rami khouri latest lebanon star op-ed

Hizbullah is less credible. So now what?
Rami G. Khouri, Lebanon Daily Star, May 31, 2008

The Doha agreement that ended the latest round of political tension and armed clashes in Lebanon has, at best, bought eighteen to twenty-four months of calm for the country, and an opportunity for the largely discredited political elite to start acting responsibly. Hizbullah remains the focus of discussion about the challenges ahead, given its military strength relative to the other Lebanese factions, including the central government and its armed forces. The dilemma for Hizbullah is that its strength since its inception a quarter of a century ago in the early 1980s is now its weakness when it comes to its political engagement inside Lebanon. Its combination of military prowess, links with Syria and Iran, and domestic strategic political ambiguity about its ultimate aims for Lebanon are all issues that have rallied significant opposition to it among a growing circle of Lebanese.

This is not purely a question of “What does Hizbullah want?” or “Will Hizbullah give up its arms?” Hizbullah’s power and aims cannot be analyzed in a vacuum, because the party did not emerge as the most powerful military force in the country in isolation of the behavior of other national actors. Two issues are at play here : Hizbullah’s status, and the quality of Lebanese statehood. The strength and status of Hizbullah and the weakness of the Lebanese state are symbiotic developments that feed off each other, and can only be resolved together. The coming era of calm political adjustment in Lebanon, including the national unity government and the summer 2009 parliamentary elections, must address very difficult core disputed issues. The central one is the Hizbullah-state relationship, which is directly or indirectly linked to other tough issues such as Syrian-Lebanese ties, and the role of external powers such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

If Lebanon does not make progress on these issues in the coming years and instead falls back into a pattern of stalemate and street fighting, a civil war is likely, and no country I know of has survived two civil wars intact. A resumption of fighting on a large scale will see the country slip into a slow and steady pattern of dysfunctional statehood and patchwork sovereignty, somewhere between the Yemen and Somalia examples. The challenge remains to construct a state built on equal citizenship rights, in which all Lebanese have the opportunity to improve their quality of life in the context of the rule of law, rather than tribal or communal self-defense. The manner in which the parties at Doha haggled over electoral districts in Beirut and other parts of the country suggests that concepts of Lebanese statehood and citizenship rights remain subsidiary to powerful forces of sectarianism and tribalism that define both the affirmation of identity and the exercise of power. This is not unique to Lebanon. Most of the Middle East suffers the same problem, but elsewhere it is camouflaged beneath the stultifying calm of the modern Arab security state.

Hizbullah has proven to be very good at most of the things it does, including social service delivery, communal mobilization, military resistance and appealing to wider public opinion around the region. It is the culmination of one of the most impressive and compelling political sagas of the modern Arab world—the journey of the Lebanese Shi’ite community from marginalization, abuse and subjugation to dominant power, in a span of just over a generation, starting in the early 1970s. Yet Hizbullah has proved to be very weak in domestic political engagement, mainly because it is inexperienced ; some of its strongest critics say it is insincere, and does not care to engage politically or share power, because it reflects Iranian-Syrian rather than Lebanese priorities. The arguments here are fierce. We shall soon find out. Politics, however, remains new territory for Hizbullah.

Its eighteen-month-long political challenge to the government was a stalemated failure, and, such as its downtown tent encampment, occasionally an embarrassment. It seemed to gain the upper hand only when it responded to the government’s challenge to two aspects of its security system by sending armed men into western Beirut. But to fight instead of bargaining is not a sign of political prowess or sophistication. Hizbullah and the Lebanese state both must now grapple with basic issues of their own legitimacy, efficacy and reach. It is clear that the existing balance of power is not sustainable. More and more Lebanese are openly challenging Hizbullah, which responds with familiar arguments about the centrality of its resistance role—arguments that sound increasingly less credible to many compatriots. There is no easy answer to this dilemma of how to reconcile a weak state with a strong parallel state structure. But an answer must be found, or both will pay the price in the years ahead.

yet more gorgeous jane badler footage

“V : Liberation Day”
The sequel to the sequel (marvellous, but dubbed in French)

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

yet another barzel review

Review of “Born to Destroy Amalek” : Heathen Harvest, June 1, 2008

“And lo! On the eighth day God said ‘I perceive that it’s much too quiet around here…’ and so he divined that he should createth some noise. And lo! To cover up the quiet, God created he him Barzel. Perceiving Barzel and his works, God saith; “I have given life to Barzel to cover the quiet with noise, and I perceive that it is GOOD noise!’”

Indeed, judging from this latest opus from the Israeli noise-maker, he is also God’s appointed archangel of sonic destruction, laying to waste the enemies of the Chosen People through his solid barrages of sound. Regardless of how you view the merits or otherwise of Zionism or the tortured politics of the Near East, it’s undeniable that the sheer force of this album is built upon the ‘industrial strength Zionism’ that informs every piece on here. In my experience it’s apparent that Israel is a veritable hotbed of Power Electronics creativity, whether motivated by politics or not, and where it IS utilised in such material the passions engendered lend such outbursts an angry urgency in a very similar way that many acts harness the anger at both the perceived and apparent injustices of the Western world in their musical rants. What is immediately obvious here though is that Barzel manages to successfully marry his politico-religious views with a keen sense of composition and a feel for sound and the way it should be used to best effect.

In other words this isn’t just a simple case of all-out ear-raping noise just for the sake of it, or for it to merely act as an incidental backdrop to vehemently spat out distorted vocals—instead Barzel has carefully constructed the platform from which to launch his vituperative attacks, and he has done so with a very obvious craft. While still making use of the flesh-grinding, skin-blistering, and brain-mushing sheets of angry grating machine noise and granularity, tethered to explosions and detonations of shockwave sound, creating the impression of massed aerial engines and weapons of war ranged on the field of battle, that constitute much of this genre, Barzel has nonetheless been careful to shape the sounds, so that, while the anger and venom blast through easily enough, it isn’t a constant searing noise—I could even say that these approach being ‘proper’ songs.

Take a song like ‘Through Clouds of Fire’ as an example ; sheets of cleansing fire billow outwards, singeing and blistering all within reach, exemplified by bursts of grainy detonations and their aftermaths, the searing heat roiling out in furnace intense heat-waves ; aided and abetted by a piercing anguished scream of pain riding the billows, pain that is both descriptive of spiritual pain and also the righteous pain of an angered deity. All that remains of the battlefield is a smoking stench-ridden desert, where not even the carrion birds dare to venture (phoahh! that’s telling ’em – RB) . The title track ‘Born to Destroy Amalek’ (a reference to a tribe of peoples that the Biblical King David waged war against) doesn’t really leave much doubt as to what its intentions are ; nuclear Armageddon and radioactive obliteration until nothing is left, plain and simple, and all suggested by the use of battering blankets of gritty noise and machine rumbles, overlaid with malice-soaked vocals. Likewise, the closing track, the eight minute ‘We Shall Wash our Feet in the Blood of the Wicked’, which is as quiet as it gets on here, proclaims “Revenge is an important value, the Talmud says that it is one of the greatest things : revenge is great” set against a stuttering rhythmical rasping beat underpinning a sinister hair-raising swathes of organ, and echoed with what sounds like voices raised in shouted protest.

What I think of the sentiments expressed here is actually irrelevant, but I will admit to having certain reservations ; however for the purposes of this review, whether I agree or disagree is not the issue, and I remain strictly neutral. Indeed, the contents are almost telegraphed defiantly from the front of the striking cover (a hand grasping an upraised sword within a Star of David) ; no-one can accuse this of being shy about shouting from the rooftops, so if your sensibilities are easily offended or outraged, then stay firmly away. This is indeed militant and right up in-your-face close, brooking no argument ; in fact you can probably feel its white-hot furnace-breath on your face, it’s that close. On a purely superficial and aesthetic level (and ignoring the political) this grabs me by the balls and shakes me until my brains bleed—and for that reason alone I like it. I am walking a tightrope by declaring that, but from the point of view of the music itself, I stand by it.

“v” and that interesting color scheme

I just figured out what the “V” color scheme reminds me of—the rotating red and black strips with yellow and green melting fringes—salvia divinorum. Still legal, too, as far as I know.

You can watch the whole of the original mini-series on YouTube, starting here, and also the sequel, “The Final Battle.”

By the time you get to file 8 of 100, and Diana (Jane Badler) appears, a curiously misogynistic subtext has been established by writer/director Kenneth Johnson, to the effect that human females are careerist, manipulative, and opportunistic, so that Diana, the alien femme fatale, is at least potentially the lesser of two necessary evils, from the human male point of view. Here is file 9, which contains a lot of sly humor, and ends with the definitive shot of Diana, smouldering defiantly. In file 100, Diana escapes in a shuttle craft, still smouldering defiantly.

more u.s. propaganda from al-jazeera

laying the crowley ghost

(Added emphasis, June 2 – please read my post today on hypnosis and color effects in film and tv, which discusses specific applications of technical trickery to achieve pseudo supernatural effects by Hollywood initiates.

June 1 – I wish I could get more people to digest the implications of this, given that Tony Blair is being paid a fortune by would-be clerical-fascist interests to travel the globe claiming that “religion is the new politics.” To spell it out, what we have here is an engineered effect that looks “Satanic” : people who get Crowleyan initiations run amok, kill themselves, etc., like characters in horror movies, but the trick is simple and non supernatural – RB)

A lot of people seem to have heard more or less distorted rumors about this, so I am going to nail it to the wall here and now. As is well known, there exists a pseudo-Masonic or para-Masonic organisation called the “Ordo Templi Orientis,” which has an extremely tangled history, but in any case was revived on a commercial, mass-market basis by a US Army Lieutenant named Grady McMurtry in 1977, as a vehicle supposedly to bring the great doctrines of Aleister Crowley to the masses.

It is also fairly well-known in Masonic circles that this organisation is by nature of a booby-trap for hippies and drop-outs who imagine that by gaining initiation in it they will become privy to a whole series of “sex, drugs and rock-n-roll” type orgies. These hippies and drop-outs, being in fact sheep by psychological type and easily led (otherwise they would never have joined) can be induced by a simple ruse to give themselves permanently painful spinal injuries in the course of their initiations. This is considered in the aforesaid Masonic circles to be rather a fitting and ironic punishment for them, since they are not only sheep but parasites and wasters, and their morals are clearly non-existent, or worse.

However, what is not so widely understood is that the OTO proceeds beyond this, to a series of advanced rituals in which these unfortunates are given LSD and presented to the higher membership as souls in hell—as indeed they are, if you can imagine the effects of taking LSD while suffering the constant galling fetter of sciatica. The ideas behind this can be traced back to the “psychic driving” experiments of Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron, on behalf of the CIA, between 1957 and 1964, which combined physical pain induced by electroshock with large LSD doses. These experiments were, officially at least, terminated with extreme prejudice, since it is difficult to imagine anything more hellish, and even hardened CIA operatives blanch at the thought of it. However, the practice persists, and one wonders what unpleasant exploits the victims have been persuaded to undertake while in this ritually and physically “driven” state.

I am in an unusual position vis-a-vis this affair : I underwent these initiations deliberately, knowing they were booby-trapped, but not knowing in detail exactly how it was done, because I wanted to get to the bottom of it all (if you will excuse the term) and expose it.

britain cheats on cluster bombs

Gordon Brown blows a loophole
in ban on cluster bombs
Michael Smith, Times, June 1, 2008

Gordon Brown has negotiated a loophole for Britain to continue using cluster bombs, despite his declaration of a full ban. The prime minister appeared to reinforce his humanitarian credentials when he dramatically overruled the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in talks at a 109-nation conference in Dublin on Wednesday. While Brown announced support for “a ban on all cluster bombs, including those currently in service by the UK”, the government quietly excluded new anti-tank cluster shells that are not yet in service. Britain will now press ahead with an £83m contract to buy a new generation of the munitions, signed last November with GIWS, a German manufacturer.

Brown’s intervention in Dublin does mean an end to Britain’s two existing “smart” cluster munitions. The M85 artillery shell, which splits up into 49 bomblets and was last used in Iraq, will be taken out of service immediately. The M73 rocket, fired from the army’s Apache helicopters, contains nine bomblets and is deployed in Afghanistan. It will be phased out over eight years. By then the new ballistic sensor fused munition shell will be in service. The shell splits into two bomblets that descend on small parachutes, which make them particularly attractive to children if they do not detonate. Although the MoD has previously described the shells as “cluster munitions”, it now maintains they do not fall into the convention’s final definition of what constitutes a cluster weapon. Britain, France, Germany and Sweden, which all use or manufacture similar weapons, pushed through amendments to the treaty to exclude them because of their size and ability to self-destruct.

Cluster weapons, whether dropped by aircraft or fired from artillery, split up into bomblets, which can fail to explode. The MoD initially sought to exclude all Britain’s existing cluster munitions on the grounds they are “smart” munitions that self-destruct if they do not hit their target. But opponents say there is a 30% risk that even then they will not explode. If they do not, their self-destruct mechanism only makes them more dangerous to civilians. Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said their exemption at Britain’s request “completely undermines the moral argument the prime minister says he is making”. Their exclusion will be reassessed in five years.

u.s. meltdown

Rev. Pfleger: ‘They want to kill me’
Dave Newbart, Chicago Sun-Times, May 31, 2008

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, who helped reignite Barack Obama’s pastor problems by mocking Hillary Clinton, said this evening he’s received “thousands of hate threats” since his videotaped pulpit rants. “They want to kill me,” Pfleger told parishioners during a service in a St. Sabina Church chapel on Chicago’s South Side this evening. “It’s been very ugly.”

The firebrand (oh, puh leeze – RB) Catholic Priest made his controversial Clinton comments last Sunday at Trinity United Church of Christ, home church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor. Pfleger mocked Clinton for crying on the campaign trail, and suggested it was “white entitlement” leading Clinton to believe the Democratic nomination should go to her—not Obama. His speech was videotaped, and quickly made the rounds on the Internet and on television, leading Obama to express his ‘disappointment’ in the activist priest, whom he has known for years. Pfleger’s boss, Cardinal Francis George, on Friday also rebuked Pfleger for his “personal attack” on Clinton, and said he had received assurances from Pfleger that he would no longer campaign for or even mention the names of political candidates.

In his brief comments this evening, Pfleger did not name any candidates, and said he would address the controversy at a Sunday mass at St. Sabina. “I’m not going to make a statement,” Pfleger told the crowded chapel. “My real statement will be tomorrow.” But he did say it’s been a difficult week filled with an unspecified surgery on Tuesday and a deluge of threats. “It’s a very difficult situation,” he said. “I’ve received thousands of hate threats.” He did not offer any specifics from the pulpit, and declined through an aide to comment further. That included declining a specific request by the Sun-Times for a comment on Obama’s decision to leave Trinity church.

That bombshell revelation came out Saturday. It followed weeks of Trinity-related headaches for the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama was a longtime member of the church. Wright married Obama and his wife, Michelle, and baptized their two daughters. But Obama had to publicly distance himself from Wright after videotaped sermons hit the Internet showing Wright criticizing the U.S. government—including exclaiming “God damn America!” […]