Hizbullah's efficiency leaves Lebanese government behind

[bemildred]

HARET HREIK: Two weeks after Israeli bombs stopped falling on southern Beirut, Hizbullah has nearly completed its survey of the battered suburbs, far ahead of government efforts to assess the damage inflicted by the month-long conflict.

Teams from the group's reconstruction organization, Jihad al-Bina, have set up quarters in one of the few Hizbullah buildings in Haret Hreik spared by the Israeli bombardments.

There they can be seen poring over maps divided into grids by red and green lines, indicating neighborhoods that have been either completely destroyed or only damaged.

"We have divided the southern suburb into 86 zones, and each has been entrusted to a team consisting of an engineer and three assistants in charge of evaluating the damage," said Ghanem Slim, who is coordinating the assessment effort.

Daily Star

[IndianaGreen]

1. Perhaps it is because Hezbollah is a popular movement with close

ties to the people it represents. The much-hailed Cedar Revolution died as the result of Israeli bombs and American duplicity. Moderates are always the first casualty of war!

[bemildred]

4. Could have used a few of these guys in New Orleans, eh? nt

[ronnie624]

6. I understand your point,

and I realize that many consider Hizbullah a terrorist organization, and I know they have employed terrorist tactics on numerous occasions, (as have Israel and the U.S. on a much larger scale) but I'm not sure about what I would consider politically radical or moderate for a region that has been, since the discovery of oil there, the target of the most intensive imperialist campaign in the history of human "civilization".

I do not mean to seem cantankerous, I just wanted to point out that The peoples of the Middle East have been the subjects of western aggression for many years, and their resistance seems, to me, rather tempered compared to what has been done to them in the struggle by Western nations to possess that which does not belong to them.

[FlavaKreemSnak]

10. You have said the basic problem, it is a very touchy subject

But the points of view are just so different about this and it is a very controversial issue. A lot of the people who live in those countries consider that the oil belongs to them, but we and the other western nations consider that it belongs to us because of the point of view that the west, and especially America, is the boss of everything, so if there is another country that has something that we want, our point of view is that they should hand it over and be like all happy and grateful that they have anything we would want.

But their point of view is just really really different from that, and that is why we have to spend so much money to help them have pro-American leaders and clampdowns on the people who have that different point of view, which a lot of us don't really think about. I know I didn't think about it for a long time, but the people there don't really see themselves as inferior or that their oil or whatever belongs to us because we are westerners. In their point of view, we are just these criminals that kill them to steal their stuff, but here that point of view is considered anti-American and terrorist ideology.

So you have to be careful, you can make a lot of people seriously mad if you go around saying that it belongs to them.

[Karenina]

20. You and Ronnie seem to grasp

two very central issues that Americans-at-large do not. First, how is radical defined, by whom and under what circumstances?

Second, although your average white westerner's default template is that Arabs are inferior, THEY DO NOT SEE THEMSELVES THAT WAY. THEY DO NOT CONSIDER THEMSELVES INFERIOR NOR WILL THEY ACCEPT THE WASP OR JEWISH DEFINITION OF THEM AS SUCH.

You've made this point, Flava, in many of your posts and I have yet to see anyone remark on your very astute observation. However, if we are EVER to have the wisdom to untangle this vicious cycle of violence and blame the constructs of racism will have to be dismantled.

[brentspeak]

2. Hizbullah was very efficient hiding behind human shields to protect itself

"Hi, we're Hizbullah. Mind if we barge in and use your home full of children to launch our rocket attacks? You do mind? Have a bullet in the head, courtesy of Hizbullah."

[bemildred]

3. Firing rockets inside houses is not recommended. nt

[IndianaGreen]

5. How often did Israel had school girls autographing artillery shells?

Nice of you repeating the BFEE lie about human shields. Got a reputable link?

Thanks to oblivious for posting this:

Photo caption: Israeli girls write messages on a shell at a heavy artillery position near Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel, next to the Lebanese border, Monday, July 17, 2006.(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)







http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2478290#2478931

[HannibalBarca]

11. Those pictures have been debunked

...the girls were encouraged to write on the shells by the waiting jackals, excuse me, press. This was the first time in days they had emerged from a bunker while their town was hammered by rockets. The target of their text is Nasrallah as you can see on the pictures not innocent Lebanese. People should attempt to stem their willingness to label Israelis as bloodthirsty monsters. Children should not be used in this way and the journalists and parents who encouraged/let this occur should be held accountable.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

13. Link to that please? -nt

[MrPrax]

15. Um...

you figure you debunked this or something?

I don't think anyone really believed that 8 year old girls would take it upon themselves to write on the missiles without encouragement from adults?

Who encouraged the adults to drop the bombs? Journalists and parents?

um...too much

[breakaleg]

21. debunked how?

the only way to "debunk" that picture is to say it was taken on a lot in Hollywood and those were actors. Your "explanation" is not an excuse. It happened.

[cali]

14. Horrible as those images are

you open yourself to hypocricy when bringing it up. I'm sure you realize that there are many photos of small Palestinian children dressed as miniature suicide bombers, and waving guns. It happens on both sides. It's repugnant. Hate filters down to the youngest.

[IndianaGreen]

22. Hatred doesn't happen in a vacuum, cali

Nearly 40 years since the June War, Israel is less safe today than it has been since 1948. As Americans we know that US foreign policy is responsible for creating victims and enemies throughout the world. The Jewish Diaspora has a cultural block that prevents many people from looking at Israel for what it is: a sovereign nation with some serious problems, many of them self-inflicted.

As an American, I criticize my country because I know that if we continue on this path, there won't be much of a country left to save. Many of those that disagree with people that hold views similar to mine, may think that we are treasonous un-American terrorist enablers.

As a Jew, I criticize Israel because I know that if things continue the way they have for the last 39 years, there won't be much of an Israel left to save. Many of those that disagree with people that hold views similar to mine, may think that we are self-hating borderline anti-Semitic terrorist enablers.

How long can people go on beating their heads against the wall before they realize that the only thing they are accomplishing is getting a concussion? We have to find another way of approaching the problems of the Middle East!

[wellst0nev0ter]

8. Human Shields?

Israelis should be the last people to complain about the use of human shields.

[LivingInTheBubble]

17. your daydreams are not reality.

reality is hezbollah first defended lebanon and is now helping rebuild it.

[The Stranger]

18. 1000 dead from precision guided munitions can only mean intent.

If you bomb civilian apartment buildings, you are going to kill civilians.

Don't do it. Stop. Desist. Obey the law. Do the right thing.

[DoYouEverWonder]

24. There was a report on NPR the other day

from a journalist in Lebanon, who said that there is no evidence at all of Hizbullah using people's homes and children.

Don't believe everything BushCo wants you to believe.

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. Hiz seems to know how to turn lemons into lemonade.

While everybody else has got their underpants wrapped tightly around their ankles trying to figure out who's to blame for what.

[FlavaKreemSnak]

9. They have been giving people cash to build new houses

I think this is going to make Israel very mad. They didn't bomb the houses so people could just build new ones. They will be mad because they will have to re-bomb the same places over again to destroy the new houses.

Or maybe they will make the European troops go take the money away before the people can get the new houses built. Either way, you can tell from a lot of the articles that it has already made us mad, I don't mean us on DU, I mean our government, and also Israel because they say it is propaganda to try to make the pro-American leaders we helped put in and also Israel look bad.

[Igel]

12. It helps when you have a network in the area.

Since the Lebanese government had little control in the area, they have to import people that have no trust, and no experience in those regions.

Meanwhile, the de facto government that occupied the area does.

Religious zeal helps, too. Bureaucrat versus zealot, I'd prefer the bureaucrat. Just as dangerous, but the longer time span needed gives you some breathing room.

[Dhalgren]

16. I think that when your whole life has been blown to hell for no

reason at all, your home gone, your loved ones scattered, killed or wounded, you livelihood destroyed - all for no reason - I think that the first person who comes by and offers a helping hand will be considered a friend. That hand will be taken, and gladly so. Often we look at these things in a detached, clinical or political way, when in the reality on the ground it is some one drowning and someone offering salvation...

[Igel]

19. That, no doubt is true.

But when reporters say they have to get Hezbollah permission to go into sections of Beirut, I wonder what the status was of government workers for the first week.

One can hit the ground running in areas that it's administered, able to hand out several years' income to many people, money derived from Iranian and overseas backers, and with planning done on the basis of that backing; the sovereign government has to get permission from a private militia before it can start from scratch, and is stuck with local tax revenue and what is officially given to it, something that still has to be worked out.

Only a sucker would bet on the winner of that race. And only a sucker would assume that the Lebanese government was sovereign.

[eccles12]

23. Maybe we can strike a deal with Hizbollah to take over Katrina

rebuilding in return they lay down their arms and become a legitimate ruling government in Lebanon?