"who benefits? " ... the question detectives often ask first in a murder case

Hariri Killing Sure to Bolster U.S. Hawks

Analysis by Jim Lobe


WASHINGTON, Feb 15 (IPS) - Whether or not Syrian President Bashar Assad was behind Monday's assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the car-bombing is sure to strengthen forces inside the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush who have long argued for ”regime change” in Damascus.

Before the bombing that killed Harari, half a dozen of his bodyguards and at least five bystanders, the balance of power between anti-Assad hard-liners and more flexible forces within the administration was roughly even.

Earlier this month, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who is considered a hawk on Damascus, even insisted to a Congressional panel that ”it is not our policy to destabilise Syria”.

But, ,as suggested by Washington's abrupt withdrawal of its ambassador in Damascus Tuesday morning, that position may well be in the process of changing, if it hasn't changed already.

”The regime changers will be strengthened by this,” predicted Michael Hudson who teaches at the Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University here. He said Washington's precipitous recalling of its ambassador signals a ”decision to really put the screws to the Syrians”.

”Assuming they did it, this was very stupid,” said Augustus Richard Norton, a specialist on Lebanon at Boston University, who agreed that the balance of power within the administration will definitely shift in favour of the hardliners.

Hariri, a businessman who made a fortune in Saudi Arabia and then ruled Lebanon for 10 of the last 15 years, enjoyed close personal ties with French President Jacques Chirac and cultivated friendly relations with Washington, where he owned one large house and was in the process of building a colossal mansion.

Given Syrian influence in Lebanon -- in the form of anywhere from 12,000 to 30,000 troops and an active intelligence service in Lebanon for most of the past 30 years -- Hariri also cultivated close relations with Damascus, including business ties with influential officials.

But he broke with Syria last summer when he resigned as prime minister after Damascus insisted on suspending the constitutional limit on presidential terms so that Emile Lahoud could continue in office.

While Hariri did not actively oppose the move, he reportedly encouraged the U.S. and France to push through a remarkably tough U.N. Security Council resolution that demanded that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon.

The subsequent passage of UNSCR 1559 was not only a major blow to Damascus, but also served to unify and embolden the Lebanese opposition which has been mobilising for parliamentary elections scheduled for May on a common anti-Syrian platform.

While Hariri had not publicly embraced the opposition position, hard-liners in Damascus, who some analysts believe exert more control over Lebanon than Assad, saw Hariri's role as a betrayal.

”Uncomfortable though it may be for Syria in international opinion, in certain quarters of Syria the stakes in Lebanon are existential, and existential challenges may be deemed to justify existential solutions,” said Norton, who believes that Syria, or at least some elements within the Syrian government, were behind the assassination.

At the same time that Syria was defending itself against Res. 1559, hawks and realists within the Bush administration were fighting over how far Washington should push Damascus to cooperate. Their main concerns were preventing the infiltration of ”foreign fighters” across the border from Syria into Iraq and in arresting Iraqis living in Syria who were suspected by Washington to be financing and helping to organise a rapidly expanding insurgency, or at least freezing their bank accounts.

The hawks, centred primarily in the Pentagon's civilian leadership and Vice President Dick Cheney's office, have long favoured a ”regime change” policy for Damascus anyway.

One of Cheney's top Middle East advisors, David Wurmser and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith -- both with strong ties to Israel's settler movement -- contributed to papers in the 1990s that urged Israel and the United States to arm and finance groups in both Lebanon and Syria to force Damascus' withdrawal from Lebanon and destabilise the Baathist regime.

Since Washington's invasion of Iraq in March 2003, they have argued Damascus' alleged failure to fully cooperate with the occupation justified a more aggressive policy, including military strikes. More pragmatic factions, centred in the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and among military commanders on the ground, countered that Assad had in fact steadily increased his cooperation and that U.S. measures to actively destabilise his regime could backfire.

In December, the hawks launched a more public campaign with a series of opinion pieces in their favoured press organs, the Washington Times, the Weekly Standard, and the Wall Street Journal, accusing Damascus of active support for the insurgency and calling for a major escalation.

”We could bomb Syrian military facilities,” wrote William Kristol, the Standard's neo-conservative editor. ”We could go across the border in force to stop infiltration; we could occupy the town of Abu Kamal in eastern Syria, a few miles from the border, which seems to be the planning and organising centre for Syrian activities; we could covertly help or overtly support the Syrian opposition...”

The campaign coincided, according to a Journal account, with the presentation to Bush of a list of options that included imposing tougher economic sanctions, downgrading diplomatic relations, more active U.S. support for anti-Syrian factions in Lebanon, and possible military strikes against alleged terrorist training camps in Syria.

None of these was approved at the time, however, although all of them -- and now possibly more, in the wake of Hariri's assassination -- remain on the table.

While many Middle East specialists here appear to believe that the Syrian regime, or possibly a rogue element within it, was responsible for the blast, that view is by no means universal, particularly given the likelihood that Washington would blame Damascus in any event.

Indeed, one ”senior State Department official” told the New York Times: ”Even though there's no evidence to link (the assassination) to Syria, Syria has, by negligence or design, allowed Lebanon to become destabilised.”

Noting that Hariri had not identified himself completely with the opposition to Syria's presence in Lebanon, Hudson told IPS that he considered that Islamist extremists trying to harm the Saudi royal family, which has been Hariri's strongest supporter, was ”a more plausible scenario”. Al Qaeda has said it was not responsible.

Others have suggested that Israel or their erstwhile allies in Lebanon, the Phalangist militia, may have been responsible, given the certainty that Syria would be blamed for the killing.

”It is certainly possible that the Syrian military leadership was sufficiently stupid and arrogant to decide to assassinate Hariri,” according to C.S. Smith, a regional specialist at the University of Arizona. ”But many others stood to benefit from such an act, including right-wing Phalangist Christian elements closely tied to neo-cons in the Bush administration.”

Indeed, Walid Phares, a right-wing Lebanese-born Christian and fellow of the neo-conservative Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD), issued a statement immediately after the killing that appeared designed to cast suspicion on Syria and one of its allies in Lebanon, Hezbollah.

Another hard-line neo-conservative, former Bush speechwriter David Frum, writing Tuesday in the far-right National Review Online, fingered Assad as the party that ”had the greatest motive” for the killing, even if he admitted that it may ”seem incredible that young Bashar Assad...would choose the path of confrontation with the United States”.

If he was indeed responsible, noted Frum, ”he has taken another huge step toward open war on the United States and its interests in the region”.

”I would be very shocked if Syria has a hand in it because it's not in the position to rock the boat at this point”, said Bassam Haddad, a Levant expert at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, who said he would not hazard an opinion until more evidence was forthcoming.

”It is obvious that any kind of rocking the boat is going to empower the opposition that will call for an immediate ouster of Syria from Lebanon.” (END/2005)

...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 .

cia echoes neo-cons anti-china position : "China , your economic growth threatens Us"

CIA issues warning on China’s military efforts

Financial Times | February 16 2005
By Edward Alden

The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency has warned that China's military modernisation is tilting the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait and increasing the threat to US forces in the region.

Delivering the agency's annual assessment of worldwide threats on Wednesday, Porter Goss, a former Republican congressman who was named in September to head the CIA, dropped any mention of the co-operative elements of the US-China relationship that characterised recent CIA statements. Instead, he said China was making determined military and diplomatic efforts to “counter what it sees as US efforts to contain or encircle China”.

Mr Goss's statements on China were a small part of testimony that highlighted the threat Islamic terrorism poses to the US and emphasised concerns over Iran and North Korea. He has also said that he wants to refocus the agency on its traditional mission of assessing threats and avoid statements that could be interpreted as setting US policy.

But the statement on China indicated the CIA is paying growing attention to what it considers potential military threats amid China's growing economic ties with its neighbours and the US. Mr Goss referred to US concerns over the increase in Chinese ballistic missiles deployed across the Taiwan Strait and the improvements in China's nuclear and conventional capabilities.

The change in tone was notable given US concerns over Europe's plan to end its embargo on arms sales to China. Experts on China said that, while warnings about China's military capabilities were not new, the CIA had in the past underscored the co-operation between the US and China.

In testimony last year, George Tenet, former CIA head, praised China for co-operation in the war on terrorism and for its participation in the nuclear talks with North Korea. In 2003, Mr Tenet described US-Taiwan relations as relatively placid and said China was trying to assert its influence through “economic growth and Chinese integration into the global economy”. James Lilley, a former US ambassador to China, said that, while it was appropriate for the CIA to focus on longer-term threats, the growing economic ties between China and Taiwan were making conflict less likely.

James Steinberg, deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, said: “It is a little surprising that it didn't say anything about the enormous emphasis China places on a stable international environment and constructive relations with the US.”


* note from this blogger ---well james old boy , wouldn't admitting that china has been emphasizing a "stable" (stable, meaning an absence of physical conflict) international environment and "constructive relations" with the US sort of defeat the purpose of trying to scare the Us public with the military threat of a chinese "dragon" ? the neo-cons can't make an effective case for war if the opponent obviously seeks to peacefully whip america's ass with economics .

Sino-American showdown ? neo-"Condie" in Europe

February 09, 2005

All smiles again . . . until it comes to arms sales to China

By Anthony Browne

The Brussels plan to lift embargo will top the agenda at Condoleezza Rice’s talks today
THEY will all be on their best behaviour, but the public smiles and handshakes when Condoleezza Rice visits Brussels and Luxembourg today will not disguise the tension over a growing dispute between the United States and the European Union.

The split is not over Iraq, but the EU’s impending decision to lift its embargo on the sale of arms to China.

The decision, which EU countries have agreed in principle — they are hammering out the practicalities – is seen as a historic shift in global allegiances, with the EU choosing for the first time to give preference to the strategic interests of the looming superpower China over the interests of its oldest ally, the US. The issue will be top of the agenda today when Dr Rice meets José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, and Jean-Claude Junker, who as Luxembourg’s Prime Minister is the current President of the European Council.

* note from this blogger -- why is this such an important issue to the neo-cons ? is it perhaps because the neo-cons are looking for a showdown with China BEFORE China can update its military with modern technology from EU nations ?



During her tour of Europe, Dr Rice has already discussed the issue with Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, as well as Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor.

The EU insists that the arms embargo, imposed in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square massacre, is no longer justified. The US has given warning that lifting it could threaten its own forces in the Far East.

Communist China has never accepted the independence of capitalist Taiwan, and the US is also committed to the defence of Japan and South Korea, with bases in both countries. Unlike the US, no European country can foresee itself getting involved in a conflict in East Asia. *note --but perhaps the Us can forsee one and i believe that such a conflict maybe on the neo-con drawing board for sometime within the next 15 to 20 years

One US official said recently: “We are talking about the Europeans making it easier for the Chinese to kill Americans.” * -- and this statement from a Us official is about a nation that has 'most favored ' trade status with the Us, and the statement fits in perfectly with condie's 2000 position paper adopted by bush as HIS administration's pacific rim foreign policy naming China as 'competitor' with the Us for dominance in the region

China is using its new-found wealth to upgrade its army, but although it has ready suppliers of military equipment such as tanks and guns, it cannot obtain high-tech military equipment that only Europe and the US have the knowhow to make.

* ...sound anything similar to saddam hussein and iraq before the first gulf war ? ...arm your potential opponent with good , but strictly grade-B weaponry -- find , provoke or create an excuse to make him out to be some kind of a looming global threat --then go to war , bring out the grade-A ,high-tech weaponry that you made sure the opponent couldn't get hold of , quickly wipe up the mat with the hopelessly outclassed opponent---proclaim a great victory of 'democracy over tyranny' ---open up the 'liberated' nation as a source of cheap labor , cheap resources , and of course ,'free markets'...make even more money looting the 'liberated' nation than you did selling arms to the 'dictator' and looting the public treasury of your own nation , snatching up lucrative defense contracts to arm the 'liberators' in the war you started against the "tyrant enemy" that you armed in the first place

The EU is proposing to replace its arms embargo, which is voluntary and rather porous — it sold €210 million of military equipment to China in 2002 — with a legally binding code of conduct, which it insists will afford greater protection. The code of conduct is aimed at restricting arms sales to potential enemies of allies of the EU.

Some in the US see the lifting of the arms embargo as France’s revenge over the Iraq war. Since the 2003 invasion, President Chirac has talked openly of the need to create a multipolar world to counterbalance the might of the US.

Since France, which has been pushing hardest to lift the embargo, is also one of Europe’s biggest arms producers, its strategic and commercial interests are both served by increasing arms sales to China.


* the first world war was over rivalry between europeans for global colonial empires . it marked the end of england and france as the world's super powers and signaled the eventual rise of america into the vacuum.

the second world war was due to unresolved issues from the first. it left america with undisputed global economic supremacy , but with the ussr unwittingly baited into a corner and painted as THE potential future military rival .

the third world war was the fabricated 50 year "cold war" to eliminate russia as a possible american 'rival' and maintain america on wartime footing to keep the military-industrial economy pumped with corporate welfare from the public treasury. after the economic collapse of the ussr, the imf bankers and western investors in league with russian oligarchs and mafia , looted about $300 billion out of russia to set it back to third world status.

the fourth world war is to control oil and energy reserves and also neutralize the potential power (oil, religious ideology, explosive youth demographics and birth rates) of the arab/muslim world under the guise of a global 'war on terrorism' .

i believe that the fifth world war will be to neutralize china as a potential economic and military superpower and to pre-empt a china/india military-economic alliance that could one day counterbalance american power and dominance in asia

Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches

** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **


What They're Not Telling You About the "Election"


February 01, 2005

The day of blood and elections has passed, and the blaring trumpets of
corporate media hailing it as a successful show of “democracy” have
subsided to a dull roar.

After a day which left 50 people dead in Iraq, both civilians and
soldiers, the death toll was hailed as a figure that was “lower than
expected.” Thus…acceptable, by Bush Administration/corporate media
standards. After all, only of them was an American, the rest were
Iraqis
civilians and British soldiers.

The gamble of using the polling day in Iraq to justify the ongoing
failed occupation of Iraq has apparently paid off, if you watch only
mainstream media.

“Higher than expected turnout,” US mainstream television media blared,
some citing a figure of 72%, others 60%.

What they didn’t tell you was that this figure was provided by Farid
Ayar, the spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq
(IECI) before the polls had even closed.

When asked about the accuracy of the estimate of voter turnout during a
press conference, Ayar backtracked on his earlier figure, saying that a
closer estimate was lower than his initial estimate and would be more
like 60% of registered voters.

The IECI spokesman said his previous figure of 72% was “only guessing”
and “was just an estimate,” which was based on “very rough, word-of
mouth estimates gathered informally from the field. It will take some
time for the IECI to issue accurate figures on turnout.”

Referencing both figures, Ayar then added, “Percentages and numbers
come
only after counting and will be announced when it's over ... It's too
soon to say that those were the official numbers.”

But this isn’t the most important misrepresentation the mainstream
media
committed.

What they also didn’t tell you was that of those who voted, whether
they
be 35% or even 60% of registered voters, were not voting in support of
an ongoing US occupation of their country.

In fact, they were voting for precisely the opposite reason. Every
Iraqi
I have spoken with who voted explained that they believe the National
Assembly which will be formed soon will signal an end to the
occupation.

And they expect the call for a withdrawing of foreign forces in their
country to come sooner rather than later.

This causes one to view the footage of cheering, jubilant Iraqis in a
different light now, doesn’t it?

But then, most folks in the US watching CNN, FOX, or any of the major
networks won’t see it that way. Instead, they will hear what Mr. Bush
said, “The world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the
Middle East,” and take it as fact because most of the major media
outlets aren’t scratching beneath film clips of joyous Iraqi voters
over
here in the land of daily chaos and violence, no jobs, no electricity,
little running water and no gasoline (for the Iraqis anyhow).

And Bush is portrayed by the media as the bringer of democracy to Iraq
by the simple fact that this so-called election took place, botched as
it may have been. Appearances suggest that the majority Shia in Iraq
now
finally get their proportional representation in a “government.” Looks
good on paper.

But as you continue reading, the seemingly altruistic reasons for this
election as portrayed by the Bush Administration and trumpeted by most
mainstream media are anything but.

And Iraqis who voted are hearing other trumpets that are blaring an end
to the occupation.

Now the question remains, what happens when the National Assembly is
formed and over 100,000 US soldiers remain on the ground in Iraq with
the Bush Administration continuing in its refusal to provide a
timetable
for their removal?

What happens when Iraqis see that while there are already four
permanent
US military bases in their country, rather than beginning to
disassemble
them, more bases are being constructed, as they are, by Cheney’s old
company Halliburton, right now?

Antonia Juhasz, a /Foreign Policy in Focus/ scholar, authored a piece
just before the “election” that sheds light on a topic that has lost
attention amidst the recent fanfare concerning the polls in Iraq.

Oil.

I think it’s worth including much of her story here, as it fits well
with today’s topic of things most folks aren’t being told by the
bringers of democracy to the heart of the Middle East.

/On Dec. 22, 2004, Iraqi Finance Minister Abdel Mahdi told a handful of
reporters and industry insiders at the National Press Club in
Washington, D.C. that Iraq wants to issue a new oil law that would open
Iraq's national oil company to private foreign investment. As Mahdi
explained: "So I think this is very promising to the American investors
and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies."
In other words, Mahdi is proposing to privatize Iraq's oil and put it
into American corporate hands.
According to the finance minister, foreigners would gain access both to
"downstream" and "maybe even upstream" oil investment. This means
foreigners can sell Iraqi oil and own it under the ground — the very
thing for which many argue the U.S. went to war in the first place.
As Vice President Dick Cheney's Defense Policy Guidance report
explained
back in 1992, "Our overall objective is to remain the predominant
outside power in the [Middle East] region and preserve U.S. and Western
access to the region's oil."
While few in the American media other than Emad Mckay of Inter Press
Service reported on — or even attended — Mahdi’s press conference, the
announcement was made with U.S. Undersecretary of State Alan Larson at
Mahdi's side. It was intended to send a message — but to whom?
It turns out that Abdel Mahdi is running in the Jan. 30 elections on
the
ticket of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIR), the
leading Shiite political party. While announcing the selling-off of the
resource which provides 95 percent of all Iraqi revenue may not garner
Mahdi many Iraqi votes, but it will unquestionably win him tremendous
support from the U.S. government and U.S. corporations.
Mahdi's SCIR is far and away the front-runner in the upcoming
elections,
particularly as it becomes increasingly less possible for Sunnis to
vote
because the regions where they live are spiraling into deadly chaos. If
Bush were to suggest to Iraq’s Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that
elections should be called off, Mahdi and the SCIR's ultimate chances
of
victory will likely decline./

I’ll add that the list of political parties Mahdi’s SCIR belongs to,
The
United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), includes the Iraqi National Council, which
is led by an old friend of the Bush Administration who provided the
faulty information they needed to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq,
none other than Ahmed Chalabi.

It should also be noted that interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi also
fed
the Bush Administration cooked information used to justify the
invasion,
but he heads a different Shia list which will most likely be getting
nearly as many votes as the UIA list.

And The UIA has the blessing of Iranian born revered Shiite cleric,
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani issued a fatwa which instructed
his huge number of followers to vote in the election, or they would
risk
going to hell.

/Thus, one might argue that the Bush administration has made a deal
with
the SCIR: Iraq's oil for guaranteed political power. The Americans are
able to put forward such a bargain because Bush still holds the strings
in Iraq.
Regardless of what happens in the elections, for at least the next year
during which the newly elected National Assembly writes a constitution
and Iraqis vote for a new government, the Bush administration is going
to control the largest pot of money available in Iraq (the $24 billion
in U.S. taxpayer money allocated for the reconstruction), the largest
military and the rules governing Iraq's economy. Both the money and the
rules will, in turn, be overseen by U.S.-appointed auditors and
inspector generals who sit in every Iraqi ministry with five-year terms
and sweeping authority over contracts and regulations. However, the one
thing which the administration has not been unable to confer upon
itself
is guaranteed access to Iraqi oil — that is, until now.
/
And there is so much more they are not telling you. Just like the
Iraqis
who voted, believing they did so to bring an end to the occupation of
their country.




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