'A Man Needs an Education These Days, If He Ever Hopes to Blow Up Some Jews'

Speaking of high-tech terrorists, the Free Press ran some comments Talal Chahine, the fugitive owner of the extinct La Shish restaurant chain, made in 2006. He made his comments from his Lebanese fastness, in answer to federal prosecutors claiming he has links with Hezbollah. (“Chahine's response to Hizballah claims”).

Chahine denies supporting terrorism, of course. He was only participating in a fundraiser for al- Mabarrat, to help out the orphans. (The orphans of suicide terrorists, that is). But Chahine doesn’t seem to believe there is much terrorism out there, anyway. It's exaggerated, like Communism during the Cold War.

"The war on terror is becoming the modern-day equivalent of McCarthyism. I strongly believe that the war against terrorism will not be won with a bullet, bomb or missile but by somehow giving hope to those people in the world who are without hope, and this can only be achieved by better communication and education."

We hear this a lot. Impoverished Msulims from throughout the Middle East, Africa, and sout Asia leave home and trek to Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq to blow themselves up in an act of depseration over their living conditions back home. Cure poverty, and you'll cure terrorism, it's said.

Yet it keeps turning out that better communication, education, and literacy don't seem to be quieting things down.

Chahine may not have heard, for instance, about Al Qaeda’s al-Sahab production company, the one that’s garnered such impressive notice from AP writer Kathy Gannon. (“AP Writer Bullish on Al Qaeda”).

It’s not poor people without hope or education joining up at all, (it never really was), but computer-savvy PhDs and professors. And as for better communication, that’s exactly how Al Qaeda’s winning recruits over--with slick videos.

Instead of using all this literacy and education and high-quality communication to win the war against terrorism, terrorists are using all these tools to recruit even more fighters to win their war against the West.

Patrons to La Shish: 'Buh-Bye Ghannooj!'

Photo: KATHLEEN GALLIGAN

So Talal Chahine's customers really did resent the idea that part of the cost of a plate of hummus was going to fund Hezbollah. ("La Shish chain closes amid accusations against owner").

Right on cue, Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News in Dearborn, told the Detroit Free Press that "federal prosecutors drove La Shish out of business by recklessly accusing Chahine of supporting Hizballah." ("La Shish closes 11 metro eateries").

As has been discussed here, and elsewhere, on many occasions, Chahine's ties with Hezbollah are hardly in doubt.

The Free Press wants to say the chain's demise began in April 2005, when "Federal agents raid his homes in Plymouth Township and Dearborn Heights and La Shish's headquarters in Dearborn...[seizing] computers and financial records." As if Chahine was just minding his own business, and down come the Feds for nothing. There are plenty of reasons to give credence to federal prosecutors' charges that Chahine has "connections at the highest levels of ... Hezbollah."

We know who's fault it is, and why all those people are now out of work.

Chahine in 2002 in a place of honor beside Hezbollah spiritual leader Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, at a Hezbollah fundraiser in Lebanon.