Now for something entirely different!

I've been working on a story about the Palestinian refugee population in Lebanon, and a sad and infuriating story it is. I've also been planning to start posting a few things on that same topic - it's always easier to run off at the mouth about whatever you're thinking about anyway than to come up with something entirely different.

But instead it looks like this post is going to be about a mishmash of other things. Most of those other things have to do with the current situation here in Beirut - always a huge pleasure to talk about - and some are related to previous posts in one way or another.

So, diving right in, I'm very proud that this blog managed to scoop Democracy Now! a couple of days ago. Yesterday DN! ran this story, Bandar's Iran/contra, in which Wall Street Journal reporter Adam Entous discussed Saudi Prince Bandar's involvement in raising and training an army to take down the Assad regime in Syria. However, attentive readers of this blog (yes, both of you!) will have noticed that I covered exactly the same story two days earlier. And included some details that the DN! story didn't, such as the fact that Bandar may or may not be actually alive. That might have some bearing on the story!

Well, that last bit came from basic research, I.E., the internet. And the rest of my 'story' wasn't actually mine, either. Rather, it was a translation of a story in the local French-language rag, l'Orient le Jour. Nevertheless, coming in with relevant information - whatever the source - TWO FULL DAYS before Democracy Now! was fun.

Onward and upward. No, downward. There have been developments in the recent car bombings here in Beirut and Tripoli (Lebanon, not Libya). My first tantalizing bit of information came from a fellow service passenger who told me he had heard that Syria - meaning Bashar el Assad's regime - was behind both sets of bombings.

This was questionable. For those who haven't been following daily events here (sounds relaxing!) the first two bombings, several weeks apart, were in the Shia' southern suburbs of Beirut, which is Hezbullah territory. In other words, they appeared to be 'payback' for Hezbullah's support of the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war.

The second set of bombings occured together and targeted two Sunni mosques in Tripoli, killing dozens of people just as Friday prayers were ending. They appeared to be revenge for the Beirut car bombs.

So, it would stand to reason that someone who didn't like the Assad regime would have carried out the first bombings. Leaving the Tripoli bombings as probably carried out by Hezbullah and/or Syria as revenge.

Things in Lebanon are not usually that simple.

Nevertheless, I came away from the service ride with serious doubts. I still have some, but later that day I came across the following headline in l'Orient le Jour:

« Les attentats de la banlieue sud et de Tripoli sont l’œuvre du régime syrien », souligne le 14 Mars

In English: "The attacks in the southern suburbs and in Tripoli were (both) the work of the Syrian regime" emphasizes 14 March.

This requires a little explanation, since, unless you live here '14 March' is meaningless.

The term '14 March' refers to the political coalition which led what Lebanese call the 'Independence Intifada' and Westerners the 'Cedar Revolution'. The Cedar Revolution brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets soon after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri - assumed to be the work of Syria - back in 2005. It was Lebanon's short-lived version of the Arab Spring.

The 14 March coalition was opposed by the 8 March coalition, led by Hezbullah, which brought its supporters into the streets to - quoting from Hassan Nasrallah - 'thank Syria'. He didn't include the assassination in the list of things Syria was being thanked for, but since his speech came just a few weeks after Hariri's murder, the implication was pretty clear.

The 14 Marchers actually succeeded in forcing Syria to withdraw its occupying troops and, at least as importantly, most of its mukhabarat (intelligence services). This was a big deal. The role of Syria in Lebanon is much too big of a topic to go into here. Suffice it to say that the Syrian regime has for decades had ultimate control of most political developments in Lebanon and has used any method at all to enforce that control. Bombings and assassinations have been its preferred method since the 1977 murder of Druze/Socialist leader Kamal Joumblatt. Along with actual invasions when necessary.

Lebanese will tell you that the long-range hopes and goals of 14 March have mostly died the painful death that is the fate of most good ideas in the region. An end to sectarianism, true democratic institutions, good governance and effective control of the entire territory of the nation were among those aims. None seem materially more advanced today than they were in 2005.

Still, getting rid of the Syrians was a huge event, an earthquake in Syrian-Lebanese relations. And the Syrian regime has never forgotten the humiliation for a minute.

So, where was I? Oh yes, 14 March still exists as a loose coalition of parties and movements, and they still meet and operate in concert to some extent. And it was at their most recent meeting that they announced that they had evidence that Syria was behind both sets of bombings. My fellow cab passenger may have been right!

Why would even a guy as clearly mad as Bashar el Assad bomb the neighborhoods of his own allies? Especially in the middle of a brutal war in which that alliance is crucial to his survival?

This is a tricky question, and some light might be shed on it by asking another, related, question: why do Saudi Arabia and Qatar send money and arms to Jihadist rebels in Syria when those same rebels will turn on them immediately if they gain a foothold in the region? One could also ask: why does Iran send money to Hamas in Gaza, when Hamas - as a Sunni organization - is definitely full of people who despise Shia' Islam?

One is tempted to ask why the US essentially created the Afghan mujahideen and al Qa'eda, who very predictably became their worst nightmare. But I'm not asking that question, because I think in this particular case clueless stupidity may be a sufficent answer. Or not, see my earlier posts on the Grand Plot. At any rate, it's worth contemplating the fact that the US engages in this kind of behavior also.

Anyway, helping the enemy of your enemy in this part of the world is a strategy with a long history.* Setting off bombs in your ally's backyard works if it inflames your ally against your enemy. Ironically, it will probably continue to work even after the truth becomes known, because so much blood has now been shed on both sides.

The importance of personal insanity within the leadership can never be discounted, but there are actually advantages for the Syrian regime in fomenting sectarian war in Lebanon. Among them might be, ironically, an important increase in the power and influence of Hezbullah, and thus a back door for a Syrian return to Lebanon.

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Well, enough on that topic for the moment. I have a couple of other items I wanted to mention. They both have to do with the Great Plot, which I wrote about at some length a couple of weeks ago. Recall that this plot is an attempt on the part of the West and Israel to carve the Mideast up into sectarian mini-states, thereby assuring Israel's dominance and Western control of resources.

A couple of days ago I came across this headline in the Daily Star, Beirut's English-language paper:

Rai warns of pro-Israel 'foreign agenda' against region

The article goes on to say 'Beshara Rai warned Thursday of a pro-Israel “foreign agenda” aimed at dividing the region into confessional pockets.' And more along those lines. So, what's the importance of this? It's in the fact that Beshara Rai isn't just some guy on the street; he's the Maronite (I.E., Christian) Patriarch of Lebanon. In other words, even the religious patriarch of the most westernized community in Lebanon believes - at least publicly - in the existence of the Great Plot against the Arab world. Interesting, to say the least.

Finally, just to cap the whole business off, here's another recent headline from l'Orient le Jour:

Egypte: une cigogne arrêtée pour espionnage

This is going to require some translation:

Eygpt: stork arrested for espionnage

The story goes on to explain that a stork was captured and detained by Egyptian security because it was wearing a small, mysterious, box on its person. The authorities suspected immediately that the box contained some sort of spy apparatus and that the stork had been sent into Egyptian airspace to carry out espionnage. After several days, the bird was released when it was determined that the box's function was 'un appareil ornithologique destiné à suivre les migrations de l'oiseau', I.E. an ornithological device to track the bird's migrations.

It also transpired that the stork was Hungarian, not Israeli.

At first I thought of this story as a perfect illustration of how completely over-the-top the regional predeliction for suspicion has gotten. And, in fact, that was the slant of the orginal story, which ran as a kind of can-you-believe-this? in-joke.

Then I remembered a couple of things. Back when I was at Yale, in the late 60s, I worked briefly in the lab of Jorge Delgado, famous for his experiments at using brain implants to control animal activity. Famous also because he was once gored by a bull who failed to respond to his button presses. That lab was entirely funded by the US Navy, and the shelves were stuffed with documents - probably classified - on the progress of experimentation on using dolphins as living torpedos and other similarly uplifting examples of science at work.

I also recalled a recent magazine article, kind of an update to Delgado's ancient work, that detailled progress in using insects as tiny drones. Apparently, the technology is well-advanced and should be in the field before long.

The problem with a drone is that it's a very small plane. Small, but still a plane. If you can turn a bird into a drone...well, then it's just a bird.

Which intelligence service in the world is NOT working on this?

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* For those who might be inclined to think to themselves, 'well, at least the Israelis don't do this kind of stuff', let me point out quickly that shortly after independence Israel carried out a well-documented series of bombings against the Jewish community in Iraq, in order to encourage Iraqi Jews to move to Israel. Since then, the number of false-flag and other terrorist operations that can reasonably be attributed to Israel is very high.