Looking under the wrong rock
Michael Totten looks at the murder of a top investigator in Beirut. What was he investigating? Syrian intelligence activity in Lebanon. Totten quotes Abu Kais:
"He worked in the police’s intelligence unit, reportedly in counterterrorism. Terrorism in Lebanon is the nickname for acts sponsored by Syrian intelligence, and their contractors in the fundamentalist world. Wissam was probably involved in Lebanon’s “war on terror”, which, mind you, was never officially declared."
For those at the sharp end, the War on Terror is frighteningly real. I spoke to a cop who said his cell phone text message inbox was so full of death threats it was hard to read them all. You get partly inured to the danger, but never quite get used to it. James Michener described those whose who chose an intimate acquaintance with danger to keep the rest of us ignorant of it in his novel, The Bridges at Toko-ri. "Where do we get such men? They leave this ship and they do their job. Then they must find this speck lost somewhere on the sea. When they find it, they have to land on its pitching deck. Where do we get such men?" That question has been asked through history. But only when it receives no answer do we realize how much we've lost.
4 Comments:
Tit-for-tat is required, but it doesn't seem like there's anyone who can enforce it. I can't see us doing it for them, and they don't seem to have the means themselves.
Michael Totten is one of the best. Where do we find reporters like him?
It sure does look like Syria was instrumental in this murder. I am sure there are people who know who did it.
It would be nice to return the favor but I doubt we have the resources to do so.
Syria is a close ally of the Mullahtocracy in Iran. So how is Iran doing these days?
BANDAR ABBAS, Iran (AP) - Each day, the boulevard in this port city derisively dubbed "OPEC Street" is lined with dozens of vendors selling plastic jugs of black-market gasoline to desperate drivers who haggle over the price of a tankful.
Iran is the world's fourth-largest producer of oil. But its government imposed gasoline rationing last year in hopes of trimming extensive government subsidies. That has created a booming black market across the country - feeding Iranians' discontent with the economic policies of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In the capital Tehran and other cities, the black market thrives around gasoline stations and mostly at night as drivers looking to buy fuel approach others who have high gasoline quotas, such as taxis or vans.
But in this city on the Persian Gulf, the boulevard officially named Pasdaran Avenue after Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards operates as an open-air black market in broad daylight. Its new nickname is meant as a sneer by Iranians, bitter at the irony that their country, a leading member of the world oil cartel OPEC, has resorted to rationing.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080127/D8UEFV9O1.html
At this point we should switch to actively promoting an internal revolution in Iran. If Bush is looking for a legacy, that would be a worthy one: to try to correct some of the disasters from the Carter Administration.
Way off topic but...what's with the 72 virgins anyway? Has anyone ever seen them?
I've been around and I know what their ideal woman looks like. Yuck!
I've got a better offer for them. Don't blow yourself up. Repent, and come visit us in Israel.
Here are 72 of our finest waiting to show you true paradise. No painful suicide required!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH8t9Gz7fgE
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