Mike's Noise

Hezbollah leader apologizes to Lebanon

Michael Totten (who has been living in and blogging from Lebanon) thinks that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, failed to convince a majority of the educated and independent-thinking Lebanese population that Hezbollah really "won" the recent war with Israel.  So to save face, Nasrallah recently declared:

“[W]e did not believe, even by one percent, that the captive operation would result in such a wide-scale war, as such a war did not take place in the history of wars. Had we known that the captive operation would result in such a war we would not have carried it out at all.”

Interesting.  That doesn't sound at all like the rhetoric of a victorious leader doing the will of God.

And RedBlueChristian has much more regarding the pyrrhic victory of Hezbollah:

Mona Fayed, a prominent Shiite academic in Beirut, wrote an article also published by An-Nahar last week. She asks: Who is a Shiite in Lebanon today? She provides a sarcastic answer: A Shiite is he who takes his instructions from Iran, terrorizes fellow believers into silence, and leads the nation into catastrophe without consulting anyone.

Ouch.

While the radical Shi'aa Islam preached by Iranian leaders certainly has a stranglehold on southern Lebanon, it is comforting to know that fundamentalism and extremism is abhorrent to many others in the rest of the nation, and that Hezbollah's $100 bill handouts are seen as an insult rather than as the blessings of Allah.

This is the only way that war in the Middle East can be peaceably averted.

ADDED: don't miss this stunning American Thinker article by Dan Gordon: Prelude to Apocalypse.  A sample:

Much has been made in the Western press of Hezb’allah’s benign social services function in Lebanon, of the hospitals and schools it has built.  Almost no notice, however, has been paid to the large numbers of these hospitals and schools which were built over its military bunkers and rocket launching sites.  This was perhaps both the most cynical and barbaric disregard for innocent civilian lives of all of Hezb’allah’s and Iran’s strategic choices.  It was also the most successful. 

The decision was predicated not on its knowledge of its enemy (Israel) but its true genius lay in its knowledge of the press.  The calculus was simple: launch a rocket from within a civilian population; if you kill Jews that’s a victory. If the Jews hit back and in so doing kill Lebanese civilians, that’s a victory. If they don’t hit back because they’re afraid to hit civilians, that’s a victory. Now repeat the process until you kill so many Jews they have to hit back and in so doing kill more Lebanese civilians.  That’s the ultimate victory, because they know that in striking just those chords exactly what music the press will play. 

Gordon concludes that the only battle won by Hezbollah was the media battle.  Otherwise, their combat strategies were ineffective against Israel, and nearly all of their fortified bunkers, missile launchers, and anti-tank weapons were either captured or destroyed by Israel.  However, the complicity of the press all but guarantees that this war will be but round one of a larger and much more deadly conflict.

Jesse Jackson headed to Middle East

According to NewsDay.com, Rev. Jesse Jackson will head to the Middle East today in order to talk with regional leaders about the Israeli-Hezbollah war and about several kidnappings that have occurred in the area during the past few months.

Whatever you think of Rev. Jackson, it is good to see him at least make an effort to secure a peaceful end to some of the region's many problems.

(h/t Michelle Malkin)

Islamofascism explained

Steven Schwartz explains the term "islamofascism" -- and how it contradicts traditional Islam -- in this timely Tech Central Station article.

It's worth reading not only for the information relative to Islam, but also for its painstakingly accurate description of fascism.  In today's world of mixed-up kooky left rhetoric, where we live in the "Fascist States of AmeriKKKa" and where "Bush = Hitler," it is refreshing to read a detailed explanation of what fascism really is.

Hint: we do not live in a fascist nation.

(h/t SmartChristian)

The "surreal rules" of warfare in the post-modern world

I'm pretty much through with writing about the Israel-Hezbollah war, but I wanted to link to these two items and briefly comment on them:

First, Iran and Syria have opened their coffers to Hezbollah, who in turn are pouring cash money into the streets of Lebanon to aid those who suffered loss as a result of Israeli bombing.

(Interestingly, it seems like the Israeli bombing offensive into Lebanon has convinced the Palestinian factions of Fatah and Hamas -- who do not have a sugar daddy like Iran -- that they should think about trying to settle their differences with Israel peaceably, because they cannot afford to be bombed back into the stone age.  But without the return of Gilat Shalit, Israel probably will not take them seriously.)

And second, Victor Davis Hanson has again written a dead-on, though rather satirical, piece that attempts to analyze the world-wide political bluster brought forth by the recent Hezbollah war and the ongoing US war in Iraq: "Surreal Rules."  Here are the new surreal rules of warfare as Hanson understands them:

1.  To win these wars, our soldiers must not die or kill.
2.  To win these wars, there must be no news of them.
3.  To win these wars, a liberal Democrat must wage them.
4.  To win these wars, we must win over the Europeans by ensuring they can always earn a profit.
5.  To win these wars, we need to outsource the job to those who can fight them with impunity.
6.  To win these wars, they should be over in 24 hours — but at all cost no more than 8 weeks.

Hanson's commentaries regarding the press, and the others around the world who killed with impunity (the Russians, the Chinese, the Iraqis, the Jordanians, etc.) are especially worth reading.

With regard to the press, the recent outrage over Photoshopped images and deliberately misleading captions related to the reporting of the Hezbollah war does not even address the heart of the problem, which is that the press has sold its soul to the terrorists in exchange for "the story."

Shortly after the American invasion of Iraq, Eason Jordan, president of CNN, explained that his network had tacitly agreed to spike or suppress news that would be damaging to Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime because not doing so would jeopardize the lives of many people.  But the silver lining to the deal was the privilege of being able to report any hostilities between America and Iraq from prime "in-country " locations; a privilege granted by Saddam Hussein.

The thugs who run the Islamic terror outfits in the Middle East are simply a new variety of mobsters, openly committing crime yet shielding themselves from justice by infiltrating the government and law enforcement agencies of their host nations, and by pacifying the civilian population with money.

In the old days, gangland mobsters kept negative press about their organizations to a minimum by cordially supplying a pair of "cement shoes" to anyone who gave them a bad rap.  Today, reporters in Middle Eastern nations are painfully aware of the fact that an RPG or car bomb awaits anyone who insults, embarrasses, or otherwise damages Islamic fundamentalists with their reporting.

They are not willing to risk their lives for the true story, yet they believe that " a story" is worth getting.  So they have made a Faustian bargain with Islamofascists: unprecedented access to "behind the lines" images and stories of the horrors of war, in exchange for positive and sympathetic coverage of their struggles.  But maybe that description is not even accurate.  In contemporary reporting, which hangs precariously on a balance of moral equivalence, there is no longer a clear understanding of what constitutes "enemy lines," because reporters have allowed the terrorists to define who the "enemy" is. 

As Hanson concludes, "To win these wars, there must be no news of them."

ADDED: AllahPundit writes at Hot Air, "... we desperately need a western army to defeat an Islamist military or paramilitary force, wherever and however and on whatever scale, if only to derail the growing conviction that fundamentalism equals invincibility. That’s an exceedingly bad belief to have taking root while democratic currents are swirling around the region."

He continues, "Perception is everything, because it’s the perception that’ll embolden groups like Hamas to start sending out new bombers. They’re not going to destroy Israel, but they can and might very well continue to bleed it. And until the Islamists take a beating the way the Nasserites took one in 1967, the Arab rank and file will be content to let them try."

Well said.  The only way to shut down the radical Islamists is for them to consider their fight to be ultimately futile.  That will only happen with the aid of a miraculous, peaceful intervention by God or a solid, crushing military defeat.  Pray for the first, of course, but be prepared for warfare as forces in the region (and at some point, the US) will no doubt try the second.

"God's promises have come true"

"God's promises have come true," so says Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  He continues:

"On one side, it's corrupt powers.... with modern bombs and planes. And on the other side is a group of pious youth relying on God."

Of course, Soviet-made anti-tank rockets and Iranian cruise missiles seem to help as well.

And so the tide has turned in the Middle East.  Israel, once thought to be invincible, has been humbled by the mighty power of Allah.  It is only a matter of time before Allah's justice is brought against the Great Satan and her evil allies, the Jews, the sons of monkeys and pigs.  Then true peace will descend upon the Holy Land.  (At least 'peace' as understood by radical Islamofascists.)
________________________________

There are still pundits who believe that this is a trap being set by the US and Israel:  Israel agrees to a cease-fire and withdraws its troops from Lebanon.  Syria and Iran immediately rearm Hezbollah.  Israel, with the help of the United States, tracks the Iranian and Syrian arms shipments to Hezbollah and continually presents this evidence to the UN, for the whole world to see.  Hezbollah strikes Israel.  Israel, armed with better intelligence and new battle plans to counter the sophisticated arms
sent by Iran, launches a coordinated attack that once and for all decimates Hezbollah.  They might even strike Syria and Iran in order to greatly hinder the abilities of those nations to keep Hezbollah fighting.

After all, Iran's intentions regarding Israel have been clearly spelled out for some time now.  Israel surely must have seen this coming.

Pragmatic thinking indicates that the only way Israel can rid itself of its enemies is to thoroughly defeat them on the battlefield.  Jordan and Egypt learned that lesson the hard way.  Syria and Iran have yet to taste a stinging defeat at the hands of the Israelis.

Whatever the outcome, there is sure to be much more bloodshed in the Middle East before it is all finished.  This is surely a time when prayer for the Middle East is badly needed.

Hezbollah - the guardian angel or the destroying angel?

Of all the news to come out of yesterday's Israel-Hezbollah cease fire, this item is particularly noteworthy -- Israel Humbled By Arms From Iran:

After one of the fiercest confrontations of the war, Israeli forces took the small town of Ghandouriyeh, east of the southern city of Tyre, on Sunday evening, hours before a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations took effect.

... Outside one of the town's two mosques a van was found filled with green casings about 6ft long. The serial numbers identified them as AT-5 Spandrel anti-tank missiles. The wire-guided weapon was developed in Russia but Iran began making a copy in 2000.

Beyond no-man's land, in the east of the village, was evidence of Syrian-supplied hardware. In a garden next to a junction used as an outpost by Hizbollah lay eight Kornet anti-tank rockets, described by Brig Mickey Edelstein, the commander of the Nahal troops who took Ghandouriyeh, as "some of the best in the world".

Written underneath a contract number on each casing were the words: "Customer: Ministry of Defence of Syria. Supplier: KBP, Tula, Russia."

Brig Edelstein said: "If they tell you that Syria knew nothing about this, just look. This is the evidence. Proof, not just talk."

Since these weapons were not from the evil US, this fact has to be hard for liberals to swallow.

It also illustrates what seems to be a previously unheard-of weakness in the Israeli defense strategy: the failure of Israeli intelligence to detect these weapons and the failure of Israeli commanders to develop battlefield plans around their anticipated use.  Ralph Peters wondered about this a few weeks ago, and his concerns now seem to be well-founded.

It is more than obvious that Hezbollah is no longer a rag-tag bunch of "freedom fighters" armed only with rifles and "hope."  They are a professionally-trained terrorism force armed with the latest millitary technology.  And if we value our own lives, we should we should consider every other terrorist organization, especially Al Qaeda, to be their equal.

It appears that Muslims have decided on a Viet Nam-like protracted, low-intensity war strategy for dealing with Israel rather than direct military combat under the flag of a sovereign nation.  The Lebanon campaign is looking more and more like a Syria-Iran controlled "unwinnable" proxy war whose sole aim is to wear down the Israelis and break their will to fight. 

Iran and Syria have also helped Hezbollah develop a (so far) winning political strategy by separating their military and political wings.  The political wing of Hezbollah has completely infiltrated Lebanese politics and the infrastructure of southern Lebanon.  With foreign money, the political wing of Hezbollah builds roads and schools and hospitals, and in the eyes of the UN and Europe this qualifies them as guardian angels of the Lebanese people.   And it seems to be working, since a large portion of the Lebanese people seem willing to ignore the destroying angels of Hezbollah's military wing in order to keep the blessings of its political wing.

But don't let the humanitarian works of Hezbollah fool you.  If their goal (actually Syria's goal and Iran's goal) is accomplished -- and especially if it involves the inconceivable element of an Israeli disarmament -- then Iran and Syria will hit Israel with everything they have, including nukes.

The question is, will the US and the world community just stand by and watch, or will they step forward and do something about it?

Whatever happens, Christians should pray for peace and pray that the hearts of the Muslims are changed in such a way that warfare and suffering will be avoided.

(JayTea at WizBang has come up with another good metaphor for Hezbollah.)

Cease-fires and civil wars

Today was the first day of a UN-negotiated "cease-fire" in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Surprise, surprise - it didn't last long.

And not only that -- are you sitting down? -- Hezbollah declared "victory."  Then, Hezbollah leaders ordered the Lebanese Army to cease disarming Hezbollah terrorists, a key provision of the cease-fire agreement.  Was anyone really surprised by all of this?

I wonder, with all of the talk in the air about a non-avoidable civil war in Iraq, why no one is talking about civil war in Lebanon.  Hezbollah is a "mafia" that basically controls the entire infrastructure of southern Lebanon.  Why wouldn't it be at least reasonable to assume that Hezbollah, emboldened by their "victory" over Israel and now firmly convinced that Allah is on their side, would not consider waging war against the largely impotent soldiers of the fragile government of Lebanon, thus completing their take-over of the entire nation and providing a much more stable environment for operatives from Syria and Iran?  Who is going to stop them?  The UN?

Some pundits have speculated that Israel is simply trying to call Hezbollah's bluff, knowing that Hezbollah will never surrender its mission to destroy Israel.  They will simply wait until Hezbollah fires its next volley of missiles into Israel, then hit Hezbollah again.  Perhaps they will keep doing this until Hezbollah's ability to make war is eliminated.

I don't know what the answer is, but I do know this -- no one else is going to lift a finger to really help Israel.  The US will provide moral support and arms perhaps, but Israel alone will do the fighting.  They have been betrayed too many times by empty UN promises and broken cease-fires not to have learned their lesson. 

And speaking of Israel, via a link from Sissy Willis, I found this thought-provoking analysis of why Europe and the UN -- both perfect embodiments of post-modern liberalism -- see Israel as an oppressor and an enemy of humanity.  The author concludes with this summary:

... Success is anathema to the Left because it puts an end to victimhood; without victims the Left has no reason to exist. In the eyes of the Left's supporters, Israel's great accomplishments meant that the country no longer qualified as a victim. Israel, through being successful, effectively turned its back on the role chosen for it by the Left.

From the Left's rigidly dialectical viewpoint, the world is made up solely of victims and oppressors, and if Israel is no longer a victim it has to be an oppressor.

One has to wonder how many Israelis or Jews would have died during the last 60 years if Israel had continued to play victim, and let Arab nations like Syria and Egypt and Jordan destroy the Jewish state.  In that case, we might have seen yet another Diaspora, with Jewish refugees huddled in camps scattered across Europe, perhaps in worse shape than the UN's chosen perpetual victims, the Palestinians.

But history reminds us that it was the Palestinians, duped by the promise of Israel's annihilation at the hands of Arab nations, who rejected the repeated offers of citizenship and peaceful coexistence extended by Israel.

Had history taken a different course, the roles of the Palestinians and the Israelis might have been reversed.  Perhaps there would have been less "war," but there certainly would not have been less death and suffering.

Is Islam or Islamofascism our true enemy?

You should read DJ Drummond's thought-provoking post at WizBang: "Islam Is (Still) Not The Enemy."  Drummond (who describes himself as a Southern Baptist) has a number of Muslim friends, and wrote this post in response to opinions that they have expressed:

I also discovered that many Muslims are unsure of American motives. We value freedom, but that freedom protects pornography and obscenity. We have laws, but the rich seem to get away, literally, with murder. We offer products at good price all around the world, but it seems that we inject our culture into everything we touch. Muslims are not keen to have their daughters be seen as sex objects, their men judged mainly on their ability to make money, and their families mocked for practicing traditional beliefs and holding closely to their culture. When America speaks to the world, Muslims worry that we are giving orders, not making suggestions. So, most Muslims are reluctant to appear too supportive of America. Even those who agree with the American way of life worry that the Arab world would misunderstand them.

Hezbollah using Christians for human shields

Blogger Dawn Eden references this press release from Christian Solidarity International:

Hezbollah is using Christian villages to shield its military operations against Israel. Southern Lebanese Christian villages, such as Ain Ebel, Rmeish, Alma Alshaab, and others are being used by Hezbollah terrorists for launching missile attacks.

"Hezbollah is repeating the same pattern that it practiced against Israel in 1996," says former South Lebanese Army commander, Col. Charbel Barkat. "Hezbollah is hiding among civilian populations and launching attacks behind human shields."

A Christian from the village of Ain Ebel, who is nameless because he fears retribution by Hezbollah, discovered Hezbollah guerillas were setting up a launcher to fire Katyusha rockets from the rooftop of his home. Ignoring his pleas to stop, they fired the missiles. He immediately gathered his family and fled home, which indeed was bombed and destroyed 15 minutes later by an Israeli air strike.

In addition to having their homes commandeered for launching Hezbollah's attacks, there have been attempts to obstruct Christians from fleeing their villages.

The press release also includes this bit which, if true, says alot about dhimmitude, the state in which non-Muslims function under Muslim rule:

Christian villages suffer from extensive neglect of infrastructure under Hezbollah rule. Even though Christians pay the taxes for basic government services, such as road repair and other utilities, these services are rarely provided. On the other hand, Shiite villages supportive of Hezbollah do not pay taxes and benefit from infrastructure development and new residential and business construction.

They conclude:

Christian Solidarity International laments the destruction and violence inflicted upon the Lebanese country and acknowledges that the international community must play a role in Lebanon's restoration. It also recognizes that if Hezbollah is not disarmed, the future of Lebanese Christians and all pro-democracy supporters will be bleak. "The Lebanese government should focus their rage against Hezbollah, not Israel," notes Tom Harb, secretary general for the International Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559 (UNSCR 1559).

CSI calls for the U.N. to establish a politically independent commission to investigate Hezbollah's violations of the Geneva Convention's provision for the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1). This protocol prohibits the use of civilians as military shields. CSI also calls on the U.N. Security Council to deploy without further delay an international force in southern Lebanon and eastern Lebanon to facilitate a cease fire between Israel and Hezbollah, stop the flow of arms from Syria to Hezbollah, and assist the Lebanese government in fulfilling its obligation to disarm Hezbollah in accordance with UNSCR 1559.

Sounds like a much better plan than the usual "lets go be human shields ourselves" pablum that we often hear from liberal Christian groups.  Let's keep these folks in our prayers.

"How Do We Fight?"

Blogging over at VodkaPundit, Will Collier asks a tough question:

One of the more pressing questions in the ongoing war against Islamofascism is, how do we fight these people?

It's not just an academic question. The opponents of classical liberal civilization have become adept at using the West's principles against us. The Geneva Conventions, for instance, were originally designed to protect both civilian populations and members of lawful armies from mistreatment. Terrorists from Lebanon to Somalia to Afghanistan, with no small amount of help from jurists and journalists in the West, have learned to turn those principles on their heads, regularly using civilian populations as shields from attack, only to turn and claim "atrocity" when attacks are carried out against terrorists hiding amist civilians ...

Gunmen in Mogadishu learned early that Americans do not attack women and children; they quite literally hid behind civilian women while shooting at US troops as a result. What then can the response be from the civilized world?

Lori Byrd at WizBang replied,

I sometimes wonder if we had gone into Iraq with no regard for innocent human life, if our troops might be home by now. But we do honor innocent life, and that sometimes is to our disadvantage. Our enemies know this and they use it against those in our armed forces everyday.

And Ed Morrisey, writing at The Examiner, notes the obvious disadvantages of a war in which one side "plays by the rules," and the other side doesn't:

In order to defeat terrorists, Israel will have to engage them when they attack, wherever that happens to be. In their effort to zealously apply the rules of war to only one side, the global community doesn’t act to reduce the tragedies of civilian casualties, it increases them by encouraging Hezbollah’s tactics. The terrorists counted on precisely this response, which dictates their tactics and strategy to this moment.

The choice that most pro-war conservative factions believe is necessary is to accept the collateral deaths of citizens as an ugly but inevitible part of a war that is fought against an enemy that unscrupulously uses human shields against their foes.  War cannot be ended simply because of the barbarity of the enemy; a victory for terrorists and the true forces of evil (such as Iran and North Korea) means the doom of Western civilization.

But is there a viable alternative to this kind of war?  I surely hope so.

As a Christian, I would like to ask my readers who pray to sincerely pray for true peace in the Middle East, in which all sides put down their arms and choose to resolve their differences without bloodshed or humiliation.