"Bellmare ... you better watch out!"

Die libanesisch uber-neocon, Herr Michael Junge, waking up to the tune of Der Spiegel/Hezbollah/Hariri .... Read through we left of this tediously boring essay and see for yourself how Young's compass is one that aligns with exasperation & despair: Bring the 4 Generals back to jail, ... Long live Mehlis and torches-ablaze to the door of Braemmertz, maybe Bellmare will 'learn'.... in the Daily Star/ here

"... If Bellemare is optimistic, that’s good news, and his statement, though it told us relatively little, was perhaps the strongest sign yet that he believes his efforts will not end in a dead end. The prosecutor is responsible only for what he says, and he has said virtually nothing until now; however a more disturbing assessment is emerging from various sources, including foreign diplomatic sources, that the focus of Bellemare and his team may be on domestic Lebanese involvement in the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, and that only through this route might he follow the chain of decision-making in the crime outside the country.

What does this mean? Some will hear echoes of the Der Spiegel article: Hizbullah is blamed for Hariri’s killing, the investigation is contained inside Lebanon’s borders, Syria is effectively exonerated ...

This may all be true, but ................. a crime of that magnitude could not conceivably have taken place without Syrian authorization, given the tight control Syria exerted over Lebanon.

If it is true, therefore, that Bellemare will be unraveling the case through what we can call its domestic window, then what does that tell us about the UN investigation in general? Mehlis and Brammertz were well aware of the Syrian connection, as was, obviously, Bellemare when he took over his post. But there are also converging indications that Brammertz did not aggressively pursue his inquiry in Syria in the same way that Mehlis did, and the evidence for this is that no Syrian official, particularly no intelligence official, was ever arrested, even though Mehlis was on the verge of doing so when he left Beirut in December 2005. ......

Bellemare met with Eid the day before he was killed in a car-bomb attack, and while some sources believe that the killing was linked to important new information Eid had on the intercepts, Bellemare disagreed with this evaluation. We may never know, but if the UN prosecutor is pursuing a Lebanese path toward the truth, then, significantly, it may have been the Lebanese investigators, not those from the UN, who did the heavier lifting to make this possible.

Accusing Hizbullah alone, or individuals in the party, because that is where the available evidence lies, could bend out of shape our true understanding of the Hariri assassination. It would also raise doubts about Brammertz, who failed to take the wide road that Mehlis and the UN Security Council opened for him in 2005 to facilitate his probes in Syria. That does not mean that Bellemare would not find an alternative path to Syrian participation, perhaps through indictments he would bring against Lebanese intelligence officials (and his release of the four generals was not, legally, a declaration of their innocence). But an accusation against Hizbullah, even if justified, would only be partial if it did not include indictments against senior Syrian officials. (6th repetition) ...

Bellemare’s work is ongoing, so we should be careful (read: Bellmare should be careful, otherwise I, Michael Young will be back!) before reaching any hard conclusions on the basis of incomplete leaks. But we are entitled to wonder whether the Lebanon tribunal will identify those who gave the final order that Hariri be gotten rid of, or whether will we have to satisfy ourselves merely with identification of those who followed orders. (or neither/nor ?)"