ETERNAL VIGILANCE

Lebanon's government quits as opposition holds mass rally

By Haaretz Service and The Associated Press
February 28, 2005

Lebanese anti-Syria protesters attending a mass rally in Beirut on Monday. (AP)

Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami announced his government's resignation Monday, prompting a cheer from more than 25,000 flag-waving opposition demonstrators protesting the government and its Syrian backers a few hundred meters away.

"I am keen that the government will not be a hurdle in front of those who want the good for this country. I declare the resignation of the government that I had the honor to head. May God preserve Lebanon," Karami said.

The resignation was the most dramatic moment yet in the series of protests and political maneuvers that have shaken Lebanon since the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Some 20,000 anti-Syrian protesters took to Beirut's streets Monday to demand the resignation of the government, in defiance of a government ban against demonstrations.

Inside the nearby parliament building, opposition legislators made the same call, with one accusing the government of negligence in Hariri's assassination on February 14.

Hamadeh demanded the dismissal of three chiefs of Lebanese intelligence, the head of the police and the commander of the Presidential Guards.

"You are not more immune than Milosevic and the top Bosnian and Croat military commanders," Hamadeh said, referring to the killers of Hariri and the war crimes trial of former Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

It was the first time the legislature had discussed the assassination of Hariri, who was killed with 16 other people by a massive explosion as his motorcade drove through central Beirut.

The session began with a moment of silence for the slain legislator. Legislators stood for another moment of silence at 12:55 (1055GMT), the exact time Hariri was killed two weeks ago.

In Martyr's Square, some 200 meters from parliament, the demonstrators waved hundreds of Lebanese flags, clambered on to the plinth of the martyrs' statue, and prayed in front of candles at the flower-covered grave of Hariri, which lies at the edge of the piazza.

The demonstrators also demanded the withdrawal of Syria's 15,000 troops in Lebanon, chanting: "We want no other army in Lebanon except the Lebanese army!"

The resignation of the Syrian-backed government in Lebanon is "an opportunity" for the election of a new government that represents the country's diversity, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Monday.

"The resignation of the [Prime Minister Omar] Karami
government represents an opportunity for the Lebanese people to have a new government that is truly representative of their country's diversity," he told a media briefing.

"The new government will have the responsibility of implementing free and fair elections that the Lebanese people have clearly demonstrated they desire," McClellan said.

Israel Radio reported Monday that Beirut's government had agreed to resign last week, but that the commander of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon had forbade it from doing so.

The assassination of Hariri has intensified world and Lebanese opposition pressure for a withdrawal of Syria's forces, who came to Lebanon ostensibly as peace-keepers during the 1975-90 civil war.

Hundreds of soldiers and police ringed the square early Monday in a bid to enforce the government's ban on protests. But they made no serious effort to disperse the demonstrators, many of whom had slept in the square. Some soldiers and police even sympathized with the demonstrators, and were seen advising newcomers on how to evade the cordon.

"You can tell from the looks in the soldiers' eyes, and from their smiles, their true stand," said Hamadeh, who was in the square before going to parliament. Hamadeh himself was the target of a bomb attack in October that killed his driver.

Karami had asked parliament for a vote of confidence, outlining what his pro-Syrian government had done and promising to hold legislative elections as scheduled in April and May.

Hariri's sister, legislator Bahiya Hariri, addressed the parliament in black and called on the government to resign.

"All the Lebanese want to know their enemy, the enemy of Lebanon who killed the martyr Rafik Hariri, those who took the decision, planned and executed it, those who ignored and prevented the truth from coming out," Bahiya said, holding back tears.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose government dominates its Lebanese neighbor, said in an interview published Monday that a withdrawal from Lebanon required a settlement with Israel.

"Under a technical point of view, the withdrawal can happen by the end of the year," Assad told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. "But under a strategic point of view, it will only happen if we obtain serious guarantees. In one word: peace."

Syria said Thursday it would redeploy its troops to eastern Lebanon, closer to its border, but they would not leave Lebanon. By Monday, there was no sign of the redeployment having begun.

Visiting U.S. State Department David Satterfield kept up Washington's pressure on Syria by demanding Damascus withdraw its troops from Lebanon "as soon as possible" and ends its involvement in Lebanese affairs.

Satterfield met Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud on Monday to reiterate Washington's demand for Syrian troops to leave.

"The time has come for the Lebanese people to be able to face their own national decisions," Satterfield told reporters afterward.

Hariri was seen as quietly opposing Syria's control over Lebanon. He had been expected to stand in parliamentary elections in April or May against Karami.

Opposition leader Walid Jumblatt urged legislators to vote against the government Monday, saying that if the confidence vote is passed, it would be "another assassination of Hariri."

Security forces did manage Monday to stop protesters from reaching the Prime Minister's office, which was cordoned off by soldiers, anti-tank obstacles and barbed wire.

Hundreds of troops, many in armored personnel carriers, set up roadblocks at entrances to central Beirut, turning back flag-waving teenagers, reducing traffic to a trickle, and making the city appear as if it were under siege.

The debate in parliament began late as many legislators were delayed by the traffic jams. Many commuters abandoned their cars on the side of the road and walked through the roadblocks to the city center.

Lebanon says it will cooperate with United Nations investigators currently in Beirut but has refused a full foreign investigation of the killing. Despite official Lebanese and Syrian denials of involvement in Hariri's death, the attack has plunged Lebanon into its worst political crisis in years.

Opposition and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt vowed to continue protests until the government falls.

"We want the truth. Who killed Rafik Hariri?" he said in a telephone interview on Hariri's Future television. He urged the people to "go down today, tomorrow, for a month or two months until the regime falls."

Syria said Thursday it would pull its forces eastward toward its border but will not bring them home. There has been no visible Syrian military movement to the eastern Bekaa Valley in line with a 1989 Arab-brokered agreement that ended the 1975-1990 civil war.

The U.S. State Department has said a withdrawal toward Syria's border was not good enough.

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Editor's comment: This piece from Haaretz shows the trumpeting of the Israelis of the near perfect success of another Mossad false-flag operation, as the rogue terrorist state of Israel continues its war against its neighbors.

The assassination of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri requires us to ask again, as the ancient Romans would ask, Cui bono?, or Who benefits?

With just a cursory look at the known strategic policy papers generated by the neo-cons for the Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies in the wake of the Rabin assassination by Israeli Zionist extremists, we see that the current picture in the region is an almost exact copy of what is stated in a June 1996 report:

Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.

In light of this and the response of the Syrian opposition to the Syrian-backed regime of Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami, we need to ask, was the Hariri killing simply in the mold of the 9-11 attacks designed to provoke a sympathetic and patriotic response to cause the rolling back of Syrian influence and the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon?

As Christopher Bollyn reports in the February 28 edition of American Free Press,

Like the 9-11 attacks, the murder of Hariri appears designed to influence public opinion and provide a necessary casus belli to justify aggression against Syria.

And since there is no evidence that there was a truck or car bomb involved to cause this massive explosion, what means could have been employed to effect this outcome with certainty?

We note the transfer to Israel by the U.S. of 5,000 bombs, including 500 bunker busters, reported in September of last year. This would have given the Israelis the capability, with the help of Mossad operatives in Beirut, to use the same types of precision laser guided bombs that were used in Iraq with the help of special forces teams, to target Hariri's auto for an air attack. Bollyn reports further,

Based on the size of the crater, estimated to be 30-50 feet across and 9-10 feet deep, an expert told American Free Press that the vehicle bomb would have had to have been several tons in size, not the reported “650 pounds of dynamite.”

Keith A. Holsapple, an expert on craters and professor of engineering mechanics at the University of Washington, examined the photographs of the Beirut crater for AFP.

Holsapple goes on to say in the report by Bollyn,

“If a penetrator weapon was used, the weight would be on the order of one ton, to within a factor of two.”

Bollyn writes further,

A one-ton penetrating bomb, silent and unseen, would explain the huge crater and the fact that there is no evidence of a truck bomb attacking Hariri’s motorcade.

Sam Hamod, an expert on Middle Eastern affairs, wrote, “We must do as they do in other criminal cases, look at who had the most to gain from the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri. The Lebanese had a lot to lose, as did the Syrians.

“No matter where else you look, no one else had anything to gain except Israel and the U.S.,” Hamod wrote. “America quickly pointed the finger at Syria, as did Israel, which was tantamount to convicting themselves, because they are the only two countries that would gain by creating unrest in Lebanon.”

Clearly, the assassination of Hariri only benefits Israel. The attempt to drive a wedge between the Lebanese and the Syrians, is as outlined in the IASPS policy papers outlined above.

This action may backfire on the Israelis since the Shia in south Lebanon are led by the one Arab who has waged a successful campaign against the IDF, causing them to withdraw from Lebanon in May of 2000 after a 22 year occupation.

This man is the leader of Hezbollah, Shi'ite cleric Hasan Nasrullah.

Though the Shi'ites of Lebanon are more closely tied to those of Najaf in Iraq, Nasrullah has a history of support from the Iranians. I doubt that the Israelis or the neo-cons have taken fully into consideration the Nasrullah factor.

Nasrullah has argued the presence of Syrians troops "was a regional and internal necessity for Lebanon" and a "national obligation for Syria".

Though Nasrullah has now called for calm and rational discussion in "the implementation of (UN) Resolution 1559 and the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon."

It is also clear that Nasrullah will be strongly looking out for his own interests along with the Shi'ites of Lebanon, and also the Syrians, against any outside meddling by the U.S.

Any action by Israel or the U.S. against either Syria, Nasrullah or both, would certainly run the risk of igniting a general uprising among the Shi'ites from Iran and Saudi Arabia throughout Iraq and into Syria and Lebanon.

The continuing actions by Bush and the rogue opertions by Israel run the risk of uniting a Shi'ite crescent in the Middle East which was never possible while Saddam remained in power. This could be a classic example of "blowback," the term used by the CIA which describes unintended negative consequences.

"The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Robert Burns

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