Today's Stories

April 27, 2009

Pam Martens
The Far Right's Plot to Capture New Hampshire

April 24-26, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Putting the Bush Years on Trial

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

Andy Worthington
Who Ordered the Torture of Abu Zubaydah?

Jeremy Scahill
Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?

Chris Floyd
Top of the Heap: the Democrats' Teachable Moment on Torture

Mike Whitney
A Housing Crash Update

Anthony DiMaggio
Obama and the Housing Crisis

Chris Kromm
Democratic Lobbyists Key to Fight Against Employee Free Choice Act

Saul Landau
Seventeen Months in "the Hole:" an Interview with the Leader of the Cuban Five

Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh

Greg Moses
The Debt Looters

Joshua Frank
Calling for a Coal Moratorium: an Interview with Ted Nace

Fred Gardner
Collective Farming and the Lynch Case

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Homework, Testing and Stealth Apartheid in Education

David Michael Green
Of Tea Parties and Teleprompters

Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Spies: a New Front in Gaza's Conflict

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak's Expanding Enemies List

Laura Carlsen
Mr. President, Calderon is Not Mexico

Richard Morse
The Haitian People Need a Lobbyist

Nikolas Kozloff
Protecting the Bald Eagle: a Task Now Falling to ... Hugo Chavez?

Kent Peterson
The Fight to Save Mexico's Mangroves

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General

Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts

Ron Jacobs
Torture is More Than Just "Harsh Tactics"

Richard Rhames
Roman Legends, Book Burning and History's Hunt

Stephen Martin
Wherefore Art Thou American Dream?

David Yearsley
Rodgers, Hammerstein, Michener and Nostalgia's Clammy Embrace

Poets' Basement
Khalil and Mankh

Website of the Weekend
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies and Edward Abbey

April 23, 2009

Eamonn Fingleton
How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years

Ray McGovern
Obama Plays Hamlet on Torture

Michael Ratner
The Torture Commission Trap

Alan Farago
The Quicksand Economy

Rob Larson
Business Gets Carded

Nadia Hijab
The Real Heroes of Durban

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Deconstructing the Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Are Members of Congress Being Blackmailed?

Helen Redmond
Selling Out Single-Payer: the "Public Option" Con

Adam Federman
The Battle Over New York's Marcellus Shale

Website of the Day
An Interactive Map of Vanishing Employment Across the Country

April 22, 2009

Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project

Joanne Mariner
Torture Evidence and Terror Blacklists

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Afghan Plan: Fracturing the Antiwar Movement

Gareth Porter
U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans

Dean Baker
The Tyranny of Bad Economics

Peter Morici
Housing Sales and Fixing the Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminating Bad Pentagon Habits

Barucha Calamity Peller
The Battle to Take Back the New School

Harvey Wasserman
Chernobyl Could Happen Here

Aisha Brown /
Dedrick Muhammad
White Privilege in the Americas

Teo Ballvé
Obama's Feel Good Meeting with Colombia's Uribe

Website of the Day
Ahmedinejad's Durban Speech: What He Actually Said

April 21, 2009

Randy Rowland
Lindy Blake's Great Escape

Dave Lindorff
Jay Bybee's Conspiracy to Torture

Fidel Castro
The Secret Summit

George McGovern
Pull Out of Iraq This Year

Greg Moses
The Unemployment Channel

Benjamin Dangl
Argentina Remembers

Sonia Nettnin
Saving Lives in Gaza

Frank Barat
The Death of Bassem: a Shooting at the Wall in Bil'n

Binoy Kampmark
Legal Purgatory and John Demjanjuk

John V. Walsh
Code Red for Single Payer

David Macaray
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

Website of the Day
Bonus Man: For Executive Assholes Everywhere

April 20, 2009

Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever

Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalisms in Missoula

Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens

Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes

Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers

Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos: Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes

Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East

Dave Lindorff
The Meeting in Trinidad

P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word

Nelson P Valdés
A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama

Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?

Belén Fernández
The FARC Can't Dance

Website of the Day
Dear Mr. Buffett...

April 17-19, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Thin Ice From Here to the Horizon

Saul Landau
Infiltrating Alpha 66: a Conversation with Gerardo Hernandez, Leader of the Cuba Five

Franklin Lamb
Persia Rising

Ralph Nader
The Greedsters Are Back!

Fred Gardner
Obama's Chimerical Marijuana Policy: a Guide for the Perplexed

Dean Baker
A Win-Win Solution: Tax the Rich!

Rannie Amiri
The Curious Case of Benjamin Netanyahu

George Wuerthner
The War on Predators

Dave Lindorff
No Amnesty for Torturers

David Swanson
Personal Torture Laws

Jim Goodman
The Control of Food

Kathy Sanborn
Economic Fallout Hits Families Hard

Don Monkerud
Economic Recovery for Whom?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The People's Money

David Michael Green
Home of the Barricaded, Land of the 'Fraid

Nelson P Valdés
The OAS Charter, Cuba and the United States

Manuel Gomez
From the Bay of Pigs to Trinadad and Tobago

Dr. Susan Block
On Sex Addiction: the Deadliest Sin?

Ramzy Baroud
Non-Violence in Palestine?

Christopher Brauchli
Banning Barbie

Stephen Martin
Statelessness: the Final Frontier

Ron Jacobs
Tearing the Whole Building Down: the Dead in Greensboro

David Yearsley
Monkey Music

Lorenzo Wolff
A Song for the End of the World

Poets' Basement
Moser, McTeer and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
New England Journal of Medicine Report on Civilian Deaths in Iraq

April 16, 2009

Mike Whitney
A Bulletin From the Captain of the Titantic

Russell Mokhiber
The Top 10 Enemies of Single-Payer

Ronald Teska
From Iraq to Appalachia

Gareth Porter
Predator Blowback

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Thinking Like an Afghan

Benjamin Dangl
Latin America Changes

Kevin Pina
Haiti: Obama's First Foreign Policy Disaster?

Robert Bryce
Another Ethanol Producer Goes Bust

George Wuerthner
See the Forest: the Value of Dead Trees

Paul Garon, David Roediger and Kate Khatib The Surreal Life of Franklin Rosemont

Website of the Day
Socialism and the Facebook Generation

April 15, 2009

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Solving Palestine While Israel Destroys It

Ray McGovern
W, the Torture Decider

Robert Sandels
Is There a Latin American Policy?

Heather Williams /
Paul Baker
Carbon Cap and Trade: How Wall Street will Game the Regs and Trash the Planet

Jack Willoughby
The Lessons of the S & L Crisis

David Swanson
Habeas at Bagram?

Paul Craig Roberts
94 Years of Serfdom

Sara Mann
Norman Rockwell and the Perils of Nostalgia

Kenneth Couesbouc
John Maynard's Martingale: How Keynes Got Rich

Binoy Kampmark
Tax Haven Hypocrisies

Kekuni Blaisdell, Lynette Hi'llani Cruz, George Kahumoku Flores, et al.: An Urgent Letter to Obama on the Rights of Native Hawaiians

Website of the Day
Taxa: the Paintings of Isabella Kirkland

April 14, 2009

Conn Hallinan
The Afghan Rubik's Cube

Mike Whitney
Why is Goldman Sachs So Scared of Mike Morgan?

Peter Morici
Taxing Grandma to Subsidize Goldman Sachs

Greg Moses
Economic Curveballs: the Laffer Posse

Fidel Castro
Obama's Cuba Policy: Not a Word About the Blockade

Robert Weissman
No Blank Check for the IMF

Rebecca Macaux /
Philip Primeau
Somali Piracy and American Foreign Policy

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
The Dubious Revoution: Biofuels, the Next Generation

Dave Lindorff
Snatch-and-Jail Justice: the Ugly War on Immigrants

Walter Brasch
The Resurrection of Intolerance

Benjamin Day
Why Has the Press Failed Us in Reporting on Health Care Reform?

Website of the Day
The Appraisal Bubble

April 13, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Militia Fear Reprisals After US Exit

Uri Avnery
Our Dissonance

Jeremy Scahill
A Test Case for Habeas Corpus: Will Obama Prosecute the Somali Pirate in a US Court?

Martha Rosenberg
Suicide Syndrome: Are VA Protocols Behind Iraq Vet Suicides?

Karl Grossman
A Radioactive Extension for Aging Nuclear Plants

Nadia Hijab
Still Waiting: Obama and American Muslims

Sam Smith
America's Cultural Bear Market

James McEnteer
Peru's Shining Example

Sean McMahon
Globalizing Politicide: Israel's Strikes on Sudan

Namihei Odaira
Makota's "Campaign Against Poverty"

John V. Walsh
Bossnapping

Website of the Day
Declining IRS Audits for Big Financial Houses

April 10 / 12, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Resurrection and Revenge

Chris Floyd
Hope Abandoned: Obama Protects CIA Torture Memos

Mike Whitney
"Liquidate the Banks; Fire the Executives!" Warren's Devastating Report to Congress

Saul Landau
How the Media Bought the Surge

M. Reza Pirbhai
Obama's Afghanistan Plan and India-Pakistan Relations

Franklin Spinney
The Art of the Scam: Wall Street and the Pentagon

Rannie Amiri
Iran's Elections: Why Arab Leaders Want Ahmadinejad to Win

William Blum
The Ideology of Barack Obama

Matt Vidal
Why Card Check Would Help the Economy

Jeff Howison
Death of the Square Deal

Jeff Leys
Resisting the Af-Pak War: the Creech Air Base Arrests

Dave Lindorff
America's Imperial Wars: Why We Need to See the Horrors

Ramzy Baroud
Israel Investigated: But Will It Repent?

Missy Beattie
The Grateful Dead, Wounded and Displaced

Fred Gardner
Fakes Left, Goes Right: Obama's Crossover Dribble on Marijuana Policy

Harvey Wasserman Another $50 Billion for Rust Bucket Nukes?

Suzan Mazur
A Revolution in Biology: an Interview with Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse

Bernard Umbrecht
German Capitalists Take Fire

David Macaray
A Word Clooney, Hanks and Baldwin Should Learn: Solidarity

Janet Kauffman
How to Starve (or Feed) a River

Ron Jacobs
Daring to Struggle, Failing to Win

Norman Solomon
Getting a Death Grip on Memory

Michael Winship
Let the Railsplitter Awake!

Richard Rhames
Empire, Ennui and Extra Cheese

Wanda Fucha
Brother, Can You Spare a Million Bucks?

David Yearsley
My Journey to the Heart of Rahman

Lorenzo Wolff
Getting Beyond the Black-and-White: Jason Isbell's Challenging New Album

Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini's Louis XIV: "Neither the Sun Nor Death Can be Gazed Upon Fixedly"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Poets' Basement
Corseri and Corzett

Website of the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help!

April 9, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Decade of Darkness

Patrick Cockburn
What It Would Take to Mend Fences with Islam

Stephen Soldz
Caught on Tape: Diagnostic Abuse of Veterans

P. Sainath
The Rise of the Shoe-cide Bomber

Ellen Cantarow
Israel's Master Plan for Transfer

Gareth Porter /
Jim Lobe
Obama and Israel's Threat to Strike Iran

Jeremy Scahill
How Many Democrats Will Stand Up Against Obama's Bloated Military Budget?

Jerry Kroth
Saving GM From Bankruptcy--With the Stroke of a Pen

Binoy Kampmark
Fujimori Convicted: A Measure of Justice in Latin America

Fidel Castro
My Meeting with the Black Caucus

Website of the Day
Bird Song Radio

April 8, 2009

John Prados
The Af-Pak Paradox

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Changing the Rules of the Blame Game

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Tooth Fairy and the Defense Budget

Russell Mokhiber
PBS Lashes Back

Kathy Sanborn
Depression Fury

Rev. William E. Alberts
If the Shoe Fits: Bush and Al-Zaidi

James McEnteer Rashomon and the Binghamton Shooter: the Rush to Interpret Jiverly Wong's "Statement"

Nadia Hijab
Olmert's Nightmare

Adam Turl
Card Check on the Ropes

Kevin Zeese
Escaping the Drug War Quagmire

Website of the Day
Walk Score Your Neighborhood

April 7, 2009

David Price
Counterinsurgency's Free Ride

Uri Avnery
Who's the Boss?

Chris Floyd
Talking Peace in Prague, Dropping Bombs in Pakistan

Winslow T. Wheeler Defense Cuts: Gates and the System

Marjorie Cohn
Prosecuting the Bush Torture Team: Spain Leads the Way

Dean Baker
Hands Off Social Security

Diana Johnstone
NATO, Strasbourg and the Black Block

Dave Lindorff
Politicizing Accounting

Martha Rosenberg
Life on HBO's Factory Hog Farm

Evelyn Pringle
Motherhood and the Psycho-Pharmaceutical Complex

Website of the Day
Gaza: Closed Zone

April 6, 2009

Michael Hudson
The IMF Rules the World

Andy Worthington Bagram: Guantánamo's Dark Mirror

Ray McGovern
Profiles in Cowardice: Eric Holder and Colin Powell

Deepak Tripathi
The Pakistan Enigma

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Financial Rescue Plan: a Glide-Path to Destitution

Norman Solomon
Meet the New Escalators: the Democrats and the Afghan War

Jonathan Cook
Israel Railways Accused of Racism in Firing of Arab Workers

Judith Bello
Justice for the Developmentally Disabled

Deena Metzger Blackwater in Liberia

Dr. M. Kamiar
"There's No 'Eye' in Iran:" Obama's Pronunciation Problem

Website of the Day
Prison Talk

April 3-5, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
From Twin Towers to Twin Camelots

Kathy Kelly /
Brian Terrall
Getting a Closer Look at the Killer Drones

Sue Sturgis
Fooling with Disaster? Startling Revelations About Three Mile Island Raise New Doubts Over Nuclear Plant Safety

Peter Morici
Girding for a Depression

Kathy Sanborn
Homeless in Tent City, USA

Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo: Fact or Fiction?

Rob Larson
Subprime Supreme Court: The Roberts Court Has Become a Powerful New Tool for Business

Saul Landau
Biden and Nixon: a Tale of Two Latin American Experiences

Steve Early
An Evening with Andy Stern

John Goekler
Was Gaza Israel's Waterloo?

Rannie Amiri
Arab League Reconciliation Summit a Bust

Dave Lindorff
Hooray for Juries! A Courtroom Victory for Ward Churchill and Academic Free Speech

Lee Ballinger
Sound Garden: Tom Morello at the Grammy Museum

Ron Jacobs
Artifacts for Survival

David Macaray
AIG Plays the Sympathy Card

John Wight
G20: Capital's New World Symphony

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Race in the Obama Era

Mychal Bell
Surviving Jena Six

Missy Beattie
Hoop Hopes, War and Peace

Reza Fiyouzat
The Iran/US Rapproachment Dance

Michael Boldin
The War on Drugs is a War on You

Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Batting 50-50

Charles R. Larson
Too Much Stuff

Susie Day
Bernie Breakout Shocker!!

Stephen Martin
Gordon Brown's Chicken Run at the G20

Kim Nicolini
"Last House on the Left:" Vigilantes of the Bourgeoisie

David Yearsley
Homage to Moog and Mallards

Phyllis Pollack
An Interview with Legendary Rock Producer Chris Kimsey on Working with the Stones, Ronnie Wood, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh and Saint Jude

Poets' Basement
Foley, Valentine and Kozak

Website of the Day
The Corner Store

April 2, 2009

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

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
A G20 Meeting for Naught

George Bisharat
Israel's Impunity Must End

Russell Mokhiber
Something is Rotten at PBS

Franklin Lamb
Has Washington Lost Lebanon?

Gareth Porter
Settling Scores in Iraq: Maliki Draws US Troops into Crackdown on Sunni Rivals

David Macaray
Obama and the Ruling Class: "Only the Little People Pay Taxes"

Chris Genovali
B.C.'s Bloody Grizzly Hunt

Sam Smith
The Politics of Adulation

Suzan Mazur
Is Neo-Darwinism Dead?

Website of the Day
Fighting for Change in St. Louis

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

April 27, 2009

Hillary Does Beirut

The 165-Minute Swoop-In

By FRANKLIN LAMB

Beirut

On June 17, 2008, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice set a remarkable American and World Record for the shortest visit   to Lebanon ever recorded by a serving US Secretary of State. The objective was to express love, affection, and non-interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs.  Some wags in Beirut will tell you it was George Bush’s’ Secretary of State’s greatest single achievement. History will judge, but Ms. Rice was definitely in and out of Lebanon ten months ago in a slim envelope of time, totaling  275 minutes!

On Sunday, April 26, 2009, that record was shattered.  With the authority of a Shack O’Neal slam dunk in sudden death overtime in a NBA playoff,  current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to the awe of her advance team and bedazzled entourage, shaved no fewer than 110 minutes off Condi’s Record.  Let the word go forth, that as of today, the new record for an American administration expressing eternal love to Lebanon is: 165 minutes flat –touchdown to wheels up!

Both ladies arrived, as others had before them, with identical objectives.  It to shore up the US backed ‘ruling team’ amid disturbing signs that Lebanon’s population wants change they can believe in.
 Each had the same itinerary, a quick visit with smiles and sweet words for the much admired Lebanese President, Michel Suleiman,  followed by a dash downtown to  Martyr’s Square (one of several such Squares in Lebanon) to lay a wreath on the shrine of murdered former Prime Minister, Rafic Hariri. This was followed by a breathtaking breakneck speed dash to the airport through the Hezbollah area (!) of South Beirut called Dahiyeh, with, this time, bright Hezbollah billboards featuring the Party’s just released campaign posters. Presumably the new Secretary of State had one translated: “Our Lebanon, Their Lebanon (rejected in favor of) One Lebanon” to the airport.

In fairness to Ms. Rice,  she should be granted a handicap because she did meet with some local March 14 leaders, whereas Ms. Clinton saw no one. Clinton beat former Secretary Rice bad when the stopwatch results were announced.

For Hillary Clinton, it was a quick and, on the surface at least, smooth and politically symbolic, as it coincided with the fourth anniversary of the pullout of Syrian forces from Lebanon. The coming election is all about symbolism.

The 165-minute Timeline

10:45 am  Beirut time, on this beautiful Sunday spring morning, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s plane touched down in Beirut.

11:25 am Madam Secretary was in Baabda Palace for a photo op with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman with her Deputy, Jeffrey Feltman and US Ambassador Michele Sison in tow. The Secretary of State reportedly told the President that the US supports “voices of moderation” and will supply more arms.

12:32pm Clinton explains to  the media at a news conference at Baabda Palace that there must be no “foreign interference” in the Lebanese election. She added that “We believe these elections are crucial for an independent and sovereign Lebanon”.  At least two journalists present sniggered at her solemn declaration and received a scowl from beefy Secret Service security. The Secretary did not seem to notice, and continued, “Our ongoing support for the Lebanese Armed Forces remains a pillar of our bilateral cooperation."

A senior State Department official (  Jeffrey Feltman)  later  cautioned that Ms. Clinton’s pledge should not be taken as a guarantee that the United States would continue the military assistance that it has provided in the past. Rather, he explained the Obama administration would have to take a look at the composition of the next Lebanese government and make decisions about its aid in that light.

Finally, Secretary Clinton said the United States will continue to "protect the Lebanese borders." It was left unclear if this included the daily Israeli invasions of Lebanese airspace and Israel’s “at will” land border crossings, criticized regularly by UNIFIL and the UN in New York but practically never mentioned in Washington these days.

12:38pm:    Secretary Clinton: “Washington will not reach any deal with Syria at Lebanon's expense.”  Clinton seemed not to hear a reporter’s question about the collapsing security situation in Iraq and the killing of nearly 150 people in the past 48 hours except to assure those present that the killings “do not reflect any divergence from the security progress that has been made."  That comment seemed to lead to some head scratching from a few in the media gathering.

12:53pm Clinton arrives in Down Town Beirut to visit the tomb of Rafic Hariri and was met by MP Saad Hariri, leader of the US-Saudi-Egyptian June election slate. She laid a wreath on the resting place of, and election symbol for, the US-backed March 14 candidates, the much admired assassinated Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. The Clinton ‘endorsement’ was immediately and repeatedly broadcast by Saad Hariri’s Future Movement March 14 Campaign, on Future (Hariri) TV, LBC (Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, MTV (Murr TV) and their other media allies.

Despite being under the unseen protection of Hezbollah security at Beirut’s airport, from the moment of touch-down to lift-off, there was zero chance Secretary Clinton would be meeting with anyone from the Party of God or, Hamas.  In fact, just to make sure that no one would accuse her of interfering with the internal affairs of Lebanon  and the coming election (which many here believe was the only reason she dropped out of the sky) Secretary Clinton declined to meet with other participants in the elections (except US Team leader, Saad Hariri). The exclusions included former Bush-Cheney favorite, Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt.

Where’s Walid?

Given his  multiple invitations from Washington over the past two years, Druze and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt would normally be assumed to spend plenty of time with a visiting US Secretary of State as a US loyalist.  Now it not so clear what he is up to. His perhaps self-leaked sharp criticisms last week of the US backed majority upset Washington has caused political ripples across Lebanon.
Currently viewed with dismay by some at the State Department, Jumblatt is acting as if he might jump ship and join the Hezbollah-led opposition, or some are suggesting he appears at least to be hedging his bets so he can be an ally of the June election winners.  Others, including, a pro-March 14th Sunni Muslim English teacher from the Aisha Bakkar section of Hamra, Ghada Jilani, sighed, “that is just Jumblatt being Jumblatt, in his role as Lebanon’s quintessential Compleat Politician.  That man is always able to sniff out the latest political trend!” 

In defense of Walid Jumblatt, it should be noted that he is Kamel Jumblatt’s son, and his assassinated father was one of Lebanon’s most charismatic and inspiring leaders who was aligned with progressive forces, including the PLO and Lebanon’s Communist Party, during the early years of the Civil War until his murder on March 16, 1977.
Walid was weaned on his extremely literate father’s (Kamel authored more than 1200 articles and editorials) theories of secularism, socialism, Arabism and abolition of the Lebanese sectarian system and the alliance Kamal tried to forge of Sunni, Shia and leftist Christians into a national opposition movement.

This writer has noticed that middle aged men, and certainly himself, at times lapse into deep and emotional appreciation of their fathers and mothers.  Jumblatt may be moving toward or revisiting his martyred father’s views, after years of self analysis and dabbling with various political philosophies, local Lebanese tribal traditions and substances.

1:30 pm Clinton was up and away. Her aircraft faded in the azure sky over the calm, pellucid Mediterranean Sea and wondered to what extent her “Hello-Goodbye gotta go check on Bill!” visit would influence the fast approaching election.

On her flight back to Washington, Hilary Clinton presumably has in her Lebanon Briefing Book a current snapshot of the June election.

According to the US State Department Lebanese Election Unit, if the election were held today the Hezbollah-led opposition would capture 69 of the 128 seats in Parliament, a nightmare for Washington and Tel Aviv since the Opposition could then pretty much call the shots in Parliament.

The LEU is not assuaged by Hezbollah’s assertions that it wants a unity government no matter who wins, nor its repeated signals that the Hezbollah-led opposition wants to work with the current US-team, win or lose, to bring good government and sound fiscal policies to Lebanon.
State Department staff most likely revealed to the Secretary Clinton the following details based on a State Department analysis of the fast approaching June 7 election.  These current predictions are shared by some observers in Lebanon including political analyst Ibrahime Al-Amine, writing in Beirut’s Al Akbar daily newspaper on April 24, 2009.
Hezbollah’s  eleven (11)  announced candidates will likely  all win since their districts are heavily Shia; Hezbollah’s alliance with Christians and others needs to add seven seats to the 58 seats  the Opposition currently holds  in order to achieve the critical one-half plus one (65)  Deputy seats.

The LEU believes 30 seats are  too close to call at the moment  (mainly Christian seats due to pro Resistance sentiments among many Christians hence their power base fractured) and  Clinton has been told that as  these districts  go so goes Lebanon’s political direction for the next four years.

The Opposition’s 58 seats in the 128 seat Lebanese Chamber of Deputies (Majles al-Nouwwab) will likely increase by seven (7) seats giving it solid control of the government with all that means for Lebanese becoming a “Resistance State”, incorporating Hezbollah arms into the Lebanese Armed Forces and moving Lebanon from US-Israeli domination to better relations with all States in the region.

So why did Hillary Clinton come to Beirut?

“For sure Clinton’s visit will benefit the ruling team”, explained Lebanese Human Rights Ambassador Ali Khalil sarcastically. “That was the whole idea. You know non-interference with Lebanon’s independence, sovereignty and freedom to choose.”

The  motivation and purpose of the Clinton visit seems fairly clear. Recently she and others in Washington have voiced concerns over "a possible Hezbollah victory in the June legislative polls" and underlined the need for efforts to boost the command of the current government. Her objective in visiting Lebanon was to weaken Hezbollah, and, in the words opf the Palestine Chronicle, “shore up Egypt’s President Mubarak who personally ordered desperate, terrified and wounded Palestinians sealed inside a Gaza pogrom during last December’s Israeli slaughter, and whose attacks on Hezbollah are eroding the patience of Egypt’s population for his repressive regime.”

On April 24, 2009, a wide-eyed Clinton told a skeptical Congress that the recent arrests in Egypt, somehow linked to an alleged Hezbollah cell,  "served as a wakeup call" for the Egyptian authorities.  Suddenly the Mubarak regime became aware of "the increasing alliance between Hezbollah and Hamas and their connection to organizations inside Egypt seeking to destabilize the government," she explained, while adding that the “United States serves best its own interests by supporting and funding" the Lebanese government in order to "prevent fundamentalism from making more infiltrations”.

Hezbollah’s response to Clinton’s visit

Hezbollah criticized Clinton's visit as interference in Lebanese affairs. "The policy of the United States is one of interference," the Party’s spokesman, Dr. Ibrahim al-Mousawi told Hezbollah's al-Manar TV. “This interference is not in the interest of the countries they interfere in but are meant to serve the American interests in the region."

Lebanon’s Election Day: 42 days and counting.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon.  He can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org

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