My own naïve optimism was dashed on the rocks in Lebanon and Iraq and hasn’t recovered. I never even bothered with optimism in Egypt. There’s nothing there to be optimistic about.
And I rarely meet anybody who actually lives over there who isn’t a pessimist. Expecting the best while everyone around you is expecting the worst is a difficult thing to pull off. It probably isn’t advisable even to try.
But I’m finding a bit of homegrown optimism in some quarters of Lebanon now, despite the fact that the economy is on its back and the Syrian war threatens to blow the country to pieces again, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t report it.
There’s optimism, pessimism….. then there is realism.
Since man first started recording history, people in the middle east have been slaughtering each other in unimaginable numbers.
Especially with religion an ever-present hi-octane fuel for conflict, I see zero evidence they have evolved beyond that.
The Middle East . . a geography lesson.
ScrewedUpistan is just east of F*ckedUpistan which is beside Backwardsistan and very close to Moronistan.
In the south, Radicalistan is adjacent to Blow’dUpGoodistan, which is close to 72Virginistan and has close ties to Hisbollahistan, Hamasistan and Fatahistan.
The region is generally referred to us WasteOfTimeAndSpaceistan.
There is one exception to the general carnage and waste of the religion of peace controlled areas of the Middle East.
There is one territory where human progress is celebrated, advanced technologies are developed where people behave in a civilized manner.
We call it Israel.
Lebanon’s Sunnis + Christians + Druze + more than half of Lebanon’s Shiites = doom for Hezbollah. More from the article:
“‘Winning is losing,’ Koteich said and smiled. ‘Hezbollah belongs to the past. They insist their future is based on their past, which is their resistance and weapons. They need to reinvent themselves. They aren’t fighting Israel anymore, so instead they’re going head to head with this Salafist Sheikh Assir in Sidon over two or three apartments. It’s ridiculous.’
“Sheikh Assir is a championship lunatic in the predominantly Sunni city of Sidon south of Beirut. He looks like Osama bin Laden and more or less shares the dead terrorist’s worldview. (Al Qaeda is the terrorist wing of the Salafist movement.) But the number of Lebanese Sunnis who share Assir’s and bin Laden’s view of the world is microscopic. Salafists are less relevant in Lebanese politics than even the communists. I don’t worry about them at all when I go there. In Egypt, yes, and in Tunisia to a much lesser extent, but not in Lebanon. I don’t think I’ve even seen three of them in the eight years I’ve been working there on and off. I certainly didn’t see any when I lived there, and my apartment was in a Sunni neighborhood. But Hezbollah needs someone to fight, and now they have this guy. Hezbollah, though, isn’t ‘resisting’ the Salafists. They’re just making noise.”
[…]
“But the Salafists are not going to take over Lebanon. Ninety percent of Lebanon’s Sunnis support Saad Hariri’s Future Movement party, which is liberal and capitalist.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hezbollah-backed-fighters-stepping-up-role-in-syrian-civil-war/
Bilal al-Sadr, another villager, lived in Syria for 14 years before deciding to flee with his wife, four sons and a daughter. He left after three of his friends — a Sunni, a Shiite and a Christian — were kidnapped and killed.
“My home and shop were burnt and family threatened,” said al-Sadr, a Shiite Jordanian whose mother and wife are Lebanese from al-Qasr. “When we felt that our safety was in danger, we decided to leave.”
Back on the border, a Popular Committee member said Shiite residents in Syrian border villages have no choice but defend themselves.
“Do you expect us to wait for al-Qaida to come and slaughter us?” asked the masked fighter.
This is what happens when you get extremist ideologically driven behavior which seeks to create “Shoot Up The Neighborhood-istan”. Then after a good bloodletting they all stand around and wonder “Why exactly did we believe that leveling the neighborhood would improve our personal lives?”
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Aaaannnddd the leftarded pro Palis,Hizbolla,Hamas,Iran,etc jackasses should be along to defend the former in 5..4..3…
It seems that (just like Canada’s Liberal party) Hezbollah is struggling to find a reason for existing. It turns out those big bad Israelis over yonder aren’t as bad as the Party wants everyone to believe. As people have realized, the problem is more with the Party itself.
What is wrong with Hezbollah? They must understand that Arabs hate Iranians as much or more than they hate Israelis. Hezbollah are lapdogs of the Iranians. Aren’t they a little embarrassed?
I can say with utter confidence. Till the Messiah (God in coming again,this time in Judgement)shows up. There will never be an end to war in the Middle East. As it has never stopped being the favoured battleground of humanity, for any reason or none. This Civilization started there , it will die there.
Everything that Hezbollah and Hamas do is a zero-sum game. How many wars can be waged? How much influence can be asserted before people tire for one reason or another? If Hezbollah ever did become defunct (big IF), what would replace it? It would be another Arab Spring, I think. People might have some creature comforts or purchasing power but until great political and cultural change takes place, it’s China, a dictatorship where people can buy cell phones. Who cares?
Often in cases like Hizb’allah; since they already have weapons, smuggling ties, political connections, and trained tough guys…their new ‘reason for existence’ becomes organized crime.
It’s a natural transition that happens all the time.
Sounds like the same old theme repeated — the “freedom fighters”, needing violence as their raison d’etre, naturally attract the most violent to their organization. The most violent amongst those bully their way to the top and it soon degenerates into a gang of thugs terrorizing the very people they were purporting to “liberate”. They’ve followed the classic path of the IRA, the Iraqi insurgents, the French revolutionary Jacobins etc.. etc. Plus ca change . . .
I wuz told by a good god kristian that he would be here by 1985, and if not then absolutely by 2000, so I guess I’m not the only one who missed him, either that or this Kristian wuz full of Shiite.
It’s called spell check.
Moving on….
“This why there are still so many Christians… in Lebanon”
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/beginning-end-hezbollah
“…
Deep down I’m sure they would prefer a Shia theocracy like they have in Iran. I know they do, actually. This isn’t a guess. But it’s impossible in Lebanon. The Shia are a minority. So are the Sunnis. So are the Christians. Everybody in Lebanon is a minority. Theocratic Shias are a minority within their own community, even among “resistance” supporters.
And it’s impossible for even the strongest factions to rule over others, which is why not even Hezbollah attempts it. This is obvious when you’re in Lebanon. Take a drive from East Beirut up to the southern fringes of Tripoli.
You’ll pass through an enormous skyscrapering Christian entity that looks a little like Hong Kong at night. Then drive up into the mountains. That area is also almost entirely Christian, and thanks to the terrain it’s all but unconquerable.
It has been this way for two thousand years. Everybody is armed, and everybody will fight to the death to preserve their freedom to live as they please. These are the reasons why Lebanon, unlike other Middle East countries, still has so many Christians—until very recently an outright Christian majority.”
==============
So the lesson is, if you are Christian and want to survive in a tough and hostile neighbourhood be well armed and in defensible territory.
In a state with a nonfunctional government self-defense is the only defense.
This runs counter to the principles of the “utopian” UN Treaty on Small Arms.
We probably won’t see the end of these terror bogey men in our lifetime unless the power pyramid finds some other group to take their place, as they took the place of the former evil communist axis – they (official bogeymen) are needed as scapegoats to keep the people in fear/control and to keep engines of the security-military-industrial continuum turning paper money into public debt.
The basic difference between the communist boogyman era and the new terrorist boogyman era is we didn’t allow communist Russians/Chinese/Cubans into our country to bomb us on a daily basis. Then again we were selling ICBMs in those days not security tech and martial law.