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"What we are saying...is antagonistic"
-How so? What would you say?
"...the way we are saying it is antagonistic"
-Are you kidding?
"constructive statements"?
Don't support terrorists.
Don't provide safe harbor for Iraqi officials.
Don't develop WMD.
Stop paramilitarys from entering Iraq from Syria.
Get out of Lebanon.
- Sounds like constructive statements to me. What would you say?
U.S. urged to temper Syria remarks
Bush accuses Damascus
of harboring Iraqi fugitives
MSNBC NEWS SERVICES
http://www.msnbc.com/news/888057.asp?0cv=CB10
Question: What is Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Russia etc. doing to put pressure on Syria to clean up their act? They complain when the U.S. points out that the king has no clothes, BUT are unwilling to use their "friendship" to do anything about it. Don't good friends tell friends when...?
In regards to deputy ambassador Imad Moustapha (Damascus Dan), do all these Middle Eastern government officials think that we believe their lies?
"The Arab states don't like us, and for good reason. In the 1950s and '60s, we supported Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran, even though he was the Saddam Hussein of his time and ruled by torture and murder."
This guy is so mis-informed. Iran isn't an Arab state.
>Saudi Arabia
Riddle me this:
A fuel cell technology boom drives the price of crude oil to less than $5 a barrel in 15 years. Question: Would the Middle East be a safer or more dangerous place?
"We have freed Iraq from its brutal dictator, one who was zero threat to our monster superpower country!"
Zero threat: Like that rag-tag group of islamic extremists living the caves of Afghanistan. Tell that to the families of those who died on 9/11.
No, you criticized Rumsfeld, you made the assertion that the U.S. hasn't used quiet diplomacy to deal with Syria. You need to back it up.
"she and her team sharpened our policy advocacy and took our values and our ideas to mass audiences and countries which hadn't heard from us in a concerted way for many years"
Would good does this do? Assad runs Syria, not "mass audiences". You're original posts were in regards to "speaking softly", remember? You criticized Rumfeld for not speaking softly. Quiet diplomacy is going on all the time - for decades with Syria. It isn't publicized, that's why it's called "speaking softly". Obviously it hasn't worked.
Why don't you send a letter to Madeline Albright or James Baker and see what they tell you?
Night vision equipment was covered under the UN embargo...nevermind, I forgot, the UN is irrelevant.
"I haven't seen where we have addressed this particular issues for 25 years. Just saying we've used diplomacy for 25 years doesn't mean anything."
What don't you understand???? What HAVEN'T we done (short of threatening military intervention) to address this issue???
"Do you view Syria as an imminent threat to US security?"
Imminent? I'd say they are a CURRENT threat to our soldiers. Did you watch the firefight in Baghdad with the 3rd ID from Monday? Many dead and captured Syrians were reported by the cameraman who captured it. Do you think the Syrians lifted a finger to stop these paramilitaries from crossing into Iraq? The night vision goggles: Do you think they pose an imminent threat to our troops?
You are in denial. Go to this thing they call a search engine and type in "syria deplomacy terrorism" and see what you find.
BBC Story from today:
==============================
Syria cuts oil exports
Traders in the London oil markets have reported a sudden big cut in crude oil deliveries from Syria which, they say, could prove the country has been illegally importing Iraqi oil.
This follows a warning to customers on Tuesday that Syria was cutting oil exports by nearly half for the rest of the year, from state oil marketer Sytrol.
The fall is believed to be linked to the bombing of a pipeline from Iraq to Syria by American special forces.
If this proves correct, analysts say it may confirm Syria has been importing Iraqi oil in contravention of UN sanctions for many years.
Illegal profits?
Axel Bush from Energy Intelligence has spent three years investigating illegal Iraqi oil exports.
He told the BBC's World Business Report that many people involved in the oil markets believe Syria has been importing 200,000 barrels of Iraqi crude every day for years.
It is thought the cut-price Iraqi oil was piped from oil fields near the Southern town of Basra to Syrian refineries.
This allowed Syria to export more of its own oil at the higher international price.
Syria has always maintained that the pipeline in question was being tested but was not in full use.
Mystery tankers
Mr Bush also said other countries have been the recipients of Iraqi oil exports since sanctions began.
"There's been dribs and drabs going out through Turkey and there's sort of a... nudge and wink understanding with Jordan that they can get 110,000 barrels a day which everybody knows about and nobody's bothered about," he said.
Mr Bush also said at least four large crude oil carriers had left an Iraqi port in the weeks leading up to the war carrying at least four million barrels of oil, but their destination is unknown.
"The multinational interception force which was... supposed to control these things, have done absolutely nothing," he said.
"It is a great mystery, where has that oil gone?"
One of my clients is a very large company in Miami - owned and opperated by Cuban exiles. I've worked with these people for several years now. You don't know what you're talking about.
The paper I posted was OLD - to point out the fact that diplomacy has been going on for years. The Bush administration mentioned was Bush 41.
The issues at hand aren't much different than the issues that confronted Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton. Syria sponsors and harbors terrorists, diplomacy has failed miserably. Syria's recent actions only highlight their brazen defiance towards the U.S.
After 25+ years of diplomacy, Syria is serving as a surrogate to sell Iraqi oil illegally, shipping night vision goggles and other military goods to Iraq, allowing safe passage of terrorists into Iraq, and possibly even harboring Iraqi officials and WMD.
When does soft talk stop and big stick begin?
Brilliant foriegn policy position SoxFan. Should call it the "blackmail pays" policy.
New U.S. foriegn policy according to SoxFan
1. Stop building nukes and we will pay you.
2. If you begin building nukes again, we will pay you even more to stop.
3. Go to back step 2 and repeat indefinately.
Do you deny the U.S. has been engaged in quiet diplomacy with the Syrians for the past 25 years?
"Castro has made a lot of mistakes"
- That's the understatement of the week!
"He should have (IMO)followed George Washington's lead, and retired after a some limited period of time, establishing a stronger and wider leadership."
- Dictators don't relinquish power. That's why their dictators.
"Contrary to impressions that some newspapers and the US give, there is NOT widespread oppression in Cuba."
-Haven't you been reading the newspapers this week? Have you ever talked to a Cuban exile? You're either completely misinformed or in total denial.
"to call the rounding up of 74 opponents of the govt the "most egregious act of political oppression" in the past 10 years is not so bad when you consider that the US has over the past 2 years rounded up several thousand people and detained without a trial, without access to attorneys, without charging them with anything. "
-Your comparison completely lacks intellectual honestly. Even the most left-wing members of congress would laugh at your comparison.
No, it's an op-ed piece. Do you deny Castro's recent examples of tyranny?
Just another example of the hypocritical left. Where's the outrage?
========================================
Mum's the Word
Hollywood celebs may not quite be pro-Saddam, but there's one tyrant they love.
BY ANDREW BREITBART
Friday, April 11, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
Thousands of jubilant Iraqis, ready for a brand-new beat, dance in the street to celebrate the toppling of a brutal dictator whose tyranny has lasted 24 years but not 24 hours more. Preoccupied with the dramatic image of a noose around Saddam's neck as he is dragged to the ground in Baghdad's al-Fardous square (a 20-foot metal statue of Saddam, that is), the world largely overlooks the news of another dictator, Cuba's Fidel Castro, so far besting the Iraqi tyrant's run by 20 years and counting.
This week Castro continued his crackdown on dissidents with the speedy conviction of at least 74 nonviolent government opponents in nonpublic kangaroo-court proceedings. Rounded up last month, the jailed independent journalists and pro-democracy activists, including reporter-photographer Omar Rodriguez Saludes, writer Raul Rivero and magazine editor Ricardo Gonzalez, received sentences of up to 27 years each.
The U.S. State Department called the actions "the most egregious act of political repression in Cuba in the last decade." Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa said that Castro's draconian crackdown was the "natural progression of a dictatorship that has been oppressing human rights for years." The House passed a condemning resolution, 414-0, and Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and International PEN, among others, joined the chorus of condemnation.
Not, though, the Castro Faithful--the media moguls, celebrity journalists, filmmakers and Hollywood glitterati who continue to break bread with the Cuban dictator and idolize him as "one hell of a guy," in Ted Turner's words. No, they were silent. And given protest-happy Hollywood's long love affair with the unelected "President" Fidel--"one of the most mysterious leaders in the world," cooed Barbara Walters on ABC's "20/20" in October, as she puffed up his "personal magnetism" and supposed social triumphs--it's unlikely that there will be any expression of disapproval from these quarters soon.
As Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote this week, Castro can rely on "the unswerving naïveté and obtuseness of the American left, which consistently has managed to overlook what a goon he is." The list of those willing to keep Castro's good company, and remain silent when his actions revert to type, includes rich and famous celebrities who troop to Havana to pay their respects to the rich and famous dictator.
Perhaps they don't know any better, as they return with Cuban cigars and fawning praise: "It was an experience of a lifetime" (Kevin Costner); "he is a genius" (Jack Nicholson); a "source of inspiration to the world" (Naomi Campbell). But people who should know better make the pilgrimage too. Director Steven Spielberg, founder of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and winner of an Academy Award for illuminating the horrors of the Holocaust, described his meeting with Castro in November as "the eight most important hours of my life." Never forget, indeed.
This week, as reported in Newsweek International's Global Buzz column, a pack of New York media VIPs, each willing to pony up $6,500 for travel costs, are set to jet to Cuba with Yoko Ono to meet with the Bearded One, just as his crackdown hits overdrive. Slate's blogger Mickey Kaus shrewdly comments: "It's especially ironic that press and publishing executives are paying an enormous premium to meet with a man who is busy jailing journalists and writers for being journalists and writers."
Yoko and Co.'s trek is not the first such jaunt to the land of the Buena Vista Social Club. Remember the February 2001 excursion of CBS President and CEO Les Moonves and his fellow travelers, MTV Networks Chairman Tom "Rock the Vote" Freston, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and other well-heeled media executives? Their four-day trip to Cuba, which naturally included a private dinner with Fidel, became the subject of a New York Post article and of quips from CBS employee David Letterman: "On the one hand, you have the ruthless dictator surrounded by sniveling 'yes' men, and then on the other hand, of course, you have Fidel Castro."
What were they thinking? And what are their thoughts now that the totalitarian communist dictator they so politely respected is acting so strikingly dictatorial? Requests to Ms. Walters, Mr. Carter and Mr. Turner for an explanation were left unresponded to, while Mr. Moonves's and Mr. Freston's offices went on record not to go on the record. Andy Spahn, a Spielberg rep at Dreamworks, said that the director was in pre-production and could not be reached for comment. Mr. Spahn went on to say, though, that the recent crackdown had been "provoked" by James Cason, a U.S. diplomat in Havana, who is reported to have met with Cuban dissidents in their homes in February.
Talk about "shock and awe"! It is indeed shocking to note the ease with which the Castro Faithful shy away from protesting his actions or correcting their sycophantic statements--or, in Mr. Spahn's case, put forward a blame-the-victim theory. Shocking too are the products of fawning tribute that continue to materialize, such as Estela Bravo's adoring documentary "Fidel" and the documentary "Comandante," directed by Oliver Stone and Fidel Castro himself, who was given the power to stop filming at will.
The Stone film, set to be broadcast on HBO in May, will supposedly show the human side of Castro, a man who is "one of the Earth's wisest people," as Mr. Stone said at a press conference in February. In "Comandante," we are told, Castro finally reveals his true views about shaving, his love of recent films such as "Titanic" and "Gladiator" (just don't ask how he got a hold of copies of the films under the U.S. economic embargo), and his great appreciation for Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren. Shocking indeed. Given the harshness of the recent dissident crackdown, the release date of the film seems awkward at best. If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny.
Why is this thug still the darling of the media elite? Why is it so unwilling to protest his dictatorial moves? As Marxist ideologue Groucho would say, a child of five would understand this; send someone to fetch a child of five.
Perhaps Castro represents a wish-fulfillment fantasy. A romantic, intellectual revolutionary achieves iconic status, absolute power, great wealth and a 40-year-plus reign--quite an appealing vision to ambitious people in industries with high career mortality rates. But who knows? The Faithful aren't talking.
Mr. Breitbart, with journalist Mark Ebner, is the author of the forthcoming "Hollywood, Interrupted" (Wiley).
Thanks Mr. Jordan. What stories for Syria have you kept to yourself?
The media has been hysterical in general, including this story by Chris Wallace. Did anyone really believe we'd find WMD this soon? I didn't. Too bad so sad for the rabid media who believe real-life should unfold like a movie script. Do you think Iraq is littered with neon signs that say "Weapons of Mass Destruction Here!"?
Rumsfeld has, once again, been totally right in his comments.
Question: Where are the Iraqi scientists? When we find them, we'll find the WMD.
There is no lack of info on this subject. Where have you been for the last 20 years?
---------------------------------------
Despite US diplomacy, Syria is still a ruthless player
The Persian Gulf War reminded us to beware of Middle Eastern dictators, especially those with unchallenged authority in their own countries and an expanding military machine. The United States chose to ignore Saddam Hussein's warning signs in the 1980s because we saw Iraq's enemy Iran as the greater villain. Saddam made us regret this oversight by invading Kuwait in 1990.
America's foreign policy makers did not learn their lesson. The United States is currently nurturing a cozy relationship with another barbaric Arab despot, Syria's Hafez al-Assad.
The United States and Syria had a long history of animosity until Syria decided to join the US-led coalition against Iraq. Before and after the war, President George Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III praised Assad for Syria's role in the alliance. Assad's subsequent decision to attend an Arab-Israeli peace conference also brought him American goodwill. When Assad volunteered this summer to pressure the groups holding Western hostages, he was rewarded with even more favorable rhetoric from American leaders.
Bush and Baker believe that these few measures of good faith justify rewriting our relationship with Syria. More realistic observers believe otherwise.
Assad's commitment to crushing internal dissent is well-known and documented. Syria practices the same authoritarian style of government as Iraq. Citizens who want to celebrate their next birthday do not publicly criticize the government. Paralleling Saddam's oppression in Iraq, Assad has suppressed uprisings with brutal massacres. Amnesty International has compiled detailed reports of these human rights abuses, including mass killings of Lebanese, Sunni Muslims and Shiites.
Influencing another country's internal affairs is a tricky matter, which partly explains why our government frequently overlooks the domestic crimes of ruthless regimes like Assad's. US interests change, though, when a dictator attacks another country. Ignoring Saddam Hussein's atrocities within Iraq, our leaders maintained their friendly relationship until he invaded Kuwait. Unfortunately, the United States has chosen to only selectively oppose aggression, as anyone who has observed Lebanon for the last 15 years can attest.
Syria now occupies and essentially governs Lebanon. For 15 years, the Syrian military has steadily gained control over the country's fractured ethnic enclaves. In October 1990, as the world's eyes were focused on Kuwait, Syrian forces slaughtered the last Lebanese rebels, summarily executing both soldiers and civilians. Unfortunately, the attacks received scant attention from the American media and government. Many observers believe it was the most underreported news story of last year.
Assad has shrewdly maintained a puppet Lebanese government that in reality merely rubber stamps Syrian demands. Given the American public's ignorance of the true situation, this appearance of autonomy allows our leaders to sidestep the independence issue. In May 1991 Lebanon was forced to sign the Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination, which includes a provision giving the Syrian military free reign over Lebanon's territory. The US ambassador to Lebanon blessed the agreement, paradoxically remarking that it would guarantee Lebanon's autonomy when it actually cedes Lebanese independence to Syria. Assad has stated that the two countries' peoples are now unified, separated only by political boundaries.
Syria's offenses extend well beyond Lebanon, however. Syria was one of the few countries singled out for systematic sponsorship of international terrorism when the United States first compiled such a record in 1979. It has never been removed from the list. Since the early 1980s, the attacks have become harder to trace, since they are carried out less frequently by Syrian operatives and more often by non-Syrian terrorist groups which Syria provided with support and sanctuary. Nevertheless, Syria continues to be implicated every year in dozens of international terrorist incidents.
Why has the Bush administration chosen to ignore Syria's atrocities and instead extended the diplomatic welcome mat? Certainly much of the reason rests with Syria's role in the coalition against Iraq. Syria lent credibility to our claim that the Arab world joined us in opposition to Saddam. What Bush and Baker do not seem to realize, however, is that Syria joined the alliance purely out of self-interest. Syria and Iraq are bitter enemies, and a powerful Saddam thwarted Assad's own desire to be the neighborhood bully.
Although Syrian forces contributed very little during the actual fighting, Syria's cooperation was a key component of America's international public relations effort. The immediate price of Syria's entry into the coalition, of course, was our turning a blind eye towards the virtual annexation of Lebanon. Taking this into account, along with Syria's human rights abuses and sponsorship of terrorism, our alliance with Assad against Saddam was a scaled-down version of our choice of Stalin over Hitler before World War II.
Since the Gulf War, Bush and Baker have coddled Assad because they believed that he would play a constructive role in their utopian Middle East "peace process." They apparently have not seen the hypocrisy in asking the man who is tightening his control over another country to help bring peace to the region. They also ignored the fact that countries planning for peace normally do not vastly increase their military expenditures, especially when their most powerful opponent has just been vanquished. Syria has spent its proceeds from the war (over two billion dollars in Saudi gifts) on improved aircraft, tanks and Scud missiles, and the country now spends 40 percent of its gross national product on its military.
The Bush administration has made a grave mistake in conferring credibility to Hafez al-Assad's ruthless government. Saddam Hussein showed vividly that aggressive dictators who can suppress internal dissension while expanding offensive military potential can very easily invade a weaker neighbor. The President believes that somehow Assad is different, and thus far the American public has not questioned him on this assumption.
American journalists are perpetually late in criticizing our friendly relationships with brutal regimes. They generally do not question our policies until after a country acts strongly against the United States' strategic interests. We all heard the brilliant expos'es of two administrations' misguided dealings with Manuel Noreiga and Saddam Hussein, but only after the damage was irreversible. It's time for this criticism to be forward-looking rather than retrospective. A few articles on the real Syria would be a good start.
whoMark A. Smith is a senior in the Department of Economics.
Yes I would. Do you actually believe the State Department hasn't been talking to the Syrians about their role in aiding terrorist, the terrorist training camps in their country, their activities in Lebanon, etc. for the past few decades?
What makes you believe the U.S. hasn't been using quiet diplomacy for many years now? Unfortuately, it seems the Syrian leadership might be another group of slow learners - like Saddam.
"Soft talk" doesn't seem to work with these Middle Eastern regimes. It could be a "big stick" is the only thing they understand.
"You've likely read about the mess that Afghanistan continues to be in."
Mess? Look at the big picture for change goodluck. Is the situation in Afghanistan better or worse than it was before 9/11? Is the situation perfect? No. Will the situation ever be perfect? No.
Afghanistan isn't a Hollywood movie that ends in two hours with a permanent, perfectly happy ending. LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE! BETTER BEFORE OR AFTER???
"Once again the Arabs have fallen victim to the lies of their leaders and media. We never learn from our mistakes."
How true. How very true.
Next stop; Syria?
----------------------------------------------
U.S. Says Syria May Be Helping Move Out Iraqis
Wed April 9, 2003 02:18 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld charged on Wednesday that Syria might be helping Saddam Hussein's supporters to flee Iraq.
"We are getting scraps of intelligence saying that Syria has been cooperative in facilitating the move of the people out of Iraq and into Syria," he told a news conference. "Then in some cases they stay there and find safekeeping there. In other cases they move them from Syria to some other places.
"We also have seen in a number of instances people from Syria moving into Iraq, unhelpfully."
Rumsfeld had been asked where supporters of the collapsing Saddam administration had retreated. He previously accused Syria of allowing shipments of military equipment like night-vision goggles into Iraq in defiance of a U.S. warning. Syria dismissed the allegations.
The message is we don't need French approval in order to defend our people.
Watch him? Do you really think Moussaoui would still be in the U.S. if we just watched him?
The liberation of Baghdad is being fabricated by the Americans - created on a Hollywood soundstage with CG effects glore. You can't fool Al Jazeera and the Arab press. The torture chambers in Basra are fiction as well.
Where are the appologies from all the liberal commentators and news analyist who desparaged Cheney for his comments on Russert's Meet the Press? He was right and the press was wrong.
Entire interview:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/886068.asp
MR. RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with them, various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq. And like Kanan Makiya who's a professor at Brandeis, but an Iraqi, he's written great books about the subject, knows the country intimately, and is a part of the democratic opposition and resistance. The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.
A friend said al jazeera online is reporting that Saddam has taken refuge in the Russian embassy and is working with diplomats there for safe extraction out of Iraq.
I can't get to english.aljazeera - have any of you heard this rumor?
Moussaoui - What if he was an American citizen? Do you think the FBI should have let him go? Do you think he would have hung around while the Feds collected enough evidence to charge him?
I'm not saying the material witness laws are ideal, or that they should be abused. There is clearly void in the legal tools the Justice department has at their disposal to detain possible terrorists or terrorist collaborators. The judicial committee should get their rear in gear and try to find a solution.
Take Osama Awadallah for example - The FBI found his first name and old telephone number in a car used by one of the Sept. 11 hijackers. The government says he lied when asked during a polygraph exam if he had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks. He testified before a grand jury he had met two of the hijackers, but could remember the name of only one, Nawaf Al-Hazmi. He denied knowing another hijacker, Khalid Al-Mihdar, even after the government produced a college examination book in which Mr. Awadallah had written "Khalid."
Shouldn't the FBI have some mechanism to detain this guy until all facts are sorted out?
The original question was about free speech and the first amendment. My point is that speaking publicly against your own country while on an enemy's soil, in the presence of enemy soldiers, is a stretch beyond what was intended by the first amendment. I believe the framers of the bill of rights would have considered Hanoi Jane's stunt treason, not free speech.
as a "material witness".
>Tom K, What about medical supplies for injured civilians?
How would you know the medical supplies would go to injured civilians? Oh, I see, like the UN food for oil program in Iraq - I forgot about all the food and aid that went to the Iraqi CIVILIANS.
I don't understand how my comment relates to Sherman and Andersonville - a POW camp.
Wasn't Zacarias Moussaoui held as a material witness?
"consider the loss of 1st amendment rights over the last year and 1/2"
Please explain.
"what other limitations do you think apply...?"
Public speaking from within a country in which we are engaged in an armed conflict crosses over the line in my opinion. You can criticize our government and it's policies all you want, but when you do it from an enemy's soil, it's giving aid to the enemy.
Think about this: Do you believe giving a monetary contribution is a form of free speech? If you answered "yes", would it have been fine for Hanoi Jane to send a money to the North Vietnamese Army?
It doesn't matter where and with whom she said it?
Really?
Tell the Armed Services committees that.