strontium90’s den

August 14, 2006

3 Hours to Ceasefire

Filed under: Politics, War in Lebanon — strontium90 @ 5:00 am

Never crossed my mind that I’d see Israel this weak and desperate!

You see, even the most casual news reader can tell the huge inner turmoil between the IDF and the Israeli government and most noticeably in the goverment itself after yesterday’s happenings. Descending from pround promises to crush Hizbullah a month ago to considering negotiations today and the deputy prime minister’s questioning of the usefulness of military action after an entire month of full-fledged war are not things we’d expect from Israel, are they? Or are these “new rules to the game” some people have been talking about have been set indeed? I doubt that, although I hope and would be very pleased if they were set indeed. I think it’s just that “someone” wants to see “few” displacements in Israel including and beyond the cabinet..

Sure I wasn’t here in 1967, 1973 and 1982 but as I was growing up I, like everyone else, was aware of the “legacy” of the IDF, its power and tactical superiority over all armies in the area, so as much as I’m glad to see it being dragged through shit I’m still amazed at what I’m seeing.

In any case, ceasefire’s supposed to start in three hours hence, and we’d better prepare oursleves for a Sharon-style surprise.. though I doubt that too; the IDF seems to be capable of little beyond killing children.

July 28, 2006

Al-Qaeda! Stay away from our mountains!

Filed under: Politics, War in Lebanon — strontium90 @ 11:00 pm

I’m sure many of those who followed Al-Zawahiri’s speech (broadcast yesterday) in Lebanon, Palestine and Syria felt how awfully irrelevent his remarks were.

Addessing Hizbullah in particular he strived to use common language that would seemingly cast historical Sunni/Shiit hostilities aside in an attempt to picture Lebanese and Palestinian resistance as part of a “global Islamic rise” against a “brutal western civilization led by the US”, but he missed an important fact: His target audience just cannot relate to this, not only because more than %40 of Lebanese people aren’t Muslims in the first place but because Al-Qaeda and its ideologies inherently don’t have any social foundation and public support in this part of the Arab world. In fact, Al-Qaeda doesn’t have any substantial social background on any spot not even in those areas where it seems to be more active, and that’s what puts it in a rather weak position and questions the validity of its “mission”.

Recent polls released by the Beirut Center for Research and Information don’t surprise anyone; currently %87 of Lebanese people support Hizbullah’s resistance, and of non-Shiite and non-Muslim communities in Lebanon %89 of Sunnis along with %80 of Christians and %80 of Druze voted support for Hizbullah.

Filed under: War in Lebanon — strontium90 @ 5:00 pm

Only the dead have seen an end to war.
~George Santayana

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