With so many overlapping conflicts in the Middle East, it can be hard to keep track of who's fighting whom, and which former enemies are now finding common ground. Consider the case of Ali Nasri Shamas, who lives in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
Shamas runs a small factory on a hillside in the village of Bouday. Workers sift through huge mounds of dried vegetation, separating stalks from leaves amid a cloud of dust and the din of processing machines.
“This is three tons,” Shamas tells me, smiling. Three tons of hashish.
Hash cultivation has long been a big source of income for these communities in the Bekaa Valley, near the Syrian border. Their products, Lebanese Red and Blonde hash, are world-renowned.
But, of course, not everyone is a fan. For years, the Lebanese government leaned hard on the Bekaa Valley’s drug trade. Shamas has been a wanted man for 35 years.
.. now please crush some extremist "religious" looser scum.
