Update on this story. From Reuters, with thanks to RB:
BEIRUT, Lebanon's pro-Syrian president invited anti-Syrian opposition and loyalist politicians to begin immediate talks on Saturday, hours after a car bomb raised fresh fears of a return to the country's violent past.
The blast wounded several people in a Christian suburb of eastern Beirut, gutting the ground and first floors of a residential block and destroying nearby cars.
The explosion comes amid acute political tension since the Feb. 14 killing by bomb of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, and prompted President Emile Lahoud's first personal initiative to break the deadlock over Syria's influence in its tiny neighbor.
"The president affirms the need for such a dialogue meeting starting today in any place they agree on, including the presidential palace, which will keep its doors open," Lahoud's office said in a statement.
Damascus has already bowed to international demands it withdraw its troops from Lebanon after Hariri's assassination sparked street protests in Beirut against the Syrians, blamed by many Lebanese for his death.
Syria denies the charge but has begun withdrawing the troops it poured into Lebanon early in the 1975-1990 civil war....
All I have to say is man, I hope we Christians don't just sit and watch as our people in Lebanon get wasted again. If we learned anything from the past it is that Jihad is being waged in its fullness against the Chiristians in this region, and the Sunnis will stop at nothing to push the rest of this Chirstian lands true population out of its' ancient home. How many statistics do we need? Around 70% Christian before the war, and around 40% or less after, and where are they all? We Americans don't have to go far to get the true story, since many of the Lebanese live in the U.S. all we have to do is ask, and I'm sure they will be more than happy to tell us their story. But let us act on thier behalf this time and not just watch, and Lord I pray, don't let our leadership take the side of the Muslims and bomb the Christians out of their true home like we did to another group in a civil war only a few years ago.
Yeah, once more going tangentially off-topic, for an ugly tale....
A fortnight or so ago, somebody on JW was expressing themselves re the LEBANESE in Australia.
A bit earlier, in the wake of the initial, large anti-Syrian demonstration in Beirut, (on the heels of the assassination of former PM Rafiq Hariri), I’d posted some information about a potentially terminal DIVISION that was then emerging in the preponderant Sunni Lebanese community organization in Australia, the Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA), freezing it like an emu caught in the headlights.
The LMA continues to suffer a substantial degree of internal disarray. It’s basically torn between its radicals, reflexively pro-Syrian (inter alia), ensconced in all the key posts of the outfit, and the opposite views of the general majority of the resident Sunnite Moslem Lebanese population. Though for ages it’s been chronically non-democratic in its composition and practice, the LMA had been constituted in the first place - and exists today - cardinally, in order to officially represent this sizeable community.
Most of the Lebanese Sunnis in Sydney desire the Sovereignty, Independence and Freedom of Lebanon (necessitating the departure of Syrian and Iranian forces without delay, plus the prompt dismantling of all militias and terrorists, Hezbollah, the “Palestinians” and the el-Qaeda surrogates); what they DON’T wish for is a bunch of TROUBLE - of any type or from any quarter - neither here nor back in Lebanon.
Accordingly, by playing on this distinct fear, currently, the LMA’s incumbent leadership-clique - fronted by the its “President”, the loathsome Keysar Trad and the “Imam of Australia” (a self-awarded title), the despicable Sheikh Taj el-Din el-Hilaly - looks so far, during this particular predicament, to be grimly HANGING ONTO its pernicious control of the Association. Crucially, to date, it’s been able to stop Sydney’s Lebanese Sunni community from formally taking a side in the confrontation in Lebanon, while privately - via its own default - supporting the Syrians, the Iranians, et al, there.
This is the case primarily since (again) the bulk of Lebanese-Australians wouldn’t like to see a further civil war in the old country. Understandably, they’re scared that some of the diverse pressures which they may exert from this distance - bearing on so prickly an arena as Lebanon - might somehow, albeit inadvertently and tragically, be read as provoking a contribution to such (unwanted) hostilities igniting there - instead of their ideals, Sovereignty, Independence and Freedom for Lebanon, being attained PEACEABLY, as they’d prefer.
However, on top, those Lebanese living here, who are voluble on this topic, are now being menaced by whispered threats of BIG problems being brought down upon them individually, and on their families as well, if they carry on agitations, in the public sphere, in favour of Lebanon’s liberty.
Reputedly, the prevalent, subtle, personal intimidation and coercion is being committed, on a grass-roots level, by the socially-pervasive, local, criminal gangs. These rings are loosely linked to several trans-national mafias, whose advantage is much tied to Damascus’ ongoing occupation of Lebanon.
Despite the unequivocal stipulations of UN Security Council Resolution #1559, for the expeditious removal of the regular and irregular Syrian and the Iranian armed units from Lebanon, plus for the demobilization of Hezbollah’s fighters and the disarmament of the various “Palestinian” gunmen and the other terrorist groups centred there, the interests of the racketeers and of the sundry “political” Arab radicals and rejectionists, etc - internationally – COINCIDE OPERATIONALLY pretty closely indeed.
Reliable sources advise that, at least tacitly, the LMA bosses (chiefly the “Imam” and his odious mouth-piece, Trad - the latter featuring as a main speaker, together with the Communist propaganda-tout, John Pilger, enviro-fascist Federal Senator Kerry Nettle and ex-Guantanamo Bay inmate, Mr Mamdouh Habib, at Sunday afternoon’s “anti-war” protest held in Sydney, which gathered roughly a thousand people), are surreptitiously sanctioning the bullying efforts of the neighbourhood thugs, engaged in keeping the members of the Sunni Lebanese community effectively silenced.
The LMA’s upper-echelon are anxiously seeking to avert anything - specially PUBLICITY - that’s liable to instigate an extremely-possible, inner-structural CRISIS, which could, in turn, lead to the rank authoritarianism and the utter opacity (in its EVERY dimension) of the LMA, INSTITUTIONALLY, being opened to cold scrutiny. Very pointed questions would then indubitably be asked - whose true answers could expose to the citizenry the sinister monetary, political and moral scandals of the LMA, and of its careerist eminences, stripping them totally of their insidious influence....
Yeah, once more going tangentially off-topic, for an ugly tale....
A fortnight or so ago, somebody on JW was expressing themselves re the LEBANESE in Australia.
A bit earlier, in the wake of the initial, large anti-Syrian demonstration in Beirut, (on the heels of the assassination of former PM Rafiq Hariri), I’d posted some information about a potentially terminal DIVISION that was then emerging in the preponderant Sunni Lebanese community organization in Australia, the Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA), freezing it like an emu caught in the headlights.
The LMA continues to suffer a substantial degree of internal disarray. It’s basically torn between its radicals, reflexively pro-Syrian (inter alia), ensconced in all the key posts of the outfit, and the opposite views of the general majority of the resident Sunnite Moslem Lebanese population. Though for ages it’s been chronically non-democratic in its composition and practice, the LMA had been constituted in the first place - and exists today - cardinally, in order to officially represent this sizeable community.
Most of the Lebanese Sunnis in Sydney desire the Sovereignty, Independence and Freedom of Lebanon (necessitating the departure of Syrian and Iranian forces without delay, plus the prompt dismantling of all militias and terrorists, Hezbollah, the “Palestinians” and the el-Qaeda surrogates); what they DON’T wish for is a bunch of TROUBLE - of any type or from any quarter - neither here nor back in Lebanon.
Accordingly, by playing on this distinct fear, currently, the LMA’s incumbent leadership-clique - fronted by the its “President”, the loathsome Keysar Trad and the “Imam of Australia” (a self-awarded title), the despicable Sheikh Taj el-Din el-Hilaly - looks so far, during this particular predicament, to be grimly HANGING ONTO its pernicious control of the Association. Crucially, to date, it’s been able to stop Sydney’s Lebanese Sunni community from formally taking a side in the confrontation in Lebanon, while privately - via its own default - supporting the Syrians, the Iranians, et al, there.
This is the case primarily since (again) the bulk of Lebanese-Australians wouldn’t like to see a further civil war in the old country. Understandably, they’re scared that some of the diverse pressures which they may exert from this distance - bearing on so prickly an arena as Lebanon - might somehow, albeit inadvertently and tragically, be read as provoking a contribution to such (unwanted) hostilities igniting there - instead of their ideals, Sovereignty, Independence and Freedom for Lebanon, being attained PEACEABLY, as they’d prefer.
However, on top, those Lebanese living here, who are voluble on this topic, are now being menaced by whispered threats of BIG problems being brought down upon them individually, and on their families as well, if they carry on agitations, in the public sphere, in favour of Lebanon’s liberty.
Reputedly, the prevalent, subtle, personal intimidation and coercion is being committed, on a grass-roots level, by the socially-pervasive, local, criminal gangs. These rings are loosely linked to several trans-national mafias, whose advantage is much tied to Damascus’ ongoing occupation of Lebanon.
Despite the unequivocal stipulations of UN Security Council Resolution #1559, for the expeditious removal of the regular and irregular Syrian and the Iranian armed units from Lebanon, plus for the demobilization of Hezbollah’s fighters and the disarmament of the various “Palestinian” gunmen and the other terrorist groups centred there, the interests of the racketeers and of the sundry “political” Arab radicals and rejectionists, etc - internationally – COINCIDE OPERATIONALLY pretty closely indeed.
Reliable sources advise that, at least tacitly, the LMA bosses (chiefly the “Imam” and his odious mouth-piece, Trad - the latter featuring as a main speaker, together with the Communist propaganda-tout, John Pilger, enviro-fascist Federal Senator Kerry Nettle and ex-Guantanamo Bay inmate, Mr Mamdouh Habib, at Sunday afternoon’s “anti-war” protest held in Sydney, which gathered roughly a thousand people), are surreptitiously sanctioning the bullying efforts of the neighbourhood thugs, engaged in keeping the members of the Sunni Lebanese community effectively silenced.
The LMA’s upper-echelon are anxiously seeking to avert anything - specially PUBLICITY - that’s liable to instigate an extremely-possible, inner-structural CRISIS, which could, in turn, lead to the rank authoritarianism and the utter opacity (in its EVERY dimension) of the LMA, INSTITUTIONALLY, being opened to cold scrutiny. Very pointed questions would then indubitably be asked - whose true answers could expose to the citizenry the sinister monetary, political and moral scandals of the LMA, and of its careerist eminences, stripping them totally of their insidious influence....