Hezbollah Ruins Lebanon, Loses Credibility

  • Thread starter Thread starter brainiac
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies Replies 74
  • Views Views 9K
Re: Nasrallah Admits He Goofed

It's apparent that you get excited thinking about Nasrallah and his beard.



I'm more of a 'neatly trimmed Ahmadinejad' type of guy. Why does he remind me a little of Ringo?. :giggling:
 
Last edited:
Re: Nasrallah Admits He Goofed

George Bush and Ariel Sharon were tyrants. A tyrant is defined as a cruel and oppressive leader. Both fit this description. Thank God Ariel is suffering as a vegatable! He deserved it. As you're right about tyrants meeting messy ends. Only time will tell us when Israel and USA will fall harder than the Roman Empire.

Not meaning to stomp out a good flame or anything, but Ariel Sharon did one of the most impressive 180 degree turns I'd seen in history. I doubt I'll find very much cooperation with Omert... back to the drawing board. Sigh.

Ninth Scribe
 
Re: Nasrallah Admits He Goofed

who would align with a man who shoots rockets at homes? just because israel does it, im not going to lower myself to support muslims doing it. follow the quran not a bomb making book!!!

You're confusing things a bit. We don't go off on the soldiers because they were given orders to defend their people. That's just what soldiers do. And we don't call soldiers, murderers, because they follow their orders. It's always the failure of the leadership that causes wars. The soldiers lay their lives on the line, whether they agree or disagree with the cause of a given war. I can't handle it when I hear people dissing the soldiers... anyone's soldiers. No matter what may be said to the contrary, there is no way to make surgically precise strikes during a war.

Ninth Scribe
 
Last edited:
Re: Nasrallah Admits He Goofed

i dont see it as him admitting he goofed but rather him caring about his fellow citizens
 
Re: Nasrallah Admits He Goofed

i dont see it as him admitting he goofed but rather him caring about his fellow citizens

The admission is supported when he said he would not have arrested the two soldiers had he known that Israel would have launched such a devestating counter-offensive. This display of humility sent a powerful message, along with the actions that followed, that proved he cared deeply for his people. He took the stick for his part in the horrible picture... while Israel scoffed at him. Scoffing about the death of over a thousand civilians... well, that also sent a message. In terms of human Grace, something I didn't think existed, Nasrallah mopped the floor with Israel!

Israel, in this instance, just condoned the actions of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi.

Ninth Scribe
 
Last edited:
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/15434938.htm

Posted on Mon, Sep. 04,


Hezbollah lost credibility in Lebanon
Charles Krauthammer is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group



"We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not."

- Hasan Nasrallah,

Hezbollah leader, Aug. 27

So much for the "strategic and historic victory" Nasrallah had claimed less than two weeks earlier. What real victor declares that, had he known, he would not have started the war that ended in triumph?

Nasrallah's admission, vastly underplayed in the West, makes clear what the Lebanese already knew. Hezbollah may have won the propaganda war, but on the ground it lost. Badly.

True, under the inept and indecisive leadership of Ehud Olmert, Israel did miss the opportunity to militarily destroy Hezbollah and make it a nonfactor in Israel's security, Lebanon's politics, and Iran's foreign policy. Nonetheless, Hezbollah was seriously hurt. It lost hundreds of its best fighters. A deeply entrenched infrastructure on Israel's border is in ruins. The great hero has had to go so deep into hiding that Nasrallah has been called "the underground mullah."

Most important, Hezbollah's political gains within Lebanon during the war have proved illusory. As the dust settles, the Lebanese are furious at Hezbollah for provoking a war that brought them nothing but devastation - and then crowing about victory amid the ruins.

The Western press was once again taken in by the mystique of the "Arab street." The mob came out to cheer Hezbollah for raining rockets on Israel - surprise! - and the Arab governments that had initially criticized Hezbollah went conveniently silent. Now that the mob has gone home, Hezbollah is under renewed attack - in newspapers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt, as well as by many Lebanese, including influential Shiite academics and clan leaders. The Arabs know where their interests lie. And they do not lie with a Shiite militia that fights for Iran.

Even before the devastation, Hezbollah in the last election garnered only about 20 percent of the vote, hardly a mandate. Hezbollah has guns, however, and that is the source of its power. But now even that is threatened. Hence Nasrallah's admission. He knows that Lebanon, however weak its army, has a deep desire to disarm him and that the arrival of Europeans in force, however weak their mandate, will make impossible the rebuilding of the vast Maginot Line he spent six years constructing.

Which is why the expected Round Two will, in fact, not happen. Hezbollah is in no position, either militarily or politically, for another round. Nasrallah's admission that the war was a mistake is an implicit pledge not to repeat it, lest he be completely finished as a Lebanese political figure.

The Lebanese know that Israel bombed easy-to-repair airport runways when it could have destroyed the new airport terminal and set Lebanon back 10 years. The Lebanese know that Israel attacked the Hezbollah TV towers when it could have pulverized Beirut's power grid, a billion-dollar reconstruction. The Lebanese know that next time Israel's leadership will hardly be as hesitant and restrained. Hezbollah dares not risk that next time.

Even more important is the shift once again in the internal Lebanese balance of power. With Nasrallah weakened, the other major factions are closing in around him. Even his major Christian ally, Michel Aoun, has called for Hezbollah's disarmament. The March 14 democratic movement has regained the upper hand and, with outside help, could marginalize Hezbollah.

In a country this weak, outsiders can be decisive. A strong European presence in the south, serious U.S. training and equipment for the Lebanese army, and relentless pressure at the United Nations can tip the balance. We should be especially aggressive at the U.N. in pursuing the investigation of Syria for the Rafiq Hariri murder and in implementing resolutions mandating the disarmament of Hezbollah.

It was just a year and a half ago that the democrats of the March 14 movement expelled Syria from Lebanon and rose to power, marking the apogee of the American democratization project in the region. Nasrallah's temporary rise during the just-finished war marked that project's nadir. Nasrallah's crowing added to the general despair in Washington about a rising "Shiite crescent" stretching from Tehran to Beirut.

In fact, Hezbollah was seriously set back, as was Iran. In the Middle East, however, promising moments pass quickly. This one needs to be seized. We must pretend that Security Council Resolution 1701 was meant to be implemented, and exert unrelieved pressure on behalf of those Lebanese - a large majority - who want to do the implementing.


;D
 
Re: Nasrallah Admits He Goofed

Believe me... you want Olmert to get re-elected. Israeli's will probably now turn to the much more right wing politicians who do not hol back so much. The right wing people in israel are all military people who are knowledgable unlike Olmert. You should pray Olmert stays in, because you do not want Israel to be in the power of Military leaders. Then what will become of the Palestinians you care so much about?

True... but I would rather have Ariel Sharon back in action. He was gaining so much ground!

Ninth Scribe
 
Re: Nasrallah Admits He Goofed

So Nasralla is wrong? isn't he your hero... your hero admitted it!

Lavikor, please! Ariel Sharon admitted he was wrong also, and he set about resolving those poor decisions he made in his earlier years. Have you any idea how HARD that is to do???

Believe me, a little humility goes a very long way here on Earth.

Ninth Scribe
 
This display of humility sent a powerful message, along with the actions that followed, that proved he cared deeply for his people.

Yet it is his fault the conflict started.

I'm sure "Saddam" cared about his people to...
 
Yet it is his fault the conflict started.

I'm sure "Saddam" cared about his people to...

Not his exact wording but, yes. Let's not get started on Saddam. As I said before, we've all done stupid things. I judged against him soley because I was ticked off by the idol of his likeness in Baghdad. In retrospect, I still don't understand why that bothered me so much... but I failed to investigate the Iraqi Freedom campaign because I wanted to see it torn down. Some weird part of me ignored the obvious.

Ninth Scribe
 
Not his exact wording but, yes. Let's not get started on Saddam. As I said before, we've all done stupid things. I judged against him soley because I was ticked off by the idol of his likeness in Baghdad. In retrospect, I still don't understand why that bothered me so much... but I failed to investigate the Iraqi Freedom campaign because I wanted to see it torn down. Some weird part of me ignored the obvious.

Ninth Scribe

I judge him as the murderer of thousands Kurds gased... But do you glorify him for this?
 
I judge him as the murderer of thousands Kurds gased... But do you glorify him for this?

I didn't say I glorified him. I was actually saying I felt badly because I knew next to nothing about him and I felt weird that I went off on him the way I did, just because I saw a statue of him in Baghdad! I still haven't figured out why that bothered me so much, but it had a powerful reaction that sent me 20 claws into the ceiling! I wanted the thing destroyed... I even twacked a mock up of it off my coffee table. The Middle East drives me nuts like that sometimes. What I see in certain people and how I react to them would shock a psychologist!

Ninth Scribe
 
Last edited:

Similar Threads

Back
Top