Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

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Israel’s strike into Syria

At Thursday’s press conference, President Bush declined "to discuss an Israeli airstrike in northern Syria on Sept. 6 that Israeli officials say hit a nuclear-related facility that North Korea was helping to equip."

And then this: "Mr. Bush’s remarks — a relatively rare instance of a president flatly declining to comment — also reflected the extraordinary secrecy here in Washington surrounding the raid. Most details of what was struck, where, and how remain shrouded in official silence.

A day earlier, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli opposition leader and former prime minister, became the first public figure in Israel to acknowledge that an attack even took place. Until now the only public information about the raid has been a muted and vague diplomatic protest from Syria that Israel had violated its airspace and a condemnation by North Korea’s Foreign Ministry of what it called ’a very dangerous provocation.’

In a television interview on Wednesday evening, Mr. Netanyahu said: ’When the prime minister takes action in important and necessary matters, and generally when the government is doing things for the security of Israel, I give it my endorsement. I was party to this matter, I must say, from the first minute, and I gave it my backing, but it is still too early to discuss this subject.’"

Discussions - 4 Comments

This is ridiculous. This is an attempt to keep the lid on a fact that needs to be discussed in the open, which is nuclear proliferation. The United States behavior during all of this is that we've something to be ashamed of, as if a client state acting boldly is something for chagrin.

The idea is that we can't broach what the Israelis did or our putative "allies" in Iraq and Afghanistan might become irritated, and become sympathetic towards Syria, Iran and North Korea. Which begs a question, if the affection and allegiance of our newfound allies are so delicate and fragile, what hope can there be that they stand the strain of what is to come.

And what must come.

This is but more evidence of the blurring and blending of foreign policy with a popularity contest. War isn't a popularity contest. And when it becomes one, it's apt to become lost.

I find the silence surrounding the Israeli raid into Syria to be most interesting. Even more interesting is the slow trickle of information about the raid that has begun to leak out.

If I were a paranoid person, I might begin to think that there is a further agenda in all of this... and that is to carefully let out different tidbits of information to select individuals, and then see just what makes it into the public domain.

It may be one of the oldest counterintel techniques, but it can certainly help you to find out whom you can really trust to keep something secret. And if you are building up to something pretty big (say, for example, a military strike on Iran) you can then know just whom to exclude from the inner circle.

Just my $.02


DRK

The Krauthammer article is scary. It's very inferential and all that, but the inferences all seem plasuible.

George Walker Bush is a pathetic wimp who lost whatever nerve he ever had to take on the Iranians. And that's assuming by the way that he ever had such a nerve. Which I very much doubt.

He's not spending his hours pondering going after the Iranians. He spends his hours, by his own admission, "crying a lot."

He's a pale shadow of the man we once deemed him. And mistakenly deemed at that. He surrounds himself with creatures like Hughes, Card, McClellan, Condi, and of course, Harriet. His personnel selections told us all we ever needed to know. But foolishly we did our level best to avoid seeing it, avoid arriving at conclusions that were so stark, so unsettling, so damning.

Well not anymore brother.

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