"The really scary thing is that the Islamofascist subhumans will probably start taking as many foreigners hostage as they can. If I were in that God forsaken city, I'd get to the the U.S. or British embassy as fast as I could. "
The amazing thing about Beirut over the past three or four years is that it is NOTHING like you would imagine. I am guessing most folk have a mental picture of a dust infested, war scared, shanty town full of people with rags on the heads in white night gowns with AK47s, who shout Allah Akbar every five minutes before burning a UK or US flag. There are many places in the mideast where that description wouldn't be far off the mark - but Beirut in recent years certainly wasn't one of them. It has been a stable, increasingly modern, city. You could walk around and feel at eaze in the same way you can in Cairo or Amman (and if people don't believe me - trust me - I feel just as uneasy in certain parts of Washington DC as I do in maintown Beirut - like travelling anywhere you just use common sense). I was even thinking of taking the wife there for a break. Our subsidiary there does good business and employs a decent set of guys. Things breifly started to look, almost, normal. Of course, the assasination of Hariri a year or so back started to suggest the Syrian interference wasn't gone after all, and that at least some of the progress was illusionary. That and the complete failure of the government to deal with Hizbollah in the south.
The risk in the Israeli strategy though is that they now drive those who had given up Israel bashing to make a proper go of the country by setting up businesses and doing a normal days work, back into the arms of the lunatics out of fear for their lives. Let's hope this is a short sharp surgical series of strikes to take out some real bad guys, and help refocus the goverments minds on the Hizbollah in the south problem rather than a repeat of the 1981 deabacle.
Don't get me wrong, or think I am a fundamentalist sympathiser - I have a wee bit of a problem with Hizbollah: Back in '92 I was living & working in Kiryat Shmona (Northern Israel) and one of their Katyusha rockets landed too close for comfort. In the words of Winston Churchill, 'there is nothing so exhilarating as to be shot at by someone without them having success'. But needless to say, I have had a bit of a hump with Hizbollah ever since.
The problem in Lebanon isn't the Lebanese (40% christian by the way), just as the problem in Iraq isn't Iraqi's. The problem is the Jihadi's who mix among them with support from Iran and Syria.
Sorting out Iran and Syria would sort out both Lebanon and Iraq by proxy. I worry we've picked the right war but the wrong battlegrounds.
Anyway, like you say, if I was there at the moment, I'd be stuck like glue to my hotel. A test for the Lebanese government now will be if it has the authority over and support of its forces to properly guard these international hotels from any opportunistic internal elements. If it hasn't then this escapade may backfire badly.
Thank You for your in-depth informative post.
Beruit was the Paris of the East prior to the civil war and rise of Islamofacism. It was quite beautiful.
Is Michel Aoun still exiled in Paris? Does the Gemayal family still have any standing there?
Lebanon stays in the Israeli gun-sights so long as religious Mohammedans have influence.
Its nice that Beirut recovered, but what sort of people think that they have a real country when they have "foreign" troops operating there? And why did they think they could escape the consequences of letting these forces wage war from their soil? They made their bed...
But it would be nice if we dumped the Lebanon war and went for Syria and Iran. Of course, then we'd hear about how the Syrians and Iranians are not blame, but the fault lies with their respective governments.
We need to get over this stuff about excusing people, because they have evil governments.