Hizballah threatens, UN yawns

What is the UN doing in Lebanon if not keeping Hizballah from rearming and threating Israel again? Might as well send all the UN troops home for all the good they're doing.

Hezbollah's leader said Saturday that the militant Islamic group's war last summer with Israel has left the U.S. vision of a "new Middle East" in shambles and claimed the guerrilla group was ready to strike Israel again at any time.

During the 34-day war in southern Lebanon, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for a new era of democracy and peace in the region, "a new Middle East."

But Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, said the U.S. vision aimed at reinforcing Israel.

"There is no new Middle East," Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah told a mass rally in the southern town of Bint Jbeil, one of the towns hardest hit by the war. "It's gone with the wind."

Nasrallah did not personally attend the rally to mark the first anniversary of the war which Hezbollah calls "a divine victory. His speech was relayed to the crowd on a giant screen set up in the main square of Bint Jbeil. [Tough guy, that Nasrallah. --ed.]

Nasrallah said the guerrilla group would never be at peace with Israel.

"We will not wait for anyone to defend us. We will defend ourselves and our country," he said. "We possess and we will continue to possess rockets that can hit any area in occupied Palestine if Israel attacks Lebanon," he added.

So what are all those blue beanies doing in Lebanon? Oh, that's right...picking flowers.