BS: Syria

Subject: BS: Syria
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 04:45 PM

Washington Post:

Mr. Assad's Medicine
After sponsoring terrorism against three of its neighbors, Syria plays the victim when its own border is breached.


Tuesday, October 28, 2008; Page A16

IT WAS interesting to observe the wails of outrage from Syrian officials yesterday following a raid on a target near the country's border with Iraq, carried out by helicopter-borne U.S. commandos. "Criminal and terrorist aggression," charged Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem. "The law of the jungle," bemoaned spokesman Jihad Makdissi at the Syrian Embassy in London. This from a regime whose most notable activities of the past few years have been the serial assassination of senior Lebanese politicians, including former prime minister Rafik Hariri; the continuous and illegal supplying of weapons to the Hezbollah militia for use against Israel and Lebanon's democratic government; the harboring in Damascus of senior leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups; and -- most relevant -- the sheltering of an al-Qaeda network that dispatches 90 percent of the foreign fighters who wage war against U.S. troops and the Iraqi government.

The logic of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad seems to be that his regime can sponsor murders, arms trafficking, infiltrations and suicide bombings in neighboring countries while expecting to be shielded from any retaliation in kind by the diplomatic scruples of democracies. For most of this decade that has been lamentably true: U.S. commanders and Iraqi officials have over and over again pointed to the infiltration of al-Qaeda militants through the Damascus airport and the land border with Iraq, and Syria's refusal to curtail it, without taking direct action. Yet in the past year Israel has intervened in Syria several times to defend its vital interests, including bombing a secret nuclear reactor. If Sunday's raid, which targeted a senior al-Qaeda operative, serves only to put Mr. Assad on notice that the United States, too, is no longer prepared to respect the sovereignty of a criminal regime, it will have been worthwhile.


Mr. Assad's government has lately taken a few cautious steps toward breaking out of its isolation, participating in indirect peace talks with Israel and granting formal diplomatic recognition to Lebanon for the first time. European governments have been quick with rewards, and the next U.S. president -- if it is Barack Obama -- may also hasten to upgrade contacts. If the Syrian regime is genuinely interested in making peace with Israel, distancing itself from Iran and the terrorist movements it sponsors, and rebuilding ties with the West, that is to be welcomed. What Damascus should not be allowed to do is reap the diplomatic and economic rewards of a rapprochement while continuing to plant car bombs, transport illegal weapons and harbor terrorists. Israel has let Mr. Assad know that it is prepared to respond to his terrorism with strikes against legitimate military targets. Now that the United States has sent the same message, maybe the dictator at last will rethink his strategy.

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 05:09 PM

All terrorists tend to claim that their victims are "legitimate military targets. And their fan clubs believe them, or persuade themselves to believe them.

Let's rewrite that sentence: "The logic of US president George W Bush seems to be that his regime can sponsor murders, arms trafficking, infiltrations and aerial bombings in other countries while expecting to be shielded from any retaliation in kind by the diplomatic scruples of democracies."

See this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 05:13 PM

I think I heard that part of Syria's response was: "If you do that again, we will defend ourselves...!"

or something to that effect. It's what I'd expect them to say.

Gee, bruce, did you expect them to say, "Oh gee, you caught us...we'll be good now."

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 05:59 PM

Any country in the world would react as the Syrians have reacted. Why? Because they all regard their own territory as inviolate, and they all think their own aggressive actions toward others are fully justified (for some reason). They're about as unbiased and objective in that respect as the person who started this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 06:06 PM

When I first heard of the raid my thought was, "Gee, the Army screwed up again. If they'd done it right Syria would have no proof about WHO did it."

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 06:08 PM

I agree with McGrath, Bill D and L.H.

This action certainly sinks the U.S. further down, down in world opinions.

A bumper sticker I observed a couple of months back echoes my opinions on this some more .... "I'm already against the next war".

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 08:27 PM

Let me see... I am told that instead of going to war against a country that shelters people attacking us, the US should go after the people who ARE attacking us directly- then when we do, I hear complaints that we don't have the right to go after the people who are attacking us....


Seems like someone here has a slight problem with consistancy.

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 08:43 PM

That's more or less the case that Al Qaeda made in justification of 911.

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 08:46 PM

So we should not go after AQ, because they were justified, but WE are not?

Either they were justified, in which case we are as well, and can attack them,

OR

They were not justified, and we can attack them for the criminal acts that they did.

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 09:07 PM

You're still talking like Al Qaeda, justifying terrorism on the grounds that it was a righteous and necessary response to actions carried out by the enemy.

I see that there is still no official comments about this from the US side, just lots of stuff from anonymous sources making various claims about what happened and why.

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 09:10 PM

So, all actions by police are terrorism?

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 09:48 PM

The Iraq government has now rebuked the USA for these killings. The White House has refused to say anything at all about them. Some "police action".

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 12:45 AM

it's not for my security ...

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 08:59 PM

Here's the latest BBC story about this, one hour ago, from a reporter who has got there, and talked to people, including a woman in hisoputal who tells how she was shot by the attackers, Her husband, a night watchman, was killed, but she doesn't know that yet.

The dead included a man and his four adult children, who people said had nothing whatever to do with al-Qaeda. And no sign of the alleged Abu Ghadiya (who had been reported as already killed in Iraq some months ago).

Well, maybe they are all lying, and there has been a clever cover up. Or maybe this was another botched affair like the wedding parties that have been wiped out by mistake on several occasions. The refusal of official American sources to comment on it - all the "news" has come from sources who insisted on not being named)- does rather cast a shadow on things.

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: Sawzaw
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 01:53 AM

Former Obama Adviser (supposedly fired after the press discovered he was regularly contacting Hamas) Meets Syria's Assad

Syria's official media was keen to deliver special coverage of President Bashar Al-Assad's Oct. 16 meeting with Robert Malley, head of the Middle East program at the International Crisis Group and erstwhile informal adviser to U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The lead story the next day in government newspapers reported that Al-Assad and Malley discussed Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and prospects for peace in the Middle East, and that Malley explained the role the ICG would have in briefing the new U.S. administration about Syria's important role in the region.

What really attracted attention, though, was that on the same day a Web site closely associated with the government published a translation of a lecture Malley had delivered at Yale, offering effusive praise for it.

The site referred to Malley as a senior adviser to Barack Obama on the Middle East, even though the Obama campaign says Malley's role was never official. In any case, the campaign dropped him as too controversial after it was reported that he had met with Hamas officials. The Web site further stated that Malley's opinions would shape the next U.S. president's ideas about the Middle East, noting that, unlike the Bush administration, Malley supported a peace agreement between Syria and Israel--which would weaken Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.

The site noted that Obama had twice echoed Malley in stating that the failure of the war in Iraq had strengthened Iran's influence. But if the Obama campaign has indeed severed its ties to Malley, it seems that Syrian officials are overestimating his influence. (Malley last met with the Syrian president in April 2007.)

Subject: RE: BS: Syria
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 06:30 PM

The weird thing is that Syria had been cosying up to western governents for a long time in various ways - for example, as a place to outsource torture when required. Canadian 'role in Syria torture'

Still no word from the US authorities about these killings (apart from the unsupported stuff from unnamed people speaking "on conditions of anonymity".)   If it all was a tragic cock-up, which seems pretty plausible, the hope would presumably be that, what with the elections and all that, it will all fade away. But that doesn't appear to be how thousands of people in Damascus are seeing things - US embassy shut as Syrians protest over deadly raid.