Aridi Does It Again!!
Boston, Massachusetts, February 27, 2003
In an interview with Iranian television, Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi Aridi attacked the current American stance on the Middle East as “a policy of hatred and hegemony against Arabs and Muslims…” He added that Lebanon is secure and politically stable, and that the “Syrian presence” in Lebanon is very fair. He asked the Americans “not to interfere in Lebanese affairs especially when it comes to the Syrian presence because this is an issue on which both the Lebanese and Syrian governments will decide”.
On Mr. Aridi’s first charge of American “hatred and hegemony…” we emphasize that policies of hatred and hegemony over Arabs and Muslims have been carried out only by their own corrupt Arab and Muslim rulers: Dictators like Saddam Hussein or Hafez Assad, absolute theocratic monarchs like the Sauds, unstable schizophrenic lunatics like Mouammar Qaddafi, and feudal and tribal lords like many of Lebanon’s present warlord-rulers. These rulers have squandered their countries’ resources to build armies and oppress their people under the pretense of fighting hypothetical “enemies”. They embezzled what rightfully belongs to their own people to build palaces and stuff their pockets and fatten their Swiss bank accounts while average Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians, and Lebanese struggle below the poverty line.
Mr. Aridi should start by looking only at himself, since his only merit for being the Information Minister of Lebanon is his status as a serf for his own feudal Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. All his peers in the Lebanese puppet government have similar entitlements to their jobs.
Recent crimes in Lebanon – from massacres to killings based on religious bigotry – have reached unprecedented highs under the Taef Republic and refute Mr. Aridi’s ridiculous claims of security. In his doublespeak, political “stability” refers to the suffocation of the Lebanese people under a Syrian-style one-party system that is used to control the Lebanese and Syrian peoples, as is the case under other repressive regimes: Libya, North Korea, Iraq, Cuba, and China…
It is obvious that Mr. Aridi accepts that forced political stability comes at the expense of freedoms, human rights, and democracy. As the era of dinosaur tyrants may be approaching its final days in the Middle East, the likes of Mr. Aridi naturally have everything to fear. Syria’s “presence” in Lebanon is based on Syria invading, occupying, and appointing Lebanon’s rulers. Elections are held to simulate democracy, but are rigged to bring the collaborators and traitors to power.
The media is tightly controlled under an oxymoronic self-censorship that transformed Lebanon’s once vibrant free press into a herd of sheep who merely repeat the official line. The shutdown and silencing of those brave few media and reporters who dare break the rule speak volumes on this atrocious violation of the Lebanese people’s most sacred trust. Since the puppets that are in power can never ask their puppeteer to make them human again, it becomes the duty of the international community, and especially the Americans, to pressure Syria to withdraw politically and militarily from Lebanon.
Long Live Free Lebanon New England Americans for Lebanon