BEYOND THE DROPZONE

Hezbollah TV’s Misreporting of Israeli Military Exercise

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 24 June 2008 at 3:26 pm UTC

After reading today’s headliner at Al Manar, Hezbollah’s television-news website, one has to wonder if Hezbollah’s reporters and editors are incompetent, manipulated, or both?

The story, “Israel to Strike Iran before New US President Sworn in,” is a Hezbollah spin-piece that basically reviews an interview with former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton by London’s Daily Telegraph.

The piece, which refers to Bolton as ”an unflinching hawk who proposes military action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons,” contends that any military operation by the Israelis aimed at taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities would probably take place before the next U.S. president enters the Oval Office.

According to Bolton:

“An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy. With McCain they might still be looking at a delay.”

Can’t say I disagree with the ambassador.

But where Hezbollah totally botches it is when they report: “Last week, Israeli jets carried out a long-range exercise over the Mediterranean that US intelligence officials concluded was practice for air strikes against Iran.”

The exercise in fact took place on June 2 – more than three weeks ago — and despite the fact that the 100-plane, 900-mile mission over the eastern Mediterranean including parts of Greece, was not reported for more than two weeks (we touched on that here), it has since been widely reported.

But Al Manar still can’t get it right.

That’s not to say that Hezbollah has poor intelligence. On the contrary, the Lebanese-based terrorist army (supported by Iran and Syria) has a far greater intelligence network than many in the West might realize. The shoddy reporting within their media on the other hand only plays to the fact that — unlike legitimate media — Hezbollah’s Al Manar has no institutionalized commitment to accuracy. Their focus is instead on disseminating Hezbollah’s propaganda whatever and whenever that might be.

Al Manar TV — along with its print-news cousin, Al Akhbar — is simply a Hezbollah soapbox made to appear is if it is legitimate media.

Al Manar reporters are kept in the dark about the issues critical to Hezbollah (military capabilities, exercises, numbers and types of weapons, meetings with key leaders, where any of those leaders might be hunkered down at any point in time, and other comings and goings). That’s not surprising considering that only a free press would have access to such, and Al Manar and Al Akhbar are actually media branches of Hezbollah’s broader propaganda wing.

Same with Hezbollah’s members of parliament: They are representatives of Hezbollah to be sure. But does anyone actually believe any of them have any clue where Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah spent last night, or the night before?

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

Fighting Near the Shores of Tripoli: Lebanon’s, Not Libya’s

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 23 June 2008 at 4:15 pm UTC

Over the weekend, we received word that fighting was taking place in-and-around the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, not far from where last year’s fighting took place between the Lebanese Army and the Al-Qaeda affiliate group Fatah Al Islam in the bloody battle of Nahr al-Bared.

The current fighting, which is now being widely reported throughout the Western media, is between pro-democracy Sunnis and pro-Syrian Alawites (allied to Hezbollah).

According to the AP:

“…It was not immediately possible to determine whether the Tripoli violence was an isolated event or residue from last month’s clashes …” 

Our sources are telling us, the fighting in Tripoli is most certainly connected to last month’s attacks by Hezbollah, the Doha agreement – which greatly increased the power and influence of Hezbollah (and Iran and Syria) in Lebanon – and the ongoing albeit under-reported attacks launched by Hezbollah and its allies across the country since mid-May.

Readers may also recall from our reporting at World Defense Review (here, here, and here) that resistance groups began forming across the country almost immediately following the Doha talks in Qatar. And as I reported at Human Events:

“On Sunday evening [May 18], sources informed us that members of the pro-democracy movement in Lebanon had, hours earlier, formed a ‘resistance group against terrorism.’ Monday we learned the resistance group — formed in Beirut — was composed of Christians, Druze, and Muslims (both Sunni and Shiia), all ‘committed to resisting Hizballah.’ There also are reports of a like-minded Sunni resistance group forming near Tripoli.” 

According to Ya Libnan, Lebanese parliamentarian Mohammed Kabbara, a Sunni, says, “”Hezbollah is seeking to shift its battle — after invading Beirut — to the Bekaa, and now Tripoli’s turn has come.”

Tom Harb, secretary general of the World Council of the Cedars Revolution, tells us, “This is clearly a strategy of Hezbollah and a continuation – by other means and in other regions of the country — of the terrorist attacks launched by Hezbollah against the Lebanese people last month.”

Sources very close to the Lebanese Army also are telling us, the attacks in Tripoli, the Bekaa Valley (last week), and elsewhere, are part of a much broader two-part strategy on the part of the Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah axis to both increase the pressure on the Lebanese Army and the Interior Security Forces (national police) — spreading legitimate Lebanese forces thin and keeping them off-balance – and to perhaps create or increase fissures within the Army leadership and the rank-and-file.

Updates will follow.

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

The MSM is increasingly falling short RE: military reporting

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 20 June 2008 at 10:53 pm UTC

But far too many of the world’s largest English-language publications have reporters in the field who completely screw the stories up (because they have no historical frame of reference, no grasp of military science or combat operations … thus no way to effectively put the latter into context). They report around the edges of the story, perhaps hype them (I know of some examples), distort them, or — at the other extreme — under-report them. Unfortunately, as has been determined by not too few counterterrorism experts, some of those reporters are bought and paid for by either the enemy or those with a political agenda. Many times, the reporters miss the story altogether when there was — or is — no reason for it to be missed.

Case in point, the reporting just today of a more-than-sizeable Israeli air-combat exercise that took place < ahem > nearly three weeks ago.

The fact that it it took the top English-language media this long to discover and report this is — as one of my colleagues told me today — “truly pathetic.”

And quite frankly, I see this all too often with the reporting coming out of Lebanon (where much of my focus is), even Iraq and Afghanistan where we have troops on the ground.

I remember last year when the “Anbar Awakening” in Iraq’s previously bloody Anbar Province was first being reported; and the success in Anbar was wrongly being attributed to “the Surge.” It’s still wrongly being attributed to the Surge, though the Surge certainly contributed in a huge way to the success of the “Awakening.”

Fact is, the “Anbar Awakening” began in 2005 following Operation Steel Curtain. But because the MSM either didn’t understand the dynamics of Iraq (or they were trying to keep the lid on the counterinsurgency successes in Anbar), the Awakening was reported to have begun in 2007.

And for anyone who might have picked up the paper this morning — or logged on to their favorite news site this afternoon — a cursory read might have led them to believe a hundred or so IAF fighters were roaring out over the Med last night.

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

HEZBOLLAH CELLS IN CANADA

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 20 June 2008 at 2:30 pm UTC

NowLebanon is reporting that U.S. and Canadian intelligence agencies, which have previously warned of “the possibility of attacks carried out by Hezbollah against ‘Jewish targets’ outside the Middle East” have reactivated dormant cells in Canada.

We know from open sources that Canadian-based Hezbollah-sympathizers have routinely – often anonymously — defended the Lebanon-based terror group on various websites and listserves (and such sympathizers have viciously condemned outspoken critics of Hezbollah). And though few Americans are aware of it, there are growing pockets of Hezbollah support within some of the Shiia communities here in the United States.

Problem is, far too many in the media tend to whitewash Hezbollah as nothing more than “an armed group and a political party in Lebanon.”

Those in the media whitewashing Hezbollah are perhaps attempting to soften the threat for undeclared (but nevertheless real) political reasons, and they are getting away with it despite that fact that national security and counterterrorism experts are increasingly saying Hezbollah is a dangerously expanding terrorist group that “makes Al Qaeda look like a minor league team,” as Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff recently said.

Today, according to NowLebanon: “Some of the party’s chief activists have moved from Lebanon to Canada, Europe and Africa.”

We also know they are in South America (see yesterday’s and last week’s entries on Hezbollah in Venezuela).

In other news:  Sources are telling us that Assaad Hardan – who is on the U.S. Treasury Department’s designated list of pro-Syrian, terrorist-supporting bad guys who are undermining the push toward Lebanon’s democracy – will become the next president of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party (SSNP) in Lebanon.

Hardan is a very bad guy, and the SSNP – whose heavily armed and black-masked operatives were photographed rifling through Future News’s offices during Hezbollah’s attacks against the country last month — is a very dangerous group allied to Hezbollah.

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

U.S Treasury Department Targets Hezbollah Supporters in Venezuela

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 19 June 2008 at 9:51 pm UTC

Exactly one week after we reported that young Venezuelan Arabs were being signed up for “summer camp” Hezbollah-style in south Lebanon (and Venezuelan Vice Minister of the Interior Tarek el-Aissami having been pegged as one of the top Venezuelan officials recruiting the Hezbollah hopefuls), the U.S. Treasury Department has designated Venezuelans Ghazi Nasr al Din and Fawzi Kan’an — as well as two travel agencies owned by Kan’an –  “supporters of Hezbollah.”

According to a statement issued yesterday by Treasury: 

“… ‘It is extremely troubling to see the Government of Venezuela employing and providing safe harbor to Hizballah facilitators and fundraisers. We will continue to expose the global nature of Hizballah’s terrorist support network, and we call on responsible governments worldwide to disrupt and dismantle this activity,’ said Adam J. Szubin, Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

“Today’s action was taken pursuant to Executive Order 13224, which targets terrorists, those owned or controlled by or acting for or on behalf of terrorists, and those providing financial, technological, or material support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. Assets the designees hold under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen and U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in transactions in property or interests in property blocked under the order. …”

Excellent: We need to keep the pressure on these terrorists, and any individual, company, organization, or state which supports terrorists.

Details follow at Treasury, the Cedars Revolution website, and Fausta’s Blog.

UPDATE: Treasury has today “designated” the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation for having provided financial and material support to Al Qaeda, “as well as a wide range of designated terrorists and terrorist organizations.”

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

Divest Terror Initiative in Pennsylvania

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 19 June 2008 at 2:41 pm UTC

Christopher Holton, director of the Divest Terror Initiative at the Center for Security Policy, has forwarded to us a time-sensitive appeal to Pennsylvania voters (in fact, it should be seen as an appeal to — and a wake-up call for — all Americans):

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

A bill in Pennsylvania to divest that state’s pensions from foreign companies doing business in Iran and Sudan, authored by Rep. Josh Shapiro will be going to a vote on Monday, 23 June.

Rep. Shapiro has asked for any and all help in making some “noise” in support of this initiative.

If you know anyone in Pennsylvania, or if you know any organizations who might be able to generate phone calls and emails to the state legislature in support of Rep. Shapiro’s divestment bill, please ask them to do so right away.

The state pension systems and lobbyists for foreign companies that do business in Iran and Sudan are going all-out to kill Rep. Shapiro’s bill.

Thank you.

Christopher Holton
Director, Divest Terror Initiative

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

The Long, Deceptive Arm of TERROR, INC.

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 18 June 2008 at 6:11 pm UTC

On Monday, New York-based World TV, which bills itself as “the leading source of international programming in North America,” announced “the launch of Lebanon’s OTV on its direct-to-home platform in the United States as an encrypted service.”

You’ll recall – from my previous pieces – OTV (Orange TV) is a publicly traded satellite television company that was founded last year by retired Lebanese Army Gen. Michel Aoun (who is a professed ally of the terrorist-group Hezbollah) and his Free Patriotic Movement. Both Aoun and the FPM continue to have a heavy hand in OTV’s news broadcasts. But for the obvious sake of “cleaning its face,” OTV claims that because it is publicly traded, it is now only “affiliated” with Aoun and the FPM, and even that affiliation is – as Aoun’s supporters say – “unofficial.”

But there is much more to this than Hezbollah or Aoun and his cronies would have us believe.

In January, I reported a story in which ABC News had run a segment, Deadly Attack in Lebanon, regarding the assassination of Capt. Wissam Eid, an intelligence officer with Lebanon’s Interior Security Forces (national police).

ABC was correct in its decision to run the segment. It was an important story. But my beef – and that of the leadership of Lebanon’s pro-democracy Cedars Revolution – was with the footage a major American television network had used without any disclaimer.

The footage, which may be viewed here, originated with OTV.

As I said then, “this may seem somewhat innocuous,” except for the fact that Aoun and his FPM are closely allied to Hezbollah, a “foreign terrorist organization” so-designated by the U.S. State Department.

Hezbollah is perhaps the most-dangerous Talibanesque terrorist-army on the planet. The organization is trained, armed and equipped, operationally supported, and heavily funded by Iran (at least $ one-billion, annually); and operationally supported by Syria. In fact, Hezbollah is so dangerous – and gaining in its global strength and influence – that Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff recently warned, the organization “makes Al Qaeda look like a minor league team.”

Hezbollah also has a growing and incredibly influential telecommunications and media arm, which operates both openly and in the shadows. The organization’s media arm is overt in that it owns and operates newspapers, websites (including a stable-full of bloggers and blogging-sympathizers and apologists), and radio and television stations. And it is covert in its effective ability to penetrate Western media and generally threaten, win-over, or pay-off – with Iranian petrodollars — seemingly objective journalists and news desks. Hezbollah also is able to further its deception and propaganda through its allied news organizations, which most news-consumers in the West are completely unaware of.
 
Last October, Counterterrorism Blog reported:

“The joint venture between Hezbollah and the ‘Free Patriotic Movement’ of former General Michel Aoun is growing stronger by the day. Since Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization by the U.S. Government, and its Al Manar television network are banned from transmitting to the U.S., they are now relying on the media outlet of former General Michel Aoun, Orange TV, to spread Iranian-inspired Jihadist propaganda and ideology.” 

Of course, Hezbollah’s and Aoun’s supporters will argue that because OTV is publicly traded, it is off-the-hook. Yet OTV continues to serve as a mouthpiece for Aoun, and has aired lengthy conversations with Aoun and Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah.

Supporters of OTV also argue that Al Jazeera, with its often pro-Jihadist slant is slowly being accepted into the mainstream (which also amazes me), as should OTV.

But the public does have some understanding of the reality that much – if not all — of what Al Jazeera airs and publishes must be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. The public knows Al Jazeera really cannot be taken as a source of objective news: and the experts consider it to be more of an open-source of intelligence.

Americans see the Al Jazeera tapes of Osama bin Laden broadcast on all of the mainstream television networks. But that’s because Al Jazeera is the broadcasting company the terrorists use. That’s the originator of the tapes as far as the general public is concerned.

As I wrote in January for Family Security Matters, “Al Jazeera’s agenda has been widely publicized – the name itself is a walking disclaimer of sorts – so we all take what that company broadcasts with a proverbial grain of salt. It is, after all, Al Jazeera, and we understand exactly for what purposes their footage is broadcast.”
 
I also reported that few Americans have ever heard of “Orange TV or al Manar, for that matter: the latter being Hezbollah’s television station. Al Manar was at one time being broadcast via satellite over much of Europe, Africa, and the Far East until the U.S. government and others shut down much of that company’s overseas broadcasting operations. And when it was discovered that some American companies were continuing to advertise on al Manar in Lebanon, they too were pressed to pull out … and did.”
 
Nevertheless, World TV has announced the launch of OTV in America.

A quick call to World TV’s press office revealed what I already suspected, the very charming press officer on the other end of the line was completely unaware of the connection. “We have nothing to do with Hezbollah,” she said. And I certainly believe she was telling me the truth as she understood it to be. I don’t blame her, nor can I lay all of this at the feet of her company. The blame can only be found in the depth of Hezbollah’s media deception.

Therein lies the problem. Almost no one understands how deep that deception runs, except perhaps Nasrallah, Aoun, the Iranians, the Syrians, and the good guys on our side who are feverishly working to connect the dots in this asymmetrically complex war on terror.

— W. Thomas Smith Jr.

---

“FULL-FLEDGED ACTS OF TERROR”

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 17 June 2008 at 4:49 pm UTC

Hezbollah and Amal gunmen attacked Lebanese Army positions and two-to-four residential areas in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, last night. At least three people have reportedly been killed and several others wounded as of this writing.

All three victims were civilians – including a female school-teacher – killed by Hezbollah’s attack on Bekaa villages “in an attempt to cover up their fight with the army,” according to Lebanon’s Future News.

According to our sources, the gunmen attacked with automatic rifles, machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortars; and the attacks began several hours after Hezbollah purportedly shot-to-death a member of the pro-democracy Cedars Revolution in the western Bekaa.

Details are still sketchy as to the individual shooting (details will be forthcoming), but it is believed – according to our sources – that he was the bodyguard of a top Lebanese official, and some say his death is being misreported in some Arab media as an accident (not surprising considering Hezbollah’s incredibly deceptive media influence in what would otherwise be considered objective media).

We are also learning that since last month’s fighting which was begun by Hezbollah against the Lebanese people in west Beirut, the north near Tripoli, the Bekaa Valley, and the Chouf mountains; Hezbollah has launched several probing operations – and conducted at least one military show-of-force demonstration – against Druze villages in the Chouf-mountain region.

During the demonstration a few days ago, armed Druze confronted Hezbollah, and the latter simply withdrew.

Ya Libnan even reports today: “Hezbollah gunmen have not given up and continue to launch attacks in Toumat Niha area of the Chouf mountains.”

Of course, the Chouf operations are receiving very little attention in the Lebanese media and zero coverage in the Western press.

Which brings to mind my own reports of a Hezbollah testing-probe (since determined to have been one of a series of probes) and a “show of force” that took place on a date in September that was never reported either by myself or any media (except for a blogger or two who literally created a date to deny any show of force ever took place).

Responding to that – and a piece of analysis published by Stratfor – international terrorism expert Dr. Walid Phares wrote: “Isn’t interesting to see how back in the fall of 2007 Western-based media, friendly to Hezbollah, attacked an American journalist reporting from Beirut, [yours truly], for daring to mention that Hezbollah has ever deployed forces in Beirut, while according to this report, the organization is sending in -not only regular militiamen, but special forces.”

Fact is, what Hezbollah is doing in Lebanon and throughout the world, today, is every bit what Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani said today (after meeting with Pres. Michel Sleiman): “full-fledged acts of terror.”
 
And so far they are getting away with it.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s staunch ally, Gen. Michel Aoun, reportedly bristled over a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and leaders of the pro-democracy March 14 movement, whom Aoun referred to as “students gathered in a class room.”

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

RUNNING INTO A FIGHTER PILOT

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 15 June 2008 at 1:27 pm UTC

Yesterday, I ran into an old acquaintance, retired Air Force Col. Jack Van Loan (pictured above), who I had not seen in years.

Jack and his lovely wife, Linda, were having coffee at the Gourmet Shop in Five Points, a trendy little shopping, restaurant, and college-hangout district here in my hometown of Columbia, S.C.

We chatted for a few minutes. I introduced Jack and Linda to my mom and Mom’s little “step” great-granddaughter. We talked briefly about my ongoing work, Jack’s service more than 40-years-ago as a fighter pilot flying F-4 Phantoms over North Vietnam, etc. Then we wished one another a Happy Father’s Day (it was Father’s Day eve) and went on our ways.

As I mentioned Jack was a fighter pilot who flew combat missions during the Vietnam War. What I didn’t mention was that Jack also was a POW, having been shot down in the spring of 1967 (I was eight-years-old at the time) and spending the next six years of his life in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton.”

Yes, he met John McCain there: The future Arizona Senator and presidential candidate was tossed into the same hell hole that Jack was living in several months after Jack was shot-down and captured.

I thought about yesterday’s chance coffee-shop meeting this morning, which prompted me to do a quick Google search of Jack, and the first piece I came across was this fantastic blog entry posted in January by another guy I know, Brad Warthen.

Brad is a vice president and the editorial page editor of The State, the largest newspaper — and the paper of record — here in South Carolina.

Brad writes:

 “…In October of Jack’s first year in Hanoi, a new prisoner came in, a naval aviator named John McCain. He was in really bad shape. He had ejected over Hanoi, and had landed in a lake right in the middle of the city. He suffered two broken arms and a broken leg ejecting. He nearly drowned in the lake before a mob pulled him out, and then set upon him. They spat on him, kicked him and stripped his clothes off. Then they crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt, and bayoneted him in his left foot and his groin.

“That gave the enemy something to ‘bear down on.’ Lt. Cmdr. McCain would be strung up tight by his unhealed arms, hog-tied and left that way for the night.

“‘John was no different than anyone else, except that he was so badly hurt,’ said Jack. ‘He was really badly, badly hurt.’

“Jack and I got to talking about all this when he called me Wednesday morning, outraged over a story that had appeared in that morning’s paper, headlined ‘McCain’s war record attacked.’ A flier put out by an anti-McCain group was claiming the candidate had given up military information in return for medical treatment as a POW in Vietnam. 
…

“Jack, a retired colonel whom I’ve had the privilege of knowing for more than a decade, believes his old comrade would make the best president ‘because of all the stressful situations that he’s been under, and the way he’s responded.’ But he had called me about something more important than that. It was a matter of honor.

“Jack was incredulous: ‘To say that John would ask for medical treatment in return for military information is just preposterous. He turned down an opportunity to go home early, and that was right in front of all of us.’

“‘I mean, he was yelling it. I couldn’t repeat the language he used, and I wouldn’t repeat the language he used, but boy, it was really something. I turned to my cellmate … who heard it all also loud and clear; I said, ‘My God, they’re gonna kill him for that.’ … ”

But there’s so much more. Read Brad’s entire piece here.

On an aside, I’ve had the privilege of interviewing Sen. McCain over the radio and for publication. I once contributed to a U.S. News & World Report cover story about him. And I wrote a piece in April of this year about the senator’s Vietnam experience here.

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

GOODYEAR DOING BUSINESS IN IRAN

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 12 June 2008 at 3:35 pm UTC

It’s one thing to be doing business with a state sponsor of terrorism like Iran: selling tires (dual-purpose products which have a crystal-clear military application) to a country which is technically off-limits to trade, which also is the preeminent state sponsor of terrorism (fields the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah, and funds Hamas and the Taliban), which has a deplorable human rights record, which has an active nuclear-development program, which has an active ballistic-missile development program, which consistently defies international law, and which frequently threatens to wipe countries off the face of the earth.

It’s quite something else to both do business with such a country and then arrogantly boast about it through one of your distributors.

Take a look at Goodyear distributor Nikran Tire Company’s webpage:

Nikran Tire Company is the sole importer and distributor of Goodyear Tires in Iran. With our wide range of quality products, we guarantee to provide you with the best tires in the world.

Our Mission
We are determined in providing our costumers with quality products at competitive prices. Our goal is to become the leading provider of foreign tires in Iran.

Our History
Since 1989 we have supplied Goodyear tires to different sectors of the Iranian tire market, be it off the road, Passenger, Truck, Bus or Farm.

We have been key tire suppliers to companies such as but not limited to: Iran Khodro, Zagros Khodro and Raniran. Our non-passenger costumers include the Chador-Maloo Mining Corporation, Tehran Cement Company and the Central Iron Ore Co.

This is almost beyond belief.

How does Goodyear get away with it? The same way GE does (which we’ve written about here and here): These companies have the money and a stable full of attorneys who are able to worm them into those countries — despite sanctions — with “all sorts of legally protected things that non-lawyer types would have a near-impossible time of getting their heads around like various trade loopholes, “exceptions” for who-knows-what, and “cutouts” (foreign-based subsidiaries).”

As Christopher Holton, a vice president with the Center for Security Policy and who directs the CSP’s Divest Terror Initiative, tells me, what these companies are doing “may not be violating the letter of the law, but it’s certainly violating the spirit of the law.”

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT REPORTEDLY RECRUITING FOR HEZBOLLAH

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 11 June 2008 at 9:56 pm UTC

In a piece for the Caracas, Venezuelan daily El Nuevo País (and subsequently published today on Venezuela’s Noticias24 TV website), journalist Patricia Poleo reports:

“Young Venezuelans are being recruited for training in Lebanon. … The purpose of the training is for preparing the youths for asymmetrical war against the United States.”

[translation by Fausta Wertz, who also is reporting this on her blog]

According to Poleo’s story, Venezuela’s Vice Minister of the Interior, Tarek el-Aissami (reportedly of Syrian descent), and other Venezuelan officials – alleged to be affiliated with both Hezbollah (based in Lebanon) and Syria (which, along with Iran, provides support to Hezbollah) – are recruiting young Venezuelan Arabs and shipping them to Hezbollah terrorist-training camps in south Lebanon.

From Wertz’s unedited translation (bracketed additions are Wertz’s):

“… Once back in Venezuela, the youths are welcomed by two members of the Islamic Center of Venezuela, who were previously involved in illegally bringing Hezbollah Lebanese through the area of Margarita with fake passports. During February 2002, one of these men brought a group of Hezbollah members who came from Brazil, from Margarita, and then sheltered at the Islamic Center in El Paraiso.“Once the Venezuelas return from their training in Lebanon they meet with radical youths from the PSUV affiliated with UNEFA [the university run by the Armed Forces] and the Unversidad Bolivariana de Venezuela [Venezuelan Bolivarian University].

“These groups and individuals are closely affiliated with the Hezbollah Organization in Venezuela, along with al-Qaeda Iraqis currently living in Venezuela. They are also related to the Palestinian Democratic Front, headed by Salid Ahmed Rahman, whose ‘official’ office is located in Caracas’s Central Park.“In the training camps now in Venezuela, they receive training in firearms, explosives and munitions provided by vice-Minister of the Interior Tarek el Ayssami.

“The Venezuelan training camps are located in: Monagas state, Maturin district. Miranda state, Los Teques, at a location called El Jari. Trujillo state, El Paramo. Falcon state, Churuguara, Sierra de San Luis. Yaracuy state, Yumare.

“From the start of President Chavez’s government, terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaeda have used Venezuela as their bridge to other Latin American countries since Venezuela is an allied government. …” 

 Read Fausta Wertz’s entire translation here.

Thanks to Christopher Holton, national director of the Center for Security Policy’s Divest Terror Initiative, who made us aware of Poleo’s report.

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

Confronting Jihad

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 11 June 2008 at 1:45 pm UTC

Dr. Walid Phares — one of the world’s preeminent experts on Jihadi-Islamist terrorism (which is why I frequently seek his expertise for my own analysis, as does Congress, as does the State Department, etc.) — recently addressed an audience at George Washington University.

According to Phares:

“…One of the [9/11] Commissioners said [regarding America’s being surprised on 9/11 and being underinformed as to the extent of the Jihadist war against the U.S.], ‘it was a failure of imagination.’ … I said I disagree … America is not a country that fails in imagination: We put people on the moon, invent the Internet — I don’t know if it was Vice President Gore or not [smiling] — but we invented the Internet as a nation. … It is really a failure in education. The public has not been informed, educated … specifically Middle Eastern studies, particularly the rise of the Jihadist movements. …”

You can view the address in its entirety here.

Also, NOW Lebanon is reporting, ‘Lebanese lobbyists call on UN for investigation into May’s invasion of Beirut.’

According to the report:

“A delegation of Lebanese lobbyists in New York called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send an international commission to Lebanon to oversee the withdrawal of Hezbollah and Amal gunmen and “their followers, who are agents of the Syrian regime,” from the streets in Beirut.

“‘The lobby has called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to open an investigation into the invasion of Beirut and the Mountain on May 7 by Hezbollah and Amal gangs and their allies,’ Tom Harb, chairman of the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, told the Kuwaiti daily As-Seyassah. …”

More here.

---

HEZBOLLAH ATTACKS LEBANESE VILLAGERS

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 10 June 2008 at 2:23 am UTC

Though receiving only sparse coverage in much of the Western media today, Hezbollah — Iran’s proxy Talibanesque army in Lebanon — launched a series of armed attacks against civilian villagers (including elderly people, women, and children) in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley last night and this morning.

Reports are sketchy as to what exactly spawned the latest attacks, though it doesn’t take much to kick-start Hezbollah’s gunmen. What is known is that Hezbollah (which, in defiance of UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701, justifies its existence and weaponry as “necessary” to resist foreign aggression) has increasingly turned its weapons on the Lebanese citizenry.

Last month’s attacks, which began May 7, were launched after the legitimate Lebanese government attempted to remove the Beirut airport security chief after it was discovered he was directly connected to Hezbollah, as well as the government’s discovery of an extensive Hezbollah telecommunications system which the government tried to shut down.

In the end — after Hezbollah’s week-long reign of terror against innocent civilians and pro-democracy supporters (who attempted a brave but somewhat futile defense of their homes and places of business) — the government caved. The army had barely fired a shot. The Hezbollah-connected airport security chief got to keep his job, and his terrorist overlords got to keep their vast telecom system. To pour salt in the proverbial wound, Hezbollah was granted veto power in all government decisions and additional cabinet seats.

Then on May 26, the day after pro-Syrian Gen. Michel Sleiman was sworn in as Lebanon’s president — a deal that was cut in the same regional crisis talks that awarded Hezbollah (and of course, Iran and Syria) its new veto powers — fighting again broke out.

Yes, it was a matter of Hezbollah again attacking members of the pro-democracy movement in that country. And, yes, the scope of that reporting was — as it has been today — negligible.

Now we come to last night: Hezbollah fighters again attacked villagers, and they did so with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, and light and heavy machineguns.

Even worse — according to our sources –  it took the Lebanese Army at least eight hours to respond. And when the Army did finally roll in, it did not confront Hezbollah directly (with “direct action”).

And don’t get me started on the useless, toothless UN force in Lebanon.

Where is the West in this?!

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with Tom Harb, secretary general of the World Council for the Cedars Revolution, who tells me:

“The general public and members of the pro-democracy majority in Lebanon are calling on the UN for immediate assistance. Additionally, Hezbollah has still not withdrawn from many of the areas of west Beirut they invaded last month.”

More to come.

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

Sixty-four-years-ago Today

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 6 June 2008 at 12:41 pm UTC

Sixty-four years ago, today, Allied forces kicked down the front door of Fortress Europe in perhaps what will forever be the most celebrated, memorialized amphibious (and airborne) invasion in all of history.

I’ve written quite a bit about it over the years. Here’s what I wrote at NRO in 2004 on the 60^th anniversary of the landings:

RIVALRY AT NORMANDY
U.S. Marines barred from the June 6, 1944 landings.
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.

Sixty-years-ago, along a 60-mile stretch of France’s Normandy coastline, a combined force of American, British, and Canadian soldiers began streaming ashore as German artillery, mortar, machine-gun, and rifle fire ripped into their ranks. The mission of the Allied force was to kick down the door of Nazi Germany’s Fortress Europe, and then launch a drive toward the heart of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.

Overseen by American Gen. Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower, the operation was—and remains to this day—the largest amphibious assault in history.

Since then, the question has often been raised as to why the U.S. Marine Corps did not play a leading role in the landings. After all, the Corps’s raison d’être was amphibious warfare. Marines had been perfecting the art of the amphibious assault since the 1920’s, and between 1942 and 1944, they had put their skills to practical use at places like Guadalcanal, Makin, Bougainville, and Tarawa, in the Pacific.

In the Atlantic, Marines had trained Army forces for seaborne landings prior to the North African campaign in 1942, and then made landings during the same. Marines trained Army forces for the Sicilian-Italian landings in 1943. Marine Corps amphibious experts were on Ike’s staff. And most Normandy-bound Army units were in fact instructed by Marines prior to the 1944 invasion.

So why didn’t U.S. Marines storm the French coast with their Army counterparts?

First, the Marine Corps was then—as it has always been—much smaller than the Army. During World War II, the Corps swelled to a force comprising six divisions, whereas the Army expanded to 89 divisions. The Corps’ resources were stretched thin, and much of its efforts were focused on the fighting in the Pacific.

Second, a deep-seeded rivalry between the Army and Marines was in full bloom: Its origins stretching back to World War I; the defining period of the modern Marine Corps.

Following the 1918 Battle of Belleau Wood (France), in which Marines played a leading role, newspapers in the U.S. credited much of the success of the American Expeditionary Force to the Marines. This occurred at the expense of deserving Army units even when referring to actions in which Marines did not participate.

In one instance, a number of newspapers covering the fighting at the Marne River bridges at Chateau-Thierry (a few days prior to the Battle of Belleau Wood) published headlines that read “Germans stopped at Chateau-Thierry with help of God and a few Marines.” The headlines contributed to the Corps’ already legendary reputation, and the Army was justifiably incensed. The Germans in fact had been stopped at Chateau-Thierry by the U.S. Army’s 7th machinegun battalion.

Army leaders—including Generals George C. Marshall, Eisenhower, and Omar N. Bradley—were determined not to be upstaged by Marines, again. Thus, when America entered World War II in late 1941, the Marine Corps was deliberately excluded from large-scale participation in the European theater. And when the largest amphibious operation in history was launched, it was for all intents and purposes an Army show.

In the wee hours of June 6, 1944, paratroopers from the American 82nd, 101st, and British 6th Airborne divisions began jumping over France. Hours later, the first assault waves of the initial 175,000-man seaborne force began hitting the Normandy beaches at the Bay of Seine. Five beaches comprised the landing areas: Sword, Juno, and Gold Beaches were struck by Lt. Gen. Miles Christopher Dempsey’s Second British Army. Omaha and Utah Beaches were stormed by Gen. Bradley’s First U.S. Army.

Between Omaha and Utah, 225 men of the U.S. 2nd Ranger Battalion were tasked with scaling the 100-foot cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. There, five 155-millimeter guns were emplaced in reinforced concrete bunkers. As such the position encompassed “the most dangerous battery in France.” It had to be knocked out to protect the landings.

When the Rangers began suffering heavy losses, brief consideration was given to sending-in the Marines from one of the offshore ships’ detachments.

Those slated to go were leathernecks from the 84-man Marine Detachment aboard the battleship U.S.S. Texas. On the morning of June 7 (D-plus-one), the Texas’s Marines began making last minute preparations: Wiping down weapons, distributing grenades, waterproofing field packs, and sharpening K-Bar fighting knives. Others were on the mess decks eating the traditional pre-landing breakfast of steak and eggs: A fact that concerned the Navy’s medical corpsmen who feared they would be treating stomach wounds later in the day. Those anxious to go ashore, watched the ongoing action from the ship’s railings.

In his book, Spearheading D-Day, Jonathan Gawne writes, “Most of these Marines had no combat experience and had only been in the Corps for a few months [the same could have been said of many of the soldiers who had just landed]. One of them [the Marines] commented: ‘This is going to be the biggest slaughter since Custer got his at the Little Big Horn.’”

At the last minute, word was passed down through the Army chain of command that no Marines would be allowed to go ashore, not even riding shotgun on landing craft ferrying Army troops or supplies. Rumors quickly spread that the Army leadership feared a repeat of the media gaffes in 1918. They did not want to see headlines that read, Marines save Rangers at Normandy. Consequently, the Marines were ordered to “stand down.”

Though little-known outside of special-operations circles, Marines did however play a few combat roles in the invasion.

Prior-to, during, and after the landings, Marines assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency—planned and led sabotage and resistance operations with the French underground against the occupying Germans. On D-Day, Marines helped pave the way for British and American pathfinders and paratroopers who dropped behind enemy lines. Additionally, a handful of Marine Corps observers were attached to Army landing forces.

Offshore, Marines were positioned high in the superstructures of American warships in the English Channel. From their lofty perches, the riflemen fired at and detonated floating mines as the ships moved in close to “bombardment stations” along the French coastline. It was reminiscent of the Old Corps during the age of sail when sharp-shooting Marines climbed the masts and riggings and battled enemy crews from the “fighting tops.”

Normandy was indeed big, but the war itself was far bigger. There was enough action in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters for everyone, and everyone got to play. But that failed to stanch the growing interservice rivalry between the Army and Marines.

The day before the invasion of Normandy, a restless Army Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. addressed his troops (the shorter, less-profane version of that address was made famous by actor George C. Scott, who ironically was a former U.S. Marine).

Publicly, Patton was full of fire and an unsated desire to kill the enemy. Privately, he was disappointed. Neither he nor his 1st U.S. Army Group—a skeleton host formed to deceive the Germans into believing that the Americans would land at Pas de Calais—were going to participate in the landings. But unbeknownst to the general, the coming weeks would see Eisenhower bring Patton off the sidelines, give him command of the U.S. Third Army, and then hurl that force against the reconstituted German defenses beyond the Normandy beachhead. In that capacity, Patton was destined to make headlines of his own.

Outlining his colorful albeit controversial vision of the future, Patton said, “The quicker we clean up this g**damned mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest, too. Before the g**damned Marines get all of the credit.”

[Published in NRO, June 6, 2004 — photo of “Ike” talking to U.S. paratroopers hours before the airborne landings]

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

---

GENERATIONS

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 4 June 2008 at 12:20 am UTC

[An unexpected, almost Kiplingesque line in today’s New York Times — unexpected because the line was published by the Times — reminded me of why I was compelled to write a certain piece three years ago.  The Times’ line today was: “Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan are fleeing to the Pakistani border after being routed in recent operations by the United States Marines.”  My story three-years-ago touched on a single moment in time, an unbreakable connection to something I held so dear then, even more so today.]

GENERATIONS
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.

Their faces were an odd mix of happiness, sadness, and envy. Happy for me, but sad and envious all the same.

They were losing a squad leader who had taken care of them as an older brother watches over his kid siblings. But these really were not kids. They and I were U.S. Marine infantrymen – “grunts,” as we often were called by our non-infantry counterparts in those days (”grunt” being an affectionate term for a Marine infantryman aka rifleman – a holdover term from the Vietnam War – and generally applied to anyone who gets paid to slog through the mud with a rifle).

With only hours remaining in my four-year hitch as a grunt, I was packed and saying last “goodbyes” in the squad bay where we lived. Soon I would shoulder my seabag and cross one of many Camp Pendleton, California parade-decks toward a waiting taxi that would take me to the airport. There, I would board a plane for home and my new life as a civilian.

But not yet.

I was savoring my final moments as a rifle-squad leader in — what I believed was — one of the best platoons, of the best company, of the finest battalion in — what everyone knew was — the most decorated regiment in the entire Marine Corps.

The members of my squad, on the other hand, were doing what Marines always do: Packing gear, cleaning weapons, and bitching among themselves before shipping out once again. This time they would be “helo-ed out” to the USS Belleau Wood, which was waiting somewhere off the California coast.

On this morning of my life, I was a corporal of Marines. My charges – the so-called kids – were only lance corporals, privates-first-class, and privates; many of them so new their camouflaged utility uniforms had yet to take on that well-worn, faded, sun and seawater bleached “salty” look mine had.

I was thrilled to be going home – I had done my time – but I somehow felt guilty about leaving these young Marines to another corporal or sergeant… or worse, some boot lieutenant fresh out of Quantico.

“I wish I was you today, Corporal Smith,” one of the tall, smiling, deep-voiced, more-senior lance corporals said as he tightened the chin strap of his helmet, slipped his rifle-sling over his left shoulder and simultaneously shifted the heavy pack on his back. “But I’ll be there in another 22 months, five days and a wake-up.”

I approached him, reached around, and helped re-adjust his pack.

“I know, man, time’ll pass before you know it,” I said.

I had led these young Marines, trained them, ate with, drank, slept, laughed, joked, played ball, ran, pumped iron, shared stories about girls, sweated in the heat, shivered in the cold, paddled in the California surf until our backs ached, humped over mountains and through jungle, faced all sorts of physical dangers (though we didn’t realize it at the time), gone a-whoring with, and sailed with to the far ends of the earth.

They would forever be my little brothers.But in the subsequent months and years when I would begin that gradual devolution back into what we called “a slimy civilian,” they themselves would grow up and become corporals. They would become big brothers to others who themselves would become corporals.

Those corporals would then lead other Marines who would become corporals, 
who would lead others who would become corporals,
who would lead others who would become corporals,
who would lead others who would become corporals,
who would lead others who would become corporals,

who today are leading young Marines – who weren’t even born when I was a corporal – down dangerous streets and alleyways in places with names like Fallujah, Ramadi, and the Triangle of Death.

And I think about that every night before I close my eyes.

[Published in World Defense Review, July 25, 2005 — photo of W. Thomas Smith Jr., 1983]

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com. 

---

New Iranian-Syrian Pact is both Dangerous and an Insult

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 29 May 2008 at 11:46 am UTC

 

Iran and Syria continue to slap the West in the face: And they are doing so in the face of the recent unchallenged terrorist attacks by – and subsequent over-the-top concessions granted to – Lebanon-based Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy army supported by Syria.
 
Fact is, Iran and Syria have achieved a near inextricable foothold in Lebanon (read our previous commentary) over the past few weeks.
 
Now, the two nations have reinforced — and even expanded — their reciprocal pledge of strategic military support to one another.
 
According to Naharnet:

“Iran and its close ally Syria have signed a new defence cooperation pact, Iranian media reported on Wednesday, just a week after news broke that Israel had begun indirect peace talks with Damascus.
 
“’The two countries pledge their mutual support regarding territorial independence and integrity in terms of international and regional authorities,’ the state-run IRNA news agency reported.”

This pact comes on the heels of not only the failure of the Lebanese government and the army (as well as the Western nations allied to Lebanon) to thwart this month’s terrorist attacks and political gains achieved by Hezbollah; but it comes during a series of so-called peace talks between Israel and Syria, in which Syria is now negotiating from a position of new-found strategic strength (Hezbollah’s recent success against the Lebanese state and Israel’s bloody nose from the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war, brings Syria to the table blustering and thumping its chest.).
 
Israel has been demanding that Syria break “its three-decade alliance with Iran and end support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups as a condition for progress in the talks.”
 
And the U.S. was hoping in a pipe dream that an ongoing peace-process developing between Israel and Syria might isolate Iran.
 
Fat chance for either.
 
Fact is, these two state sponsors of Jihadist terrorism and their terrorist proxies, continue playing solid hands, continue threatening to wipe nations off the globe, continue deliberately targeting and murdering civilians, continue to build their armies, continue their quests to become nuclear powers, continue to feint and deceive, continue to infiltrate Western media, continue to extend their global reach, and continue to buy time.  
 
Meanwhile, our response is to continue to support impotent UN forces in the region, station a U.S. Navy strike group in the region (but only permit that force to observe), and one of the American presidential candidates proposing change wants to talk with the bad guys.
 
I don’t pretend to have the answers: I’m a reporter and an analyst, not a planner. But I do know a little something about confronting and combatting terrorists – conventionally, unconventionally, assymetrically – and building alliances with friends and potential friends who can depend on us to always do exactly what we say we are going to.

I also know, if we – meaning the U.S. and the West – continue on this same trek of effortless “hope”: doing nothing more than observing, issuing hollowless declarations of support, and hoping we might hold peace talks with thugs like Ahmadinejad, Assad, Nasrallah, or anyone else calling for our “deaths,” we will continue to be slapped in the face. And it’s only going to get worse … much, much worse.
 
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com. 

---

U.S. MARINES AND TRUTH

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 28 May 2008 at 5:51 pm UTC

[Maj. Fred Galvin]

An article published yesterday in the New York Times, focuses on a crack group of leathernecks with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, who have been taking the fight hard to the Taliban in Afghanistan since landing in that country earlier this year. The Marines’ performance has been exemplary – in very tough environs I might add – as would be expected of America’s few good men.The Times cannot deny this fact. But the Old Gray Lady also and obviously cannot pass up an opportunity to get in its personal dig against U.S. Marines – or any other soldiers, sailors, or airmen who might give it the opportunity – even when the dig is based on an obvious untruth (at the very least, a public deception).

Here’s what the Times says regarding the 24th MEU:

“It was their first major combat operation since landing in March, and it stood in stark contrast to the events of a year earlier, when a Marine unit was removed in disgrace within weeks of arriving because its members shot and killed 19 civilians after a suicide bombing attack.”

What the Times fails to explain in this piece (but to its credit, did mention in a Saturday piece), is that the Marines in 2007 – WHO WERE NOT REMOVED IN DISGRACE by the way – have since been exonerated. And there never was any proof — forensic or otherwise — that 19 civilians were killed.

This is the kind of thing that shames me as a journalist (Far too many in our profession are too quick to publicly condemn – thus convict in the court of public opinion – and then fail to adequately retract the inaccuracies which have the potential of ruining peoples’ lives.) and boils my blood as a former Marine.

In a statement released Friday, Lt. Gen. Samuel T. Helland, commanding general of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Central Command, determined that the officers – including Maj. Fred C. Galvin, commander of Fox Company, Second Marine Special Operations Battalion; and Capt. Vincent J. Noble, special ops platoon commander — and the troops in the Marine convoy “acted appropriately and in accordance with the rules of engagement and tactics, techniques and procedures in place at the time in response to a complex attack.”

Galvin’s Marines were ordered out of Afghanistan – far too hastily in my professional opinion – pending an investigation that dragged on far too long, and in which too much political correctness and perhaps (based on my own personal musing) a bit of inter-service rivalry were infused: Not to mention the fact that the word of the locals, and a human rights group that was not there at the time, was considered more believable than that of the Marines. The locals, whose stories often conflicted with one anothers,’ never could come up with a firm casualty count (though U.S. Army officers reportedly made cash payments to Afghans who said they were survivors or members of survivors’ families).

Fact is, there is no proof – much less evidence – that any civilians were killed: No bodies or forensic evidence, except for that of the suicide bomber, were recovered.

“No civilians were killed,” says Galvin’s mother, Toni Galvin, who along with her family and an entire network of Marine Moms, have been fighting to get their sons vindicated in the public eye. “Army Lt. Gen. Frank Kearney took the word of the area locals. Yet many of our guys withstood nearly a year of interrogation by the NCIS [Naval Criminal Investigative Service] trying to get them to break.”

But truth can’t be broken.

Maj. Galvin, Capt. Noble, and the other brave Marines who have had to endure this shabby treatment after serving our country honorably in one of the world’s most dangerous places, are the true victims: These young men deserve medals and promotions. Why aren’t those Americans who say they support the troops demanding that? Instead, most Americans reading the Times on Saturday would have simply picked up the paper, read about a Marine unit being “removed in disgrace,” shaken their heads (wrongly assuming the report to be true), had another sip of coffee, and gone on with their lives. Meanwhile, Galvin, Noble, the other Marines wrongly accused of “overreacting” in a firefight, were hung out to dry.

Yes, the Marines were exonerated – as they should have been – which means they will not be sent to prison. But what about their careers? Their reputations? The one-plus year of hell they’ve had to endure? And what about the third-largest newspaper in the nation still reporting that they were “removed in disgrace?”

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

 

 

---

Gunbattles Erupt Today in Lebanon … and Updates

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 26 May 2008 at 11:21 pm UTC

Brief gun-battles erupted between Hezbollah (with its Amal allies) and the pro-democracy majority in Beirut today. Clashes also have been reported between the same in the Bekaa Valley: Reports are thus far sketchy. Between nine and 18 people are said to have been wounded. And one of our sources has reported at least one rocket-propelled grenade attack.In addition to our sources, NOWLebanon is reporting:

“Amal and Hezbollah gunmen opened fire and hurled rocks in the direction of Tarik al-Jedideh and Corniche al-Mazraa earlier today, coinciding with Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech. RPGs were also fired at the Abed an-Nasser mosque. The Lebanese army has been deployed and has cut off the roads between Corniche al-Mazraa, Barbour and Tarik al-Jedideh. The wounded have been transferred to nearby hospitals.”

Narharnet also reports:

“Clashes between the Hizbullah-led opposition and majority supporters in the Beqaa Valley village of Taalabaya.”

The firefights come the day after the election and inauguration of Pres. Michel Sleiman, the pro-Syrian, Hezbollah-friendly former commander-in-chief of the Lebanese armed forces (I discussed him here); and hours after Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, delivered a fiery speech in which – according to the AP – he, “warned against any efforts to disarm his Iranian-backed guerrilla group.”

Updates will follow.IN RELATED NEWS:The Baltimore Sun is reporting:

“[Hezbollah’s] rising influence around the world has led some intelligence and counterterrorism officials to ask whether the Iranian-financed organization has grown more dangerous to the United States than al-Qaida.”

We’ve been reporting this FOR MONTHS.Moreover, Haaretz is reporting:  

“The head of the Military Intelligence research division Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz on Monday said that Syria was continuing to transfer significant amounts of weapons to the Lebanon-based guerilla group Hezbollah.” 

We’ve been saying this FOR MONTHS, TOO … along with our accurate reporting on Hezbollah’s strength and activities over the past eight months, including: Unreported and underreported military exercises and operations, predictions that Hezbollah would indeed turn its weapons on the Lebanese people (and when), the extent to which the terrorist group had established an internal telecommunications system, and the extent to which the terrorist group has infiltrated Lebanese and international media (to include buying off seemingly objective media outlets and reporters).There is so much more to this story, and so much that continues not to be reported.— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.   

---

Speaker of Lebanese Parliament Blasts U.S.

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 25 May 2008 at 6:30 pm UTC

Several days ago, I wrote a piece for Human Events entitled, Lights Out Temporarily in Lebanon, in which I discussed the strengthening of Hezbollah and the temporary setbacks faced by the majority pro-democracy movement in that country.

I still believe freedom and democracy will prevail in Lebanon: a crucial front in the broader war on terror. But just as I said, “the lights will only be out temporarily,” it is becoming increasingly evident that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah have all of their electricians on the case, ensuring that the proverbial circuits are cut so that the lights will never be switched back on.

All of the concessions granted in so-called “crisis talks” have been in favor of the dark side. And which side is dark, is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact, as evidenced by what has happened in Lebanon since May 7 when Hezbollah begin killing and burning.

Today pro-Syrian, Hezbollah-friendly Gen. Michel Sleiman was elected president.

During Sleiman’s inauguration ceremonies, pro-Syrian speaker of the Lebanese parliament Nabih Berri — a Hezbollah ally and leader of the Amal movement – took the opportunity to blast the United States (a key ally of the Lebanese government and the majority of the Lebanese people) with a sarcastic expression of “gratitude” to America, “because it [America] got convinced that Lebanon is not the proper place to apply its agenda for the new Middle East.”

Berri and his newly empowered ilk, of course, prefer the lordship of Syria and Iran, and the still-wet sword of Hezbollah.

Yes, the lights may be out for awhile.

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.       

---

Gen. Sleiman Elected President of Lebanon

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 25 May 2008 at 4:05 pm UTC

I discussed the presidential election of Gen. Michel Sleiman in my previous post.

Following are a few quick highlights from his inauguration address delivered an hour or so ago (translated from one of our sources):

1) “We will respect the UN Security Council Resolution [regarding the pressing forward with the investigation into the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri].”

2) “The resistance movement [Hezbolla] was necessary and has done a lot for Lebanon: liberated the south, Shebaa farms still occupied by Israel, therefore it is necessary to build a strategy around the resistance and work with them … ”

3) “The Lebanese prisoners in Israel must be released [no mention of Lebanese prisoners in Syria] …”

4) “We need to work with Syria, and we need to establish diplomatic relations …”

5) “We need to protect Lebanon and we need to keep our weapons [a vague suggestion that Hezbollah should keep its weapons]. Those weapons shall be used only against the enemies [of Lebanon] … And we won’t let those weapons be used for any other purpose …”

Yeah, right.

Apparently, there was no mention of disarming Hezbollah as called for under UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701: No expressed commitment to reigning in Hezbollah. Just an expression of what Pres. Sleiman sees as a justification for the continued existance of Hezbollah despite the terror Hezbollah unleashed on the state this month.

---

NOTE: The opinions expressed in these articles are solely those of the author, and do not represent the opinions of World Defense Review and its affiliates. WDR accepts no responsibility whatsoever for the accuracy or inaccuracy of the content of this or any other story published on this website. Copyright and all rights for this story (and all other stories by the author) are held by the author.

Archives:

General Archive

Middle East

Military/Defense

On Terror

Previous W. Thomas Smith Jr. story archive