"It's Like a Phish Concert for Terrorists"
Michael J. Totten
BEIRUT - While Hezbollah occupied the Beirut city center in an attempt to bring down the government, I teamed up with my American friend Noah Pollak, who works as assistant editor at Azure Magazine in Jerusalem, and took a trip to Hezbollah's stronghold in South Lebanon. We wanted to survey the devastation from the July War and see if we could find civilians who had been used as human shields by the Party of God.
Before we went to the south, however, Noah wanted to meet Hezbollah members downtown. He had never been to Lebanon before, and I was happy to show him around and introduce him to the "party" that fired missiles in our direction when we covered the July War together from the Israeli side of the border.
He arrived in Beirut at 2:00 a.m. His taxi driver took him alongside the edge of Hezbollah's downtown encampment. Even in the middle of the night demonstrators were out the streets screaming slogans.
"What are they saying?" Noah said to the driver.
The driver rolled down his window and told the demonstrators an American was in the car and wanted to know what they were saying. One of the men in the street came up to the taxi.
"We will cut Seniora," he said, referring to Lebanon's elected prime minister. "We will cut him!"
Noah laughed to himself and knew he had come to Lebanon at the right time.
"I like drinking and chasing girls and having a good time. We don’t want to be like Iran. If Hezbollah tried to make us like Iran, that would be a big problem for us."
Yeah, the problem with that region is how religious people are....
Democracy! Whisky! Sexy!
Those boys are backing the wrong horse on all three counts.
[sigh]
Can you imagine how much better Iraq and the region would be right now if certain parties in this country--and a few others--had actually tried to help rather than constantly vilifying the administration in Washington, and the effort as a whole, as an awful, wicked, lost cause run by evil incompetents? It's so frickin' sad.
The MSM would never in a million years produce reporting this good.
It's good that people like MT exist to try to shed some light for us. It'll be a shame when I see his head on a pike somewhere, crazy bastard.
This guy is great.
Barnes
You've been a tireless advocate of a noble yet doomed cause for which I once harbored inflated hopes.
I don't disagree with you that there is a substantial chunk of the American electorate that is disgracefully vested in failure in Iraq, but I don't think you can rule out the possibility that a part of the world that has managed to avoid organic democratization this long might simply not - for CULTURAL, NOT RACIAL OR GENETIC, reasons - be capable of adopting it.
Some Iraqis have tried with tremendous courage to make it work. A ruthless and determined minority have killed the baby in its cradle.
Consider the possibility that what's really going on is that the problems are grossly exaggerated due to a press corps that cares only about a gloom and doom narrative that it's been selling from day one. Consider that the actual facts on the ground have mostly only changed for the better. You wouldn't know it from the news accounts, but when you look at most of the actual measurable hard data, the story becomes quite different.
Mind you, it could be better, and could have been better. But the gloom'n'doom narrative has not changed since day one, in the face of all rational evidence. [shrug]
I do wonder at how few on left realize that they're delusional to think that if America gives up it will be because America repudiated the whole idea of war, or repudiated Bush, or whatever. No, it'll be for most Americans more like the tale you're spinning: these savage Arabs and/or Muslims are just too backward and primitive to be capable of better. And that's what the real long-term narrative will be if we give up.
Of course, that's been apparent all along even among some of the "anti-war" left, who quite clearly side with the vicious fascist "insurgency." So they, too, basically believe Arabs are savage murderers by nature. Funny huh?
I think the modern left is meritocraphobic, and capitalism flushes out the losers with ruthless clarity, while scooting the ambition-seekers way further ahead than the left wants such people to be.
Personally, I believe that Arabs are as decent and intelligent as any one else, but those Arabs born into Arab culture (in contrast to genuinely Westernized people who happen to be of Arab ancestry) are at a disadvantage through no fault of their own. A disadvantage that we won't be able to save them from any time soon.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.