Presidential Vacancy

So what's the difference?
Hizbullah (HZ) areas don't pay for electricity but the corrupt gvnt takes steals that money and doesn't provide anything in return.
The US is baking up the corrupt Siniora gvnt against HZ.
The US is backing up the corrupt Abbas gvnt against the religious extremists in Palestine.
The US is backing up the corrpt gvnt in Iraq.
The US is backing up the corrupt gvnt in Afghanistan against Taliban.

Do you see a pattern here? Either corruption or religious extremists!
So big difference huh.
The extremists make you follow their religion. While the corrupt gvnt. robs you cleanly. For me, I let religious people take care of business instead of a corrupt government which you must to pay for anything you need to be done.
Big difference...

You missed the first part where I lived there for 10 years and saw with my own eyes. Hizbullah controlls thier own area's and do NOT allow the Lebanese government in. The police don't go into those area without Hizbullah permission, not unless they want to get shot. I"m not sure where you get your info. They have created their own mess and than they want to cry about it. I've been through 3 check points in Lebanon, Lebanese, Syrian and Hizballuhs. Hizbullah would scare the crap out of you because no one will dare to go up against them and they answer to no one. They can do what ever they want because most of the country is afraid of them. They are are the ones who control the country with thier fear tactics.

The assertion that hizballah has done all these things because they have some sort of ambition is pure nonsense. Anyone who knows the "facts" and not merely repeats who a biased press puts out, knows that hizballah has only taken care of their own because the people of south Lebanon had been abandoned for 30 years and left to the mercy and intimidation of yasser arafat and his criminal gang and then the israelis. Their task now is to make sure none of that happens again. The point that Mr. Feltman forgets to mention is that HA has the support of the majority of Lebanese and instead of finding ways to reduce their threat by alleviating their fears, he and his boss have chosen to confront them using other Lebanese factions (Hariri and company) and of course the heavy price for that confrontation will be paid by Lebanon alone.

I'm so sick of people blaming outsiders for thier problems. I'm an American who lived thier for 10 years. Fact - Hizbullah takes care of its own, ONLY. I've gone through Hizbullah check points demanding donations to support thier causes. Fact - I've been handed flyers looking for fighters to go into Iraq and they will pay the family $2000 salary for this. Fact - who caused the war last summer? Hizbullah, they are the ones who crossed the border killed and took hostages who are probably dead now. Hizbullah areas don't pay for electricity because they are too afraid to go and collect the money in those territories. When you have a group of people like Hizbullah who take the laws and country into thier own hands than you have a conflict of interest. What does it say when the Lebanese Army was not even allowed to go into thier own territory that was controlled by Hizbullah until the end of the war last summer. That is a country in serious trouble. Hizbullah does what ever it wants and now it want to control Lebanon. If that happens, Lebanon will turn into another Syrian and Iranian regime. It will be the ultimate down fall of Lebanon.

I have lived in Beirut for almost two years, and would like to add a small clarification regarding the Hizbullah phone network. The government of Lebanon has for some time failed to provide basic public services - in Beirut we have power cuts for three hours each day, and outside the city cuts last 8-12 hours per day. So much of the population either lives in the dark (with no heat) or pays for a subscription to a generator service - which, like the Hizbullah network, is a non-governmental, private-sector alternative. The same is true of water. The city provides water on alternate days; I have drinking water today, but I didn't yesterday, for example. My building has storage tanks, which allow us to have water for washing, etc. when the municipal tap is off - but many people around the country do not. They subscribe to water truck services - again, a sign to me as an American that the country does not provide basic services to its citizens.
I don't have a land-line - its too expensive for my landlord to install one. Landlines here cost several hundred dollars, and require months (3-5) of waiting. The national phone company here makes Verizon, my last US provider, look like a model of customer service.
I don't think that installing a private telephone system is a good thing, but I do think that it speaks to the larger issue of failed government services, rather than to any sinister plot by Hizbullah.

The problem is deeper than how Mr. Filtman is making look simple. In the middle-East lots of nations are interfering and taking sides in this conflict: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran plus the West led by the USA. Mr. Filtman states clearly that ???[Hizbullah] has genuine support from a Shia population that felt marginalized and victimized for years??? and the same goes to Aoun who ???has significant support from a portion of the Christian population???. Mr. Filtman, purposely, omits to same LARGE portion of the Christian population. Hizbullah and Aoun won in landslides in 2005 parliamentary elections. So as the journalist indicates the US is taking sides. The US backs Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his corrupt pro-western government. And since Lebanon is a small country, neither the US nor Syrian/Iran give a damn if a civil war is to break out. After all, the Syrian feasted on the Lebanese economy for years under the surveillance of the West and in particular the USA.
And Mr. Filtman claims the US policy is democratic. No Mr. Filtman, when you take sides in a country with an internal crisis it is clearly meddling.
All what the Lebanese want is for the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran to keep their distance; then, all Lebanese parties will find a way to solve their problem.

The problem is deeper than how Mr. Filtman is making look simple. In the middle-East lots of nations are interfering and taking sides in this conflict: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran plus the West led by the USA. Mr. Filtman states clearly that ???[Hizbullah] has genuine support from a Shia population that felt marginalized and victimized for years??? and the same goes to Aoun who ???has significant support from a portion of the Christian population???. Mr. Filtman, purposely, omits to same LARGE portion of the Christian population. Hizbullah and Aoun won in landslides in 2005 parliamentary elections. So as the journalist indicates the US is taking sides. The US backs Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his corrupt pro-western government. And since Lebanon is a small country, neither the US nor Syrian/Iran give a damn if a civil war is to break out. After all, the Syrian feasted on the Lebanese economy for years under the surveillance of the West and in particular the USA.
And Mr. Filtman claims the US policy is democratic. No Mr. Filtman, when you take sides in a country with an internal crisis it is clearly meddling.
All what the Lebanese want is for the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran to keep their distance; then, all Lebanese parties will find a way to solve their problem.

The problem is deeper than how Mr. Filtman is making look simple. In the middle-East lots of nations are interfering and taking sides in this conflict: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran plus the West led by the USA. Mr. Filtman states clearly that ???[Hizbullah] has genuine support from a Shia population that felt marginalized and victimized for years??? and the same goes to Aoun who ???has significant support from a portion of the Christian population???. Mr. Filtman, purposely, omits to same LARGE portion of the Christian population. Hizbullah and Aoun won in landslides in 2005 parliamentary elections. So as the journalist indicates the US is taking sides. The US backs Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his corrupt pro-western government. And since Lebanon is a small country, neither the US nor Syrian/Iran give a damn if a civil war is to break out. After all, the Syrian feasted on the Lebanese economy for years under the surveillance of the West and in particular the USA.
And Mr. Filtman claims the US policy is democratic. No Mr. Filtman, when you take sides in a country with an internal crisis it is clearly meddling.
All what the Lebanese want is for the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran to keep their distance; then, all Lebanese parties will find a way to solve their problem.