Hi. We'll be playing hit and miss during this extending holiday, so here's some catch-up, with more to follow. Hope y'all been having a wonderful time. -Ed
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15869.htm Revolution in the Air as Lebanon's rift widens By Robert Fisk 12/11/06 "The Independent" -- --- With Fouad Siniora's cabinet hiding in the Grand Serail behind acres of razor wire and thousands of troops - a veritable "green zone" in the heart of Beirut - the largely Shia Muslim opposition, assisted by their Christian allies, brought up to two million supporters into the centre of the city yesterday to declare the forthcoming creation of a second Lebanese administration. A "transitional" government is what ex-general Michel Aoun called it, while Naeem Qassem, Hizbollah's deputy chairman, spoke ominously of the mass demonstrations as "the separatist day". So, is the Hizbollah militia, which withstood Israel's disastrous bombardment of Lebanon last summer, really planning a coup on behalf of its Iranian and Syrian backers, as Mr Siniora suspects? Or are Mr Siniora and his cabinet colleagues - Sunni Muslim, Christian and Druze - working on behalf of the Americans and Israelis, as Hizbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, proclaims? Already, Mr Siniora's administration is being referred to in the American press as Lebanon's "US-backed government", the virtual kiss of death for any Arab leader these days, while Mr Aoun's split with his fellow Christians could prove fatal to him. Only because of his weird alliance with the Hizbollah can the latter claim that their opposition represents Christians as well as Muslims. True to the ironies of Lebanese politics, it was the same former general Aoun who fought a "war of independence" with Hizbollah's Syrian friends in 1990, a conflict which he lost at the cost of 1,000 lives. But even supporters of Mr Siniora's administration were taken aback by the vast numbers of Lebanese that Hizbollah could mobilise yesterday, men and women who in many cases came from the villages and urban slums which suffered near-total destruction in this summer's war. Their speakers played the role of representatives of the poor - "the people of the street" is how one foolish Sunni prelate called them on Friday - who had no time for the privileged classes or feudal pretentions of the government's supporters: Amin Gemayel, father of the murdered industry minister, Nayla Moawad, widow of a murdered Lebanese president, Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri, and Walid Jumblatt, son of the murdered Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt. If Lebanon's politics and history were not so tragic, there would be an element of Gilbert and Sullivan about all this. Mr Siniora, now regularly visited by America's busy little ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, was told by one of Mr Feltman's predecessors only a few years ago that his multiple re-entry visa to the United States was invalid because he, Mr Siniora, was believed to have donated money to a charity associated with - yes - the Hizbollah. And there was more than a hint of sarcasm yesterday when Mr Qassem announced that Mr Siniora worked for the Americans and the Israelis. "Death to America - Death to Israel," he roared and, of course, the mass of demonstrators repeated this tired rhetoric. To the Arab nations which supported Mr Siniora's government, Mr Qassem had a simple message: "We are in the hearts of the Sunnis of the Arab world - not you!" And the danger for Mr Siniora is that Mr Qassem's conviction is probably correct. Indeed, there was a hint of revolution in the air yesterday as the poor and the village youths and the people of the Beirut slums converged on Martyrs' Square where Hariri's tomb was cordoned off. Leila Tueni, the daughter of another of Lebanon's murdered political leaders, the journalist Jibran Tueni (like all the victims, anti-Syrian), stated in a hall only a few hundred yards from the protests that the real reason why Mr Nasrallah wanted to overthrow Mr Siniora's government, from which all Shia ministers have resigned, was to prevent it giving its approval to the UN tribunal intended to try Hariri's killers, whom Ms Tueni and the rest of Mr Siniora's supporters believe to include some of Syria's senior intelligence apparatchiks. But something even more dangerous was getting loose yesterday. The sheer size of the crowds apparently permitted Mr Qassem and Mr Aoun to demand a different - or a rival - government. But it was not Shias but Mr Siniora's supporters who won the last elections in Lebanon. If that election result were no longer valid, what did this say about the Hizbollah's respect for electoral politics and Lebanon's constitution? And the growing Shia-Sunni divisions here mirror, in faint, pale but frightening form, the tragedy of the two sects in Mesopot-amia. Shias have twice attacked the Beirut Sunni suburb of Tarek al-Jdeide, a Shia has been murdered and turned into an opposition "martyr", and the mufti of the Sunni Qoreitem mosque is reported as attacking the historic Shia imams, Ali and Hussein. Mr Jumblatt has now called for students at the Lebanese University to study at home after a brawl on campus between Shia and Sunni undergraduates. "This university is for all Lebanese," Mr Jumblatt insisted. But is Lebanon? © 2006 Independent News and Media Limited *** http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15926.htm Powell: We are Losing in Iraq Exclusive: Former Secretary Of State Says More Troops Isn't The Answer 12/17/06 -- - (CBS) The United States is losing the war in Iraq but sending more troops to Baghdad is not the best way to change course, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Face The Nation. Powell said he agreed with the assessment of the Iraq Study Group co-chairmen, Lee Hamilton and James Baker, that the situation in Iraq is "grave and deteriorating," and he also agreed with recently-confirmed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that the U.S. is not winning the war. "So if it's grave and deteriorating and we're not winning, we are losing," Powell told Bob Schieffer in an exclusive interview. "We haven't lost. And this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around." President George W. Bush is considering several options for a new strategy in Iraq. The most likely choice would be to send tens of thousands of additional troops for an indefinite period to quickly secure Baghdad. A 3,500-man brigade from the 82nd Airborne Division will be sent to Kuwait soon after the holidays, CBS News correspondent David Martin reported on Friday. The troops would be available immediately should the president order a surge into Iraq. There are about 134,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now. Powell, also a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not see the military benefit of flooding Baghdad with American troops. "I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work," he said, adding that the Iraqi government and security forces must take over. "It is the D.C. police force that guards Washington, D.C., not the troops that are stationed at Fort Myer," Powell said. "And in Baghdad, you need a police force to do that, and in the other cities, you need a police force to do that, and not the American troops." Powell also doubted that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps are large enough to support such an operation. "The current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform," Powell said. "We need to let both the Army and the Marine Corps grow in size, in my military judgment." Asked directly what the U.S. should do in Iraq, Powell said: "I think that what we should do is to work with the Iraqi government, press them on the political peace, do everything we can to provide equipment, advisers, and whatever the Iraqi armed forces need to become more competent, and to train their leaders so that those leaders realize their responsibility to the government." Powell, who as a member of the Bush Administration pushed the international community to sanction the invasion of Iraq, said that we are not safer now after nearly four years of fighting. "I think we are a little less safe, in the sense that we don't have the same force structure available for other problems," Powell said. "I think we have been somewhat constrained in our ability to influence events elsewhere." ©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. *** Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report National Edition Produced by Mimi Rosenberg & Ken Nash ------------------------------------- Amidst Pain, Frustration & Anger at Another Police Killing of Un-Armed Black Youth, Tens of Thousands Demand Justice for Sean Bell Listen to Sounds & Sentiments of the Dec. 16 "Shopping for Justice" March An Overwhelmingly Black throng of community residents poured into midtown Manhattan Streets to rebuke the NYPD's shooting death of Sean Bell and wounding of Trent Benefield & Joseph Guzman. The historic pain at the loss of another Black youth at the hands of city police was palpable and provided a marked contrast to the almost exclusively white browsers and shoppers of luxury jewels and cloths at Tiffany's and Bergdorf Goodman along the line of march. Amidst this tale of two cities the stark reality of racial and class disparities butted heads. While there was a decided absence of white activists, reflecting once again the racial divide, the prevalent sentiment that swept all who attended the march was the unity of purpose & instance by the Black community that racial killings at the hands of the police must successfully be prosecuted & the systemic inequities in policing communities of color must be addressed. We'll bring you the protest sounds & sentiments of demonstration participants such as Abner Louima, Ted Shaw from the NAACP LDEF, the Rev. Calvin Butts, SEIU 1199 leadership and many others,along with the sounds of justice that echoed forth from protest participants. ----------------------------------------------- To Download or listen to this 29 minute program, Pacifica Stations can go to Pacifica's Audioport - Menu Option "Weekly Programs" dated 12/17/06 or go to http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id948 For more information contact Ken Nash - [EMAIL PROTECTED] _____________________________________________ Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it. 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