No Honor, Sacrifice, or Loyalty in General Michel Sleiman candidacy

By: Charles Jalkh (Freedom Fighter)

December 01/07

In an article published today (11/30/2007 view article) by the Daily French newspaper “Le Figaro”, the Lebanese Army commander, general “Michel Sleiman” is reported to have falsely obtained a French Passport in 2004 in order to flee the country as the Syrian occupation was collapsing.

“A wrong note in the background of Michel Sleiman: his fraudulent acquisition of a French passport in 2004, when the Syrian presence in Lebanon started to become uncertain. He badly explained himself, then returned the travel document to the French diplomats in Beirut.” Le Figaro.

This is not the only “wrong note” committed by yet this other general. His entire career has been on the opposite path of Free Lebanon. First and foremost, he has been the appointee of the Syrian occupation and regularly reported to the Syrian Intelligence Chief in Anjar. He passively watched for years as the occupation puppet regime oppressed the Lebanese. Thousands were arrested, beaten, kidnapped, jailed, and tortured under his watch. He kept the troops in the barracks while the Syrian intelligence services and agents roamed the land terrorizing our people.

Under Sleiman’s command, a war was declared in July 2006 by Hezbollah against Lebanon and Israel in order to serve their dark lords in Damascus and Teheran. What did this army chief do to protect us? Absolutely nothing! He hid underground until the conflict was over, and then emerged shamelessly to do business as usual. Under his command, Hezbollah boasted that it rearmed and now has over 30,000 missiles, almost triple the numbers it possessed before the 2006 war. If this were to occur in any other country, a self-respecting security chief would have surely resigned or at least been called to accountability.

General Sleiman again fouled up in Nahr El Bared. He has been made to look like a patriot when he was at best a negligent Army chief. He should have been held responsible for allowing the infiltrations of the Jihadist into the Nah-El-Bared Palestinian refugee camp and other parts of Lebanon. Hundreds of our army troops were killed and wounded because of his incompetence and his years of mismanagement of our poorly equipped and trained army. And he had the nerve to issue an official communiqué denying that arms and infiltrators are entering Lebanon from Syria, contradicting facts presented by the Lebanese Government, Israel, international intelligence agencies, as well as United Nations reports which clearly confirmed weapon infiltrations into Lebanon from Syria in violation of Security Council Resolution 1701.

For one year now, Hezbollah has been camped dozens of meters from the center of the Lebanese executive power center in downtown Beirut, threatening our legitimate government with imminent threats and paralyzing our economy and daily life. Instead of rising to defend our state and people, Michel Sleiman stayed neutral and refused to commit the Lebanese armed forces in defending our democratically elected and internationally recognized government. Last week, he issued a communiqué stating that the “Army is in charge of security by national will”, therefore reneging yet again on his duty to show obedience to the Government and to acknowledge its highest authority in the management of the security policy and measures.

The Lebanese Army motto is Honor, Sacrifice, Loyalty. Michel Sleiman’s background has shown none of those traits. We are fed up with all these failures of generals, from Aoun, thru Lahoud, to Sleiman We yearn for an educated President, a College graduate, a cerebral intellectual, a person of courage with sovereign instincts and untainted by the Syrian occupation, a humane, law abiding, and decent human being. A dignified and honorable President of Lebanon who makes us proud of him and of our homeland.