Free Republic

Syria's puppets in Beirut continue persecuting a Lebanese dissident. BY CLAUDIA ROSETT Wednesday, November 2, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST Officially, Lebanon is now free, and its former Baathist overlords in Syria are isolated from the international community following initial findings by United Nations investigators that high-ranking Syrian government officials and their Lebanese sidekicks were behind the bomb murder in February of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri. A Security Council resolution passed unanimously on Monday requires Syria to stop obstructing the U.N. investigation. The Syrian army officially left Lebanon this spring.

If anybody wondered why the sainted United Nations, France, Russia and Syria joined forces in trying to block the U.S. from ousting the brutal Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq the answer is now becoming clear; they feared exposure of the corruption into which they had dragged the now-infamous Oil for Food program. That program was meant to allow Saddam to sell a certain amount of oil outside of the bounds of the UN sanctions. The proceeds, handled by the UN, were to be used to buy food and medicine and other basic necessities for the Iraqi people, thus keeping the...