كيف للأفاعي الزاحفة على الأرض ان تفهم النسور المحلقة في السماء
MY FRIEND ELIE HOBEIKA, HK
One can see the wisdom in his very visage. The hazel eyes, glowing from sockets lined with deep suntan emotions, beam with the brilliance of a limelight. His hair, looking like spun silver, sits neatly in place upon his head. Yet, as he nods slightly, it sparkles, each strand in concert, as if to echo the exuberance of his own nature.
His nose, strong and stately, arcs proudly above the overshadowed yet undaunted mouth. The lips, bold as they are, show incredible kindness and generosity, especially when he curls them into one of his particularly boyish grins. His countenance mirrors his being and in that beautiful angel face one can see a child playing in a meadow.
His forty six years do not show themselves in his posture. He stands tall, erect; and moves with unmitigated grace. Always dressed in perfect clothes, his bright colors dazzle and shine in the Lebanon sun. What a sight this man is to behold! The experiences, heartbreaks, loves, joys, and victories of forty six years of living, all combine into one fascinating embodiment within him, a Heroes' Hero and the greatest man ever.
HK:وعــــد إيلي حبيقة
Ce que je n’oublierai jamais, mon cher Elie, c’est le jour de ton départ ! Comment aurais-je jamais pu imaginé que tu tomberais à « Hazmieh », lâchement assassiné ! Comment pouvais-je expliquer à tes amis, la cause de ta mort si incompréhensible et injuste ? Dans notre pays, on assassine les héros au lieu de les glorifier et on récompense les assassins !C'est l'individualisation de cette personnalité, de sa trajectoire, à une époque où le renseignement devient plus technique qu'humain (la faille des Américains, l'une des sources de leurs déboires au Moyen Orient), sa médiatisation connotée, qui fait de HK, Elie Hobeika un héros sans égal...
6 ans après, tu es toujours présent parmis nous.
100 ans après, tu seras toujours présent parmis nous.
Je n’oublierai jamais ! Je n’oublierai jamais !
Dans les rues de la ville il y a mon Allégeance . Peu importe où il va dans le temps divisé. Il n'est plus mon amour, chacun peut lui parler. Il ne se souvient plus; qui au juste l'aima?
Il cherche son pareil dans le voeu des regards. L'espace qu'il parcourt est ma fidélité. Il dessine l'espoir et léger l'éconduit. Il est prépondérant sans qu'il y prenne part.
Je vis au fond de lui comme une épave heureuse. A son insu, ma solitude est son trésor. Dans le grand méridien où s'inscrit son essor, ma liberté le creuse.
Dans les rues de la ville il y a mon amour. Peu importe où il va dans le temps divisé. Il n'est plus mon amour, chacun peut lui parler. Il ne se souvient plus; qui au juste l'aima et l'éclaire de loin pour qu'il ne tombe pas?
Ils sont venus, les forestiers de l'autre versant, les inconnus de nous, les rebelles à nos usages.
Ils sont venus nombreux.
Leur troupe est apparue à la ligne de partage des cèdres
Et du champ de la vieille moisson désormais irrigué et vert.
La longue marche les avait échauffés.
Leur casquette cassait sur les yeux et leur pied fourbu se posait dans le vague.
Ils nous ont aperçus et se sont arrêtés.
Visiblement ils ne présumaient pas nous trouver là,
Sur des terres faciles et des sillons bien clos,
Tout à fait insouciants d'une audience.
Nous avons levé le front et les avons encouragés.
Le plus disert s'est approché, puis un second tout aussi déraciné et lent.
Nous sommes venus, dirent-ils, vous prévenir de l'arrivée prochaine de l'ouragan,
de votre implacable adversaire.
Pas plus que vous, nous ne le connaissons
Autrement que par des relations et des confidences d'ancêtres.
Mais pourquoi sommes-nous heureux incompréhensiblement devant vous et soudain pareils à des enfants?
Nous avons dit merci et les avons congédiés.
Mais auparavant ils ont bu, et leurs mains tremblaient, et leurs yeux riaient sur les bords.
Hommes d'arbres et de cognée, capables de tenir tête à quelque terreur
mais inaptes à conduire l'eau, à aligner des bâtisses, à les enduire de couleurs plaisantes,
Ils ignoraient le jardin d'hiver et l'économie de la joie.
Certes, nous aurions pu les convaincre et les conquérir,
Car l'angoisse de l'ouragan est émouvante.
Oui, l'ouragan allait bientôt venir;
Mais cela valait-il la peine que l'on en parlât et qu'on dérangeât l'avenir?
Là où nous sommes, il n'y a pas de crainte urgente.
Oh la toujours plus rase solitude
Des larmes qui montent aux cimes.
Quand se déclare la débâcle
Et qu'un vieil aigle sans pouvoir
Voit revenir son assurance,
Le bonheur s'élance à son tour,
À flanc d'abîme les rattrape.
Chasseur rival, tu n'as rien appris,
Toi qui sans hâte me dépasses
Dans la mort que je contredis.
Au plus fort de l'orage, il y a toujours un oiseau pour nous rassurer. C'est l'oiseau inconnu, il chante avant de s'envoler.
*********************************************************************************
Mon futur à présent,
Mon chemin face au vent,
Pour vivre à tout les temps, tu seras,
Mon futur a présent,
Pour vivre en frères de sang,
L'amour à tout les temps, tu seras, tu seras.
Chaque jour de plus est un jour de pluie, quand on retient la vie,
On a bien inscrit dans ton coeur d'oiseau, ne pas quitter le nid,
Mais je vois dans tes pas de danse naître la confiance, en moi,
Tu seras mon arme et la bannière de ma foi, tu seras, tu seras...
كيف للأفاعي الزاحفة على الأرض ان تفهم النسور المحلقة في السماء
Parce que ces cancres qui occupent des postes à responsabilités ,hérités de leurs parents vont les léguer à leur descendants directs qui occuperont comme eux les postes, et nous seront une fois de plus gouvernés par des ignards.
Désolé de vous le dire( si cruellement) mais les cancres seront toujours là....
***************************************************************************
During the past seven years, White House
furniture has welcomed the flaccid fannies of what is doubtless its first
collection of genuine U.S./Israeli WAR CRIMINALS and Butchers, like the mass-murderer,Ariel Sharon the veggie....and Elliott Abrams and others...
But, to date, none have been, nor it seems none will ever see or grace
the hard benches in the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.....???
Ditto, impeachment proceedings, hosted as they'd be by your almost
equally craven U.S. Congress, whose failed "speaker" still says,
incredibly, impeachment is "not on the table," or, if you prefer, "off
the table."
Now comes George McGovern, whose greatest claim to fame arguably is
his landslide loss to Richard M. Nixon in the 1972 presidential
election, who says that even the criminal Nixon was not as
premeditatively evil as Bush and Cheney et al.
But so DIVIDED is our nation along political and religious lines, that
in another country, outlaw-murderers of the caliber we protect would
be chased, captured, tried, and punished BY US if they were guilty of
even a small percentage of the crimes against humanity committed by
your "administration's" principals.
----------------------------------------------
"Why I Believe Bush Must Go"
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/machon.pdf ???
"Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse."
As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have
belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for
me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.
After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to
impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the
campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be
seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who
had defeated me.
Today I have made a different choice.
Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for
impeachment. The political scene is marked by narrow and sometimes
superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans, and a lack of
courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic
politicians. So the chances of a bipartisan impeachment and conviction
are not promising.
But what are the facts?
Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses.
They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed
national and international law. They have lied to the American people
time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have
reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people
around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to
use the constitutional standard.
From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the
product of questionable elections that probably should have been
officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional
investigation.
In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed
throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the
administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against
Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans,
left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed
the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful
October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United
States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of
$1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and
others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by
far the highest in our national history.
All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress
that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N.
Charter and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard
for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been
accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture,
in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
I have not been heavily involved in singing the praises of the Nixon
administration. But the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far
stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T.
Agnew after the 1972 election. The nation would be much more secure
and productive under a Nixon presidency than with Bush. Indeed, has
any administration in our national history been so damaging as the
Bush-Cheney era?
How could a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of
killing, immorality and lawlessness?
It happened in part because the Bush-Cheney team repeatedly deceived
Congress, the press and the public into believing that Saddam Hussein
had nuclear arms and other horrifying banned weapons that were an
"imminent threat" to the United States. The administration also led
the public to believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks --
another blatant falsehood. Many times in recent years, I have recalled
Jefferson's observation: "Indeed I tremble for my country when I
reflect that God is just."
The basic strategy of the administration has been to encourage a
climate of fear, letting it exploit the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks not only
to justify the invasion of Iraq but also to excuse such dangerous
misbehavior as the illegal tapping of our telephones by government
agents. The same fear-mongering has led government spokesmen and
cooperative members of the press to imply that we are at war with the
entire Arab and Muslim world -- more than a billion people.
Another shocking perversion has been the shipping of prisoners scooped
off the streets of Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other
countries without benefit of our time-tested laws of habeas corpus.
Although the president was advised by the intelligence agencies last
August that Iran had no program to develop nuclear weapons, he
continued to lie to the country and the world. This is the same
strategy of deception that brought us into war in the Arabian Desert
and could lead us into an unjustified invasion of Iran. I can say with
some professional knowledge and experience that if Bush invades yet
another Muslim oil state, it would mark the end of U.S. influence in
the crucial Middle East for decades.
Ironically, while Bush and Cheney made counterterrorism the battle cry
of their administration, their policies -- especially the war in Iraq
-- have increased the terrorist threat and reduced the security of the
United States. Consider the difference between the policies of the
first President Bush and those of his son. When the Iraqi army marched
into Kuwait in August 1990, President George H.W. Bush gathered the
support of the entire world, including the United Nations, the
European Union and most of the Arab League, to quickly expel Iraqi
forces from Kuwait. The Saudis and Japanese paid most of the cost.
Instead of getting bogged down in a costly occupation, the
administration established a policy of containing the Baathist regime
with international arms inspectors, no-fly zones and economic
sanctions. Iraq was left as a stable country with little or no
capacity to threaten others.
Today, after five years of clumsy, mistaken policies and U.S. military
occupation, Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism and bloody
civil strife. It is no secret that former president Bush, his
secretary of state, James A. Baker III, and his national security
adviser, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, all opposed the 2003 invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
In addition to the shocking breakdown of presidential legal and moral
responsibility, there is the scandalous neglect and mishandling of the
Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. The veteran CNN commentator Jack
Cafferty condenses it to a sentence: "I have never ever seen anything
as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans."
Any impeachment proceeding must include a careful and critical look at
the collapse of presidential leadership in response to perhaps the
worst natural disaster in U.S. history.
Impeachment is unlikely, of course. But we must still urge Congress to
act. Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the
Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and
the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American
people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the
present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false
prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful
course for an American patriot.
As former representative Elizabeth Holtzman, who played a key role in
the Nixon impeachment proceedings, wrote two years ago, "it wasn't
until the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the
wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in
violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- and
argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests
of national security to override our country's laws -- that I felt the
same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate. . . . A
President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law --
and repeatedly violates the law -- thereby commits high crimes and
misdemeanors."
I believe we have a chance to heal the wounds the nation has suffered
in the opening decade of the 21st century. This recovery may take a
generation and will depend on the election of a series of rational
presidents and Congresses. At age 85, I won't be around to witness the
completion of the difficult rebuilding of our sorely damaged country,
but I'd like to hold on long enough to see the healing begin.
There has never been a day in my adult life when I would not have
sacrificed that life to save the United States from genuine danger,
such as the ones we faced when I served as a bomber pilot in World War
II. We must be a great nation because from time to time, we make
gigantic blunders, but so far, we have survived and recovered.
Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2001. .......
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 28, 2001; Page A01
------------------------------------
Armed with new authority from President Bush for a global campaign against al Qaeda, the Central Intelligence Agency is contemplating clandestine missions expressly aimed at killing specified individuals for the first time since the assassination scandals and consequent legal restraints of the 1970s.
Drawing on two classified legal memoranda, one written for President Bill Clinton in 1998 and one since the attacks of Sept. 11, the Bush administration has concluded that executive orders banning assassination do not prevent the president from lawfully singling out a terrorist for death by covert action. The CIA is reluctant to accept a broad grant of authority to hunt and kill U.S. enemies at its discretion, knowledgeable sources said. But the agency is willing and believes itself able to take the lives of terrorists designated by the president.
Clinton authorized covert lethal force against al Qaeda beginning in 1998, and The Washington Post reported last Sunday that Bush has signed a more encompassing intelligence "finding" that calls for attacks on newly identified weaknesses in Osama bin Laden's communications, security apparatus and infrastructure.
Bush's directive broadens the class of potential targets beyond bin Laden and his immediate circle of operational planners, and also beyond the present boundaries of the fight in Afghanistan, officials said.But it also holds the potential to target violence more narrowly than its precedents of the past 25 years because previous findings did not permit explicit planning for the death of an individual.
Bush and his national security Cabinet have been plain about their intention to find and kill bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader the administration blames for the Sept. 11 attacks.
The public face of that campaign is a conventional war in Afghanistan using uniformed troops. Yet inside the CIA and elsewhere in government, according to sources, much of the debate turns on the scope of a targeted killing campaign. How wide should the government draw the circle around bin Laden? And in which countries -- among the 40 or so where al Qaeda is believed to operate -- may such efforts be attempted?
Though there are differences on those matters, some officials observed that the agency is surprisingly undivided in its willingness to undertake the mission.
"There's nothing involved in this operation that isn't being debated by somebody somewhere, but our responsibilities are pretty clear to those who have the top secret code-word clearance and the need to know," said a senior intelligence official.
Botched assassinations in the 1960s and 1970s, and their airing in congressional hearings in 1974, left deep scars on the CIA. Executive orders signed by three presidents since, beginning Feb. 18, 1976, were interpreted until recently as forbidding clandestine acts of targeted killing.
It is significant that the directive Bush signed last month took the form of a presidential finding. As defined in the Hughes-Ryan amendment of 1974 and the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980, a finding concerns only the use of appropriated funds for covert action by intelligence agencies. The military chain of command uses separate legal instruments called operations orders, numbered sequentially and prefixed by year.
As officials debate the new finding, the new consensus position, according to a participant in the discussions, is that "we should use all the weapons at our disposal." He likened targeted killings to "clipping toenails" because al Qaeda is capable of growing a new cohort of leaders. "It won't solve the whole problem, but it's part of the solution."
The CIA's Directorate of Operations, which runs the clandestine service, is mindful of a traumatizing past in which assassination attempts in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East were blamed on rogue agents when they failed. The agency is determined to leave no room this time for "plausible denial" of responsibility on the part of the president and the agency's top management. That does not mean that operations will be publicly proclaimed, one source said, but that the paper trail inside government must begin undeniably with "the political leadership."
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, remembered commonly as the Church committee, reported on Nov. 20, 1975, that plots against five foreign leaders under Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon were deliberately organized in terms "so ambiguous that it is difficult to be certain at what levels assassination activity was known and authorized."
"The important thing is that the accountability chain is clear," said John C. Gannon, who retired in June as deputy director of central intelligence, the agency's second-ranking position, in comments that mirrored those of colleagues who declined to be named. "I would want the president's guidance to be as clear as it could be, including the names of individuals. You've got to have the political levels behind you so the intelligence officers are not left hanging."
With explicit authority, he said, "I think the case officers are capable [of targeted killing] and would follow instructions, and would, I think, have the capability of succeeding."
National security officials noted that the White House and at least three executive departments already maintain lists in which terrorists are singled out by name. Executive Order 12947, signed by Clinton on Jan. 23, 1995, introduced a legal category of "specially designated terrorists." The list is maintained and amended by the secretary of state and by Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Most recently the FBI named 22 men on Oct. 10 as its "most wanted terrorists," of whom 13 are linked to al Qaeda.
One view, apparently a minority position but one expressed in private recently by two senior managers in the Directorate of Operations, is that the clandestine service should target not only commanders but also financiers of al Qaeda. "You have to go after the Gucci guys, the guys who write the checks," said one person reflecting that view. It is easier to find financiers, he said, and killing them would have dramatic impact because they are not commonly prepared to die for their cause.
"You can make the case that getting the funding people would have a tremendously chilling effect" on al Qaeda's capacity to raise and move money, acknowledged Frederick P. Hitz, who was inspector general of the CIA from 1990 to 1998 and is not generally in favor of targeted killing.
Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.), who introduced a "Terrorist Elimination Act" eight months before the Sept. 11 attacks, said fundraisers are legitimate targets for death. "Under traditional terms of war, those who assist belligerents are belligerents," he said.
A more common view among those willing to discuss the matter was that any list of terrorists marked for death will likely be short.
"Some of these guys are potential recruitment targets to be debriefed," one case officer noted. Many others are in countries in which local circumstances make the political risks of covert homicide very high. The case officer said that opinions will certainly be "more split in the directorate the farther you get away from bin Laden."
If Bush has drawn up such a list, it is among the most closely held secrets of government. It could not be learned whether names have been proposed to him by the clandestine service, or whether he has signed orders that would amount to individual death warrants.
Spokesmen for the White House and the CIA declined to comment for this article. But the administration has laid down a public record that offers further evidence of the agency's new authority.
On Sept. 17, after Bush remarked that bin Laden is "wanted dead or alive," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Executive Order 12333, signed Dec. 4, 1981, by President Ronald Reagan, remains in effect. Like its counterparts under Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, Executive Orders 11905 and 12306, the directive forbids assassination but does not define the term. Fleischer declined four times to interpret the text. "I'm going to just repeat my words and others will figure out the exact implications of them, but it does not inhibit the nation's ability to act in self-defense," he said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, speaking Oct. 15, went slightly further.
"It is certainly within the president's power to direct that, in our self-defense, we take this battle to the terrorists and that means to the leadership and command and control capabilities of terrorist networks," he said.
Whether such operations are within the agency's competence, or consistent with a culture that its employees describe as deeply risk averse, is another question.
Hitz, who supervised wide-ranging internal reviews of the lapses of the clandestine service, said he doubts the agency is prepared for orders to kill.
"After fifty-plus years, the CIA is an organization of bureaucrats," Hitz said. "This is not what intelligence officers do. They're not trained for it. And the intermediary stuff is what went to hell in times past. If you go out and hire a bunch of brass knuckles types . . . it strikes me that throws in the hopper all the things we learned about this bit of business in the Church committee investigations."
The Church committee, for example, exposed eight distinct plots against Cuban leader Fidel Castro's life from 1960 to 1965, some of them comically inept. One effort, strongly resonant in the context of recent events, contaminated a box of Castro's favorite cigars with botulinum toxin in February 1961. Another laid plans to place an exploding seashell at Castro's customary skin-diving venue; still another infected a wet suit with poison fungus and proposed that U.S. negotiator James B. Donovan present it to the Cuban leader as a gift.
Today the Directorate of Operations retains a "special activities" branch, but case officers who retired recently said it has had neither status nor funding in recent years. "The paramilitary part of the directorate has atrophied," one case officer said.
Senior officials said the president's finding directs new forms of cooperation between the CIA and uniformed military commando units. Some knowledgeable sources said it is also possible that the instruments of targeted killings will be foreign agents, the CIA's term for nonemployees who act on its behalf. That is controversial, because it involves risks of betrayal and conflicting agendas on the part of the agents, but it is also seen in parts of the agency as advantageous.
"As a force multiplier," one source said, "we can use Jordanians and Sudanese and Egyptians that are willing to do this for us."
The legal basis for Bush's order is perhaps its least controversial aspect, at least among government lawyers who have studied the question.
Since the late Clinton administration, executive branch lawyers have held that the president's inherent authority to use lethal force -- under Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution -- permits an order to kill an individual enemy of the United States in self-defense.
In 1998, an interagency group led by then-Assistant Attorney General Randy Moss produced a highly classified memo of law on assassination. The group concluded that recent presidents -- from Reagan in Libya to Bush in Iraq -- had been needlessly cautious in ordering broad attacks against enemy headquarters if their real objective was to kill an individual leader. Because executive orders are entirely at the discretion of the president, they wrote, a president may issue contrary directives at will and need not make public that he has done so.
Under customary international law and Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, according to those familiar with the memo, taking the life of a terrorist to preempt an imminent or continuing threat of attack is analogous to self-defense against conventional attack.
That interpretation won out over a proposal by Walter Dellinger, Moss's predecessor, who wanted to amend Executive Order 12333. Dellinger proposed to forbid assassination "without the prior written express authorization of the president." Presidential "findings" on lethal force, he said, were too often drafted over broadly simply "to avoid calling what we're doing 'assassination.' "
The Bush administration's update of that analysis is strengthened by the Joint Resolution of Congress of Sept. 14, which gave the president authority to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against "persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."
The prospect of extrajudicial killings by the U.S. government is a departure from one of the touchstone intelligence restraints of the post-Vietnam era. It inspires strong qualms among some of those who have thought about it professionally.
"In my heart I am often for assassination, but in my head not," said Anthony Lake, Clinton's first national security adviser, reaching back toan Italian Renaissance family notorious for murder and fratricide for an analogy. "Until you can show me the firewall between those whose deaths you're positive would save a large number of lives, and those about whom you're not positive, then I think you're on a slippery slope to becoming the Borgias."
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ضمير لبنان
24 تشرين الثاني 2007
- مبادرة الساعة الأخيرة، التي أطلقها الجنرال ميشال عون، نابعة من قلبه وعقله وضميره. قال لوفد التروكيا الأوروبية: أنا مرشح الوحدة الوطنية. ثم أعلن إنسحابه من السباق الرئاسي، لمصلحة الوحدة الوطنية وحفاظاً عليها وعلى الوطن.
والمبادرة نابعة من قلب يعرف مكمّن العلّة. وقد حدّد التعقل ثلاثة مواقع أساسية للخلل. الأول أزمة العلاقة بين السلطة وحزب الله، التي أوجد لها التيار الوطني الحر قاعدة تفاهم في 6 شباط 2006.
والثاني علاقة الوطن بالإغتيالات المرعبة التي أنطلقت بقتل الرئيس إيلي حبيقة في 24/01/2002: " رحم الله إيلي حبيقة: حبيقة كان مبدعا في حياته وسيظل حاضرا في غيابه ".
والثالث: الخلل القائم داخل السلطة منذ اتفاق الطائف. واعتبر الجنرال ان معالجته تبدأ من قانون إنتخاب يضمن حسن التمثيل، ويعطي كل ذي حق حقه. ويعيد التوازن الى الوظائف.
وتوّج النقاط الثلاث "بضامن" للتنفيذ هو قائد الجيش، الذي يمسك الشارع، ويلجم الفوضى. وفعل الجنرال ذلك بضمير الزاهد المترفع.
بخفّة، غير مسبوقة، تعامل الفريق الآخر مع مبادرة الانقاذ. اعتبروها عرضاً مارقاً، وفضَّلوا عليها "الفراغ المنظم" أو "الفراغ الخطير" الذي تحدث عنه السفراء الاوروبيون. وتابعوا عرضهم المسرحي المستمر منذ سنة.
فقرروا النزول الى ساحة النجمة لحضور جلسة يعرفون سلفاً أنها لن تعقد. وكالعادة حملَّوا المعارضة مسؤولية خراب البصرة، ونتائج "رفض" مبادرة البطريرك صفير، وتعطيل الدور الفرنسي الذي بذل جهداً هائلاً ولم يفلح!
موقف أهل السلطة، الرافض للمبادرة العونية، يشبه تمسّك الغريق بقشة طافية على سطح الماء. قشة إسمها حكومة فؤاد السنيورة، وهي عملياً في حالة موت سريري منذ سنة. وأهلها يرفضون ان يواروها الثرى، لأن أمر المهمة الآتي من دروب أنابوليس يكرر على مدار الساعة "نحتاج إلى مزيد من الوقت. أبقوا الطبخة على النار".
مسكين الشعب اللبناني، ومسكين هذا الوطن. ومساكين أكثر هؤلاء "الفينيسيون" الذين يفضّلون "الفراغ المنظم" على رئيس وحدة وطنية ينقذ لبنان. لأنه ضمير لبنان!
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في ما يأتي ابرز الاحداث التي شهدها لبنان .
الإغتيالات المرعبة التي أنطلقت بقتل الرئيس إيلي حبيقة في 24/01/2002: " رحم الله إيلي حبيقة: حبيقة كان مبدعا في حياته وسيظل حاضرا في غيابه ".
- 03 ايلول 2004: تعديل الدستور بما يتيح تمديد ولاية لحود ثلاث سنوات بضغط من سوريا، على رغم صدور القرار 1559 الداعي الى عدم التدخل في الشؤون اللبنانية.
- 01 تشرين الاول: محاولة اغتيال الوزير مروان حماده.
- 20 تشرين الاول: استقالة الرئيس رفيق الحريري.
- 14 شباط 2005: اغتيال الحريري في بيروت اسفر عن مقتل 22 شخصا من بينهم النائب والوزير السابق باسل فليحان. حملت المعارضة "السلطتين اللبنانية والسورية" مسؤولية الجريمة وطالبت بانسحاب القوات السورية من لبنان، وبتحقيق دولي.
- 28 شباط: رئيس مجلس الوزراء عمر كرامي يعلن تحت ضغط المعارضة والاحتجاجات الشعبية استقالة حكومته.
- 08 آذار: مئات الالاف يشاركون في "تظاهرة الوفاء لسوريا" بدعوة من "حزب الله" وحركة "امل" والتنظيمات الموالية لسوريا.
- 14 آذار: مئات الالاف يتظاهرون ضد الوصاية السورية.
- 07 نيسان: الامم المتحدة تصدر قرارا ينص على فتح تحقيق دولي في اغتيال الحريري. وقد تولى القاضي الالماني ديتليف ميليس رئاسة لجنة التحقيق.
- 26 نيسان: انسحاب آخر الجنود السوريين ينهي الوجود العسكري السوري الذي استمر ثلاثين عاما في لبنان.
- 29 ايار - 19 حزيران: اجراء انتخابات نيابية، فازت فيها الاحزاب المناهضة لسوريا بغالبية المقاعد في مجلس النواب.
- 02 حزيران: اغتيال الزميل سمير قصير في بيروت.
- 21 حزيران 2005: اغتيال الامين العام السابق للحزب الشيوعي اللبناني جورج حاوي في اعتداء بسيارة مفخخة.
- 12 تموز 2005: اصابة وزير الدفاع الياس المر في اعتداء بسيارة مفخخة في انطلياس.
- 19 تموز: الرئيس فؤاد السنيورة يعلن تشكيلة حكومته التي تضم للمرة الاولى وزراء من "حزب الله".
- 30 آب: توقيف قائد الحرس الجمهوري اللواء مصطفى حمدان والقادة السابقين لجهاز الامن العام اللواء جميل السيد ومخابرات الجيش العميد ريمون عازار وقوى الامن الداخلي اللواء علي الحاج. وقد وجهت اليهم التهمة رسميا في الثالث من ايلول بالتورط في جريمة اغتيال الحريري.
- 25 ايلول 2005: اصابة الاعلامية مي شدياق بجروح بالغة في انفجار عبوة وضعت في سيارتها في منطقة جونيه.
- 20 تشرين الاول 2005: ميليس يشير في تقريره الاول الى الامم المتحدة الى "ادلة متقاطعة" عن تورط مسؤولين سوريين ولبنانيين في اغتيال الحريري.
- 31 تشرين الاول: مجلس الامن الدولي يصدر القرار 1636 الذي يدعو دمشق الى التعاون في التحقيق الدولي.
- 12 كانون الاول: اغتيال النائب جبران تويني.
- 12 تموز - 14 آب 2006: اسرائيل تشن حرباً على لبنان توقع أكثر من 1200 قتيل.
- 01 تشرين الاول: اسرائيل تسحب قواتها من جنوب لبنان والجيش اللبناني ينتشر على الحدود للمرة الاولى منذ أربعين عاما.
- 11 تشرين الثاني: استقالة نواب المعارضة من الحكومة بعد فشل مشاورات تشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية.
- 21 تشرين الثاني: اغتيال النائب والوزير بيار الجميل.
- 25 تشرين الثاني: الحكومة تصادق على مشروع المحكمة الدولية. وفي التاسع من كانون الاول، رئيس الجمهورية الموالي لسوريا اميل لحود يرفض توقيع المرسوم معتبرا الحكومة "فاقدة للشرعية".
- 01 كانون الاول: بدء اعتصام للمعارضة في وسط بيروت.
- 23-25 كانون الثاني 2007: سبعة قتلى في مواجهات بين موالين للحكومة ومعارضين لها في بيروت، وذلك بعد يومين على اضراب عام دعت اليه المعارضة واغلاق طريق مطار بيروت الدولي.
- 25 كانون الثاني: مؤتمر باريس 3، حيث تلقى لبنان وعودا بمساعدات مالية ضخمة.
- 06 شباط 2007: توقيع معاهدة انشاء المحكمة الدولية الخاصة بمحاكمة قتلة الحريري بين لبنان والامم المتحدة.
- 20 ايار 2007: معارك عنيفة بين الجيش وجماعة "فتح الاسلام" في مخيم نهر البارد.
انتهت المعارك في الثاني من ايلول واسفرت عن سقوط اكثر من 400 قتيل بينهم 168 عسكريا.
- 30 ايار 2007: مجلس الامن الدولي يعتمد القرار 1757 لانشاء المحكمة الدولية الذي دخل حيز التنفيذ في العاشر من حزيران.
- 13 حزيران: اغتيال النائب وليد عيدو ونجله في تفجير سيارة مفخخة في بيروت.
- 19 ايلول 2007: اغتيال النائب انطوان غانم في سن الفيل.
- 25 ايلول 2007: ارجاء الجلسة البرلمانية لانتخاب رئيس جديد للبنان. وارجئت جلسة ثانية في 23 تشرين الاول ثم في 12 تشرين الثاني للمرة الثالثة وحدد الحادي والعشرين من الشهر نفسه موعداً لانتخاب رئيس.
- 13 تشرين الثاني 2007: وزير الخارجية الفرنسي برنار كوشنير يلتقي القادة اللبنانيين. في اليوم التالي اعلن ان البطريرك الماروني الكاردينال ما نصر الله بطرس صفير سلم لائحة باسماء مرشحين للمنصب الرئاسي.
- 16 تشرين الثاني 2007: الامين العام للامم المتحدة بان كي مون يجري محادثات مع مختلف الاطراف اللبنانيين.
- 18 تشرين الثاني 2007: وزير الخارجية الايطالي ماسيمو داليما يزور بيروت.
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تقديرينا و محبتنا الى روح الرئيس الشهيد ايلي حبيقة من كل اللبنانيين
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قدر العظماء أن يمضوا شهداء
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| «الطائف» و«الاتفاق الثلاثي» |
| |
| لا يمكن الحديث عن تهميش الدور المسيحي في لبنان دون ذكر اتفاق الطائف الذي شلح المسيحيين الدور والموقع والصلاحيات الى دون مستوى الشراكة الحقيقية. |
| وبعد أكثر من سنة ونصف على قيام حكومة السنيورة تتصاعد الشكوى من استمرار التهميش الذي أكدت عليه خطب البطريرك والذي قبل به جعجع منذ اليوم الأول حجماً تمثيلياً هو 24/1 وبحقيبة هامشية كوزارة السياحة |
| ويستذكر قادة مسيحيون أن مضمون الشراكة المسيحية في النظام الطائفي رسمته معادلات الاتفاق الثلاثي مقارنة بواقع الطائف، والذي في كل الاحوال حتى ولو احسن تطبيقه حرفياً لا يعطي التمثيل المسيحي في السلطة حجماً حقيقياً وموقعاً في الحياة الداخلية وصلاحيات دستورية في عمل النظام بمقدار ما كان سيؤمنه الاتفاق الثلاثي الذي كرس بالتفصيل صيغة «المثالثة» في المواقع وفي الشراكة، وتعامل مع المواقع المسيحية في السلطة على قدم المساواة في الاحجام والصلاحيات مع المواقع السنية والشيعية، وكان ذلك نتيجة مفاوضات صعبة وشاقة قادها ايلي حبيقة بحرص شديد رافضاً أي تصرف «الحاقي» في اي مواقع طائفية اخرى تمثل المسيحيين وأي تغاضى في حجم العلاقات والدور في تركيبة السلطة التي أقرها الاتفاق الثلاثي. كما يقول أحد المسيحيين الحقوقيين المهتمين في اجراء مقارنات في الصلاحية بين ما تبقى لرئاسة الجمهورية في نصوص الطائف او بين الموقع الرئيسي المتساوي مع الموقعين الشيعي والسني في الصيغة التي توصل لها الاتفاق الثلاثي والتي وضعت في هيئة مجلس رئاسي، وبالتالي فان انقلاب جعجع على الاتفاق الثلاثي ادخل المسيحيين في حالة من الاستنزاف عبرت عنها الحرب التي شنت ضد العماد عون واضطرته الى مغادرة البلاد. وكانت الثمرة اتفاق الطائف، ولو جاز للمسيحيين ان يعينوا المسؤول عن خفض سقف الدور المسيحي في النظام اللبناني الى ما دون التسوية التي ابرمها حبيقة في الاتفاق الثلاثي، فان جعجع بنظرهم هو المسؤول مرتين، المرة الأولى عندما انقلب على الاتفاق الثلاثي والمرة الثانية لانه أعطى الفرصة لحرب داخل المناطق المسيحية ووافق على السقف الادنى الذي قلص صلاحيات رئيس الجمهورية لصالح حلفائه في الطائفة السنية، بينما بقي حبيقة على قناعاته وثوابته واسس حزب «الوعد» رافضاً مصادرة اسم القوات اللبنانية احتراماً ووفاء لدور بشير الجميل مؤسس القوات اللبنانية معتبراً أن عائلة بشير وابنه هما الاحق بالتسمية، كما رفض مصادرة اسم حزب الكتائب احتراماً ووفاء لدور بيار الجميل ونجله امين وعندما حاول كشف خيوط مجزرة صبرا وشاتيلا التي لاحقته «كالظل» سقط شهيداً «مظلوماً». |
| والآن في ظل ما تشهده البلاد يحاول المسيحيون ان يتذكروا تلك الحقبة والمرحلة التي ظلمها البعض في حينه، وجاءت النتائج والانجازات بعد 23 سنة دون المستوى بكثير.. فهل يتعظ البعض. |
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*The Tripartite Agreement
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وعــــد إيلي حبيقة
THE PEACE AGREEMENT SIGNED IN DAMASCUS ON DECEMBER 28, 1985
Agreement signed by Mr. Nabih Berri, Mr. Elie Hobeika, Mr. Walid Joumblatt and witnessed by the Vice-President of Syria Mr. Abdel H. Khaddam .
[ *This translation's authors are unknown, but the "product" of the translation
is very weak and un-authoritative, because the Arabic version is more precise
and professional ]
Preamble:
Amid the tragic, extraordinary circumstances that have been afflicting Lebanon, the conferees have drawn up a national solution based on our people's aspirations towards liberating the land from the Israeli occupation, restoring security and peace to the homeland, and establishing a sound, democratic regime by upholding justice and equality, both politically and socially, and realizing the Lebanese people's ambitions in all fields. this solution requires a comprehensive national commitment and pan-Arab strength represented in implementing special relations with fraternal Syria, which did not and will never spare any effort, under President struggler Hafez El-Asad's leadership, to deliver Lebanon and protect its independence, unity, and Arab affiliation and to lead it toward a democratic solution for its various struggles.
Chapter 1: General Principles.
Lebanon's Identity: Lebanon is an independent, free, and sovereign state in terms of its territory, people, and institutions within its boundaries outlined in the Lebanese Constitution that are internationally recognized. It is of Arab affiliation and identity; an active, founding member of the Arab League; and it is committed to the various Arab League charters. The state embodies these principles in various fields and areas without exception. Lebanon is also a member of the United Nations and is committed to the UN charter.
Lebanon's Unity: Absolute adherence to Lebanon's unity. All partition plans, all forms of discrimination, and all proposals of political decentralization such as federations, cantons, and decentralization in security and development are rejected. this position makes inevitable the imposition of personal safety and settlement in any Lebanese site in any form and regardless of the period of this settlement.
The Political System: Lebanon is democratic, parliamentary republic established on the basis of respect for public freedoms, particularly the freedom of opinion and creed. It is also based on the principles of separation of powers and social justice and equality of duties and rights of all citizens, without any discrimination or preference, within a free economic system based on comprehensive scientific planning of various resources, needs and activities in all areas. It is a country of human dignity and cultural ambitions.
Lebanon's Liberation:
Continuing the escalation of resistance to liberate Lebanon from the Israeli occupation, liquidate its direct as well as indirect presence, reject all sorts of security arrangements and their suspect tools, and thwart any local tool that is tied or dealing with the occupation.
Providing all resources and pooling all official efforts to back the national resistance in the South in terms of manpower and funds, in its capacity as the main base the process of liberation and the correct bases unifying Lebanon.
Supporting the firmness and steadfastness of the southern Lebanese citizen on his land by providing human, material, and economic means of development.
Working to implement Resolution 425 and all UN Security Council resolutions pertaining to comprehensively removing the Israeli occupation and rejecting all Israeli conditions and restrictions.
Adhering to the armistice agreement signed on 23 March 1949.
Chapter II: The Principles of the Political System.
Efforts to strengthen the spirit of national growth and democratic practice require replacement of the current sectarian formula with a national " وعــــد " that can guarantee the people's participation and representation in a political authority capable of expressing the people's aspiration and ambitions on the national level and on the basis of freedom, social justice, equality, equal opportunities, development, and security. Hence, it was agreed that the building of Lebanon's future and the establishment of a modern, developed state is free from legacy of the past necessitate the cancellation of the sectarian system. As a result, a new constitution will be drafted on the basis of reinforcing the homeland's unity, independence, Arab affiliation, and democratic system, as well as a full equality among the citizens. This constitution, which will be drafted within one year at the most, will include the following basic principles provisions:
The Lebanese system is republican, democratic, and parliamentary.
The Lebanese are the source of authorities and will practice their national supremacy through constitutional institutions as outlined in the future constitution.
The Lebanese are equal before the law and enjoy equal civil, political, and social rights and assume duties without discrimination.
Regarding the assumption of public positions and posts, no Lebanese has any special privileges apart from his qualifications within the legal conditions.
Personal freedom shall be safeguarded and protected by the law and the freedom of belief shall be protected. In this regard, stress is put on Article 9 of the current constitution, as well as on public freedoms regarding opinion, expression, education, parties, societies. residence, labor, election, gatherings, possessions, and trade union work. All these should take place within the limit of ;law on a par with democratic countries.
The economic system shall be considered as free, organized, and capable of guaranteeing individual initiative so long as it does not conflict with the general order and public interest. This system is based on a comprehensive scientific development of various energies, needs, and activities in all areas. It is also based on a long term development plan, considering Lebanon's unity an indivisible unit.
Social justice shall prevail; social cooperation shall be considered a national obligation; national education shall be the citizen's right and duty. Compulsory education shall be provided for all citizens through the end of intermediary course.
A new election law will be drafted to secure the broadest and best representation of a national basis and to consider each province as one electorate in order to safeguard national unity and to express the will to coexist. All citizens-men and women-have the right to vote when they become 18 years old in accordance with conditions defined by the constitution.
A senate will be established to assume, together with the chamber of deputies, legislative powers regarding fateful issues: amending the constitution, war and peace, international treaties and agreements, factional civil status, the citizenship law, the senate elections.
the new government will immediately form a preparatory committee to draft the new country's constitution in preparation of approval.
The Stage of Moving toward Complete Non-Sectarianism: " وعــــد ".
Moving from the sectarian formula to another formula that guarantees national cohesion under the canopy of the democratic. parliamentary, republican system involves a transitional and gradual stage toward complete non-sectarianism. At this stage, reforms and measures of a constitutional, systematic, and legal nature mentioned in this document will be adopted in accordance with the following:
A. A new government will be formed immediately. The beginning of the transitional stage will be the date this government is formed.
B. The stage of ending the state of war in Lebanon will be no more than one year beginning with the date of forming the new government in accordance with what is stated in Chapter V of this agreement.
C. the present Chamber of Deputies will be entrenched and expanded after forming the new government by appointing new deputies in accordance with the principles of equal sharing between Muslims and Christians and equality among the three greater sects, and on the basis of numbers determined by this agreement. Within the period of one year at the most, all legal and constitutional texts relating to implementing the transitional reforms mentioned in this document will be applied.
D. The transitional stage will end when the Chamber of Deputies makes a decision to determine the beginning of the date for working for a total cancellation of sectarianism in a accordance with the following:
a. After restoration of normal situation in the country, the government will call for electing a new Chamber of Deputies on the basis of a new electoral law in accordance with the principles mentioned in the agreement.
b. During the second half of the term of the first elected Chamber of Deputies, the government will propose a plan to determine the date of the beginning work to cancel sectarianism in parliamentary representation, the three executives [the prime minister, the president, and speaker of the Chamber of Deputies], the ministries, and class A jobs. the majority required for approving the plan will be two thirds of the members of the Chamber of Deputies.
c. If the plan is not approved, the vote required for its approval will become 55 percent beginning with the second half of the term of the second elected Chamber of Deputies.
d. If the plan is not approved the cancellation of sectarianism in parliamentary representation, in the presidencies, the ministries, the class A job or those equivalent, during the first half of the term of the third elected Chamber of Deputies, will be decided legally.
Chapter III: The Rules of the Transitional Stage. " وعــــد ".
During the transitional stage, and in order to establish sound balance in jurisdictions between the legislative and executive powers, along with guaranteeing the independence of the judicial system under the canopy of the democratic, parliamentary, republican system, the following rules will be adopted and the constitutional or organizational laws and articles will be issued, amended, or suspended in accordance with the principles that would guarantee their applications:
In the executive power: " وعــــد ".
I. The President of the Republic:
1. the election of the President: After reforming the conditions of the legislative power in accordance with the principles that will follow, the majority required for electing the President of the Republic will be 55 percent of the legal number of the Chamber of Deputies in session that will follow the first session. The legal quorum for conducting elections in all sessions will be seven-tenths of the number of members of the Chamber of Deputies.
The power of the President of the Republic: " وعــــد ".
A. the President of the Republic is the head of state and symbol of the country's unity. He is responsible for respecting the constitution and for safeguarding Lebanon's independence, unity, territorial integrity, and national unity. The President of the Republic shall take a constitutional oath.
B. The President of the Republic is the supreme commander of the Army. " وعــــد ".
C. The President of the Republic signs all decrees and issues laws within limited periods after approval by the competent authorities. He also transfers draft laws to the legislative power. He also has the right to oppose [laws], in accordance with the principles stated in this document, within the periods defined in it. During the forty day period, the President of the Republic shall also issue all the laws of a top-priority nature that the Council of Ministers transfers to the Chamber of Deputies.
D. the President of The Republic names the prime minister and issues decrees forming the cabinet in accordance with the provisions of Article 5 of this chapter. He will also issue decisions considering the cabinet as resigned in case enunciated in this document. Until legislative power is formed by increasing the number of deputies in accordance with this agreement, the government will be formed in accordance with the requirements of reconciliation and in a way conducive to implementing this program.
E. The President of the Republic presides over and participates in discussions-with no voting power during the meetings of the following:
The Supreme Defense Council.
The Council of Ministers in limited cases pertaining to approving the policy statement that defines the policy of the government; declaring a state of peace or war, general mobilization, or a state of emergency; Dissolving the Chamber of Deputies; and approving the constitutional draft law, election law, and general amnesty.
The President of the Republic can call the cabinet into emergency session in certain cases when the country is seriously threatened.
The President of the Republic can call the cabinet into session once a month at most in order to discuss draft laws that he may have turned down, provided the agenda of such session does not include any other topics.
F. The President receives credentials, receives diplomatic representatives, and presides over official receptions.
G. The President grants state medals.
H. The President is not held responsible for the consequences of his exercising his powers except in cases which the constitution terms as high treason.
I. the President grants special reprieves and proposes and issues general amnesty law.
J. The President issues decrees accepting the resignation of any of the cabinet ministers after the agreement by the Prime Minister. He can ask any minister to resign after the agreement by the cabinet.
K. Whenever the need arises, the President can address messages to the Chamber of Deputies and ministers if he deems it necessary.
L. The President chooses the employees of the presidency from among the employees of the state administration.
II. The Council of Ministers:
1. T Council of Ministers is composed of its chairman, a number of ministers of state, and ministers with ministerial portfolios. The necessary quorum for a cabinet meeting is two-thirds of its members.
2. The executive power will be prerogative of the Council of Ministers, which exercises all executive and administrative powers and draws up the state's general policy in its capacity as the body solely responsible to the legislative power and the people. These powers includes:
A. Drawing up the state's general policy in the political, economic, defensive, financial, developmental, educational, and social fields as well in other areas.
B. Drawing up draft laws and decrees, making the necessary decisions to implement state policy, and assigning top-priority precedence to draft laws whenever it deems this necessary.
C. Insuring implementation of laws and regulations and monitoring the performance of all state organs and establishments, including the military ones.
D. Enacting and canceling the state of emergency as well as war, general mobilization, and international treaties and agreements, taking into consideration the prerogatives of the legislative power.
E. Directing and coordinating the work of the ministries and al state administrations and general establishments.
F. Drawing up the state budget bill and laying down comprehensive and long-term development plans.
G. Dissolving the Chamber of Deputies by a justified decision and calling the Chamber of Deputies into extraordinary sessions.
H. Appointing class A employees or their equals and asking them to resign or accepting their resignation in accordance with legal practice.
III. The Ministerial Council " وعــــد ".
The Ministerial Council is made up of the prime minister and the government's ministers and makes its decisions on a consensus basis. In case of dispute, the issue will be presented to the Council of Ministers to make the appropriate decision. This Council's duties are:
To continue efforts to achieve the required reform in all areas.
To continue efforts to implement the plan to end the war within the period defined for it.
To continue efforts to secure transitional conditions for implementation of the new constitution.
To propose the broad lines of state policy and to define its basic options to be presented to the Council of Ministers.
To prepare for and present to the Council of Ministers plans, trends, and concepts.
To approve all decrees that do not need a decision from the Council of Ministers including relieving one or more ministers of their posts.
The members of the Ministerial Conical are considered members of the Supreme Defense Council.
The General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers comprises a number of assistant secretaries general, councilors, and specialized persons who from a special organ for the Council of Ministers-and organ which is linked to the prime minister and which carries out any work demanded by the Council of Ministers.
IV. The Prime Minister:
The prime minister resides over the Council of Ministers meetings in all cases except in other cases mentioned elsewhere in this document. He also conducts sessions, proposes agendas, and participates in discussions when he has the right to vote.
He presides over meetings of the Ministerial Council in all cases.
He accepts the resignation of one or more ministers and refers the decree to the President.
He is the deputy of the head of the Supreme Defense Council.
He oversees implementation of the Ministerial Council's recommendations and decisions and the Council of Minister's decisions and follow up the work of the ministries and departments.
V. The Formation and Resignation of the Government and the Time Limit for issuing laws and decrees:
The government is formed in accordance of the following procedures:
A. The President holds mandatory parliamentary and political consultations and, in light of them, issues a decree naming the prime minister-designate
B. Following parliamentary and political consultations, the prime minister designate forms the government and presents a list of the government members to the President. If he agrees, he issues decrees.
C. If the President refrains from signing the decree within two weeks after receiving the list, the prime minister designate will submit is case to the parliament. If his view point wins 55 percent of the parliament members' votes, the President should issue the decree. If the parliament does not approve the government, the prime minister will be considered as relieved of his post and consultation will be renewed.
D. If the prime minister refrains from presenting the list of the government members to the President within one month following his designation, he will be considered incapable of forming the government. In this case, consultations will be renewed.
Following this agreement the government will be formed and the prime minister and ministers will be named in accordance with he requirements of the accord in order to implement this program. This will continue until the legislative power is reformed by increasing the number of parliament members in accordance with this agreement.
The government should win the parliament's confidence.
All decrees and draft laws will bare the signatures of the President, the prime minister, the minister concerned, taking in account the power of Ministerial Council, except in naming the prime minister or accepting the cabinet's resignation or considering the cabinet as having resigned in the following cases:
A. If the prime minister resigns.
B. If the Council withholds confidence.
C. If half of the cabinet members resign.
A 30-day period will be given for signing draft decrees and decrees of transforming laws approved at the council by the President of the Republic or turning these decrees down within this period for justified reasons. This period will be effective from the date of the draft decrees are submitted to the general directorate of the presidency of the republic. When the period ends without signing or turning down the draft decrees for justified reasons, the decree will be effective by law. If he turn it down, it will be resubmitted to the Council of Ministers, and the Council of Ministers insists on its decision, the President of the Republic then shall sign the decree. These period will also be applied within periods stated in Article 56 of the current Constitution.
In case of differences, and if the prime minister and minister in charge of the draft decree, the draft decree then will be transformed to the Council of Ministers for settlement. The same period will be given to the prime minister and the Ministerial Council as of submitting the draft decrees for the general secretariat. However, laws approved by the Chamber of Deputies will be applied within periods stated in Article 56 of the current Constitution.
In the Legislative Power:
During the transitional stage, popular representation will be expanded by increasing the number of deputies to 198 in a manner that will achieve the soundness and justice of this representation within the framework of equal sharing between Muslims and Christians and equality among the three greater sects in accordance with the principles of this document until the sectarianism in representation is canceled after the end of the transitional stage.
In order to allow elections to be held, temporary appointment of deputies shall take place to fill vacant seats, seats that may become vacant, or those seats newly made by the Council of Ministers.
The speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, his deputy, and member of the Chamber of Deputies will be elected for a 2-year term renewable.
During the transitional period, the government shall be granted exceptional powers for legislation in all fields except the state's general budget for one year renewable.
In Civil Service Jobs:
The rule of sectarian representation shall be canceled in civil service jobs, the judicial organ, and security and military institutions. In order to guarantee just implementation of this principle, the rights of wronged sects shall be settled within a period of 6 months.
Exception of this cancellation are class A jobs or their equivalent in the public and mixed administrations and institutions, independent institutions, and the judicial organ. These jobs shall be within the framework of equal sharing between Muslims and Christians. In no way will this mean a monopoly of any job by any sect.
During the transitional stage, the government will supervise the reforming and purging of the state's civil and military institutions in accordance with he principles mentioned in this document.
In the Supreme Constitutional Courts:
A Supreme Council for trying presidents and ministers as stated in the Constitution and a court to control the constitutional nature of laws and to settle all conflicts resulting from parliamentary and presidential elections shall be formed. The president of the constitutional court shall be appointed in accordance with the Council of Ministers proposal and approval by the Chamber of Deputies.
In the Social and Economic Council:
A Social and Economic Council to represent economic, social, trade unions, and scientific functionaries shall be established. The law shall determine the fields of specialization of this council.
In the Administrative Decentralization:
The administrative system stated in Legislative Decree No. 116 dated 12 June 1959 to reinforce the administrative decentralization shall be reexamined:
By increasing and redistributing governorates in a manner that will secure citizens' interests and national cohesion.
By strengthening municipal councils and unions and governorates and expanding their powers.
By adopting popular representation in councils in the governorates.
By transferring most administrative responsibilities and duties from the central authority to the local authority, thus facilitating and speeding up services for the people.
By reforming the judiciary in order to ensure direct services to disputant parties.
Note: The prerogatives of the establishments mentioned in this agreement,
in accordance with the new Constitution, will be confined to economic
and development as follows:
Laying down a policy of economic rehabilitation and reconstruction and comprehensive development which will be defined in a coordinated, clear program and which will be supervised mainly by the state. This will require a speedy reform of its administration, and enhancement of its performance, and the forming of specialized administrations or expansion of existing ones. The provisions of this program aim at revitalizing the various sectors of national economy on the basis of integration and harmony, taking into consideration the need to preserve natural and environmental wealth, provided this is based on the principle of free economy.
Devoting special attention to areas that were affected by war and to those areas that have been deprived for decades. A development plan should be drawn up for these areas so that the best possible income and wealth can be distributed among citizens and areas so that fair, integrated developmental equilibrium can be realized for the homeland.
Working to realize comprehensive social justice through financial, economic, and social reforms; adopting the five-year plan in economic and financial planning of the budget; and completing the stages of generalizing the social security system, including security for the aged and ensuring free medical care for all citizens.
Preserving private property and individual enterprise, which must not harm public interest. This requires reforming taxation laws, monitoring their application, protecting the rights of the treasury, and supporting the structure of the public sector.
Drawing up a comprehensive housing program, giving first preference to displaced persons and those who were harmed by the war, and encouraging cooperative societies.
Drawing up a comprehensive program to utilize water resources and implementing projects that meet this desire, particularly the Al-Litani river project.
Education and learning:
Placing education and learning in the service of building the future Lebanon on national, nonsectarian basis and utilizing Lebanon's manpower.
Supporting education in a way that will lead to spreading it and making it general, free, and compulsory; developing educational programs; and unifying educational curricula, particularly books on history and social upbringing.
Supporting formal education on all levels and stressing the national role of the University of Lebanon by giving it the necessary and sufficient backing, particularly in the technical colleges, in order to allow it to play its role in uniting the Lebanese society and making room for all the Lebanese people to acquire the necessary level of education to promote their economic, social, and cultural development.
Stressing the role of technical and vocational education by giving it first preference and linking it to the comprehensive construction process in Lebanon.
Preserving the system private education.
Supporting scientific research by providing the necessary assistance for public establishments in this field.
Concerning the issue of nationality:
Enacting a new law of nationality and settling outstanding issues that are being discussed. Special courts will be formed to look into problems of nationality for one year.
Canceling the mention of religion on identity cards.
In the Military and Security Fields:
1. The Army:
The Army's basic task is to protect the nation from any foreign aggression, particularly Israeli aggression against Lebanon. the Army's most important role in this regard is resisting the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory. As for reconstructing the Army, this will be effected in accordance with a nationalist, ideological creed to whose principles all Army personnel will be committed and which will be based on the principals that defines Lebanon identity and affiliation with its Arab surroundings. The Army's structure will be in harmony with Lebanon's pursuit of strategic coordination and integration with Syria.
In accordance with this concept, the following principles will be adhered to:
A. The duties of the Army are defined within the Supreme Defense Council in accordance with the defense law.
B. In order to rehabilitate the Army, it is to be withdrawn to its camps in accordance with a comprehensive security plan to be approved by the national unity government, which will demand Syria's help during the rehabilitation in the following fields: training courses, exchange of expertise and information, and national cohesion.
C. The national unity government will make decisions and measures to work out programs for rebuilding and rehabilitating the Army in accordance with the principles in this document, including the drafting of a new defense law.
D. The army will be kept way from internal and political conflicts.
E. The compulsory military service law will be implemented immediately.
F. Army intelligence work is restricted to military and tactical security.
2. The Internal Security Forces:
The duty of maintaining security in Lebanese territory is entrusted to the internal security forces. These forces will be reinforced in equipment and numbers and their central organs and regional units Will be reorganized as quickly as possible. This requires recruitment sot hat the forces can be used effectively to protect the citizens' security in all Lebanese area. Organs for collecting information will also be reinforced.
3. The Public Security:
The public security should be strengthened so that it can carry out the basic duty represented in controlling the international border in addition to its other duties stipulated in the laws and regulations that govern its work such as issuing passports and taking care of foreign nationals. This requires units to protect land and sea borders as well as ports and airports except the border with Israel, which is the duty of the Army.
Chapter IV: The Distinguished Relations Between Lebanon and Syria:
The most prominent meaning in Lebanon's Arabism in its distinguished relationship with Syria and its inevitable, fateful link to Syria. Proceeding from its principle, relations should be based on a strategic integration concept between Lebanon and Syria because their fateful issues are one as a result of their affiliation, history, and geography, a fact that requires a high decree of coordination in various fields. We believe that Lebanon's distinguished relations with Syria should be genuine so that every understanding between the two countries can be included in clear cut bilateral agreements which will be translated into legal frameworks in both countries in order to prevent any political party from tampering with these firm principles. Thus, relations will not remain at the mercy of whims, interests, and regional and international factors.
The word "integration" in this agreement means the following:
The potentialities and capabilities of each country should complement the potentialities and capabilities of the in order to reinforce each country's situation and achieve their joint interests, on the condition that this would be defined and interpreted within the framework of the bilateral agreements mentioned in this agreement.
The areas of the distinguished relations between the two countries are wide and diversified.
1. In the field of foreign policy:
Complete and firm coordination should cover all Arab, regional, and international issues on the condition that the two countries agree on the requirements of this coordination, one after another and in accordance with proposed issues and subjects, so that they can take positions on them. In this regard, direct, guaranteed, and secret means of communications should be provided for senior officials in charge of foreign policy in both countries.
2. In the field of military relations:
The fateful struggle which Syria is waging in its efforts to establish a strategic parity with Israel as a result of well known Arab circumstances, such as the exclusion of Egypt from the arena of struggle and the emergence of Arab-Palestinian axis with the aim of confusing Syria politically, military, and in the field of security, makes it incumbent on Lebanon not to allow itself to be the gateway through which Israel can deal any blow to or threaten Syria. Therefore, the agreement must be reached to allow stationing of Syria military units in specific points in Lebanon that will be defined by joint military committees in accordance with the requirements of the Syrian and Lebanese strategic security until such time as the Lebanese Army is rebuild and rehabilitated in accordance with a national, militant ideology that will differentiate between the genuine friend and the true enemy and which will be in harmony with Lebanon's affiliation and national options. When such an army, which will have defensive tasks against the enemy, is completely build, it will take its real, strategic role in the strategic balance in the region through its role on Lebanese soil.
3. In the field of security relations:
The saying that Lebanon's security is part of Syria's security and that Syria's security is part of Lebanon's security is correct. It should be implemented on the ground through Lebanese-Syrian security integration that will be expressed in the following:
A. Joint definition of the main threats that endanger the security, independence, and system of government in both countries.
B. Unified view toward such primary threats and hence, an agreement on deep-rooted remedies for such threats that will commensurate with sovereignty of both countries and which will realize their cherished goal. These remedies will be administered by the competent local organs of both countries.
C. Agreements should be approved to ensue coordination among security organs, each in accordance with its interest in both countries and in the two countries' interests.
4. In the field of economic relations:
Coordination and integration will be maximized in this field despite the different systems of government. As for the organizing of this coordination, it will be defined by an expert committee from both countries that will supervise proposing of bilateral agreements and laws implementing them.
5. In the field of education:
Coordination in the field of education is the pillar of entrenching kinship between the future generations of both countries through national upbringing based on Arab affiliation and the correct practice of this affiliation. This coordination will be effected through joint committees that will draw up nationalist, integrated educational basis. Within the framework, and in accordance with the principles of educational reform in Lebanon, the freedom of education will be preserved, taking special care to prevent this freedom from becoming a new seed of division among Lebanese people or creating hostility toward the Arabs and Syria.
6. In the field of information:
Ensuring the continuation of the special relations without sabotage is represented in preventing any Lebanese-generated media attacks against such relations. This requires that the Lebanese media be on high level of national and pan-Arab responsibility and adhere to the principles and aims enunciated in the national policy that is agreed and approved constitutionally and legally, taking into consideration the respect of the freedom of opinion and expression.
7. The practical application:
Upon beginning of the transitional phase of the national solution project, the new government will form a ministerial committee that will supervise the provisions of this chapter and put it into practice.
Chapter V: The Mechanism of Ending the War.
The phase of ending the war in Lebanon will be limited to one year beginning with the date the new government is formed. During this year, all constitutional and legal texts pertaining to implementing the transitional reforms of this document will be approved and implemented. The mechanism of ending the war is based on the following principles and rules:
1. Immediate cease-fire with Syria's help, opening the roads and crossing points, and stopping supplies of weapons and ammunition by land, sea, and air.
2. Strengthening the role of the security committee and expending the area of its jurisdiction to include all Lebanese territory. Representatives of the internal security forces and Syrian officers will be included in the committee. Accordingly, Syrian forces will be stationed in agreed upon points, which will lead to extending moral support and military backing t the internal security forces during the phase to end the war in accordance with a comprehensive security plan which national unity government will approve.
3. Strengthening the internal security forces and general security, opening the door to recruitment, and entrusting the internal security forces with a task of safeguarding security in all Lebanese areas in order to spread the state's authority in these areas without exception.
4. Liquidating the militias and military and paramilitary organizations in their various forms and working to delete their elements in the country and in the nation's institutions.
5. Collecting weapons, with the state to buy them from both the Lebanese and non-Lebanese parties.
6. Ensuring freedom of movement for Lebanese citizens and guaranteeing their work and residence in all parts of Lebanon.
7. Finding a deep-rooted solution for the problem of the displaced Lebanese persons; recognizing the right of each displaced Lebanese person since 1975 to return to its land, house, and work; enacting the necessary laws that guarantee this right; and ensuring the necessary means to begin rebuilding. the return of displaced persons will begin within three months of the formation of the new government. This will gradually continue in light of the available security requirements and will completely end within three years. " وعــــد ".
Dated 28 December, 1985
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* PS: Very poor translation from the Arabic text into English, since it was done at the time, in a hurry, in an extremely bad security environment of civil war, violence and unrest.
*The Arabic text of the agreement is more exact in "legalistic" terms , clarity, authority and precision.
*Maitre Khalil Abou Hamad directly supervised most of the text, and was directly involved in most of the Negotiations.
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We missed the opportunity !
We don't need a Winograd report on the political and military failures of the leadership of the Hebrew country in its war against Lebanon in order to know what happened last summer on our land and in our skies. Or to know who was the loser and who was the victor.
It was reasonable to assume the war and its ramifications would affect Lebanese politics, and that a review would be conducted of the policy that guided the proceedings of last summer. Even if this leads to the government's resignation and the formation of a new government, lessons would be learned from this difficult experience, and this would unify the ranks, something that would eliminate the deep rift created by the war. We missed the opportunity to determine who was responsible for what happened on both sides of the fight in Lebanon. If we had done so, even by means of a "limited Winograd," our crisis would not have continued throughout this entire period, without a solution, and we would not be nearing presidential elections with such cacophonies, stupidity and disregard for the most basic elements of respect for the "intelligence" of our fellow countrymen.We keep projecting to the world an image of a tribal society, bent on self-destruction, while the individual Lebanese worldwide, always stands out and shines with positive achievements. We desperately need to build the foundations for Nationhood, and consider ourselves "nationals of a Republic", not some HERD of such sect or the other. [ Wa3ad ] Likewise, we would not be living as if we were two countries, two peoples and a tribal democracy that rules out the ability to meet and reach a mutual understanding and bridge the gap separating the two sides.
What has happened since the war is that the church joined the ranks of one side in the conflict when it should have brought the two sides closer and searched for the common ground between them. Is it not a pity that the Christians lost the fruits of their struggle against the Syrian-sponsored regime, because of the stupidity of the American sponsors of a criminal serial killer and a murderer, by the name of samir geagea and waleed joumblatt, who are positioning themselves and their stooges to be CIA proxy militias again, just like in the 1970s and 1980s, and we have seen the end result of this terribly divisive enterprise and the cowardice of the various American Administrations, at precisely the most awkward of times when they cut and run, leaving behind their proxies in a desperate situation to fend for themselves, or, when the Christians tried desperately to broker a peace agreement locally, the American destructive and disruptive enterprise chose to defeat the local understanding to end the fighting , at a time when we should have recreated a moderate force to counterbalance the other forces comprising the homeland?
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SEEING THE LIGHT AND POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!
“To our joy or to our misery, the contingencies of reality have a great influence on what we say, when writing in the wake of personal disaster,” . It is hard to talk about yourself, and so before I describe my current writing experience, at this time in my life, I wish to make a few observations about the impact that a disaster, a traumatic situation, has on an entire society, an entire people. I immediately recall the words of the mouse in Kafka’s short story “A Little Fable.” The mouse who, as the trap closes on him, and the cat looms behind, says, “Alas . . . the world is growing narrower every day.”
Indeed, after many years of living in the extreme and violent reality of a political, military and religious conflict, I can report, sadly, that Kafka’s mouse was right: the world is, indeed, growing increasingly narrow, increasingly diminished, with every day that goes by. And I can also tell you about the void that is growing ever so slowly between the individual human being and the external, violent and chaotic situation within which he lives. The situation that dictates his life to him in each and every aspect.
And this void never remains empty. It is filled rapidly — with apathy, with cynicism and, more than anything else, with despair: the despair that fuels distorted situations, allowing them to persist on and on, in some cases even for generations. Despair of the possibility of ever changing the prevailing state of affairs, of ever being redeemed from it. And the despair that is deeper still — despair of what this distorted situation exposes, finally, in each and every one of us, on both sides of any conflict.
And I feel the heavy toll that I, and the people I know and see around me, pay for this ongoing state of war. The shrinking of the “surface area” of the soul that comes in contact with the bloody and menacing world out there. The limiting of one’s ability and willingness to identify, even a little, with the pain of others; the suspension of moral judgment. The despair most of us experience of possibly understanding our own true thoughts in a state of affairs that is so terrifying and deceptive and complex, both morally and practically. Hence, you become convinced, I might be better off not thinking and opt not to know perhaps I’m better off leaving the task of thinking and doing and establishing moral norms in the hands of those who might “know better....”on both sides of any conflict.
Most of all, I’m better off not feeling too much — at least until this shall pass. And if it doesn’t, at least I relieved my suffering somewhat, I developed a useful numbness, I protected myself as best I could with the help of a bit of indifference, a bit of sublimation, a bit of intended blindness and large doses of self-anesthetization, knowing how deep, grave and desperate, the Lack of Leadership is worldwide .
In other words: Because of the perpetual — and all-too-real — fear of being hurt, or of deceptive petty politicians, or of unbearable loss, or even of “mere” humiliation, each and every one of us, the conflict’s citizens, its prisoners, trim down our own vivacity, our internal mental and cognitive diapason, ever enveloping ourselves with protective layers, which end up suffocating us, because of very low expectations from the so-called "elite" and from perpetual feudal war-lords, clinging to failed and miserable policies.
Kafka’s mouse is right: when the predator is closing in on you, the world does indeed become increasingly narrow. So does the language that describes it. From my experience I can say that the language with which the citizens of a sustained conflict describe their predicament becomes progressively shallower the longer the conflict endures. Language gradually becomes a sequence of clichés, colors and slogans. This begins with the language created by the institutions that manage the conflict directly —the war-lords, the feudal elite, the army, the police, the different government ministers; it quickly filters down to the mass media that are reporting or regurgitating "words", syllables and "formulas" about the conflict, germinating an even more cunning language that aims to tell its target audience the story easiest for digestion; and this process ultimately seeps into the private, intimate language of the conflict’s citizens, even if they deny it... leaving no room for cool and thoughtful analysis, to produce a lasting political formula for decent and long-lasting Good Governance, in a time of conflict and utter gridlock.
Actually, this process is all too understandable: after all, the natural riches of human language, and their ability to touch on the finest and most delicate nuances and strings of existence, can hurt deeply in such circumstances, because they remind us of the bountiful reality of which we are being robbed, of its true complexity, of its subtleties. And the more this state of affairs goes on, and as the language used to describe this state of affairs grows shallower, public discourse dwindles further. What remain are the fixed and banal mutual accusations among enemies, or among political adversaries within the same country. What remain are the clichés we use for describing our enemy and ourselves; the clichés that are, ultimately, a collection of superstitions and crude generalizations, in which we capture ourselves and entrap our enemies. The world is, indeed, growing increasingly narrow.
My thoughts relate not only to the conflict in the Middle East. Across the world today, billions of people face a “predicament” of one type or other, in which personal existence and values, liberty and identity are under threat, to some extent. Almost all of us have a “predicament” of our own, a curse of our own. We all feel — or can intuit — how our special “predicament” can rapidly turn into a trap that would take away our freedom, the sense of home our country provides, our private language, our free will, our Honor, our Independence, our self-worth, etc. !
In this reality we authors and poets write. In Lebanon , Israel and Palestine, Chechnya and Sudan, in Colombia New York, and in Congo. Sometimes, during my workday, after several hours’ writing, I lift my head up and think — right now, at this very moment, another writer whom I don’t even know sits, in Damascus or Tehran, in Kigali or in Belfast, just like me, practicing this peculiar, Don-Quixote-like craft of creation, within a reality that contains so much violence and estrangement, indifference and diminution. Here, I have a distant ally who doesn’t even know me, but together we weave this intangible cobweb, which nevertheless has tremendous power, a world-changing and world-creating power, the power of making the dumb speak and the power of perception, or correction, in the deep sense it has in the human mind... and could even add, edit, or transform some thoughts and adapt them to a somewhat similar environment somewhere on this planet.
As for me, in recent years, in the facts that I wrote, I almost intentionally turned my back on the "elites", and feudal fiery reality of my country, the reality of the latest news bulletin. I had written notes about this reality before, and in essays and interviews, I never stopped writing about it, and never stopped trying to understand it. I participated in dozens of protests, in international peace initiatives. I met my neighbors — some of whom were my enemies — at every opportunity that I deemed to offer a chance for dialogue. And yet, out of a conscious decision, and almost out of protest, I did not write about these disaster zones yet, because this does not enjoy people’s complete attentiveness as the nearly eternal war thunders.
About five years ago, when my friend HK, was savagely assassinated, I could no longer follow my recent ways. A sense of urgency and alarm washed over me, leaving me restless. I then began writing notes, that treat directly the bleak reality in which we live. A way that depicts how external violence and the cruelty of the general political and military reality penetrate the tender and vulnerable tissue of a single family, ultimately tearing it asunder.
“As soon as one writes,” “one miraculously ignores the current circumstances of one’s life, yet our happiness or misery leads us to write in a certain way. When we are happy, our imagination is more dominant. When miserable, the power of our memory takes over.” It is hard to talk about yourself. I will only say what I can at this point, and from the location where I sit.
I write. In wake of the death of my friend Elie Hobeika, in the war between Israel and Lebanon, the awareness of what happened has sunk into every cell of mine. The power of memory is indeed enormous and heavy, and at times has a paralyzing quality to it. Nevertheless, the act of writing itself at this time creates for me a type of “space,” a mental territory that I’ve never experienced before, where death is not only the absolute and one-dimensional negation of life.
Writers know that when we write, we feel the world move; it is flexible, crammed with possibilities. It certainly isn’t frozen. Wherever human existence permeates, there is no freezing and no paralysis, and actually, there is no status quo. Even if we sometimes err to think that there is a status quo; even if some are very keen to have us believe that a status quo exists. When I write, even now, the world is not closing in on me, and it does not grow ever so narrow: it also makes gestures of opening up toward a future prospect.
I write. I imagine. The act of imagining in itself enlivens me. I am not frozen and paralyzed before the predator... At times I feel as if I am digging up people from the ice in which deceit enshrouded them, but maybe, more than anything else, it is myself that I am now digging up.
I write. I feel the wealth of possibilities inherent in any human situation. I sense my ability to choose between them. The sweetness of liberty, which I believed that I had already lost. I indulge in the richness of true, or borrowed, intimate language. I recall the delight of natural, full breathing when I manage to escape the claustrophobia of slogan and cliché. Suddenly I begin to breathe with both lungs.
I write, and I feel how the correct and precise use of words is sometimes like a remedy to an illness. Like a contraption for purifying the air, I breathe in and exhale the murkiness and manipulations of linguistic scoundrels and language rapists of all shades and colors. I write and I feel how the tenderness and intimacy I maintain with language, with its different layers, its eroticism and humor and soul, give me back the person I used to be, me, before my self became nationalized and confiscated by the conflict, by Mafias, by black-ops, by government's assassins and pseudo-armies, by despair and tragedy.
I write. I relieve myself of one of the dubious and distinctive capacities created by the state of war in which we live — the capacity to be an enemy and an enemy only. I do my best not to shield myself from the just claims and sufferings of my enemy. Nor from the tragedy and entanglement of his own life. Nor from his errors or crimes or from the knowledge of what I myself am doing to him. Nor, finally, from the surprising similarities I find between him and me.
All of a sudden I am not condemned to this absolute, fallacious and suffocating dichotomy — this inhumane choice to “be victim or aggressor,” without having any third, more humane alternative. When I write, I can be a human being whose parts have natural and vital passages between them; a human who is able to feel close to his enemies’ sufferings and to acknowledge his just claims without relinquishing a grain of his own identity.
Sometimes when I write, I can recall what we all felt in Lebanon, for one singular moment, when the airplanes of the Israeli Air Force, pounded our towns and villages, our buildings and infrastructure, killing tens of thousands of our citizens for the last 40 years ago, after decades of war between the two nations: then, all of a sudden, we discovered how heavy is the load we carry all our lives — the load of enmity and fear and suspicion. The load of permanent guard duty, the heavy burden of being an enemy, at all times.
And what a delight it is, to think that one day, may be, just may be we could remove for one moment the mighty armor of suspicion, hate and stereotype. It is a delight that is almost terrifying — to stand naked, pure almost, and witness a human face emerge from the one-dimensional vision with which we observed each other for years.?
I write. I give intimate private names to an external and foreign world. In a sense, I make it mine. In a sense, I return from feeling exiled and foreign to feeling at home. By doing so, I am already making a small change in what appeared to me earlier as unchangeable. Also, when I describe the impermeable arbitrariness that signs our destiny — arbitrariness at the hands of a human being, or arbitrariness at the hands of fate — I suddenly discover new nuances, subtleties. I discover that the mere act of writing about arbitrariness allows me to feel a freedom of movement in relation to it. That by merely facing up to arbitrariness I am granted freedom — maybe the only freedom a man may have against any arbitrariness: the freedom to put your tragedy into your own words. The freedom to express yourself differently, innovatively, before that which threatens to chain and bind one to arbitrariness and its limited, fossilizing definitions.
And I write also about that which cannot be brought back. And about that which is inconsolable. Then, too, in a manner I still find inexplicable, the circumstances of my life do not close in on me in a way that would leave me paralyzed. Many times every day, as I sit at my desk, I touch on grief and loss like one touching electricity with his bare hands, and yet I do not die. I cannot grasp how this miracle works. Maybe once I finish writing these memories, I will try to understand. Not now. It is too early.
And I write the life of my land, Lebanon. The land that is tortured, frantic, drugged by an overdose of history, excessive emotions that cannot be contained by any human capacity, extreme events and tragedies, enormous anxiety and paralyzing sobriety, too much memory, failed hopes and the circumstances of a fate unique among all nations: an existence that sometimes appears to be a "message to the world", especially to Israel..., a story of mythical proportions, a story that is “larger than life” to the point that something seems to have gone wrong with the relation it bears to life itself. A country that has become tired of the possibility of ever leading the standard, normal life of a country among countries, a nation among nations.
We writers go through times of despair and times of self-devaluation. Our work is in essence the work of deconstructing personality, of doing away with some of the most effective human-defense mechanisms. We treat, voluntarily, the harshest, ugliest and also rawest materials of the soul. Our work leads us time and again to acknowledge our shortcomings, as both humans and souls.
And yet, and this is the great mystery and the alchemy of our actions: In a sense, as soon as we lay our hand on the pen, or the computer keyboard, we already cease to be the helpless victims of whatever it was that enslaved and diminished us before we began to write. Not the slaves of our predicament nor of our private anxieties; not of the “official narrative” of our country, nor of fate itself. Hence, I will say this from the heart:
The Lebanese people are getting so tired of the Feudal Sectarian Mess and of the so-called March 14th stooges, prisoners of the American/Israeli new-imperialistic and Hegemonistic formulas, which made of them traitors to the real March 14th Spirit, and the whole mess called Lebanon. Despair is in their faces and immigration is on the rise. There is a danger that there will reach a point where no body cares about anything anymore. To avoid this situation, the silent opposition should take action and take it soon. One idea is to ask the UN to put Lebanon under its mandate and send a bigger force to dismantle the Sectarian system for good. The UN mandate, constituted of European forces only, is needed to avoid chaos and bloodshed for many years. After-all, the Lebanese have proven that they are not mature or capable of ruling themselves and thus they need to be governed by an outside authority. It could be that the 30 years of Syro-American inspired occupation, has made the Lebanese so dependent on another country to resolve their problems and they lost their ability to rule. The UN mandate will help to disarm all the feudal elitist entities in Lebanon, apprentice Lebanese in running a modern form of government, reform the constitution to rid Lebanon of the Religious sectarianism. The UN should stay in Lebanon for 50 years till the sectarian generations are turned over and new generations take over to continue the development of good governance in a modern decentralized state, to liberate the energies of the talented youths of Lebanon ounce and for all.
We think. The world is not closing in on us. How fortunate we are. The world is not growing increasingly narrow...???
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CIA lacks "human intelligence" in hot-spot countries
I wrote to CIA a long letter in 1997 about "lack of Leadership" in the
SPY Agency, in FBI, NSA and all over the US Government...
They answered with a Barbaric and monstrous "Murder Inc.".
NOW, A retired Central Intelligence Agency operative and Chief
counter-terrorism official, finally and sharply criticized the agency and
said it lacks good "human intelligence" in hot-spots such as Iraq, Iran
and North Korea.... and still lacks "direction" and Leadership.
The CIA and all the Intelligence community in the USA are still utterly
and fatally Rudderless, with a senile Dick Cheney at the Helm...
"We didn't have any good intelligence on Iraq, we didn't have any good
intelligence on Iran and we don't have any good intelligence on North
Korea," CIA veteran Duane Clarridge said in a speech to the Arkansas
Committee on Foreign Relations. "We have photo intelligence and we
have maybe some signal stuff, but we don't have any human
intelligence, and you've seen what the results have been."
Clarridge, a former chief of the CIA's counter-terrorist center, said
the agency had little human intelligence on Iraq before the U.S.
invasion in 2003.
"We literally didn't have any sources that were worth a damn,"
Clarridge said. "The point is that those three targets have been very
important over the past several years, yet we couldn't get it right
because we didn't have any human sources."
Clarridge served 33 years with the CIA, starting as a junior officer
trainee and eventually serving as chief of the agency's Latin America
and European divisions. He retired from the agency in 1988.
Clarridge was indicted in 1991 for allegedly lying about his
involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, which involved the sale of U.S.
arms to Iran and the diversion of profits to the Nicaraguan rebels
when such aid was barred by federal law.
Clarridge had not yet been tried on the charges when he was pardoned
along with four other officials in 1992 by then-president George H.W.
Bush.
Now the president of a San Diego consulting firm, Clarridge said he
thinks the agency could improve morale by "getting on the offensive
again."
"That's why you have a spy agency," he said. "If you don't want to do
these things, then disband the spy service and depend on the state
department. These decisions are fairly clear."
Clarridge also decried what he called his agency's unnecessary growth
in lawyers.
"They've put lawyers in every echelon of the operations directorate,"
Clarridge said. "Why? They're breaking the laws overseas. They're not
breaking the laws here in the states. The lawyers are in the decision-
making process."
Clarridge said he doesn't think any of the efforts to study or reform
intelligence efforts in recent years have focused enough on the top
leaders of the agency. He also said the agency needs to be more
willing to work with unsavory people in their intelligence gathering
efforts.
"The people who have the secrets that the spies are after are not nice
people," he said. "You're just going to have to recruit some of these
ugly people. You may want to have levels of ugliness. You just can't
get away from this."
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INDEPENDENCE 07.
