by James Glaser
February 16, 2005

George Bush must have a group of Psychic Seers telling him what is going on in the world. Just hours after the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Refik Hariri is assassinated, the Bush administration tells the world that the Syrian government is behind it.

Officials in Lebanon are stating that any number of factions could be behind this killing and they live there and are on the scene.

Washington in a provocative move, recalls Margaret Scobey, our Ambassador to Syria. Washington is now condemning the killing of Hariri in Beirut, saying that the billionaire insisted that Syria comply with a UN resolution calling for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

In September of 2004 the US and France got a resolution through the UN Security Council calling for the removal of all foreign troops in Lebanon. Hariri was the Prime Minister then and he resigned in October after failing to get Syria out.

Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence College told ABC News, "Pro-Syrian forces in Lebanon never trusted Hariri. They believed that Hariri had connections to French and American politicians and was America's man in Lebanon."

Now of course Syrian President Bashar Assad, denies any involvement in this crime, calling the assassination a "horrendous criminal act."

The rest of the world is looking at this killing in Lebanon and knows all about Washington's desire to get Syrian troops out of there. They have watched how Washington has acted for decades and so there is no surprise that America points her finger at the Syrians.

The rest of the world also knows that the United States has thousands of troops in many countries all over the world and knows that this is another example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Billionaires in the Middle East or any place else in the world, usually don't accumulate all that money by being "Mr. Nice Guy" and there is little doubt that Refik Hariri had many enemies. The man lived in a very dangerous part of the world, he was playing one faction off another and the Americans, French, Saudis, and Syrians all had dealings with him. Any one of those countries could have had a reason to kill him or it could have been a CIA hit, to make Syria look like the bad guy. Syria is a the bad guy, but over there so are we and then there is Israel and the fact that I am not Psychic, makes me unable to tell you why Israel would want to kill a billionaire from Lebanon. However Israel did lose its war there and had to remove its troops while the Syrians stayed. Old wounds do fester.

If it was true that Refik Hariri was "America's Man" in Lebanon, just maybe this was an attack on an American pawn. The fact is that right now, no one knows why this man was killed and for Washington to jump right up with the answer to this crime makes us look guilty of something, Remember when you were little and got caught for doing something wrong and you would finger your brother or sister with great conviction? Well, to much of the world, that is what it looks like Washington is doing.