Outgoing Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir reiterated that only Leb's armed forces should carry weapons and described as abnormal the presence of arms in the people's hands.He's right, y'know. In civilized countries, which Leb has occasionally aspired to be, the government reserves the right to do violence. The armed forces have guns and the cops have guns. While the citizenry usually has some sort of right to own guns, that right excludes heavy weapons -- mortars, machine guns, recoilless rifles, ICBMS, that sort of thing -- the idea being that small arms are sufficient for dealing with the occasional deer or the wife's lover.
In remarks to al-Joumhouriah newspaper published Wednesday, Sfeir said: "We either have a state or we don't. Only the state should own weapons."
Our guess is that Leb's not really a state. It's a collection of organizations, some of them benign, others malevolent.
"This is the general rule" in the world, he said. "Arms should not be in the hands of the people," Sfeir told the daily in reference to Hizbullah.
At least not heavy weapons...
He made his remark as the Maronite Bishops Synod begins meetings on Wednesday to elect a new patriarch.
"And in this corner, weighing 183.5 pounds, His Excellency Bishop Boutros!"
Sfeir warned that interference in Leb's political affairs could sometimes serve and at other times harm the country.
"The Lebanese should accept each other through love and cooperation because there is still meddling" in the country's affairs, the outgoing patriarch said.
Asked if he was remorseful for not visiting Syria, he said: "Never. Why should I regret that?"
Sfeir told al-Joumhouriah that he had nothing to say to
Syria's hereditary President Bashar PencilneckAssad.
... one of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators ...
During his tenure, Sfeir took positions against Syria's years of interference in the country's affairs. A statement issued by the council of bishops in September 2000 calling for Syria to withdraw its 30,000 troops from the country marked a turning point in Lebanese opposition to Damascus' hegemony.
Syrian troops intervening in Leb's civil war first entered the country in 1976. They withdrew in 2005 after ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's liquidation in February of that year.