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Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers!

WHAT DID ISRAEL KNOW IN ADVANCE OF THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS?

* Those Celebrating "Movers" and Art Student Spies
* Who were the Israelis living next to Mohammed Atta?
* What was in that Moving Van on the New Jersey shore?
* How did two hijackers end up on the Watch List weeks before 9/11?

At last, the answers. Read Christopher Ketcham's exclusive expose in CounterPunch special double-issue February newsletter. Plus, Cockburn and St. Clair on how this story was suppressed and ultimately found its home in CounterPunch. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now

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Today's Stories

February 8, 2007

John V. Walsh
Filibuster to End the War Now!

February 7, 2007

Daniel Wolff
"The Road Home is a Joke": Playing Politics with the Recovery of New Orleans

Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews: A Conversation with Oliver Stone on Art, Politics and the Future of Cinema in Bush's America

Tony Swindell
The Looming Shadow of Nuremberg

Sharon Smith
Why Protest Matters

Ken Couesbouc
Delenda Est Baghdad: Why Republics End Up as Empires

Jeff Cohen
Jonah Goldberg's Gambling Debt

Col. Dan Smith
The Self-Destructive Logic of War

Tom Kerr
McCain to Wounded Soldiers: When Words Fail Fundamentally

Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran

Adam Elkus
Surging Right Into Bin Laden's Hands

Stephen Fleischman
The Good News About War on Iran

Website of the Day
Vote Vets: Battling Escalation

 

February 6, 2007

Diana Johnstone
Frenzy in France Over Iranian Threat

Gregory Wilpert
Did Chavez Over-reach?: Venezuela's Enabling Law Could Enable Opposition

Norman Solomon
A Kangaroo Court Martial: Making an Example of Ehren Watada

Dave Lindorff
Borat Goes to Washington: Don't Experiment with the Economy?

William Blum
Space Cowboys: Full Spectrum Dominance

Mike Ferner
War Opponents Occupy Congressional Offices

CP News Service
Nader's CNN Interview: "Hillary's a Panderer and a Flatterer"

Evelyn Pringle
Eli Lilly and Zyprexa: Even the Insurance Companies are Bailing

Christopher Brauchli
Corporate Advice from the Office of Detainee Affairs

Alan Cabal
How Charles Manson Kept Me Out of Vietnam

Website of the Day
Free Josh Wolf: the Longest Jailed Journalist in US History


February 5, 2007

Dave Zirin
Super Bore: When Hawks Cry

Uri Avnery
The Fatal Kiss: Wars and Scandals

Ron Jacobs
The Looming War on Iran: It's Not About Democracy

Paul Craig Roberts
The Real Failed States

Newton Garver
Bush and the Old Hands: Decider vs. Negotiator

Bruce Anderson
The Genocidal Namesake of the Hastings School of Law

Saul Landau
The Golden Globes After a Mud Bath

Ralph Nader
The Good Fight of Molly Ivins

James T. Phillips
Road Outrageous: Tailgating and Iraq

Mike Whitney
Quarantine USA: Bird Flu Panic and Profiteering

Kenneth Rexroth
Clowns and Blood-Drinking Perverts: Imperial History According to Tacitus

Website of the Day
Richard Thompson's Anti-War Song: "'Dad's Gonna Kill Me"


February 3 /4, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Who Can Stop the War?

Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews: a Conversation with Dr. Susan Block on Sex, Censorship and Liberation

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Thrill is Gone: the Withering of the American Environmental Movement

Patrick Cockburn
Iraqis on the Run

P. Sainath
They Take the Early Train

Sen. Russell Feingold
A Symbol of a Timid Congress

Diane Christian
Dying Well: Why Killing Saddam Backfired on Bush

Brian Cloughley
Space Missiles Away!: the Irony of Bush's Indignation

Diana Barahona
How to Turn a Priest into a Cannibal: US Reporting on the Coup in Haiti

Timothy J. Freeman
The Iraq War Hits Hawai'i: the Stryker Brigade and the Watada Case

Conn Hallinan
The Vishnu Strategy

John Ross
Felipe's First Fifty Days

Greg Moses
The Government Blinks: Freedom for the Ibrahim Family

Missy Beattie
No More Rebukes or Non-Binding Resolutions

Joshua Frank
Unsafe in Any Seas: Cruising with Ralph Nader?

Evelyn Pringle
"These Drugs are Poison to Some People"

Stephen Fleischman
Let's Hear It for Chuck Hagel!

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Iraq in Fragments

Poets' Basement
Holt, Engel, Ford and Saavedra

Website of the Day
Flamenco Dali


February 2, 2007

Chris Kutalik
The Meanest Industry

R. Gibson / E. W. Ross
Cutting the Schools-to-War Pipeline

Pam Martens
America's "Money Honey" as Corporate Matchmaker: Maria Bartiromo and the Co-Branding of CNBC and Citigroup

John Feffer
Picturing the President

Daryll E. Ray
Why the Family Farm is Good for Rural America

Ronald Bruce St. John
Apartheid By Any Other Name

Mitchel Cohen
Listen Gore: Some Inconvenient Truths About the Politics of Environmental Crisis

Website of the Day
The Real Issue is Empire


February 1, 2007

Diane Farsetta
An Army Thousands More: How PR Firms and Major Media Military Recruiters

Marjorie Cohn
Bush Targets Iran: Cruise Missile Diplomacy

Mark Scaramella
Our Founding War Profiteers

Ranni Amiri
Senator Prejudice: the Day Joe Biden Threatened to Kick My Ass

Christopher Ketcham
Die, TV!

Winston Warfield
Art Panic Hits Boston!

Corporate Crime Reporter
Jailing the Artists, Not the Executives: the Great Boston Art Panic, Turner Broadcasting and the AG Who Won't Pursue Corporate Crime

Thomas P. Healy
Adios Molly Ivins: Populist Journalism and Never Dull

Website of the Dau
The Ordeal of Gary Tyler

 

January 31, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
Waco of Iraq?: US "Victory" Cult Leader was a "Massacre"

Jean Bricmont
What is the Decisive "Clash" of Our Time?

Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews: a Conversation with Dr. Susan Block on Sex, Politics and Liberation

James T. Phillips
Flashbacks de Jour: Photographing War

William Johnson
Worker Reistance at Smithfield Foods

Tim Wilkinson
A Hawk in Drag: Dershowitz and the Iraq War

Evelyn Pringle
The Judge, the Reporter and the Secret Zyprexa Documents

Joshua Frank
What America Really Needs to Hear

Ramzy Baroud
Shameless in Gaza

Mickey Z.
Nader Still in the Crosshairs

Website of the Day
What's Goin' On?


January 30, 2007

Werther
Slapstick on Jenkins Hill: DC's Botoxed Golems

Kathy Kelly
Engagement with War

Uri Avnery
"If Arafat Were Alive"

Franklin Spinney
Embedded Without Blending: Humvees and Tactical Madness in Iraq

William S. Lind
The Real Game in Iraq

Pariah
An Iron Curtain is Descending--and Most Americans Don't Know

Mike Whitney
The Mother of All Bubbles

Rev. William E. Alberts
Hiding America's Surging Militarism Behind Children

Fran Shor
Shadow of a Resistance: Can the Anti-War Mvt. Dismantle the War Machine?

Anthony Arnove
The Logic of Withdrawal: There's Nothing Precipitous About It

Website of the Day
Our Boys in Iraq


January 29, 2007

Nurit Peled-Elhanan
"We Are All Victims of the Occupation"

Patrick Cockburn
Raid on the Soldiers of Heaven

JoAnn Wypijewski
The Demo in DC: Chirpy Slogans, Empty City

Ron Jacobs
Our Fire, Congress's Feet

Dave Lindorff
The Missing Word at the Anti-War Demo

Kevin Zeese
A Republican Peace Candidate?: Chuck Hagel's Challenge to America

Reza Fiyouzat
Iran, Bush and the Banging of the Ironsmiths

Pat Williams
Turnout and Same-Day Voting: Did It Sink Conrad Burns?

Website of the Day
Galloway's Indictment of Blair

 

January 27 / 28, 2007

Diana Johnstone
Do We Really Need an International Criminal Court?

Eliza Ernshire
Exiled from Palestine

Patrick Cockburn
Slaughter in Baghdad's Bird Market

David Rosen
Pay-to-Play: the Double Life of Prostitution in America

Greg Moses
Children Without a Country: Maryam Ibrahim Remains in a Texas Jail

Bernard Chazelle
Bush the Empire Slayer

Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews: a Video Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair, Part Two

Hermán Uribe
Murdering Journalists in Latin America

Ralph Nader
Democracy in Crisis

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Can't Americans See What's Coming?

Fred Gardner
The Suppression of Collective Joy: Barbara Ehrenreich at the Commonwealth Club

Brian Cloughley
Dying for Lies

James Abourezk
The High Cost of Congressional Trips to Israel

John V. Whitbeck
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine: Ilan Pappe and the Nakba Deniers

Seth Sandronsky
Peace-In Politics: Localizing the Anti-War Movement

Alan Cabal
Mayday from the Circus Tent

Pam Martens
America's Money Honey Does Davos

Website of the Weekend
Gil Scott-Heron: Winter in America


January 26, 2007

Charlotte Laws
Are You the Terrorist Next Door?: AETA and the New Green Scare

Mike Ely / Linda Flores
The Workers at Smithfield

Joe DeRaymond
Paying for Health Care and Not Getting It

Phil Donahue
Get Sarah Olson!

Zia Mian
The Three US Armies in Iraq: Grunts, Contractors and Laborers

Jeb Sprague
Haiti Struggles to Defend Justice

Evelyn Pringle
Eli Lilly, the Habitual Offender

Missy Beattie
Inside the Criminal Mind of George Bush: He Thinks; Therefore, It is So

Martha Rosenberg
Cloned Food: From Designer Hens to the Transgenic Omega-3 Pig

Website of the Day
Save Grand Canyon from Glen Canyon Dam!


January 25, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
What's Really Going on in Baghdad

John Ross
Mexico Under Calderon: Fake Left, Rule Right

Jeremy Scahill
Our Mercenaries: Blackwater, Inc and the Privatization of Bush's War Machine

Frida Berrigan
"Hearts Ruptured with Sadness:" Protesting Gitmo

Paul Craig Roberts
Bush's State of Deception

Jason Yossef Ben-Meir
Iraq Reconstruction Failure

Christopher Brauchli
Why Bush is Arming Fatah: When in Doubt, Start Another Civil War

Holger W. Henke
Cuba at the Crossroads?

Dave Lindorff
Falling Dominos and Failing Presidencies

Julia Landau
From Your Young Cousin

Website of the Day
The Mighty Edwards Sisters

 

January 24, 2007

Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews: a Filmed Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair

Paul Craig Roberts
The Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry

Lt. Gen. William Odom
What Can be Done in Iraq?

Sharon Smith
Health Care Reform for the Insurance Industry

Brian M. Downing
Two Americas: the Grunts and the War Profiteers

Heather Gray
Surviving War

Ron Jacobs
SOTUS Quo

James Brooks
Out of Europe, Out of Time

Robert Day
Translating Snow

Website of the Day
Defend Sarah Olsen


January 23, 2007

Trish Schuh
Lebanon on the Brink of Civil War, Again

Robert Bryce
The Politics of Cheap Oil

Stephen Soldz
Aliens in an Alien Land

John Blair
King Coal's Latest Con Job: Clean Coal is Not Clean

Gloria La Riva
Miami: a Place of Refuge for Anti-Castro Terrorists

Joshua Frank
Turning Silence into Gold: Hillary and Israel Lobby

Patrick Cockburn
In Iraq, All Foreigners are Targets

Ralph Nader
Questions for Bush on Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Pelosi and Iraq: Blunder or Treason?

Uri Avnery
Israel and Apartheid

Website of the Day
Down By the River

 

January 22, 2007

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
China's New Chip in Space War Poker

Jen Marlowe
Trapped in Darfur: the Ordeal of Suleiman Jamous

George McGovern
War of the Belligerent Professors: Get Out of Iraq

Paul Craig Roberts
Only Impeachment Can Save Us from More War

Norman Solomon
The Pentagon vs. Press Freedom

Amira Hass
Life Under Prohibition in Palestine

Mike Whitney
A Fool's Errand in Baghdad

Ramzy Baroud
The Things We Take for Granted

John Walsh
Support Jimmy Carter in Boston!

Website of the Day
The Hagelian Dialectic

 

January 20/21 2007

Alexander Cockburn
First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!

Gail Dines
I Was Ambushed by Paula Zahn

Newton Garver
Evo Morales' First Year

Gilad Atzmon
100 Years of Jewish Solitude

Seth Sandronksy
New Push For Social Security "Reform"

Raphaelle Bail
Where Nicaraguans Go to Work

Jim Goodman
Round Up the Usual Experts: Make Them Live on a Dollar a Day

Larry Portis
Chouraki's Oh Jerusalem

Website of the Weekend
Press Poodles Play it Safe


January 19, 2007

Jonathan Cook
Jimmy Carter Doesn't Tell the Half of It

Glen Ford
Barack Obama: The Mania and the Mirage

Dave Lindorff
Bush Blinks on Illegal Spying--Don't let him off the hook

Larry Portis
Zionism in the Cinema: Part Two

Website of the Day
For Whistleblowers


January 18, 2007

William Peace
Protest From a Bad Cripple

Virginia Tilley
The Steady March to War on Iran: What It Would Take to Stop It

Michael Donnelly
The Real Reason I Can't Stand Obama

B.R. Gowani
Democracy: Everywhere and Nowhere

Larry Portis
Zionism in the Cinema: Part One

Jason Hribal
A Horse is Worth More than Riches

Website of the Day
Baghdad Clampdown


January 17, 2007

Franklin Spinney
Why Time is not on Bush's Side

John Ross
Oaxaca's Rising: Vibrant as the Paint on the Walls

Susan George
Can World Trade Ever Be Fair? Back to Keynes!

Paul Craig Roberts
Attacking Iran: What's In It For Bush

Joshua Frank
Obama and the Middle East

David Lindorff
Towards Oil at $200 a Barrel


January 16, 2007

Col. Sam Gardiner
Escalation Against Iran

Marjorie Cohn
Stimson's Outrageous Threat

Saul Landau
Gore Vidal in Havana: Part 2

Ron Jacobs
Welcome Back to 1965

Susan Block
From Snowjob to Blowjob

Ken Couesbouck
Year of the Pig

Website of the Day
Amazon's Hit on Jimmy Carter


January 15, 2007

Roger Morris
Another War the Voters Hoped to End

Paul Craig Roberts
Bush Must Go

Kathy Kelly
Umm Heyder's Story

William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report

Ralph Nader
The Class War's New Map

Saul Landau
Gore Vidal In Havana

January 12 / 14, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
"21,500 More Troops": Will America Ever Leave Iraq?

David Rosen
Bush's Domestic Sex Policy: the Teen Abstinence-Only Crusade

William S. Lind
Less Than Zero

Laith al-Saud
The Ironies of Bush and Iraq

Paul Craig Roberts
Surge and Mirrors: What Bush Really Said

John Ross
Celebrating the "Sum of the World" in Chiapas

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Case of Venezuela's RCTV: Not About Free Speech

Christopher Brauchli
How to Avoid an IRS Audit: Become a Millionaire!

Robert Buzzanco
Rogue State, Redux

Evelyn Pringle
The Secrets in Eli Lilly's Cabinet

Peter Rost, MD.
Promises, Promises: Playing Politics with Drug Reimportation

Mike Whitney
Baghdad Crackdown

Yifat Susskind
Beyond the Surge: Demanding an End to Bush's Wars

Saul Cohen
Latin America's Real Mr. Danger: Negroponte's Latest Gig

Missy Beattie
A Day of Action and Questions

Stephen Lendman
Holiday Hypocrisy

Website of the Weekend
Bruegel on Bush War Plan

 

January 11, 2007

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The Profits of Escalation

Paul Craig Roberts
Carter's Inconvenient Truths

Kathy Kelly
Refugee Dreams

Dave Lindorff
Blood for Face

Jeff Leys
The War Widens

Richard W. Behan
Barrels and Bodies

Col. Douglas MacGregor
Surging Right Into Al-Sadr's Hands

Website of the Day
An Explanation from Google

Speech of the Day
Is There Even One Politician Alive Who Could Give This Speech?


January 10, 2007

Peter Linebaugh
A Walk in Oaxaca

Robert Fantina
Punishing Deserters: Prosecution or Persecution?

Patrick Cockburn
Why Troop Escalation Won't Bring Peace to Iraq

Paul Craig Roberts
Distracting Congress: Troop Escalation and Iran

Col. Dan Smith
Why U.S. Policy is Failing

Ben Tripp
The Politics of Bad Karma

Evelyn Pringle
How the FDA Protects Big Pharma

Ron Jacobs
Coalition of the Lunatics: Trying to Create the Next World War

Mike Ferner
If Not Now, When?

Dave Zirin
Judgment of the Juiced: Why McGwire Wasn't Elected to the Hall of Fame

Website of the Day
Revolting Students!

Bootleg of the Day
Bob Dylan: Live at Scotia Bank Place


January 9, 2007

R. T. Naylor
The Somalian Labyrinth

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Purging of Palestinian Christians

Mike Ely and Linda Flores
The Smithfield Strikers: No Longer Hidden, No Longer Hiding

Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: More Bellicose Than Bush

Norman Solomon
The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse

Sen. Russell Feingold
An Open Letter to President Bush: So Now You Want to Snoop Through Our Mail?

Joe Allen
Justice for the Omaha Two: Black Power, Racism and COINTELPRO in the Heartland

James T. Phillips
"Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate": The Hell That is Iraq

Brian Concannon
Resolutions for Haiti

Leonard Peltier
When the Truth Doesn't Matter: 30 Years of FBI Harassment and Misconduct

Website of the Day
Kick Out the Jams, MFers!: Meet the New RRC

 

January 8, 2007

Werther
Why We Fight

Jeff Leys
The Occupation Project: a Campaign of Civil Disobedience to End Iraq War Funding

Paul Craig Roberts
Nuking Iran

Shulamit Aloni
Israeli Apartheid: Sorry, This Road is For Jews Only

Dave Lindorff
The Party of Invertebrates Reverts to Form

Sunsara Taylor
The Democrats' First Day: Same As It Ever Was

Seth Sandronsky
Syndicated Error: George Will and the Minimum Wage

Dr. Susan Block
Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film

Website of the Day
Watch CounterPuncher Sunsara Taylor Take on Bill O'Reilly!


January 6 / 7, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
The War and the NYT

Franklin C. Spinney
Stalingrad on the Tigris

Paul Craig Roberts
The Urge to Surge

Ralph Nader
Democrats in the Spotlight

Walden Bello
Globalization in Retreat?

Marleen Martin
The Needle and the Damage Done: Tortured in the Death Chamber

Brian Cloughley
We Do What We Like: Return Our Rapist or Else ...

Uri Avnery
The Kiss of Death

Saul Landau
Fidel Castro in the Fields

Ron Jacobs
From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act: a Legacy of Torture

Joseph Nevins
Crimes Against Humanity from Ford to Saddam

William S. Lind
A State Restored? Somalia and 4GW

Gary Leupp
Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President!

Elisa Salasin
Bringing Life to Numbers

George Ciccariello-Maher Beyond Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution

Stefan Wray
Confronting Recruiters: the Story of the Bush Street Raiders

Michael Leonardi
Toward an International Moratorium: Italy's Crusade Against the Death Penalty

Richard Rhames
Reality TV: Triumph of the Thugs

Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week

Barbara LaMorticella
Two Poems

Website of the Weekend
FBI Witch Hunts

Song of the Weekend
End Times: a Soundtrack


January 5, 2007

Jorge Mariscal
Growing the Military: Who Will Serve?

John Walsh
Clash of the Elites: Beltway Insiders vs. Neo-Cons!

Christopher Brauchli
The Great Relaxer: Bush and Federal Regulations

Travis Sharpe
No More New Nukes, Please

Tom Barry
Hawk for Hire: Roger Noriega's New Gig

Linda Schade / Kevin Zeese
Americans Voted for Peace: Has the New Congress Already Let Them Down?

Tiffany Ten Eyck
Workers' Centers and Unions: a New Alliance

Mahmoud El-Yousseph
A Challenge to Pelosi

Lucinda Marshall
3003 Funerals: "And They're Still Burying Ford!"

Website of the Day
Van the Man: Warm Love


January 4, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
The Martyrdom of Saddam Hussein

Winslow T. Wheeler
A Guide to Earmarks: Will the Democrats' Reforms Do Anything to Curb Pork Barrel Spending?

M. Shahid Alam
Has Regime Change Boomeranged?

Raed Jarrar
So This is Plan B? The US Attack on Saleh Al-Mutlaq's Headquarters

Bert Sacks
Can the US Legally Kill Iraqi Children?: a Challenge to the Supreme Court

Kathy Rentenbach
Report from Oaxaca

Stephen Fleischman
The Rain of Riches: Bonuses, Then and Now

George Bisharat
Carter's Truths

Peter Rost, MD
Hail the Hangman, Jail the Cameraman!

Evelyn Pringle
Can Eli Lilly be Held Criminally Liable for Zyprexa?

Website of the Day
Courage to Resist

 

January 3, 2007

Kathy Kelly
Wrapped Around a Bullet

Paul Craig Roberts
His Last Hurrah: Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason

William Johnson
No Worker is Illegal: SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change Its Policy on Immigration

Stan Cox
Under a Brown Cloud: Money vs. the Monsoon

Trita Parsi
A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran

Declan McKenna
Ireland's Slavish Hostility Toward Cuba

Joe Bageant
Dispatch from the Chinese Landfill

Nicola Nasser
Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism

Missy Beattie
Dead Wrong

Website of the Day
Pharmed Out


January 2, 2007

Michael Watts
Oil Inferno

Amina Mire
Return of the Warlords: Death and Destruction for Somalis

James Brooks
Pushing the Wedge in Palestine

Alevtina Rea
The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ?

Al Krebs
Global Food Security: a Call to Action

Peter Rost
Invitation to a Hanging: the Saddam Hussein Execution Video

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
A Deadly December

John Stanton
Appetites for Destruction

Website of the Day
Out Now: Petition

 

January 1, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
Iron Man, Tin God: the Meaning of Saddam Hussein

Uri Avnery
What Makes Sammy Run?

Joshua Frank
Eliot Spitzer's Constitutional Hang Up: Architect of New York's Patriot Act

 

 

 

 

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February 8, 2007

Cakewalks, Forgeries and Smoking Guns

The Salvador Option in Beirut

By TRISH SCHUH

"The only prospect that holds hope for us is the carving up of Syria... It is our task to prepare for that prospect. All else is a purposeless waste of time."

Zionist militant Zeév Jabotinsky, From "We and Turkey" in Di Tribune, November 30, 1915

"We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Muslim regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan, and Syria will fall to us."

David Ben-Gurion, From "Ben-Gurion, A Biography" by Michael Ben-Zohar, May 1948

"It is obvious that the above military assumptions, and the whole plan too, depend also on the Arabs continuing to be even more divided than they are now, and on the lack of any truly mass movement among them... Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking Iraq up into denominations as in Syria and Lebanon... Syria will fall apart."

Oded Yinon, 1982. From "The Zionist Plan for the Middle East"

"Regime change is, of course, our goal both in Lebanon and Syria. We wrote long ago that there are three ways to achieve it- the dictator chooses to change; he falls before his own unhappy people; or if he poses a threat to the outside, the outside takes him out..."

-Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), From strategy paper #474 "Priorities in Lebanon & Syria", March 2, 2005

From mission statement to mission accomplished, the cakewalks continue. But from Baghdad to Beirut, the forgery looks the same.

Unlike Iraq, there is no 'weapons of mass destruction threat' to facilitate toppling the Syrian regime. This time a United Nations Tribunal could provide the means, deploying Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri's murder as the weapon. But like the US show trial to convict Saddam Hussein, the show trial to convict Syria for Hariri's murder, built by the United Nation's International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC), has a history of problems.

Several of the UNIIIC's prime witnesses have admitted to perjury, accusing the US-Israeli backed Lebanese government of bribery and foul play. Witness Hussam Taher Hussam claimed Future Movement MP Saad Hariri (son of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri) offered him $1.3m USD to incriminate top Syrian officials. Witness Ibrahim Michel Jarjoura said he was assaulted and forced to lie by Lebanese Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamade. Star witness Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik, who had accused Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and Syrian President Bashar Assad of ordering Hariri's murder, bragged of earning millions by falsely testifying to the UN Commission. Though much of their discredited testimony is still included as evidence, both UNIIIC prosecutors Brammertz and Mehlis said that the use of lie detector tests was not an option.
In his country, Mehlis has been rebuked for unethical and unprofessional practices. According to Germany's Junge Welt magazine, former UN investigator Detlev Mehlis received a $10m USD slush fund to rig the UNIIIC outcome against Syria. An inquiry by German public TV Zweites Deutsche Fernsehen found that Mehlis had relied on CIA, MI6 and Mossad intelligence in prior investigations, namely the Berlin Disco bombing of the 1980s where Mehlis knowingly used testimony supplied by Arab Mossad agent Mohammad Al Amayra in his case against Libya. Mehlis also relied on NSA intercepts of fake telephone calls that former Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky revealed were made by Mossad agents, posing as Arab terrorists. The phone calls proved Libyan guilt and justified America's bombing of Libya.

In the Hariri case, German critics claimed "the choice of Mehlis was done because of his links to the German, American, French and Israeli intelligence agencies." Lebanese news source libnen.com, and Le Figaro reported that the British MI6 and Mossad have been supplying much of the UN Commission's intelligence.

When Mehlis resigned in disgrace, the UN hired Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz at Mehlis' recommendation. But Brammertz could also be vulnerable to US pressure if he assembles a verdict not to America's liking. Under Belgium's Universal Competence Law, Belgian legislators charged US Centcom General Tommy Franks, President George W Bush, VP Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell with war crimes in Iraq. In 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld threatened to pull NATO headquarters out of Belgium if the prosecutions commenced. Shortly after, the Universal Competence Law was dropped. At the UN, Brammertz told me questions about similar US retaliation against his country regarding an unapproved Hariri outcome were not relevant and were "unhelpful."

But much of the questionable case built by Mehlis has been retained by Brammertz. Though Brammertz's secretive style preempts most outside debunking of questionable evidence, it is clear that fundamental issues remain unresolved. Brammertz's latest UN report estimates that TNT and RDX explosives were used. But military experts and vehicle manufacturers claimed that blast damage to Hariri's heavily armored Mercedes had the distinctive 'melting signature' incurred by high density DU munitions. Israel's recent attack on Lebanon destroyed that evidence, by contaminating the crime scene with American DU-tipped GBU-28 bunker buster bomb residue.

It is also not certain where the explosion that killed Hariri was detonated. French experts assessed it was underground because the blast had cracked the foundations of adjacent buildings, manhole covers on the street had blown off, and asphalt was propelled onto nearby rooftops. After it was found that an underground explosion would not implicate Syria- but rather the pro-US/Israeli Lebanese government who had supervised road work in the days before Hariri died- the focus shifted to an above-ground blast via suicide bomber.

Then in a psyops setup reminiscent of the Pentagon's Al Qaeda cutout Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, (who terrorized the length and breadth of Iraq with a wooden leg), several UN reports feature a 'Zarqawi-inspired' suicide car bomber, Ahmed Abu Adass as the killer. 'Martyr' Adass's video confession debuted on Al Jazeera Bin Laden-style, with all the requisite hoopla. But according to Reuters and ABC News, the "Syrian-coerced" car bomber had never learned how to drive.

America's United Nations Ambassador at the time, John Bolton, who usually criticized the United Nations as "irrelevent," praised Mehlis, Brammertz and the UNIIIC investigation's "great work" saying "the substantial evidence speaks for itself."

But the irrelevant evidence Brammertz refuses to speak of could prove far more substantial. Last June, the Lebanese Army discovered several networks of Arab mercenaries sponsored by Israel's Mossad conducting terrorist attacks and car bombings connected to the Hariri assassination.

Israel National News "Arutz Sheva" reported that Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh was ignored when he protested to the UN about the discoveries. The US Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman, who helped manufacture the Cedar Revolution through the American Embassy in Beirut, then threatened Lebanon with very "grave consequences" and a boycott of foreign aid if Salloukh filed a formal UN complaint about the findings.

Despite Feltman's ultimatums, Lebanese Military Investigating Magistrate Adnan Bolbol was to begin questioning witnesses over the Mossad assassinations in mid-July. On July 11, the Lebanese opposition publicized its demand for a United Nations Security Council Resolution against Israel, as well as a full inquiry into the Mossad's Arab-camouflaged spy killings. Responding within hours on July 12, Israel hastily retaliated with a full scale attack on Lebanon using the Hezbollah border kidnapping as pretext.

Did the war on Lebanon cover up exposure of a "Salvador-style" slaying of Rafiq Hariri and and the other assassinations blamed on Syria?
Using the Salvador Option against Syria had first been raised by Newsweek and the London Times in January, 2005. After Hariri's death on February 14, Hariri's long-time personal advisor Mustafa Al Naser said: "the assassination of Hariri is the Israeli Mossad's job, aimed at creating political tension in Lebanon." (Asia Times 2/17/05) The Sunday Herald of Scotland hinted at a US role. "With controversial diplomat John Negroponte installed as the all-powerful Director of National Intelligence, is the US about to switch from invasions to covert operations and dirty tricks? The assassination of the former Lebanese PM has aroused suspicions."

Fred Burton, in charge of counter-terrorism analysis at the Stratfor website , was also suspicious. Burton, who spent over 20 years as a counter-terrorism expert at the US State Department and the Secret Service, has investigated most terror attacks against US Embassies abroad, as well as the first World Trade Center bombing, and the murder of Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin. Stratfor's Burton also specialized in Syrian terror operations and methods. He rejected both Syria and Hezbollah as the perpetrators behind the Hariri killing. "Syria lacks the finesse," and the "complex nature" of the remote-control technology needed to implement "the surgical nature of the charge" are beyond their capacity, he insisted. "This is not their style... and Hezbollah would not have this capability." (UPI 6/27/05)

According to United Press International, Stratfor's report on the Hariri crime concluded that the Lebanese assassinations were "so sophisticated that few in the world could have done it." Burton told UPI that only five nations had such advanced resources- Israel, US, Britain, France and Russia. "This type of technology is only available to government agencies." Burton then asked: "Suppose that these bombings were 'merely collateral'? That the true target in the plot is the Syrian regime itself? If Damascus were being framed, who then would be the likely suspect?"

"Israeli intelligence is standing behind this crime," claimed German criminologist Juergen Cain Kuelbel. In his book "Hariri's Assassination: Hiding Evidence in Lebanon" he wrote: "Syria is innocent and has nothing to do with that crime or the other assassinations." Kuelbel discovered that the jamming system used to disable the Hariri convoy's electronic shield was manufactured by Netline Technologies Ltd of Tel Aviv, an Israeli company co-developed with the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli law enforcement agencies, and sold through European outlets. The UNIIIC dismissed Kuelbel's findings as "ridiculous" and irrelevant.

But two months after the Hariri convoy was destroyed, Israeli-manufactured weapons began to appear near the homes and neighborhoods of politicians in Lebanon. On April 14, 2005 UPI reported that Lebanese security forces had discovered six Hebrew-inscribed mortar shells manufactured by Israel on a deserted beach near the the southern Lebanese village of Ghaziyeh.
Similar missiles and dynamite were also found along a road frequented by Hezbollah officials, and on December 10, 2005 four anti-tank rockets attached to wires ready for detonation were found planted on the road leading to MP Walid Jumblatt's Muktara Palace.

In February, 2006 Lebanon's Daily Star and An Nahar reported that Hebrew-marked 55mm, 60mm and 81mm rockets were discovered close to MP Saad Hariri's Qoreitem estate. Similar rockets had also been uncovered near the Majdelyoun home of Saad's aunt, legislator Bahia Hariri near Sidon.

While the pro-US/Israeli 'March 14' government automatically blamed Syria for the findings, one of several Israeli spy rings were captured trying to assassinate Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. AFP sited nine "well-trained, professional" paramilitaries who were intercepted with an arsenal of B-7 rocket launchers, anti-tank missiles, pump action shotguns, hand grenades, AK 47 rifles, revolvers, silencers, computers and CDs.

Then in June 2006, Mahmoud Rafea a mercenary from the South Lebanon Army, (created by Israel during the civil war with $10,000 bonuses), was caught on camera after car bombing two members of Islamic Jihad, the Majzoub brothers. Israel's ynet.com reported that Rafea confessed to committing the Majzoub slayings for Israel's Mossad, as well as to a number of other high level assassinations.

Israeli website DEBKAfiles said that Rafea had assisted "two Israeli agents [who] flew into Beirut International Airport aboard a commercial flight on false passports three days before the Majzoub brothers were assassinated." They "replaced a door of the brothers' car with a booby-trapped facsimile" and left the country after an Israeli airplane "detonated the planted explosives with an electronic beam." (Daily Star, 6/20/06)

Mahmoud Rafea, who was trained in Israel, also confessed to distributing bombs and ordnance to various locations around Lebanon to destabilize the country. A raid of Rafea's home yielded high tech Israeli surveillance gear, fake passports, IDs, and appliances and baggage with secret compartments, and detailed maps of Lebanon.

But Rafea's network was only one among several. Lebanese Internal Security Forces are still searching for a different spy ring led by another Arab Mossad agent, Hussein Khattab. The Times of London wrote: "In a bizarre twist, Hussein Khattab, a Palestinian member of the spy ring, who is still at large, is the brother of Sheikh Jamal Khattab, an Islamic cleric who allegedly recruited Arab fighters for Al Qaeda in Iraq".

Equally strange, Hussein Khattab's brother Jamal and his colleague Sheikh Obeida (mentioned in the UNIIIC report as head of Al Qaeda's Jund Al Sham) frequently met with the Zarqawi-inspired Hariri suicide car bomber Ahmed Abu Adass in the Ein Hilweh refugee camp of Lebanon. (Like Israel and the US, Zarqawi had demanded that Hezbollah be disarmed.) Israel National News "Arutz Sheva" later wrote that "the US has been talking with Al Qaeda-sponsored terrorist groups in Syria in an all-out effort to topple the regime of President Bashar Assad".

In early January 2007, AP and the UK Telegraph reported that the CIA had begun covert operations in Lebanon using Arab proxies. During the riots in Beirut on January 20-22, a US proxy, the Progressive Socialist Party, distributed US weapons to fighters dressed as opposition Hezbollah/Amal supporters. The riots were then blamed on the opposition.

Comparing the Hariri car bombing to the mysterious car bombings in Iraq, Asia Times said: "What remains is the evidence of Baghdad in Beirut... The iron-clad certainty, on both sides [Sunni and Shia resistance in Iraq], is that these have been perpetrated not by "terrorists" as the US claims, but rather by Israeli black ops or CIA-connected American mercenaries, with the intent of fueling tensions and advancing the prospect of civil war. Now if only someone would come up with a Beirut smoking gun."

"The Gun" -as Meir Dagan is nicknamed- could be it.

Israeli website DEBKAfiles wrote that the above-named South Lebanon Army mercenary Mahmoud Rafea, had been assassinating/spying in Lebanon for Israel since 1989 when he was recruited by current Mossad director Meir Dagan.

In 2002, Meir Dagan was reappointed by Ariel Sharon to reprise the Mossad's covert operations in Lebanon, notably targeted killings abroad. Coinciding with Dagan's appointment, official Israeli policy was expanded to allow assassinations in friendly ally nations (including the US) using Kidon death squads from the Metsada Division. It was a job for which Dagan had ample experience.

Under Ariel Sharon in 1970, Dagan commanded a secret assassination unit of the Israeli Security Agency called Sayaret Rimon that eliminated over 750 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In 1982, he helped command Israel's invasion of Lebanon. His main assignment was to manage undercover infiltrators, and to train Lebanese collaborators for the pro-Israel South Lebanon Army.

Dagan commanded the Lebanon Liasion Unit (Yakal or Yaagal Border Unit) which was notorious for its cross-border raids into Lebanon to kidnap opponents, as well as its secret prison Camp 1391, where detainees were tortured and disappeared. Haaretz alleged Camp 1391 was the prototype for America's Guantanamo facility.

Dagan also operated the IDF Military Intelligence Unit 504, whose expertise was assassination, sabotage and spy running in Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces call such spy saboteurs "Mista'aravim"- "soldiers disguised as Arabs". Used for clandestine reconnaissance and to frame enemies in false flag operations, these IDF soldiers impersonating Arabs and their proxies are "trained to act and think like Arabs", and to blend in to the target population with appropriate manners and language. (In 2002, this writer encountered at least one such Israeli 'student' who claimed to be in Beirut "learning to think like 'the enemy'".)

One Mista'aravim specialty is the donning of Arab garb. In 1973, Israel's "Spring of Youth Operation" conducted by the IDF Sayaret Matkal in Beirut included future Prime Minister Ehud Barak dressed as an Arab woman while conducting death squad hits. Mista'aravim provocateurs camouflaged as Palestinians are still used in the West Bank and Iraq. Jane's Foreign Report said Mossad's Dagan had advised US officials in September 2002 on how Israeli special ops could help the US war effort in Iraq. Mista'aravim methods were exemplified in Basra where British SAS troops dressed as Arabs in a vehicle loaded with explosives were seized before detonating a car bomb. According to Israeli intelligence expert Ephraim Kahana, Sayaret Matkal is modeled on Britain's SAS.

Mista'aravim also specialize in close quarter urban combat using micro-Uzis, short-barreled M-16s and sniper rifles. Due to fluid street and residential changes, these teams rely on satellite photos and real-time drone imaging- like the complex technique used in the killing of the Majzoub brothers, where overhead drones monitored ground activity via cameras mounted on nearby objects- a level of capability not possessed by Syria.
Concerning the 2006 Lebanon War, DEBKAfiles boasted of other Israeli

Mista'aravim successes: "two spy rings of Lebanese agents which the Israeli Mossad" operated had "planted bugs and surveillance equipment at Hizballah command posts before and during the war. They also sprinkled special phosphorus powder outside buildings housing Hizballah's war commands and rocket launchers as markers for air strikes. Well before the war, the Beirut ring had penetrated the inner circles of Hizballah and was reporting on their activities and movements to Israeli controllers... Run by veterans of the South Lebanese Army (the force Israel created during its occupation), its job was to "paint" targets for the Israeli Air Force and artillery.." DEBKAfiles claimed that Lebanon was "heavily penetrated by agents working for Israel intelligence."

One Lebanese in particular, General Adnan Daoud, even appeared on Israeli televsion smiling and drinking tea with IDF soldiers while taking them on a four hour tour of his military base in Marjayoun. An hour after the Israeli soldiers' departure, IDF bombed the Marjayoun site. (AP/Jerusalem Post, 8/7/06)

Regarding yet other Mossad agents DEBKAfiles wrote: "Hizballah's security officials detained two non-Lebanese Arabs wandering around the ruined Dahya district, taking photos and drawing maps. Several forged passports were in their possession..."

All factions concerned with the Hariri killing- the UNIIIC, Stratfor, Hezbollah, Syria, the US, Israel and the Lebanese 'March 14' movement, agree on one thing- the Hariri perpetrator also carried out the other 22 assassinations, and possibly more. Lebanon's Daily Star quoted the FBI: "the same explosive was used in Hawi, Kassir and Hamade crimes" as that used against Hariri. On May 27, 2006 the Daily Star revealed that the killers of Hariri and the Majzoub brothers could be the same: "Internal Security Forces, forensics experts, judiciary police and members of Hizbullah's security apparatus inspected the blast site shortly after the bomb detonated. The shrapnel and iron balls found extensively around the explosion indicate the bomb was a specialized mine to assassinate individuals, and it is similiar to Hawi and Kassir's explosives."
Sources in Lebanon and at the UNIIIC in New York concluded that the same party responsible for Hariri's death and the other Lebanese assassinations also committed the Majzoub killings. In June, Mossad agent Mahmoud Rafea admitted killing the Majzoub brothers for Israel.

But such irrelevant evidence has been deliberately ignored by the UN International Independent Investigation Commission. At the United Nations, this writer questioned various officials over a period of months about a possible US-Israeli role in Hariri's murder, and if it was being investigated by the UNIIIC. Prosecutor Serge Brammertz stated that because the issue wasn't raised by the US/Israeli-backed Lebanese government, that line of enquiry would not be pursued. It seems only facts supporting a guilty verdict against Syria will be considered.

"As far as Israel is concerned, it would be difficult to imagine a more convenient scenario. Its stubborn enemies, Iran and Syria, are now being accused by the international community, one for its nuclear program, the other for its behavior in Lebanon... Israel has hoped for this outcome since the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States in 2001. Immediately after the collapse of the Twin Towers, Israeli officials began to speak about the anticipated change, and expressed a hope that the United States would bring order to the region, and would deal with Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and not only Iraq."

-Aluf Benn, Haaretz, October 25, 2005

From Baghdad to Beirut, the democracy dominoes keep falling. After Syria, an Iranian "Shah and Awe" forgery is the next imminent threat ...

Trish Schuh was a co-founder of the Military Families Support Network and is a member of Military Reporters and Editors. She has lived and studied in Lebanon and Syria. This the third piece in a three part series on the attempted overthrow of Syria. See also "Faking the Case Against Syria" and "Operation Change of Location."

 

 

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