Regardless of this reality, Congress trudges on with its campaign against Syria. The new raison d'être for attacking Syria came from Republican and Cuban-born Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who appears obsessed with supporting economic sanctions as a purported means of overturning authoritarian regimes and triggering democracy. Indeed, for decades she has advocated aggressive policies aimed at "Cuba's terrorist regime."
Ros-Lehtinen played a leading role in the passage of the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act, which tightened the existing US embargo and the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which further restricted business with Cuba and codified the embargo.
Less acknowledged is Ros-Lehtinen's Obsessive-Compulsive Syria Bashing Disorder (OCSBD), a common diagnosis on Capitol Hill that usually originates in the infectious Israeli lobby money trail. Together with her fellow OCSBDer, New York Democratic Representative Elliot Engel, these Members persist in sponsoring anti-Syria legislation and coincidentally benefit from Israeli largesse for so doing. Indeed, the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs listed Engel as one of the "Top Ten Career Recipients" of pro-Israel PAC funds in 2004. Between January 1, 1978-June 30, 2004, he received a cumulative $135,918. Ros-Lehtinen cashed in $40,000 from the same source for the 2003-2004 Election cycle. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) also did its part to convince an overwhelming majority of House and Senate Members to "sanction Syria for its continuing support of terrorism" (AIPAC "Working to Secure Israel" brief, September 5, 2002).
Following the Valentine's Day massacre of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, American, European and even Arab voices (including Saudi Arabia and Egypt) united around the call for President Bashar al-Assad to accelerate the pace of Syria's phased removal of troops from Lebanon in the face of swelling Lebanese opposition. When news of the assassination reached the United States, the ever opportunistic Ros-Lehtinen advocated strengthening sanctions against "terrorist" Damascus. Although the perpetrators of the horrific attack were-and still remain-unknown, the Congresswoman had no qualms about accusing Syria of international terrorism. Ironically, in 1989 her hysterical anti-terrorist pose softened when it came to her lobbying President George H. Bush to rescind the deportation order of convicted terrorist Orlando Bosch, a mastermind of the 1976 Cubana Airliner bombing (with fellow anti-Castro terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles) which killed 73 passengers and crew members-plus a bevy of other terrorist plots.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7802Yeah, and we gotta stop aipac. www.stopAIPAC.org