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Condi Rice and Syrian Regime Change
Could Somebody Recommend a President?
By Paul Craig Roberts
10/25/05 "ICH
" -- -- Someone should tell Condi Rice that the gig is
up. With the Bush administration dissolving in illegalities
committed by key officials in their attempts to protect the lies
that they used to justify the US invasion of Iraq, the secretary of
state is trying to ramp up war against Syria.
Grasping a UN report that uses unreliable witnesses to implicate
Syria in the assassination of a former Lebanese government official,
Condi Rice told the BBC on October 23 that Syria's crime cannot be
"left lying on the table. This really has to be dealt with."
This is amazing for many reasons. Here is the person in charge of US
diplomacy acting as if she is the secretary of war unsheathing
military force. Whoever heard of an American diplomat wanting to
start a war because a former Middle Eastern government official was
assassinated?
The UN investigator, Detlev Mehlis, has no more idea who
assassinated the former official than the US knows who is
responsible for assassinating the many Iraqi officials under its
protection. After more than two and one-half years of war in Iraq,
the US still doesn't know exactly who the enemy is that it is
fighting. Yet Mehlis blames Syria for an assassination on the
strength of an informer described by the German news magazine, Der
Spiegal, as a convicted felon and swindler.
On the basis of the word of a convicted felon and swindler, Condi
Rice wants a high level UN Security Council meeting to condemn Syria
so the Bush administration can bring about "regime change" in Syria.
With the US department of state doing everything it can to demonize
and destabilize Syria, Condi Rice's mouthpiece, Adam Ereli, declared
that Syria must end attempts to destabilize its neighbors. This is
the type of propaganda we were fed about Iraq. Syria is not
destabilizing any country. It is all Syria can do to maintain its
own stability. The US is the great Middle Eastern destabilizer.
Isn't the secretary of state aware that the government of which she
is a part is in dire difficulties because it went to war based on
highly unreliable "intelligence" supplied by highly unreliable
people?
Does the secretary of state read the CIA reports? Doesn't she know
that the US has created extraordinary instability in Iraq? A country
that formerly had no terrorists now serves as a training ground for
al Qaeda, according to the CIA.
Is this the time to repeat the Iraq blunder in Syria?
The American people should be terrified by the warmongering
ideologues that President Bush has put in charge of his government.
The greatest danger that the US faces are the fools in the Bush
administration.
Why is Syria being demonized? Syrian troops were part of the US
coalition organized by President George Herbert Walker Bush that
liberated Kuwait in 1991 from Saddam Hussein. The current head of
government in Syria is a mild mannered ophthalmologist who inherited
the post five years ago when his older brother was killed in a car
crash.
Syria has done nothing to the US and poses no threat to the US. The
Syrian government is concerned about Syria becoming unhinged by
schisms like the Sunni-Shi'ite schism set loose in Iraq by the
incompetent Bush administration.
Why does Condi Rice think the Bush administration has the right to
decide who heads the Syrian government? According to news reports,
the Bush administration has asked the Israeli and Italian
governments to nominate a replacement for the current president of
Syria.
A country incapable of choosing a better president than George W.
Bush has no business choosing a president for any other country. In
place of aggressive interference in the internal affairs of other
countries, the US needs to find a competent president for itself.
Maybe we should ask the Italians who they would recommend.
Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and
has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.
His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia,
the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He
is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at:
paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
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