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@CraigMurrayOrg - Craig Murray
The USA is building a new megastructure HQ in Lebanon over 43 acres as an "Embassy". Lebanon is a country with the area and population of Yorkshire or Connecticut, but a tenth of the economy. So what is it? https://t.co/iVK6Mjeq9l
Video Transcript AI Summary
In Beirut, the U.S. is constructing the second largest embassy in the world, designed to accommodate 5,000 staff. This scale is unprecedented compared to other embassies, which typically have far fewer personnel. While embassies usually handle diplomatic relations, visas, and aid, this complex appears to serve a different purpose, possibly involving logistics and intelligence operations in the region. The embassy's extensive features, including underground facilities and helicopter pads, suggest it functions more like a military base than a traditional diplomatic mission. The U.S. aims to expand its influence in Lebanon and the broader Middle East, raising questions about its true intentions and the nature of its operations there.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Here we are in Beirut, overlooking the construction of the new new United States Embassy complex here in Beirut. What you're seeing there, that massive range of buildings, that's only a part of it. That that's about a quarter of the new complex. It's being built here. That is the 2nd largest embassy in the world of any country anywhere in the world.
The 2nd largest embassy in the world is being constructed here in Beirut by the United States. And we can't find out officially from the State Department, but we understand that the complex is built to hire to house 5,000 staff. I used to be an ambassador. I know what an embassy does. There are basic functions of an embassy.
It can run political relations with the country. It issues visas. It can do press and public relations. It can administer aid. It can do defense cooperation, and most embassies have an intelligence section.
But that is not an embassy. That is something 50 times the size of what an embassy would be in a country like this.
Speaker 1: US citizens are in Texas.
Speaker 0: It says that every time you press the jets, it just says goodbye. So I've just printed off the diplomatic list for the United States of America. These are always public information. They're public under the Vienna Convention, and they list the diplomatic staff of the embassy in the country. So you can, for example, look at the embassy of Lebanon in the United States and see how many staff it's got.
And it has 7 diplomatic staff. And it also lists their spouses. It's a list of everybody with diplomatic immunity. That's why it's published under the Vienna Convention. The embassy of the United Kingdom to the United States of America is one of the world's larger embassies.
It's an embassy between 2 of the wealthiest countries in the world, 2 of the top 8 economies. And as you'd expect, there are a lot of diplomats there handling relations. And it runs to, I think, 120 names, many of whom have spouses. And that's a cutback the size of a very large embassy. You'll have 120 diplomatic staff in a very large embassy.
I could show you also here the Russian embassy to the United States, giving you an idea of, if you like, a hostile or opposed designated enemy mission. And that's slightly smaller, that's about 90 members of diplomatic staff. Then you have other staff who are not diplomats, who are support staff, who are clerical, who are trainers, who are guards, whatever, who don't appear on the diplomatic list. And normally, you would expect the ratio of non diplomatic staff to diplomatic staff of an embassy to be somewhere between 12:1. So you have slightly more non diplomatic staff than you have diplomatic staff.
So the total staff numbers, say, of the British Embassy in Washington would be about 300 people, including everybody, including the guards and cleaners, typists, everyone. And the total number in the Russian Embassy in Washington would be about 270 people. The total number in the Jordanian or the Lebanese Embassy to the United States is probably 20 people, something along those lines. None of those comes anywhere near 5,000 people, which is the amount of people the new massive, massive so called embassy. I am genuinely stumped.
I I just do not know why the United States is building this massive, ultra expensive complex. Why is the United States building this here? Let me come on to this question of the American Embassy that's being built here because we've been and looked at it as close as you can as you're allowed to get to it. It's plainly not an embassy, whatever it is. This is plainly something else.
What is it? Why is it so big? And how much do you know about it?
Speaker 1: How much do I know about how much do all of the Lebanese numbers? It's like the biggest known secret over here. They started building it a few years back, and the mass scale of it is like it's scary. It's the 2nd largest US embassy in the world after the one that they have in Iraq. To to so to have the largest embassies in the world stationed in the Middle East, that tells you how important the Middle East is for them.
Now when it comes to Iraq, it's for military purposes because it joins, the 3 countries that they want to control or attack. So you have basically Iraq, you have Syria, and then you have Iran. That's at close proximity. And then you have Jordan, which is an allied state to them. In Lebanon, it's a different case scenario.
They need it for logistics, for torture, for, interrogation, to support their espionage missions across the region. And this is the only country, not only in the Middle East, but in the world where they can do their bidding and the politicians will allow them to do so. What kind of an embassy is that that's built on thousands of acres of land? It has underground dungeons Yeah. That includes detention cells.
It has, basically what you call, pathways underground that lead to the sea because that's where they have the other escape route. They do have their own helicopter, pads, and then, like, basically they can fly to Cyprus in and out. And it's as if you're going into a fortified CIA barracks. That's it. This embassy is not there to cater to Lebanese American citizens.
It's not there to cater for good friendly relations. It's there to cater to, the project of hegemony and controlling Lebanon, spying on it, and basically creating further, upheaval inside the country. They're not looking for stability over here.
Speaker 0: The United States very obviously has an enormous influence in Lebanon. How has it become such a dominant factor in Lebanese life? It was observed being seen Yes. They do want to, obviously, use it to expand their regional influence. Yes, it will be a base for operating into other states.
But I think a lot of it is a shadow Lebanese government or if you like the real Lebanese government. That's the substantive government of Lebanon, which is going to be running this country. But the so called Lebanese ministries are the shadow. They're the fake they're pretending to be running the country. The most important asset that the UK brings to the Five Eyes spying network is its listing post on Mount Judas in Cyprus.
It's interesting thing about technology in this modern day and age, strangely enough, it's still actually quite important to be able to have land based, line of sight, access to communications. I think it's to do with microwav links, it's also useful for things like pager signals, But Mount Judas in Cyprus is a very high mountain. From Mount Judas, you have clear lines all over the Middle East, all the way around from, from Egypt to Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey, and the Americans regard that as the jewel in the crown. That that's for the Americans the main reason they keep the NSA GCH Q agreement going. It's that it gives them access to the signals from Mount Chudos and, I used to be responsible for it among my many foreign office jobs.
I was headed beside the section of foreign office, so, I know it well and that signal station will be running now. It will have line of sight to the new American embassy in Beirut here, and that that will be running now with 30 staff. There'll be 30 staff on ships, former signals regiment and the couple from GCHQ, because that's the kind of thing it keeps takes to keep that signals operation going. Now I want to emphasize to you just how big that building and just how big the site is. You're only seeing this side of the hill.
It carries on over the bow of the hill. In fact, that new embassy covers 43 acres. 43 acres. I've been on much smaller farms than that, and there's a whole range of other buildings behind the huge construction of buildings you can see there. And you might like to say that Lebanon is an important country with vital American strategic interests, and that that's, of course, true.
I was British ambassador in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan was a vital strategic interest to the United States. It neighbors Afghanistan. It has a border with Afghanistan, and the Americans were fighting a war inside Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan provided a huge airbase, a huge military base at Kashy Khanabad, which was vital to the logistics supply of the war in Afghanistan, and which had up to 20,000 American service personnel inside it. America also had a massive CIA station in Uzbekistan, and it was a center for the extraordinary rendition program.
They were bringing people into Uzbekistan in order for them to be tortured. Uzbekistan is a country of 26,000,000 people. Lebanon is a country of 5,000,000 people. Uzbekistan has a GDP of $90,000,000,000 $90,000,000,000 a year, whereas Lebanon has a GDP of 19,000,000,000 dollars a year. So Uzbekistan, much bigger place, bigger US interests.
There's even a bigger aid program in Uzbekistan than it is in Lebanon. And what was the diplomatic staff of the US embassy in Uzbekistan? About 70 people. What was the total staff of the US embassy in Uzbekistan? It was about a 130 people.
And we're talking here, in ostensibly a smaller operation, of a massive danger buildings containing up to 5,000 people. And I just can't tell you what it is. I can't tell you what it is. I can't tell you what they're doing. But what what I can tell you is this, I've done embassies.
I've worked in embassies. I've been inside countless embassies all over the world from all kinds of different nations, and I tell you this for certain, that building is not an embassy.
@CraigMurrayOrg - Craig Murray
The USA plans to permanently occupy the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt under the control of a US mercenary force. This will be to process the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert. Doubtless CIA puppet General Sisi has his orders.
@AliAbunimah - Ali Abunimah
The @JoeBiden genocide regime plans to place the Rafah crossing under direct United States occupation using mercenary force https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-07/ty-article/.premium/israel-commits-to-limit-rafah-operation-grant-control-of-crossing-to-private-u-s-firm/0000018f-53ee-d6a5-a5ff-d3eeaf700000
Israel commits to limit Rafah operation, grant control of crossing to private U.S. firm
Prior to the Ground Invasion of Rafah, Israel Made It Clear in Talks That the Operation's Objective Is to Exert Pressure on Hamas in the Hostage Negotiations and to Harm the Crossing's Reputation as a Symbol of Hamas Power
haaretz.com
@CraigMurrayOrg - Craig Murray
We now have the Speaker of the House of Commons deliberately whipping up Islamophobia and racial hatred, inventing a fake terrorist threat, in order to justify continuing to promote Israeli genocide in Gaza. As I have been predicting since October. https://t.co/gHoul8QQpm
@CraigMurrayOrg - Craig Murray
Israel had been using Israa University as its major torture centre for detainees. It is destroying educational facilities and killing lecturers as part of its genocide, but here it was also destroying evidence of its systematic use of torture.
@CraigMurrayOrg - Craig Murray
There is nobody except the most brainwashed consumer of billionaire and state media, who does not know that every major Sunni terrorist organisation - Al Qaeda, al-Nusra, Isis etc etc - has been a creature of the US, Israel and the Gulf states. We know who bombed Iran.