Libano

1) Haaretz: End the occupation - but only in Lebanon

"(...)Just to calm those who note the "historic moments" in the Middle East, Lebanon is the freest country in the region. Its parliament has real power and its newspapers and electronic media demarcated the boundaries of freedom of expression before Al Jazeera did so. Anti-establishment satire has existed there for a long time and its citizens, even more than the citizens of Turkey, regard themselves as more Western than Arab.

But this is not the main point. Three occupying countries remain in the Middle East: Syria, Israel and the United States. The two Western occupiers are now demanding that the Arab occupying state desist from occupying. In its honor, they pushed for the Syria Accountability Act - legislation enabling sanctions to be applied, and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559.

The status of this resolution is no different than that of resolutions 242 and 338, which call for Israel to withdraw from the territories it conquered. Israel countered these resolutions with a legalistic argument, claiming it was not a case of occupation, but rather of liberation - or at most, a case of administered territories. That is, a deposit. Syria has a literary argument similar to that of Israel: the government of Lebanon invited it into the country. And the United States, of course, came to Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction. But without any such weaponry, it will make due with establishing democracy.(...)

It may suddenly dawn on Israel that the weakening of Syria's control in Lebanon enhances the power of the more dangerous enemy, Hezbollah.(...)"

2) So What’s Doing in Syria & the Rest of the Middle East?, Harry Browne

1. There are 13,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon. (...)

Sirios (embaixador) : Actually, if anyone with a sense of fairness would look at the history of our presence in Lebanon, you could easily tell that we had 42,000 troops in Lebanon 10 years ago, and we started a series of withdrawals and redeployments. Today, we have only 13,000 troops, and they — all of them are outside major Lebanese cities. So we have done this in the past, and we have explicitly said that we will continue doing this. . . . And we have repeatedly said on the record in the past three years, not because of this pressure now, the moment the Lebanese government will ask us to leave, we will leave. And we are leaving, absolutely.

2. The Syrian troops in Lebanon are all in the countryside — ready to help restore order if needed, but generally out of sight of the Lebanese people. The American troops in Iraq are all over the place — killing insurgents and civilians alike while devastating cities like Fallujah.

3. There are no reports of Lebanese insurgents fighting the Syrian troops, while there are daily clashes between Iraqi insurgents and American troops.

4. As Pat Buchanan has pointed out, it would make no sense for the Syrians to have assassinated the Lebanese ex-Prime Minister — since they had to know that they would automatically become the #1 suspect and bring the wrath of Bush down upon their heads.

5. Syrian troops first invaded Lebanon at the time of the Gulf War. And while Syria was overrunning Lebanon, President George H.W. Bush was proudly listing Syria as a member of the coalition of nations fighting Saddam Hussein.

6. The Bush administration, as usual, won’t negotiate anything with anyone. The Bushies prefer to make accusations in the media, assert that they have evidence that no one ever gets to see, and incite Americans to hate another nation of human beings.

(...)8. The TV pictures of a Lebanese crowd celebrating the fall of the pro-Syrian Lebanese government no more demonstrate the attitudes of all Lebanese than do the TV pictures of U.S. pro-abortion rallies demonstrate that all Americans (or even a majority) are in favor of abortions.

9. Despite the State Department’s human rights report of torture and other ghastly conditions inside Syria, the U.S. government has sent some of its "War on Terror" prisoners to Syria for interrogation — and, presumably, torture. And not one American politician is embarrassed by the contradiction."