TAKING EXCEPTION

firstroughdraft

In memory of the innocent civilians from Marjeyoun killed by the Israeli air strike on their convoy of 3000 people on August 11, 2006.

(Below: The Islamic Middle East)

THANK YOU

Thank you to those who’ve contacted me to tell me that they appreciate the analysis in SaudiPolitics and have come to rely on it. I extend particular thanks to those who, in their progressive circles, have taken the initiative to link this website to progressive ones. In addition, I extend a special thank you to the reader in Oklahoma who has linked this site to some he believes represent the realist perspective within the Republican Party. I apologize for not responding individually.

The fact that I get ample commentaries when I write about Lebanon tells me that Americans hold that country dear. The analysis provided by SaudiPolitics about the sponsorship by the harmful idiots of their bully’s latest devastation of Lebanon–-the murder of its civilians, the $15 billion destruction of its economy (the United Nations’ figure)-- seems to have been a terrific magnet for readership.

That said, some Lebanese took exception.


MY FAVORITE COUSIN

My favorite cousin took exception to the conclusion by SaudiPolitics that the Lebanese were more united than ever before, as a result of the bully’s intentional murder of Lebanon’s civilians and the destruction of its economy.

He said that the Lebanese were aware that Hezbollah had its own economy, which was not impacted at all by the bully’s use of cluster bombs and possible use of uranium-laden bombs. In contrast, he said, the wider economy was set back a couple of decades. Accordingly, he maintained, Lebanon’s national unity had a huge hole in it: There were those who lived within the Hezbollah economy, so to speak, and were economically not affected by the bully’s devastation of the larger economy. And there were those, like himself, who lost money and, more importantly, hope. He himself had to take his business to Syria and continue on from there at a relatively tremendous cost to him, and having lost a significant amount of income.

My cousin was angry both with Hezbollah and with the United States, a country he admires.

(Israel in this aggression didn’t count as much: All are aware that it was acting on orders by the desperate harmful idiots. Israel’s people in Washington have now been fed the ridiculous line that Israel was doing “the job” for the “failed” Lebanese government. Wonder why Israel doesn’t do the larger job for itself by defusing the most important destabilizing issue in the Middle East: the absence of a Palestinian state. Israel was responsible for the rise of Hezbollah (18 years of occupation of south Lebanon) and for the rise of Hamas and Islamic Jihad ( nearly 40 years of occupation and American-funded settlements.) So it should be reluctant to throw stones at others’ houses or do the job for them.)

(NOTE: About the desperate and harmful right-wing idiots: They have marshaled their energy to staying in Iraq until this President’s term ends. Why? Though mediocre in foreign policy, they do know their domestic politics. They know therefore that our defeat in Iraq, which already had taken place, should have dire political repercussions for their Judeo-Christian right. Accordingly, they will sacrifice the life of troops to save that right’s hide, so to speak. Later, when a Democrat takes over the White House and orders a withdrawal, they can blame that party for the Iraq defeat. )

To understand my cousin one needs to understand that he comes from a conservative background. Accordingly, years after the Christians’ defeat in Lebanon’s civil wars, he now belongs to a shrinking minority within the Christians of Lebanon. This minority hasn’t acclimated itself to the fact that, in the new Lebanon, the Christians no longer wield the political power. The Shiites have the numbers; and the Sunnis the money. He is not of the flexible Michel Aoun people, and those now are in the Christian majority. Aoun has discovered that coalition-building and alliances can preserve a role for the Christians in Lebanon’s consociational democracy. (Aoun will lose that majority if Iran doesn’t produce cargo that compensates the Christians for their losses. Iran seems to understand that; it’s now offering to contribute to the reconstruction through the Lebanese state not through Hezbollah.)

The harmful idiots’ proxies in Lebanon, which include the leadership my cousin respects, should produce pittance. After the Bush Administration took out $15 billion of the small country’s economy, and callously caused the death of over a thousand civilians, it is sending Lebanon less than $300 million! (Saudi Arabia has come to the rescue; but it is unclear whether the one billion dollars it had sent to the Lebanese Central Bank was a loan/deposit (to avoid the state’s bankruptcy) or a grant. Saudi Arabia is dispatching thousands of Saudi contractors to help in the reconstruction. I’ll wait for press reports to assess Saudi generosity and compare it to Iran’s.)

What my favorite cousin should understand is the following: that the harmful idiots are not only harmful. They’re idiots, too. Couldn’t they have seen that Hezbollah’s economy would not be affected by the carpet bombing of Lebanon? If this fact had been obvious to my cousin, a businessman and not an analyst, shouldn’t it have been obvious to the idiots? Oops! Forgive my attention deficit disorder: Of course not.


A GREAT FRIEND

My great friend, idle during the harmful idiot’s valiant assault with American cluster bombs on Lebanon’s children, had time to read www.SaudiPoltics.com. I can imagine him fuming. He protested the language used in the newsletter: idiots, stooges, mediocre.

I’ve already answered him, in part, in the above section.

In a cooperative spirit, he suggested that these words diminish the credibility of the newsletter. Surprise: His own young son disagreed with him. A blog, his son said, was meant to be direct in its approach.

(NOTE: I should make it clear that I condemn Hezbollah’s bombing of Israel’s civilians. I was a student of the Lebanese civil war and have reviewed my fair share of massacres against civilians. This blog therefore has no tolerance whatsoever with policies by states and para-military groups which use massacres for political purposes. All parties in Lebanon, Israel (e.g., Sabra and Shatila, Qana) , and Syria (e.g., Qaa, Damour, Bhamdoun) had committed their fair share of those. It needs to be said, though, that the operation which allegedly motivated Israel’s raining of cluster bombs on children and families had been a military operation. Hezbollah had killed and captured Israeli soldiers following repeated warnings by its leadership that it would be pursuing that policy; that such was its only way to obtain the release of Arab prisoners. If it were able to conduct such a fearless operation, couldn’t it have conducted the same against Israeli civilians in northern Israel? In other words, Israel bears most of the blame for the initiation of the policy of massacres against civilians:

1. Because it reacted to a military operation by Hezbollah with a a punishing military campaign directed in good part at civilians, therefore starting the vicious cycle of murdering those both in Lebanon and Israel.

2. Because it started first the killing of civilians and intended these massacre to achieve policy objectives: Punish the Shiites for their support of Hezbollah, place pressure on the Lebanese body politic to disarm that party.


3. Because its American-supplied weapons, in particular cluster bombs and possibly bombs containing depleted uranium, were significantly more deadly against civilians than those in its foe’s possession.


This over-reaction was a studied one. The harmful idiots and Israel’s leadership had planned this operation beforehand, and one could go back quite a time to the threats, borne out of frustration and defeat issued by Vice-President Cheney, to unleash Israel against Iran. (According to a perceptive Egyptian author who wrote for the Al-Hayat–Israel’s campaign had planned at a right-wing “think”-tank in Washington, D.C.–the same think tank which is doing lots of spin to portray our occupation of Iraq an ongoing success–until a Democrat is in the White House, that is, at which time that same think tank will chastise the Democrats for the IRAQ DEFEAT.)



Back to the friend and his advice that I use more “credible language.” He’s laboring under the false impression that the harmful idiots would seek reasonable advice. (When very young, Zbigniew Brzezinsky cornered me at a party and showered me with questions about Lebanese-Palestinian relations. You would think he had ample sources of information and would not need analysis from a young man writing his dissertation. But that was an inquisitive man who did not hide his thirst to understand. In contrast, the harmful idiots...oh well.) So the harmful idiots are not amenable to advice. They listen to narcissists, delusional double-agents, ethnic entrepreneurs, Uncle Tom-emigres; and to Israel-obsessed right wing ideologues (“neo-con”). These groups of idiots tell the harmful idiots what they want to hear. Worse, some of these advising idiots think that they know what’s good for Israel better than that country itself. They do know that that country relies on cargo from the United States (“strategic alliance”) as Hezbollah from Iran. It can therefore ill-afford not to listen to them as Hezbollah can ill-afford not to listen to its Iranian benefactor.

PALESTINIAN STATE

The great best friend adds that www.SaudiPolitics.com is too preoccupied with a Palestinian state and would want it to be preoccupied with Lebanon.

My answer: SaudiPoltics is an American blog, not a Middle Eastern. It’s all inter-connected, anyway. To make the point to a Lebanese Christian: Can he, who had lived through Lebanon’s civil wars, deny that the Lebanese civil wars which began in April 1975, and which brought untold misery onto the Lebanese, would have been thirty time less severe had there been a Palestinian state?

Not to mention that there are over 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who are disposed to carrying the gun and fighting should the opportunity arise–should Empire escalate.

In addition, the harmful idiots and their bully owe Lebanon hundreds of billions of Euros in reparation for their ceaseless wars of aggression waged on its lands against the Palestinians—all of them caused by the absence of a Palestinian state and the non-payment of reparations.


THE NEW ISLAMIC MIDDLE EAST

One of the harmful idiots’ spokes-people arrogantly stated from Israel, during the bombing of Lebanon’s children with American-made cluster bombs, that a new Middle East will be born out of the murder of defenseless children and families.

I have news for her-–not that I expect her to understand what I’m talking about.

The new Middle East will be one where the U.S. will have significantly less influence than it had before its war of aggression on Iraq, and only with governments (and not fully) who hardly represent their people. (I say “not fully” because even within these governments, there unavoidably will be a lot of sympathy with the fighting Islamists, be they Hamas or Hezbollah.) In fact, the people ruled by these governments think their leaders are traitors.

The Arab Street’s view is extreme. Still, one really wonders whether the leaders of such important countries as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are governed by Arabs at all!

(NOTE: Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, recently bemoaned the loss of Arab identity, conveniently ignoring that Saudi Arabia and the harmful idiots had worked feverishly to defeat that identity and replace it with an Islamic one. He not-so-subtly leveled criticism at Syria for its alliance with a non-Arab country, Iran; and he proposed awkward steps to re-invigorate Arab pride by strengthening the Arab League. I laughed. (My apologies to Prince Saud.) Oh, well. SaudiPolitics’ short answer: When Saudi Arabia is able to regain Syria its lost Joulan, and the Palestinians their state...then that criticism would be warranted. For now it’s not. Besides, as this newsletter has maintained, the Kingdom itself needs some Arabs at the top. The old King Abdallah aside, the Kingdom can hardly claim that it is being ruled by Arabs. Besides, Prince al-Faisal’s comments reflect: (1) a revived and typically sophomoric attempt by the harmful idiots to drive a wedge between Arabs and Persians. (I’m now in tears.); and (2) the Prince’s (possibly) tiredness in enunciating a sophomoric policy by the harmful idiots that he himself finds ridiculous–though obliged to do it.)

LOST CAUSE

The Arab Street has nothing in common with the United States and Israel, the camp opposing the Iranian-Syrian. America had destroyed the last vestige of connectedness Empire had with the Arab Street, one which had the ability to neutralize Islamism–-Iraq. There’s no Palestinian state and no return of the Joulan. And the Arab Street will not believe anything the harmful idiots will say or promise on these matters. Worse, Empire, when it comes to a direly-needed peace offensive, finds itself paralyzed. Its two political parties in the United States are busy spinning the Jewish community and are therefore highly unlikely to come up with a credible peace and a just resolution. (We’re not gonna have a Bill Clinton every day who would charm the pants off the Jewish community and con it into a path of peace.)

In other words, Iran, if it doesn’t make a grievous anti-Arab mistake, owns the Arab Street.

Change therefore has to come from Israel itself, not from the spinned, politically manipulated, and hyper-mobilized American Jewish community. Sadly, however, Israel’s most recent defeat in Lebanon is breeding a more acute move to the right and to harm. This is the problem with national unity governments. An opposition party should stay out of these so not to partake in policies that lead to defeat. In Israel, the defeat in Lebanon has tainted all but the politically-lucky and massacre-minded Likud. A move towards that party is therefore a possible result of the defeat in Lebanon.

Not to mention that Israel can ill-afford to lose its cargo from the United States (“strategic alliance”) and will now have to prove itself to its benefactor–-the Pentagon–-to correct its failed military image with the generals. So, its reaction to defeat will hardly be a new policy of peace. It’ll be more massacres.

With no Palestinian state on the horizon, and no reparation to the refugees and to Lebanon, the most destabilizing issues in the Middle East, Islamism should forge along , successfully.

If Iran doesn’t make a mistake–-like being drawn to a conventional confrontation or undertaking a patent act of terrorism–-we can expect (eventually) Arabs, thanks to Israel’s wars, to evolve with Iran’s help a new pan-Islamism that binds together Shiites and Sunnis and spreads out of Iraq. It could be friendly to Iran at first; but its long-term direction is anyone’s guess. The United States could, for instance, end up financing it, as it is now the Muslim Brothers of Syria.

If Iran makes a mistake...You’ll have to wait for SaudiPoltics to post the promised article about the new direction of the Arab Street. I think I’ll write it before Iran and the troops-stretched-too-thin U.S. go at it.

Or Israel goes at it. (I'm laughing, again!)

A GARGANTUAN SAUDI PAYOFF TO BRITAIN, TO THE UNITED STATES...AND TO ISRAEL.

t h i r d r o u g h d r a f t

(Below: The Harmful Idiots and Lebanon.)

INTRODUCTION:

The arms contract described below illustrates how an American Administration totally controls Saudi foreign policy.

Historically, Saudi governments have rarely considered critically any scheme by the harmful idiots, however harmful or sophomoric. They've subscribed to any and all such schemes, while hiding that fact from their public. Large sectors of that public despise the United States. Why? The reasons are many. For one, most recently, consider the Bush administration's sponsorship of Israel’s wholesale killing of Lebanon’s defenseless civilians. Consider Israel's destruction of Lebanon's economy; consider the harmful idiots’ dismantlement of Iraq; consider the American financing of the occupation of Palestinian lands.

It seems that all these policies are meant to force the Arabs to their knees, to make them obedient. Because of its public's disgust with this anti-Arab and anti-Muslim American administration, the Saudi leadership is hiding from its public payments to the United States, the protection money it feels it owes it. The conduit for these payments is BAE Systems, a seemingly British company. But BAE Systems is an American company, too--a fact that had not been well-advertised, especially not to the Saudi public.

BAE Systems, the British-American company, is receiving a minimum of $18.8 billion and a maximum of $70 billion to supply jet fighters to Saudi Arabia, and to maintain them.

But the story doesn't end here. The harmful idiots had devised a scheme to develop an Israel-led anti-Iran Arab front. A laughable idea. But one that the Saudi leadership would have to respect since it comes from an American administration. Accordingly, some of the payments to BAE Systems could make their way to Israel, since the American branch of that company has an office in that country.

In addition, since BAE Systems develops weapons for use in Iraq, one is therefore justified to conclude that Saudi payments to that company help finance in part the occupation by the United States and Britain of that country.

***********************************************************************************

A GARGANTUAN PAYOFF FOR PROTECTION--WHAT PROTECTION?

SaudiPolitics repeatedly had maintained that the gargantuan Saudi arms contracts with Britain concealed payoffs to the United States. Over a year ago, rumors spread of a $70 billion arms contract between Saudi Arabia and Britain. These rumors were later followed by more concrete news reports confirming a gargantuan Saudi arms purchase from Britain. The latest number released about the upcoming Saudi payment to Britain stands at $18.8 billion. According to press reports, that number should double thanks to maintenance contracts extending over a period of twenty five years.

In essence, therefore, day-by-day, we’re inching closer to the rumored $70 billion figure.

It should be noted that Saudi arms purchases are in the spirit of money paid for “protection.”

But how does this confirm SaudiPolitics’ hypothesis that these payments to Britain conceal money to the United States?

The answer came on the pages of The New York Times. ( “British Arms Merchant With Passport to the Pentagon” August 16, 2006, at C1 ) It turns out that the beneficiary of the gargantuan arms contract, BAE Systems, is as much an American company as a British:

Here’s some of what the article says:



“It is hard to tell whether BAE Systems should be flying the Union Jack [Britain’s flag] or waving the Stars and Stripes [U.S. flag].

“BAE, the British military contractor, manages top-secret programs in England and the United States and makes weapons for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is the world’s fourth-largest military contractor and the seventh-biggest in the United States, the only foreign Pentagon supplier to crack the top 10.

“BAE says it’s neither British nor American, but a new breed of military contractor–a trans-Atlantic supplier.”


SAUDI PROBABLE PAYMENTS TO ISRAEL

But Saudi Arabia’s role in the Crater, Sparkling, and Scintillating (think bombs containing uranium and cluster bombs dropped on poor Lebanon) New Middle East is not limited to financing Britain and the United States. The $70 billion Saudi arms contract could be financing the leader of the anti-Iran Arab front. The New York Times, again:

“[BAE]’s American subsidiary, based in Arlington, Virginia, has operations in 36 states as well as England, Sweden, Israel and South Africa..”


*********************************************************************************

THE HARMFUL IDIOTS AND LEBANON

It turns out that the Maronites of Lebanon are fuming at Israel’s destruction of their country’s infrastructure and its economy, and its intentional targeting of civilians in the (harmfully idiotic) hope of turning all against Hezbollah.


I’ve returned from an American town where I talked to Maronites at their church. A good number of them had been on vacation in Lebanon, and had evacuated during the Israeli courageous onslaught on defenseless civilians. At a great risk to their life, they had managed to escape to Damascus.

The American Maronites were angry, very angry, at Israel and its master, the Bush Administration. They all knew that the desperate administration (think Iraq) had asked (in effect)its Israeli bully to mow down defenseless civilians to punish the Shiite community for its support of Hezbollah, and to destroy Lebanon’s economy. Why? The Lebanese Maronites had the answer: the harmful idiots had meant the Israeli devastation of their country as a way to exert pressure on the harmful idiots’ helpless Lebanese agents to move against Hezbollah.

But something good happened, the very opposite of what the harmful idiots had expected. The Bush Administration's Israeli bully united the Lebanese. National unity has never been so strong in the Arab land of the Phoenicians. Worse for the harmful idiots: The Shiites, even those whose allegiance goes to the harmful idiots’ favorite Shiite leader, are now clamoring to join Hezbollah.

Congratulations to Lebanon. It has survived over thirty years of mediocre, moronic and massacre-minded war engineering by harmful idiots.

AN AMERICAN-ISRAELI DEFEAT?

f i r s t d r a f t


Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1975) defines defeat as follows:

1....DESTRUCTION 2: frustration by nullification or by prevention of success...3 an overthrow esp. of an army in battle...4 the loss of a contest.


With this definition in mind, here’s how things look:


Re. 1: DESTRUCTION.

The Pentagon and its Israeli bully haven't destroyed Hezbollah, and could not–by the Israelis’ own “sudden” realization.

Re. 2: frustration by nullification or by prevention of success.

Israel has not nullified Hezbollah and Hezbollah so far (and it looks plain for later) has prevented it from disarming it. If anything, Hezbollah has succeeded in showing Israel for the second time (Mr. Saddam Hussein did it first) that it can take the war to Israel's territory, balancing somewhat Israel’s air power use against civilians. According to various press reports, in the next battle, Hezbollah will have ground-to-air missiles.

Re. 3: an overthrow esp. of an army in battle.

Israel has certainly failed to overthrow Hezbollah in its weeks of bombardments, incursions, and occupation. Nor has Hezbollah been able to achieve the reverse. The difference: Hezbollah hadn’t set that as a goal; Israel had.

Psychologically, however, the story is more dismal for Israel: A militia has been able for weeks to balance the powerful Israeli army! This militia for instance has been able to neutralize that army's Mirkava tank. And it wasn’t a story solely about a tank. The very surprise of the Israeli armed forces by Hezbollah’s ability to neutralize the workhorse of those forces brought out yet another and more severe failure. Israeli intelligence, while busy through its right-wing Israel-obsessed informants--some of them pseudo-friends!--and right wing Lebanese Christians here spying on me–-developing my file-- (Please refer to the series of articles, “Chance Encounters,”) has missed the fact that Hezbollah had missiles (Russian-made Metis-M) that can disable the Mirkava. Yet more dismal for Israel: its intelligence failure indicates intelligence success for Hezbollah. That party after all had succeeded in hiding the fact that it had those Russian missiles.

In addition, Hezbollah has rained thousands of (imprecise) rockets onto Israeli towns, a (sorry but psychologically very effective) balance to the Israeli air force’s devastation of Lebanon’s infrastructure and its mowing down of innocent civilians. Quite a feat psychologically and if one accounts for probable future progress.


Re. 4: the loss of a contest.

Neither Israel nor Hezbollah have objectively lost a contest. Subjectively, however, Hezbollah has won the contest in that it has penetrated the Israeli shield of security around its territory.

*******************

MEDIOCRE STRATEGY, MEDIOCRE RESULTS


The Pentagon unleashed its Israeli bully against Lebanon’s civilians. Its goals, one surmises, were as follows:

A. TO DISARM HEZBOLLAH

The mechanics of that goal have followed an old established stratagem that the harmful idiots had used in the past: To murder civilians wholesale in the hope that these would accept any solution that would entail the disarming of the party causing trouble to the Pentagon and its Israeli army.

The Pentagon can rest assured that that strategy, tried before by its harmful idiots during the Lebanon civil war, did not (then,) and could not (now) produce the hoped-for results. If anything, my sense is that the longer the battles rage, the more the majority of the Lebanese will side with Hezbollah, and the more recruits for Hezbollah in Lebanon and across the Arab and Islamic world. Worse for Lebanon and the region, the harmful idiots' game might get out of hand (as it did during the Lebanon civil war) and the results would be disastrous--and their spillover into the oil countries tremendous. (Get ready for a recession.)

This is not only logical; it’s also practical.

Logically: why should the Lebanese sects side with the strangers who have destroyed their country, and line up against their own next-door neighbors–the Lebanese Shiites?

Logically, too: why would the Lebanese blame Hezbollah for the devastation of their country having witnessed an absolute Israeli restraint in facing up to Syria? After all, the Israelis themselves claim that Syria is behind Hezbollah. What gives? What kind of cowards are these who target defenseless civilians, yet avoid at all cost a confrontation with the armed forces of the one country the murderers of civilians claim is behind Hezbollah?

(In no way is SaudiPolitics calling for an American attack on Syria. This would be disastrous for U.S. troops in Iraq. I mention this scenario only to bring out the dishonesty, abject mediocrity, and callousness of the Pentagon’s strategy: that of mowing down defenseless civilians in order to disarm Hezbollah. If anything, as far as SaudiPolitics is concerned, from an Arab perspective, it’s absolutely important to keep Syria strong. For instance, Turkey Is damming the Tigris river and threatening the welfare of all in Iraq and Syria. Should Turkey not release a fair share of the water to Syria and Iraq, would the Saudi army (!) come to the assistance of Iraq and Syria? Would Egypt? Jordan? Any of Israel’s Arab allies?)


On a practical level, if Iranian money pours into Lebanon and is distributed fairly by Hezbollah to all the civilians who were hurt by Israel’s targeting, regardless of sect, one would expect that this absence of corruption, and Iran’s generosity, would be compensated by popular approval.

To put it bluntly: Hezbollah is not a corrupt party, while the Saudi and American proxies in Lebanon are eminently the opposite. The Saudi and American proxies have robbed Lebanon’s public purse blind. Not Hezbollah.

(Hezbollah and Mr. Berri did their share to bankrupt the Lebanese state by putting a majority of the Shiites on the state’s payroll–not by pocketing the money themselves.)

An illustration of Hezbollah’s organizational acumen can be found in Tibneen, a southern Lebanese town which population includes Christians and Shiites. Historically, after an Israeli bombardment and destruction of homes, Hezbollah would repair first the homes of the Christians. Then repair the homes of the Shiites.



2. INTERNATIONAL FIGHTING TROOPS

The Pentagon should by now have learned, after killing over 900 Lebanese civilians, that its strategy of murdering civilians to place pressure on the Lebanese to disarm Hezbollah will not work. Not only is Hezbollah smarter than the Pentagon, but the non-Shiites of Lebanon should be reluctant to engage in a civil war.

Why? For one, logically, why should they fight their own self--their neighbors--to make up for America's failure in the neocon (Jewish right wing and its liberal adorers) Middle East? For another, practically, they would lose that war and would end up in a queue as refugees in Cyprus, standing in front of the U.S. embassy, fighting the elements, waiting for an American visa and being treated like dirt.


(Worrisome: Al-Manar, the Hezbollah online newspaper, is replete with references of treachery against it by Saudi and American Lebanese proxies. Wonder whether this pent-up anger and sense of being stabbed in the back by fellow Lebanese would translate into yet another war of assassination against these proxies and thier people. The queue in front of the American embassy in Nicocia might after all become reality, even in the absence of a full-fledged Lebanese civil war.)


Hezbollah should be expected to unleash, overtly and covertly, against any foreign troops coming into Lebanon to constrain it. The international troops wouldn’t stand a chance. If Iraq has taught us anything it is that troops “allied” to the U.S. are fast to pack their bags at the first sign of trouble.

(That's the problem with alliances built of the evolving of assets who later become leaders, instead of on solid mutual goals.)

So, give up on this idea.

As for the idea of training by the U.S. of Lebanese troops: Once again, the harmful idiots don’t seem to appreciate that politics is everything.

The members of the proposed 7000-men-and-woman Lebanese army, to be trained by the US, would be Lebanese, wouldn’t they? And they would be prone to the ups-and-downs of Lebanese politics, wouldn’t they? And Hezbollah should still be able to stage an operation or two similar to the one when it kidnaped Israeli soldiers? And Israel should be expected to retaliate by murdering Lebanese civilians, wholesale, shouldn’t it?

Do the harmful idiots for a moment think that the 7000-strong Lebanese army would be immune to the impact of Israel’s killing of Lebanese children on its allegiance? Do you think that Hezbollah women are not Phoenician enough to know how to mate with members of that army, allowing Hezbollah to infiltrate it? (For the right price, maybe the harmful idiots can offer to castrate the men in the 7000-strong American-trained army. They’re idiot enough to consider the idea.)

It’s getting late. So here’s what you need to do to secure the oil away from China and India:

1. Get a Palestinian state established on all of the 1967 lands. It doesn’t matter that the Islamists would rule it for now. With enough cargo, the harmful idiots should be able to reverse that–or at least balance it out.


2. Give the Joulan back to its owner and pay restitution for the water you’ve stolen since 1967. There are principles and treaties for the use of water running from one country to another. Mediate the matter. If you need more than your share, pay for it.

3. Pay reparations to the Palestinian refugees and to Lebanon.

4. Raise interest rates so that the expansion in China and India would taper off, necessitating less need for the precious oil resource. (The Federal Reserve bears the burden on this one, since the alternative–-raising taxes by the President and Congress–-is a near political impossibility.)

5. Prepare for problems at home (e.g., a spike in the crime rate, the evolution of non-tax paying barter markets) since higher interest rates will mean higher unemployment. Get public work programs going.

6. America’s forte (and genius) is technology. So, instead of squandering the public purse on idiotic and harmful schemes overseas, invest at least some of that money in the (actual) security not of foreign countries but of this country–ours!-- such as in alternative energy sources.

KUDOS TO QATAR. OR: SOME ARAB POLITICIANS ARE SMART!

s e c o n d d r a f t

********************************************************************************
(Update, 8/3:

The strain of Lebanon's devastation is showing on Qatari and Saudi politicians.

Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, lashed out at Qatar for its Foreign Minister's insinuation, outlined below, that Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, still were egging on Israel in its assault on Lebanon. Prince Saud reminded Qatar that it has commercial relations with Israel, which it had established without consulting with other Arab coutries. Qatar responded by asserting that it would be willing to put an end to these relations in the context of a pan-Arab initiative.

In fairness to Saud al-Faisal, the Qatari position is disingeneous: Qatar had establlished these commercial relations without a coordinated pan-Arab initiative. Accordingly, Qatar is not being candid when it uses as excuse a (fictional) need for a pan-Arab initiative ("context") to interrupt these relations for the sake of Lebanon.

Frankly, the Saudi-Qatari rift is getting old. In the face of the horrific assault on the Arab nation, the least the politicians of these two countries can do is to agree on a moratarium on verbal mudslinging, to be followed, one would hope, by solid relations. SaudiPolitics suggests that they both build on issues that bring them together, however small these issues might be.
**********************************************************************************



The mediocrity of the politicians of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan is spellbinding. Nothing brought it out better than a statement by the First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar, Shaikh Hamad Bin Jasem Bin Jabr Aal Thani.

In his statement, made on or about July 31, 2006, Shaikh Hamad expressed bewilderment at the complicity of some Arab governments in the Israeli indiscriminate and disproportionate assault on Lebanon’s civilians–to disarm Hezbollah; that these governments were still in complicity with the Israeli/American war on Lebanon, trying to establish a fait accompli on the ground before a multinational force arrives.

Shaikh Hamad wondered about the absurdity of Arab governments aligning themselves with an Israeli policy without getting anything in return. The Israelis, he said, wanted everything without giving back anything in return. I guess these shrewd Arab politicians will give up everything and, ingeniously, will accept nothing in return!

Shaikh Hamad had an ominous warning: That the Arab street can bear so much, and that the Arab leaders’ support for Israel’s assault on Lebanon will only breed terrorists. SaudiPolitics couldn’t agree more.

SaudiPolitics will go further:

The assault on Lebanon already has failed. It was bound to. Strategically, it didn’t make sense. Not to mention that no one could control the Israeli bully once it had unleashed its American fire power on Lebanon. Ominously, this fire power is bound to intensify the more America’s bully finds no acceptable way out of failure.


(I will not delve into the details, since the Israeli press itself now is awaking to the fact that the idea didn’t make sense and is outlining the reasons.)

I’m convinced the idea for clipping Iran’s wings in Lebanon had come from the Israel-centric right-wing sophomores--harmful idiots--who carry so much influence in the Bush Administration. (Remember the number of times Vice President Cheney had threatened Iran with Israel?) . That these sophomores can order the Israelis to conduct an operation which didn’t make strategic sense is, but for the innocent bloodshed spilt and the devastation of Lebanon, nothing short of hilarious.

It looks as if Mr. Olmert wanted to play up to the outgoing administration and to its Arab stooges. Now he himself is a stooge–for idiots!

In contrast to America’s Arab stooges, Qatar and Shaikh Hamad can be proud. Their smart Arab stand is refreshing. Here are at last smart Arab politicians who know that the Arab nation, even when dependent on the United States, can nonetheless tell the harmful idiots that they are...well, harmful, hateful, and bloodthirsty idiots!