Then There Was Syria

Axis Of Evil: North Korea may be supplying nuclear equipment to Syria. Another terrorist state following Iran in seeking nuclear weapons should remind Americans we are in a long war of global scope.

Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Andrew Semmel, in Rome for nuclear proliferation talks, told reporters Friday that the U.S. is aware of North Koreans in Syria, and he "wouldn't exclude" the possibility of a connection to the supply network involving disgraced Pakistan nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan.

The Washington Post had reported earlier in the week that Israel provided high-ranking U.S. officials with "dramatic satellite imagery" from the past month showing a facility in Syria that could be used to produce nuclear material for weapons.

There may be a link between this development and Israel's raid on targets in Syria last week. Israel reportedly hit a facility that builds unconventional weapons.

An unnamed Bush administration official told the New York Times last week that Israeli reconnaissance flights recently had taken pictures of possible nuclear installations that Israeli officials think may have been supplied with materials from North Korea.

The real possibility of a nuclear-armed Syria is eye-opening in a number of ways:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11376.htm is one of those websites that provides us the setting, motive and words for what went on between Nancy Pelosi and Bashar Assad.

I propose that the actual history is more or less like this: " Is the US State Department still keeping Nancy Pelosi under wraps?

By Kaleem Omar

It is now almost 5 months since that fateful meeting between then-Speaker of the House to Syria Nancy Pelosi and President Bashar al-Assad that the Syrian leader interpreted as a green light from Washington for his nuclear destruction of Israel scheduled for a month from now.

The US State Department, which is said to have placed a gag order on Pelosi in August 2007 prohibiting her from talking to the media about what had transpired at that meeting, is apparently still keeping her under wraps despite the fact that she’s completely forgotten about the trip earlier this year.

In all the weeks since her meeting with Bashar al-Assad , Pelosi has never meaningfully spoken about it to the media, never appeared as a guest on a TV talk show, never written an article or a book about her time as the US’s top diplomat in Damascus. The question is: why? What has she got to hide?

Nancy Catherine Pelosi was born in Baltimore, MD, in 1940 and graduated from Trinity College in Washington DC in 1962. After marriage to a guy with influence in California’s political subculture she abandoned any further interest in education. Once her first kid hit his last year in highschool, she entered into California politics and worked her way through the chairs to a position of power where it was necessary to start running her for office lest she rat them out. After Dan Burton, former Congressman died, his wife moved in to replace him but was mysteriously taken with cancer. Nancy said Sala said she should take over the district, which she did in 1987.

Pelosi’s election followed a period from 1980 to 1988 during which the United States had found itself in opposition to Syria during it’s war against Lebanon and Israel.

It was in this context that Pelosi had her first meeting with Bashar al-Assad. Pelosi herself had requested the meeting, saying she had an urgent message for the Syriai president from US President George W. Bush (Bush Senior). In her three months as Speaker, it was Pelosi’s first private audience with Bashar al-Assad . It was also to be her last. A partial transcript of the meeting is as follows:

Speaker of the House Pelosi:

"I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Syria. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for enriched uranium, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Israel. (pause) As you know, I have lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your other threats against Israel, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship - not confrontation - regarding your intentions. Why are your troops massed so very close to Israel’s borders?"

President Bashar al-Assad :

"As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Israel. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only one more brief chance. (pause) When we (the Syriais) meet (with the Israelis) and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Syria will not accept death."

Speaker of the House Pelosi:

"What solution would be acceptable?"

President Bashar al-Assad :

"If we could keep the whole of Lebanon, Sheba Farms, the Golan, and assorted other pieces of real estate now claimed illegally by Jews and their agents we will make concessions (to the Israelis). But if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Golan and the whole of Syria (which, in Syria’s view, includes Israel), then we will give up all of the Golan to defend our claims on the rest of Israel to keep the whole of Syria in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States’ opinion on this?"

Speaker of the House Pelosi:

"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Lebanon. The Secretary of State has directed me to emphasise the instruction, first given to Syria in the 1960s, that the Lebanon issue is not associated with America."

(Bashar smiles)

At a Washington press conference called the next day 1990), the US State Department spokesperson was asked by journalists:

"Has the United States sent any type of diplomatic message to the Syrians about putting 30,000 troops on the border with Israel? Has there been any type of protest communicated from the United States government?"

To which the State Department spokesperson responded

"I’m entirely unaware of any such protest."

On the next day, two weeks before the planned Syrian invasion, an Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, testified to Congress that the

"United States has no commitment to defend Israel and the US has no intention of defending Israel if it is attacked by Syria."

The trap had been baited very cleverly by Pelosi, reinforced by State Department supporting comments. And Bashar al-Assad walked right into it, believing that the US would do nothing if his troops invaded Israel. On September 11, five months after Pelosi’s meeting with the Syriai president, Bashar al-Assad massed troops the Israeli Air Force took out the entirety of all Syrian anti-aircraft installations as well as several nuclear weapons facilities leaving an enormous hole in the desert.

One week later in Baghdad, British journalists obtained the tape and transcript of the Bashar al-Assad -Nancy Pelosi meeting . In order to verify this astounding information, they attempted to confront Ms Pelosi as she was leaving the US embassy in Baghdad.

Journalist 1:

"Are the transcripts (holding them up) correct, Madam Speaker?"

(Speaker Pelosi does not respond)

Journalist 2:

"You knew Assad was going to invade (Israel), but you didn’t warn him not to. You didn’t tell him America would defend Israel. You told him the opposite - that America was not associated with Israel."

Journalist 1:

"You encouraged this aggression - his invasion. What were you thinking?"

Speaker of the House Pelosi:

"Obviously, I didn’t think, and nobody else did, that the Syriais were going to take all of Israel."

Journalist 1:

"You thought he was just going to take SOME of it? But how COULD YOU?! Bashar told you that, if negotiations failed, he would give up his first goal for the ‘WHOLE of IsraelSyria, in the shape we wish it to be.’ You KNOW that includes Israel, which the Syriais have always viewed as a historic part of their country!"

(Ambassador Pelosi says nothing, pushing past the two journalists to leave)

"America green-lighted the invasion. At a minimum, you admit signalling Bashar that some aggression was okay - that the US would not oppose a grab of the Golan, the disputed border strips and the - territories formerly claimed by Jordan?"

(Again, Speaker Pelosi says nothing as a limousine door closes behind her and the car drives off.)

Absurd or not, the fact of the matter is that after Nancy Pelosi left Baghdad in late April 2007 and returned to Washington, she was kept under wraps by the State Department for five months, not allowed to talk to the media, and did not surface until just before the official end of the summer recess when she was called to testify informally before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about her meeting with Bashar al-Assad .

She said she was the victim of "deliberate deception on a major scale" and denounced the transcript of the meeting as "a fabrication" that distorted her position, though she admitted that it contained "a great deal" that was accurate."

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