
The Hezbollah Connection - bootload
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/the-hezbollah-connection.html
======
task_queue
Wow, if only we used this much time (10+ years) and resources (Half a billion
x the expected 100x) to bring real war criminals to justice.

People have made a career off of this decade long witch hunt with their
international kangaroo court trying people in absentia.

FTA:

"The trial judges — an Australian, an Italian, a Jamaican and two Lebanese —
are distinguished by the red vests they wear over their gowns, which
themselves have red sleeves. The Australian, David Re, is the presiding judge
and a veteran of the special international tribunals for Bosnia and
Herzegovina and the former Yugoslavia. Like Re, many of the other judges and
lawyers involved in the case have made a career of serving in such
international tribunals.

The tribunal’s budget makes it possible for lawyers to present their graphic
exhibits in the clearest possible manner. During some hearings, prosecutors
place impressively accurate before-and-after models of the scene of the
bombing on an enormous table at the center of the room. The model makers, who
spent weeks constructing them, put special emphasis on precisely reproducing
the destruction, even the damage to trees. The proceedings are conducted in
Arabic, English or French, and transcriptions are produced in all three
languages. I have read thousands of pages of these records and found only two
typos.

The process in The Hague is also likely to establish new precedents in murder
convictions on the basis of circumstantial evidence. For all the hundreds of
millions of dollars spent on the investigation, the prosecution has produced
no direct evidence, let alone secured cooperation from any of the defendants
or their potential accomplices. Its case is largely based on the records of
dozens of cellphones that it claims were used by the assassins, among them the
five defendants."

No direct evidence, no defendants but a nice chunk of change to sit around and
pervert justice for their personal gain.

~~~
classicsnoot
Adorable. These religious fanatics pride themselves on murdering people to
prop up a tiny faction of a backwards religion,a handful of people have the
balls to attempt to hold them accountable, and you think it is marsupial
jurisprudence. Rule of Law works best within the confines of precedent and
that is what this whole case is really about.

The defendants are butchers hiding in a joke of a country. The evidence is as
direct as DNA evidence was in the OJ Simpson trial. The only perversion that i
detect are a bunch of humans that think their interpretation of a made up
space daddy gives them license to vaporize people.

~~~
task_queue
What balls are involved in latching on to this generation's witch hunt,
getting rich off of presenting nothing but circumstantial evidence and sitting
in a room on the other side of the planet for a decade trying an empty chair?

That isn't justice, it's politically motivated theater. They even rented out a
basketball court, seats and all, for their production.

This is a convenient and profitable which hunt fueled by the money we decided
to burn witches with.

The amount of time and resources spent on the incident are far out of
proportion to crimes occurring all over the world by all sides.

You know how often we take out politically inconvenient people? So often we
have a kill list.

The last times tribunals like this were held was Tokyo, Nuremburg, Cambodia
then Sierra Leone.

Singling out this incident is not in sync with the esteem we usually hold
towards these trials to hold powerful state level actors responsible for the
mass crimes against humanity and millions of deaths incurred because of their
actions.

If this was about justice people who actually have some control over the
matter would be tried. It isn't, so a proxy tribunal with literally no
defendants is held.

Justice is served.

~~~
classicsnoot
Exciting! Let's jump right in:

>What balls are involved...an empty chair?

The chair[s] would not be empty if the regional government[s] would apprehend
the accused. Getting rich? maybe... from my perspective, law enforcement,
healthcare, security, and jurisprudence should all be volunteer efforts. Do
you agree?

>That isn't justice...for their production.

I guess you are wishing the spent more money to build a suitable edifice for
this particular case? Doesn't really jive with your consistent gripes about
reckless capital waste...

>This is a convenient...burn witches with.

You are flogging the term 'witch hunt' so much even you can't keep the
spelling strait. AFAIK, the WH term applies when any actor[s] is attempting to
ferret out an illusory foe. Do you honestly believe that Muslim Extremists do
not exist?

>The amount of time...by all sides

This is just ignorant and insulting. These motherfuckers pushed Lebanon back
15 years because of their stupid religiosity. They killed more than a
politician and some bodyguards; the murdered a nation's shot at becoming self
reliant and self regulated.

>You know how...a kill list.

Newsflash: lots of nation-states have a snuff list. Also, who is this we? The
EU? The ICC? The US? Israel? Kind of hypocritical to paint us all with the
same brush, m8. If it were up to 'we', I'd recommend a Hellfire through the
front door, but thankfully the 'witch hunters' actually want to give these
fucktards their day in court.

>The last time...[and] Sierra Leone.

...Kenya, Croatia, Serbia would be more recent examples, but it is a needless
quibble. Are you opposed to the ICC taking on cases from the Levant because
you sympathize with the folks there? Or maybe you think there should be a
minimum threshhold of 'o god wat the fuck'-edness to necessitate legal
proceedings? Is it gross total deaths? Do you take into account regional
destabilization?

>Singling out this...of their actions.

I do not feel the need to reiterate the point that this is more than just a
handful of dead people.

>If this was...Justice is served.

 _sigh_ You are butthertz, but i am struggling to see why. What is in any way
defensible about what was done here on the 'crime' side? You are dead on: this
is a proxy tribunal. The guilty parties for this specific event are
multitudinous. When some dipshit murders a person for their watch, it would be
_just_ to throw the whole system [parents, peers, teachers] on trial, but
A)that wouldn't work and B) double jeopardy standard might write a blank check
for every crime after.

Please understand: i do not think this is the best case scenario. But where
should the process begin? Are you like the climate shift deniers that believe
because there is a measurable degree of unknown all of the other evidence
should be tossed? Because we cannot state with 100% certainty who the guilty
parties are we should just let it go?

I really want to know, what do you believe should happen here in this case
specifically?

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tomtoise
Very, very long read. I've just finished it and I guess it shows how phone
metadata can be used constructively to forensically implicate criminals in
this way.

One thing, what does the article mean when it says

"Hezbollah has already stopped using public cell networks in favor of closed
ones"? Any ideas?

~~~
616c
It is well-known fact in Lebanon they have their own.

[http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2008/05/20086142340...](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2008/05/200861423405548723.html)

I hate this because it only validates USG reasons for the belief in strictly
regulated communications, but this means Hezbollah runs a block whole network
they cannot easily tap or monitor at the border of its interaction with
regulated national companies.

Keep in mind the Internet in Lebanon is also a joke, known as WaitNet (Unter-
Net in Arabic), and everyone uses 2G and 3G phones at crazy prices to do
anything of value, compounded with afternoon power outages every day
(especially in Beirut and major cities). So, cell phones are the best way of
doing business, and Hezbollah can run its own network with impunity.

Or it gets pissy and shuts down an airport with a shit fit. Read my other post
in this thread.

~~~
cgh
Interesting, I was thinking something like OpenBTS but if internet access in
Lebanon is really that slow then I guess not.

~~~
616c
Well, this is second-hand. I never did anything beyond quick cafe internet
access. But I cannot find the joke ISP page that used to exist. But even the
BBC has articles dating to 2011 about this.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-15266851](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-15266851)

Even Egypt (EGYPT!) has had better stories than this, largely based to the
early 2000's Zaki technocrat regime, so there is a great deal of resentment at
how these telco regimes have fucked it up.

------
gadders
This is a really fascinating article. I highly recommend giving it a read.

------
616c
And my final comment for the day: Shia'a militant and/or political movements
are not the creation of Asad. This is more orientalist bullshit.

> Assad, an Alawite Muslim, took a different and somewhat surprising tack: He
> withdrew his opposition to a plan, proposed by clerics loyal to Ayatollah
> Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran, to establish a Shiite political party in Lebanon.

I know at least one PhD writing his thesis on the formation of political
Shi'ism, starting with organized groups like Amal[1] immiedately prior and
going as far back as possible with first and second hand sources in Lebanon,
which many would argue was the socio-political movements demanding better
representation and rights for the Shi'a started. They might not have been
militants or terrorists, but keep in mind Hezbollah do not seem themselves as
anything more than a political movement. We are speaking to their foundations.

I am tired of Western fly-by-night MENA researchers: to give all the credit to
Asad for Hezbollah is akin in the computer industry for saying Microsoft
invented DOS and the personal computer. Just stop it already.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amal_Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amal_Movement)

~~~
classicsnoot
>He withdrew his opposition to a plan, proposed by clerics loyal to Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran, to establish a Shiite political party in Lebanon.

In the minuscule piece of the article you quoted (as well as the preceding
paragraph left unquoted) the OG author states that religious leaders in Iran,
not Syria, spearheaded the effort that later became Hezbollah.

So where is your gripe, specifically? Or do you feel it is in poor test for
people of country [X] to write/discuss country [Y] under any circumstance?

I myself grow weary of poorly researched articles about the Levant, the Gulf
Countries, Northern Africa, etc as they IMO foster more misunderstanding, but
this article is not one of them. I love polisci and historical articles, but i
was wondering the relevance of it being posted to HN. Then i got to the
section documenting Wissam Eid's analysis of the cell network used to carry
out the intel and implementation of the assassination documented herein.
Fucking awesome. I only wish this young man had been able to escape the
religion regulated shithole that is the Levant and come to North America so he
could have played with network analysis and other nerd stuff instead of being
smeared across the pavement by monotheist psychos.

~~~
616c
My point is that there were local religious entities and intellectuals. It was
not some well-orchestrated idea of import as that one sentence reveals.

I am just annoyed because, despite being one sentence, shows even painstaiking
detail to important events by journalists who spend months or years covering
MENA stuff, but to do not do anything but reading, not in Arabic, that shows
truly ignorant biases. It is very common. and why I gave up on regional
studies after college.

~~~
classicsnoot
I see your point. Also, in reading through your other posts ITT, i see my
response was heavy handed. I just think, in terms of the investigation of the
Event, the piece was good.

------
krylon
Very interesting article. Very long, too, but well worth the time. (Also, I
find it very well written in that it presents a pretty large and complex
amount of information in a way that is easy to follow.)

The impression I get away with is that the political/religious/economical
landscape in the middle east is way more complex than most media reports lead
one to think.

The part about cellphone metadata was highly interesting, too. It shows how
this metadata can be used for investigating crimes, but it does not take much
creativity to imagine how an oppressive government can use such data for
building profiles of opposition movements.

------
cyphunk
Does this narrative not justify NSA's bulk metadata collection? Seems anyone
who says "no" is either disputing the tone and narrative (emphases on
metadata) or assuming the circumstances warrant it in Lebanon but not
elsewhere

I'm a firm believer of universal civil liberties and if we justify or ban
warrantless bulk metadata collection anywhere it must apply (either ban or
justification) everywhere.

------
616c
Hezbollah is fascinating group of psychos, and worth studying as like the
Facebook of terrorism startups. Laugh at my simile, but I have seen these nuts
from a distance for a while, like others, and getting to know Lebanese people
and their stories of these wackos does not bode well for anyone who does not
like them too much.

They run their own secret cellphone network. It is so important to them, when
Sunni-aligned, anti-Shia intelligence services shut it down, Hezbollah blocked
the road to the airport for a week with armed militias. This messed up travel
plans for some co-workers. They made a video game about the Israeli war in
2006 (not a single person will by it for me, since I want to inspect it for
malware and other fun goodies), and the proudly admit they invented the IED,
slughtly before the Iraq War, and with showmanship destroyed very powerful
Israeli (not American bought, the Israeli-built ones, forget the name) which
were previously a pebble in their tactical shoes. These are not the
stereotyped cave-dwelling terrorists. These are educated nutbag technocrats
who put a crazy amount of detail into their operations. And the racial hate of
the Israeli Army cannot surpress them. So you know they are willing to throw
down for a fight.

These tiny anecdotes I compile show a dangerous pattern of very sophisticated
loons who believe their own agenda. If you read around, they say will say they
are sticking around to fight the Israelis bc they are a true enemy and the
Lebanese Armed Forces are cuckolded by Western influences to not engage. Now,
you will notice there has been no discussion of disarmament or rhetoric about
the stage where they vanquish them, and have to allow the State of Lebanon to
function less like the state of Lebanon (see that capitalization joke I did
there? Lebanon is not a failed state, but an awesome place where this bullshit
drags everyone and everything down). They are a self-justifying state within a
state and they a lot of influence that cannot be curtailed.

Current Western counter-terrorist need to study people like this in depth,
becuase ISIS and newer groups of the Sunni persuasion clearly are edging
towards this new level of hyper-organized, society within society operations
that no one has successfully stopped yet. Good help us when ISIS a-holes learn
to Node (allow a joke, no one has a sense of humor anymore).

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-
file...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-
structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html)

And if anti-Hezbollah Lebanese, of which I know many, cannot stop them on
their own turf to save their own people from sideways bigots (I do not want to
get into wholesale, but needless to say all these groups repulse me), USG and
friends in Iraq and Syria are utterly fucked.

As I said, we need to leave yesterday.

~~~
616c
How cute, down votes. The Hezb cabal on HN?

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discardorama
Argh! Paywalled.

Click here:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=the+hezbollah+connection](https://www.google.com/search?q=the+hezbollah+connection)
and then on to the first link.

~~~
Thriptic
No script defeats a lot of paywalls btw

------
bootload
source:
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/05/an_example_of...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/05/an_example_of_c.html)

~~~
hbbio
No, Schneier's blog is not the source.

Instead, it points to the NYT article as the source.

~~~
bootload
read this post by @sama: _' New Hacker News Guideline'_ ~
[http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-
guideline](http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline)

    
    
       "Avoid gratuitous negativity."
    

Ask yourself what motivates you post this? Schneier pointing out this post,
makes it news worthy. The NYT simply published it.

