Who Killed Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri?

[AlicetheKurious]

Hariri in Tehran: Reconciling Viewpoints with Hizbullah, Supporting Iran Nuclear Program
Beirut, 27 Nov 10, 16:47



Prime Minister Saad Hariri arrived in Iran on Saturday on a first official visit amid a tense political standoff between his pro-Western camp and rival Iran-backed Shiite group Hizbullah.

During his three-day visit Hariri, accompanied by several ministers, will meet Supreme leader of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, Chairman of the Shoura Council Ali Larijani, Minister of Foreign Affairs Manouchehr Mottaki and a number of Iranian officials.

Hariri's visit is "historic and very important," Iran's ambassador to Beirut, Ghazanfar Roknabadi, told the official IRNA news agency.

The trip comes a little over a month after Ahmadinejad made a similar visit to Lebanon, where he was given a hero's welcome by Hizbullah supporters in both Beirut's southern suburb and in the south near the border with Israel, Iran's arch-foe.

Hariri's visit also comes amid a tense political standoff between his pro-Western camp and Hizbullah over a U.N. tribunal probing the 2005 assassination of his father, former premier Rafik Hariri.

The tribunal is reportedly set to implicate high-ranking Hizbullah officials in the murder, but the party has warned against this, prompting fears of a renewed sectarian conflict in the country.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has a natural role in the region, especially in resolving crisis and strengthening stability in Lebanon," Hariri was quoted as saying in an interview with IRNA on Friday ahead of the visit.

Hariri was welcomed at the airport by first Vice President Rahimi and he is expected to meet Ahmadinejad on Sunday, Iranian media said.

The official Lebanese-Iranian talks kicked off with a preparatory expanded meeting at the Saadabad Complex in Tehran, in the presence of Hariri and the accompanying Lebanese delegation, Iran's First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, Housing Minister Ali Nikzad, Ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Rokn Abadi.

Talks tackled the bilateral relations and the situation in the region.

After that, Hariri headed to Esteghlal Hotel where he is staying. He met there with a group of Arab ambassadors to Tehran, headed by Kuwait's Ambassador Majid Zafiri, in the presence of the Lebanese delegation.

Discussions focused on the situation in Lebanon and the issues that will be tackled during Hariri's visit to Tehran.

The discussions that started at Saadabad complex will continue during a meeting which will be held Saturday evening and will be followed by a dinner banquet thrown by Rahimi in honor of Hariri and the accompanying delegation.

Iranian state television's website reported that during their talks, Rahimi told Hariri that Tehran saw no limit to developing its relations with Lebanon "in every domain."

It reported the Lebanese premier as saying he hoped for "the development of political and economic relations" with Iran.

"This visit is taking place while Lebanon is in a very sensitive and complicated situation," Mohammad Reza Sheibani, Iran's deputy foreign minister for the Middle East, told Khabar newspaper in an interview on Saturday.

"The questions linked with the Hariri tribunal have drastically affected Lebanon's groups and its political situation," he added.

A Lebanese ministerial source told Agence France Presse that Hariri hoped Iran would help to reconcile the March 14 camp and Hizbullah.

"This visit is important because of its timing, when Lebanon is in crisis because of the expected indictment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon," the source said.

"The Iranians will try to reconcile points of view between Hizbullah and Saad Hariri," the source said.

In return, Hariri would support Iran's "development of nuclear capabilities for civilian and peaceful purposes," the source added.

The West and its Arab allies accuse Iran of seeking to destabilize the region and extend its influence across the Arab world, and Tehran faces increasing international pressure over its nuclear program.

Government-run newspaper Iran Daily insisted that the Saudi-backed premier's visit "should not be reduced to the question of the Special Tribunal as it is an internal Lebanese affair."

"Hariri's visit can also be evaluated as a positive change in Tehran-Riyadh relations," the paper wrote in a commentary.

The two countries, Lebanon and Iran, are also expected to focus on mutual cooperation, following up on 17 agreements signed during Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon.

Iran hopes warmer ties with Lebanon will deliver a blow to Israel.

"Expansion of ties between Iran and Lebanon will definitely strengthen the resistance movement against the Zionist regime," Sheibani said.

Hariri said Friday that Iran was involved in efforts to ensure stability in Lebanon.

"Attempts to destabilize any country in the region is a threat to both the interests of Arabs and Iran at the same time," Hariri told IRNA.

He described as "historic" ties between Iran and Lebanon.

On political ties, however, Hariri said Lebanon looks forward to a "relationship between two countries that respect each other's sovereignty and interests."

In response to a question about his father's assassination, Hariri said he never accused Hizbullah of involvement.(Naharnet-AFP) Link

[AlicetheKurious]

Thierry Meissan provides a VERY interesting overview of the case. An excerpt:

While western media have announced that indictments against Hezbollah will be issued shortly by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Russian magazine Odnako challenges the entire UN investigation. Thierry Meyssan posits that the weapon used to assassinate former Prime Minister Rafik Hairiri was supplied by Germany. Former German prosecutor and first commissioner in charge of the UN probe, Detlev Mehlis, seemingly doctored evidence to cover up his country’s involvement. These revelations embarrass the Tribunal and reverse the tide in Lebanon.

...

Rafik Hariri’s convoy was attacked in Beirut on 14 February 2005. Twenty-three people were killed and one hundred injured. A preliminary report commissioned by the Security Council calls attention to the unprofessional conduct of the Lebanese magistrates and police. To redress the situation, the SC assigned its own investigators, providing them with the important means that Lebanon was unable to offer. From the outset of the investigation, it was generally accepted that the attack had been perpetrated by a suicide bomber driving a van packed with explosives.

Having been established to compensate for the Lebanese lack of professionalism, one would have expected the United Nations mission to scrupulously observe the classical criminal procedures. Not so! The crime scene – on the basis of the topography still intact as well as the photos and video footage shot on that day – was not examined in detail. The victims were not exhumed and no autopsies were performed. For a long time, no attempt was made to ascertain the modus operandi. After discarding the hypothesis of a bomb buried in the ground, the investigators espoused the one involving the van withough bothering to verify it.



And yet, this version is implausible: looking at the crime scene, anyone can easily observe the very large and deep crater that a surface explosion could not have dug out. Faced with the adamancy of the Swiss experts who refused to endorse the official version, on 19 October the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) recreated the crime scene behind closed doors. It didn’t take place in Lebanon, nor in the Netherlands which is the seat of the STL, but in France, one of the countries funding the Tribunal. The buildings surrounding the crime scene were reconstructed and earth was brought in from Beirut. The convoy was reconstituted, including the armoured vehicle. The aim was to demonstrate that the height of the concrete buildings had confined the explosion, making it possible for the blast to produce the crater. The results of this costly experiment have never been divulged.



When looking at the photos and videos taken immediately after the attack, the first most striking feature is the blaze. Car parts and various types of objects are burning all around. Then, the bodies of the victims: they are charred on one side and intact on the other. An astonishing phenomenon which bears no resemblance to what is normally caused by conventional explosives. The theory that the van was transporting a mix of RDX, PETN and TNT does not account for the damages occurred.

What is more, from the photos showing Rafik Hariri’s corpse one can observe that his solid gold wristwatch has melted, whereas the collar of his luxury shirt still hugs his neck in pristine condition.

So, what really happened?

The explosion generated a blast of an exceptionally intense heat and exceptionally brief duration. Thus, the flesh exposed to the blast was instantly carbonized, while the body underneath was not burnt.

High-density objects (such as the gold watch) absorbed the heat and were destroyed. Conversely, low-density objects (like the delicate fabric of Hariri’s shirtcollar) didn’t have enough time to absorb the heat and were unaffected.


Rafik Hariri’s remains

Moreover, the videos show that a number of limbs were severed by the explosion. Oddly, the cuts are clean, as if made on clay statues. There is no sign of shattered or jutting bones, nor of any torn flesh. The reason is that the explosion sucked up all the oxygen and dehydrated the bodies, rendering them friable. In the hours that followed, several on-the-spot witnesses complained of breathing ailments. Wrongfully, the authorities interpreted them as a psychosomatic reaction following their psychological trauma.

Such observations constitute the abc of any criminal inquiry. They should have been the starting point, yet they do not figure in any of the reports submitted by the “professional experts” to the Security Council.

When we asked a number of military experts what kind of explosives would be capable of generating such damage, they mentioned a new type of weapon which has been developed over several decades and is featured in reports appearing in scientific journals. The combination of nuclear and nonotechnology science can trigger an explosion the exact strength of which can be regulated and controlled. The weapon is set up to destroy everything within a given perimeter, down to the nearest centimeter.

Always according to the same military specialists, this weapon can also produce other types of effects: it exerts a very strong pressure on the area of the explosion. The minute it stops, the heaviest objects are propelled upwards. Accordingly, cars were sent flying through the air.

There is one unequivocal fact: this weapon is equipped with a nano-quantity of enriched uranium, emanating radiations which are quantifiable. Now, it just so happens that one of the passengers in Rafik Hariri’s armoured car survived the explosion. Former Minister Bassel Fleyhan was taken to a topnotch French military hospital for treatment. The doctors were astounded to discover that he had been in contact with enriched uranium. But no one linked this to the attack.

Technically speaking, the weapon is shaped like a small missile, a few tens of centimeters long. It must be fired from a drone. Actually, several witnesses assured they had heard an aircraft flying over the scene of the crime. The investigators asked the United States and Israel, whose surveillance satellites are permanently switched on, to provide them with the pertinent images. On the day of the attack, the United States had deployed AWACS aircraft over Lebanon. The live feeds could help to establish the presence of a drone and even to determine its flight path. But Washington and Tel Aviv – which indefatigably urge all parties to cooperate with the STL – turned down the request.


Hezbollah intercepted and released videos from Israeli drones surveying Rafik Hariri’s movements and the scene of the crime.

At a press conference held on 10 August 2010, Hassan Nasrallah showed a video which, according to him, was shot by Israeli military drones and intercepted by his organisation. All of Rafik Hariri’s movements had been registered for months, until the final day when all the surveillance converged on the bend in the road where the attack was staged. Thus, Tel-Aviv had been surveying the area prior to the assassination. Which is not to say, as Mr Nasrallah himself points out, that they were the authors of the crime.

So, who fired the missile?

This is where things get complicated. According to the military experts, in 2005, Germany was the only country which had a handle on this new technology. It is, therefore, Berlin which supplied and set up the crime weapon.

Hence, it is easy to understand why former Berlin Attorney General Detlev Mehlis – a very controversial figure within his own profession – was eager to preside the UN Investigation Commission. He is, in fact, notoriously linked to the German and U.S. secret services. Assigned in 1986 to shed light on the attack against the La Belle disco in Berlin, he diligently covered up all Israeli and U.S. fingerprints to falsely accuse Libya and justify the bombing of Mouammar Khadafi’s palace by the U.S. Air Force. In the early 2000s, Mr Mehlis was lavishly paid for his stint as researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (think-tank linked to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby) and at the Rand Corporation (think-tank attached to the U.S. military industrial complex). All elements which cast a shadow over his impartiality in the Rafik Hariri affair and should have sufficed to have him taken off the case.

Mehlis was seconded by Commissioner Gerhard Lehmann, who is also a well-known German and U.S. secret services agent. He was formally identified by a witness as having taken part in the programme run by the Bush Administration in Europe, involving the abduction, detention and torture of prisoners in “black holes”. His name is mentioned in the ad hoc Report by the Council of Europe. Notwithstanding, he managed to dodge all judicial proceedings on the strength of a strong though unlikely alibi provided by his colleagues in the German police.

Mehlis and Lehmann propagated the theory of the explosives-laden suicide van to deflect the investigation from the German weapon that was used to commit the crime.

Various earth samples were taken from the scene of the crime. They were first mixed, then divided into three jars that were sent to three different laboratories. In the first two no trace of explosives was found. The third jar was kept by Mehlis and Lehmann, who personally sent it to the third laboratory. Here, remnants of explosives were detected. In principle, if the decision is made to resort to three judiciary experts, in case of disagreement it is the majority opinion that prevails. No way! Mehlis and Lehmann violated the protocols. They deemed that theirs was the only reliable sample and embarked the Security Council on a false trail.

The profoundly flawed character of the Mehlis-Lehmann investigations has amply been proven. Their successors acknowledged as much sotto voce and declared entire sections of proceedings nul and void.

Amidst their manipulations, the most famous one relates to the false witnesses. Five individuals purported to have seen the preparations for the attack and incriminated Presidents Bashar el-Assad and Emile Lahoud. While these allegations were fueling the drums of war, their lawyers exposed the lies and the prosecution backed down.


Detlev Mehlis, President of the UN Investigation Commission violated all the rules of the criminal procedure, fabricated evidence and used false witnesses to exonerate Germany and accuse Syria.

Based on these false testimonies, Detlev Mehlis arrested – in the name of the international community – four Lebanese generals and had them incarcerated for four years. Pushing his way with his cow-boys into private homes, without a warrant from the Lebanese authorities, he also detained for questioning members of their entourage. With his assistants – who spoke Hebrew to each other – he manipulated the families. Thus, on behalf of the international community, he showed the wife of one of the generals a doctored picture to prove that her husband had not only obscured his implication in the murder, but was also two-timing her.

Concurrently, he tried the same maneuver on the son of the “suspect”’, but in this case to convince him that his mother was a woman of loose morals, a situation which had plunged his desperate father into a murderous folly. The aim was to induce a family crime of honour, thereby tarnishing the image of respected and respectable people.

Even more incredible is Lehmann’s proposition to liberate one of the four imprisoned generals in exchange for his false testimony against a Syrian leader.

Moreover, German journalist Jürgen Cain Külbel highlighted a disturbing detail: it would have been impossible to trigger the explosion by remote control or by marking the target without first disactivating the powerful interference system built into Rafik Hariri’s convoy. A system among the most sophisticated in the world, manufactured in … Israel.

Külbel was approached by a well-known pro-Palestinian advocate, Professor Said Dudin, to promote his book. However, the outrageous declarations frequently made by Dudin served to torpedo it instead. Külbel, a former East German criminal police officer, was quick to find out that Dudin had a long-standing reputation for being a CIA mole within the German left-wing. The journalist published a number of old East-German reports attesting to this fact and was sentenced and briefly imprisoned for illicit dissemination of documents; meantime, Dudin was settling into the German Embassy in Beirut for the purpose of infiltrating the families of the four generals.

Overlooked in the Middle East, Germany’s role in this region is worth spotlighting. After Israel’s war of aggression against Lebanon in the Summer of 2006, Chancellor Angela Merkel deployed a very large contingent to join the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The 2 400 soldiers from Germany control the maritime infrastructure to prevent arms supplies from reaching the Resistance via the Mediterranean. On that occasion, Ms Merkel declared that the mission of the German army was to protect Israel. A wind of rebellion arose among the officers. By the hundreds, they sent letters to remind her that they had enlisted to defend their homeland not a foreign country, be it an ally.

An unprecedented development took place on 17 March 2008 and 18 January 2010, when the German and Israeli governments held a joint Council of Ministers meeting where various programmes were adopted, especially in the defense sector. At this stage, there shouldn’t be too many secrets left between the Tsahal and the Bundeswehr.

The investigation conducted by Detlev Mehlis is both steeped in ridicule as regards the false witnesses, and tainted with the illegal detention of the four generals. To the extent that the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention formally and firmly condemned this excess of power.

This being said, the opprobrium that befalls Mr Mehlis’ work should not reflect on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon which is in no way responsible for his manipulations. But here, again, things get complicated. The credibility of the STL rests on its ability to curb, in the first place, all those who attempted to mask the truth and falsely accused Presidents Bachar el-Assad and Emile Lahoud, with the intention of provoking a war.

Now, it transpires that the Tribunal refuses to try the false witnesses, giving the impression that it is covering up the manipulations under Mehlis’ watch and is in fact pursuing the similar political objectifs (this time against the Hezbollah, and perhaps against others in future). Even worse, the Tribunal will not hand over to Jamil Sayyed (one of the four generals illegally detained) the minutes of his accusers’ hearings, thereby barring him from requesting compensation and making it look as if it condones four years of arbitrary detention.

In more prosaic terms, the Tribunal is shirking its responsabilities. On the one hand, it must judge the false witnesses to thwart further manipulations and to make plain its impartiality; on the other hand it refuses to undertake a “clean-up” operation which might force it to arrest Prosecutor Mehlis. However, Odnako’s revelations on the German lead render this posture untenable. All the more since it’s already too late: General Jamil Sayyed filed a complaint in Syria and a Syrian examining magistrate has already indicted Detlev Mehlis, Commissioner Gerahrd Lehmann plus the five false witnesses. One can imagine the commotion at the STL should Syria decide to call on Interpol to have them arrested.

Just as the Mehlis commission was supposed to compensate for the lack of professionalism on the part of the Lebanese forces of law and order, the STL should equally have ensured the impartiality that the Lebanese courts may have been short of. But things are far off target, which raises the question of the Tribunal’s legitimacy.

Kofi Annan didn’t want the Lebanon Tribunal to exert international jurisdiction, but to function as a national Lebanese tribunal with an international character. It would have been subjected to Lebanese law while half of its members would have been nationals of other countries. The plan did not materialize because the negotiations came to a sudden end. More precisely, an agreement was reached with the Lebanese government presided at the time by Fouad Siniora, the former authorised representative of the Hariri estate, but it was never ratified either by Parliament or by the president of the Republic. Hence, the agreement was endorsed unilaterally by the UN Security Council (Resolution 1757 of 30 May 2007). The end result is a hybrid and fragile entity.

As pointed out by Kofi Annan, this Tribunal is not analogous to any other so far been created within the purview of the United Nations. “It is neither a subsidiary organ of the UN, nor a component of the Lebanese judiciary system”; it is simply “a conventional organ” sitting between the executive authority of the Lebanese government and the UN. Judging by the international rule of separation of powers and independence of the judiciary, the STL cannot be regarded as a genuine tribunal, but rather as a joint disciplinary commission within the executive frameworks of the UN and the Lebanese Government. Whatever decision it may make will inevitably be coated with suspicion.

Worse still, any Lebanese government can terminate it since, not having been ratified, the related agreement was binding only on the previous government. As a result, the present Lebanese coalition government has become a battlefield between partisans and foes of the Tribunal. In an attempt to maintain governmental stability, week after week Lebanese President Michel Sleimane has been dissuading the Council of Ministers from taking a vote on any issue linked with the STL. This embargo cannot hold out forever.

Bad news coming in pairs, suspicions have now extended to the President of the STL, Antonio Cassese. This reputable international jurist was President of the International Criminal Tribunal For the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He happens to be a ardent supporter of the Jewish colonialisation of Palestine. A personal friend of Elie Wiesel, Cassese received and accepted an honorary award, presented by Wiesel himself. He should normally have withdrawn and resigned when Hassan Nasrallah disclosed that Israeli drones had been reconnoitering the crime scene as well as the victim’s movements for months.


According to the President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Antonio Cassese, the armed resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan should be tried for "terrorism".

Worst of all, Judge Cassesse personifies an interpretation of international law that causes division in the Middle East. Although his official curriculum vitae obscures it, he took part in the 2005 negotiations between member states of the European Union and those bordering the Mediterranean Sea (“Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean”). His definition of terrorism blocked the discussions. According to him, terrorism is exclusively the act of individuals or private groups, never states. It follows that a struggle against an occupying army would not be considered as “resistance” but as “terrorism”. In the local context, this juridical view is consistent with a colonial framework and disqualifies the STL.

The methods of the Special Tribunal do not differ from those applied by the Mehlis Commission. STL investigators collected mass files on Lebanese students, social security recipients and subscribers of public utility services. On 27 October, in the absence of the Lebanese judges, they even tried to snatch medical records from a gynecological clinic frequented by the wives of Hezbollah members. It is obvious that these probes have no link whatsoever with the Rafik Hariri assassination. Everything leads the Lebanese to believe that the information is actually earmarked for Israel, of which, in their eyes, the TSL is merely an offshoot.

All these problems had clearly been foreseen by President Putin when, in 2007, he had vainly made a pitch for a different wording of the STL founding resolution. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin had denounced the “juridical loopholes” of the system. He deplored that the Security Council should threaten to resort to force (Chapter VII) to achieve unilaterally the creation of this “conventional organ”. He had emphasised that while the Tribunal should be working towards the reconciliation of the Lebanese people, it was devised in such a way as to divide them even more. Finally, Russia – as China – refused to endorse Resolution 1757.

The truth ultimately seeps through. The Israeli drone videos released by the Hezbollah expose Israel’s involvement in the crime preparations. The facts revealed by Odnako point to the use of a sophisticated German weapon. The puzzle is nearly complete. Link

[barracuda]

Maybe it's my turn to look a bit askance at your sources. Thierry Meyssan with a nuclear missile? Where have we heard this story before? He's late to the party, though, as Christopher Bollyn has been saying much of this for years. But a few points:

- The UNIIIC actually did examine the possibility of a missile. No, I'm not lending any credence to the Brammertz group, just pointing out that Meyssan's statement,

For a long time, no attempt was made to ascertain the modus operandi. After discarding the hypothesis of a bomb buried in the ground, the investigators espoused the one involving the van withough bothering to verify it.

...is misleading to say the least. In any case, powerful truck bombs certainly do have the capability of disgorging craters upon detonation.

- As to the impossibility of detonating the bomb by remote control, okay, fair enough, but it could certainly have been accomplished by an individual at the scene.

Meyssan has a theory alright, but not one likely to carry the day, or to get much traction except in predictable areas, one of which is probably a conspiracy forum like this one! But maybe not.

Can we backtrack for a moment and examine what you see as the motive for Israeli involvement in Hariri's assassination? Doesn't it seem as if Syria had the most clear cut reasons for this, regardless of the subsequent Cedar Revolution? I'll admit I'm still kind of at a loss as to why Israel (much less the Germans) would have wanted Rafic Hariri dead.

At this point, I'm getting the feeling that Saad Hariri will have to follow Nasrallah's and (probably) the Supreme Leader of Iran's wishes and denounce the STL. I don't see that he has any choice, unless the STL itself can be convinced that an indictment from them accusing Hezbollah, or Syria - or just about anyone for that matter - can have nothing but bad effects upon Lebanon or the entire region, and either postpone their findings or dissolve entirely.

[AlicetheKurious]

- The UNIIIC actually did examine the possibility of a missile. No, I'm not lending any credence to the Brammertz group, just pointing out that Meyssan's statement,

For a long time, no attempt was made to ascertain the modus operandi. After discarding the hypothesis of a bomb buried in the ground, the investigators espoused the one involving the van withough bothering to verify it.

...is misleading to say the least.

Could you please post the excerpt where you say the STL examined the possibility of a missile? I can't find it.

In any case, powerful truck bombs certainly do have the capability of disgorging craters upon detonation.

But do they have the capability of causing the weird and distinctive burn patterns? Do they explain the clean severing of limbs? The subsequent breathing ailments experienced by people in the areas surrounding the blast? The presence of enriched uranium on Bassel Fleyhan, the wounded former minister? The absence of explosives in the two samples from the site that were sent directly to the laboratories and not kept in the possession of Mehlis and Lehman?

- As to the impossibility of detonating the bomb by remote control, okay, fair enough, but it could certainly have been accomplished by an individual at the scene.

No, it couldn't, given the powerful signals interference system that surrounded Hariri's convoy. That's precisely what it's designed to prevent.

What about all the other information in the article? Don't you find it at all suggestive that this supposedly "independent" tribunal is headed by individuals with highly dubious reputations who are zionists and have been linked with the Mossad and/or the CIA? Or that Germany's Angela Merkel, according to her own words, sent thousands of German troops to serve in UNIFIL, not to fulfill their UN mandate but for Israel?

Can we backtrack for a moment and examine what you see as the motive for Israeli involvement in Hariri's assassination? Doesn't it seem as if Syria had the most clear cut reasons for this, regardless of the subsequent Cedar Revolution? I'll admit I'm still kind of at a loss as to why Israel (much less the Germans) would have wanted Rafic Hariri dead.

Not at all. As I indicated before, Hariri had a long and deep and highly lucrative partnership with Syria. The fact that they had occasional spats does not constitute a credible motive for assassination.

No, the motive for killing Hariri was much bigger than that. In a nutshell, Israel has very longstanding, very ambitious plans for oil pipelines pumping from Mosul and Kirkuk in Iraq and from the Caspian Basin that would go through Lebanese and Syrian territory to Haifa, from which the oil would be transported overland to the Red Sea and then to export markets in Asia and Europe. For logistical reasons, that is the ideal route for Israeli purposes. An American/Israeli military base in Kleeiat near Tripoli, the Sunni region in northern Lebanon, is one crucial element for the success of this route. But in order to make this plan feasible both the Syrian regime and the Lebanese Resistance need to be eliminated and replaced with puppets under Israel's total control.

There have been reports for years about neocon- and Israeli-led plans to build a US airbase and other facilities in Lebanon, with which Rafiq Hariri had refused to cooperate:

...As reported by the NATO headquarters in Brussels, as well as by residents in Bibnin Akkar on May 28, 2007, an American-German-Turkish military delegation toured and surveyed Akkar region. US Embassy 'staff' have reportedly visited Kleiaat airport earlier this year to look over the site. David Welch also had a quick look at the site during his recent visit.

A Lebanese journalist who opposes the base commented on May 28, 2007, "The Bush administration has been warning Lebanon about the presence of Al Qaeda teams in northern Lebanon. And the base is needed to deal with this threat. Lo and behold, a new "terrorist group" called Fatah al-Islam appears near Kleiaat at al-Bared camp".

The Pentagon argues that the military base will contribute to the development and the economic recovery in the region, advising the Lebanese government to focus on the financial aspect and positive reflection on the population (95% Sunni) of the region.

Contenders for the billion dollar project, according to the Pentagon procurement office could be Bechtel and Halliburton and other contractors currently doing projects in Iraq.

The martyred Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, saw potential for the Kleiaat airport as well. But he opposed a US airbase. Instead, Hariri, [about whom] the green grocer who sells fruits and vegetables to the Lebanese army patrolling the Tripoli-Syria four lane road in front of Nahr al-Bared, commented, "Rafik Hariri, may he rest in peace, loved Lebanon. But he never saw a piece of real estate he didn't want to develop!" Hariri envisaged a billion dollar Free Commercial Zone and a port, despite Syrian opposition, and had investors lined up before he was murdered. Damascus was opposed to the Hariri dream because the new Port and Free Zone would drain the revenues from the nearby Syrian Port at Lathikiya.

According to Washington observers watching developments, the base has been pushed by elements in the office of the US Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the urging of Israeli operative Elliot Abrams. AIPAC can be expected to do the necessary work in Congress and with House Foreign Affairs, Appropriations, Intelligence, and Armed Service committees hermetically sealed by stalwarts of the Israel Lobby, it can be expected that it will be added as a rider to an unsuspecting House bill coming along.

"We need to get this base built as quickly as possible as a forward thrust point against Al Qaeda and other (read Hezbollah) terrorists", according to AIPAC staffer Rachael Cohen. Asked if Israel will offer training and advisors to the Lebanese army, Ms. Cohen replied, "we will see what we will see, Lebanon, smezzanon its not about them, its about stopping the terrorists stupid!"

"The question for Lebanon is whether the Lebanese people will allow the base to be built. Few in North Lebanon doubt that Israel will have access to the base " according to Oathman Bader, a community leader who lives in Bahr al-Bared but has fled to Badawi.

Fatah al-Islam and their allies have pledged martyrdom operations to stop the project, according to the Fatah Intifada, the group that expelled Fatah al-Islam from their camp on November 27, 2006.

According to a columnist at Beirut's Al-Akhbar newspaper," a US project like that would split Lebanon apart. No way will Lebanon allow it. Probably every group in Lebanon would oppose it , from the Salafi Islamist fundamentalists to moderate Sunnis to Hezbollah. Can you imagine the Syrian reaction?"

Commenting on this project, one Arab-American from Boston, doing volunteer work at the Palestinian Red Crescent Hospital, Safad, noted:

"Hopefully the US pro Middle East peace, pro-Palestinian, and pro-Lebanon organizations with better phone and internet connections that exist locally, will join the opposition in Lebanon to this base and fight it in Congress. Welch and the US Embassy in Beirut should be questioned about it". Link

The thing is, Lebanon is a very small country with a very weak army which for decades was dependent on Syria's military for conventional defense. Now that Syria's been made to withdraw, all Lebanese may oppose the projected US (Israeli) military base but only one group has the power to prevent it: Hizbullah.

Hariri's assassination was not an isolated event but only one part of a coordinated Israeli campaign to take control of Lebanon through Israel's "allies" the US and Germany and possibly France. I think it's safe to say that Turkish collaboration is off the table for the time being. The three priorities are, in that order: to eliminate Hizbullah, to build an Israeli-controlled military base in Northern Lebanon and eventually to get rid of the Russian military base in the Syrian port city of Lathikia through a deal with the Syrian government or by force.

At this point, I'm getting the feeling that Saad Hariri will have to follow Nasrallah's and (probably) the Supreme Leader of Iran's wishes and denounce the STL. I don't see that he has any choice, unless the STL itself can be convinced that an indictment from them accusing Hezbollah, or Syria - or just about anyone for that matter - can have nothing but bad effects upon Lebanon or the entire region, and either postpone their findings or dissolve entirely.

I don't think it's helpful to frame the issue as though the STL was anything other than a tool of Israel's and its "allies'" pursuit of imperialist objectives. It certainly does not resemble what it purports to be: an independent and professional investigative tribunal operating according to international law and accepted norms of justice. It certainly has never displayed the slightest concern about its scandalous actions' "bad effects upon Lebanon or the entire region". The STL has discredited itself and made it ever harder for all but an increasingly defensive few to pretend that it has anything to do with either finding out the truth or the pursuit of justice.

It's also a very big mistake to think that Saad Hariri is an independent actor who makes his own decisions. Until his father was assassinated and he was catapulted into a position of responsibility and leadership for which he is neither qualified nor prepared, he was just a young, nearly illiterate and somewhat dumb (but charming) billionaire playboy. Since his father was murdered it is common knowledge that he has been taking orders directly from his American and Saudi handlers.

However, with the successive failures of every plot against Lebanon, and as the US's credibility as a force for "freedom" and more importantly "prosperity" is pulverized in Iraq and Afghanistan, the balance of power has shifted decisively away from the March 14 group and towards the March 8, led by Hizbullah, Michel Aoun's Free Patriot Movement and other parties in Lebanon, including some who initially supported March 14 but have switched sides. This shift is both a reflection and a contributing factor to a larger confrontation that is building up in the region as a whole, in which the US, Israel, certain European powers and the US' alliance of corrupt dictatorships are facing an emerging alliance between Iran, Syria, Turkey and probably Russia in conjunction with various pockets of resistance scattered all over the Middle East. The recent flurry of activity that includes visits to Lebanon by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Iranian President Ahmadinejad, as well as the intensive Syrian-Saudi talks and Hariri's present visit to Iran should all be understood in this context.

Hariri's advisers within the Future Party are too pragmatic to trust their "future" to the US any longer and have no interest in being left holding the bag when Israel and the US either launch yet another military aggression against Lebanon or impose crippling sanctions on the country, using the disreputable STL as a pretext.

[barracuda]

Could you please post the excerpt where you say the STL examined the possibility of a missile? I can't find it.

Here you go:

18. Independent tests carried out in two separate environments conducted earlier in the year, as well as scaling explosion experiments, have corroborated the findings of the Commission with regards to the characteristics and nature of the actual explosion of 14 February 2005, i.e. the Mitsubishi Canter van, carrying a very large bomb of a minimum of twelve hundred kilogram TNT equivalent and most likely detonated by a man (to whom the 32 human parts belong) within or immediately in front of the van. The nature of the fireball, the pressure range, the properties of the carrier, the effects on the surrounding vicinity, including on the impacted vehicles, adjacent buildings and the road, the trajectory findings, the amount of explosives used and the nature and form of the crater have all been corroborated by these experiments. A new hypothesis relating to an aerial delivery means as a method of causing the explosion, advanced to the Commission recently, is being examined for its validity. The Commission is unable at this stage to conclude if it has any impact on its existing findings at the crime scene, which were corroborated by two separate and independent series of tests.

- As to the impossibility of detonating the bomb by remote control, okay, fair enough, but it could certainly have been accomplished by an individual at the scene.

No, it couldn't, given the powerful signals interference system that surrounded Hariri's convoy. That's precisely what it's designed to prevent.

But, but, but, the above excerpt discusses the possibility of an individual triggering the bomb on the scene, an action which could not have been countered by signals interference if the switch was hard-wired.

But do they have the capability of causing the weird and distinctive burn patterns? Do they explain the clean severing of limbs? The subsequent breathing ailments experienced by people in the areas surrounding the blast? The presence of enriched uranium on Bassel Fleyhan, the wounded former minister? The absence of explosives in the two samples from the site that were sent directly to the laboratories and not kept in the possession of Mehlis and Lehman?

Regarding Bassel Fleyhan, and much of the above, I have a hard time accepting Meysssan's unsourced account here, mostly because the conclusions he draws are somewhat fantastical. High explosives can create all kinds of strange effects, so I'd really like to see more about it before I follow suit.

What about all the other information in the article? Don't you find it at all suggestive that this supposedly "independent" tribunal is headed by individuals with highly dubious reputations who are zionists and have been linked with the Mossad and/or the CIA? Or that Germany's Angela Merkel, according to her own words, sent thousands of German troops to serve in UNIFIL, not to fulfill their UN mandate but for Israel?

I have no doubt that the tribunal was set up to serve certain purposes, but that still doesn't tell me who killed Hariri. Germany? How does that work? Why? It really only figures if, in the final analysis, we're saying that the CIA did it.

Kleeiat near Tripoli,

Hmm. Not even Franklin Lamb is willing to imply that Hariri was killed for the sake of an oil pipline. Hariri was surely smart enough to see a variety of advantages to such a scheme, if it could be pitched correctly, including increased revenues to his country. But okay. It's a thought. I'm not sure it outweighs Hariri's support for 1559, or his wishes to achieve some measure of independance from Syria and Assad, or the potential for attempting disarmament of Hezbollah in my mind.

I don't think it's helpful to frame the issue as though the STL was anything other than a tool of Israel's and its "allies'" pursuit of imperialist objectives.

I wasn't really trying to, just reacting to the realities of what may be on the horizon, which is some sort of indictment or release of finding by the STL. It seems at this point that any accusation, even one which is refused recognition by Saad Hariri, will have significant reveberations in the internal politics of Lebanon, probably regardless of any commonly perceived legitimacy of the tribunal. That is to say, someone will try and make political hay out of such an announcement, and others will react to it, which is presumably why Nasrallah wants to achieve a perception of consensus, as well as the dissemination of a plausible alternative culprit, before any such announcement is made out of the Netherlands.

By the way, I encountered this item of small interest this evening:

In an August 18, 2008 meeting with US Ambassador (Beirut) Michelle Sison, STL prosecuter Daniel Bellemare voiced his 'concern' for the lack of 'assistance' he was getting from the americans, something he relayed to the State Department ... and he reiterated 3 specific queries:

(1) He wanted a clear 'yes or no' whether certain (US) Intelligence was to be submitted for his review ...
(2) He asked to get US 'investigators on loan'...
(3) He asked the US to 'pressure the British to be more forthright..."

Moreover, Bellemare asked the Americans to financially support the STL ...
He asked to have access to former Hezbollah members who 'reside in the US' ...
He finally told Sison that he 'will not travel to Syria, unless the Americans (or others) gave him a list of 'Syrian officials' to investigate ... And then, if the Syrians become uncooperative, it would be easier for him to publically mention their 'lack of cooperation'... Bellmare added that this should prode 'other Syrians' to come forth ... Bellemare pointed to the importance of getting to the Syrians before year's end (date at which 'Chapter 7' expires) ...and the possibilty that some of these sought after individuals either 'disappear or get eliminated'...

Just more fodder.

[AlicetheKurious]

Could you please post the excerpt where you say the STL examined the possibility of a missile? I can't find it.

Here you go:

Great, a terse statement that the "hypothesis" is "being examined". Soo... are they finished "examining" it? If so, how did they examine it and where is the report of their findings?

But, but, but, the above excerpt discusses the possibility of an individual triggering the bomb on the scene, an action which could not have been countered by signals interference if the switch was hard-wired.

Yeah, because Hariri's small army of security personnel and his over-the-top precautions including this signals interference shield somehow missed a big-ass truck loaded with several tons of explosives just sitting there on his convoy's route. Okey dokey.

Regarding Bassel Fleyhan, and much of the above, I have a hard time accepting Meysssan's unsourced account here, mostly because the conclusions he draws are somewhat fantastical. High explosives can create all kinds of strange effects, so I'd really like to see more about it before I follow suit.

These were all extensively reported in the Lebanese media in the hours and days after the bombing. High explosives do not neatly shear off limbs, nor do they flash burn part of a body and melt metal on one side while leaving flesh and cloth pristine and undamaged on the other side. They do not leave traces of radiation.

I have no doubt that the tribunal was set up to serve certain purposes, but that still doesn't tell me who killed Hariri. Germany? How does that work? Why? It really only figures if, in the final analysis, we're saying that the CIA did it.

This is Israel's baby, which explains the fact that former US ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman, a neocon and a zionist, along with other Israeli loyalists within the US government (and certain other Western governments) have been deeply involved in this sickening farce from the beginning. Angela Merkel has certainly displayed far more loyalty to the foreign state of Israel than is seemly for the head of state of a sovereign and powerful nation like Germany. The possibility that Germany is expecting to participate in the construction of the proposed US-financed but Israeli-dominated air base in northern Lebanon simply adds fuel to already raging suspicions about Germany's apparent complicity in the plot against Lebanon.

Hmm. Not even Franklin Lamb is willing to imply that Hariri was killed for the sake of an oil pipline. Hariri was surely smart enough to see a variety of advantages to such a scheme, if it could be pitched correctly, including increased revenues to his country. But okay. It's a thought. I'm not sure it outweighs Hariri's support for 1559, or his wishes to achieve some measure of independance from Syria and Assad, or the potential for attempting disarmament of Hezbollah in my mind.

Are you kidding? Israel would kill every living thing in Lebanon, if it could and if it had to, for the sake of that pipeline. Are you suggesting that Israel wouldn't kill for oil, massive profits and power? That pipeline is at the very center of Israel's ambitions to become a global superpower, to open up a vast new source of revenue and to solve once and for all its severe oil-deficit problem. Hariri's assassination served the dual purpose of catalysing Syria's military withdrawal, which left Lebanon defenseless in the face of Israeli bombardment the very next year, and getting rid of the single most powerful Sunni leader, who just happened to be strongly opposed to the building of this military base in the Sunni region where the proposed pipeline is projected to be built.

By the way, I encountered this item of small interest this evening:

In an August 18, 2008 meeting with US Ambassador (Beirut) Michelle Sison, STL prosecuter Daniel Bellemare voiced his 'concern' for the lack of 'assistance' he was getting from the americans, something he relayed to the State Department ... and he reiterated 3 specific queries:

(1) He wanted a clear 'yes or no' whether certain (US) Intelligence was to be submitted for his review ...
(2) He asked to get US 'investigators on loan'...
(3) He asked the US to 'pressure the British to be more forthright..."

Moreover, Bellemare asked the Americans to financially support the STL ...
He asked to have access to former Hezbollah members who 'reside in the US' ...
He finally told Sison that he 'will not travel to Syria, unless the Americans (or others) gave him a list of 'Syrian officials' to investigate ... And then, if the Syrians become uncooperative, it would be easier for him to publically mention their 'lack of cooperation'... Bellmare added that this should prode 'other Syrians' to come forth ... Bellemare pointed to the importance of getting to the Syrians before year's end (date at which 'Chapter 7' expires) ...and the possibilty that some of these sought after individuals either 'disappear or get eliminated'...

Just more fodder.

That excerpt from an article reporting WikiLeaks "revelations" is extremely selective. The article itself makes clear that Bellemarre had requested qualified telecommunications specialists from the US to help the STL corroborate the Lebanese government's allegations of infiltration and espionage of its telecommunications systems, and also American interrogators to handle more than 200 prisoners waiting to be questioned. Not surprisingly, the US wasn't interested. What the article doesn't mention is that Bellemarre also requested footage taken from American spy planes and satellites on the day of the Hariri assassination; that the US refused actually constitutes obstruction of justice and proves that the US is only interested in railroading Israel's targets rather than supporting a genuine investigation into the Hariri assassination.

If indeed "Chapter 7" expires at the year's end, that explains why there is such a push to issue the indictments despite the absence of a solid case. It seems that the STL is caught between a rock and a hard place: on the one hand, it will expose itself to further ridicule if all it has is the already-discredited telecommunications "evidence". On the other hand, it is under tremendous pressure from the US and Israel to issue the indictments before the end of this month, after which any military action or crippling sanctions will no longer have the veneer of legality that Chapter 7 provides.

[sijepuis+]

Fyi, below is a series of articles by a former German defense analyst, Axel Brot [assumed name], from 2007, which in my opinion constitutes the most thorough and enlightening description of the deceitful collusion between western intelligence agencies, western governments, Israel and their common goals and strategies.

Brot writes largely from the standpoint of German politics, but manages to draw a broad, highly instructive picture of where the world is headed. The articles are lengthy, but are well worth the effort to read in full.

GERMANY, THE RE-ENGINEERED ALLY
PART 1: Readiness for endless war
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IH08Aa01.html

GERMANY, THE RE-ENGINEERED ALLY
Part 2: Everything is broken
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IH09Aa01.html

Excerpt: "The United States and its allies are setting the stage for the kind of massive violence last seen in the "pacification" campaigns in colonial Africa and Asia. This time, however, it is for everyone to see - and for quite a number of its strategists, this seems to be part of the purpose". [...]

"Now, support for Israeli projects appears not any longer to be limited to coordinating policies and information, or providing German passports for Israeli undercover work in Iran (as had been reported in Der Spiegel), or a pipeline to agents in Lebanese General Security (tracking Hezbollah leaders) or, for that matter, to taking the lead in poisoning the initial investigations into the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri".

GERMANY, THE RE-ENGINEERED ALLY
PART 3: Hail to the chief, or else
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IH10Aa01.html

Excerpt: "German pundits - "opinion-makers" in German - take all this [Germans' pacifisism] as an expression of deeply-rooted, popular "anti-Americanism", and anti-Americanism as a facet of anti-semitism, and both as the resurgence of anti-Western, pro-totalitarian attitudes. This effort in guilt-mongering has led to some interesting myth-making, amusing if it were not so sinister" ...

[AlicetheKurious]

Oh, look:

05/11/2010 The founder of WikiLeaks said on Thursday that WikiLeaks would release thousands of documents this year concerning not only the United States, but other countries including Russia and Lebanon. Link

Those should put to rest once and for all the cynical claims that WikiLeaks is a Mossad psyop.

[AlicetheKurious]

Fyi, below is a series of articles by a former German defense analyst, Axel Brot [assumed name], from 2007, which in my opinion constitutes the most thorough and enlightening description of the deceitful collusion between western intelligence agencies, western governments, Israel and their common goals and strategies.

Brot writes largely from the standpoint of German politics, but manages to draw a broad, highly instructive picture of where the world is headed. The articles are lengthy, but are well worth the effort to read in full.

I'm still reading, sijepuis+, but... WOWZA!! (from your first link):

One of the most successful - and "blackest" - of US-British "black operation" against a Western, albeit neutral, country was carried out in first half of the 1980s. In 2000, none other than Reagan's secretary of defense, Caspar Weinberger, declassified it in an interview with Swedish TV in the context of an investigation into the affair of the "Soviet submarines".

Then Swedish prime minister Olaf Palme was a real thorn in Western flesh. Apart from his backing for the Afrincan National Congress and the Palestine Liberation Organization, he was very vocal in his criticism of the increasingly dangerous American confrontation policies towards the Soviet Union. His stance enjoyed widespread support within the Swedish population. This changed rather dramatically with the worldwide frenzy about "the Soviet aggression of neutral Sweden", when Swedish territorial waters were repeatedly "violated by Soviet submarines" and by landings of "Soviet special forces" on the Swedish coast. These "incursions" stopped with the still unresolved murder of Palme in 1986, despite two unsuccessful attempts to convict a man named Christer Pettersson for the crime.

With a pleased smirk, Weinberger confirmed that there was nothing Soviet in the violation of Swedish territorial waters (the Soviets "didn't have the capabilities"). There were, instead, routine exercises, "between the Swedish navy and the American and British navies and since they were routine, the Swedish admiral responsible saw obviously no need to inform his superiors or his subordinates about the nature of the "enemy".

It was, in fact, not quite a "regime change", but a joint US-UK operation together with the top brass of the Swedish navy and Swedish intelligence, conducted against the foreign policy of the Swedish government. Since then Sweden has been rather careful not to challenge American policies - with the exception perhaps of the very popular Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, in line to become the next prime minister. She was stabbed to death in 2003 by a mentally disturbed young immigrant.

[sijepuis+]

I'm still reading, sijepuis+, but... WOWZA!!

Pleased that they caught your attention, Alice.

I posted them primarily for Brot's mention of the sabotage of the investigation of Hariri's assassination, but the information Brot provides in the course of those three articles is so rich and so dense that a separate thread might be warranted
.

[barracuda]

The thing is, Lebanon is a very small country with a very weak army which for decades was dependent on Syria's military for conventional defense. Now that Syria's been made to withdraw, all Lebanese may oppose the projected US (Israeli) military base but only one group has the power to prevent it: Hizbullah.

Just a question here - I had understood that Syria was called into the civil war by the Phalangist President Frangieh, and then proceeded to massacre Palestinians at Tal-al-Zaatar, and subsequently managed to massively expand the Syrian presence in Lebanon until after Hariri's assassination, through both conventional military means and by funding Hezbollah. During the following decades of Syrian presence, you can't really blame the Lebanese for having a small army - the country was essentially controlled by Syria who had very little (none) interest in an independent Lebanon, or an independent Palestinian nation either, for that matter. In any case, referring to Lebanon as "dependent" upon Syria militarily during an occupation seems like an odd statement.

Back to Hariri, rather than the indictments which were supposedly prophesised for the 2nd, instead we have a report by the International Crisis Group (warning, zionist think tank):

It is hard to see who can emerge victorious in Lebanon’s latest crisis. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) dealing with the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri soon will issue its first indictments. As speculation grows that its members will be named, Hizbollah has warned of firm action if the government, now led by the victim’s son, Saad Hariri, fails to denounce the tribunal. If the prime minister complies, he and his partisans would suffer a devastating political blow. If he does not, consequences for them and the country could be more ruinous still. If Hizbollah does not live up to its threats, it will lose face. If it does, its image as a resistance movement may be further sullied. There are no good options, but the best of bad ones is to find an inter-Lebanese compromise that, by distancing Lebanon somewhat from the STL, preserves the country’s balance of power without wholly undermining the work the tribunal has done so far. Saudi Arabia and Syria reportedly are working on such a scheme. It would be prudent for others to support such efforts and suggest their own ideas. The alternative is to either wake up to a solution they dislike or try to upset the only credible chance for a peaceful outcome.

Hope that the STL might become a significant precedent for international justice region-wide dissipated as the probe became enmeshed in, and contaminated by, a vicious local and regional tug of war. From inception, the international investigation was promoted by an assortment of Lebanese and non-Lebanese players pursuing a variety of goals. Some sought revenge and accountability, others to deter future political assassinations and bolster Lebanon’s sovereignty. A few (notably France and the U.S.) saw an opportunity to promote a lasting political realignment in Beirut by strengthening a pro-Western alliance, dramatically lessen Syria’s and its allies’ influence there or even – a goal nurtured more in Washington than in Paris – destabilise the Syrian regime. There was, too, hope of a breakthrough in the Arab world for international justice principles and an end to the culture of impunity. The result was a remarkably wide consensus among actors who converged on a narrowly defined judicial process, resting on the assumption that Syria was guilty, and that its guilt could and would be established beyond doubt.

To invest such high expectations in the investigation was both slightly unfair and exceedingly optimistic. They rested on a series of misjudgements – about the effective balance of power in Lebanon; about Syria’s ability to withstand pressure and isolation; and about the probe’s capacity to deter future assassinations, which continued unabated. Nor did the international inquiry’s promoters appear to fully take account of the time lag between their hurried political objectives and the tribunal’s far slower pace.

In the years between Hariri’s assassination and the moment the tribunal came to life, the Lebanese and regional contexts changed in dramatic fashion. Syria withdrew from Lebanon and, far from being ostracised, was being courted again, notably by France but also, to a lesser degree, the U.S. The 2006 war plainly established Hizbollah’s military potential, deepened Lebanon’s internal rifts and damaged the West’s Arab allies. Hizbollah’s brief May 2008 takeover of Beirut, followed by the Doha accord between duelling Lebanese camps, ratified a new domestic balance of power, ushered in a national unity government and hastened the fragmentation of the pro-Western, anti-Syrian coalition led by Saad Hariri and known as March 14. Following Saudi Arabia’s footsteps, Hariri himself achieved a measure of reconciliation with Damascus.

Something else changed in the intervening period – the identity of the presumed culprit. As recent media leaks suggest and as Hizbollah’s own statements confirm, operatives belonging to the Shiite movement are now widely anticipated to be the first indictees. For March 14, the STL once more turned into a precious instrument in the domestic confrontation and, for its foreign backers, a tool with which to curb the Shiite movement. For Hizbollah, the tribunal became a matter of life-and-death, seen as another in its foes’ serial attempts to defeat it: accusations accepted as legitimate in Lebanon and the region could seriously damage its reputation, liken it to a mere (albeit powerful) sectarian militia, revive perilous sectarian tensions and rekindle efforts to disarm it.

Thus began an intensive, relentless campaign by Hizbollah and its allies to discredit the tribunal and intimidate those who might support it. Aided by some of the probe’s initial missteps, the Shiite movement successfully polarised and politicised the situation so that, even before indictments have been handed down, public opinion in Lebanon and the Arab world already has made up its mind: there are those who are convinced the STL is a blatantly political instrument doing Israel’s and the West’s bidding, and there are those who are persuaded of Hizbollah’s guilt. However credible or thorough the indictments, they are unlikely to change this much. Hizbollah threats to take unspecified action also loom large.

Nothing good can come of this. Some within March 14 and its backers believe the Shiite movement is bluffing, that it cannot afford to provoke a confrontation lest it bolster the very image of itself as a sectarian militia it fears the indictments will promote. Hizbollah and its supporters seem to think, conversely, that Hariri will cave in to pressure, cut all ties to the STL and denounce its allegedly political agenda. Both scenarios are theoretically plausible, neither is likely. The Shiite movement, having warned of catastrophe, can ill afford to do nothing; Hariri, having taken the helm of the Sunni community, would pay a heavy price for turning his back on the murder of the man who was both his father and that community’s pre-eminent leader. Banking on Hizbollah’s tameness or Hariri’s capitulation will only encourage the two sides to stick to uncompromising positions that could push Lebanon to the brink.

Riyadh and Damascus are said to be working on a compromise. Details remain murky, but one imagines possible scenarios. Lebanon could request the Security Council to halt STL activities once indictments have been issued, for the sake of domestic stability. It could condition further cooperation with the tribunal on its taking certain steps (eg, foregoing the option of trials in absentia; agreeing to look into the so-called false witnesses affair). Or cooperation could continue even as Lebanon expressed serious doubts as to the basis of its findings. A compromise should be accompanied by a collective agreement to allow the prime minister to govern more effectively – something he systematically has been prevented from doing.

Such a deal would not be neat, and it would not be pretty. Hizbollah would not get all its wants. But for Hariri to surrender could be political suicide and, by weakening the community’s leader, might pave the way for violent action by Sunni groups angered at the denial of justice. March 14 would not be satisfied either, having to accept real limitations on the STL’s work. But for it or its allies to stand in the way would risk provoking the very outcome about which they fret, namely more aggressive Hizbollah action leading it to greater, not lesser, political clout. What, then, would March 14’s foreign allies do?

Hizbollah’s reputation has been tarnished, and it is unlikely soon to be restored. March 14 once more is showing its fecklessness and the huge imbalance of power from which it suffers on the ground; that too will not soon be remedied. The tribunal will not achieve the loftier goals many projected onto it. No winner will come out of the current battle. What is necessary is to ensure the Lebanese people do not emerge as the biggest losers of all.

[AlicetheKurious]

Just a question here - I had understood that Syria was called into the civil war by the Phalangist President Frangieh, and then proceeded to massacre Palestinians at Tal-al-Zaatar, and subsequently managed to massively expand the Syrian presence in Lebanon until after Hariri's assassination, through both conventional military means and by funding Hezbollah. During the following decades of Syrian presence, you can't really blame the Lebanese for having a small army - the country was essentially controlled by Syria who had very little (none) interest in an independent Lebanon, or an independent Palestinian nation either, for that matter. In any case, referring to Lebanon as "dependent" upon Syria militarily during an occupation seems like an odd statement.

It's a very long and complicated story. Actually, I'm pretty sure (I'd have to check) that the US was initially behind Syria's military going into Lebanon. Like I said, it's complicated. Syria's role was not a positive one, to say the least, especially from the point of view of the Palestinians. In fact it did everything possible to liquidate the PLO, including launching the horrific so-called war of the camps in the mid-eighties. But strictly speaking, after the civil war ended, Syria was not an occupying power since there was a mutual defense treaty between the two countries, the 1991 Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation, and Coordination, which in effect made Syria responsible for Lebanon's security since Lebanon was left with a very weak and poorly equipped army, not because of Syria but because of decades of civil war, repeated Israeli bombings from 1978 onwards and Israeli occupation that virtually destroyed Lebanon's infrastructure and killed tens of thousands of people. Also, don't forget that the Israeli army ruled southern Lebanon until as recently as 2000.

Syria doesn't fund Hizbullah. Access to the Syrian border is the crucial factor that has prevented Israel from being able to besiege Lebanon the way it does Gaza and the West Bank and the other territories it occupies.

Back to Hariri, rather than the indictments which were supposedly prophesised for the 2nd, instead we have a report by the International Crisis Group (warning, zionist think tank):

Indeed it is. I'm sorry, I just can't take seriously any analysis of the Harriri assassination that attributes the STL's lack of credibility, not to its reliance on bribery and blackmail to get false witnesses to incriminate Syria, to its revealed ties with Israel and its agents, to its profligate spending for nearly 5 years with very little to show for it, or to its failure to conduct anything resembling a thorough and fair and professional investigation, but to "a vicious local and regional tug of war."

Aided by some of the probe’s initial missteps, the Shiite movement successfully polarised and politicised the situation so that, even before indictments have been handed down, public opinion in Lebanon and the Arab world already has made up its mind: there are those who are convinced the STL is a blatantly political instrument doing Israel’s and the West’s bidding, and there are those who are persuaded of Hizbollah’s guilt. However credible or thorough the indictments, they are unlikely to change this much. Hizbollah threats to take unspecified action also loom large.

Excuse me while I gag. The author is very stingy with facts, indeed he leaves out the most important ones, but he sure makes up for it with a lot of manipulative language and innuendo. Then he has the gall to claim that the people in Lebanon and the Arab world, who have followed this sickening charade from the beginning, have made up their mind "however credible or thorough the indictments"!!

Because the STL has been leaking all over certain Western media known for their zionist bias, trying to compensate for its disreputable conduct with a trial by Western controlled media, we already know what the indictments will say and there is nothing vaguely credible about them. In any case, time is running out for the STL and we'll see.

By the way, I guess I forgot or missed this interesting little fact. Remember Mohammed Siddique, the exposed false witness who was helped to escape to France, the one who boasted on the phone to his family back home that his lies about Syria had made him a millionaire? The French police had been eavesdropping on his phone conversations and they arrested him back in 2008. I thought he was still in prison, but it turns out he has disappeared and his brother is accusing the French authorities of killing him or handing him over to his killers. The French police, on the other hand, are now claiming that he was never under surveillance and was never arrested. And yet, back in October 2005, according to the Associated Press quoted in an article by Al Bawaba, an Arabic news portal, the French did arrest him. Weird, huh?

France makes arrest in connection to Hariri assassination

Published October 17th, 2005 - 14:08 GMT

French police detained a "former Syrian intelligence officer" who is considered an important witness in a U.N. probe of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, officials said Monday.

Mohammed Zuhair Al-Siddiq was arrested Sunday in the Paris area by France's DST counterintelligence service, police said, according to the AP. He was the subject of an international arrest warrant and is inclined to be extradited, the officials added.

The arrest warrant, issued by Lebanese Magistrate Elias Eid, accused Al-Siddiq of giving false testimony and misleading the U.N. investigation, judicial officials in Lebanon said.

Lebanon's Minister of Youth and Sports Ahmed Fatfat, a close Hariri ally, said Al-Siddiq's testimony was inaccurate "perhaps because he wanted it this way, either for personal interest or perhaps because he was planted to mislead the investigation."

Beirut newspaper Al-Mustaqbal which is owned by Hariri family alleged that Al-Siddiq was an accomplice in the planning and execution of the bombing that killed Hariri.

Al-Siddiq is a former soldier who deserted the Syrian Army, lived in Lebanon since 1996 and married a Lebanese, and was once arrested in the Chouf area on charges of theft, a Lebanese daily reported earlier this month. Ad Diyar daily wrote that the evidence on which UN investigators based their accusations against four senior Lebanese officers has turned out to be nothing but "scandalous lies" made by Al-Siddiq who was described as "a known scoundrel posing as an informer." Link

[Ben D]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LL03Ak03.html

Beware false witnesses in Lebanon

Dec 3, 2010
By Sami Moubayed

DAMASCUS - When the Syrians issued an arrest warrant for Lebanese Colonel Wisam Hasan earlier this year, along with 32 other Lebanese figures, many in the ruling March 14 coalition in Beirut cried foul play.

This man, as far as the Hezbollah-led opposition was concerned, was part of a ring of false witnesses who had all lied under oath and distorted facts before an international United Nations-backed commission charged with investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanon's ex-prime minister Rafik al-Hariri.

That investigation had tried to blame the Syrians for Hariri's murder and has recently been trying to point figures at members of Hezbollah. However, a groundbreaking report released by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on Sunday indicates that Hasan indeed had been a false witness, and that the Syrians were right, after all

Hasan, the current intelligence chief at the Internal Security Branch in Lebanon, was described by the CBC report as a "puzzling, even feared figure in his own country". The CBS obtained classified files from the UN proving that when testifying before interrogators, Hasan's alibi had been "flimsy, to put it mildly".

Hasan had been in charge of Hariri's security when Hariri was killed by a massive explosion in Beirut on February 14, 2005. Strangely enough, according to UN investigators who drilled him in July 2005, Hasan had not shown up for work on that fateful day, claiming that he was enrolled in a computer course, Management Social et Humaine, at the Lebanese University.

He had said that one day before the assassination his professor had called him, saying that he had to sit an examination on February 14. That raises the first serious question mark: senior Lebanese officials do not go to classes or sit for exams with other students, and professors do not call students 24 hours in advance to tell them that they have to take exams the following day. Students are usually informed of their exam times well in advance, certainly not by phone through their professors.

According to Hasan's story, 20 minutes after speaking to his professor, Hariri had summoned him and he arrived at his boss' residence at 9:30 pm, obtaining permission to attend the exam on February 14. He claimed to have spent the next morning studying for the exam and turned his phone off when he walked into the university, during which, the massive explosion took place next to the St Georges Hotel in the heart of Beirut. Hasan told investigators, "If I wasn't sitting for that exam I would have been with Mr Hariri when he died." The CBC twist, however, based on UN files, tells a different story.

First, it was clear from Hasan's phone records that he called his professor, not the other way around, and that the phone call was made after he met Hariri at 9:30 pm, not before. Second, the cell towers around Hasan's home show that on February 14, he spent the hour before Hariri's assassination talking over the phone, rather than studying as he had originally claimed. He made a total of 24 calls, an average of one every nine minutes.

In 2008, UN investigators prepared a report challenging Hasan's alibi, recommending that he be brought in for detailed questioning. They claimed "his alibi is weak and inconsistent" and according to a confidential UN report obtained by CBS, Hasan is "a possible suspect in the Hariri murder".

The UN report, it must be noted, was prepared by chief investigator Garry Loeppky. The probe's second commissioner, Serge Brammertz, curtly refused to drill Hasan as a suspect, considering him too valuable a contact in Lebanon to alienate. According to CBC, questioning him for his alibi would have been "too disruptive" for the Hariri affair investigation. As a result, "the UN commission's management ignored the recommendation".

The entire ordeal adds more confusion to the already chaotic scene in Lebanon. First it supports the Hezbollah argument that questions what kind of an international investigation would allow files and documents are "leaked" to mainstream media.

The fact that files have indeed been leaked to the press could compromise the entire investigation. If CBC has access to files, then so may intelligence agencies around the world, meaning that the probe is politicized.

This summer, Israeli chief of general staff Gabi Ashkenazi hinted that he knew what the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) was going to say, "predicting” indictments that would create an earthquake in Lebanon. If Der Spiegel, Le Figaro, Ashkenazi and CBC all have access to the Hariri files, what kind of impartial or serious investigation is the UN presiding over in Lebanon?

Second, an impartial probe would not eliminates prime suspects from the interrogation loop, because of their current standing, and should spare nobody in pursuit of the truth. It had already refused to even consider Israel as a suspect in the Hariri murder, much to the anger of many Lebanese who remember how often Israel has killed senior figures in their country in complete breach of international law.

Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah presented audiovisual documents in August showing that Israel had been monitoring Hariri prior this death, claiming that this evidence should be used to open a serious inquiry with the Israelis over the Hariri affair. Today, nearly four months later, not a single Israeli official has been questioned by the UN probe.

March 14 members who for years had rallied rank-and-file behind the UN probe found themselves in a very awkward position after the CBC report was published on Sunday, immediately lashing out against it. Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who still relies heavily on Hasan, came to his defense, saying that the man's loyalty "was beyond doubt".

March 14 figures did not have the nerve to call the CBC report doctored or false, however, given that no such statement was issued by the UN. All that the UN did was let its lawyer, Stephen Mathias, warn the CBC reporter that it was going to raise the matter before Canadian authorities, claiming that he may have obtained leaked UN documents in violation of international agreements.

Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, noted, "If the UN has an issue with the leak they need to pursue that within the United Nations and not target journalists who have an obligation to use this kind of information to inform the public."

Syria apparently was not "inventing" the false witnesses story against Hasan and his comrades, as senior figures in March 14 have been saying. These men appear to have lied under oath before international justice. If the UN intends to maintain what remains of its integrity, the least it can do ... is do something about it.

[slimmouse]

Not wishing to derail a fantastic thread, but I was wondering if the recent arrest in Lebanon of one of the UKs "teflon terrorists", Omar Bakri was in any way related to any of this ?

[AlicetheKurious]

First, it was clear from Hasan's phone records that he called his professor, not the other way around, and that the phone call was made after he met Hariri at 9:30 pm, not before. Second, the cell towers around Hasan's home show that on February 14, he spent the hour before Hariri's assassination talking over the phone, rather than studying as he had originally claimed. He made a total of 24 calls, an average of one every nine minutes.

Ah yes, yet another accusation based solely on "phone records".

Oddly, regarding the "weakness of his alibi", there's no mention of any actual interview with either Hassan's professor or fellow students, or of college administration officials to find out whether indeed Hassan was enrolled in the course and if so, for how long, whether a test was scheduled that day, whether Hassan's professor had indeed called him about it, whether Hassan took the test and whether Hassan had attended previous tests. The CBC report indicates that there was no attempt to verify or discredit Hassan's alibi using any evidence but phone records (which themselves have been severely compromised).

Instead, we get these presumptuous categorical statements:

Strangely enough, according to UN investigators who drilled him in July 2005, Hasan had not shown up for work on that fateful day, claiming that he was enrolled in a computer course, Management Social et Humaine, at the Lebanese University.

He had said that one day before the assassination his professor had called him, saying that he had to sit an examination on February 14. That raises the first serious question mark: senior Lebanese officials do not go to classes or sit for exams with other students, and professors do not call students 24 hours in advance to tell them that they have to take exams the following day. Students are usually informed of their exam times well in advance, certainly not by phone through their professors.

Didn't anybody bother to check? You've got this multi-hundred million dollar crack team of investigators and they don't do a, b, c, but just guess?

Funny, this stubborn exclusive reliance on electronic telecommunications "evidence" that has been demonstrated to be unreliable and subject to malicious manipulation ITSELF raises "serious question marks". Does nobody wonder about the odd coincidence that Israel infiltrated and manipulated Lebanon's telecommunications networks and that Hassan led the investigation that exposed and caught Israel's agents, and that now Hassan is being convicted in the CBC based solely on...telecommunications records?

Another serious question mark, this time about the CBS article itself, is that it fails to acknowledge, let alone address, the many inaccuracies and outright lies that fill the CBC report, especially the whopper about how the STL did no investigation at all related to telecommunications and authorized none, before almost three years into its existence. Such a big lie, so obvious, so easily exposed, yet these supposedly professional "journalists" can't be bothered to check. Instead, they just parrot each other and expect the reader to simply swallow whatever crap they dish out. Either all these "professional journalists" employed by giant media corporations need to go back to kindergarten, or serving a certain agenda is more important than doing their job. I guess they know which side their bread is buttered on.

I was wondering if the recent arrest in Lebanon of one of the UKs "teflon terrorists", Omar Bakri was in any way related to any of this ?

Of course. In a nutshell, just think about it. Using the Hariri-led Future Party, the US and its European allies and Israel have repeatedly attempted to implant "al Qaeda" in the Sunni region in northern Lebanon, most infamously in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, and alternatively, to create a Saudi-financed, Sunni militia armed by the US and trained in Jordan in nearby Tripoli. Both efforts have been dismal failures so far but there's no reason to suppose that they have given up. Omar Bakri is almost certainly an MI6 agent provocateur, or, as he now claims, he was forced to make crazy statements praising the September 11 attacks when he lived in London. He denies that he was expelled from England, but says that he left and returned to Lebanon to escape from harassment and pressure from the authorities. Possibly, he was sent to Lebanon by British intelligence to agitate and recruit Sunnis on behalf of "al-Qaeda", with which he claims to be "ideologically affiliated". The Sunni-led Lebanese security forces, certainly under orders from Hariri's handler Jeffrey Feltman, allowed him into the country, presumably to begin his recruiting activities in Tripoli.

Out of the blue, Bakri goes off-script. Suddenly, instead of agitating among Sunnis against Hizbullah and Shi'ites and recruiting for the mythical "al-Qaeda" in Lebanon, he does a complete about-face and breaks out into arias of praise for Lebanon's Resistance and advocates Sunni-Shi'ite unity in the face of Lebanon's enemies. Oh-oh.

There's an urgent visit by zionist and neocon Jeffrey Feltman, Elliot Abrams' man in charge of Lebanon. In another abrupt about-face, the same security forces that allowed him into the country and treated him with kid gloves now decide that he represents a mortal terrorist threat and, after a record-quick trial culminating in a life-sentence, he is violently arrested and charged with trying to establish an Islamic fundamentalist state in Lebanon, providing arms training to recruits and mobilizing a Sunni militia to take over Lebanon.

The fact remains that so far no evidence at all has been presented to support the claim that the extremist preacher is guilty of anything more than stupid statements, which he now claims were made under duress, and stupid opinions. Although he was living in Lebanon, he was tried in absentia and sentenced to life in prison. He says he was not informed about the date of sentencing.

Did Omar Bakri learn that he was being set up to be a patsy and did he balk at playing his role?

Do the CBC Report's accusations against Hariri man Wissam Hassan serve a double purpose, to discredit the individual who supervised the exposure of Israeli spies on the one hand, and to blackmail Hariri with the threat that his main man would be accused along with Hizbullah, and was he ordered by the British to grab Omar Bakri during Hariri's recent visit to the UK?

Who knows? Probably.

Tellingly, although he has always been an implacable enemy of Hizbullah, upon his arrest it was Hizbullah's leader, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, to whom Bakri publicly appealed, rather than Saad Hariri, to save him. In a move calculated to send a message to Hariri's Sunni base that deliberately highlights the contrast between Saad Hariri's perfidy and subservience to foreign interests and Hizbullah's generosity, Hizbullah's secretary-general appointed a prominent Hizbullah lawyer to defend him. He's currently been released on bail and will go to trial on December 7. It should be interesting.