The Guardians of the Cedars Party issued the following weekly communiqué:

March 7, 2008

 When one party to the conflict resorts to questioning the patriotism of the other side on the basis of its own criteria, the chiasm and mistrust between them must have reached the point of no return. When accusations of treason become the language of the discourse and a tool to fight the opponent, then the political profligacy must have reached its peak.

 We say this in comment to the uproar caused by the arrival of the American vessels to Lebanon’s territorial waters, and to the campaigns of slander and treason accusations that followed it.

 It is no secret that a large segment of the neutral Lebanese felt relief at the arrival of the ships and considered them a positive element that is likely to mend the imbalance in the internal power equilibrium between a numerical majority that does not enough weapons, facing a minority armed to the hilt and determined to hijack the country and drag it by force into open-ended wars it has no stomach for.

 We belong to neither side, and we do not wish to participate in the festival of insults between them. But the reality on the ground compels us to defend the absolute truth as we usually do, and in this case by asking the following questions:

 -          Who gave that armed minority which calls itself a “resistance” the right to accuse people of treason and to dispense certificates in patriotism?

-          By what right does it import weapons of all kinds and in the open from Syria and Iran, a right which it denies to others? And according to which criteria are some weapons labeled patriotic and others unpatriotic? On what basis are the weapons coming from Syria and Iran “patriotic” weapons, and weapons coming from other sources “unpatriotic?”

-          And what about the “clean money” that this minority talks about? Why is Iranian money clean and other money not clean? Unless, that is, this minority uses money laundering to “clean” its money!

-          Who gave it the exclusive license to fight Israel from Lebanon? And who said that the Lebanese are, to begin with, interested in waging open wars on Israel on behalf of the Arabs?

 A balanced formula to answer these and other questions is as follows:

 1 – Either the weapons are restricted to the legitimate armed forces of the country to the exclusion of anyone else, or weapons should be made available to everyone.

 2 – And if the armed minority insists on allying itself with the Syrian-Iranian axis and has no shame about it, then the other side has all the right to ally itself with the American-European axis without any hint of embarrassment.

 Speaking out the truth, no matter how hurtful it may be, definitely leads to a resolution of the crisis. Silence, on the other hand, further complicates it.

 Lebanon, at your service

Abu Arz