Posted in light of Hariri's comments yesterday.
(Updated: Originally published October 29, 2006)
Look at lil' ol' Hezbollah using Democracy and Politics to try and win power.
Of course, USrael double standards dictate that any group demed inappropriate to govern is a) overtly smashed through military action, or b) refused recognition, after which covert "black ops" are used to destabilize the inappropriate group (Exhibit A: Palestine).
Nice picture, too!
"Hezbollah demands more government power; Group seeks to harness postwar gains" by Thanassis Cambanis/Boston Globe October 29, 2006
BEIRUT -- Emboldened by this summer's war with Israel, the radical Islamist Hezbollah party has gone on the political offensive inside Lebanon, determined either to replace or to bring down the pro-American government.
Still pro-American after we actively supplied and allowed Israel to destroy their country?
Maybe they ought to be removed.
Political leaders in Hezbollah, Lebanon's main Shi'ite Muslim movement, say the Shi'ites have proved that they command far more popular support than is reflected in their share of government posts under Lebanon's delicate power-sharing arrangement. That system, adopted under a deal that ended the nation's deadly civil war in 1990, divides power among the country's main sectarian groups -- Shi'ites, Sunni Muslims, Druze, and Christians.
Countering the lies we are told about "popularity" and "support"
Now, Hezbollah and an allied Christian political party led by General Michel Aoun are demanding a government reshuffle that would give them more positions -- and would in effect give Hezbollah veto power over any legislation. They have threatened to boycott the government or try to bring it down through strikes and street demonstrations if they don't get more posts.
Aoun sure is an unlikely bedfellow! And they are still there, one year later!
Hezbollah's demand threatens a sectarian power-sharing arrangement that has averted civil war for 15 years, doling out positions of power to different groups without regard to their real share of voter support.
So Bush is supporting an undemocratic government, 'eh?
US officials, the Lebanese government, and Israel say that by gaining veto power, Hezbollah would paralyze the government, extend Syrian influence over Lebanon, and ruin Lebanon's prospects to rebuild. And if Hezbollah -- which the United States lists as a terrorist group -- were to expand its share of government power, the United States could find itself unable to work with the Lebanese authorities, since it boycotts all Hezbollah officials.
The Lebanese government is an ally of USrael? Then it deserves the boot!
Pro-Western political minorities, who together represent less than half the population, control a veto-proof supermajority of government power under the 1990 accord that ended the civil war.
And the papers told me that was dominance.
Hezbollah says it will wield political tools -- such as withdrawing from the government, along with public demonstrations and strikes -- to prolong the crisis until the government accedes to its wishes.
Hezbollah has spent years building support in the southern villages and poor suburbs where the Shi'ite population lives. The movement maintains that Lebanon's Shi'ite population, now approaching nearly 50 percent, has grown faster than others.
Two months after a war that left Lebanon's infrastructure in shambles and displaced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, Hezbollah's leadership wants to cash in on a conflict that it sees as a political and military victory.
Oh! Hezbollah is going to "cash in" on the conflict!
Of course, OUR WARS are only committed after careful thought and deliberation, and NO ONE EVER PROFITS on our side.
Hezbollah benefited because:
Israel failed to destroy Hezbollah militarily. Then, the popularity of Hezbollah's charismatic leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, soared in Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world, as he became an icon for currents of Islamist, anti-Israeli, anti-Western, and Arab nationalist sentiment.
Shi'ites continued to fervently support Hezbollah. A month after the war, Nasrallah staged a "victory" rally in Beirut, drawing as many as 1 million supporters in a show of strength not lost on Hezbollah's political rivals inside Lebanon.... despite the heavy casualties and displacement.
Or because of it?
Even Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat says no politician can claim Lebanon doesn't need Hezbollah's armed resistance -- even those members of the government like himself who believe only the Lebanese state should have an army.
Fatfat is at the center of the first direct postwar clash between Hezbollah and the government. His ministry's Internal Security Forces, a kind of police commando unit, fatally shot a Shi'ite demonstrator in the Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut on Oct. 6. The government was trying to crack down on illegal construction in the Shi'ite suburb.
But the outcry that followed stoked a power struggle between the government and Hezbollah, with members of the Shi'ite group demanding that government police leave their part of the city.
Uh-huh!
The government's "Internal Security Forces, a kind of police commando unit," makes OUR DEATH SQUADS seem like, oh, kinda like, a commando unit, you know, HARMLESS!
And what do you think cracking "down on illegal construction in the Shi'ite suburb," is?
TRYING to STOP HEZBOLLAH from REBUILDING,that's what!
No wonder Hezbollah is popular and the Lebaneses hate the government lackeys!
That blubbering coward Sionara, who wept as Hezbollah defended Lebanon against Israel!
"It was definitely a challenge to the authority of the police," Fatfat said. His security forces withdrew briefly, but within days of the skirmish, they were patrolling in the Shi'ite suburbs again, fully armed.
I'll bet that makes the Shia feel safer!
Fatfat said Hezbollah is trying to seize on its postwar prestige and mobilize popular anger among its supporters "to see what they can gain in internal politics."
"This kind of discourse is very dangerous, because it's based on pressure from the street," he said.
Yeah, and there is nothing more dangerous to democracy than the street!
How popular is Hezbollah, anyway?
Hezbollah has managed to keep the support of the other major Shi'ite political organization, Amal, and has found a surprising Christian ally, Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement.
The Christian leader and retired army general has rallied his followers in the capital with an outpouring of anger at the government, which includes ministers from much smaller and less popular Christian political parties than Aoun's.
Aoun, a sworn enemy of Syria, and Nasrallah, whose movement openly accepts Syria's military and financial support, formed an unusual political union in February. Both leaders believe Lebanon's electoral rules unfairly depress their share of power in the national government, and both rail against government corruption and nepotism.
Just a year ago, Aoun was a loud proponent of disarming Hezbollah. But now, shut out of power by the ruling coalition, he has accorded broader legitimacy to Hezbollah by giving it a cross-sectarian base, in exchange for Shi'ite support for his November 2007 presidential bid.
The government, Aoun said in an interview, has "bankrupted the country, and runs it like a mafia."
"They are puppets," Aoun said. "They cannot resist popular pressure and strikes, because they aren't supported by the people."
Talk about TURNING the TABLES! Bush really is a uniter!
Look at Bush bringing enemies who hate each other together!
But don't worry, Georgie. Here's your man:
An increasingly weak and isolated government has reacted defensively to the Hezbollah-Aoun offensive. Saad Hariri, the son of slain former prime minister Rafik Hariri, heads the government's parliamentary bloc and is the unofficial leader of the government forces. After a war that he didn't want, he has been reduced to praising Hezbollah's "resistance" and describing the battle in southern Lebanon as a "victory."
Hariri, a Sunni, invited mayors from Shi'ite towns in the south to a recent Ramadan breakfast at his palatial Beirut mansion, to woo some of the Shi'ite politicians to support the government. In response to a small-town mayor at the breakfast who asked worriedly about the prospects for renewed civil war, Hariri called on young hotheads to "calm down."
"I don't want this country to fracture," Hariri said. Of course not! Not when you are living in a "palatial Beirut mansion" as the "leader of the government forces."
So it is your Interior Ministry that is running death squads, 'eh?
Backed by USrael?
Like many in the government, Hariri said the solution lies in resuming the "National Dialogue," a series of meetings among all political factions to resolve thorny issues, including a new voting law and the question of how to disarm Hezbollah. That process had deadlocked when war broke out July 12, and Hezbollah officials dismiss the prospects for a new dialogue until their demand for more power is met.
"If we want to block the government, we could block it now," said Nawar El Sahili, a Hezbollah representative in parliament. "We insist we must change this government peacefully. We prefer not to go to the ground and have demonstrations. In the end, we may be obliged to go to the street. Peacefully, of course."
Well, that last bit must be a lie.
No way those insane, bloodthirsty Muslims who hate us more than they love their kids could ever possibly behave peacefully.
That's not what I've been told.
And yet, they HAVE for over a YEAR!!!
