Syria Mobilized 300,000 Reservists?

[Az]

I think that this is the plan of the Nazi Greek government, and their Alien overlords.

[Rogan Josh]

Why is this surprising? Wasn't Israel launching missile attackes on Syria just last week?

If Canada (for example) launched missile attacks on the US, what would the US do? (It wouldn't need reservists of course, but you get the point...)

[PLATO]

Originally posted by axi

What has Syria done to deserve such aggression?

Syria hosts, in the open, offices of major terror groups.

What has Syria done this last year that it hasn't been doing during the last 20 years?

Stepped up covert funding. Acted as a money wash for Iraqi Baathist making an escape. Helping smuggle people across boarder from Iraq to help them escape prosecution in Iraq. Refused to enforce disarmament of Pal terror groups required under so called "Road Map".

So why are you getting all so freaked-out about Syria, all of a sudden?

Uh...Where have you been? Syria has been on State Departments list of states sponsoring terrorism for over 20 years. In case you didn't notice, we are at war with terrorism.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Azazel
Why not just have a good time in Istanbul?

Not Constantinople?

[pchang]

Names

I think the place hasn't been called Constantinople for at least 50 years (quite possibly more).

[Rogan Josh]

Re: Names

Originally posted by pchang
I think the place hasn't been called Constantinople for at least 50 years (quite possibly more).

Americans never get Monty Python references

[pchang]

Generation

Its a question of age too.

Older Generation = Dr. Who - Monty Python
Middle Generation = Benny Hill
Younger Generation = Who wants to be a millionaire?

[Edan]

I'm not that old.

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul not Constantinople
Been a long time gone
Old Constantinople's still has Turkish delight
On a moonlight night
Evr'y gal in Constantinople
Is a Miss-stanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it, I can't say
(People just liked it better that way)
Take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks'

[Lancer]

How does ones wife get to Syria? If my wife came home and announced she was going to Syria, I think the reply would be 'the hell you are!'.

[chequita guevara]

Syria is ocupying Lebanon, you know. The reservists might be headed there.

[Az]

I don't think they currently needed into Lebanon. There is no upsurge in anti-Syrian activity, there.

[Dinner]

What has Syria done to deserve such aggression?

The US is pissed because Syria allows Islamic militants to move through Syria into Iraq and it is believed that several billion dollars in gold and cash which Saddam and his sons looted the day before the war started was transported out of Iraq via Syria. Further, ever since 9/11 the US government has declared that they reguard any state which sponsors terrorism to be it's enemy and thus subject to preemptive military action. Syria and Iran remain the single largest sponsors of terrorism in the world therefor they are on the Americans' list.

[Dinner]

Assad knows he's in a very weak position militarially thus the threat of force and/or a bit of diplomatic & economic pressure just might be enough to get him to give up supporting terror organizations.

[DanS]

300,000 reservists for a country the size of Syria is a large number. This could be a WWI-type situation where mobilization leads by chain reaction to war.

[lord of the mark]

Syria together with Iran is a sponsor of Hezbollah. Now Hezbollah is said by some to be no threat to the US, just another anti-Israeli "militant" group, that only truck bombed a couple of hundred US Marines cause they were "occupying" Beirut - and "only" killed a bunch of Argentinians, cause some of them were Jews, thus "connecting" it to the Mideast.

Thus the following from the Washington Post (via Rantburg) is interesting:

"Mugniyah, a Lebanese national and senior Hezbollah leader, is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of several Americans, as well as the hijacking of aircraft and the bombing of U.S. military barracks in Beirut in the 1980s, according to the FBI and CIA. Before Sept. 11, 2001, he was responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other terrorist.

According to court testimony of former al Qaeda operatives, Mugniyah met bin Laden several times in Sudan in the mid-1990s and agreed to train al Qaeda combatants in the use of explosives and other techniques in exchange for weapons.

A description of Mugniyah’s ongoing role was provided to authorities by a member of the Jerusalem Force who defected to Britain earlier this year. In a February interview with the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sarq al-Awsat, the defector said Mugniyah remained in Iran and had personally "planned the escape of dozens of al Qaeda men to Iran."

The defector, Hamid Zakiri, said Mugniyah served as "a liaison officer with Dr. Zawahiri and with commanders of other fundamentalist organizations."

Zakiri said that among those Mugniyah aided were bin Laden’s youngest wife, Amal al-Saddah, and her infant child, whom he provided with safe passage from Afghanistan through Iran to her homeland of Yemen as the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan began.

European intelligence sources said that much of Zakiri’s information had been verified."