Crisis In The Levant

Michael Totten has great coverage of what is happening in Lebanon, follow the links and read the comments to get the full flavor, there is a lot of info to be had. It is very interesting and highly enlightening for those that want a feel for the Lebanese street. For example Hezbollah cancelled their rally yesterday after the mass protest over their assassination of a Christian leader, Pierre Gemayel. The Lebanese are sick and tired of Iran and Syria using them as a football through Hezbollah and things may get really nasty pretty soon. Israel is on high alert as is Jordan, the interesting part are the growing divisions within the Islamist front, Sunni vs. Shia as in Iraq.
Amil Amani elaborates on this at the American Thinker with a must read article.
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There is no need to belabor the point that Islam is not and has never been a religion of peace. The word Islam, is derived from taslim, which means submission, while the term for peace, is Solh. Another derivation of the word taslim, is salamat which means good health, and so on.

Irrespective of what the term Islam may mean, the facts on the ground conclusively demonstrate Islam's violent nature from its very inception. No need to go back to the time of Muhammad and examine the historical records. Just a few from contemporary events should make the point.

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From this it is easy to gather that bringing Iran and Syria to the table for talks over Iraq are fool-hardy at best and unbelievably stupid at worst. They have taken the election of a DNC majority in our congress as a sign of weakness and submission to their demands and are moving their agenda forward at full steam, the Iraqi people are not and should not be treated as political footballs to keep a few American GIs from being killed in a cause they believe in.
I say let the extremists slaughter each other while we help build and support a legitimate Iraqi government and security force. Is it full blown civil war? What happens in Lebanon may tip the kettle one way or another but an Islamic civil war is happening and neither side is moderate, Sunni Arabs and Shia Persians, never friends and with a very bloody history. Our problem is that it excaserbates our problems in Iraq if we allow that slaughter. Ceding Lebanon to Syria and allowing Iranian Nukes are not the answer to Iraq, strength is and we don't need to wobble in that strength.
I will leave with a comment from Mike's Blog in full. The Barnyard agrees with Ric Locke:

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Let us speak for a moment of practicalities. Of realpolitik, if you will.
alGhali, my name is Ric. I understand that means something amusing to you. I urge you to suppress that reaction.

I am, more or less in order of importance, an American, a Christian, a Texan, a military veteran, a Republican, and a descendant of American Indians. Whatever your goals are, you must convince me, and others like me, not to oppose them, or you don't have a hope in Hell.

The reason that is so is that you produce nothing for yourself. You and your people do not even make the explosives you kill people with; you must buy them from the West, or from the Persians. You and your people don't make the televisions you watch Nasrallah speak on; you must buy them from the Japanese and the Koreans. You don't make the studios or their equipment; you must buy them from us, or from the British or French. You don't make the cell phones you use as triggers for booby traps; you must buy them from the West, or again Japan and Korea. You don't make the pickup trucks that transport your "soldiers" to battle. You don't even make the guns you brandish so forcefully, or the ammunition you waste spraying at the sky. The rockets? Russia or Eastern Europe.

You don't even earn the money you buy those things with. You must depend upon the largesse, the generosity, of others, and if you believe that generosity is genuinely in your interest you are too stupid to take seriously, or else you depend upon Western desire for the oil, which was put there by Allah with no effort on your part; you did nothing to earn it.

We, on the other hand (and by "we" I mean the West and those who have copied us) make all those things. It is for this reason that we are strong. We learned, with the most painful lessons coming in the century just past, that both Mao and Machiavelli were wrong. Good soldiers may well get you gold, but for us gold is useful stuff for electronics and not much more; our wealth is elsewhere. The sort of power that flows from the barrel of a gun is transitory and not a little illusory. If you have the power of wealth, guns are so cheap they can be handed out to the likes of you for our entertainment. What we have learned is the deep truth of another aphorism: When you are strong you can forgive your enemies. When you are weak you can only kill them.

You, sir, are a weakling and a coward, and as such we will never support you. You prove yourself a weakling by announcing your intention to kill, thereby establishing that you are too weak to forgive. You confirm that by never producing anything of your own, only demanding that others provide your support. You have no strength, no power. You are not a slave, and we have no desire to have you as a slave -- a slave must at least be able to hew wood and carry water, and you have established that you have not the strength for that even on your own behalf, by demanding that others do it for you while you arm yourself to kill.

Therefore you have failed in your aim. You have not come close, with your glib recital of past vilenesses, to convincing me to support you. I mentioned that I am a descendant of American Indians. A century and a half ago, the invading whites ripped some of my ancestors from their lands, forcing them to walk almost three thousand kilometers to a a desolate untamed land where they were "resettled", and took the ancestral lands for their own. But I am a Westerner. That is in the past, and the reality for today is that if I wish a redress of those grievances, first I must amass the power -- and I understand that wealth is power, and all else is weakness. If I will not build real power I am simply a murderer if I seek to drive the descendants of the robbers from my ancestors' homeland. And, strangely enough, I find that as I amass real power the issue recedes. One bit of land will do as well as another. Speaking of "homelands" is simply an excuse for tyrants to gather political power from lazy people who are wistful for past glory but unwilling to make new glory.

The guns, the rockets, the bombs, all the warstuff you amass is worthless so long as you must get it by trusting the largesse of others. It will never gain you the strength you want. The ability to kill is not power. The ability to build is power, power we can respect. If you have real power, the warstuff is toys and bagattelles.

And if you are seeking "honor" from us, you have failed again. "Honor" as you understand it means that we recognize your ability to kill or damage who or what you like, when you like, without effective reprisal. We call that "bullying" and consider it the behavior of jackals. By insisting upon it you class yourself with those.

Save your rhetoric. You have failed, and will continue to fail. Your every presentation that you consider as influencing the West to favor you instead reminds us of what we consider our dishonorable past; you disgust us because you remind us of our primitive origins, which we have done our best to suppress. Even the word "jihad", which you use among yourselves and in your propaganda as a term of approbation, for us is quite different. An attempt, by military or other violent force, to extend the reach of one's beliefs or religion is a crusade. That's what the English word means. The fact that today's Crusaders wear a crescent-and-star instead of a cross makes no difference. Hassan Nasrallah, and you, are Crusaders. You should change your name to Geoffrey.

It's fun to read your apologias and what you consider to be your arguments, but I am one of the ones you must convince, and you have not only failed to advance that cause, you are farther from it than you were when I had never heard of you. If you want my support -- and you cannot come close to your goals without it, and you know it, or you would not make the attempt -- you must change your tactics. I don't care to advise you on what tactics to use, except to let you know that several others upthread have offered useful hints, because frankly you disgust me. Your presentation has made it more likely that I will shoot you or your followers when I encounter you, not less. You are a failure. Accept that and learn.

Regards,
Ric Locke

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'Nuff said