2 days after the explosion in Damascus, and about 45 days after the first one of its kind, here they are again, this morning an explosion hit a mini bus transporting Army soldiers and some civilians, some 10 killed or injured are reported, and I’m confident the same people planned and executed the 3 explosions.

Now the question should be what is the relation, and I think many of you girls and guys have already answered the question, cause it seems, and since the summer of 2007, the Syrians are trying all they can to return to Lebanon through the north gate, mainly Tripoli, and at the same time they are implementing there own part of the deal done with the Americans and Israelis, so they are assassinating some of the officers involved in Hariri’s death, while blame it on the extremists.

I can say they are playing it so smart, so for us to be aware and abolish the plan.

I see a real danger up in the north, but again innocent civilians and soldiers are paying the price. 

SUGGESTED BY LEBANONJON

27 Sep 2008
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.

No fisticuffs reported, but attendees at a Washington, D.C. reception Thursday evening witnessed a caustic exchange between John Hajjar, U.S. director of Lebanon’s pro-democracy World Council of the Cedars Revolution, and Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh, an ally of the Hezbollah terrorist organization.

According to sources, at approximately 7:00 p.m. (Eastern), Hajjar was introduced “in a surprise move” to Salloukh at a reception for Lebanese Pres. Michel Sleiman hosted by the Lebanese ambassador at D.C.’s Omni Shoreham Hotel. (Sleiman was in town this week meeting with Pres. Bush and senior administration officials.)

When Salloukh extended his hand, Hajjar refused his; putting his hand in his pocket.

“I will not shake hands with people working for Hezbollah!” Hajjar said.

Salloukh responded, “You should leave here!”

Hajjar replied, “No! you should leave here! I’m an American citizen!”

There was a temporary hush in the immediate area of the reception room. Attendees were reportedly sitting their drinks on tables, anticipating some level of escalation. Both men walked away.

A few hours following the reception, I spoke briefly by phone with Hajjar who confirmed the incident.

“I also said to Salloukh, ‘Are you Lebanese or an Iranian? Choose!’” said Hajjar. “He was stunned, end of conversation. It’s amazing to think that these people believe they can ‘make nice’ at cocktail parties and maybe go to your kids’ weddings, and then the next day they are lobbing bombs or trying to assassinate you.”

Tom Harb, secretary general of the WCCR, later told me: “We must also recognize that many in the Lebanese-American community have been – and are – critical of the fact that a pro-Hezbollah minister accompanied the new president of Lebanon to Washington, D.C. But according to diplomatic protocol, Lebanon’s foreign minister must accompany the president. This means that Iran’s eyes follow President Sleiman wherever he goes. Sleiman should not have brought Salloukh with him to Washington.”

Today, Naharnet is reporting: “Washington has criticized Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh for allegedly leaking to the media details on the summit discussion between President George Bush and his Lebanese counterpart Michel Suleiman [Sleiman] at the White House. [More here]”

In an international environment that is increasingly soft-soaping and lending legitimacy to butchers like Hezbollah and their allies – the fact that the likes of Salloukh would even be attending a cocktail party in the nation’s capital (one-month before the 25th anniversary of early Hezbollah’s bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut, and less than five months after Hezbollah’s murderous rampage in Lebanon) is beyond reason – I salute Hajjar.

But after all, I’m an old Marine rifleman.

The winners of the March 8 Special Olympics are listed below

CATEGORY1: Fastest time to french Embassy in a normally aspirated M113 Armored Personnel Carrier

Winner Gold Medal : Michel Aoun (World Record)
Time : 3 Minutes 14 Seconds

CATEGORY 2: Fastest Time to underground bunker under Israeli Attack

Winner Gold Medal : Sayyed Hassan (world Record)
Time : 3.25 Seconds

CATEGORY 3: Fastest to defend Syria for anything

Winner Gold Medal : Wi2am Wahhab (World Record)
Time: 1 second

CATEGORY 4: Fastest Assassination executed from Syrian orders by a Team

STATISTICAL TIE AWARDS 2 GOLD MEDALS
Winner Gold Medal: Team SSNP
Winner Gold Medal: Team Hizballah

Time : 14 hours 4 Minutes 13 Seconds

CATEGORY 5: Endurance in Longest time spent Defending Syria in a single speech

Winner Gold Medal: Sleiman Frangieh Jr. (World Record , March 8 Record, Syrian Record)
Time : 2 Hours 23 Minutes

CATEGORY 6: Fastest Conversion to Syrian Agents in modern Lebanese History

Winner Gold Medal: Team FPM : Michel Aoun, Gigi Bassil, Nabil Nicola
Time: 0 seconds

CATEGORY 7: Fastest to blame Israel for Syrian attack on Lebanon

Winner Gold Medal: Mohammad Raad (World Record)
Time : 2 Seconds

Proposed by Nabil Salameh

Yesterday, the “Transparency International” organization (a global organization which takes Berlin as headquarter) issued its latest “Corruption Perception Index” for the year 2008, in which our dear Lebanon was sadly ranked 102^nd among 180 countries included in the report. This rank considers a retreat from last year’s position (99^th) as well as the 2006 classification where it was ranked in the 63^rd position. But even though the position is getting worse, the grades given saw some improvement since 2005 (after the end of the Syrian occupation), since Lebanon earned an average of over 3 points in the last 3 years after scoring only a poor 2.7 points in 2004.

Of course nothing to be happy with this ranking, and it isn’t a surprise for anyone, since we already knew that we suffer from corruption in Lebanon on all levels, but what is sad about the issue is that we came in a really late position among Arab countries (11^th among 20), with only Mauritania, Egypt (both 115), Libya (126), Comoros (134), Yemen (141), Syria (147 – the only good news in the report), Sudan (173), Iraq (174), and Somalia (180) coming behind.

Maybe it shows how much we are losing, but also how much others are gaining on us, and not only regarding corruption, but concerning other signs of civilization, education, culture, and others.

This reminds me of lots of things we are losing in Lebanon, mainly our lifestyle that others were envying us for having, and were trying and still to do the same.

We are losing our education level, and here I remember a while ago hearing that Lebanese students used to score more than 95% in the Toefel test, but lately they couldn’t manage to score more than 73%.

It is a sign of backwardness caused by corruption in everything in Lebanon, and that’s why we are lacking the simplest services, such as electricity, water, telephones, medical, educational (we were the best in the last 2), good social security, and security as a whole.

Obviously we have our whole sectarian, policitical, and administrative system to blame, but we should not only hold our governments and politicians responsible for that, we should also blame ourselves, because we the Lebanese people have been contributing a lot in this regard, since we still have the culture of “Wasta”, “Tozbitat” and Bribery among others, so to help our score to improve in corruption, let us first try to abolish that culture, and do something without seeking “Wasta” first, and without trying to bribe the public servants.