washingtonpost.com: A Tyrant Cornered

[Coastie for Truth]

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2698-2005Mar2.html

washingtonpost.com A Tyrant Cornered

Thursday, March 3, 2005; Page A24

AS THE MIDDLE East changes all around him, Syrian President Bashar Assad still tries to play by the old rules. He figured he could sponsor terrorism in Iraq and Israel and thereby block progress toward democracy and peace. He calculated that the car bomb that killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri -- whether or not it was planted by his agents -- would stop the gathering Lebanese independence movement. He was wrong: In each case, such tactics have been defeated by an emerging Arab movement of people power. The 8 million Iraqis who turned out to vote, the Palestinians who have overwhelmingly supported the cease-fire with Israel, and the tens of thousands of Lebanese who have been marching and camping in the center of Beirut have all proved more potent than assassinations and suicide bombs. If Mr. Assad will not yield to the new political realities they are creating, he will place his own regime at risk.

There is no sign that the crude and callow tyrant gets the message. His response to the turmoil set off by his own criminal policies has been to adopt the standard formula of beleaguered Middle Eastern autocrats: appease the superpowers, BLAME ISRAEL, and appeal for "Arab unity." On Sunday, in a gesture aimed at Washington, the Syrian government abruptly turned a top leader of the Sunni insurgency over to the Iraqi government; the next day Syria's chosen prime minister in Lebanon resigned. Mr. Assad, meanwhile, gave an interview to an Italian newspaper declaring that Syrian troops could not withdraw from Lebanon, as required by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, in the absence of peace with Israel. His defenders appealed to the dictator-dominated Arab League to interpose itself between the United Nations and Damascus, so as to fashion an "Arab solution" -- that is, one that essentially preserves the status quo.

The Bush administration and the French government rightly sense an opportunity to brush off these maneuvers and side with the mobilized people of Lebanon. On Tuesday the two governments issued a statement again demanding "the immediate withdrawal of all Syrian military and intelligence forces from Lebanon" as well as "free and fair parliamentary elections this spring, bolstered by an international observer presence." The unlikely but potent U.S.-French alliance can bring extraordinary pressure to bear on Damascus if it chooses: The freezing of a European Union economic agreement and U.N. sanctions are among the available tools. The West can also support monitors or peacekeepers in Lebanon to fill any gap left by a Syrian withdrawal. The potential payoff is a big one: another free election in the Arab world this spring, an independent Lebanon and, just possibly, a change in Syria. The old, corrupt order in Beirut, as in Baghdad, is crumbling. Whether Mr. Assad survives its passing may depend on whether he adapts in time.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. dum, dum, da-dum, dum da-dum da-dum da-dum

The drumbeat for war is starting. The compliant media has been given its orders. The Tyrant Must Fall!

[IndianaGreen]

14. Blah, blah, blah... more garbage from the Washington Post

Like you said, Warren Stupidity, the subservient lapdogs in the MSM have been given their marching orders. On to the next war!

[bullimiami]

2. oh. i was expecting an article about bush....

they are all little baby tyrants compared to w. he has killed, stolen and terrorized more than the rest of them put together in his 4 short years.

[simcha_6]

7. Let's be intelligent

What about Sudan? Don't forget the South, it's not all in Darfur. Bush isn't evil incarnate, and he's not the worst guy out there. Saying otherwise looks like hysteria and keeps others from taking liberals seriously.

[IndianaGreen]

15. "Bush isn't evil incarnate"

Actually, Bush is only getting started in his evil ways. Wait until the American Hitler starts dropping nukes all over the place.

he's not the worst guy out there.

Your logic is this: if Dennis Rader is not like Ted Bundy, then Rader is must be better than Bundy.

[simcha_6]

20. You think Bush will start dropping nukes?

That sounds a bit hysterical.

Back up your assertion that he's only getting started in his "evil ways" before you make anymore, please. Also, calling him the American Hitler is dead wrong. The closest thing he's done to Hitler is that blank check from Congress to go to war with Iraq. That's not exactly what warrants him being called the "American Hitler."

[IndianaGreen]

21. Bush has already said he intends to use nukes!

"You think Bush will start dropping nukes?"

Don't feign ignorance about how evil Bush really is! The Bush criminal gang intends to use nukes, and Bush's 2005 budget provides irrefutable evidence of his intentions. Bush is the atomic cowboy!

Bush apologists are under the mistaken belief that progressives have the same short attention span that Bush voters seem to be suffering from. Bush apologists often feign ignorance when their leader is attacked with the "Bush = Hitler" analogy, as German demonstrators did a couple of days ago. One such example is when Bush apologists demand "evidence" of Bush's evil even when such evidence has been reported in the US and foreign press. An example of this are Bush's plans to develop the so-called bunker-busting nukes.

Bush is itching to use nukes! He may not drop a 5 megaton bomb on Tehran or Havana, but he will use dozens of tactical nukes to blackmail the world to do his bidding. One such nuke is the bunker-busting nuke. From the Washington Post:

Bush Request to Fund Nuclear Study Revives Debate
Administration Wants to Research 'Bunker Buster,' but Critics Seek to Reassess U.S. Readiness

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A09

The Bush administration is seeking $8.5 million to resume a study by the Energy and Defense departments on the feasibility of a nuclear "bunker buster" warhead, but the proposal is generating opposition in Congress and some leaders are pushing for a broader review of the nation's multibillion-dollar nuclear weapons programs.

<snip>

In the president's budget released Monday, the Energy Department sought $4 million to continue its part of the bunker-buster study, which envisions using the warhead now in the B-83 nuclear bomb designed originally by the Livermore Nuclear Laboratory. Previously, a study was also underway at Los Alamos National Laboratory to see whether its B-61 tactical nuclear bomb could be used in a bunker buster.

The Pentagon is seeking an additional $4.5 million next year to work on the hardened, earth-penetrating shell for the warhead, capable of digging into hard cement and even rock before exploding.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9148-2005Feb8.html

And from our friends at Truthout:

Rumsfeld Seeks to Revive Burrowing Nuclear Bomb
By Walter Pincus
The Washington Post

Tuesday 01 February 2005

Bush budget may fund program that Congress cut.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent a memo last month to then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham saying next year's budget should include funds to resume study of building an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon designed to destroy hardened underground targets.

An Energy Department official said yesterday that $10.3 million to restart that study is expected to be included in the Bush administration's budget, which is to be released next week.

The study, which had been undertaken at the Los Alamos, Sandia and Livermore national laboratories, was halted late last year after Congress deleted $27.5 million for it from the fiscal 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill.

The research project was started in 2002 as a three-year effort to see if an existing nuclear warhead could be fitted with a hardened casing allowing it to dig deep into the earth before exploding. The program has been restricted each year by Senate and House members who have argued that even studying the potential for such a new nuclear weapon undermines Washington's attempts to limit other countries from developing their own nuclear arsenals.

http://truthout.org/docs_2005/020105A.shtml

[simcha_6]

25. Several nations are developing nukes...

China, Pakistan, India, maybe Israel, and I think Putin said they were doing more. We developed nukes for half a century and only used them at the first year.

[IndianaGreen]

26. But our Fuhrer Bush wants to use nukes without warning or provocation

that's the sort of American Hitler that many Americans have become enamored of, an atomic cowboy with no regard for human life and dignity.

There is no middle ground in this war. You are either with Bush, or you are with the rest of this planet. There is no room for a Vichy France in America.

[Yosie]

27. I think when Bushie got off the crack and Jim Beam

he switched to vegimite. It does things to you - I hear it's like Texas peyote.

[sarcasmo]

3. Not just a Tyrant, but a Tyrant from an "Outpost of Tyranny".

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Skink]

5. What next the CZAR.

[Colorado Blue]

6. Permit me to object. SHARON isn't expending American

lives. GW Bush is the President of the US and he doesn't need Israel's help to go to war and waste American lives.

If you are looking for a bogeyman - look at Washington, Big Oil and the extremist Christians.

I find the idea that Israel is somehow running the US beyond ridiculous. I've had conversations over on the main board with people who think that the presence of a couple of Jewish people in the DOD and a few signatories on a PNAC document proof-positive that The Jews Are Running Washington. This is offensive and silly.

Moreover - it isn't even logical. That which Washington might considerable desirable, including instability within the Muslim community, could actually be extremely dangerous for Israel. The BEST hope is that increased freedom and participation in government for all Arabian people, even in Iran, will result ultimately in a more peaceful region. THAT would suit Israel and theoretically the US, but might not ultimately suit the oil barons, who have been playing divide and conquer and stirring up regional trouble for over a century. And the goals of the extreme Christians are frightening, I suspect.

[simcha_6]

8. Thanks

I appreciate this post.

L'chai v'shalom!

:yourock:

[Coastie for Truth]

9. How does an item about Assad

become a venue for a tirade against Sharon ???

I did an Foxfire-Edit-Find on "Sharon" in the "View All" option on this thread.

One appender brought up "Sharon" with

"Worse than a tyrannical tyrant...
Sharon will expend the lives of American children like water to defeat this enemy of Israel.
Of course Syria can turn the Levant into a bio-chem wasteland, and Israel can respond by turning what's left into green glass. Just lovely."


and another appender responded


"Permit me to object. SHARON isn't expending American lives. GW Bush is the President of the US and he doesn't need Israel's help to go to war and waste American lives.

If you are looking for a bogeyman - look at Washington, Big Oil and the extremist Christians.

I find the idea that Israel is somehow running the US beyond ridiculous. I've had conversations over on the main board with people who think that the presence of a couple of Jewish people in the DOD and a few signatories on a PNAC document proof-positive that The Jews Are Running Washington. This is offensive and silly.

Moreover - it isn't even logical. That which Washington might considerable desirable, including instability within the Muslim community, could actually be extremely dangerous for Israel. The BEST hope is that increased freedom and participation in government for all Arabian people, even in Iran, will result ultimately in a more peaceful region. THAT would suit Israel and theoretically the US, but might not ultimately suit the oil barons, who have been playing divide and conquer and stirring up regional trouble for over a century. And the goals of the extreme Christians are frightening, I suspect."

As the appender of the "Original Message" - I am at a lose to understand how this thread about Assad was hijacked into a digression on Sharon?

Please elucidate.

[newyorican]

10. Israel: Sharon stirs up conflict with Syria and Iran

Israel’s Ariel Sharon is intent on exploiting the opportunity provided by US plans for war in the Middle East to press forward his aim of creating a Greater Israel. For months he has sought to stoke up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and scupper any possibility for even the type of truncated Palestinian state promised under the Oslo Accords. Now he has significantly upped the ante, accusing Syria of supplying Hezbollah militants in south Lebanon with thousands of surface to air rockets capable of striking northern Israeli towns and cities and demanding Syria rein in the Islamic fundamentalist group. Hezbollah is on the US’s list of proscribed terrorist organisations.

Sharon’s accusation follows threats of military action against Lebanon if it diverts the waters of the Wazzani and Hasbani rivers, tributaries of the Jordan River that flow into Lake Tiberias in Israel and provide 10 percent of Israel’s water. Israeli soldiers threatened to fire on Lebanese workers when the engineer leading the project knocked over a UN border marker and only pulled back when the UN forces arrived and restored the marker. Defence Minister Benjamen Ben-Eliezer immediately issued a warning to Lebanon, saying, “Israel cannot tolerate this diversion of the waters of the Hasbani.... I trust the Americans to stop it.”

<snip>

Sharon appears to be pushing for US agreement on a far broader offensive in the region that includes supporting his plans for territorial expansion. Taking his cue from the Bush administration’s inclusion of Iran in Washington’s “axis of evil”, he is pushing to add Syria as well.

Source

Get the connection now?

[Coastie for Truth]

12. Please

1. Stop hijacking a thread that I started - and using it as a venue for an entirely different subject.

2. I did check your source. "World Socialist Web Site" Come on.

3. While you were digging for "World Socialist Web Site", you left some unanswered queries on your own thread --Council of Churches Gives Nod... at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=86934&mesg_id=86934

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[newyorican]

11. Sharon says U.S. should also disarm Iran, Libya and Syria

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that Iran, Libya and Syria should be stripped of weapons of mass destruction after Iraq. "These are irresponsible states, which must be disarmed of weapons mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve," Sharon said to a visiting delegation of American congressmen.

Sharon told the congressmen that Israel was not involved in the war with Iraq "but the American action is of vital importance."

Elucidation Part II

[Coastie for Truth]

13. Thank you for your response

I do not see how it relevant to the original thread. Is this some kind of "Guilt by Association" of all Israelis with the PNAC crowd through Sharon.

I really don't understand where you are going.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[leftynyc]

30. Don't you know that Israel and Sharon are

responsible for all the world's ills???? What's the matter with you??? {I can't believe I even have to put a sarcasm tag here}.

[Colorado Blue]

18. Well, if we could get back on the topic of Assad...

I'm curious as to what people think is so great about him????

Wouldn't the Syrian people be better off with a non-dictatorial gov't? Please note I am NOT suggesting that anybody liberate Syria, merely asking why people who should be supporting democracy as a matter of principle seem to be supporting a dictator?

Also, it does seem that the Lebanese people along with many other nations, want Syria to vacate Lebanon. This really has nothing to do with Mr. Sharon that I can see.

Thank you.

[Jack Rabbit]

19. Exactly

I usually can't get around mentioning the I/P conflict in passing when discussing events in Lebanon, but not to the point where it needs to be discussed on this forum.

To answer your question about what some people is so great about Bashar al-Assad, I'll point to this discussion in Editorials/Other Articles from earlier in the week. One poster, it seems, viewed Bashar as a reformer and holds out hope that he will succeed. For my part, while I don't dispute that characterization of Bashar, I doubt he can succeed. He was put in power to be a figurehead in the hopes that a facade of national unity would prevent various factions of the Syrian Baathist regime from running in independent directions. It hasn't worked. Bashar is ill-suited to be a political leader. All his good intentions -- assuming he has good intentions -- and a dollar will get him a cup of coffee in a cheap cafe.

[IndianaGreen]

22. The alternative to Assad is an Islamic republic

You men on this board may not give a shit about the status of women in the Middle East, but I do care deeply about how women are treated.

Women in Iraq were far better off under Saddam than they are today under the Occupation, and much better than they will be under the Islamic rule that will be imposed by the new Iraqi government.

The same can be said about women in Afghanistan under the Marxist government. Women were free and equal to men. Women could hold jobs, go to university, go about in public without having to cover themselves. Thanks to misogynists like Carter and Reagan, the Marxist government was replaced by a series of fanatical Islamic regimes that subjugated and murdered women at will. Even today, in supposedly "liberated" Afghanistan, women are still being treated like shit and often under the eyes of American occupation.

Women in Syria are free of the tyranny of Islamist law. Get rid of Assad and of the Baathists, and you will condemn Syrian women to the same fate you have condemned Iraqi and Afghan women.

:mad:

[Lithos]

23. Minor points

1) It was Reagan who armed the mujahedeen with modern weapons (AA missiles, etc.). Not Carter who was too focused on dealing with Iran at the time.

[Jack Rabbit]

24. I agree

There are no good options in most Middle Eastern states. Democracy is not on the table anywhere. When the word is used by Bush or the neoconservatives, it is empty of meaning.

As pertains to Syria, however, Bashar al-Assad may be part of the problem. Unlike the tone of the root of this thread, Basher seems to be another boy king. He may have some good intentions of reforming Syrian politics, but no clue as to how to bring it about.

Bashar is weak and ineffective. One plausible theory about the Hariri assassination is that Syrian intelligence carried it out without his approval. I don't know if there's anything to that, but the theory reflects a view of the Syrian government as being independent bureaucracies under rival Baathist power brokers who do their own thing regardless of Bashar's directives. The question we should be concerned about is whether Bashar could prevent an Islamist takeover of his country any more than he can control his own intelligence service.

Citing Bashar's sincere desire to reform Syria isn't going to win any points in a discussion with a neoconservative thug bent on "regime change". We don't trust Bush or the neocons because they are liars; they say one thing while intending all along to do the opposite. We can't trust Bashar because he is a weakling; he can promise something, have every reason to want to carry it out, and still not be able to do anything to make it happen. The result is the same: one thing is promised; another happens. In the end, neither Bush nor Bashar have any credibility.

[Colorado Blue]

29. I heard another wrinkle on CNN Sunday, about pro-Syrian

forces within Lebanon, which are Shi'a. Hizbollah, I understand, is no longer merely an armed terrorist militia but is now a political voice within Lebanon and one must assume that, due to the weakness of Assad, has considerable power within Syria as well along with other such groups.

Still, I hold out hopes for democracy - democracy that includes WOMEN - eventually - but the MAIN element that makes democracy work - anywhere - is a well-educated populace. We don't even have that HERE. A friend sent me some stats the other day, that scared me - apparently a lot of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth and another sizeable percentage, some 17%, think the earth goes around the sun IN A DAY.

We have a lot of work to do, and if we can't even get a grip on our own ignorance and stupidity I wonder how on earth we are going to export democracy. It is a brave ideal but I am gravely worried at this point!

[Colorado Blue]

28. This is a really interesting point, and it points up the...

ambiguities facing the modern Middle East.

On the one hand we have political tyrants. On the other hand, religious tyrants. Without the tyrants, we have anarchy, as it happening in Iraq.

I share your concerns for women's rights and find it a major problem in my own mind - on the one hand having respect for people's religion and their culture, on the other believing in civil rights. And it doesn't make sense, believing in women's rights, to support a dictator. Yet, the evidence is, as you say, that Bashar Assad and Saddam both have helped women.

Go figure.

OK, now I have a headache:)

[centristo]

31. such is the dilemna of

ethical and moral relativism. It's ok to hesitate and think about whether we are judging too harshly, from our Westernized, Judeo-Christian or secularized point of view. But what's right is right, and we should support civil rights movements wherever they occur, even if only in some indirect fashion.

OK, now I think I have a headache too.

[Colorado Blue]

32. Actually I think you have hit on something when you said

"indirect".

We're going to run into nothing but walls attempting to reshape other people's cultures by bombing them into rubble. This is clearly not working out too well in Iraq and the mere threat of an attack on Syria has brought out 500,000 people in Lebanon in support of - what? Syria? Hezbollah?

I think they're supporting their own right to CHOOSE and we should understand that. Taking the hard line is gonna cause more - uh - HEADACHES.

Time for Bush to take a different approach I think! While he's at it he can back off Social Security too:)

[leftynyc]

33. Hey CB - looks like the choice

is either everyone is oppressed or just the women. Not a very appealing choice.

[Colorado Blue]

34. Yeah! "Only" the women. Now I DO have a headache...

I hope it wouldn't be considered inappropriate to include a couple of links to main board discussions here - they actually do touch on what we're discussing, re: Syria and also women's issues:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3247085

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3245642

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3245995

The first two have to do with women's issues in Arabian countries and in Sudan, and what we should do about them. The third, which really impacts on this discussion about Assad, is about Lebanon and the recent developments there. I think they're interesting threads; obviously people are concerned about what's going on although there's the usual tendency just to dis Bush or CNN or whatever, which I admit is easier than trying to Figure Something Out:)