Chrenkoff

Thursday, May 13, 2004

Hezbollah shows its softer side

What a fine company: "Bush and Hezbollah condemn beheading." The story taken from an AFP wire goes to report:

"Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah harshly criticised the beheading and questioned the timing of a 'horrible' act which drove the torture of Iraqi prisoners by US-led forces from the headlines.

" 'Hezbollah denounces this horrible act which does an immense wrong to Islam and Muslims by a group which falsely pretends to follow the precepts of the religion of pardon and essential human values,' the party said in a statement."

Maybe no one has told Hezbollah yet that Nick Berg was Jewish.

Just in case you think that the good old Party of God is going soft, here's a bit more of what they had to say:

"The timing of this act that overshadowed the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in occupation forces prisons is suspect timing that aims to serve the American administration and occupation forces in Iraq and present excuses and pretexts for their inhumane practices against Iraqi detainees."

I don't know about you, but I can see a conspiracy theory coming on. After Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah's recent remarks about al Quaeda attacks on the Kingdom being the work of Zionists, Hezbollah seems to be laying the groundwork for suggesting that those damned Americans have stages the incident themselves to divert the attention from the recent scandals.

Then there's this backhander to finish the statement:

"[The executors' behaviour is closer to] the Pentagon school - the school of killing and occupation and crimes and torture and immoral practices that were exposed by the great scandal in occupation prisons".

Al Jazeera can't help itself and describes Hezbollah as "[t]he influential Lebanese Islamist group, which the United States deems 'terrorist'." Just in case you were wondering.

(For the sake of completeness, Australia and Canada also list Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. The European Union doesn't.)

# posted by Arthur : 5:59 pm