{"id":215858,"date":"2020-11-01T08:31:43","date_gmt":"2020-11-01T08:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=215858"},"modified":"2020-11-06T07:34:47","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T07:34:47","slug":"hezbollah-or-bust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=215858","title":{"rendered":"Hezbollah or Bust"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linh Dinh \u2013 The Unz Review Oct 31, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Me shack in Al Qualaa it is 2020. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

So where was I? As I was saying, traveling during Covid is not exactly relaxing. Entry rules can change overnight, and flights may be canceled at the last minute. No really means no, just like on your first date, all those moons ago. You ain\u2019t getting in, so stop begging.<\/h5>\n
On my last day in Skopje, I got a Covid test just after dawn, with the negative result arriving just two hours later. It was far from a Shawn Kemp slam dunk. The day before, I had drank rakija from a bottle shared with two strangers. Walking around, my friend Alex and I had run into two friendly old farts, just sitting in the shade, watching pigeons. When one gave me the plastic bottle, I just had to gulp down a bracing shot, then another one. It would have been extremely rude to rebuff such as spontaneous gesture of kindness and universal brotherhood.<\/h5>\n
One man was 70-years-old, and the other was 78 and a former truck driver. Each had a cheerful disposition, bulbous nose, firm posture and fine complexion. With Alex translating, I asked the ex truck driver if he had a girlfriend in each town, and that got him talking all right.<\/h5>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had sex with over a thousand women! That\u2019s right, over a thousand. If I saw a beautiful woman, I had to fuck her!\u201d<\/h5>\n
This casanova had driven as far as Kuwait, so we asked if he had pleasured an Arab woman. No, unfortunately, although one did all she could to seduce him.<\/h5>\n
\u201cShe pulled up her burqa, and there was no panties, but I couldn\u2019t.\u201d We all cracked up. He popped his eyes, bunched his fist and lifted his arm in an illustrative uppercut, to mimic that distant arousal. \u201cI just couldn\u2019t. In Kuwait, if you stole, they chopped your hand off.\u201d The long-hauler didn\u2019t care to have anything of his chopped off.<\/h5>\n
He spoke quite fondly of the Tito years, and even did a Partizan salute, so I aped the man after my parting shot of rakija. When he said, \u201cI loved Tito,\u201d his friend chimed in, \u201cI loved Jovanka!\u201d<\/h5>\n
*<\/h5>\n
Alex is a take-charge kind of a guy, which means he\u2019s a facilitator, protector and sometimes bully. He\u2019ll do what he thinks is right. In school, Alex stood up for kids who were picked on, even if it meant fighting their harassers. Alex slapped classmates to stop them from smoking.<\/h5>\n
In college, Alex argued with a hardline Marxist professor, which resulted in him getting an unjust D. Years after Socialism\u2019s collapse, however, Alex caught this man leaving a church, so he shouted, \u201cHey, I thought you didn\u2019t believe in God!\u201d<\/h5>\n
Surprisingly, the old red graciously responded, \u201cI was wrong.\u201d<\/h5>\n
Seeing a single typo on my Covid test result, Alex went to the lab to get it corrected. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to take any chances.\u201d<\/h5>\n
Set, Alex drove me to the airport after midnight, in an orange-lit smog. \u201cLook at this pollution,\u201d Alex grumbled. Parts of the highway were under repair, yet poorly marked. \u201cThat\u2019s just typical,\u201d Alex shook his head. In the backseat sat Alex\u2019 son, Slave, and our mutual friend, Darko.<\/h5>\n
Thirty-six-years-old, Darko\u2019s an underemployed dentist just waiting to emigrate to Australia. I had visited his grandma\u2019s village, Prostranje, to see all of its empty houses. Half a century ago, Prostranje had a thousand people. Now, there are only ten, and no one is doing anything, not even farming. Guided by Darko, I dropped in on a 95-year-old man and his 62-year-old son, a former factory worker. A grape arbor graced their house\u2019s entrance, and strings of hefty, curling red peppers were dangled to dry. Once, 15 people were crowded into this handsome, solidly built house, now crumbling on the outside.<\/h5>\n
Inside Prostranje\u2019s well-maintained 19th-century church, I admired the still-vibrant and rather spectacular frescoes. This is heritage, lovingly preserved. Using pitchforks, dark devils with darting red tongues poke naked sinners into hell, where wolves may devour them. I inspected its made-in-America bell. Inside its long-dead elementary school, there was a mini pub with four photos of Tito, in a medal-bedecked military uniform, suit, and, with a hunting rifle slung on his back, looking suave and regal on horseback. Yugoslav maps and army jackets shared a wall with a religious icon. Behind the bar, there was a photo of a half naked woman, barely covered by lurid green leaves.<\/h5>\n
Darko, \u201cI come here, my parents come here, to fix our old house. We do everything ourselves. I feel good when I\u2019m here, because this is my village, my history. My family has been here more than 300 years.\u201d<\/h5>\n
Despite all that, he\u2019ll have to leave his beloved North Macedonia soon, because he\u2019s still unmarried and living with his parents, like so many other professionals in this broken economy.<\/h5>\n
Just before disappearing into the airport, I hugged Alex goodbye, gave Slave a fist bump and accepted a gift pen from Darko. \u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll meet again,\u201d I optimistically said. \u201cMaybe in Sidney!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cYes, we\u2019ll meet again!\u201d<\/h5>\n
*<\/h5>\n
My plane was supposed to leave Skopje at 4:45PM, with a layover in Istanbul of just 1:45, but my departure was changed to 2:35AM, which meant I had to slump, slouch, schlep around and nod off inside Sabiha Goksen for 16 hours! I couldn\u2019t go into town without a visa, a requirement I had forgotten about.<\/h5>\n
In the international transit section, there were McDonald\u2019s, Burger King, Starbucks, Subway, Popeyes Louisiana Chicken and Sbarro, plus Turkish chains Mado Cafe, Maca Cafe, Secco Kafe, Karafirin Bakery, Simit Sarayi and Usta Doneci, etc. Trattoria Milano, Heroes Sports Bar and a few others had gone out of business, presumedly because of the coronavirus crisis. With so much time on my hand, I could observe there was very little traffic at this airport, though occasionally, it would be swarmed for half an hour or so, thus giving the impression that everything was still normal.<\/h5>\n
Set apart in the mezzanine was a very pleasant eatery called Big Chefs, so that\u2019s where I sheltered for several hours. With its tables civilly spaced, everyone had his serene bubble, and the music was elegant. Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald\u2019s singing Irving Berlin\u2019s Cheek to Cheek has to be among the peaks of American culture, and Betty Carter scatting, riffing and growling One of My Favorite Things is pretty damn awesome too. I felt blessed.<\/h5>\n
Suddenly, I heard English coming from the next table, but it was spoken so softly, I had to strain to make sure it was really the Queen\u2019s. The young couple turned out to be from Liverpool, and they had only come to Turkey to get new teeth. He was a mechanic and she\u2019s an accountant.<\/h5>\n
Flashing his sparkling chompers, the bearded man said, \u201cI only paid 1,800 Pounds. In England, that would have cost me 5,000.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWhere did you go?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cIzmir. It\u2019s down south, by the ocean. This doctor is very famous. A lot of English people go to her.\u201d<\/h5>\n
His tank topped girlfriend added, \u201cI got mine done, too.\u201d Showing off blameless teeth, she smiled. \u201cI paid 5,000. It would have cost me 14,000 back home.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cLooks great!\u201d<\/h5>\n
In Turkey ten days, they never had a chance to even hang out in Istanbul, one of the world\u2019s most resonant cities. It\u2019s really deep, man. Now they were going back to work. Before Covid, they had planned a trip to Paris and Amsterdam, which they had never seen. They had traveled a bit, though, with trips to Tenerife, Krakow, Torino and even Bali. Years from now, people will look back in astonishment at how accessible this entire earth was to even the working class of privileged countries.<\/h5>\n
*<\/h5>\n
Just before we boarded, a middle-aged Turk was turned away from another flight. Enraged, he unleased a tirade that stopped and started, with no security guard nearby to calm him down. There was so much hurt in his anger, I almost expected him to sob.<\/h5>\n
In any totalitarian state, just getting on a plane is nearly a miracle, so if you haven\u2019t experienced this abject hope, anxiety and fear, consider yourself pampered. Freedom of movement is among the first to be taken away, and it\u2019s already begun.<\/h5>\n
My Pegasus mistress tore my boarding pass so gently yet authoritatively, I felt acute love, then moved on. Though mine was a window seat, a woman had taken it, so I sat in hers. Flying into Beirut in the dark, I wouldn\u2019t be seeing much anyway.<\/h5>\n
The passport, Covid and customs checks at Beirut\u2019s airport were surprisingly hassle-free, so, just like that, I was out in the warm Lebanese air. I had a driver, Ali, to take me to Al-Quala\u2019a, just over an hour south of Beirut, and why was I going there? To be close to Israel, of course, for can any Jew resist this visceral yank?<\/h5>\n
*<\/h5>\n
It wasn\u2019t quite midnight, yet all the streets and houses were barely lit, and there were almost no open cafes or restaurants. Although I knew Lebanon was in a severe economic crisis, I wasn\u2019t aware there were scheduled electricity blackouts daily, and capital control had been imposed for a year, so that Lebanese could only have rationed access to their own money in the bank. On top of a corrupt government, there was also Beirutshima, and a suspicious series of wild fires that many Lebanese attribute to Israel. Before you dismiss them as paranoid or \u201canti-Semitic,\u201d a meaningless word here, consider how many times Jews have attacked their country, and that Jewish fighter jets daily violate their airspace. That roar above the clouds has become so familiar, locals barely notice it.<\/h5>\n
Wiry, dark and mustached, Ali\u2019s a cheerful ex-cop of roughly my age. Although I had been informed he didn\u2019t speak much English, Ali had more than enough to chatter with me. He had learnt English by watching American TV shows and movies, he said. His first foreign language was French.<\/h5>\n
\u201cYou never took an English class?\u201d I asked.<\/h5>\n
\u201cNever!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s incredible.\u201d Perhaps Ali had worked overseas, I thought. \u201cHave you traveled much?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cNo, I do not travel. I love Lebanon too much!\u201d<\/h5>\n
I couldn\u2019t help but chuckle at that odd answer.<\/h5>\n
Ali, \u201cMy daughter is in Australia.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWow! You should go see her.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cNo, she come to see me. She has three sons.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cYou haven\u2019t seen them?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cOne, six-years-old, has come to Lebanon.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s good.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cMy wife go to Australia. She stay there two months.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cSo she travels\u2026\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cYes, she been to Syria, Iraq, Iran, Australia.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cI love to travel.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cA friend invite me to America. He say he pay for my plane ticket, give me money to spend. I say no. Another friend invite me to Arabia. If I don\u2019t want to go to America,\u201d he laughed, \u201cwhy I want to go to Arabia?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cJust go, look around, eat new food?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cNo, I like it here. I love Lebanon.\u201d<\/h5>\n
On our right, there was just enough light to reveal the ocean. Highway signs indicated unfamiliar towns and cities, and even Sidon was unrecognizable because it\u2019s called Saida here. A brightly lit, humongous bakery flashed by. Al Forno was like a casino.<\/h5>\n
Ali was sipping from a can of Heineken. \u201cI drink when I drive. I drink beer and scotch and whiskey. I drink beer in the morning, afternoon, evening, night.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cHow many beers do you drink a day?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t count them.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cDo you drink beer at a cafe, in your village?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the only one, drink beer, in my village!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWow! So where do you drink?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cI must go to another village,\u201d meaning Christian ones, such as Sarba, a village inhabited by descendants of 11th century Serb crusaders.<\/h5>\n
We passed several churches, with one giant one, on top of a hill, in Maghdouch\u00e9. Jesus and Mary had sheltered in a cave there. We saw mosques, of course, and Hezbollah billboards and banners.<\/h5>\n
Since they are on the front line against Jewish power, you\u2019ll be delivered too when they win, God willing, whether you call Him Jesus, Allah, Buddha or Vishnu. You must join me, then, in rooting for these Arab fighters. If only the rest of us had their balls and brains, this war would already be over.<\/h5>\n
When Ali says \u201cbefore the war,\u201d he means Lebanon before 1975, but his country has been continuously under siege or attacked by Jews since 1948, with the founding of Israel. More than any other nation, Jews trigger war. It\u2019s what they do, for profit, revenge, conquest or sadistic, righteous fun, judging by how much they cheerlead each new one.<\/h5>\n
Just think of all the wars they started in the last century alone. Just think of the one you\u2019re submerged in, right now.<\/h5>\n
That fuse is getting short. Three more days before hell breaks loose. It\u2019s all planned at your expense. Though way late, you still must act, if only to save what\u2019s left of your ass. There\u2019s still some flesh there, though pitiful. It may grow back.<\/h5>\n
Linh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is Postcards from the End of America<\/span><\/a>. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

God willing, whether you call Him Jesus, Allah, Buddha or Vishnu. You must join me, then, in rooting for these Arab fighters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=215858"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215863,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215858\/revisions\/215863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=215858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=215858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=215858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}