Pierre Gemayel Assasinated In Beirut

Thanks to Syria, no doubt. Lebanon is heading into a bad spiral what with the government fractured. Meanwhile Syria and Iraq are getting together for a summit and visiting Iran together this weekend?

Interesting times.

Comments

[yyy]

NO, Dan, it's largely thanks to Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

As many predicted...the Lebanese did not turn against Hezbollah like you and the neocons and the Israeli's thought...they turned TOWARD Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is now more powerful and more dangerous than ever, woe to everyone's stability if they are able to take over the Lebanese government since I for one don't believe them when they say they don't want a muslim religious state..that is exactly what they want.

Israel's invasion had exactly the reacion that a non nut would have expected...since you can't kill everyone that supports Hezbollah it was inevitable that Hezbollah was not destroyed..since a military invasion does NOTHING to stem the flow of moeny from Iran and Syria it was a reasonable assumption that Hezbollah would be bankrolling the reconstruction of Lebabnon, thus, turning them into DOUBLE heros..

Not only did they fail to be militarily defeated, stand up to the supposedly invincible Israeli army but they also were the ones who took the lead in rebuilding.

What is it going to take before you fools realize that military invasions of choice when you, the invader, area already deeply unpopular and when the "bad guy" has support are STUPID and are going to result in these same negative outcomes...freaking Lebanon now maybe turning into another civil war situation or worse, another Iran religious state and well, Iraq..goes without saying.

The neocon ideas have been put into play in the real world and found utterly lacking, but maybe you can take comfort inthe fact that most of them used to be Democrats, hence they have the ideological fury of former liberals..

[Dan Riehl]

You're not only crazy, you're stupid, too.

[yyy]

Yeah, so stupid that almost every one of my views about the Middle East have been proven true.

Perhaps if the Bush Administration had more people with my kind of "stupid" ideas we wouldn't be in this mess.

But whatever...as is typical of you and your cadre, always insult someone personally for good measure.

I said the invasion of Lebanon would have exactly the opposite effect that Israel said it wanted, and so it has, it remains to be seen how much power Hezbollah is going to be able to wield in Lebanon as a result...

[Robert Crawford]

Syria orders a Lebanese politician assassinated, and it's Israel's fault?

[Dan Riehl]

it's Israel's fault?

He's a Mel Gibson fan, the Jews start all the wars. You should here him on Blacks now that Michael Richards is out of the closet as a racist.

[yyy]

Hezbollah is now in a position of power, of trying to take de facto control over Lebanon.

They are able to do this because of the NUTTY idea that Israel and Cheney had of bombing Lebanon back to the stone age, thus, causing hatred not of the bombers, but those being bombed.

The result is a stronger Hezbollah and a willingness to do something as in your face as ASSASSINATE a moderate who has been trying to resist a Hezbollah take over.

Yes, the party responsible for setting the stage for this was Israel and the US by taking yet another play out of the discredited neocon playbook.

However, it seems that nothing will deter Cheney, who apparently still wants to invade Iran, ye gods, get these people out of power.

Hopefully Israel learned the correct lesson from all this...people get mad at you when you kill them and destroy their country no matter who you blame..

It is virtually impossible to win against a guerilla army that has the support of the population in which it resides...you either get bogged down in a long drawn out conflict that is unwinnable from a militlary standpoint or you have to kill everyone...

I would have thought this lesson had been learned enough times, but apparently the irrationality continues.

[yyy]

PS,

True to form Dan, you have to accuse me of being an anti semite, because of course, NO ONE BUT AN ANTI SEMITE would dare criticize any Israeli action.

Nobody but the fanatics is buying what you are selling anymore...

Dick Cheney is never going to be able to convince America that military action is warranted in Iran or Syria. Period.

Whether reality, both of the real politik kind and the political kind will finally put a stop to his madness remains to be seen.

I tend to think the nutjobs have finally been shaken loose and that Cheney isn't going to get his Iranian invasion afterall, though I am sure it was thought to be a done deal prior to the elections...

But, having underestimated the insanity of the neocons...it wouldn't surprise me if he still got his military action...

[Robert Crawford]

You're leaving something out, anonymous -- the Israelis didn't decide out of the blue to bomb Lebanon. The Lebanese sheltered Hezbollah and let them re-arm. When Hezbollah attacked Israel from Lebanese territory, the Lebanese didn't do anything about it.

The people to blame for the strength of Hezbollah are the ones who tolerate its existence -- the Lebanese -- and those who arm it -- the Syrians, Iranians, etc. Blaming the Israelis is blaming the victims of Hezbollah aggression and Lebanese complicity.

[Robert Crawford]

"Hopefully Israel learned the correct lesson from all this...people get mad at you when you kill them and destroy their country no matter who you blame.."

Funny, I'd say the Lebanese and the Palestinians are the ones who need to learn that lesson.

[yyy]

Hezbollah was FOUNDED to get Israel out of Lebanon, if there had been no Israel occupation of Lebanon for 20 years there would be no Hezbollah today.

I blame the Israeli's for a war of choice that produced the worst possible result for themselves and for the Lebanese people.

They did not militarily destroy Hezbollah, as any student of guerilla warfare should have told you was impossible.

The Lebanese did NOT turn AGAINST Hezbollah, as Irael thought they would, they did not throw the bums out.

Hezbollah is MORE powerful inside Lebanon than they were before as a DIRECT result of the Israeli invasion.

And forget about the idea that this was 'justified' Hezbollah has been kidnapping Israeli soldiers for years and negotiating release of their own guys..

The reason the Israeli's chose THIS TIME to do something different from what they did before is because they wanted an excuse to 'destroy' Hezbollah, which they wrongly thought they could do, and because it is something that WE, the US government wanted them to do to pave the way for an Iranian invasion.

The Lebanese people were minding their own business when Israel invaded and destroyed their country.

The Palestinian people have shown an uncommon resolve not to give in to Israel's campaign of terror and humiliation, I see no sign that the failed Israeli policy is going to succeed today when it has failed for 50 years.

[larry]

and THAT, ladies & germs, is why arguing with a liberal is a fool's errand. "hezbollah was formed to get israel out of lebanon".

and why was isreal in lebanon in the first place? would that be because the plo had essentially invaded lebanon, and was using it as a base of ops to stage their fierce, proud, brave, manly atacks on israeli civilians from?

"it's still israel's fault. if they hadn't selfishly won the wars with the arabs trying to destroy them, there'd be peace today."

it's always instructive to see the ongoing devolution of liberal "thought". just when you think, "this is as low as it can go. surely they CAN'T get any stupider than this".....you're wrong.

[yyy]

Well, Larry, why don't you go back a little farther then.

Why don't you go back to the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and the illegal buildling of settlements in Palestinian territory and the dozens of UN sanctions against Israel.

There is your answer, buddy.

If Israel would broker a fair deal with the Palestinians then they wouldn't have been in Lebanon lobbing bombs at them and they wouldn't be lining up to die for the cause.

But, let me guess, the Palestinians are all terrorists who should have simply rolled over when their country got partitioned..it's the Palestinians fault for being angry that they lost their land through no fault of their own, that they are second class citizens in Israel, that they are walled in like an American Indian reservation of the 1800's and that old women and children are 'accidentally' killed by Israeli soldiers every day.

The road to a new Middle East goes through Palestine. Solve that problem and half your work is done.

[larry]

good lord, yyy, you actually seem to think i'm going to argue with you. didn't you read what i wrote?

i learned long ago that arguing politics with a liberal is quite like talking to an insane person, ("how can you have any pudding if you WON'T KICK YOUR FEET?!?"), or a truly profound idiot. in twain's 'connecticut yankee..', he illustrates this nicely with the hero's discussion of 'relative wages' with the moronic illiterate medieval villein. ("i am roger the shrubber. it's all isreal's fault!")

one doesn't try to put a dress on a pig; one doesn't expect a 2-year-old to have a long attention span; and one doesn't argue politics with liberals. life's too short.