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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (10447)	7/28/2006 9:15:59 PM
From: sea_biscuit	Respond to of 71588

Yeah, that's because you are dumber than Dumbya, the idiot Emperor.

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (10447)	7/28/2006 9:29:59 PM
From: sea_biscuit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Dumbya's miraculous transformation of Baghdad into the most exciting city in the world : Baghdad morgues fill up so quickly that victims of Iraq's sectarian violence cannot be kept for long and unidentified corpses must be moved elsewhere. Every Friday, volunteers transport them to Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, risking guerrilla attacks on one of Iraq's most dangerous roads to give them a dignified burial. [...] "There are usually signs of torture and mutilation like the drilling of eyes and skulls, or severed limbs," he said. "I will never forget that horrible scene when one corpse's head was cut off and replaced with a dog's head." Muslims consider dogs to be dirty animals. Most of the victims of violence are bound, a trademark sign of sectarian killings. Seventy-five bodies arrived at the cemetery this Friday. "Most of the bodies were bound by chains so we always have to keep a cutter nearby to cut them. Most bodies were beheaded and they have a lot of holes in the head and face," said cemetery worker Riad Ahmed. Way to go, Dumbya!

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (10447)	7/29/2006 3:18:33 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

The strange new respect for Syria's Bashar Assad. Saturday, July 29, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT When Bashar Assad succeeded his father, Hafez, as president of Syria six years ago, hopes ran high that the British-trained ophthalmologist would bring a reform-minded sensibility to his repressive country. It hasn't turned out that way, yet suddenly the young dictator is being hailed as the man the U.S. must engage one-on-one to bring peace to Lebanon. As former Secretary of State Warren Christopher put it in yesterday's Washington Post, "we do not have the luxury of continuing to treat [Syria] with diplomatic disdain." Coming from Mr. Christopher, this is remarkable, since he famously visited Damascus some 22 times to coax the elder Assad in the mid-1990s to make peace with Israel. All of that beseeching was for naught. Even forgetting that history, Mr. Christopher's argument has a few problems. For one thing, the notion that the Bush Administration has isolated Mr. Assad is simply false. The young dictator has disdained explicit invitations to work with the U.S. As these columns described on July 15 ("Assad and Bush"), in the wake of the fall of Saddam Hussein, President Bush dispatched Colin Powell to Damascus with an offer of better relations in return for cooperation against terrorism. Mr. Powell got about as far with Bashar as Mr. Christopher did with his father. Mr. Bush also sent a message of conciliation after Congress passed the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act in late 2003. Given a choice among six sanctions to apply to Syria, Mr. Bush chose the two weakest and also sent a new Ambassador to Damascus. Mr. Assad's response was to see this as a sign of weakness and allow Syria to serve as a staging ground and transit point for insurgents moving into Iraq. There is also the little problem of the continuing U.N. investigation into the February 2005 murder of leading Lebanese political figure Rafik Hariri. The former prime minister had been challenging Syria's grip on the country, and Mr. Assad had in reply threatened to "break Lebanon over [his] head," according to the U.N. probe. The evidence turned up so far points to Syria and its agents as the murder culprits. And as Walid Jumblatt says in his interview with Michael Young nearby, the fear of more assassinations remains palpable in Lebanon even though Mr. Assad withdrew his army from the country to much fanfare in 2005. As the price for delivering "peace" in Lebanon, Mr. Assad is sure to demand that this U.N. evidence be downplayed, if not washed away. We find it hard to believe that the U.S. would want to be complicit in covering up the murder of a former head of state. One of the reasons Bill Clinton cited for sending cruise missiles into Baghdad early in his first term was that Saddam Hussein had tried to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush. Quashing the probe would be an abdication of justice as well as a betrayal of the Lebanese people that the current President Bush vowed to stand by only last year. As for Hezbollah, Mr. Young reports that arms continue to flow through Syria to the Shiite militia that started the current conflict. And according to a Kuwaiti newspaper, Hezbollah leaders met this week in Damascus with Syrian and Iranian officials to plot strategy. For Mr. Assad to abandon these allies and risk their wrath, he'd need more than security guarantees and some "economic goodies." There is one diplomatic approach to Damascus that might get Mr. Assad's attention--call it the Turkish way. In the fall of 1998, the Turkish army mobilized for war with Syria. The Kurdish PKK had trained in Syria and its terrorist leader, Abdullah Ocalan, operated more or less openly in Damascus. The Turks made a simple offer: Either expel Ocalan and close the terror camps, or expect to be invaded. Within a year, Ocalan was in jail and the PKK had ceased its attacks. It was a similarly forceful message, delivered by then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in early 2005, that caused Syria to turn over Iraqi insurgent leader and Saddam's half-brother, Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan, to U.S. custody. In order to prevail against Hezbollah, Israel (with implicit U.S. backing) may have to make a similar offer that Syria can't refuse. Either Syria stops arming Hezbollah, or Israel will have to consider taking the fight to Dasmascus. No one wants to see the current conflict widen, but the worst possible outcome would be a cease-fire imposed by the world that allowed Hezbollah to survive as a potent military force. Equally bad would be a cease-fire that allows Syria to reimpose its will on Lebanon, while Hezbollah could re-arm and wait for the next time Iran or Syria needed it to create a second front against Israel--or the United States. opinionjournal.com