Lebanese freedom protests continue...

Beirut on knife edge as parliament meets Thousands occupy Martyr's Square before midnight in defiance of ban By Adnan El-Ghoul Daily Star staff Monday, February 28, 2005 BEIRUT: Lebanon is bracing itself for further turmoil after the country's political opposition vowed to ignore a government ban on demonstrations and hold a mass rally in Beirut later today. Lebanon's pro-Syrian government last night imposed a ban on all public demonstrations ahead of a mass rally called by opponents of the regime which was set to coincide with a counter-demonstration organized by pro-government and Syrian loyalists. Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh said: "All security forces are asked to take all necessary measures to protect security and order, and to ban demonstrations and gatherings on Monday." But within hours of the announcement, as The Daily Star was going to press thousands of demonstrators carrying Lebanese flags filled the center of Beirut before the banning order officially came into force. Following a hastily convened meeting following the government decision, opposition supporters, who have called on the government to resign following the assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri, insisted they would go ahead with a peaceful sit-in at Hariri's grave in the grounds of the Mohammed al-Amin Mosque in downtown Beirut in defiance of the ban. Democratic Gathering leader Walid Jumblatt said: "The opposition demonstration will go ahead despite all obstacles." Opposition Qornet Shehwan Gathering MP Samir Abdel-Malak added: "We will not call off the sit-in but we will gather in any spot available, in our city quarters, small towns and villages. They cannot forbid the crowds to gather in their streets and their local quarters, or can they?" The sit-in is likely to provide a tense backdrop to today's parliamentary session which will be dominated by the opposition's call for a confidence vote in the government. It also coincides with a one-day general strike called by business leaders. Over the weekend troops in full combat gear were busy fencing off streets and alleyways leading to the Parliament building and to Hariri's grave. Downtown Beirut's chic restaurants, nightclubs and sidewalk cafes, which are usually bustling with trade at the weekends, were closed on Sunday as fencing surrounded the area, turning it into a ghost town. The army operation followed Saturday's demonstration where thousands of youths linked their hands in a human barricade stretching from Hariri's grave to the area where he was murdered chanting "Syria out."

Free Lebanon!!

February 22, 2005 -- UNTIL a week ago, the courtyard of the Muhammad Ali-Amin Mosque in central Beirut was a quiet place where elderly citizens took time off to feed the pigeons. Yesterday, however, it held the largest gathering Lebanon has ever seen. This was the culmination of a week in which an endless flow of people from all walks of life and different faiths had continued in and out of the mosque united by a single purpose: to call for a restoration of Lebanon's freedom and independence as a nation. The event that triggered this unprecedented demonstration of national resolve was the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister who had led Lebanon after a generation of civil war. Ask almost anyone in Beirut who killed Hariri, and the answer comes like a dart: Syria. With 40,000 troops and secret agents in Lebanon and a long history of organizing political killings, it is the natural suspect. Did Damascus see Hariri as the only politician capable of uniting the Lebanese opposition against Syria's continued domination of virtually all aspects of Lebanon's life? If so, it was correct — but only in the context of Lebanon's elite-dominated politics. Yet Hariri's murder has ended elite politics by bringing into the picture a new element. That element is people power, the same force that swept away the totalitarian regimes of Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s and, more recently, led Ukraine into a second liberation. Over the decades, Syria has become a master in the art of manipulating the Lebanese political elite. It has promoted its clients within each religious community and, practicing divide and rule, set one community against another. Whenever faced with a particularly tenacious adversary, it has used murder as the weapon of last resort. In that context, it has killed dozens of "troublemakers," including two elected presidents of Lebanon, one Grand Mufti of Sunni Muslims, a paramount leader of the Druze community, several parliamentarians and a number of editors and publishers. The time-tested policy worked each time because Lebanon's politics remained confined to the elites — a sort of aristocracy that feared the power of the people almost as much as it loathed the Syrians. Hariri's murder, however, has triggered the law of unintended consequences. It has put the people center stage and forced the political aristocrats to abandon their tradition of double-talk and petty calculations. The genie of people power has come out of the bottle and no amount of political chicanery will send it back in. Nor can Syria dispatch its tanks to crush the demonstrators on the streets of Beirut as the Soviet Union did in Prague in 1968. "This is the start of Lebanon's second war of independence," says parliamentarian Marwan Hamade. "We are determined that Hariri's tragic death be transformed into the rebirth of our nation." Those who have wondered where next the flame of freedom may rise in the Middle East have their answer. After free and fair elections in Iraq, it is now the turn of Lebanon to break the shackles of tyranny and take the path of democracy. The next Lebanese election is scheduled to take place at the end of April. This fixes the timeframe within which Syria must end its military occupation of Lebanon, disband its secret services there, close the illegal prisons it maintains in at least six localities in and around Beirut and formally recognize Lebanon as an independent and sovereign nation-state. In the week after Hariri's murder, Lebanese politics moved beyond demands for an international investigation into the dastardly deed. To be sure, that investigation must and will take place so that the culprits are identified and brought to justice. But the real issue now is that the people of Lebanon should be given a chance to elect their own government in an atmosphere of security and freedom. Those, especially in Europe, who opposed the liberation of Iraq by force now have a chance to help the Lebanese achieve their freedom without foreign invasion. They must stop endorsing the Syrian version of the cheat-and-treat game which consists of endless negotiations about Syrian troop "redeployment." A deadline must be fixed for Syria to withdraw all its troops from Lebanon — a task that could be accomplished in a single week. The dismantling of the Syrian military machine in Lebanon must be accompanied by the installment of a new nonpartisan caretaker government in Beirut in place of the current one, which manifestly lacks popular legitimacy. The caretaker's chief task will be to hold elections on the basis of the electoral law now in place, rather than the gerrymandering scheme that Damascus is pushing in the Lebanese National Assembly. The next general election must take place under international supervision, including input by the United Nations, the European Union and the various nongovernmental organizations with experience in monitoring such exercises. Free elections in Lebanon, after free elections in the Palestinian Authority and Iraq, will speed up the dismantling of other despotic regimes in the Middle East, thus bringing this vital region into the mainstream of post-Cold War global politics. Whether anyone likes it or not, regime-change must remain the name of the game in the region until people-based governments are established wherever this is not already the case. Regime-change, however, need not be pursued solely through military means (although this must not be discarded). In countries where internal mechanisms for peaceful change exist, the task facing the major democracies is to help trigger them into action. Today, Lebanon is one such case. Any failure to seize the moment would amount to a betrayal of the democratic aspirations of the Lebanese people.

Assad going down, but not fast enough..

U.S. President George W. Bush and French President Jacques Chirac, meeting in Brussels before European Union and NATO summit talks tomorrow, called for Syria to pull its troops out of Lebanon. "We urge full and immediate implementation" of a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon, the two leaders said in a statement. "We have the same approach to the situation which is prevailing in Lebanon," Chirac said before a dinner with Bush. ...

Iraqis and Americans: Brothers in Arms...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42460-2005Feb21?language=printer

What did you do today?

How Was Your Day? By Ben Stein Published 2/15/2005 12:09:46 AM Meet Corporal John Quinones, whose family I brought out to L.A. for a little vacation a few weeks ago. He was home on leave from nineteen months in Iraq after six months in Afghanistan. He's 25 years old. He was in the reserves, but he signed up for the Regular Army after 9/11. "I wanted to go to war against those people," he said. With him came his wife, Yenncy, holding their one-year daughter Samantha. She doesn't really know her father because he's been away fighting in Iraq for the whole time she has been alive except for one week when she was born. Yenncy also cares for their two year old, Chris, who also barely knows his father because his father has been fighting for our children, whom he does not even know. Corporal Quinones is with the 2/7, the second battalion of the seventh brigade of the First Air Cavalry Division. His unit went right down the main street of Fallujah in Bradley fighting vehicles when that city was cleared of major terrorist bases a few months ago. He saw numbers of his close friends "lit up" or shot in the battle. He survived, although he has shrapnel in his neck and in his ankle from a mortar attack at about the same time. His standard day involved working with a unit of the Iraqi National Guard to go out on patrols. He says the ones who believe in a free Iraq are among the bravest men he has ever worked with. "They don't even look for cover when the shooting starts," he says. "They just shoot it out until either they or the bad guys are dead." Out of the ten best ones in the unit, all ten have been murdered by the terrorists. Tears came to his eyes when he told me that. He goes out on patrol carrying a short barrel assault rifle called an M-4, a M-79 rocket launcher with high explosive rounds, a Glock pistol, and an AK-47 plated in silver he took from one of Saddam's palaces and which he will leave in Iraq. He wears almost 100 pounds of body armor in 140 degree heat. His unit is attacked with roadside bombs almost every day, hit with rocket-propelled grenades almost every day, often shelled with mortars. They go on raids in the middle of the night driving with lights out and night vision goggles, exchanging tracer fire with insurgents. His Bradley was hit with a RPG about two weeks ago. He only survived because his B-240 machine gun took the brunt of the explosion. He says that when mortars hit or an IED goes off, "I don't think, I just do." He loves the Army and wants to stay in his whole career if he can. His wife cries when she hears him talk about going back to Iraq after his leave, which he did on February 5. For what he does, he gets paid $1,900 a month, which includes combat pay. He doesn't have any credit cards or a computer. He told me confidentially that when he gets up in a tree and spots terrorists laying a roadside bomb and lights them up with his B-240, he feels as if he's earning his pay. His wife cries at that, too. What did you do today?

Off to the Air Force..

Recieved training dates for AMS at Mcgee-Tyson in Knoxville. Have to report by March 15, 2005 to begin Officer School. Got to bust some butt now and be ready!!! Above and Beyond Baby..

Marine view of pernicious Media..

Sgt. Christopher Hicks has been a Marine for 18 years. He is currently serving his second deployment in Iraq as part of an Army Reserve unit from Newburgh, N.Y. He is part of a fixed wing KC-130 Hercules squadron that flies cargo, people and fuel "all over the country, every day." Like most soldiers in the war zone, he is flabbergasted and angry about media coverage of the Iraqi operation. He has sent two e-mails to his family and friends since before the elections and has given me permission to reprint them. He tells another side of the war that we don't often hear about in the news reported by the television networks. Here are some excerpts sent via e-mail Jan. 28 just before last month's elections. He calls his observations, "a Marine's point of view." His statements are reflected in his own words with little editing: For every one thing you hear bad on the news, there are 10 good things that go on here that fail to get reported. In the past few weeks, our squadron aircraft have shuffled hundreds, if not thousands, of election officials to every city in this country. Our planes are packed full of the locals, which for some is their first time ever in a plane. Some are puking their guts out, singing praises to Allah for protection. The Iraqi officials are for the most part in good spirits. They were actually clapping when they saw that our crew and the plane was there to pick them up. They know they have a job to do and this is an exciting time for their country. I have always said this place is like the Wild West of the 1800s in America. The police here are slowly getting a hold on things, and although I wouldn't go walking around in the streets at night by myself, we have thousands of Marines all over this country coming back alive every day after interacting with the Iraqis in their home towns. The people here want a better life. I expect there to be a few who are scared to vote and won't come out of their house. Then again, judging from what I have seen of this country, most of them don't even have a radio or TV to know about the insurgents and their attacks. Consequently, they will be voting while being oblivious to a lot of the craziness in the news of late. I am being a little sarcastic, but I hope that whatever they have heard, it won't stop them from participating. I think we have done the right thing by locking down the borders and not allowing transportation between the provinces here. Personally, I think we should have done that a long time ago, but I am not the president. The base I am at hasn't received a mortar attack in at least two to three weeks, so I have not seen an increase in insurgent activity as we get closer to the elections. I don't want to discount what you are seeing on the news too much; yes it is happening, but I guess I just want to get across the point to you that the attacks you see on the TV are but a small portion of what is going on over here. Every day in America somebody, somewhere, is getting shot at, despite the best efforts of the police to prevent it. Same thing here, no difference. We will never get rid of the few radicals who exist just to disrupt the little bit of normalcy around here. The media is just focusing on this as they have been for the past two years now. I wanted everyone to hear another side of the story compared to what you are being beat to death with every time you turn on the news. We are doing fine over here, the elections are going to go as planned. There are 18 provinces in Iraq, and 15 are at peace. Keep your prayers coming for those other three. Here are excerpts from a letter sent by Hicks on Jan 18. -- I don't get CNN or Fox News over here, so I don't know what those silly reporters are up to most of the time. You should only believe 20 percent of what you hear on the news because most of the time it's not true or goes under the assumption that we all feel that way. -- Nothing gets me twisted around the axle faster than a news reporter calling this "another Vietnam." That simply isn't true. While it's true that we will never make Iraq into a totally safe place, which we haven't even done in our own country, we are making tons and tons of progress. -- Don't be snowed by some reporter who happened to find the one whining soldier out here. There are soldiers, sailors and Marines that would whine about the color of their Kool-Aid if you let them. The media puts a lot of pressure on us to get the job done now, because the media is what drives public opinion. If we pull out, the country will dip into a bloody civil war with no winners. Then we will ask the question, "Did our troops die in vain? For nothing?" But if we stick with the Iraqis and get them going, no matter what the cost, then we are looked at as dragging this whole thing on and turning it into another Vietnam, yet we have secured a safer future for ourselves and our children. Bottom line is this: there are many critics and we can't listen to them. It's not the critic that counts. It's not the news reporter or protester who points out how we have stumbled or how we could have done things better that should deserve credit. The credit belongs the military men and women who are in the arena. It's our faces smeared with the dust, the sweat and the blood that strive valiantly for our country. It is us who err and fall short again and again. And who, if we succeed, will know the triumph of high achievement. And who, if we fail, at least fail while daring greatly so that our place will never be with those weak and timid souls -- the naysayers, the reporters and the critics who know neither victory nor defeat. Sgt. Hicks returns to his home in New York later this month, where he will be promoted to sergeant first class.

Cool report on elections in Iraq

This e-mail is currently making the rounds in cyber-space. It was written by Lieutenant Colonel Scott Stanger of the 1st Cavalry Division. I present it here without comment: An Incredible Day. Today I got to witness first hand a new democracy take its first steps. My day started early....acutely my day started about 4 days ago because we have been going non-stop since then, hence no updates lately. I was up at 5am and my head was pounding and my sinuses were killing me. I was up and out with my team by 5:30am....I had to get at least one cup of coffee in me before I left. The day started slow and we had some small arms fire, 8 rockets shot at us, and we found one IED. The small arms fire and the rockets missed us. The IED was another matter, but we called our bomb guys and they took care of it with their bomb robot. Which, by the way, is their third robot. The first two died in the line of duty. The polls opened at 7am and that when things got interesting. The press showed up in droves. It would have been impossible to swing a dead cat and not hit a reporter in our area of operation today. I met Campbell Brown from NBC. She was likeable, but you could tell she did not want to be in Baghdad....she was very jumpy and looked a nervous. I guess we were that way when we first got here too but you get used to the shooting. Later, when we were dealing with the IED, a guy from PBS filmed the whole episode and told me that he was shooting a documentary for PBS. He had the camera in my face for about a half an hour while we got set to blow the IED. It is a little weird trying to get rid of a roadside bomb when guy has a camera in your face. I finally got him to leave me alone when I told him we were going to blow the bomb in place. Since the bomb was on a bridge there was no where to hide so I put him behind my armored hummer and he stayed put. We blew the IED and the PBS guy left. We had very tight security on the polling sites and all around our area of operation. Iraqi police and Iraqi Army soldiers were at every polling site defending them. I have been planning for about 8 days for this mission and it was the largest we have done to date. Infantry, armor, attack helicopters, engineers.... you name it, we had it. The Iraqi government shut down all traffic in the country so the streets were deserted. At about 10am the streets were packed with large crowds of people walking to the polls. We were on edge waiting for more attacks that never came. By about 3pm we could start to let our hair down and talk to the people. The site was amazing. We dismounted from our vehicles and were instantly mobbed by about 200 kids. The kids were all over the place playing in the streets while their parents voted. The kids walked with us for about 2 miles while we were talking to the adults. I have never seen anything like it. People everywhere wanted to talk to us and thank us. This is what it must have been like when the Allies liberated Paris. Iraqis of all ages wanted to shake our hands and thank us for allowing them to vote. The kids were proud to tell us that their parents voted. Adult after adult wanted to thanks us for making this day happen. When the Iraqis voted they dipped their fingers in indelible purple ink so that polling officials could tell who had already voted. When we walked the streets the Iraqis would hold their purple finger up in the air as a mark of pride. They were very proud of their purple finger. The Iraqis statements to us were all the same; "Thank you for your sacrifices for the Iraqi people", "Thank you for making this day possible" The United States is the true democracy in the world and is the country that makes freedom possible", God blessed the Iraqi people and the United States this day", " We have never known a day like this under Saddam", "This day is like a great feast, a wonderful holiday". I shook more hands today then I have ever in my life. If you missed a hand they would follow for a mile to get a chance to shake and say thanks. It was nothing like we expected or have ever seen. The Iraqi people were strong and brave today. The Iraqis stoic to danger, faced fear, and went out and voted. Then after they voted the Iraqis stayed on the streets to celebrate by singing dancing and trying to shake the hand of any American that they could find. Even though today was a great day for Iraq, the Iraqis took their lumps. There were 6 car bombs in Iraq today, 2 of them in Baghdad. One I believe did more for Iraqi moral then any other event I that I have ever witnessed here. A suicide car bomber drove up to a polling site, which was not to far from us, and blew up. The bomb did not kill anybody but the bomber himself. After the bomb went off the Iraqi voters calmly walked out of the polling site and spit on the remains of the suicide bomber. The polling site stayed open and the voting continued. That incident ran all day long on Iraqi TV. It was a beautiful act of defiance for the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people stood up for themselves today and stuck a purple finger in the enemy's eye. Later in the day I thought about our sacrifices that we have made. I wondered if the three men that my unit has sent home in flag draped coffins was worth what I saw today. I am still not sure if that is the case, but when a grown Iraqi man thank me with tears running down his face it made me feel better about what we have accomplished. Scott Posted by Steven Vincent at 05:01 AM in Democracy

SOTU tonight

should be a good one..

State of the Union

Should be a good one tonight :)

State of the Union

Tonight is the 2005 SOTU address. Should be great. And Miami has a good recruiting class as well today. All in all, a happy day!

State of the Union Tonight

Great Election News!!

The recent election in Iraq has proven that the will of the people can not be denied. Many of my Iraqi blogger friends wrote truly touching posts and are still busy with what is happening in the last few days. We are on the march to freedom and success!! Take that Teddy Kennedy :)