Thank you, Hezbollah, for showing us that we, the Lebanese people, don’t need an army or a government or an infrastructure. As long as we have “sacred unity”, steadfastness and brotherhood and all the other slogans, we do not need organized society, and History will judge us well on our actions. We don’t need incomes, a GDP, a budget or any of those Western economic concepts, since our love for each other under the rubble and the wreckage of our country is sufficient to sustain us. What’s the big deal if our Hariri-inflicted $40 billion deficit grows to $50 billion, and if the nascent economy we had is back to ground zero, for it does not weaken our resolve to liberate Palestine for the Palestinians and show the world what clay we are made of. In our megalomaniacal tendencies as the not so humble people that we are, we want to prove to the world that the Islamic faith is a great motivator for high-quality warmongering and that our irresponsibility as a country can lead us to success, all our failures of the past 40 years notwithstanding. With friends like Iran and Syria who provide us, respectively, with hundreds of millions of dollars a year and plenty of rockets and missiles, we don’t need the world.
Thank you, Hezbollah, for showing us that of all the Lebanese people, only Lebanese Shiite men are brave, courageous, and capable of defending the country. There is no need now to ask – but it’s just a thought for the future wars of liberation we are dreaming of – with the unity demonstrated by the Lebanese against the Israeli aggression, why are there no Sunni, Christian or Druze Lebanese men or women joining their Shiite brethren to fight off that aggression, either through their own militias or under the banner of the near-mythical highly organized, highly-trained Hezbollah? Anyway, thank you for showing us that we don’t need a regular army. After all, Lebanon is the Switzerland of the Middle East – though not as clean or organized – and even though the real Switzerland is neutral, it still has a powerful army. But we the Lebanese are so smart. We are not neutral, we have a salon army that we display but never use, and to wage wars on others and ourselves, we hire militias like the PLO, the Lebanese Forces, the Amal militia, the Revolutionary Guards, and now Hezbollah, to fight our wars. We’re just so smart, except that we never seem to think thoroughly of the consequences of our actions. Just watch our leaders, Nasrallah, Siniora, Berri, Hoss, Karami, Frangieh, Gemayel, Aoun, Geagea and all the rest. They are so smart that they went about killing their own people for decades, then suddenly, after 40 years of warfare, discovered unity only when they were in excrement up to their eyeballs. Too bad they did not discover that unity 3 months ago, or a year ago, or 5 years ago, or 30 years ago. We would have spared ourselves so much pain and destruction.
Thank you, Hezbollah, for showing us that our elderly men and women, in the final years of their lives, can be stripped of their children, their dignity and their possessions, and after having lost everything, they are made to flee alone, on foot, in front of Israeli tanks, leaving behind them homes and villages they have known all their lives. Thank you for hiding behind our houses to fire at the enemy, and for making our children fodder for war, while all the children of the Arab Umma are quietly enjoying their summer vacations in summer schools or on the beach. Thank you for preparing the country so well for the possible retaliation you knew was coming as a result of your smart and ballsy action.
Thank you for showing us that in Lebanon words mean nothing, that agreements, national dialogues, and memorandums of understanding are not worth the paper they are written on, and that in a headless country like Lebanon, the blind can truly lead the blind to certain death. Thank you for showing us that the Lebanese people, as a people, can be totally abnormal for discovering unity only after destruction, for discovering strength only after defeat, for discovering dialogue only in death. It really is just too much to ask a people to be united, strong and genuinely engaged before death, destruction and defeat, when they are alive, when their country is standing, and when their children and homes are safe.
I am sure there will be new giant posters of mullahs and ayatollas and martyrs on every dirty street corner of Beirut after all this ends one day. There will continue to be a great resolve to avenge the aggression, liberate Palestine, restore the dignity of the Umma, and add yet one more defeat to the long list of “victories in sacred unity”. For that is how Arabs measure victory or defeat: Not in terms of territory lost or won, not in terms of military battles lost or won, not in terms of buildings, cities, and villages saved or destroyed, not in terms of the numbers of dead and injured, not in terms of the effort it will take to rebuild, not in terms of how many people left the country to emigrate to more normal places to live. No. None of those things matter in this life for the smart people of Lebanon and their leaders. What matters in the end is how big we think the balls of our leaders are in comparison with the balls of the enemy, how much higher is the level of testosterone in their veins, and how much longer our phallic rockets are compared to theirs. That, my fellow Lebanese, is what we are dying for and why our country is being destroyed, and we should all thank Hezbollah for showing us how big Hassan Nasrallah’s balls are. This is a priceless piece of information that is worth the destruction of Lebanon and the death of its children.
The following is the balance sheet to date of the July 2006 war of “liberation” by Hezbollah against Israel. Bigger balls notwithstanding, we still have brains to take stock of the results of the “liberation” enterprise, and it does not take much to see that, no matter how big Nasrallah’s balls grow as a result of this conflict, Lebanon will still be the biggest loser.
Objective (implicit or explicit)
Lebanon
- Liberate 2 Hezbollah members from Israeli jails.
- Liberate Palestine & eliminate “Zionist” entity.
- Create Islamic State in Lebanon.
- Liberate Shebaa Farms
Israel:
- Liberate 2 Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah.
- Downgrade Hezbollah’s capability to fire rockets at Israel.
- Implement 1559 last clause
Objective achieved
?
?
Buildings destroyed
Thousands of buildings and houses
20
Bridges destroyed
60
0
Damaged Airports
3
0
Displaced people
1,000,000
500,000
Civilians killed
900
30
Civilians injured
3,000
600
Military killed
Unknown number of Hezbollah fighters and Lebanese army troops, but estimated at ~ 200
44
Damages (in dollars)
4 billion
Unknown
Loss of tourism business (dollars)
1 billion
Unknown
Years to rebuild
5 years
1 year
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Dr. Joseph Hitti of Boston is president of New England Americans for Lebanon.
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