Friday, May 09, 2008

The New Era Begins...

Well, by 11:00, I heard AMAL took over Makdisi Street, by midnight I was aware that the Hezbollah/AMAL forces dominated over the Future militants, and overwhelmed them easily. When I saw Nasrallah talking on TV with a big calm smile, I knew it was going to be a rough night.

Lessons to be learnt directly

• Unlike last year in January whereby a huge chunk of the population was mobilized, Arms with Hezbollah and AMAL can be finished quicklier. Whatever area they captured, they handed it to the Lebanese Army after purging the Future, probably, Hezbollah were worried from AMAL Hooligans to get their campaigns a bad reputation.

• Hezbollah are here to stay without being disarmed no matter what under the banner of resistance, even applied on local politics.

• You can never have diplomacy from now on (not that the government was doing better diplomacy), if two coalitions reach a dead end, arms will be the name of the negotiations, most probably will be won by Hezbollah.


• Hezbollah for the first time directed their weaponry to the inside under the leadership of Hassan Nasrallah, and hence the party transformed to a local militia party with foreign sponsors, like almost everyone else. There operation was "freeing the Sunnis from Future Movement; I doubt it will solve any crisis by dismantling their movement's primarmy centers.

• AMAL Movement, based on their ground performance yesterday, are highly trained in guerrilla warfare, unlike being loose Orcs in the 1980. They way they swept through West Beirut, it shows their training on the ground to the extent of making them the second most powerful militant party in Lebanon. Of course though, it doesnt mean that their hooligans didnt forget to terrorize the majority of the residents they penetrated.

• What Hezbollah planned, it was achieved: a quick military victory in West Beirut over the Future Movement before they can re-organize themselves, and witness the rise of the Cantons. Yet, it was expected against by a party that was capable of defeat the Israeli Infantry side with their supreme military, not to forget they were accompanied with AMAL.

• Hassan Nasrallah's plan was unveiled: Blame everything on Walid Junblatt in his speech, and go after Future Movement and disarm them from everything, and deliver them to the Lebanese Army as if they were criminals. Now, Walid Junblatt is accused to drag Harriri Jr. to this mess by a lot of 14th of Marchers: hence = Divide and Conquer.The total obliteration of Future to the extent of burning to the ground their station and cutting all broadcasting machinary showed to what extent they targeted Future Movement. More to the point, if it wasnt a Sunni Shiite collission then what was it? Misunderstanding?

• Hezbollah and AMAL made sure to enter different areas of West Beirut wherever there were Sunnis and even uproot their snipers with minimum civilian casualties.

• The Media of AMAL and Hezbollah (and Future before closed down by AMAL then burnt down) were behaving as if they were in a war with the Israelis. Wherever front they won, they behaved as if they defeated the Israelis, and not realizing that these are Lebanese people like them.

• Anyone opposing Hezbollah is called Israeli, and anyone supporting the government is called Iranian (we dropped now the use of American and Syrian).

• The government is on its own, all the money spent in purchasing arms to impose some power on Hezbollah and the Opposition proved futile.

• Not anyone who oppose Hezbollah means in defecto they are US citizens, and vice versa, Iranian.

• NBN media is asking people to celebrate about it on TV: "It should have taken earlier to take out the crisis between the Sunnis and Shiites", how by demolishing their leaders without solving anything on the system?

• Walid Junblatt had to seek Berri's permission for survival and then go attack the Opposition

• If the US were depends on a civil war, they miscalculated.

Based on what we have seen (and probably the 14th of March figureheads were lucky), the followers suffer while the leaders live respected and honored.

Now,

I have two flashbacks:

• When a tiny truck came wondering selling bread instead of the supermarkets (again war images)

• When the old dominant political party during the war was in control, there flags are back again.

Sad Event:

While My family member was doing her coffee, an AMAL militant saw her, and aimed an RPJ on her balcony.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are wrong MFl, Nassrallah miscalculated, he did not engender hatred for Jumblat who stayed in Beirut with the Beiruties, he engendered never to be forgotten hatred towards himself and Hizballah by the people of Beirut.

And MFL, there are no such things as "minimal" deaths, every death is a maximum tragedy for the families of those who died. the deaths of civilians who have nothing to do with the "bajam" in the streets and their weapons are doubly tragic.

sphinx said...

MFL thanks for reporting, I am trying to follow the events as best I can.

adiamondinsunlight said...

My God, MFI - is your relative alright?

MarxistFromLebanon said...

well in my area, it was handed over to one of the militias pro opposition. To be honest, I prefer these guys than Amal lunatics.

Yeah yeah, I saw couple of bullets myself,and our area witnessed heavy clashes, not a horrifying site for me, lived it in worse situation after 10 years of militia cantone (plus 5 confrontations with Israel bombing our neighborhood)

what scared us most is the issue of snipers, and how the opposition replied on snipers: RPGs

Liliane said...

Good analysis! I agree with everything you said!

Is your relative alright?

Arab Democracy said...

Dear MFL

Reading your analysis I notice some mixed feelings and confusion on the correct position to adopt in this situation. And to be honest I think many of those who have tried to keep a rational approach away from the sectarian polarization are in the same position.

The take home message as far as I am concerned is that when the guns take over, regardless of our sympathies,words like ours have no place.And that is why we should be against the use of violence means by whoever in this conflict.


Regards

Joseph

www.arabdemocracy.com

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