Granted, I had already met one-on-one with Lebanese commander-in-chief Gen. Michel Sleiman before formally being introduced to Hajj, but I did speak with Hajj over the phone, and I was made aware through very reliable sources (men who had a personal relationship with Hajj) within the Cedars Revolution movement that Hajj was reversing decisions and making things happen for me, when other generals were saying, “No. Smith has had all the access he is going to get.”

On October 4, I met with Hajj at his office at the Ministry of Defense in Beirut.

I wrote at National Review Online:

“As I entered his office — his desk covered with several huge maps of Lebanon, a couple of cell phones, and a single pack of Marlboros – Gen. Hajj was discussing something (unintelligible to me because it was in Arabic) with another general. The other general and I shook hands, he left the office, and Hajj ordered coffee for the two of us. We discussed everything from current security operations in Lebanon to the recent fighting at Nahr al-Bared. He then showed me an exclusive video tape – not seen by outsiders [he told me] – of the fighting at Bared, including some truly grisly images of killed Fatah al-Islam fighters.”

Before leaving his office, Hajj invited me to attend the burial that afternoon of more than 100 Fatah al-Islam fighters who had been killed at Nahr al Bared.

I declined the invitation because I had a meeting that same afternoon with Maj. General Achraf Rifi, the commanding general of Lebanon's Interior Security Forces (the national police).

At any rate, the assassination of Hajj (the latest in a string of political assassinations in Lebanon) simply plays -- as another terrible variable -- into the craziness of what is going on and who’s in bed with whom in Lebanon. There is also the inability of Lebanon to elect a president; the existence of the virtual state of Hezbollah (the “kingdom of Hezbollah” as some Lebanese have told me) within the so-called sovereign state of Lebanon; the manipulation of the media (both nationally and internationally) in that country; and the unchecked money, weapons, and influence of Iran and Syria.

From what I knew of Gen. Hajj – and admittedly that knowledge is limited to what I learned while there -- he was a good man. He was a “strong man,” as others have said. He was a man who wanted freedom and democracy in Lebanon. He wanted the truth told about what is actually happening in Lebanon, and what was and is too often not reported, or what is manipulated by the Axis-influenced media.

And now they have killed him.