According to the New York Times, Lebanon is now becoming a militant haven. This is the end result of last summer's battle between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israel, with Washington's complete backing, not only handed a major victory to Hezbollah but delivered a crushing blow to Lebanon's fledgling democracy. For no good reason at all, Israeli jets and warships set about demolishing the country's infrastructure - airports, power plants, even military installations. Their lunatic leaders - Olmert and Bush - got it in their pea brains that inflicting great hardship on the Lebanese people and their legitimate government would turn them against Hezbollah.
What happened? Israel made the Lebanese government, at the time our best hope for peace in that country, look ineffectual and irrelevant. It was Hezbollah that was seen to be fighting for all of Lebanon against Israel. It was Hezbollah that drove the Israelis back. It was Hezbollah that claimed victory - over Israel and over the very government of Lebanon.
"Today, the Lebanese are increasingly divided by rolls of razor wire spread across roads and wrapped around buildings and homes. They are separated by military checkpoints that tie up traffic. Nearly a dozen members of Parliament have left the country, fearful they will be killed. Some United Nations officials have moved from their heavily guarded offices in the center of Beirut to smaller, less obvious space deep behind a sea of razor wire.
"But Lebanese officials say they have had shootouts with several clusters of foreign Islamic militants, some of whom had clear ties with Mr. Abssi’s group. On June 7 a car-bomb factory was discovered in the Bekaa Valley in which two Mercedeses and a Jeep were being prepared for explosives. The operation was run by a Saudi and two Syrians who had fought in Iraq and their technique had some sophistication, including the use of fiberglass shields in a possible attempt to hide the explosives from detection devices, two Lebanese Army officials said.
"'We have no sleeper cells in Lebanon,' said a Lebanese Army official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 'They are all waking up.'
"Opposition leaders are pessimistic about a deal being reached that could end the political impasse. 'If we don’t form a national unity government from now until September, I think we are heading to chaos,' said Trad Hamadeh, who stepped down as labor minister last fall and is associated with Hezbollah. 'The Constitution will no longer be implemented. There will be no cabinet able to control and run the country. This means the country will be in a state of no laws, the loss of the system.'
"That is just the kind of state in which militant groups could thrive."
And, for those of us at home, let's remember who gave his unequivocal, unqualified backing to this madness - noneother than our very own furious leader, Stephen Harper. He's every bit as much a dolt as Bush or Olmert.
