Adonis Diaries

“The sirens of the Levant (Near East)”; (Feb. 24, 2010)

Hurrah, Evil wins this time around in this first French novel by the Lebanese Peter Germanos.  It is not amenable to reviewing because

1.  first, the situation in the Middle East, especially Lebanon, is very complex and would require another novel to explaining the conditions in order to make a semblance of sense;

2. second, this story involves half a dozen of intelligence institutions such as CIA, GRU (Russia), Mossad (Israel), Second Bureau (Lebanon and France), Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, to name a few nations, involved in having Lebanon a good starting base for interfering in the Middle East and securing oil exploitation and transport is one too many for a short novel of 242 pages.

We have two heroes: The Lebanese intelligence officer Marwan Hajj and the Al Qaeda.

Marwan is originally from Akoura in Mount Lebanon or “Marounistan”as Germanos calls the district, in one of the districts where the Christian Maronite sect is in majority (Kesrouwan, Jbeil, Betroun, and Bshari). Marwan is young, from a “noble” family, drives a Porch, and is willing to shell thousand of dollars for beautiful girls wishing to have lifting of whatever needs lifting so that they look “jnoun” (driving males crazy) as their gorgeous girl friends.

Al Qaeda is regaining ground after the Lebanese army defeated it in the Palestinian camp of Nahr El Bared.  The Qaeda was far better equipped with modern arms and high tech communication facilities and the army suffered over 170 soldiers and officers, not counting hundreds of injured, after 6 months of fighting.  The US refused to arm the Lebanese army and only Syria supplied the army with canon shells to resume the battle.

Al Qaeda (well established in Iraq, northern Africa, and around the Indian Ocean) is planning a major terrorist activity that would close the Suez Canal for ten years; thus, oil prices would jump to $600 the barrel and the “koffar” in Europe and the US would suffer economically.  Al Qaeda disseminates misinformation that the attempt is targeting the Strait of Hormus in the Arabic/Persian Gulf.  All the intelligence institutions have wind of a major terrorist act but are mislead on the proper maritime target.

The Mossad is cooperating with Al Qaeda in order to ignite another civil war in Lebanon to weaken Hezbollah and also to involve the US in a war against Iran.  The US army prime enemy is Al Qaeda (Islamic Sunni sect extremists) but the CIA (and its officer in Lebanon, Kyle from Kentucky) is willing to cooperate with Al Qaeda against Hezbollah and the Shiaa axe (Islamic sect) extending from Iran to Iraq, northern Syria and Lebanon.

If you feel disoriented bare with me a little while.

Wealthy Saudi princes are financing Al Qaeda terrorist plans to weaken Hezbollah and Iran, and wealthy Lebanese business men and politicians are cooperating with Al Qaeda and the Israeli Mossad to weaken Hezbollah.

Hezbollah launches a counter attack and within a couple of hours closes down dozens of Mossad bunkers and safe heavens along with other offices of the Sunni and Saad Hariri militia in Beirut who were wearing security guard outfits.  Samuel Dagan, (Israel’s Mossad chief who is currently under fire for involving many European fake passports to assassinating Hamas officer in Dubai), said that “Hezbollah destroyed within hours four years of work and preparation”.

To make a long story short, Al Qaead managed to secure a dirty (low level) atomic bomb to the port of Beirut and used the Middle East like Ho Che Minh route of (Tripoli-Palmira Syria- Anbar Iraq) to deliver the dirty bomb to Saudi Arabia.

The novel mentions the Egyptian Al Zawahiri as the master mind of Qaeda but I think it is the Libyan Al Libi who is involved in terrorist activities targeting the Shiia sect since Zawahiri is trying hard to unite all Islamic sects against the US imperialist strategy.

I could follow the story, but I doubt people (non Lebanese and none politicized) will find the courage to finish this exciting novel.

Note: Minorities in societies have this knack of constructing myths; they end up believing myths for real. You cannot defeat myths “made real” when communicating for establishing real modern States.