JANUARY 1 2008

I spend my first waking minute of everyday searching for news of Lebanon.

Reaching for my blackberry, I activate the internet browser in search of the main news sites and blogs. Even as my eyes force themselves to shake sleep and focus, my mind already anticipates what it seeks. My search is simple and brutal.

I search for War.

I am not trying to alarm myself or others by this prediction but rather prepare us for what is almost certain to come.

”Why war?” You may ask and “what war?” You may ask, and “whose war?” You should also ask.

As a survivor who was born in early 1974, I can remember much of what happened in Lebanon’s recent bloody history. Some I remember as an infant through my parents eyes and some I remember as an adolescent with raging emotions, some I remember still as a young adult in exile, through the news and the stories of my countrymen, but now, more than ever before, I remember it all with a wary intelligence born of years of conditioning.

I know the signs of war like few humans do. This is no proud boast. Every moment of my waking life has been tinged with it and set within its unforgiving parameters.

So let me tell you now why a war is brewing in Lebanon today. It is simple and it is evident and it is happening whether you like it or not.

The ingredients of war are many and varied.

There are the key ingredients like motives, funding and hate. There are the flavorings like politicians and their agents. Of no less importance are the foreign powers and their greed. Nor have we forgotten the Media; their Journalists and the inevitable propaganda. But despite all these and in spite of all these, you cannot have ingredients to mix if you cannot find a receptacle to mix them in. Yes without the cauldron there can be no War. And the cauldron my dear reader is found in Lebanon with a vengeance. It is a pot that you have seen before, encountered many times and seen its astonishing efficacy.

That pot is called the youth of Lebanon and today it is boiling over with a witch’s brew.

One has only to look back in our past to see it.

Let us recall the war of 1975 when teenagers handled Doshkas from the backs of jeeps and drew religious slogans on every wall that would bear it. Let us easily recall the Liberation war of 1989 and the students who jumped to join Aoun’s army to fight our arch nemesis, Syria. Let us also recall the silent war under Syrian tutelage from 1990 until 2005 when sheer unequivocal waves of humanity shook the foundations of the country.

Throughout all this it was the youth that was both the machine of change and its engine of destruction.

Today the youth have been recharged once more. They have been reprogrammed against one another in battle of lesser physical violence but of greater hatred. This is a war that is readying itself to spill onto the streets at any minute.

Welcome to the war of the internet.

This is the war of you tube and of web casts. It is the cyber war of the forums and the war of the bloggers. It is the minefield of the forgers, the propagandists and the false historians. It is the war of those who seek for change and those who will to suppress it. It is the war for everyone hurting within their souls and fighting from behind a screen. This is the war from which there is no escape.

This war is reflecting itself on the ground in the youth who are finding arms and learning the ways of older siblings; of uncles; of fathers and of acquaintances who’d fought before them.

This is the war fought in the creativity of the web and the bullet of gratification that is only one click away.

I am a veteran of this war. It was not by choice that I entered it but rather as a solace from the angst simmering within. I remember the first day that I joined the Lebanese Forces forum when only a few had internet connections and fewer still knew of these veterans who had found each other in the common will to resist.

I found those friends and I found their enemies alike. Post after post, I have battled since 1998 and many scars have whitened on my handle that I bear with immense pride.

I am Lebanonjon and many know my name.

Many yet will learn of it and many more will recall the day that it embedded itself into their minds in indelible black font on a white shining screen.

Yes, I am Lebanonjon.

10452 has been my slogan since before I knew that I would fight. It was the slogan of Bachir but now it is the cry of every Lebanese who has the voice to scream; “We want that Lebanon back”.

Make no mistake about it my friends, this is a real war and it is a vast war and it is the war that we must win.

We must win it before it spills onto the streets in search of the blood of our fellow countrymen. We must win it for the minds and hearts of our people who do not know of our fight but whose destiny lies in its outcome.

We must win this war because the alternative is this; to remain in exile of our own nation as we wish it and as we knew it and to lose it for our children to come.

We must win this war.

It is unfortunate, but we do not face a weak enemy.

This is an enemy with many guises. This enemy is within us; is of us; is often indistinguishable from our brother. But he is our enemy nonetheless.

The enemy is simple to understand.

He is arrogant, he is fearful and he is full of hate.

He is also easy to predict.

The enemy is the one who twists the truth to fulfill his vision, who falsifies to attain his goal, who represses the truth in glorification of his leader but mainly he is the one who has sold his soul to attain more power.

The enemy is the one who, against all common sense, has chosen injustice over justice and wrong over right. He has chosen to oppress his fellow citizens and force them to pursue his own motives.

You ask me for a name and I will sell you no game.

Yes the real enemy we all know is Syria and she has not changed in over 32 years but this time she cannot win this war without her minions.

And this is the enemy who I fight.

In the beginning of this New Year,

I ask you to join me in this war that we have not chosen for ourselves but rather have been thrown into because of our love of a free and democratic Lebanon.

I ask you to keep your patience and your determination strong for this, more than anything else, is what they want us to surrender.

I ask you to use every drop of your focus and every ounce of your perseverance to stay true to the cause that our martyrs have died for.

I ask you to seek out allies, friends and brothers so that they may find strength in your reasoning.

I ask you to live with only one vision in your mind;

A FREE LEBANON FOR ALL LEBANESE

MAY GLOD BLESS ALL THE FREEDOM SEEKERS IN LEBANON