{"id":225792,"date":"2021-01-23T06:57:10","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T06:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=225792"},"modified":"2021-01-25T08:06:50","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T08:06:50","slug":"lebanese-man-despairs-for-his-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=225792","title":{"rendered":"Lebanese Man Despairs for His Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Beirut after the 2020 blast at Hezbollah’s ammunition stores.<\/p>\n

henrymakow.com \u2013 Jan 14, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Lebanon is suffering from political corruption & gridlock, a banking and debt crisis, and a simulated pandemic <\/strong>that is crippling the economy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Time is running out to address this culmination of simultaneous ordeals. Barring an unforeseen development, a tipping point is steadily fast approaching. I am sad to say darker days lie ahead.”<\/p>\n

Ron, 36 has BS in Computer Science. He had a stint in journalism in early career and is now an administrator.<\/em><\/p>\n

by Ron\u00a0— <\/strong>(henrymakow.com)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Unfortunately, the situation in Lebanon keeps getting worse<\/strong> and is now coming to a head as longstanding problems and new hardships converge.<\/p>\n

We, the Lebanese people have been taken hostage by a group of warlords-turned-politicians who were handed the keys of the country in 1990 on the heels of a\u00a0bloody\u00a015-year civil war.<\/p>\n

The delicate political system imposed after the civil war consists of a diverse sectarian power-sharing between 18 Christians, Muslims and Druze recognized sects. This formula of religiously-based, fragile governance has since maintained uneasy peace but does repeatedly flare up as it engenders volatility and socio-economic inequality.<\/p>\n

The system is rife in bribery, cronyism, favoritism, patronage, and vote-buying. It has allowed the ruling establishment to use sectarian conflict as a cover for socioeconomic disparities and justification of their constant bickering.<\/p>\n

Main political figures are Michel Aoun, Christian previous Commander of the army and current president of the republic; Saad al-Hariri, son of assassinated Sunni leader Rafik al-Hariri and former prime minister; Hassan Nasrallah, head of Shiite party Hezbollah, the most powerful – and only publicly armed – group in the country; Nabih Berri, leader of Shiite civil war militia Amal Movement and current speaker of parliament; Walid Jumblatt, former Druze militia commander and head of the Progressive Socialist Party; Samir Geagea, Christian politician and leader of the Lebanese Forces, another former civil war militia.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An ever-worsening economic crisis pushed people of all sectarian affiliations to take to the streets in October 2019 to the surprise of the ruling elite. We would protest corruption, lack of reforms, huge sovereign debt, deficits in the budget and current account and run-down infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The effects of poor public services, skyrocketing unemployment rates, worsening poverty, high inflation rates and a continued brain drain have spared no one. I personally have long lost faith in any prospect of change and have been living and working abroad since 2010.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, foreign exchange reserves at the Lebanese Central Bank are currently depleted and unregulated capital control measures by banks are firmly in place. Like hundreds of thousands of other compatriots, our hard-earned savings are now up in the air.<\/p>\n

Explosion<\/strong><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The situation in Lebanon keeps getting worse and is now coming to a head as long standing problems and new challenges converge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":211627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225792"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":225799,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225792\/revisions\/225799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/211627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}