06/14/07 – Raje Hage – The Scott Horton Show

All right, my friends, welcome back to Antiwar Radio on Chaos Radio 95.9 FM in Austin, Texas, streaming live worldwide on the internet, KAOS959.com.
And introducing our guest today, Raji Hage, he's, I honestly don't know all that much about him except that he's a fan of the show and he lives somewhere in Lebanon.
Welcome to the show, Raji.
Hello, Scott.
How are you?
I'm good, I'm good.
How are you guys at Antiwar, the great website?
Well, I'm doing okay today and I talked to Eric Garris and he sounded like he was in pretty good spirits, so I can speak for the two of us, I suppose.
Oh, okay.
I'm really sorry to hear about the terrible truck bombing that took place yesterday.
What happened with that?
I wondered about when the phone's going out and everything.
I don't know where to start here, Scott.
As in previous bombs that have been rocking this nation and for the past two years, it's just been hell, you know, and this country never really got back to stable after the killing of former prime minister and it's just really so complicated.
It's really hard to, I don't know where to start.
There's so much complexity in all this.
Okay, well, let's start with you.
Maybe you can tell me a little bit about yourself, where you're from, a little bit of your background and political persuasion and so forth.
Yeah, all right, yeah, sure.
I was born in Beirut.
I was pretty much raised here most of the time.
I've attended, well, I've shifted so many schools.
I spent almost a year in, well, when I was a kid back in, I was in Texas at Fort Worth, not next to Dallas, which I'm sure, that's not really far from your residence, and, you know, I've been around, but it's been mostly Beirut, but, you know.
So, tell me this, the Civil War, what year did the Civil War end again, early 90s?
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Officially, the Civil War in Lebanon ended in 1990, where they got this tie-up accord built up, which was approved by the UN and Saudi Arabia, and this is where things really started to kick off normally here.
Despite the fact that there has been another power broker that extended its day and so forth in this country, but in terms of trying to start this country, well, at least to stay back to normal, it really kicked off in a reasonable, yeah.
But as years went by, it's been so complicated that people here never really got over their princes in so-called pathetic sectarian divisions, and this country is really based on, well, okay, I'll tell you, politically, this country is based on clans, which, well, you have every clan has some sort of power within the parliament, and they make up, you know...
This is the confessional system, is that what it's called?
Yeah, but, and I have to say here something.
Most of the writings by the great, and I have to send my deep regard here to your great writer, Justin Raimondo, most of his writings regarding Lebanon are really actually in effect, I'm really sad to say this, but time has really proved that his writing has been, you know, showing truth of the matter here, and not just here, but, you know, in most other parts of the world, especially with, you know, people who really follow news and really go into analysis and stuff like that.
Yeah, that's interesting, the way you said that is, I'm really sorry to say that Justin, his writings are accurate, and the picture that Justin paints of Lebanon is, well, I'll tell you this, I've actually never even been there, but I have a friend of mine who grew up in Chicago, and she told me that in Chicago, pretty much every neighborhood, still, in the 21st century, every neighborhood is basically divided by ethnicity.
You have the Italians here, and the Polaks here, and the Irish here, and whoever, and that they're still kind of divided that way, even in America, even after, you know, generations upon generations, and I guess that's kind of my understanding of Lebanon, having definitely not been there either, is that basically it's divided up like Chicago, only they have apparently very serious issues to fight about, and so they fight about them, you know, in much stronger ways than people in an American town would, but that basically you have, this confessional system again, and really I understand this mostly from reading Justin's articles, is the Shiites get a certain number of seats no matter what, the Sunnis get a certain amount of seats no matter what, the Philangelist Christians get to have this minister and that minister, and all of that is kind of preordained in the Constitution, no matter who wins what majority and so forth, right?
And now this kind of leads to new problems as groups that used to be much smaller are now much larger in proportion in the population, and yet their power has not increased in proportion.
Exactly, yeah, yeah.
And so this is what people are fighting over, basically, is that it?
Yes, but you know, this country has been so much divided in the last two years after the Syrian withdrawal era, and you've got people who are actually affiliated with Syria politically and have been loyal for decades now to Syria, and you've got other people who really got affiliated with other powers.
And you see, it really got people, I mean, it really lost the balance of the whole country.
This country has not been really able to breathe normally as an everyday life for the past two years.
And what's really sad here about this is that you hear worldwide leaders, you know, there has been so much support for Lebanon, and this is greatly appreciated, you know, but the sad thing is nothing really is showing on land here.
It's just talk and talk, but when it comes to, you know, come and investigate how life is here, it's totally different what you hear about from outside.
I mean, I hate to say this, but if things really go on like this, another Iraq, people are just horrified mentioning the name Iraq, so I don't know.
Another Iraq.
I mean, so far, we've got what, seven MPs assassinated.
We had a huge war last summer based on I don't know what, just go back to Justin's writings and you would know so many explanations and stuff.
I mean, based on what, and it has achieved nothing except kill the economy, you've got 16,000 people immigrating every month from here.
This is, I mean, it just really looks like it's a, I don't know, there has to be something really done here.
Okay, now, you said this really all started with the assassination of Rafa Cariri, and I know Justin- Right, right, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Justin has taken the position that all the accusations against Syria are overblown and that it was, you know, local jihadists of one kind or another.
Can you weigh in on that?
Well, if we look at what's happening with Lebanon now, I mean, look at it.
This is it.
This is Justin's writing.
I mean, yeah.
And so you agree- I can say that he has really the facts.
I mean, who can argue with the facts?
I mean, people can have different opinions, but at the end of the day, it's the facts.
Right.
Well, so you mean that- He's made hard evidence.
He's assembled the proper evidence then when he concludes that it wasn't Syria that was behind the assassination?
Well, I- In your opinion?
Yeah, well, there are no facts to, you know, to blame this or that.
I mean, you know, there has been an international investigation and so far it's still going on, but it doesn't say- it doesn't- there's nothing clear, is it?
It looks like very much one of those political conspiracies, you know?
Hmm.
Well, so who do you suspect was behind it?
Or do you have a firm opinion about that at all?
No.
Okay.
I don't know.
That's fair enough.
That's better than- All I can say is, at the end of the day, it's the facts that speak and we need facts.
So far, nothing.
And when we analyze and when we look at Justin's writings, I mean, this is the rationality here, you know?
And for people in the audience not familiar, because this is for Antiwar.com, of course, but it's also on 95.9 FM, Justin that the guest is referring to is Justin Raimondo, the editorial director of Antiwar.com, the man who writes behind the headlines three times a week there, our head writer.
And Lebanon has been a special focus of his and really the war last summer.
Tell me about, you know, your perceptions of what happened there.
It seems from here that Israel launched a war that they'd been wanting to do for a while, under pressure from Cheney to get it done, to go ahead and push forward full throttle.
And it seems to me like it completely backfired and empowered Hezbollah rather than wore them down.
What do you think about that?
Right.
Right.
These are the reports.
I guess these are the facts.
It's not me who's saying this.
They have been out for months now.
It's just everywhere.
All I can say, this war, no single Lebanese really has any idea what really went on there.
You know, some people say it's that's fault.
Some people say it's that, the other's fault.
But at the end of the day, it's just huge conspiracy theory.
This war really seems far more, you know, has a very bad, I can tell you, we are losing 16,000 people monthly now just because of that war.
Every month they're immigrating.
That's what really broke the back of the Lebanese economy, is what you're saying.
Right.
And it has been bad since, you know, the former assassinations before that.
But this war has been, I don't know, using the word horrendous is not enough.
Tell me all about, I want to know all about Nasrallah and Hezbollah.
Tell me what you know, what you think, anything.
Okay.
What I know is, I don't know personally things, but what I know is that Hezbollah was a reaction to the occupation in 1982.
That is certainly true.
Yeah.
But, all right, they are affiliated with regional neighbors.
They are.
And then they get the backing and everything.
It's on everyone.
Most reports, I mean, you just read it everywhere.
But the reality of the matter here, the Hezbollah are a resistance team and they have really grown so much popularity among people because they really resisted the occupations.
And the other picture in the West shows that these people are, you know, they pose a threat to Israel, to the U.S.
I mean, what's really horrendous to know is that the U.S. has never been any, in particular, a target for Hezbollah.
And Hezbollah are not a target even to Israel, except the fact that they just resist the occupation.
And, you know, from reports and from everything and from analysis, you really find this is more complicated than anyone could think.
And it's really, I don't know, I'll tell you something, God.
All this going on right now, if you go back hundreds of years, the Middle East has always been colonized and, you know, empires here and there.
This is just the ongoing scenario.
And with different demographics and so forth.
Yeah, well, I'd agree with that, I guess.
So basically, you think that Hezbollah is really just this grassroots organization for the most part, outside funding and affiliations and so forth, but that basically it's a resistance movement?
What do you think would happen if there was nothing to resist?
This is the picture here in Lebanon, but outside I know it's not.
Right.
I mean, what they tell us here is that if they weren't a resistance movement, because they had nothing to resist, then they would be, you know, they would be trying to take over the world or whatever, that they would be an aggressive power.
And I guess what I'm really, I guess, trying to get at here is whether they basically run off of people who walk in the door to volunteer or whether they are, you know, in their own sense a real state authority that compels people to fund them and compels people to participate in their in their behavior.
You know what I'm saying?
The difference between a private militia and a state government.
Well, yeah, well, it really depends on each person from how they're seeing it.
But the reality of the matter is, on the ground here, these guys are resistance people.
In practical matters.
Are they supported only by Shia Arabs, or do they have widespread support among other religious and ethnic factions?
Well, the whole Lebanon nation supports Hezbollah, regardless of the sect.
The whole Lebanon nation does.
The Philangelist Christians and everybody else?
Yes.
I mean, they all, it's all accepted that this is a resistance movement as long as there is occupation within Lebanon.
The Lebanese state has.
Well is there, there's not occupation in Lebanon, though, is there?
Well, right now the government has said that there are still, there is the Sheba farms that are still Lebanese occupied land.
So, you know, the civil war before, the one in the 1980s, that lasted from, when, like 82, 83, all the way through 91, or something.
Yeah, well, this all started in 1976, I suppose.
Oh, 76.
Yeah.
I'm, you can tell, I'm completely ignorant about Lebanon.
This is kind of Lebanon 101 for me, and...
Yeah, I know, because, you know, Lebanon is hardly mentioned in, you know, in articles or news outlets.
Well, you know, when I was a kid in the 1980s, they talked about it all the time, but it was all so mysterious.
There was no point as a child trying to figure out, I mean, you know, the wall coming out and down, Russia versus America and stuff, that's easy, you know, a kid can pay attention to that.
But what the hell's going on in Beirut?
Way over my head, you know, my whole years growing up.
I never really tried.
When you watch movies like Chuck Norris's movies back in the 80s, that has to do with Lebanon, Charlie Sheen's, I just forgot his name.
I mean, Lebanon has been really, yeah, has been really done, I mean, mentioned as a propaganda thing, more than as a real info, you know, yeah.
And this is media stuff, this is the media makeup, and, you know, we know that media, some media, most medias are affiliated with political organizations, this is the reason.
Now tell me about this guy, Michael Ayoun, who is he, am I saying his name right?
I was.
Well, you mentioned him.
Yeah.
Well, he's a, I was just gonna say, he's a former general in the army who resisted this in occupation that started in 1976.
And the Syrians were invited by Lebanese leaders to come in and, you know, control and have stability, because, you know, there was, you know, people were just, there was so much fighting going on, so they came in as a stability force.
But at the end of the 80s, General Ayoun really started to have this, well, he was just, he did this coalition with other politicians with him, and what happened was that he wanted Syria to just leave, and it was not leaving.
And so eventually, when he took power, because they didn't have a consensus on a president after Amin Jumeirah in 1988, yeah, I guess, 88, he had to, you know, his term in office was to leave, but they didn't have a consensus of which president to pick.
So he, he, he appointed General Ayoun as a prime minister, because, you know, there was no consensus, as I said.
So he took power and, you know, he waged war, he was trying to ask Syria just leave.
But eventually what happened was, there was this liberation war in 1989, between the Lebanese army and the Syrians.
And he eventually, he had to, well, you know, he didn't really admit defeat, but he had to, he had to leave, because the presidency powers was attacked by air force, Syrian air force, and, and, you know, so he was exiled to France, France just took him over.
He spent what, nine months in the French embassy until he was moved to France.
And he stayed in Angola for, until the Syrian occupation left, 15 years, yeah, and he returned back in spring of 2005.
And yeah, shortly after they left, two weeks after that.
And now, I remember after the war last summer, he gave, appeared at a rally with Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and announced a new coalition, I believe, against the Sonora government.
A coalition, it's more of an agreement.
If you look at it, it's, it's more of an agreement, more of a coalition thing.
And if you look at the points in it, you know.
What are they?
What's it about?
And the viewpoints are well, are well accepted by all Lebanese officials in the whole state.
I mean, everybody, everybody acknowledges that there's, there are still occupation.
And after the occupation, you know, we, we, we have, they, you need to have the, the weapons of Hezbollah within the Lebanese army.
And Hezbollah would be not, not more of a political party, which, which they are already in the parliament.
But, you know, I mean, these things, and it has more, more points, guys, it's just a national agreement, just not to have Lebanese fighting again.
That, that was his, that was his aim.
It's a guarantee.
He kept saying, this is a guarantee not to have this deck fighting with this deck.
It's a start, you know, and that was the idea, you know.
It's a start to have good relations with every party, with every, every section within the country.
So now if, if, if Ayoun and, or I'm sorry, I'm sure I'm probably mispronouncing that, but you know who I'm talking about.
If he and Nasrallah have this agreement, like you say, a good start, you know, for, you know, we promise not to fight each other kind of thing.
Is this whole thing kind of in opposition to the Sonora government, or are they trying to work in agreement with him too?
The Sonora government has been appointed after the resolution 50-59, which I think you, of course, have known about.
The 50-59 talks about the full disarmament of all militias, Lebanese or non-Lebanese.
You're talking about a United Nations, you're talking about a United Nations resolution, right?
Well, naturally Hezbollah is an armed militia, and in that case they need to be disarmed.
But in the case internally within Lebanon, it's highly disputed because, I mean, I'm talking not about the government, the people here, the people here do not, do not see it as, that they should disarm before the whole occupation thing really, you know, goes away.
And so when Michelin did this agreement, it was based on this.
So as long as there's occupation, there are these, what's it called, the arms to resist the occupation.
And when the occupation is over, simply all this goes to the army.
So you think eventually...
It's really a saga, you can say, here in this country.
You've got people really affiliated with the government.
They have done elections in 2005.
They have the majority right now where three MPs have been assassinated from the majority, which they were 70, which makes it now 67.
And you've got the Aoun members of parliament, which make up to about 22, I guess.
And also there is the Hezbollah and the Amal movement, which is affiliated with Hezbollah and the other opposition, not MPs and members of the, you know.
It's really a boiling point in Lebanon.
And the only solution to such a thing, such a huge mass, immense volcano just erupting, national unity government.
And this, this, where this is where it starts, because you've got the other people saying national unity government won't do.
They have always been saying that we need to get the tribunal going on, the tribunal for refugee career, which was approved by the UN just recently under chapter seven.
And you've got the, you know, the other party says the chapter seven part will really inflame Lebanon because you have people that believe within Lebanon that under chapter seven, force and all that will really, you know, grow this dispute and would just make things worse of an instability.
So it's, it's really, I don't know, it's, it's really chaotic.
The whole situation is chaotic and there's no, there's no solution immediately other than a national unity government right now, which you have all sides really sharing, taking decisions.
Yeah.
Well, they, and I know usually in democracies, well, what, what Lebanon should be basically, which is, which is not right now in practical, in practical terms, you know, when, when you, when you've got problems like that, we'll reach that point.
You simply do a national unity government.
And it's really, it's really complicated because this government is so much affiliated with the, you know, the EU and the US and, which is getting immense support, immense support.
So this is why, this is why Sonora can't, well, this is maybe one of the reasons why Sonora can't try to integrate Hezbollah into the military because America and the EU would never have that.
And actually he probably has his own fears that they would become the dominant force in the military if they were integrated.
Right, right.
This is, yeah, this is from the other point of view because, you know, at the end of the day, you've got this 1559 thing.
And then after the war last summer, you had the 1701 thing, which is very close to the 1559 resolution.
So you've got so many resolutions, you've got a government, a government installed based on these resolutions.
You've got Lebanese people here with, you know, the majority of people, I'm not talking about the parliament, but the majority of people wanting a national union government, it's really so complicated.
But at the end of the day, there is no solution but a national union government.
And this is what Michel An has been asking for for what, a year now or more, along with his allies in the opposition.
This is Antiwar Radio.
I'm talking with Raji Hage, fan of the show from Beirut.
And he's given us the 101 on what's going on in Lebanon.
And I'm sure you're familiar with the article by Seymour Hersh published in February in the New Yorker magazine called The Redirection, where he indicated that America, in conjunction with the Sonora government, had decided to back a group called Fatah al-Islam, who had broken away, apparently, from a different group that was loyal to Syria.
And the Lebanese government, the CIA, apparently decided, or the military, whoever was running it, apparently decided that these guys who Hersh equates with al-Qaeda, Salafist Sunni radicals linked to the bin Laden unit, or movement, that basically America and the Sonora government decided to back these guys in order to counter Hezbollah.
And yet, we've seen in the last few weeks that this is already blown back in the Sonora government's face, and they're now in pitched battles, or were, at least, in pitched battles with this Fatah al-Islam group, apparently shooting at them with the weapons they'd just given them a few months before.
Yeah, well, listen, Scott, the government has really denied immensely such accusations from these reports.
But at the end of the day, you see one report after the other stating this and that.
And now, it's just, well, we have like almost 15 army soldiers dead from the Fatah al-Islam.
But there has been so much progress, it's almost all the way done now for the army.
I don't know, I cannot confirm these reports that were out by Seymour Hersh, but what we know is we keep reading many things all the time, and you've got the government absolutely denying all that.
Well, is it credible that this group is to be considered basically the local al-Qaeda affiliate or not?
Do you know?
Well, according to what we know so far, it seems so, but I cannot really confirm that.
Is that the general impression on the streets of Beirut, or people kind of doubt that?
Yeah, well, people here, they have no idea what Fatah al-Islam are, or what they have, or what's their ideology.
They don't know where they came from.
And the thing is here is like, well, you got the government says that we have our borders not really closed, and the blaming, you know, neighboring countries and all that.
But you know, what the opposition here is saying is that, okay, you guys are in government.
And so who can we blame?
I mean, who is to blame when you guys are really the authorities taking care of everything over here?
You know, so why has this come to this?
It all started when the first report came out saying there was a bank robbery in the north where, you know, where the Nahr el-Barat camp, all that going on.
And you know, and then the government comes out and says different things, and now this was, these people just came out.
We don't know where they came from and all that, you know?
It's really, yeah.
Yeah, well, it seems to me if Hirsch's reporting is to be trusted, and I think he's done a pretty good job in the past few years, and really the past few decades, basically his indication was that America decided it was more important to back an al-Qaeda group to counter Hezbollah, which, as you indicated, is not really an enemy of America.
And you know, that's about as frustrating as could be, if that's true.
Now, let me ask you, I still have a few more questions here and we're kind of running short on time, but let's go back in time to 1983 for a minute here.
It's commonly- Oh, it's the young man.
Yeah.
Yeah, but I'm sure you know more about this than the average Texan, so it's worth asking.
And I include myself in the average Texan there, for sure.
The barracks bombing, the barracks bombing were the Marines and the Frenchmen and a few airmen and Navy guys, I believe, also were killed, 243 Americans were killed.
And the conventional wisdom on TV in America, anyway, I don't know about necessarily in writing everywhere, but on TV anyway, the conventional wisdom is that Hezbollah did it, therefore Iran did it.
And yet, I've seen information that says that this group that you mentioned a few minutes ago, the Amal militia, that they were the ones who did it and that they were not at all Hezbollah at the time, but a different group.
And so I wonder whether that's true and if it is, was this Amal militia the cat's paw of Iran, as Hezbollah is claimed to be?
Well, the Amal militia was a different foundation in Lebanon.
Right now, they are really, they've got so much MPs in parliament, and they don't have far to fit the political movement right now.
But, you know, they are just affiliated right now politically, but you're referring to 1983, what happened there?
I don't really know what happened, but I know of these major explosions.
Back then, I wasn't really in Lebanon at that particular year.
But from what I know, it was, yeah, yeah, well, this is what they said, but the truth of the matter is really hard to say.
I haven't researched in particular at that time and, you know, the events, I don't know, I don't know much.
Okay.
Well, that's fair enough, you know.
I was a kid then too, I don't know either.
But you know, I really like to know more about that because basically this is one of the excuses to bomb Iran now, where I'm from, is that, oh, don't you remember they blew up the barracks back in 83?
Now, the fact that Reagan didn't think that was a good enough excuse to bomb Iran back then doesn't seem to have any effect on them, and the fact that it was back in 1983 doesn't either.
So I figure if at least, you know, we could, if it can be proven and shown that actually Iran didn't have anything to do with it, or the Amal militia, that, you know, that'd be worth bringing up.
And I saw Pat Buchanan say that on TV last week, so I want to look into that more.
Well, yeah, yeah, well, I don't know.
I've been hearing the presidential, the U.S. presidential debates recently on your show and sometimes on TV, and you know, you mentioned the reasons of Iran, the hostility towards Iran is because this and that.
I don't know, I don't know, there are so many dualities to this matter.
All right, now tell me this, and I apologize, really, it's kind of hard to do an interview from a position of such ignorance, which is where I'm at, but it seems like, we had some lines crossed here, are you in the middle of a bus station or something?
Yeah, yeah, no, no, I'm here, but, you know, yeah.
Okay, listen, so it seems to me that, as you said, you know, the latest round of everything falling apart really started with the assassination of Hariri, and part of the aftermath of that was that all the pressure was put on Syria to withdraw all their troops from southern Lebanon, and it seems to me that basically that just left a giant power vacuum for Hezbollah to fill, which actually increased the power of Hezbollah, and created more instability, when in fact the Syrians had been invited in there by the Americans, with the agreement of the Americans, back, what, before the first Gulf War, right?
Right, yeah, in 1976, yeah.
Oh, in, the Syrian army had been there since the 70s?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, until the withdrawal was in 2005.
Oh, geez, I didn't realize that they had been in there all that time.
Yeah, you look back and report Reuters and, you know, ancient reports.
I remember that there was an agreement of some kind in 91 where America had ratified that arrangement.
Yeah, the thing I mentioned earlier, the Ta'af Accord, which got all of these together, and, you know, they shuttled everything to, you know, build the country back from that civil war.
Yeah, that was that thing that was ratified.
Okay, now let's go even further back in history and see if you can explain to me where Lebanon even comes from.
I know that it was part of the Ottoman Empire until the end of World War I, and then basically France colonized the place.
Is Lebanon really one of these artificial countries created by Europeans?
It seems kind of odd to have so many different competing factions all living in one state like this.
Look, look, Scott, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you mean.
The thing is about Lebanon, the foundation of the country was in 1920.
Oh, God, so it really was the French-created it.
Lebanon has existed for, ish, thousands of years.
As its own separate kind of- There's so many occupations, and the region has really, you know, took it away from highlights.
Yeah.
I wonder whether, you said, you know, kind of the average Lebanese guy appreciates foreign support for the government to try to keep it up, but I wonder whether things wouldn't be better if the West would just kind of back off and let things be there.
Yeah, well, this is the other team that sees that, and you got other people saying something else.
Yeah, well, what's your opinion?
My opinion?
Yeah.
I said it earlier, I think the national Indian government really works for everybody here.
Even if it has to come with, you know, American backing to make it so?
Absolutely.
I mean, just that, you know, what really works this country is that if everybody shares, you know, their opinion here, and, you know, they share the decision making, otherwise this country is just erupting like a volcano for the past two years now.
You really sound like you think your country's on the brink of falling completely apart again.
Well, it's not me, it's not me, it's just the fact, you know.
I don't know.
But I believe it's none of the interests of any country in the world to see another destabilization in Lebanon.
Well, there are some in the war party who would like to see another Lebanese war and spread it to Syria and Iran, if possible.
And I guess it's up to us to try to explain why that's a really bad idea.
Yeah, well, I don't know.
Well, if you look at the, you know, Justin theories, they seem really to be taking place at the moment.
But at the end of the day, anything can really change at any time.
There's nothing really permanent, you know, in this whole existence.
You just have to have people really sit down, talk, discuss, accept each other, you know, because, you know, after everything, I mean, we've seen world wars, we've seen all kinds of destruction in this world.
But you know, actually, humanity really cannot go on only with the coexistence and accepting each other.
And we've seen using previous empires, we've seen everything you want, you name it.
And after all, there's nothing really but.
Well, I think, you know, looking completely from the outside, and I guess this could go for, you know, the divisions of Chicago, as well as in Lebanon.
But it seems to me like the solution is individualism.
Everybody's divided by their ethnicity and their sect.
And really, everybody's a person.
And if we start with the premise of everybody as an individual, rather than starting with the analysis of the group.
Exactly.
It all starts from the individual.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And I believe if there's going to be a future of humanity, it's going to be individualism, not this collectivist.
Exactly.
I know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, you know, I don't know, Scott, there's too much oppression everywhere.
Every single country.
I mean, you can just keep reading, you know, this and that, and that place, and you get done.
This and that, you get done.
That's besides all the hunger and starvation and all the, you know, inhuman activities that's going on and the atrocities.
It's just, I don't know, we are living in it, like Justin, the famous, this is the bizarre world now.
After 9-11, especially in the world of politics, this is, it's just, I don't know.
Everything inside out and upside down.
We just have to keep working, you know, we just have to keep working to have things change.
And, you know, of course, as you said, it starts with the self of the individual.
And I know, you know, in the U.S. now, people are probably starting to realize things.
I mean, you look at different reports all the time.
You know, in Europe, they are changing somehow, you know, there has been some huge strikes now in South Africa for days now, and they have paralyzed the country.
You know.
Yeah, the whole thing is falling apart, although, you know, on the other hand, and I should point this out, and I don't do enough of this, but there's a great book called Overblown about the war on terrorism and how, well, frankly, it's overblown.
But one of the things that he mentions in there is that there are fewer wars in the world now, really, than ever before.
You know, there are ceasefires breaking out all over the place.
And when we focus on the negative, it's good to stay informed and combat some of this stuff, but we need to recognize the good as well.
Right.
All right.
Well, hey, I appreciate your time very much, everybody.
Raji Hage, fan of the show, fan of Antiwar.com, calling in from Beirut, Lebanon.
Thanks very much for your time today.
Thank you, Scott, and all you guys at Antiwar.com.
I cannot really tell you, you're doing a great job.
Just keep spreading the word of truth to all humanity.
And it's been great so far, massive success.
And all we hope for is just to see you guys, you know, succeeding and getting the picture right to the people.
Long live liberty in Lebanon.