Seymour Hersh: Fatah Al-Islam Crisis in Lebanon

In an interview on CNN International's Your World Today, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh explains that the current violence in Lebanon is the result of an attempt by the Lebanese government to crack down on a militant Sunni group, Fatah al-Islam, that it formerly supported.

Last March, Hersh reported that American policy in the Middle East had shifted to opposing Iran, Syria, and their Shia allies at any cost, even if it meant backing hardline Sunni jihadists.

A key element of this policy shift was an agreement among Vice President Richard Cheney, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser, whereby the Saudis would covertly fund the Sunni Farah al-Islam in Lebanon as a counterweight to the Shia Hezbollah.

Hersh points out that the current situation is much like that during the conflict in Afghanistan in the 1980's -- which gave rise to al Qaeda -- with the same people involved in both the US and Saudi Arabia and the "same pattern" of the US using jihadists that the Saudis assure us they can control.

When asked why the administration would be acting in a way that appears to run counter to US interests, Hersh says that, since the Israelis lost to them last summer, "the fear of Hezbollah in Washington, particularly in the White House, is acute."

As a result, Hersh implies, the Bush administration is no longer acting rationally in its policy. "We're in the business of supporting the Sunnis anywhere we can against the Shia. ... "We're in the business of creating ... sectarian violence." And he describes the scheme of funding Fatah al-Islam as "a covert program we joined in with the Saudis as part of a bigger, broader program of doing everything we could to stop the spread of the Shia world, and it just simply -- it bit us in the rear."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• lebanon
• crisis
• fatah
• al
• islam
• palestine
• nahr
• bared
• siniora
• future
• hariri
• syria
• hamas
• hersh
• seymour
• hezbollah
• hizbollah

[AkatsukiKanjiKana3]

You have to get to the bottom line man. What are u trying to say? America vs Radical Islam or America supports Islamic Jihad on targetted Infidel nations such as Europe, Israel, India etc.? I know America is a notorious nation. Muslims nations are much worse. They are based on Totalitarianism, dictatorships & autocracies. The citizens of these countries have little to no freedom and are forced to shove Islam (a racial supremacist ideology like Nazism) & its ancient principles down their throats.

[mingoi313]

You live in a hypostatized world, of good and evil. You also think in a way that is very unique for someone who lives in a monotonous world of good verses bad; because you thinks the means are expendable. As a result, you paint a generalized picture of the Muslim world and Islam to fit into this hypostatized bubble which is convenient to your level of intellect.

There is the Islam of the Al Qaeda, and there is the Islam which stands against Al Qaeda.

[mingoi313]

Muslim nations are not ruled by "Islamic leaders", they are ruled by US cronies and proxies. Look at Egypt, look at Bahrain, look at Saudi Arabia. The HRW has also documented this variously.

You draw a relation between Islam and Oil, merely augmenting your two-penny intellectual faculty. The oil is in the hands of US proxies, who are not working in the name of Islam.

[mingoi313]

They employ the name of Islam to perpetuate their control of geostrategic interests. Did you even listen to the video?

Do you know who Bandar bin Sultan is? He is a Saudi royal, who is known as Bandar Bush for his close-ties with the Bush family. He is promoting Wahhabi terrorists in Lebanon to sow sectarian and civil war.

You obviously have a lot to catch up on. By the way, you didn't provide an answer about Reagan's war on terror in C. America. Was he chasing Islamist terrorists too?

[hanysal]

america supports shias and sunnis so they can fight eachother No more No less

im a sunni from Tripoly lebanon and im not saying that sanyoura is a traitor but that idiot isin way over his head (you simply cant govern a country on yourown you do it as a team with ur other countrymen)

as for "fath al islam" there is a90% chance that SaudiArabia is behindit From allwe cansee in everyday politics

Who is benefiting from allthis its Israil and the Bush administration(oil companies) NOT AMERICA

[Ibbe88]

Fouad Saniora is still enjoying full support from the US goverment. Even Obama don't seem to care about what Saniora done to the lebanese people. During the protests of 3rd december 2006, Bush gave full support to Saniora even when more than 1 million lebanese (about 25 percent of the total population) participated in the protests. Democracy? Where? Nowhere...nowhere at all...

Still, I'm glad the lebanese troops gave those al-qaedists hell.

[kocktoe]

this man is great at making sense of the situation, and if you look at current events now in Syria, you can see that this mans analysis is correct, in the tools being used.

[rami735]

@AkatsukiKanjiKana3 fuck you its hezbollah who are the reapers!!

[MusicIzMySavior]

@mingoi313 You are absolutely spot on brothers,the arab leaders were in fact put in power with the help of the british and other western forces, look at the king of jordan his grandfather was from mecca, how the hell did he come 2 rule jordan ?

[BrolicTank]

lol fuck fatah they losing to there superior rivals

[Foolnigga]

oh yeah you can tell this guy below me is a genius

"HES A TERRORIST!!" right?

come off it you moron

[momozaid]

Symour Herch is a traitor he is a liar he got his money from a guy in Lebanon he is getting big money

[Saqral3rab]

Bush is the killer not Saddam

STUPID AMERICANS

[mingoi313]

Where did Israel come into this? If you don't have anything of substance to say and you want to dance and jolly around parading your ignorance, then be my guest - but I'd suggest something like playing with the traffic to gratify your boredom, or ignorance.