Lebanon’s next war may also be Syria’s

Lebanese Shia Hezbollah militants display their military might (AFP photo/Mahmoud Zayat)

Media reports in recent days have painted dire scenarios for what is, supposedly, the inevitable conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Of particular note are persistent indicators that the next round, if or when it comes, will very likely involve Syria as well.

For quite a while now, the official position in Israel has been that the next war in Lebanon would be waged against the Lebanese state, not just against Hezbollah. The Israelis have also been warning Damascus that they would not tolerate Syria’s passing on to Hezbollah weaponry that might alter the military balance of power, namely air defense systems.

On that point, two recent reports are of interest. The first, in the Qatari daily Al-Watan a couple of weeks ago, quoted Syrian sources as saying that “there is a strategic decision taken by Damascus not to allow Israel to defeat the resistance movements.” One might have been tempted to dismiss this as rhetorical bluster, but another news report only a few days later called for a somewhat different assessment.

Speaking to the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai al-Aam, an unnamed American official sent a shot across Syria’s bow, telling the newspaper that should Syria deliver to Hezbollah anti-aircraft missiles, “a war would doubtlessly break out, and this time Israel would strike targets in Damascus.” The official added that the Syrians, according to intelligence reports, had allowed Hezbollah fighters to train on the SA-2 anti-aircraft (AA) system on Syrian soil. Those accusations were repeated last weekend by Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon, after his meeting with Michael Williams, the United Nation’s special coordinator for Lebanon.

The SA-2 itself may not be much of a threat to the Israeli Air Force. However, another pair of Russian-made AA systems – the mobile Pantsir and the shoulder-fired Igla-S systems – would cause concern. Both Syria and Iran have been persistently trying to obtain them from Russia, with conflicting reports about whether the systems have been delivered. Nor is it clear if Hezbollah has gotten its hands on the weapons or not. From an Israeli standpoint, however, this would qualify as a casus belli.

The result of a new war would doubtless be devastating for Lebanon – far worse than what happened in 2006 – and would likely spread to Syria. In a throwback to the policy of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, this past weekend Yossi Peled, an Israeli minister without portfolio, pointedly noted that Israel would “hold Syria and Lebanon alike responsible.”

There are other reasons why Syria could find itself engulfed in a future conflict. Although recent incidents, such as the explosion in a weapons depot in Khirbet Silm, indicate that Hezbollah has been reestablishing its positions in southern Lebanon since the 2006 war, the militia is said to have relocated its bunker infrastructure and dispersed its longer-range rockets throughout the Bekaa Valley and, reportedly, northern Lebanon.

Notwithstanding Hezbollah’s intentionally-leaked information about its intention to take the war to Israel by invading Israeli villages near Lebanese territory, this relocation of the bunker complex would mean that, aside from the expanded destruction befalling Lebanon, the war would be fought nearer the border with Syria. This border, along with Lebanon’s various ports, has served as Hezbollah’s weapons supply route.

During the 2006 war, the Assad regime took the bold step of supplying Hezbollah directly from Syrian military stocks – particularly when it came to longer-range 220mm Katyusha rockets, such as the ones that hit a train station in Haifa, and Kornet anti-tank missiles. Such a repetition, not to mention the possible detection of Syrian logistical support during combat, would raise the probability of an escalation involving Damascus. Israel’s armed forces would have to consider that possibility if it were to decide in favor of a ground incursion into the Bekaa Valley.

The security regime established under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 has failed to curb Hezbollah’s rearmament, both by land and by sea (or, for that matter, to prevent Israeli overflights). Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has been quite explicit about his intention to continue supplying Hezbollah. Meanwhile, the sea routes to Lebanon have evidently been used to great effect. The arms-carrying ship intercepted by Israel in November of last year was reportedly bound for the port of Lattakia in Syria. That was surely the tip of the iceberg, and you have to wonder how many such ships have docked in Lebanese ports as well.

There have been a number of reports in recent years indicating deepening military and intelligence coordination between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, and that includes Iranian listening posts and other technical assets present in Syria. Syria’s direct arming of Hezbollah, like the numerous reports on the Russian air defense systems, speaks much to the evolution of Syria’s view of the party. More than ever Hezbollah (not to mention Iran, its patron) is becoming integrated in Syrian military strategy.

This would explain Damascus’ “strategic decision” to extend to Hezbollah all possible support in the event of a new war with Israel. However, it could be a decision Assad, ever the gambler, might live to regret. One thing for sure is that Lebanon – all of Lebanon – will certainly regret it.

Report: Bishop Suspect In Newton Mail Bomb Attempt

Woman Accused Of Killing 3 Alabama Professors Was Suspect In 1993 Attack On Harvard Professor

BRAINTREE (WBZ) ― The female professor accused of gunning down three colleagues at the University of Alabama on Friday, was once a suspect in the attempted mail bombing of a Harvard professor, the Boston Globe reports.

Back in 1993 Dr. Paul Rosenberg opened a package containing two pipe bombs in his Newton home. Because Rosenberg cut open the box rather than lifting its flaps, the bombs did not detonate. Nobody was ever arrested.

Sources tell the Boston Globe that Amy Bishop, a Harvard medical student at the time, was questioned in the bombing attempt. According to the Globe sources, Rosenberg may have been concerned she was about to get a bad review for her doctorate work.

Bishop's former medical school lab co-worker, Sylvia Fluckiger, told WBZ that she remembers the bombing incident, and recalled Bishop telling her that she was being questioned by police. Fluckiger said that there was animosity between Bishop and Dr. Rosenberg.

This is the second local revelation about Amy Bishop in as many days. On Saturday police in Braintree said that Bishop had shot and killed her brother back in 1986. That shooting was ruled accidental, though police reports from that day can not be found.

On Friday authorities in Alabama say Amy Bishop, a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, opened fire inside a faculty meeting. She recently learned that she was not being granted tenure at the school. Three professors were killed and three others injured.

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RFK, Jr. 15 months ago: Global warming means no snow or cold in DC Read more at the Washington Examiner:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who flies around on private planes so as to tell larger numbers of people how they must live their lives in order to save the planet, wrote a column last year on the lack of winter weather in Washington, D.C.

In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today's anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don't own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers.

In those days, I recall my uncle, President Kennedy, standing erect as he rode a toboggan in his top coat, never faltering until he slid into the boxwood at the bottom of the hill. Once, my father, Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, brought a delegation of visiting Eskimos home from the Justice Department for lunch at our house. They spent the afternoon building a great igloo in the deep snow in our backyard. My brothers and sisters played in the structure for several weeks before it began to melt. On weekend afternoons, we commonly joined hundreds of Georgetown residents for ice skating on Washington's C&O Canal, which these days rarely freezes enough to safely skate.

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil and its carbon cronies continue to pour money into think tanks whose purpose is to deceive the American public into believing that global warming is a fantasy.

Having shoveled my walk five times in the midst of this past weekend's extreme cold and blizzard, I think perhaps RFK, Jr. should leave weather analysis to the meteorologists instead of trying to attribute every global phenomenon to anthropogenic climate change.

Commercial Real Estate Losses Could Hit $300 Billion: TARP Panel

Losses from defaults on commercial real estate loans maturing in the next few years could go as high as $300 billion, threatening to topple nearly 3,000 community banks nationwide, a federal watchdog group has concluded.

Market analysis by the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP), charged with keeping tabs on the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), shows that $1.4 trillion in loans made over the last decade for retail properties, office space, industrial facilities, hotels, and apartments will reach the end of their terms and require refinancing between 2011 and 2014.

According to the panel, the loans most likely to fail are those made at the height of the real estate bubble, when it seemed property values could go nowhere but up. Since that time, commercial property values have fallen more than 40 percent, and now, nearly half of the loans coming due are “underwater,” the panel said, making refinancing particularly difficult to secure.

As the panel notes, “Even borrowers who own profitable properties may be unable to refinance their loans as they face tightened underwriting standards, increased demands for additional investment by borrowers, and restricted credit.”

The COP says community banks, rather than large Wall Street institutions, face the greatest risk of insolvency due to mounting commercial real estate (CRE) loan losses. According to federal guidelines, 2,988 banks nationwide are classified as having a “CRE Concentration.”

None of these banks are among the 19 largest bank holding companies, but are rather the smaller regional lenders who stepped up to extend credit within their local neighborhoods. Forecasts project that banks will suffer their worst losses well after 2010, and well after Treasury’s bailout authority expires under TARP, the panel said.

“The banks that are on the front lines of small-business lending are about to get hit by a tidal wave of commercial-loan failures,” said Elizabeth Warren, a law professor at Harvard University who heads the COP.

Warren and her fellow panel members warn that “a significant wave of commercial mortgage defaults would trigger economic damage that could touch the lives of nearly every American.”

Case in point, they said when commercial properties fail, it creates a downward spiral of economic contraction, meaning job losses; deteriorating store fronts, office buildings and apartments; and the failure of the banks serving those communities.

Because community banks play a critical role in financing the small businesses that could help the American economy create new jobs, the COP says, their widespread failure could disrupt local communities, undermine the economic recovery, and extend an already painful recession.

The COP’s findings come on the heels of a field hearing the committee held last month in Georgia. Deterioration of the commercial real estate market there has contributed to the failures of 30 Georgia banks since August of 2008 – more than in any other state in the nation.

US banks facing $1.4tn crisis over commercial property loans

• Commercial property set to lose $300bn on $1.4bn of loans
• Nearly 3,000 banks face dangerous exposure as loans mature

Wall Street banks and other financial institutions may be heading for the wall as a further crisis looms in 2011 over commercial property loans. Photograph: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

America's fragile high street banks are bracing themselves for a fresh financial crunch as a wave of commercial property mortgages go sour on offices, shops and factories, causing losses of up to $300bn (£192bn) hitting nearly 3,000 small- and medium-sized financial institutions.

A congressional oversight panel charged with scrutinising the Obama administration's bailout efforts has warned that $1.4tn of loans covering commercial premises will reach maturity between 2011 and 2014. After a plunge in property prices, nearly half of these loans are underwater, with borrowers owing more than their underlying property is worth.

An analysis by the panel found that 2,988 of America's 8,100 banks have potentially dangerous exposure to commercial property loans. The impact could damage hopes of a US economic recovery and could cause a further squeeze in the availability of credit to consumers and businesses.

"Are we arguing that this is a serious problem that we need to get in front of? The answer is yes," said Elizabeth Warren, chairman of the oversight panel. "It's like throwing a handful of sand into the economic recovery."

She said that if banks see that their commercial property liabilities are mounting, they will hold back on lending elsewhere: "They'll tend to husband their money so that it's not available for small business loans."

Although Wall Street banks have made a swift recovery as shares and bond markets look ahead to a long-term economic recovery, prospects remain cloudy for small-town institutions in the US heartland, hit by ongoing credit card defaults and unemployment among customers. Last year, 140 US banks failed and had to be rescued by federal regulators. Already this year, 16 have been seized by the authorities, a rate that points to a similarly high total in 2010.

Defaults on residential mortgages played a key role in sparking the original global financial crisis as hundreds of thousands of US homes went into foreclosure and Wall Street panicked over the diminishing value of complex mortgage-backed securities. Commercial property loans have taken longer to go sour but are emerging as a slow-burning problem.

Many of the problematic commercial mortgages were written at the peak of the property boom. Since then, the economic downturn has caused small businesses to fail, with shops and offices falling vacant. A rising unemployment rate reflects less need for space by companies.

"You have declining values, rising vacancy rates and a decline in renewals on leases," said Bert Ely, an independent US banking analyst. "In some markets, new commercial real estate is still coming on line as construction projects finish up."

He said the issue was particularly acute for regional banks that specialise in lending to local businesses: "Relatively speaking, it's a bigger problem for smaller banks than larger ones. The larger banks tend to be a little bit more diversified in their loans."

Aware of the problems facing smaller financial institutions, President Barack Obama last week announced a plan to use $30bn of the remaining funds in the Treasury's $700bn-bailout fund to provide cheap credit for banks funding small businesses. The money would be available to banks with assets of up to $10bn.

Critics have expressed concern about the principle behind using government funds to prop up weak banks. But the former treasury secretary Henry Paulson, who was the architect of the Treasury's bailout programme in 2008, insisted this week that the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program would eventually turn an overall profit for US taxpayers: "We will get every penny we put into the banks back."

9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon

Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.

Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.

In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said.

"We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."

Although the commission's landmark report made it clear that the Defense Department's early versions of events on the day of the attacks were inaccurate, the revelation that it considered criminal referrals reveals how skeptically those reports were viewed by the panel and provides a glimpse of the tension between it and the Bush administration.

A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday that the inspector general's office will soon release a report addressing whether testimony delivered to the commission was "knowingly false." A separate report, delivered secretly to Congress in May 2005, blamed inaccuracies in part on problems with the way the Defense Department kept its records, according to a summary released yesterday.

A spokesman for the Transportation Department's inspector general's office said its investigation is complete and that a final report is being drafted. Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she could not comment on the inspector general's inquiry.

In an article scheduled to be on newsstands today, Vanity Fair magazine reports aspects of the commission debate -- though it does not mention the possible criminal referrals -- and publishes lengthy excerpts from military audiotapes recorded on Sept. 11. ABC News aired excerpts last night.

For more than two years after the attacks, officials with NORAD and the FAA provided inaccurate information about the response to the hijackings in testimony and media appearances. Authorities suggested that U.S. air defenses had reacted quickly, that jets had been scrambled in response to the last two hijackings and that fighters were prepared to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93 if it threatened Washington.

In fact, the commission reported a year later, audiotapes from NORAD's Northeast headquarters and other evidence showed clearly that the military never had any of the hijacked airliners in its sights and at one point chased a phantom aircraft -- American Airlines Flight 11 -- long after it had crashed into the World Trade Center.

Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold and Col. Alan Scott told the commission that NORAD had begun tracking United 93 at 9:16 a.m., but the commission determined that the airliner was not hijacked until 12 minutes later. The military was not aware of the flight until after it had crashed in Pennsylvania.

These and other discrepancies did not become clear until the commission, forced to use subpoenas, obtained audiotapes from the FAA and NORAD, officials said. The agencies' reluctance to release the tapes -- along with e-mails, erroneous public statements and other evidence -- led some of the panel's staff members and commissioners to believe that authorities sought to mislead the commission and the public about what happened on Sept. 11.

"I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described," John Farmer, a former New Jersey attorney general who led the staff inquiry into events on Sept. 11, said in a recent interview. "The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years. . . . This is not spin. This is not true."

Arnold, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, told the commission in 2004 that he did not have all the information unearthed by the panel when he testified earlier. Other military officials also denied any intent to mislead the panel.

John F. Lehman, a Republican commission member and former Navy secretary, said in a recent interview that he believed the panel may have been lied to but that he did not believe the evidence was sufficient to support a criminal referral.

"My view of that was that whether it was willful or just the fog of stupid bureaucracy, I don't know," Lehman said. "But in the order of magnitude of things, going after bureaucrats because they misled the commission didn't seem to make sense to me."

Romans 13 Invoked at Los Angeles Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast 2010

Romans 13 Invoked at Los Angeles Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast 2010
SoCal Martial Law Alerts
February 13, 2010

LOS ANGELES – Before a crowd of about 1200 faithful, two prominent evangelical Christian leaders invoked Romans Chapter 13 at the 37th Annual Los Angeles Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast held today at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, California.

Dr. Keith Phillips, Founder and President of World Impact, Inc., a Christian missionary organization which ministers to under-privileged children in 11 American cities, managed to work the following propaganda into his introductory remarks:

”Romans Chapter 13 commands Christians to pray for those in authority over them. ”

Moments later, Dr. Jack Hayford, who is best known as the Founding Pastor of The Church On The Way mega-church in Van Nuys, California, echoed Dr. Phillips’ earlier propaganda as he prayed for Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa:

”Let the comfort and care of your spirit attend him, as we together – on not only this day – obey your command to pray for those in authority and to commit ourselves to on-goingly doing the same.”

Which sounds innocuous enough at first blush, and yet the 13th Chapter in the book (or letter) of Romans in the Christian Bible is notorious for having been used by pastors in Nazi Germany during World War II at the behest of then-Chancellor Adolf Hitler to pre-empt opposition to, and overthrow of, his government. Under Hitler’s regime, Christian congregations were taught by their pastors the official, state-sanctioned interpretation of Romans 13, which was: To unquestioningly submit to the “governing authorities” who were alleged to be “chosen” and “placed” in their positions by God Himself. (A doctrine which, as history has shown, makes it astonishingly easy for a tyrannical psychopath to run a country – and everyone in it – into the ground.)

More and more, the above-mentioned teaching is heard being preached from pulpits all across America ever since the formation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) so-called Clergy Response Teams (see: Feds Train Clergy To "Quell Dissent" During Martial Law).

For instance, on October 27th, 2008, Dr. George O. Wood, Assemblies of God General Superintendent said of Romans 13 and submission to authorities:

“Although we voted, nothing happens without God’s permissive will. He allows us to choose good or evil and, in a democracy, the government he gives us is the one we choose. Sometimes our vote results in leaders who fail us and they become a means of God’s judgment; other times leaders follow after God’s heart and they become a means of God’s blessing. “



On February 1st, 2009, Pastor Gary Luallin of Southside Christian Church Disciples Of Christ in Jacksonville, Florida, preached to his congregation:

“Our forefathers had some serious problems with this passage. Serious problems with this passage. They decided to rebel against King George of England. Why? Because they didn’t feel like their taxes were getting them what they should be getting them. They weren’t being represented. Right? What’s this passage say about that? Who are they rebelling against? Let’s read it again, guys. It’s right there. Do you understand? You rebel against the authorities, you rebel against God. That’s what the text said.”



On April 26, 2009, Pastor Brooks Simpson of Grace Community Church in North Liberty, Iowa:

“Do you realize that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, the son of God, is actually subject to a pagan authority? If anybody would have the right to say, ‘Time out. You’re a moron. I’m the righteous son of God. I don’t have to submit to you, because you’re a poor leader,’ it would be Jesus in John 19. Would it not? But he doesn’t pull that card, because he understands that what Paul is speaking here is a divinely-revealed truth. ‘Pilate, the reason you’re in authority here is because my father has given you that authority. Yes, you are unjust. Yes, you are corrupt. And you’re going to turn me over to be crucified, not because that’s what justice demands, but because you want to appease the mob.’ So, this doesn’t apply just to the godly leaders that we love and that hold our value system and uphold our views, but it applies to all leaders, everywhere in all forms of government.” (emphasis added)



Unlike Dr. Wood and Pastors Luallin and Simpson – leaders who appear to be twisting the Romans 13 passage to fit a dubious political agenda – Doctors Phillips and Hayford apparently haven’t even read the Scripture passage they so enthusiastically “quoted,” since the words: “Command,” “pray,” and “leader” do not occur in Romans 13 at all.

While there certainly does not seem to be any specific Bible scripture prohibiting congregants from praying for their leaders, conversely, there also does not appear to be a specific Bible verse, or passage “commanding” the faithful to pray for their leaders.

Regardless, one has to wonder why Doctors Phillips and Hayford would even feign to quote (or rather: grossly misquote) the politically-charged and overly-abused Romans 13 passage during a prayer breakfast that, according to Dr. Phillips, “is not a political event?” And, further, why would they do so during such an economically-challenged period of American history, especially when Congress was recently threatened with martial law?