In the immediate aftermath of the Second Lebanon War, Hallinan wrote an article on September 1, 2006 entitled, "The Aftermath of  Lebanon : Myths and Dark Plans."  He bandies the word, “illusion,” all over the place as a rhetorical weapon as though this one word can substitute for serious analysis.  One core “illusion,” according to Hallinan, is that Hizbollah is a front for Syria or Iran.  This is an illusion?  Then where did all those Syrian, Iranian, and Russian missiles come from, jihadi Paradise?  And what about motive?   Syria is aggrieved at Israel for holding on to the Golan Heights and Iran is aggrieved at Israel for simply existing.  According to the millennial views of Iran’s president and many of the mullahs, the 12th Imam (messiah) will not come until Israel is destroyed.  If Hizbollah were acting on behalf of Lebanon it would not have attacked Israel, since Lebanon has no separate argument.  After all, Israel did not occupy one square inch of Lebanon at the time of the Second Lebanon War.  In fact, Israel occupied Southern Lebanon until 1990 precisely because of its fear that Hizbollah would threaten its peaceful northern border if it left.  It took a courageous gamble on the part of then prime minister, Ehud Barak, to leave Southern Lebanon.  However, as many had warned, Hizbollah immediately moved into the vacuum, built a hardened military infrastructure under the very noses of a token and impotent UN force, and in the fullness of time, launched attacks on Israel, making the Second Lebanon War an inevitability.  If that were not bad enough, the Palestinians used Hizbollah’s “success” in dislodging Israel from Lebanon in 1990 as a model for their violent second intifada, and Hamas in particular used Hizbollah as its role model in its arms build up, leading to the recent Gaza War. 

Hallinan suffers from chronic illusions himself.  Take for example his claims in this article that Hizbollah remained intact after the Lebanon War.  Errant nonsense.  Though perhaps not the IDF’s most brilliant campaign, Hizbollah’s entire infrastructure in Southern Lebanon was overrun and destroyed.  It lost most of its long range missiles and almost 1000 of its best fighters.  Its headquarters and bunkers in the Shiite suburbs of Beirut lay in ruins.  Much of their leadership was killed, and their supreme leader, Hassan Nazrallah, to this day, hides in some undisclosed  location, probably in the basement of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut.  He has only been seen on a small handful of occasions.  Hizbollah did not even raise a finger in the defense of Hamas in the recent Gaza War, knowing full well it would have been knocked silly if it had. For a similar loving and tender treatment of Hizbollah, complete with a gratuitous and off topic swipe at Israel of course, see Hallinan’s column in the July 2, 2009 issue of the Berkeley Daily Planet.