The UN has announced that the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon is complete. Kofi Annan at the UN seemed uncharacteristically effervescent. With the media spotlight on his son and Iraqi oil profitshe needed some good news in his life. Too bad that wasn’t it.
The facts are that a Syrian army battalion remains behind on disputed territory along the border; hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Syrian intelligence agents are burrowed into the Lebanese landscape like cicadas, waiting to pop back out when the weather is better.
Hezbollah is supposed to have disarmed, but they haven’t and they say they won’t, not without a fight to the death. Their leader shouts, “If anyone, anyone thinks of disarming the resistance we will fight them like the martyrs of Kerbala,” referring to an important battle in Islamic history.
The UN resolution 1559 which demanded the Syrian pullout from Lebanon, precipitated by the Syrian sponsored assassination of the slick billionaire and former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, called for all “militias” in Lebanon to give up their weapons. Since the terrorist Party of God –Hezbollah- is the only one of four militias in Lebanon still armed, the call was directed at them. So Hezbollah’s leader, the charismatic Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, marching to his own cadence caller in Iran, announced that his light infantry militia has 12,000 rockets and they are all pointed at Northern Israel –he cited Israeli airports, farms, seaports and settlements as targets - and that the UN would have to pry dead, cold fingers off their guns before Hezbollah would give them up. Nasrallah called the UN resolution to put down their weapons “madness.”
Syria’s president Bashar Assad –the nerdy ophthalmologist whose pencil-neck is an object of wide, under-the-breath derision in Damascus, has made some startling announcements: After letting jihadists by the hundreds run back and forth like rats into Iraq his secret police are turning them back at the border, or at least some of them -120 the other day; Assad will begin legalizing opposition political parties, has promised to purge his ruling Baath party (to an unknown extent,) says he will sponsor elections in 2 years and will move to a free- market economy. This from one of the most repressive governments in the world and on the heels of their humiliating coitus-interruptus from Lebanon. You can believe it all when you see it all.
Bits & Pieces
In Iran, Rafsanjani said this week that the US “is not a democracy”. “We, in Iran,” he said “have a real democracy.” I'm glad he cleared that up.
In Cairo, thugs working for the government beat up demonstrators during a pro-democracy demonstration. Women were specifically targeted. The violence was led by officials from President Mubarek’s political party.
Three democracy reformers in Saudi Arabia have gone to prison, said Richard Cohen in his intelligent Washington Post column.. They were sentenced to six years, seven years and nine years of hard time. Their crime?
They sent a petition to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, the fellow who was recently holding hands with George Bush at the Texas ranch. What did they ask for that got them locked up? Uh, “a constitutional monarchy.”
Good thing they didn’t ask for something tough - like a date with one of the Crown Prince’s daughters. If they had they might have gotten a real date-– in Chop Chop Square, and not for apple juice and a sweet roll.
You remember the two goofy pilots who thought they were flying over Camp David in wooded Maryland when they were actually flying over the Washington Monument and were about a minute from the Capitol where people were being driven from the buildings by the police and told to run for their lives?
Turns out the government had given the OK to shoot em’ down. The Cessna had about 15 seconds left before aerial obliteration.
The federal Government, after spending many billions on the nation’s defense against terrorism has devised a strategic plan to keep this from EVER happening again. It doesn’t rely on expensive and cranky technology. It is a model of simplicity, to wit: A large cardboard sign, to be waved from the open door of a Black Hawk helicopter flying alongside any errant plane. In Magic Marker it will say “Follow Me. Now!” This is not a joke, it was on the front page of USA Today.
But, as dumb as some of those pilots are, maybe the government could put a more attention-getting epithet on that sign somewhere. Like “Follow me. Now! You Freaking Idiot”… or something.
Good News and Bad News for other private pilots. The good news: Reagan National Airport will allow private flights once again after they were banned in the wake of 9/11. The bad news: only if there is an armed Sky Marshall on each plane. This will effectively cut down on the small plane traffic.
On the subject of idiocy, a befuddled statement by Howard Dean, now head of the Democratic Party, received practically no play in the media.
On “Meet The Press” Dean said "But the thing that really bothered me the most, which the 9-11 Commission said wasn't true, is the insinuation that the president continues to make to this day that Osama bin Laden had something to do with supporting terrorists that attacked the United States. That is false. The 9-11 Commission, chaired by a Republican, said it was false."
Oh, suddenly we believe what Republican commission chairmen say?
I not only went over the transcript but looked at the tape-and though Dean presumably meant something else – so what? That is what he said. One wonders if the guy is off his meds. Maybe he thinks Iran is a democracy.
Not long before Howard captured the DNC chair by default, he was the front runner for the democratic nomination for president. Then he destroyed himself with his crazy leftist cant and his hog calls. It’s a good thing he wasn’t talking about something important on “Meet The Press”, like how to spell “potato” or pronounce “nuclear” because then the media would have really landed on him.
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