Bullets to Ballot Box

Boasting 20,000 active members, Hezbollah continues to recast itself as a legitimate organization with no ties to terrorism. One Lebanese scholar put it this way: "The party has concentrated more on the ballot box than on bullets." In 1996, Hezbollah held eight seats in the Lebanese parliament; today it holds12, making it the largest single-party group in the National Assembly.

Lebanon's current president, Emile Lahoud, a Maronite Christian, sees Hezbollah as a legitimate political organization within Lebanon, not as a terrorist entity. "For us Lebanese, and I can tell you a majority of Lebanese, Hezbollah is a national resistance movement," Lahoud recently told 60 Minutes. "If it wasn't for them, we couldn't have liberated our land. And because of that, we have big esteem for the Hezbollah movement."

Lebanon's current president, Emile Lahoud

Lebanon's current president, Emile Lahoud, pictured at a recent celebration of Lebanon's Independence Day. Lahoud, although a Maronite Christian, welcomes the contributions that Hezbollah has made to Lebanese society.
With Hezbollah embedded so deeply in the current political and social fabric of Lebanon, attacking the organization now could plunge the country back into chaos. Meanwhile, Hezbollah leaders have made several overtures to the United States. After September 11, for example, the group quickly criticized bin Laden's attack. In recent interviews, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has said that his organization is not a threat to the United States.

The U.S. government seems to be returning to backdoor diplomacy. On his recent tour of the Middle East to discuss the new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell spoke with Syrian president Bashir al-Assad about ending Syria's support for terrorism. Powell reported that Syria has already begun to close the Damascus offices of several terrorist groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Children at a Hezbollah school

Children at a Hezbollah school. The future of Hezbollah is in flux. Will it continue to maintain an armed militia - which could become the target of U.S. military strike - or concentrate on becoming a larger political party?
Hezbollah was not on this list of organizations that the Syrian government reportedly agreed to restrain, a sign that Syria continues to consider it an important lever in its hold on power in the region. However, Powell called upon both Syria and Lebanon to end support for Hezbollah. "It is time, we believe, for the Lebanese army to deploy to the border and end the armed Hezbollah militia presence," he said.

Hezbollah's status is in flux, its future unclear. A few key questions remain to be answered: What will be the likely effect of this U.S. pressure? Can Hezbollah withstand the diplomatic onslaught, rally its allies, and sustain its position? Will the U.S. government launch an all-out assault? Or might Hezbollah be willing to pay a price -- that of disbanding its military activities -- for its survival, in order to grow even larger as a powerful political party in Lebanon?

(Taken from PBS frontline) What Kind of Mind can consider these criminals an actual Political Entity??? Please take note of PBS Frontline bias towards Hezbollah, such as "can they withstand the diplomatic onslaught etc" And How about Lebanon's President's remarks"If it wasn't for Hezbollah we couldn't have liberated our Land" What?? From Who? The Sryrians? They are Hezbollah's principle backers along with Iran. Call me crazy, but these kind of remarks made by a Maronite Christian are totally inconsistent with the facts. Fact: Hezbollah's Goal is and was, to eradicate Christians, Jews, and anyone who disagreed with thier brand of Islamic fundamentalism. Fact: During the United States Presence in Lebanon, the Maronite Christians, begged for the US to help against Hezbollah, Druze and other factions.
Maybe the "President" of Lebanon should lift up the sheets of his bed first, to see who he will be sleeping with.

23rd of October

The Title of this Blog is the day that the largest non-nuclear explosion occurred in Beirut Lebanon. The explosion caused the deaths of 241 Marines and Sailors. The terrorist group Hezbollah, was directly involved in the planning and execution of this crime. To this date Hezbollah still exists and grows stronger in Southern Lebanon, backed by Iran and Syria. Recent intelligence has discovered Hezbollah members in Iraq. We will not rest until they are brought to Justice. This blog will bring to light the activities of this group.

The postings here will deal with the States supporting terrorism, the liberal appeasers of terrorism and the politics of terrorism.

We Came in Peace to Lebanon. We will never forget our fallen and we will never rest until their killers are brought to Justice.

Party Of God??

Hezbollah in America

Aside from al Qaeda, no terrorist group has killed more Americans than Hezbollah, which is bankrolled by Iran to the tune of at least $100 million a year. Hezbollah's main theaters of operation are Lebanon, its home country (where it killed hundreds of Americans during the 1980s), and the West Bank and Gaza, where it helps Palestinian rejectionists target Israel. But the group is active in the United States as well. Hezbollah is believed to have cells in at least 10 U.S. cities.
Although the organization has yet to launch an attack on U.S. soil, its U.S. activities are far from benign. Its work in this country has two major purposes: One is to raise money and smuggle arms to Hezbollah fighters, often by criminal activities ranging from credit-card fraud to cigarette smuggling; and the other is to conduct surveillance behind enemy lines, with a possible eye toward launching attacks on U.S. targets in the event of an armed conflict between the United States and Tehran. Like his backers in Iran, Hezbollah boss Hassan Nasrallah routinely denounces the United States and Israel as his organization's main enemies. Given the events of September 11, and given Hezbollah's own record of kidnapping, torturing and killing Americans when it has had the opportunity, we ignore the group's operations in this country at our peril.
Outside of metropolitan Detroit, last month's arrest of Nemr Ali Rahal, a 41-year-old businessman, at his Dearborn home on charges of smuggling funds to Hezbollah, went largely unreported by the news media around the United States. But the story deserves our attention. In Mr. Rahal's house, agents found a videotape of a Hezbollah rally he attended in Lebanon three years ago. The FBI said it found $600 worth of change in buckets in the Rahal home, and that he said the money was meant to go to "orphans" -- the children of suicide bombers. Mr. Rahal has been charged with stealing more than $400,000 by means of credit-card fraud. When Mr. Rahal returned Feb. 9 from a trip to Canada, Customs agents found traces of explosives on his passport.
In March, Mahmoud Kourani of Dearborn pleaded guilty to providing material support for Hezbollah. He will be sentenced next month. Kourani ( whose brother is Hezbollah's chief of military security in southern Lebanon) is an illegal alien who sneaked into the United States from Mexico in February 2001. Federal authorities have repeatedly arrested suspected Hezbollah operatives for attempting to smuggle night-vision goggles and other military equipment to the organization. One suspect, arrested in 1998, skipped bail and fled to Lebanon before returning to the United States last year to face federal charges. In 2003, a federal court convicted a Hezbollah cell based in Charlotte, N.C., on charges of aiding Hezbollah by operating a cigarette-smuggling ring. The leader of that group, Mohammed Hammoud, received 155 years in prison.

(Washington Times April 2005)

Where is the sense of Outrage??

For some 22 years now myself, and the rest of the Beirut Veteran Community, have watched as our American Society has let itself forget the Men who fought the first battles in the War on terrorism. The recruiting of the insane Islamic who drove the Truck into our Battalion Headquarters on the Sunday Morning in 1983, started at least a year prior to the cowardly act.

America was coming off the heels of the Jimmy Carter administration where appeasement and compromise was heralded as the new beginning for Peace in Our Time. Ronald Reagan ushered in a new American Order designed to stop the appeasement and shut down the goals of the terrorists.

Somehow the Appeasement of the Carter Administration leaked into the Reagan Administration and suddenly the goal became the protection of the PLO and its leader Arafat. Could the State Department at the time still have holdovers from the Carter years? Its entirely possible. In 1982 in order to prevent the Israelis from "going too far" the Marines of the 32nd Marine amphibious Unit were sent in to Beirut to serve as a buffer zone so Arafat could escape to live another day. Casper Weinberger came to the port of Beirut to oversee the operation and have his picture taken with Marines eating "c-rations". All this, while Arafat laughed at the stupid Americans.

With Arafat and his entourage out of Lebanon, the Israelis and the Marines, pulled out of the Port of Beirut. The State Department patted itself on the back, ignored the comments from the Israelis about letting a dangerous snake loose, and looked for the next World Crisis to solve.