The Guardians of the Cedars Party - The Movement for Lebanese Nationalism issued the following communiqué:
The Lebanese are accustomed to always blaming others for the disasters that befall them from time to time. At times, they say that fate is behind these disasters, and therefore one ought to surrender to them for lack of power to confront them, and at other times they say these disasters are the work of major countries in the form of conspiracies hatched by the enemies of Lebanon.
Some of this is somewhat true, though not entirely so. Indeed, Lebanon was, and is still, the object of many external conspiracies that overlap and diverge among one another. The Palestinian invasion of Lebanon in the mid-1970s was a full-fledged Palestinian-Arab-International conspiracy that aimed at solving the Middle East problem at the expense of this country. Yet, the full truth is that this conspiracy would not have made much headway without the broad support it received from many local political and spiritual leaders. In fact, this conspiracy would not have even existed, if not for the serious crime committed by the government of Bechara Al-Khoury in 1948 when it allowed tens of thousands of Palestinians to flee into Lebanon and reside on our soil, without being mindful of the serious demographic and security risks that such numbers posed to the future and fate of the country.
It wasn't long after the Lebanese Resistance routed the Palestinian invasion that the leaders of Lebanon, the Maronite leaders in particular, quickly welcomed the Syrian invasion and gave it the necessary support to remain 30 unbearable and oppressive years on our soil.
And when, in 2005, Syrian influence waned, several Lebanese leaders quickly replaced it with Iranian influence and secured a comfortable cover for it to transform Lebanon into a satellite orbiting around the Islamic Republic of Iran. And no one doubts that as soon as the Iranian influence vanishes, some Lebanese politicians will inevitably be searching for a substitute external power to bring into the Lebanese arena and use it to bolster their political standing and fight their local opponents.
And therein lies the heart of the problem. Lebanon's disease is first and foremost an internal domestic one, and those foreign winds that constantly take the country by storm are a natural consequence of that intractable disease. The underlying cause of all the country's miseries and disasters is the base character of its politicians and the instinctive inclination they have to throw themselves in the arms of foreigners, to easily commit treason, and to quickly reverse political positions according to their personal interests.
The Lebanese people, however, cannot be exonerated from their responsibility for this political decay because, first, most of them indulge in their servile adulation for their bosses, even when they are wrong, which encourages them to persist in their perversity. Second, the Lebanese people never held their leaders accountable, even in the midst of the worst crises, choosing instead to justify their treasons with various arguments and excuses. Third, the Lebanese people continue to be led like a herd of sheep to the ballot boxes to renew their allegiance to those same leaders.
It is impossible to straighten the situation in any country of the world, unless the people of that country learn how and when to hold their politicians accountable. Otherwise, the people will continue to pay dearly with their blood and treasure the price of their continuing silence and submissiveness to their executioners.
Lebanon, at your service
Abu Arz