Monday, October 22, 2012

Syria sends a message!

Once again Syria has sent a message to Lebanon, in the usual way.  Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, who was the anti-Syrian Lebanese intelligence chief, responsible for recently arresting a pro-Syrian politician, was assassinated by a large bomb explosion in a narrow street adjacent to his car convoy in a Christian area of Beirut.  Others were killed (at least 7) and many others were injured (at least 80), but that is just collateral damage.  To those of us who consider slaughter of innocent women and children unacceptable, one must remember that to Shia Muslims, Christians and women are completely expendable in pursuit of their God-ordained goals.  It is highly likely that the pro-Syrian Lebanese Shia militia Hizbollah was involved in planning and executing this despicable act on behalf of the Syrian Government.  At the funeral of al-Hassan held yesterday there was violence and a call for the Government that contains Hizbollah ministers to resign.
This is the first large bombing in Beirut for 4 years, and represents the first major attack related to the civil war now raging in Syria.  It has been estimated that in over a year some 30,000 Syrians have been killed and some 22,000 have "disappeared," arrested by Syrian forces.  The Assad regime is sending a message to the Lebanese people, we will not allow any anti-Syrian acts in Lebanon.  And they have the power to do this, through the Iranian proxy Hizbollah.  This is how they killed the former Christian Phalange leader Bashir Gemayel in 1982, thus preventing a strong anti-Syrian Lebanon, and similarly how they killed the Christian former PM Rafik Hariri, that led to the expulsion of Syrian forces from Lebanon, and how they have killed some 20 others.  While all other Lebanese militias were disarmed at the end of the Civil War, Hizbollah became even stronger under the pretext of being the resistance force fighting Israel.  But, actually, what they have done is attempt to take over Lebanon as Syria's and Iran's proxy.  They are now showing that they will stop at nothing to prevent any anti-Syrian forces from gaining control of Lebanon.
I heard a Palestinian spokesman telling the media that if only Palestine were recognized as a State, as a result of unilateral recognition by the UN, and if only then Israel would accept the conditions set by Pres. Abbas for negotiations (stopping all building on the West Bank and recognizing the pre-1967 borders) then the violence in the Middle East would cease.  What absolute nonsense!  No wonder the world and the other Arabs don't take the Palestinians seriously.  Only Pres. Obama seems to accept this pablum.  Israel is not involved whatsoever in the civil war that is proceeding in Syria and has nothing to do with the extension of that violence to Lebanon, just as Israel had nothing to do directly with the whole range of violent uprisings that constitute the so-called Arab Spring (the overthrow of long-standing Arab dictators).  However, I do believe that Israel had an effect indirectly on this process, by being strong and withstanding all attacks, this shows the Arabs that they are incompetent relative to Israel militarily and therefore in order to succeed they had to overthrow those long-standing regimes.  And the fact that Israel is a modern, technological and democratic country, shows the Arabs that they also need to modernize and be more open.  However, the contradictory turn towards Islam in the Arab world counters that trend.  They are going back to what they think will sustain them, but it won't! 

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