Editor’s note: WorldNetDaily international correspondent Anthony
LoBaido is on assignment in the Middle East. In this report, he gives WND
readers a colorful guided tour through one of the most beautiful, historic
and dangerous regions on earth.
By Anthony C. LoBaido
© 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for thou art with me.
— The 23rd Psalm
THE BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon — Although it can be green and vibrant,
reminding one of eastern Utah or even Montana, life in the Bekaa (meaning
“vulture”) Valley can also be dry and bitter, like a hot prairie wind.
The sun is high and hot. Clouds and a cool breeze are the stuff of
dreams. Convoys of Syrian soldiers ferry about the region through nine
military checkpoints — and at least 50 giant billboards directing all
interlopers to the one McDonald’s in the area.
Some of these soldiers will maintain the Syrian radar net that dots the
landscape. Others will serve as overlords to the various heroin-cultivating
outposts in the region. Still others will serve as advisers at a multitude
of terrorist training camps quartering bad boys from the four corners of the
Earth.
From Armenia, Palestine, Japan, North Korea, Turkey and India they have
come — disaffected paramilitary groups ready to take up arms for what they
perceive to be right and just.
Not to be forgotten are the Syrian Bedouins, clad in brightly colored
orange and yellow robes. They work like Okies in “The Grapes of Wrath,”
living in clapboard homes and tents by night and harvesting potatoes and
tobacco and tilling the vineyards by day. To be sure, the Bedouins have
just enough grapes to offer a sweet taste of life, and more than enough
wrath to make that life bitter.
The valley sits between Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon Range. It is
the gateway to Baalbeck, the site of the greatest Roman temple ever built —
the Temple of Jupiter. It was built in what was then the Roman Province of
Syria. The noted French archaeologist Andre Gieger has said, “Not the
Acropolis of Athens or the Coliseum of Rome can bear comparison with the
majesty and splendor of Baalbeck.”
The Spectacular Roman Temple at Baalbeck is the largest and
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In search of Baal
The town and the temple site were dedicated to the god Baal spoken of in
the Old Testament with such disdain by the Hebrew prophets. Both the Greeks
and the Romans called the city “Helipolois,” meaning “City of the Sun.” The
Romans tried to integrate the peoples of the Orient and Middle East by
celebrating their native rituals — including the sex and blood lust of
Baalbeck — and constructing fabulous monuments to the local legends.
The Roman Emperor Constantine was not enamored with the pagan temple at
Baalbeck, and he ordered changes to be made there. But when he died, the
neo-pagan emperor Julian ordered the murder of scores of Christians and
tried to resurrect Baalbeck as a pagan pleasure site.
However, after Julian unexpectedly died, another Christian emperor came
to rule Rome — Theodosius. He turned the Temples at Baalbeck into a
Christian basilica. Later, Arab invaders turned the site into a citadel.
Giant earthquakes in 1158, 1203, 1664 and 1759 took their toll on the temple
site and caused great destruction. Kaiser Wilhelm II was the first European
leader to order an excavation of the site and its eventual restoration. The
French continued this work after they took over the region after World War
I. The water canals at the site built by the Romans were still in use in
1901, and even today the inscriptions placed by the engineers in the great
stones are still perfectly formulated and visible.
Posters and pictures of Hizbollah leaders Ayatollah Khomeini and Hassan
Nasrallah — and even a museum display under the temple ruins of Hizbollah’s
military adventures — are a paramount feature of Baalbeck. (WorldNetDaily
also found several posters featuring photos of Michael Jackson and Madonna.
The posters call for their summary execution for “moral crimes” against
humanity and offer a $10 million reward paid in gold bullion). The town
serves as the headquarters of Hizbollah or “The Party of God,” the Syria-
and Iran-backed terror group that has pestered Israel mercilessly since the
party’s inception in the early 1980s.
In a page out of Alan Greenspan’s worst nightmare, Shiite Muslims, with
the help of Iranian special intelligence agents, are frantically printing
“Supernotes” — U.S. hundred-dollar bills that rival North Korea’s for their
counterfeiting excellence. German marks are also counterfeited in the
Bekaa.
Syria’s role in the Bekaa goes back to January 6, 1976. Ironically,
Syria had joined up with Lebanon’s Christian Phalange against the
Palestinians and other Muslims in Lebanon’s internecine conflict. Abu Nidal
and his terrorist friends then started attacking Syrian positions in
response to Syria’s siding with the Christians. In short order, Syrian
troops and their brutal secret police destroyed Lebanon’s elected government
of Michel Aoun and implemented a campaign of media censorship and
police-state tactics.
Countless millions of dollars are siphoned off from Lebanon and into
Syria on an annual basis. Lebanon cannot export any goods into Syria, while
on the other hand, Syria can unload an unregulated amount of goods onto the
Lebanese market.
Destroyed apartments — still inhabited — are a harsh reminder of
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A harvest of opium
Larry Martines, a professor and terrorism expert who works with the U.S.
government, told WorldNetDaily: “The Bekaa Valley is home to a great deal of
heroin cultivation. It is controlled by the Syrian military. If they, even
for one second, think that you are a DEA agent, you will simply disappear.”
The Bekaa Valley is fertile and well designed for the cultivation of
opium poppies. Rifat Assad, the brother of recently deceased Syrian
President Hafez Assad, was well known as the head honcho who ran the Syrian
drug operation in the Bekaa. The 30,000 Syrian troops he dispatched to the
Bekaa are a testament to the monetary importance of heroin as a cash crop.
According to the Mossad intelligence officer interviewed by WorldNetDaily
in Zahlah, “The CIA has made a secret deal to protect the Syrian drug
pipeline. This was done vis-à-vis promises that the Syrians (led by
El-Khassar) would help to get American hostages released from captivity in
Lebanon. One agreement, as everyone now knows, involved ‘CIA One.’ They
protected the Syrian-Bekaa drug flow from Lebanon through the airport in
Frankfurt, Germany, and into the United States. The DEA was also involved,
mainly for purposes of plausible deniability.
“I remember when the Defense Intelligence Agency group working out of
Beirut led by Maj. Charlie McKee had a devil of a time trying to track and
rescue the U.S. hostages being held in Lebanon. We kept trying to explain to
him why he wasn’t getting the cooperation he needed from the other U.S.
agencies. But in the end, everyone found out about ‘CIA One.’ Talk about
your dances with wolves.”
Terrorist score card
On a recent trip through the Bekaa Valley, WorldNetDaily had the chance
to examine some of Syria’s agricultural and military outposts in the region.
The number of terror groups receiving training in the Bekaa is
stupefying. For example, there’s the Armenian Secret Army for the
Liberation of Armenia. It is a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group formed in
1975. The group’s goal is to force the government of Turkey to publicly
admit its guilt for the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians killed back in 1915.
The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia wants monetary
compensation as well as their own homeland. The group’s leader, Hagop
Hagopian, was assassinated in Greece in 1998.
The Japanese Red Army is also operating in the Bekaa, led by Fusako
Shigenobu. The Red Army wants to overthrow the Japanese government and
monarchy. Chemists and agricultural high-tech experts from Japan’s Om Shin
Ri Kyo cult are also sporadically posted in the Bekaa. Their expertise and
elite scientific training are highly prized by groups wanting to gain skills
in biological and biochemical warfare.
Perhaps the best-armed and most well-trained group in the Bekaa Valley is
the Kurdish Workers Party. They want to set up a Marxist state in southeast
Turkey where a large population of Kurds reside.
The new kids on the block in the Bekaa are from India. Their new
anti-Christian terror cult of Ganesh — a common Hindu god — is central to
the new “Hindu Awakening” of the 1990s. These soldiers and anti-Christian
terrorists are known as the “Munnani.” They hail from the New Age capital of
Madras and are seeking to get hold of an atomic bomb, according to
intelligence and terrorism experts.
Speaking of the anti-Israeli bent of Syria and Hizbollah, and their
terror tactics against the Jewish people, the Mossad station chief based in
the town of Zahlah told WorldNetDaily, “In terrorism, [one] meets the true
barbarian. This killer sees our moral restraint as cowardly and weak.
Arafat and his ilk are mass murderers.
“Terrorism is what Mao called the ‘death of a thousand cuts.’ It hurts
the morale of the people and will eventually sap the will of our people to
resist. But we are powerful and have a very strong military. We are an
independent people that the Islamic rulers will never again gain control
over. Muslim terrorists are promised eternal life and a harem of 50 virgins
if they kill Jews and American Christians. You know the Latin, ‘Cognito
ergo suma,’ or ‘I think, therefore I am’? Well, the Muslim terrorists say,
‘I die, therefore I am.'”
Terror groups are normally opposed to the “core states” of the globe.
The core states are usually democracies with market economies aligned with
the U.S. and the West. Russia, ex-Soviet satellites and communist China form
“transitional states” which the West is trying to lure into its orbit.
“Rogue states,” now renamed “states of concern” by the U.S. State
Department, are fundamentally opposed to the political and economic value
system of the core nations. These include Syria, Libya, Iran, Iraq, North
Korea, Cuba, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The Mossad station chief told WorldNetDaily: “Hizbollah provides for the
security and transnational shipment of narcotics through the Bekaa Valley.
They call the West ‘The Great Satan,’ yet they are believers in Allah who
flood the West with poisonous drugs. Terrorism, like drugs, is an
inexpensive way to attack the West. Their brand of Holy War and terror is
likely to grow in the near future. Weapons of mass destruction — nuclear
and biological — will be used. It is not a matter of if, but when and
where.”
The other side of the valley
Standing in contrast to the Bekaa Valley — and its terrorist training
camps and drug cultivation — is the Holy Valley and the Maronite convent at
Kozhaya. After climbing over 3,000 meters, an interloper will make it to
the town of Bcharré and then into the Holy Valley.
While en route to this ancient and wondrous enclave layered in Christian
history, one will pass through the Qadisha Gorge and its ice-cold river of
the same name. It is here that a wondrous and ancient secret emerges. It
is called “The Cedars” — the ancient cedar forest used by King Solomon to
build the temple in Jerusalem. The trees are mentioned in the Bible in
Psalms 92:12 and 104:16. They are considered to be a symbol of power,
prosperity and longevity. Some of the trees are over 6,000 years old. The
tallest tree is over 35 meters high and has a girth of over 14 meters. On
one tree, a famous sculptor carved out a crucified Christ. Over 375 trees
are protected by a glacial pocket and a stone fence erected by order of
Queen Victoria in 1876. Rather than falling under the control of the U.N.
World Heritage operation or even the Lebanese government, the forest is
owned and operated by the Maronite Christian sect, which is based in the
region.
King Solomon’s cedar forest in Lebanon contains ancient trees that
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The gorge is also home to the Church and Cave of St. Anthony the Great,
also known as St. Anthony the Mad. The Holy Valley is dominated by these
places, which are considered sacred and holy by Christians and Muslims
alike.
St. Anthony the Great was a wealthy man who left all of his belongings to
follow Jesus Christ around 380 A.D. He lived in the desert in Egypt where he
is said to have been tempted by, and to have overcome, the devil. His
disciples traveled to Lebanon and set up a monastery and hermit home in the
Holy Valley around 400 A.D.
The bells of the Church of St. Anthony the Great
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In the Holy Valley, WorldNetDaily discovered the secret cave of St
Anthony the Mad. Inside the cave, which has a temperature of around 50
degrees compared with over 100 degrees outside, one will find an altar and
shrine to St. Anthony the Great. There are chains displayed that were used
to tie down men and women who were thought to be possessed by demons. There
is also a large portrait of St Anthony featuring a pig. The pig symbolizes
that Jesus cast many demons into pigs. Scores of visitors leave photos of
sick loved ones on a picture of St. Anthony the Great, hoping for a cure.
On the other side of the gorge live several hermits who can be reached
for “spiritual counseling” once per week. And they stay busy, according to
the local monks and nuns who live in the Holy Valley. The monks run a small
souvenir shop that helps to pay for the upkeep of their church and the cave.
One recent night, while sitting around a campfire and talking about the
Third Secret of Fatima and how one legion of European Crusaders fried to death in their armor in the Syrian desert, one of the hermits told WorldNetDaily why he had chosen this life.
“I left Beirut several years ago to come and live in the Holy Valley. I did this mainly because in Beirut, most all of the men look at the women as if they want to rape them. Jesus said, ‘To look at a woman with lust in one’s heart is the same as committing adultery.’ Galatians 5 says that no adulterer will inherit the Kingdom of God. So I could not stand to live in such a place. Christians have been driven out of this nation and the culture is something like barbarism. Islamic fundamentalism will not drive out the French-style decadence. I don’t particularly care for McDonald’s and KFC and Pizza Hut, or soccer or whatever the new fads are. I just want to pray and be close to the Lord.
“Lebanon is like Cambodia in a way. Here, the Christians have been driven out. The evil people have won the war. There will be no reconciliation for the nation. The blood and terror of Hizbollah will continue to haunt us. There can be no peace with their brand of lies and evil. They teach that it is right to kill God’s people — Christians and Jews. How can there ever be peace with them running this country?”
Apologizing a millennium later
Also present around the Holy Valley were numerous Christians from Western nations who have signed up for a walking tour of the Middle East. On this tour, the Christians will “apologize for the Crusades.”
Kelly Bryant, a housewife from Wales told WorldNetDaily, “I hope you aren’t too hard on the Crusades apologists, because I am one of them, sort of. Only because after the tribal wars ended in Europe, you still had all these hoodlums around disguised as noblemen and knights making trouble where they could. It was an excellent ploy to get the gangsters and their molls out of Europe and build all those cathedrals. Check the time line.”
Bryant added that she and others on the tour had been busy distributing an apology and messages of repentance to the country’s Muslims who were killed by the Crusaders.
“There doesn’t have to be conflict between Muslim and Christian and Jewish civilizations,” she added.
The Crusades began in November of 1095 under Pope Urban II, who called on European Christians to take up the sword to “liberate the Holy Land.” On July 15, 1099, the Crusaders reached the Holy Land, but not before countless non-Christians in the way had been slaughtered.
“The Crusaders also killed and plundered the villages of Christians they encountered en route to the Middle East,” said Bryant, who wore a T-shirt with the words “We Apologize” written on the back in Arabic.
Asked about the relevance of an apology 1,000 years after the fact, Bryant said, “You know, you have a point there. Maybe we should be apologizing for our wicked leaders today, like Clinton and Tony Blair. Setting up abortion clinics in Muslim nations and our decadent films and culture. The Crusades were an exciting time to live in, I’m sure. And I know that the Muslims always come to rule by the sword, but I am hoping that this little walk will play a part in turning Muslim and Christian relations toward a path of peace in the future.”