Hezbollah in Bakersfield? - By N.L. Belardes

A young Israeli soldier gets captured. The kid isn’t even old enough to drink alcohol in America. The situation turns even more sour as Israel soldiers are killed and more captured. Eventually the Bush administration gives the go ahead for Israel to give a less than gentle response by pounding Lebanon’s infrastructure.

Why? Was this a situation the American government was waiting to happen? Finally, a situation that could potentially embarrass Iran? Forget about Israel and Lebanon for half a second. Iran had just been threatening Israel at the U.N. And Americans at home have been bitching about the price of gasoline. Could this all be orchestrated to make Iran look like a Hitler about ready to strike, or a new war for oil and supremacy?

Hezbollah: Iranian-funded.

Iran: seeking nuclear energy and calling Israelis, Nazis.

An Iranian drone hits an Israeli ship. An Iranian-made missile is shot down over Israel. Embarrassment for Iran and the manufacturers of a rocket that didn’t reach its destination? Sure. Orchestrated in an Iranian hate campaign because they are the new world threat?

Possibly. Doesn’t America want to skewer the heart of terrorism? Or at least make it appear so? Remember, weapons of mass destruction?

It’s coming to a skewering of more-than-Saddam proportions. In the meantime, and if that happens, be prepared for war on your street. And don’t expect the hero of Smallville to come and help you if Hezbollah are in Bakersfield.

Bakersfield? Why not? The Washington Times in 2005 published an article titled, “Hezbollah in America.” That would be ‘in America’ not outside of our borders. And we now have Hezbollah threatening American interests with 1,700 fighters—who could be anywhere on the planet, and have been daring America to ignite World War Three. They say they’re ready.

Yes, now is the time to make sure your neighbors are who they say they are.

One more spark in the conflict in the Middle East and the Hezbollah are coming. Yes. Be ready. Iran spends at least $100 million a year to shine the bombs that Hezbollah has targeted for innocent Americans for years. They’ve been waiting. Those would be called sleeper cells. And yes, though I cried recently that illegal immigrants need rights, I was never talking about the terrorist organizations that lurk American streets, that creep and plot and make the Lords of Bakersfield look like little monkeys scavenging on war-torn streets.

Not afraid yet?

When I lived in Las Vegas I used to take students to look at some of the cool artwork in the local Clark County Library System. Where do you think Al Qaeda was seen studying when they weren’t in girly bars, living up their last few days of hedonistic life on Earth?

Oh, and I lived right around the corner from those girly bars.

And I also worked right around the corner from those girly bars… I guess they didn’t want to blow up symbols of their own decadence and weakness. Besides, Hezbollah might be on the Strip right now—up in their hotel rooms with hookers and whiskey—or down in the girly bars just to watch… kind of what they always do—just watching and lurking until their moment comes. Is their moment almost here?

Still don’t believe me? Here’s an excerpt from the article from the Washington Times I mentioned:

Although the organization has yet to launch an attack on U.S. soil, its U.S. activities are far from benign. Its work in this country has two major purposes: One is to raise money and smuggle arms to Hezbollah fighters, often by criminal activities ranging from credit-card fraud to cigarette smuggling; and the other is to conduct surveillance behind enemy lines, with a possible eye toward launching attacks on U.S. targets in the event of an armed conflict between the United States and Tehran. Like his backers in Iran, Hezbollah boss Hassan Nasrallah routinely denounces the United States and Israel as his organization's main enemies. Given the events of September 11, and given Hezbollah's own record of kidnapping, torturing and killing Americans when it has had the opportunity, we ignore the group's operations in this country at our peril.

Outside of metropolitan Detroit, last month's arrest of Nemr Ali Rahal, a 41-year-old businessman, at his Dearborn home on charges of smuggling funds to Hezbollah, went largely unreported by the news media around the United States. But the story deserves our attention. In Mr. Rahal's house, agents found a videotape of a Hezbollah rally he attended in Lebanon three years ago. The FBI said it found $600 worth of change in buckets in the Rahal home, and that he said the money was meant to go to "orphans" -- the children of suicide bombers. Mr. Rahal has been charged with stealing more than $400,000 by means of credit-card fraud. When Mr. Rahal returned Feb. 9 from a trip to Canada, Customs agents found traces of explosives on his passport.

In March, Mahmoud Kourani of Dearborn pleaded guilty to providing material support for Hezbollah. He will be sentenced next month. Kourani (whose brother is Hezbollah's chief of military security in southern Lebanon) is an illegal alien who sneaked into the United States from Mexico in February 2001. Federal authorities have repeatedly arrested suspected Hezbollah operatives for attempting to smuggle night-vision goggles and other military equipment to the organization. One suspect, arrested in 1998, skipped bail and fled to Lebanon before returning to the United States last year to face federal charges. In 2003, a federal court convicted a Hezbollah cell based in Charlotte, N.C., on charges of aiding Hezbollah by operating a cigarette-smuggling ring. The leader of that group, Mohammed Hammoud, received 155 years in prison.

Do you think these people haven’t been replaced with new red-eyed terrorists? And do you think for a moment that Bakersfield wouldn’t be a target, or that this conflict regardless of how America is making Iran look to an international audience, can’t affect you in your comfy computer chair? Think again.

-thoughts?

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Wednesday, July 19, 2006. You can leave your response.