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Ear to the Ground

Blowback in Lebanon

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Posted on Jun 22, 2007
motherjones.com

Truthdig contributor Reese Erlich connects the blowback from American meddling in the Mideast to the recent violence in Lebanon, where a Palestinian militant group has been fighting with the Lebanese army.


Mother Jones:

The brutal fighting inside Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, which has claimed 140 lives so far, seems incomprehensible to anyone not steeped in the intricacies of Palestinian politics. But behind the killing lurks an urgent question: Is Fatah al Islam—the organization responsible for much of the fighting—a pawn of Syria, as charged by the U.S. and some Lebanese? Or is it an unintended outgrowth of a U.S.-backed plan to develop a Sunni counterweight to Hezbollah?

During a recent trip to the Middle East, I conducted exclusive interviews with Palestinian and Syrian government and intelligence officials as well as independent sources. All of them insisted that while some leaders of Fatah al Islam did indeed live in Syria, those leaders broke from a Syrian-supported group in 2006, well before the current Lebanese turmoil.

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By lilmamzer, June 23, 2007 at 8:20 am Link to this comment

#80663 by Non Credo:

Verne, the fact that you conniving, cynical betrayers of America actually think the outrage you evoke is funny only justifies the very worst that may be coming to you when your little jig is finally up.

Here come the threats of violence.

Predictable, and only a matter of time, coming from the philosophical stable-mate of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah,  Hezbollah….......

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By lilmamzer, June 23, 2007 at 7:28 am Link to this comment

#80645 by Verne Arnold:

Your last post was a hoot.  You have the patience of a saint.  Good on you!  Non Credo, whatever that means, is a case.  I wouldn’t have bothered.

Good on ya, mate. From Oz are you?
Thanks for the kind words.

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By Verne Arnold, June 23, 2007 at 6:39 am Link to this comment

#80615 by lilmamzer on 6/22 at 10:53 pm

Oops, not your last post…the one one above with your offer of paying the medical bills.  I’m still laughing.

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By Verne Arnold, June 23, 2007 at 6:36 am Link to this comment

#80615 by lilmamzer on 6/22 at 10:53 pm

Your last post was a hoot.  You have the patience of a saint.  Good on you!  Non Credo, whatever that means, is a case.  I wouldn’t have bothered.  Are you making any headway?  I sure hope so.

We need more people like you, thanks.

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By lilmamzer, June 22, 2007 at 11:53 pm Link to this comment

#80603 by Non Credo:

Actually, I believe the population of Israel is less than 7 million citizens, and 20 percent of these citizens are 2nd-class, i.e., non-Jewish.

The latest census figures out Israel’s 2007 population at 7,150,000, of which Jews constitute 76%, or 5,415,000 people.

And you labeled ALL the citizens of Israel “tar babies”. Every man, woman, and child.

I challenge you to go to the next meeting of the NAACP, or better yet, the local chapter of the Nation of Islam, and address the assembled people as ‘tar babies’.

I will pay your medical expenses, or, if necessary, your funeral expenses.

I can’t wait to see what nonsense you come up with next - you are very entertaining, “non credo”.

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By lilmamzer, June 22, 2007 at 11:42 pm Link to this comment

#80606 by Non Credo:

But one day, you will realize that you have mistaken our good nature for stupidity.

“You” vs. “Our” figures so prominently in your thinking.

Are you so sure I am not as American as one can be?  After all, I just might be one of the overwhelming majority of American citizens who is both well-informed about Middle East issues AND pro-Israel. That would put YOU in the minority. Shall I repost some of examples of your hateful rhetoric to contradict your claim of being ‘good natured’?

Here’s some very recent examples of your good nature:

#80127 by Non Credo on 6/21 at 1:39 pm - “I hate you because I am sick, down to my bones, of my government underwriting your profoundly hateful and murderous Zionist project.”

#80118 by Non Credo: - “She’s like a slut who recklessly gobbles antibiotics and retrovirals (paid for by her stupid sucker boyfriend) and then orgies her guts out, because, well, she just loves filth.”

#80001 by Non Credo on 6/21 at 8:21 am:  “In all your posts, you have already provided us with a vivid picture of your spiritual ugliness….....
And now you create in our minds a deeply unwanted mental image of yourself hunching in a loveless mating fever before your monitor.”

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By lilmamzer, June 22, 2007 at 11:05 pm Link to this comment

#80606 by Non Credo:

You tell us to our faces that you think we’re inferior to you

Who tells whom, exactly?

And where?

Cite something specific. Or is this just more empty rhetoric?

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By lilmamzer, June 22, 2007 at 11:00 pm Link to this comment

#80602 by Non Credo:

Now, as you can see, my use of the term derives from this and only this, the absolutely standard use of the term.

In America today, the standard use of this term is pejorative.

Go up to the next black man you see and call him a tar baby to his face.

See what happens. grin

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By lilmamzer, June 22, 2007 at 6:50 pm Link to this comment

#80485 by Non Credo:

If we in the US would only drop our passionate attachment to the tar baby that is Israel

Tar baby?

The expression “tar baby” has negative connotations revolving around pejorative images of African-Americans.

Are you saying that Israelis are dark and nasty like African-Americans?

You are an equal-opportunity bigot. Jews AND blacks are on your shit-list now. Very nice.

In recent years, several Republicans who have publicly used the term have encountered some controversy, mocking, and censure from African-American civil rights leaders. Why on earth are you using that term to describe the 7 million Jewish citizens of Israel?

At least you acknowledge that Americans do have a passionate attachment to Israel, and they should. Americans love freedom, and identify with Israel’s continuing resistance to those would deny them their freedom. But to you they are just “tar babies”.

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By lilmamzer, June 22, 2007 at 5:46 pm Link to this comment

#80485 by Non Credo:

If we in the US would only drop our passionate attachment to the tar baby that is Israel, we would see our problems with Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries dwindle to near nothing

Put another way, you are saying that if the US stops supporting Israel:

* The Christians and the Muslims of Lebanon would no longer be antagonists to the point of imminent civil war?

* The great Sunni-Shia divide in the Muslim world would magically heal itself?

* Egypt would no longer persecute its Coptic Christian minorities?

* The misogyny in Saudi Arabia would transform into liberation for women?

Please detail for us how this would all work.

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By Dale Headley, June 22, 2007 at 12:41 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

America’s foreign policy is in freefall. Why?  Because it is being conducted by ignorant ideologues who direct all their efforts toward the overarching goal of the neoconserative dream of America’s supremacist domination of the world.

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