Those Imperious Americans

Will this picture tell a thousand words?

This picture is being circulated in blogs with an anti-American leaning. It shows U.S. Chargé d’Affaires a.i. Michele J.Sison standing side-by-side with the ISF’s chief Ashraf Rifi.

Of course, the blogs find no need of mentioning anything else (except for some mutterings about protocol), waiting for the Lebanese to make their own conclusions, like for example, how subservient to the Americans Mr. Rifi (and by extension his March 14 backers) have become.

What they conveniently skip though, is the fact that Ms. Sison was attending the graduation ceremony of 166 ISF members, who just got trained by a US funded program, described by the American embassy’s website as follows:

The ten week state-of-the-art training program module is taught by U.S. instructors and curriculum developers with the assistance of Lebanese police and legal professionals. The police recruits are instructed in the latest policing and law enforcement skills and how to apply these to real life situations. Modern police practices, administration, democratic policing, human rights, criminal investigations and other essential law enforcement skills are all part of the program.

But then again, why get into the details when you get a chance to take a free shot at the Americans?