From Beirut to the Beltway

Aoun gave a press conference on Saturday in which he lashed out at the Lebanese government and held it responsible for the deteriorating security situation in the country.

We ask the government to respond to the words of the martyr because after his martyrdom, the government owes it to him. Indeed, the government is responsible but the culprit will not come out to the open and unveil his identity. Of course the finger is pointed mainly towards Syria and to other parties as well, although to a lesser extent. But in all cases, this is still the government’s responsibility.

I agree with Aoun that the government bears the ultimate responsibility for what has happened. The interior minister should have held daily briefings. Better security arrangements should have been taken to protect the lives of officials and citizens.

But Aoun decided to up the ante against the cabinet, which would have been fine had it not for the presumption that the country is like the Hariri-Jumblatt run dictatorship Hizbullah claims it is.

As for the other issue raised by the late MP Tueni, our national unity, I have noted the proliferation of a discourse that harms national unity more than anything else and that insults the real representatives of the people in an attempt to shift the incumbent responsibility towards other parties.

You would think Aoun was referring to Hizbullah, which has been holding the country hostage to their fallacies and shameful defense of a murderous regime. Aoun instead tries to prove he was right all along and puts the blame entirely on his political opponents.

Who asked for the government to set up a security plan? Who asked the minister of interior to give us a map of where we can circulate safely in the country? We are still awaiting the answers. MP Tueni himself stood in parliament and supported these demands.

Who blocked the discussions with Hizbullah, with the Palestinians and the Syrians, is it the FPM? Who initiated today the issue of the presidency, is it also the FPM?

Therefore, we reject the sensitive issues that move the battle from one camp to the other in order to conceal the responsibility of unveiling the crime and protecting the
citizens.

What I don't understand, and cannot forgive Aoun for, is why continue to presume the country is under the complete control of the Hariri-Jumblatt alliance and the rest of the "March 14 parties" minus Aoun's FPM. From what I can see, they have had little sway on the course of events since they reached this alleged power. Aoun ignores Hizbullah's obstructionism as well the effects of the remnants of the security regime that demonstrably are still eating at the country's ability to protect and defend its citizens.

Aoun would have sounded like a real national leader had he not ignored the underlying causes of the government weakness in facing and dealing with the threats. In his speech, he goes as far as siding with Hizbullah on the issue of the tribunal, despite giving Siniora his approval the week before the cabinet decision was made.

We have to sit all together on a round table of talks and let each party open their cards so that we can come up with a clear plan of action in Lebanon to protect the Lebanese people. None of us would like to mourn every day and lose our friends and Lebanese citizens. But these issues cannot be solved in an arbitrary manner in such a way as creating an internal conflict concerning a topic that they have considered at the beginning as external.

The above is classic Aoun. The call for a "roundtable of talks" masks a familiar and desperate cry for inclusion and parrots Hizbullah's obstructionist line. For someone so concerned about security, it is unfathomable why he would refer to a decision to seek international assistance as an "external issue." In a perfect Lebanon, the security forces would have been able to do without international help. I am not a believer in outsourcing security, in fact, I think Siniora and his team should show the same public firmness regarding cleansing and rehabilitating the security forces that they reserve for efforts to bring Hariri's murderers to trial. On this, I could not agree more with Aoun. But given the current situation, I think we will need all the help we can get. Also, one cannot ignore the links between the Hariri killing and the other terrorists attacks. Our journalists are being targeted and so is anyone who dares speak against Syria. By killing Gebran Tueni, the message to anti-Syrian figures was the following: you are not welcome in your own country. We are in a state of war, and Aoun needs to wake up to that fact.

In short, Aoun's criticism does not appear to be aimed at bettering our defenses, for it ignores the nature of the threats and the devastation caused by the perseverance of anti-Lebanese politics by parties such as Hizbullah, which with Aoun, are providing a political cover for the killers.

Sadly, Aoun has not caught up to his declining popularity among Lebanese people, which apparently translated into anti-FPM chants by Tueni mourners during the Wednesday protests.

On the other hand, the FPM recognizes and implements social values in all occasions, so in funerals, we mourn the deceased, we weep, we present our condolences; we do not whistle and chant slogans that offend other mourners and participants.

Aoun blamed this on a "perversion in thought, media and behavior that prevailed this week has to come to an end and we are ready to face it" and then lapsed into his usual defensive talk:

No one can point the finger at us after the 15-year-struggle we led against the Syrian occupation, while the Syrian troops were on Lebanese soil. And while our activists were being beaten up, all the others were at the service of Syrian officers. And until the very last moment, no one dared even talk to us because we were far beyond the allowed “Syrian ceiling”.

In Aoun's opinion, the solution to this crack in national unity is for others "to control their masses, because national unity starts from the base, when the people live together. National unity is not achieved by triggering hatred at the level of the people and in this case 'nice talk' at the level of the leadership is nothing but lies and deceit.”

If winning national unity is achieved by playing with the base in mind, then, and as evidenced by this speech, Aoun is making his team lose by constantly throwing the ball back towards the pitcher.