Posted on 02/21/2005 6:21:04 AM PST by areafiftyone
| The Syrian Minister of Expatriates has hit back at claims her country was behind the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. When the blast hit, locals looked up into the sky for Israeli warplanes, Bouthaina Shaaban was quoted as saying by UPI. Shaaben said Israeli planes violate Lebanese airspace almost daily. She said Arabs were horrified watching the scenes of smoke and fire, burnt bodies, and damaged buildings in what she described as the most beautiful of Arab capitals. 'We have become quite accustomed to watching such scenes every day in Iraqi cities under American occupation, in the Palestinian territories over a century now, and in Beirut itself during the civil war that the Syrian cooperation with the Lebanese national forces put an end to,' she said. 'For Arabs, this atrocious murder looked like a shift planned and executed by the enemies of the nation, with utmost precision in identifying the target, the time and type of killing,' Shaaban told UPI. She added it was 'a shift that was meant to transport instability and chaos from Palestine and Iraq to Lebanon and Syria.' Shaaban, who was educated in the U.S., said Hariri's killing brought to memory a series of assassinations committed by international intelligence agencies and their allies in the region to get rid of Arab leaders. 'Those assassinations claimed the lives of leaders such as Rene Moawad, Abbas al-Mousawi, and a long list of others murdered at the hands of international apparatuses equipped with professional killers specialized in plotting and executing assassinations with careful precision that leaves no evidence behind. All in the service of certain regional and international interests,' she said. Shaaban also pointed to an announcement made by the European Peace Movement, which was holding a meeting in Berlin Feb. 15, attended by European generals and experts, that the Movement found that the explosives used in the bombing that claimed the life of Hariri were 'in direct connection with the disappearance of 4,000 tons of strong explosives that disappeared from Iraq after the American occupation.' The movement had reminded the media at the time, she said, that the U.S. was silent about the suspicious disappearance and about confirmed information regarding the handing over of the location to an Israeli force and that the explosives were transferred to Israel. Shaaban pointed out that analysts had confirmed explosives used in the car bombing could only have come from international and regional parties that enjoyed high capabilities and expertise in the field. 'Everyone knows which international parties have the planning capabilities to bring down democratic governments,' she said. 'We all know who masterminded and executed the assassinations of president Karami, Rene Mouawad, Abbas Mousawi and others in Lebanon. And we know which countries gave their intelligence apparatuses the authority to carry out assassinations, and which countries discuss and announce lists of assassination operations before their execution, and then carry them out in the cities of Palestine, and the streets of Beirut and Damascus under the sight of the whole world. We all know which countries can organize civil disturbance in Iran, Chile, Venezuela, and a long list of other countries where democracy was buried under tyrants appointed just because they were 'friends.'' As to motive, Shaaban said, 'The main incentive behind the assassination is the strategic objective of continuous military presence in all the countries in the region. It has become clear to everyone today that the rationale behind the U.S. expedition into Iraq is neither 'freedom,' nor 'Democracy,' nor even 'weapons of mass destruction.' Certainly, the reason was neither the 'Iraqi people,' out of whom more than a hundred thousand civilians have been killed to the moment in massacres in Falluja, Najaf, Samerra and other cities, as well as in the torture cellars of Abu Gharib and similar prisons,' she said. 'The real rationale is building permanent military bases in Iraq and in other countries which are still out of the foreign bondage in the region. Since the beginning of the Iraq occupation, many such permanent bases have been built costing billions of dollars up till now. The objective is controlling the oil, the resources of the region and putting a limit to the freedom, independence and sovereignty that Arabs enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century,' she added. Shaaban continued, 'These bases need 'secure' ports to receive their supplies and connect them with the mother bases in Europe. This is why pressure today is building up towards infiltrating Lebanon, and placing the country under enemy guardianship to secure the military ports and end resistance. In this context, the Syrian-Lebanese relationship stands as an obstacle to controlling Lebanon and spreading military bases all over the world including the Arab region,' she said. Meantime King Abdullah II of Jordan has called for a “neutral” investigation into Hariri’s death, which he said had targeted stability in the entire region. “This great crime that has hit us all at the core should not pass without a complete, comprehensive and neutral investigation to uncover the criminals who were behind it so that they get their punishment,” he told Future TV, the Lebanese network owned by the late Hariri. “This cowardly and criminal act did not only target the martyr Rafiq Hariri but was targeting the security and stability of Lebanon and the entire region,” he said. |
Well, I sure hope they kept the faxed memos from Mossad to support these claims.
/sarcasm off/
The U.S. and Israel don't have their own explosives and need to abscond with old, dangerous, unreliable explosives in order to pull off suicide bombing?
Sure, I believe it.
...denial time is over, try looking in a mirror.
---Ahhh isn't it the wonderful Islamic way...---
...just lie your head off. For people that supposedly think about holy matters all the time, they sure play loose with the truth.
Exactly!
Americans and Israelis were horrified watching identical scenes in New York and Jerusalem.
We need to take out Syria. And SOON!
The truth is whatever they can get you to believe.
I'm sure Scott Ritter will confirm this shortly...
But of course!
To be honest we can't do anything until we leave Iraq.
Took 'em long enough. Aren't they usually pushing that crapcart into the intersection right after the light changes?
Beruit was a beatiful city. People from Lebanon that I have worked with say so. They also blame everything on the Syrians.
Beruit was a beatiful city. People from Lebanon that I have worked with say so. They also blame everything on the Syrians.
It seems to be we should be using Iraq as a base to attack Syria with Israel coming in the other way.
Sounds good but we are too involved in Iraq right now. Maybe if we took our guys out of Afghanistan we might be able to do it. But I don't know if we are ready to do that yet.
14 At eventide, behold, terror; and before the morning they are not. This is the portion of them that despoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.
Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia; 2 that sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people terrible from their beginning onward, a nation that meteth out and treadeth down, whose land the rivers divide!
American Standard Version. 1995 (Is 17:14-18:3).
It does seem to fit. Often the prophecy has already happened, but in this case...
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