Domestically, we lament the death of political discourse and lose our bearings over sound bites. It could be worse. Instead of going to war over a lie, we could go to war over a phone system.
A private telephone network built by the Shiite Hezbollah organisation is at the centre of a political storm that has brought Lebanon perilously close to a new civil war.
I'm not making this up. I'm not that creative. Remember that Israeli assault on Lebanon a couple years ago? You know, the one that Israel basically lost. You know why they lost? You're not going to believe this...
The landline network, which Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh said was installed with the help of Hezbollah's patron Iran, was crucial to Hezbollah thwarting a massive Israeli assault in a ferocious war two years ago.
The Israelis jammed cellphone networks to prevent Hezbollah commanders from communicating with units in the field, but the landline network continued to function.
Talk about irony. Who knew the way to defeat next gen technology was to use obsolete technology? I mean who besides the Taliban, the Pashtun, the Kurds, Iraqis, and Pakistanis?
After a marathon cabinet session on Monday, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's government declared the network illegal.
In response, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said in a fiery speech on Thursday that this was a "declaration of war" against Hezbollah, which considers the phones system to be a "major weapon" in its arsenal.
Nasrallah threatened to "cut off the hand" of anyone who tried to meddle with the network.
And we think divisions in the Democratic party are bad. We worry that Hillary is hanging on as a dead-ender. They ain't got nuthin on these folks. You know this isn't going to end well. Hezbollah is deadly serious about keeping their phone lines intact.
An attack on the network could severely curtail Hezbollah's ability to defend itself from Israel or from an attack by domestic opponents.
Of course this sort of detail is lost on the MSM which wants to paint this conflict as Sunni vs. Shiite or Iran vs. Lebanon. No doubt those play a role, but the point of this posting is to demonstrate the conflict is much more complex and multi-faceted. Rendering it as a cartoon is a fool's errand and will only end up making things worse.
An opposition official told the "NOW Lebanon" website that the phone network is not a new story, and accused those who have brought the issue back to the fore of seeking to trigger an explosion on the domestic political scene.
"The network is identical to Hezbollah's arms and (is) part of its security, and it's obvious that this effort is part of an American agenda to internationalise the country and its security," he said.
Sixteen people were killed in three days of fighting across the country between opposition supporters and backers of the government before an uneasy calm descended late on Friday.
History matters. Details matter. Painting this as a cartoon struggle between right and wrong, God and Satan, Christianity and Islam, the US and Iran, misses a lot of important details. Details McCain doesn't seem to understand, in part because his spiritual guide is a whackjob who thinks "America was founded to defeat Islam."
With all the ink spilled over Jeremiah Wright, at least you can say no one died because of his nonsense. You won't be able to say that about the folks following Pastor Parsley. This is no longer a joke. We cannot repeat the mistake of the last eight years and let the Zealots back in.
