and you write 100's of words about his growing popularity, but give it a headline and pull text suggesting that his base is cracking? Because of that one barfly?

Please, this is wishful thinking on the order of that which encouraged the neocons to believe that Iraquis would cheer our troops in the streets, like at the liberation of Paris.

Hezbollah HAD to have kidnapped those soldiers in hopes Israel would stupidly overreact--there is no other imaginable reason, and Hezbollah is not stupid (as cannot be safely said of almost any other political movement in the Arab world). Well, Israel raced into that trap at about 150 miles an hour, and Bush stubled along behind. As a direct result, Nasrallah is practically canonized (is that the right word, in the Islamic context?)

Nasrallah is kicking everyone's ass--probably militarily, but certainly politically--and we do everyone, most certainly ourselves, a disservice to pretend otherwise. He may be a monster, but he is a capable one, while the "free world" is led by a chimpanzee. no contest.

Agree with brendan, except I fail to see why he's a monster - he does a damn good job of looking after his people.

How on earth can anyone say Nasrallah does a damn good job of looking after his people. Either he did not want the Israeli attacks, in which case he did a pretty poor job of looking after his now devastated country. Or he did want to manoeuvre Israel into attacking, in which case he still got the country blown up and hundreds of people killed. It is hard to see how exactly this helps Lebanon.

at the expense of secular Arab leadership on the grounds that as long as the Arabs/Palestinians were led by those committed to Israels destruction, but who lacked to ability to carry it out, Israel would never be pressured to seriously try to negotiate a settlement with the Palestinians. Seems to be working.

Does anyone else find it crazy that the money Hezbollah was paying out was US dollars?! They hate us but love our money. When I saw this on tv I fell out of my chair. Funny thing is not one story from the news media about this.

Can the writer document when and where any Catholic Priest says Mass for Nazrullah?

All the letters seem to suggest that Nasrallah delibrately led Hezbollah into a war of this magnitued, when he himself suggest midway through the whole affair that they did never anticipated the level of ferocity on the Israelis' part, and even the Israelis seem to consider him a man of his word. I still seem to remember that the group was originally founded to defeat the Israeli attack and occupation of Lebanon - a perfectly valid purpose for any resistance movement, no matter how reprehensible we find it's funders and supporters. And their stated goal of exchanging imprisoned Lebonese for the two soldiers seemed on paper to be just one more minor skirmish in a very unstable part of the world, hardly justified by the level of violence that followed.

But here it goes:

‘If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them world wide.’ -Hassan Nasrallah

I suppose Hitler just wanted to fight off the unjust Chechoslovakian occupation of Germany lands.

It's a pity Salon readers are becoming enamoured of this monster. The Left is doomed.

He does? His country is in ruins - this war achieved nothing - except galvanizing Nasrallah - hundreds are dead - many are homeless - and though he claims victory, I'm not sure I see it; unless of course, victory now means not losing everything. While it's fun (and profitable) to paint the Jews as war mongers, it's easier to forget that in the late 70s the PLO basically invaded Lebanon (after a rout from Jordan) and terrorized it (which, of course, neither the Arabs or the Pan-Islamists ever cared about). Staging attacks - similar to Hezbollah's recent foray - cost the PLO a homebase (Arafat snuck out of the country in disgrace dressed as a woman) - so while Nasrallah might've helped push the Jews out, the Israelis accomplished their mission. The question to ask, this time around, is whether Hezbollah is willing to continue missle attacks into Israeli territory (or whether they'll still stage raids). If they do, Nasrallah did win - if they don't, he, like most every Arab leader before and contemporary to him, is just another Islamic windbag...

Even when the Saloniks own opinions seem to tilt against terrorist armies, still the staff of Salon pimps their heroes. Oh well I know some ex Soviet communists who prattle on how it IS the greatest system of them all and by the way it's still functioning. I guess the more hideous an idea the stronger some people hold to it. If Salon chooses to believe in the Great Victory of Nasrallah what with a 1000 dead, the southern half of the country in ruins, poised to be occupied by European armies, a few hundred thousand homeless and billions of dollars lost well al I can say is we need more victories like that. You can have your rhetorical victories on the internet.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, justifies what Israel did to Lebanon! The "Jewish democracy," which, by the way, is an oxymoron, since a democracy cannot have a religion,behaved in a spitefully savage manner against an innocent population. I do not care what they call themselves, Hizbollah supporters are just human beings, not some sort of horned devils. And they have wives and children and parents and grandparents, all of whom support them. Israel is NOT a friend of anyone in the Middle East. It seeks conflict to justify it's existence and to collect money from the U.S. and diaspora supporters.

This "show of force" in poor, battered Lebanon, whose inhabitants endured a generation of proxy wars, was the sharpest thorn in the crown of thorns Lebanon has been forced to wear these many years. That Nasrallah has become a folk hero is understandable and the best way to react would be for the West and Israel to embrace him and join with him in rebuilding Lebanon. He is no worse than Israel's founding fathers who killed the British forces to further their cause. Every country NEEDS a hero! The U.S. should understand that!

If Lebanon got a tenth of the support given to Israel, it would be the SHINING STAR of the whole region. Perhaps Israel fears that Lebanon would outshine it as a place of tolerance, diversity, culture, history, beauty, and humanity.