Reply #1: REALLY REALLY GOOD

[seemslikeadream]

The Syrian hit team was ordered by Assef Shawkat, the number two man in Syrian military intelligence and a good friend and brother in law of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Assad's intelligence services had already cooperated with U.S. intelligence in resorting to unconventional methods to extract information from al Qaeda detainees deported to Syria from the United States and other countries in the wake of 9-11. The order to take out Hobeika was transmitted by Shawkat to Roustom Ghazali, the head of Syrian military intelligence in Beirut. Ghazali arranged for the three remote controlled cars to be parked along Hobeika's route in Hamzieh.

The plan to kill Hobeika had all the necessary caveats and built-in denial mechanisms. If the Syrians were discovered beforehand or afterwards, Karl Rove and his associates in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans would be ensured plausible deniability.

Hobeika's CIA intermediary in Beirut, a man only referred to as "Jason" by Hobeika, was a frequent companion of the Lebanese politician during official and off-duty hours. During Hobeika's election campaigns for his parliamentary seat, Jason was often in Hobeika's office offering support and advice. After Hobeika's assassination, Jason became despondent over the death of his colleague. Eventually, Jason disappeared abruptly from Lebanon and reportedly later emerged in Pakistan.

Karl Rove's involvement in the assassination of Hobeika may not have been the last "hit" he ordered to help out Sharon. In March 2002, a few months after Hobeika's assassination, another Lebanese Christian with knowledge of Sharon's involvement in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres was gunned down along with his wife in Sao Paulo, Brazil. A bullet fired at Michael Nassar's car flattened one of his tires. Nassar pulled into a gasoline station for repairs. A professional assassin, firing a gun with a silencer, shot Nassar and his wife in the head, killing them both instantly. The assailant fled and was never captured. Nassar was also involved with the Phalange militia at Sabra and Shatilla. Nassar was also reportedly willing to testify against Sharon in Belgium and, as a nephew of SLA Commander General Antoine Lahd, may have had important evidence to bolster Hobeika's charge that Sharon ordered SLA forces into the camps to wipe out the Palestinians.

Based on what European intelligence claims is concrete intelligence on Rove's involvement in the assassination of Hobeika, the Bush administration can now add political assassination to its laundry list of other misdeeds, from lying about the reasons to go to war to the torture tactics in violation of the Geneva Conventions that have been employed by the Pentagon and "third country" nationals at prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.


http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/052104Madsen/052104madsen...





If I gave you everything that I owned and asked for nothing in return
Would you do the same for me as I would for you?
Or take me for a ride, and strip me of everything including my pride
But spirit is something that no one destroys
And the sound that I'm hearing is only the sound
The low spark of high-heeled boys

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