LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِJuly 17/2010

Bible Of the Day
Today's Inspiring Thought: Rest for Your Soul
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28–30)
Do you need a vaca...tion from the heavy burden of sin that you've been carrying? Do you need to rest? Jesus promises that when we submit ourselves to his yoke—when we surrender our lives to him and take on his new life—we will find a refreshing rest for our souls. The Lord offers us a trade. As we take on his yoke, which is easy and light, Jesus lifts our burden by carrying upon himself the load of our sin.

Free Opinions, Releases, letters, Interviews & Special Reports
Lebanon and the lack of security/By: Elie Fawaz/July 16/10
Beware of Sudan's secessionist demons/By: Chibli Mallat/July 16/10
An influential little war/By: Nicholas Lowry/July 16/10

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for July 16/10
Hezbollah will have hand in renewing anti-UNIFIL clashes, says French source/July 16/10
Human rights activists slam Syria's Assad/AFP
Rights group says 'no freedom, no rights' in Syria/Washington Post
Paris Expects More Southern Skirmishes Not Welcomed by Syria/Naharnet
France defends controversial security pact with Lebanon/AFP
Hezbollah rocket attack victims sue Al-Jazeera in US court/AFP
UN: No evidence to support Israeli claims over Hezbollah arms/Ya Libnan
Hezbollah at the Border/Human Events (blog)
Hezbollah's American Pep Squad/Human Events (blog)
Knock-off trafficker jailed; ring linked to Hezbollah aid/Philadelphia Daily News
UN: Calm returned to southern Lebanon/Jerusalem Post
In the Levant, looking for signs of war/UPI.com
Second telecom 'Israeli spy' arrested in Lebanon/BBC News
Geagea warns of flaws in relations with Syria/Daily Star
UNIFIL assures crisis with southern villagers over/Daily Star
Laurent seeks briefing over Lebanon-Syria meeting/Daily Star
Lebanon arrests third 'telecom spy'/AFP
Nahhas: We Could be Facing The Most Dangerous Spy Act in Lebanon's History/Naharnet
Jumblat Meets Erdogan: We Hope New Balance of Power Will Emerge after Turkey's Stance/Naharnet
Lebanon is Booming But No End to Power Outages/Naharnet
Berri, Baroud Come Out with Agreement on Standoff over France-Lebanon Security Deal/Naharnet
British Government Reviewing Relations with Hizbullah/Naharnet
Moussawi: Resistance of Naturalization Shouldn't Affect Palestinians' Living Conditions /Naharnet
Khalil: Nasrallah Didn't Urge Aoun to Approve Law on Palestinian Rights /Naharnet
Assad in Lebanon First Week of August /Naharnet
Hariri Vows to Bridge UNRWA Deficit /Naharnet
U.S. Study: Growing Concern of Renewed Israel-Hizbullah War /Naharnet
France Defends Controversial Security Pact with Lebanon /Naharnet
Williams in Washington to Discuss South Lebanon, UNIFIL /Naharnet
Hariri Expects More International Pressure to Break Region Deadlock/Naharnet
Le Guen Stresses France Commitment toward Lebanon /Naharnet
2nd Phase of Asphalting Highway to South Begins Monday /Naharnet
Geagea: There are Deep Flaws in Relations with Syria /Naharnet
UN Default on Korea Spells Trouble in Lebanon/New York Sun

British Government Reviewing Relations with Hizbullah
Naharnet/British Minister of State for the Middle East Alistair Burt warned that "bad things may happen" if the Middle East peace process did not move forward.
In remarks published Friday by pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, Burt said the new British government was reviewing its relationship with Hizbullah "but it is being careful with its moves." "There is a sense of anxiety and frustration among people in the region, and pessimism that if things did not move forward or improve, it will get worse," Burt argued.
"This summer is going to be a difficult one," he warned. "This is a strong feeling in Syria and in Lebanon, and I think that our responsibility is to do everything we can to try to take steps to dispel this feeling, "Burt added. Turning to Syria, he said Damascus "surely is playing a much more positive role in Iraq. It is truly involved in the political process to help form a new government there." "But, of course, we remain very much concerned about Hizbullah. We are concerned about reports on weapons stockpiles." Beirut, 16 Jul 10, 10:27

Williams in Washington to Discuss South Lebanon, UNIFIL
Naharnet/United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams will visit Washington next week to discuss south Lebanon and the role of U.N. peacekeepers in the border area, As-Safir reported Friday. It said Williams, who is currently in New York, will head to Washington beginning of next week for talks with U.S. officials on the situation of southern Lebanon, UNIFIL's role and implementation of Resolution 1701. Beirut, 16 Jul 10, 07:09

3rd Telecom Spy Arrested
Naharnet/Lebanese authorities have reportedly arrested a third man on suspicion of spying for Israel, local media revealed Friday. Al-Akhbar daily said the detainee, arrested on Thursday, was a former employee at Alfa, one of Lebanon's two mobile telecommunications companies. It cited a well-informed source as saying that the suspect was a frequent traveler to Europe and Arab states. Pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, meanwhile, said Lebanese army intelligence started interrogating the suspect. Lebanese authorities on Wednesday announced the arrest of Tareq Rabaa suspected to be an accomplice of telecom technician Charbel Qazzi, who stands charges with spying for Israel.
Beirut, 16 Jul 10, 06:49

Geagea warns of flaws in relations with Syria
By The Daily Star /Friday, July 16, 2010 /Naharnet
BEIRUT: Lebanese-Syrian bilateral ties will continue to be subjected to Arab and international discussions until relations are normalized and liberated from flaws, Lebanese Forces boss Samir Geagea said. Geagea was referring to Syrian criticism of the latest UN report on the implementation of Resolution 1701. The Syrian Foreign Ministry submitted a letter to the UN criticizing UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s report, which addressed the developments in Lebanese-Syrian bilateral ties. “The report of the secretary general continued to interfere in the development of Syrian-Lebanese ties,” the Syrian letter said in its introduction. Geagea said that despite Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s efforts to normalize ties with Damascus, several deep flaws still governed bilateral relations. “As long as these flaws exist, we will seek to block them and the issue will remain a subject of Arab [political discussions] on the one hand and the international community on the other,” Geagea said. Lebanese President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Saad Hariri have held several rounds of talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad over the past few months that led to the ratification of several new bilateral agreements. But no progress has been made on border demarcation. Damascus has agreed to demarcate the maritime border but continued to stall on land demarcation, saying the step would serve US and EU interests. The UN has repeatedly demanded the demarcation of the borders to prevent arms smuggling to Hizbullah in line with Resolution 1701. “Lebanon and Syria were granted their independence 65 years ago, so what prevents the border demarcation?” Geagea asked, adding that “unlike Arab states, the border possess clear landmarks rather than deserts.” Geagea also criticized Syria’s remarks on the UN report with regard to armed Palestinian groups outside refugee camps. Rival Lebanese political groups decided during National Dialogue talks in 2006 to disarm Palestinian groups mainly in the Bekaa region with known loyalty and affiliations with to Damascus. – The Daily Star

UNIFIL assures crisis with southern villagers over
By The Daily Star
Friday, July 16, 2010
BEIRUT: The United Nations envoy to Lebanon said on Wednesday he believed the trouble between UN peacekeepers and villagers in south Lebanon that has led to confrontations in recent weeks had now been resolved. Earlier this month, villagers seized weapons from French troops serving as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and wounded their patrol leader. That followed a series of standoffs or clashes in the border area, a stronghold of the Hizbullah, and complaints that UNIFIL had stepped up its patrols and was failing to coordinate with Lebanese army forces in the region. “I can confirm that the situation in the south is now much better, that I believe that calm and stability have been returned,” special coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council in New York. Williams said he and UNIFIL commander Major General Alberto Asarta had met Lebanese political and military leaders, including from Hizbullah. “In the course of those meetings, we heard … that they … would do everything possible to prevent a recurrence of those incidents,” he said. Williams welcomed a decision by the Lebanese Cabinet last week to reinforce the Lebanese Army presence in the south. Some 2,500-3,000 extra soldiers are expected to join the estimated 7,000 already there. In its weekly session on Wednesday, the Lebanese Cabinet approved a demand by the Foreign Ministry to extend the mandate of the UNIFIL until August, 31, 2011. UNIFIL was set up in 1978 and expanded in 2006 to monitor the end of hostilities between Israel and Hizbullah. It currently has some 12,000 troops. Villagers in south Lebanon have blamed French peacekeepers for the recent confrontations, saying their patrols had become provocative and intrusive, including taking photographs of people inside their houses. Some Western diplomats say Hizbullah was involved, a charge the group denies.
Williams declined to speculate on what had caused the trouble, saying only that many factors were involved. The UN envoy also said he hoped for a new approach to try to bring about an Israeli withdrawal from a Lebanese part of a village Israeli forces are occupying. Ghajar, which has a population of about 2,000, straddles Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, but Israel currently occupies both parts. Williams, who expressed hopes a year ago that Israel would be out of the northern, Lebanese part of Ghajar in a few months, said on Wednesday the negotiations with Israel were “taking too long.” “We discussed in [the Security] Council new ways that we might approach that and I hope we can do so in the coming weeks,” he said, without giving details. Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France would keep its forces in south Lebanon “because they are essential for the country’s independence and stability.” His remarks came during the annual military parade on France’s National Day celebrated on July 14. Also, and following his meeting with Health Minister Mohammad Jawad Khalifeh on Thursday, Spanish Ambassador Juan Carlos Gafo expressed the importance of increasing the number of Lebanese Army soldiers deployed in south Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported. “UNIFIL troops need to have more freedom of movement according to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, in addition to increased cooperation between UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army,” the ambassador said. He added that the recent anti-UNIFIL protests affect the relations between southerners and peacekeepers. – Reuters, with The Daily Star

Laurent seeks briefing over Lebanon-Syria meeting
By The Daily Star /Friday, July 16, 2010
BEIRUT: Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon Ambassador Patrick Laurent asked Foreign Affairs Minister Ali al-Shami to brief him about the Lebanese-Syrian talks to be held in Damascus over the weekend on Thursday. Laurent met Shami to review the results of the Lebanon-EU partnership council’s meeting held in Luxembourg last month, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported. Laurent said he reviewed with the Foreign Minister the results of the council’s meeting. He also asked Shami to brief him on the ongoing discussions between the Lebanese and Syrian governments ahead of Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s visit to Damascus. Laurent and Shami also touched upon the debate on granting Palestinian refugees in Lebanon their civil rights. On Sunday, Hariri will head a ministerial delegation on an official visit to Damascus. During the visit, the Lebanese Syrian Follow-up and Coordination Committee will hold a meeting presided over by Hariri and his Syrian counterpart, Mohammad Naji al-Otri. Participants are to tackle ways of developing bilateral relations and prospects of cooperation in different fields. The visit will be an occasion to sign agreements and memorandums of understanding between the two countries over legal, health, agricultural, public works, drug combating, tourism, education, environmental and cultural affairs issues. – The Daily Star

Beware of Sudan's secessionist demons
By Chibli Mallat /Daily Star
Friday, July 16, 2010
Sudan is about to break up into two states, and regional stability is at risk. The first worrying sign was the whitewash of the presidential election there held last April by no less a seasoned elections monitor than Jimmy Carter. Although the voting was deemed not to have met international standards, the former US president made it clear that the international community would recognize the winner. Considering the fact that Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has this week been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide in Darfur, and that leading Sudanese democrats, especially the opposition politician Sadeq al-Mahdi, refused to participate in the elections, the conclusions of the Carter mission were troubling. How could a genocidal dictator be recognized as winner under such circumstances? Then I understood: The electoral charade carried out by the Sudanese president to remain in power, which was condoned by international monitors, was a prelude to the momentous events that Sudan will face in six months’ time. Carter and the Western states in general have facilitated the dictator’s survival in order to salvage the referendum over the independence of Southern Sudan that will be held in January 2011. Having accepted internationally monitored elections, Bashir can no longer prevent the referendum from taking place in the South. The referendum, which will also occur under international monitoring, will result in the formal division of Sudan into two states.
The ensuing tsunami will wreak havoc on the two emerging Sudanese states, and havoc on the rest of Africa and the Middle East. Those who support the secession of the South may not fully realize what this means for the international order. With a dictator like Bashir still in power in Khartoum, and likely a mirror image of authoritarianism coming in the new Southern Sudanese capital, we will witness endless conflict over borders and ethnic cleansing. This will be fuelled by the curse of oil, which represents 98 percent of the revenues of the central Sudanese government, and 60 percent of the revenues of the South.
Secession also means that Darfur will continue under the ferocious rule of Bashir’s regime, while the democrats in Khartoum will be left alone to fight one of the worst rulers in Sudan’s history. Southern Sudan will be the first post-independence country in Africa since the 1960s to be established as the result of a secession. African leaders are rightly concerned about the precedent it will create. They do not have enough of a voice, however, and the United States and Europe are fully supportive of Sudan’s split, partly on account of the dominant Christian component in the Southern population.
We in the Middle East should be equally concerned. Instead of finding means of legal conviviality with those having different ethnic, religious, and linguistic backgrounds, groups with a grievance will be tempted to go for Sudanese-style secession in the future. And there are many groups and many grievances against dictatorial rulers in our region.
Furthermore, the destructive logic of the Christian-Muslim divide will only be exacerbated. Europe has already paid a huge price with the secessions in the former Yugoslavia, and Sudan will rekindle hardly appeased volcanoes in East Africa. After Sudan, the Lebanese Christians may be encouraged to seek their own statelet, Cyprus may find unification between its divided Greeks and Turks more difficult to achieve than ever, and Muslim-Christian coexistence within existing nation-states will be under duress the world over.
And yet who can blame the Southern Sudanese for wanting to cut all their ties to a country ruled since Bashir’s coup in 1989 by a ruthless dictatorship? However, much as Southern grievances are justifiable, independence is not a solution. A different legal set-up is necessary to accommodate differences between groups living within a single nation-state, namely federalism. Yet federalism is meaningless without democracy. This is true nowadays for Sudan and Iraq, as it was for the United States in the lead-up to its civil war in 1861.
At this advanced stage of Sudan’s chronicle of collapse, only US President Barack Obama and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon can do something. I doubt they will. Obama has too many problems to deal with at home and in Afghanistan to give the required attention to Sudan, and Ban Ki-moon is a lackluster UN leader. Indeed the UN system seems incapable of producing secretary generals who are anything other than lowest common denominators.
The only chance left to avoid the full-front effect of a Sudanese crisis is for Omar al-Bashir to be removed from power. But even here the international whitewash of his so-called election complicates matters. Within a year, Sudanese citizens will be left with two bickering countries, and Bashir will continue to be fostering torture and death in Khartoum and Darfur. We will be left with a precedent that legitimizes secession as a privileged recourse against dictatorship, as well as a further retreat of the democratic agenda.
Democracy means sorting out problems together, not going one’s own way in a separate state every time there is disagreement. Only a miracle can save Sudan from the demons of secession. The precedent set could be devastating for the Middle East and well beyond.
**Chibli Mallat is a professor of Middle Eastern law and politics at the University of Utah, and EU Jean Monnet Professor of European law at St. Joseph’s University in Beirut. He is the author of “Introduction to Middle Eastern Law,” published by Oxford University Press. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.

Knock-off trafficker jailed; ring linked to Hezbollah aid
By MICHAEL HINKELMAN/Philadelphia Daily News
hinkelm@phillynews.com 215-854-2656
A Plainsboro, N.J., man was sentenced to a year and a day in a federal lockup yesterday for his role in a counterfeit ring that authorities said was related to a plot to funnel money and weapons to Hezbollah. Prosecutors said Michael Katz, 67, one of 10 defendants charged in the case, was unaware of the link to Hezbollah and was not charged with providing material support to a terrorist group. He pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy and trafficking in counterfeit goods. Authorities said Katz twice traveled with several codefendants to Philadelphia in July 2008 to pick up 1,572 pairs of knock-off Nike sneakers and 334 fake Mitchell & Ness Nostalgia Co. sports jerseys from a government informant and load them into vans, one of which belonged to Katz. The counterfeit goods, valued at nearly $250,000, were to be sold at flea markets in New Jersey, court papers said. Katz told U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell that he agreed to use his van to load the fake goods only because he owed money to another participant in the ring. "I got nothing out of it and made no money," he said. Codefendant Alaa Allia Ahmed Mohamed, 44, of Brooklyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty to the same offenses in April and was also sentenced yesterday, to 18 months behind bars. He also knew nothing about links to Hezbollah. The more serious charges in the indictment - providing material support to Hezbollah in the form of 1,200 assault rifles - are pending against four other defendants

Hezbollah's American Pep Squad
by Erick Stakelbeck
07/15/2010
In a fawning blog posting, Britain's Ambassador to Lebanon said "the world needs more men like him," reverently referring to the deceased cleric as "a true man of religion."
Former CNN Middle East Editor Octavia Nasr tweeted that she was sad to hear of his passing, calling him a "giant" that she "respects a lot." And the Associated Press respectfully bestowed upon him the term, "grandfatherly." If you didn't know any better, you'd think "him" was a pope, bishop or leading rabbi.Alas, the above mentioned outpourings of affection by Western media and political elites were for the Beirut-based Shiite ayatollah, Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who died earlier this month.
Fadlallah—regarded by many as the spiritual leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah before jealous rivalries with his proteges emerged in later years—remained a sworn enemy of the United States throughout his long and despicable career. Considered a terrorist by the U.S. State Department, Fadlallah regularly called for jihad against the West.
He is perhaps most notorious for his role in the 1983 Marine barracks bombings in Beirut, in which 241 U.S. soldiers died at the hands of a Hezbollah suicide bomber. Fadlallah was also a longtime supporter of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and remained committed to the destruction of the Jewish state until his last breath.
Given Fadlallah's well-known public track record of support for Islamic terrorism, the verbal bouquets directed at him by Nasr (who lost her job at CNN as a result) and other Western elites may seem shocking to some. But to longtime observers of the Middle East like the Weekly Standard's Lee Smith, the outpourings of affection for Fadlallah were entirely predictable.
"This infatuation with Hezbollah has been going on for years," Smith writes. "And it’s not just because the party established a formidable style of press criticism by kidnapping journalists back in the ’80s. The U.S. media actually likes Hezbollah—it is an impressive thing, after all, to be able to kill your enemies—whether they are Jews or fellow Lebanese—whereas liberalism, non-violent resistance, rule of law, and opposition to political murder lacks sex appeal."
The U.S. media aren't the only ones here who like Hezbollah and Fadlallah. So do some well-known Islamic leaders.
A few years back, I paid a trip to Dearborn, Mich., a city outside of Detroit that boasts the country's largest Arab-American population, including a sizable number of Shia Lebanese. During my stay in Dearborn, I interviewed a prominent Iranian imam named Mohammed Ali Elahi, a former associate of Fadlallah and the Ayatollah Khomeini (see pictures here) who now leads one of the largest mosques in America.
Elahi—whose Islamic House of Wisdom, was one of several Detroit-area mosques to hold memorial services for Fadlallah—was a favorite of the local FBI branch at the time of my visit. The then-Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Detroit field office, Daniel Roberts, asked me to pass on his personal greetings to Elahi when I informed him I'd be meeting with the longtime shill for the Iranian regime.
During our interview, Elahi refused to condemn Hezbollah as a terrorist group, arguing that it was "resisting occupation." When I asked him if he believed al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks, he answered, “Honestly, in my heart? I don't have an answer for that. Maybe, and maybe not. They may have done it just by themselves, or they may have had some help from some others.”
By "others" I guesed that Elahi meant Israel. He had told veteran journalist Arnaud DeBorchgrave in 2001 that the Israeli Mossad was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center. Elahi later said he was misquoted. But when I pressed him on this point, he still refused to rule out Israeli involvement in 9/11.
I had another revealing exchange while interviewing the publisher of the Arab-American News: the Dearborn-based periodical on Arab issues that is the largest of its kind in the United States:
Osama Siblani is regularly feted (here's one of the latest examples) in the Detroit area as a wizened voice of moderation. Yet during our conversation, he proudly called Hezbollah and Hamas "freedom fighters" and said the Israelis are perpetrating a "genocide" against the Palestinians that is "worse than the Holocaust."
When I asked him off camera if he believed Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was an honorable man, Siblani replied, "I know of no more honorable man in the world." He seemed completely unfazed by the fact that Nasrallah, like his Iranian benefactors, regards the U.S. as "the Great Satan" and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
You can watch some of my jaw-dropping 2005 exchange with Siblani by clicking on the viewer above. It's part of the "Stak Attack" segment on my new bi-weekly CBN show, “Stakelbeck on Terror.” The program is currently the only one on American television devoted solely to the hot button issues of national security, Islamic terrorism and the Middle East.
Incidentally, during the Siblani segment, I also lay down my criteria for what ultimately constitutes a "moderate" Muslim. As you'll see, it's a test that Siblani, Elahi, Fadlallah and, I'd suspect, many of their Western supporters, fail miserably.
**Erick Stakelbeck is a correspondent and terrorism analyst for the Christian Broadcasting Network's Washington, D.C., bureau. His new bi-weekly show, "Stakelbeck on Terror," can be seen at cbnnews.com.

Hezbollah at the Border
by Connie Hair /07/15/2010
Signs are growing that the terror group Hezbollah has expanded its long-established influence with South and Central American drug cartels into a working presence in Mexico.
Rep. Sue Myrick (R.-N.C.) is asking the Department of Homeland Security to form a task force to investigate ties between the Islamic terror group Hezbollah, the drug cartels in Central and South America and new indications of a Hezbollah presence in Mexico.Documents obtained exclusively by Human Events reveal a well-established smuggling route into the U.S. Over 180,000 illegal aliens from countries Other than Mexico (OTM) were apprehended from 2007 through mid-March 2010.
Nearly 150,000 of those apprehended were from South and Central American countries that the State Department says are being used as corridors for smuggling people from the Middle East, Southwest Asia and East Africa. State Department documents examined by Human Events raise concerns that Hezbollah has already used these long-established narco-terror relationships to establish terror cells in the United States.
From the State Department Country Reports on Terrorism 2008:
“Over the past five years, however, smuggling rings have been detected moving people from East Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia to Honduras or through its territory. In 2008, there was an increase in the number of boats arriving on the North coast, ferrying people from all over the world seeking to enter the United States illegally via Guatemala and Mexico. Nationals of countries without Honduran visa requirements, especially Ecuador and Colombia, were involved in schemes to transit Honduras, often with the United States and Europe as their final destination. Foreign nationals have successfully obtained valid Honduran identity cards and passports under their own or false identities.”
Over the past three years, nearly 57,000 people have been apprehended in this country illegally with Honduran identification. Over 49,000 were from Guatemala and over 38,000 from El Salvador, home of the MS-13 narco-terror gangs.
Myrick has requested that a task force study new indications that Hezbollah has expanded their presence into Mexico. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Myrick gives several examples of Hezbollah’s influence on the drug cartels.
“We have seen their cooperation in countries across South America, particularly the tri-border area of South America (bounded by Puerto Iguazu, Argentina; Ciudad del Este, Paraguay; and Foz do Iguanzo, Brazil). Hezbollah operates almost like a Mafia family in this region, often demanding protection money and ‘taxes’ from local inhabitants,” Myrick states in the letter.
Of particular concern was evidence of Hezbollah influence in Mexico, which is the gateway into the United States for drug cartels.
Myrick’s letter warns that tattoos have been found on drug gangs in U.S. prisons showing the influence of Iranian-directed Hezbollah terrorists.
“If you go down to the San Diego area in the prisons that’s where you’ll see prison inmates with Farsi tattoos,” Myrick told Human Events in a recent interview. “It’s not a secret, it just something that people have chosen to ignore.”
Myrick also raised concerns over Hezbollah training Mexican cartels in bomb making and sophisticated tunneling techniques that they’ve used for terrorist attacks against Israel.
“I think that there is a bigger picture here that everyone is ignoring,” Myrick said. “I’ve asked Homeland Security for a task force. They said they would give me an intelligence briefing, which would be to shut me up so I can’t say anything. I’m not going to do that. I want some answers to my questions on the task force first.”
T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, recently told Human Events the Mexican cartels are building sophisticated tunnels into the United States.
“When you look at some of the pretty sophisticated tunnels that they’ve dug under the border where two adult males can walk side-by-side without bending over you know that they’ve built them not just for moving drugs through there but [to move] anything through there,” Bonner said.
When asked if the Mexican cartels would work with terrorist groups, Bonner said it’s all about the money.
“They don’t have a conscience. They really don’t care what they’re smuggling across the border—it could be a weapon of mass destruction—as long as the price is right they’ll move it,” Bonner said. “They don’t care whether the person is from a terrorist sponsoring country or whether that person is from Mexico, if the person pays the fee they’re getting across. The higher the fee you pay, the more likely it is that you’re going to get across.”
Bonner said that this year there is a higher percentage of border apprehensions for drug arrests and OTMs.
“It’s not that the OTMs and the drugs coming across have necessarily increased but we have seen our effectiveness increase because we have fewer people coming across,” Bonner said.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R.-Mich.), member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, served for 12 years as an FBI Special Agent. He spoke recently with HUMAN EVENTS about the smuggling routes into this country from these South American countries.
“Remember there’s a difference in a criminal enterprise that seeks to come here that wants to be surreptitious,” Rogers warned. “They’re not showing up to get a job at a construction site. They’re showing up here to do a whole other set of activities that they also don’t want law enforcement to know about, so that makes that group of individuals more difficult to catch and they are much more dangerous.”
Rogers says the lines are being blurred between the terrorist groups and the drug cartels.
“What we see that happening in Pakistan, and we see it happening in Northern Africa and we see it happening in the Arabian Peninsula that these groups will work together,” Rogers said. “I think the five crime families in New York are a great example. If they can find a way to work together to benefit both of them between two families or three families or four families or five families they will do it. It doesn’t mean they like each other, it doesn’t mean they won’t shoot each other, but if they can find something that benefits them they’ll do it. These groups are no different.”
According to an April 30 report compiled by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, “International terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, have also reportedly raised funding for their terrorist activities through linkages formed with [drug trafficking organizations] in South America, particularly those operating in the tri-border area (TBA) of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina.”“We have clearly seen that the line between the narco-terrorist and funding for terrorist operations is getting awful blurred,” Rogers said. “I think that the sooner we come to the realization that all of these groups will use each other to further their aims the better off we are.”-Connie Hair writes daily as HUMAN EVENTS' Congressional correspondent. She is a former speechwriter for Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and a former media and coalitions advisor to the Senate Republican Conference.

France defends controversial security pact with Lebanon
(AFP) – BEIRUT — France on Thursday defended a controversial security accord with Lebanon as Shiite militant party Hezbollah demanded a clear definition of the word "terrorism" in the text. "This is a classic agreement like those France's interior minister has already signed with our foreign partners," said foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero.
"The text includes technical terms, for example, for the fight against organised crime as well as cooperation in ... homeland security, crisis management ... and decentralised administration," Valero said in a statement distributed by the French embassy. The pact stipulates the two countries should "boost cooperation" in fighting terrorism, money laundering and drugs.
Valero's statement made no mention of the word "terrorism."Lebanon and France signed the agreement in Paris on January 21. The accord must be ratified by Lebanese parliament and the French senate to take effect. Hezbollah has demanded "a text that either clearly defines 'terrorism' as per Lebanese and Arab laws or the omission of the clause that deals with counter-terrorism entirely," Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah told AFP. "France's definition of terrorism includes Palestinian resistance movements, and that clashes with Lebanese law, which is in line with the Arab League's definition," he added. "Without resolving this matter, the accord will not be passed in parliament." The 22-member Arab League does not regard "armed struggle against foreign occupation," such as the Palestinian Hamas or Lebanese Hezbollah, as terrorist movements. Hezbollah's pro-Western political rivals were outraged at the Shiite party's demand, slamming the group as "isolationist."
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

Israel's response
The referendum bill will make it difficult for Israel to start much-needed peace talks with Syria.
Haaretz Editorial /16 July/2010
Even as Syrian President Bashar Assad misses no opportunity to urge Israel to sign a peace treaty with his country, the Knesset House Committee on Wednesday approved a bill that would prohibit the government from authorizing a withdrawal from the Golan Heights or East Jerusalem without a referendum and a majority of 61 MKs. The bill will now be sent to the plenum for its second and third readings. This is Israel's response to Assad's declarations of peace.
The Syrian leader speaks of commercial and tourism ties, open borders and peaceful relations between the two states following the Golan's return. Meanwhile, the Knesset further ties the government's hands, erecting more and more hurdles to thwart any chance of peace. If the plenum approves this harmful bill, then even a courageous, determined, peace-seeking prime minister will find it difficult to advance a deal with Syria.
Such an agreement has lately been described as possible and attainable, perhaps now more than ever. Assad's statements are lucid and emphatic. In fact, he has repeated them again and again, to audiences in both the West and the Arab world. Perhaps his declarations are not a guarantor of his true intentions, yet Israel should have sought to challenge him and put him to the test.
Instead, Israel has crassly ignored his statements. The government's official spokespeople rarely, if ever, comment on them. And as far as we know, neither is there any serious behind-the-scenes diplomatic activity that could pave the way for the start of negotiations, either direct or indirect.
In contrast with the Palestinian peace process, the terms of a deal with Syria are clear-cut and obvious - full peace in exchange for full withdrawal from the Golan. In light of this reality, negotiations can be brief and to the point. All that is needed are good, sincere intentions on both sides.
The advantages of peace for Israel are more precious than gold: rapprochement with one of its largest and most dangerous neighbors; the weakening of Syria's ties with Iran and Hezbollah; and a far-reaching strategic change in Israel's international standing. If the world sees that Israel is bent on peacemaking and on returning occupied territories, even if only to Syria, that would change the international community's attitude toward it. It is also safe to assume that launching peace talks with a country that plays host to Hamas's political bureau could improve prospects for Gilad Shalit's release.
Presented with this plethora of opportunities, Israel should already have made a Herculean effort to quickly gauge the sincerity of Assad's statements. Instead, the proposed law - which is likely to pass - will make it even more difficult to start peace talks, as it will send a clear signal to Syria that Israel has no interest in making peace.
In such a situation, the Middle East is liable to become even more dangerous and flammable: President Assad will be forced to throw up his hands in despair because all his peace overtures have been met with silence, and Israel will be pushing him into the corner of extremism and violence. Thus not only is the referendum bill unnecessary - there is no need for referenda over peace in a country that does not hold referenda on war or any other issue - but it is also very dangerous

Lebanon and the lack of security
Elie Fawaz,/Now Lebanon
July 16, 2010
It is no coincidence that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon takes precedence over domestic events as the date for issuing the indictment in the Rafik Hariri case draws near. It also comes as no surprise that some are strutting about like peacocks on TVs, warning of destructions and afflictions if PM Saad Hariri does not relinquish his quest for the truth about his father’s assassination.
Likewise, it comes as no surprise that a threatening press publishes articles that are closer to war declarations than to rational and reasonable political analyses.
The Lebanese have been given a choice between justice and stability. They have been threatened that Sunni-Shia strife may erupt as a result of the indictment, and allusions have been made regarding a remake of the May 7 events, albeit one with more violence, killing and destruction. Having heard all that, the Lebanese now find themselves warned by some journalistic imagination speaking of a scenario that may bring Syrian troops back to Lebanon with Western blessing in order to break the civil fight in Lebanon if it ever takes place.
Quite expectedly, the abovementioned strutting peacock has never heard in his life about the relation between justice and civil peace, or about the function of justice to break the circle of violence, hatred and sanctions outside the framework of the law. The esteemed journalist failed to note that his Israeli enemy would be the first one to stand against Syria’s intervention on the Lebanese battlefield, since Israel has the arguments and means to convince the Syrian army to be content with watching Lebanese bloodshed from afar.
The questions that come to mind are the following: Why make all this fuss about an indictment about which no one has any information yet, especially since it is an indictment, not a definitive ruling? Why all these tense reactions? This holds true knowing that, in form, the STL’s proceedings will be public and accessible to all attorneys in the world to see, whereas, in shape, any ruling or indictment by STL judges will be a scientific decision backed by irrefutable elements of evidence and proof, which everyone will be able to consult as well to ascertain their authenticity and accuracy. Anything that does not abide by these conditions will be easily uncovered and then, conspiracy theorists, like our strutting peacock, will be able to accuse the STL of collaborating with Israel.
Furthermore, what underlies these stances against the very principle of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon? Indeed, throughout history, international tribunals have successfully found out the truth and tried criminals in several occasions, the latest of which being the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Kosovo massacres. On whether the truth will embarrass many domestic parties and lead to strife, PM Saad Hariri asserted back when the STL decided to release the four security officials that the STL aims to achieve justice and protect Lebanon and the Lebanese from the machine of indiscriminate killings, and that it is definitely not for revenge. Therefore, the choice the Lebanese people should be offered is one between the chaos of killings and security, or between justice and the law of the jungle, unless someone wants us to remain crippled by bloodshed. In that case, it would be possible to initiate a new May 7 chain of events under the pretexts of collaboration accusations or of obedience to Western wishes. Let us allow the Lebanese to judge the STL’s proceedings by themselves and hope that they have enough discernment and awareness to move beyond this trial. This would pave the way for reconciling the Lebanese with their past by knowing the truth rather than burying it so that our tragedies are not repeated over and over again.
**This article is a translation of the original, which appeared on the NOW Arabic site on Wednesday July 14, 2010

Human rights activists slam Syria's Assad
(AFP) – NEW YORK — During a decade in power, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has not delivered on promises of greater freedoms or rights for his people, Human Rights Watch said on Friday. Assad "has not delivered on his promises to increase public freedoms and improve his government?s human rights record during a decade in power," HRW said in a report on the eve of the anniversary of his accession. "Whether President al-Assad wanted to be a reformer but was hampered by an entrenched old guard or has been just another Arab ruler unwilling to listen to criticism, the outcome for Syria?s people is the same: no freedom, no rights," HRW's Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement. The report noted that in his July 17, 2000, inaugural speech, Assad had spoken of the need for creative thinking, transparency and democracy. "However, the period of tolerance that followed al-Assad?s ascent to power was short-lived, and Syria?s prisons quickly filled again with political prisoners, journalists and human rights activists," the report said. "Syria?s security agencies, the feared mukhabarat, detain people without arrest warrants and torture with complete impunity," said the report, entitled "A Wasted Decade: Human Rights in Syria during Bashar al-Assad?s First Ten Years in Power."
It said that two years after prison authorities and military police had used firearms to quell a riot at the Saya prison outside Damascus in July 2008, "Syrian authorities have not revealed the fate of at least 42 detainees, at least nine of whom are believed to have been killed.""Censorship is prevalent and extends to popular websites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Blogger," the report by the the New York-based organisation added. It noted that rights violations included repression of Syria's large Kurdish minority. "The Kurdish minority, estimated to be 10 percent of the population, is denied basic group rights, including the right to learn Kurdish in schools or celebrate Kurdish festivals, such as Nowruz (Kurdish New Year)."The report said an estimated 300,000 stateless Kurds are waiting for citizenship, despite repeated promises by Assad. "Whatever hopes Syrians might have had for a new era of political openness under al-Assad?s rule have been dashed," said Whitson. He "has no excuse to continue to stall on needed reforms to his country?s human rights record," she added, noting that US and European officials had been reaching out to Syria and had held regular meetings with the Syrian president. "Now that he has emerged from his internationally imposed isolation, he should open up his country."Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

Think Tank Says Israel would Strike Iranian Universities
by Gil Ronen
A British think tank, the Oxford Research Group (ORG), has issued a report that says Israel is poised to strike Iran's nuclear facilities and warns against doing so. The group is partially funded by the Ford Foundation and its analysts have, in the past, advocated negotiating with Iran and written articles that portrayed Hamas in a positive light. “The potential for an Israeli military strike on Iran over its nuclear program has grown sharply, but its consequences would be devastating and would lead to a long war,” warns ORG's Paul Rogers in his report “Military Action Against Iran: Impact and Effects”. The report analyzes recent developments and argues that Israel is now fully capable of attacking Iran, having deployed new systems that include long-range strike aircraft and armed drones. Not just military targets It predicts that a strike by the Jewish state would be “focused not only on destroying ‘military real estate’ – nuclear and missile targets – but also would hit factories and research centers, and even university laboratories, in order to do as much damage as possible to the Iranian expertise that underpins the [nuclear] program.”Furthermore, the Israeli campaign “would not be limited to remote bases but would involve the direct bombing of targets in Tehran,” ORG conjectures. “It would probably include attempts to kill those technocrats who manage Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.”Rogers says that there would be numerous civilian casualties, not just among people who staff Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, but also among their families – because living quarters would be hit – and the help staff in factories, research stations and university departments. Iran’s nuclear and missile programs would be heavily damaged, the report says, but Iranian political unity would increase, making President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hold on power more stable.
Missiles on Israel
In response, Iran could withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and take immediate action to develop nuclear weapons, using “deeply-buried facilities that are reported to be under construction.”
There would be missile attacks on Israel; actions to cause a sharp rise in oil prices by closing the Straits of Hormuz; paramilitary and/or missile attacks on western Gulf oil production, processing and transportation facilities, and “strong support” for militias in Iraq and Afghanistan that oppose the U.S. and its allies..
The report warns: “An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would almost certainly be the beginning of a long-term process of regular Israeli air strikes to further prevent the development of nuclear weapons and medium-range missiles. Iranian responses would also be long-term, ushering in a lengthy war with global as well as regional implications.”


Netanyahu has Outmaneuvered Obama, TIME Hints
by Gil Ronen
In his first 18 months in office, U.S. President Barack Obama has succeeded in humiliating Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on occasion and forcing a temporary freeze of construction for Jews in Judea and Samaria – but can he exert any more leverage on Israel now that the November congressional elections are drawing near? Obama's window of opportunity for pressuring Israel has closed, TIME magazine appears to say in an latest piece, and may not reopen until his eighth year in office, should he be re-elected.
While Obama may use his “powers of spin” to “sustain the appearance of progress” in his efforts to restart a "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, his chances of success are slim, the article by the magazine's Middle East writer Tony Karon said.
Karon portrayed Israel as having “broadened and deepened” its hold on Judea and Samaria in the past two decades, but did not mention the complete withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria which Israel effected five years ago in an attempt to show the PA it was serious about making peace.
Domestic leverage
The magazine expressed doubts that Netanyahu had any serious intention of moving against “the hard-line settlers who claim a biblical duty to colonize” Judea and Samaria. In any case, it says, “with the White House's attention now on a difficult November congressional election – a focus that always works to Israel's advantage, given the far greater domestic political leverage its advocates wield in Washington – the Administration isn't likely to expend political capital on the issue anytime soon.”
“Observers on both sides in the Middle East concurred that last week's embrace of Netanyahu by Obama was a domestically driven vindication of the Israeli leader's defiance of Obama's earlier efforts to pressure Israel on the settlements issue,” TIME explained. People who hope that U.S. might pressure the sides into accepting a final-status solution dictated by the international community are “forgetting that the 2010 electoral season – followed by the 2012 presidential race – militates against the Administration's trying anything quite so bold in the Middle East.”
TIME winds up by hinting that there “may be a political logic to Obama's two predecessors' leaving their Mideast peacemaking efforts to their eighth year in office.” The magazine thus implies that the Democratic party's dependence on the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. will prevent Obama from pressuring Israel any more, any time soon.
PA wants third party
Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority “foreign minister” Riyad Al-Maliki said on Wednesday that direct talks between Israel and the PA would only make sense if the international community were involved, according to AFP. "We have always said we need the presence of a third party. Without a third party intervention, a third party presence, this is a waste of time," Maliki said during an official visit to Bulgaria by PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

An influential little war
Nicholas Lowry, July 16, 2010
Now Lebanon
Discussing the future of combat last year and which recent war he found most instructive, the highest-ranking officer in the United States Army did not cite Afghanistan or Iraq.
“The conflict… that intrigues me most, and I think speaks more toward what we can expect in the decades ahead,” US Army Chief of Staff General George W. Casey said, “is the one that happened in Lebanon in the summer of 2006.” In the four years since Hezbollah launched the cross-border attack that triggered the July War, the 34-day conflict has garnered “fevered attention” in American military circles, as the Washington Post reported last year. For an army that has spent the better part of the decade battling insurgent forces, the conflict in which “a few thousand men resisted, for a few weeks, the strongest army in the Middle East, which enjoyed full air superiority and size and technology advantages,” in the words of Israel’s official postwar inquiry, offers any number of troubling lessons.  Though widely portrayed in the media as the triumph of a guerilla force against a highly-advanced Western army, much of Hezbollah’s successes on the battlefield stemmed from the fact that it did not employ purely guerilla tactics. As W. Patrick Lang, a retired US Army colonel and author of the popular blog Sic Semper Tyrannis puts it, “A ‘guerrilla army’ employs guerrilla tactics, that is, it fights a war of the ‘ants against the elephant.’ It seeks to inflict long-term physical and spiritual attrition on a conventional enemy through ambush, raiding and similar operations. It nearly always seeks to avoid becoming decisively engaged.”The militant force that fought Israel in 2006, however, was “an army in the process of metamorphosis."
The Israeli army of 2006, on the other hand, had spent the years leading up to the July War focused almost exclusively on counterinsurgency operations against Palestinians.
“The IDF fell in love with what it was doing with the Palestinians,” the founder of the IDF’s own Operational Theory Research Institute would later comment. “It became addictive. You know when you fight a war against a rival who’s by all means inferior to you, you may lose a guy here or there, but you’re in total control. It’s nice, you can pretend that you fight the war and yet it’s not really a dangerous war.”
During the same period the Israeli army was undergoing “a dramatic revolution,” adopting doctrines that had the effect of “diminishing need for concentrating and maneuvering ground forces,” and focusing instead on breaking the enemy’s will by attacking “his cognitive domain and systems, rather than annihilating his forces,” as one Israeli Air Force officer and theorist described it. Advances in long-range precision weapons made it conceivable for military planners – such as Dan Halutz, the former Air Force commander who led the IDF during the July War – that the enemy’s will to fight could be destroyed from the skies. But during the July War, Israel could not even force Al-Manar, Hezbollah’s TV station, off the air, and on the ground they discovered what Lang told NOW Lebanon was one of the major military lessons of the war: “Well-entrenched infantry troops fighting on carefully-organized ground can fight a force with more sophisticated equipment to a standstill.”And yet the failure of airpower to break or even diminish Hezbollah’s willingness to fight or capacity to fire rockets into Israel may have led the Israeli military to conclude that “there is no alternative to maneuvering and conquering territory in order to win wars.”But “maneuvering and conquering territory” is what led Israel to undertake a two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon. That occupation ended six years before the July War, with Hezbollah triumphant, having inflicted a heavier price than the Israeli public was willing to pay. Inflicting a heavier price than the Lebanese were willing to pay is exactly what Israel aimed to do in July 2006. That will likely be the goal in any future war against Lebanon, according to Lang, as “the type of victory Israel seeks can only be achieved by ‘surrender’ of the Lebanese will to resist.” According to Lang, “the transformation of Hezbollah forces has continued…[Hezbollah] possesses more rockets and missiles now. And if they are wise they will use these against military and industrial targets, ports, etc.”Asked if, militarily speaking, the scales had tipped one way or the other in the intervening four years, Lang – noting that “the balance of combat power is a complex thing that reflects method as well as equipment” – said that only war can answer that question.

Hezbollah will have hand in renewing anti-UNIFIL clashes, says French source
July 16, 2010 /An anonymous French source told Al-Hayat newspaper in an interview published on Friday that protests against UNIFIL forces in South Lebanon are likely to be renewed, adding that Hezbollah will have an implicit role in aggravating the matter.The source also said that Syria will not be pleased should new clashes erupt in the South. This comes after anti-UNIFIL protests took place in South Lebanon between the peacekeeping forces and residents following a UNIFIL maximum deployment exercise. The UN Security Council met last week to discuss the incidents and called on all parties in Lebanon to allow UNIFIL to move freely in the region. “The South Lebanon incidents do not please Damascus, because UNIFIL [would help] Syria should Israel wage a war [in the region],” the source said. He also said that the recent events in the South show Syria’s weak control over Lebanon. The source added that tension in South Lebanon could escalate because of many factors, including the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which according to media reports is to issue its indictment before the end of the year.
-NOW Lebanon

Question: "How should a Christian deal with feelings of guilt regarding past sins, whether pre- or post-salvation?"
Answer: Everyone has sinned, and one of the results of sin is guilt. We can be thankful for guilty feelings because they drive us to seek forgiveness. The moment a person turns from sin to Jesus Christ in faith, his sin is forgiven. Repentance is part of the faith that leads to salvation (Matthew 3:2; 4:17; Acts 3:19).
In Christ, even the most heinous sins are blotted out (see 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 for a list of unrighteous acts that can be forgiven). Salvation is by grace, and grace forgives. After a person is saved, he will still sin, and when he does, God still promises forgiveness. “But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1).
Freedom from sin, however, does not always mean freedom from guilty feelings. Even when our sins are forgiven, we still remember them. Also, we have a spiritual enemy, called “the accuser of our brothers” (Revelation 12:10) who relentlessly reminds us of our failures, faults, and sins. When a Christian experiences feelings of guilt, he or she should do the following things:
1) Confess all known, previously unconfessed sin. In some cases, feelings of guilt are appropriate because confession is needed. Many times, we feel guilty because we are guilty! (See David’s description of guilt and its solution in Psalm 32:3-5.)
2) Ask the Lord to reveal any other sin that may need confessing. Have the courage to be completely open and honest before the Lord. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).
3) Trust the promise of God that He will forgive sin and remove guilt, based on the blood of Christ (1 John 1:9; Psalm 85:2; 86:5; Romans 8:1).
4) On occasions when guilty feelings arise over sins already confessed and forsaken, reject such feelings as false guilt. The Lord has been true to His promise to forgive. Read and meditate on Psalm 103:8-12.
5) Ask the Lord to rebuke Satan, your accuser, and ask the Lord to restore the joy that comes with freedom from guilt (Psalm 51:12).
Psalm 32 is a very profitable study. Although David had sinned terribly, he found freedom from both sin and guilty feelings. He dealt with the cause of guilt and the reality of forgiveness. Psalm 51 is another good passage to investigate. The emphasis here is confession of sin, as David pleads with God from a heart full of guilt and sorrow. Restoration and joy are the results.
Finally, if sin has been confessed, repented of, and forgiven, it is time to move on. Remember that we who have come to Christ have been made new creatures in Him. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Part of the “old” which has gone is the remembrance of past sins and the guilt they produced. Sadly, some Christians are prone to wallowing in memories of their former sinful lives, memories which should have been dead and buried long ago. This is pointless and runs counter to the victorious Christian life God wants for us. A wise saying is “If God has saved you out of a sewer, don’t dive back in and swim around.”