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Originally Posted by dlishsguy
id say yes.
yes in the sense that all the shiites in lebanon would consider themselves at least in part to be 'hezbollah'. so to get rid of hezbollah is only to either run them underground and have them re-surface under a different name, or you could incoroporate them into society and try and slow make them give up their radicalism.
i am by no means a supporter of hezbollah. never have, never will. but if you want to spread freedom in the middle east, you cant go taking away peoples rights to affiliation.
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I pretty much agree with this. There is no such thing as freedom if you drive the radicals underground, only to resurface later as something else with even more hatred than before.
If you incorporate them, listen to what they say, and then show them what you have to offer you will win. Why? Because freedom is far better than living in tyranny and fear.
The problem is we are wanting changes in people, beliefs and policies, over there, overnight. It isn't going to happen. It will take years, and yes, there will be setbacks but in the end you have to look at the goal, stay focussed and never waver. The radicals over there know that the West (the US especially) only looks at the now, we expect results now, we don't act until either our wallets are hit or something horrendous like 9/11 happens. And even then we react for the now and tend to lose focus, until it blurs and is out of thought. Our enemies know how we operate and they just sit back and wait.
On Sun/Mon Art Bell show he had a guest on that talked about this. The Koran speaks of being patient and out waiting your enemy, force him to make the mistakes.
The problem is while we sit on our asses worried about abortion, assisted suicides, death penalties, fair wages and teaching our youth to be greedy, self indulgent pukes, these people are teaching their kids that their religion wants them to go to war against all who oppose them.
It's like the last days of Rome...... Rome had their armies spread thin, their allies not so fearful or worried about Rome. Hell, Rome's infrastructure was falling apart and the people didn't care. Those "allies" were far more worried about their own. Meanwhile, the rich in Rome continued to live gluttunous lives and in debauchery, while the poor grew ever more frustrated and the enemy nations grew stronger and stronger and used Rome's lifestyles and how the rich treated the peasants as propaganda for their cause.
"Rome can't protect it's own people, how do you expect them to protect you?"
You can see many similarities between them and the modern US.
* Just for history nuts....... so noone can say "but those "allies" were actually conquered lands" Rome turned conquered lands more into allies that paid protection fees, as Rome early on would conquer then make treaties with the region, so that Rome didn't have to worry about war and maintaining troops there, but would offer help to that region should someone try to invade.