A reasonable amount of time after the funeral:


http://www.leftturn.org/Articles/Viewer.aspx?id=598&type=W

Hariri's politics were not as clear as his economic project to turn Beirut into a Hong Kong with what this entails of privatization and cutting of social services. Downtown Beirut is what the city is supposed to look like: banks, cafes, restaurants, nightclubs, businessmen, a UN building where aid money is squandered, and of course more mosques and churches. Almost all of the new businesses and outlets in the area cater for the rich: visiting Lebanese émigrés and the many tourists that arrive each summer from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other countries. In fact, this "Disneyworld" and the tourists it attracts from the Gulf is hailed as one of the most significant contributions of Hariri to a tourist sector trickling to the economy as a whole. The exclusivity of the "new" downtown is reinforced by private security and the Lebanese army whose protection of the main square includes barring people wearing Palestinian headscarves and cars full of young people venturing from the poor suburbs to take a look at the Promised Land. The reality in Lebanon is clear: $40 billion in debt, 30% unemployment, an alarming rate of brain drain, around a million people living in crowded neighborhoods and slums, and the remainder of the country considered as peripheral. The middle class - once characterizing Lebanon's exception amongst its highly stratified Arab neighbors - has almost ceased to exist.

Not too long ago, a few hundred workers dared to demonstrate against rising fuel prices. Five demonstrators were shot and killed at point blank by the Lebanese army. Hariri was still prime minister. Nobody in the so-called opposition questioned the crime. ****

The opposition, unimaginatively called "the opposition" or the "Bristol Meeting" after the 5-star hotel where they assemble, is an odd bunch. It ranges from the Democratic Left Movement (HYD - after its Arabic acronym), a splinter from the Lebanese Communist Party and some "center-left" intellectuals who supported the US-led invasion of Iraq to the Gemayyel Phalanges. Gemayyel is the son of the former leader of the party, the Kata' eb or the Phalanges. The party itself was formed after Pierre Gemayyel Sr. visited Nazi Germany and was enthralled by the Hitler Youth in the 1936 Olympics. Continuing his grandfather's legacy, Pierre Jr. (the grandson) had insulted the Shi'a sect a few weeks ago by calling them "a quantity", basically meaning "rabble", while he represented "the quality", i.e., the Christians.

The most vocal member of the opposition is Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the Druze sect, a member of the Lebanese parliament, an ex-minister, and the head of the Progressive Socialist Party (2nd International). He is also a large property owner and one of Lebanon's multimillionaires. But perhaps he is best known as the leader of the militia that ethnically cleansed its region of Christians during the Lebanese civil war.





Not just an ordinary warlord. In DC now. Go to hell Jumblatt and take your money with you.

"Today, Walid Jumblatt is many things to many people. Dressed in his trademark blazer and jeans for this interview, he has a passion for riding Harley Davidsons, gardening and caring for the environment. “He’ll go nuts if he hears someone cut down a tree,â€‌ says Ramzi, a close aide."

Yea, I'll say! Lots of stuff he is.

http://www.tharwaproject.com/index.php?option=com_keywords&task=view&id=1895&Itemid=0

But hey, lets cut the guy a break. He likes Harley's and gardens, cares about the cruddy environment he DOESN'T live in up in his manse. Like I said Walido, go to hell in a handbasket replete with a custom made leatherette handle so as not to roughen your CHASTE hands.

But hey, they'll like you in the US. Yes. They love leaders who dress like bikers sic Kings of Jordans. We know you didn't mean to murder so many people and take away their property and NEVER restore it to them EVEN though you were forgiven for you horrid massacres and blood lettings. We know how sorry you must feel especially cuz yer in a minority and those Chalabites are always the lucky bank-frauders that get away with absolute murder (figurative speech here).

Like I said Waldo, go to hell where you might be lucky enough to run into another one of your kind, Madonna. You and her are a match made in heaven. She is sooooooooooooo like you in soooooooooo many ways, I'm feeling so gushy you know. I love how she forbids her children from watching TV because it might corrupt their tiny, pacifist little minds. I hate when children are corrupted by the truth and I hate it even more when masonryworkers likeyourselVES are accused of things they say they are really berryberrysorry for honest engine cross my heart and hope to die (SMOOCHIE!). Yes. I hope this for you...that Madonna and yerself will meet up down there and have tremendous amounts of gaity with all the popes of the Seventh Centuries including that guy in the painting who was trapped in a chair and screaming. Just a personal adecdote: that guy that lost all his family in that cement culvert tube over in Aramoun when some of your homies sealed the twenty of them inside and flamed it says hi! Go Opposition! "Er," he asks, "why didn't you complain before ole Rafic was killed and wow, it is so amazing that out of all the targets of these assassinations, yer the only one that walked out alive. Damn that's lucky!" -some guy in Aramoun may have said this or maybe not! But we aren't aiming for CONSISTENCY now are we!

Have a nice day. In Hell. Very.