More Buzz
Really, the plots sicken, as the proffered options become denser and more opaque. Should that be thicken? Well, that too. Well, which is it to be? Intrigues, there's nothing like them for speculative theorizing about what might be conceivable and what might be practical, and what might actually have occurred. Anything is possible in the witches-brew cauldron of Middle East politics.What does the U.S. director of National Intelligence know that Israel, for example, doesn't? Or was he fed his information by Israeli intelligence agents? Or agents provocateurs from within Arab countries? Who may or may not know anything, but themselves speculate endlessly? It's an impressive sport - mind-gaming - in the geography; alongside the blood-sports of tribal vengeance and internecine suspicion.
Mike McConnell has expressed his considered opinion, as director of U.S. National Intelligence that the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh may simply have been a matter of internal dissent; alternately, that Syria had taken it upon itself to rid itself of his presence in the most conclusive way possible. The whys and wherefores are imponderables, quite in line with anything happening in that mad-Hatter's paradise of intrigue.
"There's some evidence that it may have been internal Hezbollah. It may have been Syria. We don't know yet, and we're trying to sort that out" according to Mr. McConnell. But Israel is always there, conveniently placed for blame. And the country is braced for retaliation - for something it may - or may not - have done. Mind, given the country's losses, alongside those of other countries' civilian and military nationals, completely justified if ridding oneself of deadly enemies constitutes needful self-defense.
Certainly Israel is playing it awfully close to her chest if she wasn't involved in the Damascus explosion. Defence Minister Ehud Barak going so far as to warn that Iran and Syria may be propelling their terror proxy Hezbollah toward targeting Jews outside Israel, during a cabinet session. Yet with Mughniyeh evaporated into eternity who will now engineer an exquisitely-planned and executed hit?
Time out for replacement operations.
But is this superior master-planner replaceable? Ask Muqtada Al-Sadr who has declared a mourning period for this star performer. Whose expertise was invaluable in training hundreds of the Mahdi Army personnel, aiding and assisting them in planning and carrying out assassinations within Iraq.
And then how about the report in the Kuwaiti newspaper Awan, claiming a knowledgeable source has informed them that Imad Mughniyeh's death was accidental, that he was engaged in preparing a car bomb which providentially exploded, preventing him and his cohorts from providing deadly fireworks at a rally in Lebanon marking the third anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri.
Little wonder, if true, that Hezbollah is bellicose and tearing its proverbial hair in grief. And desperately trying to save face. And desperate to have the world believe they're not as clumsy as all that, and it's all the result of a Zionist plot.
Fact is, that's what the Arab world would prefer to believe, for it's imaginatively palatable, giving fresh impetus to the hatred directed toward Israel. So eloquently expressed by so many. As, for example, the inspired venom of a Turkish columnist, writing: "Some shahids have their names written in history." The loving term "shahid" expressing the state of honoured martyr for the cause.
"They deserve this honour for being milestones in Islam's struggle and for being the torches shedding light on the path to victory. Imad Mugniyeh, an important military commander of Hezbollah that defeated the army of the Zionist terrorists, has joined the long list of such shahids. This murder documents once again that the occupier Zionist state is a terrorist state."
Perspective is perception. Hated is divine. Revenge is Allah's.
Labels: Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Monday, February 18, 2008
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