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i think the monbiot piece was transparently commentary that lined up evidence about which there is not much dispute and drew conclusions from it. like i said, i posted it here because the question of whether hezbollah "has the right to exist" in lebanon or "has the right" to be integrated into the wider political process in lebanon presupposes (1) a clear undestanding of what hezbollah is (2) some sense of lebanese law (i am not convinced of the interest of posing questions about integration relative to some abstract notion of "western democracy"--which is an empty category, given that democracy is very different in different places and is minimal at best in the united states) and (3) the question posed is self-evidently tied to your view of the present conflict, whcih operates as the main context that shapes views-the article functions to clarify that context---the implication of much rightwing commentary is that hezbollah is some alien force in southern lebanon, a proxy for iran, and not a popular militia....referring to hezbollah as a "terrorist organization" says nothing about it analytically at all, but does function to answer questions like powercown's in advance--so such coherence as there is in the op relies on prior conceptions of hezbollah.
as for the use of problematic sources: host did a fine job demolishing the aei shill-site stevo linked---i dont find stevo's "the guardian is a pinko rag" line to be particularly interesting--it certainly is not accurate when it comes to information presented as news--the editorial positions in the guardian do include more left positions than would most american papers--but this is more a commentary on the sorry state of the american press than it is on the guardian.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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