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Contributor Laura Mansfield Laura Mansfield is a writer and commentator on issues regarding the Middle East, Islam, and Radical Islamic Terrorism. Subscribers to her Strategic Translations and Analysis service include major libraries in the US, the UK, Germany, and Italy; various US and UK governmental and intelligence agencies; law enforcement agencies in the US, UK, Italy, and Germany; and many Fortune 500 companies. She is a regular subject matter consultant for news agencies in the UK, the US, Germany, Italy, and Israel. [go to Mansfield index] [go to Mansfield website]

One Nation Under Allah by Laura Mansfield

Inshallah by Laura Mansfield

True, ultimately the responsibility for the deaths of those children falls with Hezbullah, who has shown absolutely no shame in using these innocents as human shields.

But there is plenty of blame to go around. Some of the responsibility lies with the Lebanese government for allowing Hezbullah to do this. And much of the blame falls squarely in the laps of the international community, which by and large abandoned Lebanon two decades ago when it became too dangerous for us to be there.

Too dangerous for us? What about the danger to the Lebanese?

Lebanon is the pearl of the Middle East. The Lebanese people are intelligent, warm, friendly, and peace-loving. Yet they have spent much of the last twenty-five years in a hellish war zone.

I'm not sure what we could have done. But we should have done something.

Yes, I’m angry.

I’m angry at the short memories of many Americans.

I’m angry that as a nation, we have forgotten those men and women ­ those Americans, our fellow countrymen ­ who have died over the past two and a half decades at the hands of Hezbullah.

I’m angry that the world sits by and condemns the Israelis for having the guts to go in and take out Hezbullah in Southern Lebanon ­ something we should have done ourselves two decades ago.

I’m angry because I know that there will come a day in the not-too-distant future, when we will sit here wondering “How could this happen?” as we watch the news reports of some terrorist act on American soil.

It’s going to happen again. Virtually no one disputes that. And we will sit here, and wring our hands, and convene a government commission to tell us why we didn’t know about it in advance and why we couldn’t stop it.

Let me state something clearly and unequivocally.

Hezbullah is not our friend.

Hezbullah is not the friend of the Lebanese people.

Hezbullah’s primary goal is the destruction of the state of Israel. They have said so very clearly in one document after another.

They also aren’t too fond of Americans, even though they have numerous cells in this country, and raise funds with very little effort made to deter them.

But, you might ask, what has Hezbullah done to us?

• April 18, 1983: Sixty-three people, including the CIA's Middle East director, were killed, and 120 were injured in a 400-pound suicide truck-bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility but it is widely believed that Hezbullah was responsible.
  
• October 23rd, 1983: A truck full of explosives ripped through the Marine barracks on, killing 241 U.S. Marines, sailors and soldiers. "It is beyond question that Hezbollah and its agents received massive material and technical support from the Iranian government," ruled U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth.
  
• March 16, 1984 CIA Station Chief William Buckley kidnapped by Hezbullah; later murdered by his captives.
  
• Sept. 20, 1984 Bombing of U.S. Embassy annex northeast of Beirut. In Aukar, northeast of Beirut, a truck bomb exploded outside the U.S. Embassy annex killing 24 people, two of whom were U.S. military personnel. According to the U.S. State Department's 1999 report on terrorist organizations, elements of Hezbollah are "known or suspected to have been involved" in the bombing.
  
• Dec. 3, 1984 Hijacking of Kuwait Airways Flight 221 and murder of two American officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development.. Kuwait Airways Flight 221, on its way from Kuwait to Pakistan, was hijacked and diverted to Tehran. The hijackers demanded the release of the Kuwait 17. When the demand wasn't met, the hijackers killed two American officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development. On the sixth day of the drama, Iranian security forces stormed the plane and released the remaining hostages. Over the coming years, numerous other Americans were kidnapped, and several were beheaded by Hezbullah terrorists in Beirut.
  
• June 13, 1985: Hezbullah terrorists hijack TWA Flight 847, killing Navy Diver Robert Stethem and dumping his body onto the tarmac in Beirut. The world gets its first look at the man who would later become Intelligence Chief for Hezbullah, Imad Mugniyah
  
• June 25, 1996: Iranian backed terrorists belonging to a Saudi branch of Hezbullah attacked America at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, exploding a huge truck bomb that devastated Khobar Towers and murdered 19 U.S. airmen as they rested in their dormitory.

I could continue, but you get the picture. And this doesn’t include the list of attacks Hezbullah has launched against the Israelis, or against the Lebanese people.

Hezbullah is no friend of America.

We can help Israel stop them in the Middle East. Or we can sit around and wait for them to export their terror into the United States heartland.

If we sit around and wait, we haven’t learned a damned thing.

The Lebanese are living the hell that comes from inaction. For two decades, Hezbullah has had free reign in that country. The Hezbullah terrorists hide in private homes and apartments, planting their caches of weapons where children sleep and play.

Now the children of Lebanon are paying with their lives.

We should pay attention.

The next time it may very well our children, not the children of Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, or Gaza, who pay with their lives. CRO

copyright 2006 Laura Mansfield

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