There is a newspaper in Lebanon by the name of Al-Akhbar [Translates as The News]. It is really a low-grade Iranian-Syrian toilet paper whose sole mission is to wipe the behinds of the defunct Assad regime in Syria and the regime of the primitive Iranian ayatollahs and their representatives in Lebanon, namely Hezbollah and Gebran Bassil’s decaying Free Penile Movement (FPM). Readers of Al-Akhbar are treated to a daily menu of lies, distortions and misinformation trashing honorable true patriots and praising incompetent terrorists and bad actors whose Quixotic wars against Israel are devoid of any neuronal impulse from the cerebral cortex. Its “reporting” emerges from a putrid primordial soup in which antiquated barbarisms (so-called Arab, Islamic and Iranian nationalisms) keep on fermenting but never help Al-Akhbar’s primitive clients escape the severe spanking that Israel, the enemy, always deals them. So, because the “resistance” wars of these idiots against Quixotic windmills always fail, they inevitably resort to cowardly bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and murders of those of their own fellow Lebanese who disagree with them.
For several years, the Al-Akhbar toilet paper backed the Free Penile Movement of Michel Aoun and Gebran Bassil when these two dudes were the prime lackeys of Assad and Hezbollah. In 2006, Bassil convinced his father-in-law Michel Aoun to betray his principles and everything he stood for during 15 years of exile and become a Syrian-Iranian proxy. The Free Penile Movement of Bassil and Aoun became the ally of their erstwhile enemy, Hezbollah, and they signed in great fanfare a Faustian deal known as the Memorandum of Understanding (ورقة الفاهم). Faustian, because in exchange for their treason to their former principles and selling their souls, Aoun was eventually lifted into the presidential chair in Baabda. Overnight, Michel Aoun turned from a viscerally anti-Syrian freedom fighter against the vulgar Assad’s occupation and rape of Lebanon into an ally, a proxy, and a defender of the Assad regime and its Lebanese terror organization of Hezbollah. This explains why Michel Aoun was one of the very few Lebanese politicians who survived the wave of bombings and assassinations that Hezbollah perpetrated against anyone who dared oppose its hijacking of the Lebanese state on behalf of Syria and Iran.
Al-Akhbar is notorious for its blatant misinformation, inventing stories to tarnish reputations and expose people who do not subscribe to the garbage “axis of resistance” that proved itself an absolute failure in confronting Israel. No one would stand in judgment against opponents of Israeli Zionist barbarity, but one must do so by standing on principle and competence, not through cheap sleazy mercantile treasonous criminal incompetence that is high on testosterone and low on neuronal acitivity. But Al-Akhbar and its garbage followers claimed for decades that they can fart higher than their assholes and destroy Israel in 24 hours. Unfortunately, and hard as they repeatedly tried, they developed anal fissures and many hernias which forces them to flee like rabbits and hide like cowards in underground ratholes, all the while causing the destruction of entire villages and the displacement of their own people.
As we speak, Hezbollah has been savagely circumcised, if not castrated, by Israel. Yet it still claims victory and makes demands on the Lebanese people and the state whom it terrorized for decades under the pretense of liberating the south and Jerusalem.
Hezbollah’s filthy mouthpiece, Al-Akhbar, continues to spew poison like a disgruntled backroom black-market dealer who has nothing left to sell. While the newly elected president Joseph Aoun and his appointed prime minister Nawwaf Salam are trying to form a decent government after decades of Hezbollah’s corrupt governments, Hezbollah continues to obstruct and make unwarranted demands. But beggars cannot be choosers, and losers with dignity move aside and make way for others. Yet Hezbollah’s losers have no dignity. They continue to insist on playing the kingmaker role even as they have lost any credibility and integrity. They think they can keep the Ministry of Finance as their own turf, with which they can carry out illicit financial operations to avoid sanctions, and deny or authorize any funding according to their whims, i.e. to rape and obstruct like they’ve done since the mid-1990s with Syria’s army of occupation, and again since 2006 after Syria was evicted from Lebanon.
Al-Akhbar recently published an editorial attacking one of the presumptive ministers in the new Nawwaf Salam government. And for reason. The Ministry in question is that of defense. The man slated to take up that job is one retired Army general by the name of Maroun Hitti whose curriculum vitae is nothing short of stellar. He is an educated and well-respected man. He led the protection detail of the UN Investigative Commission looking into the 2005 assassination of prime minister Rafik Hariri by none else than Hezbollah. He commanded the Operations Department of the Army, then served as a Staff General for Planning, and was one of the top candidates for the post of Army Chief before he retired in 2016. Hitti designed the Lebanese Army’s observation towers along the Syrian border to monitor smuggling by the gangs and criminals of Assad and Hezbollah. Hitti is known for being a no-nonsense, uncompromising military man on matters of principle.
Hence, Hezbollah and Al-Akhbar are terrorized at the idea of Hitti holding the Defense portfolio. The following are excerpts from Al-Akhbar’s anti-Hitti editorial (shown below in Italics) followed by a rebuttal (shown in boldface type) – The original Arabic was forwarded several times before reaching this platform.
1. With negotiations under way to appoint ministers to cabinet posts in the Nawwaf Salam government, the name of retired general Maroun Hitti has been repeatedly mentioned to take up the Defense Ministry, while it seems that the man is first and foremost the candidate of the United States.
- The United States has never endorsed any person’s candidacy to posts in the Lebanese government, regardless of that person’s personal or political character. General Maroun Hitti has never claimed anything other than his unblemished patriotism; he simply took an oath to defend his country, unlike the Al-Akhbar minions who prostitute their souls to backward dictatorial countries like Iran and (Assad’s) Syria. In the decaying brains of these forlorn resistance nostalgics, attaching someone’s name to the United States is supposed to invoke treasonous connections with the Big Satan, notwithstanding the fact that these same romanticizing Arab or Iranian or Islamist nationalists do frequently themselves make deals with the Big Satan.
2. Article one of the National Defense Law states that one of the tasks of a minister is “to strengthen the state’s capabilities and empower its defense against any hostile act on, or against, its soil, and to protect the sovereignty of the state and the security of its citizens.” In this case, is Hitti the right man in the right place? In one of his television interviews, Hitti, who served as former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Adviser on military affairs, explained that the most appropriate defense strategy is neutrality, and that the army’s main mission in a neutral state is defending the neutrality of the state.
- By contrasting "defense" with "neutrality", the Al-Akhbar thinks it is casting doubt on Hitti's ability: In their backward testicular-minded macho brains, the editors of the toilet paper imply that "defense" is a strong militaristic masculine concept, while neutrality is a weak feminine sissy thing. But isn’t neutrality one of the pillars of President Joseph Aoun’s program as stated in his swearing-in address before Parliament? Isn’t this neutrality what the vast majority of the Lebanese people demand, including the vast majority of the Shiite community itself?
Yet neutrality is an insult to the fanatic Islamists of Al-Akhbar and Hezbollah, and the Christian Taliban of Bassil’s Free Bullshit Movement, all of whom thrive on archaic ultra-religious barbarism and hatred. Especially now that they have lost everything they wagered on. As of late, Bassil has been claiming that he “didn’t know” in 2006 that Hezbollah would prioritize violence over reform. Had Bassil known this fact, he says, he would not have signed his Faustian deal with the terror organization. Many in his camp dumped him then, warning him of the grave mistake he is making, and many are still dumping him now. He recently lost four of the best cadres of the FPM. But how does he have the gall to switch camps and pretend that no one would notice his metamorphosis from a Muslim kiss-ass to a Christian kiss-ass? Shouldn’t we expect of a wannabe politician to have vision on what his allies, opponents and people with whom he signs treaties would be likely to do? How could he have ever believed that a terror Islamist Fascist organization like Hezbollah under direct control of Iran would serve Lebanon well? Having miserably failed in his alliance with Hezbollah, Bassil has been begging his former adversaries to admit him in their camp. No regrets. No excuses. No apologies. No admission of failure. Unaccountability is the mantra of the filth of Lebanese politics.
3. In another interview, Hitti accuses Hezbollah of “spreading the narrative that the Israeli army withdrew in 2000 as a result of the actions of the resistance, when the reality is that Hezbollah’s resistance in fact delayed the withdrawal that was set to take place in 1992!” And according to the adviser [Hitti], “diplomacy is more powerful than machine guns”, which is what the Lebanese people are witnessing with the enemy [Israel]’s violation of all agreements and international resolutions!
- The year [of the planned Israeli withdrawal] was 1993 to be precise, not 1992. And yes, diplomacy is by far more powerful than machine guns. This is what Speaker Berri proved with his negotiations with Amos Hochstein to reach the current ceasefire, which was the outcome of diplomacy and not of Hezbollah’s missiles that merely stained with soot a few buildings in Kiryat Shmona. Furthermore, Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from the south was secretly negotiated between Israel and Iran, such that Israel did not hand over the south to the Lebanese Army and the United Nations force (UNIFIL) as an honorable peace-desiring country would, but instead gave it to its archenemy the terrorist Hezbollah, thus prolonging the instability in south Lebanon for another 25 years. This testifies to Hezbollah’s collusion with Israel’s ambitions in the south: Israel and Hezbollah's objectives have never ceased converging toward maintaining a mutually beneficial instability that grants them pretexts to intervene and wreck any possibility of peace along the border.
4. It is clear that Hitti’s problem is not with the Israeli enemy or any other occupier, but with Hezbollah’s “arrogance and high-handedness”. What is dangerous is that Hitti does not posit the issue as his own personal opinion, but that of “the majority of the Lebanese” who consider themselves “closer to the modern Arab world for cultural reasons” as he said in November 2019 at the “Manama Dialogues” organized annually by the International Center for Strategic Studies.
- One hundred percent correct. The Lebanese are culturally closer to, and belong to, the modern Arab world (represented by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Oman, and the north African countries…) than to a country controlled by the tyrannical Iranian regime. Also, President Joseph Aoun was elected by some 80% of members of parliament, and Prime Minister-designate Nawwaf Salam was chosen by a similarly uncontested majority of the same MPs. Doesn’t this indicate that Hitti was right and that the majority of the Lebanese have chosen to rid themselves of Hezbollah?
5. At the Manama Dialogues conference, Hitti questioned the chief of the US Central Command on the US position if a conflict erupted between the Lebanese army and Hezbollah, as if he (Hitti) was summoning an American intervention against Hezbollah. Elsewhere, Hitti opined that “Hezbollah represses the quest by the Lebanese people for transitioning their country from one posture to another, indicating that he had called on the Army six months before the October 2019 protests to “ready itself for a confrontation with Hezbollah!”
- Again, correct. The number of live or dead casualties from the Cedars Revolution is ample evidence of that fact. It is obviously natural that one of the most basic obligations of any professional army is to design plans for future operations in a manner that is completely divorced from sentimental or political preferences. No respectable military commander would accept to respond with “I don’t know” if he were to asked by the political authorities about his action plan. As a professional army, the Lebanese Armed Forces should be planning for all contingencies, including subduing a renegade terrorist organization parading itself as a political party. As for the question he asked of the United States, it was very legitimate given past experiences…! If Hezbollah refuses to lay down its remaining arms and reintegrate the political process and eliminate the threat of its weapons, then a confrontation is inevitable. As things stand as we speak, Hezbollah is still refusing to lay down its weapons. The patience and deference shown so far by the Lebanese people has limits, especially after Hezbollah’s reckless incompetence caused untold destruction to the country.
6. Hitti is the author of the principle that a household can have only one chief at the helm, and therefore occasional infighting between members of the same household is necessary and required in order to “assert the state’s authority” using American-supplied weapons. As for the Israeli enemy, only a neutrality paper should be brandished on the border as a way to protect the country.
- But of course, only one head, one overseer, one dispenser of power should be enforcing the laws, not any jackass out there with a gun. Which is why President Joseph Aoun began his address to parliament by drilling one Lebanese and international demand – enshrined in one article of the ceasefire agreement signed by Speaker Berri on behalf of himself and on behalf of the Hezbollah - namely that the state, i.e. the head of the household in Lebanon, should have the exclusive possession of weapons.
7. It is worth noting that Hitti joined the “Tanzim” party, which was the most extremist of the forces affiliated into the Lebanese Front under the banner of the Kataeb Party during the civil war. Its members constituted a militia that carried out sectarian and racist massacres.
- Hitti at the time was 17 years old. He saw Yasser Arafat's Palestinian “revolution” that despised the Lebanese people and took advantage of their tolerance in the belief that Arafat could make Lebanon a substitute homeland for the Palestine he lost because of incompetence and divisions. So, yes, Hitti took up arms with the Tanzim which was not a political party – this is how Al-Akhbar distorts facts to suit its objective of slandering people it doesn’t like. The Tanzim was created by grassroots people who did not like the traditional parties of the Kataeb, the Ahrar and other militias. Tanzim was a more of national guard organized by the Lebanese army to protect Lebanon, particularly isolated Christian villages, against the barbaric massacres by the Palestinians, the Sunni and Shiite Islamists, the criminal imbeciles of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, the communists, the Druze and others, all federated under the seditious National Movement. Unlike the other parties of the Lebanese Front, the Tanzim was the cleanest and the least sectarian. Unlike the other parties, it did not commit massacres, it did not steal, rob and rape.
Hitti joined the Tanzim because of those reasons and because he did not want to join the other tribal traditional parties. From that experience, he enrolled in the army and rose through the ranks thanks to his discipline and qualifications. And just as he joined the Tanzim to fight the enemies of Lebanon back in the 1970s, he will be a major asset to continue fighting Al-Akhbar's favorite enemies of the country.
