European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 7, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                1986 the stars and stripes Page 17 country grilled Liy madness Labelle associated press near the Corner of Rue Sadat and Rue Emile Edde in West Beirut is one of the few unscathed monuments to Lebanon it is not a grand Public nor a statue of a National its a Small Metal decorated with the country Cedar tree Symbol that somehow has kept its Green paint through the a Slot at the front and the words letter Box in French and arabic Are a reminder that once upon a time in Lebanon there existed something resembling civic a card or letter dropped into a Public Mailbox would arrive across town or across the police made a traffic lights flashed red or people took disputes to courts founded on French a sturdy National museum guarded remnants of Lebanon ancient in 10 such things have themselves become lost in a so called civil War that erupted on april with an attempted assassination and a reprisal ambush on a thirty one people were killed that first since More than have died in violence in a country that measures 130 Miles at its longest Point and 67 Miles at its alliances have shifted so Many times that even some lebanese forget what was behind one Battle or syrians have sent Israel has United states and european peacekeepers have come and and the War has lebanese fondly remember their country As the Switz Erland of the Middle israeli Deputy prime minister David Levy recently described it As a country gripped by madness where bloodletting is a daily How and when did one become the other any among the dozens of answers offered is partly partly a take the View of Antoine manager of the print Ania Palace hotel in the Christian Mountain Village of Brummans East of when asked who was responsible for the unending he shot Back the the the the the the we dont not daggers View is shared by Many lebanese who believe that somehow they have been sitting on the sidelines while someone else wars were fought in their two months after Dagher blamed the War on nearly everybody but rival christians fought a gun Battle in his hotel As guests Dove behind furniture and potted the two corpses left were evidence that even lebanese fought in the lebanese civil but other victims of this civil War have been italian a the counter explanation to daggers is that the War is Only an outgrowth of an ancient conflict Between christians and but in the last 10 moslem have killed moslem and christians have killed during in the militia of the mystical druse an offshoot of had a skirmish with the amal shiite moslem and amal fighters fought briefly against a splinter group within their own in the same christians were fighting among themselves As pro israeli elements in president Amin Gemayel phalanges party sought to halt Gemayel shift toward the rebellion in Gemayel party is the latest development in what some have called a Battle of left right in which righting christians have both been Allied with and fought against the soviet backed government of and some of the bloodiest Battles have been Between followers of warlords fighting for strictly local Power in what some say is really but one Small part of the larger struggle Between the United states and soviet what then is the lebanese civil War political science professor Ghassan Salameh pondered the question and wearily there Are Many wars taking place at the same who was educated in France and teaches at the american University of offered a three step classification internal and very Small wars tres petites by Salameh the wars involve the Arab israeli conflict palestinian syrians or Leb anese southerners battling Israel or inter Arab conflicts sort of imported into the internal wars Are Between Lebanon christians and or its leftists and the tres petites Guerreso Are what happens after 10 years of Vio photo 1975 no solution in sight Beirut Savage Street War seems to rage on thousands of people have both guns and personal scores to once you Stop one Salameh there is another War taking the result is a nation where a letter Box is a Monu fittingly outside a stationery store thai still Sells postcards from the Lebanon of one card shows Riad Solh named for the country first prime with solos statue at the Center and a theater off to one Side showing a movie of political intrigue in on another is martyrs with Palm Trees bathed in sunlight and a Monument to people hanged in the fight for Independence from Pierre late father of Lebanon president and founder of the Christian Pha Lange used to run a drug store in the is pictured with umbrella High rises and older til roofed Oil Rich arabs used to escape desert heat and moslem Stric Tures at Home by installing their families in Hamdoun and playing in the wicked nightclubs of Riad solos pocked with Bullet holes Over the was blown off its Pedestal last the Palm Trees of martyrs Square Are All this since april when external wars and internal contradictions swallowed up postcard a nation of spectacular mountains and seashores and of people who Are cunning and not that violence is something new in the old testament Book of warned the for the violence of Lebanon shall cover Lebanon strategic position on the Mediterranean Between Africa and Asia allowed the ancient phoenicians to found a shipping Empire and Send their Cedars to build the temples of but this also meant the country was a Welcome prize to Many it has been conquered Over the centuries by Egypt Ramses Nebuchadnezzar of Alexander the great of the crusader the moslem Warrior the British army under Edmund and the israeli army under defense minister Ariel among that As for the internal trouble in this gets con fusing both because Waves of migration have washed Over the Region and because the Jumble of minorities that make up the country have always called on outsiders to help maintain their the struggle Between maronite christians and druse Over who would control mount Lebanon is at the Center of Lebanon internal the followers of the syrian Hermit Monk came to Lebanon to escape persecution in the 7th the a schism of shiite arrived in the 11th Century for the same Charles a relative of sir Winston Churchill who lived in Lebanon in the 19th provides this picture of the events of 1860 in which a drus maronite clash is said to have resulted in the deaths of christians on the morning of the 13th the Feudal array of the the Abou Nakas and the with their banners flying and their Kettle Drums were As if by in in Possession of the various avenues leading to Deir and crowning All the surrounding never was a combination More rapid or com or More characteristic of that Energy and for which the druse Are so remarkable in their military the panic struck by the suddenness of the snatched up their arms and ran about in the utmost the druse kept stealthily con verging on the town during the whole of the ensuing the town presented to View one grand but melancholy spectacle the sky being lighted up with roiling columns of whilst every now and then might be heard the responding cries of the the furious tolling of the maronite and the exulting yells of the Churchill blamed the extraordinary calamity not Only on the maronite druse but on the turks then in control of the Region he were manipulating the internal differences to hold onto their the War of 1860 was ended through intervention of outside including the whole had ties to continued on Page 18