The Lebanese Connection

The Lebanese Connection PDF Author: Jonathan Marshall
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804782563
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Long before Mexico, Colombia, and Afghanistan became notorious for their contributions to the global drug traffic, Lebanon was a special target of U.S. drug agents for harboring the world's greatest single transit port in the international traffic in narcotics. In the words of one American official, "certain of the largest traffickers are so influential politically, and certain highly placed officials so deeply involved in the narcotic traffic, that one might well state that the Lebanese Government is in the narcotics business." Using previously secret government records, The Lebanese Connection uncovers for the first time the story of how Lebanon's economy and political system were corrupted by drug profits—and how, by financing its many ruthless militia, Lebanon's drug trade contributed to the country's greatest catastrophe, its fifteen-year civil war from 1975 to 1990. In so doing, this book sheds new light on the dangerous role of vast criminal enterprises in the collapse of states and the creation of war economies that thrive in the midst of civil conflicts. Taking a regional approach to the drug issue, Jonathan Marshall assesses the culpability of Syria, Israel, and of Palestinian factions and other groups that used Lebanon as their battleground. On the international level, he documents Lebanon's contribution to the hard drug problem of major consuming countries, from the days of the "French Connection" through the "Pizza Connection," as well as Lebanon's unrivaled place in the global hashish market.

The Lebanese Connection

The Lebanese Connection PDF Author: Jonathan Marshall
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804782563
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Get Book Here

Book Description
Long before Mexico, Colombia, and Afghanistan became notorious for their contributions to the global drug traffic, Lebanon was a special target of U.S. drug agents for harboring the world's greatest single transit port in the international traffic in narcotics. In the words of one American official, "certain of the largest traffickers are so influential politically, and certain highly placed officials so deeply involved in the narcotic traffic, that one might well state that the Lebanese Government is in the narcotics business." Using previously secret government records, The Lebanese Connection uncovers for the first time the story of how Lebanon's economy and political system were corrupted by drug profits—and how, by financing its many ruthless militia, Lebanon's drug trade contributed to the country's greatest catastrophe, its fifteen-year civil war from 1975 to 1990. In so doing, this book sheds new light on the dangerous role of vast criminal enterprises in the collapse of states and the creation of war economies that thrive in the midst of civil conflicts. Taking a regional approach to the drug issue, Jonathan Marshall assesses the culpability of Syria, Israel, and of Palestinian factions and other groups that used Lebanon as their battleground. On the international level, he documents Lebanon's contribution to the hard drug problem of major consuming countries, from the days of the "French Connection" through the "Pizza Connection," as well as Lebanon's unrivaled place in the global hashish market.

Banking on the State

Banking on the State PDF Author: Hicham Safieddine
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503609685
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
In 1943, Lebanon gained its formal political independence from France; only after two more decades did the country finally establish a national central bank. Inaugurated on April 1, 1964, the Banque du Liban (BDL) was billed by Lebanese authorities as the nation's primary symbol of economic sovereignty and as the last step towards full independence. In the local press, it was described as a means of projecting state power and enhancing national pride. Yet the history of its founding—stretching from its Ottoman origins in mid-nineteenth century up until the mid-twentieth—tells a different, more complex story. Banking on the State reveals how the financial foundations of Lebanon were shaped by the history of the standardization of economic practices and financial regimes within the decolonizing world. The system of central banking that emerged was the product of a complex interaction of war, economic policies, international financial regimes, post-colonial state-building, global currents of technocratic knowledge, and private business interests. It served rather than challenged the interests of an oligarchy of local bankers. As Hicham Safieddine shows, the set of arrangements that governed the central bank thus was dictated by dynamics of political power and financial profit more than market forces, national interest or economic sovereignty.

Beirut 1958

Beirut 1958 PDF Author: Bruce Riedel
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815737351
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Find out about the 1958 U.S. intervention that succeeded and apply those lessons to today's conflicts in the Middle East In July 1958, U.S. Marines stormed the beach in Beirut, Lebanon, ready for combat. They were greeted by vendors and sunbathers. Fortunately, the rest of their mission—helping to end Lebanon's first civil war—went nearly as smoothly and successfully, thanks in large part to the skillful work of American diplomats who helped arrange a compromise solution. Future American interventions in the region would not work out quite as well. Bruce Riedel's new book tells the now-forgotten story (forgotten, that is, in the United States) of the first U.S. combat operation in the Middle East. President Eisenhower sent the Marines in the wake of a bloody coup in Iraq, a seismic event that altered politics not only of that country but eventually of the entire region. Eisenhower feared that the coup, along with other conspiracies and events that seemed mysterious back in Washington, threatened American interests in the Middle East. His action, and those of others, were driven in large part by a cast of fascinating characters whose espionage and covert actions could be grist for a movie. Although Eisenhower's intervention in Lebanon was unique, certainly in its relatively benign outcome, it does hold important lessons for today's policymakers as they seek to deal with the always unexpected challenges in the Middle East. Veteran analyst Bruce Reidel describes the scene as it emerged six decades ago, and he suggests that some of the lessons learned then are still valid today. A key lesson? Not to rush to judgment when surprised by the unexpected. And don't assume the worst.

Lebanon

Lebanon PDF Author: Dilip Hiro
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 9780297821168
Category : Lebanon
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description


A Game for Swallows

A Game for Swallows PDF Author: Zeina Abirached
Publisher: Graphic Universe ™
ISBN: 1467700479
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
When Zeina was born, the civil war in Lebanon had been going on for six years, so it's just a normal part of life for her and her parents and her little brother. The city of Beirut is cut in two, separated by bricks and sandbags and threatened by snipers and shelling. East Beirut is for Christians, and West Beirut is for Muslims. When Zeina's parents don't return one afternoon from a visit to the other half of the city, and the bombing grows ever closer, the neighbors in her apartment house create a world indoors for Zeina and her brother where it's comfy and safe, where they can share cooking lessons and games and gossip. Together they try to make it through a dramatic day in the one place they hoped they would always be safehome. Zeina Abirached, born into a Lebanese Christian family in 1981, has collected her childhood recollections of Beirut in a warm story about the strength of family and community.

Israel's Lebanon War

Israel's Lebanon War PDF Author: Zeev Schiff
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671602160
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
From Simon & Schuster, Israel's Lebanon War is the first and only complete inside account of a disastrous military adventure and its ongoing consequences. A detailed narrative by two Israeli journalists on the origins, conduct, and political repercussions of the Lebanon war, based on previously unreleased documents and interviews with high officials.

Sexuality and War

Sexuality and War PDF Author: Evelyne Accad
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814706150
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
In this text, the author explores what she argues is an indissoluble link between war and sexuality. She explores the connections among sexuality, war, nationalism, pacifism, violence, love and power as they relate to the body, the partner, the family, political ideologies and religion.

Lebanon

Lebanon PDF Author: William Harris
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199720592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
In this impressive synthesis, William Harris narrates the history of the sectarian communities of Mount Lebanon and its vicinity. He offers a fresh perspective on the antecedents of modern multi-communal Lebanon, tracing the consolidation of Lebanon's Christian, Muslim, and Islamic derived sects from their origins between the sixth and eleventh centuries. The identities of Maronite Christians, Twelver Shia Muslims, and Druze, the mountain communities, developed alongside assertions of local chiefs under external powers from the Umayyads to the Ottomans. The chiefs began interacting in a common arena when Druze lord Fakhr al-Din Ma'n achieved domination of the mountain within the Ottoman imperial framework in the early seventeenth century. Harris knits together the subsequent interplay of the elite under the Sunni Muslim Shihab relatives of the Ma'ns after 1697 with demographic instability as Maronites overtook Shia as the largest community and expanded into Druze districts. By the 1840s many Maronites conceived the common arena as their patrimony. Maronite/Druze conflict ensued. Modern Lebanon arose out of European and Ottoman intervention in the 1860s to secure sectarian peace in a special province. In 1920, after the Ottoman collapse, France and the Maronites enlarged the province into the modern country, with a pluralism of communal minorities headed by Maronite Christians and Sunni Muslims. The book considers the flowering of this pluralism in the mid-twentieth century, and the strains of new demographic shifts and of social resentment in an open economy. External intrusions after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war rendered Lebanon's contradictions unmanageable and the country fell apart. Harris contends that Lebanon has not found a new equilibrium and has not transcended its sects. In the early twenty-first century there is an uneasy duality: Shia have largely recovered the weight they possessed in the sixteenth century, but Christians, Sunnis, and Druze are two-thirds of the country. This book offers readers a clear understanding of how modern Lebanon acquired its precarious social intricacy and its singular political character.

Covering the Shi`a

Covering the Shi`a PDF Author: Robert W. Tomlinson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498565484
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
Often demonized by the Western media and press, Hezbollah’s origins are rooted in activities of the Lebanese Shi`a in the late 1970s and early 80s. Covering the Shi`a: English Press Representation of the Lebanese Shi`a 1975-1985 chronicles how the English-language press and media represented the most consequential group in Lebanon to Western audiences during the critical period of 1975-1985. Focusing on three of the most prominent English-language newspapers at that time, the book outlines how the Western media frequently disregarded the Shi`i civil rights movement in Lebanon. Conflating that movement with other Arab independence campaigns, the Western media missed key aspects and the dynamics at work in the Lebanese Shi`i community. Additionally, in failing to understand and report the nature of the transnational networks that supported the Shi`i community in Lebanon, the resultant news narrative reported in the English-language media was at odds with the narratives harbored by the Lebanese Shi`a themselves. In order to gain an understanding of the operations of Lebanese Hezbollah today, and the current media coverage of the organization, this book offers insights on the origins of Shi`a resistance and how one can evaluate the group today.

The Diasporic Condition

The Diasporic Condition PDF Author: Ghassan Hage
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022654706X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Lebanese Capitalism and the Emergence of a Transnational Mode of Existence -- On Being Propelled into the World: Existential Mobility and the Migratory Illusio -- Diasporic Anisogamy -- From Ambivalent to Fragmented Subjects -- On Diasporic Lenticularity -- Lenticular Realities and Anisogamic Intensifications -- The Lebanese Transnational Diasporic Family -- Diaspora and Sexuality: A Case Study -- Diasporic Jouissance and Perverse Anisogamy: Negotiated Being in the Streets of Beirut.