In the latest trial balloon, lie or whatever floated by the ophthalmologist and his fascist cohorts, it seems Syria may pull back its troops to the Bekaa Valley.
“No one knows what President Assad will say except the president himself, but we expect President Assad to announce a redeployment to the Bekaa region,” Abdul-Rahim Murad, a member of the pro-Syrian government in Beirut, told AP.
When asked whether the redeployment meant a full withdrawal, Murad answered, “No.”
This is of course no surprise. The Syrian Baathists want to support their Hezbollah pals as best they can. And perhaps more importantly, they don’t want anybody snooping around the Bekaa. Who knows what they might find?
Ironically, Bashar may be the last best hope of the “fuddy-duddy left” who persist on insisting, via cherry-picked quotes, that “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was not fought for, er, “Iraqi Freedom,” but only to find missing WMDs. Well, in the oft-quoted words of Pirandello, “It is so if you think so.”
UPDATE: As an antidote to fuddy-duddies, don’t miss this Gerard Baker piece in the London Timesonline. It references one of my all-time favorite comedies The Life of Brian. (ht: Bruce Wechsler and others. This one’s been linked all over the place – deservedly.)
MORE: Guess who’s not buying Bashir’s offer?
Hopefully the fuddy-duddy reactionaries of the left and its PR arm, the MSM, will stop obsessing about denyiing the Bu$hitler credit for what’s happening in ME and start obsessing about how they can contribute to the expansion of human freedom, liberty, and the liberal development of the Middle East and the rest of the world.
Its time for the reactionaries to “declare victory”, and state as loudly as they wish, “Bush didn’t having anything to do with these wonderful developments but we want to have everything to do with them! It was all our doing and now we’re going to do even more! Power to the People! Speak Truth to Power!”
And they can leave we fundy wingnuts to pray, “Yeah though I dig in the Valley of the Shadow of Death I shall fear no evil for the Moonbats told me there never were any WMD.”
At the risk of being an even larger comment hog, the K-Lo of the NRO reminds the Knucklehead of this wonderful WaPo article by Michael Kelly. Indeed, Who Would Choose Tyranny?
The New York Post is reporting that President Bush politely asked Syria to remove itself from Lebanon by May.
I’m pretty sure that one of the evil geniuses on his staff has informed Bush that the Bekaa valley in Lebanon and I personally googled it just now and confirmed that the Bekaa valley is, indeed, right in the middle of Lebanon.
Sooooooooo. I guess we’ll all know pretty soon where those rascally WMD have got themselves to. As Rush says, “This is more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.”
Can’t wait for the spinning to begin.
Roger, as to the question of “What have the Romans ever done for us?” on January 30, 2005, at 10:59 a.m., I remarked to Terrye on this very forum…well, click the link and read for yourself.
Obviously, Gerard Baker reads Roger L. Simon.
I just wish he’d give credit where credit is due!
Jamie Irons
Jamie: This just in from Powerline: “…initial indications are that the “Brian” message (allegedly from J. Irons)could not have been written using software that existed prior to March 3, 2005.”
Sorry, you’ve been Danned for all time…by the Pajama Patrol. (O:
Bruce W.
Curses!
But you miss the obvious point…My message in Roger’s forum on January 30, 2005 may have been a forgery, but the ideas expressed were still true.
Or something.
Jamie Irons
The US couldn’t be certain of the outcome, but it could be sure that whatever happened would be better than the status quo.
—Gerard Baker, linked above
Of course, in the real world…
By September of 66 the revolution had won Jerusalem and nearly all of Palestine. The peace party was discredited, and most of its members now joined the revolt.
Among them was a priest named Josephus, then a young man of thirty, energetic, brilliant, and endowed with an intellect capable of transforming every desire into a virtue. Commissioned by the rebels to fortify Galilee, he defended its stronghold, Jotopata, against Vespasian’s siege, until only forty Jewish soldiers remained alive, hiding with him in a cave. Josephus wished to surrender, but his men threatened to kill him if he tried it. Since they preferred death to capture, he persuaded them to draw lots to fix the order in which each should die by the hand of the next; when all were dead but himself and one other, he induced him to join him in surrender. They were about to be sent to Rome in chains when Josephus prophesied that Vespasian would be emporer. Vespasian released him, and gradually accepted him as a useful adviser in the war against the Jews. When Vespasian left for Alexandria, Josephus accompanied Titus to the siege of Jerusalem.
—Will Durant, Caesar and Christ
The story of that siege, as first told to me by a teacher in grade school, comes to mind whenever I watch that scene in Life of Brian.
They could be sure?
JI:
At least Hitler had the decency and professionalism to base his forgeries on falsehoods.
–The Hooded Byrd
What’s to prevent Bashar from moving his toys out of Bekaa between now and May?
I hope someone’s shows up at the Senate with a lot of really high-quality satellite photos. I can’t believe the satellites don’t have something!
Patrick Tyson:
Your comment (“They could be sure?”) reminds me of the time I participated in a pilot study for a psychology experiment. I was supposed to respond positively only if I was “sure” that I had read a word previously.
Needless to say, I tested out strongly impaired.
Jamie:
You are indeed correct. In fact I thought the same thing when I saw the article.
As for the revisionists, all they have to do is look at Bush’s old speeches and they will find references to democracy. In fact the immediate response was that this region was not ready for democracy and that it was the most difficult form of government. I even remember an Oprah show about this. [in fact it was the last Oprah show I saw]
So how could they have been arguing that the ME was not ready for democracy if Bush was not talking about bringing democracy to the region?
At the top of this thread I said
and now I discover that MoveOn has taken my advice!