[Dean's World] Mary Madigan: How Hezbollah wins hearts and minds

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Mary Madigan:
How Hezbollah wins hearts and minds
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1154623286.shtml


   By pointing guns at them. [1]Tony Badran of Across the Bay and
   [2]Caveman explain:

     Update: In the interests of clarity, let me reiterate what I have
     already said: Hizbullah attempted to enter Mari not to defend it
     from attackers, but so they could fire rockets from the village
     toward Israel. Hizbullah's intention was to bring Israeli reprisals
     on the town, ostensibly to destroy or damage it significantly, and
     to cause greater civilian suffering. Hizbullah's MO and tactics are
     well-known in the south. However, Druse typically defend their own
     villages, and in the case of Mari (a place I have been to several
     times, many of whose residents I know personally), the residents
     have desperately tried to keep Hizbullah fighters out of their
     area.

   If people don't cooperate, [3]they're shot as "spies"

     Several suspected spies were shot dead in the southern Lebanese
     port of Tyre, witness said on Thursday.

     Passengers on board an evacuation ship told medical doctor Boris
     Buck from the German city of Munich that they had seen members of
     the Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah group or their sympathisers killing
     18 Lebanese people during the night.

     The victims were suspected of helping the Israeli air force pick
     out targets.

   This is how terrorists have usually won hearts and minds. "Social
   programs" have very little to do with it. Islamist terrorists are just
   better at this routine than most because they're state-sponsored; all
   of that money, ammo, and troops coming in from Syria and [4]Iran buys
   a lot of hearts and minds.

   As a frequent visitor to Ireland during the time of the 'troubles', I
   saw two ways that terrorists win support among the population. There's
   the traditional headshot or kneecapping, or there's the kinder,
   gentler appeal of street cred by association. Supporting or pretending
   to have connections with terrorist thugs gives life's omnipresent
   losers a way to feel like tough guys. These losers blindly cheer on
   their terrorist team, despite the fact that their team will eventually
   destroy their society. [See [5]the Palestinians]. Of societies based
   on terrorism, Andre Glucksman says:

     "â¦what do extremist ideologies like the communism or Nazism of
     yesteryear and the Islamism of today have in common? After all,
     they support ostensibly very different ideals â the superior race,
     mankind united in socialism, the community of Muslim believers (the
     Umma). Tomorrow, it could be altogether different ideals: some
     theological, some scientific, others racist. But the common
     characteristic is nihilism."

     The root element is the attitude that anything goes, particularly
     when with regard to ordinary people: I can do whatever I want,
     without scruples. Goehring put it like this: my consciousness is
     Adolf Hitler. Bolsheviks said: man is made of iron. And the
     Islamists whom I visited in Algeria said that you have the right to
     kill little Muslim children, in order to save them."

     Human civilization survives because most people are able to
     suppress their appetite for extreme, random violence (or
     belligerent hubris)

   Human society has survived by not giving in to these impulses. When we
   don't suppress them, the result is a society like the Palestinians'.

   The Palestinians are among the most well-educated people in the Arab
   world, yet they can't survive without constant infusions of aid. They
   produce mostly hate and violence. Their society doesn't function.
   Terrorism can't physically destroy an entire society, but the
   Palestinians are proof that tolerating this hubris can ruin it all the
   same.

   In related news, the New Republic reports on [6]Nasrallah's cult of
   personality.

References

   1. http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/2006/07/letat-cest-moi_28.html
   2. http://blissstreetjournal.blogspot.com/2006/07/siege-of-mari.html
   3. http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/2006/07/letat-cest-moi_28.html
   4. http://www.sandmonkey.org/2006/08/02/the-iranian-hezbollah-re-enforcement/
   5. http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1154610942.shtml
   6. https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20060807&s=ciezadlo080706