Lebanon's development 'annihilated': UN http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060822/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictlebanonaidunreconstruction GENEVA (AFP) - Lebanon's 15-year economic and social recovery from civil war was wiped out in the recent Israeli offensive against Hezbollah, the UN development agency has said. "The damage is such that the last 15 years of work on reconstruction and rehabilitation, following the previous problems that Lebanon experienced, are now annihilated," said Jean Fabre, a spokesman for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) on Tuesday. Lebanon's relatively healthy progress towards the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, which cover a range of social and economic targets, "have been brought back to zero," he told journalists. "Fifteen years of work have been wiped out in a month." Fabre estimated that overall economic losses for Lebanon from the month-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah totalled "at least 15 billion dollars, if not more". Lebanese authorities estimated last week that direct structural damage inflicted by the offensive reached 3.6 billion dollars, including 15,000 housing units, 80 bridges and 94 roads destroyed or damaged. About 35,000 homes and businesses were destroyed in the conflict, while a quarter of the country's road bridges or flyovers were shattered, according to the UNDP's initial estimate. Fabre underlined that Lebanon, which had already added to its debt with post-civil war reconstruction, would find it difficult to foot the bill for even more investment. "The debt of the country was so big already that the capacity to repay it was already insufficent. Now it won't be able to do that," he explained. UN agencies said it would take weeks to assess the full extent of the damage in south Lebanon and southern Beirut. The most urgent issues are the need for clean water and sanitation and to clear unexploded munitions, relief agencies said Tuesday. Underground waterpipes and sewers were destroyed in 10 out of 12 war-struck communities visited by the UN Children's Fund in recent days, and a similar scale of damage was reported elsewhere. "Everywhere we go... everybody is talking about water and the need for it," said Paul Sherlock, a UNICEF water specialist. To stave off more immediate needs, 100,000 litres of bottled water will be delivered every week to villages in southern Lebanon where thousands of people have tried to return to their homes, the agency said. Meanwhile, temporary water tanks will gradually be set up in Nabatiyeh and villages along the Israeli border until water systems are restored. "There's a huge job to be done on the infrastructure," Sherlock said. "But access to water also runs into the problem with unexploded ordnance, because you have to dig among the rubble to sort pipework out, so it's a very dangerous game right now," he added. At least five Lebanese children were killed in recent days when they picked up unexploded munitions, and more than a dozen have been injured, UNICEF said.
Thanks Hezbollah...BTW aren't children taught the virtues of suicide there?...a death is a death... A Lebanese Activist For Israel By Brigitte Gabriel FrontPageMagazine.com | September 1, 2005 Brigitte Gabrielle, the founder of AmericanCongressforTruth.com, will be speaking at a symposium on the threat of militant Islam to world peace and security on September 21, 2005 at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington, Connecticut. Below are her recent remarks delivered at the Duke University Counter Terrorism Speak-Out -- The Editors. I'm proud and honored to stand here today, as a Lebanese speaking for Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. As someone who was raised in an Arabic country, I want to give you a glimpse into the heart of the Arabic world. I was raised in Lebanon, where I was taught that the Jews were evil, Israel was the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the Middle East is when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea. When the Moslems and Palestinians declared Jihad on the Christians in 1975, they started massacring the Christians, city after city. I ended up living in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17, without electricity, eating grass to live, and crawling under sniper bullets to a spring to get water. It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon. My mother was wounded by a Moslem's shell, and was taken into an Israeli hospital for treatment. When we entered the emergency room, I was shocked at what I saw. There were hundreds of people wounded, Moslems, Palestinians, Christians, Lebanese, and Israeli soldiers lying on the floor. The doctors treated everyone according to their injury. They treated my mother before they treated the Israeli soldier lying next to her. They didn't see religion, they didn't see political affiliation, they saw people in need and they helped.[/b] For the first time in my life I experienced a human quality that I know my culture would not have shown to their enemy. I experienced the values of the Israelis, who were able to love their enemy in their most trying moments. I spent 22 days at that hospital. Those days changed my life and the way I believe information, the way I listen to the radio or to television. I realized I was sold a fabricated lie by my government, about the Jews and Israel, that was so far from reality. I knew for fact that, if I was a Jew standing in an Arab hospital, I would be lynched and thrown over to the grounds, as shouts of joy of Allahu Akbar, God is great, would echo through the hospital and the surrounding streets. I became friends with the families of the Israeli wounded soldiers: one in particular Rina, her only child was wounded in his eyes. One day I was visiting with her, and the Israeli army band came to play national songs to lift the spirits of the wounded soldiers. As they surrounded his bed playing a song about Jerusalem, Rina and I started crying. I felt out of place and started waking out of the room, and this mother holds my hand and pulls me back in without even looking at me. She holds me crying and says: "it is not your fault". We just stood there crying, holding each other's hands. What a contrast between her, a mother looking at her deformed 19 year old only child, and still able to love me the enemy, and between a Moslem mother who sends her son to blow himself up to smithereens just to kill a few Jews or Christians. The difference between the Arabic world and Israel is a difference in values and character. It's barbarism verses civilization. It's democracy verses dictatorship. It's goodness verses evil. Once upon a time, there was a special place in the lowest depths of hell for anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now, the intentional murder of Israeli children is legitimized as Palestinian "armed struggle". However, once such behavior is legitimized against Israel, it is legitimized every where in the world, constrained by nothing more than the subjective belief of people who would wrap themselves in dynamite and nails for the purpose of killing children in the name of god. Because the Palestinians have been encouraged to believe that murdering innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic for advancing their cause, the whole world now suffers from a plague of terrorism, from Nairobi to New York, from Moscow to Madrid, from Bali to Beslan. They blame suicide bombing on "desperation of occupation". Let me tell you the truth. The first major terror bombing committed by Arabs against the Jewish state occurred ten weeks before Israel even became independent. On Sunday morning, February 22, 1948, in anticipation of Israel's independence, a triple truck bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists on Ben Yehuda Street, in what was then the Jewish section of Jerusalem. Fifty-four people were killed, and hundreds were wounded. Thus, it is obvious that Arab terrorism is caused not by the "desperation" of "occupation", but by the VERY THOUGHT of a Jewish state. So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and done nothing, allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and defeated communism, now it is time to stand up against the terror of religious bigotry and intolerance. It's time to all stand up, and support and defend the state of Israel, which is the front line of the war against terrorism.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=19325 A lebanese woman telling it like it is...! knaa!
I see a trend of "frontpagemag.com" being quoted around here. Look around that site before you decide to post anything from it...
More lebanese civilian development... German Train Terror II By Stephen Brown FrontPageMagazine.com | August 23, 2006 Friendly, inconspicuous and pious. It is a description people worldwide have grown accustomed to concerning Islamist terrorists after they reveal their dark, secret side. So it is not surprising that is what fellow students are saying about Youssef Mohamed E., a 22-year-old Lebanese studying in Germany and the latest terrorist arrested for trying to commit mass murder against the infidel in Europe. Youssef E. was apprehended last Saturday in the northern German city of Kiel for trying to blow up two German trains with suitcase bombs three weeks ago. Ironically, he was seized at Kiel’s main train station, trying to flee the city – and possibly the country. In a vastly under-reported terrorist attack, last July 31 at Cologne’s main train station Youssef E. (German law prevents the publication of last names) and an accomplice placed a suitcase containing an 11-litre propane gas tank and gas bottles for ignition in two regional trains that carry about 120 passengers each. The bombs were set to explode simultaneously at about 2:30 p.m., shortly before their arrival at their respective destinations of Hamm and Dortmund. Only the failure to rig the bombs properly prevented by a hair’s breadth a catastrophe that would have seen Germany experience a horrific London or Madrid-like commuter bombing. Both bombs were discovered when the unattended suitcases were later opened. In the hope of identifying the suspects, a video was released to the German public last week showing the Lebanese national in the Cologne train station with one suitcase and his accomplice, who is still at large, with the other. Youssef E. was wearing a German national soccer team sweater with the number 13 on the back. He is later shown stopping at an information booth in the station but minus the suitcase. His DNA and fingerprints were found on materials concerning the suitcase that went to Dortmund. A shopping receipt and a shopping bag with Arabic writing on them were also part of the suitcase contents. But German newspapers report it was actually a foreign intelligence agency which provided the decisive piece of evidence that identified the Lebanese student. German investigators believe that Youssef E. and his henchman in no way were acting alone and are part of a terrorist group that hadn’t yet appeared on the radar screen of German anti-terrorist agencies. Monika Harms, an attorney with Germany’s Federal Prosecutors Office, said that for two bombs to go off at the same time in two different trains requires good logistical preparation which leads to the suspicion that a terrorist organization is involved. After Youssef E. arrived in Germany to study in 2004, he had stayed in the state of North Rhineland-Westphalia where the suitcase bomb plot was to unfold. The Federal Prosecutors Office also reported that the Lebanese was a student at a technical university in Kiel, but he may actually only have been taking preparation courses at a college. Before his arrest, the Lebanese student apparently intended to study mechatronics, a subject that combines electrical and mechanical engineering. His physics teacher described him to a German newspaper as “completely inconspicuous” and not that intelligent, which, he says, now makes him happy or otherwise the bombs may have exploded. In his student residence, Youssef E. shared an apartment with four other students, three of them German. The last student, a Moroccan, is missing and is suspected of being the accomplice who placed the bomb on the train to Hamm. Fellow students said Yousef E. prayed often, either in the student residence’s basement prayer room or at a mosque. According to one student, although he wore t-shirts and jeans, he would change into long, white clothes before going to pray. A German student who shared his apartment said the Lebanese had many visitors, Arabs and North Africans, and distributed pamphlets about the prophet Mohammed. Students in the residence also reported that Youssef E. had revealed his brother had died in the recent war in Lebanon, providing a possible motive for his act of terrorism. According to German security officials, there is as yet no evidence connecting the suitcase bomb attack to Hisbollah. They state the Lebanese terrorist group has about 900 sympathizers in Germany but they are disunited. The Essen Institute for Terrorism Research and Security reports that Hisbollah mainly regards Germany as rest and recovery area. But terrorism experts are now expressing the fear that the recent arrest may provoke a revenge attack by other Islamist terrorists. And such fears are not without foundation. German security agencies have said in the past they don’t really know what is going on in the Islamist scene in their country and have told the government they can’t fight the terrorist groups with the existing laws. Ominously, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble, the man responsible for Germany’s internal security, has himself warned his countrymen that they can expect further terrorist attacks and has asked for their help in the search for perpetrators. Even more disturbing for a still shocked German public regarding Islamist terrorists, he said: “We know nothing at all about whom we all have here.”
what a disgusting thing to say. pretty sad that you actually seem to get off on children getting killed. says alot about what kind of person you must be. you do realize that being lebanese does not make you a muslim, hezbollah or terr'ist? 40% of the country is christian.
I realized that ..."the Moslems and Palestinians declared Jihad on the Christians in 1975, they started massacring the Christians, city after city."
Chavez: Lebanon destroyed by genocidal hand of Israel Venezuelan president announces nationwide fundraising drive to raise money for rebuilding Lebanon and for Palestinians; calls Lebanese ‘heroic people’ Associated Press http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3292976,00.html President Hugo Chavez said Venezuela is carrying out a nationwide fundraising drive to raise money for rebuilding Lebanon and for the Palestinian people. Chavez called the Lebanese and Palestinians “Heroic people” and reiterated his criticisms of Israel over its military offensive in Lebanon. “I ask everyone in the country to give what we can for this fundraising campaign for the reconstruction of Lebanon - destroyed by the genocidal and fascist hand of Israel, and its masters, the U.S. Empire,” Chavez said. The Venezuelan president said on Aug. 3 that he was withdrawing his country’s top diplomat to Israel to protest its attacks in Lebanon and its actions toward the Palestinians. Israel, which responded by calling home its ambassador, has criticized what it calls Chavez’s “One-sided policy” and “Wild slurs.”
It's good to see you not only post articles that start with a falsity, but you bold it, indicating your own lack of knowledge. Lebanon is a democracy.
I cannot put words in her mouth, but I think she realizes a whole democracy does not allow the haven of Islamic facist terrorists or the manipulation of the political Hezbollah which furthers terrorist allowance...
The past week or so has seen some renewed attention to the longstanding hawk-pundit gambit of referring to people as "Islamofascists" since the President, in what I can only understand as a sign of increasing desperation, decided to more-or-less sign on to this agenda by adopting the slightly-less-absurd formulation "Islamic fascists." The other day, Spencer Ackerman made the fundamental pragmatic argument against this -- Muslims everywhere really, really, really don't appreciate this terminology. That aside, however, it's worth calling attention to the function of this rhetoric. "Fascist," in this context, just roughly means "bad." Add in the "Islamic" and what you come to is the conclusion that we're in a war and that the enemy in this war is Muslims who subscribe to bad ideologies. This has the consequence of taking a set of institutionally and ideologically distinct actors -- Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, Iraq, Iran, Syria, al-Qaeda, the Mahdi Army, Iraqi insurgents, etc. -- and treating them as a single phenomenon. To do so would be a serious mistake. And to call it a mistake is not to deny the obvious fact that these are groups that are to some degree interrelated. There's some ideological overlap. Some of these groups are allied with each other at the moment. Some have been allied in the past. Some might ally in the future. Nevertheless, they are different things. And the essence of sound strategy has long been to look at potentially hostile actors and try to divide them. To decide what your top priority is and focus on it. The "Islamofascism" rhetoric is part of a continuing campaign to do the reverse. -- Matthew Yglesias
I think it is more a case of him getting off on trying to make people think he gets off on children getting killed.
A real democracy wouldn't have a state within a state, wouldn't have a seperate Army that it doesn't control.
do you even know what fascism means? just because foxnews calls them "islamo fascists" doesnt make them so. and not to be the spell-police, but its faScist. if you are going to constantly throw that term around at least spell it right.
So Iraq isn't a real democracy? A fledgeling democracy like Lebanon that had been under occupation for a couple decades was in the process of trying to remedy that situation. Nor does it have much choice.
