Gloves coming off: Sunni-Shiite skirmishes break out in Beirut; Report: Weapons flooding in from Syria
posted at 3:53 pm on December 3, 2006 by Allahpundit
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Via Rick Moran, it’s day three of the protests and the bad moon is rising:
Opposition and government supporters on Sunday were engaged in two separate street fights in Beirut, as opposition leader Talal Arslan pledged to “smash the government under the boots.”
Security sources said four people were wounded in the clashes which took place in the densely-populated Tarik Jedideh neighborhood and on the Badaro-Qasqas highway.
Shiite supporters from the southern suburbs trying to infiltrate into Tarik Jedideh, a low-income Sunni quarter, clashed with pro-government supporters with stones, sticks and knives, witnesses told Naharnet.
They said sporadic bursts of automatic gunfire could be heard in the confrontation which lasted about 45 minutes before army troops and police patrols stepped in to disengage the opponents.
Fox just broke in to say that one Shiite has been shot dead. Abu Kais, guest-blogging at Totten’s, says Hezbollah has been spotted filming the building in which the government is holed up, and that Mubarak reportedly said yesterday that “many Arab countries” are ready to intervene if Iran makes a play for Lebanon. He ends thusly:
[T]ime is running out for Hizbullah and Aoun. The resentment towards them and their supporters is reaching dangerous levels. There have been many spontaneous protests in several Lebanese cities, and it is clear that there are people who will not sit and watch the militia and its Christian cover besieging their government and paralyzing the country.
Unless they plan on a military coup, I don’t see how they will succeed in toppling the government, which is enjoying the support of parliament, not to mention most of the world.
If they don’t end their occupation of downtown Beirut soon, civil war will come knocking.
For the time being, it’s business as usual.
Update: Abu Kais says Assad is arming the troops in preparation for endgame.
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Prediction: The entire region looks a whole lot different a year from now, and Bush comes out looking like a freaking prophet. Not that you’d think it was even possible, given that he’s such an idiot.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’d still like for civilization to win this one.
Pablo on December 3, 2006 at 4:10 PM
Or perhaps “Run for your life”. The worst thing they could have done was to bring Hezbollah to power. Now that the mafia is in charge of their country, they will be stuck with the misery of that choice for a very long time or until civil war breaks out – in which case – Hezbollah still wins because they have all the guns and the police are afraid of them.
thedecider on December 3, 2006 at 4:34 PM
Wait, who are the Christians covering? I take it whoever it is its not in the human shield sense.
Iblis on December 3, 2006 at 4:42 PM
Christian cover? I don’t get it either.
Theworldisnotenough on December 3, 2006 at 5:12 PM
I like how CNN loves to describe the Lebanese government as “American backed” or “Pro-American”. What’s next the “Pro-Israel Lebanese government?”
Theworldisnotenough on December 3, 2006 at 5:13 PM
Right, like Saddam. Unless we’re actively working against them, we’re entirely responsible for them. We might as well have made them from whole cloth, so that we can be fully responsible for everything they do or fail to do.
It’s hard out here on a hyperpower.
Pablo on December 3, 2006 at 5:37 PM
Christain shite. It might sound weird. That is what it is.
Ouabam on December 3, 2006 at 6:09 PM
HEHE.
“Hyperpower.” Hmm that just reminded me of the current military spending debate. Unmothball battleships or build new weapons platforms ie the new class of destroyers?
My small goverment antifederalist urges say “Bring back the Missouri!” Why spend billions to defeat a technologically advanced enemy that doesn’t exist? I’m not saying do not spend the R&D dollars, just wait until production is neccesary, then produce. I am weary of spending unneccesarily. Our methods of warfare have changed, we must adapt, but that does not mean we should be spending money on technology that is no more effective than our current war fighting capacity. Smart munitions can be fired by battleships from over the horizon and be guided to a target via laser or gps, which is significant because the proponents of these new ships are shopping the ground support angle, so why spend billions on ships that we really do not need?
One huge advantage is that new ships use far less people, demographically speaking that is to our advantage,but the cost is gargantuan. That money is better spent on technology we can use more immediately. An unintended (I hope) benefit of the war is the rapid deployment and development of new weapons and tactics let us spend our money there for the benefit of the nation and our troops.
Theworldisnotenough on December 3, 2006 at 6:10 PM
Michael Totten, interviewed here by Hugh Hewitt, gives a good primer on Lebanese politics, and how the gov’t is divided between the Christians, the Sunnis, and the Shiites. Pretty interesting stuff.
Scroll down to Show #18 from Nov. 22.
RushBaby on December 3, 2006 at 6:14 PM
Maybe in the long run it’s better that we sit back and let the sunni/shiite divide become a full blown civil war. Both will be weaker when it’s over. Pablo’s right, Bush comes out of it lookin’ like a freakin’ GENIUS!
Perfect timing for this story, I’m half way through “Because They Hate” by Brigitte Gabriel. It’s about her childhood during the late 70s and early 80s in Lebanon. She’s a Christian, the muslims are trying to wipe them all out of her country. The commies take sides with the muzzies, the media takes sides with the muzzies and when Israel tries to save the Christians, they are blamed for being the aggressors. Wow, sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Brigitte grew up in an Arab society, and was told that Jews are eeeevil, but when she was in an Israeli hospital she saw how kind the Israelis were … to her AND to any muslims that were there with injuries. The muslim patients whose lives were saved by Jewish doctors wished those very same doctors dead. Amazing.
She also talks about how libs in the West don’t see the truth and don’t *wanna* see it. She has a great qoute for them – “When you bury your head in the sand, you make a great big fat target out of your ass.” Exactly.
Tony737 on December 3, 2006 at 6:17 PM
Worldisnotenough – YES! Bring back the Iowa class battleships!!! Just like we did for every OTHER war since their retirement. I wanna see those big 16 inch guns pounding away at jihadis! Imagine their horror as the shells from the guns of the New Jersey and Wisconsin come crashing down upon them! YOU WANNA F&*# WITH AMERICA, BITCH???
Man, there’s just something so sexy about that class of battleship. It’s like a beautiful woman, those curves, those lines, that fire power!
We brought them back for Desert Storm, we need ‘em now more than ever…
“Islamic Court of Mogadishu” – See ya!
“Abu Sayyef” – GONE!
“Janjaweed” – Later gator!
“Hezbollah” – BUH bye!
“Hamas” – Goodnight!
Any other terrosist group within 20 miles of the coast – DEAD!
I almost joined the Navy ’cause of those bad ass ships, but they were retired, so I joined the Air Force.
Tony737 on December 3, 2006 at 6:33 PM
Brigitte Gabriel absolutely rocks! Her speech to The Heritage Foundation on September 27, 2006 should be seen by every single American. She lays it all out so well and so powerfully.
I first saw it on The Heritage Foundation’s web site, but lucked into finding a broadcast on CSPAN last month and I DVR’d it and burned it off to DVD. Just an excellent appraisal and history of the situation in Lebanon, and with radical islam in general.
techno_barbarian on December 3, 2006 at 6:38 PM
The Middle East was a boil that needed lancing. Now here comes all the pus.
Stormy70 on December 3, 2006 at 6:44 PM
The “Christian cover” to which AP refers is Michel Aoun and his “Free Patriotic Movement,” which is not “Christian Shiite” (that’s not possible), but a Maronite-based party that is allied with Hezbollah. He’s a former prime minister back in the late 1980s, as well as a former commander of the Lebanese army, and is now basically an operator looking out for himself and his buddies, figuring the Hezbos and Syrians are the wave of the future.
Athanasius on December 3, 2006 at 7:07 PM
She’s a Christian, the muslims are trying to wipe them all out of her country.
I understand that 35 years ago Lebanon was over 50% Christian. It is now less than 25% Christian. This is in 35 years folks… You figure it out.
Babs on December 3, 2006 at 10:50 PM
…this only shows the naivete of CNN…stay-at-home journalism, relying on stringers and ideology, is eating at their braincells, just as it’s eaten at their testicle cells….
There *ARE* not “pro-” anything parties in the Middle East. There are only “anti-” factions. One faction may be “Iranian-via-Syrian-backed” or “American-via-Israel-backed”, but they aren’t “pro-” anything.
People commiting suicide are seldom that optimistic.
Puritan1648 on December 4, 2006 at 12:15 AM
…don’t think I’ll take that bet.
Mind you, I’d have to agree…he hasn’t fought wars badly, but he’s sold ‘em badly…and, as commander-in-chief, selling a war is a key skill set. He hasn’t got it.
…and, it would seem that he’s a few Pollyana’s on his team, not only concerning the Middle East and the honor of his “loyal” opponents in the Party of Treason, but about some of the people either on or formerly on his own team. That can be fatal. Presidents only have friends on the golf course…and, if they’re smart, they lie to *THEM*….
The Levant will be an interesting place in the short term.
Puritan1648 on December 4, 2006 at 12:18 AM
…there’s something just and satisfying about lobbing exploding Volkswagens at villains. That’s what we poor teamies on my team in the Army used to call 16-inch shells.
We sent some of our teamies over to Lebanon about the time those animals blew up the barracks, back in the ’80’s. They had the Iowa there then, too…and sent the waddies in the hills a few cast-iron love-notes.
“Excuse me, Ibrahim…do you hear a freight train?”
“Why, yes I do, Abd-el-Rahman-al-Shahid-ibn-Joe-Camel! What on Allah’s green earth do you think it could *BOOOOOOOOM*….”
There’s something satisfying about actually expending ordnance once it’s all paid for. It sort of lets the citizens know that the military isn’t just for parading and battleships aren’t all just museums not permitted to dock in San Francisco.
Puritan1648 on December 4, 2006 at 12:25 AM
Puritan, thanks for the visual, I’m sure that same conversation was had many times during Gulf1.
Those big guns, turned 90 degrees, Iraqi troops posted on the beaches of Kuwait … that makes for a nice combination.
Silly Saddam, he thought the Marines were landing there. The only thing landing on those beaches were (as you’ve described them) Volkwagons (or Splodybugs). Ol’ Stormin’ Norman used the media to make Saddam think this and CNN didn’t like being used for that purpose, although today they don’t seem to mind being used by the terrorists for THEIR propaganda.
We need to broadcast live pictures of the Missouri and the Iowa pounding jihadis from just offshore. Hey achmed, try to shoot RPGs at THIS! Roadside bombs? Yeah, that oughta sink her.
Tony737 on December 4, 2006 at 6:02 AM
This would be the same George Bush who didn’t know the difference between a Sunni and Shiite–or indeed that there were these hostile sects–before the war? I’m gonna need some more explanation on that one.
honora on December 4, 2006 at 3:50 PM
Proof, please. Got a link?
Athanasius on December 4, 2006 at 4:19 PM
Peter Galbraith, ambassador to Croatia. There are some links but require fees for full article, just type in his name and Sunni/Shiite.
honora on December 4, 2006 at 6:01 PM
Agreed.
Love the optimism, Pablo; oh, for it to be true!
Jaibones on December 4, 2006 at 8:46 PM
Sorry, honora, you’ll have to do better than this. Galbraith is full of crap. He told a television interviewer (an excerpt of the interview appeared in a Daily Kos diary on December 8, 2005), that:
Galbraith cites this story in his book The End of Iraq, and claims to source it, which take it means he cites some liar who told it to him. But in a speech in Cincinnati on October 8, 2002, Bush said:
I didn’t bother to find any prior references, because that one blows Galbraith’s story out of the water.
So, have you got anything else? Or are fairy tales the sum and substance of this particular moonbat calumny?
Athanasius on December 4, 2006 at 9:38 PM
I should have added this at the end of the paragraph that begins “I didn’t bother”: What’s the point of mentioning Shi’a and Sunnis in the same breath as Kurds, Turkomans, and Assyrians (clearly distinct groups with definite differences) if there aren’t any different between them? He may not have been able to articulate what the exact nature of the theological differences are between them, but it’s clear that he knows there are differences, which Galbraith claims he didn’t.
Athanasius on December 4, 2006 at 9:51 PM
But no chance WMDs were smuggled out through Syria, right? Especially not after Rockefeller went to the region and told all leaders that war was coming OVER A YEAR before the war, right?
RightWinged on December 5, 2006 at 1:35 AM
I cite an ambassabdor and a respected author. You counter he’s and everyone he knows is a big liar. Well okay then.
PS: you may want to consider, just for a moment, that someone writes Bush’s speeches for him. Just a wild guess, but I think those folks whose titles are “White House speech writers” might have something to do with this. (Take a gander at the WH website).
Honestly, how naive can you be?
honora on December 5, 2006 at 10:09 AM
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