PAT ROBERTSON: Just think, Lebanon was a model country, a beautiful country, and the Christians elected the president. The Christians have roughly half of the population of Lebanon, it’s a little less than 50 percent now. But they are second class citizens, they’re being trampled underfoot by the Syrians, and nobody seems to be doing anything about it.

With me is General Michel Aoun who is the former prime minister of Lebanon and the former commander-in-chief of the armed forces. General Aoun, delighted to have you with us on The 700 Club, welcome. Tell me about Hezbollah. We hear about the terrorist group Hezbollah. What relation do they have to Syria?

GENERAL AOUN: Hezbollah is not a separate entity from Syria. It is under the Syrian operational control.

ROBERTSON: The so-called terrorist group is under the operational control of Syria?

AOUN: Yes, 100 percent, no question about that.

ROBERTSON: I understand that Damascus is the headquarters of a number of other terrorist organizations that have received aid and assistance from the Syrians. Can you tell us what they are, those other terrorist organizations?

AOUN: There are about 11 organizations of terrorism in Damascus. Among them, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Democratic Front and the General Command Front of the Palestinians [Liberation Army], all of them are listed in the United States as classified as terrorist organizations.

ROBERTSON: I understand that there were estimated as many as 10,000 Katyusha rockets that were moved from Syria into Lebanon to reinforce Hezbollah against Israel. Is something like that the case?

AOUN: Yes, since Lebanon was occupied by Syria, they extended the base of their terror operations to Lebanon, and they are stationed in Syria, but they act from the Lebanese territory.

ROBERTSON: Bashir Assad [leader of Syria] made a shocking statement that you called into account. He said that all Israelis are combatants and therefore there’s no such thing as an innocent civilian in Israel. Could you comment on that?

AOUN: Yes, during the Arab Summit in Beirut last March, I think, he made this declaration that there is no civilian in Israel, all of them are military.

ROBERTSON: So you can shoot any one of them you want to as a combatant?

AOUN: He did not say it like that directly, but it means that.

ROBERTSON: All right. What happened and how did Syria get control of Lebanon? Lebanon was essentially a Christian country. How did they gain this dominance in the country?

AOUN: They first destabilized the country by opening the Syrian borders to the Palestinians and they came from Syria with the refugees who were stationed in Lebanon. Together they destabilized Lebanon and called it a civil war, but it was not a civil war.

ROBERTSON: Then they came in to stop the so-called civil war that they engendered?

AOUN: They created it. That's what we call in military terminology "indirect strategy." You make a problem and then you come to solve it.

ROBERTSON: What is the danger to world peace? We are engaged in a war on terror and yet the Syrians are in the United Nations Security Council how can that be?

AOUN: It’s a big contradiction that we have to solve in the world. Because people, the terrorist regimes, they are still, you know, having good stature in the world. And there are terrorist regimes like Syria that are generating terrorist organizations. Therefore, I propose a plan that first, to disarm the organizations; second, to democratize the regimes; and then to help them to develop their country.

ROBERTSON: What do you think of President Bush's initiative to go against Saddam Hussein to help democratize Iraq? Is that a wise course or not?

AOUN: I would like personally to see that all of the United Nations resolutions be implemented. And if Iraq complies with these resolutions, maybe it would be a happy end for everybody.

ROBERTSON: Okay. What is happening to the Christians? When I was there in 1972, Beirut was the Paris of the Middle East, a beautiful city, and then little by little it’s been torn asunder. What is the role of a lot of the Christians now? What is being done to them in Lebanon?

AOUN: They are rejected as second class citizens and they don't enjoy liberty and freedom. And they are threatened.

ROBERTSON: We have pictures of Lebanese Christians being beaten by Lebanese soldiers who were apparently in the employ of Syria. How does that happen?

AOUN: There are some collaborators in Lebanon, especially among the politicians. We have a puppet government, and they represent the Syrians instead of representing the Lebanese people. They do everything that they are asked to do. Between those, they have some military units especially organized for that. And between these military units, we have many intelligence agents and they participate all the time to torture and arrest and beat people.

ROBERTSON: Arrest, torturing, and beating, and no more freedom of speech now.

AOUN: No, no more.

ROBERTSON: This resolution is before the Congress, the Syria Accountability Act. What would you like to see done and see America do?

AOUN: First we would like America to support this bill, to vote for it in the Congress and the Senate. And also to pray for the Lebanese, you know, to liberate Lebanon. Because Lebanon is a pluralist society that may help spread the human values all around.

ROBERTSON: You are a man of great courage, and I thank you for being here. Many times your life has been in danger and you have been extremely brave, so thank you very much for being with us. God bless you.

Ladies and gentlemen, what the General was speaking about, there is an initiative now before the United States Congress called the Syria Accountability Act. It is supported by 150 Democrat and Republican sponsors in the House of Representatives and a remarkable 35 sponsors in the Senate. The principal sponsor in the Senate is Senator Barbara Boxer, a Democrat of California and Senator Rick Santorum, a Republican from Pennsylvania. So it is a bipartisan initiative.

Folks, this bill is kind of like a no-brainer. But we understand there’s a gentleman named Dave Satterfield [U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs] in the State Department, who is opposed to the Christians in Lebanon. And he wants Lebanon to stay under the Syrian domination. But I don't think one holdover from the Clinton administration should stop a bill that has this kind of broad sponsorship in the Congress.

And I understand the White House is asking Henry Hyde not to bring it forth in the House. But it needs to come out in the House of Representatives, and the President needs to get behind it. He's a Christian and he’s against terror and to think that there are 11 terrorist regimes being given sanctuary in Syria, which in turn is tied in with Iran, which in turn is tied in with, I'm sure, Al Qaeda and the other terrorists that have been coming against America.

This is the bill. I think you ought to call not just your congressman, but the White House. This has overwhelming sponsorship. It is called the Syria Accountability Act. I would like you to call the White House and say the President should to stand on the side of the Christians in Lebanon, and get Syria out of Lebanon, and be free as it should be, and have its own government and its own authority as it had for many years. And the Syrians are invaders and they ought to come out of there. The White House phone number is 1-202-456-1414, fax number is 1-202-456-2461.

Sovereignty, freedom, and independence are the rallying cries of many Lebanese. But for some, the reality of life in Lebanon includes anything but freedom. Many are beaten and persecuted for their faith.

Lebanese Christians desperately want to see an end to Syrian domination. They protest, chanting, "Syria get out of Lebanon." But instead of freedom, they get punishment. CBN News obtained footage of Christians being beaten by their own people, sympathetic to the Syrians.

There are 25,000 Syrian troops and security personnel exerting their influence on the daily lives of Lebanese Christians today.

The Syrians, with the help of the local Lebanese forces, have also recently shut down one of the last remaining voices of the liberation movement in Lebanon. They forced Mour Television Station to stop broadcasting.

And praying or lighting candles for the victims of September 11th and denouncing terrorism is considered to be taking the American side against Islamic nations.

The Syrians came in 1976 as a part of a "deterrent Arabic force" to help stop a civil war. But the Syrians never left, and the country began to fully exert its dominance in Lebanon by the late 1980’s.

Around that time, General Michel Aoun was appointed as prime minister in full compliance of the Lebanese constitution. The general declared a war of liberation from Syria and closed Lebanese ports that had served as a conduit for Syria's drug trade.

In 1989, three Muslim countries, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Morocco, pressured the Lebanese Parliament into signing the Charter of National Reconciliation also known as the "Taef Agreement."

And behind the scenes Syria played its own role in eliminating Lebanon’s constitutional government. So a power struggle ensued between Aoun and the Lebanese parliament, and the country fragmented.

The situation came to a head on October 13, 1990. For the first time, Syria sent fighter jets into Lebanon. They hoped to pummel into submission the pockets of Lebanese that supported Aoun. Hundreds of Christians were killed. Security forces from the French embassy evacuated the general and granted him asylum in France.

Since then, Syria has failed to uphold its part of the bargain with Lebanon that had been arranged in the Taef Agreement. Syria has not withdrawn their troops, which they had said would pull out of Lebanon ten years ago.

They have not disarmed known Muslim terrorist groups like Hezbollah. And so-called Palestinian refugee camps have become training centers for terrorists, a threat not only to Lebanon but also to the free world.