Lebanese Army, source of pride

The North Lebanon battles in the Nahr Al Bared surroundings between our army and the Islamic Militant of Fatah Al Islam continue. It is really shocking and breath-taking, at least for me, to see our Lebanese army fighting. This is not a sight we are accustomed to. The Lebanese army has been on hold since decades, due to occupations, belief that they are still not strong enough to defend the country, division... When we say the Lebanese army we mean by it Lebanon's army, not political, not biased and not sided to anyone but all Lebanon.
The Lebanese army today are a source of pride and strength for many Lebanese of whom the majority are showing support by several means, on msn, facebook, display pictures, stickers on cars and more.

The Lebanese army have received reinforcements from the US a week ago, and the battles are getting more and more severe. The Islamic militants are not willing to surrender (yet).

What was stranger, is the live coverage of these battles and the way they are describing them. When I am listening to the radio and hearing the reporter describe how the army took over a building and responded with gun-fire to locations from which militants have been shooting, blocking roads and entrances, taking over the train rail, etc... I couldn't help but think it was a game, like Counter Strike if you are familiar with it. Counter strike is a game to be played on the pc, it has two teams, the terrorists and the counter terrorists, and has maps of an italian neighborhood, in a plane, near a deserted research lab, even a map of Beirut. In this game, the terrorists are actually holding hostages, for the counter terrorists to win, they have to either rescue the hostages or kill the terrorists. Sounds too familiar in Nahr Al Bared's situation doesn't it? All of this seems so unreal.

I might sound crazy and too optimistic, however, I need to get this off my chest. There is a Lebanese saying that would best describe the current situation, roughly translated it means: "If you don't make a big deal out of it, you won't fix it."

Based and inspired by the above quote, Lebanese has been facing a lot of different problems lately. There has been several different internal security issues, division issues, fight for patriotism, foreign problems and wars and more. Even though many are saying that Lebanon is on the brink of another civil war, however and this is only an intuition coupled with a bit of analysis and living in this country for so long, it seems that there might be a link to hope, if taken good advantage of if our politicians play it well and do not lose focus of what really matters.