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