No Spring Without Freedom

By: Charles Jalkh (Freedom Fighter)

When the US sponsored Lebanese regime of Taef was ushered to power by American and Saudi diplomacy and on top of the Syrian tanks back in 1990, some Lebanese, other Arabs, and many internationals hoped for a new era of peace and prosperity for Lebanon. They opiumed themselves that by surrendering the sheep farm to the Syrian wolves, may be then, the beasts will stop their indiscriminate slaughter of the Lebanese and try to govern the prize in logical and less bloody ways. The arsonist was granted the land that he has been burning, as well as the souls, in hope that he stops inflaming the fires that he himself started.

Today, Nine years later, the world has had a lengthy sample of the Syrian dictatorship rule over Lebanon. Lebanese Freedoms have been suspended and Syrian jails are crowded with Lebanese freedom fighters. National leaders are exiled. A gagged, bought, assassinated, and outright controlled press. A police state with wiretaps on every phone including cellular. Intelligence operatives in every block, every town, and every union, association, all public and major private institutions. Divided and subdued labor unions. Rubber stamp Parliaments elected in fraudulent and sham elections under the tank barrel of 40,000 Syrian occupation troops and dozens of thousands of intelligence services agents.

One puppet government after another in an un-ending theater of falsehood and a saga of lies. Lebanese citizens arrested, and kidnapped by Syrians intelligence forces, are accused of collaboration with Israel and treason, simply for peacefully proclaiming the withdrawal of all foreign occupation troops from the country. We repeat; Peacefully! Not through an armed struggle but open, Ghandi-like expression of protest. The Syrian installed occupation governments have saddled Lebanon with 23 Billions US dollars in debt which was mostly paid for sham construction contracts to Syrian Government officials, Lebanese appointed collaborators, and 1.5 million Syrian workers in a giant Lebanese job program for Syrian unemployed workers.

While the Syrian mafias were feasting on Lebanon, the Syrian dictatorship was fomenting a proxy-war against Israel via Hezbollah and obstructing every offer and chance for peace. Israel offered numerous times to withdraw from Lebanon in exchange of simple guarantees that Lebanon takes control of its own borders and doesn't allow cross-border attacks against northern Israel, only to be rejected by the Syrian puppet regimes of then Hariri, and now Lahoud. Why? Because that would bring peace to the Middle East. Dictatorships are terrified by peace. Such a prospect will make people look at improving their lives and work for better future for their children instead of hating state-manufactured enemies. Such outcome is not convenient for the powerful mafias lead by the dictator of Syria; Hafez Assad and his clan. The Syrian dictatorship sees democracy, not Israel, as its enemy. He has colluded with Israel, his "proclaimed enemy", on many occasions, just to maintain himself in power. Assad uses Israel as a propaganda scapegoat in his brainwashing of the Arabs in order to maintain his firm grip on Syria, Lebanon, and milk the wealth of the land and people in a typical fashion for the Syrian history. Syria has never known democracy ever since the dawn of civilization. Its only so-called golden age was at the time of the middle ages Amawiyeen rule, which was founded by the treacherous murderer and schemer "Mouawiya", who very much resembles Hafez Assad of the 20th century.

OK. Let us stop for one moment and doubt this analysis. Lets us elevate Assad to a higher ground. May be he is burning Lebanon today because he loves Syria so much and he wants to liberate the Golan heights from the Israeli occupation and that is the reason behind him using Lebanon to that end. What about the 20,000 souls he massacared in the Syrian city of Hamah! What about the thousands of jailed and tortured Syrian citizens in his jails as reported by Amnesty International, Middle East Watch , and the US State department yearly reports on Human Rights abuses? What does that tell you of the man and his regime? He starts the Lebanese war, kills hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, dozens of thousands of Palestinians, and thousands of Israeli and international citizens, all this because he is a Syrian Patriot? Today he pillages Lebanon, he continues to spill Lebanese and Israeli blood and ally himself with Iran, all that for his love of Syria? Wasn't Hitler also a nationalist? Isn't Milosevic’s genocide of the Albanians a nationalist Serbian act? How can the US justify doing business with such a man and regime when it rejects Saddam Hussein of Iraq, and Milosevic of Yugoslavia? How can the US have the audacity to ask any country to make peace with such a regime? Why does the US Administration support Assad's regime and its hegemony over Lebanon? Maybe because Assad has attracted many terrorist groups and tamed them. He has annihilated Arafat out of Lebanon to Tunis. He massacred all freedom fighters of all nationalities, first by fooling them into thinking that he offers a safe haven, then by selling then as cards in his on-going blackmail of all world powers. Recently he just sold out Ocalan and the Kurds whose guerrilla movement against Turkey he supported for years. The man is treacherous and knows only the art of staying in power. He doesn't care for people, whether Syrians, Lebanese , or any other nationality. He is a MURDERER by the lowest of human standards. He has Killed Hundreds of Thousands. And it is a shame for the western democracies to treat him as a statesman. Milosevic is an angel compared to Assad of Syria.

We are not surprised by Assad's behavior, but we are deeply shocked by the US policy in the Middle East. What is its rationale? What good does it do to American interest to support deals with the Syrian dictatorship with all its known behaviors? How can global prosperity be enhanced when the human spirit is suppressed? How can Lebanon rise to build peace in the Middle East when it is surrendered to a dictatorship by the United States of America? America please explain yourself. Hoe are American interests served when Lebanon is impoverished and its identity diluted? We have never been anti-Americans. We are Americans in many ways. We are more truthful to the founding principles of America than today's Administration. How could the US government support the Syrian thugs and the Syrian dictator over the Lebanese Democrats. How could it allow the slaughter of the Lebanese by Syrians when it opposes the slaughter of the Kosovars by the Serbs. Ah! Some may answer; the Syrians are not like the Serbs. Bull! They are worse! The Serbs kills quickly and openly, the Syrians, ah ha, they stab you in the back and strangle you slowly. The result and the numbers are the same. There cannot be an Economic or Cultural Rebirth of Lebanon without Freedom!

Long Live Free Lebanon