Bashad bashed - International choir finds the same page on the hymn sheet

UN investigator Detlev Mehlis has just released his pallid, incomplete and mystifying report on Rafik Hariri’s death (earlier UN report also released here). Mehlis asked for more time to work with Lebanese investigators, and in a letter accompanying the report, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has extended Mehlis' investigation until December 15. BBC report outline of the main players involved is helpful. (pic Asma Assad)

THIS IS NOT THE FINAL REPORT ... although the MSM might encourage you to believe that.

Such is the state of forensic science, even with one tonne of explosives he cannot be certain what type was used .. or it’s source. He has found that there were / are a lot of bad guys about who were watching Hariri – which being the Saudi backed capo di capo of the region who amassed massive amounts of money from rebuilding Lebanon on the back of crooked politicians, drug dealers, counterfeiters, shysters is not an astonishing revelation.

Chirac turned up for the funeral, the French, who had struggled for the mandate in Paris in 1918 and have always seen it as their sea to swim in, approved Resolution 1559, which led to Syria's complete withdrawal from Lebanon a few months later.

China and Russia, were publicly silent and allowed Resolution 1559 and the resolution that authorized Mehlis’s investigation. Russia went ahead with selling Assad some SA - 18 anti aircraft missiles he has bought on a recent shopping spree with Vladimir Putin eaarlier... this did not impress (nor was it meant to) Ariel Sharon,

"We are not pleased with the sales of weapons to Syria, particularly sophisticated weapons that Russia intends to sell to Syria, weapons that may end up in the hands of terror organisations,"

Within days of Hariris killing the US withdrew their Ambassador and blamed Syria.

The Israeli’s whilst gently stirring the pot from within the arras, have remained modestly silent.. until now that Mehlis has produced his interim report.

The ageing Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres couldn’t wait to get on Israeli Radio on Friday and call for regime change in Syria 'I think Syria needs a change, it is neither natural nor acceptable that a family representing a small minority should govern Syria in a brutal fashion.' (The Assads are of the small but perfectly formed Allawite Islamist sect)

'If it is true that the Syrian government is implicated in the assassination of Rafiq Hairi, that will undermine the regime of the Assads,' Peres said.

Of course Israel wants to topple Bashar and his beautiful bride, Peres led the way, another ageing voice, ex Mossad boss, London born Ephraim Halevy chimed in calling for “regime change”. "The head of the Syrian pyramid is Bashar Assad," Halevy told Israel Army Radio. "I don't think ... there is any doubt that this was an extensive and coordinated operation that was planned for many months. Lots of people from the Syrian elite were involved."

Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee ally of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was reported in Haaretz calling for regime change in Damascus.
"As far as I am concerned ... and here I have a dispute with some of the people in the security establishment, it is not just an American interest but a clear Israeli interest to end the Assad dynasty and replace Bashar Assad."

The pro-Israel lobby in the US sponsored legislation—the Syria Accountability Act to isolate Syria before - expect a re-visit to such policies.

Dubya chimed in calling upon the United Nations to “convene a session as quickly as possible to deal with this very serious matter”. Obediently Bush’s bathroom monitor… responded ….” "A report of that kind has got to be both discussed and debated in the U.N. Security Council, and there will have to be some way to ensure accountability for what has already been found here,"…”it cannot be left lying on the table”.

Jack Straw , squiring the Veep elect Condi through Alabama also joined the choir,” "You simply cannot tolerate a situation where one state decides to deal with problems of another state by assassinating the other state's leaders." Blair had probably reminded Jack as he swept off to tailgate in Tuscaloosa what he told the Guradian in early March…

” A ripple of change is running through the Middle East “ warning the Syrian government to grab a last chance to comply with international demands.Mr Straw said to the BBC he "could not discuss the details of any UN resolution against Syria".

This is of course the unfolding of a historic plan – which requires a revisit to the 1996 policy paper prepared with shortly to be ex Veep “Limp” Dick Cheney, and his neo-con gangster friends, Richard Perle, Doug Feith, David and Meyrav Wurmser, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., and Robert Loewenberg,

Entitled "Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," this proposed shredding the Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority , and, first Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Iran, would be targeted for military assault and political destabilization.

The document boldly and uncompromisingly states that Israel should engage

"Hizbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon, including by ... establishing the precedent that Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces [and] striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper."

Furthermore, it said, Israel should divert "Syria's attention by using Lebanese opposition elements to destabilize Syrian control of Lebanon." First on the agenda of establishing the regional strategy called for "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq...."

The outcome of this regional seismic shifting which was the heart of the "Clean Break" doctrine, was a new Middle East, with Israel hegemonic in the region, presiding over newly balkanized states, run by puppet regimes. Noticeably they form parts of the Bush Administration’s "outposts of tyranny" identified by Condi early this year. The menu is the same, the dishes have been shuffled in the kitchen, and Iran has moved down and Syria has moved into first place.

Note too…Bush calls for Condi to shift the debate to the UN, where Bolton will try (probably without success, such is his popularity) to ram through a motion for an assault on pariah state Syria. Then , whatever the result, re-run Shock and Awe. Mission Unending support for the Mil – Industrial complex who have stockpiled enough stuff since “Desert Storm” for another noisy Son et Lumiére show in the sand.

Remember in 1967, Israel gobbled up, as fruits of war territory that doubled it’s size. Much was not annexed … the West Bank .. but is "territory militarily administered by Israel" and the now discarded prison for the Palestinians, which used to be called the Gaza Strip.

The Golan Heights are quite legally Syrian territory but strategically vital to Israel;

1. As a military outpost a small plateau region that ends in cliffs overlooking the Sea of Galilee (which is inside Israel proper) providing unrivalled opportunity to shell Israel.

2. Water, of which the main source is the Jordan River is essential to Israel (and everyone else in the region) .

Reflecting what Gerry Adams said in another place .... the neo-Cons have not gone away… and the Bible Bashers of the Beltway are happily following the script.

Meanwhile in a further mystifying step in the labyrinth of intrigue which surrounds this violent and messy bombing (which killed not only Hariri but 21 others) ….this is reported in the International Herald Tribune on October 17th …” French police arrested former Syrian intelligence officer accused of lying to UN staff investigating the assassination of Rafik Hariri in Beirut, police and judicial officials said Monday.

Zuhair Mohammed Al-Siddiq was taken into custody Sunday in the Paris suburb of Chatou by France's DST counterespionage service, He was the subject of an international arrest warrant and is expected to be extradited, the police said.

The arrest warrant, issued by Magistrate Elias Eid of Lebanon, accused Siddiq of giving false testimony and misleading the UN investigation, judicial officials in Lebanon said.

Sunday 23/10 8.00pm Der Speigel reports Siddiq as a known paid swindler who left Lebanon one month before Hariri exploded, and says the UN investigtaors knew he was "unreliable".

Recent blogs on same topic here