I was thinking yesterday, after hearing the news that Syria decided to cut off its electricity supplies to Lebanon, and threatening to close its borders, I was thinking that how much more evidence do those so called patriots, for whom Syria is the elder sister, need in order to be convinced that Syria does not want stability in Lebanon…

In an earlier article I discussed this matter, but today, I wish to ask the anti March 14^th alliance, why do they still consider supporting Syria as patriotic? I mean if you want to do something, do it right or don’t do it at all…

Let us recall Syria’s actions in Lebanon…

From 1976 to 2005, Syria was present in Lebanon.

Syria’s mandate when it came in as part of an arab peace keeping force, was to assist the Lebanese government in dismantling Palestinian guerilla fighters that were posing a big threat for Israel, and by so doing, help bring about a stop to the civil war that had erupted a year ago. It over extended this mandate, literally kicked out other members of the peace keeping force, and then as time went by, it strengthened its grasp until the whole of Lebanon was under its control. A presence that lasted for a total of 29 years.

Throughout its stay in Lebanon, Syria has assassinated political figures from all sects and political affiliations (Mufti Hassan Khaled, Kamal Junblat, Bachir Gemayel, Moawad, Rafik Hariri) as well as anti Syrian activists such as Ramzi Irani, Pierre Boulos, Jubran Tueini, Samir Kassir…those two lists are by no means exhaustive…many files for unsolved crimes were either destroyed or archived for “lack of evidence”.

Throughout its presence in the country, Syria interfered with every single political action that occurred. From appointments of simple governmental employees all the way to strategic figures in Parliament, the Prime Minister as well as the Presidency.

Syria tapped freely into Lebanese water supplies, Lebanese electricity and levied taxes on many necessities such as fuel. Syrian workers were allowed to work without any paperwork on Lebanese soil, they were not subjected to any of the laws that govern foreign employees, they paid no income taxes, and most of all they had precedence over more skilled employees from other nationalities such as Egyptian, Sudanese etc…

By fighting with the different factions present on the scene, or by backing up groups against others, Syria was responsible for the death of thousands of people (both military and civilians).

To this day, Syria still has in its jails hundreds of political Lebanese activists, soldiers as well as militia men it abducted during its control of Lebanon. Some have been in the Syrian jails for close to thirty years.

From 1990 to 2005, Syria gave the green light to Hezbollah to arm itself and facilitated movement of weapons from Iran to the party of god…in the mean time, it forbade the Lebanese army to modernize its armaments. Syria also encouraged Palestinian factions (Popular Front for the liberation of Palestine etc) to strengthen their military presence in the country through camps and even permitted them to possess heavy artillery. Syria also allowed Al Qaeda operatives to operate, discretely from Lebanon.

After Syria’s pullout from Lebanon, it continued its attempts at negatively affecting the situation through its cronies…any constructive action the government attempted, was met with demonstrations orchestrated in Damascus and carried out by the few political parties that were left behind by Syria to take care of its interests in the country.

The biggest booby trap left by the Syrian government were the Shebaa farms…40 square kilometers of land, registered in the UN as Syrian possessions and occupied by Israel…After the Israeli pullout in the year 2000, the farms were left under Israeli occupation. It was then that Syria came out with the theory that those farms were Lebanese. This was highly disputed by the UN that asked for legal paperwork, since, after the 1973 Arabo-Israeli war, the farms were considered as Syrian and thus did not fall under UN resolution 425. Since there were, theoretically, lands that were still under Israeli occupation, Hezbollah as a resistance group, claimed that it would remain in the fight until those lands were liberated.

To this date these legal documents have not been handed over by Syria to claim the Lebanese identity of the farms…Israel refuses to pullout and Hezbollah cling to their weapons…

Today, on top of the choking Israeli blockade of Lebanon, Syria decides to close its borders, and knowing that Lebanese electrical supplies are not enough to cover the whole country, it decides to cut off electricity…all this to attempt to force its will onto the Lebanese government…once more a clear and blatant interference in internal Lebanese politics.

I guess no list of Syrian wrong doing in Lebanon would ever be exhaustive…there are many points that were left out…but this article was not aimed at listing Syrian misdeeds in Lebanon as much as explaining the sentiments many Lebanese feel towards Syria…

I am not denying the fact that Israel as well has done wrong in the country. In fact the last round of fights would say a lot about atrocities committed against the Lebanese people. Israel as well occupied lands for long years, assassinated people and took prisoners…Israel as well tapped freely into the natural resources of the country. No Lebanese would ever deny the wrong that was done by Israel, and I myself condemn every single act of violence committed towards the Lebanese people by Israel.

But the matter of the fact is that Israel has been doing all this under the excuse of self defense and securing its borders from attacks from Lebanon. It never hid its hostility and was always clear about its intentions towards armed factions that were launching attacks on it from the south of Lebanon.

Syria on the other hand, came in with a mask of help and solicitude…it hid under the cloak of the caring neighbor, under the sad excuse of Arab nationalism and acted on an agenda of appending Lebanon to Syria…of making Lebanon a Syrian province…

I ask, in all fairness, how can any one who claims to be patriotic, still show any signs of goodwill towards Syria???

How can anyone claims to be patriotic still support and find excuses to Syrian actions in the country?

How can anyone who claims to be patriotic fail to see the magnitude of Syria’s bad intentions towards Lebanon, that anything Syria does is geared at destabilizing the country and weakening it further… that Syria’s support for Hezbollah’s weapons is another of its ploys to cause more tensions and instability?

I mean how can anyone who claims to be patriotic love another country more than his own??????