Finally, one of the big blogs pays attention to the Venezuela-Hezbollha connection

Little Green Footballs has the link to the Washington Times article.

Bill Roggio and I blogged about it last month.

Yes, I flogged the story.



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US Treasury Dept: Venezuelan diplomat helped Hizbollah

On June 11 I translated a report by Patricia Poleo that stated that Venezuelans of Arab ancestry are being recruited under the auspices of Tarek el Ayssami, Venezuela's vice-Minister of the Interior, for combat training in Hezbollah camps in South Lebanon.

Yesterday the US Treasury Department designated a Venezuelan diplomat as a Hezbollah supporter.

The Jerusalem Post (h/t Siggy) reports that Venezuelan diplomat Ghazi Nasr al Din, former Charge d' Affaires at the Venezuelan Embassy in Damascus and Director of Political Aspects at the Venezuelan Embassy in Lebanon, who is also president of a Caracas-based Shi'a Islamic Center, used his position to give financial assistance to Hezbollah.

Noticias 24 from Caracas (in Spanish) states that a source at the Venezuelan chancellory verified that Nasr al Din is a Venezuelan diplomat based in Damascus. The Venezuelan government refused to issue an official statement "for the time being".

The U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Nsr al Din and Fawzi Kan'an, along with two travel agencies owned and controlled by Kan'an, as terror supporters

Nasr al Din has counseled Hizballah donors on fundraising efforts and has provided donors with specific information on bank accounts where the donors' deposits would go directly to Hizballah.

Ghazi Nasr al Din has met with senior Hizballah officials in Lebanon to discuss operational issues, as well as facilitated the travel of Hizballah members to and from Venezuela. In late January 2006, Nasr al Din facilitated the travel of two Hizballah representatives to the Lebanese Parliament to Caracas to solicit donations for Hizballah and to announce the opening of a Hizballah-sponsored community center and office in Venezuela. The previous year, Nasr al Din arranged the travel of Hizballah members to attend a training course in Iran.

The Treasury Dept. statement lists 12 aliases for Nasr al Din, who was born on December 13, 1962 in Lebanon.

The Treasury Dept. identifies Fawzi Kan'an as a

a Venezuela-based Hizballah supporter and a significant provider of financial support to Hizballah. Kan'an has facilitated travel for Hizballah members and sent money raised in Venezuela to Hizballah officials in Lebanon.

Kan'an has met with senior Hizballah officials in Lebanon to discuss operational issues, including possible kidnappings and terrorist attacks. Further, Kan'an has also traveled with other Hizballah members to Iran for training.

The Treasury Department shows Kan'an as a naturalized Venezuelan citizen born in 1943. Kan'an owns and operates the Biblos Travel Agency, located in Caracas, which reportedly he uses to courier funds to Lebanon.

In Caracas, Noticias 24 reports that Kan'an denied the the U.S. accusations, said that his accounts in the US have not been frozen, and sstated that his Biblos and Hilal agencies closed a year ago. However, as you can read in the AP report, who interviewed Kan'an, he was at the "Hilal travel agency in Caracas, a street-level office with barred windows" itself.

The BBC, which also interviewed Kan'an in Caracas, also says he operates two travel agencies in Caracas.

The US assets of both Kan'an and Nasr al Din have been frozen.

William Davila, candidate for governor for Merida, Venezuela, brought a complaint to the Venezuela Attorney General's re: Hezbollah, which has remained ignored.

Why is this important:
As Efraim Karsh explained in his article, Islam's Imperial Dreams (via Siggy)

As the 14th-century historian and philosopher Abdel Rahman ibn Khaldun wrote, "In the Muslim community, the jihad is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Islamic mission and the obligation [to convert] everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force."

The Venezuelan government is in bed with this scheme. As the Treasury Department stated,

"It is extremely troubling to see the Government of Venezuela employing and providing safe harbor to Hizballah facilitators and fundraisers. We will continue to expose the global nature of Hizballah's terrorist support network, and we call on responsible governments worldwide to disrupt and dismantle this activity," said Adam J. Szubin, Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Bill Roggio is also posting on the story. Noticias 24 has a background article (in Spanish) on Hezbollah in Latin America.



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The wrong approach: Palestinian statehood and compensation

Bush: Palestinian statehood and compensation are solution to refugee issue

"I believe we need to look to the establishment of a Palestinian state and new international mechanisms, including compensation, to resolve the refugee issue," said Bush, in a statement summing up two days of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Bush arrived in Israel for a three-day on Wednesday.

"There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967," continued Bush. "The agreement must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people."

In today's news, this is how the news was received:
Ramallah demo brands Bush 'war criminal'

Thousands protest in Gaza against "vampire" Bush

and via Gateway Pundit, the American International School in the Gaza Strip got bombed.

Have Fatah, Hamas or Hizbollah changed their stripes?

Then making a Palestinian state and paying compensation will accomplish nothing.


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Sparse notes, and today's other items

Betsy, who is a teacher, has an item on how few notes Obama used to take in college,

"Obviously somebody almost Clintonesque in being able to sum a whole lot of concepts and place them into a succinct written style."

and says, I have those same students. They're usually arrogant or slackers. Me, I'd be insulted if anyone compared my style to anything Clintonesque.
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In the Entirely predictable file: French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy says Negotiation was also key to resolving the Middle East's big crises, such as Iran's nuclear programme, the search for peace between Israelis and Palestinians and the "volatile" situation in Lebanon, and of course, Iraq.
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Hezbollah House Plan
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Via Atlas Shrugs, Why Do They CAIR about Jack Bauer? 24 is an opportunity for American Muslims to fight the real enemy: Islamism.
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Craig attends China Bond premiere
I liked the movie.

Three Minutes to Midnight

This week Sigmund, Carl and Alfred has been exploring some of the moral complexities that accepting Leftism presents in our modern world: start by reading Three Minutes to Midnight and Religious Progressives, The Judenrat And Another Generation In Denial

By accepting and ascribing to beliefs and ideologies of Leftism, 'religious progressives' have made a deal with the very devil that would destroy them. Disagree with a 'religious progressive,' and like their progressive masters, tolerance goes out the window because dissent cannot be tolerated- because the 'emperor has no clothes.'

Further exploring the issue, Neo-Neocon takes a look at "A Jewish veneer for the annihilation of Jews".

Francis Porretto looks at The Day And The Hour and Effective Political Argumentation and "Good Intentions"

Note how consistently liberals attack conservatives on their "motives." That's a rhetorical giveaway if ever there was one. "Intentions" are connotatively neutral; "motives" reek of sinister, even criminal associations. Note also how seldom Democrats argue about the comparative effects of their policy preferences versus those of the Right, where the logic and evidence favors us.

Yet it is the Right that keeps dropping the rhetorical ball. As conservative voters are rationally oriented, the conservative base is staunchly Republican. They won't defect unless Republican officeholders defect first, as appears to have occurred in the 109th Congress. When conservatives and Republican partisans argue for a strong national defense, free-market economics, limited-government constitutionalism, et cetera, they fail to reach the battlefield of the compassion-oriented voter. Therefore, they fail to extend their appeal beyond their base.

There's no comprehending this unless one accepts that the compassion-oriented voter isn't necessarily concerned with the results of the policies he favors. He might be more concerned with his own self-concept as a good person, or with remaining in the good graces of the social circle he prefers; both these things are known to influence political allegiances. In any case, he gravitates almost automatically toward the candidate or policy that reinforces his subconscious notions about compassion. For many, that means accepting a party's rhetoric at face value, rather than soberly assessing the consequences of its policy preferences.

Power-seekers cannot help but be aware of this, which is a complete explanation both for Democrats' posturings and for the rise of "compassionate conservatism" talk on the Right.

We are not talking about intellectual discussions on philosophy - we are talking about events affecting our lives. Read Michael Totten's "So This Is Our Victory", a devastating report from Lebanon,

"We have been screaming about this conflict for 30 years now," Henry said as he dealt himself a hand of Solitaire from a deck of cards in his pocket. "But no one ever listened to us. Not until September 11. Now you know how we feel all the time. You have to keep up the pressure. You can never let go, not for one day, one hour, not for one second. The minute you let go, Michael, they will fight back and get stronger. This is the problem with your foreign policy."

"Since 1975 we have been fighting for the free world," Said said. "We are on the front lines. Why doesn't the West understand this? America can withdraw from Iraq, you can go back to Oregon, but we are stuck here. We have to stay and live with what happens."

Read each word.

Following up on the triborder area nine,

Last week I posted that the US Treasury Dept. had

designated nine individuals and two entities that have provided financial and logistical support to the Hizballah terrorist organization. The designees are located in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay and have provided financial and other services for Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) Assad Ahmad Barakat, who was previously designated in June 2004 for his support to Hizballah leadership.

I just found out that The Office of Foreign Assets Control has released the names, addresses, and passport numbers of those individuals. Click on the link for the full information.