by Patrick Lang

Walid Moallim, the former Syrian ambassador in Washington, says that he did not “threaten” Rafik Hariri a couple of weeks before Hariri was killed. He says that he had known and “worked with” Hariri for many years and thought of him as a friend.

Col. Patrick W. Lang (Ret.), a highly decorated retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces, served as “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism” for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. Col. Lang was the first Professor of the Arabic Language at the United States Military Academy at West Point. For his service in the DIA, he was awarded the “Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive.” He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including PBS’s Newshour, and most recently on MSNBC’s Hardball and NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

His CV and blog are linked below the fold.

That could be since Rafik Hariri was variously a “friend” to Saudi Arabia, the CIA and the Baathist government in Damascus.

He was also a friend to the Lebanese clique of his”friends” who together hold 75% of the country’s national debt, “a gift that keeps on giving.”

His many friends also included the Sunni zealots on behalf of whom Rafik spoke from the minbar of mosques in Lebanon claiming that he stood between the Sunni population and victimization by the rest of the Lebanese.

Learning who it was who killed Hariri is a daunting task for a serious investigator. There are so many candidates for the blame.


Nevertheless, Fox News Sunday (FNS) has already “moved on” from assumption of official Syrian government guilt in this matter to beating the war drums along the Potomac in a “riff” identical to that played as overture to the opera now “on the boards” in Iraq.


Today, 23 October, 2005. Brit Hume and Bill Kristol substantially made the following statements on FNS:


  • Syria’s government is that of a band of “Gangsters.” (arguably true)


  • Syria’s government must be fragile and could easily be brought down.


  • Syria’s government must have no popular support.


  • There is a well organized and numerous Syrian exile opposition who could easily “take over.” (Kristol says he has met the man. That’s interesting in itself)


  • The destruction of the regime in syria would be the key to a general societal revolution whtroughout the Middle East.


What part of this does not sound familiar?

I will give it as my considered opinion that an attempt to install an internationally “inspired” government in Damascus would lead to internal unrest throughout that country. Syria is made up of similar ethno-religious factions to the ones that have bedeviled our actions in Iraq.

I will also forecast that the introduction of foreign troops into Lebanon or Syria would result in widespread guerrilla and terrorist resistance on the bases of outraged nationalism and Islamic perception of another “crusade.”


The Jacobin neocons have learned nothing from the pain of the American people and therefore will be forced to repeat the Iraq disaster if they are allowed to have their wishes fulfilled.


Sources: I-CIAS and SJ Mercury News



Personal Blog: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 || Bio || CV
Recommended Books || More BooTrib <a href="Posts

Novel: The Butcher’s Cleaver (download free by chapter, PDF format)


“Drinking the Kool-Aid,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XI, Summer 2004, No. 2
Pat Lang

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