How Does Hezbollah Keep Pressure on Lebanese Government?

By maintaining in their so-called "Security Zones" heavily armed Shiite gangs that run drug trafficking, weapons smuggling and all kinds of outlaw activity.

The Zuayter and Jaafar clans are the best examples. They are Shiite, they operate without any hindrance from Hezbollah inside Hezbollah's Security Zones, and they grow Hashish and other drug-generating crops in areas such as the Bekaa Valley and the city of Baalbeck which are under Hezbollah's control. In fact, one can argue that these gangs operate with Hezbollah's implicit blessing, since Hezbollah never intercepted them and has always tolerated them, for no other small reason than because Hezbollah relies on them to protect its own drug and weapons smuggling routes along the Lebanese- Syrian border. Hezbollah has long claimed to be a "clean" "incorruptible" organization that provides social services to the "poor and disenfranchised" Shiite community in Lebanon, and accuses the Lebanese State of being derelict in providing those services.

Meanwhile, the "poor and disenfranchised" Shiites of Lebanon are all, through Hezbollah's agency, on the payroll of Iran's Islamic Republic. Monthly stipends are generously doled out to those families in which men grow beards and women wear the veil, as well as to those families who volunteer their sons to serve in Hezbollah. Houses that are demolished during Hezbollah's adventures against Israel are quickly compensated with thousands of dollars.

Lately, Hezbollah has been reported to be funding itself through pirated films (See Lebanon Iznogood: http://lebanoniznogood.blogspot.com/2009/03/hezbollah-funding-part-4-pirated-films.html) and from drug trafficking alongside the Mexican drug cartels along the US-Mexican border (See Lebanon Iznogood: http://lebanoniznogood.blogspot.com/2009/03/hezbollah-funding-part-5-us-mexican.html). The other sources of funding are Iran and Syria, cigarette smuggling in the US, the diamond trade in Africa, and allocations from the Lebanese government whereby the salary of every soldier in the Lebanese army is deducted by a 7% tax that is paid to Hezbollah under the pretext that Hezbollah is doing the work of the army by "defending" Lebanon against the "Israeli aggression").

And now we find that the Lebanese army yesterday suffered three casualties as a result of attacks by the Shiite gangs of Zuayter and Jaafar in the Baalbeck area under Hezbollah's control. It is time to expose Hezbollah's many lies and its treason to the Lebanese army by allowing their own drug- and weapons-smuggling gangs to kill Lebanese soldiers. Conversely, the Lebanese State should stop its own lies about Hezbollah being a "resistance", stop funding Hezbollah from the meager salaries of Lebanese army soldiers, and say clearly that the drug- and weapons-running gangs it is battling in the Bekaa Valley are mere fronts for Hezbollah. One day soon, the Lebanese army will be faced with battling Hezbollah directly, and that should be no surprise to anyone who is hiding their heads in the sand today.

Hanibaal