National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley asked the Italians to help with regime change in Syria:
I have it on good authority that Steven Hadley, the director of the US National Security Council, called the President of the Italian senate to asked if he had a candidate to replace Bashar al-Asad as President of Syria. The Italians were horrified. Italy is one of Syria’s biggest trading partners so it seemed a reasonable place to ask! This is what Washington has been up to. — Joshua Landis
Let’s take this in. Hadley is calling the Italians, asking for a name as a replacement figurehead? Stunning.
This Stephen Hadley? Whose ass is about to be indicted? Who was a member of the infamous WHIG group that sold the Iaq war?
Who has his smudgy mitts all over the Niger forgery story and connived with Karl Rove to smear Joseph Wilson and his wife?
Yup, that Stephen Hadley. In BooMan’s “Holy Crap: My Pre-Indictment Stress Syndrome is Acting Up” he quotes Larry Johnson: “My friend told me that Hadley fully expects he will be indicted.”
We need to listen to Joshua Landis — a Fulbright Scholar currently living in Damascus and Beirut — who is an Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies in the History Department and the School of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Landis has become an essential source for newspapers, including The New York Times.
Landis’s SyriaComment.com has become one of my must-reads. He writes well. He travels to Beirut regularly. He talks to international reporters daily. And Landis talks to Syrians on the streets of Damascus.
We’re not playing “DOOM” here, for chrissakes. You have to know the territory. As Patrick Lang — a former DIA Chief of the Middle East and Terrorism as well as first professor of Arabic Languages at West Point — pointed out last night here in “Syria and the Stone Wall“:
The Syrian government has a long established and time tested methodology for dealing with external demands placed upon it. It ignores them.
Further, as Joshua Landis logically notes, what can Syria possibly do to placate the Bush administration? “Bashar cannot possibly do what Washington is demanding of it — give family members to an international court. My guess is that the regime will stick together on this.”
But, really, none of that matters!
Cheney and Hadley are hellbent on going after Syria:
US ‘seeks new Syrian leader’ as pressure mounts
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Financial Times
October 9 2005
As it steps up pressure on Damascus, the US is actively seeking an alternative who would take over from President Bashar al-Assad, according to sources close to the Bush administration.
Washington has consulted its allies in an inter-agency search co-ordinated by Stephen Hadley, the president’s national security adviser. The US is also said to be considering military strikes on the Syrian border in response to its alleged support for Iraqi insurgents.
Turkish Press reports that ”both Ankara and western capitals [are debating] by whom al-Assad can be replaced. This matter was also discussed during (U.S. President Bush’s national security adviser) Hadley’s visit to Ankara.”
Professor Landis has come into possession of a “most extraordinary letter from Syria’s Ambassador in Washington Imad Mustapha to Congresswoman Sue Kelly.” The letter from Rep. Kelly and 100 House members is highly critical of Syria. Prof. Landis has posted the ambassador’s reply, [editor’s note, by susanhu] [The ambassador’s reply letter to Congress is up now.] and makes these key observations:
[The letter from 100 members of Congress ] is a demonstration of the US government’s failure to appreciate how it is being railroaded by the administration into a confrontation with Syria. One must read Imad Mustapha’s response, copied here, to appreciate just how the railroading is taking place.
Congress is falling for another war trap? Looks like it:
For over a year Syria has been trying to cooperate with the West on the Iraq border, on the issue of terrorism finance, on the issue of stopping Jihadists from getting into Syria, on intelligence sharing, and on stabilizing Iraq.
Washington has consistently refused to take “Yes” as an answer. Why? The only credible reason is because Washington wants regime change in Syria. The US administration is sacrificing American soldiers in Iraq in order to carry out its program of “reforming the Greater Middle East.” Two US policies are clashing head to head – the one is stabilizing Iraq and the other is the reform of the greater Middle East. President Bush is placing his democracy policy over his Iraq policy. This is costing American and Iraqi lives.
The world press has failed to get this story, although it has been staring them in the face for months. Human rights activists in Syria have documented for a long time how Syria is arresting Islamists, cracking down on Syrians who go to Iraq to fight by arresting their family members and jailing the fighters when they return from Iraq. Read Razan Zeitouneh’s story about Syria’s “Preemptive War” against Islamists here. The Syrian secret police have been terrorizing would be terrorists in Syria for many months now. The US has cut off all intelligence sharing with Syria despite repeated Syrian attempts to cooperate on this most important issue. Rumsfeld refused a Syria delegation of top border officials permission to meet with their Iraq and American counterparts just two months ago. Read the story here.
I’ve read all this before, and quoted sources, that verify what Landis says. Syria has conducted a ruthless crackdown against “Jihadists” — but none of that matters to Bush’s war cabal.
As Patrick Lang wrote here in “ Say it isn’t so… Please.:
Hey folks, here we go. This guy is nobody in Syria but the Neocon, Jacobin crowd are pushing him as a neo-Lincolnesque figure.
[…]
(Yes. It’s true. This is from MEMRI. Have a ball with this.)
_________
“Leader of the Opposition Reform Party of Syria: “The Syrian Regime Is Nurturing Terrorism”; “We in Syria Need Peace More than the Israelis”
[…]
In an interview with the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, Farid Al-Ghadri, leader of the opposition Reform Party of Syria (www.reformsyria.net), harshly criticized the Syrian regime, saying that “its crimes are more brutal than Saddam Hussein’s.” He accused the Syrian regime of nurturing terrorism, and expressed his support for a peace treaty with Israel.
The following are excerpts: …
And what may become Bush’s choices to take over Syria?
As Patrick Lang wrote here in “The End of Ghazi Kanaan“:
Why is he gone? Smart money has always been wagered that Rafik Hariri’s assassination was the result of a cabal among Lebanese and Syrian security officials who feared Hariri’s return to power by election, this time as a “reform” candidate with the full backing of the Bush Administration and, of course, of Chirac’s France. In previous iterations of Hariri as PM, Rafik was not a “reform” figure. The circumstances in which downtown Beirut was re-built under Hariri’s supervision by the company “Solidere” would not bear close inspection. A lot of money was made by Rafik and his associates in this and other business enterprises.
Kanaan made a “farewell” call to a Lebanese Radio station before he died today. In that interview he said that it was true that Rafik Hariri had been paying him off when both had ruled in Lebanon, but at the same time he said that he, Kanaan, had not been “responsible” for the bad things that had happened in Beirut over the years. I suppose that was a reference to the ultimate culpability of the late Hafez al-Assad.
Was Kanaan’s death a case of “assisted suicide?” …
>
Was it Bush’s endorsement that doomed him? Could be.
Perhaps all that will save Syria will be wide-ranging indictments by Patrick Fitzgerald that paralyze Hadley’s — and Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld’s — momentum.
(All emphases mine.)
They better be glad they have Assad. He’s a resonalbe, I think gentile person given his circumstances.
Bush is allied with Bin Laden. This must become clear to the American Pub lic. Both are fighting for fundamentalism.
This is twisted…. but it is the truth and it must be faced. Bush is fighting with Bin Laden.
Bush is fighting to destroy America. He is a distrubed man, the people around him are disturbed, they are unwilling to acknowledge that they are traitors who in fact hate America.
Everything is upside down. I know it’s hard to believe, but it fits and the idea that Bush is simply destructive of American interests has to be considered as his EMOTIONAL motivation.
Don’t pay attention to what he says.. Just look at what he is doing. He is promoting fundamentalsm. He wants to get rid of secular regimes which will always be replaced by fundamentalist one.
HE HAS TO BE STOPPED
In a morbid sense of thinking, I have to give some credence to your comment.
It isn’t morbid.
Just look at what is going on as if you were an outside observer…from another place or planet.
Everything he does is favorable to the goals of Al Queda….the overthrow of secualr regimes…that is the so called AL Queda (whatever that is or isn’t) goal.
That is what is happening. But Americans keep seeing Bush and it’s leaders as “Daddy” who may make mistakes, but he means well. Sometimes our fathers are awful people, sometimes not. This one is awful. Please.
No, our “Daddy” is very disturbed just like some of our real daddies and they cause great destruction.
Basically, the underlying fact of the Bush regime’s posture is that they want war and they want war to escalate and spread throughout the Middle East, and, eventually, in Venezuela too. They have no interest in getting Syrian cooperation or reaching any sort of arrangement that includes Syria as an ally against the international terrorist threat. they don’t want Syria to be a friend because they need to blame the Syrians both for their own failures in Iraq and so they can attack Syria as soon as they’ve completed creating the pretext for doing so.
There is no evidence anywhere to suggest that the Bush regime’s war adventures in the world have anything to do with peace, freedom, liberation of oppressed peoples, stopping international terrorism, spreading democracy or making the US safer.
I have always said what motivates Bush is anger. He is filled with rage. His goal is simply to destroy.
He has no idea what he is or what he is doing. BUt it is observable. Don’t get caught up in his rationality. Simply look at his actions. They are murderous. It is what he wants, what he likes to kill. I am sorry.
He was the chief executioner in Texas. Now he seeks to be chief executioner of this world.
He is mad. That all there is to it. He shares his paranoid, provinical madness with the so called Neo con craziers
I don’t think Bush is necessarily motivated by anger, though clearly his psyche is dominated by it.
The main purpose of his religiosity has been as an anger managment tool, but even that is failing to do the job, and this is why his petulance is becoming more obvious.
Bush’s anger causes lots of damage, but it’s not his motivator. The anger rises when he doesn’t get his way or when he’s criticized. He’s a narcissist; an incredibly ignorant and therefore doubly dangerous narcissist.
As a narcissist, he went along with the invasion of Iraq, not because he was angry, but because he was told it was agood idea and that it would allow him to revel in the role of commander in chief with all the stature his miniscule mind could imagine such a title would confer upon him. He went along with the looting of the treasury by the tax cuts for the wealthy not because he was angray at the middle or working or poor classes, but because he was told it would be good for the economy, but more importantly, because he would get the proper respect due a great leader from the captains of industry. In short, bush comes to decisions based on how well those decisions are able to stroke and inflate his own massive ego.
Now that he fully believes all the propaganda about him being a great and strong and determined and visionary leader, he’s even more dangerous because he’ll become increasingly more erratic now that he’s his own biggest fan and has the “bit between his teeth” so to speak,about his own grandeur. And compounding this is the fact that, now that he doesn’t need to be propped up to win another election, his puppetmasters are less concerned with controlling him in a way that helps keep him from making a fool of himself. so he’ll be even more erratic.
I don’t think he’ll last through his second term without suffering a major mental and emotional breakdown.
Sbj…. I don’t think Bush has an ego in the sense of having an idea of importance. He feels utterly worthess and contemptible.
And you are confusing, I think the impact of rationaility on him. He does not do things, no do any of us because of rationality. We are not really rational beings. We have the capacity to think rationally but our behavior is always based on sensation not thought.
His perhaps strongest sensation is rage and it is given sanctuary through his cover of religous sentimentality. His rage is expressed in Iraq and at anyone who he percieves to be his enemy at the moment.
The focus of his rage is himself. But he cannot acknowledge that. So he turns it on the rest of the world. He is working from the periphery inward toward himself. He will destroy all of us before he gets to himself. That is his ultimate goal. Self destruction. But first, everyone else must go.
I have suggested earlier that he committ suicide. He should do that or resign.
He has daddy problems. Most everyone has some kind of problems in these areas, but he is the president and he should not be indulged in this display of madness. He must be stopped now.
Anger is the visible part of Bus’s psyche that we, and especially WH staff, get to see on a regular basis. Bush also has a well known history of drug and alcohol abuse. Does anyone but me see the strong schizophrenic behaviors? Have any ever questioned whether the “voice” he hears is not “GOD” talking to him, but rather the demons of his own schizophrenic mind? Schizophrenics become VERY angry when the the “actions” dictated by these demonic voices are refuted and/or prevented.
They don’t want to publish the possibility that the nation is being led by a schizophrenic because the nation itself is a little schizophrenic.
No one want to look in the mirror.
Cross-posted at Daily Kos.
Only if this administration cold keep their nose out of everybody’s business, we just might do better in running this country we live in.
I can not stomach much more, actually!
If we could put them all in jail and make sure they had no phone, internet or banking privileges, then we’d have a chance.
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U.S. Middle East policy touching —
ISRAEL! :: read Haaretz News
Pax Americana for a stable Middle East
WH and U.S. Congress preparation in comparison with EU cooperation towards Syria
A Country Study: Syria
After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, the Bush administration adopted a policy called “extraordinary rendition” that permitted the transfer of a small number of terrorist suspects to nations that employed brutal interrogation methods illegal in the U.S.
In recent years, the government’s “rendition” policy has greatly expanded, with estimates placing the number of U.S.-held prisoners transferred to nations employing torture at 150. Those who have been subject to the policy include Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was detained in New York City and then sent to Syria, where he suffered months of torture before being released without charge.
Another prisoner, Mamdouh Habib, accused of training several of the 9/11 hijackers, was held in the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention facility and later transferred to Egypt where he claims he was beaten and burned.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
As is usually the case, if you want to find the facts, go to the source:
REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION COMMISSION ESTABLISHED PURSUANT TO SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1595 (2005)
.
From the Conclusions:
Seems to me the investigation is ongoing, and although some arrest warrants have been issued, no conclusion has been reached about Syrian culpability. Further, even if one or more members of the Syrian government were involved, the proper venue for prosecution is the United Nations Security Council, NOT the U.S.
F*ck you neo-cons. Don’t come ’round here waggin’ that dog. It don’t hunt.
{{{F*ck you neo-cons. Don’t come ’round here waggin’ that dog. It don’t hunt. }}}} OH how I agree with you on that one!!!!!!!!!!!!
Vietnam/Cambodia (none / 0)
Also posted by me at Daily Kos, where I forgot to ask what does Syria get in return for taking U.S. prisoners for ‘treatment’? Money? Love?
Syria is to Iraq as Cambodia was to Vietnam: an extension of an already ongoing war, a so-called safe haven for the resistance. Or at least that’s how the U.S. government will present the matter to the public. To be sure, Turkey, France and other U.S. ‘allies’ will have no objections to a forced change of government in Syria and will probably actively help to bring it about. Let’s drop the term ‘regime change’, a neocom talking point. Hariri saw fit to cooperate with Syria while he and his cronies raked in their billions, literally billions. No one has clean hands in the recent history of Lebanon and Syria, including the U.S., Israel and everyone else. When I see that Schumer and Clinton would still vote for the Iraq invasion after everything we have seen I can only conclude that the U.S. government will succeed in forcing a military showdown, indictments or no indictments. The U.S. powerbrokers are blinded by righteousness or, as Hugo Chavez very appositely pointed out in reference to George Bush, their lack of understanding of people, that is, their black and white of vision of ‘good’ being a monolithic, radiant principle which they embody and monopolize. Oh, oh, may Mrs. Clinton not become the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, she has no claim to it simply because of some kind of sentimental nostalgia for her husband. The operations in Syria and Iran will be sold as extensions of the Iraq war and there will be no need for congress to consider the issues, as if they would disagree with Bush anyway, as if they ever judiciously considered the Iraq war: witness Schumer and Clinton, among others.
I would give you 500 ‘4’s for that one!!!!!! I so agree!!!!!!!
Bushco had better watch its step on this one. They rely on Syria to torture suspects sent there via extraordinary rendition – like Maher Arar of Canada.
If Bushco plans to overthrow the government, there could be some very nasty blowback in the form of some outings of the Bush administration’s methods in the WoT.
The MEMRI piece attempting to elevate rightwing extremist neocon darling Al Ghadri into political prominence as a legitimate and influential player within Syria is the key to understanding the entire rubric here.
MEMRI is run by deeply involved neocon warmonger David Wurmser’s wife Meyrav. She’s almost as insane as Michael Ledeen and MEMRI is the most prominent anti-Arab propaganda organ in the MidEast and the US. No reality-based thinkers and analysts take MEMRI’s exremist pronouncements as legitimate.
But, of course, our own government isn’t reality-based either so they’ll keep trying to make a nobody, (Al Ghadri) into a somebody as they simultaneously work overtime to further dehumanize Arabs as part of their strategy to continue widening the conflict until it finally engulfs the entire oil producing region in the Middle East.
The Italian link here is significant because of Michael Ledeen’s strong ties there with others who share his lunacy for flogging war at all costs. Italy serves as a nexus where key players from many divergent countries come together under one banner to plan and initiate major operations to grow the war and make obscene profits on it. These are the same people that were behind the forged documents from Niger. They’ve been pulling off stuff like this for decades, and for them War is the preferred means for making shitpots of money while simultaneously eliminating peoples they don’t like.
All of these people should be in jail or worse.
OMG.
OMG.
OMG.
It probably IS outrageous. But who benefited from the assassination? Syria? The neo-con Bushcos? Or both?
But I have to asked myself if the US was involved either actively or passively in this event.
I think I read or heard that the murder happened in Lebanon, they arrested an Aussi. NOw that was the only time I heard of that and nothing else. I just wonder????!!!!
Clearly the Syrian government doesn’t seem to have gained anything as a result of the murder of their former collaborator Hariri. Certainly, even the most naive strategist for the Assad regime would have known that such a high profile murder would be blamed on Syria anyway, regardless of the facts. (This is not to say that certain probably greedy elements within the Syrian hierarchy serving in Lebanon were not involved. Wherevere money or regional power issues are at stake, crimes such as this can occur.) But the suggestion that the Assad government was directly responsible forthis murder strikes me as absurd on it’s face, (and I say this as someone who has no love for the Syrian regime and it’s repressive dictatorial methodology). I’m just saying that there were udoubtedly plenty of corrupt politicians and business people who were afraid of losing money and influence if Hariri, as a “reform candidate” friendly to US policy, were to gain power again. So, I see the murder as about politics and money, but mainly about money.
As to who gains, it seems the warmongers in the US gained and the factional warlords within Lebanon gained. The Lebanese factional leaders now have the opportunity to ramp up their 3 way civil war again, the Bush regime crazies have the opportunity to bash Syria on the world stage preparatory to attacking it, and all the weapons merchants in the region have another bonanza in the making. And of course,the Lebanese and Syrian people lose bigtime.
The President of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera, is hardly the right person to ask. He has distinguished himself recently with outrageous and highly insulting statements and speeches against Muslims and the secular state.
While on an official visit to Spain he attacked PM Zapatero for his law on homosexual unions, an unprecedented breach of diplomatic etiquette.
He has repeatedly attacked Europe for its Illuminist culture and tolerance towards diversity. Besides his constant attacks on the Muslim religion, he recently came out against the cross-breeding of “races” that would turn Europe into a continent of half-bloods devoid of roots and a culture identity.
He gave a speech last September 22nd at Georgetown on Christians, Liberals and Cannibals.
According to Italian sources Secretary of State Rice was supposed to attend, but forfeited. Perhaps Hadley did attend, and was so enthusiastic that he felt Pera was just the right person to consult when it comes to exporting our virtues to cannibals.
scary story but great job nonetheless