Michael J. Totten: Happy New Year

December 31, 2006

Happy New Year

Have a happy 2007, everybody.

Posted by Michael J. Totten at December 31, 2006 11:38 AM

Comments

To you too. Let's hope 2007 is an improvement.

Posted by: double-plus-ungood at December 31, 2006 12:32 PM

You too, Michael!

Posted by: Asher Abrams at December 31, 2006 02:19 PM

to you too, sit. i hope 2007 will open your eyes nd lets you see what the lebanese majority really want;)

Posted by: hizbollah lover at December 31, 2006 09:11 PM

What the majority of Lebanese want sure as hell ain't what Hezbollah wants...they simply want whatever Ahmedinejad, either directly or through Assad, tells Nasrullah to tell them they want...

Posted by: Salamantis at December 31, 2006 11:20 PM

Happy new year, Michael

and everybody else ;)

Posted by: tsedek at January 1, 2007 10:36 AM

Happy New Year.

Hizbollah lover, who told you you represent the lebanese? You already pointed to whom you are loyal by your genius nickname... I hope the 2007, liberates us of every fantic movement so we could live in peace

Posted by: Nancy at January 1, 2007 10:56 AM

Happy new year to all of you! :)

lol you lebanese wont change... even in a freakin' happy new year comment ... you are fighting. anyways looking forward to your next post micheal... im liking it to discuss politics here.

Posted by: Ali* at January 1, 2007 11:28 AM

Happy new year.

You have one of the most unique and interesting blogs I've encountered.

Posted by: ankhfkhonsu at January 1, 2007 12:28 PM

happy new year 2 u 2 michael, and may 2007 bring better days 4 our cause

Posted by: said at January 1, 2007 02:53 PM

happy new year to you and to your family .it was a pleasure for me to have know you . i wish that by 2007 you will have reached your goals.

Posted by: henry at January 1, 2007 03:04 PM

Said and Henry, nice to see you two in my comments. I'll be writing about you soon enough. Cheers and Happy 2007.

Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 1, 2007 05:59 PM

Happy New Year Michael and keep always your "franc parler" (free talk

Posted by: Catherine at January 2, 2007 03:50 AM

Ye nancy, and you will surely not live in peace when you call people who sacrificed their lives for the sake of your and every other arab, lebanese and muslim peoples dignity, people who spent the flower of their youth fighting instead of going out with friends for your sake, then insulting them by calling them fanatics? I seriously do not believe doing that will get you anywhere. I have refrained from attacking any political person or party in lebanon so far but i have critisised and its my right to do so. you can do the same but once you attack and insult no one will respect you. Trust me, who do you follow? LF? I can bring you a MILLION things about them. Even a lebanese DOG will tell you a couple of horrible history tales about these guys. Whatever party you follow, i can bring you a long list of their crimes. But what you lot forget or seem to wrongly think is that YOU are perfect, you make no mistakes or maybe that your mistakes are worth less than others, so others shouldnt be forgiven but you should when its you with the longest list. TELL me, how many acts of crimes has hizbollah commited and i bet i can justify 50% of them then the rest will be mistakes because they are not perfect. But then i would have to draw you a list stretching a mile of BRIEF crimes the rest did, starting with harriri and seniora breaking the country with the 45 billion dollar debt, half of which they pocketed already...

Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 2, 2007 04:55 AM

Sure, it's your right to critique and criticize, but for christ's sake, it was a single-sentence "Happy New Year" post. And it took all of two comments to start the bickering. Look, now you're even making ME do it, too. /me shakes a fist

Can't you guys all calm down for one thread? Seriously.

Happy New Year to all.

Posted by: Nate at January 2, 2007 05:56 AM

Yeah, kidnapping those Israeli soldiers at Iran's behest to divert attention from its violations of IAEA rules (or to show that there would be a regional price to pay for interfering in Iran's nuclear program), which provoked a devastating response from Israel, was neither justifiable by any rationale, nor can it be labeled as mistaken (since it was intentionally done), although even Nasrallah himself stated that had he known in advance the ferocity of Israel's response, he would not have approved the kidnapping operation. This statement of Nasrullah's prompts a couple of questions for him: Didn't he witness how Israel responded to the kidnapping of one of their soldiers by Hamas just before? And had not Israel warned, after an earlier failed try by Hezbollah to do the same, what would ensue should they succeed?

I can see nothing that any other faction within Lebanon has recently done that can even begin to compare to the horrific consequences of this disastrously catastrophic decision on the part of Hezbollah. If they are able to threaten and intimidate the majority of Lebanese into terrorized acquiescence to their rule, and then persevere down the tragic paths upon which they have trod in the past, I can only see more of the same in Lebanon's future - or worse.

Posted by: Salamantis at January 2, 2007 09:48 AM

OH be serious man. What lebanon on the stage of the international community. Its nothing. Diplomats listen to the cleaners at the UN more than the lebanese government, no matter how much they cry and sob. The people who didn't flinch when they ordered a nuke on horishima and nagasaki wont flinch when seeing a tear. They only understand the language of war, we tried diplomacy, peace etc nothing works, some even allied themselves to these beasts ie SADDAM but thgey didnt HANG around for long did they? lol. Lebanon is nothing and has no influence what so ever what happens in the persian gulf, kapeesh? They couldn't influence any punishment or sanctions on israel who already has nukes, how are they going to influence anything with the persians. This is something much bigger than us lebanese or lebanon. This is a super-power stand-off, not lebanon with its firecrackers. Secondly the iranian made hizbollah, so i dont think they would need their help. If they are the teachers they are able to help themselves to anything, they don't need a resistance military to do anything with couple of thousands of men, they have hundreds of thousands higher trained than the strongest hizbollah commando to do w.e. they are ordered by the revolutionary guards to do. And the international community knows how powerful iran is, which is why theres no war with them. Iran is surrounded, theres afghanistan and iraq on both sides of the border (occupie) and theres the arab pig agent states to the west and south all of which have marine barracks on them. Iran can bring the biggest international depression known to man by blocking the single canal in which all oil exports from the arab and persian gulf is exported from, not a puny war between hizbollah and israel.

And by sayin that even Nasrallah wouldn't have carried out the operation if he knew the response to be as devastating as that (but not regretting), you are yourself proving that he had the decision in his hands whether or not to carry the operation out, if you think nasrallah is a lier, don't quote him out of context, if you believe him, then you would know from what he said that it was a lebanese decision, not syrian nor persian.

And yes he did see what happened to the palistinians, but lebanon is not Gaza. Wht happened in the ghajar for example, if it were to have happened in Gaza you wouldn't see the israelis back off like what happened in lebanon. This is because they themselves acknowledge the power of hizbollah and this proves that we are a deterrent against the mightiest nation in the middle east as well as the 4th mightiest in the world! with the 5th biggest nucleur arsenal on green earth (hundreds of them, N Korea hardly has one long range nuke, pakistan has 3 and india has artound 10)

How much did the war cost lebanon? 3/4 billion? It cost israel 11 billion. How much damage did we do in this war, how many lives taken? hundreds of buildings and homes? 1200 lives? The civil war started by the same people now in government cost 150,000 lebanese lives. It cost lebanon 100billion dollars. It cost the destruction of cities not villages with thousands of homes. So the irony there is that the same people i assume you support did much more damage to lebanon. Then harriri came in with his patiotic projects. Him and siniora borrowed a further 43billion dollars from the international community and world bank, and then rased taxes. Both are the easiest and most simple ways, almost childish, to make money. But even so, where did all that money go? Did it take 43billion dollars to fix downtown beirut which STILL isnt finished yet? Harriris company was worth 3billion dollars, a year later and MAGICALLY this was the same year the 43billion dollars were borrowed, his company was worth 19.5 billion??? i have never heard of this in my life. A single company jumps from 3 to almost 20 billion dollars in a single year? Microsoft which is found in every single PC is worth 33 billion, how the hell did a construction company, never heard of outside the arab world, become the 3rd richest in the world? Therefore, a single man has robbed lebanon by around 16.5 billion, most say 17 with the 0.5 going to family and his personal stuff etc. how much is left? 27 billion? after siniora had his share, after the government has its share, after the construction companies have their share after others have their share i doubt if 5 billion really got to the people or economy. 43 billion for a country as small as lebanon shouldve made a heaven, Dubai is building some of the most breath taking projects each costing 3billion not more. I want to see just ONE of those in lebanon. All vicil war refugees never got their reconstruction or resettlement debt payed by the govmnt. So, before you talk actually read SOMETHING about our history. The most grotesque and aweful crisis to have ever happened to us is the decision to keep the money launderers and thieves in the same new government we have had since 2005.

And who is terrorizing go into submisiion? I dont see your logic or where you're talking from, seriously i don't. Why was 2/3 of the nation on the streets the 1st and 10th of december? Were they all terrorised to come? If so what was the punishment for the people that didn't?

PS totten i read a comment where you said that each person to stay in the sit-in gets 30$ a day to do so. I have checked with family and friends who still have their camp out till this day, all of whom said they didnt gt anything more than water, sometimes food, free WC's and presents on christmas and the new year. but even if your claim is true ONE people have jobs so they need some kind of income since the government is so stubborn and doesn't step down. You know money is the source of life in the world and TWO everyone knows that people got 100$ to vote for harriri so don't even start.

Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 2, 2007 11:45 AM

^ TLDR

Posted by: Nate at January 2, 2007 01:10 PM

Happy New Year's Michael!

Posted by: John W at January 2, 2007 03:27 PM

MT: Happy New Year. Eagerly awaiting your next installment.

Hezbollah lover: What a pile of propaganda. Should change your name to Lunatic at Large. No wonder there is trouble in the Middle East.

Posted by: JAS at January 2, 2007 05:52 PM

Dear Hez. Lover,

1) Please use more paragraphs. You do use them sometimes, but you often go like fifty lines without a break. May I suggest you use a line feed every ten lines or so?

A paragraph is supposed to denote a break in thought. And you certainly change thoughts several times in one of these long, long, very long blocks of text. The choice of where to paragraph is up to you but in general, you should use many more, oh say four or five times as many as you do. Especially when trying to explain something very complicated.

2) It's not "kapeesh," it's "capisce" (pronounced as you spelled it, actually) for others, or "capisco" for oneself, viz:

http://wordwizard.com/ch_forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5408

I quote:

Archived Reply

0 Posts

Posted - 31 Aug 2004 : 01:01:01 Show Profile Reply with Quote
Back off there, kids! Capire is the Italian verb "to understand"..

Its present conjugation is,
io capisco (I understand)
tu capisci (you understand)
lui capisce (he, she, it understands)

When used as an imperative, the pronoun is left understood, and the last vowel is left off.

In slang usage the word used was "capisce", which became "capeesh"

Capisce?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capisce

------------

Wouldn't bother but you use it so often, and I imagine (foolishly?) that you'd rather be correct. Hey, you're already speaking another language (right?), a third would have to be tough for you.

Posted by: nichevo at January 2, 2007 10:34 PM

Thanks for the grammar lesson and sometimes im not bothered for paragraphs. Bye :)

Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 3, 2007 05:38 AM

You're welcome, HL ;>

Seriously, take the time. Otherwise people will get dizzy and skip past the points you are trying to make. It also helps order your thinking.

Posted by: nichevo at January 4, 2007 02:31 PM

thank you nichevo---again.

Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 5, 2007 05:32 PM

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