Mr lala-land a.k.a. Michel Aoun

Here are some snippets of what Michel Aoun recently said, as he seeks to up the sectarian and divisive rhetoric:
لكن من يدعون الخوف من المقاومة هم الذي قتلوكم ووضعوا لكم المتفجرات
But those who claim fear from the Resistance, they are the ones who killed you and laid explosives for you.
سننتصر في النهاية وسنسيطر على كل [...]

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We urgently need an environmental agenda!

Lebanon’s environment is in free fall and we urgently need someone to pay attention to this. If our democracy was a balanced one, this issue would be at the top of politicians’ agendas. Instead, the environment is almost unspoken of.
In fact, the reason for the lack of attention is a little more complicated. First, as we have [...]

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Even his allies accuse him of dirty tricks

Apparently, Amal, one of Aoun’s allies in the March 8 group, is complaining to Hezbollah about Aoun’s tactics in the Jezine election campaign. They accuse his candidates of using divisive language with sectarian tones to get Christians to vote for him in the upcoming elections.
Dah! Did they just find out that this is how Aoun always wins [...]

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A traffic jam in Beirut is being taken seriously!

The minister of interior has announced that he wants all road works to be halted until after the elections after an unbearable jam this morning. He even called on people affected by the disruption to file a formal complaint with the authorities. Of course, as anyone in Beirut knows, road works have accelerated in the [...]

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The truth about the Aoun/Hezbollah alliance

The other day I was having a discussion about the political situation in Lebanon with a reluctant supporter of the March 8/Aoun camp. He approached his support for this group as an Arab nationalist of the old school. For them, standing up to Israel comes first, and hating Hariri is high on the list.
When I [...]

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Hillary Clinton makes surprise visit to Beirut

Yesterday, two of Lebanon’s latest helicopters were hovering over the city. Traffic stood still and army personnel were on all major thoroughfares. It was as if the city was getting ready for an invasion. Instead, Hillary Clinton was in town.
I could observe Clinton’s motorcade racing from the presidential palace in Baabda towards the center of [...]

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Lebanon election 2009 stats

Here is a page with some nice stats on the upcoming Lebanon elections. Happy reading!

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Have you seen Nayla Tueni’s web site?

I just checked out Nayla Tueni’s web site. I should say that I find Nayla Tueni refreshing and would consider voting for her if I was voting in her district. That said, I was very disappointed with her web site which I saw advertised on a large banner on Sassine Square.
Here she is running for [...]

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Aoun represents Christian seperation

I am starting to realize how much Aoun represents the bulk of the Christians in Lebanon. The reason: because he voices an often hidden but always present streak in Christians to see themselves as separate from the rest of the nation. Aoun today is the true successor of the leadership that went against the Hariri governments in [...]

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The 2009 elections: some numbers

The Lebanese look forward to parliamentary elections in June of this year. The 128 seats in the Majlis Al-Nuwab, or parliament, will all be up for re-election. The elections will take place under a law agreed to last May in Doha, Qatar, when the Lebanese parties resolved a long-running dispute on a whole bunch of [...]

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