SAYING YEAH FOR LEBANESE FREEDOM.

Byline: Gladys Alam Saroyan Local View

As a Lebanese American, I say Yeah! to America focusing on Syria's game of ``We're with you but not with you'' toward one and all.

With a gladdened heart I wanted to thank President Bush for maybe, hopefully, against all odds, stripping Syria of its inexplicable cloak of power that has occupied, terrorized, intimidated and demeaned the tiny country next door.

But, ``uh-oh'' sprung up quickly right after the euphoric ``Yeah!''

What if Bush does not know that Lebanon's puppet politicians, when they dumbly utter anti-U.S. statements written and edited by Syrians, are not speaking for the people of Lebanon?

What if Bush does not know that these politicians are to Lebanon what the Vichy government was to France under the German occupation and that the Lebanese resistance is so underground, literarily, that its voice is barely audible except maybe for someone like me who is a housewife and a mother living in a U.S. suburb vacillating between an ``Uh-oh'' and a ``Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!''? I am comforted that maybe Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld knows. That's according to former Lebanese President Amin Gemayel who claims that he and ``Don'' are not just old buddies who occasionally share dinner at Rumsfeld's house, but that they actually have a close relationship which dates back to the 1980s when Gemayel was president of Lebanon and Rumsfeld was serving in the Reagan administration.

And this brings me to Lebanon's big secret.

Please, Mr. Bush, check this out with Donald; this is big, very big and it might prove to you that Lebanon, if free from Syria's iron hand, desperately wants peace in the Middle East.

In 1983, Lebanon, under the presidency of Gemayel, signed a peace treaty with Israel.

Syria forced Gemayel to renege on the agreement a year later and will not allow Lebanon to enter into new negotiations with Israel until the question of the Golan Heights - Syrian land occupied by Israel - is settled. Never mind that Lebanon's current buffoon of a president, Emile Lahoud, utters major diatribes against Israel as if he himself is a Palestinian who has lost a homeland. He makes this housewife want to grab a frying pan for a far higher purpose than to fry fish.

Dear President Bush, as a former Lebanese child of war, I say uh-oh a million times against war in any shape or kind.

But, as an American woman who wishes for her native country to taste the intoxicating fruits of self-determination and national pride, I say yeah for Operation Lebanese Freedom.

Unfortunately for this housewife, for Lebanon and for the stability of the whole region, according to the recent turn of events, it looks like the United States is not willing or ready or convinced that Syria's regime needs a huge overhaul a la Iraq style.

This week, Colin Powell prepares to travel to Syria and to Lebanon on a diplomatic mission.

I was hoping to tell Donald that next time he meets with Gemayel for dinner, Allah willing, let it be in newly liberated downtown Beirut.

Looks like it ain't so.