Hezbollah, the so-called Party of God, the terrorist Shiite Muslim Lebanese political party organized a sickening demonstration on Tuesday in Beirut. Hundreds of thousands of Hezbullah supporters gathered March 8 in the middle of Beirut cheering, “thank you Syria” and “no foreign interference.” This demonstration was clearly bolstered by the Syrian puppet Lebanese government, which comically advertised that 1.5 million of the 3.7 million Lebanese attended. Of the few hundred thousand who actually attended, many were Baathists of Syria and thousands of others bused in under Hezbullah and Syrian coercion. Finally, the world witnessed and paid attention to how the Baath, the Hezbullah and their despotic ilk have for decades run so-called demonstrations that are actually pure stage productions to wield a false sense of influence and emotion. While Assad speaks of withdrawal, this demonstration was a show of force in order to maintain control of Lebanon in Syrian absentia vis a vis Hezbullah even if his Baathist thugs retreat from Lebanon with their tail between their legs. “Sheikh” Hassan Nasrallah, the chief fascist Islamist barbarian of the Hezbullah terrorist hate group took the opportunity to spew his hate of Israel and America during the demonstration. Just a few weeks earlier, he gave a sermon to his fellow hate-mongers and followers which would make Bin Laden proud. Where is the Arab revulsion at the psychopathic hypocrisy of Hezbullah and Nasrallah’s pronouncement of gratitude to Syria? Droves of Middle Easterners have been cheering blind nauseating support for Hezbullah’s supposed influence on Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon while they now sit in complete hypocritical silence at the withdrawal of the incomparable Syrian despotism. Which part of Syrian oppression was Nassrallah thanking? Was it the robbery of billions it stole from the Lebanese people over 30 years? Was it the dictatorial suffocation of free markets and free trade in northern Lebanon and in Syria. Was it for Syria’s importation of militant Islamism and fascistic hate for non-Muslims from Iran into Lebanon? Was it for the militaristic and chaotic climate Syria’s Baathist instilled in Lebanon and thrived on maintaining? Was it the absence of elections or true Lebanese representation and imposition of a Syrian government in Lebanon he was thanking? Their demonstration spewed the tired hatred against America and Israel. Make no mistake, the masses gathered were basically glorifying all of the evil of the Syrian Baathist and Alawite war crimes committed over decades. Yesterday’s demonstration was medieval cheering for the mass murders committed by the Assad regime like that against the people of Hama in 1982. They were cheering for the Alawite Stalinist-like murder of over tens of thousands from Tadmur to Hama on and on at the hands of the Alawites. Every one of the millions of Syrians and Lebanese who have felt the pain of the decades of oppression by Assad’s thuggish regime will look upon the demonstration as an identifier of accomplices and facilitators of Alawite oppression and status quo. The status quo the demonstrators love is one of despotism, medieval autocracy, deep-seated fear, persecution, and suffocation politically, religiously, and economically. In Syria and in Lebanon, the Assad regime of the father and now the son have violated the rights of every Syrian man, woman, and child and have extended for 30 years that violation into northern Lebanon with impunity. The Lebanese have finally moved with the world at their side to get Assad’s regime out of Lebanon. But, Hezbullah wants the continuation of this history of corruption and the malignant iron hand on the Lebanese and Syrian people. This speaks volumes about Hezbullah’s pathetic so-called freedom fighting that is really veiled Islamo-fascism. It is beyond reason that in 2005 a demonstration with this much underlying illness goes on with little recoil from the world, especially the Arab and Muslim world. It is about time for parties of freedom and liberty to join with media attention at labelling Hezbullah for the farce which it is – a false representative of Lebanese freedom and in reality a representative of Islamist theocratic despotism, hate, and racism. The Lebanese people showed their true will a few days ago with rally after rally against the Syrian occupation and against true foreign intervention over the Lebanese people. We are not fooled by this stage show. Now more than ever it is obvious that these militant Islamists never cared about Lebanese independence from Israel. Someone needs to break it to them that Israel left for many reasons, none of which were related to his so-called resistance from the evil of their terrorism. The Hezbullah leadership are in fact the grandparents of suicide bombing among radical Muslims. In fact, their Al-Manar “Jihad (TV) network,” until reason prevailed and it disappeared from the airways in the U.S., regularly glorified suicide bombing and leaned on religious radicals who feed this ideology of hate. In fact, some could say one of the reasons Israel may have stayed longer than it actually desired in Lebanon was to avoid being perceived as acting in response to Hezbullah’s terror. Now in some kind of twisted logic, Nasrallah expects us to believe that he cares about the Lebanese and thus desires continued occupation from the fascists of Syria’s Baath? In the end, Nasrallah knows that his pathetic survival is dependent upon Assad, and that even if he pulls out, Assad remains his lifeline. Iran recently declared that it would stand behind Syria as an axis. The axis of Iran-Syria-Hezbullah are now well delineated. We can place them in the cross-hairs of our collective political pressure of isolation or we can watch their reign of terror continue in Lebanon. Syria appears to be leaving, however begrudgingly. Lebanon may soon be sovereign again, but this will need a concerted effort against Hezbullah by moderate Muslims and the Lebanese majority. The next step must be the marginalization of Nasrallah and the exposure of his criminality. His facilitation must cease and his fascism must be exposed by all freedom-loving Arabs and Muslims alike. Hezbullah, the Iranian government, and Syria’s Baath care only about their fascist Islamist theocratic dreams in Lebanon and around the globe. For those interested, find Nassrallah’s writings and read them. His virtual “Mein Kampf” about an “Islamic state based upon Hezbullah’s sharia in Lebanon” is well-described. His website is thankfully no longer readily available, but his writings and sermons certainly are. This column originally appeared at the Arizona Republic at this link.

The recent assassination of Lebanon’s highly regarded former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has brought a flurry of speculation regarding the most likely perpetrators of his horrific death. Naturally, the first place to look is at those who benefit the most from his death. The highest on that list is the Baathist Syrian government which has been getting more and more pressure to leave Lebanon with a mounting opposition of moderates in Lebanon led by former Prime Minister Hariri. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting that a Kuwaiti newspaper, Al Sayassah, believes that the assassination was planned by Assef Shawkat, Assad’s brother-in-law. A plot thought possibly planned out of anger over the role Hariri played in the recent U.N resolutions telling Syria to pull out of Lebanon. The surviving Lebanese opposition leader Walid Jumblatt has since Hariri’s death become a lightning rod for the ousting of Syria and their puppet government from Lebanon. He quickly accused Syria of assassinating the former Prime Minister and said, “This is the regime of terrorists and terrorism that was able yesterday to wipe out Rafik al-Hariri … I charge the Lebanese-Syrian police regime with the responsibility for Hariri’s death.” The time is now for a continuation of the pressure to force Syria to exit Lebanon. This world pressure must also be directed at a higher order of magnitude of pressure upon the Assad regime to demonstrate genuine democratic reforms rather than the false platitudes he has instituted since his installation. The Assad regime is demonstrating that the despotic zebras running his dictatorship cannot change their stripes but are only rearranging the chairs on their Titanic. Already on Monday, in President Bush’s speech to the EU in Brussels he took the opportunity to focus on the Middle East and discuss his own “Road to Damascus” as the Times online notes. He quickly reminded Syria that the three-decade occupation of Lebanon must end. With international concern about Syria’s role in Iraq, with Hezbullah, and with Iran, the assassination of a leading Muslim moderate by Syrian intelligence (if true) in one of the few genuinely forward leaning Arab nations in the Middle East can only be interpreted as profoundly self-destructive, if not suicidal. Right after the assassination the U.S. ambassador was pulled from Syria. And the U.N. reminded Syria to pull out of Lebanon forthwith. Just the thought of Syrian regime complicity has turned the entire free world against the Assad regime in only one week. France and the U.S. now even agree. The only terror outreach to the Syrians last week came from Iran which is also diplomatically beleaguered and lonely with its own international isolation. Well, if not the Syrians, then who? How about al-Qaida? In a recent analysis, the liberty-minded Washington based think tank, the Saudi Institute pointed out the Saudi and al-Qaida connections of the possible perpetrators of the Hariri assassination. The operation had all the trademarks – a suicide bombing and a taped statement given to Al Jazeera. Ahmed Abo Adas’ taped statement stated that the Hariri killing is to avenge al-Qaida operatives killed by the Saudis. Adas was an Al-Zarqawi trainee. Cells of al-Qaida may be running to Lebanon and back to Syria after being slowly exterminated by the forces of freedom in Iraq. It makes sense that al-Qaida may have wanted to both eliminate a moderate Muslim leader like Hariri who threatens them the most while forcing Syria’s hand to become more embattled, less open, more militant, and more resistant to reform. Thus, in this assassination, al-Qaida would have made great headway in maintaining the dictatorial soil which fertilizes their cells and terrorism so well in Syria. Such is the goal of fanatical Islamists who know that their greatest enemies are Muslim moderates in Arab nations on their way to democracy. The days seem to be numbered for the Syrian regime in Lebanon and soon thereafter possibly even in Damascus. Much like Eastern European nations fell one after the other as the world turned its attention to the Soviet puppet regimes, so too may the Baathist Syrians fall soon as the world begins to turn our attention to their despotism. This column first appeared online at the Arizona Republic at this link.