Gabriel Issa and Tony Haddad: The Laurel and Hardy duo of Lebanese American politics. As the Lebanese are struggling with ways to disarm the Iranian Hezbollah without falling into a civil war, it is interesting to go over the history of some Lebanese Americans whose opportunism by far dwarfs any sense of principle or genuine patriotism.
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1- GABRIEL ISSA - former Michel Aoun supporter, first anti-Syrian then pro-Syrian and ambassador of Lebanon to the US (for which he had to renounce his US citizenship).
Thursday, September 22, 2022
Turncoat Gaby Issa in his Own Words
Gabriel "Gaby" Issa, an otherwise useful idiot ally of Michel Aoun, was appointed Lebanese ambassador to the U.S. in July 2017 as a reward for serving Aoun financially for decades. He also spent much of his years in the US begging the pro-Israeli Zionist lobby in the US congress for help against the Syrian occupation of Lebanon and pouring money into the Aoun coffers. But then, circa 2002, he was instructed by Aoun's son-in-law Gebran Bassil to switch sides, and overnight became an ardent supporter of the Syrian-Iranian occupation of Lebanon as embodied by Hezbollah and a hater of America and Israel.
Aoun
himself had made the same magical metamorphosis around that time. In
addition to interview statements in which he expressed sympathy for the
Israelis as they were targeted by a wave of suicide bombings (see:
https://lebanoniznogood.blogspot.com/2022/07/aouns-legacy-unprincipled-greed-for_11.html),
Aoun twice made statements into my own ears completely opposite to his
current transformation: once pitying the poor Israeli victims of
Palestinian terrorism, and another time when he said "he is one of us"
(هيدا منّا وفينا) about the leader of the Guardians of the Cedars
Etienne Sacre (aka Abu-Arz), exiled in Cyprus and condemned for treason
because he fled to Israel, along with thousands of other southern
Lebanese, after Israel treacherously handed the Lebanese South to the
Iranian terrorist militia Hezbollah in 2000.
In an interview on April 14, 2022 with Aoun's OTV television channel, Issa said that he not only supports the presence of Hezbollah's weapons on the Lebanese border with Israel, but that he believes that Hezbollah should increase its arsenal dozens of times over because it protects the Lebanese people.
Rebuttals:
- If the Aoun administration believes that stockpiling weapons on the border will protect the Lebanese people, why doesn't he [Aoun] send his army, instead of his ally the Iranian militia Hezbollah, to the border? Why subcontract the defense of the nation to an unlawful terrorist organization acting on behalf of Iran?
- If Aoun and his
son-in-law Gebran Bassil, head of the Free Patriotic Movement [FPM],
believe that the south of the country is a "national", and not only a
"Shiite", territory worthy of defense, why haven't they mobilized their
Christian FPM followers to build their own militia or join the ranks of
Hezbollah along the border to fight against Israel, instead of hurling
insults from behind their cell phone screens and the comfort of their
couches? Why is a matter [the supposed continued Israeli occupation of
the Shebaa Farms] of such national gravity as territorial integrity or
national defense left to a radical fundamentalist Muslim organization?
Perhaps those Christians of the FPM do not wish to fall under US
sanctions, and are hiding like coward Dhimmis behind the Muslim Shiite
Hezbollah. Perhaps those Christians of the FPM - including Gaby Issa
himself, a Lebanese-born US citizen who lived in the US for 40 years
before losing his US citizenship to become ambassador - have a lot of
money and assets in the US that they do not wish to jeopardize their own
little self-interests. It may be that after 40 years in the US, Gaby
has become just another dumb American..
Issa said that it is hypocritical of the U.S. to "grumble" and call for the dissolution of Hezbollah and other Lebanese militias because today's situation in Lebanon is America's doing.
- Issa should at least adhere to
the Lebanese constitution of the Taif Agreement that his boss Michel
Aoun first opposed, then accepted after he decimated the Christian
population of Beirut in futile internecine battles that he lost, fleeing
like a coward to the basement of the French embassy. The Taif Agreement
called for the dissolution of ALL - not some - militias; yet of all
wartime militias, only Hezbollah was allowed to remain armed and active.
The Taif Agreement called for the Lebanese Army to take control of the
entire border zone, yet to date Hezbollah has full control of the
southern border and continues to harass and threaten the United Nations
Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) present on the ground.
Issa explained that the issue of Hezbollah's weapons will be resolved when all regional issues are resolved...
- This idiot wants Lebanon to wait for the resolution of all regional issues - Iran's nuclear stalemate, Iranian-Saudi rivalry, Palestine/Israel, Yemen's civil war, Syria's civil war, Iraq's smoldering civil war, etc. - before Hezbollah's weapons are dealt with. Let's see: Every one of these conflicts has been smoldering for decades; in fact the Saudi-Iranian conflict has been simmering since the 7th century with no end in sight.
- Mr. Issa's ally,
Hezbollah, has only one resolution in mind when it comes to all these
conflicts: Eradicate Israel from the map and establish a Shiite Muslim
Caliphate over the entire Near East. So Mr. Issa, a Christian Dhimmi
("tolerated" by Muslim rulers), is asking the Lebanese people to remain
under the constant threat of war until Israel disappears and the Iranian
mullahs rule over the entire region. Very sagacious and realistic
goals.
Issa said that by pressuring Lebanon on Hezbollah's weapons, the U.S. is trying to push Lebanon towards civil war.
But Lebanon has been in a chronic civil war between Christians and Muslims long before there even was an America worthy of any influence. Let's see:
- 1842-1860 - Christians and Druze massacre one another. Country is partitioned into 2 mini-states, one Druze, one Christian. It fails. Massacres resume, European powers intervene and a small Christian Mount-Lebanon Protectorate is declared from which Turkish Ottoman troops are excluded.
- 1914-1918 - Ottoman Turkish troops re-invade and requisition everything, one third of the Mount Lebanon Protectorate dies of famine and a third emigrate to no return.
- 1920 - Contrary to French advice, Mount Lebanon is enlarged into a Greater Lebanon that reduces the Christians to 50% of the population.
- 1943 - The stupid Lebanese Christians chase their WWII-weakened French protectors out of Lebanon. Modern Lebanon is born.
- 1958 - Crisis with Abdel-Nasser of Egypt leads to a brief civil war. Lebanon's Sunni Muslims want to join a Greater Arabia entity.
- 1961 - Failed coup d'état attempt by the Near East Nazi Party (Syrian National Socialist Party) close to the Syrian Baath Party. Leads to the militarization of the Lebanese government under the Chehab and Helou presidential terms.
- 1970 - Yasser Arafat and his PLO move their headquarters from Amman to Beirut and attempt to seize power and make Lebanon a substitute homeland in lieu of Palestine, leading to the war of 1975-1990 between Lebanon's Christians and the Palestinian organizations.
1982-present time - By force of weapons and
terrorist actions (kidnappings, hijackings, bombings, assassinations,
etc.), the Iranian Hezbollah militia - apparently Mr. Issa's favorite
terrorist organization - evicts all Western presence from Lebanon and
subdues the entire country under the pretext of "defending" Lebanon. Mr.
Issa's shallow cerebrum makes him think that Hezbollah is the answer to
Lebanon's chronic problems. Good luck with that.
Issa also said that the U.S. threateningly told the Lebanese that they must not contribute to the reconstruction of Syria in the aftermath of the Syrian civil war, even though Lebanon was impacted by the war more than any other country.
- While he doesn't cite who exactly of "the
Americans" told him not to contribute to the reconstruction of Syria,
this remark points to where Mr. Issa's priorities are: Money-making
schemes, while the country is floundering. It is Lebanon that needs to
be reconstructed from the abysmally corrupt governance of the very Aoun
administration that Gaby Issa flaunts. No amount of money, whether from
the reconstruction of Syria or from begging the IMF, will fix Lebanon's
constitutive structural problems. Mr. Issa and his buddies stand to make
lots of money from reconstructing Syria if, and only if, his Iranian
allies in Hezbollah keep the upper hand in Lebanon: The reason being
that Hezbollah and Syria have elevated the art of smuggling across the
porous border (thanks to Michel Aoun's laxity with his Syrian allies) to
new heights, combining ancient donkey caravans, trucks and modern
drones. So Issa and Bassil stand to make a good cut of Syria's
reconstruction because they are counting, as Issa said, on
the many long years still to go before all regional conflicts are
resolved. Peace and the rule of law are not to their advantage, but
anarchy, lawlessness, war, or even just the constant threat of war that
Hezbollah perpetuates definitely works to Bassil and Issa's advantage.
Below are excerpts from an interview with Gabriel Issa, the former Lebanese ambassador to the United States,
on the Lebanese OTV channel on April 14, 2022.
Interviewer: "So you are in favor of keeping the weapons of the Resistance (i.e. Hezbollah)?"
Issa: "Not just keeping them. I support increasing them dozens of times over. I confronted senior American officials who came to talk to me. I said to them: 'You allowed for this.' They said it was the Syrians, not them. So I said: 'You allowed Syria to invade Lebanon.' The same thing happened with regard to the Taif Agreement. I said to them: 'You imposed the ruling system of the Taif Agreement on us.' Their answer was: 'It was the Saudis, not us.' The Americans always deny responsibility. They say that they did not allow Syria to invade Lebanon, that they did not allow Saudi Arabia to impose the Taif Agreement on us... All the Americans who say today that we do not have the right to do this – they themselves formed a militia and invented the concept of a militia and of a mini-state within a state. Not only did they invent this notion, but they have imposed it on us for many years, and now they grumble about the existence of the Hezbollah militia? You have the same background. You said that you were defending Lebanon, and Hezbollah also says it defends Lebanon ... Okay, so there are weapons that not held by the Lebanese army. Sure, there is a problem and it will be resolved when the regional issues are resolved. But today, in the elections, all you hear is people suggesting to take away the weapons of the resistance, as if this is the only problem."
Interviewer: "It is also noteworthy that no one mentions the weapons of the Palestinians in the refugee camps."
Issa: "Absolutely. We talked about when the mini-states within the state began, and when the Lebanese army came to restore its control of this Lebanese land, everybody opposed it. Today, the Americans are inciting us to send the Lebanese army to take away the weapons of the resistance. What does this mean? That they want to push us towards a civil war. This is what I am against.
[...]
"The Americans pressured us with regard to many issues. For example, they pressured us with regard to our dealings with Syria. We were directly informed about this in a threatening tone. I was at the meeting when they said: 'Don't even think about contributing to the reconstruction of Syria.' This is the language they used. They threatened to impose sanctions on us. Lebanon was forbidden from helping in this reconstruction, even though this was an opportunity for the Lebanese. We paid a higher price for that war than other countries, considering the size of Lebanon, its economy, and its population. We were the country impacted the most by that war, so at least, when the reconstruction begins, let us offset some of it – I'm not talking about benefiting from this but at least some offsetting some of our losses. No. We were completely prevented from doing this. I am not saying that we accepted this, but this was the language they used with us – not only with me. Officials more senior than me were also present, and they were told to their faces by the top American in charge of the Syrian portfolio: 'I came to tell you that you are forbidden from participating in the reconstruction of Syria.' During the discussion, we said: 'Why? We have the right to do this.' But he said: 'I did not come to negotiate with you. I came to inform you.' This was the language he used."
==============================================
2- TONY HADDAD - former Michel Aoun supporter, first anti-Syrian then everything and nothing depending on which way the wind blows. When Michel Aoun did the switcheroo from anti-Hezbollah to pro-Hezbollah, Tony did the same - he told me once that he agreed with Aoun because "the Shiites are better than the Sunnis". Gebran Bassil must have fed him this bullshit. Since Tony didn't get rewarded like Issa when Michel Aoun became president, he tried to shove himself into the maritime border negotiations between Lebanon and Israel. But the Son-in-Law Gebran Bassil kicked him out of the presidential palace. Now he appears to sit alongside the current president (Joseph Aoun)'s bunch of antique-looking advisors when there is a meeting with the Americans. I don't think Tony has any idea of what he wants, other than be in the game regardless of principle or political position.... He just wants to be seen as an "important person". Never speaks, never has interviews.... more a like a court jester, a sycophant, a puppet, a dummy, a seat holder.... I wish some journalist interviews him so we know into what exactly he has metamorphosed. At least with Laurel Gaby Issa, we know: He's hunkered down in hiding somewhere because his positions are very unpopular right now. With Hardy Tony Haddad, it's more like slithering for survival through the complexities of Lebanese political life.
Thursday, November 26, 2020
My Friend Tony Haddad
[Update June 2023]: PLEASE READ the end of this piece, where I just added some historical information that you can delight yourself with and read Tony Haddad's e-mail exchanges with me in 2006 that reveal how he was brainwashed by Gebran Bassil into believing Hezbollah's lies. Tony Haddad was expelled from the entourage of Aoun and Bassil. He arrogantly thought he could lead the negiotiations with Israel over the maritme borders from which he evidently was dumped like a sack of manure. The senile Aoun is licking the boots of Bashar Assad on behalf of Bassil. And Bassil is crawling back like a snake out of the Hezbollah swamp in which he had dragged idiots like Tony Haddad....I feel blissfully vindicated.
I knew that Tony was just a nobody with money [who tells me in the appended e-mail exchange that "I am not that important", like his alter ego the guy from Michigan who was briefly the proxy-ambassador - under cover of the Lebanese embassy - of Tehran and Damascus in washington DC... all shills of a cretin called Bassil who has no friends left because of his stupidity. I predict that when the aging Aoun dies, the FPM will splinter and decay as spitefully as when it was born. Tony: What a poor jackass you've made of yourself. [Key to Tony's abbreviations: HN=Hassan Nasrallah, GMA=General Michel Aoun, Hizb=Hezbollah, PR=Press Release, FPM=Free Patriotic Movement, MOU=Memorandum of Understanding, YYY=Yours truly, idiot13=you know who].
-------------------------------------------
In typical Lebanese clientelist mentality, Tony Haddad was hoping for big returns from his decades-long crawling at Michel Aoun's feet. Nothing wrong with that, as long as the overarching objective was sublime, namely to end Syria's occupation of Lebanon from the 1970s through the first half of the 2000s.
But when Aoun turned his coat in early 2006 and became a defender of the very Syrian regime that, during its occupation, killed, maimed, imprisoned, assassinated, kidnapped and otherwise forcibly disappeared hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, Tony turned his own coat too. That is the essence of the problem in primitive societies that have yet to mature politically: to follow a person, and not an idea, a principle, or even an ideal. Like many in the Aoun camp, Tony became one of the herd who overnight supported Syria and Hezbollah (after decrying it as a Syrian and Iranian puppet for nearly 25 years), and who, after lobbying US congressmen and senators, including some who were members of the Zionist lobby in Washington DC, became ardent enemies of Israel and defenders of Hezbollah's "resistance" against Israel.
The issue itself never changed: Syria has been since the 1940s Lebanon's top enemy, much more so than Israel. Syria refused to recognize Lebanon's right to exist from the days of independence in the 1940s, all the way to 2005 when it was forced to pull its forces out of Lebanon and to 2008 when it was forced to exchange embassies with its small neighbor. Syria's Assad constantly poured mercenaries, terrorists, Islamic Jihadists, and weapons into Lebanon with the aim of destabilizing the country, starting fires only to be asked by a naive or cowardly West to put out those same fires. During those early decades, a liberal Lebanon thrived economically while Syria continued to decline with a Socialist Baathist operation rife with corruption and crime.
One of the many examples of how Syria harassed Lebanon during all those years is at the very heart of Lebanon's current woes with Hezbollah. At independence (Lebanon in 1943, Syria in 1946), the borders between the two countries were agreed upon, but Syria continually propped up problems and issues, not because of serious questions of sovereignty but simply as a way to destabilize and harass its more successful neighbor. One such territorial dispute between Lebanon and Syria is the issue of the Shebaa Farms, a bald hill sitting at the tri-border junction between Israel, Syria and Lebanon. At the outset, the Shebaa Farms were assigned to Lebanon by the retreating mandatory powers, France and Great Britain. Even after agreeing to it, Syria changed its mind in the 1950s, dispatched an armed contingent to the Shebaa Farms where it proceeded to kill two Lebanese gendarmes and seize the parcel. The Lebanese, overwhelmed by the constant harassment, failed to dispute this aggressive seizure of its territory. And so it went until the 1967 and 1973 wars between Israel and Syria, when Israel seized the Golan Heights and with them the Shebaa Farms that Syria had annexed.
When Tony Haddad, Michel Aoun and others of their ilk want to argue why they support Hezbollah and Syria's Assad, they say that the terror group is fighting to reclaim Lebanese territory occupied by Israel. But under international law, Israel seized the Shebaa Farms from Syria, not from Lebanon. If the Lebanese are serious about recovering the Shebaa Farms, they should be fighting Syria over it and getting Syria to officially cede the territory back to Lebanon, and only then can it be reclaimed from Israel.
But I digress. When I parted ways with Michel Aoun in 2006 over his signing of a MOU with Hezbollah, Tony Haddad accused me of many things, including that "I had a big ego". How did he, the nearly illiterate gas station manager, discover my big ego after years of sending me daily tasks: letters and publications to be written or translated, traveling to lobby the US Congress on behalf of Lebanon, all pro bono of course, of late night faxes and phone calls, of trips to Detroit, DC, New York, Ottawa, Montreal and other cities, while keeping a job and a life? He did, not because he meant it; I suspect he just hurled the insults at me because I did not subscribe to turncoat Aoun's flopping around on matters of principle.
Tony also told me that the main reason for Aoun's flip flop in 2006 was that "the Shiites are better than the Sunnis". How rich of an argument, that radical murderous Muslim Jihadists of the Shiite brand of Islam are somehow better than radical murderous Muslim Jihadists of the Sunni brand of Islam. I bet you Gebran Bassil, Aoun's son-in-law, told Tony to promote this argument, and Tony swallowed it without giving the matter an ounce of thinking. When you are in a client-boss Mafia mentality, you just do what the boss tells you, otherwise... How pathetic.
Today in 2020, Tony Haddad is finally on the gallows tree, figuratively speaking. He is banned from visiting Aoun in the presidential palace, and is on a Twitter war with Bassil. It took him 15 years to realize what I saw coming overnight in 2006. The reason? He clung to the prospects of some reward from Aoun. But Tony has nothing to offer Aoun, really. He gave Aoun lots of money back during the exile, just as Gaby Issa did. But Issa got the ambassadorship in Washington DC, for which he had to renounce his US citizenship, and his diplomatic immunity precludes any action by the US government against him as an ally of Hezbollah. Tony got nothing. There was nothing to reward him with.
So he is today upset. He tried to get himself somehow involved in the Israeli-Lebanese indirect negotiations over their maritime borders, supposedly because owning a gas station makes him an expert in gas and oil drilling off the coast of Lebanon, or because of his many contacts with pro-Israeli congressmen (before his chameleonic metamorphosis from anti-Syrian to pro-Syrian). But he got in trouble with Gebran Bassil who wanted the whole oil negotiations experience to himself. Banned, Tony. You're banned by the very people you served like a lackey for decades. You're a nice guy, a useful idiot, but you have nothing to offer. Money? Aoun and Bassil today have plenty of it, they don't need you.
Is your big stupid ego bruised, my friend? Stick to your principles, you'll sleep better at night. Trading political loyalty over an empty cauldron of principles doesn't a chowder make. I regret working with you for Aoun, but I don't regret having tried to work for my country of birth because it comes above and beyond you, Aoun, Bassil, or anyone else for that matter.
Enjoy your retirement, wherever that may be, assuming you can sleep at night. You now have made many enemies. Hope you learned why.
----------------------------------------------------------------
As you read Tony's (Idiot13) messages below, please forgive his mediocre English writing skills....
=======================================
From: XXX@hotmail.com 2/27/2011 – 8:38 am
To: idiot13@gmail.com
Hi idiot13,
It's been a while, and I hope you are well.
I was cleaning up some old e-mails and I came across this exchange we had back
in 2006, and I was wondering if anything had changed in your position.
Obviously, nothing has changed on the ground in Lebanon other than the country
keeps sinking further into Syrian and Iranian control, Hezbollah has no
intention whatsoever to lay down its weapons, and Aoun has his head fully up
HN's ass.
For me, the bottom line is: If I am given a choice between a Lebanon ruled by
Hezbollah, Iran and Syria on one hand, and a Lebanon ruled by the US, the UN,
and Europe on the other hand, I would choose the latter rather than the former.
As to utopian and fantastic ideas that - thanks to Hezbollah's weapons -
Lebanon somehow can become truly independent of all those forces, I just don't
think they will ever materialize.
Where do you stand today?
XXX
Date: Thu, 13 Jul
2006 16:29:54 -0400
From: idiot13@gmail.com
To: XXX@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: YYY Press Release
XXX, just for the record, you were not kicked out you decided to go out. I know they were trying to call you from Lebanon and I tried to call you but you have already made up your mind. And that is your choice and we respect it.
As for your PR
you're blaming Hizballah's behavior on the MOU between GMA and HN that is very
naive coming from someone that suppose to know one thing or two. If the MOU was
supported by the other parties we would not be in this mess today. Only GMA
told Hizballah that they must put down their weapons and put a road map for it.
[Hahahahahaa].All the others had BS talk and some of the idiots here
keep on telling us what the problem is but without providing solution. You know
very well that GMA didn't just go and have a photo opp with HN. He was the
only one that said "if we're going to talk, the outcome of our negotiation
is the deliverance of the Arms"[Hahahahhaa... can't stop laughing].
While the rest made an election pact with the HIZB and they're with them in the
government instead of them being with us, And you're blaming the FPM for this
mess. What did they have to do with it. The Israelies, and the administration
here are blaming the government and you're blaming the FPM. Let's think and be
responsible for a change and weigh the words before we say and know were can
it lead us.[More hilarious laughter] This is precisely why they
talked to you from Lebanon. Just like the Hariri and the Feb 14 Gang used your
other PR [in which I dumped the Tayyar and its Fascist imbeciles from my
life] and by the way not because you're that important to them but just to
attack the FPM and GMA, your PR today is going to be used to take the blame
away from the government and put it on FPM and GMA which includes your own
family and friends [Oh, so sad, I'm tearful. I thought I was working for the
country, not for "family and friends", unlike you my dear cloacal
sycophant].
On 7/13/06, XXX <XXX@hotmail.com> wrote:
Idiot13,
You know very well it has nothing to do with ego. This is what I had been
trying to say for a year now while INSIDE the Tayyar. But the Tayyar wanted me
to shut up and wait for a miracle, and I was kicked out. You do not expect me
to continue to shut up?
Now that we have this Hezbollah crap on our hands, how is the Tayyar going to
clean the mess?
XXX
>From: "idiot13" <idiot13@gmail.com>
>To: "XXX" <XXX@hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: YYY Press Release
>Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 09:52:30 -0400
>
>How irresponsible!!!! I hope you satisfied your ego.
>
>On 7/13/06, XXX <XXX@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>For Immediate Release
>>July 12, 2006, Boston - Massachusetts
With another escalation of hostilities along the Lebanese-Israeli
border, YYY raises again the issue of the power duality existing today
in Lebanon because of Hezbollah's hijacking of the national will from
the sovereign authority of the Lebanese State.
>>
What happened over the past 2 days is precisely the scenario against
which YYY has time and again warned the Lebanese political
establishment, particularly political
parties like the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of General Michel Aoun
who have unreservedly backed Hezbollah's "Resistance" platform against the will of the Lebanese people and the international
community, and who have struck political alliances with Hezbollah that
were supposed to have only a short-term tactical objective, but which
evolved since last January's signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the FPM and Hezbollah into a long term-strategic alliance. YYY
has in fact severed its ties with Aoun's FPM specifically over the
issue of this mutation in the FPM's endorsement of Hezbollah's
"Resistance" platform.
>>
Hezbollah is the only extant private fundamentalist Shiite Muslim
militia to remain armed and >>operational after the end of the Lebanese
War and the withdrawal of the Syrian occupation forces in April 2005.
Hezbollah, funded and armed by Iran and Syria, and member of the Lebanese government, maintains an autonomous base of military power that runs
parallel to the Lebanese government and its legitimate armed forces,
and controls large swaths of Lebanese national territory over which the
Lebanese government is denied any exercise of sovereignty.
>>
This situation, along with the support and cover provided to it by such
political parties as the FPM, has emboldened Hezbollah to drag the
entire country into hostilities and confrontation with Israel whenever
it chooses, for its own selfish interests, and with complete disregard for the
higher interests of the Lebanese State and the nation. This is tantamount to
treason and is a gross violation of the Lebanese constitution and of
all international resolutions that have attempted over the past 2 years
to lift Lebanon out of the Arab Nationalist and Moslem fundamentalist grip that Syria had imposed on the country for over 30 years.
>>
When asked yesterday by the press to comment on the Hezbollah-triggered
Israeli attacks against Lebanon, PFM opposition leader General Michel
Aoun declined to comment until such time as the government of Prime
Minister Saniora takes a stance. How, we ask, can the opposition movement of General Aoun defer to the government in a matter of such gravity? How
can General Aoun not have a position on the impending invasion of his
country by Israel because of actions taken by Hezbollah, General Aoun's
foremost ally on the ground in Beirut?
>>
With an already devastated Lebanese economy seeking some relief with
tourism at the beginning of this summer season, the Hezbollah-caused
hostilities with Israel will certainly deal a fatal blow to the
business and economic climate in Lebanon, not to mention the destruction that
will be inflicted on the infrastructure by the Israeli retaliation. This is only one
instance of how devastating the actions of one freelance armed and
terrorist militia can be on the entire nation. YYY demands that the FPM openly declare its distance from Hezbollah's actions and abrogate
the Memorandum of Understanding between the two sides, until Hezbollah
demonstrates in deeds that it will disarm and cede all sovereignty to the Lebanese State.
>>
>>YYY
>>
>>Contact: YYY
>>
>>_________________________________________________________________
Posted by Hanibaal Atheos at 11:08 AM
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