| Lebanon's Officers Under Terror Attack |
On December 12, a top Lebanese Army commander, Brigadier General Francois Hajj, was killed in a terrorist bombing in the suburb of Baabda southeast of Beirut. Hajj, 54, who was close to army commander Michel Sleiman and tipped to be his successor, was killed along with his bodyguard in a rush-hour blast. This was the first assassination of a high-ranking officer of the Lebanese Armed Forces in decades. The first set of questions is: Why was he murdered, who may have perpetrated this terror attack and what could be the consequences of this dramatic development?
1) General Francois Hajj was born in the Christian town of Rmeish in southern Lebanon. His home village had a history of resistance against Terror forces since the late 1960s. Many of its inhabitants enrolled in the Lebanese Army over the past decades. A number of them were involved in opposition to the Syrian occupation and Hezbollah. Hajj joined the Lebanese army Academy in 1972 and graduated in 1975. He also commanded the Special Forces brigades (Maghawir) before he was promoted to LAF operation chief. According to many sources in Lebanon, he was selected to become the next commander of the Lebanese Army. Hence, the assassination aimed at preventing Francois Hajj from being appointed by the next President, yet to be elected, as the top military man in Lebanon. General Michel Soleiman, who has been nominated by the majority coalition in Parliament for the Presidency was grooming Hajj to become his successor. In addition the slain commander had in past months and years refused to accept Hezbollah’s exclusive areas of control in south Lebanon and in the Bekaa valley. Moreover he was credited for coordinating the Lebanese Army offensive against the Fatah Islam Terror group in Nahr al Bared camp in north Lebanon over the summer. The strike can be understood as a message to the Lebanese Army not to attempt to confront terror groups in the future, including Hezbollah.
2) The parties that can execute such operations in Lebanon, and have an interest in it, fall under the umbrella of the Syrian-Iranian Mihwar (Axis) which includes the Syrian intelligence, the Pasdaran network, Hezbollah, Ahmad Jibril Palestinian group, as well as other smaller pro-Syrian militias. This “axis” has been accused by the Cedars Revolution of perpetrating a series of assassinations since 2005, including against Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and a number of leaders and MPs, last of whom MPs Walid Eido and Antoine Ghanem, all opposed to the Syrian occupation and in favor of disarming Hezbollah.
3) With the assassination of Hajj, the pro-democracy majority is now facing the reality of terrorism again. But this time the violence was directed against the very institution which is supposed to protect this democracy, the future President, the Parliament and civil society: The Lebanese Army. What seems to be a logical next step is for the current Government in Lebanon and its legislative majority to ask the United Nations Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for the following vital measures:
a. Put Resolution UNSCR 1559 (withdrawal of Syrians, disarming Hezbollah and electing a new President) under Chapter 7 of the Charter
b. Supervising the election of a new President of the Republic under UN protection.
c. Extending a UN support to Lebanon’s Army to confront the terror campaign.
However the March 14 Coalition and the Seniora cabinet have been intimidated by many assassinations: Thus the likeliness of seeing them initiate these dramatic moves is not high at this point, but not impossible eventually. International–including U.S., European and Arab-support is covered by a good number of UN resolutions, a Franco-American understanding, and a bipartisan set of resolutions issued by the U.S. Congress and Arab moderate frustration with Iranian-sponsored violence in Lebanon. It will boil down to the rise of a courageous group of leaders out of Lebanon calling for help. And it is precisely that group which is targeted by the “axis.”
Harry Potter and the Deathly Subprime
I got a chuckle out of the Financial Times' John Authers comparing the subprime mess to the final saga of the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. According to him, those who find the subprime mess "incuraby boring" yet need to be informed about this act of financial legerdemain should read the aforementioned Harry Potter book. No, I am not pulling your leg. This may sound far-fetched, and I doubt whether the Englishwoman JK Rowling has experience as a mortgage broker. Still, the creative Mr. Authers has an intriguing take that should prove to be amusing yet (somewhat) instructive. You may believe this analogy is silly, but since the Wizard of Oz has long been called an allegory for leaving the gold standard, goodbye yellow brick road and all that, why not this analogy? Come to think of it, isn't "Love Lies Bleeding" all about the subprime mess too?
The most popular book of 2007 also proved to be a good allegory for the problems the markets faced all year. In JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, our teenage hero has to contend with the evil Lord Voldemort, who has split his soul into many different parts, and hidden them across the world. Voldemort can only be killed once Harry finds each of these objects, known as horcruxes, and destroys them – and the act of destroying them is itself fiendishly difficult.After nearly a year of the subprime crisis, that sounds dreadfully familiar. Subprime loans, which should never even have been offered to the borrowers, were split into many complicated financial instruments, and distributed, or hidden, worldwide. The battle for investors and regulators has been to identify where these “horcruxes” of the subprime loans are hidden, and to neutralise them. Until they are all found, Lord Voldemortgage [!--that's no typo] rules the earth.
It may sound fanciful to read Harry Potter as a financial text. But The Wizard of Oz is frequently cited as a tract about the debate over leaving the gold standard (or “following the yellow-brick road”) so the notion of reading children’s classics as financial allegories has some precedent. The book is great, and genuinely scary because it is not at all clear whether our hero will be all right in the end. I cannot spoil the ending for those who have not yet read it: suffice it to say the same suspense hangs over the credit crisis.
If you are looking for more immediately practical books, then the best basic guide probably continues to be The Money Machine – How The City Works, by the former writer of this column, Philip Coggan. Amazingly, the first edition came out more than two decades ago – yet the lessons in the book remain fresh.
In the original introduction, he highlighted the now long-forgotten scandal of Johnson Matthey Bankers, which was bought for £1 after making high-risk loans that were more than the bank’s entire capital. He made the point that in spite of their reputation for brilliance, financiers in every generation do things that are stupid, and make the same mistakes. When he comes to revise the book to take account of this year’s credit crisis, he will not need to make many alterations...
For those who find the subject incurably boring, try the Harry Potter, and tell them it’s really about subprime.
SAfrica's Mbeki hits back at ANC leadership
©AFP - Alexander Joe
POLOKWANE, South Africa - President Thabo Mbeki fought back Sunday against a bid to oust him from the helm of South Africa's ruling party, taking thinly-veiled aim at the morals of his corruption-tainted rival.
As members of the African National Congress prepared to vote for either Mbeki or ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma, bitter divisions were on full display on the first day of a leadership conference in the northern city Polokwane.
After a nearly three-hour opening speech in which he urged members to elect "ethical" leaders, the erosion of Mbeki's esteem was evident as Zuma supporters' chants drowned out the standing ovations.
Mbeki loyalists were booed and elders had to intervene more than once to bring members to order who prevented known Zuma critics from addressing delegates.
Some 4,075 delegates would start voting Monday for the position of ANC president and other top posts, the results of which could be announced the same day.
While Mbeki's two-term state presidency lapses in 2009, a party defeat could severely dent his authority in his final two years in office.
Victory for Zuma would cap a remarkable comeback for a man who was sacked by Mbeki as deputy head of state in 2005 after his financial advisor was jailed for corruption.
©AFP - Alexander Joe
Zuma is still the subject of a graft probe. And though acquitted in a rape trial last year, the polygamist Zulu was ridiculed for testifying he had showered after sex with his HIV-positive accuser, a family friend half his age, to prevent infection.
Refraining from a direct reference to Zuma, Mbeki told delegates "the character of our movement at this juncture calls for a leadership seized with ethical fervour."
With Zuma sitting directly behind him, Mbeki said members had a responsibility "to ask ourselves whether in the recent past our movement has not gravitated away from its moral axis."
Analysts said his speech, which included a long-winded defence of his economic record, underscored criticism that he was out of touch.
"It was an object lesson in what the problem has been in the last few years," said Steven Friedman of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa.
"For the first 30-something pages, he was droning on endlessly over economic data. It is a symptom of what everyone has been talking about."
Billionaire businessman Tokyo Sexwale, who ditched his own leadership campaign and endorsed Zuma last week, said Mbeki misjudged his audience.
©AFP - Alexander Joe
"It lacked passion," he told AFP. "It was more like a government speech not an ANC speech, not for a conference like this one."
Mbeki rejected criticism that he was aloof, autocratic and too business friendly, defending his record on the economy, job creation and poverty eradication.
"This is the first time in South African history that we have had four successive years of growth above 4.5 percent," he said.
"The percentage of South Africans living below the poverty line fell from 51.4 percent in 2001 to 43.2 percent in 2006."
Zuma has won the backing of five of the ANC's nine provincial branches as well as the women's and youth leagues in the nominations round.
His supporters appeared to outnumber those of Mbeki inside the conference hall. Party chairman Mosiuoa Lekota battled to be heard above chants of Zuma's controversial signature tune "Umshini Wam" (Zulu for "Bring Me My Machinegun").
Former South African president Nelson Mandela, Mbeki's predecessor, expressed sadness at the divisions.
"Whatever decisions you are to make at this conference, including decisions about leadership positions in the organisation, let that noble history of the ANC guide you," the 89-year-old said in a taped message to the conference.
"Of course it saddens us to see and hear the nature of the differences currently in the organisation."
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