Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
And why it matters
by Justin Raimondo
The recent hate campaign against Syria is ratcheting up to a fever pitch, as exemplified by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), who told a convocation of veterans at the Suncreek United Methodist Church in Allen, Texas, of a conversation he had with our sainted chief executive in which he, Johnson, explained to the prez that those infamous "weapons of mass destruction" Saddam supposedly had were being hidden in Syria. Roll Call reports his remarks to the Texas crowd:
"'Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on 'em, and I'll make one pass. We won't have to worry about Syria anymore.'
"The crowd roared with applause."
From "nuke Saddam" to "nuke Bashar" - the War Party's slogans allow for variation only when it comes to the choice of victims. In each case, the prelude to hostilities is marked by a barrage of war cries mixed with lies - and in the case of Syria, the lies are even more brazen than usual.
No one disputes the repressive nature of the Syrian regime - although Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian strongman, is hardly a mass-murdering maniac in the tradition of his father, Hafez, or Saddam Hussein, for that matter. Bashar was never meant to succeed to the Syrian "presidency," and only reluctantly took on the office when his elder brother, Basil, was killed in a car crash. Up until that point, Bashar had been an unassuming would-be ophthalmologist, educated in the United States and England (where he met and married his wife).
In any case, the Syrian regime is not exactly a liberal one: there's a reason we send some of our more recalcitrant terrorist suspects to Damascus for a strenuous "debriefing," a practice euphemistically known as "extraordinary rendition" (i.e., torture). But there are plenty of repressive regimes in the world, many of which enjoy American support and largess, so why pick on hapless Bashar, the Syrian Claudius?
The catalyst for all the attention on Syria's occupation of Lebanon - an occupation, by the way, that was implicitly approved by the U.S. as well as the Arab states at the time of the Taif Agreement - was the assassination of Rafik Hariri, Lebanese politician and businessman, which many - including spokesmen for the U.S. government - maintain was the work of the Syrians.
The rapidity with which this particular bit of detective work was concluded is grounds for suspicion, and, alas, it turns out that the evidence is beginning to point in an entirely different direction - a fact that the Syrian "opposition" and its American cheerleaders don't want us to examine too carefully.
We're only supposed to see the flag-bedecked "pro-democracy" demonstrators in Beirut as they scream for Syrian blood and pose for the cameras. Indeed, the whole matter of just who killed Hariri has largely been forgotten by the Western media, which would much rather focus on yet another color-coded democratic "revolution" engineered by generous dollops of U.S. tax dollars and rhetorical support from the White House.
But if we look at how the case is actually developing - if we examine the hard physical evidence that is coming out of the investigation so far - another story, apart from the mythological narrative of the "Cedar Revolution," is revealed, one that is far less simple-minded and far more disturbing.
Reuters reports on the current status of the investigation into Hariri's death with this clarifying leak, courtesy of a Lebanese judge:
"Lebanon's investigations show that ex-Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri was almost certainly killed by a suicide car bomb, a judicial source close to the probe said on Friday. The source said results of the probe would be released next week. He expected them to show that a Muslim militant who had appeared in a video tape claiming responsibility for the attack was in the car that ripped through Hariri's motorcade in Beirut on Feb. 14. 'The attack happened when a car slowed up to allow Hariri's motorcade to pass it. As the motorcade passed it, the car blew up,' the source said. He said evidence came from a security camera at a nearby bank which caught parts of the incident. "
The "Syria did it" school of thought has suffered a huge blow from which it will never recover. A suicide bomber is not the usual method of assassination favored by state intelligence agencies, and, in any event, Syria's accusers - led by Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader whose father "won" the 1972 Lenin Peace Prize - have constructed an entire conspiracy theory based on the supposition that the bomb was placed underneath the road, in a secret tunnel, and that therefore the Syrian secret police must have known about it and had some hand in it. They also theorized that Hariri's motorcade, which was equipped with jamming devices to stop a radio-controlled bomb from detonating, was blasted anyway because the Syrians utilized anti-jamming technology, which disabled the devices. Yet more "proof" of a Syrian conspiracy, they yelped. (By the way, the Iranians also made this assertion - and offered it as "proof" that the Mossad was behind the whole affair).
Baloney.
It turns out that no such tunnel exists, and, in any event, the bomb was not planted in the road. Not only was it a car bomb, but the identity of at least one of the assassins has been established: he is Ahmed Tayseer Abu Adas, a 24-year-old Palestinian refugee living in the poor Beirut neighborhood of Tarik Jadida. Adas disappeared around Jan. 15, and later showed up in a video broadcast by al-Jazeera claiming responsibility for the assassination on behalf of a previously unknown jihadist outfit, the Group for Advocacy and Holy War in the Levant. According to Reuters, "authorities did DNA tests on the remains of a body found at the scene to establish they belonged to Abu Adas."
In the mad rush to blame Syria, the casual brushing aside of a videotaped confession was no problem for Jumblatt, various self-appointed Lebanese "experts," and Israel's Likud government, which launched an international propaganda and diplomatic campaign to seize the chance to target Syria. But as the facts come out about the assassination, and the word "Jumblatt" becomes a synonym for bullsh*t - as in, "Don't Jumblatt me!" or "Oh, Jum-blatt!" - the feverish triumphalism of the War Party, which looks forward to "regime change" in Syria as well as Lebanon, is bound to subside. The reaction is already setting in, with the Shi'ite majority in Lebanon flexing its muscles and Hezbollah - Lebanon's largest political party - calling a rally in Beirut on Tuesday.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, chief of the Iranian-supported Hezbollah ("Party of God"), which continues its war to "liberate" Palestine from Israeli control, is cited by Reuters as saying:
"'The aim of America and Israel is to spread chaos in Lebanon and bring back Lebanon to a state of chaos to find excuses for foreign intervention and to push some Lebanese to call for international intervention.'
In the name of loyalist parties, he called for a mass rally Tuesday at a square in central Beirut close to another square where opposition protesters have been demanding Syria quit Lebanon for the past three weeks. 'I call on all Lebanese to this peaceful popular gathering to reject foreign intervention that is contrary to our independence, sovereignty and freedom,' he said."
The pictorial representations of the "Cedar Revolution" that have so far appeared in the Western media have mostly been close-up shots of the comelier females waving flags and smiling coquettishly for the cameras, although this one shot of "pro-democracy" demonstrators dancing 'round a bonfire of what the caption describes as "pro-Syrian newspapers" has certain unfortunate historical connotations. We will doubtless see the Hezbollah/pro-Syria demonstrators depicted in an entirely different manner: no comely lasses and fearless lads here.
As Assad announces a "partial" withdrawal of Syrian troops to the Bekaa valley, and the White House undercuts the legitimacy of its sock puppets in Baghdad by correctly maintaining that no free and fair election can be carried out under the terms of a military occupation, the question of who murdered Hariri has gotten lost in all the shouting. Yet it is vitally important, because the investigation is taking place against the backdrop of the battle for Lebanon - and, by implication, the whole of the Middle East. All the world's chief actors are being drawn into this proxy war: the Russians, the Iranians, the Saudis, the Americans, and certainly the Israelis. Heck, even the French are involved, in alliance, for once, with the U.S.
