Hezbollah versus the CIA’s Cedar Revolution

A Good Analysis
By Kurt Nimmo

"As the engineered sectarian melt-down in Lebanon crawls forward, it is interesting to read the neocon columnists as they bewail the erosion of the “Cedar Revolution,” that is to say the neocon-neolib subversion of Lebanese politics.

But what of this so-called Cedar Revolution? Is it purely a Lebanese political phenomenon, having risen out of the anger and opposition to the presence of Syria in the country? Hardly.

“The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) functions as an instrument of CIA penetration into civil society, by enabling the ‘legitimate’ funding of millions of dollars to promote U.S. foreign policy abroad and influence internal politics of foreign nations while avoiding Congressional scrutiny,” writes Eva Golinger. According to Ralph McGehee, a former CIA agent, and other former CIA operatives, the agency manipulated the trade union movement in the Philippines through USAID front organizations.

But it is not simply Asia where USAID works its “democratic” magic, more accurately described as cultural and economic voodoo. The CIA (and Pentagon) connected so-called NGO has turned up in Iraq, Haiti, the Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Nigeria, and elsewhere.

It is especially interesting to read the account of USAID interference in Lebanon, as recounted by the Lebanese socialist Bassem Chit. “Lebanon’s ‘cedar revolution’ is being touted as the shining example of regime change on the cheap. Since the mass protest drove out the Syrians last year, Lebanon has seen an ascending flow of US interference. It varies from direct political manipulation and media campaigns to discreet funding of civil movements through ‘NGOs,” Chit wrote in May of this year. "An American-Lebanese woman representing Freedom House was accompanied by a “retired revolutionary” from Ukraine. The guy was eager to get us on board, and boasted of the joys of being “US-funded” — he added that after Ukraine’s Orange Revolution he even had the opportunity to “meet George Bush.” He obviously thought that was enough to close the deal.""That the US is wanting to finance Lebanese leftists might seem odd, but it is part of a pattern of political interference that emerged since the invasion of Iraq. During the “cedar revolution” US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman invited many of the leaders of the anti-Syrian movement to dinner parties. The US embassy also had a direct hand in fomenting the anti-Syrian protests".

The New York Post reported how, at the height of last year’s protests, “the CIA and European intelligence services were quietly giving money and logistical support to organizers of the anti-Syrian protests to ramp up pressure on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad… The secret program is similar to previous support of pro-democracy movements in Georgia and Ukraine, which also led to peaceful demonstrations.”

Now the country is awash with dubious NGOs. Among them is the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon, headed by Ziad Abdel Nour. The son of wealthy right wing Lebanese MP, Nour let the cat out of the bag when he declared, “We have absolutely no problem with heavy US involvement in Lebanon. On an economic level, military level, political level, security level… whatever it is. Israel is the 51st state of the United States. Let Lebanon be the 52nd state. And if the Arabs don’t like it, tough luck.”

It is interesting Chit mentions the Freedom House. This so-called NGO is stacked with neocons and neolib one-worlders, including James “World War Four” Woolsey, a former director of the CIA and VP for Booz Allen Hamilton, and the Rockefeller protégé Zbigniew Brzezinski, the engineer behind the Afghan Mujahideen, eventually to conveniently morph into al-Qaeda. Others include the Trilateralist Samuel P. Huntington, architect of the “clash of civilizations” currently underway, and Clinton national security adviser Anthony Lake, former Kissinger lackey and Clinton’s pointman on the bombing of Yugoslavia.

Of course, Mr. Loyola is speaking the language of his masters—the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, yet another neocon “think tank” aligned with the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, and the above mentioned Freedom House.

Predictably, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies includes on its roster the usual suspects, including the Ritchie Rich Steve Forbes, Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Newt Gingrich, Joseph Lieberman, James Woolsey, Frank Gaffney, William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Richard Perle.

Obviously, with friends like these, Lebanon needs no enemies."