And both blame the United States and Israel.
From AP: "Hezbollah, al-Qaida mirror Islamic split"
BEIRUT, Lebanon - To the outside world, the two groups appear to have much in common: Devoutly Muslim, fiercely hostile to Israel and the U.S., and high on Washington's list of terrorist groups.
Yet al-Qaida in Iraq and Lebanon's Hezbollah are waging a worsening verbal dispute that threatens to burst into confrontation.
First came a fiery diatribe from al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- just a week before he was killed by a U.S. airstrike -- accusing Hezbollah of acting as a protective buffer for Israel.
Hezbollah, generally reserved in its comments on internal Islamic issues, began to react: One of its main political figures told The Associated Press it wasn't his group at all but al-Zarqawi that was the "tool" of United States and Israel.
The accusations on their face could be seen as little but competing propaganda. But the animosity runs far deeper than these two radical groups. There is a growing divide in the Middle East between Sunni Muslim extremists, including al-Zarqawi's group, and Shiite Muslim militants personified by Hezbollah.
Many see the emerging tensions as a dangerous trend that could lead to violent Shiite-Sunni conflict not just in Iraq but around the Persian Gulf.
[...]
In his last audiotape, al-Zarqawi accused Hezbollah of having "serious ties" with the Jewish state.
"The party has raised false banners regarding the liberation of Palestine, while in fact it stands guard against Sunnis who want to cross the border" into Israel to launch attacks, he said.
Hezbollah publicly has remained quiet on the issue, apparently so as not to inflame feelings. But its officials, when reached by AP, were quick to react.
Hezbollah's political bureau member in charge of international relations, Nawaf al-Mussawi, accused al-Zarqawi of being a U.S.-Israeli tool against Arab resistance groups.
"His criminal acts are aimed at igniting civil wars and inciting sectarian fighting," al-Mussawi said. "We will not permit the United States, Israel or its tools to kindle any kind of conflict in Lebanon -- between Christians and Muslims or between Shiites and Sunnis."
They can blame whomever they want, and may it drain the resources they would otherwise employ against the West.
You're a tool of Israel and the United States. No, YOU'RE A TOOL OF ISRAEL AND THE UNITED STATES!!!
I say let them go at it!
Maybe if all the Islamic factions fight it out we won't need the war on Islamic jihadists anymore--they'll wipe each other off the face of the earth! Well, it's a beautiful thought, isn't it???
I think it is!
http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000870.html
They can blame whomever they want, and may it drain the resources they would otherwise employ against the West.
My thoughts exactly.
"Many see the emerging tensions as a dangerous trend that could lead to violent Shiite-Sunni conflict not just in Iraq but around the Persian Gulf."
Shiite vs Sunni, Al Capone vs Bugs Moran, Giuseppe Masseria vs Salvatore Maranzano, as long as the Sunnis and Shiites are killing each other and the oil keeps flowing who cares? Al Capone, Moran, Maranzano, and Masseria - killed a lot of gangsters but the booze kept flowing and no one cared. (As long as no "innocent" civilians got caught in the crossfire.)
You're a tool of Israel and the United States. No, YOU'RE A TOOL OF ISRAEL AND THE UNITED STATES!!! - Quijybo
And soon, al-Zawahiri will release a tape saying, "Don't make me stop this car!"
Osama’s former sex slave writes for TV
Ummah News Links
"We will not permit the United States, Israel or its tools to kindle any kind of conflict in Lebanon -- between Christians and Muslims or between Shiites and Sunnis."
They can blame whomever they want, and may it drain the resources they would otherwise employ against the West.
Every mans hand against his Brother...It will bring the Chaos Iran wants so badly.
Let the sides fight and a winner emerge that we can then deal with.
It is the old standby; blame everyone else but themselves.
Jihadis killing jihadis....works for me. Go for it fools!
That many less of them we'll have to deal with.
Stranger things have happened.
"Many see the emerging tensions as a dangerous trend that could lead to violent Shiite-Sunni conflict not just in Iraq but around the Persian Gulf."
-- from the full AP article excerpted above
A "dangerous" trend? Why "dangerous"? Why does the Associated Press, an American company that delivers news items published in American newspapers, believe that the readers of those papers need to be told that a potential "violent Shiite-Sunni conflict" which might erupt "not just in Iraq but around the Persian Gulf" would be "dangerous"?
What about:
For "dangerous" read "useful"
For "dangerous" read "welcome"
For "dangerous" read "highly desirable"
For "dangeous" read "devoutly-to-be-wished"
Indeed. Stand aside and let them have a go at each other. I predict that the ultimate outcome--after a lot of nastiness, alas-- will be an enlarged Israel and masses of people becoming Christians.
Send both sides ammo
Send both sides ammo
Re: Sunni-Shia conflict widens
If these people happened to be delayed in traffic by an untimely traffic light they would blame it on jews and the US. There are no words that describe this kind of mind. Why bother. All that rational people can do is contain it and let al-Zarqawi types and Hezbollah do what they were born to do.
Out of the Winds of War...a rumor of War...
This Sunni-Shia conflict goes back to Islam's very first century and although it waxes and wanes, will not end until one side destroys the other.
However, this current erruption of violence is the explanation of why Russia has become so cozy with Iran. Russia has almost no Shias among its Muslim minority but is in a bloody conflict with Sunni terror groups of the al-Qaida variety. Thus, strengthening Iran and its Shiite surrogates so they can help undermine al-Qaida and its Chechen surrogates is in Russia's national interests.
The same can be said of China. The Muslim minorities in China (Uigurs and Hui) are overwhelmingly Sunni. This means that al-Qaida types can potentially find a welcome among them. Iran is not seen as a threat to China's or Russia's internal stability, since the inluence of Shiite Iran is very limited in these populations.
I don't mind if the Tehran-led Shiites and the Baghdad-based Sunnis want to replay the Iran-Iraq war. Let the fanatics exhaust each other, while we have a world to build. But more importantly, when Muslim mothers see the religious tit-for-tat producing ever more bodybags, they'll tell keep their kids away from that religion.
To rework Dorothy Parker's quip:
So many tools, so little time.
As I once posted on JW/DW, "The Koran" itself may be a cunning medieval forgery, done by the earliest proto-Zionists, manufactured to confuse the Arabs forever. With the Shi'ite schism added as icing on the Islamic layer cake of craziness.
If paranoid Mohammedans believe Dick Cheney ordered 9/11 (his Zionist masters phoned 4,000 Jews on 9/10 to tell them NOT to go to work in the WTC the next day, of course) they might start to fall for something as patently pifflicious as this:
The Koran is Zionist propaganda!
This shows why Islam will never lead to peace. Once the muslims have killed off all infidels in any given land, they will then continue a jihad amongst themselves against those they decree not islamic enouge or not " true muslims ". This is what is now happening in the genocidal situation in Darfur Sudan.
A genocide is being carried out by a muslim government targeting other muslims. The same thing is happening in Iraq now as well. The violence of the " insurgency " is not so much directed against the western military units as it is against fellow muslims of the wrong stripe. Muslims will kill others , if not infidels then fellow muslims. For that is what their religion ingrains in them.
---Nossy
"pifflicious"
Posted by: profitsbeard at June 24, 2006 11:47 PM
Yummy!
I am entirely in favor of allowing these contemptible savages have at each other and enjoy their bloodletting. While they devote themselves entirely to war, they regress even further into the past while we can continue to succeed in science, economics, culture, and technology. We grow strong while they simply decimate themselves. And it is out of our strengths that we can continually refine our ability to wage war WHEN WE HAVE TO. And that proviso gets invoked every time those savages decide to take a poke at us.
del-
I, personally, prefer my piffle tasty.
Flapdoodle, I can take or leave.
The book of Genesis says of Ishmael, ancestor of the Arabs:
His hand is against all men and the hand of every man is against him.
ידו בכול ויד הכול בו
yado bakol v'yad hakol bo
Sure seems to be up to date.
Anyhow, Pravo, tovarishch, I can't agree that there is something rational or decent behind Russia's deals with Iran. What may occur is that some of the Washington gang may decide that it's more important to go after the devilish Russian bear than to fight against the jihad, which may become very secondary and we will again hear as we heard in the 1950s that the Arabs/Muslims are staunch anti-Communists/anti-Russianists, who deserve Western help against the Bear, etc. Putin's domestic policy has been none too decent either for years, so he deserves opprobrium not praise. Yet America may breed a new generation of walterdurantyiana in defense of the New Russia to complement the chomskypods and the churchilloptera, excoriating what they claim is their own country's foreign policy, like crickets who mechanically repeat the same tune endlessly, understanding nothing. In this atmosphere, the "secondary" jihadist enemy may be overlooked and allowed to proceed with his piecemeal destruction of civilization.
I can't see it. That particular genie is out of the bottle, and isn't going to go back in. Ignoring the global jihad is now no more possible than ignoring the fact that it's raining. You must needs take a coat or umbrella or get wet.
Perhaps at bottom this is merely demographic: Russia's population is shrinking; the worldwide Islamic population is exploding. The former's power must tend to decline in line with that, and the latter must tend to assert itself more.
What is quite amazing to me about the rift in Islam between Shia/Sunni is how much they have in common:
Death to Infidels? Yes
Jizah? Yes
Christians and Jews are Apes & Swine? Yes.
Sharia to rule the world? Yes.
Women to be property of husbands and fathers? Yes.
What they differ on is whether you have to be of the Ali bloodline or if you are allowed to lead because of seniority in your tribe.
Eliyahu: " I can't agree that there is something rational or decent behind Russia's deals with Iran."
The Russians are making the same mistake that Stalin made on the eve of World War II. They are taking the wrong side. Stalin was a vile contemptible miserable human being who seemed naive to Hitler. This is suprising because of Stalin's KGB background. Putin is being fooled also by the Aryan Ayatollahs. This is also suprising because of Putin's KGB background. Putin is so desparate to have an Islamic counterweight in Russia and to the Sunni Moslems in Chechnya that he has made a deal with the devil and will certainly have hell to pay for it.
Finally, a ray of hope! It's like the SA batting the SS.
"SA batt[l]ing the SS..."
-- from a posting above
Yes, Roehm and the Night of the Long Knives does come to mind. But so does Stalin dispensing with Kirov, the party leader in Leningrad.
But what comes to mind most does not require a flight out of the Middle East, nor a look very deep into the dark backward and abysm of time, as Master W.S. put it. The Iran-Iraq War will do nicely. Re-runs, please, but this time starting within a state and not across borders. Piling on encouraged. Don't just root for your side. Send money, send volunteers, send military equipment. Help your side win! Join the fray!
Too much beautiful to happen!
Eliyahu,
I didn't say that there was anything rational or decent behind Putin's deals with Iran, only that the Russian internal terrorist situation explains it. I agree that short-term alliances like this often create even more dangerous monsters to deal with in the future.
Israel has made this mistake on several occassions, such as supporting the rise of Hamas to weaken the PLO. Like with Russia today, the Israeli policy probably made since at the time, but as we now see, the blowback was infinitely worse.
David,
I believe your analysis is correct. Often the most rational short-term policies are the most destructive in the long term.
Re: my post to Eliyahu,
It should have read "probably made sense at the time".
Aah the curse of spell-check and bad typing.
....except Islam, of course. "True Islam", as they say, would never behave like this. This is all "false Islam's" fault. Even so, "true Islam" still isn't able to keep all this "false Islam" from happening in the first place....which is why "true Islam" loses no matter who's to blame.
What Russia and China may not understand is that the Kuran prohibits Muslims from dealing with infidels with any degree of honesty. Deals Iran may make with Russia or China are not binding to Muslims under Islamic jurisprudence, whatever Muslim leaders may tell Russian or Chinese officials.
Iran could turn on either or both countries in a second and there are plenty of Islamists who would provide logistical support for Iran's doing such a thing as well. It is worth remembering that Shiite Islam is as prone to slaughtering non-Muslims as Sunni Islam since both are built on Kuranic text.
By the way, notice that Ousamah bin Ladem, although officially a Wahabi Muslim, wears an IRANIAN style turban...