USA opens up economic war against Syria!

[Dinner]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Correction "Over ALLEGTIONS that the White House named a CIA agent". Its possible it was the CIA that leaked it, or that someone in the white house or otherwise didnt know she had been a covert op - Novak i think says it was open knowledge that she was CIA.

.

The CIa didn't leak the name of one of it's agents they have no motive to do so while the administration has a very big motive. Her husband published some reports which were critical of Bush so one of Bush's lackeys went and exposed the guy's wife as a CIA agent. That she could have been killed by the administration's actions is dispicable but what's worse is Bush has done nothing of substance about this. He's just played lip service games.

It's funny that when Congress "leaked" information about Iraq not having WMD in the run up to the war Bush could spare 20 agents to investigate who did it, but, once his administration is the one doing the leaking he can spare just one part time agent.

[Shi Huangdi]

Syria is pretty divided amongst a multitude of different tribes, right? There has to be alot of people in Syria who would like to see Assad gone...

I wonder how much this should be our concern, however. AFAIK most of the terrorism Syria supports is directed against Israel, and I think Israel is more then capable of demolishing Syria if it so wanted, and at this point is probably in a better position to move against them then we are.

[My Wife Hates CIV]

Why does one have to have WMD to get a USA kicking? 'We don't like you' - is good enough for me. Which was pretty much all we used against Iraq. And will it really change anything if by chance WMD do show up in Iraq? ahh, nuke'em all I say.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Oerdin
.

The CIa didn't leak the name of one of it's agents they have no motive to do so while the administration has a very big motive. Her husband published some reports which were critical of Bush so one of Bush's lackeys went and exposed the guy's wife as a CIA agent. That she could have been killed by the administration's actions is dispicable but what's worse is Bush has done nothing of substance about this. He's just played lip service games.

It's funny that when Congress "leaked" information about Iraq not having WMD in the run up to the war Bush could spare 20 agents to investigate who did it, but, once his administration is the one doing the leaking he can spare just one part time agent.

1. There could very well have been people inside the CIA who didnt like Wilson - why do you assume he only has enemies in the White House
2. Its not at clear that her identity was revealed as a way of harming Wilson - from what Novak has said, it was more like some rightwingers (like himself) were asking "how could you be so stupid as to pick Wilson for this job" and they responded by saying that his wife, a cia agent, vouched for him.
3. What exactly is Dubya supposed to be doing on this? heres an ongoing investigation, and he has directed the white house to cooperate. Should he be jumping up and down and saying we have big problems with leaks at the white house? Wouldnt that be prejudging the arguably still open question of where the leak came from?

[monkspider]

There will never be a war with Syria simply because America will never fight a war with someone who might make some vague attempt at fighting back.

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by monkspider
There will never be a war with Syria simply because America will never fight a war with someone who might make some vague attempt at fighting back.

I wouldn't call Modern Syria's military history particularly shining.

[Ben Kenobi]

of course they have. guess where Saddam is hiding all his nukes.

LBJ had his dominoes, Bush has his WMD.

Forget about Waldo, where's WMD?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by monkspider
There will never be a war with Syria simply because America will never fight a war with someone who might make some vague attempt at fighting back.

tell that to Germany and Japan.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by uh Clem


Well gee, it must be true then, because the US is never wrong about that sort of thing.

The Syrians btw have this really annoying habit. Whenever Washington starts to scold them about weapons of mass destruction, they demand action against the one country in the Middle East that does have WMDs. Don't you hate people like that?

More token Cheney-pounding to appease the hawks. Large projects in Syria have been virtually unfinanceable for years already, and export controls and customs issues have made doing any kind of business with the Syrian government a pain in the ass, going back to at least the late 80's.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by monkspider
There will never be a war with Syria simply because America will never fight a war with someone who might make some vague attempt at fighting back.

The Syrians couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag if you grabbed the bottom of it and tried to pour 'em out just to give them some sort of a chance.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


More token Cheney-pounding to appease the hawks. Large projects in Syria have been virtually unfinanceable for years already, and export controls and customs issues have made doing any kind of business with the Syrian government a pain in the ass, going back to at least the late 80's.

I thought Baby Assad was trying to open up the economy.

[mindseye]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
(...) not all dems, and no prominent republicans, think Dubya actually lied about anything signficant (there a lot of quibbling going on about the word "imminent" - Bush in his State of the Union address explicity said Iraq was NOT an imminent threat, we shouldnt wait for it to become imminent (...)

And you think that's any better?

Either he convinced the nation to go to war against an imminent threat that wasn't, or he launched a war against some nation that did not imminently threaten the US, but might someday. The latter gives me little comfort.

Besides, quibbling over what Bush said is almost a moot point, given that the man rarely appears before the press (remember that Republican complaints about Clinton on this? W's worse...). You have to consider the administration as a whole. Exhibit A: Bush never explicitly linked Iraq to 9-11, yet the cumulative impact of his insinuations and statements by other leading members of his administration led 3/4 of Americans to believe there was in fact such a link (despite a near complete lack of evidence).

He11, *Penis Cheney is still making unfounded allegations and false arguments about Iraq.

----------------

*Note: I use the name not to defame the man (who I in truth loathe), but to point out the idiocy of Apolyton's naughty word filter.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Some people out there just don't seem to get it. Ever since 9/11 the US has been serious about going after any country which sponsor's terrorism. Why is that so hard to understand?

Nations like Saudi Arabia? Pakistan?
If Bush were serious about terrorism, he would not have evacuated the Bin Laden family (without FBI questioning) while every one else was grounded.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


The Syrians couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag if you grabbed the bottom of it and tried to pour 'em out just to give them some sort of a chance.

The Syrians may have bio or chemical weapons which they might just dump on invading troops. And American soldiers dying with the chemical shakes is not a pretty visual ...

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by mindseye

And you think that's any better?

Either he convinced the nation to go to war against an imminent threat that wasn't, or he launched a war against some nation that did not imminently threaten the US, but might someday. The latter gives me little comfort.

Besides, quibbling over what Bush said is almost a moot point, given that the man rarely appears before the press (remember that Republican complaints about Clinton on this? W's worse...). You have to consider the administration as a whole. Exhibit A: Bush never explicitly linked Iraq to 9-11, yet the cumulative impact of his insinuations and statements by other leading members of his administration led 3/4 of Americans to believe there was in fact such a link (despite a near complete lack of evidence).

they said that iraq supported terrot - which was absolutely true - Iraq supported terror bombings in Israel, murders of Iraqi exiles abroad, and attempted to assasinate Bush 41.

they also said there was evidence of connections between Iraq and AQ - which was also true - It still appears that Iraq gave protection to Zarqawi, and there were several contacts between Iraq and AQ through the 1990's.

They said that there was a possibility of direct link to 9/11 - which is also true - some Czech officials continue to stand behind the claim that the Atta was in Prague and meeting with an Iraqi intel operative in August 2001. Some question the identification, based on the fact that travel records show that Atta did not leave the US UNDER HIS OWN NAME OR ANY KNOWN ALIASES in that period. Does not rule out that he might have done so under a different alias. In any case it IS known that he traveled to Prague several months, earlier, and AFAIK there is no explanation for that. None of which proves that Iraq knew about 9/11 even if the meetings did take place- they could have been working on another operation.


But in any case, all of this, including the attempt to justify the war without an imminent threat was fully known prior to the war - and was in fact a matter of considerable public debate.