Cheney’s Al Qaeda in Lebanon Confirmed

April 22, 2007

In early March Seymour Hersh reported on dangerous U.S. meddling in Lebanon:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

The claim, based on anonymous sources, did not get much traction. But now there are confirmations for Hersh’s assertions.

Badger recently translated a piece by a Lebanese politician, Issam Naaman, who belongs neither to the Saudi supported Hariri dominated government, nor to Hizbullah. Naaman wrote:

It was learned from influential members of the US delegations that the Washington special[-forces] apparatus has begun assembling, arming and training members of Islamic extremist groups to undertake assaults on Hizbullah, in the framework of the conflict that it [the Bush administration] plans between the Sunni and the Shiite population, in districts where the two groups are contiguous. And it will be arranged to camouflage the agents in this by attributing the attacks to AlQaeda.

Today we learn that an interview with the Prince Hassan, the one time heir to the Jordanian throne, is getting suppressed because – well:

Nasser Judeh, the chief Jordanian government spokesman, confirmed the videotape’s confiscation but said it had nothing to do with the content of the interview with Prince Hassan, the uncle to Jordan’s King Abdullah II and one time heir to the Jordanian throne.

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera aired a statement by Ghassan Ben Jeddou, the network’s bureau chief in Beirut, Lebanon, who had interviewed Prince Hassan in Amman and who said the tape contained remarks by the Jordanian royal claiming that a national security adviser in Saudi Arabia was financing Sunni militants to fight the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

The national security adviser in Saudi Arabia is Prince Bandar, who acts in lockstep with Cheney and the neocons.

Saudi money combined with U.S. armament and training for a radical ideological Sunni group.

Haven’t we seen such before?

What will be the big backlash this time?

Posted by b on April 22, 2007 at 10:08 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Thanks b. I wonder when Juan Cole and the other mainstream pundits are going to have to mention this? And how they’ll explain it away.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 22 2007 11:13 utc | 1

It will derail the integration of Hezbollah into the nation of Lebanon, into its government, keeping that nation from fully reforming itself into a self-governing entity.
It will return Lebanon to the state of civil war and unrestrained international meddling and arms peddling it suffered for thirty years during the Cold War.
It will make Lebanon once again the blackest of black markets for international spooks, smugglers of drugs and arms, and financiers of terror including the biggest nations on earth. The things that no nation will countenance or cover for can be accomplished easily in Lebanon again.
It will render the southern half of Lebanon a vassal territory to Israel, which may well find international backing to occupy Lebanon right up to that oh-so-valuable Litani River. The occupation would be benign, of course, and the influx of Israeli settlers to the region would be a natural result of the their civilizing influence on the wild frontier territories.
Peace at any price is always Israel’s shining goal. If the swarthy folk need to be impoverished, removed, or otherwise rendered null and void — well, that is a small price to pay for peace. The program is peace at any price, and you pay the price.
It will boost Israel’s tourism and agricultural industries at the expense of Lebanon’s, and it will isolate and reduce Syria’s influence in the region.
Best of all, boys and girls, it will allow the CIA to lay some solid pavement on the road to war with Iran and the creation of an American owned and operated Middle East, from the Eastern Mediterranean in a crescent swath right up to the Caspian Sea. At last, the fabled Syriana of the neocon’s wet dreams.
That this meddling and movement toward conquering “Syriana” will ignite WWIII does not occur to these people.

Posted by: Antifa | Apr 22 2007 11:28 utc | 2

I’m with you through the first three paragraphs, Antifa.
But I think that the Israelis wil be very chary of setting foot in Southern Lebanon again. Cluster bombs can kill Israelis too. And the Hezbolla will get ’em if the cluster bombs don’t.
I think the “fake” AL Qaeda (just what is the difference between the US funded Al Qaeda and the “real” Al Qaeda?) will have some trouble with the Hezbolla as well. Not like murdering people with no support among the populace who don’t fight back.
I don’t know, but I think they are unconcerned about WWIII. Feel they can ride it out on Dick’s ranch in Wyoming. Or at another undisclosed location.
The rest of us are concerned though, right?
We’re going to make enough noise that they’re going to have either to admit that they’re funding Al Qaeda, that they’re paying people to murder American forces in Iraq as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hama in Palestine, or they’re going to have to stop… aren’t we?

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 22 2007 12:21 utc | 3

The original Lebanon War plan was to do an armored end run straight to the Litani River, and then shut down southern Lebanon. Starve the swarthies of supplies coming in from Syria and northern Lebanon, and eliminate the military threat from Hezbollah over a year or two by applying overwhelming force upon one village after another.
This plan was not followed, at the last minute, due to the promises of the Israeli Air Force that they could take out Hezbollah from the air. Unfortunately, they never took out what they could not see from the air, which were the hidden depots and tunnels and underground bunkers beneath every village they bombed. Remember, 90% of the cluster bombs were dropped in the last 48 hours, after Israel had agreed to leave Lebanon. They were a parting gift of peace by prosthesis.
Next time Israel goes in, the plan will be followed, and they will go in prepared to pay a heavy price because they will have no intention of ever leaving. Without the buffer space of southern Lebanon, and without that vital Litani River water, northern Israel cannot grow any further in population, agriculture or industry. They’re maxed out, so war it must be.
The “fake” Al-Qaeda will be hunted like mad dogs by Hezbollah, true. But then that is understood. Setting some swarthies upon some other swarthies is perennially fine colonial policy, done for the purpose of keeping them occupied with one another while an enlightened regime is set up on the ashes of their civilization.
World War Three?? WWIII has already begun, doncha know. Newt said so, and the neocons are the ones who told him. If America does not control the planet, from the deepest ocean trenches to the halls of power in every one of 200 nations to outer space — well, let hell have its way with America.
If America doesn’t rule the planet, some other nation will. If America is not capable and worthy of the grand, generational goals the neocons see for her then she is unworthy to exist.
We’re there, brother.
Unless we shut this nation down by means of national strikes, tax revolts, or other means at hand we are just along for the ride.

Posted by: Antifa | Apr 22 2007 12:56 utc | 4

Antifa:

Next time Israel goes in, the plan will be followed, and they will go in prepared to pay a heavy price because they will have no intention of ever leaving. Without the buffer space of southern Lebanon, and without that vital Litani River water, northern Israel cannot grow any further in population, agriculture or industry. They’re maxed out, so war it must be.

From what I read the present Neocon government in Israel is without support among Israelis. Ordinary Israelis noticed the outcome of the last Lebanese “adventure”. Israel is losing population, Zionist population at any rate. They see the handwriting on the wall. They’re going, going, gone.
I think you are too ready to grant omnipotence to the powers of darkness my friend.
They’ve crested their hill. It’s all downhill from here. We’re going along for the ride whether we like it or not. It’s going to be brutal. It’s going to be a mess. But these guys are not winners.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 22 2007 13:29 utc | 5

I hope you are completely right, JFL.
Listen, it’s Earth Day so I have to go cut down a tree for Jesus . . . I love the smell of gasoline in the morning.
Let’s keep this conversation down, or we’ll wake up some other barfly . . .

Posted by: Antifa | Apr 22 2007 13:38 utc | 6

Of course I don’t know what’s going to happen anymore than you do. But ultimately I’m an optimist.
Is today earth day? Speaking of cutting down trees From Forest to Floor tells a good local tale.
Who cut down the Cedars of Lebanon? Do you think they’ll ever grow up again?

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 22 2007 14:19 utc | 7

Let the conversation continue, I’m awake and taking notes.
🙂

Posted by: beq | Apr 22 2007 14:20 utc | 8

Hi beq, Antifa,
So long you two. Time for me to retire here. I’ll check up on you in the morning.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 22 2007 14:33 utc | 9

Well, that worked out just fine. That oak tree must have been a hundred years old if it was a day. Firewood for the whole winter. Or maybe I’ll sell it on eBay.
The best part is, my neighbor is on vacation for two weeks. With a little luck, some rain will wash out the skid marks from his yard to my yard, and in the words of Doug Feith or was it Snidely Whiplash?)
“No one will ever know . . .”

Posted by: Antifa | Apr 22 2007 14:38 utc | 10

The German expression that applies here is “using the Devil to drive out Beelzebub”. Which netherworld deity do we prefer?

Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 22 2007 16:58 utc | 11

good eye b, to my mind that pretty much nails it down.
JFL, those are very very important questions in your #1 and #3…

Posted by: Badger | Apr 22 2007 17:22 utc | 12

I find myself agreeing with the posts penned by Antifa when I read.. But John Francis Lee is right, these guys are not winners. They see chaos and murder as positive in themselves (get rid of a lot of useless swarthies; obviously the Israeli governing class, that is the military, and their minions, are a kind of exception for the moment – even that might change) and that will finally, I like to believe, bite them in the ass. They make too many strategic and tactical mistakes, their vision is too short sighted, and they shoot themselves in the foot with their notions of ‘created, invented reality’; that leads them to be disorganised, non-analytical, to ignore data, facts on the ground, science, and all the rest. Anyone, any body, any entity that relies so strongly on brute power, of force, here military, combined with ideological and cultural dominance, the imposition of ‘spin’ – and that counts (see US TV, the Beeb, the tinny bleatings about democracy, women’s rights, the sacrosanct free market; Hollywood; the media terror events; the valiant soldiers and on and on) is running a propaganda, shell game, pushing a line which is vulnerable, a scheme that can collapse very speedily.
Now wouldn’t that be fantastic?
Heh. Drinks all round. On me. And thanks to B for all his work.

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 22 2007 20:11 utc | 13

oh my, badger linked to your great post b.
here is an interesting diary, possibly related. …this comment by billmon.

Last Tango in Lebanon
Foundation for the Future’s unhelpful website does mention . . . that the plan is to set up a permanent office, Real Soon Now, in…ready?…Beirut.
OK, now put this together with Sy Hersh’s recent reporting on covert CIA support for anti-Hezbollah Sunni militia groups in Lebanon. Then go back and look a little more closely at the Iran-Contra scandal, and the use of nonprofit false front foundations both to steer money to the contras AND provide sinecures for various neocon hangers on.
Get the picture?
That’s the thing about the neocons — when they find something that doesn’t work, they stick with it.

hmm

Posted by: annie | Apr 22 2007 21:42 utc | 14

Bernhard and Badger, looking at who Naaman sources it to – influential members of the US delegations – I am wondering if this couldn’t also be blackmail. As in, “Oh, your poor government cannot give us what we want (disarming Hizbullah, etc.) because you fear popular backlash? Here is a good reason why you should fear us more.” So, perhaps, caught between two dangers the Lebanese gov. leaked the conversation in a preemptive move…

Posted by: Alamet | Apr 22 2007 21:43 utc | 15

Back to Main