Qifa Nabki
Serge Brammertz
The Case of the Four Generals
Several new embassy cables were released three days ago by Wikileaks. They are the same cables that al-Akhbar (which obtained advanced access to them) has been commenting on since July 13, so they’ll be old news for regular readers of the Arabic press. For the rest of you, here’s a basic summary of the most important revelations. … Continue reading
Return of the Militias?
The latest Wikileaks dump by the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar extends the series of intriguing and record-changing insights into the tumultuous 2006-08 period, which witnessed the July War between Hizbullah and Israel, an 18 month-long downtown sit-in, and a takeover of Beirut by Hizbullah forces on May 7, 2008. Two cables are especially worth reading in … Continue reading
Hariri Tribunal Reports Tell a Different Story than CBC Account
I spent an hour or so this morning going through previous reports by the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC), in order to see how the historical record tallies with Neil Macdonald’s report about the Hariri investigation for CBC. As you’ll recall, Macdonald makes the following basic points in his piece: The UNIIIC did … Continue reading
Neil Macdonald Addresses Questions About CBC Hariri Exposé
I wrote to Neil Macdonald (author of the CBC report about the UN investigation into Rafiq al-Hariri’s murder) asking him if he would respond to some of the questions published on this blog earlier today about the timeline presented in his account of the investigation’s proceedings. Mr. Macdonald had argued in his piece that “Brammertz … Continue reading
Questions Raised about CBC Hariri Exposé
The ink has hardly dried on the CBC report about the Hariri investigation, and I’ve already heard at least two substantive critiques of it, which I thought I’d share with you. The first comes from T_DESCO, a smart commenter at Joshua Landis’s Syria Comment blog, who has been following the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…