Word: militia
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Operation "Grapes of Wrath," which was continuing at the end of last week, is a series of coordinated Israeli raids against Hizballah, the Iranian-backed militia that has been fighting the Israelis in south Lebanon since 1982. The crisis was touched off by two recent Hizballah rocket attacks on northern Israel--both of which were themselves provoked by Israeli episodes involving the death of several Lebanese civilians outside the nine-mile "security zone" that Israel occupies in Lebanon. On Thursday Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres ordered three strikes against the Hizballah in Lebanon, including the raid on Beirut in which...
...shelter as government soldiers continued shelling rebel army barracks and sporadic arms fire erupted downtown. The latest fighting, which threatens to unravel a tenous peace reached last year, points up the very deep fault lines in the country, says TIME's Andrew Purvis: "There are few recognized authorities. Militia men will steal your car, they will shoot you, they will do what they want depending on their mood." The reasons are largely economic: "Everyone is still armed and there is no revenue coming into the country. Authorities have been asking soldiers to just lay down their arms...
...committed. Former vice president Dan Quayle's incorrect spelling of potato (with an e) seems to be on the same level of immorality as Sen. Bob Packwood's (R-Wash.) sexual harassment. By portraying so much of the government as corrupt, negative campaigning can also fan the flames of militia groups who believe there is no part of the government worth saving and are willing to start over from scratch...
Though the FBI has been worried that the scene at Justus could become a magnet for armed fringe groups, representatives of the self-proclaimed militias around the Western states have also been denouncing the Freemen as ordinary criminals. "Those people are crooks," says Bob Wright, who leads a militia unit in New Mexico. "This is not a militia issue...
...another, people who haven't acted with care in the past are making a large effort to do so now. Many militia members, who are often portrayed in the media as groups of raving, trigger-happy madmen, are very rationally and deliberately avoiding provoking federal agents...