Middle East Features
'Mystery' US base causes confusion among Lebanese
Oct 28, 2007, 22:07 GMT
Akkar, Lebanon - The people of the Akkar region, north Lebanon, were busy Sunday discussing the veracity of local news indicating that the United States may be planning to build a military base in their area.
Worries increased after former pro-Syrian Member of Parliament (MP) Nasser Kandil appeared on television Sunday revealing a document he claimed was issued by the Bureau of 'Dangerous Zones' which is affiliated with the US Department of Defense.
Kandil said the document announced the starting of 'preparatory construction to set up a military base for NATO and US forces in the area of Qeliat' in northern Lebanon.
'Such a base if it is built ... will bring problems to a region already fragile and full of Sunni fundamentalist movements,' said local recident Nimr Alloush, referring to the summer conflict between Sunni fundamentalist movement Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese army at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp.
The fifteen-week long battles at Nahr al-Bared claimed the lives of 170 soldiers and more than 220 militants, as well as displaced the camp's 40,000 Palestinian refugees.
According to military expert Amin Hoteit, the reported US plan aims to set up six military bases - three in Iraq, one in Jordan, one in Saudi Arabia and one in Lebanon.
It is believed that the Lebanese government is going to approve the base, allegedly to be named the US-Lebanese Centre for Rehabilitation of the Army.
'This US project if it is established will bring more problems. ... Probably every group in Lebanon would oppose it,' Hoteit said.
The uproar started after US Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Eric Edelman visited Lebanon and spoke of a 'strategic partnership' with Lebanon's army in an interview aired on Lebanese television last week. Edelman did not mention the building of a military base.
But according to a report in Beirut newspaper As-Safir published last week, Edelman - who during his visit met with Premier Fouad Seniora, Defence Minister Elias Murr and Lebanese Army Commander General Michel Suleiman - not only discussed the Lebanese Army's training and equipment needs but also put forward a draft agreement that would see US naval, air and land bases set up on Lebanese territory.
Information Minister Ghazi Aridi categorially denied the As-Safir article, saying it was 'an attempt to create a rift between the Lebanese Army and the government by those who stood against the army during the battle for Nahr al-Bared.'
According to the reports the base is to be established at Qleiat, a small abandoned airport.
Most of residents in the area were wary of speaking to the press but some living near the airport said several US officials had visited the facility in the past few months.
Independent military experts say the military base project was orchestrated by the office of the US Secretary of Defence to counter Russian bases in northern Syria.
'The US administration wants the Qleiat airport as a location because it lies 22 air miles from northern Syria's Tartus naval base and also the Russian Mediterranean Black Sea fleet's command centre,' said one military expert who requested anonymity.
In 2006, Russia announced plans to set up a naval base in Syria in a move that would dramatically increase Moscow's presence in West Asia.
Russia has dredged the Syrian port of Tartus, where the Russian Navy has had a maintenance station since Soviet times.
If the US base is built, it will be the first American military establishment in the country since 1983 when then US president Ronald Reagan pulled US troops out following a suicide bombing that killed more than 280 US marines.
Until the reports are cleared, people in the Akkar region will continue to fear such 'a mystery military base' in their area.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
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As an american taxpayer I could care less if we are admired/feared, but I do agree with you about returning to focus on issues at home though. I would prefer not to pay for bases in the middle east, nor for a missile shield for Europe. If we leave them alone, they will go back to killing each other as they have for millinea. Europe can build its own missile shield if it wants one, and we can go back to exporting Big Macs and Britney Spears.
The missle shield is there to protect Israel. The Europeans can take care of themselves.
THere is nobody threatening us,paranoia rules the USZ,the whole concept of Iran,the economical equivalent of Finland, without ballistic missiles,nukes,motives or logic ,wanring to bomb us can only sprout in a deranged brain.šPlease focus on more important problems
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You should care. If you ever left that enclave of yours and went out into the real world, you would care very much indeed. Because you'd be scared sh*tless, as soon as people found out you were amerikan. That is why a lot of amerikan dirtballs pose as Canadians while abroad. As a Canadian, I enjoy exposing these pieces of filth wherever I meet them. I also enjoy the warm fuzzy reception they then get. Yup, you proud amerikans, so proud of your country that you go sneaking around, posing as something you're not. You are nothing but trash.
The Canadians I know, and there are many, would know how to spell American!! The more other countries view the U.S. in a bad light, the more the danger from them........
You don't represent most of your countrymen - I doubt if you are one - and if you are, please stay north of the border and don't cry out for help when you are under attack!!
Jorge is really more likly Abdulla Imafulofshita Bin Brainwashed. I would not pose as Canadian or any other nationality. The fact is I would not visit a place that thinks its ok to blow themselves up! Sorry AIBB we Americans really deep down don't give a sh** about your problems with our countries policies we have to deal with them at home enough not to care how they are dealing with you. When you start blowing up stuff here then you will get our attention and unite us in the extinction of radical Islam and then we will write the Politicians a blank check to kick your asses off the face of the Earth....
Typical yankee posters. Don't give a crap until something goes boom. It's too late, then, to fix things. The trick, boys, is to keep your ears open AND your minds open to the subtle things. That way nothing gets out of control. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I'm anadian too, and I spell it americ*nt.
Addendum to last post. Before some inbred, braindead hillbilly, of a yankee accuses me of not being able to spell Canadian, blame it on a sticky keyboard. Another piece of consumer trash, made in amerika.
Great posts, I live on one of those sand bowls the yanks like to blow up now and again because of terrorists... and somehow never manage to find any. Love it out here, would never change, and at least the government here gives us all health care.
George the Bush, Prick Cheney, Ronald Dumsfeld and Co. (yes I did spell it that way for a reason) coudn't careless if you all die of some petty illness back in the US so long as their Zionist buddies and those bending them over a table have a smile on their faces.
Wake up you hillybillies, they are robbing you blind!
And just who will you 'Kanadians' come to crying for help when the going gets rough? If you hate your southern neighbors so much, why do you leave your country in droves the minute your toes get cold, for our warm states. I doubt if there is anyone left up there to do business!
Yeah, you hair brained yanks are the scum of the earth, the lot of you are intellectually deprived, and overweight! You fat ugly monsters, yuuukk. Hate them.
'The trick, boys, is to keep your ears open AND your minds open to the subtle things'
Or... never do anything of note but complain about your southern neighbor. Not really subtle though, like being our international mother in law stuck forever in the back seat on a never ending car trip.
' Before some inbred, braindead[sic] hillbilly, of a yankee[sic] accuses me of not being able to spell Canadian, blame it on a sticky keyboard.'
Another porno addicted kanook I see... I am sure the keyboard isn't the only sticky thing up there in your moms basement.
'Another piece of consumer trash, made in amerika'
Seeing as how you don't produce anything in kanada, (Except constant hen-pecking and self serving myths) it would have had to come from somewhere else.
Jealousy is an ugly thing....so is your momma. :-D
You ever seen a US $10 dollar bill? Dance monkey, dance!
The posts here from so-called 'Kanadians' are the bottom of their barrel - most of the ones I know are not the way these creeps are depicting and they wouldn't want to be associated with these scum!!
It's a shame that humans don't learn from history and the mistakes of others. The US would be well advised to drastically alter their intended world-domination plans because no matter how strong you are; no matter how cunning you are; whenever your modus operandi is exposed, you are doomed to fail before you start.
Let us revisit the israeli holocaust scenario to substantiate my point: We are told by the historians that the israelis were told that they were being taken to concentration camps somewhere in Germany or Austria, I think.
But none of them were told the truth; i.e. that they would be herded into gas chambers. The question arises: Would six million folks walk like a bunch of automatons knowingly into death chambers? Wouldn't they not act like all rational humans would?
Since they are going to kill us, we may as well go down fighting. I am sure that not even half of them would have been gassed had they known the truth.
Second point: The nazis made prisoners they were about to kill dig their own graves and then after they had reached the required depth, shot every one of them. Again I ask the question: Would you dig your own grave at gunpoint knowing that immediately afterwards you are going to be shot?
No. You are not going to make the enemy's job easy. It is this reason that clearly indicates to me that the US are on a path of self-destruction. Believe me, any attack on Iran is going to have some serious repercussions on the american landscape. Mark my words.
If the US were psychoanalysed as if it were a human being, it would be diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur.
The Canadian dollar is worth more than the yankee dollar. Ever see a Canadian $10 bill? Dance monkey, dance. Go take some Cialis, yank. Your short-comings are showing.
Sounds like grounds for a Canadian/U.S. war!!
There's that TO: anonymous monkey again. Somebody help him find his pacifier.
You are sitting on it!!
What we are doing (The US) mirrors what happened during the third reich.
The Germans were stupid and played their little game of 'Risk' sloppy. The US on the other hand...
Wait a couple more decades.
WOW TYPICAL HUMAN BEINGS BEING DUM AZZES AGAIN,THERE WILL NEVER BE PEACE ON THIS WORLD.SELF DEORICATING,JUST READ ALL THESE POSTS.LMAO LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDECINE IN DA WORLD,TAKE A MOMENT AND LAUGH OUT LOUD, YOU'LL BE SURPRISED HOW GOOD YOU FEEL AFTER.
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Ethan H.Oct 28th, 2007 - 22:22:58
Instead of the U.S. being admired in the world, they are now feared and other countries think they are trying to take over/ that or they think the U.S. is trying to change existing countries to meet their ideas of what they should adhere to - politically and religiously. It's time they backed off and attended to their own problems, which are many!!
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