Mughniyeh Lionized By Iran

The soul of the Islamist revolution was there in all its putrid decay for the world to see, as the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, eulogized Imad Mughniyeh, the dead Hezbollah terror-chief.

"I offer my condolences on this great martyrdom to you, his family, the glorious Hezbollah youth and all Lebanese," Ayatollah Khamenei said in the message to [Hezbollah Chief Seyed Hassan] Nasrallah after the killing of Imad Mughniyeh.

"It should make the Lebanese people proud to have given the world such great men in the fields of seeking freedom and fighting cruelty," he said. (Fars)

There's guilt aplenty to go around, but if Lebanon wanted freedom and wished an end to cruelty, all that would have to happen is for Hezbollah to let it occur. It is their inability to live with anyone who doesn't share their beliefs that is most responsible for tearing the country apart -- and that inability to live with others is best personified by Nasrallah and Mughniyeh ... and a few thousand others, according to the Lebanon Daily Star's report on the Mughniyeh funeral:

A congregation of thousands, ages 7 to 70, attended the service at the 20,000-seat mosque complex. Occupying all the seats, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, climbing on girders and sitting on scaffolding, they filled the football-pitch-sized corrugated facility to its maximum capacity. Outside the complex, thousands more thronged the streets, waiting to pay their respects to their beloved martyr, Mughniyeh. ...

"We are all your servants, Nasrallah!" the crowd in the packed compound cheered, as they pounded their fists into the air above their heads. ...

Chants of, "Death to Israel! Death to America!" roared through the Hizbullah stronghold as a dozen pallbearers carried Mughniyeh's coffin through the narrow streets of the southern suburbs. ...

Mourners who attended the funeral ceremony pledged their readiness to fight Israel to the death and die as martyrs.

"We are only waiting for a sign from Hassan Nasrallah to fight Israel until death," said Ali Zeidan, 28.

"We are ready to follow the example of Imad Mughniyeh and the other martyrs" who fought Israel, he added.

The Islamists have proven that there always has been another to step up to fill, or try to fill, the shoes of the departed martyrs Hell-bound pieces of filth. To stop that cycle, we can keep taking out their leadership as fast as a new one comes on the scene, as US forces have done with al-Qaeda in Iraq. Or I suppose we could try appeasement, or ignoring them and hoping they'll go away.

Too Bad He Didn't Suffer More

"The head of Hizbullah's military wing, Imad Mughniyeh," started the article in today's JPost, and since I already knew this scummiest of scum was blessedly dead, I was hoping the sentence would conclude, "rolled into the gutter, an expression of pained surprise still on his face, despite his body being blown to smithereens by a car bomb explosion."

But no; it just ends, "- considered the organization's second in command - was killed in a car bombing in Damascus late Tuesday night, Hizbullah's Al-Manar television reported Wednesday." Good enough, though, eh?

Mughniyeh's claims to fame:

• The Beirut barracks bombing that killed over 200 US Marines
  
• The bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires
• Possibly the hijacking of a TWA flight in 1985
• The kidnapping of Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser
• Many, many attacks against Israeli civilians

A Jew-hater and America-hater dead. Too many remain.

Hezbollah blamed Israel, of course, to which Israel replied:

"Israel is sifting through the reports from Lebanon and Syria regarding the death of the high-ranking Hizbullah official and is studying, for the first time, the details emanating from their portrayal in the media in the past hours," the PMO statement read. "Israel rejects the attempt of terrorist elements to pin any involvement in this incident on it. Beyond that, there is nothing to add."

Who killed him? Another Jpost story says the line was long:

"He was wanted by 42 countries, most of the world was after him. Israel's official denial just adds another question mark to all the others raised by the assassination," Dr. Eyal Zisser, head of the the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University agreed. "It was pretty predictable that Israel wouldn't want to escalate the situation by claiming responsibility for the attack. Even the fact that the forces in the North weren't put on alert is probably intended as a signal, saying that we want no part in this."

Whoever killed him, the important thing is that he's dead, and that he didn't get to spend his latter years relaxing, enjoying his grandchildren and telling tales of the old days.

Now it's time to start planning how to take out his successor.

Lebanon's Dreams Slipping Away

Syria's heavy hand has nearly completely extinguished the spark of a hope for freedom in Lebanon:

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - President Emile Lahoud said Friday that Lebanon is in a "state of emergency" and ordered the army to take over security powers, hours before he was stepping down without a successor and leaving the divided country in a political vacuum. The government rejected the move, raising tensions.

Lahoud's announcement immediately raised further confusion amid Lebanon's political turmoil, which many fear could explode into violence between supporters of the government and the opposition.

The president cannot declare a state of emergency without approval from the government, but Lahoud's spokesman said the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora is considered unconstitutional.

Lahoud, of course, is a puppet of Syria, hardly any more legitimate than Saniora. It would be helpful of AP to point that out.

The UN's mandate to disarm Hezbollah has gone nowhere, so behind this instability is a threatening force to whom bloody civil war seems an entirely desirable option. The days of the Cedar Revolution are far behind Lebanon now and the future looks bleak, indeed.