Tony the killer mechanic & Lebanon against itself (again)

I visited my Lebanese Forces source today-- a cheerful, tubby, dirt poor auto-mechanic who lives in a tin shack in an upscale Christian neighborhood. His wife and children have re-located to the mountains; he is staying in Beirut to sell their plot of land. I met him when I first arrived in Beirut, while I was staying in a hotel near his house. I didn't at all suspect his political affiliation until I was invited over for a barbecue, and saw that most of his shack is plastered with posters of Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces (his supporters call him "Doctor" (Hakim) because he sat in on a couple of pre-med courses, before becoming a full-time militiaman.)

Let's just call him Tony, which is a popular name among Lebanese Christians.

Tony fought with the Lebanese Forces during the civil war; they were officially disarmed and disbanded in the early 1990s. When the Danish Embassy in Beirut was attacked last February in protest against the prophet Mohamed cartoons , I saw Tony leave his house with a gun, and head towards the area where the rioters where attacking churches, smashing cars and torching the Embassy (in Achrafieyeh, a Christian neighborhood.)

The day after the embassy riots, I was sitting with Hassan, a grouchy, clinically depressed(Sunni Muslim) employee of the hotel, when Tony popped in to say hello. I told him that I saw him with a gun tucked into the side of his shorts. He started to rant about the "fucker Muslims" and how they were attacking his Church, right in front of Hassan (the Sunni Muslim). Hassan remained silent for most of this, until I interrupted Tony, and pointed out that not all "Muslims" were "fuckers", and that Hassan in fact was a Muslim, naively hoping that he might temper his tone in Hassan's presence. He did not. Instead Hassan-- who only ever mumbles or growls-- piped up for the first time in days, and started relaying how Tony killed 50 Palestinians on a bridge during the civil war and had raped lots of Muslim women. All the while Tony was simulating a "gang bang" behind Hassan's back. Hassan then got up and left, and Tony proceeded to boast that it was all true, staring me in the eyes, and trying to convince me of the "Muslim threat" to his Christian existence.

So today, I visited Tony and asked him if he was getting ready to fight against the Hezbollah. He said that he was getting too old (he is in his early 40s), and that the 18-year olds were mobilizing, but that they don't have machine guns now. I asked him if they would receive weapons from Israel. He said, "No, Israel is the enemy. Before it was different. Israel doesn't care about any of the Lebanese." He prophesized that a civil war will break out a month or two after the Israeli bombing stops, and that Christians, Sunnis and Druze will fight the "fucker Shia", with arms from the US and France.