Today's Stories

April 2, 2009

Robert Weissman
What If Obama Had Treated Detroit Like Wall Street?

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
A G20 Meeting for Naught

Russell Mokhiber
Something is Rotten at PBS

April 1, 2009

Chris Floyd
Surging Further Into the Afghan Abyss

Stanley Heller
Israeli War Crimes: Thank God, It Was Only Rumors

Mark Brenner, Mischa Gaus and Jane Slaughter Obama's Perilous Plan for Detroit: Restructure the Big 3, But Not With Bankruptcy

Jonathan Cook
The Slow Demise of Ehud Olmert

Eric Walberg
EU in Tatters: Only the Protesters Have Any Vision

Richard Morse
Why Haiti Can't Forget Its Past

Don Fitz
Guess Who Came to Dinner with a Match? Green Mayoral Candidate's Van Firebombed in St. Louis

Laray Polk
Texas and Evolution

Belén Fernández
12 Años de Soledad?

Harvey Wasserman
Cracking the Media Silence on Three Mile Island

Website of the Day
Pentagon Fraud Investigations Fell, While Contracts Soared

March 31, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Deception Tango

Peter Lee
Ghosts in the Machine: the World's Hottest Cyberwar Battlefield

Nicholas Dearden
A New Global Debt Crisis

Dave Lindorff
The Obama Betrayal

Joanne Mariner
"We'll Make You See Death"

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pakistan Gambit

Wiliam S. Lind
Another Lost War

David Michael Green
Who Says the GOP Doesn't Have a Plan?

Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Elections in the Americas

Johnny Barber
Meditation in Orange

Dedrick Muhammad
Economic Inequality: the Foundation of the Racial Divide

Website of the Day
How the Obama Dems Took Over the Peace Movement

March 30, 2009

Michael Hudson
Financing the Empire: Do US Face G20 Mutiny?

Patrick Cockburn
What Next in Afghanistan?

Henry A. Giroux
Hard Lessons

Mike Whitney
Where's Eliot Spitzer Now That We Need Him?

Ralph Nader
Where's All the Money Coming From?

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's War on the (Upper) Middle Class

Jeremy Scahill
The Logistical Nightmare in Iraq

Robert Bryce
The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion

Jonathan Cook
Remembering Land Day in Palestine

Ray McGovern
Obama Bombs

Website of the Day
Hersh: Syria Calling

March 27-29, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Fall Guy

Arno J. Mayer
Too Big to Fail?

Michael Hudson
How the Scam Works

José Pertierra
Gesture for Gesture: How to Free the Cuban Five

Andy Worthington
A Letter to Obama From a Guantánamo Uighur

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Hog Wallow

Winslow T. Wheeler
What Does an F-22 Cost?

Souad N. Al-Azzawi
Iraq: Let the Numbers Speak for Themselves

Dave Lindorff
A Financial History Lesson

Ian Masters
The Zombie Presidency

Barbara Rose Johnston
Water Culture Wars

Jami Tarn
Smearing Tristan Anderson

Diane Farsetta
The Nuclear Industry Targets Wisconsin

David Ker Thomson Against Democracy

Ramzy Baroud
Netanyahu and the Future of the Peace Process

Rannie Amiri
Saudi Shiites' One-Word Demand

Wajahat Ali
Writer as Fighter: the Genius of Ishmael Reed

Nick Egnatz
Whatever Happened to the Fierce Urgency of Now?

Gregory A. Burris
The Insolents Abroad: a Defense of Iceland

Missy Beattie
This Land

Stephen Martin
The Broken Stone of Corporatism

Charles R. Larson
Obama, Smoking and Me

David Yearsley
How They Built Bach's Face (Is the Bard Next?)

Ben Sonnenberg
Won't You Please Get Thee Behind Me? Buñuel's Simon of the Desert

Kim Nicolini
The Mafia Without Moralizing: Garrone's Gomorrah

Lorenzo Wolff
Pat Boone Syndrome

Poets' Basement
Four Poems by Paulann Petersen

Website of the Weekend
Ann Coulter: a Portrait by Ben Tripp

March 26, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Is the Bail Out Breeding a Bigger Crisis?

Sharon Smith
Another Blow to Labor ... from the Democrats

Neve Gordon
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's Shame

Patrick Madden
Why the Geithner Plan Will Fail

Gareth Porter
The Big Con on Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Why Do We Need a Health Insurance Industry?

Hannah Safran
The Israeli Resistance: "Ready to be Traitors"

Keith Newell
Will the Cellphone Please Take the Stand?

Todd Chretien
Behind the Green Collar

Nelson P. Valdés
When It Comes to Cuba and the Media Anything Goes

Website of the Day
G20 Meltdown

March 25, 2009

Robin Blackburn
Media Revolution or Mirage?

Conn Hallinan
Europe in Crisis

David Rosen
Sexting: a First Amendment Challenge for Obama

Jonathan Cook
Turkey's Fallout with Israel Deals Blow to Settlers

Dean Baker
Billions More for Failed Banks

Ron Jacobs
Karzai on a String

Russell Mokhiber
Corporate Liberals vs. Single-Payer

David Macaray
Slice and Dice on Card Check

Dave Lindorff
Geithner's Power Grab

Sarah Knopp
LA Teacher's Sit-In Over Layoffs

Website of the Day
How to Create an Animal Rights "Terrorist"

March 24, 2009

Robert Sandels
Obama and Cuba: Real Change or Minor Tweaks?

Harvey Wasserman
People Died at Three Mile Island

Franklin Lamb
Who Tried to Kill Palestinian Ambassador Abass Zaki and Why?

Michael Donnelly
Obama's Team of Losers

Norman Solomon
Denial and Evasion on Afghanistan

Elizabeth Schulte
The Stark Facts About Violence Against Women

John Goekler
The Most Dangerous Person in the World?

Nicole Colson
Is Justice Finally in Sight for Sami Al-Arian?

Global Balkans
NATO's 78-Day Bombing of Yugoslavia: Ten Years On

William S. Lind
Cat-and-Mouse Off Hainan Island

Website of the Day
Video: IDF Fired on Medics in Gaza

March 23, 2009

M. Shahid Alam
Capitalism From the Standpoint of Its Victims

Uri Avnery
Israel's Most Revolting Law?

Mike Whitney
Zombie Economics: Judgment Day for Geithner

Ralph Nader
Bush the Teacher

Brian Cloughley
Tilting at Afghan Windmills

Dave Lindorff
Toxic Bailouts

Amira Hass
The Rules of Engagement in Gaza: Open Fire on Rescuers

Chris Irwin
When Nonprofit Groups Go Bad

Binoy Kampmark
The Celebrity of Celebrity

Michael Dickinson
Tollbridge Over Troubled Waters

Website of the Day
State of the Birds

March 20-22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
On the Edge of the Volcano

Paul Craig Roberts
When Things Fall Apart

P. Sainath
Slumdogs vs. Billionaires

Robert Weissman
Lessons From AIG

Saul Landau
Sliding Down in Anger: If We Bail Out the Banks, Why Shouldn't We Own Them?

David Michael Green
Obama and the Altar of Greed

Greg Moses
Winter Soldiers Come to Texas

Ron Jacobs
Pakistan in Turmoil: an Interview with Farooq Tariq

Michael D. Yates
A Nation of Immigrants

John V. Whitbeck
Happy New Year, Iran!

Andy Worthington
The Case of Ahmed Zuhair

Linn Washington Jr.
Supreme Test: the Latest Twist in the Mumia Case

David Ker Thomson
Actions: Things to Do Instead of Hailing the Chief

Laurent Jacque
Is the Euro Doomed?

Rannie Amiri
The Middle East's Jittery Monarchies

Reiko Redmonde /
Larry Everest
The Cold-Blooded Murder of Oscar Grant

David Macaray
The Myth of the Powerful Teachers' Union

Kenneth Couesbouc
Where has the Consumption Gone?

Martha Rosenberg
Meltdown in the Drug Industry

Alan Farago
The Recession, the Developers and Baseball

Missy Beattie
Still Waiting for Change

Richard Rhames
Invisible But Not Completely Insolvent

Stephen Martin
Barack and the Jets

Charles R. Larson
Impeach Obama!

David Yearsley
On Bach's Birthday

Lorenzo Wolff
Manic Levity

Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Gary Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Teachers for CEO Merit Pay!

March 19, 2009

Dave Marsh
Sir Bono: the Knight Who Fled From His Own Debate

Paul Craig Roberts
Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?

Mike Whitney
Why Business is Hysterical About Card Check (And Why America Needs It)

Sam Smith
The Economy in Two Eras of Democrats

Harvey Wasserman
The Crash of France's Nuclear Poster Child

Binoy Kampmark
Back Into NATO: the End of French Exceptionalism

Kathy Sanborn
Broken Culture: the Desecration of Iraq's Art Treasures

Christopher Brauchli
Taxing Problems

George Wuerthner
Permanent Damage From Temporary Logging Roads

Diann Rust-Tierney
New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty

Website of the Day
Bailout Plan: "Cross Your Fingers and Hope"

March 18, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Real AIG Conspiracy

Paul Craig Roberts
Israel's American Chattel

Nelson P. Valdés
Why Obama's New Cuba Rules Violate the Constitution

Jonathan Cook
Bedouin Villages Left in the Dark Ages

John Ross
The Death of the American Newspaper

Yifat Susskind
Where Are We Leaving Iraqi Women?

Dave Lindorff
Who's Calling the Shots Now?

Frances Moore Lappé
The City That Ended Hunger

Richard Grossman
Beware the Madoff Diversion!

Rev. William E. Alberts
On Being Whole Not Holy

Website of the Day
Three Weeks in Cuba: a Painter's Perspective

March 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
Mr. Bernanke Spreads the Fire

James G. Abourezk
Show Business: AIG and the Posturing Democrats

Harry Browne
Ireland's Blast From the Past

Joanne Mariner
U.S. Human Rights Abuses in the War on Terror

Alan Farago
The National Ponzi Scheme

Dean Baker
Getting Lehman Bros. Wrong ... Again

Peter Morici
Cuts for Autoworkers, Bonuses for Derivatives Traders

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Obama and the Empire

Richard Gott
Victory for the Left in El Salvador

Walter Brasch
Dog Mutilations vs. Cosmetics

Website of the Day
Single-Payer Action

March 16, 2009

Pam Martens
Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

Uri Avnery
The Rape of Washington

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Witness Protection Program

Ralph Nader
Americans Want Justice for Wall Street Crooks

Nikolas Kozloff
Down But Not Out: the Latin American Right

John Walsh
Redbaiting on the Left

Ron Jacobs
A Call for Common Sense

Binoy Kampmark
The Case of Tim K

Stephen Fleischman
Coxey's Army Will March Again!

Christian Christensen
A 25-Year Misunderstanding: Springsteen's "Born in the USA"

Scott Handleman
Shooting Tristan Anderson

Website of the Day
Clean, Green, Sustainable

March 13 / 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Parable of the Shopping Mall

Peter Lee
What the Chas Freeman Fight Was Really About

Diana Johnstone
NATO's Global Mission Creep

David Harvey
Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism?

Petrino DiLeo
Inside Obama's Housing Plan: Will Millions be Left Out in the Cold

David Ker Thomson
Tender to the Earth

Eric Ruder
Massacre in Slow Motion: an Interview with Haider Eid on Gaza

Fred Gardner
Cannabidiol Now!

David Yearsley
Music Torture

Saul Landau
How Israel Gives Jews a Bad Name

Laura Carlsen
Drug War Doublespeak

Robert Weissman
We Told You So

John Goekler /
Merle Lefkoff
The Struggle in Saffron

Tom Barry
Imprisoning Immigrants for Profit

Kathy Sanborn
Money Out of Thin Air

Chris Mobley / Leela Yellesetty
Criminalizing Poverty: the Jail Seattle Doesn't Need

David Michael Green
The Perils of Being Right and Wrong

Alan Maass /
Lee Sustar
A Socialist Moment?

Christopher Brauchli
Pity, the Poor Tax Collectors

Richard Morse
Clinton in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Taking It From the Streets: From Springsteen to the Wu-Tang Clan

Poets' Basement
Springate and Johnston

Website of the Weekend
Hear the Buffalo

March 12 , 2009

Sharon Smith
Bottom Feeders at the Trough

Christopher Ketcham
Full Spectrum Penetration: Israeli Spying in the United States

Mike Whitney
Haircut Time for Bondholders

Ray McGovern
Obama Caves to the Lobby

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
The Doublespeak of a Discredited IMF

John Ross
The War is Not Over

M. Reza Pirbhai
Men in Black: Another View of Pakistan

Chris Floyd
Lost Liberty Blues: Prisons, Profits and the Banality of Evil

Steve Early
Why Labor Doesn't Need a "House of Lords"

Quentin Gee
Hiding the Costs of Coal

Website of the Day
Amadee Coral Reef: a Spherical Panorama

March 11 , 2009

Mike Roselle
From Birmingham to Coal River: Why is the Environmental Movement So Timid?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Criminal Injustice System

Henry A. Giroux
Academic Labor in Dark Times

Nikolas Kozloff
The Death Cries of the Salvadoran Right

Norm Kent
I am Patient Number 380206011

Mitu Sengupta
Reforming the World Bank: Different Image, Same Tune?

Ludwig Watzal
The Structure of Israel's Occupation

David Macaray
The Battle Over EFCA Has Begun

William S. Lind
Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

Martha Rosenberg
A Merger From the Folks Who Brought You Vytorin

Website of the Day
American Indicator: One in Fifty Kids are Homeless

March 10 , 2009

Franklin Spinney
What Israeli Peace Process?

Vijay Prashad
What Did Hillary Clinton Do?

Stan Cox
There's No Free Lunch on Your Browser: the Internet's Energy Drain

Zoltan Grossman
Coffee Strong: Listening to the G.I. Voice at Fort Lewis

Reuven Kaminer
Pure and Unadulterated Racism

Jonathan Cook
Memoricide in the West Bank

Dave Lindorff
Business Rules

Brian McKenna
How Anthropology Disparages Journalism

Harvey Wasserman
Is This the End of the Age of the Automobile?

Corey Pein
He Told You So

Website of the Day
AIG and Systemic Failure: $1.6 Trillion in Insured Deriviatives

March 9 , 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the Sorkin Affair

Ralph Nader
Too Big...Period

Peter Lee
Meet Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: the US's Worst/Best Hope for Afghanistan?

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Charade

Peter Morici
Fixing the Banks: Treasury's Doomed Strategy

Dean Baker
Why Do We Need a Private Health Insurance Industry, Anyway?

Steve Ault
Kiss Thailand's Tolerance for Gays Goodbye

Stephen Lendman
Guantánamo Under Obama

Farooq Sulehria
Tennis Without Spectators

Belén Fernández
Chávez, a Cockfight and the Caracazo

Website of the Day
How Lincoln Learned to Read

March 6-8 , 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Harlots High and Low

Chris Floyd
Tangled Up in Karl

Uri Avnery
Remember Ophira?

Dave Lindorff
Kiss the Banks Goodbye

Mark Weisbrot
The Crisis vs. the Dogma

David Ker Thomson
Against Work

Phil Aliff
Soldier Suicides

Rebekah Ward
Georgia Injustice: Another Young Life Wrecked

Tracey Briggs
How Capitalism Feels in the Head

Dean Baker
Depression Nostalgia?

Daniel P. Wirt, M.D.
Remove the Handle From the Health Insurance Misery and Death Pump

Carl Finamore
The Recovery Plan: Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us

Wajahat Ali
The Pakistani Monster

David Michael Green
Smart is the New Stupid

David Macaray
The Minimum Wage Revisited

Michael Dickinson
On Financial Fools Day

Susie Day
Line in the Sand

Bob Sommer
Echoes of the Townhouse Explosion

Ben Sonnenberg
No Forgiveness for the Bourgeoisie: Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel"

David Yearsley
Sonic Fakery in "Slumdog" From the Mozart of Chennai

DC Larson
They're Writing Those Depression Songs, Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Live Truth: Music Sans Headphones

Poets' Basement
Dominquez, MacNeil and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Environment & Obama: a Conversation with Jeffrey St. Clair

March 5 , 2009

James G. Abourezk
This Time It's Mrs. Clinton's Turn

Kathleen and Bill Christison
U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Robert Weissman
Wall Street's Best Investment: Paying for Public Policy

Patrick Cockburn
My Day at the Terror "Charity"

William Blum
Being Serious About Torture...Or Not

Robert Fantina
From Iraq to Afghanistan: Augmentation All Over Again

Saul Landau
The Unseen Crisis

Benjamin Dangl
Striking a Blow Against the Beer Cartel: a Grassroots Victory in Utah

Christopher Brauchli
The New Leaders of the GOP

Website of the Day
The Angola 3: 36 Years of Solitude

March 4, 2009

Marjorie Cohn
Blueprints for a Police State

Mike Whitney
Blowing Up the Economy: How Securitization Lit the Fuse

Ron Jacobs
The Banality of Occupation: the Rand Papers

Ashley Smith
War by Another Name

Joanne Mariner
Obama's War on Terror

Dan Bacher
The California Water Wars: Why It's Not a Conflict Between Fish and People

Mark Engler
Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?

Franklin Lamb
"What's Hezbollah Done for Us Lately?"

Cal Winslow
Slugging It Out in California

David Mandelzys
Apartheid Week

Website of the Day
Guantánamo: the Definitive Prisoner List

March 3, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Ethnic Cleansing and Israel

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Long, Dark Night of Pakistan

Brian M. Downing
The Changing Game in Afghanistan

Robert Larson
External Damnation: Companies are Designed for Destruction

Daniel P. Wirt, MD
Single-Payer Health Reform

Russell Mokhiber
Burn Your Health Insurance Bill!

William Loren Katz
Obama, One Ape and Two Newspapers

Kathy Sanborn
The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

Pauline Imbach
A New Start for the World Social Forum?

Christopher Ketcham
The Best Journalism You'll Write is Priceless

Website of the Day
The Surveillance Self-Defense Project

March 2, 2009

Andrea Peacock
A Poisoned Town's Shot at Justice

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's Budget

Peter Lee
Pakistan Lurches Toward the Abyss

John Blair
Locking Down Big Coal

Peter Morici
Treasury's Flawed Plan for Citigroup

Uri Avnery
10 Ways to Kill Fatah

Michael Donnelly
Resistance to the War on the Wild

Fred Gardner
The Judge Who Ruled Marijuana is Medicine

Sonia Nettnin
Middle East Medical Mission Heroes

Andrew Lehman
A New Deal for the Web

Website of the Day
Pentagon Papers II?

Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism

Tom Barry
Napolitano's Hard Line

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Excellent Atomic Omission

Adam Turl
The Enemies of Unions and the Lies They Tell

David Macaray
When People are Fired Illegally

James McEnteer
Rush to the Rescue: Limbaugh's Secret Plan to Save the Economy

Website of the Day
The Carbon Casino

April 2, 2009

Is Iran the Better Ally?

Has Washington Lost Lebanon?

By FRANKLIN LAMB

Beirut

'We anticipate that the shape of the US assistance programs in Lebanon will be evaluated in the context of Lebanon's parliamentary election results and the policies formed by the new Cabinet.'

-- Jeffrey Feltman, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs and former Ambassador to Lebanon, briefing the House Congressional Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, 03/24/09.

Henry Kissinger, among others in the US foreign policy establishment, was reportedly aghast at how quickly and thoroughly the Bush administration botched US Middle East policy and handed much of the Near East and South Asia to Iran. Not just Iraq, Afghanistan, (plus the Af-Pak region) some of the countries bordering the Arab Gulf (increasingly referred to as the Persian Gulf) but the low hanging fruit of Palestine, ripe for picking.

As Iran rapidly expands its influence to South America, Asia and Africa, many observers in Lebanon think that their country may be next. Frankly, it is beginning to look that way.

Even before 1958, when US Embassy officials delivered suitcases filled with election buying cash to its favorite Lebanese politician, the incumbent, unpopular, corrupt, and anti-Muslim President Camille Chamoun, the Lebanese have looked favorably on America. Today, known Americans in Lebanon rarely skip a day without receiving  a thumbs up, a 'welcome to Lebanon’, or a puckering of the lips and a "mwwas" which translates locally more or less as "kisses to you."
Yet it may be a case of unrequited love. Regardless of what President Obama personally wants, and though there are reportedly overdue new US Middle East initiatives being worked on at the National Security Council and the State Department, there is strong Israel lobby-enforced reticence in Washington to do anything for Lebanon that Israel may object to. And the Lebanese know it.

American policy statements towards Lebanon are frequently incomprehensible or contradictory to many Lebanese, among the most politically sophisticated around.  With  the approaching  June 7 elections, now barely two months away,  a  barrage of press releases and pontifications from US government employees, including the US State Department and Congressional  testimony,  has  left  many  in Lebanon with raised eyebrows.

Feltman on the Hill

Over the years, Congressional Hearings have strayed markedly from their original purpose of informing the country’s ongressional delegates about weighty policy matters in order to keep the American ship of state on an even keel. The past three decades have seen vast quantities of information organized in  congressional libraries by the venerated Congressional Research Service. CRS research is available instantly to any member of Congress or their staffs and some of it, generally high-quality Issue Briefs, may soon be available worldwide on the Internet. Add to the CRS resource, the arrival of the Internet, plus burgeoning Congressional staffs, and the original purpose and even need for congressional "hearings" has drastically changed. Now they are mainly useful as tools to promote members’ images in their districts, and less and less for learning. As a former "Hearing Specialist II" on the Hill for the House Judiciary Committee, I can report that little is normally learned from Congressional hearings anymore. In most cases, staffers prepare carefully the members’ speeches, questions to witnesses, and answers the witness will very likely give, to each and every question from their bosses or even their bosses’ political adversaries and rivals on the panel.

Concerning many important but 'sensitive’ issues that Congress certainly should investigate, members often cannot get hearings -- even classified hearings -- because Congress continues to outsource many of its constitutional prerogatives to an increasingly dominating Executive Branch.
 
This arrangement can be ideal for single-issue lobbies that make excellent use of Congressional Hearings to publicly advance their projects. None more so than AIPAC, coordinating as it does the 120-plus pro-Israel organizations that it quickly cobbles when the need arises to put together a fast hearing, forum, briefing, or Congressional Staff gathering, designed to keep the public in awe of important Israel-related "key information or insights". So much the better for Israel if the committee chairman is committed to its policies, as is the case with congressman Gary Ackerman and the chairs of the other 10 key House and Senate Committees, Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, Appropriations, Intelligence, and Terrorism that deal with Lebanon and the Middle East.

It is against this backdrop that Jeffrey Feltman was summoned last week to join Ackerman in signaling Lebanon to return pro-Israel election results on June 7 or pay the price.

This commentary is not in any way meant to be some sort of ad hominem broadside aimed at Jeffrey Feltman or his rather more attractive and charming successor at the US Embassy in Beirut, Michele Sisson, or even the arch Zionist, Islamophobe and Arab basher, Gary Ackerman, chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. Yet it must be admitted that this duos current speeches on US Lebanon Policy are often unfathomable when considered alongside President Obama’s expressed Middle East objectives and what Lebanon sorely needs.
Neither Feldman nor Ackerman minced words.

In his opening statement, Feltman, strongly discouraged any attempts by foreign powers to influence Lebanon’s elections, noting that "decisions on the shape and composition of the next government can and should be made by the Lebanese themselves, for Lebanon, free from outside interference, political intimidation and violence."
His very next statement nullified what he had just said and he emphasized that the polls, with US help, "would provide an opportunity to continue the process of reinforcing Lebanon's independence." Feltman then labeled the US-backed March 14 group the "pro-independence" bloc, while highlighting March 8's  association with Hezbollah, Syria and Iran as the most serious danger to Lebanon and the region. He added that the US would support any dialogue between Lebanon and Israel.

Feltman then launched his zinger which shocked some people internationally but not many in Lebanon: "We anticipate that the shape of the United States' assistance programs in Lebanon will be evaluated in the context of Lebanon's parliamentary election results and the policies formed by the new cabinet."

The House Subcommittee chairman who introduced Feltman, Rep Ackerman (D-NY), provided a similar analysis in his prefatory remarks, listing US interests in Lebanon as "sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity."
 
"The US cannot and should not interfere in the election, but neither should we be impassive," he added (read: 'watch what we will do not what we say’): "There is much we can do and should do on the outside to demonstrate that Lebanon's future is not dependant on either militias or mullahs."

The term, with all its pejorative connotations in Ackerman’s Queens District, was surely the politically correct term for him to use regardless of what the Lebanese, a country with no mullahs, thought about it.

Ackerman also voiced support for the some military aid to Lebanon, noting the "pressing mission is battling terrorists activated and armed by foreign powers." (read: it might be necessary to use them against Hezbollah).

Rarely missing a chance to expound on issues of interest to Israel, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) submitted her questions and comments in writing and rather hysterically opined: "what happens in Lebanon in June can affect the US in July. Iran is stepping up efforts to assist extremist groups, like Hezbollah, operating in the Western Hemisphere. It is no surprise that our military and defense officials are now confirming that direct connections exist between Hezbollah and narcotraffickers".

Interestingly, Ros-Lehtinen holds the record in Congress for authoring or co-sponsoring the most resolutions adopted by the House which claim a direct threat by Iran’s presence in the region poses to U.S. security. She and Ackerman are essentially tied for the record of post-9/11 anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim House resolutions.
On hearing reports of Feltman’s comments, some Lebanese strongly objected. Maysam, a pro March 14 student at the American University of Beirut explained: 

"How dare he (Feltman) try to bribe us! Each new Israeli aggression against Lebanon, every Israeli border crossing into Lebanon, harassment of shepherds along the blue line, mock aid raid, invasion of Lebanese airspace, theft of our fertile soil and our Wazzani river waters, each captured Israeli spy and threat to destroy Lebanon again or of more population transfers from Israel, every single new cluster bomb casualty and refusal to hand over land mine maps means more and more support for Hezbollah and their allies. If the Americans really cared about Lebanon or if they were smart they would put a stop to these Israeli crimes. But Washington is clueless. Lebanon does not need US Zionist projects anymore. As much as I care, let the Americans stop interfering in my country, pack up and go back and rebuild New Orleans! I am furious!"

As noted by Maysam, the US refusal to force Israel to provide cluster bomb and landmine maps returns almost weekly to the Lebanese public’s mind.

"I Am Not Able to Play Anymore"

On Sunday March 28, 2009 at the Marjayoun Public Hospital, 10-year-old Mohammad Jamal Abdel-Aal's left leg and right hand got amputated after a US cluster bomb, left over from the summer 2006 war with Israel, exploded while he was playing in one of the fields near his home in the southern town of Hilta. Describing the few minutes that preceded the explosion, Abdel-Aal explained that he had gone out to a field near his house, "to take advantage of the spring time weather. I was walking between the yellow daisies when I heard an explosion and felt my body was being ripped apart," he said, adding that he started feeling pain in his leg and was bleeding everywhere."Then everything turned black."

According to the Director of the Marjayoun Hospital, physician Mouenes Kalakesh, the lad is deeply depressed because his wounds "are going to affect his life forever."

In a room next to Abdel-Aaal's, 16-year-old Riad al-Ahmad is also recovering from a US landmine explosion that cost him a leg while herding his sheep in one of the fields of the southern village of Wazzani.

Given US opposition to the recent Cluster Bomb Convention, many politically active Lebanese believe the US bears responsibility for the continuing slaughter of unsuspecting civilians, and should at the very least organize a global political and media campaign and  organize and international conference to support demining efforts. The recent 1.5 million dollars the US gave the Mine Action Group (MAG), one of the few demining teams still working in South Lebanon is seen as a drop in the bucket given the close to 15 million dollar combined US aid given to Israel each and every day of the year.

Feltman to Hezbollah

Regarding Hezbollah, Feltman said the US would not follow the United Kingdom's example by opening contacts with the group's political wing. He called the group a domestic and regional "threat," adding "our position on Hezbollah remains as it was when the group was first designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997."

Yet, he offered Hezbollah an opportunity for much better relations  with the US declaring that if Hezbollah would "renounce terrorism—both in Lebanon and abroad—and submit to the rule of law and the authority of the Lebanese state, we would reconsider this status," he said in reference to Britain's decision to start contacts with the Hezbollah.
Presumably Feltman is aware that Hezbollah’s position has long been known regarding its theater of operations against Israel. They were repeated this week when Hezbollah vowed that it would deter any possible Israeli aggression but would not carry out any military operation outside the country. MP Mohammad Raad told a funeral gathering in Sujod that: "We will not carry out any operation outside our Lebanese territories, but we will not accept after today that the Israeli enemy stages any assault against our land," adding that "they will pay the price for any possible attack on Lebanon, and will receive the proper response."

As for the Western attempts to open dialogue with Hezbollah, Raad said "Hezbollah welcomes this gesture," but "it is a mistake if we assume the United States will abandon Israel for the sake of the Arabs…The United States' project is with Israel, and the US foreign policy will not change."

Earlier Feltman had stated that there was no difference between Hezbollah’s military and political wing and wondered how the UK could possibly speak only with Hezbollah’s political wing since its leadership must be one for the whole Party. When asked about this point one Hezbollah member, who teachers at a high school in Haret Hreik advised:

"I think I can help American officials understand the difference. The military wing of Hezbollah, by which I mean, military resistance to Israel, is just about 5 per cent of what makes up Hezbollah. But that is all that westerners mainly know about from their biased media. The political, social, economic, educational and medical wing of Hezbollah makes up the nearly 95 per cent. Explained impolitely, the military wing is the wing that kicked Israel’s ass out of Lebanon and will keep it out until the political wing can help the Lebanese army do the job and, inshallah (God willing) achieve Middle East peace by returning the true owners to Palestine."

Browbeating, threats, puffed promises, lack of respect, consistently advancing an Israeli agenda has tuned off many Lebanese from American overtures.

Increasingly people in Lebanon are wondering if Iran would make a better long term alley.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be reached at: fplamb@gmail.com

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