Why Lebanon Is Imploding

As the struggle between the dysfunctional and impotent Lebanese government and the vicious and violent bigots of Hizbollah escalates, the world has a front row row seat row seat to the implosion of Lebanon. At the moment, the upper hand seems to be had by Hizbollah. They have taken over some media outlets.

Hezbollah fighters seized control of rival pro-government strongholds in Beirut today as gunbattles rocked the Lebanese capital for a third day, edging the nation dangerously close to all-out civil war.

The Shia Muslim group, the most powerful armed movement in Lebanon, forced the shutdown of all media belonging to the family of Saad Hariri, the parliamentary majority leader. A rocket hit the outer perimeter of his Beirut residence...

Mr Hariri, whose father Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in 2005, had made a television appeal to try to calm the situation but this was rejected by Hezbollah...

Nasrallah defended the violent actions in true psychopathic style:

Mr Nasrallah delivered his defiant speech on Thursday after the Government launched a probe into a private communications network run by Hezbollah, which is seen in the West as a terrorist outfit and which critics say has become a “state within a state".

“The decisions are tantamount to a declaration of war and the start of a war ... on behalf of the United States and Israel,” Mr Nasrallah charged. “The hand that touches the weapons of the resistance will be cut off."

Psychopath Hassan 'we have Jew body parts' Nassrallah needed another outlet to sate his dysfunctional needs (he clearly does not want to 'win' another war with Israel that that will agains leave South Lebanon in cement dust. He understands that the prospect of even wider destruction in Beirut than the last time he 'won' will not endear him to most Lebanese) an outlet. His dysfunctions run deep:

If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide. (Daily Star, Oct. 23, 2002)

'Shiite scholar Amal Saad-Ghorayeb analyzed the anti-Jewish roots of Hezbollah ideology in her book Hezbollah: Politics & Religion. In it, she quotes Hassan Nasrallah describing his antipathy toward Jews:

If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli. (New Yorker, Oct. 14, 2002)

Nasrallah also incoroporates anti-Semitic rhetoric in speeches. For example, he has characterized Jews as the "grandsons of apes and pigs" and "Allah's most cowardly and greedy creatures." (Al- Manar, Feb. 3, 2006)

No doubt there are negotiations behind the scenes in an attempt to bring the overt violence to a halt, but old habits are not dispensed of so easily.

Many of the clashes in recent days have been in mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods. Armed civilians were visible on some streets.

“God is with the Sunnis,” shouted government supporters. “The Shiite blood is boiling,” responded Hezbollah followers from across the street. Lebanese army troops in riot gear stood between them.

The religious aspect of the Shia and Sunni divide in Lebanon can't be swept under the rug. That genie, let out of the bottle by Arafat and the PLO cannot be put back into the bottle. So much for the 'civilized' and 'enlightened' Arab communities in Lebanon, the most 'progressive' of Arab nations.

The Lebanese and Arab world are learning what the rest of the world has known and understood for a long time:

There is no opportunity to establish a civilized society in communities and cultures who identify their primary raison d'etre as hate.

Self worth and value are defined in the Judeo Christian ethic by individual behavior and and behavior influenced by communal and societal values. Contrast that with how much of the Arab and Islamic world defines itself- they see their worth and value in how much they can denigrate the 'other.' To disagree that the denigration of the other is a necessary ingredient in the measure of self worth and identity is to be a 'bad' or lesser Muslim or Arab.

To be sure, this kind of thinking is not inique to the Arab world. The Nazis and other similar type regimes and cultures have all employed that kind of denigration of the other ideology as soceital values- and those regimes all share spectacular failure.

When the value and worth of an individual or group is measured by the denigration of the 'other,' that individual or group is riddled with an incurable cancer of dysfunction. Dr Sanity, in Cornering The World Market On Psychopaths: When Culture Facilitates The Development Of Psychopathy

Children who happen to be born into authoritarian or tyrannical regimes are frequently systematically indoctrinated and programmed (by teachers or political authorities) to develop habits of thought and behavior at variance with healthy parenting and inconsistent with normal human values. Such programming can easily deform personility development in a variety of ways--none of them very healthy or humane. It is easy in such tyrannical regimes to become rigid; or mindlessly obedient; or cruel; or rebellious, bitter etc.

Psychologists have studied people who are from fringe or outcast social groups (such as gangs), and found that the members of such groups often behave respectfully and honestly toward others within their own group, but treat outsiders as if they were not human, without any sense of wrongdoing.

The ringleaders of such groups are often the the true psychopaths, and these leaders have a seemingly unlimited supply of morally weak or immature individuals (many of them very young)--who embrace antisocial behavior under group pressure.

Dr Sanity addresses a sensitive subject with great insight:

Male children in societies that demonize or debase women must overemphasize their "maleness" in order to separate from the shameful female/mother. As grown men, far from being able to mitigate the aggressive impulses of a child, such men will actively encourage these impulses in order to "prove" to the world at large that they (and later, their sons) have not been "feminized".

Cultures where women have extremely low status almost always encourage the development of inadequate, "macho" men, who need to prove their manliness and strength constantly because of the stark terror that female sexuality stimulates within them. It is not a coincidence that a pervasive current of homosexuality--which is ubiquitous, but tacitly unacknowledged and denied societally--runs through Islamic culture. With a boy or another man, you cannot be shamed by your fear...you are always in control; and this is not true in relationships with the demonized woman whose sexuality is so threatening and feared that it must be contained at all costs.

To succeed, a nation, culture and society must be prediacted on building , creating and the notion that all people are essentially equal. If a society is predicated on destruction or the elimination of the 'other,' that society will ultimately fail.

The trappings of civilized society does not impart a civilized status on a nation, culture or regime. Cultures with readily available technology and modern goods available for consumption does not make a society or culture equal to a society that produces. Those nations, cultures who consume are without the capacity to produce, are in effect playing dress up games. The proof is in the pudding. Arabs who want an education and a future have to leave the region to get educated.

The dysfucntion of the Arab world is profound. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper noted that

"I guess my fear is what I see happening in some circles is (an) anti-Israeli sentiment, really just as a thinly disguised veil for good old-fashioned anti-Semitism which I think is completely unacceptable," Harper said in an interview with CFRB radio.

"We learned in the Second World War that those who would hate and destroy the Jewish people would ultimately hate and destroy the rest of us as well, and the same holds today..."

Harper added that Canada supports having a solution with Israeli and Palestinian states living peacefully, side-by-side. He also stressed that Canada would continue to defend Israel because he said it is a beacon of freedom and democracy in a land where those values are under attack.

"I think, if we were ever to abandon Israel, we would only jeopardize our own long-run security interests," he said...

"After 1945, our battered world desperately needed to be lifted out of post-war darkness and despair," Harper said.

"And it was the people who had suffered most who provided that inspiration. By their example, they led the world back to the light. From shattered Europe and other countries near and far, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob made their way home. Their pilgrimage was the culmination of a two-thousand-year-old dream."

"Unfortunately, Israel at 60 remains a country under threat - threatened by those groups and regimes who deny to this day its right to exist," he said.

"Our government believes that those who threaten Israel also threaten Canada because as the last world war showed, hate-fuelled bigotry against some is ultimately a threat to us all, and must be resisted wherever it may lurk."

Canada will continue to stand with Israel, as it has, even "when it has not been popular to do so," he said.

The events in Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world prove a point: Western nations will not allow our values and morality to be redefined. The notion that self worth and identity can predicated on institutionalized violence, hate, racism and the denigration of the 'other' are not acceptable. The values of Judeo-Christian goalposts are well entrenched and will not be moved.

We have fought the ideologies of nations whose dysfunctional values were unacceptable- and we will do so again.