Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 16-17/2023
Nasrallah’s speech is terrorist par excellence, and contains direct, brazen threats to individuals, deputies, activists, Journalists and media outlets
Elias Bejjani/August 16/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/121268/121268/
Our prayers go out to the souls of Lebanon’s latest martyrs, Fadi Bejjani, Elias Al-Hasrouni, Haitian and Malek Touq, who sacrificed themselves on the altar of Lebanon. May their souls Rest in Peace in the Heavenly mansions.
It is so obvious that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech on Monday, August 14, 2023 was not at all according to any standard; accommodating, calm and conciliatory, as Hezbollah’s media outlets — their cymbals and mouthpieces — tried to portray it.
The lengthy, bragging, and Hippocratic speech focused on individuals, activists, parliamentarians, journalists and media facilities, with the aim of singling them out, terrorizing and threatening them.
Nasrallah in a cunning, malice, hostile and provocative rhetoric utilized all his talents of terrorism to divide the people of the Kehali town, and to sow discord among them. He focused on those who took to the streets and confronted his group’s terrorist members, threatening that his militia knows them and has their pictures. Meanwhile with a disgusting impudence he called on the judiciary to pursue and charge them, while intentionally turning a blind eye on the armed reception that took place in the Bekaa region for his militia’s terrorist who assassinated the martyr Fadi Bejjani.
He threatened the MTV station, and described it as malicious (without naming it), and held it accountable for everything that happened in the town of Kehali. In the same context, his threat included Nidaa Al-Watan newspaper (without naming it) among many other media facilities and journalists who covered his militia’s Kehali invasion and crimes.
With the same bragging, fabricated and accusative rhetoric, Nasrallah accused with sedition against his so called resistance, the Members of the parliament, partisan activists and journalists who rushed to support the people of Kehali town.
His most dangerous threat was an alleged civil war that all those Lebanese who reject his militia’s occupation, do not acquiesce in his Iranian authority, do not stupidly applaud the charlatanism and hypocrisy of the heresy of his so called resistance, are preparing.
Nasrallah and his mullahs’ masters in Iran must be well aware that the majority of the Lebanese societies, strongly reject their hegemony and occupation, as was clearly shown in the towns of Shuya, Khaldeh, Ain al-Rummaneh and Kehali.
It is worth mentioning that the ministerial statements, which some allege to have legitimized Hezbollah and the lie of its resistance, are mere proposed plans that have no legal or legislative value. The only authority who legislates in Lebanon is the parliament, and up till now, it did not legislate neither Hezbollah’s weapons nor its alleged and criminal resistance.
As for Hezbollah’s blatant MP, Muhammad Raad’s statement in which he said, “whoever does not want the resistance does not want the Taif Accord”, it is a brazen threat of a war that Hezbollah is preparing to launch against any Lebanese who wants to implement the Taif Accord, that calls plainly for disarming all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias, and extending the state’s authority by means of its own forces to all Lebanese territories. It remains that Hezbollah, according to all the Lebanese laws, is a gang of armed criminals and mercenaries and not a resistance. Meanwhile, Hezbollah did not liberate the south of Lebanon from the Israeli occupation in the year 2000, Nor does Hezbollah represent the Shiite community in the Lebanese Parliament which it kidnaps, takes hostage and falsifies its presentation by force, terrorism and sectarianism.
In conclusion, there will be no solutions in Lebanon at any level, and in any domain without the full implementation of the UN resolutions pertaining to Lebanon, namely the Armistice Agreement, 1559, 1680 and 1701.
Long Live Free Lebanon

US Treasury Designates Lebanese Environmental Organization, Green Without Borders, for Concealed Hezbollah Ties
LBCI/August 16, 2023
On Wednesday, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) targeted the Lebanon-based environmental organization, Green Without Borders (GWB), and its leader, Zuhair Subhi Nahla. A statement from the US Treasury alleges that GWB has been covertly supporting Hezbollah's operations along the Blue Line, which demarcates Lebanon from Israel, while outwardly functioning as an environmental activist group. Brian E. Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, remarked in the statement, “The United States rejects Hezbollah’s cynical efforts to cloak its destabilizing terrorist activities with false environmentalism.” Nelson further assured the US's dedication to authentic environmental initiatives in Lebanon and the relentless pursuit of Hezbollah and its network. According to the US Treasury's statement, the designation of GWB and Nahla is aligned with Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, which focuses on entities and individuals associated with terrorist activities. Founded in 2013 with an environmental conservation premise, GWB's activities, as per the US Treasury's statement, deviate from their ecological narrative. The organization’s various outposts, populated by Hezbollah operatives, have purportedly served as disguises for Hezbollah's underground ammunition depots. These positions not only interfered with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon's peacekeeping missions but also barred external scrutiny. The statement additionally draws attention to GWB's public association with Hezbollah’s construction wing, Jihad al-Bina, an entity previously blacklisted by OFAC in 2007. GWB is now under scrutiny for its alleged material support to Hezbollah. Zuhair Subhi Nahla's connection with Hezbollah stands highlighted in the US Treasury's statement. Despite Nahla's repudiations of formal affiliations with Hezbollah, the statement underscores his open recognition of ties between himself, GWB, and the known terrorist faction.The basis for Nahla's designation lies in his leadership role at GWB, an organization flagged under E.O. 13224, as elucidated in the statement.

UNIFIL Head chairs Tripartite meeting
NNA/August 16, 2023
UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Aroldo Lázaro chaired a Tripartite meeting with senior officers of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at a UN position in Ras al-Naqoura today.
Discussions focused on the situation along the Blue Line, air and ground violations, and other issues within the scope of UNIFIL’s mandate under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006) and subsequent resolutions. Major General Lázaro expressed his concern over a series of incidents along the Blue Line in recent months which have increased tension. UNIFIL chief urged the parties to continue to avail of UNIFIL’s liaison and coordination mechanisms while avoiding unilateral actions. He also appealed for engagement in Blue Line talks to address outstanding issues highlighting the importance of positive signals by both parties ahead of the Security Council consideration of UNIFIL’s mandate renewal. Since the end of the 2006 war in south Lebanon, regular Tripartite meetings have been held under UNIFIL’s auspices as an essential conflict-management and confidence-building mechanism. Today was the 162nd such meeting. Through its liaison and coordination mechanisms, UNIFIL remains the only forum through which the Lebanese and Israeli armies officially meet.

Berri calls for legislative session on Thursday
NNA – House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Wednesday called for a legislative session to be held on Thursday, August 17, at 11:00 a.m.. The session aims to facilitate discussions on various projects and proposals listed on its agenda.

Hezbollah's influence: Opposition issues statement on dialogue amid French Envoy's letters
LBCI/August 16, 2023
While parliamentary blocs are receiving French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian's letter, 31 opposition MPs have collectively issued a statement outlining their stance regarding the upcoming dialogue. This group includes the Lebanese Forces Party, Kataeb, Renewal, and other independent and Change MPs. The MPs expressed a strong sense of urgency in their message, asserting that the time for decisive action has arrived. They emphasized that there is no room for further delay or temporary settlements that may inadvertently bolster Hezbollah's influence over the presidency and the nation as a whole.
According to these MPs, adherence to the constitution and the rule of law is imperative, and weapons monopoly must be vested in the state's hands. Moreover, any form of engagement with Hezbollah and its allies is no longer seen as productive. Briefly, the statement from these 31 opposition members encapsulates their stance on the September dialogue facilitated by France. Should the invitation remain unchanged, the dialogue will proceed without their presence. However, it's important to note that these 31 MPs only represent part of the opposition, as several independents and Change MPs refrained from adding their signatures to the statement. While dialogue remains a pivotal means to navigate the crisis and elect a president, the issue of Hezbollah's arms is a topic that requires strategic defense considerations under the purview of the presidency. In response, the Democratic Gathering highlighted the importance of dialogue in resolving the crisis and electing a president as a top priority. They suggested that Hezbollah's arms should be addressed within a dialogue focused on defense strategy under the presidency's supervision. Additionally, the Democratic Gathering affirmed its commitment to maintaining the functionality of institutions, ranging from the Cabinet to the Parliament, to ensure the effective governance of the country. Meanwhile, the Centrist Bloc has attempted to strike a balanced stance. Their position merges the affirmation of the principle of dialogue and their willingness to participate in discussions surrounding the presidency. Nevertheless, the National Moderation bloc also tried to reach a mediation agreement. They advocate for the election of a president who can effectively manage dialogues concerning divisive issues, mainly the matter of arms, but not raise controversial issues at the wrong time. Should Lebanon move towards further escalation or focus on ending the presidential vacuum?

French letter sparks inquiries: Lebanon's presidential situation under scrutiny
LBCI/August 16, 2023
French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian has sent 38 letters in both French and Arabic to parliamentary blocs and MPs, seeking answers to two pivotal questions concerning the upcoming presidential elections. The first inquiry probes the priority projects envisioned by each political team for the presidency during the next six years. The second question delves into the qualities and competencies the future president should possess to execute these projects effectively. French sources have noted criticism of the requests in the letter. They stated that the demand for a written response is merely an academic measure aimed at documenting the answers of political forces. This serves as a basis for a new presidential initiative progressing from program outlines to specifications and the future president's name. Although met with anticipation and intrigue, this letter has already generated discussions in Lebanon. Observers have emphasized that while the response deadline is set for August 31, it remains flexible, allowing answers to be submitted in early September. Le Drian's anticipated arrival in Beirut during the first week of September is expected to collect these responses. This announcement comes in conjunction with a statement from opposition forces, who, while welcoming Le Drian's mediation efforts, assert the futility of any engagement with Hezbollah and its allies, as explicitly stated in the opposition's declaration. Sources within the opposition have clarified that their statement was prepared in response to recent events and developments in Kahaleh rather than directly reacting to the French letter. They further underlined the unity of the opposition's stance regarding the envoy's inquiries. Georges Adwan, Deputy Leader of the Lebanese Forces Party, voiced his perplexity over Le Drian's message, noting that France is a prestigious nation known for its adherence to constitutional practices and diplomatic principles. However, Adwan contended that the letter deviates from these norms and challenges the principle of national sovereignty, a cornerstone in Lebanon's interactions with friendly nations. In return, sources from Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc have confirmed that they will formulate a response to Le Drian's message after careful deliberation. Similarly, the Development and Liberation bloc, headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, adopts a thoughtful approach to crafting their reply. On the other hand, the Democratic Gathering awaits the decision of MP Taymour Jumblatt, while the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) evaluates the message to respond accordingly.

Rig, helicopter arrive to Lebanon for offshore drilling operations in Block 9
NNA/August 16, 2023
TotalEnergies, the operator of Block 9, announces the arrival of the drilling rig, Transocean Barents, on the block, at around 120 km off the coast of Beirut, and the first helicopter at Beirut Airport. This helicopter, contracted by TotalEnergies EP Block 9 and operated by Gulf Helicopters, will transport the teams to the drilling rig. The arrival of the equipment marks an important step in the preparation of the drilling of the exploration well in Block 9, which will begin towards the end of August 2023. A site visit took place on August 16th at Beirut Airport in the presence of Mr. Walid Fayad, Minister of Energy & Water, Mr. Ali Hamié, Minister of Public Works & Transport along with representatives from the Lebanese Petroleum Administration. This visit was an opportunity to demonstrate the progress of activities as per the schedule of operations to which the partners have committed in January 2023.
TotalEnergies Exploration & Production has been established in Lebanon since 2018, the year during which the two exploration and production agreements for blocks 9 and 4 were signed. As the operator of these two blocks, TotalEnergies completed the first exploration well ever drilled in Lebanese deep waters, in block 4 in early 2020, in accordance with its contractual obligations. With its partners, ENI and QatarEnergy, TotalEnergies is preparing to drill a second exploration well. This well will be drilled in block 9 during the year 2023.  TotalEnergies is a global multi-energy company that produces and markets energies: oil and biofuels, natural gas and green gases, renewables and electricity. Our more than 100,000 employees are committed to energy that is ever more affordable, cleaner, more reliable and accessible to as many people as possible. Active in nearly 130 countries, TotalEnergies puts sustainable development in all its dimensions at the heart of its projects and operations to contribute to the well-being of people.

TotalEnergies drilling operation: Is Lebanon ready to join oil-producing nations as offshore drilling begins?
LBCI/August 16, 2023
In a significant step toward offshore oil and gas extraction, the French company TotalEnergies has announced the arrival of a drilling platform at Block 9, located off the coast of Lebanon and poised to commence exploratory drilling later this month.
This arrival marks the culmination of a journey in the British North Sea, traversing alongside Portugal and crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, ultimately reaching Lebanon. This endeavor continues a decade-long quest for oil exploration. While the anticipation has been prolonged, the Lebanese people still have more time to await their first concrete answer regarding the quantities present in Block 9. This crucial information is expected to surface within the next 70 days. Notably, the state and ministries have demonstrated cooperation by expediting document issuance and completing necessary procedures to facilitate the commencement of the vessel’s operations. The arrival of the drilling vessel coincides with the inaugural landing of the first helicopter at Beirut International Airport. This helicopter, operated by Gulf Helicopters, has been contracted by TotalEnergies to transport teams to and from the drilling platform, which will be stationed approximately 70 kilometers off the Lebanese coast. According to a statement from TotalEnergies, the arrival of the vessel and helicopter represents a pivotal phase in the preparation for exploratory drilling. It also serves as a reminder that the work has been carried out following the operations schedule, and progress is aligned with the commitment made by partners in January 2023. With only days remaining before operations commence off the shores of Naqoura, will Lebanon enter the new year announcing its entry into the oil-producing nations league?

2023 budget: Cabinet's approval amidst deficit increase
LBCI/August 16, 2023
The Cabinet approved the 2023 budget project after it was studied in six sessions. According to information obtained by LBCI, the budget deficit reached 45 thousand billion Lebanese lira, equivalent to 24 percent, up from the previous 18 percent.
As for expenditures, they amounted to 192 billion Lebanese lira, while revenues were 147 billion Lebanese lira. The Cabinet also approved a draft law aiming to grant the government legislative authority in the customs field and a draft law aiming to open a credit in the 2023 budget reserve before its ratification. It is worth mentioning that Deputy Prime Minister Saadeh Al Shami distributed copies of a letter he addressed to the government, which includes his opinion on the Alvarez & Marsal report and the required government steps in this regard (to view it, click here). The Cabinet postponed the discussion on increasing fees and taxes to the 2024 budget, which will be sent by the Ministry of Finance to the government in the coming weeks.

Investigators have yet to identify underlying motives for Hasrouni’s murder: Sources
LBCI/August 16, 2023
In the ongoing investigation into the murder of Elias Hasrouni in Ain Ebel, Interior Ministry sources echo the recent statements of Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi, indicating that preliminary sources suggests no political affiliation behind the crime.
The Minister's remarks stand as they are, with no further elaboration or addition. However, various sources have expressed different reactions in response. The Interior Minister's statement comes at a time when investigations persist.  The public awaits the results of the autopsy on Hasrouni's body and the forensic report from the medical examiner chosen by his family, aimed at determining the cause of death. In this context, the results of blood tests to ascertain the presence of any toxins in the body that could have contributed to the murder are anticipated and expected within the next two days. The initial forensic report confirmed the absence of bruises on various parts of the body, except for rib fractures in the chest area. Minister Mawlawi’s assertion of no political motive also comes at a time when investigators have yet to identify the underlying motives for the murder, nor have they pinpointed the origin and destination of the vehicles involved in the abduction and killing of Hasrouni. Nevertheless, it is established that three vehicles were implicated in the operation, and suspicions linger around other vehicles as well. The investigations have not conclusively identified the participants or their final count. As the investigations into the Hasrouni case continue, no evidence has emerged thus far to elucidate the true motives or rule out any possibilities. According to sources, the Interior Minister might have aimed to ease tensions in the country, particularly after the Kahaleh incident. Still, his preemptive remarks have led to criticism as ongoing investigations are in progress.

Mikati: Government doing more than what it is required to do
NNA/August 16, 2023
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati told a cabinet session on Wednesday that his government "is doing more than what it is required to do, criticizing those claiming that the government is failing its duty. "Some like to repeat, for sheer political reasons, that the government is absent. The government is doing more than it is required to do," he said. "We meet today after a week that witnessed a dangerous security development, that is, the deplorable incident in Kahaleh that left two victims. This issue is being investigated by the army under the supervision of the competent judicial authority," he said. "As a government, we did what we had to do," he continued, hailing the army's measures and efforts. Moreover, Mikati stressed the importance of cooperation between all sides and to rally behind the state. Besides, Mikati said that the code of money and credit should be revised, revealing that a committee will be tasked with the revision. He added that he will convene the committee in the next couple of days.

Berri discusses bilateral ties with visiting Japanese Minister, follows up on Tele Liban’s closure with Makary
NNA/August 16, 2023
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Wednesday welcomed Japanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Yamada Kenji, in the presence of Japanese Ambassador to Lebanon, Masayuki Magoshi, with whom he discussed the best means to bolster relations and cooperation between Lebanon and Japan. Berri also welcomed Human Rights Watch Executive Director, Tirana Hassan, who visited him in the company of Lama Fakih, the Director of the Organization's Office in the Middle East. Speaker Berri separately met with Caretaker Information Minister, Ziad Makary, with whom he broached an array of political and media affairs, especially the media law and Tele Liban. “We’ve discussed the substantial need to elect a President of the Republic as soon as possible. We also stressed the need to expedite discussions over the media law. “I’ve assured the House Speaker that Tele Liban has not been closed and shall never be closed for long as we are present,” Makary said. “This institution holds Lebanon's present and memories, and we hope it will be a part of its future,” Makary added, affirming that all Tele Liban employees will be receiving their full rights like other public sector employees.

Bassil: 109 Syrians entered Lebanon from Cyprus without approval
NNA/August 16, 2023
Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leader, MP Gebran Bassil, on Wednesday said that 109 Syrians entered Lebanon coming from Cyprus without the approval of Lebanon’s Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior, Defense, as well as Lebanon’s General Security.
"Who has approved to let them in? This question addressed to the authorities mentioned above. We have been endeavoring to repatriate refugees to Syria and fighting against Europe and the whole world for their return. Who dares to audaciously agree with a European state to repatriate scores of them to Lebanon?" Bassil exclaimed. "No one can convince us that they've been transferred back to the Syrian borders,” Bassil added, recounting the means by which Syrian refugees are usually smuggled back into Lebanese territories. "We are very familiar with the immense funding and coercion involved. This is a crime against the country, and its perpetrators are responsible for the nation’s security,” Bassil concluded.

Environment Minister approves “Environmental Impact Assessment Report” for Oil and Gas Exploration in Bloc 9
NNA/August 16, 2023
Caretaker Minister of Environment, Nasser Yassin, on Wednesday okayed the “environmental impact assessment report” for oil and gas exploration in Bloc 9 (Qana 31/1-2023) in the Lebanese territorial waters. Yassin requested of the Ministry of Energy to incorporate the observations of the Ministry of Environment and to hand in the outcomes of surveys and operations within a period of one month.

Mawlawi meets Beirut Municipal Council, MPs
NNA/August 16, 2023
Caretaker Minister of Interior, Bassam Mawlawi, met, at his ministry office on Wednesday, with the Beirut Municipal Council, chaired by Abdallah Darwiche. Mawlawi later received MP Inaya Ezzeddine, with whom he discussed an array of social affairs. He also discussed the current general situation with MP Farid Bustani.

UNICEF urges national investment to ensure livable wages for teachers, education staff to guarantee uninterrupted learning for all children
NNA/August 16, 2023
The 2022-23 scholastic year was marked by learning disruptions for more than 2 months affecting over 450,000 children (Kindergarten – Grade 12). UNICEF commends all teachers and educational staff as well as parents and students for the collective effort of finishing the academic year and completing the official exams, under the leadership of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE), and the support of international partners under the new aid modality, the Transition and Resilience Education Fund (TREF).
Throughout the year, MEHE has shown efforts to strengthen partnership governance and integrate TREF’s accountability and transparency principles, which have triggered a reform in governance, data management and financial management across schools and regional education offices.
In line with these reforms, UNICEF has not channelled any funds to MEHE directly since the 2021/2022 scholastic year. Instead, UNICEF has been transferring payments directly to teachers, education staff, schools and regional offices. All these payments were made based on verified attendance of teachers and students, as per TREF principles. Specifically, in response to the growing learning crisis, UNICEF, through generous support from international partners, is spending over USD70M during the scholastic year 2022- 2023 to critically support education and public schools:
Disbursed funds in USD directly to 1,074 public schools covering all Lebanese and non- Lebanese students attending public schools as per agreement with MEHE, Paid directly in USD the salaries of 12,500 Lebanese special contracted teachers and educational staff, Paid directly in USD the productivity allowance for 15,000 Lebanese teachers and educational staff, Transferred cash assistance directly in USD to more than 70,000 eligible children to support their retention and regular attendance in schools, Funding the summer school 2023, benefiting around 160,000 children, most of whom are Lebanese (70%), to recover some of their learning loss, Rehabilitating 26 schools which will be completed before the start of the new year school year and initiating the rehabilitation of 94 additional public schools, while the assessment of the energy needs in 850 public schools is ongoing in efforts to increase access to solar power in the education sector. Initiated the construction of 4 new public schools to be equipped with solar energy systems. Supported the funding of the official exams through supplies and teacher incentives. Nevertheless, given the ongoing financial crisis, there is a danger that the coming scholastic year will face further learning disruptions if teachers and educational staff are not paid a liveable wage. The Government of Lebanon must prioritize mobilizing budget resources for education to ensure public schools are open in October for all children. Moreover, UNICEF’s support for children cannot replace, but only complement the Government’s investment in education. With this, we commend MEHE’s efforts to actively lobby with the Parliament, Ministry of Finance and Office of the Prime Minister to prioritize education and call on all stakeholders in Lebanon to allocate sufficient government funds to ensure schools stay open for all children. The children of Lebanon cannot afford further disruptions to their learning due to school closures risking a whole generation falling behind.
UNICEF and international partners remain committed to Children’s Right to Education in Lebanon by supporting the Government of Lebanon in providing educational services to all children.

Saint Roch's Anual Remembrance Day August 16
Saint of the day
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/121294/121294/
Saint Roch was the only son of a wealthy nobleman in France, who seems to have been governor of the town of Montpellier. In answer to the persevering prayers of the parents, this child was granted to them. His future career was indicated by a birthmark in the form of a red cross that was deeply marked on his breast. The parents raised St Roch in a devout manner. Proof was given when, at the age of 20, he lost both parents. He did not use the immense fortune he inherited for his personal benefit, but he sold all the personal property and distributed the proceeds among the poor while he transferred the ownership of the real estate to his uncle. This done, he joined the Third Order of St Francis, put on a pilgrim’s garb, and journeyed to Rome to visit the tombs of the Apostles. When he arrived at Acquapendente in northern Italy about the year 1315, he found that an epidemic had broken out there and was making fearful ravages. Saint Roch did not hasten on, as many another person, fearful for his life, would have done, but according to the example of Christ and the admonition of the beloved disciple (1 John 3:16), he offered his life in the service of his brethren in Christ. Saint Roch went to the hospital of St John, which was filled with the plague stricken, and offered his services to the brothers there. He also went to individual homes and sought out the sick, serving them without rest by day and by night. God rewarded his heroic charity by causing many to be cured at the mere Sign of the Cross which Saint Roch made over them. When the plague abated, Roch proceeded on his journey to Rome. In Rome, too, an epidemic had broken out. Besides visiting the holy places, Saint Roch again devoted himself to the care of the sick, many of whom were miraculously cured by him. He performed the same services in many other towns of Italy until he arrived in Piacenza and was himself stricken with the dread disease. In the very hospital where he had cured so many sick, he was now looked upon as an intruder, who as an outsider had no right to claim a place there. In order not to be a burden to others, he arose, left the house, and with the support of a staff dragged himself wearily to a neighboring woods. There he came upon a dilapidated hut with a bit of straw, where he lay down, thanking God for the quiet lodging.God Himself provided for his nourishment. As He once took care of Elias, sending him bread by means of a raven, so He now sent bread to Roch by means of a dog from a neighboring country house.The sick man gradually recovered. When he had regained sufficient strength, he was divinely inspired to return to his native town. There furious warfare was raging. The soldiers whom he encountered thought he was a spy. He was led before the governor of Montpellier, his own uncle, who, however, did not recognize his nephew in the emaciated prisoner, and had the supposed spy cast into prison. Saint Roch did not say a word in his defense; he wished, like Christ, to accept in silence whatever heaven had ordained for him. Because of the disturbances of the war, he was almost completely forgotten, and languished in prison for 5 years. Then death put an end to his trials on August 16, 1378. When he felt that his end was drawing near, Saint Roch asked that a priest might come and administer the last sacraments. The priest, on entering the prison, beheld it supernaturally lighted up and the poor captive surrounded with special radiance. As death claimed its victim, a tablet appeared on the wall on which an angelic hand wrote in golden letters the name of Roch, and the prediction that all who would invoke his intercession would be delivered from the plague.Informed of all that took place, Saint Roch’s uncle came to the prison and, shortly after, also the governor’s mother, that is, Roch’s grandmother. She identified the dead man as her grandson by the birthmark of the red cross on his breast. They gave him a magnificent funeral and had a church built in his honor, in which his body was entombed. His veneration was approved by several popes and soon spread throughout Europe. He was canonized by Pope Urban VIII. He is the patron against contagious diseases.

AMCD Condemns Hezbollah Shooting of Lebanese Christian Civilian and Calls for Implementation of UNSC Res. 1559
August 16, 2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/121280/121280/
The American Mideast Coalition for Democracy condemns the shooting of Lebanese civilian, Fadi Bejjani, in the Christian village of Kahale, Mount Lebanon. The incident happened when a truck carrying weapons and ammunition destined for Hezbollah in the suburbs of Beirut, after having passed through a checkpoint staffed by the Lebanese Army, overturned, prompting the villagers to investigate. They demanded to know the cargo and tensions quickly escalated. The two Hezbollah guards opened fire on the villagers, killing 64-year-old Fadi Bejjani. His son described the scene:
“We were a metre away but couldn’t see what was inside the truck,” Youssef Bejjani said. “At least three men started shooting at us – two with machine guns and one with a pistol. My dad fell to the ground but there was so much gunfire that we couldn’t get to him for three minutes.”
One Hezbollah member, Ahmad Ali Kassas, was also killed in the clash. His funeral was the scene of so much gunfire that the acting Defense Minister’s car was hit by bullets thought to be stray and originating from the funeral.
The head of the Christian Kataeb Party, Samy Gemayel, warned Thursday that Lebanon has reached “the point of no return.”
“Lebanon is in a dangerous situation, and we cannot continue like this. We know where it led us in the past,” added Gemayel, probably referring the Lebanon’s Civil War 1975-1991.
Former Lebanese president and Maronite Christian, Michel Suleiman, stated that Hezbollah “does not consider the army and the people (represented by the state with its president and government) as equal to it, but it asks them to support its steps and decisions without even having to coordinate with them before acting.”
An investigation was also opened into the death of Elias al-Hasrouni, a former coordinator for the Christian Lebanese Forces party in Ain Ebel in southern Lebanon. Al-Hasrouni’s death was originally believed to be an accident, but the Lebanese Forces and Kataeb party claimed that he had been kidnapped and murdered. New evidence has emerged bolstering that claim.
AMCD reiterates its call for an implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the disarming of all Lebanese militias, including Hezbollah, which has never complied. The Christians of South Lebanon believe that Hezbollah will again provoke Israel into retaliating for terrorist attacks on its northern border and Christians will once more be caught in the crossfire. This fear is leading some Christians to call for the creation of “safe zones” and even a partition of the country. After the Beirut Port explosion, a petition was even circulated calling for the return of the French, who were given a mandate by the UN to stabilize and govern the country between 1923 and 1946.
As AMCD advisor Dr. Walid Phares explained, “Under UNSCR 1559, the Lebanese government and the army are under the obligation to disarm Hezbollah. After discovering that the US-listed terror group is transporting weapons from the Bekaa valley to the capital of Lebanon (on a highway passing feet away from the Ministry of Defense), it is the obligation of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to establish a safe zone between the Bekaa and Beirut and to block all arms shipments to the militias as requested by the UN and now demanded by the population.
“To cut off the militias-military supplies between the Bekaa and the southern suburb of Beirut, the LAF should declare three districts demilitarized: Aley, Matn and Baabda. I strongly suggest that the Pentagon and UNIFIL observers oversee such a security operation,” he added.

Three Mysterious Stones Prove Phoenicians Reached Canada Over 2,500 Years Ago
Edmond El-Chidiac/August 16, 2023
The existence of three mysterious stones could the theory that Phoenicians were the first travelers to reach America – long before Columbus or the Vikings.
According to a 1975 article published in the Winnipeg Free Press, those three stones, found in Eastern Townships in Quebec, serve as evidence that Phoenicians embarked on the treacherous sail across the Atlantic, reaching North America well over 2,500 years ago.
In 1974, deciphered inscriptions on the stones prove that “North America was visited by North Africans 500 years before the birth of Christ,” reads the newspaper, citing an archeologist from the Laval University, Professor Thomas Lee.
By North Africans, Lee was referring to none other than the people of Ancient Carthage, a Phoenician colony of Tyre that dominated the western Mediterranean for centuries.
@discoverphoenicia
According to Lee, the stones had Egyptian inscriptions that were written in a Libyan script. “The Libyans would have been operating, in my opinion, out of Carthage, which was a Phoenician city at the time”, said Lee, who had previously worked with the National Museum of Canada.
“Expedition that crossed in the service of Lord Hiram to conquer territory,” reads one of the stones. It was found alongside another stone that reads, “Record by Hata, who attained this limit on the river, moored his ship, and engraved this rock.”
Hiram was the Phoenician king of Tyre who reigned between 969–936 BC (Encyclopedia Britannica).
The third stone, which was found separately, reads, “Hanno, son of Tamu, reached this mountain landmark.”
While ‘Hanno’ was a popular Carthaginian name, could it have been the famed explorer Hanno the Navigator who flourished in the 5th century BC?
It is reported that two of the three stones are displayed at the Museum of the Seminary of Sherbrooke in Quebec.

The Intricacies and Repercussions of Hostage Diplomacy
 Zoya Fakhoury/Amer Fakhoury Foundation/August 16/2023
The recent deal struck by the Biden administration with Iran has sparked intense criticism and debate. Against the backdrop of Iranian citizens fighting for freedom in the recent months, concerns have been raised that this agreement only strengthens the regime. The recent deal involved Iran transferring four dual U.S. Iranian nationals wrongly incarcerated in Tehran’s Evin Prison to house arrest. The reported transfer marks the initial phase of a sequence aimed at ultimately securing the release of five U.S. citizens. In exchange, Iran will gain access to billions of dollars of its frozen assets. To be clear, bringing home Americans should be a top priority for the United States government and the prospect of five Americans coming home soon from their illegal detentions in Iran is wonderful news. However, two things can be true at once. Bringing home Americans is great news, sending billions of dollars to a regime that sponsors terrorism, is not.
In 2016, under President Obama, the U.S. sent approximately $1.7 billion to Iran as part of a settlement over an unfulfilled military equipment deal dating back to the 1970s. This act coincided with the release of five American prisoners held in Iran. Critics argued that the money was essentially a ransom payment. This approach has not yielded lasting solutions, as evidenced by the recent surge in hostage taking incidents globally. Not only has there been a surge in hostage taking, but the Iranian Regime has only increased in power and influence since the deal took place.
Iran’s regional influence, particularly through proxy groups, cannot be overlooked. Hezbollah, the Lebanon based militant group, has grown from a small militant faction into a powerful political force. The funding from Iran has been instrumental in allowing Hezbollah to maintain a significant military arsenal, which it has used in conflicts within Lebanon and Syria. In 2019, Amer Fakhoury, a U.S citizen was kidnapped in Lebanon and illegally detained for several months to be used as a political pawn by Hezbollah. Amer Fakhoury returned a dead man from Lebanon due to the mental and physical torture he received. To this day, there has been no accountability for what happened to Amer. Unfortunately, this is all too common for hostage cases. Instead of holding accountable foreign governments for their actions, we reward them.
It's noteworthy that some Iranian officials have described hostage-taking as a profitable business. Which only makes sense considering what we have seen. By providing financial incentives to countries that engage in hostage diplomacy, we inadvertently reinforce their actions and create a dangerous cycle. To break this troubling cycle, it is crucial to develop alternative strategies that prioritize the safety and well-being of hostages without compromising long-term solutions. This is possible to do. Both Michael White and Xiyue Wang, former American hostages In Iran, were released in December 2019 without any financial reward given to Iran.
Secretary Blinken gave a speech the other day regarding the release of U.S. citizens from Iranian prison to house arrest, “We continue to hold the regime accountable for its human rights abuses, destabilizing actions in the region, funding terrorism, provision of drones to Russia…among many other offenses,” he said. This statement however contradicts what is happening. Releasing billions of dollars of frozen assets to Iran, will only allow the regime to bolster its military capabilities, expand its influence across the region, and support proxy groups that destabilize neighboring countries. The release of funds will only have adverse effects on the Iranian people. Like we have seen before, the funds that are meant for “humanitarian purposes” will be redirected toward the regime’s own priorities, including funding its elite Revolutionary Guard Corps and supporting proxy militias. This will result in continued deterioration of human rights, economic hardship for the Iranian population, and limited progress towards political reform.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 16-17/2023
U.S. to Provide Iran Access to $16 Billion in Frozen Funds
FDD/August 16/2023
Latest Developments
The United States moved toward giving Iran access to at least $16 billion in the last few weeks, including $6 billion held in South Korea as part of a prisoner exchange deal and $10 billion held in Iraq to pay off Baghdad’s debts for its purchases of Iranian natural gas. Moreover, the Biden administration has remained silent regarding reports that the administration’s understanding with Iran would include up to an additional $7 billion in special drawing rights (SDR) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and potentially other cash as well. Washington has also failed to comment on Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian’s visit last week to Japan, where he reportedly requested access to $3 billion in frozen funds.
Expert Analysis
“Congress should be worried about the money we don’t see as much as or more than the money we already see. The Treasury Department needs to come clean on the status of funds for Iran from the IMF, and the State Department needs to comment on whether it is negotiating the release of additional funds currently frozen in Japan.” — Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor
“Iran is making a play for its frozen funds to be released through an escalatory test of wills in the region and with hostage diplomacy against the country that created the lock-up provisions and sanctions architecture in the first place. Congress should see the moves to unlock these monies as an attempt to avoid oversight and deliver Tehran unearned sanctions relief.” — Behnam Ben Taleblu, FDD Senior Fellow
How Did the Funds End Up in Escrow?
The funds released from South Korean banks as part of the prisoner exchange agreement were payments owed by South Korea to Iran for purchases of oil. South Korea and a handful of other nations, including China, India, Italy, Greece, Japan, Taiwan, and Turkey, were granted waivers in 2018 to continue buying Iranian oil after the Trump administration left the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The Trump administration canceled these exemptions in 2019 and diverted payments for already delivered oil into escrow accounts.
Japan is the only country with a publicly reported amount — approximately $3 billion — of unreleased Iranian funds. Still, it is likely that other states that had been granted exemptions also hold undisclosed amounts.
What Are IMF SDRs?
Unlike Iran’s escrowed funds, which are debts owed to Iran, SDRs from the IMF are units of account that a holder can trade for an infusion of liquid cash into its economy equal to the value of the SDRs. Allowing Iran to trade in its SDRs at the IMF could mean an infusion of $7 billion into Iran’s economy. The United States blocked a $5 billion IMF emergency loan to Iran in 2020, and U.S. law mandates that the IMF’s American executive director oppose allocating any funds to a state sponsor of terror.

US asks Iran to stop selling drones to Russia-FT
(Reuters)/Wed, August 16, 2023
U.S. is pushing Iran to stop selling armed drones to Russia as part of discussions on a broader unwritten understanding between Washington and Tehran to de-escalate tensions, the Financial Times said on Wednesday, citing people briefed on the matter.
The U.S. is pressing Iran to stop selling armed drones to Russia, which Moscow is using in the war in Ukraine, as well as spare parts for the unmanned aircraft, the report said, citing an Iranian official and another person familiar with the talks. The White House and Iran's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The news comes as Washington and Iran are trying to ease tensions and revive broader talks over Iran's nuclear program. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that he would welcome any Iranian steps to de-escalate its "growing nuclear threat."These discussions have taken place alongside the negotiations on a prisoner exchange deal last week, the newspaper said. Iran allowed four detained U.S. citizens to move into house arrest from Tehran's Evin prison while a fifth was already under home confinement. Last week, sources told Reuters that Iran may free five detained U.S. citizens as part of a deal to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian funds in South Korea.

Swiss government lines up behind EU's 11th round of sanctions against Russia
GENEVA (AP)/Wed, August 16, 2023
Switzerland's government has lined up with the European Union's 11th round of sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine. The Swiss executive branch decided Wednesday that the new measures adopted by the European bloc on June 23 would take effect later in the day in the Alpine country. Switzerland, which is not a member of the 27-country bloc, is a key EU trading partner and has followed every set of its sanctions against Russian companies and individuals since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine in February last year. The 11th round of EU sanctions aims to close loopholes so that goods vital to Putin’s war effort don’t get through to Russia by way of countries that trade with the EU and have maintained a business-as-usual relationship with Moscow. The multiple rounds of sanctions have affected banks, companies and markets, and even parts of the sensitive energy sector. More than 1,000 officials are subject to asset freezes and travel bans. Switzerland on June 28 implemented sanctions on more than 100 other companies and people after the EU's move days earlier and will adopt the rest of the 11th-round sanctions “that are relevant to Switzerland” on Wednesday, the government said. The Swiss measure will ban exports of some “dual-use goods” — with possible civilian and military uses — to another 87 companies, and some types of electronic components and precursors to chemical weapons will also be affected, the government said.
“In the financial sector, the existing ban on selling securities denominated in Swiss francs or in an official currency of an EU member state to Russian nationals and entities was expanded,” it said. “The sale of securities to Russian citizens and entities is now prohibited, regardless of the currency.”

Ukraine modifies British Challenger 2 tanks to protect them from Russian drones
Danielle Sheridan/The Telegraph/August 16, 2023
Ukraine has modified the Challenger 2 tanks given to it by Britain, equipping them with cages to protect them from Russian drones. They have been seen operating near the front lines for the first time, inscribed with tactical markings, which suggests that they will be used as part of the counter-offensive. The tanks, operated by the 82nd Air Assault Brigade, Ukraine’s new elite airborne force, appear to have been modified to ensure better protection against drones. It is thought that the tanks, of which the UK gifted 14 earlier this year, were deployed in the area around Robotyne, in the Zaporizhzhia region.
In June, the Ukrainian army released the first footage of the British-made Challenger 2 tanks in operation. The footage, released by Ukraine’s 11th Separate Army Aviation brigade, showed a Challenger 2 in dark-green livery rotating its turret. At the time, no location for the filming of the video was given and it was not clear whether the tanks had been deployed to the front line. Now, newly released footage suggests that Ukraine’s counter-offensive, which started at the beginning of June, is doubling down by weaponising its more effective kit. The tanks are designed to withstand direct hits from Russian T-72 tanks, have a firing range of 3km and can reach speeds of 59km per hour. In April, leaked classified US intelligence documents said the Challengers were assigned to the 82nd Air Assault Brigade. The same documents showed that the brigade is also equipped with German Marders, which are tracked fighting vehicles, and American Strykers, armoured personnel carriers, suggesting the unit is designed to advance rapidly once other units have punched holes in the Russian defensive line. Britain was the first to donate Nato-standard battle tanks when it gave Ukraine the armoured vehicles, which arrived in the country in March.
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Bring Saudi Arabia onboard the Tempest fighter jet, or abandon it to an axis of autocracies
Jeremy Warner/The Telegraph/August 16, 2023
Has enough water flowed under the bridge since the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, reportedly on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for Saudi Arabia to be fully rehabilitated into the Western alliance?
Details of the former Washington Post columnist’s slaughter were so shocking that almost no amount of schmoozing and greasing of palms would seem capable of turning things around. This was lawless, autocratic thuggery on a Putinesque scale, further adding to the sense of outrage over Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen. Yet if nothing else, bin Salman has proved persistent, and one thing he’s not short of in his bid for renewed respectability is money.
Like bees to honey, the top tier of Western bankers, financiers, consultants, sports people, engineers and exporters have continued shamelessly to court him, not least Tony Blair’s institute, which according to the Sunday Times continued to provide paid advice to bin Salman right through the Khashoggi affair and beyond. Blair’s justification, which he has not been shy about airing, is that it is important to remain engaged because of the “immense and positive importance” of the crown prince’s modernisation reforms and the kingdom’s “strategic importance” to the West.
The former British prime minister’s realpolitik will appall those who put human rights before geo-political and commercial considerations, but in essence he’s right. However despicable the crime, engagement is more likely to yield desired outcomes than ever-lasting condemnation, the danger being that Saudi Arabia is only further driven into the alternative axis of autocracies. Riyadh’s biggest play yet in this game of which way to jump is its bid to participate as an equal partner with the UK, Italy and Japan in the development of a sixth generation fighter aircraft, the Tempest, a mocked up prototype of which was first unveiled by the UK’s BAE Systems at the Farnborough airshow five years ago. The UK has a long history of selling fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia, and incredibly lucrative it has been, too. Under the Al Yamamah defence contract, originally signed in the mid-1980s after the direct intervention of the UK prime minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher, Britain is reckoned to have sold approaching £43bn of kit to Saudi Arabia, making it the largest single ongoing British export order ever.
And it might have been even more had Germany not put its foot down after the Khashoggi murder and imposed a hardline embargo on further arms sales to the bin Salman regime.
Around a third of the components in the Eurofighter Typhoon come from Germany, making it impossible for further shipments to go ahead without Berlin’s say so.
There is no such German participation in “Team Tempest” – otherwise known as the Global Combat Air Program. But bringing Saudi onboard could easily cause similar obstructions and difficulties in future.
Saudi Arabia’s growing ties with China, the biggest export market for Saudi oil these days, are a major concern to Japan in particular. Japan worries both that Saudi participation will complicate, and therefore delay, the aircraft’s development, allowing China to catch up with and better the Tempest, and that Riyadh could potentially veto sales to third parties for geo-political reasons. It also worries, with justification, that the technology would be leaked to China, and/or that Saudi might want to sell the jet to potentially hostile regimes.
If such sales were blocked by the rest of the consortium, it could then attempt to strong-arm the others by threatening retaliatory action, such as an oil embargo. As can readily be seen, arms are no ordinary commercial business.
For Japan, moreover, there is a much wider, underlying governance issue involved. Partnering with like-minded democracies to share in the humongous development costs of advanced military aircraft is one thing; throwing in your lot with an unaccountable autocracy is quite another. Remarkably, Saudi has so far escaped a planned US embargo on the sale of the high performance Nvidia chips needed to feed bin Salman’s ambitions in Artificial Intelligence. Using Chinese staff banned from working in the US, Saudi is scrambling to develop its own Large Language Model computer capabilities, raising fears of further high tech leakage to the People’s Republic. It all feeds into growing paranoia about where Saudi Arabia’s real loyalties lie.There is, in other words, good reason to worry about Saudi’s intentions when it comes to muscling in on Team Tempest. But we might also put the question in a rather different way. What do we need to do to keep Saudi, hitherto a relatively reliable if often wayward UK ally in the Middle East, on board?
One way or another, China is going to acquire all the technology that goes into the Tempest. Halting, or even slowing, such technology transfer is these days pretty much a hopeless cause. China has no qualms about stealing anything that isn’t given willingly.
Indeed, BAE Systems and its Italian and Japanese counterparts are much more likely to protect their IP if Saudi is bound into the same partnership than if it is simply sold the jets off the peg. The other reason for including the Saudis is that, frankly, we need the money. Britain’s defence industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs around the UK, many of them high skilled and high earning. Yet British defence spending alone won’t pay for this industry; to survive, it must export, and if the price of exporting is to allow buyers some of the value added, then these demands have to be accommodated.
Besides, the sheer scale of the investment needed for an advanced defence system such as the Tempest is virtually impossible to justify unless the costs are shared with other countries. Italy and Japan may not be enough. Without Saudi’s milch cow, a project like Tempest may not be viable. We could of course close our arms industry down and buy all the country’s defence needs from America. This would at least assuage any moral qualms we might have about selling weapons to potentially unsavoury regimes overseas.
But do we really want to be even further in hoc to a global superpower that is demonstrably unafraid to pull the plug on any buyer that steps out of line? What do we do, for instance, if completely reliant on the US for our military equipment when a future President Donald Trump goes through with his threat to withdraw from Nato? We live in an increasingly unstable and unsafe world. Bringing Saudi Arabia back into the fold may even make it that little bit safer. For if we don’t, there is no shortage of potentially hostile states more than willing to take our place.
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Nagorno-Karabakh residents say 'disastrous' blockade choking supplies
Felix Light/TBILISI (Reuters)/August 16, 2023
Residents of Nagorno-Karabakh say it is getting harder to access food, medicines and other essential supplies as an Azerbaijani blockade of the breakaway region drags into its ninth month. The United Nations Security Council will discuss the blockade on Wednesday, after a former International Criminal Court prosecutor this month said the blockade may amount to a "genocide" of the local Armenian population - an assertion that Azerbaijan's lawyers said was unsubstantiated and inaccurate. Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but its population of 120,000 is overwhelmingly ethnic Armenian and the enclave's one remaining land link to Armenia, the Lachin corridor policed by Russian peacekeepers, was first disrupted in December. Three residents of Karabakh said basic foodstuffs, fuel and medicine were almost exhausted. "It's been a very long time since I've eaten any dairy produce, or eggs," Nina Shahverdyan, a 23-year-old English teacher, said in a video call with Reuters from the region's capital, which local Armenians call Stepanakert. "It's been disastrous because we don't have gas. We have electricity blackouts." Karabakh's population has tightened its belt since the blockade, eating only what can be produced locally. The residents said even food produced within Karabakh itself is delivered only sporadically to Stepanakert, as farmers lack fuel to bring their products to market. Ani Balayan, a recent high school graduate and photographer, said she had last eaten meat around two weeks ago. She said her family was surviving on bread, alongside the tomatoes, cucumbers and watermelon still available in Stepanakert's markets. For some weeks, footage has shown Stepanakert's supermarket shelves bare, with little or nothing on sale.
"I went to bed hungry for several days because I could not find bread to bring home," said Balayan.
BREAKAWAY REGION
The crisis has highlighted how Russia, which is pre-occupied with the war in Ukraine, is struggling to project its influence in neighbouring post-Soviet states. Karabakh was claimed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia after the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, and broke away from Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s. In 2020, Azerbaijan retook territory in and around the enclave after a second war that ended in a Russia-brokered ceasefire. The agreement required Russia to ensure that road transport between Armenia and Karabakh remained open. Since the ceasefire, road links between Armenia and Karabakh hinged on the Lachin corridor, which was blockaded in December by Azerbaijani civilians identifying themselves as ecological activists, while Russian peacekeepers did not intervene.
In April, Azerbaijani border guards installed a checkpoint on the route, tightening the blockade.
'GENOCIDE'?
This month, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo described the blockade as potentially constituting a "genocide" of Karabakh Armenians and intending "to starve" them. Rodney Dixon, a lawyer appointed by Azerbaijan to give an assessment on Ocampo's opinion, called the view "strikingly" unsubstantiated, inflammatory and inaccurate. Farhad Mammadov, the head of Baku's Centre for Studies of the South Caucasus think tank, said that controls on the road were necessary to prevent the transit of "arms and Armenian soldiers" to and from Karabakh. Azerbaijan has said it is ready to open supplies to Karabakh via territory under its control, but that the separatist authorities must dissolve and integrate the region into Azerbaijan. The Armenian side has said that the blockade is aimed at forcing Karabakh into unconditional surrender to Baku. English teacher Shahverdyan said: "They are doing so that the people become… so desperate that they just simply leave".However, like other Karabakh Armenians who spoke to Reuters, Shahverdyan said it had only bolstered their determination to stay in their ancestral homeland. "How can you live under a government or people who starve you for eight months?"

UN to hold emergency meeting on Azerbaijan's blockade of road from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh
UNITED NATIONS (AP)/Mon, August 14, 2023
The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting Wednesday in response to a call from Armenia saying the mainly Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh in neighboring Azerbaijan is blockaded and 120,000 people are facing hunger and “a full-fledged humanitarian catastrophe.”Armenia’s U.N. Ambassador Mher Margaryan asked for the meeting on the dire situation in Nagorno-Karabakh in a letter to the ambassador of the United States, which holds the Security Council presidency this month. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. said Monday the emergency open meeting will take place on Wednesday afternoon. In his letter to Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Margaryan said Azerbaijan’s complete blockade since July 15 of the Lachin Corridor – the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia – has created severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel. “The deliberate creation of unbearable life conditions for the population is nothing but an act of mass atrocity targeting the indigenous people of Nagorno-Karabakh and forcing them to leave their homeland,” he said, stressing that this constitutes “an existential threat to them.” Margaryan asked the Security Council, which is charged with ensuring international peace and security, “to prevent mass atrocities including war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and genocide.”Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian military in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. Armenian forces also took control of substantial territory around the Azerbaijani region. Azerbaijan regained control of the surrounding territory in a six-week war with Armenia in 2020. A Russia-brokered armistice that ended the war left the region’s capital, Stepanakert, connected to Armenia only by the Lachin Corridor, along which Russian peacekeeping forces were supposed to ensure free movement. Margaryan accused Azerbaijan of violating the Russian-brokered armistice and international humanitarian law as well as orders by the International Court of Justice in February and July. The U.N.’s highest court said in its orders that Azerbaijan should “take all measures to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directors,” the Armenian ambassador said. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry has accused Armenia of violating its territorial integrity and sovereignty and of smuggling weapons into Nagorno-Karabakh. Last week, the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court warned that Azerbaijan is preparing genocide against ethnic Armenians in its Nagorno-Karabakh region and called for the Security Council to bring the matter before the international tribunal. Luis Moreno Ocampo said in a report requested by a group of Armenians, including the country’s president, that as a result of the blockade “there is a reasonable basis to believe that a genocide is being committed.”He said the U.N. convention defines genocide as including “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.”

‘It is like a concentration camp’: The crisis on Europe’s doorstep
Jessie Williams/The Telegraph/ August 16, 2023
On a good day, Nina and her family have just enough food to avoid starvation. Bread and cucumber for breakfast. A handful of vegetables for lunch. Even maybe potatoes with salt for dinner. But on a bad day, this type of sustenance can be impossible to come by.
“If this continues, people will end up dying,” the 23-year-old says over the phone, before correcting herself: “People are already dying.”
Nina is one of 120,000 ethnic Armenians living a life of destitution and despair in Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked breakaway state in the South Caucasus which has long been disputed by Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Since December 2022, the main road connecting Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world – the Lachin Corridor – has been blocked by Azerbaijan, preventing the flow of 90 per cent of food, medicine, fuel and other supplies into the territory.
The blockade is proving fatal and fuelling an ever-worsening – and largely unnoticed – humanitarian crisis on Europe’s doorstep.
Yury Melkonyan, 64, sits in his house damaged by shelling from Azerbaijan's artillery during a military conflict in Shosh village
Yury Melkonyan, 64, sits in his house damaged by shelling from Azerbaijan's artillery during a military conflict in Shosh village - The Associated Press
“Now everybody is very sick because of malnutrition and unless you are almost dying, you don’t go to hospital because the queues are very long,” says Nina from her home in Stepanakert, the de-facto capital of Karabakh, adding that supermarket shelves have been “empty for a long time now”.
She describes how her friend’s uncle recently died of a heart attack – the ambulance couldn’t find any fuel and was slow to reach him. He died on the way to hospital. “What is this if it is not genocide?” Nina asks.
Last month, Arayik Harutyunyan, the president of Nagorno-Karabakh, known as Artsakh in Armenia, declared the region a “disaster zone”. The population previously relied on stockpiles, he said, but now “we are running out of stocks in a matter of days, or hours”.
“Azerbaijan’s aim is of ethnic cleansing,” he added. “There is now a complete siege.”
The former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court recently warned that Azerbaijan is preparing genocide against Karabakh’s ethnic Armenians, who make up the vast majority of the region’s population, and called for the UN Security Council to bring the matter before the international tribunal.
“Starvation is the invisible genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks,” Luis Moreno Ocampo said in a report published on August 9.
Nagorno-Karabakh is no stranger to tragedy. The territory, which is internationally recognised as Azerbaijan, has been a source of conflict and violence since the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The First Nagorno-Karabakh War raged from 1988 to 1994 as the ethnic Armenian majority backed by Yerevan broke away from Azerbaijan. Tens of thousands of civilians and troops died, and more than one million people were displaced before a fragile ceasefire was put in place. Heavy fighting erupted again in September 2020 after Azerbaijani forces broke through Armenian defences and reclaimed large chunks of the territory.
The 44-day war culminated in the death of more than 6,000 soldiers and was ultimately resolved after Russia, an ally to both Armenia and Azerbaijan, stepped in to negotiate a ceasefire. Under the deal, Russian peacekeepers were deployed to Karabakh to guard the only road left linking the enclave with Armenia – the so-called Lachin Corridor.
Fighting continued to break out after the ceasefire, and in December 2022, Azerbaijan began a blockade of the three-mile road into Karabakh, closing the territory to all but Russian peacekeepers and Red Cross convoys.
But even the Red Cross has since been blocked by Azerbaijan after it was accused of smuggling contraband into the territory. Their last delivery of aid was on July 7, according to Zara Amatuni, a spokesperson for the charity in Armenia.
Armenian lorries carrying humanitarian aid for the Nagorno-Karabakh region are seen stranded not far away from an Azerbaijani checkpoint set up at the entry of the Lachin corridor. However, she says, this was only “medicine and baby formula” and not food supplies or hygiene items, which haven’t been delivered for a long time.
A 19-truck convoy carrying around 360 tonnes of much-needed humanitarian cargo from Armenia has been stuck at the entrance of the Lachin Corridor for the past two weeks, waiting for permission to pass through Azerbaijan’s checkpoint.
The clock is now ticking for those families in Karabakh struggling to access food, medicine and other necessities.
Dwindling medical supplies is a major concern. Armine Hayrapetyan, another resident of Stepanakert, says her aunt is diabetic and only has five pills left for lowering her blood sugar before she runs out completely.
“After that she doesn’t know what to do,” says the 45-year-old from her home. “We have lost our freedom, lost our rights. Now, it is like we are living in a concentration camp.”
There are also mounting fears of a crisis in antenatal care. In July, the Centre for Maternal and Child Health in Stepanakert reported that miscarriages had nearly tripled over the previous month, due to stress and a lack of a balanced diet.
A medical staff gives treatment to patients that are suspected cases of the novel coronavirus Covid-19 in a hospital of the city of Stepanakert
State Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, Gurgen Nersisyan, told Armenian Public TV that “over 90 per cent of pregnant women have anaemia”.
Irina Zakaryan, a lawyer, is six months pregnant and has a four-year-old son. The 29-year-old, who also lives in Stepanakert, has fainted due to a lack of nutrition and says she often feels a “sharp weakness” all over her body.
The absence of public transport due to the fuel shortage is making things worse. “Today, at 41C, I had to take my child on foot to kindergarten and then get to work, stand in line for bread, fruit and vegetables. I worried that I will suddenly faint again,” she says.
“My next visit to the maternity hospital will be very difficult, I have to walk from one end of the city to the other.”
She worries whether her baby will be healthy, how childbirth will be without the necessary drugs, and once the baby is born, “how am I going to feed it?”
UN experts have called on Azerbaijan to lift the blockade and for Russian peacekeeping forces to protect the corridor under the terms of the ceasefire agreement. Azerbaijan has so far ignored these calls and accused the UN of turning into “an instrument of political manipulation”.
The situation has been exacerbated by the invasion of Ukraine. With the world’s eyes fixed on the war, and with Russia distracted from its peacekeeping duties, Azerbaijan’s cease-fire violations have gone unpunished.
Laurence Broers, the Caucasus programme director at peacebuilding organisation Conciliation Resources, says the war in Ukraine has “greatly weakened Russian hegemony [in Nagorno-Karabakh] and has given ample space for Azerbaijan to challenge that hegemony”.
“Azerbaijan is absolutely taking advantage of the fact that Russia has its hands full elsewhere,” says Tim Loughton, MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Armenia.
“I have no doubt that this is part of Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing programme, and whether it constitutes genocide at this stage – I mean it’s certainly one step away from it.”
Despite this, the UK has been reluctant to condemn Azerbaijan. On August 1, MPs from the APPG for Armenia wrote to Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, urging him to “break the British Government’s silence on the continuing atrocities”. No reply has yet to be received.
Loughton criticised the “distinct lack of a robust response” from the UK, highlighting that other countries, like France and the US, have publicly condemned Azerbaijan over the blockade.
“[The UK] need to make it clear that, one, this is unacceptable, and two, if they don’t do something about it then there will be consequences – that could start with sanctions against Azerbaijan,” he adds.
Economics could be fuelling Britain’s silence. The UK is the largest foreign investor in Azerbaijan, with British Petroleum (BP) having invested around $84 billion in the country over the last 30 years. “I think those [commercial] interests tend to trump other potentially ethical and moral issues in UK Foreign Policy vis à vis Azerbaijan,” says Broers. For now, survival is the primary concern for the people of Karabakh, and with summer drawing to a close, they are already preparing for the colder months ahead.
“We want to collect whatever we can from our garden and save it for the winter,” says Nina. “But I know if the summer ends and the situation doesn’t become better … then people will be really, really angry. And we’re not going to stand by silently as they kill us.”

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 16-17/2023
French Riots for Dummies
Franck Salameh/Hoover.com/August 16/2023
https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/Salameh_finalfile_WebReadyPDF.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1cCIySJO-BMmSP4YBItvcM7obmy8U4_CSeGZ56spmvOXDfkpWEoUynxRc
Self-discovery is Man measuring himself against the obstacle.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
In late June 2023, I received a text message from an American friend, an academic and specialist of the modern Middle East, wondering “What the hell [was] going on in France?” “It’s 1975 Lebanon, on a larger scale,” was my terse answer; a tale of two people, I later explained, no longer able to live together under one roof; a struggle between, on the one hand, a millennial France “Eldest Daughter of the Catholic Church” and maven of Enlightenment, Revolution, and Secularism, and, on the other hand, a young globalist (and, in this case, “Islamist”) antithesis of France, its history, culture, and republic. This answer may shock those who prefer privileging ideological conformism and tidy bien-pensance to debating uncomfortable topics, those sound-bite hounds who rely solely on often perfunctory journalistic consensus to explain 1,500 years of French history—or, for that matter, France’s modern predicament with out-of-control immigration and a growing, ill-adjusted French Muslim population. But that was the quickest answer I was able to muster for a friend, a seasoned Lebanon expert to whom the 1975 Lebanese Civil War would have made perfect sense as a comparison. One illustration in particular, a scene from the Paris
riots showing a masked young man trying to burn a French flag to shouts of “Wallah, nique la France,” was especially reminiscent of 1975 Lebanon. The snippet and its language (the Google Translate English translation is solid) would replay themselves throughout the June–July 2023 French riots—just as such scenes had become commonplace in the years and months leading up to Lebanon’s civil war. Notwithstanding the comparison to the Lebanese experience, which many may dispute, the answer I gave was also the fruit of my long years of courtship, of intimate communion with France, of cogitation and observation—not to say “France-stalking”—both in close proximity and from a distance. For more than forty years now, I have been a France watcher, a disciple, one might say, often a long-term resident of Paris who’d spent a good part of his life walking the city’s quaint cobblestoned alleys, caressing its ancient stones, frequenting its cafés andAn Essay from The Caravan Notebook
2 FRANCK SALAMEH U FRENCH RIOTS FOR DUMMIES
bookstores like one courts a beloved, daydreaming in its cathedrals, sitting in prayerful contemplation in its millennial churches, breathing the air of the centuries, listening to the dainty silence left behind by generations past. But for forty years I have also been watching France’s transformation, its degradation, its
looming demise losing touch with the Douce France of Charles Trenet, the fancy of my younger years, the France that I savored and learned to love in my history books, in my summer readings of Proust, Molière, Daudet, Saint-Exupéry. . . . Yet, that France of the “thousand cathedrals” that one Victor Hugo—a “social justice warrior” in a very good way—transmitted to children of my generation, the one that I wished to transmit to my own children, seems to have run its course, ostensibly warranting the calumny and hostility thrown its wayin some quarters, on account of alleged racism and discrimination against French Muslim populations. Indeed, feigning discerning explanations of failures uniquely Gallic, a cavalcade of America’s authoritative media outlets, from the New York Times to CNN and Newsweek, somehow deemed it journalistically edifying to normalize cheap sound bites and clichés, finding for instance a “George Floyd moment” in urban riots triggered by a police shooting of a young Frenchman of North African extraction. Yet, as compared to the United States, France is a country molded by a different history, formed by distinctive experiences, and informed by unique conceptions of identity, citizenship, republican responsibility, and secularism. What is more, depicting hordes of adolescent vandals rampaging with abandon as beatific “social justice warriors,” and sanctifying a shooting victim who was also a repeat offender “known to French authorities” as an innocent “angel,” smack of both moral and journalistic dishonesty.
Loss of human life, a young human life, is a tragedy in any context. But crass jingles for ratings, and misleading oversimplifications, likewise cheapen and defile human life.
THE RIOTS EXPLAINED
On Tuesday, June 27, Nahel Merzouk, a seventeen-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent—it is illegal in France to publicly divulge a person’s religious affiliation—was killed at the conclusion of a police chase that might have otherwise remained a routine traffic stop. As details of the events that led to the young man’s shooting began to emerge, French authorities disclosed that he was driving without a license—his fifth such violation since 2021—in a rented luxury vehicle, and that he had minutes earlier refused to comply with police orders to stop. This led to a high-speed chase around the Paris suburb of Nanterre, ending in the young man getting stuck in traffic. When confronted by police again—this time including repeated instructions to shut off his car engine—he still refused to comply, at one point driving off with a police officer still clinging to his car window, culminating in the tragic shooting. What followed was a weeklong orgy of urban riots, vandalism, looting, arson, and wanton violence unleashed on police headquarters, government buildings, schools, municipalities, private property, and cultural centers throughout France. Although the five days of rage that ensued resulted in only one death—that of a firefighter—and most injuries remained limited to police officers—more than seven hundred were hurt by July 2—the cost in physical damage in major metropolises stretching from Paris to Marseille reached over one billion euros.
HOOVER INSTITUTION U STANFORD UNIVERSITY 3
On Wednesday, June 28, rather than calling for calm, and in an apparent attempt to exploit the tragedy for political gain, about twenty deputies from the far-left New Ecological and Social Popular Union coalition (NUPES) gathered outside the French National Assembly to “demand justice.” At the prodding of its chief spokesman, the deputy of the France Unbowed party (LFI), Jean-Luc Mélenchon, NUPES parliamentarians pledged to march alongside protesters, keep pressure on police and the government, question the official version of events leading up to the fatal shooting, and refrain from calling on rioters to stop until justice was served. In a tweet on that same day, Mélenchon vituperated French authorities, whom he referred to as “pit bulls, commanding us to call for calm. We call for justice, [and] there shall be no peace without justice.” When French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin took Mélenchon to task for
his inflammatory statements that essentially egged on the rioters, Mélenchon stuck to his guns, dismissing Darmanin as a “deplorable, incompetent, irresponsible” politician.1 Mélenchon was not that far off the mark. French politicians on both sides of the aisle have indeed shown remarkable incompetence and dishonesty, not only in this instance, but in fact for the past four decades, opting for mutism in face of mounting popular discontent with immigration policies, and marking the question of French Islam as “off-limits.” The irony, however, is that Mélenchon himself has been the poster child of this incompetence, persisting in denying obvious links between the urban violence he often stokes and the unbridled, out-of-control immigration that he favors. Indeed, the latest spates of violence and destruction of “republican symbols” are only the more recent symptoms of an old French malady gone untreated: unwieldy bureaucracy, open borders, failed assimilation policies instead favoring ambiguous “integration,” and a national educational system more concerned with inculcating self-hate and resentment of France’s colonial past than molding young minds into critical thinkers able to read, write, do basic math, learn about, and—why not—appreciate their country’s storied history, and practice a modicum of civics and civility. This malaise, French minister François-Xavier Bellamy noted in a Le Figaro editorial, is the result of eighteen-year-olds unable to read their own language, “growing up in this country without attempting to learn about it, get to know it, master its basics of knowledge. How can this not lead to utter disintegration?”2 This laxity, argues French philosopher and public intellectual Michel Onfray, is setting France on the path to a civil war whose first salvos have already been fired, what he called a “guerre civile à bas bruit,” or a “hushed civil war,” bound to become a full-fledged national conflagration.3 Franco-Moroccan author Driss Ghali agrees, proposing a similar evaluation, describing the riots as symptomatic of a Muslim separatist project: a battle over a historically “French territory contested by two civilizations at odds with one another,” a project that will inexorably conclude with “either separation, or the neutralization of the alien civilization.”4 To be clear, the June–July 2023 rioters attacking French institutions and destroying public and private property were Frenchmen, not foreigners. The deceased boy was a Frenchman
of Algerian descent—a Franco-Algerian—and those raging (ostensibly) on his behalf were in the main Franco-Algerians, the progeny of generations of ill-adjusted immigrants who might have come to France for socioeconomic reasons, but not without carrying in their luggage animus and political resentments, begrudging France’s colonial past, persisting in dwelling on old injuries, oblivious to the fact that France not only excelled in colonial pursuits but in fact also invented the very antithesis of colonialism, the critical analysis of colonialism,
4 FRANCK SALAMEH U FRENCH RIOTS FOR DUMMIES
and the academic field of postcolonial studies. But when Algeria itself, sixty-one years after its independence, declares its war against France “not yet over,” continues to paint France as the incarnation of evil, exhorts French authorities to fully assume their duty of protecting the Algerians of France in their host country, this ought to give pause to Frenchmen and fully assimilated immigrants, Algerians in particular. Indeed, such language leaves little doubt as to the Franco-Algerians’ own conceptions of themselves, and their country of origin’s view of them. This is all summed up in the term “Algerians of France” (as opposed to, say, “French of Algerian descent” or “Franco-Algerians”), and their referring to France as their “host country” (rather than “their country” tout court). This casts a veil of ambiguity over the national allegiances of Franco-Algerians, establishing Algeria’s own view of them as Algerian and not French nationals. Ironically, much of this abiding resentment has recently resurfaced, with the Algerian government restituting to the country’s national anthem a Francophobic stanza that had been previously omitted, with lyrics reading “O France, the time of castigation has passed, / We have long since turned this page, / O France, this is the Day of Reckoning / So, prepare and take the answer from us, / In our Revolution there is determination, / And we have resolved that Algeria shall live. . . .”And so, “No, the Algerian War has not ended,” writes tongue-in-cheek Franco-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal, and Algeria’s official anti-France animus has not yet subsided. Indeed, Sansal goes on to note caustically, mocking the Algeria of his birth, that Algerians demand an official public French act of contrition, and “compensation in the amount of 100 billion Euros . . . [with additional] lawsuits to be brought by individual Algerian citizens
against the French administration for damages suffered by their ancestors. After that, we can discuss peace.”5 Notwithstanding Sansal’s derisive tone, Franco-Algerian anti-French resentments are real, and the “Wallah, nique la France” moment mentioned earlier seems more endemic than accidental. Indeed, Driss Ghali dismisses out of hand the journalistic consensus about the riots being the result of “poverty, social dislocation, inequality, or racial discrimination,” noting that “the rioters did not loot supermarkets, but instead despoiled Nike and Apple stores,” and not to the cries of “we are hungry” but to rabidly “anti-France
chants and incitements to violence against fellow Frenchmen.”6 In sum, the riots were nothing if not symptoms of a struggle between an old, timorous France, ashamed of its history, afraid to revel in its cultural accretions, and another France of the banlieues, resentful of its republic’s past, rejecting its very existence, deeming it racist, intolerant, detestable, and wishing to do battle against it.
FRANCE EXPLAINED
But what is France’s problem with religion? With Islam in particular? But also with Judaism, Christianity, and every other proselytizing religion? France’s laïcité is not simply secularism, nor is it the “separation of church and state” that the average American may be accustomed to. Unlike France, the United States of America was not founded in the aftermath of a revolution against a Catholic Church. In France, the Revolution not only yielded the end of a monarchy, it also led to the destruction of religious symbols, the banishment of the Church from French public and political life, and the clergy’s fall from grace. There are no such stories of
HOOVER INSTITUTION U STANFORD UNIVERSITY 5
“rebellion against a Church” in the annals of American history. There is in fact the opposite. The United States was founded by Protestant pilgrims, refugees from Europe escaping religious persecution, who ultimately established a state that would guarantee them religious freedom. French laïcité, by contrast, is complete absence of religion from the public sphere—in other words, freedom from religion instead of America’s freedom of religion. Thus, the separation of church and state in the French understanding, and the application of the concept, is the rejection of orthopraxy and the relegation of religion to the private sphere; it is Matthew 6:5–6 on steroids versus America’s fervent religious flag waving. To put it simply, French “secularism” is a synonym for “discretion in the practice of religion,” whereas American “secularism” involves ostentation in religious practice and the unbridled public display of religious symbols. Another way to say it is that the French Republic was established to protect government from religion, whereas the American Republic was founded to protect religion from government. That is partly why “In God We Trust” emblazons our national currency, our presidents get sworn in on family Bibles and brandish “God Bless America” every chance they get, and our justice system, state seals, and university mottoes are all redolent with biblical references. That is why Americans, by and large, and American media in particular, may feel justified badgering the French—in this most recent instance of riots specifically—about their supposed “racism” and “Islamophobia” in dealing with overwhelmingly Muslim immigrant populations. Yet at issue is less France’s inability (or unwillingness) to accommodate Islam than French Islam’s inability to accept and accommodate France’s secular republican values. Such a dilemma would of course be unheard of in an American context and would therefore be incomprehensible. And so whereas, say, the Muslim veil in public may be deemed a supreme symbol of “religious freedom” in an American context, in France it is considered an inappropriate, even illegal, religious invasion of the secular public space. And while it may be comforting, and intelligible, for Americans to explain France’s recent upheavals in terms of socially underprivileged non-White minorities revolting against a state’s instruments of racism, French Muslims’ frustrations with the French Republic have at their heart supremely religious and cultural grievances—to be exact, Muslim values incompatible with France’s experience with laïcité, Muslim values that French Muslims are unwilling to relinquish in return for citizenship. Yet, relinquishing elements of oneself is exactly what previous generations of other immigrants had done for generations, in France as elsewhere. Indeed, that is what is ordinarily expected of all generations of immigrants—“assimilation,” as the French say, not “integration”; venir d’ailleurs et devenir d’ici, which is to say, “to hail from elsewhere and become from over here.” Lax immigration policies, or inadequate French policies to facilitate assimilation, might have played a role in some Muslim communities’ unease with an onerous (nonreligious) Frenchness. But by the same token, French Islam cannot be held harmless either; the onus is always on the immigrants to negotiate and integrate the culture of their host society. Of course, cultures and cultural rituals—even for a millennial collective like France—are not static. Cultures evolve, identities adapt, and memories change. Even history itself is written
6 FRANCK SALAMEH U FRENCH RIOTS FOR DUMMIES
and rewritten often to suit the arrogance of the present. But there are sacrosanct essentials in the life of a nation. There is a modicum of Frenchness despite the regional, ethnic, and religious diversity that characterizes France. In that sense, there is a France of the Rooster—a reference to the French word coq and its Latin equivalent gallus, with the latter’s English cognate Gaul. But there is also a France of the Cross, the Eldest Daughter of the Catholic Church, the manifestly Christian France of even French atheists who defend Christianity as a cultural symbol. Michel Onfray reminds us in this context that French cultural and literary icons spanning the centuries, like Rabelais, Montaigne, and Voltaire, were all Christian; that ultimately all that is ancient and modern in France issues from France’s Judeo-Christian foundations; that France’s fascination with Cartesian values, critical thinking, enlightenment, liberalism, universal art, love of allegory, love of images (iconophilia), irreverence, symbolism, hermeneutics, secularism, blasphemy, even France’s atheism and freedom from religion, are all the offspring of Christianity and Christendom.7 This is nowhere better expressed than in French poet André Suarès’s expression that “churchgoing or not, the French have the Gospels coursing in their veins.” Suarès was incidentally of Portuguese descent. In this same spirit, another atheist Frenchman and offspring of immigration (issue de l’immigration, as the French say) published a distressingly “Christian” op-ed on the day after the accidental fire at the iconic Notre-Dame de Paris in 2019. As a non-Christian, Fabrice Luchini noted that he would always remain heartbroken, orphaned, disoriented by the loss of what had been to him a supreme symbol of Frenchness. “I am not a Christian,” he stressed, but for years, for decades, he claimed, he’d been watching the world around him, scrutinizing Notre-Dame, opening his eyes to its beauty, teaching him how to look, how to see, how to appreciate and savor the charms of a quotidian French life that might have become mundane to him. Notre-Dame, noted Luchini, was one of those stunning French beauties that he
might have come to take for granted, but it was always a companion, always an accomplice, silent perhaps, reserved in its elegance, reticent, yet “a confirmation and affirmation, always a pledge and consolation,” an awesome symbol not only of France and Frenchness, but of Western civilization. Even if one is not a Christian, concluded Luchini, even if one were, like him, an avowedly atheist humanist who had long since ceased being Christian, one ought to remember that France itself remains Christian, if not in form and practice then in essence and by tradition and history. 8 Similarly, speaking in a televised interview on France 2 in the fall of 2015, French member of the Académie Française Alain Finkielkraut, also the son of immigrants (in his case, Polish Jewish refugees), described France and Frenchness as a complex of rich millennial, intellectual, artistic, and Catholic traditions broadly defined by luminaries such as La Fontaine, Blaise Pascal, Charles Péguy, Jean Racine, Monet, Matisse, and Saint-Saëns among others. . . . France is characterized by its ancient stones, its emblematic vineyards, its churches, its cafés, its iconic Deux-Cheveaux Citroën automobile, its châteaux, its
Louis de Funès, Charles Trenet, Édith Piaf, and Serge Gainsbourg. . . . France is ultimately the république, a single indivisible republic, a millennial civilization that deserves, nay
demands, to be accommodated, nurtured, and transmitted.9
HOOVER INSTITUTION U STANFORD UNIVERSITY 7
In sum, Finkielkraut’s France was unapologetically that of the millenarian Notre-Dame and the supersonic Concorde: France of the Rooster and the Cross; a secular France spawned and molded by its Catholic past; a Catholic edifice giving rise to modern France’s revolutionaries, organized labor, trade unions, syndicates, professional guilds, teachers, philosophers, carpenters, inventors, sculptors, and writers. In this spirit of the refractory Gaul, a harsh March 5, 1959, Charles de Gaulle declaration did not mince words, and may not sit well sixty years later with modern “woke” pieties. But it speaks to historical realities that only ideological straitjackets may seek to dismiss. “Those lecturing me on integration are certified morons,” wrote de Gaulle:
It is to our credit as Frenchmen to be among Black, Brown, and Yellow Frenchmen; this is eloquent validation of France’s openness to all ethnicities; part and parcel of France’s niversalist vocation. But this ought to remain the case so long as [French minorities] remain minorities. Otherwise France would cease being France. It ought to be said plainly,unambiguously, the French are after all a European, White people, issuing from a GrecoRoman-Christian civilization. Let us not kid ourselves! . . . Do you really believe that this France can absorb ten million Muslims today, who may become twenty million tomorrow,
and forty million the day after tomorrow? . . . If this were to happen, my native village would cease being Colombey-les-Deux-Églises to become Colombey-les-Deux-Mosquées.10 Daring to spout unvarnished realities in such language today, de Gaulle would be “canceled,”tarred a racist, an Islamophobe, a xenophobe. And yet, he was stating the obvious in 1960s France—that France was French; a child of a millennial civilization; a carrier of values that are the outcome of a millennial history; a nation, a civilization, a country that ought to not become a boardinghouse, a caravansary open to every passerby, every newcomer. In his telling, France was and ought to remain a terre d’accueil (a host country), but it ought to remain true to its history and its memory. Still, under the weight of massive uncontrolled immigration, France seems overwhelmed today, exsanguinous, ashamed of its culture, embarrassed by its
history and its memory, deeming it less onerous to kowtow to newcomers who are unwilling to assimilate. Yet, as Victor Hugo notes, France “is synonymous with the Cosmos”; it is a gentle homeland, a civilization whose language speaks in universal tongues; it is a Greece and Rome at once; an ancient Mediterranean and a Jerusalem; a “promised land abbreviating all civilizations,” owed adulation and conservation, not eradication.11
IMMIGRATION EXPLAINED: A CONCLUSION
In the end, France does have a founding community, a distinct indigenous culture that is worthy of being preserved, perpetuated, respected. And outsiders who want in (the process ought to be simple) have an obligation to assimilate into those founding cultures and adopt— even expropriate—those founding cultures’ symbols and historical accretions, not seek toerase and replace them. The fashionable, narcissistic bien-pensance of our times would pull back in horror at the preceding suggestions. But the dismay of the decent ought to be the horror of watching the collapse of the France of yore, unable to intervene to prevent its
8 FRANCK SALAMEH U FRENCH RIOTS FOR DUMMIES
dismantlement. Immigration is after all a marriage between immigrant and host, a marriage in the Catholic sense: a sacrament, not merely a contract; a marriage bound by a willingness, a desire to become one; a devoted understanding, a sacred obligation, an act of faith on the part of an outsider to become one with the insider, to melt into the culture, the mores, the history of the host society. All immigrants are at some point outsiders wanting in; outsiders who may face disheartening challenges in new, alien, alienating societies, but who are expected (willing) to assimilate the ways of the dominant culture. I am persuaded that my own Lebanese example (I came to the United States as a war refugee) is not unique, and I believe that I would have replicated my American experience in France had I picked France as pays d’accueil. The immigrant’s initial difficult period of adjustment ought to begin by “sucking it up,” working hard, learning the language, hustling, then proceeding to making contributions to the host society, enriching it, assimilating its values, and aiming to “become somebody” in its social, political, intellectual, and cultural life. This is the sine qua non of immigration: “coming from elsewhere, and becoming from over here”; becoming locals, natives, expropriating “our Founding Fathers”; getting tearful goose bumps listening to Whitney Houston’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” on a Fourth of July, and, in my own case, hearing my heart pounding with pride at a US port
of entry, seeing my American passport getting stamped by an immigration officer blurting out
“Welcome home.”
I will conclude with another personal intrusion, a piece of unsolicited advice to my fellow immigrants and refugees who are still having a hard time assimilating into their host societies. Immigration and exile are above all assimilation. There is no other way. To the Bostonian in me, assimilation is a daily period of mourning, a stroll along the River Charles, where bits of my old self get tossed over and into the Boston Harbor, making room for new memories, a new identity, a new language, and all the baggage that comes with it. Echoing this attitude, Charles Aznavour, another Frenchman who was also a product of immigration, a child of refugees and survivors of the Armenian Genocide who became one of the building blocks of modern French culture, stressed that French identity is earned, not given. Redolent of Ernest Renan’s What Is a Nation?, Aznavour noted that “Being French is a choice”—that one may very well be born a Frenchman and still never become French, because being French remains above all a choice. “I became French first and foremost in my head,” he said in a 2013 interview. “I became French in my head, in my heart, in my manner of being, in the language that I speak, in discarding a massive part of my Armenian origins to make room for France, for the benefit of France. . . . One must do this, or one must simply go away.”12
NOTES
1. Grégoire Poussielgue, “Mort de Nahel: en refusant d’appeler au calme, LFI joue la surenchère à gauche,” Les Echos, June 29, 2023, https://www.lesechos.fr/politique-societe/politique/mort-de -nahel-en-refusant-dappeler-au-calme-lfi-joue-la-surenchere-a-gauche-1957463.
HOOVER INSTITUTION U STANFORD UNIVERSITY 92. Emmanuel Galiero, “François-Xavier Bellamy: ‘Gérald Darmanin tente encore de nous aveugler,’”Le Figaro, July 5, 2023, https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/francois-xavier-bellamy-le-ministre-de-l
-interieur-tente-de-nous-aveugler-20230705.
3. Punchline, Michel Onfray interviewed by Laurence Ferrari, originally aired July 2023, Europe 1,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njm9kBr6xKE.
4. Le Figaro Live, Driss Ghali interviewed by Vincent Roux, originally aired July 2023, https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=qADRwYNM9tY.
5. Boualem Sansal, “La guerre d’Algérie est-elle finie?,” Front Populaire, March 1, 2021, https://frontpopulaire.fr/articles/la-guerre-d-algerie-est-elle-finie_ma4516.
6. Le Figaro Live, July 2023 (see note 4).
7. “Michel Onfray et le christianisme,” excerpted from “Michel Onfray détruit Macron et son monde,”Michel Onfray interviewed by Raphaël Stainville, VA+, March 26, 2023, https://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=qET2gRjHAhk.
8. Fabrice Luchini, “On pourrait presque penser à un signe,” Le Figaro, April 16, 2019, https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/culture/fabrice-luchini-notre-dame-un-symbole-d-occident-20190416.
9. On n’est pas couché, Alain Finkielkraut interviewed by Laurent Ruquier, France 2, originally aired October 3, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb8-GHMaFg4.
10. See “Charles de Gaulle: ‘Colombey-les-Deux-Mosquées,’” Les Observateurs, September 28, 2015, https://lesobservateurs.ch/2015/09/28/charles-de-gaulle-colombey-les-deux-mosquees.
11. Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, Tome II (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1972), 130–34. 12. “Charles Aznavour: ‘Etre français, ça se mérite,’” Le Parisien, October 24, 2013, https://www .leparisien.fr/archives/etre-francais-ca-se-merite-24-10-2013-3254157.php.
https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/Salameh_finalfile_WebReadyPDF.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1cCIySJO-BMmSP4YBItvcM7obmy8U4_CSeGZ56spmvOXDfkpWEoUynxRc

Garland Illegally Appointed Weiss as Special Counsel
Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute./August 16, 2023
"The special counsel shall be selected from outside the United States government." — Code of Federal Regulations, Title 28, Chapter VI, § 600.3(c). [Emphasis added]
This requirement is the law. The regulations were authorized by Congress under 5 U.S.C. 301, 509, 510, 515-519.
The attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. It is certainly expected that he would obey the law in its entirety.
If he feels that somehow there is an applicable exception to this requirement, he is obliged to explain why.
Special counsel is supposed to be independent of the current government, not an employee....
Democrats frequently say that no one is above the law. Yet they have been silent about Garland apparently placing himself above the law in choosing Weiss in violation of governing legal regulations.
[I]t is within the powers of Congress to summon Garland and ask him to explain why he believes he is justified in ignoring a federal regulation that seems to limit his authority to appoint special counsels.
When Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he was appointing David Weiss as special counsel, he failed to mention the federal regulation that "The special counsel shall be selected from outside the United States government." Special counsel is supposed to be independent of the current government, not an employee who serves as U.S. Attorney for Delaware and can be fired from that job by the president.
When Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he was appointing David Weiss as special counsel, he failed to mention § 600.3(c) of the Code of Federal Regulations entitled "Qualifications of the Special Counsel." These qualifications include the following: "The special counsel shall be selected from outside the United States government." (Emphasis added)
This requirement is the law. The regulations were authorized by Congress under 5 U.S.C. 301, 509, 510, 515-519. The attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. It is certainly expected that he would obey the law in its entirety.
If he feels that somehow there is an applicable exception to this requirement, he is obliged to explain why. Particularly when the special counsel is appointed to investigate the son of the incumbent president, who appointed Garland, every T should be crossed and every I should be dotted. Here we have what appears to be a clear rule using the word "shall" rather than a more permissive word such as "may." The regulation on its face seems mandatory, and not advisory. If it is not, why not?
There are good reasons for this requirement. Special counsel is supposed to be independent of the current government, not an employee who serves as U.S. Attorney for Delaware and can be fired from that job by the president. He is supposed to look at the evidence through the eyes of an outsider.
Garland may well say that he had little choice but to pick David Weiss, because Weiss has been conducting this investigation for five years. But that sounds like a good reason for not appointing the man who already agreed to make what many regard as a sweetheart deal, limited to minor tax and gun violations. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Weiss is likely to want to defend that highly criticized decision – a decision that was (as I predicted) rejected by the judge because of its ambiguity.
As to the five years of investigation, they were conducted not by Weiss himself but by his underlings, who could be kept on if a new special counsel were to be appointed. But even if there were persuasive reasons for naming Weiss as special counsel, Garland had an obligation to explain his apparent violation of a binding regulation. He did not do so at his press briefing. He can still do so now. And he should.
Garland's defenders argue that he may have merely skirted, rather than violated, the law because the appointment was made under his general authority and not expressly under the relevant regulations. This is a stretch especially since he relied on those very regulations to give the special counsel the powers authorized by the regulations. In any event , we rightly expect our attorneys general to comply with both the letter and spirit of the law and not to cut sharp corners.
Democrats frequently say that no one is above the law. Yet they have been silent about Garland apparently placing himself above the law in choosing Weiss in violation of governing legal regulations.
Under our constitutional system of checks and balances, it is within the powers of Congress to summon Garland and ask him to explain why he believes he is justified in ignoring a federal regulation that seems to limit his authority to appoint special counsels. He was surely aware of the regulation and of its apparently binding application. Maybe his explanation will be acceptable. Maybe he will admit he was wrong. Maybe he will decline to respond. The public is entitled to hear him and judge for themselves.
His decision to ignore the regulation was surprising. Many, including this author, have high regard for Garland as a "by the book," politically neutral and fair-minded attorney general. Many of us strongly supported his nomination to the Supreme Court and condemned the refusal of the then-Republican majority of the Senate even to give a hearing based on the lame excuse that it was early in the presidential election year. (The Republicans then rushed Justice Amy Coney Barrett through just weeks before the election). But this decision, along with some others, has been extremely disappointing.
With few exceptions, attorneys general generally become more partisan after they are appointed. This should be expected because they are cabinet members who are supposed to be loyal to the administration they are serving. But they are also supposed to be entirely nonpartisan in conducting criminal investigations and filing charges. It is difficult if not impossible to perform this schizophrenic role.
The ultimate solution is to divide the Justice Department into two separate units: one political , whose incumbent serves at the pleasure of the president; the other a non-partisan prosecutor, who cannot be fired except with consent of Congress. If this were done, perhaps there would be less need for special counsel.
**Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of "The Dershow" podcast.
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Two years after U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban enjoys an iron-fisted grip on Afghanistan
Bill Roggio/FDD's Long War Journal/August 16, 2023
Two years ago on this day, the Taliban marched into Kabul and triumphantly seized back control of Afghanistan. Two weeks later, on Aug. 30, 2021, the last U.S. soldier left the country. Since the U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban has consolidated its power, sheltered and supported numerous regional and global terror groups, crushed armed opposition and rival terror groups, and ruthlessly suppressed the rights of the Afghan people.
President Joe Biden announced on April 14, 2021 that all American soldiers would leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, exactly 20 years after that Al Qaeda launched its terror attack on the U.S.
Biden, who as vice president wanted to leave Afghanistan in 2011 after the U.S. killed Osama bin Laden, justified his decision to leave the country by claiming that he was bound by the Doha Agreement, the so-called peace agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban that was negotiated and signed by the Trump administration on Feb. 29, 2020.
The Taliban, which before the signing of the Doha Agreement was slowly gaining control of rural districts throughout Afghanistan, used the time between the signing of the deal and Biden’s announcement to lay the groundwork for its final push to take control of Afghanistan. The Taliban softened the support of local Afghan leaders and military commanders by convincing them to surrender or flee once the inevitable announcement of the U.S. withdrawal was made. Those who resisted would be crushed, the Taliban warned.
The Taliban immediately implemented its plan to take control of Afghanistan. First it would expand its control of the rural districts, then it would seize provinces and march into Kabul. On April 13, 2021, the Taliban controlled 77 of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, and contested another 194, according to a long-term assessment by FDD’s Long War Journal.
Within three months, the Taliban controlled 221 districts and contested 113. On Aug. 6, 2021, Nimroz in southwestern Afghanistan was the first province to fall. Nearly all of Afghanistan’s remaining 33 provinces fell to the Taliban by the time it marched into Kabul nine days later. Panjshir province, the last remaining holdout, collapsed on Sept. 7, 2021.
The Biden administration, and senior U.S. military, intelligence, and State Department officials were stunned by the Taliban’s swift victory. At the time of the withdrawal’s announcement, the official assessments indicated that the Afghan government would have a two-year buffer before it would be threatened by the Taliban.
Since the withdrawal, many so-called Afghan experts predicted that the Taliban would swiftly fracture and turn on itself, or that moderates within the group would rise to prominence and usher in a kinder, gentler Taliban that would suddenly respect human rights, create an inclusive government and serve as a viable counterterrorism partner. Two years after the takeover of Afghanistan, nothing could be further from the truth.
Meet the new Taliban, same as the old Taliban: the Permanent Interim Government
On Sept. 8, 2021, the Taliban announced its so-called “interim government.” Western officials were hopeful that the Taliban would create an inclusive government that integrated leadership from outside of the Taliban’s command. The Taliban, which always maintained that its “Islamic Emirate has not readily embraced this death and destruction for the sake of some silly ministerial posts or a share of the power,” had other ideas.
The latest iteration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan looks much like the previous iteration. Many of the new ministers served in the Taliban’s government from 1996 to 2001, before the U.S. ousted the group. The ‘new’ Taliban leaders were serving in the Taliban’s shadow government during its insurgency from 2002 until Aug. 2021.
Two of the top three leaders are Taliban royalty. Mullah Yacoub, the Taliban’s minister of defense, is the son of Mullah Omar, the group’s founder and first emir. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the minister of interior, is the son of famed Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani. Both served as co-deputy emirs in the shadow government as well as today.
The Taliban’s government includes Specially Designated Global Terrorists, leaders sanctioned by the United Nations, and former detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Even Al Qaeda leaders hold offices in the Taliban’s government.
There has been very little turnover within the Taliban’s government since it was announced two years ago. The Taliban’s minister of state has been replaced, reportedly due to illness, and its first education minister was fired due to a policy disagreement.
Despite numerous predictions that influential Taliban factions would immediately turn on each other to grab power or due to policy disagreement, there has been zero evidence that this has happened. The Taliban leadership has remained united and followed the directives from its emir, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada.
Crushing the opposition
Immediately after seizing power, the Taliban turned its sights on the last remaining holdouts from the Afghan government and military. Resistance to the Taliban coalesced in the central mountainous province of Panjshir, under the command of Ahmad Masoud, the son of famed anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, and in southern Baghlan province under Amrullah Salah, the last vice president of Afghanistan.
The Taliban quickly organized thousands of fighters and assaulted the mountainous redoubts of the resistance. Salah and Massoud’s forces were swiftly routed and forced to go underground.
The resistance to the Taliban flared again in the spring and summer of 2022, but again the Taliban massed its forces and drove Massoud and Salah’s forces underground. Today, resistance activity is limited to low scale guerrilla operations that does not seriously threaten the Taliban’s grip on power. The Afghan resistance has an uphill battle, with little foreign support, limited access to weapons and funds, no territory under its control, and no foreign safe havens where it can organize and strike back.
The Islamic State Khoransan Province (ISKP), an avowed enemy of the Taliban, can launch the occasional terror attack or assassination within Afghanistan, but it does not pose a serious threat to the Taliban’s primacy. The Taliban holds all of the advantages.
The Taliban can muster hundreds of thousands of troops while ISKP has only several thousands of fighters. The Taliban controls all of the territory of Afghanistan while ISKP operates in the shadows. The Taliban possesses billions of dollars in weapons, ammunition, vehicles, bases and supplies left behind by the U.S., while ISKP is forces to scavenge for war material. The Taliban has the support of foreign states such as Pakistan, as well as a host of terror groups on its side, while ISKP remains isolated as it does not play well with others due to its demands that everyone swear allegiance to its self-styled caliph. The only field where ISKP can match the Taliban is ideological fervor.
The real threat posed by ISKP is its ability to poach the disaffected or more radical members of the Taliban and its allied terror group. As the Taliban established its control of Afghanistan, it has largely worked to keep a lid on regional terror groups in order to placate countries like China (the exception is the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, which is very active in Pakistan). ISKP makes the argument that the Taliban is beholden to foreign powers and it is not waging a pure form of jihad. The Taliban’s victory has largely tamped down this argument, but this could be a problem for the group over time.
Doubling down on support for Al Qaeda and its allies
A key component of the Doha Agree was that the Taliban would not allow foreign terror groups to use Afghan soil to launch attacks against the U.S. or its allies. The Taliban has made this promise in the past, even before 9/11, but never intended to follow through. The same is true today. Additionally, the Taliban has denied that foreign groups are even operating within Afghanistan.
Since the U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban – Al Qaeda alliance has only strengthened. Al Qaeda was so confident in its relationship with the Taliban that its last leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, was living in a safe house in Kabul that was managed by a lieutenant of Taliban deputy emir and interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani. The U.S. discovered Zawahiri’s presence and killed him in a drone strike on July 31, 2022.
Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul wasn’t the only piece of evidence that demonstrated the enduring ties between the Taliban and Al Qaeda. On June 9, the United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, issued a report that noted that Al Qaeda is operating training camps in six of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, as well as safe houses and a media center.
Al Qaeda is also operating “suicide bomber training camps” for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. Three dual hatted Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders are serving in the Taliban’s government, and the Taliban is issuing passports and national identification cards for Al Qaeda members and their families. The Taliban’s ministry of defense is using Al Qaeda training manuals.
The Taliban’s grip on Afghanistan remains strong. Any false hopes that the Taliban would evolve into a moderate and peaceful regime that respects the rights of its people while serving as an effective counterterrorism partner should have been dashed the moment it took power.
**Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD’s Long War Journal. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.