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The Curtain Rises The US has recalled its ambassador to Syria to indicate its anger at Damascus over the assasination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. CNN reports: State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States has "made it clear" it wants Syria, which maintains some 16,000 troops in Lebanon, to use its influence to prevent such attacks. ... "I have been very careful to say we really don't know who committed this murder at this point, but we do know what effect the Syrian presence in Lebanon has," Boucher said. "And we do know that it doesn't bring security for Lebanese." Ambassador Margaret Scobey was returning to Washington for "urgent consultations," Boucher said, because of "deep concern, as well as our profound outrage, over this heinous act of terrorism." The diplo-blog New Sisyphus explains the convention behind the diplomatic signal of 'recalling the ambassador...

Who Killed Rafiq Hariri? Nobody knows yet. But here's a roundup of plausible speculation. Larry Johnson at the Counterterrorism Blog thinks it is Syria. Today's bomb blast in Lebanon, which killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, is a harbinger that a peaceful, democratic transition of Governments in the Middle East is a foolish pipe dream. Hariri, aka Fatso, has been a long time pawn of Saudi Arabia and a favorite of both Washington and Paris. His murder comes against the backdrop of increased pressure by the United States and France to force Syria to withdraw its military forces from Lebanon. This car bombing was probably designed to send an unambiguous message to both Lebanese and the international community that Syria will not stand idly by and surrender to pressures from Washington, Paris, and the United Nations. Hariri, who had been staying on the sidelines in recent months as political parties in Lebanon jockeyed for position in upcomin...

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Eichmanns The Christian Science Monitor has details on the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister and the possibility the blame will fall on Syria. Rafik Hariri, a billionaire businessman and former Lebanese prime minister who helped rebuild Beirut from its civil war, was killed Monday in a massive car bomb explosion in the city's downtown district.  ... Hariri was prime minister for 10 of the 15 years since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war and was the driving force behind the massive multibillion dollar reconstruction program here. His last term in office, which ended with his resignation in October, was marred by a cold relationship with the pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud. Hariri was regarded as a powerful, if de facto, member of the increasingly robust Lebanese opposition which is pressing Syria to withdraw its estimated 14,000 troops from Lebanon and cease interfering in the Lebanese political proces...

Every Precaution a Provocation According to the Reuters , Australia may be guilty of preparing its soldiers to resist interrogation which goes beyond that allowed by the Geneva Convention. Australian soldiers are stripped naked, hooded, deprived of sleep and threatened with physical and sexual abuse, methods banned under the Geneva Convention, to train them to resist interrogation if captured by hostile forces. Defence Minister Robert Hill told parliament in a written statement that Australia had been conducting the training for the past five years. Hill said no soldier was actually abused and that soldiers who would be conducting interrogations of prisoners were not permitted to undergo the training. An Australian civil liberties group criticised the government on Sunday, when news of the training first became public, saying such training was unacceptable. ... "These people are people who ultimately may have to look after prisoners of war and this is not the...

Easy To Be Hard; Easy to be cold Sometime it is instructive to watch just how much the Left, in its unguarded moments, shows its love for the poor and downtrodden of the Third World. This snippet from the New York Times   account of the conviction of radical lawyer Lynne Stewart illustrates it clearly.  Stewart was an the attorney for terrorist Blind Sheik Abdel Rahman and passed messages to and from the mastermind to his associates.  The prosecution also showed videotapes of Ms. Stewart saying "good for them" when her client was told in her presence that a militant group in the Philippines had taken hostages. Recordings showed that she seemed to enjoy trying to distract prison guards so they would not know when her translator was giving Mr. Abdel Rahman messages about his followers and their plans. The New Sisyphus , which quotes from Stewart's indictment provides more details on why Stewart said the kidnapping was "good for them": because it was good for her...

I Lied The UK Times reports egg on everyone's face in the wake of North Korea's announcement that it has nuclear weapons. The political, as distinct from military, significance of North Korea’s move is considerable. Since being confronted in 2002 with US evidence that it had cheated on a 1994 agreement to suspend all its nuclear weapons programmes, the regime has tried bluff, bluster and partial truths. Both forced admissions and boastful hints emanated from behind closed doors, in official negotiations or in easily retracted hints to reporters. Never before has it made a formal public statement that it possesses nuclear bombs. The regime of Kim Jong Il may not have intended to make life more difficult for Beijing, but it has surely done so. China’s stance throughout has been that it opposes a nuclear-armed Korean peninsula, but that since it was unclear whether North Korea was even close to the point of developing actual nuclear weapons, the US and Jap...

All for One and One for All 2 North Korea has announced that it has href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=486863" target="_blank">nuclear weapons . Seoul, South Korea Feb 10, 2005 — North Korea on Thursday announced for the first time that it has nuclear weapons and rejected moves to restart disarmament talks any time soon, saying it needs the armaments as protection against an increasingly hostile United States. ... Previously, North Korea reportedly told U.S. negotiators in private talks that it had nuclear weapons and might test one of them. Its U.N. envoy told The Associated Press last year that the country had "weaponized" plutonium from its pool of 8,000 nuclear spent fuel rods. This had long been suspected. Pyongyang's declaration may be doubted without a test that proves actual possession. But why announce nuclear status now? North Korea benefited from an earlier ambiguity for several reasons. The foremost was keepin...