I know Iran has meddled in Lebanon (via Hezbollah), Israel has meddled in Lebanon (via several military interventions), Syria has meddled in Lebanon to the point where they still seem to think of it as Syrian territory, and the internal ethnic/religious divisions of Lebanon would have made social peace problematic even if everybody else had left them alone.
Why does anybody want to live there any more?!
Weather’s nice. Plus it’s where they live.
Namely, Israel and possibly the USA. I can’t help but root for Israel when they attack Hamas and Hezbollah in retaliation for “Most Recent Terrorist Action X”.
Israel doesn’t fuck around. You would think that groups like Hamas and Hezbollah would quit fucking with them, as Israeli responses typically are FAR heavier-handed than the incident that prompted the reaction.
The difference is that Hamas and Hezbollah have less to lose than the Israelis have. People with nothing to lose are dangerous.
I’ll link a post I made in another thread. I believe it to be along the same lines as these.http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9781157&postcount=191
Except that ship has sailed.
It is misleading to portray this as another Sunni versus Shi’ite clash. This is political, not religious.
Not quite true, I’m afraid.
Hezbollah helps spread Iran’s particular brand of Shia Islam, as well as allow Iran to project its military and political power (all while Useful Idiots talk about how Iran hasn’t committed an act of military aggression in 100 years, or what have you).
You can’t separate the political/military actions of a theocracy from its theology all the time, and especially not when we’re talking about that theocracy supporting militant, genocidal theocrats.
For both of which, I blame George Bush.
Not only that, but ISTM that Hezbollah and Hamas both have legitimate reasons* to want to foster heavy-handed retaliations on the part of the Israelis. The more people within their areas of influence who have been visibly hurt by Israeli action, whatever the provocation that the Israelis may have suffered, the more potential recruits for both organizations. A peaceful coexistence with Israel may be possible for the people in the areas where Hamas and Hezbollah exist, but it’s unclear to me whether Hamas and Hezbollah could survive in such an environment.
*legitimate, but also vile and manipulative. I don’t mean to use legitimate as a synonym for moral, just that it is in the narrowly defined best interests of the groups and their leaders to behave in this manner.
There was a spectacular No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain on Beirut a few summers back. It was your typical episode, some young something or another lead him through the streets to hidden away eateries, took him to all these lively parties, and all the while the kid kept talking about how much hope there was in Beirut. To him, and to a lot of people, it seemed like the days of civil unrest were largely over, that the country was finally past the unpleasantnesses of the '70s and '80s and that things were looking up.
Then, the border crisis with Hezbollah happened and Bourdain was stuck in this American hotel watching from relative comfort as parts of Lebanon were getting the shit missled out of them. He sat around a pool watching as the hope disappeared into a cloud of smoke and ash.
Now, I wonder how that kid feels.
Actually, I blame Franklin Pierce; then George Bush!
It’s no surprise that a group like Hezbollah would allow for this scenario to unfold the way you describe.
Human shields, deliberately provoking Israel into unbalanced responses…it’s their MO.
The US media has learned over the course of the last few years that there are such people as Shiite and Sunni Muslims. That makes them want to to toss in that information in every possible instance, so that they can show off what they know. Add to that the current American wave of xenophobia and racial fear, and you get stories where the religious component should be negligible, such as riots in France, but gets played up by the media so that demagogues can have a field day.
In Beirut you have some people who have a relative good deal and therefore support the government in power, and then some other people who have gotten short shrift and therefore oppose the government in power. Painting it as a Sunni-Shiite clash is not helpful but it plays into the hands of anybody who likes to spout the line that, “Those Muslims just can’t get along. They’ve been fighting for thousands of years.” (Nevermind that they haven’t existed for two thousand years yet).
It’d be nice for us to focus our attention on our own militant, genocidal theocrats.
… none of which changes the fact that the Hezbollah-Iran certainly has religious goals, among them violently opposing anything but Iranian brand Shia Islam. And there is, indeed, a violent Sunni Shia divide in the ME that Hezbollah both exploits, exacerbates, and serves as an object lesson for.
I couldn’t care less about your objections to the truth based on media patterns. It’s still true, and the conflict most certainly has important religious dimensions in addition to the political ones.
I know. I’m posting here for people with open minds.
:rolleyes:
The fact is that there is a religious dimension to the conflict. Wanting to ignore facts because they don’t fit into the story you’re trying to tell is not the act of someone with an open mind. It’s the act of a liar.
Don’t you even have enough decency that, on some level, your mind recoils in shame at deliberately denying facts in order to push a bullshit political agenda? Doesn’t that, alone, strike you as rather intellectually repugnant? And then, proudly, responding to the truth by saying you’re “open minded” enough to lie and “open minded” enough to ask others to do the same? Doesn’t even a part of you realize how scummy such behavior is?
No?
You’re the one who has been throwing the word “Iran” around in the thread with such abandon, when, in fact, it is Syria that controls Lebanon.
Frank… do you honestly not know that Iran is the creator and prime sponsor of Hezbollah? Hezbollah, which is the party that, with help from Iran, was creating a trans-national telecommunications network for Iran’s military proxies that the Lebanese government has stated was also designed to allow them to eavesdrop on Lebanese communications? Hezbollah, which has just started a civil war in Lebanon?
Are you really so damn clueless that in a discussion of Hezbollah, you aren’t aware of why one would throw the word “Iran” around?
And even in your evasion, or Gala’s evasion, you do realize that neither of you have even touched on let alone attempted to refute the facts that the Iranian theocracy set up and helps maintain Hezbollah in order to advance both their political, military and religious goals?
Pathetic.
Frankly, I don’t usually bother to pay any attention to you. Instead of proving your points, you rant. I shouldn’t have posted here, but was only inspired by the fact that this entire thread contains only one mention of Syria, the support of the Lebanese government. Is Syria a good guy now, then?
Frank, I am surprised that you would level a rant accusation against a poster like **FinnAgain ** that actually provides debateable information rather than spouting platitudes.
And as far as Syria goes, the food chain works like this: Iran>Syria>Lebanon/Hezbollah. Syria is a puppet of Iran, Lebanon is a puppet of Syria/Hezbollah, etc.
It’s pretty obvious.