Would Tom Paine join Hezbollah?
Charles E. Carlson
Hidden in the bottom line of a new CNN poll is a revelation:
“Americans were nearly evenly split on whether the U.S. would win the war in Iraq. “48 percent either said the United States could not win, or could win — but will not win.”
Think about it. Iraq has only 20 million people, most on a starvation standard of living, no infrastructure or industry, no tanks or aircraft, all destroyed by the occupying forces. The country has been thrust back a thousand years to an agricultural based society living between two great rivers. Its oil is no longer under its control, and a civil war divides its people into two or more factions. Yet half of Americans polled do not think the giant mastiff USA, can or has the will to “win” against its guerilla fighters.
Defeated, and destroyed, Iraq still resists. The US public (with the exception of the “Christian Right” no longer supports being there, except for one major faction called the Religious Right. Similarly, Israel could not defeat Lebanon, no matter how much destruction they wrought and families they wiped out.
Hezbollah is not the Lebanese army; it is a private militia outside of the recognized government. Some of its members have been elected to the legislature and it sponsors a political party, and it is respected in the Arab world as religious and sacrificially dedicated.
Missionary Ben Weir was a prisoner of Hezbollah for 16 months in the wake of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israel. Weir told the Presbyterian News Service on August 1, “Hopes for peace are not on the horizon,”… “because the Arab-Israeli issue has not been addressed forthrightly.”
Weir, who with his wife Carol served as PC (USA) missionaries in Lebanon for nearly 30 years, was kidnapped off the streets of Beirut on May 8, 1984, by an Islamic fundamentalist group, Islamic Jihad, that later morphed into Hezbollah. He was released 16 months later. Shortly thereafter he was elected moderator of the 1986 Presbyterian General Assembly and has been one of the world’s most respected voices for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East for the past 20 years.
Weir, who is associated with one of the few denominations to sanction Israel for its criminality, continued: “This tragic situation today brings back bitter memories of previous invasions of Lebanon,” Weir said. “These two antagonists, Israel and Hezbollah, have brought deep wounds on themselves.” (The Moderator Palestine)
Whatever its past, Hezbollah is a hero today and should be recognized. Lebanon has a small paid army, but it did not fight the invading Israel, probably because the elected government knew full well Israel was carrying out a Bush Administration directive to occupy Lebanon, and is scared to death of the USA, after witnessing the fate of Iraq.
This writer stated months ago in Restoring an Affordable Policy of Peace that the Bush’s popularity was not high enough to risk another preemptive war and the Warmakers told us they already had the gun sight trained on Syria. Israel was a predictable front under the directed Neo-con plan to initiate more wars on Islam.
The Warmaker’s plan, called the Project for The New American Century, William Kristol President, must have sounded something like this when it was unfolded in some private steam room with the likes of Wolfowitz, Cheney and Kristol;
(Use your imagination) “Lets just get Israel to smash Lebanon… it’s right next to Syria and the people support each other…use maximizing damage and bury a lot of families in the debris… you understand we need to increase hatred to a white-hot level…. Syria won’t dare back out if Israel will get a little mean, they will have to come to Lebanon’s aid…and everyone will know Syria has the moral support of Iran, so all we have to do is play that up in the press…then WHAM BO, Israel clubs Damascus with some kind of messy and terrible weapon…we will make sure it’s mean enough…maybe even a small nuke…then Iran will have to respond by bombing Tel Aviv or lose face with all the desert rats…then we got-em… this gives the USA and UK a sufficient excuse to pulverize Iran…then Halliburton takes the oil patch, and we all pick up the pieces.” Give me another Cuban cigar, boys.” (William Kristol might have said it)
The Neo-con policy calls for continuous war in the Middle East. Look how well it worked… almost. Israel fronted for the USA in Lebanon because they can’t say no, our Government gives them all the arms and money they need, they war on call. The same Warmakers give orders to the fake imbecile, Texas-smart Bush, who is able to tell Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to invade as soon as he was sworn into office to replace Sharon.
But what the USA could not give Israel is the courage to match the young Hezbollah volunteers who know their backs are to the wall and the only way out alive is to win. A majority of the Israeli people knew the invasion to be unjust and when the dead Israeli soldiers started coming home the Jewish mamas turned on Olmert.
Hezbollah with rifles and grenades of World War II vintage is no match for tanks, nor could it overcome massive airstrikes and even a navy bombardment. But someone must have given them a few anti-tank killers. Hezbollah understands Israel’s weakening support for the war. They need to deliver the war to the Jewish neighborhoods, so Hezbollah amazingly reportedly launched about 3400 mostly homemade random target rockets (no controlled missiles) of which a few hit something by accident. Their tactic was to make Israel pay the price, 157 dead — including 118 military. Lebanon lost almost 10 times more humans than Israel and most were civilians…a terrible price, and it is estimated some who live there that 45,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed. How many US missiles did that take? Uncounted thousands will have no homes or business left to come back to, Lebanon has sacrificed many times the price paid by the Israelis.
In Israel, aggressive war is a way of life and has been since 1948. Everyone serves his turn in the IDF, and killing and occasionally being killed is accepted as long as (1) the USA pays for it, and (2) not too many 20-year old drafted boys and girls come home for funerals. The price in Lebanon was too high. Israel won the war of mass destruction, but Hezbollah now is the undisputed political force in Lebanon.
It’s time we who respect courage in the face of the impossible odds recognize that Hezbollah, like Hamas in the Gaza, is the patriot sacrificial new leaders of the Arab Middle East. If Ben Franklin and John Adams had been born Lebanese they might have been Hezbollah leaders. The two organizations are not without grievous acts and faults but so are we. And a lot of us sinners are tired of seeing little people annihilated because they are not big and powerful. May Hezbollah not forget to practice the justice the Israelis have denied to them.
Those who are really responsible, the neo-con planners of the war on Islam have paid nothing. They get their little stepping stone war, but they lost a big mission impossible plot. The Arab world responds in jubilation. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
“God’s promises have come true,” Ahmadinejad told a huge crowd in Arbadil in northwestern Iran. “On one side, it’s corrupt powers of the criminal U.S. and Britain and the Zionists …. with America’s most modern bombs and planes. And on the other side is a group of pious youth relying on God.”
Syrian President Bashar Assad, who said: “Washington’s plans for the region have become an illusion” after the 34-day conflict in Lebanon ended Monday with a cease-fire.
The Lebanese defense minister said, “The army would not ask Hezbollah to hand over its weapons.” In effect, Hezbollah is now the new leadership of Lebanon and the elected government knows it and needs to get along. A number of Hezbollah members are already in the legislature.
The Christian Right has fallen into momentary silent while they search their Scofield Reference Bibles for an answer in prophesy. Its leaders must find a plausible excuse why God is using Israel’s humiliation to further God’s kingdom. They would never think of the possibility that God hates the evil shedding of innocent blood, which both Israel and the USA now do without the slightest flinch.
The stated purpose of “Reverend” John Hagee’s Christians United For Israel (C.U.F.I.) is: “to provide a national association through which every pro-Israel church, Para-church organization, ministry or individual in America can speak and act with one voice in support of Israel in matters related to Biblical issues.”
Robertson told his “700 Club” that he traveled to northern Israel in a show of support for the Jewish state. Robertson did not go to see the mighty Israel IDF back down. He was detected gleefully chortling over the destruction of Sidon and Tyre two weeks earlier, acting like a man who believes he has an invitation to the second coming. Later Robertson denied saying that the war signified the beginning of Armageddon, which some Christians believe would precede the Second Coming of Jesus. Robertson took back a few of his own words in saying:
“Some of us have been waiting: Is this the end of it all? No. Is this what precedes the coming of the Lord? I don’t think so.” Robertson met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert just before the truce and may have had a hot tip that things were not going well. I bet he ran home and sold his Israeli stock portfolio.
The world, with three exceptions, owes Hezbollah grateful thanks. The exceptions are Zionist Israel, the Tony Blair, and the US government. We salute Hezbollah not because they saved Lebanon for the moment, because Lebanon’s sacrifice is terrible and I would not wish it on anyone. We thank Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza because they are the first to jam a wedge in the gears of the world Warmakers. USA government’s (Neo-con) plan to illegally and immorally control the Middle East has been dealt a setback. Hezbollah has done more in one long and bloody 34 days to turn the tables on the Warmakers than all the negotiating and jawboning done since the first bombing of Iraq in 1991. Now it is up to us to convince the warring Christian Right that Jesus would not bomb anyone. These are not enemy aliens; they are our close friends and even our families.
This means if your church is preventing you from following Christ’s every word you need to shun it. It is time to follow CHRIST and reject “Christianity.”
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