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October 24, 2005

Like Dad, Bashar Is Pushing His Luck

Syria, an outspoken enemy of Israel since long before the Jewish State kicked its butt in 1973, has done more than enough in recent years to warrant some aggressive attention not only from Israel, but the Coalition of the Willing as well.

Many of the Palestinians who commit acts of terrorism in Israel are trained in Syria, armed by Syria and financed by Syria, or by terror groups headquartered in Syria with the blessing of "President" Bashar Assad and previously that of his father and predecessor, Hafez Assad.

There has been evidence submitted, via satellite intelligence and from a few on-the-ground witnesses, that prior to the U.S. led invasion of Iraq, guards on the Iraq-Syria border were relieved by Saddam's own security people in order to permit convoys of trucks to drive into Syria without any official scrutiny of their cargoes.

There has been no "smoking gun" level of evidence yet presented to support any theories as to what may have been in the trucks, though one theory is that the convoys were transporting WMD from Iraq into the hands of Baathist-run Syria. The anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-America, pro-terrorist, pro-tyranny crowd screams that there's no way this could be so, for according to them, there never was any WMD in Iraq. To even hint at the possibility would be to discredit their weak, long played out "Bush lied" mantra.

However, throughout the merry time Saddam and his cronies enjoyed sending blind man Blix on wild goose chases while shuffling the sought after inventory out of his path, and since, a lot of WMD that was known to be in Saddam's possession prior to the Blix idiocy is unaccounted for. The Mainstream Media doesn't speculate on this, nor do their liberal subscribers, who apparently think the unaccounted-for weaponry -- chemical and biological for the most part -- must have simply ceased to exist of its own volition.

As the Kennedy who is a left wing columnist would say, "the science speaks for itself" or some such moronic declaration as when he blamed Bush for Hurricane Katrina because Dubya had declined to sign the Kyoto Agreement, thus causing the "global warming" that in turn "caused" Katrina. Right, so much for liberal science.

But there is a strong possibility that those missing WMD are, or were, in the hands of Bashar Assad, awaiting use at a time of opportunity.

Since we overthrew Saddam and waxed his sadistic sons, Syria has been a staging point for terrorists, including al-Qaeda mambers, entering Iraq. Damascus has been a veritable mall of headquarters for a variety of Fundamentalist Islam-based terrorist organizations and Assad has done nothing to discourage this, save for weak promises he's had no intention of carrying out.

Now, it seems, he is bringing his country back to the strongman rule embraced by his father.

DAMASCUS, Syria -- A brutal beating delivered last week to Anwar al Bounni, one of the few lawyers who dares to represent political prisoners before Syria's security court, indicates that after a brief "Damascus Spring," the administration of President Bashar Assad is cracking down on dissent.
And there is evidence considered strong enough to pursue an investigation into allegations that the Assad government was involved in the February assassination bombing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri.

A U.N. report last week accused the Syrian administration of complicity in the Feb. 14 bombing deaths of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 20 others in Beirut.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who are traveling together in Alabama, both called yesterday for international action in response to the report.
"These are very serious charges and they have to be debated at the level of foreign minister," Miss Rice said in a British Broadcasting Corp. interview.
Mr. Straw said the report indicated that "people of a high level of this Syrian regime were implicated" in the assassination. He also referred to "false testimony being given by senior people" in the Syrian government.

Thus far, our disagreements with Damascus have been limited to barking contests and as such, Bashar Assad is making the same mistake Saddam & Sons made by assuming the United States was all talk, no action. The Husseins at least had reason to opine thusly, as our track record under the Clinton Administration was one of a toothless tiger. One of Saddam's sons was quoted as saying, when the Coalitition was making mincemeat of the Iraqi Army, that "Bush is not Bill Clinton!" Assad is just stupid, one of those people who refuse to learn from others' mistakes, a yipping chihuahua snapping at the heels of a couple of tigers named Israel and the United States.

It seems inevitable that if Assad doesn't clean up his act in the very near future, that "aggressive attention" will be visited upon Syria in ways he will find to be not to his liking, extremely so.

Posted by Seth at October 24, 2005 10:42 AM

Comments

Posted by: William Dickinson at November 7, 2005 04:28 PM

Posted by: Seth at November 7, 2005 04:48 PM

Posted by: Courtney Gidts at November 16, 2005 07:12 PM

Posted by: Seth at November 16, 2005 10:15 PM

Posted by: Betsy Markum at January 12, 2006 05:35 PM