Shhh... Didn't you get the memo?! We're only supposed to say **negative** things about President Bush now (ya know...our daily "2 Minute Hate").
Don't go reminding people about GWB's successes like Bolton!
< /wink/nod/chuckle >
Posted on 10/21/2005 2:42:54 PM PDT by IsraelBeach
UN Gives Green Light for Israel, Syria, Iran War
By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
Jerusalem----October 21......Israel has been living in a state of war with Syria for decades. Living under the constant threat of missile attacks from both Syria and Lebanon territory hour after passing hour. This tiny, democratic Jewish state has reached out for peace time and time again. Syria responded with Katusha rocket terror attacks across the Israel Lebanon border and the planning of Islamic terrorism inside both Israel and Lebanon.
Now the UN has provided clear proof that Syria has been an open aggressor in the Middle-East with its findings that the Syria government was directly involved in terrorism and the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
Syria President Bashar al-Assad, who was educated in the UK, has had more than enough time to decide if he truly wanted peace in the region or was satisfied hanging onto lobster, fancy cars and ultimate power in Damascus. His expelling of Saddam Hussein's relatives this week will not save him from the same fate for which Saddam finds himself in today - facing criminal charges in an open, democratic court.
US Ambassador John Bolton said today that a UN inquiry into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister had presented hard-hitting findings on Syrian involvement in the killing. Bolton was consulting with fellow Security Council members on a wide range of possible responses, he said, but he would not say whether sanctions against Syria was among them. "This report is obviously very significant. It finds probable cause to believe that the assassination could not have been undertaken without the knowledge of senior figures in Syrian intelligence," Bolton told reporters. "It refers to a lack of cooperation by Syria with the investigation, which is diplo-speak for obstruction of justice. It is a very hard-hitting report," he said. Asked whether he was looking at U.N. sanctions, he responded, "We're considering still a range of options."
As the UN now debates a "doctored" a report which deleted the names of the Syria president's brother and others allegedly involved in the plot to assassinate Lebanon's former premier, Israel must take the necessary action to defend herself against more aggression by both Syria and Iran.
The 53-page UN report sent to the Security Council late on Thursday by U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis accused Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies of carrying out an intricate scheme to kill Rafik al-Hariri and 20 others in a February 14 truck bombing in Beirut. Perhaps the most explosive section of the report described an account of the plotting given by an unidentified Syrian witness.
The witness said that Maher Assad, the brother of Syria President Bashar al-Assad, and the president's brother-in-law, Maj. Gen. Asef Shawkat, were among a group of Syrian and Lebanese security officials who "decided to assassinate" Hariri in a mid-September 2004 meeting in Damascus. But while the names appeared in an early draft of the report, they were removed before the final version was released.
One version of the report circulated at the United Nations showed the precise details of the computerized editing process, identifying what was deleted and when the edits took place. The tracking details indicated that the names of Maher Assad, Shawkat and others had been deleted at the time Mehlis was meeting on Thursday with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who had earlier promised not to edit the report. While Shawkat, widely seen as the No. 2 man in the Syria regime, was named in several parts of the report, Maher Assad's name appeared only once in the first draft and not at all in the final version. Mehlis and UN chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric quickly insisted that the editing had been done by Mehlis himself and not by Annan, who had transmitted the report to the Security Council about seven hours after receiving it from Mehlis.
"No one outside of the report team influenced those changes. No changes whatsoever were suggested by the secretary-general or by anyone at the United Nations," he said. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the flap was distracting the United Nations from the report's main findings, which he said showed "clear evidence" of Syrian obstruction of justice and "probable cause to believe that the assassination could not have been undertaken without the knowledge of senior figures in Syrian intelligence." "In the absence of serious Syrian cooperation on substantive matters, the mission can't get to the ultimate truth," Bolton told reporters. The report's substance "doesn't change no matter what version you have," he said.
And Bolton is entirely correct. The report clearly states that Syria dictator Bashar Assad and his government crossed every red line in Lebanon. Beyond occupying the Lebanese people for years under the pretense of defending Lebanon from an Israel army which left Lebanon soil in an unilateral peace move, consistently allowing Iran Hizbullah to attack Israel from the south, the murder of Rafik al-Hariri cannot and will not be excused by the international community.
Prominent Israel officials from both the Right and Left wings called today for the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The calls came following the publication of the United Nations report charging that high level Syria officials were involved in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and a key political ally of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for regime change in Damascus. "As far as I am concerned ... and here I have a dispute with some of the people in the security establishment, it is not just an American interest but a clear Israeli interest to end the Assad dynasty and replace Bashar Assad," he said, according to a report in the Israel newspaper Haaretz.
Ephraim Halevy, former chief of Israel's Mossad espionage agency under Sharon, said it was not necessary to prove a direct involvement by Assad. "The head of the Syrian pyramid is Bashar Assad," Halevy told Israel Army Radio. "I don't think ... there is any doubt that this was an extensive and coordinated operation that was planned for many months. Lots of people from the Syrian elite were involved."
The US and the UK could easily take out the present regime in Syria.
The Syria authorities must be held accountable for the death of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said today. Ms Rice said she was deeply troubled by a UN report implicating Syria in the assassination of Mr Hariri in a huge car bomb in Beirut on February 14. Ms Rice was speaking after the release of an interim report by UN investigator Detlev Mehlis that established a clear link between Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies in Hariri's murder.
She declined to discuss the probable next steps beyond saying that some kind of international mechanism must be established to ensure that Syria is held accountable. "Even an initial reading of the report is deeply troubling," Ms Rice said. "You have clearly a case in which there is an implication that Syria officials were involved in the assassination of Rafik Hariri. You also have a clear indication that the Syria government has not been cooperating. Accountability is going to be very important for the international community." The long-awaited investigation established "that many leads point directly towards Syrian security officials as being involved with the assassination".
As Syrian authorities angrily rejected the report as false, unprofessional and politicised, Israel needs not to wait for the US, England and the UN to act.
The Syrian information minister, Mahdi Dakhlallah, said the report was "a political statement directed against Syria". The report was based on witnesses "who are well known for their anti-Syria stands," an official at Mr Dakhlallah's office said, claiming that the UN assessment lacked hard evidence and was based mainly on "gossip". George Jabbour, a Syrian politician, said the report was "extremely political" and harsh on Syria, while Elias Murad, the editor-in-chief of the ruling party's al-Baath newspaper, said it was a "political" rather than a judicial report.
The document claimed the Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, received a phone call from the brother of a prominent member of a pro-Syrian group in the minutes before the bombing. Mr Lahoud's office issued a statement "categorically" denying the claim, saying "there is no truth to it". Since the arrest of four Lebanese generals in August in connection with the killing, anti-Syrian groups have focused on Mr Lahoud and demanded his resignation. Lebanese politician Gebran Tueni said the report contained very "specific" evidence implicating Syria, noting that both Lebanon and Syria had agreed to a UN investigation into the killing. "We cannot reject the findings of the investigation just because we don't like it," he said.
The leader of a Damascus-based terror Palestinian group, whose name was mentioned in the report, also criticized the findings. Ahmed Jibril, of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said the report was "baseless and a big lie". He said neither he nor any member of his group were contacted by Mr Mehlis, and added: "We have nothing whatsoever to do with Hariri's assassination and challenge anyone to submit evidence to the contrary."
The Mehlis commission interviewed more than 400 people, reviewed 60,000 documents, identified several suspects and established numerous important leads in its first four months. The investigation has been extended by the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, until December 15. The report did not, however, mention General Ghazi Kanaan, the former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, who Syrian officials say committed suicide on October 12. Earlier this week, a US official and two UN diplomats said the US and France were preparing new security council resolutions critical of Syria over its alleged involvement in the Hariri assassination and the alleged supply of arms to militias in Lebanon.
Analysts say Bashar al-Assad could try to defuse the crisis by handing over any Syrians indicted and submitting to long-standing US demands that Syria stop foreign fighters crossing into Iraq and expel Palestinian militant groups based in Damascus. Or he could dig in and face mounting pressure that could imperil the Baathist system in power in Syria since a 1963 coup.
Assad told CNN in an interview last week he was willing to cooperate over Iraq, insisting he did not order Hariri's murder and saying any Syrians involved in it would be considered traitors and would face Syrian or international justice. Al-Assad denied reports that he had threatened Hariri and demanded that the former prime minister support a term extension for Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, a Syrian supporter. "I'm a very quiet person. I'm very frank, but I wouldn't threaten," he said.
Al-Assad argued Syria didn't have the motive to kill Hariri, whom he said helped Damascus by working to keep Lahoud in power longer.Yet on Friday Damascus denied accusations aired in the U.N. report and criticized the investigation as politicised.
"They are in denial. They say it's politicised. I don't see how they can get out of it," said Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese analyst at London's Chatham House. "I also don't see how the international community can have a clear strategy of what to do with Syria. There are many regional implications and unknowns. If we are talking about regime collapse in Syria what is the strategy after that collapse?"
As the UN Security Council meets on Tuesday to discuss what to do next. The United States and its allies appear to be laying the ground for economic sanctions against Damascus, which was forced to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon in April amid intense international pressure.
Four pro-Syrian Lebanese former security chiefs have already been arrested and charged in connection with the truck bombing that killed Hariri and 20 others in Beirut. The UN report suggested that Assad's brother-in-law and military intelligence chief Asef Shawkat may have figured in the plot and that Rustom Ghazali, the former Syrian security chief in Lebanon, may have played a key role. While Syria may be willing to sacrifice some lower-level officials to ensure its survival, analysts say there is no precedent for an international trial that could demand a government hand over some its most senior officials. Such officials have previously been tried only after their government has fallen, usually in war or occupation, they say. Washington says it wants "behavior change" not regime change in Damascus, but its demands would involve discarding policies crucial to its Arab nationalist creed and its struggle with Israel, which still occupies the Golan Heights.
"The question is how many spots do they want to change on this leopard because at a certain point behavior change becomes in essence regime change," said Landis, spending a year in Damascus where he runs the popular SyriaComment.com website.
"The Syrian government continually complains about what exactly is being demanded of them. They can't see a light at the end of this tunnel and they clearly suspect that the end-game is regime change," he said.
Israel Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Friday that it is time for a regime change in Syria following publication of a UN report implicating Damascus in the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri. 'I think Syria needs a change,' Peres told public radio.
'It is neither natural nor acceptable that a family representing a small minority should govern Syria in a brutal fashion.' That was a reference to President Bashar al-Assad and his father and predecessor, Hafez, who died five years ago after nearly three decades in power. The Assad family belongs to the small Allawite sect of Islam. 'If it is true that the Syrian government is implicated in the assassination of Rafiq Hairi, that will undermine the regime of the Assads,' Peres said.
He called on the United States and France, the former colonial power in Syria and Lebanon, to 'take the initiative for deciding an international response' to the UN report. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the report 'deeply troubling.' 'As to what we do next, that's what we are going to have to discuss,' she said, adding that 'the Security Council is going to have to be a focal point' for action.
President George Bush has asked Syria a few times: "are you with us or against us?" Bush has stated repeatedly: "We expect Syria to do everything in her power to shut down the transshipment of suiciders and killers into Iraq." Al-Assad defiantly responds by saying that the United States cannot control its border with Mexico so Syria cannot be expected to keep people from sneaking into Iraq.
Bashar al-Assad, an eye doctor by training, has lost his own sight. The Middle-East can no longer afford a political leader who harbors Islamic terrorists who target the very essence of democracy and blindly leads the entire region into bloodshed with decades of continued war.
There was good reason that Syria's interior minister Ghazi Kanaan committed suicide. The man who led Syria's military intelligence in Lebanon for nearly 20 years. What did he know? What authorization did he receive directly from Al-Assad?
The Israel Ministry of Defense and the Israel Defense Forces have waited patiently for this day. There are few issues that Israel leaders will agree upon, but when Nobel peace prize winner Peres stands in complete agreement with the former head of the Mossad, you know that some kind of action will take place sooner rather than later.
This final war with Syria and Iran can be performed quietly from within as Syria and Iran leaders are given one last opportunity to work for peace, commerce and stability in the Middle-East or Israel fighter jets and IDF commandos can get the job done in hours. Hizbullah must and will be removed from the southern Lebanon border where they are presently arming themselves with missiles which can reach Haifa and beyond.
What Israel must carefully consider though is how to grab Bashar al-Assad alive and place him in a democratic, international court while at the same time being able to assure that democracy follows in Damascus in lieu of an Islamic terrorist regime.
Israel does not want war, but nor is it waiting for the next Syrian produced political assassination to occur in Jerusalem.
Another 'feeding' opportunity for Annan. His greed seems limitless.
Are we seeing the difference that Ambassador Bolton has brought to the UN?
Is this a Bolton effect?
FYI.
"We're considering still a range of options." ALL OPTIONS ARE ON THE TABLE.
Yes... we are.
An ironic choice of words.
Is it any wonder that the Liberals/MSM/Democrats/Anti American crowd opposed his nomination ?
I am going to read this one later tonight.....need some fresh air and food....What a Friday!
The lefties, the commies, the Jihadists and dictators of the World knew that when Bolton got into the UN, their decades of lying bs would be exposed.
I may join you re a walk, fresh air and a break from the incoming weekend news and fake news from the maggots of the left.
bang bang bump
Shhh... Didn't you get the memo?! We're only supposed to say **negative** things about President Bush now (ya know...our daily "2 Minute Hate").
Don't go reminding people about GWB's successes like Bolton!
< /wink/nod/chuckle >
I wonder if Al gets his news from the NYT, WaPo, or... FR!
Hey do you mind if I use your great list of GW's success to counter the Bush Haters?
This was not, as the headline suggests, a "green light to...war." It is, however, a very grave matter that goes well beyond the toothless posturing that has become customary at the UN. Were the U.S. not in Iraq they'd never have dared.
Anytime.
Thanks I will use it. It is amazing how the Bush haters can look at that list and continue mouthing/posting their insanities of GW hatred.
It's something in the water. On another thread one Bush-hater is claiming that President Clinton's "Gays in the Military" and other accomplishments looks better than President Bush's banning of Partial Birth Abortion and deployment of our national missile defenses.
The Bush-bashers have jumped the shark.
Bolton if he gets to stay there until his term is over, might reform the UN or close its doors.
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