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Nahr al-Bared and a New U.S. Air Base
About the ongoing shelling of a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Franklin Lamb has a very recommendable report at Counterpunch: Inside Nahr al-Bared and Bedawi Refugee Camps.
As he explains the U.S. is heavily involved via the ‘Welch Club.’ It is now even delivering three plane-loads of ammunition to the Lebanese Army so the slaughter can continue.
(This bears the question how much ammunition has already been expanded on a small piece of land with a very high density population. The official death count of some 25 seems unbelievable low.)
Please read the Lamb piece. It explains a lot.
Still there is one big issue Lamb misses.
Two years ago Wayne Madsen reported that the U.S. would like to use a Lebanese air base in north Lebanon for its own purpose. I take Madsen stuff with quite a load of salt. But here the State Department felt obliged to deny the report. That indeed does lift its credibility.
There is a logical connection between that report/denial and the shelling of Nahr al-Bared.
The U.S. has one important regional air hub in the western Middle East/East Mediterranean area. It is Incirlik air base in Turkey (zoom in and count the planes and shelters – it’s a huge base.)
But the Turkish-Kurdish conflict is heating up. The US written Iraqi constitution calls for a local public referendum on Kirkuk joining the Kurdish
administrated part of northern Iraq. The oil revenue from Kirkuk would give the Iraqi Kurds the economical base to declare independence. That again would be a certain casus belli for Turkey as the Kurdish people within Turkey would try to seperate and join the new state of Kurdistan.
When Turkey invades
north Iraq to prevent such outcome, the conflict can be expected to escalate to a point where Turkey finally turns decisively against the U.S. for its support of the Kurds. Further
U.S. access to Incirlik would certainly be denied.
Incirlik is important, but in jeopardy. Where is the alternative?
If not building totally from scratch (where?), the only possible alternative position for an Incirlik like Western ME/Eastern Med hub is in north Lebanon at the Rene Mouawad Air Base some 15 miles north of Tripoli. That base is currently deserted as the Lebanese Air Force does not have planes anymore but ony a few helicopters.
But that base does have a quite decent paved runway of 3000 meters (9843 feet) length and enough space around to extend the place. Strategically it would be a perfect location for a new U.S. air base.
Near the Syrian border it allows for attacks against Syria without any warning time. Flying a bit south and then through Israeli and Jordan air space it is convinient for easy regional short hops into Iraq.
As a strategic planner looking for a new regional lily pad, I would certainly put some serious thought into this option.
But then I would find a flaw.
A big airbase should be connected by decent roads to a harbor. Most of the stuff that is needed to build and to run it should come from the States by ships and trucks – not by air.
In the 1990s the Rene Mouawad Air Base was partly in civilian use with the international aviation code OLKA as a local airport for Tripoli. That city is some 15 miles south of the air base.
Tripoli is also the nearest harbor to the air base and the only larger one in north Lebanon. It even has potential to be expanded.
Now check the Wikipedia map of the Nahr al-Bareb refugee camp and take a look at the Google satellite picture of that camp. The camp is situated at the Lebanese meditarian coast some 10 miles north of Tripoli. The coastal road connecting Tripoli and the Rene Mouawad Air Base runs right through the middle of the camp.
If you move the sat picture of the camp further up north along the mediterian coast you can see the landing strip of the Rene Mouawad Air Base.
Could a U.S. airbase be supplied when its logistical life line runs right through a Palestinian refugee camp of some 45,000 mostly young and very poor people?
Probably not without very high costs of lives and money.
Which makes attempts to move the refugee camp (i.e. cleanse it) a quite plausible endevour.
Enlightening interview with Seymour Hersh on Democracy Now from last week:
Hersh on the Current Situation in Lebanon
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, very simply — this is over the winter — the government made — I think the article is called “The Redirection.” There was a major change of policy by the United States government, essentially, which was that we were going to — the American government would join with the Brits and other Western allies and with what we call the moderate Sunni governments — that is, the governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt — and join with them and with Israel to fight the Shia.
One of the major goals for America, of course, was the obsession the Bush White House has with Iran, and the other obsession they have is, of course — is in fear — is of Hezbollah, the Party of God, that is so dominant in — the Shia Party of God that’s so dominant in southern Lebanon that once — and whose leader Hassan Nasrallah wants to play a bigger political role and is doing quite a bit to get there and is in direct confrontation with Siniora.
And so, you have a situation where the Sunni government, pretty much in control now, the American-supported Sunni government headed by Fouad Siniora, who was a deputy or an aide to Rafik Hariri, the slain leader of Lebanon, that government has — we know, the International Crisis Group reported a couple years ago that the son Saad Hariri, the son of Rafik Hariri, who’s now a major player in the parliament of Lebanon, he put up $40,000 bail to free four Sunni fundamentalists, Jihadist-Salafists — which you will — who were tied directly to — you know, this word “al-Qaeda” is sort of ridiculous — they were tied to jihadist groups. And God knows, al-Qaeda, in terms of Osama bin Laden, doesn’t have much to do with what we’re talking about. These are independently, more or less, you can call them, fanatical jihadists….
– I got an email the other day, and I have not checked this out, from somebody who was in the community, in the intelligence community and still consults with the community, he says, “Why don’t we ask more about the American arms that the fighters of Fatah al-Islam have, are brandishing?” I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I did get that email. And so, that could be true. Both Saudi money and American money, not directly, but indirectly, was fed into these groups.
And what is the laugh riot and the reason I’m actually talking to you guys about this — I usually don’t like to do interviews unless I have a story in The New Yorker — the reason I’m talking about it is because the American government keeps on putting out this story that Syria is behind the Fatah group, which is just beyond belief. There’s no way — it may be possible, but the chances of it are very slight, simply because Syria is a very big supporter, obviously, of Nasrallah, and Bashar al-Assad has told me that he’s in awe of Nasrallah, that he worships at his feet and has great respect for him. The idea that the Syrians would be sponsoring Sunni jihadist groups whose sole mission are to kill the apostates — that is, anybody who doesn’t support their view, the Wahhabi or Salafist view of Sunni religion — that includes the Shia — anybody who doesn’t believe — support these guys’ religions are apostates and are killable, that’s basically one of the crazy aspects of all this, and it’s just inconceivable.
AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, what about the role of Vice President Dick Cheney, the Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams?
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, you always — any time you have violent anti-Iran policy and anti-Shia policy, you have to start looking there. Look, clearly this president is deeply involved in this, too, but what I hear from my people, of course, the players — it’s always Cheney, Cheney. Cheney meets with Bush at least once a week. They have a lunch. They usually have a scheduled lunch. And out of that comes a lot of big decisions. We don’t know what’s ever said at that meeting. And this is — talk about being opaque, this is a government that is so hidden from us….
I do know that within the last month, maybe four, four-and-a-half weeks ago, they made a decision that because of the totally dwindling support for the war in Iraq, we go back to the al-Qaeda card, and we start talking about al-Qaeda. And the next thing you know, right after that, Bush went to the Southern Command — this was a month ago — and talked, mentioned al-Qaeda twenty-seven times in his speech. He did so just the other day this week — al-Qaeda this, al-Qaeda that. All of a sudden, the poor Iraqi Sunnis, I mean, they can’t do anything without al-Qaeda. It’s only al-Qaeda that’s dropping the bombs and causing mayhem. It’s not the Sunni and Shia insurgents or militias. And this policy just gets picked up, although there’s absolutely no empirical basis. Most of the pros will tell you the foreign fighters are a couple percent, and then they’re sort of leaderless in the sense that there’s no overall direction of the various foreign fighters. You could call them al-Qaeda. You can also call them jihadists and Salafists that want to die fighting the Americans or the occupiers in Iraq and they come across the border. Whether this is — there’s no attempt to suggest there’s any significant coordination of these groups by bin Laden or anybody else, and the press just goes gaga. And so, they went gaga a little bit over the Syrian connection to the activities in Tripoli. It’s just amazing to me, you guys.
Posted by: Bea | May 29 2007 15:25 utc | 33
Fighting Continues, Spreads to Second Refugee Camp
Two soldiers were killed in fierce fighting at a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon as troops continued to bombard militants in another camp in the north of the country. [Note: More on this below.]
Six soldiers and two civilians were also wounded in the gunbattles which raged overnight between the army and militants at the entrance to the Ain al-Helweh camp, hospital sources said on Monday.
The fighting has added to concerns that the violence could spread to more of Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps, which hold more than 200,000 Palestinians mostly in conditions of abject poverty.
The overall death toll from fighting in both camps now tops 100, including 46 soldiers.
It is the bloodiest internal fighting since the 1975-1990 civil war and has added to tensions in a country already battling an acute political crisis….
It is not known whether the army is planning a ground assault on the camp. By longstanding convention, it does not enter Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian refugee camps, leaving security inside to armed militant groups.
Fatah al-Islam, a tiny band which first surfaced only last year, is believed to have about 250 fighters, according to Siniora….
Siniora said the camp’s population had fallen from more than 31,000 to fewer than 3,000, with thousands taking flight from the fighting and an increasingly desperate humanitarian situation.
What fate awaits those civilians left inside the camp? From The Angry Arab Blog
“The Lebanese army commander at the scene said anyone who had not left during the ceasefire was unlikely to be considered a non-combatant. ‘We risked our lives for 10 days to allow all the civilians to escape,’ he said. ‘If someone did not take the decision to leave, then they took the decision to stay, which means they are not a civilian.’ Although there has been almost no independent access to the camp for almost two weeks, Red Cross workers estimate that thousands of innocents could be trapped inside with no electricity, food, water or medical care.”
The other camp is Ein Helweh;The militants there are apparently from Jund as-Sham, another “Islamic militant” group, and Palestinian civilians are reportedly now fleeing that camp as well.
According to the Angry Arab blog: “There are flash reports that Jund Ash-Sham (a fanatical fundamentalist group) attacked Lebanese Army positions in Hayy At-Ta`mir [a neighborhood outside Ein al-Hilweh] near Sidon. Now for this one, we don’t need to speculate. We know that [U.S.-affiliated] Hariri family, through Bahiyyah [Hariri] in Sidon, has been funding Jund Ash-Sham.”
A great detailed account of several visits to Nahr el-Bared camp by someone at the scene, with photos, is available here. From this blog:
We crossed the school yard and entered the adjacent Ghassan Kanafani cultural center I had visited last week. In one of the offices, two members of Save the Children foundation were at work, labeling the positions of Fatah al Islam, schools and mosques on a Google Earth map of the camp.
A Swedish woman, a “child safety consultant,” according to her business card, briefed us on the latest developments. “We are receiving pictures of the dead– children, the disabled and elderly. Most of the people who remained are very old; others stayed because they fear not being allowed to return to their homes and being re-located to temporary encampments.” “How are you receiving the photos?” I asked. “People are sending them in over their phones. I just received one of a sixty-year old woman, her head blown off. Just now they say a large building near the marketplace, in the densest area of the camp, collapsed from continuous shelling. The situation is bad. Bad. Very bad,” she said, and returned to her computer. “Oh and the Lebanese press are denying there are still as many people in the camp,” she continued. “There are at least 5,000 who remain inside. They keep reporting that only the Fatah al Islam remain. It’s simply not true.”
The potential for this little operation to have serious blowback throughout Lebanon and beyond really can’t be understated. For example, the refugee residents of the camps are angry now at Hizbullah and at official Fatah for supporting the Lebanese Army in its blitz of overwhelming power against the “militants” at the cost of helpless refugee civilians. For example, there are 12 camps in Lebanon and this has already spread to two… etc.
An important story to continue to watch, as it appears to have the potential to metastasize rapidly if it is not defused soon.
Posted by: Bea | Jun 4 2007 13:45 utc | 49
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