The Syrian government arrested dissident Kamal Al-Libwani upon his return from a visit to Washington, DC. Initially, he was not charged with a crime. But later the Syrian government charged him with "harming the prestige of the state." I kid you not. "Prestige of the state." How Orwellian is that? How could anybody, no matter where you stand or sit on Lebanese or American issues, support such a regime? But I wish to tell the Syrian regime, and every other Arab regime, that they have no prestige to protect or preserve. They are without prestige and without respect. So they can worry less about those whom they accuse of harming "the prestige" of the state. This is like when Anwar Sadat promulgated the Law of Shame, according to which anybody who uses rhetoric or discourse that the former Nazi Sadat finds shameful, was charged with a crime. In King Faruq's days, there was a law that punished those who insulted "the Royal Self."