Syria’s involvement in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is more damning than disclosed in a United Nations report. That’s because the names of the brother of Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria, and other members of his inner circle were dropped from the report that was sent to the U.N. Security Council, The Times of London reported. How do we know this? It seems U.N. officials screwed up and distributed an electronic version of the report that allowed recipients to track editing changes.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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10 Comments
Bet they were using the old version of MS word.
A Cheap Journalistic Trick: ” Syria’s involvement in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is more damning than disclosed in a United Nations report. ”
The key wording: ” Syria’s involvement in the murder ”
Who says?
Phillip Brownlee, you should know better than to solidify a conclusion without substantiating facts. Isn’t that the first rule a good journalism?
So let’s back-up a review the real evidence:
Who killed Rafik Hariri?
Patrick SealeWednesday February 23, 2005The Guardian
“If Syria killed Rafik Hariri, Lebanon’s former prime minister and mastermind of its revival after the civil war, it must be judged an act of political suicide.
Syria is already under great international pressure from the US, France and Israel. To kill Hariri at this critical moment would be to destroy Syria’s reputation once and for all and hand its enemies a weapon with which to deliver the blow that could finally destabilise the Damascus regime, and even possibly bring it down.
So attributing responsibility for the murder to Syria is implausible. The murder is more likely to be the work of one of its many enemies. This is not to deny that Syria has made grave mistakes in Lebanon. Its military intelligence apparatus has interfered far too much in Lebanese affairs. A big mistake was to insist on changing the Lebanese constitution to extend the mandate of President Emile Lahoud – known for his absolute allegiance to Syria – for a further three years. Syria’s military intelligence chief in Lebanon, General Rustum Ghazalah, was reported to have threatened and insulted Hariri to force him to accept the extension. This caused great exasperation among all communities in Lebanon. Hariri resigned as prime minister in protest.Syria appears to have recognized its mistake. President Bashar al-Assad last week sacked General Hassan Khalil, head of military intelligence, and replaced him with his own brother-in-law, General Asaf Shawkat. A purge of the military intelligence apparatus in Lebanon is expected to follow.
It remains to be seen whether this will calm Syria’s opponents in Lebanon, who have declared a “democratic and peaceful intifada for independence” – in other words, a campaign of passive resistance to drive Syria out.
Hariri was not a diehard enemy of Syria. For 10 of the past 12 years he served as Lebanon’s prime minister under Syria’s aegis. A few days before his murder on February 14 he held a meeting with Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Walid Muallim. They were reported to have discussed a forthcoming visit by Hariri to Damascus. Hariri had not officially joined the opposition in Lebanon, but was thought to be attempting to mediate between Syria and the opposition.
If Syria did not kill Hariri, who could have? There is no shortage of potential candidates, including far-right Christians, anxious to rouse opinion against Syria and expel it from Lebanon; Islamist extremists who have not forgiven Syria its repression of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 80s; and, of course, Israel.
Israel’s ambition has long been to weaken Syria, sever its strategic alliance with Iran and destroy Hizbullah. Israel has great experience at “targeted assassinations” – not only in the Palestinian territories but across the Middle East. Over the years, it has sent hit teams to kill opponents in Beirut, Tunis, Malta, Amman and Damascus.
Syria, Hizbullah and Iran have stood up against US and Israeli hegemony over the region. Syria continues to demand that Israel return the Golan Heights, seized in 1967. Damascus will not allow Lebanon to conclude a separate peace with Israel unless its own claim is also addressed.
Hizbullah, in turn, is possibly the only Arab force to have inflicted a defeat on Israel. Its guerrillas forced Israel out of south Lebanon after a 22-year occupation. Hizbullah continues to be a big irritant to Israel because it has acquired a deterrent capability. Israel can no longer attack Lebanon with impunity – as it did for decades – without risking a riposte from Hizbullah rockets.
Iran’s nuclear programme threatens to break Israel’s regional monopoly of weapons of mass destruction, which is the main reason it is under immense pressure to abandon uranium enrichment.
The US and Israel have been trying to rally international support against Iran, Syria and Hizbullah. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, has condemned Iran as a prime sponsor of international terror. Syria has been condemned as a “destabilizing” force in the region, and is in the dock because of Hariri’s assassination.
The US and Israel have also been urging European governments to declare Hizbullah a “terrorist organization”. France has its own quarrel with Syria, and President Jacques Chirac is outraged at the murder of his close friend Hariri, but Paris does not consider Hizbullah a terrorist organization. For France, and for the vast majority of Arabs, Hizbullah is a national liberation movement as well as a big political actor in Lebanon.
There is far more to this crisis than a struggle between rival clans in Lebanon.”
So lemme see if I’ve got this straight. The NYTimes can’t report the news and the UN can’t be honest when it comes to world affairs. Another shining day in the sun for liberal loving institutions!
Joe
Truth stands on its own merit. { I’m a conservative }
Syrians Denounce Report
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=72218&d=25&m=10&y=2005
Joe
The United States and Israel have no credibility. They lie about whatever suits their dark needs.
And they also kill whomever they think will further their needs.
Here’s some Twisted Garbage rant from:
The Dallas Morning News.
Sanctions on Syria: World must take stand against assassination
04:45 AM CDT on Tuesday, October 25, 2005
“That the Syrian government killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a foe of Syria’s subjugation of his country, has been assumed by Mideast watchers since virtually the moment the Beirut bomb detonated in February.
But now that the United Nations has reached that same conclusion in an official report that ties the killing to the highest level of the Bashar Assad regime, the world community is morally obliged to act against the Damascus thugocracy.
Today the U.N. Security Council will take up the report, which represents the interim findings of investigator Detlev Mehlis; the probe continues with Mr. Mehlis seeking cooperation from Syrian officials he wishes to interview. Nevertheless, the U.S. and Great Britain are demanding swift and sure action against Damascus. As British foreign secretary Jack Straw said, “You simply cannot tolerate a situation where one state decides to deal with problems of another state by assassinating the other state’s leaders.”
The U.N. should impose heavy sanctions on Syria and work to isolate the rogue regime diplomatically. The Hariri assassination is only the most egregious recent example of the Assad family dictatorship’s behavior. It has helped keep the terrorist army Hezbollah in business in southern Lebanon, from where it has attacked Israelis. The Sunni insurgency in Iraq would be in dire straits were it not for the informal backing of Syria, long an open supporter of Arab terrorists. And the Baathist government in Damascus, like its late, unlamented brethren in Baghdad, runs a police state that brutalizes the opposition.
Though Syria doesn’t have oil or other resources that would allow it to play hard-line realpolitik, France and other key nations are nevertheless advocating a go-slow approach as Mr. Mehlis’ investigation continues. What else do they hope to learn that could possibly exonerate Damascus or mitigate its guilt?
It’s worth noting that if the corrupt and violent secular government of Mr. Assad, who is a member of the tiny Alawite sect of Islam, should fall, a much more vicious religious Sunni regime could take power.
That is a risk that the U.N. must take. Mr. Assad and his Mafiosi cohorts may be the devils we know, but they cannot be allowed to operate with impunity, any more than Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi could after blowing Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky. This is not a moment for the world to shrug its shoulders and move on.”
Ed’s note: Notice this one-sided Pro-Israeli writer’s rant is Judge, Jury, and Executioner. Facts? Who needs facts? ”
DMN: “That the Syrian government killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri”
The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice needs to be subpoenaed before a grand jury and made to testify as to whether it was Israel or the United States that murdered Rafik Hariri Lebanon’s former prime minister.
Rice has only been representing Israel’s interests, certainly not those of the United States. She should be charged with treason, after a grand jury returns an indictment, along with accomplices.
Ed Friedmann – charter member of blame america first and president of the society of ashamed americans who aren’t so ashamed that they will actually leave the country to live in that other country they think is better.
dr
I love the United States and wish to help get our credibility back. The only way to do that is to flush out the bad ones.
America should not be a country of lie after lie.
The Israelis killed Hariri and Syria is being implicated to justify yet another war for the zionist parasite!