President Bush, taking us down yet another fast lane on the road to war:
President Bush, in Brussels for the keynote speech of a trip to Europe, branded Syria an "oppressive neighbor" to Lebanon and insisted it "end its occupation."
In Beirut, 15,000 Lebanese protesters echoed his message.
Chanting "Syria out," they marched in protest at last week's killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in a bomb which Lebanon's opposition blamed on Syria.
"The truth is, we can't stand Syria," they chanted.
The 25-nation European Union called for an international probe into Hariri's death and underlined their support for a United Nations resolution calling for Syria to withdraw.
Oops. Did I say something about a rush to war? What I meant to say was, "generating international pressure and encouraging local opposition in order to end a multidecade occupation."
Opthamologists ... fear them.
well, the dictator ones at least.
"Aw dad, I don't wanna be a blood thirsty dictator. I wanna be a eye doctor."
There is more than a little irony here, though, isn't there?
On the one hand, we have a Republican President sounding, for the life of me, like Jimmy Carter, when Carter was constantly raising the issue of human rights and making that the cornerstone of his foreign policy.
Remember why he abandoned Nicaragua and Iran? Because they were dictatorships.
Yet, at the same time, we have Democrats fulminating about how making human rights the centerpiece is the wrong policy. Somehow, when Carter was turning his back on US allies, that was the right thing to do. And when he was antagonizing the likes of Great Britain over Northern Ireland, that was the right thing to do.
But actually threatening real human rights fiascos? Apparently, that's the wrong thing to do.
Of course, to give Bush credit, he is couching realpolitik in terms of human rights (or is it vice versa?). Which is both consistent with the non-Carter line of thinking (e.g., condemning the USSR more vociferously than South Korea), and, in the wake of 9-11, probably the right set of priorities.
But you see, Dean, pulling the rug out from under friendly scumbags is saintly, because it's cleaning up our act. Whatever virtue is involved in confronting unfriendly scumbags is cancelled, indeed outweighed, by the fact that (a) it helps our interest and (b) we didn't do it to everyone else, so it's, you know, unfair. I trust I've cleared this up. (Damn, I'd make a good liberal.)
Robert: An *evil* eye doctor?
He very bluntly told Syria what to expect in the SOTU. Their assination of the former PM is a test of his will, or a call of his bluff. Syria is saying "You can talk the talk; but can you walk the walk?"
