Go Home and Support Your People

The same lament I read about from Lebanese these days. This guy has the heart but sadly not the balls to put his money where his mouth his. The blame game on Syria is getting old.

Read the comments posted on this. People are constantly expressing sympathy for Lebanon but keep asking why they don't do anything about it [aside from complain].

One said something that echoed my sentiments...

hal_thresher wrote:
Mr. Abdul-Hussain,I am not sure why you think you should present this case to the American people. Do you want America to act like Syria and get involved in Lebanon's local politics. I think you need to return home and figure out what you can do to keep your country free of foreign interference.
6/14/2007 9:27:49 AM
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Here's what I think:

1. I hope the U.S. doesnt waste their time supporting another investigation into this by releasing press, condemning Syria on how unjust this act was. At this point, it's got to be more than Syria; it's an equally corrupt Lebanese government.
2. If many Lebanese outside of Lebanon comment on this with disdain and start condemning other countries again , they should first realize that talk will get them nowhere and they should fly back home and turn the situation around themselves by living home and straightening out their own constituency's weaknesses, instead of complaining and soaking up benefits that they originally sought after the civil war in 1975. Enough of the hypocrisy.
3. As for Mr. Abdul-Hussain, yes you will prevail. When you start to accept the reality that your people equally deserve the blame for leading Lebanon into a downward spiral. There are just as many Lebanese who are prejudiced and hypocritical about the situation there. People who don't give a rat's ass about the Palestinian refugees; people who appreciate little of what U.N. workers within Unifil have been doing to help; people who are apathetic about peace and just want to retreat to the mountains; and people who just want to complain while they live abroad and do NOTHING but talk.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/13/AR2007061301982.html

Standing Up to Killers
Syria Must Answer for Its Murders in Lebanon
By Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Thursday, June 14, 2007; A27

A bomb in Beirut yesterday killed Walid Eido, a member of the Lebanese parliament, and his son, Khaled, one of the smartest, sweetest and most delightful friends I have ever had.
I should wait for the results of an investigation into the explosion to learn who killed Khaled and his dad. But I will not wait. I am tired of the murders in Lebanon. I accuse the Syrian regime, headed by President Bashar al-Assad, of killing Khaled. As a friend of the family, I want to press charges against Assad and his Syrian and Lebanese associates. Enough is enough with the Syrian regime and its Lebanese puppets.
Walid Eido was a member of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority. Before his untimely death, the majority bloc comprised 69 of the legislature's 128 members. Now, the majority's margin has been narrowed to five, and there is no reason to believe that Syria will not go after these people and kill them, one after another, until it forces the government to collapse.
For the past few months Eido had been the target of a demonizing campaign by Syria's foremost ally, Hezbollah. Similar Hezbollah campaigns against other anti-Syrian lawmakers preceded their assassinations.
Hezbollah has been a supportive partner to Syria, often thanking the Assad regime for what it has "offered" my country. In truth, Hezbollah has sold out Lebanon's national interests to the regional autocrats of Syria and Iran.
Hezbollah might not have started the streak of assassinations of anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians that began with the killing of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri in February 2005, but the militant group has certainly been complicit with the criminal Syrian regime.
Since Hariri's murder, we in Lebanon have seen the best of our politicians and journalists murdered, one after another.
Before Khaled's death, I had already lost one of my most inspirational friends, journalist Samir Kassir. He was murdered by a car bomb on June 2, 2005.
Gebran Tueni, who had been my boss at the Arabic daily An Nahar, was killed that December, also by a car bomb.
With each murder, we Lebanese have swallowed our anger and fought hard for an international tribunal, which the U.N. Security Council approved last month. We hoped the tribunal would deter the Syrian regime and its Lebanese puppets from further killings. Yet a murderer is a murderer, with or without a tribunal, and the killings don't stop.
As I write these words, I understand that I am risking my personal safety. Speaking out could jeopardize my security during visits home.
But I owe it to Samir, Gebran and now Khaled to write this. I want to tell the Syrian regime and its Lebanese cronies that the Lebanese are willing to fight for their freedom despite the heavy cost.
And while I'm at it, I have some words for our Syrian brethren living under the tyranny of the Damascus regime: Stand up for your rights and say no to dictatorship. Tyrants might kill some Lebanese politicians and throw other Syrian human rights activists in jail, but they cannot kill all of the Lebanese or imprison all Syrians.
We shall prevail. We shall prevail for Kamal Jumblatt, Rene Moawad, Rafiq Hariri, Samir Kassir, George Hawi, Gebran Tueni, Pierre Gemayel and all other Lebanese killed at the hands of the Assad regime. We shall stand up for the Syrian freedom lovers Anwar and Akram al-Bunni, Aref Dalila, Riad Seif, Mamoun Homsi and Kamal Labwani, among others, no matter how ruthless and ugly the Syrian dictatorship can get.
There will come a day when Lebanon is free and Syria democratic.
The writer, a media analyst, is a former reporter for the Daily Star of Lebanon.

New Clashes in Lebanon

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1623480-2,00.html

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/05/21/lebanon.violence/index.html

If the militia takes control of the situation, Lebanon as a whole will further weaken. The press doesnt cover enough of the fact that the Lebanese are just fed up with internal clashes and outside influences. I think they are pissed that for years there have been thousands of Palestinian refugees camped in their territory, Syria constantly manipulating their economic and political freedom and basically other countries who have their their own agendas slowly sucking the life out of Lebanon. This is prime breeding ground for prejudice and bigotry. The complications that have been woven into the very fragile threads of Lebanon's culture may likely cause them their demise. Ironically, they can't seem to face the reality that they themselves have bred these divisions. 20 years after the the civil war, they still refuse to recognize that their people now represent a different religious and ethnic constituency. Sadly not enough has been done to foster diversity in this country that once called itself the Paris of the Middle East.

Iraqi government failing

Finally Iraq taking responsibility...

With sectarian violence continually on the rise, this has to be dealt with by the Iraqis on their own. The U.S. can continue to assist and lose more troops but they are just moving targets like the locals amidst the chaos. It's so sad.



BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi politicians -- frustrated by violence throughout the country and the glacial pace of parliamentary lawmaking -- say the nearly one-year-old government is failing.
Iraqi lawmakers told CNN the government's impotence and inability to bring peace to the chaotic environment is basically structural, and not the product of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish legislator, was quoted in the USA Today newspaper as describing al-Maliki as weak, but in an interview with CNN, he said, "It's not Maliki, it's the whole government."
That government, he said, is failing on many fronts, such as providing security, fostering reconciliation and offering public services. (Watch patrol in 'no man's land' help dying woman )
He believes Iraq, not the U.S. government, should set deadlines for goals, and the government must "deliver" them or resign.
Hasan al-Shimmari, a Shiite member of the United Iraqi Alliance's Fadhila party, said the government is weak because the political process and the government's structure are "based on partisan allocation of ministries."
"The Maliki government should be strengthened by correcting the political process and allocating ministries democratically," he said.
Hasan al-Sneid, a UIA parliament member who is close to al-Maliki, blamed political forces and parliament for problems, but he praised al-Maliki's efforts to foster reconciliation among Sunnis and Shiites.
Another legislator pointed to Baghdad's two-month-old security plan as evidence of the government's inefficiency.
The plan is "not working," according to Maysoon al-Damalouji, a secular Sunni lawmaker.
She said many people believed that services would be restored to neighborhoods "cleansed" by U.S. and Iraqi troops. However, once troops leave a cleansed region, militias move back in and take revenge on people who have cooperated with the troops.
Al-Damalouji believes that the essential problem is the division of parties by sectarian affiliation.
Suicide bombers kill 9 U.S. soldiers
Nine U.S. paratroopers were killed Monday when a pair of suicide bombers attacked a small U.S. patrol base in Diyala province, the U.S. military said. (Watch how Diyala province is becoming a major battleground )
It was the deadliest attack on U.S. ground forces in Iraq since December 2005.
U.S. military officials said initial reports indicate insurgents used two 30-ton dump trucks full of explosives to attack what they call a combat outpost. The massive blast resulted in the northern and western walls of the compound collapsing. Remains of several troops were recovered from the rubble.
An additional 20 U.S. soldiers were wounded in the attack.
The direct assault is a departure from the usual tactics of the insurgents, who in the past have been more inclined to use hit-and-run sniper attacks, or launch mortars from a distance.
The Islamic State of Iraq, the insurgent umbrella group that includes al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack in a posting on an Islamist Web site.
The same insurgent group claimed responsibility for the suicide attack at Iraq's parliament complex two weeks ago.
The insurgents said that the U.S. confirmation of the Diyala attack "is a rare confession by the Americans about an operation against their soldiers" and that "God guided the soldiers of ISI to a new method of explosion."
The Diyala region is emerging as a major battleground in the Iraq war, along with Baghdad and Anbar province, with insurgents shifting their operations into the area.
The Diyala attack has jolted the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where all the dead and wounded soldiers are based, according to the U.S. military.
A Fort Bragg spokesman, Maj. Tom Earnhardt, said the Diyala attack is "the worst incident we've had in the whole global war on terrorism."
Other developments
At least 15 people were killed and 25 were wounded Tuesday in a suicide truck bombing north of Ramadi, police in the Anbar provincial capital said. The bomber struck a police patrol, killing at least four officers. Women and children were among those wounded, police said.
President Bush said Tuesday he will veto a war spending bill that sets a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawals to begin. The House of Representatives and Senate agreed Monday on a bill that requires a pullout of troops to begin by October 1. (Full story)
Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad on Monday to protest a concrete wall surrounding Adhamiya, a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad. The U.S. and Iraqi militaries said the wall is a temporary structure to prevent insurgent attacks. But many Baghdad residents fear walls will exacerbate the sectarian divide fueling the insurgency in the Iraqi capital. (Watch why the wall is controversial )
CNN's Yousif Bassil, Arwa Damon, Jomana Karadsheh, Octavia Nasr, Jomana Karadsheh and Brian Todd contributed to this report.

New Testimony on Hezbollah tactics

Amidst all the bad press Israel had been taking for actions during the recent conflicts in Lebanon, here's something on Hezbollah. I'm not taking sides here but a group that refuses to legitimize itself by working alongside the Lebanese government through more peaceful means, while receiving aid from a pseudo noble country like Iran who uses religious propaganda for political gain is just deceitful.

JERUSALEM - An Israeli think tank with strong links to the military released videos and testimony Tuesday it said proved Hezbollah guerrillas used civilians as human shields during last summer's war in Lebanon.
Click here for more on article(Yahoo link)

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3



http://www.ajcongress.org/site/PageServer