BEYOND THE DROPZONE

LEBANESE CIVILIANS: “Taking matters [against terrorism] into our own hands”

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 19 May 2008 at 1:10 pm UTC

 

As we reported yesterday, a new resistance group against Hezbollah has just been formed in Lebanon and is being widely supported among the leadership of the worldwide Lebanese Diaspora.

The group, a tough resistance wing of the pro-democracy movement in Lebanon, is a response to the recent fighting in Lebanon wherein the terrorist group, Hezbollah, which claims it exists as a “resistance against foreign aggression,” turned its weapons against the Lebanese people. Hezbollah did so on May 7 (as we’ve reported here, here, here, and here) because the terrorist group didn’t approve of the legitimate government’s firing of the security chief at Beirut International Airport, and because the government tried to shut down Hezbollah’s extensive telecommunications system.

After nearly a week of fighting — in which the Lebanese Army barely fired a shot to defend Lebanese property and civilians — the government caved and rescinded its orders.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese people — including Muslims, Christians, and Druze — are the ones who have been victimized, who have suffered overt attacks (or the threat thereof) against themselves and their families, their property, and their freedoms.

And the majority of those people are members — or hopeful believers in — the pro-democracy movement. They’ve had it with blood, fire, weak political and military leaders, and broken-promises. And it’s not just broken promises from their own leaders, but those of the UN and the various Western nations who have vowed to stand with them.

Over the weekend, several major Middle East (Arabic) newspapers, including Kuwait’s Alseyassah and Lebanon’s An-Nahar have roundly criticized the lack of Western intervention in Lebanon during the recent spate of terrorist attacks.

From translations, here are a few key published quotations from members of the pro-democracy movement. We in no way say that we agree fully with the statements, but that the statements are being published in the legitimate Arab-language media. And the statements are being made by good, brave albeit desperate souls (fighting Hezbollah) whom consider themselves to be our allies, and we them.

Quotations follow:

“There seems to be only talk and lip-service being paid to the Lebanese people”

“We are fighting the Iranians and the Syrians on their [the U.S.’s] behalf and they are watching.”

“They [the West] has been all but mute over the takeover by the gangs of the Iranians and the Syrians, and all we hear and see from the American administration are press releases and statements, but which have little substance. They say they care, but where are they? Meanwhile, the gangsters have frightened the Lebanese people, and if it were not for the Arab pressure — the Saudi and Egyptian pressure, and the Druze resistance — those gangsters would not have stopped.”

“We are taking matters [against terrorism] into our own hands.”

Lebanon is a vital front in the war on terror, and that front is indeed being currently defended by poorly armed (in the face of Hezbollah) civilians who are some of the most-loyal allies America may ever hope to have. But in defense of the U.S. — which I will defend to my last breath — Lebanon is extraordinarily complicated: Gen. Michel Sleiman’s army failed to confront the terrorists (which, granted, may have resulted in the death of that army for reasons that have much to do with the Lebanese Army being under-gunned and heavily infiltrated by Hezbollah), and the UN forces on the ground in Lebanon utterly failed to do several of the things it was mandated to do, like keep the Beirut airport and seaport open. Hezbollah shut both down.

More translated quotations to follow.

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com. 

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