May 15 2008
When Religious Myths Are Destroyed, Why Islamo Fascism Is On The Brink
Want to get a taste of what is happening in the Middle East when Sunnis broke with al-Qaeda, when Shiites broke with Sadr and the Mahdi Army, when Afghans broke with the Taliban. There is nothing more shattering than to have the belief system that underpins your life and soul shattered. There is nothing like learning people you supported and trusted would kill you without any thought to further themselves. What the eiltes in this country cannot fathom is losing everything to heartless killers and thugs you once thought were saviors and an army of angels. If you want to see a snapshot of what is happening to al-Qaeda, the Mahdi Army, the Taliban and other Islamo Fascists as the facade is ripped from them and their evil core is exposed to the Muslim Street watch this clip and how a believer became a fighter. How an image of the future of Islam turned into the enemy of Islam:
H/T to Gateway Pundit for finding this clip. What is important to take from this is how dramatic and forceful the change is when one realizes they have been played the fool in a dangerous game that could have killed. While the Nazis rose to power on a myth of superiority in race, al-Qaeda rose to power on the myth of religious rapture, and the coming of heaven on Earth once the evil West was vanquished. While the fervor over the coming of a rapture can mobilize more people to greater heights (even into suicidal martyrdom), when the facade is ripped away the crash back to reality is jarring. You can see how this women is fed up with the movement once it crossed the line and made her the enemy.
This is a good insight into what happens and what it takes to shatter a dream and take up the fight against one time allies and fellow believers. This is what is rattling the Islamo Fascist movement and paving the way to victory (over the coming years, not days) in the war on terror.
There is a fundamental change going on in Lebanon. It is a change that she expresses well. The people there are well educated. Hezbollah has already lost. Iran has lost much. They now are faced with three choices:
1. Now that they have been exposed for what they really are, stop pretending and go for an all-out coup. In other words, go for broke.
2. Try to start another war with Israel to win back the sympathy of the people.
3. Give up the militia and become a political party only.
Continuing things as they are now is not a viable option. Their influence will diminish with each passing sunset.
ah, crosspatch, i hate to break it to you, but hezbollah is the big winner in this week’s showdown in lebanon. it started because the lebanese government threatened to take apart hezbollah’s communications network and after the shia party’s show of force, the lebanese government backed down.
upyernoz, can you explain just exactly what Hezbollah “won”? They might have “not lost” a battle, but I believe the “victory” … or “not loss” has cost them the war.
Yes, the government backed down on the communications system issue but Hezbollah’s actions of turning their arms on other Lebanese has cost them their fundamental justification for their militia as defender of Lebanon. They have shown themselves to be nothing more than the defender of itself. It took the resignation of 40 senior military officers in the Lebanese Army to shake the commander into action.
I believe that Hezbollah has now sealed their fate. What remains to be seen is how that journey into the abyss will play out.
Hezbollah’s long term fate may be sealed – but short term, I have to agree that they’ve won bigtime. They own Lebanon now. How will this play out? I hate to think such dark thoughts, but I fear this wonderful, beautiful, very well spoken woman will be assasinated shortly for saying what she did. Anyone and everyone else who speaks out or acts out will also be assasinated, until no one dares to move against them – at that point the Theocracy will be established and they will take complete control.
have no doubt – their goal is to establish a Taliban like state in Lebanon, and the deaths of a large part of the population will only make it easier. The Lebanese will now pay the bitter fruit for accepting the snake into their bosom – they can obey, or they can die. It’s too late for a third choice.
“I hate to think such dark thoughts, but I fear this wonderful, beautiful, very well spoken woman will be assasinated shortly for saying what she did.”
Well, the last time a national figure was assassinated in Lebanon for speaking out (against Syria that time) the result was to overcome the sectarianism and bring about a sense of greater nationalism … a sense that the people were Lebanese first … and the result was the ejection of the Syrian Army.
If she were to be assassinated, I believe it would act to further bond all the other factions against Hezbollah. Unlike the last Lebanese civil war, I believe this time we would see a situation where it would be Hezbollah against the entire nation of Lebanon.
The plight of the Lebanese Army is similar to the Iraqi Army of 2005. In the Iraqi Army of 2005, JAM had infiltrated to the extent where it could not act against the Shiite militias. Lebanon’s army needs a similar purging.
Also notice the comments today from Iraq’s foreign minister that his country will not be another Lebanon. Iran has been attempting to use the Lebanon recipe in Iraq and it has failed.
upyernoz, can you explain just exactly what Hezbollah “won�
sure, what they won was they got the lebanese government to back down on its threat to take apart its communications network. that’s what this whole chapter in lebanon’s ong-brewing political crisis was all about. the central government discovered hezbollah’s communications network, demanded they dismantle it and threatened to use force if necessary to take it apart. hezbollah struck back, hitting security forces loyal to the central government’s two main coalition partners, hariri and jumblatt and demonstrating that they could seize control of much of the country if they wanted to.
the central government backed down on its threat and is now letting hezbollah maintain its communications system, and hezbollah is returning to its original positions. hezbollah got exactly what it was after.
the fact that both strata and crosspatch don’t seem to be following the overall narrative just goes to show how stupid the whole “islamofascist” term is. it crams all different groups with different goals under a single term, treating them as if they are all on the same side. it leads to basic misunderstandings of what is going on in the region.
after all, walid jumblatt, the pro-government druse leader in lebanon who has been fighting anti-hezbollah, supports the sunni insurgency against the americans in iraq. (“We are all happy when U.S. soldiers are killed (in Iraq) week in and week out. The killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq is legitimate and obligatory” he said in 2004).
so when sahar al-khatib speaks out in favor of jumblatt’s resistance to hezbollah on lebanese t.v., people like strata and corsspatch view it as “anti-islamofascist” because her comments are anti-hezbollah. but all it really shows is that you guys have very little understanding of who the different groups and politicians in the middle east are and what they stand for because the categories you use to understand the region make no sense.
their goal is to establish a Taliban like state in Lebanon, and the deaths of a large part of the population will only make it easier
like this quote is hilarious! do you guys have a clue what hezbollah believes in or what side they are on in the great struggle between sunni and shia, etc? do you know who the taliban are or what they believed about hezbollah?
I said “taliban like”, which is a perfect description of their goals. And yes, I know as much about Walid Jumblatt and his positions as you do. His anti-americanism has a little more justification than most in the region; he hasn’t forgotten the Battleship Missouri and the way it flattened several Druse villages to no good effect in 1983. I’m a great admirer of Reagan, but that was not one of his finer moments.
Take the chip off your shoulder, and you might not come off as such an ass.
Once you turn your guns on your own citizens it is hard to pretend you really are Lebanese fighting the Israelis.
I said “taliban likeâ€, which is a perfect description of their goals
it is? what are their goals then?
i have been to southern lebanon, the region where hezbollah is effectively the government. i wore shorts, women walked on the streets without head coverings. and i am an atheist jewish american hitchhiking alone. i don’t think that would have been possible at all in afghanistan under the taliban.
Once you turn your guns on your own citizens it is hard to pretend you really are Lebanese fighting the Israelis.
kathie is right on that point. hezbollah had a huge boost in support in lebanon after israel’s ill-fated invasion of southern lebanon. a lot of lebanese viewed the group as the only effective force that could fight israelis. now that they’ve turned their guns on fellow lebanese, they’ve lost a lot of the goodwill they enjoyed outside of the shia community.
“atheist jewish”?
Talk about an identity crisis.
75 that was funny, but surely you know you can be Jewish by birth and atheist by choice????
We Americans, we’re naive enough to believe that religion is something that should be a matter of choice, not something you’re born into. Most of the world doesn’t think that way, and never has.
Woody Allen explained Jewish atheism once: “…. and you know I’m Jewish, so I feel guilty ALL the time.”
question: But you don’t even believe in God!
Allen: “I know, and I feel terribly guilty about it!!!”
I was over at Michael Totten’s blog and he has linked to a couple of articles that reach the same conclusions I have. Pity Lebanon’s Shia community and Hezbollah’s weapons of mass delusion.
These are written by people in Lebanon. Not people here in the US trying to tell us “what it all means”.
Great read Crosspatch. I’m wondering if we have any journalists , I mean real journalists in this country?
Awesome video. I’m speechless.
These are written by people in Lebanon. Not people here in the US trying to tell us “what it all meansâ€.
there’s a lot of people in lebanon who you can read. not all of them agree with totten. it’s also kind of funny that you are linking to the march 14th coalition’s own web site without any awareness that you’re citing press releases of a group that opposes hezbollah.
don’t get me wrong. there’s nothing wrong with the march 14th coalition. it’s just that partisan press releases are not the same thing as an outsider’s analysis. the anti-hezbollah factions are understandably saying that hezbollah “lost” because they caved in to hezbollah and let them keep their communication system and are now trying to spin that bad news in the most favorable way possible.
so once again, if hezbollah really “lost” what did they lose? if you look at the timeline of recent events, it’s hard to see how hezbollah didn’t “win”. check it out:
(1) the lebanese government demanded hezbollah dismantle its communication system,
(2) hezbollah refused,
(3) the lebanese government said they would dismantle the communication system by force,
(4) hezbollah attacks hariri and jumblatt’s militias, takes over half of beirut and advances on the chouf mountains,
(5) the lebanese government reverses course and drops its demand that hezbollah’s communication system be dismantled,
(6) hezbollah withdraws to its pre-crisis positions in the south and the baqaa valley.
it’s hard to look at that story and not conclude that hezbollah didn’t “win”. it got what it wanted. although hezbollah could face a backlash because they turned their guns on fellow lebanese, that’s the spin that anti-hezbollah groups are resorting to, and to some extent they are somewhat right. in the long run hezbollah’s heavy-handed tactics could work against the group.
but in the short term, hezbollah is stronger than ever before. they faced down the lebanese government, proved that they could take on their rivals militarily and the lebanese army would not move against them. so now it looks like hezbollah will probably get its choice of president, michel suleiman, ending the deadlock over the office. if they get that, that would be a real victory.
ok, upyernoz, so the lebanese government made demands, Hezbollah said no and so now they are pretty much back to where they started with one exception. Hezbollah has burned up all is capital with the rest of the country. The country is now basically united against Hezbollah. Overall, Hezbollah lost, not gained from the conflict. There is now an Arab summit going on in Beirut and new motion toward selecting a President. The Druze areas in particular put a severe hurting on Hezbollah and there are a lot of dead Shiites this week.
Hezbollah is finished, last week’s events sealed their fate. The rest is just a matter of time. How bloody the final demise of Hezbollah turns out to be is Hezbollah’s decision.
Yes, Kathie…I was sharing a little levity. However, I would add that the minute you opt for atheism, I’d say you’ve discarded your religion. No?
ok, upyernoz, so the lebanese government made demands, Hezbollah said no and so now they are pretty much back to where they started with one exception. Hezbollah has burned up all is capital with the rest of the country
no, they’re not back to where they started. the lebanese government has dropped its demand that hezbollah dismantle its communications system. the central government also has been trying to get hezbollah to disarm (as is required by the ta’if agreement), but now that it has shown that it lacks the power to even get them to turn off their radios, no one believes that the government can pull it off anymore. the signiore government has simply lost any credibility. it’s loss is hezbollah’s gain. and, as i said above, hezbollah might end up getting its choice for president as a result.
There is now an Arab summit going on in Beirut and new motion toward selecting a President.
yes, and michel suleiman, the one hezbollah favors, is now the guy likely to get the job.
oh, and as for the arab summit, who is chairing the summit? not the anti-hezbollah egypt or saudia arabia like prior summits. no, this time it’s qatar, one of the few arab countries which has good relations with both iran and syria, hezbollah’s sponsors.