From last night’s Dateline program on SBS (trancript: ‘Lebanon – Sects in the City’, filmed at the end of January):

Here at the Makassad Hospital in West Beirut, dozens of young men arrive with gunshot wounds.
[..]
Most of the patients and families here are Sunni Muslims, and they’re targeting their anger at Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

WOMAN, (Translation): And they came to the university wearing helmets and armed. Are they coming to study or to shoot us? May God punish them and their Hassan Nasrallah.

MAN, (Translation): F##k him and his beard. He is a terrorist. It’s obvious.

MAN 2, (Translation): Religion disowns him. It disowns him, the terrorist. He is a terrorist, a Jew! Olmert is more honourable.

Ouch!

Michael Totten’s latest post continues his excellent series on his recent visit to Lebanon, where he did a fair bit of travelling around and spoke to Lebanese representatives from a variety of faiths and political factions. Something that two Lebanese men, who drove Michael and his friend Noah around South Lebanon, said in this post jumped right out at me today:

“We have been screaming about this conflict for 30 years now,” Henry said as he dealt himself a hand of Solitaire from a deck of cards in his pocket. “But no one ever listened to us. Not until September 11. Now you know how we feel all the time. You have to keep up the pressure. You can never let go, not for one day, one hour, not for one second. The minute you let go, Michael, they will fight back and get stronger. This is the problem with your foreign policy.”

“Since 1975 we have been fighting for the free world,” Said said. “We are on the front lines. Why doesn’t the West understand this? America can withdraw from Iraq, you can go back to Oregon, but we are stuck here. We have to stay and live with what happens.”

These two understand the crossroads we are now facing. These are the kind of men that would be abandoned in their fight for freedom should we pull out of Iraq and allow Syria, Iran and Hezbollah have their way in the Middle East. These men don’t have the luxury of the cut-and-run option. And they know that whats at stake is not oil, empire, the support of the Jewish lobby or Haliburton contracts. They are the front line now. Many people in the West need to realise that one day the front line could be their neighbourhood, if itsn’t already. Unless, that is, we keep up that pressure.

Sean Scallon understands the appeal of Islam and Islamism to certain alienated subgroups on both the far Left and the far Right rather well:

[In the 21st century] growth in Islam will come from Third World immigration of course. But it will also come from white converts as well and they will come from two sources of thought.

Islam always has had an ideological appeal to those on the far left and right. To a cultural Marxist, Islam is the God that hasn’t failed (unlike Communism), at least not yet. Its diverse, multicultural following and the fact that it is the religion of the Third Word i.e. it was founded there and expanded there outside of Europe and the West, makes it a perfect vehicle for cultural upheaval and egalitarianism. Marxism derided religion which limited its appeal while Islam is a religion and has mass appeal. And within an adversarial culture, converting to Islam becomes the perfect vehicle to shock one’s parents and friends and peers. Indeed, Jean-Paul Sartre himself became more and more fascinated with Islam as the communist left declined in his later years. This has more of chance of happening with the nominal baptized or secular Christian than anyone else. Think of John Walker Lindh, the Marin County, California teenager who got fed up with empty secularist lifestyle of parents and neighbors and converted to Islam and joined the Taliban in Afghanistan, and you’ll understand the type. Since 9-11 and since George Bush II give Islam his stamp of approval by calling it a “religion of peace,” there’s been a growing study of Islam within in the media and with others who are curious to know more about it. Such study, no doubt, will increase the size of the pool of converts for Islam within the U.S.

On the other side, Nazis have always appreciated Islam’s marshal spirit and ascetic, non-bourgeois lifestyle along with its ability to submit the will of the mass towards one deity or person. They found it far superior to Christian piety which they found to be nothing more than religion for wimps, not the supermen they were supposed to be. Those who are not inclined towards Nazism still find these same qualities admirable, along with Islam’s male-dominated patriarchy. Women and men do not pray together. If you are a fellow who is unchurched right at the moment because you think the modern church in the U.S. is too female dominated and has no place for you, then Islam may be your scene. Think of [the] guy who used to attend Promise Keeper rallies in football stadiums and spent his time crying on the shoulder of another guy while being told what an awful person he was. When he realized the whole thing was nothing more than a religious version of 1990s male bonding without the tom-tom drums, campfires and war paint and when he realized his wife and her friends were laughing their heads off at him down at the solon, then you’ll know the kind of person I’m talking about. In fact the crisis of the maleless church has become such a concern that, according to religious news reports, that certain pastors have gotten to the point of parking Harley Davidson motorcycles out front of the entryways of their churches and putting on football uniforms and using football metaphors to attract males back into the pews again. But Islam’s call may be more enticing than that just more passing Christian fads.

Examples are fun, so here’s a couple more.

The alliance between Hezbollah (and Iran) and the far Left in Lebanon and around the world is a great example of the first trend described above.

A “story” (read: propaganda piece) in the Montreal Gazette, Dec 10th, by Maria Abi-Habib:

Ibtisam Jamaleddine stood in the room of her dead son, Maxim. Maxim was 18 years old when he was mistaken for a fighter and killed by an Israeli missile during this summer’s war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Pictures of Che Guevara and soccer players as well as a plaque dedicated to Shiite Islam’s most revered imam, Ali, adorn the walls of his room. They tell a story unknown in the West, of the complex nature of forces that fought Israel last summer.

During the war, U.S. President George W. Bush pitted the conflict as one fuelled by “Islamo-fascism,” pushed by Hezbollah, the Party of God. But fighting alongside Hezbollah was an older, more seasoned resistance movement – the Lebanese Communist Party, which allied with the Islamic party for the first time and showed its members that Islam and communism can complement each other.

For Maxim’s mother, the alliance of these two ideologies was natural and the pictures in her son’s room of a communist martyr and a Muslim hero attest to that.

She said her son wasn’t religious. She said she sees her son as part of a line of resistance fighters “that began with Imam Ali and went to Che and then to Maxim. It’s one lineage of struggle.”

The nature of forces and alliances in Lebanon may be complex, but this is hardly an example of that complexity. Communism and Islamism in bed together makes perfect sense, as both are totalitarian fantasies of a utopia, which, at every attempt at implementation turns into its hellish opposite. (Isn’t it hilarious when Muslims counter real-world examples of the failings of Islam by saying the examples don’t apply to “true” Islam because “there is currently no ‘true’ Islamic state in existance”? Gee, I wonder why?) Neither is the above alliance happening “for the first time”. Hezbollah and Lebanese Communist Party members have been running on voting tickets together in Lebanese elections ever since Hezbollah was forced to change its image from sectarian terrorist militia to a political party of “resistance” at the end of the civil war in the early nineties.

Here’s a couple of recent happy snaps of the happy couple:

“Supporters of the Lebanese Communist Party wave a party flag last Sunday during a peaceful sit-in organized by Hezbollah in Beirut.” according to the Montreal Gazette

Dec 2006, Hezbollocks-led protest in Beirut – A drop of Red in a sea of Yellow and Orange.

And if you think that a portrait of Che Guevara on the wall next to an Islamic one is an anomaly, think again:

Prime Minister of Chechnya is not a man to be messed with, especially if you work for him.

At the age of just 30, Ramzan Kadyrov counts the Russian President Vladimir Putin as a close ally, wields enormous power in his war-ravaged world-infamous republic, and is the object of a Stalin-style personality cult.

[..] He has advocated polygamy, banned gambling, and clamped down on the sale of alcohol – all policies that would cause a riot if implemented elsewhere in Russia.

[..]Inside, Kadyrov’s office resembles the boardroom of a multinational corporation, albeit with a few significant differences. The federal Russian flag stands alongside the green flag of the Chechen republic, and from one wall, a framed black-and-white picture of Che Guevara stares down. Kadyrov clearly identifies with the Argentine who made his name in Cuba, since his fan club (yes, he does have a fan club) often waves aloft stencilled posters of the Chechen leader wearing Che’s beret and adopting the same uncompromising stare.

[..]A colourful portrait of a woman wearing a headscarf adorns another wall, presumably Kadyrov’s mother, and I notice at least two likenesses of his benefactor, Vladimir Putin.

Through the window, the green-topped minaret of a newly built mosque reaches up into the gloomy Grozny sky, a reminder that Kadyrov has styled himself as a devout Muslim and adopted elements of shariah for his regime.

Yep, you read correctly, a chunk of Russia is now partially implementing Sharia Law. But don’t get too carried away with that one – this is an elaborate and cynical exercise in sock-puppetry, not a naive subjugation to a creeping Islamification. This is Russia, not Sweden, and the Russia Empire has centuries of experience with “self-governing” Muslim populations within its borders. More importantly it has several centuries experience of being governed by Muslims – an experience permanantly etched into the national psyche and untempered by Western political correctness and one Russia will not be repeating any time soon (“scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar”, goes a Russian proverb). And by soon I mean ever. I had a post on Islam and demographics in Russia in the works that I am thinking of posting in several smaller posts, largely in response to the “Russia is turning Muslim” silliness that swept the blogosphere recently. Chechnya is only a very small part of Russia, the Muslims of the North Caucasus are a very different breed to say the Tartars, who make up the biggest Muslim segment in Russia, and the whole Islamification-of-Russia line is a misfire. But I digress.

Now a quick look at the other end of the spectrum – the far right and Islamism. Its not called Islamo-Fascism for nothing, and if you need proof, look up the collaboration of Bosnian Muslims with the Nazis in World War 2. Look up the relationship between the Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler. Look up the list of speakers at the recent Holocaust conference in Iran.

I’ll throw in just one more example though, that relates directly to the “Promise Keeper rally enthusiast” types Scallon is talking about:

Turning Muslim in Texas

Praying in Texas
George W Bush may be backed by Christian fundamentalists but in his home state of Texas, Islam is the latest big draw. The Bible belt is transferring its allegiance to the Qur’an because, for many erstwhile Christians, believe it or not, the church is too liberal.

Eric was a Baptist preacher before he became a Muslim 14 years ago. Now he prays five times a day – even in the middle of watching a football game. His wife, Karen, also a convert, is covered from head to toe in the traditional Muslim burka. Islam, says Eric, ‘is everything I wanted Christianity to be’.

The Bible belt is not about to turn into the Our’an belt, any more than Russia is about to turn into Russiastan, so don’t take the “transferring its allegiance” baloney above too seriously. But do check out the video for the comedy. You can watch the full 24-minute documentary, “Turning Muslim in Texas”, on Google Video. Here it is:

See also my previous posts on Islam’s useful idiots on the Left.

Or not.

(h/t Ryan Northcott)

In non-Hajj-related news, I am going on vacation mid next week for a couple of weeks, and will not be near a computer for most of that time. I won’t have time for much posting in the next week either, so its looking like this blog won’t be back in full force for another three weeks or so.

Anyone looking for something to read, I’ve recently been enjoying Michael Totten’s posts on the developing situation in Lebanon, where he visitted in December. Bill Roggio’s recent coverage of the war in Somalia as well as other global Jihad hotspots has been great also.

For a list of some fantastic blogs you should be reading, have a read of this interview, where Hugh Hewitt hammers to pieces Joseph Rago for his article in the Opinion Journal, in which Rago lamely attempted to write off the whole blogosphere as somehow irrelevant. In the interview, which is quite entertaining in itself, Hugh presents a lists of worthy blogs to set the stage for their discussion. Take a look, you’re bound to come across a couple of new gems.

And check out the new 910 Group movement, of which this blog is now a part. Blogs to read, forum to chat in, projects to be a part of it. Get into it.

Daniel Pipes in the NY Sun:

[..] however strong the Western hardware, its software contains some potentially fatal bugs. Three of them — pacifism, self-hatred, complacency — deserve attention.

Pacifism: Among the educated, the conviction has taken hold that “there is no military solution” to current problems, a mantra applied to Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, the Kurds, terrorism, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. But this pragmatic pacifism overlooks the fact that modern history abounds with military solutions. What were the defeats of the Axis, America in Vietnam, or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan if not military solutions?

Self-hatred: Significant elements in several Western countries — especially America, Britain, and Israel — believe their own governments to be repositories of evil and see terrorism as just punishment for past sins. This “we have met the enemy and he is us” attitude replaces an effective response with appeasement, including a readiness to give up traditions and achievements. Osama bin Laden celebrates by name such leftists as Robert Fisk and William Blum. Self-hating Westerners have an outsize importance due to their prominent role as shapers of opinion in universities, the press, religious institutions, and the arts. They serve as the Islamists’ auxiliary mujahedeen.

Complacency: The absence of an impressive Islamist military machine gives many Westerners, especially on the left, a feeling of disdain. Whereas conventional war — men in uniform; ships, tanks, and planes; and battles for land and resources — is simple to comprehend, the asymmetric war with radical Islam is elusive. Box cutters and suicide belts make it difficult to perceive this enemy as a worthy opponent. Senator Kerry and too many others dismiss terrorism as a mere “nuisance.”

The original also has many links worth checking out.

And here are some points towards victory from Victor Davis Hanson:

So how, aside from killing jihadist terrorists, can we defend ourselves against the insidious spread of radical Islam? Here are a few starting suggestions:

Bluntly identify radical Islam as fascistic — without worrying whether some Muslims take offense when we will talk honestly about the extremists in their midst.

At the same time, keep encouraging consensual governments in the Middle East and beyond that could offer people security and prosperity, while distancing ourselves from illegitimate dictators, especially in Syria and Iran, that promote terrorists.

Establish that no more autocracies in the Middle East and Asia will be allowed to get the bomb.

Seek energy independence that would collapse the world price of oil, curbing petrodollar subsidies for terrorists and our own appeasement of their benefactors.

Appreciate the history and traditions of a unique Western civilization to remind the world that we have nothing to apologize for but rather much good to offer to others.

Finally, keep confident in a war in which our will and morale are every bit as important as our overwhelming military strength. The jihadists claim that we are weak spiritually, but our past global ideological enemies — Nazism, fascism, militarism and communism — all failed. And so will they.

Eric Hoffer previously made that last point rather well, some decades prior:

All the ‘true believers’ of our time-whether Communist, Nazi, Fascist, Japanese or Catholic-declaimed volubly[..] on the decadence of the Western democracies. The burden of their talk is that in the democracies people are too soft, too pleasure-loving and too selfish to die for a nation, a God or a holy cause.This lack of a readiness to die, we are told, is indicative of an inner rot – a moral and biological decay. The democracies are old, corrupt and decadent. They are no match for the virile congregations of the faithful who are about to inherit the Earth.

Some previous punchlines.

Much has been said about the ISG report in the blogosphere by people far more in-the-know, so to speak, than myself (and I think some of them even read it), so no rant on the subject from me. Jules Crittenden has a couple of good roundups before and after the release of the report, as well as in his Boston Herald column, covering and saying what needed to be said. Oh and while you’re there, go ahead and vote for his site in the Best New Blog category in the 2006 Weblog awards. And perhaps spare a vote for Tim Blair in the Best Australian and NZ Blog category and for Little Green Footballs in the Best Blog category too.

Anyway, here’s the problem of the Middle East in a nutshell. You decide where the ISG fits into the equation. Jonathan Gurwitz:

Rule No. 1 in the Middle East is that the rational desire for peace is often perceived as weakness. Rule No. 2 is that weakness guarantees aggression.

Game over.

From a Stratfor analysis (subscription only). I must admit I did a double take to make sure I wasn’t reading Debka when I was reading the second paragraph below:

Hezbollah is still in the process of deciding its next plan of action should the Siniora government fail to accede to the demands. Sources within Hezbollah claim the group’s next move will be to have more parliament and civil service members resign and to block access to the Rafik al-Hariri International Airport by sending around 70,000 demonstrators to camp on the main highway. While the Lebanese army commander has made it clear that the airport will remain open and is off limits to the protesters, Hezbollah members believe the army will be unable to restrain a mob of 70,000 people.

Syria, meanwhile, has been looking at its own agenda for Lebanon. Following the assassination of Lebanese Ministry of Industry Pierre Gemayel, a Syrian security delegation made its way to Tehran to discuss at length the assassination of anti-Syrian and anti-Iranian Lebanese figures. To cover up Syria’s suspected involvement in the spate of killings, Iran allegedly has suggested killing one or two second-tier Lebanese allies of Syria to confuse the ongoing investigation, led by Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz, who is due to release a report on the political assassinations in mid-December. The prime targets for assassination in this scenario include Najah Wakim, a Greek Orthodox, who is an outspoken supporter of Syria and fierce critic of slain former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, as well as Nasser Qandil, a Shi’i, who is associated with Berri’s Amal movement. Both Qandil and Wakim are suspected of playing a role in the al-Hariri assassination, and their killings would give opposition forces an excuse to accuse the March 14 anti-Syrian alliance of the act.

A new Palestinian movement that has appeared in Beirut is expected to aid the Syrians in these assassinations. The group calls itself Harakat Fatah al-Islam, a splinter group of Fatah al-Intifada, which itself split from the Fatah movement in 1983. About 200 members of the new movement have entered Lebanon lately — some 150 to the Badawi refugee camp near Tripoli and about 50 to the Burj al-Barajneh camp in the southern suburbs.

Evidently, the political assassinations in Beirut are far from over, and Hezbollah is feeling bold enough to escalate the demonstrations to cripple the Siniora government, leaving Lebanon in an all-too-familiar state of chaos. The opportunity for negotiations still exists, but plenty of AK-47s will be passed out to various sects in Beirut to prepare for a worst-case scenario.

Here’s Alamgir Hussain of IslamWatch getting to the point on Islamist secessionism:

The experts quickly disregard the most obvious fact that whenever Muslims form a sizable population in a region of an otherwise non-Muslim country, they start a secessionist campaign for independence of that region to form an Islamic state. That’s also exactly what is happening in Kashmir, Chechnya, Mindanao and Kosovo and now in Thai South. The unsuspecting experts naively buy Muslims unsubstantiated allegations of oppression and marginalization as the underlying and justifiable cause for the insurgency. Despite decades of such incidences, the experts, consciously or unconsciously, ignore the most obvious fact that the people involved in these insurgencies are the Muslims and their common binding factor is Islam.

And Olivier Guitta getting to the point on the veil debate, in the Weekly Standard (h/t LGF):

For Islamists, the imperative to veil women justifies almost any means. Sometimes they try to buy off resistance. Some French Muslim families, for instance, are paid 500 euros (around $600) per quarter by extremist Muslim organizations just to have their daughters wear the hijab. This has also happened in the United States. Indeed, the famous and brave Syrian-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan recently told the Jerusalem Post that after she moved to the United States in 1991, Saudis offered her $1,500 a month to cover her head and attend a mosque.

But what Islamists use most is intimidation. A survey conducted in France in May 2003 found that 77 percent of girls wearing the hijab said they did so because of physical threats from Islamist groups.

[..] millions of women are forced to wear the veil for fear of physical retribution. And the fear is well founded. According to Cheryl Benard of RAND, every year hundreds of women in Pakistan and Afghanistan alone are killed, have acid thrown in their faces, or are otherwise maimed by male fanatics.

Given the Islamists’ ferocious determination on this point, it is worth asking: Why exactly is covering the female so important to them? The obvious answer is that it is a means of social control.

[..] Commenting recently on the veil and the Islamists’ strategy, Professor Iqbal Al-Gharbi, from the famous Islamic Zaytouna University in Tunis, explained: “The veil is just the tip of the iceberg. Behind the veil, there is the regressive interpretation of the sharia [Koranic law]. There are the three essential inequalities which define this interpretation: inequality between man and woman, between Muslim and non-Muslim, between free man and slave.”

“Islam is the solution” is the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood. Instead, the real solution to the veil problem in Europe and in modern countries elsewhere is the defeat of radical Islam, making possible the peaceful integration of normal Muslims into Western societies on Western terms.

Michael Young gets to the point of what Syria and Iran are trying to achieve in Lebanon:

The ideal Syrian and Iranian scheme looks like this. Syria’s condition to allow a return to stability is that the March 14 majority agree to give up on the Hariri tribunal. Once that happens, Emile Lahoud’s presence would no longer be as essential, so there might be room for a presidential election. The winning candidate would be neither from March 8 nor March 14. And it would not be Michel Aoun, whom Syria and Hizbullah don’t trust, even as they ransack his vanity. The likely victor could be someone like Riyad Salameh, the Central Bank governor, or the army commander, General Michel Suleiman, who can play both sides. At the same time, a new government would be formed in such a way as to grant the opposition veto power, if not more. The Iranian and Syrian goal would be to have in hand the means to block any Lebanese effort to consolidate Resolution 1701 through further normalization of the situation in South Lebanon. This would be the culmination of a downward spiral for anti-Syrian forces, and with Hizbullah as their enforcer, Syria and Iran could systematically dismantle the remaining outposts of Lebanese autonomy.

In a FrontPage interview Gregory M. Davis, author of the “Religion of Peace?” and producer of the feature documentary “Islam: What the West Needs to Know”, getting to the point on why the West does not understand the threat it is facing:

FP: How would you interpret the West’s illusions about Islam?

Davis: The West is guilty of the ages-old error of projection, of imposing its own ideas, beliefs, and aspirations onto the other guy. When Westerners approach Islam, they imagine that it is a religion like others that they are familiar with – like, say, Christianity. They see Islam as basically another item on the religious menu available in an integrated world. What they fail to understand, however, is that Islam is decidedly outside the Western tradition and therefore Western assumptions are inapt when assessing it.

In “Islam: What the West Needs to Know”, we talk with Robert Spencer, Walid Shoebat, Bat Ye’or, Serge Trifkovic, and Abdullah Al-Araby, who all affirm that the most important aspect of Islam not understood in the West is that Islam is less a personal faith than a social and political plan for organizing humanity – really, a system of government.

It was only in the West that religious power developed in parallel with secular power but distinct from it thanks largely to the doctrinal distinction in Christianity between giving ‘to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God’s what is God’s.’ While religious and secular power have certainly commingled at times in the West, it is fully possible for the two to coexist separately. But in Islam, there has never been a distinction between religion and political power; the two are inseparably united. An Islamic society is invariably a theocracy ruled by Sharia (Islamic) law, which is understood as God’s prescribed legal code for all mankind, based on the commandments of the Koran and the precedents set by Muhammad.

There can be no question of the type of government in Islam because Islam is a government, which Allah through Muhammad has ordained to comprehend the entire earth. Once the political nature of Islam and its universal pretensions are grasped, it is not hard to see why Muslims and Muslim societies are so hostile toward the rest of the world.

Speaking of documentaries, this has been around for several weeks, but if you haven’t already, do watch Glenn Beck’s to the point special “Exposed: The Extremist agenda” that aired on CNN, on Novenmbr 15th, I believe.

And if any of these points seem a bit long winded, here’s the point of my post “Why the Muslim world was left behind” in pictorial form.

Michel Aoun is the leader of Lebanon’s Free Patriotic Movement party. FPM is a Maronite Christian party, currently in a tactical alliance with Hezbollah, against Prime Minister Siniora’s government, which is backed by the anti-Syrian coalition. This (mostly Christian and Sunni) coalition is generally referred to as March 14, named after a day of mass protest in Beirut in 2005 against Syrian influence in Lebanon, as part of what became known as the Cedar Revolution. The protests led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. Hezbollah and FPM, with backing from Syria and Iran are calling for the resignation of the current government, having launched their supporters into the streets of Beirut for the last several days.

In an apparent cynical ploy to gain more parliamentary power General Aoun has allied himself with the Syria-supported Shiite parties Hezbollah and Amal. This, after in 1989, when he was the Prime Minister, he personally declared a “war of liberation” against Syria. At the time he had support from France and.. Saddam Hussein, who sent him arms. When Saddam invaded Kuwait Syria sided with the US, in return for getting control of Lebanon (a ‘realist’ deal brokered by then-Secretary of State James Baker) and the Syrian-sponsored forces soon dominated Lebanon. Aoun went into exile in France, only returning to Lebanon in May 2005, just before the new election, following the Cedar Revolution protests.

According to Stratfor Aoun originally, on his return to Lebanon, had made a deal with Sunni leader Saad al-Hariri “to force the ouster of current [pro-Syrian] Lebanese president Emile Lahoud with the votes of Aoun’s parliamentary bloc, giving Aoun the presidency in exchange.” Saad al-Hariri is the leader of Tayyar al Mustaqbal or Future Movement party and of the anti-Syrian bloc and it was the assassination of his father and Prime Minister at the time, Rafik Hariri, that ignited the anti-Syrian protests. Then, Stratfor reported in August of 2005, “after Aoun drove a hard bargain, al-Hariri [..] apparently [opted] to replace Aoun with [Aoun's former rival Lebanese Forces leader Samir] Geagea for the presidency.” This led to a severe falling out between Aoun and Al-Hariri and to Aoun’s eventual turning to Nasrallah to continue on his quest for power by any means necessary.

So what does General Aoun really think of his new friends Hezbollah? Here’s an interview he gave on September 12 of 2002, conveniently located on his party’s website. The interviewer is Pat Robertson, on The 700 Club show.

Here’s Aoun on Hezbollah:

PAT ROBERTSON: [..] With me is General Michel Aoun who is the former prime minister of Lebanon and the former commander-in-chief of the armed forces. General Aoun, delighted to have you with us on The 700 Club, welcome. Tell me about Hezbollah. We hear about the terrorist group Hezbollah. What relation do they have to Syria?

GENERAL AOUN: Hezbollah is not a separate entity from Syria. It is under the Syrian operational control.

ROBERTSON: The so-called terrorist group is under the operational control of Syria?

AOUN: Yes, 100 percent, no question about that.

ROBERTSON: I understand that Damascus is the headquarters of a number of other terrorist organizations that have received aid and assistance from the Syrians. Can you tell us what they are, those other terrorist organizations?

AOUN: There are about 11 organizations of terrorism in Damascus. Among them, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Democratic Front and the General Command Front of the Palestinians [Liberation Army], all of them are listed in the United States as classified as terrorist organizations.

Here he is showing clearly that he knows the situation he is helping to return Lebanon to:

ROBERTSON: I understand that there were estimated as many as 10,000 Katyusha rockets that were moved from Syria into Lebanon to reinforce Hezbollah against Israel. Is something like that the case?

AOUN: Yes, since Lebanon was occupied by Syria, they extended the base of their terror operations to Lebanon, and they are stationed in Syria, but they act from the Lebanese territory.

ROBERTSON: Bashir Assad [leader of Syria] made a shocking statement that you called into account. He said that all Israelis are combatants and therefore there’s no such thing as an innocent civilian in Israel. Could you comment on that?

AOUN: Yes, during the Arab Summit in Beirut last March, I think, he made this declaration that there is no civilian in Israel, all of them are military.

ROBERTSON: So you can shoot any one of them you want to as a combatant?

AOUN: He did not say it like that directly, but it means that.

And here he clearly explains the strategy he is currently a part of implementing for Syria:

ROBERTSON: All right. What happened and how did Syria get control of Lebanon? Lebanon was essentially a Christian country. How did they gain this dominance in the country?

AOUN: They first destabilized the country by opening the Syrian borders to the Palestinians and they came from Syria with the refugees who were stationed in Lebanon. Together they destabilized Lebanon and called it a civil war, but it was not a civil war.

ROBERTSON: Then they came in to stop the so-called civil war that they engendered?

AOUN: They created it. That’s what we call in military terminology “indirect strategy.” You make a problem and then you come to solve it.

And he even has some advise as to what should be done to remedy the problem:

ROBERTSON: What is the danger to world peace? We are engaged in a war on terror and yet the Syrians are in the United Nations Security Council how can that be?

AOUN: It’s a big contradiction that we have to solve in the world. Because people, the terrorist regimes, they are still, you know, having good stature in the world. And there are terrorist regimes like Syria that are generating terrorist organizations. Therefore, I propose a plan that first, to disarm the organizations; second, to democratize the regimes; and then to help them to develop their country.

ROBERTSON: What do you think of President Bush’s initiative to go against Saddam Hussein to help democratize Iraq? Is that a wise course or not?

AOUN: I would like personally to see that all of the United Nations resolutions be implemented. And if Iraq complies with these resolutions, maybe it would be a happy end for everybody.

And this is the part where you know, he really, really, shows himself to be a total sell-out:

ROBERTSON: Okay. What is happening to the Christians? When I was there in 1972, Beirut was the Paris of the Middle East, a beautiful city, and then little by little it’s been torn asunder. What is the role of a lot of the Christians now? What is being done to them in Lebanon?

AOUN: They are rejected as second class citizens and they don’t enjoy liberty and freedom. And they are threatened.

ROBERTSON: We have pictures of Lebanese Christians being beaten by Lebanese soldiers who were apparently in the employ of Syria. How does that happen?

AOUN: There are some collaborators in Lebanon, especially among the politicians. We have a puppet government, and they represent the Syrians instead of representing the Lebanese people. They do everything that they are asked to do. Between those, they have some military units especially organized for that. And between these military units, we have many intelligence agents and they participate all the time to torture and arrest and beat people.

ROBERTSON: Arrest, torturing, and beating, and no more freedom of speech now.

AOUN: No, no more.

ROBERTSON: This resolution is before the Congress, the Syria Accountability Act. What would you like to see done and see America do?

AOUN: First we would like America to support this bill, to vote for it in the Congress and the Senate. And also to pray for the Lebanese, you know, to liberate Lebanon. Because Lebanon is a pluralist society that may help spread the human values all around.

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