Posted on 02/19/2005 3:34:26 PM PST by Cornpone
BEIRUT, Feb 19 (AFP) - Lebanese Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mrad accused French President Jacques Chirac Saturday of encouraging the opposition during a visit to pay condolences after the assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri.
"When President Jacques Chirac came to Lebanon, he ignored completely the government, the president of the republic and everybody," Mrad told state Tele-Liban television.
"Then he came to accuse, help the opposition to escalate and encourage the opposition to escalate," he said.
Chirac demanded Wednesday that "light be shed" in the murder of his friend Hariri before paying his respects at the graveside.
"The heinous crime, which seems to be from another era, which Rafiq Hariri was a victim of, has triggered the horror and consternation of the entire international community which now demands that light be shed in this undescribable and abominable act," Chirac said.
Hariri was killed in a massive bomb blast in Beirut on Monday and France has called for an international inquiry.
Chirac said Hariri's death "is a huge loss for Lebanon and the world".
"Rafiq Hariri held up the banner of democracy and freedom and pushed for the country's sovereignty and independence. I can testify to that," Chirac added.
After spending time with mourners at Hariri's mansion home, the French president visited the grave accompanied by his wife Bernadette and Hariri's widow, Nazek Hariri.
The Lebanese opposition, which has denounced the country's pro-Damascus government and Syria itself for the killing, called Friday for an "uprising for independence."
It demanded that the government resign and that an interim regime be installed to oversee a Syria withdrawal from the country it dominates.
Aha... Ol' Jack pissed off the Syrian puppets?
Chirac is a jerk and he's NO friend to the U.S. so I hope these guys really give him Hell. He deserves it.
Inside Story: World Report
August, 1994
Terrorists in Muslim Disguise
Now that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is beginning to defeat Israel, it is pulling out one of its most powerful terrorist weapons to finish the surrender process. That weapon is commonly known as "Islamic fundamentalism."
On Monday, July 18, a powerful car bomb exploded in downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina. The target, a seven-story Jewish community center, was completely destroyed, leaving nearly 100 dead and another 100 wounded.1
Eight days later, another car bomb was detonated-this time at the Israeli embassy in London, England. The embassy and other adjoining buildings suffered damage, and 14 people were injured.2
Authorities in Israel and elsewhere immediately blamed Muslim "extremists" for the terrorist attacks, and specifically named the group Hezballah (meaning "Party of God"). For the PLO, this was a convenient dodge allowing it to disclaim responsibility.
But more importantly, the PLO is now using these attacks as an excuse to accelerate the surrender of Israel. The logic is chillingly simple: according to news accounts of the second bombing, British authorities "presumed it to be an attempt to disrupt the peace process," and "Prime Minister Ytzhak Rabin of Israel... said Islamic extremists were seeking to disrupt the Arab-Israeli reconciliation process."3 Thus peace on any terms must be made quickly with the PLO, lest the "extremists" succeed in stopping the "peace process." The PLO provides the carrot, while "Muslim fundamentalists" provide the stick.
A myth has been engineered in the last several years regarding "Islamic fundamentalism." Ac-cording to this idea, the PLO and its main factions have become moderate, willing to recognize Israel and negotiate a compromise solution. However, radical Muslims, including Hezballah, Islamic Jihad, the Amal Militia, and Hamas, are said to oppose such compromises violently. Every time these extremists carry out another terrorist attack, Israel is pressured to make more concessions to the PLO.
In reality, this is a classic example of dialectical strategy at work. Writing in Commentary magazine, Jerusalem Post editor David Bar-Illan exposed the clever strategy: "[Israeli] government spokesmen prefer to pretend that the killers are not operatives of the 'moderate' Arafat, supporter of the peace talks, but 'enemies of the peace process,' such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and PLO radicals... The not unreasonable assumption behind this charade is that the public might resent continued talks with proxies of the 'mainstream' PLO in Washington while its gunmen are killing Israelis back home."4
Just as the PLO does not represent palestinian or Arab interests, the "Islamic fundamentalists" are not religious in nature. Rather, all these organizations have been created, supported, and directed by the Communists, operating on orders emanating from Moscow.
The terrorist group Hezballah, and its official sponsor, the government of Iran, provide a case in point.
Because of media distortion, the Ayatollah Khomeini was seen in the West as a fanatic religious leader. But the Iraqi family of the Grand Ayatollah Muhsen Hakim-Tabataba'i, which in the 1960s and 1970s exercised leadership over the Shi'ite movement of Islam, opposed Khomeini so thoroughly that they worked closely with the Shah of Iran. Saddam Hussein, the Soviet-backed dictator of Iraq, murdered the family at his first opportunity, thereby eliminating Shi'ite opposition to Khomeini.5
Khomeini's revolutionary movement was known as "Islamic Marxism," a movement begun from within the Russian Bolshevik Party in 1916.6 During the 1970s, the Soviet Union mobilized its resources to organize a revolution in Iran, with Khomeini as its official leader. Khomeini's brother was serving time in prison as a member of the Tudeh Party-the Communist Party of Iran; Khomeini's intimate advisor, Sadegh Ghothzadeh, was an affiliate of the French and Italian Communist Parties. Soon the Soviets were broadcasting pro-Khomeini propaganda into Iran, while they began publishing a well-funded revolutionary magazine entitled Navid, meaning "Good News." KGB agents working among the 4,000 Soviet personnel in Iran coordinated the protests and riots, and the Tudeh Party, acting on Soviet orders, openly backed the "Islamic" revolution and created a broad coalition of the Left to support Khomeini.7
Moscow also mobilized the PLO to back Khomeini. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, led by self-proclaimed Marxist Leninist George Habash, supplied training and weapons to the Feda'iyin-e Khalq, the Iranian Islamic-Marxist terrorist group that began the revolution to overthrow the Shah. Meanwhile, Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization trained and armed the Mujahedin-e Khalq, another main pillar of Khomeini's revolution, and it trained future members of the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, including the Minister of the Guards later appointed by Khomeini.8
Once Khomeini seized power in Iran, Arafat brought a large delegation of PLO officials into the country, where "he was formally given the Israeli consulate building and, raising the Palestinian flag over it, opened the first PLO office, also appointing a PLO 'ambassador' to Iran."9 The Soviet Union and Communist China have since continued to arm Iran with weapons.
Khomeini immediately created Hezballah as an international terrorist wing of the PLO-trained Revolutionary Guards. Inside Iran, Hezballah worked closely with Iranian Communist organizations in consolidating the regime's power. The terrorist training camps in Iran have been supervised by Mostafa Chamran Savehi, a follower of Trotskyite Communism who, as a student in Berkeley, California during the 1960s, founded such Islamic-Marxist groups as Red Shi'ism and the Muslim Students' Association of America. The instructors at the Iranian terrorist camps have been Communist experts from North Korea and Syria, as well as Iranians trained by the PLO and the Communist government of Iraq.10
The organizer of Hezballah in Pakistan and Lebanon, Abbas Zamani, was also trained by the PLO and has been identified as a probable agent of the KGB.11 In Lebanon, Hezballah's terrorist mastermind has been Immad Mugniyeh. For years Mugniyeh was a leading member of Yasser Arafat's Force 17, an arm of Fatah. When the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 forced the PLO to leave, Arafat had Mugniyeh and other members of Force 17 switch over to Hezballah, allowing these terrorists to remain in Lebanon. Mugniyeh quickly became the effective head of Hezballah, and has coordinated Hezballah-PLO terrorism to this day. On Arafat's orders, the PLO transfers weapons, money, and terrorist units to Hezballah, while Hezballah has provided intelligence and other logistical support to the PLO-including helping PLO units infiltrate into Lebanon.12
In short, the "Islamic fundamentlists" are not religious at all, but are Communist fronts adopting a Muslim mask.
The "schism" between the PLO and "Islamic fundamentalists" has been staged as a clever ploy to force Israel into surrender. Now that Israel is indeed yielding to its implacable Communist enemies, it is only natural that terrorist attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets are being accelerated worldwide. By blaming the attacks on "extremists" who allegedly oppose the "peace process," the PLO can disavow the terror acts in which it participates, and can maintain an image of moderation for the West. In the face of this intensified pressure, Israel is likely to make concessions even faster that before. Watch for Prime Minister Ytzhak Rabin to begin placing the remainder of the strategic West Bank, and even Jerusalem itself, on the bargaining table.
On the other hand, the financing and political pressure for the PLO takeover is coming almost entirely from the United States [as discussed more thoroughly in our audiotape, "We Are the Next Target"-Eds.], and President Clinton is now accelerating the process. If Congress chose to stop the President, Israel could take back the West Bank and Gaza, and could soon destroy the PLO and its allies.n
REFERENCES
1 Parks, M., Los Angeles Times, "Rabin links Hezbollah to Argentine blast," SF Chronicle, 7-20-94, p. A10.
2 "Israeli embassry in London bombed," SF Chronicle, 7-27-94, pp. A1, A13.
3 Ibid.
4 Bar-Illan, D., "Israel's New Pollyannas," Commentary, Sept. 1993, p. 30.
5 Taheri, A., Holy Terror, Adler & Adler, Bethesda, MD, 1987, p. 163.
6 Ibid., p. 217.
7 Rees, J., "How Jimmy Carter betrayed the Shah," The Review of the News, 2-21-79, pp. 31-48.
8 Alexander, Y. and Sinai, J., Terrorism: The PLO Connection, Crane Russak, New York, 1989, pp. 72-73.
9 Ibid., p. 73.
10 Taheri, Op cit., pp. 77-79, 88-105.
11 Ibid., p. 177; Laffin, J., Holy War: Islam Fights, Grafton Books, London, 1988, p. 79.
12 Livingstone, N.C. and Halevy, D., Inside the PLO, William Morrow & Co., New York, 1990, pp. 267-275.
This is the one time I will root for Chirac.
I dont know anything at all about Hariri, But the fact he was Chiracs friend doesnt speak well for him.
I love your use of "oui".
Right on.
Yes, I'm reminded of the saying that even a broken clock is right twice a day. So why complain in those rare times?
Answer #2 is most correct.
Naw, ChIraq is just POd because he saw a $gravy train blow up..
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