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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |||
| Assad speech sparks angry reaction in Lebanon | |||
| 2005-11-12 | |||
Almost all the Lebanese newspapers reprinted the speech in full and published lengthy commentaries. The liberal anti-Syrian newspaper An-Nahar wrote that Mr Assad?fs address was ?"a declaration of war against Lebanon?" but that the Lebanese people would continue their battle for independence. L?'Orient-Le Jour, the French-language paper, wrote that Mr Assad was seeking to provoke strife. During the speech at Damascus University on Thursday, Mr Assad claimed that Lebanon had become a ?"passageway, a factory and a financier?" of conspiracies against Syria, in effect accusing Beirut of siding with the west against it. He accused Lebanese politicians of being ?"merchants?" exploiting the blood of the assassinated politicians to make political gains. He had harsh words for Fouad Siniora, the prime minister, calling him a "slave of slaves?". This was a reference to Mr Siniora?fs ties to Saad Hariri, the son of the assassinated politician Rafiq Hariri, and to the Hariri family?'s relations with leaders such as Jacques Chirac, the French president, and the Saudi royal family. Five pro-Syrian ministers, including a representative of the Hizbollah guerrilla movement, walked out of a cabinet session on Thursday after Lebanon?'s reaction to the speech was added to the agenda. In spite of the walk-out, Ghazi Aridi, the information minister, said after the weekly cabinet session: ?"The Lebanese cabinet expresses its rejection and astonishment of the Syrian president?fs speech and attack on the Lebanese government and parliament. We renew our confidence in Prime Minister Siniora.?" Trad Hamadeh, one of the five ministers who walked of the session, said they were not leaving the government but needed more time before reacting to the speech. During a speech on Friday, Naim Qassem, second-in-command of the Hizbollah faction, sought to reassure the Syrian leader that Lebanon would never be a plotting ground against Syria.
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| Posted by:lotp |
| #6 I notice these comments are next to the Google ad 'See the Real Syria'. That would take some doing. |
| Posted by: Bryan 2005-11-12 23:50 |
| #5 And add to all that the curious fact of Mehlis' report being given to the media with the 'track changes' function enabled - which revealed the names of the Syrian and Lebanese security officials suspected of involvement in Hariri's murder. Mehlis claimed that he removed the names, but a careful look at how the document was edited reveals that he's almost certainly being economical with the truth. The beginning of the editing coincided with the start of his meeting with Annan and the names were removed around the time that he left the meeting. That meeting lasted about 45 minutes and the editing continued for about another three hours, mostly mundane stuff, like corrections to grammar which reads like it was written by someone whose mother tongue is not English. But there is also politically correct editing - the smoothing over of phrases which were evidently a little rough for bland UN tastes - and also the removal of the name of a bank, officials of which Mehlis suspects of involvement in the assassination. |
| Posted by: Bryan 2005-11-12 23:39 |
| #4 The chinless Assad seems cowardly to me, and not ruthless enough to order Hariri's murder. He's not about to take the rap for a brother-in-law who probably is involved, as well as a rival uncle, so he has to divert attention or he'll suddenly fall ill. I don't hear much about Hariri's business dealings but I'd bet he's not an innocent victim. With ties to the Saudi Royals, Chirac, and the UN, as well as being one of the wealthiest men in the world, must have financed most of the Muslim "merchants" and their "conspiracies", but deemed an apostate infidel by Wahabi's. Sending Mehlis to investigate was like sending a fox to look in on the henhouse, so maybe there is some truth to Assad's contentions. No one is right, no one can be trusted, so sorting out the truth is confusing! |
| Posted by: Danielle 2005-11-12 18:58 |
| #3 Maybe the brother-in-law is going to be the fall guy. That was my thought. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-11-12 12:04 |
| #2 I had another thought - it happens sometimes: Maybe the brother-in-law is going to be the fall guy. Reminds me of Saddam's sons-in-law who fled to Jordan but were lured back by promises that all was forgiven and then killed. You can't make this stuff up. |
| Posted by: Bryan 2005-11-12 11:34 |
| #1 Detlev Mehlis, the chief UN investigator, is seeking to interview several Syrian officials including Assef Shawkat, Mr Assad's brother-in-law and head of military intelligence. Assad, that chinless and spineless wonder, has apparently managed to get his brother off Mehlis' list of those he wants to question as suspects in Hariri's killing. I wonder what deals were made behind the scenes to achieve that. |
| Posted by: Bryan 2005-11-12 11:29 |