Is the US inspired UN Resolution Dead on Arrival?
As the UN Security Council prepares to vote on a joint French - US resolution to prepare the way for the creation of an Israeli controlled buffer zone in Southern Lebanon, President Bush explained: "I understand that both parties aren't going to agree with all aspects of the resolution. But the intent of the resolutions is to strengthen the Lebanese government so Israel has got a partner in peace."
The New York Times has a good article on the differences between the two countries here.
Siniora's government has stood against the resolution. He and the Arab foreign ministers, who met in Beirut on Monday,
pressed for changes in the Franco-American U.N. draft resolution. Siniora has proposed a speeded-up deployment of Lebanese troops with the support of U.N. forces in order to ensure that thousands of Israeli soldiers leave the south with any cease-fire.Siniora, who gave a Tearful speech pleading for Lebanon not to be a 'Punching Bag' got strong backing from the foreign ministers, who warned the U.N. Security Council against adopting resolutions that don't serve Lebanon's interests. They decided to send a high-level delegation to New York to press Lebanon's case.
In a related development, the Lebanese army recalled reserve troops who have been released from service less than 5 years ago for a possible deployment in the south.
The Arab foreign ministers warned of "the consequences of adopting resolutions that are not applicable and complicate the situation on the ground and do not take Lebanon's interest and stability into account." Lebanon and the Arabs see the draft resolution as heavily tilted toward Israel.
Bush brushed off Siniora's demand for an Israeli troop withdrawal: "Whatever happens in the UN, we must not create a vacuum into which Hizbullah and its sponsors are able to move more weapons," Bush said.
Paul Woodward's extraordinary site, War in Context, summarizes a number of good articles. Here is one of his summaries:
The loser in Lebanon: The Atlantic alliance
By Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke, Asia Times, August 8, 2006
The [Security Council] resolution ... seems to satisfy the French and Americans - but no one else, and so angered Arab diplomats that Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League, denounced it publicly, while privately calling the resolution "a surrender document".Robert Fisk comes to a similar conclusion in his: This draft shows who is running America's policy... Israel.
A spokesman for Hezbollah in Beirut was even blunter, saying that the resolution was "dead on arrival". He added, "The French caved in to American and Israeli pressure. Israel gets to stay on our land. We are required to disarm. Why isn't an international force deployed in northern Israel? Our arms get cut off and the US gets to fly cluster munitions into Ben Gurion [Airport in Tel Aviv]. Just who do they think is winning this war?"
For now, Condoleezza Rice is hailing the US-French draft as a symbol for US-European cooperation. But for many European diplomats, agreement on the draft resolution has only papered over a deepening rift between the United States and its European partners, with some European diplomats muttering that America's real goal is to induce the Europeans to wade into Lebanon on the side of a defanged and humiliated Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "bragged that Israel would destroy Hezbollah", a French diplomat said in Washington, "and if he can't do it that's his problem. I don't care what the secretary of state says, we're not going to do it for him. “There are more difficult days ahead - particularly when the US and France square off in the coming week over the draft of a second resolution. With nearly everyone now wondering whether the US position in the Middle East is unraveling, one UN diplomat said the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict may spell the end of an era in which the US and Europe established a tradition of diplomatic cooperation: "We might as well face up to it. Sooner or later the United States is going to have to choose what is more important - its strategic alliance with Europe, or its friendship with Israel." [complete article]
Leila Hatoum of the Daily Star is barely able to conceal her outrage at US hypocrisy in her article covering US Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch's visit to Lebanon yesterday. She writes:
Welch took careful aim to reiterate Saturday that the United States is "determined to support Lebanon." "President [George W.] Bush and Secretary [of State Condoleezza] Rice are determined to support Lebanon," Welch said after a meeting with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in Beirut. "Much has happened in the past three weeks, but the commitment of the US to Lebanon remains firm; it remains enduring and it is not negotiable."Hatoum intersperses these warm reassurances from the US administration with a laundry list of the lives lost, refugees send running from their homes, and infrastructure destroyed by America's client, Israel. Welch's reassurances that "the relationship of the US with Lebanon is based on mutual respect and the shared interests" and his personal statement, "I grieve for the lives that have been lost," should go a long way to convince Siniora and other Lebanese that Washington has Lebanon's best interests in mind as it buys time for Israel to continue bombing.
On the eve of Monday's diplomatic discussions, Israel and then Syria raised the rhetoric of war in order to scare the other side into making concessions.
Olmert Discusses Expansion of War with Defense Officials Amid Report of Escalating Attacks on Infrastructure
Syrian foreign minister warns his country ready for regional war
Syria's foreign minister said Sunday his country was ready for regional war and will respond "immediately" to any Israeli attack, as he offered to join Hizbullah's ranks. "We will respond to any Israeli aggression immediately," Walid Moallem said on arrival in Lebanon ahead of a Monday-meeting for Arab foreign ministers to discuss.Full Story
Annahar, a pro-American Lebanese paper, claims that because the Security Council resolution "does not call for an 'immediate cessation of violence,' that it appeared to be a victory for the U.S. and Israel. France and many other nations were demanding an immediate halt to violence without conditions as a way to push the region back toward stability.
Secretary Rice, in an interview with MSNBC on Friday, said "if anyone were to disarm Hizbullah, it would be the Lebanese, not an international force." How this is to happen, she did not say.
Rami Khouri, in his latest Newsweek article, explains how the tensions among Lebanese are getting worse beneath the facade of unity. He believes Hizbullah will come out of the conflict more powerful, but is not aiming for more seats in parliament. He writes:
The question that Khoury begs is: How will Hizbullah define Lebanon's overall political identity and strategic orientation without greater clout in government? The only answer to this is that it will retain its militia, rearm, and continue to hold the government hostage. If this happens, which seems likely, other Lebanese groups will undoubtedly rearm, leading to renewed civil war.Soon comes Hizbullah's next fight—a postwar political reckoning. Whether the party emerges from the current conflict weaker or stronger—and stronger seems the answer now—it will then have to battle the country's other political, religious and ethnic groups for the soul and identity of Lebanon. ...
Hizbullah, as arbiter of a settlement, would likely emerge from these talks with far more clout than it went in with. Would it then try to flex its newfound muscles by dominating the domestic political scene and seeking more cabinet or parliamentary seats? Or, as some analysts who are intimately familiar with the party suggest, would it continue to leave national governance to a consensus cabinet in which it is only symbolically represented, while focusing its energy on defining Lebanon's overall political identity and strategic orientation? From Hizbullah's perspective, that would involve loosening traditional ties to the United States and France, and engaging more with the Arab-Islamic world. Critics also fear this would mean a renewed (even dominant) role for Syria in Lebanon—along with a greater Iranian say in Lebanon's foreign policy.
Khouri sums up the stakes as follows:
This face-off will transcend borders, for it is a microcosm of the wider struggle in the Middle East. On one side is the American-led West and Israel, with some very quiet Arab allies; on the other is the movement to affirm an Arab-Iranian-Islamist identity. The ultimate contest will be the confrontation over Iran's nuclear program, followed by the ongoing tug of war over Hamas's democratic incumbency in the Palestinian territories. As for today's war, the Lebanon-Israel conflict will shape the contours of this emerging ideological battle in a variety of important ways.It is worth reading Khouri's previous article: One day in the life of Bush-Blair democratization on how Lebanon will become another failed state in America and Israel's failing war to confirm their control over the larger Middle East.
John Waterbury, the President of AUB and a previous professor of mine at Princeton, confirms Khouri's view in his Washington Post article: A Bad Status Quo: We Must Address the Roots of the Mideast Crisis. He explains how the US has sought to preserve the status quo in the Middle East that was established during the 1967 War by allowing Israel to keep control of the occupied territories and not using its full diplomatic might to enforce recognized international borders. He believes this status quo is no longer tenable, at least not without turning more of the Middle East into a battle ground.
Imad Mustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the US, is interviewed by the Council on Foreign Relations. He makes a strong argument that Syria is willing to play a constructive role in stabilizing the situation if broader peace negotiations are encouraged. He gives an interesting version of how Syria tried to keep diplomatic channels to the US open following the Iraq War and was willing to offer Washington qualified help in Iraq, but was rebuffed by the US, which wanted all or nothing. The Syrian version of this is an important corrective to the record, which has been misrepresented by US diplomats. His insistence that Syria does not arm Hizbullah is belied by today’s NYTimes article: "A Disciplined Hezbollah Surprises Israel With Its Training, Tactics and Weapons," which reports:
The former Syrian president was careful to restrict supplies to Hezbollah, but his son, Bashar, who took over in 2000 — the year Israel pulled out of Lebanon — has opened its warehouses. Syria has given Hezbollah 220-millimeter and 302-millimeter missiles, both equipped with large, anti-personnel warheads. Syria has also given Hezbollah its most sophisticated antitank weapons, sold to the Syrian Army by Russia.Although Syria seems to have supplied Hizbullah with arms, Iran is its main supplier. Interestingly, Iran has been practicing considerable restraint, according to an Israeli analyst: "But Iran, so far, has not allowed Hezbollah to fire one of the Zelzal missiles, the Israelis say."
posted by Joshua Landis @ 8/07/2006 10:04:00 PM
26 comments
links to this post
26 Comments:
The Sinking Ship of U.S. Imperial Designs
Josh
here is an extra article for you from the Jerusalem post
Assad is crazy like a fox
That is lot of flirting for someone considered like an enemy!
this enforces my theory on
Assad is the natural choice
Some questions:
- What influence will the US have in Lebanon after this betrayal of its allies? Does the US have any political capital left?
- Will the pro-Western Lebanese turn to Europe instead? Is that an alternative or is Europe too weak and divided?
- What role will General Aoun play? (He is conspicuously absent from Khouri's article, yet it is clear that you cannot really analyze the future of Hizbullah without taking the alliance with Aoun into account.)
I don't think that Aoun is or ever will be "pro-Syrian". It is my impression that he would seek to establish friendly relations with both sides, Syria as well as Western countries. Is that analysis correct?
Isreal must think about HA attack Maymooneh nuclear base.
Batthist Apologist Professor Landis opines:
As the UN Security Council prepares to vote on a joint French - US resolution to prepare the way for the creation of an Israeli controlled buffer zone ...
Professor Landis,
Where in the proposed UNSC resolution does it state that the buffer zone is "Israeli controlled"?
I thought professors were committed to accuracy in their pursuit of truth.
Is your Phd in Jihadology?
Actually, an international force that is "controlled" by the UN is proposed.
I suppose any force that keeps the Israeli/Lebanese border quiet is "Israeli controlled".
It makes perfect sense.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
To :Akbar Place?:
Here is an article that may educate you:
Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong
I couldn't watch this movie. See if you have a stronger heart to see it! I am weak!!! ... Bush/Blair say to Israel: we will find a plan when you have finished your killings
As'ad AbuKhalil on an interesting new poll from Lebanon:
"I have just received from Abdu Sa`d, director of the Beirut Center for Research and Data, the results of a new public opinion poll that was conducted between 6th and 7th of August in Lebanon (and it included refugees from South Lebanon). The survey had one question: "Should Lebanon consent to international resolutions that are in conflict with the seven points that were adopted by the Lebanese government"? 88% of the Lebanese people said no. Shi`ites had the largest percentage of rejection (96.6%); followed by Sunnis (91.4%); followed by Christians (80.4%), and then Druzes (79.4%)."
Perhaps that answers my question about how much political capital the US has left in Lebanon at the moment.
One highly educated observer recommended an insightful article by pro-Zionist periodical, "The Guardian":
Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong.
To which I reply,
Everytime Israel "responds" to terror it is unprovoked. Terrorists, OTOH, never provoke anything.
Another axiom in the long history of Zionist aggression.
We can only pray for a world without Zionism.
The Arabs need to focus on a humanitrian response with action, not just words and money. They need to coordinate with each other and relief agencies to helicopter supplies to those in need. Let Israel know when and where they will fly to avoid confusion. This is a great opportunity for the Arab nations to show they can do something positive.
Appointment In Damascus; In March I asked an old friend what he though would happen in Lebanon. 'It's not Syria's problem anymore,' he told me. 'We gave Lebanon to Iran.'
By Robert Baer; Baer, a former CIA officer, is author of "Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude."
806 words
14 August 2006
Newsweek International
International Edition
0
English
Copyright (C) 2006 Newsweek Inc. All Rights Reserved.
In March I ran into an old friend in Damascus, a Syrian businessman close to President Bashar al-Assad. I asked him what he thought would happen in Lebanon. "It's not Syria's problem anymore," he told me. "You threw us out. We gave Lebanon to Iran."
I never thought forcing Syria out of Lebanon had been a good idea. The Lebanese government left in charge was weaker than the one that had been powerless to stop the civil war in 1975. Brutal as its rule had been, it was Syria that put an end to that war with the 1989 Taif accord. Syria kept Hizbullah in check, limiting its parliamentary representation in the 1992, 1996 and 2000 elections. With the Syrian Army gone, I feared, Lebanon would again become a divided and dangerous country.
To be sure, Damascus is hardly a benign influence. It arms Hizbullah and harbors violent Palestinian groups. Still, when Syria controlled Lebanon, Damascus was the closest thing America had to a return address for Hizbullah's terrorists. This was never clearer than during the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847. When passengers were about to be executed on the tarmac of Beirut International Airport, President Ronald Reagan appealed to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, who ordered his commanders in Lebanon to gas up their tanks and prepare to crush the militia. Hizbullah released the hostages.
There were other occasions. In 1987, after Hizbullah kidnapped ABC correspondent Charles Glass within sight of a Syrian checkpoint, the Syrian Army pulled Hizbullah members out of their cars and beat them. Glass was soon free. When the group kidnapped two U.N. employees in 1988, along with others, Assad threatened to arrest Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, a cleric close to Hizbullah, and hang him. Hizbullah quickly let the captives go. In July 1982, a Lebanese Christian militia kidnapped the Iranian chargé d'affaires, two other Iranian diplomats and a Leba-nese journalist. In hopes of an exchange, Iran's Republican Guards arranged to kidnap David Dodge, the acting president of the American University of Beirut, and smuggle him across the border to Syria and thence to Tehran. Washington protested to Assad, who was furious. Unless Iranian authorities freed Dodge, he told Tehran, Syria would expel the Republican Guards from Lebanon. Needless to say, Dodge soon arrived unharmed in Damascus.
As I say, like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, it was the Syrians who kept the lid on Lebanon. So the idea of Damascus's handing its Lebanon portfolio to Tehran sounded like trouble. What happens next, I asked my Syrian contact. He shrugged, then dropped a bombshell. During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Damascus in January, he claimed, the Iranian president had met a shadowy figure in the terrorist world named Imad Mughniyah, the man widely suspected of kidnapping Dodge and killing U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem during the TWA hijacking, among other bloody episodes.
I'd heard this story before. The Mossad was big on it, but I've never quite believed it. The point is that my source did. Essentially, he was telling me he feared that Lebanon was spinning out of control--with dangerous consequences for everyone, including his own country. Freed from Syria's restraint, Hizbullah might soon be hijacking planes and kidnapping people again. If backed by Iranian radicals, it could go even further.
At the time I didn't imagine the full-scale war that has since erupted. But in retrospect, it's hardly surprising. Western diplomats may now seek a ceasefire and send in international peacekeepers. Israel may create an ethnically clean "buffer zone" along its northern border. But does anyone really believe the violence will stop? Will Iran prove a better safety valve than Syria? Not likely.
When the last Syrian tank rattled across the border last year, Syria fell back on a policy of trying to seal itself off from the chaos it could see building around it in Iraq and Lebanon. Bashar al-Assad especially fears the sort of crisis his father confronted in February 1982, when an insurrection backed by the Muslim Brotherhood broke out in Hamah. Assad senior contained it by flattening the town with heavy artillery. Combing through the rubble, the Syrians were astonished to find that the rebels' weapons had come from Lebanon. With no strong central government, it had become a failed state, an open arms bazaar and a haven for terrorists the world over. Today Syria sees history repeating itself, only worse.
Prof. Landis,
Love the pun, dead on arrival...much like that baby whose birth pangs rice was speaking so fondly of. Some guy told me it was a devil child. Well enough hoohaa for now. Pip Pip.
Olmert Tells King Saud: We Won’t Do Your Dirty Job for Free…
The Story of the Thuggish Government and the Weeping ‘Rentier’ State
My old blogging friend C.E. The Republican Realist wrote a razor-sharp assessment of the “Franco-American” draft resolution currently being debated at the UN:
“But this is diplomacy as a tactic in a war. Warfare these days has appropriated many venues that it never before occupied: garage door remotes, CNN, diplomacy, and .pdf files. That's a partial list and the process has been ongoing for some time. It seems that Lebanon (with the coaxing of Hezbollah?) is trying to present an alternative to the DOA Franco-American resolution.”
But, frankly, the UN resolution they’re cooking in New York is more American (>90%+) than say “French” (less than 9.99%) or Botswana-ean.
A relatively easy way to gauge the ideological/linguistic origin of any (draft) UN resolution is simply to count the number of “Gallicisms” and other “Latinisms”: and (unlike say varied UN resolutions on topics such as Bosnia, Sudan…etc.) there are very few of these semantic indicators in the Neocon-engineered text currently being discussed in New York- a draft to which an ailing Chirac probably only gave his ex-post blessings…
Why you may ask?
Why would France abdicate (what’s left of her dwindling) influence in the last remnant of its former MENA empire (North Africa was lost long time ago to a conglomerate bringing together Exxon, Chevron, Boeing and the Pentagon)?
The answer is quite straightforward: K.S.A., Iran’s real archenemy- as opposed to fake foes such as Israel, Pakistan and Botswana!
With the barrel of oil at $ 85., the French (and most government on the face of the earth for that materialistic matter) would sell their daughters to the power-hungry princes of Riyadh.
And the “moderate” [??] Saudi rulers and their pliable “pro-Western” Haririst friends in power in Beirut want Hezbollah crushed at any price.
The spoiled 'rentiers' kids of Arabia are used to be surrounded by cohorts of slaves who always do their bidding: Lebanese cooks, British engineers, Pakistani chauffeurs, Moroccan escort girls…etc.
That’s why the Saudis sincerely thought President Bushmert would be happy to satisfy their monarchic good pleasure and flush out “pro-Iranian” scum from the royal playgrounds of Beirut and the Casino du Liban!
Problem is that, in real life (i.e. outside of Arabia’s air-conditioned palaces), no one will do a dirty and expensive job on your behalf for free… Just like the Faustian characters of old, the decadent desert princes are starting to freak out, for Bushmert has come to ask for the price of his services: the soul of Saud.
UN resolution is dead, even France abandoned it.
Attacking Ain Al Helwa camp could cause the palastinian to react, Isreal may do the same to Syria.
the war is expanding.UN resolution is dead, syria may get involved if Isreal attack to warn.
Posted earlier:
"Forget about Lebanon. Just look at Iraq."
I've looked at Iraq over the last 16 months and flown from the north to the south,….throughout this time always passing through Baghdad Airport; I see that IRAQ IS ALIVE!
Farmers tend to their fields, the rivers flow and water runs the length of the canals.
IRAQ IS ALIVE!
I've spoken to a Shiite in the south who put his two index fingers side by side and said, "we are like this to the Americans...we love America!"
IRAQ IS ALIVE!
I've worked with a young Kurd in Kirkuk whose spirit shines with a glow reflecting hope for the future.
IRAQ IS ALIVE!
I travel frequently through the airport in Baghdad and the Iraqis there show smiles and have shared their snacks with me.
IRAQ IS ALIVE!
If you form your opinion about Iraq and the goodwill of America based on television then you probably enjoy the reading of and believe in fairy tales.
I've looked at Iraq....I've “lived Iraq”....the Iranian plans to destroy the country is not working.
IRAQ IS ALIVE!
If Iranian dogs living as Iraqis stopped taking orders from their masters and were to stop spilling the blood of Sunnis, the two groups could begin to rid the country of Al Qaeda sewer vermin.
Iran would rise above their Persian and Gulf state neighbors as one of the most progressive country's in the Middle East.
The fear of such a rise to power and eminence in the Arab world scares the "sores-on-the-anis-Iranian-leadership."
These people ruling Iran, in their self-righteous world of Shiites mysticism, and their privileged class that doles out government contracts to the benefit of religious and military leaders choose to direct the puppet show of death that is stretching over their Shiite stooges in Palestine & Lebanon and the Persian Nazis orchestrate it all so that the show is viewed with the Israelis being the war mongers.
These Persian Nazis care very little whether Arab blood flows in the streets for they are smothered deep into the pages of the Koran while waiting for their 13th Imam to appear.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1504375/posts
Blind men of the Arab world: cut loose the Iranian puppet strings. Choose life and a world of peace and cooperation.
The road you lead your children down has only sorrow and hate….there is neither life nor love; nothing of the world that Mohammad (PBUH) spoke of that is beautiful.
Stop, pause, pray; ask for the guidance of AL-GAFFÂR((20:82)(38:66)(39:5)(40:42)(71:10))
Practice the way of AL-GAFÛR ((2:173) (8:69) (16:110) (41:32) (60:7))
Be like AL-HAKÎM ((2:129) (2:260) (31:27) (46:2) (57:1)
(66:2))
Ask AL-MU'IZZ (3:26) to give you courage to teach your children to live a life as shown by AL-WADÛD((11:90) (85:14))
To Syrian Nationalist Party:
.......today's world of psychiatric medicine has some very effective drugs that can help you with your problem........ask your daddy if he can give your a little extra money so that you can get treatment.....QUICKLY!
The hole of hate, paranoia, and conspiracies that you have been digging has gotten so deep I can not even hear you anymore.
Alawites for Syria,
My heart cries out in pain to read, hear and think about the horror that victims of the Iraqi bloodshed have gone through
(did you get to see the video of the American getting his head cut off?....or how about the female British aid worker…..just horrible wasn’t it?)
Unfortunately, the hate in Iraq has been like a jar sitting on a shelf for hundreds of years. Iraqis know killing better than anyone else….where did Cain and Able live?
You seem intelligent enough to realize that any jar that has been sealed will eventually be opened.
Whether it was opened four years ago or fifty years from now, Iraqis have longed for the day that they could “cut-loose” and shed a little blood of their neighbor’s ……it’s the human condition in Iraq. Al Qaeda really had no challenge trying to start a civil war….it was going to happen anyway, they and Iran just put fuel to the fire.
Quite honestly, I never knew that people from the same country could hate each other so much.
I can see why Syrians are so upset about Americans trying to keep the peace over in Iraq…….the only way that Syrians are going to benefit from all this hate is for there to be an all out hyper-Beirut-like civil war.
Then it would be the Syrian war mongers making big money and heading to Dubai to hide their money and keeping it from the government coffers and eventually from getting down to the poor in the country (that’s 1/30th of every dinar collected).
=================================================================
Do you know history well enough to cite the war where there hasn’t been a woman or girl raped by a soldier………rape is a part of war it seems…….ugly things are a part of war…..ask the Lebanese…..ask the Israelis…….that ugliness is why an intelligent person chooses to find an alternative to war….any alternative is better than war. Why would Hezbollah want to start a war?
=======================================================================
As far as the TWO incidents of rape by Americans that you mentioned,…..I think…….. that was TWO wasn’t it?……..
I think Saddam had TWO sons that each probably raped woman 20 women a month
…….but I suppose that doesn’t bother you
……..I suppose you don’t even see the good that the Americans brought to all Iraqi women by the killing of these two monster-sons
…….you can’t see anything with the lack of truth that you get
………Saddam, his family and generals rape women for thirty years (without protest from the Syrian government) and Americans put a stop to it;
two groups of American soldiers go crazy and rape a woman and a girl
..….not with the approval of the Army or American government and you end up wanting to see all Americans dead.
What does this picture say about the way you think?
=================================================================
America doesn’t take Iraqi oil………Iraqis can’t even pump oil out of the country from the north……whatever oil does get out from the north can usually be found headed toward Syria in trucks driven by thieves..…and welcomed by Syrians.
==================================================================
400,000 slaughtered Iraqi family members?????
My goodness that’s a big number! That would average about 300 deaths a day for 3 ½ years. Good times for the mortuary business…..if 400,000 were true.
I can pardon you because you are in Syria, the land of make-believe news…….you should read the book “1984.” It’s like a story of modern day Syria.
It would be interesting to see that figure 400,000 backed up by facts instead of Al Jazeera TV entertainment reports (the Arab world equivalent to Fox News)
========================================================
I didn’t believe that Saddam had any WMDs; I knew he was hell-bent on going out in a sick egotistical plan to become a martyr of Arab nationalism: “OH! Look at me! Americans invade, say I have WMD but none is found. They are so bad! Remember me as an Arab leader who was unjustly attacked by America.
========================================================
I tried getting a tax shelter in Dubai……..they wouldn’t let me!!!
Do you know of any Syrian high-tech industry that I could invest in?
The Syrian propaganda industry seems to be alive and well but the bottom always seems to fall out in that business….look at the Soviet Union.
I imagine the Syrian terror-rocket industry has a lot of orders waiting to be filled but I never invest in a business that is spineless and has NO BALLS.
===============================================================
I think what will become public in couple of years is how Iran has been responsible for all the Arab Shiite deaths in order to serve their goal of giving a reason to the Israelis to drop one or two big monster H-bombs on the militant Islamic revolutionaries running the government over their……which would be a bad thing.
Nice satire (on Iraq), Optimistic One... You seem to have missed some great books like The Assassins' Gate, Iraq Ablaze and Fiasco, to name just a few.
I really liked yesterday's presentation to the Security Council by Tarek Mitri. He was very clear and very pedagogic in explaining why the Lebanese government rejected the draft resolution and what the wording of the resolution really meant (allowing the Israelis to continue their "defensive" operations), something which a Western audience otherwise would have missed (with no journalists deeming it necessary to explain the matter).
Yet this did not stop James Bone (UN correspondent of The Times, whom Kofi Annan once famously called an "overgrown schoolboy") to totally misrepresent the case this morning on the BBC's The World Today,, making it sound as if Siniora had accepted the US draft resolution (!) and describing his "seven-point plan" as a proposal by Hizbullah.
I guess the schoolboy wasn't paying attention when the professor spoke...
Optimistic One stated:
I've looked at Iraq over the last 16 months and flown from the north to the south,….throughout this time always passing through Baghdad Airport; I see that IRAQ IS ALIVE!
This is good news. I pray for peace in Iraq and for all those who demand peace and freedom.
My point being, that the screams and shouts are always directed at the Zionist Entity and never at fellow Muslims. Israelis are not killing Iraqis. Muslims are.
And your previous post proves another point: the Western Media doesn't print anything resembling your optimistic post. Just look at the new cover of Time Magazine.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20060814,00.html
Excellent posts Optimistic One… So much for Landis' distortions and nonsense. We only regret that the Americans didn't continue their drive to Damascus immediately following the fall of Baghdad. They declared victory too soon! Bashar was trembling out of fear he would be next. May be he still is and that is why we see his paranoia taking form in reckless, aimless and pathetic acts of despair in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and quite often Jordan and Egypt. He is a pariah and he may well be breathing his last breaths.
Akbar Palace,
WOW! A response to one of my posts that isn't reasoned out of ignorance and laden in, wrapped of, and leaking through the seals with venomous hate & desire for my blood to be spilt!
How does one respond?
It just dawned on me:
Imagine how difficult it would be for a response from the Israelis or Hezbollah if the other came forward one day with an offer peace.
This is something that two sides need to be trained in doing.
As for the cover of Time Magazine:
OH! Now you are talking about downtown Baghdad; what a hell-hole!
What a great place to get media coverage from one death.
What a great place to take a coward’s road show of violence, murder, and death.
You can’t get good media attention in the farmlands like you can in good old Baghdad!
The pathetic viewers, listeners and (one) reader of world media suddenly feel they know what is happening in Iraq through the eyes of correspondents too scared to venture outside the wire to see the real Iraq;
you’d almost think it was a strategy of the insurgency to kill more journalist than in any other war,
indirectly force all the frightened media outlets into the Green Zone and present one stage of spineless murder after spineless murder after spineless murder for them to report on.
All the world’s civilizations have their malcontents and scum that have climbed from the septic holdings of the bathroom; Baghdad is no different.
I believe Saddam had released over 100,000 prisoners from his jails months before the launch of “democracy across the Middle East!”
It is the moral duty of the government to help these and other citizens of Iraqi democracy.
Where are those job training programs for these sad excuses for human beings that Allah’s cry’s out for help to be delivered?
The country badly needs a daily structure that teaches it’s citizens
• how to rebuild air conditioners and generators,
• maintenance and repair of automobiles,
• how to work oil wells and in refineries,
• how to operate and maintain heavy equipment for the construction of Howard Johnson and Marriott Hotels,
• training on how to build those “glamour” abodes that one day will house the tourists of the world,
• training on how to make cement, prepare asphalt, build roads, process foods and produce canned good
• education programs that will support the nation’s electronic highway , water purification and electric generation
• programs to develop and pass knowledge to the children of the country’s beauty, it’s ecological systems, and history
These are lofty dreams but it’s obvious the two big-big-BIG training programs they currently have going (armed forces and police) doesn’t interest many.
As the expression goes in the American West, “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.”;
with Iraqis it seems you can put them through security and policing training
and even teach them how to launch a military assault
but you can’t get them to stop hating one another
and using weapons to kill
instead of defend.
Hezbollah, although not perfect and has a few things backwards, may be the “cutting edge” for training an Arab populace:
They got the training in bomb &weapon use developed but they teach murder.
They deliver social services but in a beholden method; sort of like the old-style Ottoman fiefdom/ clientele/ you-owe-me/ I-owe-them/ “we better not cause trouble or they’ll take away our children’s schooling, the doctor, and never help us fed our family again.”
What a sick, subservient way to raise your family…..but at least it keeps them off the streets and away from causing trouble.
The Arab populace across the Middle East has so much potential; I pray that those who teach hate and undermine the region’s development
ARE SHOT DEAD BETWEEN THE EYES WITH A BULLET THAT HAS PASSED OUT FROM THE ASS-HOLE OF A PIG.
A productive farm can never be developed without first removing that which poisons the soil.
How do you identify this poison? It can be heard using thes words and phrases, over and over and over;“……OPTIMISTIC JEWISH “
“…..this is how Jews work. ‘
“…..they fabricate history. “
“…..it was America “
“…… the Bedouin Arabs [racist remark…I’m offended]”
“…..the bastard Arabs, Jews and American”
“…..genocidal neocons named Rumsfeld”
“…But that is FOX news”
“…Judaism and Jewishness [redundant???]”
“… all about Lies, deceit, fabrication, tale telling, fabricating the story and covering up the crimes”
“……using that Jewish Talent of lie deception and cover up
=========================================
I forgot to tell Syrian Nationalist Party thank you for their compliment, especially since I’m a beholden follower of the Catholic German Pope.
Here's a few more words for the bunch that hopes to bring a better world to the Syrian children:
Does my following of a Catholic German Pope make up for any of the bad feelings we seem to have between us?
You know what I mean don’t you hate monger Syrian Nationalist Party ??????
…….my religious leader’s ethnicity is German
..….spineless & ignorant Germany let Hitler come to power
……Hitler was in power when suddenly those 6 million Jews mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth
Get it Syrian Nationalist Party?
We are so close to being close……..You and I should sit and drink Turkish coffee together in a nice Damascus outdoor bar and grill internet eatery during the cool mornings of the upcoming fall:
You do see the bound between us that only begins from my being Catholic, the heritage of the Pope and Germany’s history, don’t you? Let me summarize:
You –Me
Me Catholic—Pope German
You Hate Monger—Hitler—German and Hate Monger
It’s the German thing connection but it stops there….look where the German connection leads to for you:
You—Hate Monger….
—Hitler—Hate Monger
—German and Hate Monger
…….German
—Hitler
—Jew Hater
—Nazi
—Hezbollah
—Iranian Militant Islamic Extremist Government Leaders
—the natural lubricant from the walls of the human anis that allows excrement to easily slide out through the opening of everyone’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]
Do you prefer cream and sugar in you coffee? If I should arrive earlier for our time together at the bar and grill I will order your coffee for you…..I just love the desert in the Fall season…………..P.S. If you should sit down first at that Damascus coffee house ,……I like my Turkish coffee Straight-up and black……..and thank you in advance for ordering my coffee!
Have a happy day Syrian Nationalist Party!.....remember not to drink the Kool-Aid
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=232174
===================================
Peace be upon you Akbar Palace
as it has come to the honest people on the farms and field of Iraq.
P.S. Landis could be a hundred time worse......he could be from Oklahoma University.
Looks like we're scheduling the war for Friday.
My fellow brothers here on earth from the Syrian Hate Squad said:
DAAAH, you still looking for those Six million Jews moron.
I don't know about others but the thought of finding them sort of went up in smoke.
.....sort of the same direction as trying to find a sensible post created from your sad excuse for brain. AL-WAHHÂB brought you to life from the shallow end of the gene pool. I will have compassion for you.
If you still plan on having coffee with me this fall in Damascus it would be great if you could read up on the following, then we'd have a whole lot to talk about.
http://snipurl.com/uo99
Dear Optimistic One,
Thank you for your last post. Although I had some difficulty understanding some of your ideas,
I believe I understood the crux of your opinion. Your frustration is felt by me and I hope to, one day, see a Middle East grow together in peace and prosperity. Muslim, Jew, and Christian.
Anyway, a short "cut & paste" exercise shows us the intent of the Syrian mouth-piece these tense, past few weeks:
Many Reasons the US Should Engage Syria
by Joshua Landis
"Syria Comment," August 9, 2006
Is the US inspired UN Resolution Dead on Arrival?
As the UN Security Council prepares to vote on a joint French - US resolution to prepare the way for the creation of an Israeli controlled buffer zone in Southern Lebanon, President Bush explained:
U.S. Refusal to Engage Syria, Iran and Palestinians Said to Limit Negotiation Options
By Glenn Kessler and Michael Abramowitz
Rebecca Sinderbrand writing from Damascus for the Washington Monthly explains:
TALKING TO SYRIA....There are still plenty of nay-sayers, but the chorus calling for Syrian involvement in crafting a Lebanon ceasefire solution now includes Richard Armitage, Warren Christopher, and Mr. Flat World himself, Tom Friedman.
Dear Professor,
I see no one wants to talk to your beloved Bashar. He wasn't invited to the UNSC party. No one asked him for his advice. So sorry.
If I may, I have some advice for Mr. Assad. Please be kind and forward it to him or to a mutual friend:
Mr. Assad, please mind your own business. Stay away from Lebanon. Stop sending weapons and money to other countries that are not yours. Please remind the same to your Iranian brother, Mr. Ahmadinezhad.
Shukran.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home