"They want us to surrender totally without any compensation,..."

hey buddy, they want you to submit or die.

Posted by: pulsar182 at May 10, 2008 8:35 AM

No gunmen?
Don't they have an army. What about getting rid of it if it doesn't want to fight, and getting people who do.

Posted by: Ian at May 10, 2008 8:36 AM

"Don't they have an army"

yep, one that runs very fast, and their army is equipped with many fine weapons given to them by western nations and paid for by your tax dollars.

yep, an army with no heart, no soul, no committment, no leaders, and no plan of action.

yep, an army of cowards.

Posted by: pulsar182 at May 10, 2008 8:43 AM

Hizbullah has turned from an opposition party into a militia attempting to impose its control.

The sports minister needs to learn some history. Hezbollah started out as a terrorist group posing as a militia.

Hezbollah was founded in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and subsumed members of the 1980s coalition of groups known as Islamic Jihad.

It has close links to Iran and Syria. Hezbollah suicide-bombers attacked Western peacekeepers in Beirut in 1983. Only after winning elections in 2005 did Hezbollah join the government.

Prior to that, its resume included:

* a series of kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon, including several Americans, in the 1980s;
* the suicide truck bombings that killed more than 200 U.S. Marines at their barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983;
* the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, which featured the famous footage of the plane’s pilot leaning out of the cockpit with a gun to his head;
* two major 1990s attacks on Jewish targets in Argentina—the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy (killing twenty-nine) and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center (killing ninety-five).
* a July 2006 raid on a border post in northern Israel in which two Israeli soldiers were taken captive. The abductions sparked an Israeli military campaign against Lebanon to which Hezbollah responded by firing rockets across the Lebanese border into Israel.

We've come full circle. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Iran's responsibility for what is happening in Lebanon goes back at least twenty-five years.

Posted by: PMK at May 10, 2008 9:11 AM

Only after winning elections in 2005 did Hezbollah join the government.

Wrong. (That's what I get for checking one source.) Two others report that Hezbollah won seats in the legislature in 1992. This still postdates their most notorious terror activities.

Posted by: PMK at May 10, 2008 9:33 AM

"We do not have gunmen like they do."

I'm sure if you asked nicely, Hamas would 'rent' you some of theirs...

Posted by: duh_swami at May 10, 2008 9:53 AM

Who was that guy who ran a county that kept the Shiites subjugated and freightened? I don't think Iran would be doing this if he were still around. Who was that guy? His last name was Barack Obama's middle name.

Oh well, what's done is done.

Posted by: Pelayo at May 10, 2008 10:22 AM

Pelayo,
Don't be so sure. When did Iraq ever worry itself about what went on in Lebanon? The Shiites in Lebanon, along with their Iranian sponsors, were busy kidnapping Westerners in Beirut even as Iran and Iraq fought their own war. Saddam never stopped Iran from doing anything. The Israelis stopped Saddam's nuclear program. What did Saddam ever do about Iran's? ZIP.

Posted by: PMK at May 10, 2008 10:37 AM

If we had a clue we would be supporting the Christians in Lebanon. We would arm them with weapons and allow them to set up their own state, then allow it to expand over the years. We could use it as a base of operations against Islamic forces.

Of course the chances of that happening are nill. You would have to id Islam (or at least political Islam) as the enemy. Nope, we are too busy wasting those billions of dollars on Iraqi muslims, who will never be our friends.

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at May 10, 2008 11:33 AM

As PMK writes above, Hezbollah's early activities included:
"* a series of kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon, including several Americans, in the 1980s;"

During the same period they also kidnapped four Soviet citizens/ officials. They only tried this once. One of these hostages was killed but the other three were released fairly quickly.

There are two versions I've found for why the three were released and why they didn't attempt any more.

One version is related by Bob Woodward on page 416 of his book 'Veil' (published in Great Britain in 1987). He writes that then CIA director William Casey was informed by the Israelis that the KGB had killed and mutilated a relative of one of Hezbollah's leaders and threatened to do the same to other relatives of Hezbollah's leadership unless the captives were released.

The other version (floating around on the internet) is that a Soviet diplomat warned the Iranian leadership that if Hezbollah didn't release the Soviet captives quickly, they might find the holy city of Qom had been destroyed by an accidentally launched nuclear missle.

I don't know which version is correct but the results were certainly effective. Terror attacks against western targets continued to escalate while action against the Soviets ceased.

Posted by: veil416 at May 10, 2008 12:06 PM

veil416,
I remember when the first Soviet hostages were taken and waiting to see the reaction. The first scenario sounds closer to the truth. It wasn't clear then who was threatened but the news at the time suggested that the Soviets had called in someone from the group and let them know what would happen if their hostage wasn't released. The Soviets weren't afraid to fight fire with fire.

Posted by: PMK at May 10, 2008 12:30 PM

"fight Fire with Fire" excellent idea.

I think Saddam helped inspire and accelerate Iran's desire for Nuclear Weapons.

Posted by: flowerknife_us at May 10, 2008 4:19 PM

Regarding Lebanon, presidential hopeful B.Obama sez:

"...It's time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment..."

...he is clueless...what they need is guns (especially the Christians) and lots of them.

Posted by: pulsar182 at May 10, 2008 9:04 PM

"We do not have gunmen like they do."...

Please read again U.N. Res #1701, he should remember that one. It's pretty clear who should be in charge. If it is in breach, the war of 2006 with Israel against "hesbulli" could be on again.

Laws are on the books for a reason.

Posted by: Islofob IS-1 at May 12, 2008 1:17 AM