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".