Passing The Baton
Dear Jeffrey, please keep it quiet…for now.
Just in case you didn’t notice, the first day of August was different this year from August 1st of last year. Do you remember all the pomp and fanfare that surrounded “The Anniversary of the Lebanese and Syrian armies”? Or, as transliterated from Arabic: 3eid al jaishain al lubnani wal soury?
The humiliating and highly scrutinized Syrian withdrawal made it impossible for our “sisters” to lump their army’s anniversary onto ours this year. So we had a quiet anniversary, and our sovereign Army is finally left alone. Is it?
Yesterday, the American Ambassador, Mr. Jeffrey Feltman made a rare showing in a Lebanese Army event. Lebanese Army divers had completed the first phase of an American training on underwater ordnance removal and disposal. This is not the first time the Lebanese army does an American training, but what is different this time is that the American ambassador showed up, made a speech and cracked a few jokes.
On the face of it, this is perfectly normal. Any country that gives training to foreign troops will have representatives in their graduation. But, like we all know, these are no ordinary times in Lebanon. We have a serious war of ideas going on between two camps, and any contribution, no matter how little, to our opponents’ arguments is not in the best interest of our country.
One of the ideas being propagated is this: Lebanon has moved from Syrian dominance to American (and by extension, Israeli) dominance. The sight of Mr. Feltman surrounded by smiling Lebanese soldiers who are bonding with their American counterparts can only add to that perception. It will make the March 14 alliance’s efforts to capture the hearts and minds of the remaining die-hard anti-American Lebanese a bit harder.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the training event shouldn’t be acknowledged. The Lebanese army’s website did cover the event but it has very cleverly underplayed the Feltman dimension.
So Mr. Feltman, we love your jokes, but for now, please keep them for yourself.
update: I just read Assafir. It seems Walid Jumblat and Talal Salman are making the same point (albeit with a populist Arabist twist)
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Hello, my name is Mustapha and I blog in The Beirut Spring about Lebanese society and politics. I started in February 2005 after the killing of P.M. Rafik Hariri.
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“Lebanon has moved from Syrian dominance to American (and by extension, Israeli) dominance”.
When Lebanon was under syrian dominance, it was also and by extension under Israeli dominance (remember who gave the permission to Syriain 1989? USA! (and by extension Israel who allowed Syrian plane to dare and fly))
I see you are pretty much into “populist antizionist twisting”.
PS:
If i had time i would have photoshop-added a third US runner who gave Lebanon to Syria the first place.
Mustafa,
I’m kind of perplexed at your being “disappointed” by Waleed Jumblatt…
What did you expect in the first place from Herr Jumblatt, a cruel feudal warlord of Kurdish descent, and his ally faux sheikh Saad, a Saudi-sponsored thieve of Hambali persuasion?
Funny how Waleed “bekk” went from supporting Leonid Brezhnev and his collectivist brand of “scientific socialism” to being a self-proclaimed friend of ambassador Feltman and Paul Wolfowitz: I guess some people have an ingrained inclination to collaborate with tyrants…
Call it fate or “Qadr”
Dr Victorino de la Vega
http://mideastmemo.blogspot.com
Mustapha, I agree with the political dimension, on the other hand if lebanon wants military training as well as all the USAID programs that the US runs, and political cover from the US in the UN, maybe they will have to accept reality. Of course they can turn it all down. So yes politically for the US’s benefit, Feltman should keep a low profile, from the lebanese side, give me a break. you either accept the help or you dont’ not take it and pretend it did not happen. By the way I hope your quip about israeli dominance is from a perception thing not what you really believe.
Humbum, you said:
“I hope your quip about israeli dominance is from a perception thing not what you really believe.”
And i thought you were a regular reader
Mustafa,
I don’t see George Bush giving orders to the Lebanese army and being obeyed. The guy can’t even get the army to be where it should be, in the South. This is a cheap theory.
I think you mean that the idea is not yours but that it will be exploited by some parties in Lebanon (Hezbollah and pro-syrians).
I am, but you have not posted in a week, and I was afraid you had been kidnapped and brainwashed and returned “changed”
Name me one country that has or is “suffering” from U.S. dominance…. Let’s see is it England, Australia, or maybe you are thinking of Puerto Rico or Guam in the Pacific..
My friends, stop this phobia of being afraid to be allied with the U.S. As Lebanese we should be proud of it, not ashamed or toning it down!