We'll see if its for consultation or attack.

Why would he have to consult in DC - Condi's around send her if she's so good...

U.S. Ambassador in Syria Called Home for
Consultation
Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:27 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush plans to call home the U.S. ambassador in Syria, Margaret Scobey, for consultations following the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in Beirut, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
The move was a further sign of U.S. displeasure over Syria's military presence in Lebanon, which the White House cited on Monday in condemning the assassination of Hariri.

The White House said it was consulting with the U.N. Security Council about taking punitive measures against those responsible for the killing in Beirut.

"We are constantly reviewing all our diplomatic options across the board, including further sanctions under the Syria Accountability Act," a senior administration official said.

Last week the State Department called in Syria's ambassador and warned him Damascus must stop insurgents from crossing into Iraq and end support for Palestinian militants or risk fresh U.S. sanctions.



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Translation.. "Is there a good place near Damascus to park a Cruise?"

Yep... The "cowboy's" trigger finger is getting itchy again... and since "diplomacy" is not in his dictionary...

Yikes... I thought that Syria had fallen into line beause we showed our might in Iraq?

Ha, we've brought democracy to Iraq, and start off more growth in instability to the Middle East. Now even our Ambassor in Syria has to run home!

Bush's Iraq War has rocked off more terrorism in that part of the world. Can Europe dare hupe to trust Bush's leadership? What further ugliness will Bush lead the world to?

The chills of nukes wars?

Yikes is right...

I pity our men and women in the armed forces. Just have to pray for them.

I wish they weren't such diehard supporters of Bush.

sad.....the Ambassador must be sad: the embassies district, in Damascus, is a very nice place!

Once was, I guess. After the Iraq War, nothing can be so nice, I suppose. Otherwise, our Ambassador wouldn't be running.

We show our might when we fly over head. I'm not sure what we show walking up and down the streets of Baghdad with targets on our soldiers backs, and driving Humvees with cloth doors.

coucou?? we are speaking from Damaskus/Syria

Maybe someone smart in the Arab world should go buy some WMD and turn them over and say they were Saddams. This might assuage the administrations endless searching for them!

If Syria was behind Hariri's assassination yesterday, it's not just us they should worry about. Rafik Hariri is a hero to many Lebanese and he is to me too. The way they rebuilt Beirut is a facinating and worker empowering story and this man's life will be avenged. The Lebanese will not allow this without retaliation...it's just a cultural thing. I just pray they don't return to the war, and ruin everything Hariri helped build there. I don't think they will....but....hot-headed people do not always think about that.

Excellent point - Bush has WMD slime on his face and he wants to scrape it off so he'll search the whole Middle East until he finds some WMDs which he can trace back to Saddam.

Recalling for consultation shouldn't be done without proof, Bush is screwing up a major diplomatic signal that has avoided many wars. It sure didn't take Rice long to fail at her job.

my first thought as to who was behind it is more like this guy's since i figured syria was the next in line after iraq:



i've always figured NK had to replace syria in the axis of evil lineup to demonstrate the $hrubbites' appreciation for diversity. but maybe i've been deceived and they just let on that suggestion to continue their practice of deception since it's still my belief we're on a campaign of creative destruction in the ME: burn it down ahd have faith that what rises from the ashes will be more favorable.

ya just gotta have some faith and maybe invest in mediterranean florists in the meantime since i'm sure our guy's'll be greeted with bouquets in damascus too! surely there'll be no casualties there!

Georgy porgy has to find his WMD - this is his mission during the next 4 years or his presidency will look like a joke - he has to justify his war in Iraq based upon the original premise - of course he will not say that - but heart hit upon it - this is all about WMD - and he will go into Iran and Syria and anywhere else in the Middle East to try and get ties between that government and Saddam and WMD.

After his term no one will pursue this angle unless his bro' is elected so he feels the same sense of urgency as he did to remove Saddam in his first term...

Israeli involvement wouldn't make any sense, it had to be someone who gains from either Lebanon being very unstable or a regional war. The short list would include groups like Hamas (they may need another sanctuary if things improve in Palestine).

I have no doubt the neocons have an eye on attacking Syria, I don't think they can pull it off, even much heavier sanctions are unlikely. The military and intel community both know that invading Syria would incur extremely heavy casualties and require a huge occupation force (probably more than Iraq) and create circumstances likely to get tens of thousands of our people in Iraq killed in a matter of months. Our sanctions on Syria are widely disapproved of, too much cost in creating more friction that way too.

I think it's just a diplomatic blunder and will remain that.

Hope you are right.

Bush is such a little brat - I could see him giving Rummy the order that he wants to find WMD and make it happen - and Rumsfeld saying we need a reason - and Bush saying - make one up - we did it on Iraq...

Maybe the US is behind the assasination?

you make some good points but did you take a read of that "Practice to Deceive"? it's stunning to think about applying the capitalist 'phoenix and ashes' idea to demographic and geographic regions of such magnitude.

israel might not be so ready for armageddon as the theoCONs may be.

i really DO recommend you read "Practice to Deceive", published in Mar 03 by Josh Marshall of Talking Point Memo. the beauty that may arise from a birth in fire! hmmmmm, kinda reminiscent of a recent inaugural speech or something...

Wait a minute, back up, some facts here okay. Hariri was not on Israel's "enemy" list. In fact, he was someone in favor of Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. He was fairly moderate as these things go, and YES, he did want Israel out of his country so of course he had a conference. That's a far cry from what most other countries or groups might have done, like explode things, people, places and other such you know?

Hariri actually RETIRED!! This happens so infrequently in the middle east that you can't look upon Hariri as a militant leader who even wanted to mix it up with anyone. Israel has many back channels, and I would bet that he provided some of them. Israel WOULD assasinate someone, so don't get me wrong. In fact, so would we, and we have...but not Hariri...that makes no sense at all.

It is peculiar that so much explosive was used don't you think? This much would not be needed, and the US and Israel would know it too. It does look like some of the stuff we neglected to protect in Iraq may have made it there yes? We shall see about that later.

I suppose that being a billionare and a politician in the middle east makes a person a lot of enemies. It could very well be that some Al Queda types would try to get at the Saudi's this way. It's also possible that he may have blocked some financial transactions. Let's not jump the gun here, because I have a feeling that there is more to the story than we know.

Luap....look at the links this guy has on his site...of course he thinks Israel had something to gain. If I talked to all of those people all the time I would start seeing the world that way too I just asked my Morroccan friend who is back from a month in Marrakesh if he watched tv there. He said yes. I said, so do you hate us yet or what? He got the joke!!!!

BTW: forget to say this, you know Hariri resigned due to syria's refusal to stay out of Lebanese politics and because they would not move troops back to Syria. All of that was bound up with hizbollah.