Who Benefits by Lebanese Assassination?

I don’t claim to know much about who is who in the Middle East. When former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri was killed a few weeks back, the mainstream US news media made it seem highly likely Syria was behind it, because Hariri apparently was opposed to Syrian troops remaining in Lebanon. Not knowing the players, I was not that concerned.

Then the news started covering Lebanese street demonstrations and the impact they were having on the Government over there. American media reported on Bush and his people as being supportive of this popular Lebanese democratic uprising against the evil Syrians. Since I know the Bush players much better, my ears started to tune in more. When I heard sound bites of Lebanese demonstrators praising Bush for invading Iraq and spreading democracy in the middle east, my nose got involved - something smelled fishy.

Watching 60 minutes on Sunday, about the CIA kidnaping people and flying them to co-operating countries where they are then tortured to obtain information for the US, reminded me again there seems to be no limit to the illegal and immoral means the Bush administration uses to reach its chosen ends. I began thinking, Bush may have had Hariri assassinated.

I did a Google for Hariri and CIA and got hits to articles, not from mainstream media of course, arguing that Bush may in fact have been behind the killing. The top rated hit, from the World Socialist Web Site, says investigating detectives ask the question who will benefit from a crime. In the Hariri killing, the article points out, there is actually no benefit for Syria, while there is potential benefit for the Bush middle east policy, and for Israel, which has previously used assassination as an acceptable tactic.

Much larger counter-demonstrations have occurred in Lebanon, by people opposed to the US involvement in Lebanese affairs and in support of Syria. That the Bush administration may not have an accurate read on the sentiments of the Lebanese people is not surprising in view of the Bush misread of the Iraqis. Or maybe they did expect this and it is part of the Bush plan for destabilization and intervention.

That CBS News, via 60 Minutes, is willing to question the Bush tactics in international affairs has likely made them a target of a domestic version of those tactics. I need to check out the hatchet job on Dan Rather over the 60 Minutes piece on Bush ducking military duties; I suspect the forged document that was used to fool Rather may have been another Bush generated scam.