DISPATCHES FROM MOON OF ALABAMA, BY "B"
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches from Moon of Alabama
Explosion site of Hariri's assassination. Many people also died with him, including his bodyguards.
Judges at a U.N.-backed tribunal said Tuesday there was no evidence the leadership of the Hezbollah militant group and Syria were involved in the 2005 suicide truck bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
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The trial centered on the alleged roles of four Hezbollah members in the suicide truck bombing that killed Hariri and 21 others and wounded 226 people. Prosecutors based their case largely on data from mobile phones allegedly used by the plotters to plan and execute the bombing.Without the phone data there would be no case against the four suspects, [Presiding Judge David] Re said, as he began explaining the complex investigation into the telecom networks prosecutors say the suspects used.
Re said that the telecom evidence in the case was “almost entirely circumstantial.”
Based on that 'almost entirely circumstantial' evidence the tribunal found that only one of the accused, Salim Jamil Ayyash, is guilty of the charges. That person, an alleged Hizbullah member, has vanished years ago.
Hariri's funeral
The reading of the 150 pages summary of the 2.600 pages long judgment is still ongoing. Independent reporter Bel Trew is live tweeting the proceedings.
The outcome is a big nothing burger that will leave the many enemies of Hizbullah unsatisfied. But it also saves Lebanon from more strife.
Nine years ago we predicted that this was likely to be the result of the case. Here is the original piece published on June 30 2011:
The Hariri Indictment
2005: Investigator Says Syria Was Behind Lebanon Assassination
The German prosecutor conducting the United Nations investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon said today that fresh evidence reinforced his earlier judgment that Syria's intelligence services were behind the killing and that Syrian officials were obstructing his investigation.
2009: Four Lebanese generals 'to be handed to UN for Rafik Hariri tribunal'
Four army generals held in Lebanon over the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri could be handed over within weeks to the special tribunal in The Hague that will put them on trial, the court registrar said today.
2011: UN court indicts four Hezbollah members over Hariri car bomb
Lebanon's senior prosecutor has received criminal indictments for four members of the Shia militant group Hezbollah, who are accused of assassinating the country's former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in a car bomb attack six years ago.
Obviously they can't make up their mind on who killed Hariri - Syria, some Lebanese generals, Hizbullah or whoever it will be convenient to indict during the next decade. The purpose of the UN kangaroo (or potato) court is not to find the Hariri murder or to do justice. It is a political instrument in the hands of the USraeli-Saudi alliance.
But let's step back and take today's indictment of Hizbullah members as an opportunity to again look at the person of Rafik Hariri. He was not the "good guy" the "western" media constructed but a neoliberal robber baron who defrauded the people of Lebanon.
From the 2005 BBC economic obituary of Hariri:
Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri used his business empire to rebuild Beirut after years of civil war.
To do it, he deployed his own construction industry fortune, and a huge network of rich and powerful friends.
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He was his country's richest man, reckoned to be worth roughly $4bn (£2.1bn). But it is his corporate brain-child, Solidere, that best illustrates his central role in regenerating Lebanon's economy.Solidere bought up large chunks of central Beirut and turned the business district from a bullet-marked, rubble-strewn mess into a glitzy banking and tourist centre. Mr Hariri was its most influential shareholder.
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As prime minister, Mr Hariri's public works and rebuilding programmes ran up debts that threatened to overwhelm the public finances.The budget deficit climbed to 17% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2002, and debt repayments were costing the government 80% of revenue.
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[F]or many Lebanese, the redevelopment of central Beirut meant dispossession of homes or property without adequate compensation, and the enrichment of Mr Hariri.
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Mr Hariri's vision for wealth creation of Lebanon was definitely of the trickle-down variety. In power, he cut social services, public sector wages and company taxes.
Hariri supporters. Lebanon is split among clans and factions with ironbound loyalties, even to men who are not exactly exemplars of integrity or public service.
While Hariri ruled a law was implemented that essentially dispossessed all the property owners in central Beirut. Their land was put into Solidere, a joint stock company under Hariri's control. Then huge amounts of public money were spent to build the new central Beirut owned by Hariri's Solidere. Additionally to that fraud all the rebuilding was done at much too high costs by Hariri's construction companies. It was a huge racket that made Hariri immensely rich and the Lebanese state very poor.
To indict Hariri and to get the stolen money back to the people of Lebanon and the defrauded property owners of central Beirut would be a worthy court case.
When Hariri got killed there were millions of Lebanese who had good reasons to wish the guy to be dead. Besides them many political entities, including Israel and the U.S., had plausible motives to kill Hariri if only to stick the murder to someone else. The current court case against Hizbullah is nonsense. Hariri's real murderers will likely never be found.
Posted by b on August 18, 2020 at 13:48 UTC | Permalink
Lebanese were given paper in exchange for their property in central Beirut—shares in Solidere. I wonder what that paper is worth today...and whether somebody cashed out just before the currency collapsed and before the explosion in the port.
Posted by: JohnH | Aug 18 2020 14:15 utc | 2
b, correct me if I'm wrong, but in the last few months it appears you are using a ghost writer for some of your articles and not attributing them as being written by someone else? I say this because recently there have been at least two distinct writing styles in your articles - ones such as this one seem to be written by a native English speaker, with certain idiosyncrasies and ways of saying things, and your original articles, which are written in your normal style - short, concise sentences, to the point and brief in nature. No nonsense, no political favouritism, just strict analysis.
Would you please address this and tell me that I'm either flat out wrong, or that the toll of writing an article each day is getting too much, and that you are using a second writer to keep the one article per day thing going. I love your analytical articles, and have donated to you in the past because they are so succinct and to the point with no partisanship. It's beginning to bother me enough that I felt the need to air my thoughts in the comments. Maybe others have noticed the same thing? Truth and trust are the only currencies we have in this dark age. I don't mind if you have additional writers. I do mind if they aren't attributed as such.
Thanks in advance,
Paul 🙂
Posted by: The Q | Aug 18 2020 14:18 utc | 3
B has a strange way to read facts. 5 Hizbollah are accused, 3 are acquitted, 1 is doubtful, one is convicted. Since the majority of are not guilty then you conclude so is the convincted one. That's B mathematics. The rest of the world will conclude that Hisbollah charged "Salim Ayyash", the guilty one, to assassinate Hariri or Salim Ayyash was wandering that day along Hariri passage with 2 or 3 tons of tnt in his pocket, a pure hazard ?
Posted by: murgen23 | Aug 18 2020 14:31 utc | 4
What I get out of this is the Empire's ability to convict whoever it accused is eroding. Ten or fifteen years ago a so called UN trial would convict a piece of stone if the Empire decreed it to be so.
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Aug 18 2020 14:44 utc | 5
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Aug 18 2020 14:44 utc | 5
Correct conclusion. More, it was overreach.
Posted by: Laguerre | Aug 18 2020 15:31 utc | 6
Posted by: murgen23 | Aug 18 2020 14:31 utc | 4
Good to have Israel on hand to correct b's errors. Otherwise we might have foolishly concluded that Hizbullah were innocent (/snark)
Posted by: Laguerre | Aug 18 2020 15:33 utc | 7
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Aug 18 2020 14:44 utc | 5
You assume that you are privy to the "Empire" plans, so you reach these conclusions. You could be honest and review the total bandwidth of facts that you can actually verify yourself in your life. Deduct an order of magnitude if you live in someone's basement. For almost all of us, this bandwidth regarding anything out of our physical sight, to say nothing of geopolitical "facts", is effectively zero. (See "Paul" above and "trust".)
If you wish to stick to your guns regarding "Empire" controlling trans-national institutions, then you need to ask 'what has caused the "Empire" to lose its grip?'. Can you explain this "loss of control" at the peak of power of "Empire"? What other preceding events document this loss of control?
Maybe it is not in the interests of the "Empire" to pin this fully on Hezbollah. Or maybe we are seeing the n-th repeat of an upstart being integrated into the global protection racket.
Regardless, what is an indisputable fact is that a nation's internal affairs are decided by outside entities. And that this state of affairs is not questioned.
I'd say the "Empire" remains fully in control.
Posted by: conspiracy-theorist | Aug 18 2020 15:34 utc | 8
Biswapriya Purkayast@5
Agreed.
This is the second time in the past couple of weeks that US inspired attempts to pin murders on Hizbollah have ended up inconclusively. And that, blaming a man who has not been heard of for years, is putting it mildly.
The other case was in Argentine where Hizbollah was long blamed, by clearly suborned lawyer/warriors, for the bombing of a Jewish Community Centre. In fact it seems clear that fascists in the Argentine military were behind the killings. In view of their record in the long 'dirty war' against socialists this should not have been a surprise. Nor should the Zionist attempts to deflect the blame from real anti-semites and friends of Israel, to Hizbollah.
Attempts to blame the Resistance for the explosions in Beirut have a long pedigree.
Hariri's death was used as a cue for the "colour" Cedar Revolution which was the first shot in the long campaign to isolate and break up Syria. It was followed in 2006 by Israel's war against Lebanon and defeat by the Resistance, which later played, and plays, a key part in the defence of Damascus and the reconquest of regions occupied by NATO and its terrorist surrogates.
Finally, warren schaich@1, could you walk us through the planning behind the pandemic? Where did it take place? Who did it involve? And if they were governments, why did they fall out so quickly and blame each other? On second thoughts-don't bother.
Posted by: bevin | Aug 18 2020 15:35 utc | 9
MoA: He was not the "good guy" the "western" media constructed but a neoliberal robber baron who defrauded the people
I see a contradiction here. What is a "a neoliberal robber baron" if not one of the short list of types of good guys?
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Aug 18 2020 15:35 utc | 10
Lebanese were given paper in exchange for their property in central Beirut—shares in Solidere. I wonder what that paper is worth today...
Posted by: JohnH | Aug 18 2020 14:15 utc | 2
I think a lot has changed since those long ago days in the early 1990s. I doubt if the situation has remained the same. People move on.
Posted by: Laguerre | Aug 18 2020 15:37 utc | 11
Nasrallah revealed that Israel was involved when he showed the hacked drone footage of the road route that Harriri travelled on.
Posted by: Prof K | Aug 18 2020 15:39 utc | 12
His son gained the most for starters. Will he own the port in ten years? Toronto Nat'l Post Financial Post (printed edition) referred to a meeting with Palestinian Auth. for financing being killed too. CBC National report by N. McDonald got info from Israel telecom that found Hez cell phones in the area. The story goes on how this Hezb crew were detectives following a sapper group, but they set up the assassination as a side hobby in spare moments. I'd wish for better developed lies. Post-byzantine politics.
Posted by: failure o'imaginatio | Aug 18 2020 15:40 utc | 13
Interesting stuff. So in another words - case closed but unsolved, perhaps willingly unsolved; no Hezbollah, no Syria... just one middling missing guy against the world. Hilarious. This verdict is one step above throwing the whole case out for lack of evidence. No one killed Hariri. It was an act of God.
Posted by: gottlieb | Aug 18 2020 15:41 utc | 14
The empire's "loss of grip" is due to economic decline. It is an inescapable feature of capitalism that when markets saturate then competition will drive profits to 0%. This is being masked by the empire running its fiat currency printing press at full speed, but in real terms profits have tanked and capital ownership is concentrating to ridiculous extremes.
The empire's "grip" is and has always been purely economic. Military dominance is entirely a secondary effect.
Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 18 2020 15:46 utc | 15
warren schaich | 13:53 | 1
I and certainly many others would be glad if you would keep your not supported by any arguments opinion on the covering of the Corona pandemic by B, to yourself. B's contributions are important, fact based as usual and therefore valuable.
Posted by: pnyx | Aug 18 2020 15:48 utc | 17
Still looks bad for Hezbollah
If Salim Jamil Ayyash is guilty and a member of Hezbollah it is extremely hard to believe that he would assassinate such a high ranking person on his own. Wouldn't Nasrallah be totally pissed off with someone in his organization going all Mad Dog Mattis without telling him or someone a Hez. officer?
How plausible is it that Ayyash is not actually a member of Hezbollah? The AP article mentioned 'Hezbollah' in every other word and quoted Nasrallah saying that he was not going to hand anyone over. This implies that he is protecting him.
BTW here is a link to the court decision rather than the AP story.
https://www.stl-tsl.org/crs/assets/Uploads/20200818-F3840-PUBLIC-Summary-of-Judgment-FILED-EN-FINAL.pdf
Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Aug 18 2020 15:56 utc | 18
False accusations against Hezbollah
bevin @9, I agree that the guilt for the bombing of the Jewish Community Center, a long held article of faith, is now in serious doubt.
1. The Ammonia Nitrate stockpile in London is also a myth. I tried tracking down that story and I eventually got to ... 'an arrest of a 39 yr old mand was made who was later released'. Say what??? If this was a terrorist bomb factory then wouldn't he have been thrown in jail or used to get others thrown in jail? Ironically, the story in 'the Telegraph' was peppered with innuendos. Just google it and see for yourself, too depressing too bother saving the link.
2. The only terrorist incident that I can still reasonably see pinning on Hezbollah is the bombing of the Israeli bus in Bulgaria but I have not taken a second look at that one yet. Is this yet another house of cards story?
Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Aug 18 2020 16:05 utc | 19
The attitude displayed towards todays judgement of an international court is very depressing and worrying. The cynical attitudes, including b's, is an abdication of everyone's obligation to inform themselves properly, take time to understand the issue at hand (any and every issue) and control the urge to just splash an opinion, however unsubstantiated.
I worked in a UN court and know first-hand the extreme professionalism, dedication and enormous difficulties of international investigations and prosecutions. Sure, there are attempts of states, in particular the usual ones, to influence the process, but it doesn't work. It only hinders and delays. It has, however, become the standard "analysis", that whatever the outcome of an iternational criminal trial, it must be an expression of the will of the powerful. Maybe in your home country, or in your municipality, but not at the international level, despite some let downs by some unethical judges.
The Court said today that one man is guilty, for three the evidence was insufficient; Hissbolah leadership not involved and no evidence of Syria involvement.
Instead of taking that as what it is - the outcome of a trial process based on evidence, and reading the judgement to form an opinion about the evidence, the reasoning of the Chamber and its decision, all is dismissed out of hand based on ignorance, biases, arrogance and sheer laziness (of the spirit).
Those who genuinely want a better world, one of community, fraternity, cooperation, fairness, eqaulity and justice, a world which understands that truht is its most important foundation, and a world without impunity, in particular for the most powerful, would not, and should not be cynical towards the nascent international criminal courts, one of the most important developments in the history of humanity. The courts should be under informed critical scrutiny, but they should be supported because they serve our basic need for truth and justice. Otherwise the powerful will (try to0 crush them. That will be in line with what is being written here. Is that what is wanted?
Posted by: JB | Aug 18 2020 16:07 utc | 20
JB @20
Are you suggesting that a UN court would be immune from the kind of corruption that has rendered the OPCW worthless? What mechanisms would such a court have to prevent this kind of corruption?
Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 18 2020 16:15 utc | 21
Thanks b for shining a light in a different direction that has more relevance... i share @5 Biswapriya Purkayast viewpoint...
@ 20 JB... please do answer @ 21 wg's question.. thanks....
Posted by: james | Aug 18 2020 16:23 utc | 22
JB @20, I'm taking the decision at face value. That one of the four defendants is guilty. I scanned the 150 page 'summary' and sure, they tried to be thorough.
Applying 'court of public opinion logic', I'd say that if the guilty party was really a member of Hezbollah then I find it inconceivable that he would kill a former Prime Minister of Lebanon without telling Nasrallah or some other high ranking member of Hezbollah even if the court did not find any such evidence of a conspiracy.
I have nothing against Hezbollah, that is just the way I see it. I kind of insult people for not being honest (other websites), so should try to be honest rather than project my views.
Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Aug 18 2020 16:27 utc | 23
Looks like all the "circumstantial evidences" against Ayyash relies on the expertise of a certain john edward phillips. The phones were not contracted out by the accused and their usage attribution is "proved" by cell-proximity analysis by this guy. Who is he?
Posted by: ATH | Aug 18 2020 16:31 utc | 24
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"b" is Moon of Alabama's founding (and chief) editor. This site's purpose is to discuss politics, economics, philosophy and blogger Billmon's Whiskey Bar writings. Moon Of Alabama was opened as an independent, open forum for members of the Whiskey Bar community. Bernhard )"b") started and still runs the site. Once in a while you will also find posts and art from regular commentators. You can reach the current administrator of this site by emailing Bernhard at MoonofA@aol.com. 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
I can once again read your good research and conclusions now that you are skipping the plandemic nonsense.
Posted by: warren schaich | Aug 18 2020 13:53 utc | 1