Lebanon, a Nation Destroyed

"We have nothing in the port: not an arms depot, nor a missile depot nor missiles, nor rifles, nor bombs, nor bullets, nor nitrate."                                                          Hassan Nasrallah, head, Hezbollah

"We will hang the gallows."                                                                                    "We are anticipating tens of thousands of people to protest in Beirut and other cities in Lebanon on Saturday."                                                                             "We are likely to see a return to the earliest days of the protest movement that began in October. But the anger and devastation wrought by the explosion coupled with the sharp decline in quality of life -- means that the upcoming period is likely to be more violent than before."                                                                                                 Joel Gulhane, analyst, Risk Advisory Group, United Kingdom

"It is a complete disaster."                                                                                     "We are working without water, without electricity -- we have a corrupt government. Now with what happened, I don't believe we can do anything anymore."             "How do we fix the elevators, water supply, electricity?"                                              "[Our family home and business look like] an atomic bomb has gone off."              "If you want to buy aluminum, you want to buy glass, you want to buy paint, you want to buy anything -- you need fresh money ... If you go to the bank, they cannot give it to you."                                                                                                            "I don't think we'll get anything from the government, all we can hope for is money from the international community."                                                                                Yusef Karam, Beirut resident, 230 metres from the blast site

"Lebanon barely produces any glass, so how do we rebuild any of this?"            "I've owned this pharmacy for 35 years, I lived through the war. I have never seen such a moment. Within ten seconds, I lost everything."                                           Paul, pharmacy owner, Gemmayzeh area, Beirut

French President Emmanuel Macron (L) walks with Lebanese President Michel Aoun upon his arrival at Beirut airport, on August 6, 2020 two days after a massive explosion devastated the Lebanese capital in a disaster that has sparked grief and fury. French President Emmanuel Macron visited shell-shocked Beirut on August 6, pledging support and urging change after a massive explosion devastated the Lebanese capital in a disaster that left 300,000 people homeless. Thibault Camus / POOL / AFP

Hundreds of thousands of residents of Beirut struggle with thoughts of the future, unable to visualize how they will ever be able to restart their lives after a catastrophic blast that destroyed Beirut's port, surrounding buildings and thousands of homes, leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless. An estimated 150 people died in the explosions, which left 5,000 people injured, flooding Beirut's already stressed and overcrowded hospitals at a time when they were coping with COVID-19 admissions.

A country already struggling with a severely depressed economy, begging for loans to keep itself afloat, where a massive unemployment figure reflects the fallout of the global pandemic lockdown hitting an already depressed financial situation, where banks will not release funds to people desperate for cash. The blast that destroyed the warehouse carrying the incendiary ammonium nitrate, all 2,750 tons of it, is considered to have been ignited by fireworks that began a fire in the warehouse they were stored in, where a welder is held to have sparked the initial reaction.

The giant silo next to the warehouses which stored 80 percent of the nation of 6 million's wheat storage means a desperate shortage of food, with its destruction. Rescue teams searching for survivors have discovered a tunnel and underground rooms beneath the destroyed port. Which certainly sounds consistent with the terror group Hezbollah importing/smuggling/receiving munitions shipped through the port and stored subterraneously. Those aware of insider information speak of Hezbollah control of the port.

Certainly, port authorities who had attempted over the six years of the incendiary chemicals' storage to convey to the ruling elite the dangers inherent in storing the ammonium nitrate among a large civilian population, and they were desperate to have the material removed, but their pleas went nowhere. Even so, government authorities claim to have had no knowledge that the material was even stored at the port. Someone authorized their retention and storage from an impounded and finally owner-abandoned vessel.

'There was blood everywhere': Lebanese doctor on trying to save victims amid pandemic

Lebanese have been through decades of war and insecurity, sectarian and tribal suspicion and violence.  Moored in a period of financial strain, coping with a global pandemic, stress between Hezbollah and those who wish them gone, resentment at the manipulative influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, hosting a million Syrian refugees fleeing their government's lethal violence against its rebellious citizens, the people of Lebanon hardly expected that things could get any worse.

Now they're adamant; they want the entire government to resign. This is not a new demand by any means; it began in the third quarter of 2019, and continues, strengthened to the present day, hugely exacerbated by the destructive blast that levelled a third of the city. Searching desperately for someone to blame, President Michel Aoun suggested a missile aimed at the port by a foreign enemy source would have been the catalyst of the two explosions.

He will not agree to an international investigation, insisting the blast could have been caused by "negligence or foreign interference through a missile or bomb", leaving one thinking 'now who could that foreign interference conceivably be?', the question speedily answering itself. When all else fails, place the blame on the Jewish state. That experts have swiftly discounted such a theory in pointing to a fire burning at the port warehouse initiating the explosion, that too is rejected. 

Many foreign countries have offered assistance, ranging from search and rescue special units, to medical professionals to aid in dealing with the crisis, and the government of Lebanon simply has no interest in these offers stating baldly that it will accept cash in aid, keep the rest away. Lebanese leaders quite simply refuse to take any responsibility. And for that the Lebanese population is beyond furious, exacerbating an already tense situation.

One member of the Lebanese parliament and one of its ambassadors has chosen to resign, agreeing with those who claim the blast resulted from decades of corruption and mismanagement. According to Tracy Chamoun who served as ambassador to Jordan, the disaster resulted from corrupt political elites in power since the 1975 --1990 civil war. "They all must go. This is total negligence", she fumed. 

A person draped in a Lebanese flag reacts before the ravaged port of Lebanon's capital Beirut on Sunday. International donors pledged $398.7 million Cdn in emergency aid after the capital was rocked by a deadly explosion on Aug. 4. (Patrick Baz/AFP via Getty Images)

Iran's Malevolence 

"These are sleeper cells. They have activities you wouldn't imagine. Sometimes they die having never received the order to attack."
"[Their goal is] to infiltrate the countries of Latin America and install secret intelligence stations with the goal of committing, fomenting and fostering acts of international terrorism."
"Any interpretation of this terrorist attack [Argentinian Israelite Mutual Association, Buenos Aires, July 1994] that ignores this salient characteristic runs the risk of sinning by omission."
"I could come out of this one dead."
Alberto Nisman, Argentine prosecutor, deceased

"With Nisman's suspicious death, a deal with Iran may no longer be necessary to derail the investigation."
Matthew Levitt, author of Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God

"Imagine if the attacks of 9/11 in America or 9/9 in London had been left unsolved for two decades, its perpetrators unidentified, the families of the victims left uncertain, and you have a sense of the moral outrage sweeping Argentina today."
Ben Macintyre, The Times of London

Mr. Nisman was quite correct in his premonition; he did 'come out of this one dead'. His theory that the attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association [AMIA] where 85 people were killed and hundreds injured was the work of Hezbollah, as a proxy of Iran made him a target of many, among them his own government at the very highest level leading to its president, as well as the leaders of the terrorist group Hezbollah and its Iranian Republic mentor.

He was to have brought evidence on Saturday to support his theory, and then later in the week give testimony about that collected evidence purporting to show President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner had arranged with Iran to discontinue the investigation into the 1994 car bombing of the Buenos Aires cultural centre. His accusation was summed up as that of a "criminal decision to fabricate Iran's innocence".

In an arrangement exchanging Argentinian wheat and beef for Iranian oil. This exchange would serve to pave the way for the Kirchner government to absolve the Iranian-directed, Hezbollah-produced attack, thus improving relations between the two countries, to resolve a $7-billion Argentine deficit of energy. Although Mrs. Kirchner's late husband who was president before her characterized the original investigation as a "national disgrace", it would be his wife who consolidated the disgrace.

In 2004, Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, became the first Argentine public figure to sign a petition demanding justice for the victims of the bombing. It took two years after then-President Nestor Kirchner appointed Mr. Nisman to begin a new investigation, for the prosecutor to conclude that Iran and Hezbollah had been behind the attack. Interpol warrants were filed against senior Iranian security figures and members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Sought to account was Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, president of Iran at the time of the atrocity, whom Mr. Nisman held had approved the attack the year previous to it having been carried out. The motive: to terrorize Jews wherever they live, in Iran's war against the State of Israel. The Jewish population of Argentina is the largest in the region, although it has fallen from its 300,000 peak in the 1960s to its current 200,000; third highest in the Americas after the U.S. and Canada.

A ten-man security detail was arranged for Mr. Nisman's protection in view of the danger he had felt he was facing and threats received. Despite that security, he was shot dead in his bathroom. A wound on the right side of his head was deadly, but though government security agencies immediately called it a suicide, there was no gunpowder residue on the dead man's hands. Evidently he had been shot from a six-inch distance, not a suicidal distance.

Initially it was said that the doors had been securely locked from the inside. But a locksmith called to access the apartment discovered the service door to be unlocked. And in a passageway leading to that service door a footprint had been found not yet fully assessed. The passageway connects to a neighbouring apartment. Whose foreign national identity has still not been established.

Mr. Nisman had identified Iran's cultural attache in Buenos Aires, Mohsin Rabbani, during the time of the attack as having been "responsible for coordinating these activities across all of South America". Alluding to unusual movement of Iranian diplomats preceding the AMIA attack. A network supported by Iran is thought to be present across South America, in districts bordering Brazil and Paraguay; with reports that Argentine prison officials have noted Farsi tattoos with Hezbollah imagery on some inmates.

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The journalist who first reported the death of Argentinian special prosecutor Alberto Nisman last Sunday has now fled the country, saying he feared for his life. This is according to reports on Israel’s Ynetnews (English) and Walla (Hebrew) news sites, based on tweets on the online Argentinian Journalists’ Forum.

Dempsey in Israel, Jordan, to tie last ends before Obama decides finally on US military action in Syria

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 13, 2013, 8:44 AM (IDT)

Tags:  Barack Obama,  Syrian war,  US military action,  Gen. Martin Dempsey,  Israel Air Force,  Jordan,

US and Jordanian special forces

Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey arrived in Israel Monday, Aug. 12 for critical talks with Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, followed by parallel talks in Jordan. debkafile reports he has come to lay the ground ahead of President Barack Obama’s final decision to embark on limited US military intervention in the Syria civil war.

The Obama plan, if it goes forward, would involve Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Israel, Jordan and possibly Turkey. debkafile’s Washington and military sources reveal its 11 high points - most of which were first reported exclusively in DEBKA Weekly 598 on Aug. 1:

1. US, British, French, Saudi and United Arab Emirates will establish a no-fly zone over central and southern Syria, stretching from the Jordanian-Israeli borders up to and including Damascus.

2.  The Israeli Air Force will provide these forces with air cover from Syrian air space.

3.  A 40-kilometer deep military buffer zone will be drawn from the Jordanian-Israeli borders up to the southern and western outskirts of Damascus. The military units controlling this zone will hold the entire area of the capital within artillery range.

4.  The southern Syrian town of Deraa, where the Syrian uprising sprang up, will be declared capital of Liberated Syria.

5.   President Obama has determined that there will no American troops in the buffer zone or anywhere else on Syrian soil, only special Syrian rebel forces.

6.  Those forces will consist of 3,000 fighters trained in Jordan by US military instructors. They will be headed by Jordanian special forces and operate under US officers based in Jordan.

7. To host them, the US Army has just finished building in the Hashemite Kingdom a huge training camp and logistical system, debkafile’s military sources report. All the weapons and equipment required to train and arm the rebel force are already stacked there.

8.  The American operational command center for the Syrian operation is already in place in Amman led by US Brig. Gen. John Wright, who at 57 is a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

9.  The US air force units for imposing the no-fly zone over Syria are already in position at Middle East locations and ready to go at 36 hours’ notice.

10.  A Druze unit trained by US military instructors will be a key component of the special rebel force. It was put up by the million-strong community which populates 120 villages and towns in the Jabal al-Druze area of southern Syria. They are situated in a commanding position overlooking the Syrian-Jordanian-Iraqi border triangle.

11. US forces deployed in the Middle East, especially in Jordan and Israel, will stand ready for possible reprisals against American, Israeli, Jordanian or Turkish targets, if ordered by Syrian President Bashar Assad in retaliation for the no-fly and buffer zones.

This is my Pack - many of whom would have been gassed-to-death had they been in a gas chamber using shelter...they are lucky, so many wonderful dogs are not so lucky - so please SPEAK OUT for those who cannot!

Divided and Self Destructive

"If you go to Homs now, you will find that it has become three areas: the Alawi area, the Sunni area and the Christian area.
"The head of the SARC (Syrian Arab Red Cross) branch in the Sunni area was not allowed to serve the Alawite area because they could not go there, and so on."
Dr. Abdul Rahman Attar, head, Syrian Arab Red Crescent

Dr. Abdul Rahman Attar was speaking from the head office of the Canadian Red Cross in Ottawa. The connection between himself, Syria and Canada is that Dr. Attar has dual citizenship. He is a citizen of Canada and has been since 1986, having worked as a Canadian trade officer in Syria in the 1970s.

He is urging Canada, along with the rest of the international community to apply pressure to all those involved in the conflict to respect international humanitarian law.

He would ideally like, in other words, for the West to transform the Middle East from tribal antagonisms, dictatorial regimes and sectarian bitterness -- cultural traditions that have always plagued the geography, to a reflection of the values that obtain outside the Middle East. And that is the game long played by Western powers to little avail.

It is a game, in aid of the proliferation of democracy, that has mired the West and the United States in particular for far too long in Arab/Muslim conflicts. A situation where desperate and oppressed people see immediate salvation in the removal of their tyrants, only to have the iron control of their suppressed society lifted, when the heritage of tribal antipathies spring back to life through mass slaughters.

What is playing out in Syria at the moment is precisely that sinister drama. It has been seen previously in Lebanon, Iraq and in Afghanistan; is plaguing Libya, Pakistan and Tunisia, along with Somalia, Sudan and Mali, and is destined to spread its hateful malevolence where fanatical Islamism is on the rise, and that is throughout the Muslim world.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent finds itself caught between warring factions in a cataclysm of ongoing violence that has claimed over 70,000 Syrian lives and made migrants of four million Syrians desperate to escape the spectre of death. Death strikes them through the auspices of the regime that has for so long oppressed them, and from the disparate militias that now include jihadists.

Safe passage for humanitarian aid workers like the SARC staff anxious to give assistance where it is most needed, is difficult through what are called "hot areas". "It takes us a long time because you cannot enter these areas unless you get permission from both sides. And inside the hot areas, there is more than one faction."

The north of the country is underserved by the SARC, where rebels and their Islamist partners opposed to President Bashar al-Assad's rule have staked their claim to control of the area. "Some people were a bit unhappy with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent because they have been unable to go to the north part of Syria."

And the legend of the SARC being sympathetic to the Alawite regime and working on its behalf arose from that difficulty, according to Dr. Attar. SARC staff, Dr. Attar attested, on the other hand, as a better reflection of reality, are being held in prison - including until recently the head of the agency's first aid response team.

Canada has been offering its financing of humanitarian aid for Syria within the broader international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement. Some of that $48-million does end up supporting the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and its activities. Dr. Attar would like to encourage a re-think of that arrangement. He doesn't feel peace is imminent.

"Last week I heard they have opened up a dialogue. I don't know. We must wait to see what the dialogue brings, but I don't see that", he said. The country has become too sharply divided along religious lines, he believes. As though this is a refreshingly unique and perhaps readily solvable problem that has just recently arisen.

One that the international community must respond to. So that the Arab Middle East can once again clamour their rage that they cannot be left in peace to get on with their destiny as they are meant to do, just like any other ordinary and entitled community of communities.

Sad Truths

"Magda killed her six children in the Fuehurerbunker. Our father loved his half-siblings very much. And when, like me, you have something like this in your family history, you think: It can't be any worse".
Gabriele Quandt
"It's  a sad truth that forced labourers died in Quandt companies".
Stefan Quandt

Six dead children. In the dying days of fascist Germany, Hitler's underground bunker was crowded with his wife, their dog, six children, their mother and step-father, a doctor and perhaps others. It was the children's misfortune that their mother Magda Quandt, in her second marriage gave them Joseph Goebbels as a step-father, though he was a good father to them. Their mother, to prevent her children falling into the hands of the advancing Soviet army, killed them with cyanide.

"My dear son!" she wrote to her son Harold Quandt, then a 23-year-old officer in the German Luftwaffe ... "By now we've been in the Fuehrerbunker for six days already. Daddy, your six little siblings and I, to give our national socialist lives the only possible honorable ending. Harold, dear son, I want to give you what I learned in life: Be loyal! Loyal to yourself, loyal to the people and loyal to your country!"

In 1914, paterfamilias Guenther Quandt, first husband of Magda, invested in wartime profits at the onset of war with his textile factories producing a quadrupled weekly uniform production for the German army. He graduated to producing batteries, sewing machines and silverware. "The Quandts business grew in the Kaiserreich, it grew during the Weimar Republic, it grew during the Second World War and it grew strongly after the war", according to Rudiger Jungluth, author of Die Quandts.

Guenther Quandt took as his second wife Magda Ritschel and their son Harold was born in late 1921. Their marriage lasted until 1929, when they divorced, and two years later Magda married Goebbels and Hitler was best man at their wedding. Guenther Quandt joined the Nazi party when they took power in 1933, and Goebbels became propaganda minister.

The Quandt factories became vital suppliers for the German war effort. They made batteries for U-Boat subs and V-2 rocket launchers and Mauser firearms, ammunition and anti-aircraft missiles. "He was one of the leading industrialists in the Third Reich and the Second World War", explained Professor Joachim Scholtyseck, a Bonn-based professor of history.

Guenther Quandt appropriated assets from Jewish company owners. His son Herbert planned a factory that would make use of slave labour. After his death Guenther's sons took ownership of his business empire. They increased the business stake in Daimler, and saved BMW from collapse as its largest shareholder.

Today the daughters of Harald Quandt ages 61, 60, 58 and 50 have a net worth of $1.2-billion each. Quite the family history; a business empire that grew on war munitions production, that stole Jewish assets, that grew rich on slave labour. A family that lives uneasily with their history of family collaboration with Adolf Hitler and by that connection, the loss of scores of millions of lives, not the least that of 6-million Jews.

German history will always rankle with memory of the Holocaust. This family's connections, and its wealth positively reek with the stench of ill-gotten gains. If there was morality and remorse those riches would be surrendered to charitable enterprises that would attempt to make amends and restore hope in the hearts of the downtrodden, the oppressed, the world's poor.

An investment in medical research, in education. Anything would be better than sitting on that odious wealth.

Syrian Rebels Destroyed Churches, Other Religious Sites

By Jack Phillips
Epoch Times Staff Created: January 23, 2013 Last Updated: January 23, 2013

Related articles: World » Middle East

Syrian rebels inspect a vehicle at a security checkpoint in Jabal al-Akrad region, northeast of Latakia province, on January 22, 2013. (Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images)

Armed rebels in Syria destroyed religious sites in Latakia and Idlib provinces in recent months, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

According to the New York based rights group the rebels destroyed a Shia mosque and looted two Christian churches in November and December last year.

“The destruction of religious sites is furthering sectarian fears and compounding the tragedies of the country, with tens of thousands killed,” stated Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. It is estimated that 60,000 people have been killed in the 22-month-long conflict.

She added, “Syria will lose its rich cultural and religious diversity if armed groups do not respect places of worship. Leaders on both sides should send a message that those who attack these sites will be held accountable.”

In Syria, around three-fourths of the population are Sunni Muslims, while there are notable pockets of Christians, Alawites, and Shia Muslims around the country. Assad’s family, members of his government, and many of the pro-regime militia forces are Alawites, which is an offshoot of Shia Islam.

However, most of the rebel fighters—some of whom came from other countries to fight Assad’s forces—are believed to be Sunni.

In a video that was viewed by Human Rights Watch, an opposition fighter in front of a burning Shia mosque in Zarzour claimed it was part of the “destruction of the dens of the Shias and the Rafida,”a derogatory term used to call Shia adherents.  In the Latakia towns of Ghasaniyeh and Jdeideh, opposition fighters looted two churches “in the name of the opposition,” the organization said.

Human Rights Watch said that while many of the opposition forces have claimed they would protect the interests of members of all religions, they have not addressed attacks against minority places of worship.

“The opposition also has failed to rein in gunmen engaging in looting and other criminal activities, like kidnappings,” the rights group said.

The rights group pointed out that international humanitarian law stipulates that parties involved in an armed conflict should not intentionally attack places of worship that are not being used for military reasons. They cannot loot, destroy, or damage such buildings.

“Deliberate attacks on religious sites that are not military objectives are war crimes,” the group said.
Residents in the towns of Ghasaniyeh and Jdeideh told Human Rights Watch that armed opposition gunmen kidnapped two villagers as well.

The rights group’s latest report is yet another indication that the civil war is becoming ever more sectarian as it almost enters its third year. In December, the U.N. said that rampant rights abuses carried out by rebels and soldiers, are becoming “ever more violent and unpredictable” as well as “overtly sectarian in nature.”

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