The fighting in Lebanon is spreading. The New York Times offers an overview of the nascent war in Lebanon between an al Qaeda affiliate and the Lebanese army.
Fighting in Lebanese Camp Worsens
TRIPOLI, Lebanon, June 4 — Two Lebanese soldiers and one militiaman were killed in fighting early this morning at a refugee camp in southern Lebanon, the army said. They are the first reported casualties in a series of skirmishes that began Sunday afternoon.
Later in the day the fighting ebbed, as Palestinian and religious leaders sought to find a formula to calm tempers in the sprawling southern camp of Ain al Hilwe, and to end the 16-day siege of the Nahr al Bared camp in northern Lebanon.
Fighting between militants and the army in Ain al Hilwe had increased fears that the two-week battle between the Lebanese Army and Islamist militants could spread to other parts of the country.
The fighting at Ain al Hilwe, near the southern Lebanese town of Sidon, began when angry militiamen sought revenge for the reported killing of one of their leaders at Nahr al Bared, where the deadly volley of shelling and sniper fire had intensified Sunday.
The Times notices that the fighting in the south is related to the original fighting in the north. It is also noted that the Islamists have been in the Palestinian "refugee camps" for quite some time:
Islamist militant groups have had a presence in the Palestinian camps for a decade, security officials say, thriving in the atmosphere of lawlessness and poverty. But the ranks of Islamist groups have grown among Lebanese themselves, especially in predominantly Sunni Muslim towns in northern Lebanon like Akkar and Tripoli.
More than 25 men from Ain el Hilwe have gone to Iraq to fight, officials of the Palestinian Fatah faction say, their fate unknown.
There are a great many facets to this that are worth exploring; some have commented upon the disparity between how the news media is treating the current fighting and how similar situations are treated when it is the Israelis trying to counter terrorists. It does no good to dwell upon the anti-Semitism involved in the media's approach, that is simply a given. What is more interesting is the failure of the Times and most other MSM outlets to do what they have repeatedly attacked the Bush administration for having failed to do prior to 9/11, that is, to connect some fairly obvious dots.
Here are a few dots:
Although the Sunnis and Shia have traditionally hated and disparaged each other, there are mountains of evidence documenting the ability of Sunni and Shia terrorists to form strategic alliances.
Syria has been assiduously preparing for war with Israel since the end of last summer's war.
Syria has a strategic alliance, complete with a signed treaty, with Iran.
Syria has cracked down on internal dissent since Nancy Pelosi's visit.
Coincidentally, Iran has been taking an extremely hard line against dissent and protest recently, including initiating another hostage crisis (one conspicuously down played in the MSM) involving American hostages.
When the American ambassador met his Iranian counterpart, the two parties spoke past each other, making demands on each other that both knew the other would fail to meet, since acceding to the other's demands would be tantamount to surrender.
Ahmadinejad has just again ramped up his rhetorical attacks on Israel, and the United States, threatening genocide rather overtly.
Iran's economy is in significant trouble. The price of gas just went up. (We know how unsettling that can be.) Their economic model does not suggest long term stability is possible.
The pace of terrorist threats against America and Britain are increasing. (The most recent JFK Airport plot is interesting; was this a case of al Qaeda encouraging home grown losers to plot an attack that would have been relatively minor even if it had succeeded, all the while continuing more "professional" planning elsewhere? al Qaeda "chatter" has been extremely active recently; was it this attack which would be "bigger than 9/11" or was this a feint?)
Finally, three American aircraft carrier groups are currently cruising off the coast of Iran.
It seems to me that the current dots suggest two related possibilities:
1) Iran is closing in on the acquisition of nuclear weapons and is almost certainly closer than the CIA reports. If true, then in order to give themselves more breathing room, creating diversions elsewhere is a time honored tactic. (The alternative, that they already have a workable bomb, suggests the current increase in terrorism in the region represents the next stage of their war planning, emboldened by their possession of the one weapon they believe levels the playing field.)
2) The United States is preparing for military action against Iran.
If I am correct the battles in Lebanon will increase in pace and intensity. The Lebanese army cannot hope to defeat the Sunni terrorists, especially if the Shia (Hezbollah) intervene, a very likely outcome once things get really going since Hezbollah is desperate to regain power, is even more desperate to fend off the Harriri Tribunal which could threaten its patron in Damascus, and could reasonably conclude they will never have a better chance to seize power than in the chaotic conditions that would follow the outbreak of further hostilities. Furthermore, the closer we come to the decision point, the more likely that full scale war breaks out in Gaza and spreads to the West Bank.
There seems to be few in the MSM willing to take the minimal time and energy needed to offer some strategic thinking on the situation. The idea, promulgated once again during the Democrats debate, that we will be able to leave Iraq and that the violence will then decrease in the region, completely fails to connect any dots. This is one way to avoid the anxiety of recognizing that there are no easy choices, only terrible and disastrous. We can keep looking at a tree here (fighting in Lebanon) and a tree there (Islamist terror groups in the Caribbean) and never notice that they all form an aggressive, dangerous forest harboring the worst life forms on the planet. Right now the American military is almost the only thing keeping the evil at bay.
[It remains unclear if the danger arises from the evil inhabitants of the forest or if the forest, like the walking forest in LOTR, is the danger in and of itself; that question has not yet been answered.]
The current MSM meme is that terrorism is a nuisance and does not amount to warfare against the West. The Democrats, even those who probably know better, have seized upon this motif in order to gain traction against the Bush administration whose poor choices have exacerbated the situation, though a good case can be made that anything short of burning down the forest was a doomed strategy to begin with. (Please note, I am not advocating mass killing; I do however, fear that if things spiral out of control in the area, it will inevitably lead to mass killings.)
I suspect that by the time the Presidential primaries are held and certainly by the time of the 2008 elections, events will have made it impossible to continue to support the meme that there are no connections between the myriad dots we are seeing on an almost daily basis.
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