Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman with Vice President Biden

in Beirut on My 22: Some consider Biden's advice about how

Lebanese should vote in upcoming legislative elections to have

been a bit heavy-handed. He made clear that American aid

depends on the vote - and that translates into Hezbullah.

 

 

Le Quotidien d’Oran, Algeria

Biden's Message: Vote Hezbullah and Be Treated Like Hamas

 

"The underlying threat implied by Joe Biden against the Lebanese people is that if Hezbullah and its allies win the legislative elections, Lebanon would be blacklisted by the United States and its allies."

 

By Kharroubi Habib

 

Translated By Sandrine Ageorges

 

May 25, 2009

 

Algeria - Le Quotidien d'Oran - Home Page (French)

Vice President Joe Biden: His less than subtle message to Lebanese about how they should vote in their own elections has met with more than a little consternation among Western-leaning Lebanese.

 

BBC NEWS VIDEO: Vice President Biden 'plays down' any appearance of partisanship; says Lebanese should choose their own leader, 00:02:42, May 22RealVideo

American Vice President Joe Biden just visited Lebanon, where he issued to his people what our colleague K. Selim justly qualified as a “summons to vote well” in legislative elections to be held in their country on June 7th. And “voting well,” according to Joe Biden, consists of blocking “parties hostile to peace” - based on America's criteria.

 

The Lebanese to whom he has shown how to “vote well” will appreciate the limits of this advice from the American emissary, bearing in mind that he restrained himself from making the same intervention on the direction of Israel's people, who also held elections won by the enemies of peace.

 

The intrusion of the American Vice President into Lebanon's political debate illuminates the U.S. political establishment's variable geometry in regard to democracy. For them, democratic expression has limits in the Arab world. This is so as not to have to legitimize adversaries of U.S. geostrategic interests in Arab countries or the region.  

Posted by WORLDMEETS.US

 

The summons issued by Joe Biden to the Lebanese people foreshadows that their nation would be subject to the same global humiliation endured by the Palestinians after an election that handed a parliamentary majority to Hamas - classified by Washington in the same breath as the “Lebanese parties” that the U.S. has “recommended” distancing ourselves from.

 

Joe Biden may carry the burden of being an unrepentant gaffe-maker, but under the circumstances, his intervention in Lebanon owes nothing to his blundering spirit. He has merely transmitted an injunction from an American administration that doesn't want and will not accept a democratic ballot in an Arab country that fails to conform with the plans and projects if the United States.

 

The underlying threat implied by Biden against the Lebanese people is that if Hezbullah and its allies win the legislative elections, Lebanon would be blacklisted by the United States and its allies, with the almost certain consequence of inciting a situation in which their domestic protégés and allies would refuse to accept the electoral results. This would open the way for this country to give in to the suicidal temptation to engage in inter-religious and inter-communal confrontation.

 

The American summons to the Lebanese people comforts and absolves in advance the ultra right-wing hawks who came to power in Israel and for whom the West has rolled out the red carpet, without for a moment considering the “collective punishment” of the Jewish people for having allowed them access to power.

 

In short - for the America of Bush or that of Obama and Biden, Arab democracy and peace are exclusively for those who vote the way America wants and for allied forces it dubs its knights.

 

CLICK HERE FOR FRENCH VERSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US May 27, 3:37am]