Belarus: Rebel Stronghold Faces the Empire

Belarus Prepares to Confront NATO Military Aggression

By Gearóid Ó Colmáin
Originally published in Global Research
November 6, 2011
Images and captions added by Color Revolutions and Geopolitics

On Novermber 4th, President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko told reporters in Grodno, that  the NATO terrorists who murdered Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi were worse than the Nazis. The President of Belarus said:

“There was an act of aggression and the national leaders, including Gaddafi, were killed. He was not killed on a battlefield. NATO security services helped abduct the national leader. He was tortured and shot and treated worse than the Nazi did in their time. Libya was destroyed as a sovereign state”

Alexander Lukashenko

The Belarusian president went on to denounce the role of the UN in tolerating what he described as NATO’s vandalism in Libya

“We can view the situation extremely negatively only. How can we evaluate NATO actions in Libya? As a violation of the mandate of the UN Security Council. I am not exaggerating this mindless and mad Security Council. I am not exaggerating their role and the role of the United Nations Organizations. The latter has evolved into some kind of cover-up. See or yourself: Iraq, Afghanistan, an entire Arabic curve. Why has UN failed to prevent all of it?”[1] 

President Lukashenko, whose government has long been on the list of US regime change targets, also told reporters that preparations were underway to strengthen the country’s defense, through the creation of new territorial military units drawn from the civilian population.

“We have created the territorial units. This is cheaper than having a professional army, and we will be training our people. In a year they will make perfect troops. They are ordinary people who have civil professions and jobs. These troops are deployed only in wartime. In peacetime, they train.

"They must protect their own property, in addition to the family and land. These people are very well-trained, among them there are a lot of military people.”[2] 

The Belarusian government has announced the creation of a new citizen army of up to 120 thousand  people. President Lukashenko told reporters in Grodno: “If we ever have to be at war, we are men, we have to protect our homes, families, our land. It is our duty,”  [3]

This is the first time since the Second World War that the people of Belarus have experienced a threat to their security and the threat is coming once again from the West.

Belarus is perhaps more qualified than any other country to make allusions to Nazism. The worst atrocities of the Second World War were carried out in Belarus by the German Wehrmacht. In fact, the resistance of the Belarusian people against their Nazi hoards was so heroic, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR voted in favour of a proposal to include the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic as a separate seat in the General Assembly of the United Nations after the Second World War.

The Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic became the showpiece of the USSR, becoming the strongest and most prosperous of all the socialist republics in the Soviet Union.

The country’s leader Alexander Lukashenko, has been described by some as a typical ‘homo sovieticus’.  A former state farm director, Lukashenko was the only member of the BBSR to vote against the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Lukashenko came to power in 1994 after gaining the people’s trust through his performance at the head of a national Anti-corruption committee.

The past 16 years of Lukashenko’s presidency have seen steady economic growth, rising wages and full employment.  The socially-oriented economy of Belarus maintains close links with other countries resisting the dictates of the New World Order such as Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and, until recently, Libya.

Belarus has one of the lowest rates of inequality in the world, spends up to 6 percent of GDP on education and scientific research.  Education and health care are free.

Needless to say, Lukashenko’s determination to serve the interests of his own people over the interests of Western finance capitalists has resulted in a sustained and unrelenting campaign of lies, calumny and defamation from the global corporate media empires.

The United States, Belarus and “human rights”

Lukashenko’s popularity in Belarus has long been the target of a heavily funded opposition from within the country, composed of so-called ‘civil society’ activists and ‘journalists’ funded by the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States, an organisation which works closely with the CIA to overthrow foreign governments who are not subservient to US interests. 

The United States and the European Union have spent millions of tax-payer’s money on installing a subservient leader in Minsk compliant with their economic interests in the country. As a European official was once reported to have said “ Belarus is the one country left where there is still something to grab”.

After the Al Qaeda attacks in New York 2001, the meaning of those events quickly became apparent to the government of Belarus.  At a conference entitled ‘Axis of Evil: Belarus-the missing link’ November 2002 Senator John McCain, referring to Belarusian trade agreements with Iraq, declared:

“Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus cannot long survive in a world where the United States and Russia enjoy a strategic partnership and the United States is serious about its commitment to end outlaw regimes whose conduct threatens us.”  

McCain went on to say “September 11th opened our eyes to the status of Belarus as a national security threat”

In 2004 the United States passed the Belarus Democracy Act which mandated direct US interference in the internal affairs of Belarus in order to promote ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. 

This imperialist legislation was followed by a resolution presented to the UN condemning Belarus for ‘human rights’ violations.

However, the Belarusian government responded promptly through the United Nations. 

In the 59^th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, Belarusian permanent representative to the UN Andre Dapkiunas presented a resolution entitled:

Mr. Andrei Dapkiunas

‘Situation of Democracy and Human Rights in the United States of America’.

The Belarusian draft resolution condemned the fraudulent US elections of 2000, the fact that residents of Washington cannot elect representatives to the US congress, the death penalty for  juveniles, and the mentally ill, unlawful detention of terrorism suspects and widespread torture.

This resolution by Belarus was particularly embarrassing for the US government as it forced  the world’s leaders to face up to US hypocrisy concerning crimes against humanity.  The United States passed legislation one year later, finally putting an end to the death penalty for teenagers under 18. The other human rights violations documented in the Belarusian UN draft resolution continue to be committed by the United States. [4]  

  
 The Great Conspiracy against the Republic of Belarus:

 On December 19^th 2010, youth groups trained and funded by the US, Germany and Poland attempted to enter parliament buildings in Minsk, after Western backed candidates failed to make any significant impact among Belarusian voters.

In January 2011 the Belarusian state security agency( KGB), released documents seized from the protestors, which revealed the extent wholesale interference by German and Polish intelligence officials in the internal affairs of Belarus.  The report ‘Background of a Conspiracy’ published in  the Minsk Times, proved that many of the youths used by Western intelligence in the riots had been trained in far-right training camps in the Ukraine.

Others youths had been brought across the border from Russia. The declassified documents showed how Western intelligence agents, working through various NGOS, smuggled money in suitcases across the Belarus border  to opposition activists.

Western intelligence agencies had two strategic plans to overthrow the Belarusian government.

1. Get as many as 100,000 people out on to the streets of Minsk in a mass rally and storm the parliament.
2.  If they failed to get the desired numbers to join the rally, the parliament buildings would be attacked with iron bars in order to provoke the police. The media would then blame the police for the ‘violent crackdown’ and the EU would be given an excuse to condemn the ‘rigged elections’ and impose sanctions.

The report points out that the international press reporters at the December riots did not make any attempt to cover the elections. They simply arrived to join the pre-planned rally in October Square.

Minsk, December 19, 2010: post-election October Square uprising against the government of Belarus

 Nekliaev: trust me I'm a poet

The Western backed putschists were to give their backing to the poet Vladimir Nekliaev. The declassified KGB documents reveals the reasons behind the West’s endorsement of Nekliaev:

“V.Nekliaev is a representative of the so-called intelligensia. He possesses a certain charisma, has not been participating in the domestic political affairs for a long time. The public does not associate him with the image of a radical opposition member, he is better known as a poet.

His weaknesses can also be of use to us. In his past he was virtually an alcoholic (the illness of many artists). Our experts conclude that it creates conditions for forming a super idea in him of being superior, of being destined for a higher mission. We also possess essential incriminatory evidence against him, which enables us to give him additional stimulation at any stage of the project.

We believe it expedient to use the proposed candidature as the major one to represent the campaign. The earlier proposed candidate can be promoted along as a backup plan.”[5] 

 This is what poetry looks like...

This document gives us a unique insight into the operational methodologies of Western intelligence agencies. Nekliaev was to become a Belarusian Vaclav Havel or Boris Yeltsin. His weaknesses as a leader would be useful to the West as it would be far easier to control him. Nekliaev was to be the Belarusian version of Mahmoud Jabril, a weak and feckless puppet of Western interests.

Nekliaev’s Western puppet masters also had ‘incriminatory evidence’ against him, which would enable them to blackmail him should he decide to favour the interests of his country over those of Western capital.

The declassified documents also reveal a sophisticated campaign of defamation and lies against the president of Belarus. Rumors and outrageous lies were to be spread and leaked to the Western press. Lies concerning the health of the president, lies about his private life, lies about foreign bank accounts, lies about the imminent resignation of the president etc.

The section concerning the rumor campaign against the Belarusian president makes for interesting reading and is worth reproducing in full as it reveals the highly coordinated activities of Western intelligence-funded color revolutionaries:

“One of the components of the support campaign for the candidate of national confidence should be deliberate production of stimuli for the dissemination of rumours. Rumours are to be regarded as information passed on by means of informal communication and having a virus-like dissemination pattern. The ideal platform for such campaign is the Internet, especially various social networks, blogs, Twitter (Internet social network). 

A well-run rumour campaign forces the authorities to continually look for excuses, which helps create the so-called presumption of guilt and evokes greater mistrust towards the government in the general public. 

One of the basic rumours to be supported throughout the campaign should be the rumour of Lukashenko’s possible resignation. Its purpose to assure the general public and the elite of the very possibility of such resignation. 

Suggested rumour cycles:

The personality of Lukashenko and his family, the rumors about the president undermine his personal position and destroy the image of a strong, brave and resolute man. 

Here are the main directions and goals of the “background campaign”: 

- The poor health of Lukashenko and members of his family.
- Lukashenko gets treatment abroad and spends a lot of money on it.
- Lukashenko’s money is deposited in foreign banks. This fact should be emphasised, and sums should be constantly increased.
Economy. Rumors of economic problems must countervail the information that the country has been barely affected by the crisis.

The following rumors are also effective:

- Every day brings more and more unemployed, new unemployed people are expected.
- The country is being sold out on the cheap, clandestine privatization of enterprises is going on at full speed. Officials sell state property to the Arabs and the Chinese for bribes.
- The government has not fulfilled the IMF requirements, and credits should be repaid ahead of schedule.
The safety of large public projects is questioned.
- The nuclear power plant to be constructed will use a Chinese reactor that can be prone to explosion.
- The nuclear reactor at the nuclear power plant is, in fact, future missiles, and a platform for nuclear blackmail ...”.[6]

The rumour mongering about Libya  perpetrated by the corporate media shows striking similiarities to colour revolution methodologies used against Belarus. After the outbreak of violence in Bengazi, we were told  by the mass media that Gadhafi had left Libya for Venezuela. To quote again from the document seized from the Belarusian opposition.

 ‘One of the basic rumours to be supported throughout the campaign should be the rumour of Lukashenko’s possible resignation. Its purpose to assure the general public and the elite of the very possibility of such resignation.’

The false reports of Gadhafi’s resignation in Libya were intended  to encourage the uprising by making the protestors believe that they had already won the battle for power. These lies were soon followed by reports that Gadhafi had given orders to bomb protestors. However, the Russian military, who were monitoring Libya from space, subsequently confirmed that no bombing of civilians took place.

In the lead up to the Libyan war the Associated press spread more rumours and lies about Belarus.

Hugh Griffiths of the Stockholm International Peace and Research Institute has claimed that “"An Ilyushin Il-76 (plane) flew to Libya on February 15 from Baranovichi, a huge former Soviet weapon storage (area) now controlled by the Belarus government”.[7]

The accusations were vehemently denied by the Belarusian government. Speaking to the  Belarusian Telegraph Agency. Belarusian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Savinykh told reporters:

"It has been established that the UN official [Jose del Prado] told the American journalist that he had no information and therefore could not confirm the presence of any Belarusian mercenaries in Libya.The fact can be deemed proof that The Associated Press is a hired propaganda outlet and tool,"

Savinykh politely noted the propensity of Western journalists to "effortlessly step over the conventional democratic standards when it is convenient to them and in line with the interests of their sponsors.”

Given the fact that Belarus is a target of US-sponsored regime change, one can only suspect that the media rumours were intended to serve as a warning to Minsk of what it will face if it refuses to bow down before the empire.[8] 

          
Libya, Belarus and the mindless and mad Security Council

In his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2009  Muammar Al Gadhafi pointed out that the Security Council of the United Nations is in violation of article 2 of the United Nations Charter. Article 2 of the UN charter states that all states are equal, yet how can that be the case when a hand full of the world’s powers can decide the fate of all the other nations through the UN Security Council?

Purple Reign

Gaddafi went on to claim that the Security Council should only be empowered to implement decisions taken by the General Assembly.

Colonel Gaddafi also criticized the Iraq war, which was in flagrant violation of the UN charter. The Libyan leader reminded all present that the United Nations was supposed “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” yet there have been over 65 wars since the UN’s inception in 1945s, wars waged by the few member states of the Security Council.

Furthermore, Colonel Gaddafi  pointed out that the UN charter stipulates that all members of the United Nations are obligated to come to the aid of any state that finds itself under attack.

The leaders of British and the United States left the UN chamber before Gaddafi’s speech.[9]

Today, Libya lies in ruins. What was once a peaceful and prosperous country, the only economic, social and political success story in Africa, has been bombed into the stone age, thanks to NATO and , in particular, the phony leftists who supported the racist and fascist hoards from Benghazi as they slaughtered every man, woman and child in their midst.

Misrata Libya: evidence of what happens when NATO "saves" "the people"

Belarus knows that the North Atlantic Terrorist Organisation and the whores of the military industrial media complex will do their utmost to inflict the same punishment on their beloved country. A founding member of the United Nations, Belarus is keenly aware of the danger posed to humanity by the corruption of the United Nations organizations by Euro-Atlantic war-mongering criminals.

Former SS Oberstgrupperfuhrer Paul Hauser once revealed that the foreign units of the Nazi SS were the precursors of NATO. NATO’s Bliztkrieg on Libya has certainly proved him right. Now a peaceful, prosperous and highly civilized nation in the East of Europe prepares to defend itself against whatever terrorism NATO has in store for it. A nation to whom we all owe a debt for its heroic defeat of Nazism during World War Two now faces its contemporary heirs.  As in the past, the defense of Belarus will be the ultimate defense of all free citizens of the world.

Notes

[1] http://news.belta.by/en/news/president?id=666308

[2] http://news.belta.by/en/news/president?id=666326

[3] http://news.belta.by/en/main_news?id=666220

[4]  Parker, Stewart(2007)The Last Soviet Republic, Trafford Publishing, p 141.

[5] http://www.belarus.by/en/press-center/news/behind-the-scenes-of-one-conspiracy_i_0000001970.html

[6] http://www.belarus.by/en/press-center/news/behind-the-scenes-of-one-conspiracy_i_0000001970.html

[7] http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2056420,00.html

[8] http://en.rian.ru/world/20110415/163542578.html

[9] http://metaexistence.org/gaddafispeech.htm

[10] Barker, A.J (1982) 'Waffen SS at War' Ian Allen Ltd, pp24/25

Act One of the CIA's "Arab Spring": Lebanon's Cedar Revolution: On the Road to Damascus (2005)

Faking the Case Against Syria
By Trish Schuh
Originally published in Counterpunch
November 19-20, 2005
Images and captions added by Color Revolutions and Geopolitics

Another slam dunk forgery is being used to convict Syria. The United Nations’ Detlev Mehlis inquiry into the murder of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafiq Hairri depends on a central witness, Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik, who has faced accusations of being a swindler and embezzler. Der Spiegel exposed Saddik’s brags of "becoming a millionaire" from his testimony to the Mehlis Commission. Saddik was referred to the Mehlis Commission by Syrian regime critic Rifaat Assad, the uncle of current Syrian President Bashar Assad. Rifaat has been lobbying the Bush administration to become the president of Syria in the event his nephew Bashar is ousted.

The record of the UN’s investigator Mehlis does not inspire faith in his credibility. As Senior Public Prosecutor in the German Attorney General’s office, Mehlis investigated the 1986 LaBelle Discotheque bombing in Berlin. Relying on alleged National Security Agency intercepts of coded messages between Tripoli and Libyan suspects in Germany (later revealed by former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky as false telex signals generated by Mossad itself), Mehlis provided the ‘irrefutable proof’ of Libya’s guilt that then justified Ronald Reagan’s bombing of Libya.

UN investigative chief into the murder of Rafiq Hariri, Detlev Mehlis, makes a public presentation of his politically-charged findings, implicating the government of Syria, a verdict which also corresponds to US/Israeli designs in the region.  Not surprisingly, the Mehlis Commission has been accused by numerous analysts and investigators as having played the role of a cover-up commission.  This link provides one example of the charges being levied against it.

In the case of the accusations against Syria, Mehlis’s case revolves around a series of questionable phone conversations and intersecting calling card numbers allegedly dialled by the perpetrators. It contains no definitive forensics on the car bomb explosives used. Outside investigators have said it could have been RDX plastique, not TNT as Mehlis suggested in his report. The German Mercedes manufacturers were also perplexed at how Hariri’s vehicle, reinforced by the heaviest steel-titanium alloy, was "melted by the force of the explosion," after-effects usually associated with high density DU munitions. The car bomb vehicle (stolen in Japan and never fully traced) was possibly driven by a suicide bomber, whose identity is still unknown. Mehlis’s report then states: "Another only slightly less likely possibility is that of a remotely controlled device."

Images from the Harari assassination in Beirut, Lebanon, February 14, 2005.

Mehlis conclusions on the case , due on December 15 could justify an attack on Syria, using the Hariri assassination as justification. But from Beirut to Damascus, the "Arab Spring" was a neocon forgery designed to destabilize the Levant and redraw the map of the middle east.

Near the Mohammad Al Amin Mosque of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in Beirut, I interviewed a founder of the Martyrs’ Square tent city and asked about US-Israeli sponsorship of the ‘Independence Intifadah’. Surrounded by red and white Lebanese flags, soldier Michael Sweiden of the Lebanese Forces emphasized he was Christian Lebanese.

"We love Israel", he told me. "Israel helps us. Israel is like our mother."

Years before its role in the so-called "Cedar Revolution" (a moniker coined by US Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, a signatory to the Project for a New American Century), Israel awarded citizenship and grants of up to $10,000 to South Lebanon Army soldiers who collaborated with the Israeli Defense Forces during Lebanon’s civil war. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed, "Senior officials at Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office were in touch with Lebanese leaders even before the current crisis." Backed by American and Israeli neocons, a Christian Lebanese Likud is proxying Israel’s second invasion.

Nagi Najjar and fellow peacenik

One example is the Lebanese Foundation for Peace, a self-styled "Government of Lebanon in Exile in Jerusalem" founded by former Lebanese Forces’ military intelligence officer Nagi Najjar. Najjar, a CIA consultant, testified not so long ago in support of Ariel Sharon’s "complete innocence" in the Sabra and Shatila affair against charges by Human Rights Watch and regional governments. Najjar has also paired with Mossad agent Yossef Bodansky while lobbying the U.S. congress to intervene in Hezbollah-dominated south Lebanon. His NGO, The Lebanese Foundation for Peace, endorsed the AIPAC-sponsored sanctions against Syria, known as the Syria Accountability / Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003. On his LFP website featuring an Israeli flag, Najjar’s "government in exile" issued an official declaration; "We, the people of Free Lebanon, thank Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom for the campaign launched by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Afffairs aimed at ousting Syria from occupying Lebanon."

USCFL logo

Another NGO of the Lebanese Likud is the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon. Its President, Ziad Abdel Nour is the son of wealthy Lebanese Minister of Parliament Khalil Abdel Nour. USCFL partners with designated "democratizers" such as the American Enterprise Institute (created by Lebanese-American William Baroody, Sr.), Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Republican Jewish Coalition, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Middle East Forum, the Hudson Institute and kindred pro-Israel lobbies.

The USCFL hails former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel for signing a peace deal with Israel in 1983. (According to the UAE’s late president Sheik Zayed bin sultan Al Nahyan, Saddam Hussein agreed to leave Iraq before the war in 2003 to halt the invasion. But Amin Gemayel, the mediator between Saddam and the US administration, wrongly informed the US that Hussein had rejected all offers of exile). Abdel Nour’s other links include the World Lebanese Organization, which advocates Israel’s re-occupation of south Lebanon. In 2000, he and neocon Daniel Pipes composed the policy paper "Ending Syria’s Occupation of Lebanon: the US Role" and together co-author the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. The bulletin is a project of the neocon Middle East Forum and is a frequent resource for American intelligence agencies. On November 2, 2005 Abdel Nour updated me on the Syrian crisis by phone.

Schuh: What is the future of Syria, of President Bashar Al Assad’s situation?

Ziad Abdel Nour, Committee for a Free Lebanon

Nour: Both the Syrian and Lebanese regimes will be changed- whether they like it or not- whether it’s going to be a military coup or something else… and we are working on it. We know already exactly who’s going to be the replacements. We’re working on it with the Bush administration. This is a Nazi regime of 30 years, killing ministers, presidents and stuff like that. They must be removed. These guys who came to power, who rule by power, can only be removed by power. This is Machiavelli’s power game. That’s how it is. This is how geopolitics — the war games, power games — work. I know inside out how it works, because I come from a family of politicians for the last 60 years. Look, I have access to the top classified information from the CIA from all over the world. They call me, I advise them. I know exactly what’s going on. And this will happen.


Q: So would they remove the entire Assad family?


A: Why not? Who is Bashar Al Assad?


Q: I didn’t see forensic proof in the Mehlis report that would legally convict Assad of Hariri’s death in a court of law.


A: I don’t give a damn. I don’t give a damn, frankly. This Bashar Al Assad-Emil Lahoud regime is going to go whether it’s true or not. When we went to Iraq whether there were weapons of mass destruction or not, the key is — we won. And Saddam is out! Whatever we want, will happen. Iran? We will not let Iran become a nuclear power. We’ll find a way, we’ll find an excuse- to get rid of Iran. And I don’t care what the excuse is. There is no room for rogue states in the world. Whether we lie about it, or invent something, or we don’t… I don’t care. The end justifies the means. What’s right? Might is right, might is right. That’s it. Might is right.


Q: You sound just like Saddam. Those were his rules too.


A: So Saddam wanted to prove to the whole world he was strong? Well, we’re stronger- he’s out! He’s finished. And Iran’s going to be finished and every single Arab regime that’s like this will be finished. Because there is no room for us capitalists and multinationalists in the world to operate with regimes like this. Its all about money. And power. And wealth… and democracy has to be spread around the world. Those who want to espouse globalization are going to make a lot of money, be happy, their families will be happy. And those who aren’t going to play this game are going to be crushed, whether they like it or not! This is how we rule. And this is how it’s going to be as long as you have people who think like me.


Q: When will this regime change take place?


A: Within 6 months, in both Lebanon and Syria.


Q: Some names of replacements?


A: It is classified. There are going to be replacements and we know who they are, but I cannot mention the names.


Q: Will this be done peacefully?


A: It doesn’t matter. The end justifies the means. I don’t care about how it’s done. The important thing is that it is done. I don’t rule out force. I’m not against force. If it’s an option, it will be an option.


Q: But if it’s just trading Syrian control for American or Israeli control?


A: I have — we have — absolutely no problem with heavy US involvement in Lebanon. On an economic level, military level, political level, security level… whatever it is. Israel is the 51st state of the United States. Let Lebanon be the 52nd state. And if the Arabs don’t like it, tough luck.

Formalized by the newly-created League of Nations, the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon was established after WW1, which then granted France control over a huge chunk of the defeated Ottoman Empire.  Both Syria and Lebanon gained independence in 1943.

President Camille Chamoun

US-Israeli intervention in Lebanon has a long history. In 1950′s Beirut, The U.S. oil companies and the CIA paid bribes to Maronite Catholic President Camille Chamoun to buy allegiance against Lebanese Muslims, and the pan-Arab threat of Nasser. In his book Ropes of Sand, CIA case officer William Crane Eveland revealed, "Throughout the elections, I traveled regularly to the presidential palace with a briefcase full of Lebanese pounds, then returned late at night to the embassy with an empty twin case" to be refilled again with more CIA funds. Journalist Said Aburish recalled, "The convergence of interest between the Camille Chamoun government and CIA agents produced a bizarre atmosphere which altered Beirut’s character. It became a CIA city…" frequented by such covert operatives as Kermit Roosevelt (who organized the Iranian coup against Mohammed Mossadeq). Soon the Israelis joined in, supplying weapons to Chamoun’s son Dany, an arms trader. Dany’s weapons sales to Maronite gangs created a precedent for the country’s civil war militias. ( See Aburish’s A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite, 1997)

Michel Aoun

A more recent US-Israeli role commenced in mid-November, 2004. A demonstration was called by former Christian General Michel Aoun. (Aoun testified to the US Congress in 2003, and Congress favors him as a post-Assad Lebanese president). US diplomats coached a vanguard of unwitting Lebanese youth in CIA "Triple U" techniques (uncontrollable urban unrest). Opposition sources revealed that a downtown rally of 3000 mostly Christian student activists protesting "Syrians Out!" had been organized by the US Embassy in Beirut. The Associated Press reported on November 19, 2004, "One demonstrator appealed to the US president, holding a placard that read: ‘Bush help us save Lebanon.’ Another dressed up as Osama bin Laden but with the words "Syrian Terror" on his chest. He held a toy gun to the head of a protester who was wrapped in the Lebanese flag…"

Rehearsal for the so-called Cedar Revolution began November 19th, 2004.

Lebanese riot police allowed this unprecedented pre-Cedar rehearsal without arrests because of a deal worked out beforehand with US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman. Feltman, closely linked to Ariel Sharon and Karl Rove, is an associate of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans that created the false evidence and "mushroom cloud" intelligence used to justify attacks on Iraq. This 2004 rehearsal demonstration was answered by a counter protest of 300,000 on November 30 against UN Resolution 1559.

Former US Ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman, has since been promoted to the post of the United States Special Envoy to the Transitional National Council of Libya, the NATO-installed puppet regime.

When the stage show opened for real after Rafiq Hariri’s death, America’s Wag the Flag performance was camera-ready. Janes.com exposed that the flashy demonstrations and rallies were being engineered by one of Lebanon’s top advertising agencies and the London-based Saatchi & Saatchi. Michael Nakfour of the corporate events management company, Independence 05 – Civil Society, helped manage the Freedom Square tent city by distributing food, flags, supplies and theatrical effects, prompting American Enterprise Institute scholar Hedieh Mirahmadi to marvel; "Who would imagine one could find posters, in downtown Beirut, with the picture of President Bush in between American and Lebanese flags?" (NY Sun, 3/18/05)

Reporter Mary Wakefield, of The Spectator was also surprised. "Only 1,000 or so people? ..it felt less like a national protest than a pop concert. Bouncers in black bomber jackets wore laminated Independence ’05 cards round their necks, screens to the left and right of the platform reflected the crowd… To the left of the main speaker, a man in a black flying suit with blonde highlights, mirrored Oakley sunglasses and an earpiece seemed to be conducting the crowd. Sometimes he’d wave his arms to increase the shouting, sometimes, with a gesture he’d silence them… ‘Out Syria! Out Syria! Out Syria!’ Production assistants with clipboards busied themselves around trucks full of monitors and amplifiers…. The truth is that the Cedar Revolution has been presented and planned in just the same way as Ukraine’s Orange revolution and, before it, the Rose revolution in Georgia. But just because it is in American interests doesn’t mean it’s an American production." ("A Revolution Made for TV" 3/12/05)

Why not? The New York Post: "US intelligence sources told The Post that the CIA and European intelligence services are quietly giving money and logistical support to organizers of the anti-Syrian protests to ramp up pressure on Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to completely quit Lebanon. Sources said the secret program is similar to previous support of pro-democracy movements in Georgia and Ukraine, which also led to peaceful demonstrations." (3/8/05).

On the streets of Beirut, one ‘grassroots’ project, "Pulse of Freedom," inadvertently exposed its U.S. origins by utilizing uniquely American street theater tactics. Then in a slip, reminiscent of Baghdad’s Firdos Square when US troops covered Saddam’s statue with the Stars and Stripes, or when the Republic of Georgia’s military band played the US national anthem instead of its own during the Rose Revolution, "Pulse of Freedom" portrayed Lebanon’s national Monument of Sovereignty as the Statue of Liberty.

Spirit of America, the NGO that created "Pulse of Freedom" provided protesters with a billboard-sized electronic ‘Freedom Clock’ for ‘Freedom Square’ to "countdown to freedom." Spirit of America’s tax deductible donations helped maintain the tent city’s food, shelter and other basic necessities "so that the demonstrators can keep pressure on for political change and world attention on the struggle for Lebanese independence". Spirit of America also spawned a plethora of revolution bloggers, foremost among them Tech Central Station columnist Michael Totten whose boss was Spirit of America’s founder Jim Hake.

As illustrated by the images above, Lebanon's so-called Cedar Revolution was an expensive, highly-professional production.

A registered charity, Spirit of America exemplifies the regime change industry. Advised by US Ambassador Mark Palmer, Vice Chairman of the Board of Freedom House, and co-founder of the National Endowment for Democracy, Palmer served as speech-writer to three US Presidents and six Secretaries of State. He also helped the US government destabilize Slobodan Milosevic and Muammar Qaddafi. Capitalizing on his color revolution skills, Palmer wrote "Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators Without Firing a Shot."

One of the American experts behind the Cedar Revolution regime change psy-op is Mr. Bow Tie (above), Mark Palmer, co-founder of the National Endowment for Democracy.  Although he's normally kept far away from the publicity lights, Palmer is an apt symbol of the reality behind American-style Democracy Promotion: the kind of man that most mothers would keep their kids away from.

"Revolutionary" Mike DeLong

Another Spirit of America governor is Lt General Mike DeLong, Deputy Commander, US Central Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. DeLong manages a budget of $8.2 billion and "conceived and implemented the Global War on Terrorism, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom." As top Deputy to former General Tommy Franks, DeLong’s listed expertise at places such as the Army War College, the Department of Defense and the Amphibious Warfare School included Artillery, military intelligence, coup détats, supporting democracy. DeLong in his autobiography Inside Centcom alleged "Syria had been shipping military supplies, including night vision goggles to Iraq." The New York Times and Washington Post later revealed that these data had been fabricated "smoking gun" evidence. Charles Duelfer of the UN Iraq Survey Group also confirmed that WMD charges had been "exaggerated" by now-US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, when he was Under-Secretary for Arms Control in 2002.

Lebanese history professor Habib Malik, affiliated with the Middle East Forum, defended the anti-Syria protesters to journalist-in-residence Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies as being "utterly spontaneous and coercion-free." (NY Sun, 3/11/05)

But an American Hezbollah expert in Beirut, Dr. Judith Harik, informed this writer that the pro-Syria crowds were misrepresented in the media. "As you are hearing, the Bush administration is labeling the opposition "the people" and everyone else as Hezbollah terrorists. Tomorrow’s [March 8, 2005] demonstration will include Sunnis, Druze of the Arslan faction, Christians of all the leftist nationalist parties and the entire south and Bekaa, along with Orthodox Christian areas of Mt. Lebanon. Again the Bush administration is misleading the public by ‘mistakenly’ lauding a loud minority that supports its middle east policy."

Each side eventually held a mass demonstration numbered in the hundreds of thousands, prompting a truce. But the US-Israeli machine declared war. Using language formerly reserved for Yasser Arafat, Bush parroted Ariel Sharon. "Syria is an obstacle to peace" and an "obstacle to change". Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) advised, "Syria — put two nukes on ‘em"; Jerusalem Post: "Israel hails Bush’s Islamist attacks"; Jewish Forward; "US promises Israel to tackle Hezbollah."

A deck of ‘Most Wanted’ playing cards appeared, a technique used by the Israeli newspaper Maariv to target Palestinians, and later used against the Iraqi Baath Party. Likud MK Yuval Steinetz, head of the Knesset’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee crystallized the priorities: "It’s a clear Israeli interest to end the Assad dynasty and replace Bashar Assad." Evoking the "absurd Arabs with their Arab conspiracy theories" slur, Geostrategy-Direct headlined: "Is Bashar Assad paranoid or is the US really plotting to undermine him?"

When Israel’s commandeering of US middle east policy became too overt, defter tongues moved to quell the uproar. "Bush Administration Advises Israel to be Quiet on Lebanese Politics," said the New York Times. It wasn’t the first reprimand to Israel by some of its own. In November, 2003 Israel’s former head of military intelligence, Major-General Shlomo Gazit publicly warned Sharon against threatening Syria and the Israeli "jab, jab policy orchestrated to incite and humiliate Damascus. It is only going to be a matter of time until the Syrians are unable to hold back and then the big blaze will begin." But that was Sharon’s intent and he spoke of Iraq as a justification to attack Hezbollah; "it will give us a great pretext. But we’ll hit them in any case." (Daily Times, 3/4/03)

The Jerusalem Post wrote; "Rumsfeld considers striking Hizbullah to provoke Syria," and the Pentagon assessed that "the time is coming to oust Assad and the ruling generals by targeting Syria via Lebanon…" Former National Security Council/CIA analyst Flynt Leverett confirmed Rumsfeld’s belief that by instigating the right crisis in Lebanon, regime change could be executed in Syria. One Rumsfeld project, P20G, or the Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group, existed specifically to provoke terrorist attacks that would then justify "counter-attacks". Neocons such as Douglas Feith and David Wurmser envisioned this graduated destablization as the "constructive instability" of "total war".

Rumsfeld’s team had already begun discussions with Israeli intelligence about assassinating Lebanese officials — particularly "Hezbollah and their supporters" in 2002, and intelligence operatives were dispatched to Lebanon. (This writer was introduced to at least one Israeli ‘student’ studying Arabic at AUB in Beirut. He traveled with an American passport, coming to Lebanon "to study ‘the enemy’ to find out how they think.") The Sunday Times (6/5/05) revealed that Mossad had been using Trojan Horse email surveillance on President Assad’s wife Asma, labeling her family correspondence a "legitimate soft target".

By January 2005, the Pentagon were preparing for military operations in Lebanon to destroy "insurgency strongholds along the Lebanese-Syrian border". Simultaneously, Israeli approval for a military operation in Lebanon was given after Hezbollah killed an IDF officer. Political-security cabinet members comprised of PM Sharon, Deputy PM Ehud Olmert, Vice Premier Shimon Peres, and FM Silvan Shalom had authorized the action. (Haaretz, 5/3/05). But then Rafiq Hariri was killed, and the door to Syria swung open.

Syria may become America’s 53rd state, if Farid Ghadry’s NGO, the Reform Party of Syria rushes through that opened door. Ghadry is a Syrian Christian who worked for EG & G, a Department of Defense contractor. EG & G assisted in the development and testing of nuclear weapons and in many of the US military’s top secret atomic projects. Ghadry’s Reform Party coordinates with the Syrian National Council, and transmits Radio Free Syria from Cyprus and Germany to destabilize Syria. The CIA and Mossad have long used Kurds to target nations in the region. Journalist Jack Anderson wrote in 1972 about Israeli envoys delivering $50,000 a month to Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani to destabilize Iraq.

Farid Ghadry, man of many loyalties

In March 2004, this writer was approached in Damascus by Kurds from Qamishli and Hasaka (one whose brother was arrested in the riots) wanting to "thank Bush for helping us get rid of Assad". News accounts later verified that the chaos up north had been orchestrated by the US and Israel, using Turkish and Iraqi Kurds. ‘Protesters’ at the height of the melee even waved posters of President Bush and American flags. The ringleaders were sponsored by the Department of Defense and the US State Department. "Let the Damascus spring flower, and let its flowers bloom," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. So sprouted another color catastrophe — Syria’s "Jasmine Revolution".

Reform Party of Syria’s Farid Ghadry has been a featured speaker at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and is himself a member of AIPAC. When repeated calls to his organization went unanswered, I visited the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the RFP. Reform Party of Syria is the office of "super-Zionist" lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Middle Gate Ventures, Abramoff’s ‘political advisory company’ partners with RFP. Abramoff is a top Beltway lobbyist now under intensive FBI investigation concerning, among other things, his proposed $9 million fee to get Gabon’s president an Oval Office session with Bush.

Super-Zionist, swindler, propagandist: Jack Abramoff

As a College Republican in the 1980s, Abramoff founded the International Freedom Foundation, a project linked to the South African Defence Forces. The International Freedom Foundation was the PR branch of sister NGO Strategic Communications, a covert organization charged by former spy Craig Williamson in the Weekly Mail and Guardian for 2/24/95 with being involved with frame-ups, extreme violence and dirty tricks campaigns.

According to the Weekly Standard (12/20/04), one Abramoff venture was his organization of a 1985 global "summit" of underworld thugs. With Citizens for America sponsorship, Contra leaders, guerilla rebels and right wing ‘freedom fighters’ from around the world convened in the African hinterlands to strategize. During this period, Abramoff’s membership/financial transactions with the secretive Council for National Policy, which included Oliver North and Richard Secord, became a template for how to mask money that still remains partially hidden. (Nizkor Project)

Recently Abramoff’s interventionism has focused on the Middle East. Tomflocco.com reveals that Abramoff’s long-time employer, Greenberg Traurig, partially financed a Homeland Security Government Contract Team trip to Israel for the US House/Senate Armed Services Committee and defense contractor CACI (accused of Abu Ghraib torture). The delegation reviewed IDF "resistance to interrogation techniques" used in Palestine, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. The Lebanon Daily Star reported that the group visited Beit Horon "the central training camp for the anti-terrorist forces of the Israeli police and border police" and were able to "witness exercises related to anti-terror warfare." Legislators’ names were not disclosed.

Abramoff also works with the World Zionist Organization and the Christian Coalition to bankroll illegal Israeli settlement activities. According to Israeli prosecutor Talia Sasson they are part of a larger international problem. Some $60 billion worldwide has been illicitly funnelled to Israeli settlements via different foreign donors, quasi-NGOs and secret military accounts.

Abramoff a Syrian freedom fighter?

In one such case, according to Senate testimony and news reports in Newsweek and The New Republic, an Abramoff charity, Capital Athletic Fund, underwrote sniper scopes, camouflage suits, thermal imagers, night vision goggles, hydration tactical tubes, shooting mats and other paramilitary equipment through Greenberg Traurig to right wing settler Shmuel Ben-Zvi. Abramoff wanted to help ultraorthodox settlement Beitar Illit "neutralize terrorists" and wrote to Ben-Zvi; "Thanks brother. If only there were another dozen of you the dirty rats would be finished." Apparently angling for cover and a tax deduction, Beitar Illit seminar director Ben-Zvi suggested invoicing the weaponry to the Israeli Defence Forces on ‘Sniper Workshop’ stationery with a sniper logo and letterhead to qualify it as an educational entity. Payments were partially run through "Kollel Ohel Tiferet," an entity not publicly listed or traceable. Beitar Illit Mayor Yitzhak Pindrus claims never to have heard of it. (Newsweek, 5/2/05)

Abramoff dollars may also have found their way to the Israeli Defense Forces’ Lebanon Border Unit, the civilian SF troops that patrol the Israel-Lebanon border. Yaagal, supposedly disbanded after Israel’s 2000 pullout from south Lebanon, still conducts clandestine reconnaissance, plans ambushes and carries out cross-border incursions into Hezbollah-held areas of south Lebanon. As so often with lobbyist Abramoff’s entities, the tools and trails remain murky.

Indicted AIPAC lobbyist Steven Rosen told the New Yorker; "A lobby is like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun." But Abramoff’s own words to Ralph Reed in 1983 are even more apropos; "It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistance" with opponents. "Our job is to remove them permanently." Flowery language for forged freedoms, an "Arab Spring" Machiavelli-style.


TRISH SCHUH writes about Middle East politics. She can be reached at: hsvariety@yahoo.com