LCCC ENGLISH
DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
October 22/07
Bible Reading of the day
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 18,1-8. Then he told them a
parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He
said, There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected
any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, 'Render a
just decision for me against my adversary.' For a long time the judge was
unwilling, but eventually he thought, 'While it is true that I neither fear God
nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall
deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.'"The Lord
said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure
the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow
to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them
speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
Free Opinions & Special
Reports
Islamo-Fascist Bigotry: The Persecution of
Believers.By:
Robert Spencer. October 21/07
Latest News Reports From
Miscellaneous Sources for October 21/07
Declared and Secret Meetings between Aoun and
March 14 Leaders-Naharnet
Cheney Warns
Iran and Syria over Nuclear Program and Lebanon-Naharnet
Top Lebanese Muslim cleric: US offering Lebanon military base or
...International Herald Tribune - France
Israeli FM Livni meets with UNIFIL commander in southern Lebanon.Israel
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (press release)
Iran lambastes US base in Lebanon.PRESS TV
Presidential Elections Session to
November!-Naharnet
Cautious Assessment by Lebanon's Media of EU
Ministerial Mission-Naharnet
Turkey Offers Mediation Between Lebanon and Syria.Naharnet
Lebanon's press unmoved by EU troika.France24
Lebanon Elections Likely to Be Postponed.The Associated Press
North Korean official discusses ways to develop relations with
Syria.International Herald Tribune
Iraq President Assails Syria’s Support for Turkish
Cross-Border Threat.New York Times
'Warmonger' Syria rapped.Gulf Daily News
French, Italian, Spanish FMs to urge Lebanese factions to agree on
...International Herald Tribune
European FMs in Beirut: 'Things are Getting
Better'-Naharnet
European FMs Meet
Lebanese Leaders in Fresh Bid to End Political Crisis-Naharnet
Kouchner Raids Beirut
Wedding Party-Naharnet
European ministers launch new bid to end Lebanon crisis.ABC
Online
European FMs Stress Commitment to End Lebanon Crisis.Asharq
Alawsat
European Foreign Ministers in Lebanon to Try to Break Political ...Voice
of America
Syria Shuts Last Official Exit From Violence for Iraqis.New
York Times
Talabani condemns Syria PKK stance.Aljazeera.net
Barak: Nuclear Iran will disrupt world order.Ynetnews
Lebanon Undergoes Parliamentary Crisis.NPR
Lebanon Election Set For Delay Again.Javno.hr
Ex-deputy chief of staff: Next time we'll know how to handle
Hizbullah.Ynetnews
Note on Turkey
Kurdistan Trigger
By Walid Phares
The Turkish army is mobilizing to move inside Iraqi Kurdistan, and Turkish
experts say the invasion may go as deep as 60 KM inside Iraqi Kurdish lands. The
objective is to uproot the fighters of the PKK, but the Turks may also find
themselves clashing with the Peshmergas. Hence intense diplomatic efforts are
needed to avoid this Turkish-Kurdish war inside Iraq. Washington — along with
the Kurdish leadership in Iraq — must dismantle the PKK positions and networks,
or at the very least declare an intention to do so. This is the only way to
convince Ankara not to engage in such an operation.
However, there could be more to this problem than Turkey's frustration with PKK
cross-border activities. According to well-informed sources in the region, an
intelligence campaign sponsored by the Iranian and Syrian regimes has so-far
been successful in dragging Turkey into their present position. In fact, the PKK
has been penetrated by the intelligence services since the 1990's when they were
based inside Syria and the Bekaa valley of Lebanon. Tehran and Damascus have
perhaps manipulated their previous influences to trigger this brewing conflict.
(A more comprehensive analysis will follow soon)
Cheney Warns Iran and Syria
over Nuclear Program and Lebanon
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday the United States would not permit
Iran to get nuclear weapons and accused Syria of trying to undermine free
presidential elections in Lebanon. He pledged "serious consequences" if Iran
continues to enrich uranium. Cheney, considered the toughest hardliner on Iran
in the U.S. administration, did not specify what measures might be taken against
Tehran however, and did not mention the possibility of military action. "The
Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the
international community is prepared to impose serious consequences," he said in
a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not
allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon," said the hawkish Cheney, who reportedly
favors military strikes against the Islamic republic. "Our country and the
entire international community cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state
fulfills its most aggressive ambitions," he said, accusing Iran anew of abetting
attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. Iran is "the world's most active state sponsor
of terror," added Cheney, after President George Bush warned last week that a
nuclear-equipped Iran evoked the threat of "World War III." Cheney also rebuffed
U.S. critics who want a swift end to the war in Iraq. "We're going to complete
the mission so that another generation of Americans does not need to go back and
do it again," he said.
Cheney's terminology recalled the warnings issued in 2002 by the U.N. Security
Council that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein faced "serious consequences" if he
failed to come clean on his alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
Several U.S. media reports have said that Cheney is encouraging Bush to consider
missile strikes that could go beyond Iranian nuclear facilities to take in
command-and-control systems of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Campaigning for the 2008 White House nomination, top Republicans and Democratic
frontrunner Hillary Clinton insist that they will never tolerate Iran being in a
position to menace its neighbors and Israel with atomic arms. Clinton last month
voted for a Senate resolution that declared the Revolutionary Guards a terror
organization -- a step that her Democratic rival Barack Obama said represented a
"blank check" for Bush to wage war on Iran. Iran, which insists it only wants
peaceful nuclear energy, has brushed aside U.S. warnings, and announced Saturday
that its top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani had resigned and was being replaced
by an ally of hard line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"Iran is pursuing technology that can be used to develop nuclear weapons. The
world knows this," Cheney said, noting that Iran had refused to stop enriching
uranium despite two rounds of sanctions from the U.N. Security Council. He said
"the regime continues to do so, and continues to practice delay and deception in
an obvious attempt to buy time." Cheney's new warning came five months after he
declared from the hangar deck of a powerfully-armed U.S. aircraft carrier in the
Gulf that the United States would not let Iran acquire nuclear arms. Middle East
experts who spoke at the Washington Institute conference after Cheney's speech
noted that US rhetoric against Iran was being sharply escalated. "The language
on Iran is quite significant," former Middle East presidential envoy Dennis Ross
said.
"That's very strong words and it does have implications," he said. Cheney also
accused Syria of using "bribery and intimidation" to undermine a free vote in
Lebanon's upcoming presidential election. "Lebanon has the right to conduct the
upcoming elections free of any foreign interference," he said, insisting that
Washington would work with its allies "to preserve Lebanon's hard-won
independence and to defeat the forces of extremism and terror."(AFP-Naharnet)
Beirut, 21 Oct 07, 19:57
Declared and Secret Meetings
between Aoun and March 14 Leaders
A Chain of hastily organized meetings could result in a new political approach
to the forthcoming presidential elections, sources told Naharnet.
Ex-President Amin Gemayel, the supreme leader of the Phalange Party, met Free
Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun at joseph Ghsoub's residence in Rabweh
Sunday evening. The meeting followed talks earlier in the day between Aoun and
MP George Adwan, deputy chairman of the Lebanese Forces Executive Authority.
Contacts are underway to arrange meetings for Aoun with al-Moustaqbal Movement
leader MP Saad Hariri, and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat upon
the latter's return from a visit to the United States. The chain of meetings
followed efforts in the past few days to arrange consensus on a presidential
candidate and coincides with efforts by a joint opposition-majority committee
trying to achieve the same goal under the auspices of Maronite Patriarch
Nasrallah Sfeir.
Beirut, 21 Oct 07, 20:57
Iran lambastes US base in
Lebanon
Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:40:46
Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman
The Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman has lambasted a US plan to establish
military bases in Lebanon describing it as 'destructive'. Mohammad Ali Hosseini
said the US blatant meddling in Lebanon's internal affairs was the root cause of
the country's political crisis. He voiced Iran's support for initiatives which
would ensure security and stability in the region and bring different factions
together. Hosseini described plans for setting up a US military base in Lebanon
as destructive and said the US was trying to stir up tension in the country
through its warmongering policies while the Lebanese factions support a
diplomatic approach. Referring to Turkey's possible incursion into northern
Iraq, Hosseini said Iran supports a diplomatic approach to the issue and added
that a military action would only worsen the situation. The Iranian spokesman
expressed concern over the reports that US forces are arming terrorist groups
inside and outside of Iraq. Hosseini added that there is no need for Iran's
mediation in the Iraq-Turkey dispute since the two countries have diplomatic
relations.
Presidential Elections Session to November!
A Parliamentary session set for Tuesday to elect a successor to President Emile
Lahoud would probably be postponed in light of a tacit agreement between the
Hizbullah-led opposition and the ruling majority to give more time for consensus
on a candidate, Parliamentary sources told Naharnet. The sources said Parliament
Speaker Nabih Berri was considering rescheduling the session for the first 10
days of November. "Nov. 6 appears to be the chosen date for the session," a
ranking Parliamentary source said. However, he noted, that Berri's "last choice
could be Nov. 13 to exhaust all possible efforts aimed at reaching an agreement
on a consensus presidential candidate."The Daily newspaper an-Nahar, in a sub
headline for its main story, referred to a "trend to postpone Tuesday's
(Parliamentary) session."
The pan-Arab Daily al-Hayat also reported that the session would be postponed in
light of the "positive atmosphere" that prevailed over the political spectrum
following a meeting late Friday between Berri and Parliamentary Majority leader
Saad Hariri.
Nevertheless, The remaining issue is what procedure would Berri adopt to enforce
the postponement? Would the speaker issue a statement before the Tuesday
schedule announcing that the session was re-scheduled, or would he wait for
quorum not to be achieved then issue a statement saying the session was
re-scheduled due to lack of Quorum?
The March 14 majority prefers a statement in advance issued by Berri announcing
re-scheduling the session, because it does not want its MPs, bastioned at the
Phoenecia Hotel to avoid the threat of assassination, to venture out and attend
a parliamentary session that would not be convened, a source told Naharnet.
"That would be too big a risk for nothing," the source added.
The foreign ministers of France, Spain and Italy called on the hotel-confined
majority MPs late Saturday to voice support for "your courage and commitment to
democracy." French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said prior to the visit
that he and his colleagues would call on the Majority MPs who are "sentenced to
death" by the unidentified assailants who have been targeting anti-Syrian
legislators in Lebanon.
Kouchner, Italy's Massimo D'Alema and Spain's Miguel Angel Moratinos said after
their one-day mission in Beirut and talks with leaders of the feuding factions
that peace in Lebanon sets the stage for peace in the Middle East. The three
called for holding presidential elections without foreign intervention and in
line with Lebanon's constitution. They called on the various factions to reach
agreement on a consensus presidential candidate to avoid power vacuum that could
threaten Lebanon's stability. Their mission in Beirut has development a belief
that things are getting better, the European Ministers said.
During their stay in Beirut the three met Berri, a leading member of the
Hizbullah-led opposition, Prime Minister Fouad Saniora as well as politicians
who had participated in talks hosted by Paris to sponsor dialogue between the
Lebanese factions. They also held a 30-minute conclave with Maronite Patriarch
Nasrallah Sfeir and visited their respective nations' battalions serving with
the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The three ministers told a press
conference late Saturday that they were leaving with a sense that things are
moving in the right direction as far as the presidential election is concerned.
"We came out of our meeting with the political leaders with the feeling that
things are getting better, it seems to us that there is some movement forward,"
Kouchner said. He also stressed that the three ministers had not come to Lebanon
to impose a candidate but to prod the feuding factions toward reaching agreement
and sparing the country further chaos. "This evening we met the political
leaders of all the major parties to which we repeated the message that we didn't
come here to discuss names," Kouchner said. "We would like to see a consensus
candidate or the name of one or more candidates submitted to parliament."
Speaking earlier at a press conference at UNIFIL's headquarters in southern
Lebanon, Moratinos termed the visit "historic". "The three Euro-Mediterranean
countries came together with the same purpose -- to help assist and to commit
themselves for peace and stability in Lebanon," he said. "It's a very strong
sign that the three countries come at a very timely moment where Lebanon has to
look forward for hope and peace in Lebanon and the region," he added. Beirut, 21
Oct 07, 09:28
Cautious Assessment by
Lebanon's Media of EU Ministerial Mission
Lebanon's leading newspapers said on Sunday that a visit by a troika of EU
ministers aimed at breaking a months-long political deadlock has failed to
achieve a breakthrough. "The three ministers don't have Alexander the Great's
sword to cut through Lebanon's Gordian knot," said the independent daily al-Anwar
following Saturday's visit by the foreign ministers of France, Italy and Spain.
"This was a very laudable visit, but it's not enough to pave the way to the
restoration of normal politics in Lebanon," wrote the An-Nahar daily, which is
close to the Western-backed parliamentary majority. The opposition daily Al-Diyar
said "the three ministers' message cannot push the political machine towards an
agreement because there are multiple factors to the political crisis, which
depend on regional issues."
The ministers met the leaders of rival Lebanese factions from the anti-Syrian,
pro-government camp and the opposition led by the militant Hizbullah group,
which is backed by both Syria and Iran. Their visit came days before a
deadlocked parliament is expected to convene on Tuesday for a vote to elect a
new president, although analysts say the meeting is unlikely to go ahead. "We
came out of our meeting with the political leaders with the feeling that things
are getting better, it seems to us that there is some movement forward,"
France's Bernard Kouchner said. However, Al-Diyar said a positive climate "would
not be enough to cause great change and a real partnership between the majority
and the opposition".(AFP) Beirut, 21 Oct 07, 12:12
Turkey Offers Mediation
Between Lebanon and Syria
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan has offered Ankara's mediation to improve
relations between Lebanon and Syria.
The pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat reported that Babacan made the offer to Premier
Fouad Saniora during a dinner meeting hosted by the Lebanese leader in Beirut
Friday. Saniora, according to the report, did not comment on the Turkish foreign
minister's offer, but rather briefed his guest on the Beirut-Damascus relations
during the past two years. The report said Ankara, in light of its developing
relations with Damascus, is ready to play a role in mending fences between
Lebanon and Syria.
Saniora "neither rejected the mediation nor accepted it," the report said. It
added that he briefed Babacn on "the main topics of difference, including border
demarcation and control and Lebanon's interest in combating smuggling" in of
weapons. Saniora also briefed Babacan on the dispute regarding sovereignty over
the Shebaa Farms region that has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 six-day
war against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Saniora, the report added, also explained
to his Turkish guest the "impact" of Syria's intervention in Lebanon's politics,
noting that "such persisting intervention is not accepted."Saniora also did not
comment on Babacan's request for support of Ankara's decision to launch military
attacks against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. However, the permier reiterated
Lebanon's standard policy that objects to the violation of the sovereignty of
any Arab state, noting Beirut's stands during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and
the Israeli air raid on Syria. Beirut, 21 Oct 07, 10:08
European
FMs in Beirut: 'Things are Getting Better'
The foreign ministers of France, Italy and Spain said after a series of meetings
with Lebanon's feuding leaders on Saturday that they were leaving with the
feeling that things are getting better. France's Bernard Kouchner, Italy's
Massimo D'Alema and Spain's Miguel Angel Moratinos met with Speaker Nabih Berri,
a leading member of the Hizbullah-led opposition, and with Prime Minister Fouad
Saniora in hopes of a breakthrough just days before parliament is to convene on
Oct. 23 for a vote on the presidency. They also held a 30-minute conclave with
Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, the influential leader of the Maronite Christian
community, from which the president is usually drawn, and with various other
political leaders. The three ministers told a press conference late Saturday
that they were leaving with a sense that things were moving in the right
direction as far as the presidential election was concerned.
"We came out of our meeting with the political leaders with the feeling that
things are getting better, it seems to us that there is some movement forward,"
Kouchner said. He also stressed that the three ministers had not come to Lebanon
to impose a candidate but to prod the feuding factions toward reaching agreement
and sparing the country further chaos. "This evening we met the political
leaders of all the major parties to which we repeated the message that we didn't
come here to discuss names," Kouchner said. "We would like to see a consensus
candidate or the name of one or more candidates submitted to parliament."
Speaking earlier at a press conference at the U.N. headquarters in southern
Lebanon, where the three ministers visited their contingents, Moratinos
qualified the visit as "historic". "The three Euro-Mediterranean countries came
together with the same purpose -- to help assist and to commit themselves for
peace and stability in Lebanon," he said. "It's a very strong sign that the
three countries come at a very timely moment where Lebanon has to look forward
for hope and peace in Lebanon and the region."
Their visit comes as parliament prepares to convene Tuesday to pick a successor
to the current pro-Syrian head of state Emile Lahoud, whose term ends on
November 24. A first meeting on September 24 was postponed due to disagreement
among the ruling majority and the opposition and it is all but a given that
Tuesday's session will also not take place. Ziad Baroud, a legal expert, said
the ministers' visit was aimed at sending a message to the warring parties that
Europe was committed to helping end the standoff that marks the country's worst
political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
"Their visit is a message from Europe that it stands by Lebanon and not by just
one community in the country, and that is very positive," he told AFP. "However,
the game is not over and no one should believe that Europe has a magic wand."
The three ministers on Saturday also were to visit more than 40 MPs cooped up at
a luxury Beirut hotel for security reasons, before wrapping up their visit.
They also laid wreaths at the tomb of MP Antoine Ghanem, who was killed along
with five others by a car bomb last month, just days before the first
parliamentary session. That session was postponed until Tuesday because of a
lack of consensus among the ruling majority and the opposition, which includes
factions backed by Syria and Iran. Ghanem was the sixth lawmaker to be killed
since 2005 in attacks blamed by the ruling coalition on Syria, which has denied
involvement.
Saniora's government has been paralysed since opposition forces withdrew six
ministers from the cabinet in November 2006 in a bid to gain more representation
in government. Fears are running high that the standoff over the presidency
could lead to two rival governments, a grim reminder of the end of the 1975-1990
civil war when two competing administrations battled it out.(AFP-Naharnet)
Beirut, 20 Oct 07, 14:46
Iraq
President Assails Syria’s Support for Turkish Cross-Border Threat
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: October 21, 2007
BAGHDAD, Oct. 20 — President Jalal Talabani of Iraq has criticized Syria for
supporting Turkey’s threat to carry out military attacks against Kurdish rebels
in northern Iraq. “Usually I refrain from commenting on Syrian positions to
maintain our historical good relations,” Mr. Talabani, himself a Kurd, said in
the interview, published Saturday in the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.
“But this time I cannot support this crossing of a red line.” The tensions have
already unnerved world oil markets. The price of crude oil hit a record high
Thursday, before sliding 87 cents to close at $88.60 a barrel in New York on
Friday.“I think these statements are dangerous and contradict the soul of Arabic
solidarity,” Mr. Talabani said in the interview. Mr. Talabani’s comments were in
reference to Mr. Assad’s endorsement of the Turkish Parliament’s decision on
Wednesday to authorize cross-border incursions against Kurdish rebels. Turkey,
however, has said that no strikes are imminent. The rebels, known as the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., use bases along the mountainous border to
stage attacks inside Turkey in a separatist struggle that has continued for
decades. Syria also has a large Kurdish minority and, like Turkey, fears that
the substantial autonomy that Kurds inside Iraq have won will impel Kurds in
Syria to seek similar concessions, or even independence. Turkey says about 3,000
rebels seeking an independent Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey now operate
out of bases in Iraq. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the P.K.K. threatened in a
telephone interview on Saturday that the group would retaliate against the
Turkish oil infrastructure if Turkey attacked its bases. The spokesman, Abdul
Rahaman Jaderi, said the group would strike a pipeline that transports Iraqi oil
to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. “Turkey makes money from Iraqi oil
pipelines and buys weapons to attack us,” he said.
Violence continued inside Iraq when a roadside bomb detonated Saturday morning
beside a crowded minibus, killing three people and wounding nine on a highway
south of Baghdad. An American soldier was killed and another eight were wounded
in an ambush in Baghdad, the United States military said.
Also Saturday, the military said soldiers near the city of Tarmiya, north of
Baghdad, had discovered a large cache of homemade explosives stored in piles of
100-pound bags and totaling more than 18 tons in one of the largest such finds
of the war. Ordnance specialists detonated the stockpile. “The crater from the
blast measured 100 feet wide, 100 feet long and 30 feet deep,” the military news
release said.
**Ahmad Fadam contributed reporting.
North Korean official
discusses ways to develop relations with Syria
The Associated PressPublished: October 20, 2007
DAMASCUS, Syria: A high-level North Korean official held talks in Damascus with
senior officials of Syria's ruling Baath Party on ways to develop relations
between the two countries, Syria's official news agency reported. The visit by
Choe Thae Bok, the visiting speaker of North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament,
comes amid lingering suspicions that North Korea may be providing nuclear
assistance to Syria. Israeli warplanes struck a target in Syria on Sept. 6., and
Western news media have quoted unidentified U.S. officials as saying the strike
hit some sort of nuclear facility linked to North Korea, which is now in the
process of dismantling its nuclear weapons program. On Friday, The Washington
Post cited American officials as saying the site had characteristics of a small
but substantial nuclear reactor similar to North Korea's facility. Syria said an
unused military building was hit.
North Korea provides missile technology to Syria but has strongly denied
accusations that it spreads its nuclear expertise beyond its borders. Syria also
has denied receiving any North Korean nuclear help or embarking on any nuclear
program. Turkish bid to pursue Kurds poses quandary for IraqLucky Dube, South
African reggae star, is killed in carjackingSecurity contractors shoot at taxi,
wounding 3 iraqis. The two countries have accused U.S. officials of spreading
the allegations for political reasons. Choe held separate talks in Damascus with
Abdullah al-Ahmar and Mohammed Saeed Bkheitan, both assistant heads of the Baath
Party command, and reaffirmed support for Syria's position in seeking to regain
its lost territory, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported. In the meeting with
al-Ahmar, the two discussed "the challenges and pressures and what the policies
of aggression, occupation and hegemony are causing in threats to security and
stability in both regions and around the world," SANA said. Al-Ahmar backed
North Korea's "choice to peacefully reunite" the two Koreas, while Choe
expressed support for Syria's efforts to regain its occupied territory "and
confront the external schemes surrounding the region." In the meeting with
Bkheitan, the two discussed "strengthening relations between the two countries
and their two parties in addition to the situation in the Middle East and the
Korean Peninsula."SANA also said Choe in his meeting with Bkheitan "expressed
his country's support for Syria's stand and its legitimate right in regaining
its occupied territory," a reference to the Golan Heights, which Israel captured
in the 1967 Mideast war.
Both sides stressed the importance of exchanging visits "and working on
achieving the requirements of security and stability in the Middle East and the
Korean Peninsula."North Korean state media said Choe's overseas trip will
include a visit to Italy. Defense minister, UN Secretary-General Ki-moon discuss
Syrian and Iranian efforts to rearm Hizbullah terrorists in Lebanon
Yitzhak Benhorin Latest
10.20.07, 16:58 / Israel News
WASHINGTON – Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Ban Ki-moon on Friday that world
order would be disrupted if Iran obtains nuclear weapons.
During their meeting at UN headquarters in New York, Barak and the UN
secretary-general discussed Syrian and Iranian efforts to rearm Hizbullah in
Lebanon.
The Israeli defense minister said that the terror group has resumed its activity
in southern Lebanon in areas that are under UNIFIL's control.
Barak, who described the meeting as "good," thanked Ki-moon for the UN
activities in Lebanon and its efforts to release captive IDF soldiers Ehud
Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. The meeting with the secretary-general was the last
in a series of meetings Barak held on his three-day visit to the US. The defense
minister met with President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, among others.
Top
Lebanese Muslim cleric: U.S. offering Lebanon military base or face new strife
The Associated PressPublished: October 21, 2007
BEIRUT, Lebanon: The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush wants the
Lebanese to choose between having their country turn into an American military
base or face a new strife, Lebanon's top Shiite Muslim cleric alleged Sunday.
The allegation by Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah came three days
after a senior Pentagon official said the U.S. military would like to see a
"strategic partnership" with Lebanon's army to strengthen the country's forces
so that the militant Hezbollah group would have no excuse to bear arms.
"We warn that the U.S. administration is offering the Lebanese a choice either
to accept their country being turned into a (U.S.) military, security and
political base, or to expect a new strife," Fadlallah said in a statement faxed
to The Associated Press.
Eric Edelman, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, spoke about a
"strategic partnership" with Lebanon's army in an interview aired on Lebanese
television Thursday, two days after he held talks in Beirut on military
cooperation with Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and other officials.
Edelman did not say that the U.S. government wants to build a military base in
Lebanon.
Today in Africa & Middle East
Fadlallah, the top religious authority for Lebanon's 1.2 million Shiites, said
the Lebanese army was aware of attempts to link U.S. military aid to Lebanon to
confronting the guerrilla group and was determined in "rejecting strife and
rejecting any restrictions on its armament."
Since last year's war between the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and Israel,
the United States has sharply increased its military assistance to Lebanon to
US$270 million in 2007 — more than five times the amount provided a year ago —
in a show of support to Saniora's government.
Fadlallah was skeptical about U.S. military aid to the Lebanese army.
"The Lebanese, who have seen the American failure in Iraq and felt the American
involvement with Israel in last year's war against Lebanon ... must be aware
that what the administration of President Bush is aiming at is something else
other than supporting the Lebanese army," Fadlallah said.
"It (U.S. Administration) is working to make Lebanon a new base for chaos and
another position for NATO in order to exert pressure on regional and
international powers which disobeyed its decisions and policies," the cleric
added in a clear reference to Iran and Syria.
Also Sunday, Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheik Naim Kassem, warned that the
establishment of a U.S. military base would amount to "a hostile act" against
Lebanon.
Hezbollah also has denounced Edelman's call for a U.S. "strategic partnership"
with Lebanon's army, saying American attempts to boost military ties were a ploy
for domination and could turn the country into another Iraq.
Some in Lebanon have expressed fears that a foreign military presence could
attract al-Qaida and other militants, as has happened in Iraq.
FM Livni meets with UNIFIL
commander in southern Lebanon
21 Oct 2007
FM Livni met with Major-General Graziano, UNIFIL commander in southern Lebanon,
and discussed with him UNFIL's performance and the situation in southern
Lebanon.
(Communicated by the Foreign Ministry Spokesman)
Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni met with
Major-General Claudio Graziano, force commander of the United Nations Interim
Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), to discuss UNFIL's performance and the situation in
southern Lebanon. FM Livni opened the discussion by stating that "Even though it
is not part of the UNIFIL mandate, receiving a sign of life from our abducted
soldiers and their subsequent release is a primary objective that must be fully
implemented". FM Livni stressed that "Continued smuggling of weapons and
ammunition from Syria damages UNFIL's ability to dismantle Hizbullah's
armaments, and will do so in the future as well if the smuggling continues.FM
Livni expressed her personal appreciation of Major-General Graziano's
performance of his duties, stating that "The population of Israel assesses
UNIFIL's conduct in southern Lebanon, and at the same time examines the actions
of the international community. There is no doubt that the change in the
situation in southern Lebanon and the movement of Hizbullah northwards, away
from the border, is a direct response to activities carried out by UNIFIL and
the Lebanese army. It is imperative that these activities continue".
Islamo-Fascist Bigotry: The
Persecution of Believers
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, October 19, 2007
Islamic jihad violence has captured worldwide attention when focused on
unbelievers – in the Twin Towers, as well as in London, Madrid, Bali, and in so
many other places. But the jihadists don’t hesitate to target fellow Muslims as
well, when they regard them as insufficiently Islamic.
The most notorious example of this throughout Islamic history is the Sunni-Shi’ite
strife that has broken out in many times and places – and today in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Sunni suicide killers and Shi’ite death squads have
targeted one another since the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Nor have they
hesitated to target holy sites: Sunni jihadists destroyed the tenth-century
Shi’ite Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, in a two bombings in 2006 and 2007.
Some estimate that 4,000 have been killed in Sunni-Shi’ite strife in Pakistan
since the late 1980s, and in Afghanistan, while the Taliban was in power they
waged relentless jihad warfare against the Shi’ite Hazaras.
The Qur’an forbids a Muslim to kill a fellow believer intentionally (4:92), but
both sides justify these conflicts by appealing to the Islamic practice of
takfir: the declaration that, because of some doctrinal deviation, some group of
Muslims are not actually Muslims at all, and their blood can lawfully be shed.
One of the chief characteristics of modern day Salafist movements – that is,
movements to restore the purity of Islam – is their frequent use of takfir and
subsequent targeting of those whom everyone in the world except they themselves
would regard as their fellow Muslims. This phenomenon is playing out all over
the world today, as Wahhabis and other Salafist preachers take an Islamic
hardline into areas where a more relaxed cultural Islam has long prevailed. The
result is often violent. In fact, the Algerian sociologist Marieme Helie Lucas
explains that the controversial term “Islamo-Fascism” was “initially coined by
Algerian people struggling for democracy, against armed fundamentalist forces
decimating people in our country, then later operating in Europe, where a number
of us had taken refuge.” These pro-democracy Algerians were, of course, Muslims
– Muslims who were massacred by jihadists in the 1990s for being insufficiently
Islamic. Over 150,000 were killed.
In November 2003, a Somali journalist named Bashir Goth complained in the Addis
Tribune about a group of Islamic clerics, the “Authority for Promotion of Virtue
and Prevention of Vice,” who were “trying to impose draconian moral codes on
Somaliland citizens.” Goth was himself a Muslim, but he objected to the Wahhabi
Islam that Saudi preachers were bringing into Somalia.
Wahhabism, said Goth, was “an austere and closed school of thought,” deviating
from the established schools of Islamic jurisprudence. “Wahhabism,” according to
Goth, “is the only school that compels its followers strictly to observe Islamic
rituals, such as the five prayers, under pain of flogging, and for the
enforcement of public morals to a degree unprecedented in the history of Islam.”
He characterized it as “a closed mind sect that turned Islam into a fragile
creed that lives in constant fear of children’s toys and games such as Barbie
dolls and Pokemon.” Wahhabi clerics, Goth noted, were challenging Somali
Muslims: “They want to tell us that over the LAST 14 CENTURIES, our people have
been practicing the wrong religion; that since the dawn of Islam, Somali people
had lived in vain, worshipped in vain and died in vain. God help them, they all
will be burned in hell because they did not follow the correct path -- Wahhabism.”
Their devotion to this “correct path” led them to despise numerous
manifestations of Somali culture, despite its Islamic character. “These people,”
Goth continued, “are out to eradicate our culture, our traditions, our songs,
our poetry and our folklore dances….If we let them have their way, these
prophets of ‘purity’ would soon be on a mission to destroy what has remained of
our culture.” He listed several female Somali singers, warning that “the
cassettes of their songs will be burned in the streets. Just remember Taliban.”
Goth went on to explain that the jihadists also wanted to eliminate co-ed
schools and compel Somali girls to go out only “fully shrouded with black from
head to toe.”
The Wahhabi-influenced Islamic Courts Union that held power in Mogadishu for
seven months in 2006 bore out Bashir Goth’s fears. It criticized indigenous
Somali practices as not sufficiently Islamic. One militia commander, Mohamed Ali
Aden, explained: “We’ve neglected God’s verses for so long. We want our women
veiled and we want them at home. We men have to grow our beards.” The Courts
forbade music (which is prohibited according to strict Islamic law), dancing and
soccer within days of taking power. Women began to don Saudi dress, which
covered their faces, rather than traditional Somali garb, which did not.
ICU militiamen were ready to enforce Islamic law with an iron fist: after
banning all movies and television viewing, jihadists shot and killed two people
who were watching a World Cup soccer match in early July. Raids in Mogadishu led
to sixty arrests for the crime of movie-watching. Islamic Courts militiamen also
raided a wedding reception in Mogadishu because men and women were attending the
celebration together and music was playing. “We had warned the family,”
explained Sheikh Iise Salad of the ICU, “not to include in their ceremony what
is not allowed by the sharia law. This includes the mixing of men and women and
playing music. That is why we raided and took their equipment. What was going
there was un-Islamic.” In September 2006, the ICU closed down Radio Jowhar, a
station in a town about fifty miles from Mogadishu, because it was playing love
songs. ICU Sheikh Mohamed Mohamoud Abdirahman explained that the programming was
“un-Islamic.” The station was later allowed to return to the airwaves, without
music. The Islamic Courts even decreed that Muslims who did not perform the five
daily prayers would be executed.
Salafists target Muslims they regard as insufficiently Islamic also in Darfur,
where Arab Muslims attack non-Arab Muslims whose Islam is closer to the cultural
version that prevailed in Somalia than to Wahhabi austerity. Dr. Hassan Al-‘Audha
of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood explained in July 2007 that “we are not
zealous for this land because of the rivers that flow in it. We are zealous for
it because it is the land of Islam.” Another Sudanese leader situation the
activities of the brutal Janjaweed militia within the larger struggle of the
Muslims against the infidels: “Those scumbags want to play with us? They want to
come to the children of Darfur? The children of Darfur will eat them alive. By
Allah, there are some ferocious tribes there. They call them Janjaweed, and they
want to attack them. There is a tribe called ‘Al-Masiriya.’ Are they men or not?
By Allah, when we ride horses and make these battle cries... By Allah, the
infidels die of fear. They die of fear.” In 2004, Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir
charged that international efforts to aid Darfur were actually targeting Islam.
Referring to the 1990s Sudanese jihad against the Christians in the southern
part of the country, he said: “The door of the jihad is still open and if it has
been closed in the south it will be opened in Darfur.”
That jihad in Darfur features Muslims targeting Muslims. Such episodes, whether
in Somalia, Darfur, or anywhere else, emphasize the need for peaceful Muslims to
stand up strongly, in deed as well as word, against global jihadist violence.
The sword of takfir ought to cut both ways, with peaceful Muslims willing to
distinguish themselves from their bloody-minded coreligionists, and to repudiate
their murders not just of fellow Muslims but of non-Muslims also.
Meanwhile, Islamic jihadists and Sharia supremacists continue, with increasing
confidence and brutality, to impose – violently – their vision of Islam upon
their coreligionists.
***Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the
director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of seven books, eight monographs, and
hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York
Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)
and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Religion of Peace?.
Life
After Death
By: Joseph Hitti
New England Americans for Lebanon
Boston, Massachusetts
On the occasion of the 24th commemoration of the bombing of the US Marines
Barracks in Beirut (October 23, 1983) by Hezbollah, we re-post the 2003 piece
below since it captures the mood of the transformation in US foreign policy that
took place after 2001. Syria and Hezbollah are no longer the “factor of
stability” that Richard Murphy and Edward Djeredjian of the US State Department
were so fond of telling the Lebanese between 1975 and 2003; it became an
“occupation”. And the US no longer runs away out of fear of Syria and Hezbollah,
like Ronald Reagan did in 1983; today the West is fighting tooth and nail to
rein in the Iranian appendage Hezbollah and restore normal life to Lebanon. The
Lebanese people are tired of the wars of others on their soil; Western
intervention through the UN is Lebanon’s only hope.
To the neo-Lebanese nationalists who have embraced Hezbollah as a “national
resistance”, we say that no one wants to eliminate the Shiites of Lebanon. They
are a pillar of Lebanese society and a full-fledged community among those that
constitute the Lebanese nation.
But there is a huge difference between Hezbollah and the Shiite community.
Hezbollah, the killer of peacekeepers, the kidnapper and murderer of ministers,
journalists, teachers, priests, nuns and nurses, the bomber of embassies,
universities and cultural centers, the hijacker of planes, the usurper of
national Lebanese institutions, the assassin of university presidents, the
Iranian and Syrian agent, the Islamic fundamentalist movement, the hater of the
West, of Christians and Jews, and all of Hezbollah’s other constitutive
attributes, cannot be swept under the rug. Hezbollah may have transformed itself
in 20 years from a terrorist organization into a terrorist political
organization, but it remains a terrorist organization that negotiates with its
declared enemy Israel but denies the sovereign State of Lebanon the right to do
so; it uses its 20,000 missiles as a negotiating instrument; and it occupies
large swaths of Lebanese territory where the State is denied entry. Hezbollah
must be held accountable for its actions, those of today and those of 20 years
ago. Hezbollah’s actions in the early 1980s as the proxy of Syria and Iran to
cleanse Lebanon of any Western presence and deliver the country to the Syrian
occupation have indeed delayed a solution to the Lebanese crisis for another
quarter of a century. Hezbollah does not represent the true aspirations of the
Lebanese Shiites; it is a caricature of that community which it imposes on them
with Iranian money and ideology, and Syrian criminality. Cut the Iranian purse
and sever the Syrian link, and the Lebanese Shiite community will finally be
itself to discard the Hezbollah anomaly.
October
23, 2003
It has been 20 years this October 23d since the suicide truck bombing of the US
Marines barracks in Beirut. There is nothing sacred about the number 20 but we
humans like round numbers, and so this 20th anniversary of Islamic bombing of
the US Marines Barracks in Beirut on a Sunday morning in 1983 is more special
than, say, last year's 19th anniversary. Not that the event is less important
than the anniversary. I actually remember it every year, because it left a deep
scar in me.
But beyond the anniversaries, this year the memory has indeed a very special
place because it has mutated from one of complete, hopeless, bottomless sorrow
and sadness to one in which the sorrow, for the first time in 20 years, has in
the words of Khalil Gibran showed us its other face, its alter ego, hope! As
Khalil Gibran said "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy
you can contain." And as the West slowly but surely makes a U-turn, comes to
terms with its often-stated but rarely practiced convictions, and begins to
seriously fight terrorism, Lebanon and the people of Lebanon cannot help but
feel gleeful. Yes, we told you so.
For 30 years the Lebanese people were alone, with bombs in their streets and
shrapnel in the bodies of their children, with massacres and destruction,
shelling, kidnapping, and sniping. They tried to tell the world that theirs was
not a civil war, but the war of terror on gentility, the war of backwardness on
civility, of anarchy on stability, of totalitarianism on democracy, of darkness
on enlightenment. They tried to tell the world that their land and their history
were, for better or for worse, the fault line where the seeds of coming wars
were being sown that will come knocking at their doors in the not so distant
future. But no one listened, even when the US Marines and the French
paratroopers were blown to shreds, or when the US ambassador Francis Meloy and
the French Ambassador Louis Delamare were gunned down in the streets of Beirut
under the watchful eyes of the Syrian "peacekeepers", or when their own
journalists, clergymen, teachers, and diplomats were being snatched off the
streets of Beirut to be chained for years in dingy basements. The world insisted
that this was a "civil war", even as every symbol of global East-meets-West
decency that Lebanon harbored for decades was being shredded to pieces through
the terror grinder of Syria, Iran, and their many proxies. Even as embassies
were being shut down, Western civilians were being evacuated, schools were being
closed, and peacekeeping armies were being blown up, it was the fault of the
Lebanese people for being so close to Palestine, and for having borders with
Israel and Syria. It was the fault of the Lebanese for being the proxy victims,
the scapegoat, the accidental actors in a play not of their making. Lebanon was
even accused of being an artificial nation, made of so many tribes - since when
was diversity a shame, and pluralism a sin? - Because its history and geography
did not allow a single group from "ethnically-cleansing" the others, or
converting them to one religion. Lebanon was a Bosnia-Herzegovina a couple of
decades too early for the sensibilities of the West to wake up from their
comfortable slumber.
And so now the hens have come home to roost. Things have changed and the tables
have been turned. For the first time in 20 years, the US Administration is
calling the Syrians occupiers. For the first time in 20 years, the US is not
running away from the suicide bombings and the acts of terror, but is pursuing
them in every far corner of the world. For the first time in 20 years, there
will be no retreat from Beirut or Baghdad, because the message is no longer
"Bomb them and they will retreat". The message today is "No matter the body bags
or the bombs, we will hound you till the end." For the first time in 20 years,
State Department did not object to an anti-Syrian piece of legislation and the
US Congress is voting a law to hold those behind the terrorists accountable for
their acts. For the first time in 20 years the West has finally recognized that
what happened in Beirut that Sunday morning had nothing to do with the
liberation of Palestine or with what Israel was doing to the Palestinian people.
Rather, that Sunday morning was a pure act of hatred, seated deep in the
civilizational clash that makes certain people afraid of the modern world. That
truck bomb was a pure act of terror, distilled of all the excuses and pretexts
that are uttered these days to justify and promote another retreat in front of
the terrorist threat. That Sunday morning bombing was a direct precursor for
that Tuesday Sept 11 bombing.
For we need to remember why the Marines came in the first place to Beirut that
year, accompanied by their Allies, the French, the Italians and the British as
the Multi-National Force (MNF). We need to remind Jacques Chirac of France that
56 of his own paratroopers were also blown up at exactly the same time as 241 US
Marines were being killed in their sleep, about half a mile away. The MNF was
not a force of occupation. The MNF was not there looking for weapons of Mass
Destruction. The MNF was not fighting any war. In fact, the soldiers of the MNF
were forbidden from loading their guns. The MNF was there to supervise the
evacuation of Yasser Arafat's PLO from Beirut, after he had declared that the
road to Palestine goes - with much looting, raping, pillaging, killing,
mass-murdering - through Beirut. And when the time came to face up to reality,
no Arab brother was there to help him out, not even the Syrians. Not even the
Saudis. And not even the Iranians. And that is why the Americans and the
Europeans had come to Beirut. To save the hide of an Arab. To save a city from
the Israeli siege that no Arab "brother", especially Syria, dared to oppose.
And so Lebanon is today the winner. Lebanon was right and everyone else was
wrong. The Lebanese people now can, but may choose to have the decency not to,
engage in academic debates and make moral judgments about the appropriateness of
invading Iraq as a component of the war against terrorism. Or the effectiveness
of targeted assassinations as a means to fight Yasser Arafat. Or whether a
country such as Israel that cannot control its Palestinians is, like Lebanon of
the 1970s and 1980s, an artificial or uncivilized country with many tribes that
just can't "sit down and agree" on how to deal with a mortal threat in its
midst. Or whether the US government's restrictions on the civil liberties of its
citizens is the moral equivalent of General Aoun's government trying to enforce
the law by shutting down the illegal harbors of the warlords along the Lebanese
coast. Or whether Syria's behavior in opening its borders to Jihadists flocking
into Iraq to fight the imperialist American crusaders is really exactly the same
as Syria's opening its borders in the early 1970s to Al-Saika, the Yarmuk
Brigades, or the Palestine Liberation Army to enter into Lebanon and destabilize
the isolationist Lebanese government and kill the indigenous crusaders of
Lebanon.
It took 30 years and September 11 for the West to comprehend what Lebanon had
gone through, place its tragedy in the right context and stop the condescending
sermonizing. Baghdad, you owe Beirut a big thank you because the US has learned
a lot from its retreat that year. The Lebanese people were alone that year, and
so were the Marines when their government withdrew in the face of their killers.
Today, they are no longer alone. Their pain is everyone's pain, and the end of
the tunnel, even if it remains distant, is now bigger and more crowded. But most
of all we owe the Marines who died in their sleep on that Sunday morning in
Beirut a huge debt. The debt of having being the accidental victims, and like
Lebanon, they were the canaries in the mine. But no one was listening then.
Today the whole world is listening.