Syrian Dictatorship On A Path To Perdition.

The popular adage “What is good for the Goose is good for the Gander” is meant to be a populist easy way to restate the Golden Rule which was best expressed by Mathew 7:12 as "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” is also seen as the foundation of ethical reciprocity. An excellent illustration of this norm is practiced by the young in their first few years of schooling during birthday celebrations: one person cuts the cake while the other chooses which portion to take. If only grownups can keep these lessons alive as they grow up. Maybe some of us try to practice what we preach and attempt to be fair and consistent. Not the Syrian Government and not Bashar Assad though. How can they be just when their total existence from the inception of the regime is based on force, tyranny and illegitimacy? Their constant fear of truth must be the only logical explanation why they pretended to have elections. They forgot though that election proper rests on the intrinsic right to free speech and free expression. Elections are supposed to be a contest between various individuals who have different priorities about how to improve the level of welfare of the public at large. These candidates will explain to their constituents the various plans that they have and then the voters will weigh these programs and determine which they think is best for them. Elections in Syria have been a sham, every single one of them and the reason must be that those who were ruling forcefully and illegitimately did not trust those that they governed.

All dictators are afraid of the truth and that is why they set up these elaborate police systems in order to spread fear among their citizens. Well the Syrian dictatorship is one of the worst. It has lasted for over forty years by setting up what many have called the most cruel Stasi machine outside of the then GDR, East Germany. Actually the Syrian police whose role is to oppress, exploit and scare decent citizens was set up with the help of East Germany. Where is East Germany now? It has bitten the dust and as history teaches us all dictatorships will eventually bite the dust including the Syrian rulers.  

The Syrian uprising has been going on for over two years that have resulted in an abnormally high level of destruction, thanks to the selfish Syrian dictatorship that is willing to pay any price to continue its rule of terror. The losses, the real losses are not limited to the destruction of city quarters and infrastructure but have resulted in over 80,000 deaths so far. Even that grotesque price becomes small when compared to the price that the future generation will have to bare.  This war is robbing the youth of their future and nothing, absolutely nothing, can be crueler than that.

This monstrous regime is not satisfied to mete out its terror, which has also resulted in about a 1.5 million Syrians seeking refuge in neighbouring countries and at least an equal number of refugees within the country, but has the temerity to use an illegal militia from a neighbouring country in order to launch well coordinated attacks with heavy weapons on a city that had been overrun over a year ago by the opposition. This regime seeks the aid of a well equipped and well trained illegal militia while it is lambasting the opposition for its use of foreign fighters. The double standards do not stop here either. This same Syrian administration has been complaining to whoever would listen about light arms smuggling that has been coming into Syria to help arm the FSA and its supporters level the field against the Assad killing machine but yet this same administration has been smuggling, yes smuggling, sophisticated weapons to arm militant groups in Lebanon. It does not dawn on this administration apparently that if they have the rights to destabilize others then maybe the Syrian people have the right to obtain some arms to protect themselves from the common massacres committed against them by the Syrian forces.

The irony does not stop here either. This same Syrian government was proud to encourage and facilitate the crossing of Jihadists from all across the Moslem world into Iraq but now that some of these jihadists want to cross the border in the opposite direction this activity has become abominable.

As for those that believe the constant refrain that this Syrian reign of terror is justified because it is what is keeping Al Qaeda and other extremists from taking over Syria I have fertile land for sale in the Syrian dessert not to mention bridges in NYC. The Syrian people are asking for a chance to write a new constitution with guarantees their individual right to free expression, multiparty systems and open and free elections. They are entitled to elect whoever they choose. If they so happen to elect an extreme Islamist then so be it. The essence of democracy is to accept the will of the people. If they find out that their choice did not deliver what was promised then they will vote them out of office in the next round, they will not be forced to accept a leadership that passes from father to son. The common Syrian has the right to be heard and she will.    

Dictatorships are always on a path to self destruction. There is a limit to how much the public will take. Eventually enough courageous people will ask for their freedom and will shout from rooftops that the emperor has no cloths and that no one can enslave them because they are born free. The truth shall set them free. The Syrian dictatorship is not any different; it has been on its road to perdition for over four decades. That is inevitable.

Can Natural Gas Save Lebanon? Nah.

No one doubts that laws of natural science; such as gravity and entropy, the second law of thermodynamics; are universal. The same logic leads us to believe also that many characteristics that could be viewed as intrinsic are non negotiable and non alienable. Thomas Jefferson might have expressed the above sentiment the best when he declared that rights should be viewed as “derived from the laws of nature and not as the gift of their chief magistrate”.

Economics, by and large, is also a field that operates subject to universal principals that do not depend on race, geography or political structure of the state under consideration. Excess supply of any commodity or service, all other things being equal will lead to a decrease in the price being asked for such a good. By the same token whenever the sovereign increases money supply then the monetary unit would tend to lose part of its purchasing power irrespective whether one is dealing with Dinars, Rupees or Dollars. All the above is simple, clear and is held to be true by all. Given the universality of such believes then how can one explain the irrational idea that Lebanon is exceptional, at least when it is viewed through the prism of national debt. It is only logical that when a large number of countries violate a particular standard and each of them gets punished for it then one is to expect that any state that is to violate such a metric would be doing so at its own risk. Lebanon has the fourth highest Debt/GDP ratio in the world, if one is to discount St Kitts and Antigua. Only Japan, Zimbabwe and Greece have a higher Debt/GDP ratio while each of the countries that had met major challenges arising from their debt had a lighter debt burden than Lebanon (Italy, Portugal, Iceland, Ireland, Spain and France).

And yet we carry on as if there is no problem, as if we are exceptional, as if we can defy the laws of gravity. The lack of attention to such a major challenge is disheartening. Even the Ministry of Finance does not bother to publish updated information about this crucial issue; there most recent figures are as of December 2010, only two and a half years behind the times. Since Lebanon seems to have escaped the fate of other countries with high sovereign debt so far it is only fair to speculate about the factors that have led to this. The most common reasons given are the following:

1. Lebanon is a small economy and so its economic problems do not attract as much attention as larger states.
2. Lebanon’s geopolitical location in a sensitive part of the world encourages many states to lend a helpful hand and many others to pretend that nothing is amiss.
3. The almost 290 tons of Gold held by the central bank are valued at about $15 billion.
4. A constant in flow of funds from the Lebanese working all over the world.
5. The potential income from the off shore natural gas deposits.

What might be surprising, even shocking to many is that none of the above is a reason to rejoice, not even the potential income from natural gas if and when it is discovered and commercialized. A rough but realistic estimate of the potential revenue from natural gas will be under a billion dollars per year when the interest on the debt service is over $4 billion. Israel has just concluded selling 30% of its Leviathan field to an Australian company for $1.25 billion. Yes natural gas will help but it is not the panacea that it is hyped up to be. (Note the childish ads that say”Now that we have fossils we can build an army”). That would be such a waste.
But even if one is to dismiss all of the above and to observe the findings of the study that has become the gold standard for dealing with deficits, national debt and economic growth by Rogof and Rheinhart. They have shown very clearly that for over 300 years economic growth of an economy becomes highly constrained by its national debt especially when that debt gets to be about 9—95percent of the GDP. Lebanon’s is over 140 and will go higher as the rate of growth of the economy is less than the interest rate to service the debt.

The economic challenges on the horizon are challenging and unless we face them head on instead of putting our head in the sand the future will be very grim indeed, socially, politically and economically.

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Fallujah Horror Revisited: Depleted Uranium

We have often been told that war is hell. The residents of Fallujah, Iraq, are finding out that war for them is the worst kind of hell imaginable. Worse than Dante’s seventh circle if that is possible because the after results of war in Fallujah will be felt for at least a decade or two. One medical doctor We are not talking about physical destruction of homes and factories or the total annihilation of infrastructure such as water utilities, electricity generating plants, sewage plants, bridges and highways. All of these can be rebuilt and life will go on. In this case we are concerned with much more sinister effects of war, effects that linger on and destroy life. What the people of Fallujah, more than any other people in the world, are facing everyday and every second of every day is hell on earth; they have to witness the death of more than a quarter of the new born within a week of their birth and to make the deeply painful decision of what is to be done about the huge proportion of grotesquely deformed babies that are born with two heads, three eyes, no limbs, one eye.

The world owes the people of Fallujah an explanation of what has triggered this avalanche of deformity and horror. The usual celebratory experience of giving birth has been transformed to a time of anxiety and horror. Women dread becoming pregnant and above all carrying the fetus for nine months only to find out that what they are carrying has been condemned to death the moment that life was to begin. Such rapid and unique developments do not occur without a cause. The only logical proximate cause for this human tragedy was the 2003 war and in particular the 2004 assault on Fallujah. It was estimated that during that assault over 10,000 tons of depleted uranium, DU, was used in the bombardment of the city of 300,000 people.

The results of a 2010 study that surveyed over 4000 people in Fallujah concluded that "results seem to qualitatively support the existence of serious mutation-related health effects in Fallujah" and one chemist involved with the study said that he believes that we have evidence of the "highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied".

The above sad and troubling facts are another evidence yet that favours the adoption of the major ecological idea known as "precautionary principle". It simply states that nothing should be introduced into the ecosystem without being as absolutely certain as possible that it would do no harm. Sadly we keep ignoring this principle and we move from one tragedy to the next: Gulf War Syndrome, Agent Orange and now DU weapons. Will we ever learn.

Both the Pentagon and the British governments insist that the use of DU is not illegal and that the studies that they have undertaken do not reveal DU to be a carcinogen. That might be true but many an international body including the EU and the UN have been trying, unsuccessfully, to prevent the use of DU munitions because there are many physicians, engineers and studies that suspect that the DU produced vapour in battles is capable of contaminating humans, soil and water. It is this radioactive contamination that causes the severe deformities in the newly born “things” since many of them do not look like humans.

A group of doctors at the hospitals of Fallujah have documented the severity of the problems encountered by the newly born and has approached the UN and other world institutions asking for an investigation to determine the root cause of this tragedy. Tragic results from technological developments in war are nothing new. Agent Orange was used extensively to defoliate forests in Vietnam but wound up in causing the death and even childbirth deformities of thousands of people that it was deployed to protect. McNamara, who approved the use of Agent Orange never, forgave himself for all the damage and suffering that his decision has caused to millions of people but especially for loosing his son to an Agent Orange induced illness.

The prospective new parents of Fallujah and the next generation are being asked to bear the unbearable burden of seeing their children die within days of being born or of giving birth to grotesquely deformed beings. This is the result of a war of choice during which one side made the deliberate decision to subdue a city by pulverizing it and by subjecting its innocent civilians to the most incredible of human sufferings. DU is an instrument of death and horror that must be banned from use in war until serious and exhaustive studies can be made to show the opposite. Meanwhile the heart of all decent and honorable citizens in the world goes out to the suffering parents of Fallujah and to the horror that they have been forced to live with. We must make sure that such acts are never repeated again. DU; if found to be the culprit; must be prohibited and declared in violation of the laws of war besides the Declaration of Human rights.

The Illegitimate Will Fall

Once upon a time there used to be a pleasant village whose people led a simple but yet productive lifestyles. One day a high ranking member of the army decided that this laid back life style was not good for the villagers and so he coordinated a takeover of the government of the village.

That was over forty years ago. About twelve years ago the officer who consolidated power in his own hands , surrounded himself with co religionists and ruled as a dictator who can never be crossed died. He was very clever though, and so he made sure that a son of his, an eye doctor, would take over from him when he dies.

The dictator who would not allow any opposition or dissenters died but made sure that his successor will be his totally inexperienced eye doctor son. The Ophthalmologist continued the rule of fear started by his father but yet made many promises along the way that he would encourage social equality. Unfortunately he did not put into practice any of the informed reforms that he had promised. Actually, as opportunities presented themselves the son God became ever more convinced that his subjects are not smart enough to rule themselves. He even preached that his one party rule is efficient and that his entourage is not capable of making any wrong calls. The party was infallible and all who would oppose it are traitors and imperialist pigs.

Life under the son-God became more difficult than what it was under his father and he thought that the people in his state are enamoured of him. One day though, a number of kids were playing an innocent ball game when they decided that it was about time that they show the authoritarian authorities that they have had enough and that they will not take it any longer.

Such acts of defiance were deemed to be extremely dangerous by the absolute son God king. He ordered his subordinates to make a lesson of everyone who dared question his authority. All the kids were to be arrested, beaten and then set free.

But the unforeseen took place. Thousands upon thousands from across the country joined the young and decided that the popular saying “Live free or die” was an idea whose time has come. They organized demonstrations and adopted acts of civil defiance in the hope that such peaceful moves will demonstrate that illegitimacy must go.

But as bad luck would have it, the son God decided that he will teach all those that dared demand what was theirs in the first place,a lesson. He ordered his henchman to go out and spread fear among these youthful souls through beatings, arrests, mistreatments and the random acts of violence. When these tactics did not prove to be sufficient to dampen the spirits of the freedom fighters the son-God ordered his tanks, fighter jets, attack helicopters and cluster bombs to be used indiscriminately. They were. The result has been close to 100,000 deaths, a million wounded and the leveling of one city quarter after another over its civilian inhabitants. None of this would frighten the courageous youth anymore. They had vowed that they will not stop short of victory.

The son-God did not like any of this. Minions had dared question his authority He ordered his personal guard to go out in the village and to wire all the building in the village with explosives. When after almost 4 years of this mayhem it became clear that he could no longer deny the inevitability of his demise he ordered that every single building in the village is to be blown up over all its inhabitants. He had to go out in a blaze of glory. What a meaningless loss and what a fool he was.

Can the Lebanese Politicians Ever Abide by the Constitution?

It is problematic when the leadership of March 14 never tires of asking the government to resign. I happen to think that this has been a very ineffective cabinet and that the time for a change is way overdue. But one should not expect a cabinet to resign only because the opposition says so during press conferences only. There is a legitimate parliamentary procedure to be followed if and when any of the 128 members of the Chamber wishes to call for vote of confidence in the cabinet as a whole. March 14, unfortunately has chosen not to follow that path but instead to use the press to release statements that are neither effective nor meaningful.

If Mr. Saniora wants us to really believe that he is the reasonable leader of a large bloc of representatives in the Chamber then the least he could do is challenge the cabinet in a vote of confidence, even one that his group cannot win. It is the nature of these challenges that will keep the cabinet as a whole and each of its individual members sensitive to the demands and needs of the others in the state. The same logic, obviously, would demand nothing less than that by Mr. Geagea and his Lebanese Forces if they are truly dissatisfied with the policies and the programs of the present cabinet. As for Sa’ad Hariri, I am afraid that he has given up the right to either head a new cabinet or even lead a major bloc. Someone should remind Mr. Hariri that he got his chance and his performance was and still is way below par. It is time for him to recognize that politics is not his forte neither is leadership.

None of the above is to be interpreted as an endorsement of Mr. Mikati who had a chance to repeat his previous performance as a PM but instead decided to play second fiddle to Michel Aoun, Hassan Nasrallah and to act at times as if he is working for Damascus.

A democracy, even a shallow one, is expected to at least be able to implement the major constitutional declarations as prescribed by law. This means that nothing, absolutely nothing, can justify not holding elections at the date specified by law.  One of the most sacrosanct principles in the rule of law is to abide by the details of the law as prescribed. These major institutional decisions are not to be handled casually by changing them whenever one desires. Laws are to be respected and it is the duty of governments, to take the constitutional responsibility very seriously. Unfortunately very few, if any, in the present cadre of Lebanese politicians seems to be up to this major task.

The Chamber is clearly forbidden from electing to the Presidency an ex Chief of the Army but yet that was exactly what they did without even questioning the unconstitutionality of their act. As if that is not enough, they have failed for twenty years to elect a Senate and to deconfesionalize the Chamber as well as all positions in the government. Add to the above the fact that the central government does not dare exercise its power in certain regions of the country nor over some groups. It is not only that they tolerate the challenge to the government authority but they even encourage it through their inability to treat all regions and all citizens as equal.  The above are only the tip of the iceberg: This cabinet as well as its predecessors have failed to combat corruption that has become endemic, have neglected to construct a reliable electric grid in a self described tourist state and have dared to introduce economic legislation and practices that defy any and all teachings of any school of thought in the field. And finally the cabinets for the past twenty years have acted as if the national sovereign debt challenge does not exist; they hope that the probability of a potential offshore gas find is going to resolve this issue. That is so irresponsible that it reminds me of the Greek tragedies whose plot builds up to a level that is impossible to solve until a deus ex machina appears. (A heavenly solution:-)).

The Lebanese politicians have had so many opportunities to prove their allegiance to the country, to democracy and to law and order. Unfortunately they have failed practically every single time. I hope that they hold elections on time without any resort to such gimmicks as extensions. If they fail this time then it might be one time too many.

Sectarianism and Democracy Do Not Mix. Don't Kid Yourself.

If two opposing sides are fighting each other with all what they have in order to control a major corporation then the uncertainty and the instability that their acts generate demoralizes most of the employees and the valuation in addition to the performance of the corporation in question plummets. A white knight comes to the rescue in the eleventh hour by getting the two parties to stop their feuding based on the principle of “equal shares” or “monasafah” as it is called in Arabic.

That was a very positive step to end the hemorrhage and save the patient from a certain death. Yet this solution could not be expected to last. At best it was a stop gap measure in an effort to allow the corporation to recuperate. You see one side to the conflict represents 60% of the capitalization while the other one represents only a 40% share that is continuing to decline. The funny thing about this settlement is that the side that represents only 40% of the capitalization continues to act as if it is the single most important element for the survival of the enterprise in question and claims that it is the only democratic group in this fight. Note the irony, those that represent only 40% of the capital insists on a board that offers them equal power to those that represent 60% and they threaten that if this is not done then that would be a gross violation of all democratic principles.

If a case similar to the above is ever presented to an MBA class anywhere in the world the solution would be simple and straight forward. All share holders should act in such a way as to enhance value for other shareholders and not only a specific group since that would be discriminatory. The solution would simply be to let those that are the most qualified to run the show. If that is true of a corporation then why not a country? Lebanon is the equivalent of the above hypothetical corporation that is struggling for survival and that is looking for a way out of this constant meaningless conflict between these two groups.

The Lebanese Christian parties, all of them, have been very disingenuous. They claim democratic principles but yet they insist that their coreligionists are more important than others. This is reminiscent of 1984 where all are equal but yet some are more equal than others. Why is it so difficult for the Lebanese Christian politicians and the Lebanese clergy, Bkirki in particular, to note the great contradiction between asking for “monasafah” and yet calling that democratic. Whether it is the Patriarch, Gemayel , Geagea or any of the others they must know that what they are calling for is not fair, it is arrogant, it is divisive and it is based on the principle that Christians are more important than others.

Do the Christian leaders have a reason to fear their potential partners? Base on the extremist language that gets all the headlines, maybe they do. Yet the answer to their fears is not to try and perpetuate a backward system but to instead seek a real and a meaningful solution whereby all stakeholders would compete on a level playing field that does not take religious affiliation into consideration. Lebanon has a golden opportunity to face head on what it has been avoiding for over twenty years. Give the various religious communities a Senate but have the Chamber of Deputies run on only merit. Let us show faith that no Lebanese will favour policies that would benefit only her coreligionists but will instead support that which is good for the commonwealth. It is time that all Lebanese come together to eliminate fear and suspicion and to act for the good of the country. There is still time to do this and there is no need for a phase in. Let us go ahead and allow any Lebanese citizen to run for a seat in the Chamber of deputies anywhere in the country and let us divide the state into 128 different districts. Taif mandates this, it is good for us and we must go ahead and do the right thing. Nothing short of this is worthwhile. If we fail to do this then we have no one to blame but ourselves.

And finally let us be reminded that equality of citizenship is sort of meaningless if potentially our best are not allowed to seek certain offices for no reason besides the fact that when they were born they were registered as belonging to this sect or that. What if one decides to reject all sects? Does she then lose her citizenship? I should hope not. That is why there are two hugely important litmus tests about whether we are mature enough to reject sectarianism: civil marriage and citizenship to the children of a Lebanese mother. Let us not pretend that we are what we are not. No democracy can exist without civil marriage and no democracy can exist without total gender equality. If we cannot deal with these relatively easy issues then why should we expect a solution to what has been the bane of Lebanon since its inception: political sectarianism. Mr. Mikati has even refused to consider looking into the possibility of adopting a civil marriage law. How disappointing and how hypocritical. Should we really expect Mr. Mikati to be able to handle the thorny issue of eliminating in one swoop, once and for all, political sectarianism? Of course not.

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