Smokey the Bear vs. Nasrallah

The DZ Zone
Contributing Columnist "DZ" (Who Fought Hezbollah Back in the Day) Reminds Us that "Only You Can Stop Forest Fires"

Because of the complexity of any and all situations in the Middle East, I found it important to have a way to explain the situation to others who have no knowledge in a simple and fast way. I thought I would pass it on so that you, the intelligent truth seekers, will have another way to pass on the information to those who don’t know what’s going on.

My explanation of the current situation in Lebanon is as follows:

Forest fires are a natural phenomenon. They happen naturally and are a way for Mother Nature to clear out the old, dead biomass that collects on the forest floor, thus allowing new, stronger life, who use the nutrients of previous generations to grow out of the ashes. When firefighters appeared on the scene in order to protect solely human interests, this natural act was not allowed to go full course, leaving more flammable biomass on the forest floor every year that passes. The original fire would only burn the small weeds and bush on the ground and would allow the larger more successful trees to flourish with more resources from the ground. As time goes by, without this natural cleansing operation by Mother Nature, the amount of biomass becomes dangerous and when unleashed it is unstoppable until it burns completely out. This time it takes the big trees with it, leaving only destruction and black scorched fields in its path.

Now take out “Forest fire” and change it with “war”. Change “firefighters” to “UN”. Change “biomass” to “Hezbollah”. It may be a bit Darwinian, but it more or less works.

In 18 years of occupation in Lebanon (2.5 of which I was an occupier) the brush fires were allowed to burn in skirmishes between IDF forces and Hezbollah or Am’al, another Iranian-backed terrorist organization, established in 1975. In the last years of the occupation more fires were put out by the UN or other international or internal “firefighters”. This allowed the build-up of flammable biomass, a dangerous situation that threatens everything in its path.

When we left Lebanon in 2000 in order to relieve ourselves from even the brushfires, we forgot one thing: that the biomass is already in place and it has to burn sometime, and the longer we wait, the hotter the fire; sometimes hotter than one can handle, even for the “firefighters”.

We now look back and see that our mistake was in not allowing the whole forest to burn, to rid itself of all biomass, before we left. We looked back then and saw “firefighters” with blue helmets and felt that we were in good hands.

So now the 6 years of biomass has collected and turned itself into a refined flammable liquid. The formidable death squads of Hezbollah have been on a 6 year training break while the IDF reshaped its strategy to urban warfare, such as the type engaged in by the IDF in Operation Defensive Shield. The last of the IDF “Lebanon Generation” has been out of the army for 5 years, and there is too much for the officers and veterans to teach the urban warriors of today. A mass reserve call-up of Lebanon veterans will be a less painful way to push the Hezbollah at least to the Litani River. The biomass now has the ability to spit fire to what was once thought as unattainable distances, Haifa, Tiberius, and likely Netanya and Tel Aviv. Everyone I know has been affected by the situation and the repercussions of the damage we will only know in the end. One third of the population has been paralyzed, and robbed. The situation is unacceptable, and we are starting to smell the smoke here in the center of Israel. Smoke makes us sneeze here and when we sneeze, people die.

Lebanon is burning and it will for a while, and we need to make sure it burns until there is no more biomass left.

We hope to control the fire or at least direct it. But it may spread east (Syria), and east of east (Iran). It all depends how much biomass has built up there, and from what I have heard, they are knee-deep in it. Meanwhile in Dahiyye, Herat Hreik, el-Hiam or Bint Jbail, we must use the fan.

But it all must burn, all of it.

No firefighters, no morning dew to dowse the flames, no hope of shifting winds - just fire.

Smokey the Bear doesn’t have a work permit in the Middle East.