Pity the Shia
Because they are all, rather unfortunately, tarred with Hezbollah now.
The failure of Hezbollah’s latest effort to tilt the political and military balance in its favor was visible in the eyes of the mild inhabitants of the Shia village of Qomatiyeh on Tuesday, as they buried a young Hezbollah man killed by Druze fighters. According to the villagers, the young man, Suleiman Jaafar, was first wounded then executed by members of the Progressive Socialist Party. Such frightful ferocity will greet Hezbollah in every hostile location it would ever wish to control.
There is great poignancy in the fate of the people of Qomatiyeh. With Kayfoun, the village is one of two Shia enclaves in the predominantly Druze and Christian Aley district. The inhabitants, far more than their brethren in the southern suburbs or the South, must on a daily basis juggle between a past in which they coexisted with their non-Shia neighbors and a present and future in which the neighbors view them as an existential threat. That story written large may soon be the story of Lebanon’s Shia community after the mad coup attempt organized by Hezbollah last week. In the past decade and a half, Hezbollah has injected regional animosities and an antagonistic and totalistic ideology of confrontation into tens of thousands of Shia homes, quarters, towns and villages where such attitudes have no place.
Via Michael Totten.
Comments
| 15 May 2008, 4:14 pm |
I have just been informed, on a publically available internet newsgroup, that my pointing out that the vast majority of Iraqis are Shia and that they overwhelmingly (along with the Kurds) supported the overthrow of Saddam doesn’t actually matter since apparently the only Iraqs that actually count are Sunni, and what they alone want is what is important. The same people are now quoting opinion polls from Sunni alone as evidence that Saddam should have been left in place.
This is from a bunch of “alledgely main-stream” US Democrats and so-called “progressives”, Gene.
| 16 May 2008, 12:03 am |
Unfortunately it appears that Hezbollah is winning in Lebanon. The Lebanese Cabinet has caved in to Hezbollah’s demands and repealed the two actions that caused last week fighting. How long Hezbollah will remain top dog in Lebanon is uncertain, but for now no one seems willing to challenge them and their Syrian & Iranian Masters.
| 16 May 2008, 12:06 am |
Morgoth, thanks for that information about the misuse of poll numbers in Iraq. Have to remember that Iraqis do not count to most westerners except when they can be used to support their viewpoint.
| 16 May 2008, 10:59 am |
The failure of Hezbollah’s latest effort to tilt the political and military balance in its favor
Wot?
Admittedly, Hezbollah’s failure to make a dent in the Druze militia was a disappointment, but the whole thing has succeeded in reducing the Lebanese government into just another faction, and elevated Hez to be almost an equal, confirming its position as a state within a state.
The whole thing was a victory for the forced of chaos, not a failure.
| 16 May 2008, 2:39 pm |
After having read the whole article, I am sorry, it presents an inversion of reality. I simply can’t take this article seriously.
Hezbollah and their paymasters, Iran, came out of this strengthened and with the Lebanese government humiliated, unable to control it’s own territory.
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