Continuing the saga of the Syrian/North Korean relationship, the Syrian Government is now saying that the Israeli air strike that may have hit alleged North Korean nuclear material hit nothing because — nothing happened. The Syrians seem nervous that they have been implicated in a very serious issue, namely the development of nuclear capability.
Meanwhile, nothing has apparently caused a heated debate between Secretary of State Rice and Vice-President Cheney over just how serious this issue is and how the United States should respond. As per the NY Times article:
Last week, Turkish officials traveled to Damascus to present the Syrian government with the Israeli dossier on what was believed to be a Syrian nuclear program, according to a Middle East security analyst in Washington. The analyst said that Syrian officials vigorously denied the intelligence and said that what the Israelis hit was a storage depot for strategic missiles. That denial followed a similar denial from North Korea. Mr. Hill, the State Department’s assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs, raised the Syria issue with his North Korean counterparts in talks in Beijing in late September. The North Koreans denied providing any nuclear material to Syria.
Interestingly enough, a Israeli journalist managed to get into Syria and take pictures of many things, including the supposed place where something may have been struck by Israeli warplanes and even banners showing President Assad together with the Iranian president and the leader of Hezzbollah.
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What about the Syrian/US relationship?
http://www.maherarar.ca/
A journalist “managed to get into Syria” now however did they do that .. wait .. I just booked a room in Damascus! Quick someone nominate me for a Pulitzer!
Key word there was Israeli
curioser and curioser
oops, curiouser and curiouser
Israeli citizens are not let into Syria, let alone a journalist.
I’m not sure whether Arab-Israeli citizens are exempt from this rule, though.
Once again, why aren’t the Syrians more bent if this wasn’t a covert nuclear weapons program? An invasion and bombing of Syria by Israel yet till now all is pretty quiet except for dismissive denials. If it was what Syria says it was then they should be screaming from the rooftops.
Because it’s covert?
If two other students beat you up for trying to sneak a knife into school, do you complain about it at assembly?
Why don’t Americans explain why they send prisoners to Syria to be tortured?
“Maher Arar is a 34-year-old wireless technology consultant. He was born in Syria and came to Canada with his family at the age of 17. He became a Canadian citizen in 1991. On Sept. 26, 2002, while in transit in New York’s JFK airport when returning home from a vacation, Arar was detained by US officials and interrogated about alleged links to al-Qaeda. Twelve days later, he was chained, shackled and flown to Syria, where he was held in a tiny “grave-like” cell for ten months and ten days before he was moved to a better cell in a different prison. In Syria, he was beaten, tortured and forced to make a false confession.”
http://www.maherarar.ca/
OK, I’ll bite.
Are you saying that Maher Arar was sent to Syria to aid their nuclear program?
No, I’m saying that if Syria is such an evil country, and the US doesn’t support torture, then why are they sending people there to be tortured?
In meandering about the internet, here’s a blog I found, one that will probably always be “on point” with the latest speculation/developments concerning this particular topic.
“Syria Comment” — Syrian history, politics, religion
The sponsor, Joshua Landis, is “Co-director, Centre of Peace Studies, University of Oklahoma”. I imagine he must be a professor and a Ph.D, proficient in Arabic, but if so he has chosen not to mention any of this next to his picture.
http://joshualandis.com/blog/?p=411
Here’s a partial quote. There are some caveats at the full link which should also be viewed if interested:
“Intelligence Online reports from Damascus on the Israeli raid on Syria last month: (Via Laura Rosen, War and Piece thanks to FLC)
In attacking Dair el Zor in Syria on Sept. 6, the Israeli air force wasn’t targeting a nuclear site but rather one of the main arms depots in the country.
Dair el Zor houses a huge underground base where the Syrian army stores the long and medium-range missiles it mostly buys from Iran and North Korea. The attack by the Israeli air force coincided with the arrival of a stock of parts for Syria’s 200 Scud B and 60 Scud C weapons.
The parts were shipped from North Korea aboard a container ship flying the Panamanian flag. The U.S. Navy wanted to board the ship in Morocco’s territorial waters but Rabat vetoed the operation. The parts were loaded aboard six trucks in the Syrian port of Tartus on Sept. 3 and took three days to reach Dair el Zor. The trucks and their loads were destroyed the moment they arrived at the underground base. A unit of military police that escorted the convoy was also wiped out in the attack.
Damascus immediately appealed to several Palestinian groups with strong ties to Syria to retaliate. But Hamas, whose strategy chief Khaled Meshal lives in exile in Syria, refused to act. That was also the case of Hezbollah, which sent its political adviser, Hussein Khalil, to Damascus to signify the movement’s reluctance to strike back at Israel.
Khalil, who met with the head of Syrian military intelligence, gen. Assef Chawkat, as well as the official in charge of Lebanese affairs in the president’s office, gen. Mohamed Nassif, claimed that Israel would launch a new invasion of southern Lebanon if Hezbollah began firing at Israeli targets….”