my reading don’t seem to really refute anything substantial.
This is one of the problems with the right today, they are so intent on disproving everybody else that they don’t even bother to acknowledge what they agree with. They just rail against the world, and claim it’s all wrong, with no proof, no evidence, no logic.
Zifnab
It’s right up there with calling the NAACP racist or claiming Democrats hate the poor. It’s classic Rovian style. Call Hersh a liar over and over again facts be damned, because his truth-to-power rhetoric is his biggest appeal.
There I agree completely. It wasn’t three years ago that Lebanon’s breakaway from Syria was heralded as “Democracy Blooming in the Middle East” as prophesied by Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. Yet, when Isreal went apeshit on the country later on, the US couldn’t have been less interested in curbing the slaughter. The result? Syria starts looking like a better friend to have than the Western Democracies after all. Isreal just comes across as a giant dick.
What dictated US foreign policy this whole time? It wasn’t justice. It wasn’t to encourage Democracy in the Middle East. It sure as hell wasn’t to preserve life or protect property. So why do we pledge massive contributions to Lebanon if we’re just going to silently cheer when the country gets leveled? Sounds a bit two-faced and evil to me.
HyperIon
remember Condi’s remarks about “the birth pangs of a new Middle East”?
now we know the result of that pregnancy: stillborn.
Perry Como
Does it at least get a birth certificate?
re: Hersh, don’t forget that hack job he did reporting on that made up scandal at Abu Ghirab. What’s a few fraternity pranks between friends?
As far as Hersh’s reporting on Iran, so far in the last two days I’ve seen a report from the ABC Note that the US is funding efforts to destabilize the regime from the inside, and we just moved 9 more navy ships off the coast of Iran to do military excercises (saw a snippet on the teevee at the airport).
But that Hersh is such a dishonest hack!