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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Walid Jumblatt - the most fierce liberal in Lebanon |
| 2007-02-15 |
| By Michael J. Totten I met the wizened Druze warlord and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt during Hezbollah’s ongoing slow-motion putsch to topple Lebanon’s government. No other high-profile “March 14” leader matches Jumblatt’s fierce opposition to Syria’s Assad regime, its Iranian patron, and its Hezbollah proxy militia. He spends most of his time in his castle at Mukhtara high above Beirut in the Chouf mountains, but he took time out between meeting members of the Socialist International at his house in the capital to meet me for coffee in his salon. Jumblatt’s history with the imperial Baath government is a long and twisting one. His father Kamal was assassinated by Syrian agents during the civil war in 1977. The details of the assassination are shrouded in mystery even today. In the most common version Baath-aligned terrorists in the Syrian Social Nationalist Party pulled the trigger. Another (unreliable) version of the story goes like this, as told to me by a young Druze friend while we stood on the murder site in the Chouf: Kamal Jumblatt was ambushed on the forested road by two Palestinian gunmen. The Palestinian hit men reported to Damascus after the deed was finished. Two Syrian exterminators then shot Assad’s Palestinian agents and buried them in the desert. The two Syrian hit men were then murdered by yet two more Syrian hit men, all the better to cover the tracks of original and cover-up crimes. I don’t know what actually happened. Syria’s decades-long assassination and terrorist war in and against Lebanon has always been fought, serial killer style, from the shadows. Diabolical theories about the precise methods of Syrian terrorism serve Syrian interests just as much as the murders themselves serve Syrian interests... Long, worthwhile interview with Wally. Lotsa good insight on the Leb-Syria-Iran nexus. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 The Palestinian hit men reported to Damascus after the deed was finished. Two Syrian exterminators then shot AssadÂ’s Palestinian agents and buried them in the desert. The two Syrian hit men were then murdered by yet two more Syrian hit men, all the better to cover the tracks of original and cover-up crimes. Now, that's what I call a real cycle of violence. |
| Posted by: xbalanke 2007-02-15 15:02 |
| #3 no mention if Wally did that trick where he's hidden smokes in his forehead wrinkles, just takes one out and lights up.... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-02-15 08:06 |
| #2 That's a convention of Leb politix. If they admit that they have more in common with Israel than they do with Syria they're assassinated. Like Kamal was, and like any number of Gemayels have been. |
| Posted by: Fred 2007-02-15 08:02 |
| #1 And yet he gave a speech yesterday at the Beirut rallies where he blamed Syria on Israel. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2007-02-15 06:04 |