Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim political party and militant group based in Lebanon, where its extensive security apparatus, political organization, and social services network have fostered its reputation as “a state within a state.” Founded in the chaos of the fifteen-year Lebanese Civil War, the Shiite group is driven by its opposition to Israel and its resistance to Western influence in the Middle East.
Led since 1992 by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament.
Hezbollah was established in the wake of the 1982 Lebanon War by Lebanese clerics who had studied in Najaf. It adopted the model set out by Ayatollah Khomeini after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and the party's founders adopted "Hezbollah" as the name chosen by Khomeini. The organization was created with the support of 1,500 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps instructors, and aggregated a variety of Lebanese Shia groups into a unified organization to resist the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon.
During the Lebanese Civil War, Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto listed its objectives as the expulsion of "the Americans, the French and their allies definitely from Lebanon, putting an end to any colonialist entity on our land". From 1985 to 2000, Hezbollah also participated in the 1985–2000 South Lebanon conflict against the South Lebanon Army (SLA) and Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and fought again with the IDF in the 2006 Lebanon War. During the 1990s, Hezbollah also organized volunteers to fight for the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War.
Since 1990, Hezbollah has participated in Lebanese politics, in a process which is described as the Lebanonisation of Hezbollah, and it later participated in the government of Lebanon and joined political alliances. After the 2006–08 Lebanese protests and clashes, a national unity government was formed in 2008, with Hezbollah and its opposition allies obtaining 11 of 30 cabinet seats, enough to give them veto power. In August 2008, Lebanon's new cabinet unanimously approved a draft policy statement that recognizes Hezbollah's existence as an armed organization and guarantees its right to "liberate or recover occupied lands" (such as the Shebaa Farms). Hezbollah is part of Lebanon's March 8 Alliance, in opposition to the March 14 Alliance. It maintains strong support among Lebanese Shia Muslims, while Sunnis have disagreed with its agenda. Hezbollah also has support in some Christian areas of Lebanon.
Since 2012, Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian civil war has seen it join the Syrian government in its fight against the Syrian opposition. Between 2013 and 2015, the organisation deployed its militia in both Syria and Iraq to fight or train local militias to fight against the Islamic State.
From 2006, the group's military strength grew significantly, to the extent that its paramilitary wing became more powerful than the Lebanese Army. Hezbollah has been described as a "state within a state", and has grown into an organization with seats in the Lebanese government, a radio and a satellite TV station, social services and large-scale military deployment of fighters beyond Lebanon's borders.The group currently receives military training, weapons, and financial support from Iran and political support from Syria, although the sectarian nature of the Syrian war has damaged the group's legitimacy. In 2021, Nasrallah said the group had 100,000 fighters.
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Living in this stupid fucking city honestly makes me understand people who hate public transit. Because taking it here does fucking suck!!!
I missed the bus by 30 seconds because they have no solid schedule, and the next one isn’t for 19 fucking minutes. This route only has 2 busses running on it, and half the time one of them is broken down so a bus will only come every 40 minutes. This is the only route that comes within 3/4ths of a mile of my apartment.
10 minutes between busses is the absolute maximum acceptable time*. 5 is what you should be targeting. For this route to be reasonable it needs twice as many busses on it, and there should be 2 or 3 more routes going near my apartment because I live on the main north-south through road where a few thousand people live. 20 minutes between busses is fucking unusable!
In the words of NotJustBikes, “If you have to check a schedule, your transit system has already failed,” and this overgrown school bus system cosplaying as a regional transit system doesn’t even have a fucking schedule.
*In the middle of a weekday in a heavily populated area. Obviously there are situations where less frequent service makes sense, like night busses and rural routes, but in your standard urban environment it should be 10 minutes or less, especially if busses are the only transit.
That’s so fucking shitty sorry friend. Decent public transport is such a no-brainer for cities. Even hyper capitalist regimes should want public transport to create more output so it’s just dumb and insulting when they don’t bother. Like kicking yourself in the gonads just to make poor people suffer. Solidarity
And what’s so extra frustrating is this town only fucking cares about the university but if you work or study at the university you can’t fucking drive to work!!! In my ideal world I wouldn’t own a car and would never even see them but in this world I do own on and they won’t even let me use it to go to work. To drive I would have to buy a $200 parking pass and park in the commuter lot, which is roughly as far from my job as my apartment is.
Ughhhhh. Are you able to cycle safely?
I could cycle in the painted bicycle gutter next to people doing 60mph, but also it’s Florida so 9 months out of the year or I did that by the time I made it to work I’ll have soaked through every piece of clothing I’m wearing with sweat. I’m a heavy sweater, so if it’s above 65 degrees cycling really isn’t an option.
This past week I’ve been able to walk a few times, thankfully I live only about a 30 minute walk away so when it’s not Florida summer that’s feasible.
Also we shouldn’t even have to rely only on busses, this city has more than enough people to support a tram/LR network.
That sucks sorry friend. The US really has terrible public transport outside of the bigger coastal cities