Mitchell Prothero chronicles in Vice an astonishing experience that he, Andrew Exum, and three other journalists recently had:
Yes, I remind myself, this is really happening: Four Western journalists (two of whom alternated in and out of our rounds of four-on-four), plus one former Army Ranger-turned-counterinsurgency expert, are playing paintball with members of the Shiite militant group frequently described by US national security experts as the "A-Team of terrorism." It took nearly a full year to pull together this game, and all along I’d been convinced that things would fall apart at the last minute. Fraternizing with Westerners is not the sort of thing Hezbollah top brass allows, so to arrange the match I’d relied on a man we’ll call Ali, one of my lower-level contacts within the group.
The goal was to get Hezbollah to trust them and then open up about the group's political views. It worked:
I press [The Boss, a Hezbollah leader] on what he thinks could stop this cycle of violence in the south. What if the Israelis left Lebanese lands, made peace with the Palestinians, and never threatened Lebanon again? “Some guys would consider violence the solution to the religious questions, like liberating Jerusalem. But doing so would mean the end of the Resistance,” he says. "So, peace?" I ask. He thinks for a second. "Sure," he replies, without much conviction in his voice.
The Dish 
