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Mossad, the CIA and Lebanon
The assassination of Rafiq Hariri: who benefited?
By Bill Van Auken
17 February 2005
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The US media has responded predictably to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, echoing the bellicose threats of the Bush administration against Syria and amplifying unsubstantiated charges that the regime in Damascus was the author of the killing.
Leading the pack was the Washington Post, which editorialized on Wednesday that “The despicable murder of Mr. Hariri benefits no one outside the rogue regime in Damascus—and the world should respond accordingly.”
The editorial acknowledged that the “crudeness of the killing and the denials by the government of Bashar Assad will cause some to wonder whether it has been framed for a crime it may have desired but did not commit.” But the Post hastened to assure its readers that the assassination was “the panicked act of a cornered tyrant,” terrified by the forced march to democracy which Washington has supposedly initiated in the Middle East with the recent elections in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
“Crude” is the appropriate designation for the Post’s arguments, which amount to nothing more than war propaganda. The newspaper’s charges are both unsupported and nonsensical. Their transparent purpose—much like the stories about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction”—is to promote the policy of aggression which the Bush administration is pursuing in the Middle East.
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/hari-f17.shtml