...who killed rafik al-hariri ?

So who did kill rafik al-hariri , the billionaire former prime minister of lebanon ?

the us state department , in one breath , condemned those behind the huge bomb blast last week that killed the highly popular al-hariri . in the next sentence , the secretary of state demanded syria remove its 15,000 troops from lebanon and then recalled the Us ambassador from damascus .

haaretz newspaper in israel , a kuwaiti paper and associated press , all ran a story by an israeli correspondent that not only fixed the blame on syria for al-hariri's assassination , but even named the syrian president, bashar assad's brother-in-law as one of the syrian generals directly responsible .

anti-syrian demonstrations broke out in beruit , the lebanese capital that al-hariri had rebuilt from ashes , recovering a semblance of its former splendor as "the region's banking mecca" and "paris of the middle east" .

lebanon had finally begun to bounce back towards its former condition --recovering after a decade and a half of bloody , devastating civil war ending in dual foreign invasions and twenty year occupation of the south by israel and occupation of the north by syria , whose troops are of course, still there.

for this observer , the state department's condemnation of syria as the probable culprit in hariri's murder ,came just a little too soon . in fact , in the immortal words of yogi berra, "it was like deja vu all over again".

you see , newly annointed secretary of state and blatant oil-whore -- condoleeza rice, has a bad habit of "premature exclamation".

it was condie as national security advisor who shot her load too soon in announcing to the press that venezuelan president hugo chavez had been successfully overthrown in a coup , that chavez had "brought it on himself" and that the Us had already extended recognition to the new government.

the only problem was that the dust there had not yet settled , events on the ground in caracas were still up in the air and condie had no way of knowing who exactly was in charge there--unless of course , she had a direct line into the coup plotters' camp.

chavez supporters managed to pull a surprising counter-coup before their president could be executed by the plotters . by taking to the streets enmass , the supporters of chavez not only saved his life , but to the bush administration's chagrin , were able to restore venezuela's elected leader to power.

insult to injury-- it seems Us military helicopters were reported to have been seen landing in Caracas as soon as the coup began --well condie , as blues legend BB king has wailed in scorn to another no-good woman, "i think you made your move too soon"


Again condie and her predecessor , "colin the powell" , both couldn't hold back their excitement and popped too soon during last year's haitian coup --quickly condemning the democratically elected aristide administration instead of criticizing the murderous, illegal assault on the haitian police by the heavily armed insurgents--and once again , while the dust was still in the air.

now we find that not only did the Us state department and the french ambassador to haiti help cut off sources of desperately needed funds to aristide and pressured him to quit , the Us marines arrived at the presidential compound and told aristide's american body guards to stand down while they kidnapped him out of the country "for his own safety".

meanwhile , as the situation on the ground rapidly collapsed around the haitian government. powell and condie seemed to nod in agreement during the media'show and tell' sessions , that somehow , "aristide brought it on himself ."

shortly afterwards we find , the "insurgents" were former army and ton ton macoutes ,both groups being employees of american cia and responsible for the first anti-aristide coup and the right-wing death squads that terrorized and "disappeared" numerous members of the opposition .

it seemed that also the "insurgents" received many of their weapons and most of their training in cia run camps in neighboring dominican republic .

shortly before the insurgent-coup , the pentagon sent the dominican army about 20,000 automatic rifles , grenade launchers and an assortment of small arms and ammunition, many of which wound up in haitian insurgent hands -- surprise surprise ---

the point of all this is that when "diplomats" violate the basic standard diplomatic procedures , do not procede cautiously ,fail to measure their words carefully as in, "don't shoot from the lip" , and fail to avoid knee jerk reactions to surprising events --like blaming a nation's government for a crime before the evidence has been sifted-- either they are tactlessly green rookies , or they are shooting off so prematurely in order to get the cover story out there in the media and in place to hide their own involvement in the crime and point attention elsewhere .