Originally Posted by roachboy

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.