 |
 |
||
|
|
|||
 |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Lebanon, the Imaginary Nation "Before the Israeli attack, Lebanon no longer existed, it was no more than a hologram." This is what the Lebanese journalist, Michael Behe, wrote on July 30. His commentary was posted on the website of the Metula News Agency in Beirut. To understand the Lebanese situation, it helps to know that, despite a history that dates back to biblical times, modern Lebanon was literally the invention of Western powers, England and France, after WWI in 1920. It became independent of France in the late 1940s. Then, in the 1970s, the Palestinians, driven out of Jordan and elsewhere, moved in. Doing what they do best, they started a civil war and, in 1978, after a Palestine Liberation Organization attack killed 37 Israeli civilians, Israel launched an offensive to drive them away from its northern border.
On February 14, 2005, Rafiq al-Hariri, a former prime minister of Lebanon, was assassinated in Beirut. His death points back to Damascus. He had become an outspoken opponent to the Syrian occupation of Lebanon that had begun 1976, a year after the outbreak of the civil war. In the years that followed, thousands of Lebanese were brutally imprisoned or killed by Syrian occupiers. By 1991, the domination of Lebanon by Syria had been formalized with a defense and security agreement. This was followed two years later by an economic agreement in which Lebanon’s true status as a colony of Syria was made official. Hariri’s assassination generated a rally in which the streets of Beirut filled with anti-Syrian Lebanese. It was dubbed the "Cedar Revolution" and lasted about five minutes. Days later, on March 8, 2005 Hezbollah was able to put over a million other Lebanese into the streets. This was followed by an election that was so gerrymandered only pro-Syrian candidates had any chance of being elected. Hezbollah had reinvented itself as a political party. Under intense international pressure, Syria prudently removed its troops from Lebanon after the Hariri assassination. An earlier 2004 United Nations Security Council resolution 1559 demanding this action had been ignored. The various elected governments of Lebanon had turned a blind eye to the growth of Hezbollah. Funded and trained by Iran and supplied through Syria, Hezbollah was in charge. As Behe noted, there were parts of Beirut where its own citizens, including its police and army, were forbidden access. "A square measuring a kilometer wide, a capital within the capital, permanently guarded by the (Hezbollah) army, possessing its own institution, its schools, its tribunals, its radio, its television and above all, its government." It was precisely this part of Beirut the Israeli air force destroyed. The rest of the city, as of July 30, was left intact. The problem for Lebanon is the problem for the world. Muslims resist or are restrained from living in a modern sovereign, secular nation. Iraq was secular because a dictator made it that way. Turkey was secular because its modern founder, Ataturk, turned it toward Europe in 1925 and away from Muslim traditions and governance. Modern Lebanon's problem is demography. In 1943 when its constitution was established, a "national pact" insured representation by both Christians and Muslims with top offices being allocated to each group. Today, Muslims are the largest part of Lebanon’s population, easily 75% or more. The Lebanese government failed its citizens and the Lebanese who voted Hezbollah politicians into power betrayed their nation. Lebanon today is an imaginary nation.
Destroyed by the Palestinians led by Yassir Arafat, occupied by Syria, Lebanon is now nothing more than the tool of Iranians who are busy preparing their own people for a war with the Israelis, the British, and the Americans.
And how long are we going to wait around until they achieve that? How long was Israel supposed to wait while Lebanon/Hezbollah/Iran continued to kidnap its soldiers and shoot rockets into their homeland? The Palestinians of Hamas were enough of nuisance in their own right, but Hezbollah was a real army and one that has been trained and armed by the Iranians. Regarding the whole of the Middle East, what sympathy are we to have for people who indoctrinate their children from birth to hate the Israelis and to live for no better reason than to die in battle? The last people who did this were the Nazis. In the last world war, America expended years and thousands of lives to win against the dictatorships of Germany and Japan. In the end, we demanded and got "unconditional surrender." That is what we are going to need in the Middle East to free ourselves from the threat of the Islamic Jihad. Enjoy these weekly commentaries? You can have a new collection of them when you purchase Alan Caruba’s new book, "Right Answers." Just published! To learn more, click here. India is more than the Taj Mahal Ask most Americans what they know about India and it’s likely they will say it’s where the Taj Mahal is located. Few know it is a mausoleum, albeit a beautiful one. In late June, Time magazine put the nation on its cover with the headline "India Inc." and an article by Michael Elliot citing the way "the world’s largest democracy is becoming a global power." India was back in the news on July 11 after Islamist terrorists placed bombs on Mumbai (Bombay) commuter trains and killed nearly 200 people. India, as a modern nation, has been living with terrorism and war since it became a self-governing member of the British Commonwealth in 1947 and a democratic republic in 1950. The United Kingdom had given India a constitution, but had also partitioned it, creating Pakistan. More than twelve million Hindus and Muslims crossed back and forth to seek refuge from one another. Communal fighting took the lives of 200,000 in the process. Today, home to well over a billion people, India is 81% Hindu with a Muslim population of 100 million that represents 13%. Minorities at 2% include the Christians and Sikhs. It is the second most populous nation in the world. As one of the world’s oldest civilizations it has known its share of conquerors. In the eighth century, Arab Muslims arrived and later Turkish Muslims, gaining control of northern India where Mogul emperors ruled from 1526 to 1857. Today, India is under siege by some twenty insurgent groups that have been taking credit for attacks since 2000, averaging more than one a day during the past year. Most prominent among them is the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba that advocates Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan and Islamic rule of all India. They are joined by Jaish-e-Mohammad. There are several communist groups and others devoted to separatist causes. India and the United States have drawn closer to one another in recent times, sharing a common enemy, but also increasingly sharing economic bonds as well. It is no accident that 9-11 and 7-11 were attacks on major financial centers, New York and Mumbai. Despite the deep enmity between Pakistan and India, ironically both must grapple with the Jihadists that threaten their governments. Both have gone to war in the past over Kashmir, both have nuclear weapons, and the leaders of both nations have been cautiously inching toward some form of peaceful accommodation in recent years. Hindus, whose religion tends toward pacifism, have proven to be as belligerent as any other group and, politically, they have guided the growing economic power after a long period of stagnation under the socialist political rule of Nehru and the Gandis. There is no question that, despite widespread poverty affecting an estimated two-thirds of its population, life in India is improving. In 2005, per capita income in India was $3,300. By contrast, in China it was $6,800. Sharing a long border, these two nations are emerging as major centers of power in the twenty-first century. India is so vast in size it faces daunting challenges. In addition to widespread poverty, it has more people infected with HIV/AIDS than any other nation in the world. It needs to improve its dilapidated infrastructure of transportation and electrical networks. It has a lot of catching up to do with its neighbor China, which began to transform its economy in the late 1970s while India only began in the 1990s. What is occurring and is obscured by the headlines that scream of some new Jihadist attack, is the increasing realization among both advanced and developing nations that the common denominator of the Islamists is their effort to destroy the economic centers of the both the West and every other nation. There can be no progress anywhere if the movement characterized as al Qaeda and bearing dozens of other names, is not isolated and destroyed. Thus, despite being blamed in part for the 7-11 Mumbai attacks, even Pakistan’s General Musharref condemned them as a "heinous act." Pakistan, partitioned to be a home for Muslims who did not want to live in India, has its own problems with the Jihadists, but has also been very accommodating to them in the past. The leaders of both India and Pakistan understand that Osama bin Laden wants to foment a war between these two nuclear powers on the Asian subcontinent. Walid Phares, a senior fellow with the Foundation of Democracies, a Washington, D.C. think tank, has pointed out that America’s declared enemy, Osama bin Laden, has also identified Hindus as equally vile and called for their blood. Barely 60 miles from downtown Washington, "a number of American-born believers in jihad and followers of al Qaeda’s ideology were training in urban combat" as a cell with ties to the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terrorists in India. The cliché is that it’s a small world. And it’s true. The attacks in Mumbai mirror the attacks in London, Madrid, and a long list of nations worldwide. The Center needs your donation to maintain this website and continue his communications programs. If you prefer to send a check, please make it payable to The Caruba Organization, 28 West Third Street, Suite 1321, South Orange, NJ 07079. Thank you! |
||||||||||||||||||||
In 1982, Israel again invaded in response to attacks. Christian Lebanese troops entered Palestinian refugee camps and massacred hundreds. The era of the Palestinians was over, but by the next decade its successor, Hezbollah, was routinely shelling Israel, provoking Israeli military responses. After a long occupation of southern Lebanon, in 2000 Israel decided to withdraw its troops.