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| Middle East |
| Iran sent fighters, arms to Hezbollah |
| 2002-06-21 |
| Iran has sent fighters and arms to Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, airlifting the forces through Damascus, Israeli public radio reported Wednesday. It said the information was passed on to parliament's foreign relations and defence committee in a meeting also attended by Israel's chief of staff General Shaul Mofaz. He stressed the danger posed to Israel by the reported growing strength of the Shiite Muslim fundamentalist Hezbollah, according to the radio. The report said Hezbollah was planning a major attack on Israel such as a strike on a border stronghold or an operation to kidnap soldiers, in a bid to provoke a major Israeli retaliation. If Hezbollah were to strike deep inside Israel with new weaponry, the Jewish state would hit back against Syrian territory, Mofaz has warned the United States. The United States said Monday it had sent diplomatic messages to Iran, Lebanon and Syria calling for the three countries to use their influence with Hezbollah to halt attacks against Israel. This sort of thing makes me want to swim against the mainstream of opinion and wish that Bush would hurry and push through the Paleostinian state, provisional or otherwise. That's what the Bad Guys are trying to avoid. We're looking at two separate currents in the Islamoworld: one is the aspiration for a Paleostinian state, the one that's being pushed for the marks, rubes, and other suckers in the street. They're eventually going to end up with it, because they've set up a culture — with the help of the rest of the Arab world — where they're not going to be Jordanians, Egyptians or Lebanese; that's their rock. They're also not going to kick the Israelis out and send them packing to Europe or southern California or someplace like that; that's their hard place. Instead, they're going to end up with their very own scrotty little dictatorship, their increasing poverty standing in stark contrast the the prosperity the Israelis are going to be able to grow next door. If they get what they want and give up "armed struggle" as a way of life, the only time we'll hear of them is when there's an African-style "food summit" that's designed to try and keep them from starving to death. This is the state the "useful idiots" like Edward Said are pushing. The other current doesn't want that Paleostinian state. They don't oppose it because it's a bad thing — the Islamic state they want to eventually impose is probably worse than the Ba'athist-style regime Yasser and his thugs will institute. But to them, for now and for the immediate future (translate that to read "as far as the eye can see"!) they want, nay, demand, Armed Struggle®. This current — Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and PFLP, for the most part, and probably part but not all of al-Aqsa — opposes each an every move that could result in attaining a state. The first three are the ones who periodically attend "summits" in Beirut or Teheran with Hezbollah, under Iranian tutelage. The results? Let's follow General Zinni, starting last December: One might ask "wuzzup widdat"? The answer's inescapable: a state is a threat. It's more of a threat to the terror machinery than it is to Yasser and his thugs, who stand merely to look incompetent. Without Palestine, all that's left to drive Armed Struggle® is Kashmir, which might be winding down, and Chechnya, which nobody cares about except the Russians. You can't have a seething Arab street without something to seethe about. So could international terror masterminds. Palestine represents a fertile breeding ground for jihadis, usually not the upper reaches of the heirarchy, though Abu Zubaydah made the big time, but respectably competent middle rankers. Even worse, a Palestinian state takes away something to fight about. All that's left is Chechnya and Kashmir, and a bunch of goofs trying to set up an Islamic superstate in southeast Asia while Indonesia breaks up around them and the prosperous burghers of Singapore and Malaysia look at them like they're nutz. Palestine represents one of the props of the Islamic terrorism machine. It represents the best chance for bringing on a general war between Islam and the West. Losing it would be a killer, and the Bad Guys can't let that happen. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 I dunno, Mr. Pruitt... I agree that our representatives are trying to go over to Israel to broker a land-for-peace deal, and that the Palestinians go boom when they come, but there need not be a connection. Maybe this is the Palestinian's way of flipping off Americans in general. "Hah! We be bad dudes!" And besides, if an actual state of Palestine finally comes into being, all that will happen is that the boomers will now have a state in which to build their bomb belts rather than a "refugee camp". So why would the terrorists care about the peace deal? If one passes, they don't seem to be in any different a position, and they'll still be attacking Israel until Israel is forced to attack them, and then we're back on the merry-go-round. |
| Posted by: Just John 2002-06-21 23:47:50 |