US Elections and Lebanon: Why I Will No Longer Vote for McCain
Dr. Joseph Hitti
October 05, 2008
There is no debate over the fact that George H.W. Bush (father) sold Lebanon to the Syrians in 1989-1990 in exchange for Syria´s joining the coalition against Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. This helped defeat the Lebanese Resistance against the Syrians who had, a few years earlier, sponsored Hezbollah's October 23, 1983 attack against the US Marines in Beirut (241 US Marines and servicemen were killed that day) in the first ever truck suicide bombing.
There is no debate either over the fact that President Reagan ran away from the terrorist threat in the aftermath of that 1983 attack against the US Marines in Beirut, and pulled all US forces out of Lebanon and abandoned Lebanon and US national security into the hands of the terrorist regime in Damascus and its proxy Hezbollah. Not to mention the subsequent arms sales to Iran by the Reagan administration in an attempt to rescue the US hostages held by Syria and Hezbollah during much of the 1980s.
In a recent article in Proceedings Magazine, the flagship publication of the U.S. Naval Institute, Colonel (ret.) Timothy J. Geraghty, the commanding officer of the Marine unit devastated by the 1983 Beirut suicide bombing criticized "the Americans' timidity of response" (a mild-mannered choice of words) to the 1983 attack and stated that there was a direct correlation between that timid response to the 1983 attacks and the Islamists' attack on America on September 11, 2001. Col. Geraghty said that "The coordinated dual suicide attacks [58 French paratroopers were also killed in a parallel attack on the same day], supported, planned, organized, and financed by Iran and Syria using Shi'ite proxies, achieved their strategic goal: the withdrawal of the multinational force from Lebanon and a dramatic change in U.S. national policy".
We need to remember that both the Reagan flight in the face of terror and the subsequent George H.W. Bush policy of cavorting to the dictatorial regime in Damascus and Tehran are by Republican administrations. Yet many of us came to believe the act of contrition made by George W. Bush and the transformation of US foreign policy after September 11, 2001. We believed in the Bush Doctrine of, one, no longer bartering fake stability from dictatorial regimes for oil and against real democratic change, and two, pre-emptive strikes against terrorist threats before they occur.
The same John McCain who today says that he will not withdraw from Iraq and that he will defend the US against Islamic radicalism did, in 1983, endorse that cowardly withdrawal by the US before the Syrian-Hezbollah-Iran advance by asking the question, "What is the US interest in Lebanon?" on the floor of the US Senate as he stood in opposition to keeping US peacekeeping forces in Beirut to stem the Syrian-Iranian advance. By so doing, he helped defeat the Lebanese Resistance which for decades had been fighting the Syrians, the Iranians, Hezbollah and the PLO. Perhaps, in comparison to his stance on Iraq today, John McCain has learned some lessons. Well, maybe not.
For today, we are witnessing the collapse and failures of those post-September 11, 2001 policies and doctrines. It didn´t take more than 7 years, and we are back to where we were on September 10, 2001. We see George W. Bush (son) - and John McCain in his footsteps – all but violating those post-September 11 pledges and reverting to policies of cavorting to dictators, traditionalists, corrupt leaderships, former warlords and war criminals and propping them as the best hope for a democratic Lebanon, for the sole and short-sighted purpose of opposing Hezbollah. All of this, in fact, without actually doing anything serious to actually defeat Hezbollah, stem the Syrian continued intervention, or help to strengthen the Lebanese army so it may one day defeat Hezbollah. Only yesterday in New York, Condoleezza Rice congratulated herself on turning a new page with Syria by meeting the Syrian UN envoy and giving credibility to the Baathist regime in Damascus that still holds and tortures thousands of innocent Lebanese civilians incommunicado since the 1970s and 1980s in its prisons.
We see George W. Bush – and John McCain in his footsteps – having returned to old and stale policies of making deals with corrupt and unrepresentative leaders in order to buy stability from them at the expense of true freedoms, true change, true reforms, true justice and real grassroots, civil society-based democracy.
This is why, then, as a Lebanese-American who once believed in the post-September 11, 2001 lies and the myths propagated by the Republicans, I will not vote for John McCain this November.
I had voted for McCain in previous elections and primaries because I believed in his "maverick" image, in the vision of someone who, while a Republican, had enough of an independent streak to adopt positions strictly on principle, no matter the cost. Someone who could strike that real effective middle ground between ideology and pragmatism, but without dishonoring the principles. But on the issue of Lebanon, John McCain has endorsed wholesale the Bush pack of lies. He is supporting the March 14 traditionalists, corrupt warlords and war criminals who collaborated with the Syrian occupation for decades, and who in a heartbeat will revert back to pan-Arab Islamic radicalism and the rejectionist anti-peace, pro-Syrian, pro-Muslim radical platforms. These are people who for decades supported the PLO terrorism and who to this day speak with both sides of their mouths: They are against Hezbollah´s Iranian ties and Syria´s interference in Lebanon, but they also support Hezbollah's terrorism as "resistance" (as in the current Siniora government platform) and Syria´s "brotherhood" to Lebanon, and reject any direct peace negotiations between Lebanon and the "enemy" Israel leading to a peace treaty that will settle all outstanding issues once and for all and finally shield Lebanon from the corrosive Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
How can anyone believe that Lebanon will know peace without the Lebanese government acquiescing to a negotiated peace between Lebanon and Israel? How can the Republican Party support those same people who refuse a negotiated civilized political solution between Lebanon and Israel, and instead argue for a military confrontation with Israel? How can the US government and the Republicans support the Sleiman-Siniora regime in Lebanon whose government plan includes "endorsing the right of the 'Resistance' [i.e. the terrorist Hezbollah organization] to defend Lebanon" and is working on a "common defense strategy" between the Lebanese state and that terrorist organization whose hands are soaked with the blood of American citizens and soldiers?
For all those reasons, I have come to despise and mistrust the Republicans. And for all those reasons, I will not vote for John McCain this coming November. The treason of the Republicans to the Lebanese Cause is beyond belief because it is atreason by a friend that has been ongoing for decades, and which we thought had come to an end in 2001. But it has not. At this critical time in Lebanon´s history, when the future of Lebanon is being forged through assassinations and rising fundamentalism, I cannot trust that a Republican administration – even a McCain administration – will do the right thing for Lebanon, on principle, by making the difficult choices. I have come to the conclusion that, even as I disagree fundamentally with the Democrats on foreign policy principles, I prefer to know who I am dealing with, rather than be stabbed in the back by the so-called Republican friends of Lebanon.
The very next day after the Sunday October 23, 1983 attack against the US Marines compound in Beirut, President Reagan sent US troops to the Caribbean island of Grenada in a big media fanfare to "rescue" a few US medical students trapped by a standoff between two political parties vying for power. That was Reagan´s way of deflecting attention and evading responsibility from the unfolding massacre of US Marines in Beirut. I suspect John McCain would undertake a similarly moronic attempt at avoiding facing up to the real threat. Mission accomplished!
There is no debate either over the fact that President Reagan ran away from the terrorist threat in the aftermath of that 1983 attack against the US Marines in Beirut, and pulled all US forces out of Lebanon and abandoned Lebanon and US national security into the hands of the terrorist regime in Damascus and its proxy Hezbollah. Not to mention the subsequent arms sales to Iran by the Reagan administration in an attempt to rescue the US hostages held by Syria and Hezbollah during much of the 1980s.
In a recent article in Proceedings Magazine, the flagship publication of the U.S. Naval Institute, Colonel (ret.) Timothy J. Geraghty, the commanding officer of the Marine unit devastated by the 1983 Beirut suicide bombing criticized "the Americans' timidity of response" (a mild-mannered choice of words) to the 1983 attack and stated that there was a direct correlation between that timid response to the 1983 attacks and the Islamists' attack on America on September 11, 2001. Col. Geraghty said that "The coordinated dual suicide attacks [58 French paratroopers were also killed in a parallel attack on the same day], supported, planned, organized, and financed by Iran and Syria using Shi'ite proxies, achieved their strategic goal: the withdrawal of the multinational force from Lebanon and a dramatic change in U.S. national policy".
We need to remember that both the Reagan flight in the face of terror and the subsequent George H.W. Bush policy of cavorting to the dictatorial regime in Damascus and Tehran are by Republican administrations. Yet many of us came to believe the act of contrition made by George W. Bush and the transformation of US foreign policy after September 11, 2001. We believed in the Bush Doctrine of, one, no longer bartering fake stability from dictatorial regimes for oil and against real democratic change, and two, pre-emptive strikes against terrorist threats before they occur.
The same John McCain who today says that he will not withdraw from Iraq and that he will defend the US against Islamic radicalism did, in 1983, endorse that cowardly withdrawal by the US before the Syrian-Hezbollah-Iran advance by asking the question, "What is the US interest in Lebanon?" on the floor of the US Senate as he stood in opposition to keeping US peacekeeping forces in Beirut to stem the Syrian-Iranian advance. By so doing, he helped defeat the Lebanese Resistance which for decades had been fighting the Syrians, the Iranians, Hezbollah and the PLO. Perhaps, in comparison to his stance on Iraq today, John McCain has learned some lessons. Well, maybe not.
For today, we are witnessing the collapse and failures of those post-September 11, 2001 policies and doctrines. It didn´t take more than 7 years, and we are back to where we were on September 10, 2001. We see George W. Bush (son) - and John McCain in his footsteps – all but violating those post-September 11 pledges and reverting to policies of cavorting to dictators, traditionalists, corrupt leaderships, former warlords and war criminals and propping them as the best hope for a democratic Lebanon, for the sole and short-sighted purpose of opposing Hezbollah. All of this, in fact, without actually doing anything serious to actually defeat Hezbollah, stem the Syrian continued intervention, or help to strengthen the Lebanese army so it may one day defeat Hezbollah. Only yesterday in New York, Condoleezza Rice congratulated herself on turning a new page with Syria by meeting the Syrian UN envoy and giving credibility to the Baathist regime in Damascus that still holds and tortures thousands of innocent Lebanese civilians incommunicado since the 1970s and 1980s in its prisons.
We see George W. Bush – and John McCain in his footsteps – having returned to old and stale policies of making deals with corrupt and unrepresentative leaders in order to buy stability from them at the expense of true freedoms, true change, true reforms, true justice and real grassroots, civil society-based democracy.
This is why, then, as a Lebanese-American who once believed in the post-September 11, 2001 lies and the myths propagated by the Republicans, I will not vote for John McCain this November.
I had voted for McCain in previous elections and primaries because I believed in his "maverick" image, in the vision of someone who, while a Republican, had enough of an independent streak to adopt positions strictly on principle, no matter the cost. Someone who could strike that real effective middle ground between ideology and pragmatism, but without dishonoring the principles. But on the issue of Lebanon, John McCain has endorsed wholesale the Bush pack of lies. He is supporting the March 14 traditionalists, corrupt warlords and war criminals who collaborated with the Syrian occupation for decades, and who in a heartbeat will revert back to pan-Arab Islamic radicalism and the rejectionist anti-peace, pro-Syrian, pro-Muslim radical platforms. These are people who for decades supported the PLO terrorism and who to this day speak with both sides of their mouths: They are against Hezbollah´s Iranian ties and Syria´s interference in Lebanon, but they also support Hezbollah's terrorism as "resistance" (as in the current Siniora government platform) and Syria´s "brotherhood" to Lebanon, and reject any direct peace negotiations between Lebanon and the "enemy" Israel leading to a peace treaty that will settle all outstanding issues once and for all and finally shield Lebanon from the corrosive Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
How can anyone believe that Lebanon will know peace without the Lebanese government acquiescing to a negotiated peace between Lebanon and Israel? How can the Republican Party support those same people who refuse a negotiated civilized political solution between Lebanon and Israel, and instead argue for a military confrontation with Israel? How can the US government and the Republicans support the Sleiman-Siniora regime in Lebanon whose government plan includes "endorsing the right of the 'Resistance' [i.e. the terrorist Hezbollah organization] to defend Lebanon" and is working on a "common defense strategy" between the Lebanese state and that terrorist organization whose hands are soaked with the blood of American citizens and soldiers?
For all those reasons, I have come to despise and mistrust the Republicans. And for all those reasons, I will not vote for John McCain this coming November. The treason of the Republicans to the Lebanese Cause is beyond belief because it is atreason by a friend that has been ongoing for decades, and which we thought had come to an end in 2001. But it has not. At this critical time in Lebanon´s history, when the future of Lebanon is being forged through assassinations and rising fundamentalism, I cannot trust that a Republican administration – even a McCain administration – will do the right thing for Lebanon, on principle, by making the difficult choices. I have come to the conclusion that, even as I disagree fundamentally with the Democrats on foreign policy principles, I prefer to know who I am dealing with, rather than be stabbed in the back by the so-called Republican friends of Lebanon.
The very next day after the Sunday October 23, 1983 attack against the US Marines compound in Beirut, President Reagan sent US troops to the Caribbean island of Grenada in a big media fanfare to "rescue" a few US medical students trapped by a standoff between two political parties vying for power. That was Reagan´s way of deflecting attention and evading responsibility from the unfolding massacre of US Marines in Beirut. I suspect John McCain would undertake a similarly moronic attempt at avoiding facing up to the real threat. Mission accomplished!