PoliGazette » Hezbollah - Lebanese Army Clash

Hezbollah - Lebanese Army Clash

Filed under: Hezbollah, Lebanon, Middle East — Michael van der Galien on May 9, 2008 @ 10:09 am CEST

For the second day in a row, government troops and Hezbollah terrorists clashed with each other in Lebanon, especially in the country’s capital Beirut. The Shiite terrorist organization ‘accused’ the government of declaring war on it, which sadly probably is not correct.

The heavy fighting between supporters of the pro-Western government, and members of Hezbollah, resulted in five deaths. At least ten individuals were (severely) injured.

The battle is between Sunnis who support their government, and Shiite radicals who support Hezbollah and Iran. Lebanon’s Christians have, thus far, declined to choose sides.

What happens in Lebanon is important because it is one of the few pro-Western and Democratic countries in the Middle East. If Hezbollah takes over, they will turn the country into a second Iran, which will cause tremendous problems for the country’s Sunni and Christian population and, of course, for the United States, Europe and Israel. If Hezbollah is successful, Israel will once again be surrounded by overly hostile nations.

Lebanon is not exactly a stable country. It has had civil wars in the past, and the current conflict could very well escalate into another civil war. That would cause more chaos in the region.

The country’s political crisis ‘deepened this week after the government announced it would dismantle a Hezbollah telecommunications network and reassign a Shiite army officer in charge of security at Beirut’s international airport.’

In response, Hezbollah’s leader Nasrallah said that his organization would do whatever necessary to protect its telecommunications network.

Hezbollah is quite influential and has a tremendous infrastructure to spread its propaganda. If the Lebanese government wants to fight this organization it has to dismantle this infrastructure first. Obviously both sides know this which is why the situation has become so critical, so fast.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree. Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors. Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.

(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should not be posted.

(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.

(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.

(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.

(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements. Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.

Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors by email only.