Aounism

Being an "aounist" used to mean something in the 1990s. An "aounist" liked to think of himself as someone patriotic, someone who is against foreign intervention and also someone who opposes secterianism just like the general Aound did.
What does it mean to be "aounist" today ? It is clearly nothing more than being a follower of Aoun, the man who used to have well defined principles while trying to acheive some not-so-well-defined objectives and became today the leader who has one clear objective ( presidency ) but ill-defined principles.

The Lebanese Predicament

The Lebanese problem is Aoun forming a close alliance with those who benefit from a foreign intervention, the same one that once forced him into exile. The Lebanese problem is Aoun and Al tayyar always getting along.

The Lebanese problem is Samir Geagea, once sentenced to life, leaving prison to become yet again a Lebanese leader.

The Lebanese problem is that being a war criminal was never sufficient to get at least isolated from political life.

The Lebanese problem is for Hezbullah that what is unconstitutional is not always unjustified.

The Lebanese problem is that there is a limit to the power of the constitution but not to the power of money and arms.

The Lebanese problem is the low expectations people have became to have for themselves; Low expectations to the point of claiming victory when it is only their cities that have been ravaged by fire while their leaders were either on the run or crying for help.

The Lebanese problem will only cease when people will understand it.

Robert Fisk on Saddam's verdict

This Was a Guilty Verdict On America As Well
Robert Fisk/The UK Independent, November 6, 2006.
Click on the link above. The article is accessed through the Blog of Pierre Tristam.

What is worse then Sectarianism ?

We lebanese, we must have learned from our recent history, that when the masses follow blindly a leader this can NEVER be a good thing. Read any book, watch any documentary about the lebanese war and you will know for fact that one of the main reasons behind the nonsense and destruction was what we call : "za3amet". It is very sad how this complete trust and dedication for leaders, although largely criticized in the country by the people themselves, is still very much present. It makes me ask whether people understand that in democracies, people in the government, in the parliament are supposed to serve the people. This is their job.

It is very curious how these leaders emerge too. I just cannot understand how people from the same family or neighberhood ended up shooting at each other during the civil war, simply because of a personal fight that happened overnight between the leaders of one party. I am mentionning the civil war, something that most lebanese wish to avoid, because it seems to me we haven't learned a lesson, sadly.

What is happening today in Lebanon ? Isn't it true that it is mostly a matter of leaders fighting with each other, especially now the election date is getting closer ? They started to form surrealistic coalitions and in any decent democracy they would have lost completley their credibility from playing such games. We keep on giving them second-chances and thirds and so on ...

Yes it is true that many people got deceited from Aoun, but many decided to follow "even if" since the guy is "patriotic". This kind of justifications, that people gave to Aoun, Joumblat, Nasrallah and even worse for Jaja (becoming a leader yet again ! after a life sentence ? ) are the mercy bullet for a democracy that is struggling for her life.

Press conferences that are just absurd.

What is this odd friendly environment that is
always present at the U.S. administration press conferences ? In any decent democracy you will generally see journalists asking the tough questions. Generally, their aim generally is to ask questions that will challenge the speaker. That is why they are paid, and that is why people tune in general. But at the White House, press conferences are being re-defined; The press is at best submissive. Journalists ask Bush about his opinions, his hopes, and for what he have to say for the "critics" if of course he feels like. In fact, at any point in time Bush is allowed to discard questions and facts. In a recent press conference he disregarded the last estimation of the death toll of Iraqis. No one pressed the issue, no one denfended the credibility of this estimation that comes from academic research at one of the finest institutions in the U.S., no one did. No one even cared to mention the flagrant inconsistency of the foreign policies in Irak, Iran and North Korea when this issue was discussed. In fact the toughest questions, as someone already mentionned on NPR, were asked by the president himself. For example he asked himself a follow up question to a question that was related to the U.S. policy toward North Korea:

"I'll ask myself a follow-up. If that's the case, why did you use military action in Iraq? And the reason why is because we tried the diplomacy. Matter of fact, we tried resolution after resolution after resolution. All these situations are -- each of them different and require a different response, a different effort to try to solve this peacefully. And we'll continue to do so."
They tried diplomacy in Iraq, all right. A ludicrous statement that recieved no comment.

George went on saying :
"And I applaud the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence. I am amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they're willing to -- that there's a level of violence that they tolerate. And it's now time for the Iraqi government to work hard to bring security in neighborhoods so people can feel at peace. "

Which Iraqi people you are talking about. The one that wants you to pull out as soon as possible ? ( as you can see from the polls that were in the mainstream press the last few weeks).
Obviously if you read Bush's press conference you can see that although he is still having problem formulating a clear sentence, he seems much more comfortable in adventuring to new territories, throwing all sort of sensless new rhetorics, without a fear of a harsh critic from the media, at least at the press conference.

I think the reason these press conferences became so useless has to do at least partially with the nature of the job of these White House journalists. I assume that their jobs and reputations are made to be risky so that submission is the only road to another press conference and hopefully, down the line, a one-to-one interview with, say, the secretary of defense.

Another Home-Grown Problem

Two events this week, remind us of one major problem facing the United States and whoever have to deal with the U.S. (Iraqis for example). From the horrific school shooting events, to the indespicable murders by US Army in Iraq and going through all sorts of unblievable homocides that we see in the news media on a weekly basis in this country, one starts to wonder whether we are lookings at differents facets of the same problem. In fact, it takes few minutes, the time to compare the situation with any other developed nation, to get convinced that we are talking about a US phenomena, whose root is therefore "home grown".

On a side note, it is very difficult to get to the root of any problem, in a society where looking for the roots of a certain polemic problem tend to be wrongly associated (thanks for the efforts of the media) with "justifying" the problem. This confusion happens to be stronger, when it comes to foreign policy issues, where one cannot even try to relate violence to some violent occupation, as this is seen as a clear evidence of siding with "evil".

Howard Dean on Al-Maliki

"We don't need to spend $200 and $300 and $500 billion dollars bringing democracy to Iraq to turn it over to people who believe Israel doesn't have the right to defend itself and to refuse to condemn Hezbollah" said H. Dean , the Democratic National Committee Chairman , http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,205819,00.html.

It seems that for Howard Dean a $200 billion is too high of a price if it wasn't going to buy the Iraqi opinion too. It was not enough to invade them and to directly cause the death of more than 40,000 human lives. Now you are pretending as if they asked or voted uninamouosly for you to come and save them, to occupy their country. Cause only then Mr. Dean, would you have the right to ask them to side with you on matters of International relations. Something that even half of the Americans don't do most of the time. But it is easy to call Iraqis "Anti-semite" (which he did accuse Al-Maliki of) , as you rarely pay the price ( politically) for such sensless accusations.

That is the price that decent people have to pay to live in a polarized world today : They often have to listen to extremley arrogant, ignorant words that are often detached (in a cynical way) from everything that has to do with reality. That describes well most of the speeches related to Iraq since the plan of invasion became public in 2002.