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The So-called "Michigan Delegation" To Lebanon

Pierre A. Maroun - 5/3/2006

On May 1, 2006, a delegation referring to itself as the “Lebanese American leaders from Michigan” visited Lebanon and met with Lebanese officials. The delegation discussed the sentiment of the community in Michigan regarding the situation in Lebanon and the United States' involvement in that country. Their visit to Lebanon came after a visit on April 24th to State Department officials and the Lebanese Ambassador in Washington.

The delegation “expressed their opposition to the United States taking sides in Lebanon by supporting one side over another.” They also “expressed concerns that U.S. pressure to implement U.N. Resolution 1559 may worsen the situation in Lebanon.”

The American Lebanese Coordination Council (ALCC) regrets that such visit had occurred especially that it included General Michael Aoun’s followers whom until recently we considered as great Lebanese nationalists. Unfortunately, their misconduct proved otherwise. After claiming for months to be behind the passage of the UNSCR 1559, which is responsible along with the March 14th group for the liberation of Lebanon from the Syrian occupation, this behavior clearly places Aoun in the heart of the March 8th camp along with Hizbullah, AMAL, and all of Syria’s lackeys who are fighting to regain the Ba’ath lost interest in Lebanon. Furthermore, it clearly reveals that the so-called FPM “lobby” in the US (Tony Haddad, Gaby Issa, and Louis Ghafari who claim to have been behind the Syria Accountability Act of 2003,) have truly opposed the UNSCR 1559 and bitterly fought its passage.

Furthermore, the ALCC condemns the suspicious visit of the so-called “American-Lebanese delegation” from Michigan to Lebanon and to the State Department. We consider these individuals as sheer profiteers and proxies tied financially and ideologically to the radical terrorist group Hizbullah and to the Syrian Ba’ath regime while acting in the name of the Lebanese-American community. It is of great important to note that the overwhelming majority of the American-Lebanese communities are in support of the US Administration and its pro-democracy policies in the greater Middle East region; we are in support of the US war on terrorism; and we are in support of the UNSCR 1559, and we demand its full implementation in the nearest future with the best method the UN deem fit.