editoral
Quote:
CONFLICT IN THE MIDDLE EAST Like it or not, Hezbollah is fact of life in Middle East
By Julie Flint, an ABC News correspondent in Lebanon from 1983 to 1990. She has lived in Lebanon since 1981 Published July 31, 2006
America's concept of Hezbollah will always be defined by Oct. 23, 1983, when a suicide bomber killed nearly 245 U.S. servicemen at the Beirut airport in the Marines' worst one-day loss since the World War II invasion of Okinawa. But it is 23 years later and Hezbollah now lives in the mainstream of Lebanese politics, not in the small Iranian-controlled terror cells that attacked American soldiers and took American hostages in the 1980s.
Today Hezbollah is a strong social and political movement headed by an articulate and charismatic cleric, Hassan Nasrallah, who enjoys considerable popularity among many Lebanese. It has two government ministers, 14 members of parliament and an experienced and efficient guerrilla force far stronger than the Lebanese army. Most critically, Hezbollah has the devotion--not just the support--of many of Lebanon's Shiite Muslims, who make up almost half the country's population.
Hezbollah is not the Palestine Liberation Organization, which could be crushed and sent packing from a country that was not its own. Hezbollah cannot be defeated without exterminating the entire Shiite community. U.S. policy in the area will fail, with disastrous consequences regionwide but especially in Iraq, as long as Washington accepts Israel's caricature of Hezbollah as a bunch of fanatics who "want their own people as human shields ... [and] civilian casualties on both sides."
Wishful thinking must not inform U.S. policy. Hundreds of thousands of Shiites fleeing the war in south Lebanon have reached Beirut with no interference from Hezbollah. The interference has come from Israeli planes shelling them as they flee and strengthening their determination to resist, with their lives if need be. Many families, even non-Hezbollah families, are leaving at least one man behind in the south to fight against Israel. For the moment at least, Hezbollah's support is growing.
"The military situation for us is perfect," a Hezbollah official told me last week as Israeli ground forces inched deeper into south Lebanon, taking heavy casualties. "The Israelis are destroying everything. Even children are saying they have nothing to lose now."
For the last 15 years, Hezbollah's Lebanese face has been becoming increasingly moderate--first under the leadership of Abbas Musawi, who ended hostage-taking, despite internal opposition, before being killed by an Israeli helicopter gunship in 1992; then under Nasrallah, who took Hezbollah into the government, despite internal opposition. Today Hezbollah does not seek the establishment of an Islamic state in Lebanon and does not endeavor to impose Islamic morals, even in the predominately Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut.
The party is a complex, broad-based amalgam of many tendencies and cannot be wished, or blasted, away. If the Israel Defense Forces succeed in killing Nasrallah, Hezbollah will splinter and its most radical wing, closest to the caricature, will come to the fore. Then we'll see the petrochemical complexes of Haifa rocketed; then we may see new attacks on Westerners in Lebanon.
Have the U.S. and Israel forgotten the lesson of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon: that force resolves nothing? Yes, the PLO sailed out in the end. But Hezbollah rode in and is still fighting Israel 20 years later, more determined and more organized than Yasser Arafat's men ever were. To keep northern Israel safe from Hezbollah's missiles, Israeli forces would have to police a "buffer zone" 80 miles deep, the range of Hezbollah's Zelzal 2 rockets. Israeli public opinion will not accept that.
In the end, there will have to be a negotiated political settlement. It would be so much better to seek it now. Instead of standing by as Israel blows up Lebanon to rediscover the futility of force, the U.S. should demand an immediate cease-fire and open direct talks with Iran and Syria, which support and supply Hezbollah. This is a time for statesmen, not petulant schoolboys.
What we are witnessing in Lebanon today are the first tremors of an earthquake that will create a new Middle East order--although not the one Washington has in mind. Protracted war in Lebanon will only radicalize the Lebanese face of Hezbollah, increase its already heroic stature in the region and entrench it as a proxy through which Iran will try to seek regional ascendancy. The time for diplomacy, for scaling down the rhetoric, is now.
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Another surrender-monkey from the Guardian, Daily Star, and Democracy Now. Couldn't find any ABC in her curriculum vitae. Found this though. http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Nightmares14sep04.htm
An alarmist whackjob from the get go.
Anyway, here goes the fisking:
Quote:
Quote: CONFLICT IN THE MIDDLE EAST Like it or not, Hezbollah is fact of life in Middle East
By Julie Flint, an ABC News correspondent in Lebanon from 1983 to 1990. She has lived in Lebanon since 1981 Published July 31, 2006
America's concept of Hezbollah will always be defined by Oct. 23, 1983, when a suicide bomber killed nearly 245 U.S. servicemen at the Beirut airport in the Marines' worst one-day loss since the World War II invasion of Okinawa.
Well at the time it was the worst. It has since been eclipsed by some other events the idiot may have read about. And I do believe it was the overrated asshat Reagan who did nothing but retreat. Thanks for turning into Jimmy Carter, Ron. Between that and trading arms for hostages with Iran in 1980/1 the retard did almost as much as Yumpin Yimmy to encourage these fuckers. But, I digress.Quote:
But it is 23 years later and Hezbollah now lives in the mainstream of Lebanese politics, not in the small Iranian-controlled terror cells that attacked American soldiers and took American hostages in the 1980s.
I don't know what the fuck stupid is going for here. She seems to want to supply the world with an excuse for holding all of Lebanon responsible for their acts, when even Israel won't do that. And she must truly be a complete and utter fool if she doesn't think that this group of extragovernmental assholes firing barrage after barrage of Iranian made missiles isn't a puppet of Iran, the president of which has pledged the destruction of Israel.Quote:
Today Hezbollah is a strong social and political movement headed by an articulate and charismatic cleric, Hassan Nasrallah, who enjoys considerable popularity among many Lebanese.
They have a minority position in Lebanon's parliament. The arch criminal Nasrullah is charismatic like Charlie Manson was charismatic. There are always deluded skanks who will love these assholes. The evidence for this is in all the marriage proposals serial killers get. Aside from psychotic skanks with misplaced love interests we also have the fact that basicly any large group of Muslims will, in this day and age, have a substantial group that is insane religious nutjobs bent on murder and forced conversion. It is, sadly, the nature of the religion and its practitioners today.Quote:
It has two government ministers, 14 members of parliament and an experienced and efficient guerrilla force far stronger than the Lebanese army
(My bold) And this is exactly the problem, that there is an entire army greater than the army of the nation ostensibly acting as their own government, unelected and unfettered and unrepresentative of most of the people in their nation. They are a small minority party/militia setting the foreign policy of the whole country. In addition to the two Israeli soldiers, all of Lebanon is being held hostage by these Syrian and Iranian puppets (Let's not forget the assassination of the former Lebanese PM Hariri ordered at the highest levels of the Syrian government).Quote:
. Most critically, Hezbollah has the devotion--not just the support--of many of Lebanon's Shiite Muslims, who make up almost half the country's population.
"Many of almost half" of the people of Lebanon have decided to have devotion for homicidal assholes who have plunged them into a war they cannot win and lost 30+ years ago. Who says they get to decide?Quote:
Hezbollah is not the Palestine Liberation Organization, which could be crushed and sent packing from a country that was not its own.
Well, actually, the PLO seem to now have a country of their own and have not been sent packing, they share power with Hamas. Quote:
Hezbollah cannot be defeated without exterminating the entire Shiite community.
Well, the great military strategist has spoken. Funny that she only ascribed their support to "some " of the community above. Maybe if that particular "some" was eliminated, the saner contingent could survive. As opposed to wholesale genocide. I prefer to just remove specific bad actors (collateral damage aside)Quote:
U.S. policy in the area will fail, with disastrous consequences regionwide but especially in Iraq, as long as Washington accepts Israel's caricature of Hezbollah as a bunch of fanatics who "want their own people as human shields ... [and] civilian casualties on both sides."
I see no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the JEW caricature is incorrect. Quite the opposite. First clue: They strap bombs to their children. Must be another JEEEEEEW caricature.Quote:
Wishful thinking must not inform U.S. policy. Hundreds of thousands of Shiites fleeing the war in south Lebanon have reached Beirut with no interference from Hezbollah. The interference has come from Israeli planes shelling them as they flee and strengthening their determination to resist, with their lives if need be. Many families, even non-Hezbollah families, are leaving at least one man behind in the south to fight against Israel. For the moment at least, Hezbollah's support is growing.
Now that sounds like annapurnaesque wishful thinking (see my sig, which is a genuine quote form her). I, myself, and a few news sources would disagree, but, hey, what do we know, we're not sleeping with Nasrullah.Quote:
"The military situation for us is perfect," a Hezbollah official told me last week as Israeli ground forces inched deeper into south Lebanon, taking heavy casualties. "The Israelis are destroying everything. Even children are saying they have nothing to lose now."
This actually seems quite different from this: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153292041620&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull "The IDF assessed on Monday that Hizbullah's rocket launching capability was significantly compromised by the fighting that took place in the past three weeks.
It was estimated that, while the organization still has hundreds of rockets with a sufficient range to reach Afula and Haifa, there were only a number of launchers remaining with launching capability.
The Hizbullah still had several Zilzal rockets left that could reach central Israel, Army Radio reported. "
I would have serious questions about what this guy says children are saying.Quote:
For the last 15 years, Hezbollah's Lebanese face has been becoming increasingly moderate--first under the leadership of Abbas Musawi, who ended hostage-taking, despite internal opposition, before being killed by an Israeli helicopter gunship in 1992; then under Nasrallah, who took Hezbollah into the government, despite internal opposition. Today Hezbollah does not seek the establishment of an Islamic state in Lebanon and does not endeavor to impose Islamic morals, even in the predominately Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut.
Well, that is wonderful news, that they no longer take hostages. What? What's that you say? Ohhhhhhh, they fucking backslid? What a shame. More rehab is clearly in order.Quote:
The party is a complex, broad-based amalgam of many tendencies and cannot be wished, or blasted, away. If the Israel Defense Forces succeed in killing Nasrallah, Hezbollah will splinter and its most radical wing, closest to the caricature, will come to the fore.
Whatever you say NostradamusQuote:
Then we'll see the petrochemical complexes of Haifa rocketed;
OOOOOOOO, you big strong woman, you. Like they wouldn't be rocketing them now if they could.Quote:
then we may see new attacks on Westerners in Lebanon.
That didn't quite pan out. They may have been too busyQuote:
Have the U.S. and Israel forgotten the lesson of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon: that force resolves nothing? Yes, the PLO sailed out in the end. But Hezbollah rode in and is still fighting Israel 20 years later, more determined and more organized than Yasser Arafat's men ever were. To keep northern Israel safe from Hezbollah's missiles, Israeli forces would have to police a "buffer zone" 80 miles deep, the range of Hezbollah's Zelzal 2 rockets. Israeli public opinion will not accept that.
In the end, there will have to be a negotiated political settlement. It would be so much better to seek it now. Instead of standing by as Israel blows up Lebanon to rediscover the futility of force, the U.S. should demand an immediate cease-fire and open direct talks with Iran and Syria, which support and supply Hezbollah. This is a time for statesmen, not petulant schoolboys.
What we are witnessing in Lebanon today are the first tremors of an earthquake that will create a new Middle East order--although not the one Washington has in mind. Protracted war in Lebanon will only radicalize the Lebanese face of Hezbollah, increase its already heroic stature in the region and entrench it as a proxy through which Iran will try to seek regional ascendancy. The time for diplomacy, for scaling down the rhetoric, is now.
Unfuckingbelievable. Lebanon heroic??????? Cowards so craven they can't even control their own murderous faction. Or even try. Force resolves nothing? Only someone who has never read one single history book could believe this.
The time for diplomacy is past. I had to look again to see when this was published. It really was 7/30/06. The woman is the quintessential "useful idiot". With an obvious craving for cumin scented cock.
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