I just read an AP piece from last Wednesday that reported that Hezbollah representatives withdrew from the Lebanese government over a U.S.-backed faction's insistence on initiating tribunals over the 2005 car bombing death of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The opposing faction is led by Hariri's son, Saad. The move is expected to cause the Lebanese government to devolve into a state of chaos.
3 points:
1. Is chaos worse than having members of a terrorist organization controlling your government?
2. The AP reporters that authored this piece made an interesting observation: "The U.S. classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization." Although that statement is true, it also presumes that there are people who do NOT consider Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization. If the authors weren't making that presumption, then why not just say "Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed terrorist organization?" Similarly, it implies (or, rather, I infer) that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization because of our country's system of classification and not because Hezbollah sets of car bombs, engages in hijacking and kidnapping, and otherwise performs the functions of a terrorist organization.
3. One sentence contained in the piece is particularly telling: "France, Lebanon's former colonial power, is a major player in Lebanese politics."
This short sentence explains so much...
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