Wayne Madsen's Take on the Gemayal Assassination

November 22, 2006 -- On Nov. 10/11/12, WMR reported "Intelligence sources report that the Bush 41 team, still grateful for Syrian President Hafez al Assad's support for Operation Desert Storm, is working to exonerate Bashar Assad, Assad's son, for his government's alleged role in the February 2005 car bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. WMR has previously reported that Hariri's assassination was ordered by neo-cons in Israel and the United States who wanted to implement their "Clean Break" policy in order to drive Syrian occupation troops out of Lebanon and then engineer wars with the Lebanese Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran . . . The detente with Syria and its Lebanese allies is sure to irritate the neo-cons loyal to Vice President Dick Cheney."

What played out yesterday on a Beirut street demonstrates just how irritated the Cheney wing and its neo-con allies in Jerusalem were with the diplomatic moves between the Iraq Study Group and Iran and Syria that led to the restoration of diplomatic relations between Damascus and Baghdad and an invitation by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to attend a summit conference in Tehran.

Just as with other "false flag" assassinations of top Lebanese politicians that were designed to destabilize Lebanon and foment a U.S. (and Israeli) military showdown with Syria and Iran, another anti-Syrian Christian Lebanese politician was assassinated -- this time it was Pierre Gemayel, Lebanon's Industry Minister and the son of Phalangist leader Amine Gemayel, a former President. Gemayel's car was blocked by another vehicle gangland style and he was shot in the head by a professional hit man.

Immediately, neocon politicians and their corporate media mouthpieces began to blame Syria for the assassination, a laughable assertion considering Syria's re-entrance on to the Middle East diplomatic stage courtesy of the Baker-Hamilton group. Saad Hariri, the son of the assassinated Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri who has become a poster boy for the neocons, said, "The Cedar Revolution [i.e., the "Made-in-America" Cedar Revolution] is under attack . . . Today one of our main believers in a free democratic Lebanon has been killed. We believe the hands of Syria are all over the place. The people of Lebanon will not give up on the international tribunal (seeking prosecution of those who killed Hariri). This will make them even more determined. We will bring justice to those who killed Pierre Gemayel."

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni wasted no time in laying blame for the shooting death of Gemayel on Syria's doorstep, "The negative role of Syria in Lebanon is not something new or top secret and only a few weeks ago the international community succeeded in taking Syrian forces and Syria out of Lebanon. But clearly they are trying to be involved even now, but it’s too early to say something more concrete."

Unconfirmed US ambassador to the UN John Bolton also weighed in by pushing for the quick issuance of the UN's pre-conceived conclusions of the Serge Brammertz report -- which is expected to blame Syria for all the Lebanese assassinations and identify Syrian and Lebanese leaders to be indicted by a special tribunal. Bolton said, "This is why we need the tribunal established as soon as possible and why it's correct to expand the mandate of the Serge Brammertz investigation and why the tribunal needs the flexibility (for) the perpetrators of the other political assassinations."

However, as previously reported by WMR, the real perpetrators of the Lebanese assassinations, according to knowledgeable intelligence sources, are the international criminal syndicates that use false flag team of professional assassins, including freelance Syrians, Lebanese, Russian, and Israeli hit men, and weapons smugglers to carry out acts of terrorism. WMR's sources report these teams are associated with the Russian-Israeli Mafia network of notorious weapons smuggler, airline owner, and US defense contractor Viktor Bout.

The real perpetrators of Gemayel's assassination and other Lebanese politicians, as well as Lebanese journalists, are the neocon parallel intelligence operatives who operate out of Vice President Cheney's office and its satellite offices in Jerusalem and Herzliya. They are assisted by the US ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman, who has become a virtual American viceroy lording over the weak Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which had recently come under attack as too weak by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The neocons, worried that the Baker Group was succeeding in bringing Syria (and, by default, Hezbollah) and Iran into the Iraq peace process and that their Lebanese allies were buckling under pressure from Hezbollah, has to act. Therefore a target was needed that would bolster the resolve of Saad Hariri, Walid Jumblatt, Amine Gemayel, and Phalangist leader Samir Geagea. In fact, Geagea eerily seemed to have predicted Gemayel's assassination on Nov. 18 when he told Reuters, "the government now has 17 ministers, if 3 of these ministers were eliminated then the government will automatically fall." Geagea would not say who might assassinate the ministers, but suggested it would be Syria. Geagea was correct about the assassination of a cabinet minister but studiously avoided mentioning the country to the south of Lebanon rather than the country to its east.

Original article posted here.