Howard most people at Truthdig are not insane with hatred for Israel.You just seem to be so paranoid of any criticism of Israel,get used to it.

Russ,
Your comments are on the right track. No matter what the topic most writers here are insane with their hatred of Israel.  Hezballah can destroy Lebanon as we know it at the behest of Iran and it is Israel’s fault.  The sun comes up in the East and its Israel’s fault. etc.

mrmb,

The discussion here was about Iran’s involvement with Hezbollah and their concerted efforts to take control of Lebanon. Unfortunately I can’t seem to get anyone to discuss anything but their mutual hatred of Israel and how evil the United States is.

If I say Iran is a concern to almost everyone around the world I’m told how evil President Bush is. If I mention the role Hezbollah is playing in Lebanon I’m told how bad Israel is. Some here seem driven, to the point of distraction, by their emotions for the evil U.S. and, what appears to be, an ingrained hatred for Jews.

You do make some interesting observations, however, that honestly was not the topic here. But, again, your response has everything to do with, and only with, the United States. Not Iran, Hezbollah or Lebanon. With sincerity I ask; why is that?

Cyrena,

I’m sorry but I don’t believe you are involved in academia. You would know a great deal more about dealing with other humans with an alternate point of view if you were. You would not attempt to incessantly belittle all who disagree with you if you were trained in an open place of discourse. And, as an aside, your infantile habit of SHOUTING to make your point is not that of a well reasoned and comfortable person. That’s how children react when they don’t get their way.

No, Cyrena, you are sitting at your computer most days reading about the world and congratulating yourself on how smart and informed you feel. You are certainly not listening to people from places like Lebanon or Iran (I suspect you’re reading a good deal of European and far left American news. Not from Middle Eastern news outlets. And you are most certainly not talking to actual people from these places).

I would hate to see what you’re like in person when you come across someone who disagrees with you personally. Or is it some alter ego that displays itself here on these pages? On these pages you are a rude hate filled bigot. I know this because you cannot stand it that I happen to disagree with you. It really drives you to distraction.

Thank God your views on Israel and the United States being evil and the cause of the worlds ills is a small fringe minority. How do I know how ugly and bigoted you are? Almost without exception when I disagree with you you tell me to go away or stop posting. You don’t even want to see another point of view here.

I don’t like being so abrasive, however, your bigotry toward people who are unlike yourself does get the better of me.

No russ, you’ve done this before with trying to transfer all of your OWN flaws and the rest of it on to me. It’s so typical of people like you, that I’m sure you do it all of the time.

There is a word for it that escapes me at the moment, but all we hear from you is the same ignorance and one sided narrow view that you accuse me of.

Be advised, I am very active in academia, and I ‘speak to other people’ (many of them, all sharing many views) on a daily basis.

In short, I don’t KNOW a whole lot of people that are any MORE objective than I am.

So, I talk to people who disagree with me just as a course of my daily activities. It is YOU who have a very serious problem with this.

I don’t pretend to know everything about what goes on in Lebanon on a daily basis, because I’m an American, and I don’t live in Lebanon. However, I know MANY people who ARE from the Middle East, (INCLUDING Lebanon) and/or have studied this history extensively. I have studied it extensively myself, and I’ve had opportunities to spend time in the Middle East, and speak to the people of that region myself.

So, I wish I didn’t feel the need to say this russ, but your IGNORANCE as an American, and your ARROGANCE in assuming that YOU know how the people of Lebanon and other Middle Eastern states feel about their leaders and their politics, is very EMBARRASSING to me. I know at my core, that when people from the rest of the globe speak about UGLY and stupid Americans, they are talking about you and the rest of you.

As for Hezbollah, it is more than apparent from YOUR posts, that YOU are the one full of hate, since I don’t have intimate contact with that group. Again, as I said, I’m an American. However, I know from my own studies, that the people of Lebanon DO appreciate Hezbollah, for a number of reasons, including the social services that only they have been able to make available to the people of that nation state, particularly in times of great stress.

Needless to say, since Israel has consistently attacked that nation state, and consistently meddled in their internal affairs, they have suffered stress after stress after stress, in terms of civil war and the aggressions of Israel.

So, why don’t YOU step back russ, and just stop posting all of your shit on this blog, with the hopes that you can somehow convince others that your own very biased hatred toward that group is somehow legitimate.

That would be the solution russ. Because, while you may CLAIM to be an American citizen, I’ve figured out after just a few posts from you, that you are just another troll for the dastardly deeds of Israel. And of course that is old history. For people like you, ANY group that won’t lay down and roll over when Israel bulldozes them, must be a terrorist group.

Here again, ‘terrorists’ are in the eyes of the beholder. One person’s ‘terrorist’ is another person’s freedom fighter. I prefer to use the term. “fighter for self-determination’ but my terms aren’t important, because I am not a citizen of any of those countries.

And, if you are an American citizen as you claim, it’s none of YOUR business either.

I’ll leave you with a hopefully helpful quote,

“Ignorance is the most violent element of society”

~Emma Goldman.

You have proven yours and the destructive consequences.

Democrats and Our Enemies
By JOSEPH LIEBERMAN
May 21, 2008; Page A19

How did the Democratic Party get here? How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose?

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121132806 884008847.html

Cyrena,

You write: “CREATING enemies isn’t the way. Rather, treating EQUALS as EQUAL is the way. And, there is a structure in place for that, (International Laws and Treaties) and that structure WORKS, when the members honor their commitments”.

Great platitude, Cyrena, however, if one reads your posts you seem willing to make exceptions for Iran and/or Hezbollah. You cheer them on. You care none that the Lebanese people are against what Hezbollah is doing in Beirut. You care none, or you are unaware, of the “Security Block” Hezbollah has set up in Lebanon. You can ignore that Iran and Hezbollah are attempting to set up a separate government against the wishes of the Lebanese people. In your world Hezbollah is a group of “freedom fighters” worthy of your full support.

I wish I didn’t feel the need to say this, however, as a fellow American you embarrass me with your hatred. You embarrass me with your ignorance to the world. You appear incapable of thinking about world events without making the context in some way about the United States.

You need to step away from your computer and talk to people. And try to talk people who disagree with you. My hope is that you’ll learn some humility and, I hope, learn to be civil to people. Or, in other words; learn to treat EQUALS as EQUALS. Even when they disgaree with you.

I remain stumped why there are people in America who lend support and sympathy to Iran’s current leaders. Over the objections of Iran’s own populace. Over the objections of most of the Arab world.

Fact: Iran’s self professed hegemony in the region is not only frowned upon in the Arab World but is widely reviled. Add to that the fact that a nuclear armed Iran is a concern throughout the globe. This is not a mythical threat made up by the evil U.S. and Israel.

Some here seem to believe Hezbollah is held in high regard and emulated around the globe by all Muslims. Yes, that was, in part, once true -when Hezbollah was fighting Israel in Southern Lebanon- but, the reality is that the Lebanese people are not widely supportive of Hezbollah’s (Iran’s) attempts to take control of the government. The Lebanese no more want their constitution thrown out than most Americans would. The Lebanese are not looking for a theocracy, as Nasrallah talks of. The populace is in no way supportive of Iran’s meddling in their capital. They do not support Hezbollah taking total control of sections of Beirut. Areas where not even police can enter. But some of you here appear to love it and cheer for Hezbollah.

Lebanon is the closest thing the Arab world has to a form of democracy. In fact it has a long history steeped in it. It has it’s own constitution. It has a vibrant and open press. It has the rule of law and the right to property. They recognize basic human rights. Woman are encouraged to be educated. Some hold positions of high regard in government. But you all talk as if that matters none. Iran, according to your posts, has every right to interfere in Lebanon via Hezbollah. Hezbollah, according to your posts, are the heroes of the Arab world? One simply can’t be listening to the people of Iran or Lebanon if that’s what one believes.

The Iranian people are some of the most hospitable on earth. And the majority DO NOT support their current ruling government. Why would anyone on these pages be supportive of the ruling Mullahs- including the meddling in Lebanon and support of Hezbollah, against the desires of both the Iranian and Lebanese people?

I beg you all to go to your local college campuses. Locate a coffee shop where Iranians or Lebanese congregate. Ask them what they think of the Iranian Mullahs and Hezbollah in Beirut.

Many of you here seem to be very well read. But you’re not really listening to people.

mrmb…

Thanks very much for this expansion into my own understanding of the reality on the ground in the Middle East.

I’m very glad to have a clearer understanding on why this is NOT a sectarian conflict, because I’ve never believed that it was.

Rather, I believe that the imperialist/zionist have done their absolute best to create an alternative reality that paints it that way, and the Western world has remained mostly gullible in accepting that.

You’re funny Russ. Your assumption of my ‘grasp’ on the ‘media world’ and how and where I gather my information and do my research is a perfect example of how you see everything backwards.

Or as mrmb so clearly put it..in YOUR world of mainstream media, up is down, black is white, and WRONG is RIGHT.

Yours is the parallel universe and alternative reality Russ. And, that’s really a shame, but you’re not alone, and that’s even more of a shame, because when this Cabal highjacked us 8 years ago, the Masterminds, (Karl Rove among them) decided that THEY (the US) were a sole power now, and could therefore make their OWN reality.

Since then, THEY have tried to stick the rest of us with that fake reality, and with people like YOU, it has certainly worked.

But, that’s already changing russ. We have to change it, and we have to give up that dope they’ve been feeding you all (or at least the folks like you who buy into it) and get back to the REALITY. As another informed poster to this site has said, “Reality really is the only hope.”

When the US finally figures out that we have to SHARE the globe with other nations and peoples, and when the international community finally isolates the REAL criminals, (like Israel) until they can learn to behave like other CIVILIZED societies, THEN we can get on with the business of a better existence.

CREATING enemies isn’t the way. Rather, treating EQUALS as EQUAL is the way. And, there is a structure in place for that, (International Laws and Treaties) and that structure WORKS, when the members honor their committments.

I think Hezbollah might disagree with you that they have not “won” anything. And Lebanon would definitely disagree with you that they have not “lost” anything.

Whether it is a “shame” or not to talk about the situation in such terms does not change the reality of it. Call it a win, a loss, a strategic victory or defeat, an outmaneuvering, a progression, a coup, a succession or usurping. It makes no difference; it is what it is and the citizens you refer to are certainly no less the losers if discourse on this issue is bogged down in petty semantics and posturing.

Cyrena,

You have an incredible grasp of the media world. But I must tress how that world is not actually real. One must actually venture out of that world and talk to people on the ground, read from a wider selection of information and try to suspend the Western lenz you are looking through.

Things will look different.

Russ,

You are painting a very broad brush about DEEP ILL WILL between Arabs and Persians, which amounts to propaganda of the type that is exactly what you and your Dick Bush heroes love so much to accomplish.

The people of Lebanon are most likely not supportive of ANY other nation’s involvement in their politics, but they are all STILL neighbors, and they are all STILL Muslims. Obviously, they are far MORE likely to gain whatever support they need to survival Israel...the big boogeyman in the whole stew, from their Shiite neighbors than they are from the Sunni side that supports the extremists like al-Qaeda.

Do you honestly believe that Wahhabists like the al-Qaeda types don’t operate without some tacit approval from Saudi Arabia?

Yes, Iran IS much stronger, and only in your dreams is it not. Whether or not that is a good thing FOR THE MIDDLE EAST, (because it doesn’t matter whether Westerners like it or not) remains to be seen. But the US attempts to isolate Iran have NOT been successful even for the US, and whatever ‘effect’ they have on Iran is nothing more than the same ‘effect’ that they had on Iraq, which was to create miserable conditions for the civil population.

Meantime, Iran has switched it’s trading currency over to the Euro and the Yen, so you might wanna check a little further on who’s getting ‘hurt’ by that.

As Bush always says"who you gonna believe me or your lying eyes."The middle east from Clinton almost sealing a deal with Arafat to a tinderbox ready to explode in 8 short years is a testamount to chimpanzee diplomacy.We talk to no one.We bomb everyone.Seems to be the mantra of this administration.I guess peace is an appeasemet to the rapture folks.

No Winners in Lebanon!

I disagree with this intelligence report in its attempt to focus on winners and losers in Lebanon in particular and the Middle East in general.

The situation in Lebanon and the Middle East is that where everyone is a looser. When there is constant political and military strife, with people being killed and the countries’ infrastructures are being destroyed, it is indeed a shame to talk about winners versus losers. If we have to designate a winner, per se, it’s the merchants of death, the neocolonialists and the war-mongers.

Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and other countries will only be declared winners when their citizens will achieve national unity and stand united against the conspiracies and intervention of foreign powers.

In this clip the Saudi Foreign Minister states very clearly that if Iran has backed a coup in Lebanon it will have a negative impact between Iran and all other Arab States.

The people of Lebanon are not, I repeat, not supportive of Iran’s involvment in Lebanese politics. In the long view Iran is not “winning” much.

The embargo’s against Iran are demonstrably hurting that nation. Those same embargo’s would be useless without the tacit approval, and cooperation, of Iran’s neighbors. Iran has been isolated more in the past six years than it has been in decades.

Westerners don’t seem to understand the deep ill will between Arabs and Persians. Iran is not stronger, by any stretch of the imagination, than it was six years ago. On the contrary. It’s more isolated than ever. And there are reasons for that!

The Bush Administartion has been for a while trying to weaken Hezbollah and support Siniora’s gpvernment with money and weapons but Hezbollah was able to take over Beirut. This is similar to what happened in Gaza as again this Administration was supporting Fateh over Hamas.The US also loses in this formula.