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From the Los Angeles Times
NEWS ANALYSIS
America and Tehran are battling for influence in
the Mideast, with Israel and Hezbollah doing the fighting. It's a 'proxy
war,' a U.S. official says.
By
Doyle McManus
Times Staff Writer
July 30, 2006
WASHINGTON — To President Bush, the conflict in Lebanon is more than a
campaign by Israel to protect its citizens from Hezbollah missiles.
Instead, it is "a moment of opportunity" for the United States — with
the most important target not Hezbollah or even neighboring Syria, but
distant Iran. |
Iranian students at the Tehran University on Sunday,
July 30, 2006, once again demonstrated their solidarity with Lebanese
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah (pictures far left and far right) and
voiced their fury against Israeli attacks in Qana where more than 50
people were killed.
(EPA)
(EPA)
July 30, 2006
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Many of the victims in Qana were women and children who
had taken shelter in a two story home.
(Carolyn Cole / LAT)
Jul 30, 2006
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When Bush
talks publicly about the 18-day-old campaign, he often makes the point
of blaming Iran, one of Hezbollah's main sponsors. Aides say that's a
reflection of what he has said in private: that Israel's battle with
Hezbollah is merely part of a larger struggle between the U.S. and Iran
for influence across the Middle East.
"The stakes are larger than just Lebanon," the president told reporters
Friday after meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "The root
cause of the problem is you've got Hezbollah that is armed and willing
to fire rockets into Israel; a Hezbollah … that I firmly believe is
backed by Iran and encouraged by Iran."
He added:
"I also believe that Iran would like to exert additional influence in
the region. A theocracy would like to spread its influence, using
surrogates…. And so, for the sake of long-term stability, we've got to
deal with this issue now."
Another U.S. official, who spoke about the Middle East turmoil on
condition of anonymity, was more blunt. In Lebanon, the United States
and Iran "are conducting a proxy war," he said, with Israel fighting for
one side and Hezbollah for the other.
"It is in our interest to see Hezbollah defeated," he said.
The administration's view of the conflict's larger stakes are a major
reason why U.S. diplomacy in the crisis has not been devoted to
achieving an early cease-fire, as was often the case in earlier clashes
between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Instead, the White House has
decided that the United States' strategic objective is the same as
Israel's — a decisive defeat for Hezbollah and, by extension, Iran. |
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Just as
the White House hoped its 2003 invasion of Iraq would transform the
entire Middle East, Bush and his aides openly voice hopes that an
Israeli victory in Lebanon can change the political balance in a much
wider area, striking a major blow against Iran and the terrorist groups
it has sponsored.
"This is a moment of intense conflict … yet our aim is to turn it into a
moment of opportunity and a chance for broader change in the region,"
Bush said Friday.
"Instead of having foreign policies based upon trying to create a sense
of stability, we have a foreign policy that addresses the root causes of
violence and instability," he added.
Or, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice put it a week earlier,
describing the administration's goals in ambitious terms: "What we're
seeing here, in a sense, is … the birth pangs of a new Middle East. And
whatever we do, we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the
new Middle East, not going back to the old one."
For that to occur, Israel still has to win on the battlefield — and that
hasn't happened yet. But administration officials said they were
confident that Israel, supported openly or tacitly by the U.S. and other
Western nations, would achieve most of its military objectives.
"I don't think that Israel will falter," said the State Department's
counter-terrorism chief, Henry A. Crumpton.
But some U.S. officials acknowledge privately that even if Israel
succeeds militarily, turning its campaign into a major advance for
democracy in Lebanon and other Arab countries will be easier said than
done.
At the
outset of the Israeli campaign, many non-Shiite Lebanese blamed
Hezbollah for starting a needless war; but as Israeli attacks have
killed Lebanese civilians and damaged Lebanon's economy, Lebanese
politicians of almost all stripes have rallied, at least rhetorically,
to Hezbollah's defense.
And
just as in Iraq, long-term success in Lebanon will require a long
postwar process of building democratic institutions and preventing
militias such as Hezbollah from rising again. "This is just the start of
a long, complex chapter," Crumpton told reporters. |
Lebanon’s people
July 29, 2006
July 29, 2006
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As diplomatic efforts continued to grind along, Israeli forces and
Hezbollah fighters kept up their air and ground strikes and rocket
attacks, respectively.
Israel: Northern Israel remained under attack, with at
least 70 rockets fired at targets that included Haifa, Kiryat
Shemona, Nahariya and Tiberias.
Lebanon: Israeli ground forces engaged in heavy fighting
with Hezbollah fighters in Bint Jbeil, gaining control of the city
and reportedly killing a Hezbollah commander. Israeli forces also
continued to attack targets elsewhere, including Tyre, Nabatiyeh
and Beirut. Four U.N. observers were killed in an Israeli
airstrike.
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A list of
difficult goals faces Rice and other diplomats who have been charged
with bringing the conflict to an end: disarming Hezbollah, whose
popularity has been founded on its guerrillas' willingness to stand and
fight against Israel; bolstering Lebanon's shaky government and its
small, untested army; and assembling a multinational peacekeeping force
to provide security for southern Lebanon's ravaged villages and prevent
terrorists from crossing Israel's northern border.
Even as they want to see Hezbollah defeated, Bush and his aides also
want Lebanon to emerge from the crisis with its democratically elected
government stronger. So the U.S. has urged Israel to avoid attacking
targets that aren't directly related to the campaign against Hezbollah,
advice Israel appears to be following.
But behind the diplomatic detail, in the minds of Bush and his closest
aides, will be a larger issue: making sure Hezbollah and its sponsors,
Syria and Iran, come out of the crisis with their power diminished, not
enhanced.
"Clearly, Iran has a goal of strengthening Hezbollah and gaining further
influence" in the Middle East, Crumpton said. "And I think they see this
[conflict] as a means of doing so."
He added, "We have got to take this on either now or later — and I think
we've got to take this on now."
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the American public's attention on
what Bush deemed a "global war on terror" has focused on Al Qaeda, the
Sunni Muslim organization that carried out the assaults on New York and
Washington. |
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Gaza Strip: Palestinian guerrillas fired rockets into the
southern Israeli town of Ami-Oz, wounding at least one person. Israel
launched airstrikes against buildings that the military said were
being used to store munitions for the militant group Islamic Jihad;
eight people were wounded.
Diplomatic efforts: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
continued her Middle East mission, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. She
arrived in Rome for a meeting today with European and Arab leaders
that was to include discussions about mustering a possible
international force to police the border area of Lebanon.
Humanitarian concerns: Olmert said Israel would allow
transportation of aid to all parts of Lebanon. Besides letting
assistance flights land at Beirut airport, Israel would allow aid to
enter through the ports of Beirut, Sidon and Tyre. Some aid agencies,
however, said they were still unable to bring in help.
Evacuations: The U.S. announced that the last scheduled
evacuation of Americans would take place today; as many as 300
Americans could still be stranded in the middle of fighting.
(Sources: The Associated Press, Reuters, BBC, Times reporting)
July 26, 2006
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But U.S.
counter-terrorism officials have long considered Hezbollah, a Shiite
Muslim group organized and funded partly by Iran, just as dangerous —
and perhaps even more so.
Richard L. Armitage, the No. 2 official in the State Department during
Bush's first term, once suggested that Hezbollah might be "the A-team of
terrorists" for its discipline and expertise, and that "Al Qaeda is
actually the B-team," Crumpton said.
U.S.
intelligence analysts have considered Hezbollah a major threat since at
least 1983, when they believe the group organized and carried out the
suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241
people. Between 1983 and 1994, U.S. officials charge, Hezbollah carried
out a series of kidnappings, bombings and at least one airliner
hijacking; Hezbollah denies the charges. And U.S. officials believe
Hezbollah provided training to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda forces when
they were based in Sudan in the 1990s.
In recent years, Hezbollah has focused on solidifying its political and
military role in Lebanon, where it controls a large swath of territory
and holds a block of seats in the nation's parliament. But U.S.
officials say the organization still retains the capability of mounting
terrorist attacks abroad.
"I would not rule out them striking American interests anywhere in the
world, and I can't rule it out here" either, Crumpton said.
As for Iran, Bush and his aides have long viewed Tehran's Islamic regime
as a threat to the United States because of its pursuit of nuclear
technology and its hostility toward Israel, as well as its history of
support for terrorism. Bush named Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea,
as members of an "axis of evil" — unfriendly nations that the United
States accused of seeking weapons of mass destruction.
The
president and his aides have said they want to encourage Iranians to
change their form of government, and some of their conservative
supporters have called for a more explicit policy of "regime change."
Earlier this year, in his State of the Union address, Bush called Iran
"a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating
and repressing its people." |
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Officials
say Bush believes Iran wants to create a "Shia crescent" — an arc of
Iranianinfluenced regimes stretching from the Persian Gulf through Iraq,
Syria and Lebanon, countries with significant Shiite Muslim populations
that would make Tehran a major power broker in the Middle East.
One
official said the president had exploited such fears in recent weeks in
conversations with the Sunni Muslim leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
Jordan as a way of urging them to withhold support from Hezbollah in the
Lebanon conflict.
In Iraq, Iran has supported radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, whose
followers have fought both U.S. troops and Iraqi government security
forces.
Among the Palestinians, Iran has supported Hamas, the radical Sunni
Muslim movement that won a majority in the Palestinian parliament this
year and rejects Israel's right to exist.
U.S. officials say that by supporting Hamas, Iran has obstructed
American efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians —
and has made itself an important player in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Some U.S. officials say they suspect, but cannot prove, that
Iran encouraged Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, an
operation that provoked the Israeli campaign, in hopes of distracting
the United States and its allies from their drive to win United Nations
sanctions against Tehran for its nuclear activities.
As diplomatic efforts intensify to end the conflict in Lebanon, U.S.
officials say that one of their main goals is to make sure Hezbollah
does not snatch a political victory from the jaws of military defeat. |
Hezbollah's reach?
July 20, 2006
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In the past,
they note, Hezbollah and other guerrilla forces had often suffered
battlefield setbacks at the hands of Israel's army but still were able to
boost their political standing merely by claiming that they fought bravely
in the defense of Arab interests against a stronger foe. In fact, Hezbollah
is already making that claim.
That's one reason the Bush administration has refused to press Israel for an
early cease-fire before Hezbollah is soundly defeated.
"The administration has not called for an immediate cease-fire because the
only way to do that would be to turn to Israel and say, 'Stop,' and that
would be a huge victory for Hezbollah," said Martin Indyk, a former U.S.
ambassador to Israel.
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said it was important to the
administration that Hezbollah be seen by other Arabs as having been
defeated.
"If a terrorist organization is able to destabilize a government and is able
to declare victory," he said, "what that does is it sends a message to
terrorist organizations throughout the region that they've got a green
light."
Times staff writers Tyler Marshall and Peter Spiegel
contributed to this report.
Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times |
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By Will Lester, Associated Press Writer |
July 29, 2006
WASHINGTON --Presidential adviser Karl Rove said Saturday that
journalists often criticize political professionals because they want to
draw attention away from the "corrosive role" their own coverage plays
in politics and government.
"Some decry the professional role of politics, they would like to see
it disappear," Rove told graduating students at the George Washington
University Graduate School of Political Management. "Some argue
political professionals are ruining American politics -- trapping
candidates in daily competition for the news cycle instead of long-term
strategic thinking in the best interest of the country."
But Rove turned that criticism on journalists.
"It's odd to me that most of these critics are journalists and
columnists," he said. "Perhaps they don't like sharing the field of
play. Perhaps they want to draw attention away from the corrosive role
their coverage has played focusing attention on process and not
substance." |
White House political adviser Karl Rove delivers the
keynote address at George Washington University Graduate School of
Political Management's Commencement Saturday, July 29, 2006, in
Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf) |
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| Rove told about 100 graduates trained to be
political operatives that they should respect the instincts of the American
voter. "There are some in politics who hold that voters are dumb, ill
informed and easily misled, that voters can be manipulated by a clever ad or
a smart line," said Rove, who is credited with President Bush's victories in
the 2000 and 2004 elections. "I've seen this cynicism over the years from
political professionals and journalists. American people are not policy
wonks, but they have great instincts and try to do the right thing."
Rove said it is "wrong to underestimate the intelligence of the American
voter, but easy to overestimate their interest. Much tugs at their
attention."
But he said voters are able to watch campaigns and candidates closely and
"this messy and imperfect process has produced great leaders."
------
STORY CITY, Iowa (AP) -- Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry on Saturday
challenged Democrats to take back statehouses and governor's mansions across
the nation in November, saying the country becomes less safe under
Republican control.
"The fact is, the United States of America is less secure today than we
were five years ago," he said. "Less secure because North Korea has four or
five times more weapons .... Iran is running amok, the Middle East -- the
wheels are coming off, and Iraq is a quagmire."
Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, said "there's a better
course for America," and that begins with electing Democrats in 2006.
"Who you chose for your local races is going to have a profound impact on
the country as a whole," said Kerry, who was making his fourth trip to Iowa
since the state's leadoff caucuses in January 2004. He has been helping
state-level candidates around the nation, and was in Story City for a
$30-a-head brunch for Democrat Rich Olive, who is running for the Iowa state
Senate.
Kerry insisted he's focused on helping other Democrats such as Olive win
in 2006, and not on a potential run for president in 2008.
"I'm here because '06, not '08, is really important," said Kerry, who has
raised and given $10 million to Democratic candidates and committees through
his own political action committee.
------
AMES, Iowa (AP) -- Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says he took a huge
political risk by taking control of the state's troubled "Big Dig" project
but that he had to take action.
"The best thing politically would be to stay as far away from that tar
baby as I can," he told a crowd of about 100 supporters gathered for indoor
picnic.
"I'll get the blame for anything that goes wrong," he said. "But I'm sure
tired of people who are nothing but talk. I'm willing to take action."
Saturday was the first out-of-state trip for Romney -- who is considering
a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 -- since he took
control of the Big Dig.
Originally a $2.6 billion highway project that created a series of
traffic tunnels through the heart of Boston, the cost of the Big Dig has
swelled to more than $14 billion. The project has been dogged by problems,
including leaks, falling debris, delays and cost overruns.
Romney's trip to Iowa Saturday has been planned for weeks -- long before
the Big Dig crisis surfaced -- and he said he felt comfortable the Big Dig
was at a point where he leave the state.
"There will always be critics," he said in an interview with The
Associated Press. "This project is going to take months to correct and I
will be available whenever I need to be there. It doesn't make a lot of
sense to say home for several months. I'm not an engineer. I'm not a
contractor."
--------
On the Net:
Sen. John Kerry:
http://kerry.senate.gov/
© Copyright 2006 Associated Press. |
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By Doug Cunningham [Talia Vasquez1] : “I think it’s very important to
respect the right of the people to express themselves in a pacific way,
because it is a constitutional right.”
Speaking through an interpreter that was Talia Vasquez , representing
progressive Mexican presidential candidate Manuel Lopez Obrador. Vasquez
was in Florida to address the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store
Union’s recent convention. She says Obrador won the Mexican election and
there must be a recount of all the ballots because there’s evidence of
fraud and irregularities in that very close race. Vasquez says Obrador
represents poor and working people and Mexico would be a very different
nation if he were president. Vasquez says cross-border working class
solidarity is very important.
[Vasquez2]: “And we trust in the solidarity among the working class.
Because an important issue for Manuel Lopez Obrador is the negotiation.
And the union that is having the convention here in Orlando (RWDSU)
represents many, many Mexicans who live in the United States. And we
want to build those bridges to have a friendly relationship that
benefits our people.”
---
Posted 07/30/2006 - 6:21pm
© 2005 Workers Independent News |
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Economic Report: US pays most for healthcare per capita and has most
without
Economic Report: Not only does the United States have the largest
uninsured population of any other advanced industrialized population, it
also spends more on health care per capita. Those are the results
published in a book by the Economic Policy Institute titled the State of
Working America 2006/2007. 45.8 million people in the US do not have
health insurance - while countries like Ireland, Austria and Finland
spends half of what the US does, covering at least 99 percent of their
populations.
Posted 07/30/2006 - 6:22pm
© 2005 Workers Independent News |
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By BuzzFlash
Created 07/29/2006 - 6:17am
News from the National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition:
NSA WHISTLEBLOWER IS SUBPOENAED TO TESTIFY BEFORE FEDERAL GRAND JURY
Government Begins its Witch Hunt Targeting Whistleblowers
On Wednesday, July 26, Russell Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA)
intelligence analyst and a member of National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition (NSWBC), was approached outside his home by two FBI agents who
served him with a subpoena to testify in front of a federal grand jury.
NSWBC has obtained a copy of the subpoena issued for Mr. Tice's testimony
and is releasing it to the public for the first time. The subpoena directs
Mr. Tice to appear before the jury on August 2, 2006 at 1:00 p.m. in the
Eastern District of Virginia. Mr. Tice "will be asked to testify and answer
questions concerning possible violations of federal criminal law." [To
view the subpoena click here (PDF) [1]].
In response to the subpoena, Mr. Tice issued the following statement:
"This latest action by the government is designed only for one purpose: to
ensure that people who witness criminal action being committed by the
government are intimidated into remaining silent." He continued: "To this
date I have pursued all the appropriate channels to report unlawful and
unconstitutional acts conducted [by the government] while I served as an
intelligence officer with the NSA and DIA. It was with my oath as a US
intelligence officer to protect and preserve the U.S. Constitution weighing
heavy on my mind that I reported acts that I know to be unlawful and
unconstitutional. The freedom of the American people cannot be protected
when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed
into a police state."
On December 22, 2005, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition made
public a request by Tice to report to Congress probable unlawful and
unconstitutional acts by the government while he was an intelligence officer
with NSA and DIA. In a press release, NSWBC urged the congress to hold
hearings and let Mr. Tice testify. Mr. Tice, a responsible veteran
intelligence officer, tried to use the so-called appropriate channels,
including the United States Congress, to responsibly and lawfully disclose
government wrongdoing. [To read the release click here].
"What we are seeing here is a government desperate to cover up its
criminal and unconstitutional conduct. They now are going beyond the usual
retaliation against whistleblowers who courageously come forward to report
cases of government fraud, waste, abuse, and in some cases such as this one,
criminal actions. Their old tactics of intimidation, gag orders, and firing,
have not stopped an unprecedented number of whistleblowers from coming
forward and doing the right thing. Desperate to prevent the public's right
to know, they now are getting engaged in a witch hunt targeting these
patriotic truth tellers." stated Sibel Edmonds, the Director of National
Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
In addition, the timing of the subpoena appears to be more than a little
suspect. On July 25, 2006, Judge Matthew Kennelly upheld the government's
assertion of the state secrets privilege in Terkel v. AT&T. The crucial
issue in the case was whether or not the government's program of
surveillance had been publicly acknowledged, and Kennelly wrote "the focus
should be on information that bears persuasive indication of reliability."
If there were reliable public reports of the program then the fact of the
program's existence could not be a state secret. Kennelly found that there
were no reliable sources of public information about the contested program's
existence sufficient to thwart the government's need for secrecy. In other
words, the existence of the program had not been conclusively established,
and the government therefore had a right to prevent probing into the matter.
This stops a case that represented a serious threat to the Bush
administration.
Professor William Weaver, NSWBC Senior Advisor, stated: "Russ Tice is the
only publicly identified NSA employee connected to the New York Times in its
December 2005 story publicizing warrantless Bush-ordered surveillance. Tice
is also publicly perceived as someone who could authoritatively establish
the existence of the program at issue in Terkel; Tice could remedy the
defect in the plaintiff's case cited by Kennelly that allowed the
government's assertion of the state secrets privilege to be successful.
Later, on the same day Kennelly's opinion was filed, the Department of
Justice sent out Tice's subpoena. The date on the subpoena is July 20th,
before Kennelly's decision was filed, but the issue in the Terkel case was
so pregnant that it would be easy for the government to anticipate the
ruling and only issue the subpoena to Tice if necessary. It has now become
necessary, and the government seems to be moving to put pressure on Tice not
to reveal information that would confirm the electronic surveillance program
at issue in Terkel by threatening him with investigation and possible
indictment."
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, founded in August 2004, is an
independent and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward
to address our nation's security weaknesses; to inform authorities of
security vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear power
plants and weapon facilities, in airports, and at our nation's borders and
ports; to uncover government waste, fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal
conduct. The NSWBC is dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers
through a variety of methods, including advocacy of governmental and legal
reform, educating the public concerning whistleblowing activity, provision
of comfort and fellowship to national security whistleblowers suffering
retaliation and other harms, and working with other public interest
organizations to affect goals defined in the NSWBC mission statement. For
more on NSWBC visit www.nswbc.org
Source URL:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/articles/releases/4
Links:
[1]
http://www.nswbc.org/Reports - Documents/RussSubpoena.pdf
© BuzzFlash. |
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Guy Billout
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July 30, 2006
A Week of Reckoning
By
THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON
POUND for pound and pounding for pounding, the Israeli military is
one of the world’s finest. But
Hezbollah, with the discipline and ferocity of its fighters and
ability to field advanced weaponry, has taken
Israel by surprise.
Now that surprise has rocketed back to Washington and across the
American military.
United States officials worry that they’re not prepared, either, for
Hezbollah’s style of warfare — a kind that pits finders against hiders
and favors the hiders.
Certain that other terrorists are learning from Hezbollah’s
successes, the United States is studying the conflict closely for
lessons to apply to its own wars. Military planners suggest that the
Pentagon take a page out of Hezbollah’s book about small-unit, agile
operations as it battles insurgents and cells in Iraq and Afghanistan
and plans for countering more cells and their state sponsors across the
Middle East and in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
The United States and Israel have each fought conventional armies of
nation-states and shadowy terror organizations. But Hezbollah, with the
sophistication of a national army (it almost sank an Israeli warship
with a cruise missile) and the lethal invisibility of a guerrilla army,
is a hybrid. Old labels, and old planning, do not apply. Certainly its
style of 21st-century combat is known — on paper. The style even has its
own labels, including network warfare, or net war, and fourth-generation
warfare, although many in the military don’t care for such titles. But
the battlefields of south Lebanon prove that it is here, and sooner than
expected. And the American national security establishment is struggling
to adapt. |
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| “We are now into the first great war
between nations and networks,” said John Arquilla, a professor of
defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, and a leading analyst
of net warfare. “This proves the growing strength of networks as a
threat to American national security.” In a talk that Mr. Arquilla
calls Net Warfare 101, he describes how traditional militaries are
organized in a strict hierarchy, from generals down to privates. In
contrast, networks flatten the command structure. They are distributed,
dispersed, agile, mobile, improvisational. This makes them effective,
and hard to track and target.
A net war differs from all previous wars, which were about brute
confrontation of forces, mass on mass — what Matthew Arnold called
bloody contests of “ignorant armies” meeting on the “darkling plain.” |
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| Net war is the battle of the many, organized
in small units, against conventional militaries that organize their many
into large units. These network forces are not ignorant. They are computer
literate, propaganda and Internet savvy, and capable of firing complicated
weapons to great effect. “The pooling of information is certainly a
characteristic of these kinds of insurgencies,” said Daniel Benjamin, who
served on the
National Security Council under President
Bill Clinton before joining the Center for Strategic and International
Studies. “In Iraq, for example, the lessons on how to build and place
I.E.D.’s have spread and been assimilated in record time. There is certain
to be the insurgent equivalent of a PowerPoint presentation on Hezbollah’s
successes that will make the rounds of the insurgent and terrorist Web
sites.”
Hezbollah spent the last six years dispersing about 12,000 rockets across
southern Lebanon in a vast web of hidden caches, all divided into local
zones with independent command.
“They dug tunnels. They dug bunkers, they established communications
systems — cellphones, radios, even runners to carry messages that aren’t
susceptible to eavesdropping,” said one military officer with experience in
the Middle East. “They divided southern Lebanon into military zones with
many small units that operate independently, without the need for central
control.”
To attack Israel, Hezbollah dispersed its fighters with no distinguishing
markings or uniforms or vehicles. Fighters access the weapons only at the
moment of attack, and then disappear. This makes preventing the attack all
but impossible. It is a significant modernization of classic guerrilla
hit-and-run tactics. Israel has been unable to significantly degrade the
numbers of rockets because of this approach. Hezbollah fired more than 100 a
day at the start of this conflict; they are still firing more than 100 a
day, despite Israeli bombardment.
Hezbollah still possesses the most dangerous aspects of a shadowy terror
network. It abides by no laws of war as it attacks civilians
indiscriminately. Attacks on its positions carry a high risk of killing
innocents. At the same time, it has attained military capabilities and other
significant attributes of a nation-state. It holds territory and seats in
the Lebanese government. It fields high-tech weapons and possesses the
firepower to threaten the entire population of a regional superpower, or at
least those in the northern half of Israel.
While Hezbollah has emerged as a new kind of threat, it cannot be
forgotten that the network is a creation of Iran, with the support of Syria,
and both countries know they cannot attack Israel — or American interests —
directly. The Bush administration is debating internally whether the best
course of action against Iran and Syria is to negotiate with them, isolate
them, or do something stronger.
Hezbollah’s success in surviving Israeli bombardment poses an immediate
implication for American military planning as the United States figures out
what to do about Iran, either as part of an effort to halt its nuclear
ambitions or a broader offensive with political goals, like regime change.
Pentagon planners who focus on the region predict that the American
military would face a conflict far less conventional than that of the
armored columns that rushed to Baghdad and toppled
Saddam Hussein. Iran trained Hezbollah, and it can fight like Hezbollah.
Military planners say they are closely studying groups like the Basij
paramilitary force — organized, trained and equipped by Iran’s Revolutionary
Guards to provide a ready-made Iranian network of 90,000 full-time forces,
300,000 reservists and a mobilization base of up to a million men that would
dwarf the insurgency bedeviling American efforts in Iraq.
Also of great interest in the military threat of these networks is that
some of the most significant technologies once held in near-monopoly control
by the American military are now available at L.L. Bean, Eddie Bauer and
Sharper Image, among them high-quality night-vision goggles and global
positioning devices.
“We are in a world today where we have a non-state actor using all the
tools of weaponry,” from drone aircraft to rockets to computer hacking, said
P.W. Singer, a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution who specializes in the impact of new technologies
on national security. “That’s what this new 21st-century warfare is going to
look like. We have now entered an era where non-states or quasi-states do a
lot better militarily than states do.’’ He added, “I don’t think we have
answers yet for what to do.”
The United States also has to take into account Hezbollah’s global reach
— it is blamed for the attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in Argentina in
the 1990’s, and its cells operate in Latin America, across the Middle East
and in Southeast Asia, and it could attack American interests in any of
those places.
Critical to the American response, military officers and academic experts
say, is that the United States acknowledge that its takes a network to fight
a network. American intelligence agencies and the military proved it can
fight this kind of war, as it did in Afghanistan to rout
Al Qaeda, when intelligence officers and small groups of Army Special
Forces worked with local fighters to call in devastating air strikes and
drive the
Taliban from power.
Within the Bush adminstration and across the military, a clearer view is
emerging out of the chaos in southern Lebanon. It is that nation-states know
they cannot directly take on superpowers — either regional or global —
without getting their clocks cleaned, and so they use proxies they train and
support to take the fight to those superpowers. The fight against groups
like Hezbollah requires a strategy for dealing with their sponsors. These
networks, Hezbollah included, don’t float around in the ether like free
electrons bumping into each other. They alight. They attach themselves to
territory. In Afghanistan it was with the full support of the Taliban. In
Pakistan, it’s an ungoverned space. In Lebanon, it’s a state within a state.
Cut off state support, or eliminate the ability of the networks to survive
in ungoverned areas, and they collapse on themselves.
No solution has been written. But it would include military force along
with diplomacy, economic assistance, intelligence and information campaigns.
“Most critically, we have to get better at — it’s such a cliché — winning
hearts and minds,” said a military officer working on counterinsurgency
issues. “That is influencing neutral populations toward supporting us and
not supporting our terrorist and insurgent enemies.”
Copyright 2006
The New York Times Company |
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A woman weeps as she watches a mass burial in southern
Lebanon.
|
By Cal Perry
CNN
Sunday, July 30, 2006; Posted: 4:33 a.m. EDT (08:33 GMT)
As the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah rages, both sides
bury their dead. CNN's Cal Perry witnessed a mass burial in southern
Lebanon. Readers should be aware that his report includes graphic
descriptions.
TYRE, Lebanon (CNN) -- Eight days
ago, the Lebanese Army buried 87 bodies in a mass grave in the city of
Tyre. Today, they are laying another 34 in the ground.
Everyone is covering their face to keep out the stench as Lebanese
soldiers remove dozens of bodies from the back of a truck. The first
body is a day-old baby -- killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to
the Lebanese Army. On her coffin a marking shows she had no name. (Watch
as Tyre buries its dead -- 2:13) |
|
| They've lined up the coffins on the
sidewalk; each has either a name or a marking that says "unknown." (Watch
as Cal Perry describes the reality of covering the conflict -- 2:58)
All have numbers. Coffin No. 104 has three names on it - Ali, Mohammed
and Talib - all children. Nearby, Fatawi Horani is screaming and crying.
Her granddaughter Marim, 15, was killed, she says, while trying to flee
the fighting.
Three soldiers begin to struggle with a large body bag. Maggots are
pouring from the bag - blood is seeping onto the ground. When they get
the body into the coffin, the lid arches as doctors hammer nails into
it.
Children are beginning to gather. It is images such as these that
pass down a hatred of Israel to another generation.
A little girl, Maana, is standing nearby, a bandage on her left arm.
Her father tells me she was wounded by Israeli jets - but all the
passengers in the car in front of them were killed.
Without having to count, it's clear that more members of the
international press are here than bodies being buried. Journalists were
asked to come here to witness the collected horror. |
As invited journalists watch, doctors seal a coffin. |
|
Lebanese soldiers carry a simple pine coffin to the mass
burial site |
A Shiite sheik arrives and begins talking
to members of the media. I pull him aside and ask him one question:
"What message would you send to the people of America?" "Israel?" he
asks. "No," I reply. "America." "I love the people of America. It's
the government I hate. Tell the American people that we received their
gift. The missile that they gave to Israel - we have received it, and
this is the result," he says, motioning to the coffins.
I thank him, but he says nothing to me - just glares, turns abruptly
and walks away.
The mayor says that the bodies will be buried here temporarily. When
the fighting stops, relatives will be able to come claim their dead and
bury them in their hometowns.
©
2006 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company. |
The 106th coffin belongs to an infant who had not yet
been given a name |
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Doubts over 'new Middle East'
By
Frank Gardner
BBC security correspondent
Last Updated:
Saturday, 29 July 2006, 12:25 GMT 13:25 UK 
Somewhere in the archives of the BBC's Jerusalem bureau there is a
videotaped news report from five years ago, marked "Lebanon Border
Flashpoint".
On the tape a 30-something reporter strides purposefully over the
thistle-strewn hills of northern Galilee and waves a theatrical arm
towards Lebanon to the north, and Syria to the east. |
Hassan Nasrallah's Hezbollah has the respect of many
Arabs |
|
Lebanon, Syria and Israel have always been uneasy
neighbours |
"This contested region," he declares
portentously, "is where some in the Israeli military believe the next
Middle East war will begin."
The reporter was me. I was up on that border to report on the latest
clashes between Israeli troops and their implacable foe, Hezbollah. Plus
ca change, you might think.
But today, say America and Israel, it's different. Things just cannot
be allowed to go back to the way they were, with a heavily-armed Arab
militia lurking just across Israel's border.
'New Middle East'
There's talk in Washington of "a new Middle East", a place where the
"moderate Arab majority" refuse to allow the region to be plunged into
conflict by supposed troublemakers like Hezbollah and its allies, Syria
and Iran. |
|
| So is that realistic, or is it wishful
thinking? America's critics have certainly been quick to dismiss the
idea of a new Middle East which they say is drawn up along lines that
suit the US and Israel.
|
|
Although Hezbollah is a Shia
organisation it has won huge respect amongst many Arabs at street
level, as the only fighting force prepared to take on the might of
the Israeli military |
This week the Palestinian foreign ministry, itself reeling from
Israeli air strikes, said the new plan was based on the illusion that
the existing political forces in the region could be removed. |
Iran's rockets and uranium enrichment have alarmed the
West |
|
| "What new Middle East?" snorted Lebanon's
information minister. He said US proposals for a reformed Middle East had
only led to death and destruction in Iraq.
And in
Iran, the hardline press has even turned the idea on its head. "Hezbollah
has disturbed all the West's equations in the region," trumpeted the
conservative newspaper Resalat, adding: "Hezbollah is talking about a new
Middle East - in which there is no room for Israel!"
The close relationship between Iran, Syria and the Shia Lebanese militia
Hezbollah has prompted some to question whether Tehran was perhaps behind
the latest flare-up of violence.
Repeated conflict
Just before it began, Iran was coming under heavy international pressure
to suspend its uranium enrichment programme, suspected of leading to a
nuclear bomb.
But Western intelligence sources say they have no hard evidence - either
from informants or from intercepted communications - that Iran instructed
Hezbollah to seize the two Israeli soldiers this month, and thence trigger
the conflict in Lebanon.
But Iran, which would like to see Israel eliminated as a state, is
clearly delighted that an Arab-Israeli conflict is once more back at the
centre of world attention.
Iran helped establish Hezbollah back in 1982 in an effort to export its
Islamic Revolution into the Arab world.
Since then Hezbollah has achieved some notoriety in pioneering the
suicide truck bomb, blowing up US targets in Beirut and kidnapping Western
hostages.
Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen have trained Hezbollah's Lebanese
fighters and Iranian missiles are supplied to them through Syria.
Although Hezbollah is a Shia organisation, it has won huge respect
amongst many Arabs at street level, as the only fighting force prepared to
take on the might of the Israeli military.
They widely credit it with driving Israeli forces out of south Lebanon
six years ago.
Political chessboard
This week, the yellow flags of Hezbollah have been fluttering in the
streets of Gaza, while portraits of its bearded, turbaned and bespectacled
leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, are on public display in Damascus souk.
All this is very annoying for the moderate, pro-Western governments in
Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.
They don't like violent change and they don't like Hezbollah, they don't
like Iran's current regime and they are wary of a new axis of Shia power
stretching across the region, from Iran, through Iraq, to Lebanon.
The last thing those pro-Western governments wanted to see was a
resurgent guerrilla force upsetting the political chessboard in the region.
Their rulers are all too aware of Hezbollah's appeal to their own
populations, who grumble privately that this Lebanese militia has done more
than their own timid governments have to confront what they call "Israeli
aggression".
So a recent editorial in the pro-government Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh
insisted that Hezbollah's "adventurous stance" had been confronted by the
"reasonable stance" of a number of Arab countries.
"What is needed urgently now," said the editorial, "is an Arab strategic
plan to confront the Iranian strategic plan." It was, it said, a matter of
life and death.
So behind every conflict in this troubled region there lurk so many
layers of conflicting interests, national, religious, and ethnic, sometimes
working in concert, mostly not.
Navigating one's way through this labyrinth is always a challenge for any
journalist in the Middle East.
If you don't take someone's side then they invariably think you're
against them.
But it's a challenge I've always relished, and one I'm just about to
experience again as I fly back to the Middle East this afternoon to report
once more for the BBC.
From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 29 July, 2006 at
1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World
Service transmission times.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/5226838.stm
Published: 2006/07/29 12:25:19 GMT
© BBC MMVI |
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The Sydney Morning Herald |
| |
Grisly work … a civil defence worker carries the body of
a Lebanese child from the rubble of a building demolished by Israeli
warplanes in Qana yesterday.
Photo: AP/Nasser
Nasser |
Ed O'Loughlin Herald Correspondent in Qana Phillip
Coorey and agencies
July 31, 2006
THE 19-day-old war in the Middle East has reached a turning point,
with Israel's deadliest attack yet killing 54 people in southern Lebanon
and the United States declaring it is time for a ceasefire.
Images of dead children - 37 children, police said - being dragged
from the building in Qana, southern Lebanon provoked international
condemnation and shattered the ceasefire talks. Lebanon's Prime
Minister, Fouad Siniora, yesterday cancelled talks with the US Secretary
of State, Condoleezza Rice, until a ceasefire is enforced.
Early yesterday morning an Israeli aircraft bombed the three-storey
building in Qana crowded with sleeping civilians. Many were refugees
displaced from further south. Mothers embraced their dead children and
joined rescuers to retrieve the bodies. Sixty-three people had been
sheltering in the basement. |
|
| While an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman
said Israel regretted the death of innocent civilians, the Prime Minister,
Ehud Olmert, vowed the offensive in Lebanon would continue. The YNet news
website reported that Mr Olmert told Dr Rice Israel needed 10 to 14 more
days of continued action against Hezbollah. An official in Mr Olmert's
office denied the comments had been made. The Israeli Army had been
unaware civilians were in the building, Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz said,
according to the NRG Maariv website. An army spokesman, Captain Jacob Dallal,
said: "Residents of this village were warned several days ago to leave …
Hezbollah was firing from there and therefore Hezbollah bears the
responsibility."
But Israel later promised to investigate. "Israel takes full
responsibility and is going to start an open investigation to find out how
this happened," a government spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said.
Dr Rice had been due in Beirut yesterday, but Mr Siniora told her not to
come. "There is no place on this sad morning for any discussion other than
an immediate and unconditional ceasefire as well as an international
investigation into the Israeli massacres in Lebanon now," he said.
In Jerusalem, Dr Rice said she was saddened by the attack: "I think it is
time to get to a ceasefire. We actually have to try and put one in place. My
work towards a ceasefire is really here today." But any ceasefire could not
mean a return to the prewar position, said Dr Rice, who was due to return to
the US today.
The White House said the bombing showed the need for Israel to take "the
utmost care" to avoid civilian casualties. It said in a statement Dr Rice
was working to arrange the conditions for a sustainable ceasefire soon.
In response, the governing Palestinian movement, Hamas, vowed to attack
in Israel, including possible suicide bombings. Hezbollah vowed to
retaliate. In Beirut, protesters broke into the United Nations headquarters.
Britain's Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, said the attack was
"absolutely dreadful, it's quite appalling. We have repeatedly urged Israel
to act proportionately." The previous foreign secretary, Jack Straw, broke
ranks with the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, saying Israel's "disproportionate
action" could lead to further instability in the region. "If you want
Hezbollah, go for Hezbollah, not the whole Lebanese nation," Mr Straw said.
The European Commission called the attack horrific, repeating its call
for a ceasefire, with France, the UN and Arab countries condemning the
attacks. The UN Security Council was due to hold an emergency meeting
yesterday.
The incident is the latest Israeli attack on civilians, leading to
accusations it is committing war crimes. At least 523 Lebanese have died
since fighting began, about 90 per cent of them civilians. Many more are
believed buried in areas still being bombed. Hezbollah has killed 19
civilians in northern Israel and 32 Israeli combatants have died in action.
In 1996, an Israeli shell killed 106 civilians who had taken shelter in a
UN bunker in Qana.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, said yesterday any
Australian contribution to a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon would be very
small.
To be credible, a multinational force would have to be between 10,000 and
15,000 strong, clearly mandated, and with Lebanese and Israeli backing, he
said.
Copyright © 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald.
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'A Terrible Tug' for Democrats
By David S. Broder
Sunday, July 30, 2006; B07
WEST HARTFORD, Conn. -- The challenge to Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Aug. 8
Connecticut Democratic primary from antiwar millionaire Ned Lamont is the
summertime drama gripping the entire party.
From what I saw last week, this fight is a complete mismatch. The party
regulars supporting Lieberman have a candidate. The rebels backing Lamont
have a cause. And I came away convinced that the people with the cause are
likely to win -- at least this first round.
One night last week the party establishment, led by former president Bill
Clinton and Connecticut's other Democratic senator, Chris Dodd, whipped up
an orchestrated show of enthusiasm for the three-term incumbent, whose
support of the Iraq war and friendship with President Bush have put his
nomination in jeopardy. But none of them -- including Lieberman -- made any
effort to deal with what Clinton called "the pink elephant in the room," the
massive public revulsion in this state for Bush's war in Iraq.
Ignoring the issue won't work. Perhaps for some voters, Lieberman's three
decades of constituency service -- the jobs he's saved, the grants and
contracts he's helped secure -- entitle him to another term. But how many of
them will be motivated enough by gratitude to vote in a mid-summer primary
is uncertain. Lieberman has put out a call to friends in Washington to
bolster his lagging get-out-the-vote effort, but he has little time to catch
up.
For many Connecticut Democrats, the overriding motive is to send a
message against the war, against the Bush administration, against Washington
-- everything that Lieberman represents to them. On the night after the
Clinton-Lieberman rally in Waterbury's Palace Theater, I came here to meet
with some of these voters among the 200 people attending a wine and cheese
fundraiser with Lamont and his wife, sponsored by a coalition of feminist
organizations.
One woman, Karen Schuessler of Ridgefield, told me she had bought an
expensive ticket to a Lieberman fundraiser last December so she could tell
him directly how much she opposed the war. "He told me, 'Things are looking
better over there. They're voting. They have a constitution.' I thought,
'What a moron!' The next month, I went to the first dump-Lieberman meeting."
Almost all the people I met had worked for Lieberman or voted for him in
the past. For some, breaking ranks is hard. State Rep. Denise Merrill of
Storrs, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said she regards
Lieberman as a mentor and "I feel a terrible tug" in working to defeat him.
Her leaders in the legislature are angry with her. But, she said, "I know as
a legislator, there's sometimes a conflict between your personal convictions
and the strong wishes of your constituents. Joe thinks he is sticking to his
convictions on the war. But on an issue important as this, you have to
respect what your constituents are saying. You can't ignore them."
People like Merrill have had their consciences eased by Lieberman's
announcement that if he loses the primary to Lamont, he will run in November
as an independent -- an act they regard as selfish. But Lieberman says that
he can win as an independent and still caucus in January with Senate
Democrats. Early polls show him ahead. But no one knows how a three-way race
would evolve; there is talk of Republicans substituting someone of stature
for their current weak nominee, Alan Schlesinger. A Democratic seat could be
in jeopardy.
The people backing Lamont are nothing if not sincere. But their breed of
Democrats -- many of them wealthy, educated, extremely liberal -- often pick
candidates who are rejected by the broader public. Many of the older Lamont
supporters went straight from Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern in the
1960s and '70s to Howard Dean in 2004. They helped Joe Duffey challenge Sen.
Tom Dodd in Connecticut for the 1970 Democratic nomination on the Vietnam
War issue, only to lose to Republican Lowell Weicker in November. Lamont's
campaign manager, Tom Swan, is also director of Connecticut Citizen Action
Group, a populist organization founded in the 1970s by Toby Moffett, a Ralph
Nader protege and anti-Vietnam activist who was one of the "Watergate
babies" elected to the House in 1974. Moffett's political career also was
ended by a loss to Weicker, who stayed in the Senate until Lieberman finally
beat him in 1988.
Democrats everywhere are looking to Connecticut for clues about the
party's direction. The primary will probably point them leftward, toward a
stronger antiwar stand. But often in the past, the early successes of these
elitist insurgents have been followed by decisive defeats when a broader
public weighs in. That is why this contest is so consequential for the
Democratic Party.
davidbroder@washpost.com
© 2006 The
Washington Post Company |
| I believe Broder like all of
the Washington pundit class is completely mis-reading Connecticut. As a
native of Connecticut I stay in touch with people there and follow the news.
70 percent of Connecticut Republicans support Lieberman, so contrary to the
opinion of the pundits and the beltway Democrats, Lieberman's bid as an
independent will not divide the Democratic vote but it will divide the
Republican vote in Connecticut. Lieberman (unless he follows his Republican
instincts and steals the election) will lose the primary August 8th in a big
way to Lamont and Lamont will sweep to victory in November, thus securing
the seat for a real Democrat (or at least a better Democrat) in contrast to
a DINO. |
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August 1, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:35 a.m. ET
HAVANA (AP) --
Fidel Castro, who took control of Cuba in 1959, rebuffed repeated
U.S. attempts to oust him and survived communism's demise almost
everywhere else, temporarily relinquished his presidential powers to his
brother Raul on Monday night because of surgery.
Castro, less than two weeks away from his 80th birthday, did not
appear on the live television broadcast in which his secretary read a
letter from the Cuban leader. It was the first time in 47 years of
absolute rule that Castro has given up power.
In the note read by secretary Carlos Valenciaga, Castro said he
underwent surgery after suffering gastrointestinal bleeding, apparently
due to stress from recent public appearances in Argentina and eastern
Cuba. It was not immediately clear when the surgery took place. |
Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press
Fidel Castro's announcement drew cheering crowds early Tuesday morning
in the Miami area, which is home to many Cubans who fled the island.
|
|
| ''The operation obligates me to undertake
several weeks of rest,'' the letter read. Extreme stress ''had provoked in
me a sharp intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding that obligated me to
undergo a complicated surgical procedure.'' Castro, who has been affected
in the recent past with occasional health problems, said he was temporarily
relinquishing the presidency to his younger brother and successor Raul, the
defense minister, but said the move was of ''a provisional character.''
There was no immediate appearance or statement by Raul Castro.
The calm delivery of the announcement appeared to signal that there would
be an orderly succession to Raul should Fidel become permanently
incapacitated.
The announcement drew cheering crowds in the streets in Miami. People
waved Cuban flags on Little Havana's Calle Ocho, shouting ''Cuba, Cuba,
Cuba,'' hoping that the end is near for the man most of them consider to be
a ruthless dictator. Many of them fled the communist island or have parents
and grandparents who did.
The elder Castro asked that celebrations scheduled for his 80th birthday
on Aug. 13 be postponed until Dec. 2, the 50th anniversary of Cuba's
Revolutionary Armed Forces.
Castro said he would also temporarily delegate his duties as first
secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba to Raul, who turned 75 in June and
who has been taking on a more public profile in recent weeks.
It was unknown how serious Castro's condition was. But ''any major
surgery in a 79-year-old person is life-threatening,'' mainly because of
risks for complications such as pneumonia, blood clots and strokes, said Dr.
Stephen Hanauer, gastroenerology chief at the
University of Chicago hospitals.
In power since the triumph of the Cuban revolution on Jan. 1, 1959,
Castro has been the world's longest-ruling head of government. Only
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej, crowned in 1946, and Britain's Queen
Elizabeth, crowned in 1952, have been head of state longer.
The ''maximum leader's'' ironclad rule has ensured Cuba remains among the
world's five remaining communist countries. The others are all in Asia:
China, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea.
Streets in Havana, including the coastal Malecon highway where young
people often congregate, were typically quiet late Monday. In Old Havana,
waiters at a popular cafe were momentarily stunned as they watched the news.
But they quickly got back to work and put on brave faces.
''He'll get better, without a doubt,'' said Agustin Lopez, 40. ''There
are really good doctors here, and he's extremely strong.''
In the nearby Plaza Vieja, Cuban musicians continued to play for
customers -- primarily foreign tourists -- sitting at outdoor cafes. Signs
on the plaza's colonial buildings put up during a recent Cuban holiday said,
''Live on Fidel, for 80 more.''
''We're really sad, and pretty shocked,'' said Ines Cesar, a retired
58-year-old metal worker. ''But everyone's relaxed, too. I think he'll be
fine.''
When asked about how she felt having Raul Castro at the helm of the
nation, Cesar paused and said one word: ''normal.''
A leading Cuban government opponent in Havana said she believed Castro
must be gravely ill to have stepped aside temporarily.
''It's almost the same as death,'' Martha Beatriz Roque said in a
telephone interview. ''No one knows if he'll even be alive Dec. 2 when he's
supposed to celebrate his birthday.''
In Washington, White House spokesman Peter Watkins said: ''We are
monitoring the situation. We can't speculate on Castro's health, but we
continue to work for the day of Cuba's freedom.''
Castro rose to power after an armed revolution he led drove out
then-President Fulgencio Batista. The United States was the first country to
recognize Castro, but his radical economic reforms and rapid trials of
Batista supporters quickly unsettled U.S. leaders.
Washington eventually slapped a trade embargo on the island and severed
diplomatic ties. Castro seized American property and businesses and turned
to the Soviet Union for military and economic assistance.
On April 16, 1961, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist. The
following day, he humiliated the United States by capturing more than 1,100
exile soldiers in the Bay of Pigs invasion.
The world neared nuclear conflict on Oct. 22, 1962, when President
John F. Kennedy announced there were Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.
After a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev removed
them.
Meanwhile, Cuban revolutionaries opened 10,000 new schools, erased
illiteracy, and built a universal health care system. Castro backed
revolutionary movements in Latin America and Africa.
But former liberties were whittled away as labor unions lost the right to
strike, independent newspapers were shut down and religious institutions
were harassed. Over nearly five decades, hundreds of thousands of Cubans
have fled Castro's rule, many of them settling just across the Florida
Straits in Miami.
Castro continually resisted U.S. demands for multiparty elections and an
open economy despite American laws tightening the embargo in 1992 and 1996.
He characterized a U.S. plan for American aid in a post-Castro era as a
thinly disguised attempt at regime change and insisted his socialist system
would survive long after his death.
Fidel Castro Ruz was born in eastern Cuba, where his Spanish immigrant
father ran a prosperous plantation. His official birthday is Aug. 13, 1926,
although some say he was born a year lat |
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