It’s a stupid summer protocol/tradition.

What needs more work are the people in the white suits, how ugly is that? I believe that the army is the only institution that must continue to be supported and beefed up. It is in a way, a symbol of unity and the foundation that we need in order to build a strong and independent state, if we ever allow ourselves to have one.

VOR,

I agree with you, the problem is I don’t believe any of the Lebanese “political parties” (read sects) want a strong army. They never did and it never was.

While this “army” marches on, I read Hezbollah is “close to adopting practical measures that will force Israel to cease the overflights.”
How many of these well dressed “soldiers” have Canadian passports? They should ready them!
And Musta thinks Giora Eiland is a nutjob for saying:
“Israel would have no choice but to fight against the state that is encouraging aggression in practice.”

Dawleh tojleeta…the real power is elsewhere…
Yes, Sanioura is in a bad mood, and Ziad Baroud is staring at him…and Berri wears his wife’s sunglasses, and Sleiman looks like a robot…

Haaretz agrees with “nutjob” Giora Eiland:

” Every state bears ultimate responsibility for what takes place in its sovereign territory, and what emanates from it. A government’s weakness does not absolve it from exercising its authority. This logic is what guided the Bush administration to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which had provided a safe haven for Al-Qaida.

Yet, in July 2006, that same Bush administration denied Olmert the chance to follow through on then-IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz’s reasonable proposal to respond to Hezbollah’s aggression by striking at Lebanese government targets, thus challenging the Siniora government to restrain Hezbollah and move forward in implementing signed agreements calling for the decommissioning of all armed militias in Lebanon.

All groups abided by those agreements, with the exception of Hezbollah. Israel thus surrendered to the facade of the good Lebanon headed by Siniora alongside the bad one manipulated by Hassan Nasrallah and his patrons in Tehran. The result was a tie that was depicted as a victory for Hezbollah. Israel should only deal with one address in Lebanon: the government. Siniora’s survival was of no benefit to Israel. He has made common cause with Hezbollah.

Suleiman, Siniora and Nasrallah play with fire in their display of belligerent arrogance. Perhaps this can be attributed to the twilight of the Bush and Olmert administrations. Lebanon must know that these provocations are dangerous, and that it will bear the cost of an unfortunate renewal of violence.”

politics is a game, very much like the board game “monopoly”, or like hide-and-go-seek, or like hopscotch, often offering not much more benefit than the aforementioned games. in lebanon, it will always remain only a game, taking a back seat to the struggle with israel.

all lebanese politicians understand that this scenario is the basic reality on the ground. there are three types of politicians who play the game: the first type play the game in order to do away with the struggle with israel, because they would like to be friends with israel. the second type play the game in order to take advantage of the situation, because they like their pockets the most, more than lebanon or anything else. they are basically thieves. the third type play the game in order to keep the struggle with israel going, because they hate israel.

some of the people like the current scenario, others don’t. it all depends on how much you hate israel. golda meir said: “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” the mentality of this forked-tongue type of propaganda disinformation basically aims to dehumanize arabs only because they chose to fight against israel, and raises israelis to an higher moral level as if they did not aggress against the arabs and as if they did not usurp arab land and rights, therefore only they can love their children. the mentality pf this propaganda has crept into the psyche of many in lebanon who would give up everything only to have a settlement with israel, no matter what the settlement is, i.e. the same type of settlement that the egyptians & jordanians got, which completely emasculated egyptian and jordanian strength and put israel in a controlling role within the settlement.

this will never happen in lebanon because we have some politicians who masterfully play the lebanese political game in order to keep the struggle with israel going, because they love their children so much that they deservedly hate israel and its expansionist apartheid nature, which will always be opposed by the arab populations who refuse to succumb to the idea of a settlement with a power that wants to humiliate them and dominate them, as we see with egypt, jordan and the west bank.

other than that, all lebanese politics is just a game, with a lot of money being stolen in the mean time, by sanyoora, saad, joonblat, ant the like.