HEZBOLLAH’S ARMS AND THE 2ND AMENDMENT TO THE US CONSTITUTION
Franklin Lamb
Beirut
Graphics by Alex
From
this observers experience in Lebanon there is only one cosmic like event that is
nearly as predicable from Ramlet al Baida beach in Beirut, near Shatila
Palestinian refugee camp, than the sun coming up like thunder out of Syria
across the eastern Bekaa Valley every morning. And that might be the regularity
of the on cue from Washington, Riyadh, Doha, and Tel Aviv cacophonous chorus
that very frequently these days wafts throughout this country and region: “Hezbollah must give up their
weapons!”
As this
country begins focused preparation for next year’s parliamentary elections which
is predicted by some analyst’s to quickly develop into the most
expensive in Lebanese history in terms of dollars per vote contracted
for by some well financed parties, the
Future Movement-led March 14 coalition and their international backers are out
of the gates early and currently stressing “the urgent need to disarm
Hezbollah in order to deprive Israel of a pretext to attack Lebanon.”
With convincingly sincerity, their leaders intone: “The Israelis are planning to justify aggression against Lebanon, and given Israeli attempts to hold Hezbollah and Iran responsible for the Bulgaria attack at the Black Sea airport of Burgas in which five Israelis and their Bulgarian driver were killed Hezbollah disarmament is essential,” the press releases from the Mustaqtbal headquarters warn.These are followed by warnings about Israeli accusations that Hezbollah will likely receive chemical weapons from the Syrian regime that is trying to smuggle them into Lebanon as stated in a just issued statement issued at the end of the March 14th coalition’s weekly meeting.
With respect to the Bulgaria attack, the European Union
turned down a request on 7/24/12 by Israeli Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman to blacklist Hezbollah as a terror group following the bombing
in Bulgaria. Israel blames Iran and Hezbollah
for Wednesday's suicide attack at the Black Sea airport of Burgas in which five
Israelis and their Bulgarian driver died.
"There is no consensus or justification for putting Hezbollah on the
list of terrorist organizations," said
Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, whose country currently
holds the rotating EU presidency. Sitting alongside the Cypriot minister at a
news conference held after annual EU-Israel talks, Lieberman said: "The time has
come to put Hezbollah on the terrorist list of Europe."
" But
it would give the right signal to the Israeli people”, Lieberman counter-argued
during his continuing 10 European country anti-Iran and Hezbollah tour funded
unknowingly by American taxpayers.
But
to Lieberman’s consternation, Kozakou-Marcoullis patiently explained the EU
decision that Hezbollah was an organization comprising a party and was "active
in Lebanese politics...Taking into account this and other aspects there is no
justification for putting Hezbollah on the list of terrorist organizations," she
said.
Oddly, as though in sync with Lieberman’s timing, the March
14th coalition statement called on the international community to
“protect Lebanon from any Israeli attack,” it stressed the
need for Hezbollah's disarmament, arguably the only deterrent
that has and will continue to give Israel pause before its likely 6th
major aggression against Lebanon, “in order to deprive Israel of the pretext it
is using to justify its aggression.”
In
its weekly communiqué , the Future Movement continued its silence of how to
address Lebanon’s urgent problems which include some
of the subjects recently enumerated by Human Rights Watch investigator in
Lebanon, Nadim Khoury when he pointed out this month that:
“Lebanon has
to realize that it is actually falling behind on so many important measures that
need urgent attention and they include women’s rights, protection of vulnerable
groups, lack of protection for the elderly, the right to education, increasing
inequality, lack of urban planning – you name it.” And the elementary civil
right to work and to own a home for Palestinian refugees.
There may
well be several states on Earth in worse shape than Lebanon, to paraphrase
British journalist Patrick Galey, but the lack of security, crumbling
infrastructure, stagnating legislation, wobbling economy, spreading protests and
regressing human rights, Lebanese citizens could be forgiven for understanding
the need for Hezbollah’s weapons of effective deterrence against Israel given
the latter’s history of aggressions against Lebanon.
Some in
Lebanon has discussed the similarities between the Hezbollah led Resistance
movement based in Lebanon and the New England based American Resistance to
British occupation two and one half centuries ago. Included have been forums
that examine the similarities between the events at Karbala and in this region
and the martyrdom operations of American patriots in 18th century
colonial America.
 |
| The Second Amendment’s Fight
For It’s Rights To Exist |
With
respect to politically motivated calls for Hezbollah to disarm, one hears some
of the very same responses to the suggestions coming from the American Founding
Fathers as they crafted a new resistance “open letter” or Constitution which in
point of fact are reported to have influenced Hezbollah’s 1985 and 2009
manifestos as did the American Declaration of Independence to some
degree.
As though
they understood very well the problems facing the Hezbollah led Resistance and
would be foreign occupiers, the American framers argued, not as many National
Rifle Association lobbyists do that a gun is the right of every citizen for his
personal use, but rather that the Resistance needs deterrent weapons to prevent
another occupation:
"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." George Mason Co-author of the Second Amendment during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788
"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves …"Richard Henry Lee writing in Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic, Letter XVIII, May, 1788.
As passed by
the new American Resistance Congress the members framed the 2nd Amendment to the
US Constitution as follows:A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The
concept that the state should have a monopoly on all arms within a country has
long been foreign to Lebanon. Since the end of the Civil War, non-state militias
have maintained and even bolstered weapons stocks, stashed in caches around the
country.
Once Lebanon becomes a real nation state and can defend its people against the serial aggressor to its South, no doubt a mechanism for centralizing the deterrent capacity of Lebanon will likely soon follow.
Franklin Lamb is
doing research in Lebanon. He is reachable c\o fplamb@gmail.comHe is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon.
He contribute to Uprooted Palestinians Blog
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