1. A true anti-syrian stand would not have depended on Hariri’s assassination, and would not have waited till 2005 to show itself. The Lebanese Free Patriotic Movement is the only one that opposed that occupation since 1989, for reasons of integrity and national sentiment and not because they’re avenging a feudal lord like Hariri. This is why it’s blasphemy to accuse The Lebanese Free Patriotic Movement of being pro-syrian. You claim that the March 14th coalition did not forget how Lebanon’s independence was sacrificed in 1989, during the Gulf War. This sacrifice was protested by the Lebanese Free Patriotic Movement and no one else. None of today’s March 14 members opposed this sacrifice of Lebanon to Syria, but The Lebanese Free Patriotic Movement campaigned against it form 1989 to 2005.
2. Just as the world politicians are not to be trusted, why then trust the ex-syrian puppet government – now March 14th coalition – which they support?
3. Western diplomacy were not “scary” when Rice offered her support to the ex-syrian puppet Saniora, but they are when the visits of officials to Syria might reverse that, and more importantly avoid more bloodshed?!
4. The Lebanese army is the one that defeated the Saniora-sponsored sunnite terrorists, fatah-el-islam, as they tried to provoke a civil war in Lebanon. That is why it is the March 14th coalition that is murderous and unscrupulous, and the Lebanese army and the opposition that inspire safety from them. Geagea, the one you claim as a Hariri ally, fits perfectly among the March 14th people and he is no feat for any Christian to have on his side. He has a gut-wrenching list of sectarian and environmental crimes to his name, and he’s a convicted war criminal. They are listed here: http://www.geocities.com/geagea_crimes
5. The size of people who vote with their feet is not a strange thing to discuss; in a democratic society, and not a blindly mercantile society like the one Hariri advocates, it is the number of voters that settles an issue.
6. Praising Hariri for his money is a feudal attitude, and an anti-democratic one. In a democracy the success of a society is not subject to donations from a feudal lord. Hariri’s father and the Saniora government have in fact driven the economy into the ground, long before tent city was set up.
7. It’s not “normal” to live in a mercantile society, with no higher principles. This is exactly the argument the now-March 14 members gave to the Free Lebanese Patriotic Movement when they refused to protest the Syrian occupation until 2005. They were satisfied merchandising under the Syrian occupation, and were oblivious to the human rights sacrificed under an occupation. They called the Syrian occupation, until 2005, “stability”, and only the Free Lebanese Patriotic Movement opposed that mercantile idea.
8. The sectarian labeling of Lebanese communities is inappropriate. it seems that being too mercantile blinds some to the effort made by the Free Patriotic Movement to educate the Lebanese people on evolving beyond sectarianism, and treating all Lebanese citizens as equals.
9. The threat of another fabricated civil war comes only from the March 14 coalition. They are actively working towards one: Saniora hired the Sunnite terrorists Fatah el Islam in Summer 2007 to provoke one (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh). It’s the Free Lebanese Patriotic Movement and the Hezbollah they’re now mentoring to turn from a religious clan to members of a Lebanese democracy, that resisted being dragged into it.
