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• Sunday, May 11, 2008 08:56 AM

  The Welch Club (not the Birchers)

  For those who want a refresher or background on Shooter's "Lebanon situation" that has absolutely nothing to do with American meddling /snark off. At least previous meddling was competent and achieved the results intended, even if in hindsight, no meddling at all might have been better.

  Friday, May 25, 2007

  "The Welch Club" or who's Behind the Fighting in North Lebanon?

  A reader led me to this very good essay by Franklin Lamb on "Counterpunch". To better understand what is going on in the camp (s), first you need to see the key elements of what is known as the "Welch Club" (nothing to do with Friday-Lunch-Club)

  The Club is named for its godfather, David Welch, assistant to Secretary of State Rice who is the point man for the Bush administration and is guided by Eliot Abrams. Key Lebanese members of the Welch Club (aka: the 'Club') include: The Lebanese civil war veteran, warlord, feudalist and mercurial Walid Jumblatt of the Druze party( the Progressive Socialist Party or PSP) Another civil war veteran, warlord, terrorist (Served 11 years in prison for massacres committed against fellow Christians among others) Samir Geagea. The billionaire, Saudi Sheikh and Club president Saad Hariri leader of the Sunni Future Movement (FM).

  http://friday-lunch-club.blogspot.com/2007/05/inside-narh-al-bared-and-bedawi-refugee.html

  Franklin Lamb’s thesis is essentially a combined neo-neo — neocon and neoliberal — explanation and here is where it becomes surreal:

  … the Welch Club wants to keep some Palestinians in Lebanon for cheap labor, ship others to countries willing to take them (and be paid handsomely to do so by American taxpayers) and allow at most a few thousand to return to Palestine to settle the ‘right of return’ issue while at the same time signing a May 17th 1983 type treaty with Israel with enriches the Club members and gives Israel Lebanon’s water and much of Lebanon’s sovereignty.

  http://peoplesgeography.com/2007/05/25/whos-behind-the-fighting-in-north-lebanon/

  —L.W.M. Read L.W.M.'s other letters
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