Can
The Lebanese Army Fight America's War Against Terror?
By Robert Fisk
03 June, 2007
The
Independent
On
the surface, it all makes sense. A group of radical Islamists fighting
the Lebanese army shoot on amid the ruins of Nahr el-Bared refugee camp.
Nahr el-Bared means "the cold river", but there is no river.
They are shelled by the Lebanese army. In fact, Lebanese Gazelle helicopters
machine-gunned them yesterday. Another chapter in the war on terror.
In reality, it is another
tragedy in that same conflict (though let's delete the word "terror").
The Gazelles have no rockets - courtesy of the United States, because
Israel fears they will be used against its own forces.
The Belgians even offered
Leopard tanks - again vetoed by the United States - in case the Lebanese
used them against the Israelis. So the Lebanese are armed sufficiently
to fight Palestinians, but not enough to fight their enemies on their
southern frontier.
Are the Fatah al-Islam gunmen
supported by Syria? Probably yes. But a familiar pattern was emerging
yesterday. The International Red Cross was asking "all the parties"
for a ceasefire, the phrase used so promiscuously during the 1975-1990
civil war in Lebanon, as if the Palestinian gunmen were combatants in
a civil conflict, rather than the murderers of 20 Lebanese soldiers
more than two weeks ago. Yesterday the BBC was adding to the normality
of war, by referring to the "maze of concrete buildings and narrow
alleyways" of Nahr el-Bared, as if refugee camps in the Middle
East were made of anything else.
So can the Lebanese army
really fight America's war in the north of this country? Though composed
of Shias, Sunnis, Druze and Christians, it has held together. But it
was not created to fight the West's wars in the Middle East. Just over
a week ago a secret meeting was held in the south of this country in
which intelligence officers from the French, Italian and Spanish governments
- based in their embassies in Beirut - sat down and talked to senior
officials of the Hizbollah guerrilla movement, Israel's greatest enemies
in Lebanon.
They were assured - as they
hoped they would be - by Hizbollah that their soldiers in the enlarged
peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon would be protected from al-Qa'ida
and their friends in Fatah al-Islam. They were also told that if Israel
attacked Lebanon again this summer, there would be a far fiercer war
than the 34-day conflict last June and July. North of the Litani River
- and amid the conflict in northern Lebanon this has gone unreported
- the Hizbollah is building new roads and bunkers in preparation for
the next battle with Israel.
Because the refugee camps
of the north are so isolated, and because Beirut survives, despite the
nightly bombings by (as usual) unknown suspects, this country still
presents a picture of peace and comparative normality.
But it is in grave peril,
and - as in Afghanistan and Iraq - we are continuing to ignore this.
Further reading: "The
Great War for Civilisation: the Conquest of the Middle East" by
Robert Fisk, HarperCollins
© 2007 Independent News
and Media Limited
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