27 Comments

1. richard mcenroe:

The first sign of an inept dictator: Holding the pro-ruler parade on a Saturday, when the government offices are all closed and the workers can’t be rounded up and herded into the street…

Mar 5, 2005 - 8:53 am 2. yama-arashi:

Richard, Didn’t think of that. Heck even Kerry and Clinton held their big rally in Philadelphia on a weekday. I’m told all the government workers got the afternoon off.

Three thousand? Am I wrong to think this is about the same number of protestors you’d get in San Fran. these days, on a Saturday afternoon, saying the same things, though couched in different slogans. Or has the left called a timeout in the face of history. I don’t know anything about the situation in Syria, but it is surrounded on all sides now by countries who gain nothing by its tyranny continuing, and the fascists in control there are made up of a minority of a minority. If the people rise-up, it isn’t like after the first gulf war when the U.S. didn’t support the Shia, this time Bush will be there with bells on, and they know it. Even France might want to play. Syria and Lebanon historically being within their sphere of influence. I sure hope Bush and Condi are once again able to overcome elites trying to put the brakes on this, and talk over their heads directly to the people of Syria. If I had ten dollars to lose, I’d bet that Syria goes down in a month. Is Las Vegas making odds? 15-1 the mullahs in Iran are run out on a rail and are living in Paris within six months. This sort of thing.

Mar 5, 2005 - 9:22 am 3. David Thomson:

ìIf I had ten dollars to lose, I’d bet that Syria goes down in a month.î

I think that is a safe bet. Itís amazing how fast things are improving. At one time, I was fearful that I might be overly optimistic. Could Voltaire make fun of me? Had I become another Candide? Now it seems that I was too pessimistic!

Thank God that John Kerry was not elected. We would have been doomed. Daniel Drezner, Mickey Kaus, and the others who supported the Democratic candidate may be well meaning—but their credibility has been shattered.

Mar 5, 2005 - 10:58 am 4. yama-arashi:

Kerry would have stopped everything in its tracks. And then pointed back into history and said, see, there you go, the nuanced people were right, Bush the cowboy got in over his head. Chirac, and Schroeder and Kerry will be judged by history as having been right. Not Bush, Blair, Howard, and Koizumi. I’m watching on CNN International a summary of the Arab reaction to Assad’s speech, and the presenter said that during his speech to “parliament” Assad now and then ad-libbed and said unbelievable things, such as that Arafat was assasinated. I get the sense she was implying that some in the Arab press are ridiculing Assad and playing up the showdown between Bush’s ultimatum and Assad’s half-hearted reply. It could be me, my ten dollar bet and all, but I got the impression that the news and the street is more on Bush’s side than Assad’s. Was Al Jazeera also a Rove plot. Build up credibility by opposing America and then at the right time pull a deft sleight of hand. I think there is a place for your optimism David, with Dean now staking out a position like this. I don’t know how the Deaniacs are going to hold a rally yelling “U.N. Shape Up” “Old Europe might not be Sincere” and “Bush was wrong, but it was an honest mistake, given the nature of the U.N. and Europe, heck we’re also beginning to draw the same conclusions.” At least Dean is more savvy than Soderberg.

Mar 5, 2005 - 11:25 am 5. Buddy Larsen:

Ha, cute…”since this is an AP report,” maybe we’re looking at three hundred demonstrators. Whatever cousins and in-laws happened to be in town.

Mar 5, 2005 - 11:47 am 6. Terrye:

The truth is stranger than fiction is it not?

I read over at LGF that Clinton not only aopologized to Iran at Davos he praised them. sheesh. If this is really true the man should be forbidden to ever speak in public again.

And google has a story in regards to the fact that the Italian reporter’s kidnapping might have been a hoax.

And of course Chavez says the US intends to kill him. The paranoid idiot.

So who knows what will happen in the Middle East? Nothing surprises me anymore.

But I bet Assad blinks.

But not until they move or destroy whatever they buuried in the Bekaa valley.

Mar 5, 2005 - 12:04 pm 7. WichitaBoy:

Terrye,

Since you bring up Chavez, we’ve got real problems there coming up on the horizon. Just take a look at him: he’s a classic thug beloved by the little people whom he purports to help while carefully gathering all power to himself.

He is a “tyrant” in the Greek sense of the word. The ancient Greeks believed, based on countless observations of myriad city-states which functioned as effective independent experiments, that democracy was inexorably doomed because it always led to this scenario, it always degenerated into tyranny. We’ve seen more recent examples of the phenomenon, such as Adolph Hitler (popularly elected in high turnouts) and Huey Long (the only home-grown dictator produced by America, so far).

Fortunately, and by design, the United States is a republic and not a pure democracy.

It’s going to be extremely difficult to deal with Chavez.

Are they wearing Chavez tee-shirts out in Berkeley yet?

Mar 5, 2005 - 12:45 pm 8. richard mcenroe:

WichitaBoy ó As hard as it was to deal with Ortega, once we got off our ass?

Mar 5, 2005 - 1:23 pm 9. Rick Ballard:

“Count to ten and see if Chirac undercuts that one. Or can he in this instance?”

Roger,

A long, long time ago when you were arguing for transparency wrt the OFF scandal, I argued for opacity with regard to info discovered in the Oil Ministry building in Baghdad. Chirac has been handed a synopsis of the record of French involvement in OFF and the opportunity to perform penance in Lebanon. Look for an American/French force (with maybe some Jordanians for flavor) to help the Syrians find their way home.

Simplisme at its finest – Texas style.

Mar 5, 2005 - 1:36 pm 10. yama-arashi:

I hope Rick is right–Finally we’re speaking a language the French can understand. A little while back TKS was discussing the lending of 250 armored vehicles to the Iraqi forces by the Jordanians. Hinting it might have something to do with Syria. Maybe it will be an Iraqi face, too. If Rick is right I can’t wait to see Chirac down in Texas wearing that cowboy hat Bush was talking about….

Mar 5, 2005 - 1:46 pm 11. Sandy P:

–WichitaBoy ó As hard as it was to deal with Ortega, once we got off our ass?–

ehhh, some blogger(?) posted a complaint.

the CA and SAs have been complaining we haven’t been paying attention to them.

AND – Danny-boy just might win an election.

Mar 5, 2005 - 1:48 pm 12. yama-arashi:

I meant in Syria, not Lebanon. If Lebanon goes down, how can Syria not?

Mar 5, 2005 - 1:48 pm 13. Buddy Larsen:

Chavez election-stealing was on the cusp of international exposure when Jimmy Carter deflated the whole push–and simultaneously enabled/encouraged Sr. Chavez to goon the streets for punctuation. Believe it, Fidel never had a finer friend than Jimmy.

Mar 5, 2005 - 2:00 pm 14. Terrye:

Wichita Boy:

Now that you mention it I do see a comparison between Huey Long and Chavez. He is a cult and he is destroying Venezuala. So far we have been spared a great deal of trouble by the fact that they need us as much as we need their oil. I read that something like 80% of their exports end up here.

But what scares me the most about Chavez is not his tyranny [in Latin America that is not new] it is his bizarre nature. He is the Kaddafi or Mugabe of South America and that makes him dangerous.

He actually said that Condi Rice wanted to have sex with him but he would not disgrace his people by accomadating her. What must the Venezualans think when they hear something like that?

From what I understand more and more people in that country want him gone. Maybe next time they have an election Jimmy Carter won’t help that crazy communist steal it. He is dividing that country into warring camps and he feeds of their hatred of each other. the bastard.

Mar 5, 2005 - 2:26 pm 15. mrp:

My favorite Chavez story

What a maroon!

Mar 5, 2005 - 3:10 pm 16. mrp:

Strange, the Chavez article by-passes the registration page and loads directly when using the Google link. But there is always http://www.bugmenot.com as an alternative …

Mar 5, 2005 - 3:14 pm 17. David Thomson:

ìHe actually said that Condi Rice wanted to have sex with him but he would not disgrace his people by accomadating her. What must the Venezualans think when they hear something like that?î

What about the Venezualans? Hey, how about me? This is the first time that Iíve ever heard of such a thing. I’m suppose to be some sort of news junkie. What is your evidence? If indeed this is accurate—Chavez is a stark raving loon. And the odds increase dramatically that the United States military may eventually have to be used against him.

Mar 5, 2005 - 3:41 pm 18. Terrye:

David:

I heard this some time ago. I honestly can not remember where.

That is the problem with being a news junkie, so much stuff goes by that you can’t remember where it came from.

Mar 5, 2005 - 3:59 pm 19. richard mcenroe:

Can Chirac undercut this one too…

“Alors. je me pense…petty dictator surrounded by countries who hate him, with no foreign exchange to speak of, no liquid currency to buy our obsolete weapons…

Mais non! Vive le Lebanon democratique!”

Mar 5, 2005 - 4:04 pm 20. kcom:

“Thank God that John Kerry was not elected. We would have been doomed.”

How can you possibly say that, David. Are you forgeting that John Kerry had a secret plan that was much better than George Bush’s? No really, he did. If he’d been elected all our problems would be over now. There’s no way he would have lied to us about something like that. Oh what might have been…

Mar 5, 2005 - 4:12 pm 21. Bruce W.:

Yama-arashi:

Thanks for the link to the Dean piece. The most astounding sentence to me was:

“And every day that goes by is a day in which George Bush’s contempt for the international community, which I have denounced every day for two years, becomes more difficult to criticize.”

That’s got to be the largest step sideways I’ve seen in any game of ‘Simon Says’. Bush (and his Doctrine) are the new “Simon-in-chief for int’l Affairs”!

May W use that power carefully and with the same focus on the essential spirit: “Freedom brings peace; the age of the tyrant is over.”

As for your predictions: “… Syria goes down in a month… 15-1 the mullahs in Iran are…in Paris within six months”, I hope you are right but unless its all internally generated, I think you’ll need to add 3 to 6 months both to better establish the normalization of Iraq’s day-to-day security AND to maneover things through the UN once again (but with much more success this time around).

I don’t discount the real possibility of a U.S. (with undisclosed/cleanly deniable Israeli assist) pinpoint bombing of several Iranian nuclear sites between now and then, if the intel so reveals the necessity and/or if the U.S. wants to give an extremely audible hint to its opposition that we’ve got their backs. I’d prefer the “and” scenario to the “or” for so aggressive a statement. But I wouldn’t think anything more than 50-60% accuracy on the nukes info should be needed…There is simply too much to lose by not acting.)

Mar 5, 2005 - 4:13 pm 22. Red Chicagoan:

Richard McEnroe commented as to how we “dealt” with Daniel Ortega. Unfortunately, our eight year “vacation”(read Clinton) from the region, the war on terror, and Chavez’s support in the usual spots is leading to a new head of the military who was a MAJOR backer of the Sandinista movement. He will, in essence, be handing control of the military back to Ortega. The news I have read, wish I could remember the source, think it was the WSJ, puts Ortega within months of a coup. Yes, he was once dealt a major setback, but he’s within reach of power again. And, unfortunately, we’ll be sending the brave ones back into the jungle next to Chavez’s sandbox. This one won’t be pretty.

Mar 5, 2005 - 4:36 pm 23. yama-arashi:

Bruce, The sentence you highlighted was a gem. Obviously someone has taken over behind the scenes. Dean’s hired a brain. But in a strange way it made me happy. At least Dean is getting some good advice. This Dean is much better than Soderberg or Clinton at Davos.

As far as predictions about Iran go I don’t have a clue. I was only wondering out loud if these kinds of things can be bet on. Does Vegas have a line? Lebanon and Syria in a month is more of a wish than something based on wisdom, but I don’t think it will be just Lebanon. I seriously doubt those dastardly neo-cons are thinking just “Lebanon.” Rather it is “Lebanon-Syria.” And now that Rove’s Al jazeera is putting the final part of the plan into effect……

I’m sure hoping for an event in Iran. If the people take to the streets and get a little momentum on their side….Soccer games are always a problem for the mullahs. Who knows what forty thousand fans will do after a game. A few qualifying matches for the world cup should be coming up soon.

Mar 5, 2005 - 4:48 pm 24. Stephen_M:

David Thomson No direct quotes in this link but it mentions the nature of the creep’s televised remarks.

Mar 5, 2005 - 4:49 pm 25. Buddy Larsen:

From Stephen M’s link (TCS):

“Chavez has gotten away with this outrage, and the message to the Venezuelans is clear. fire away. The Venezuelan press is already taking the ball and running with it. A cartoon far too vile to reprint, with even worse explicit sexual insults to the Secretary of State, was just published in the Venezuelan press. Venezuelan women and girls are now on notice that they, too, will be subjected to the worst kind of verbal assault (or worse) if they get out of line.”

The Spirit of Wahabbi, being excorcised from the Mideast and leaking into the admirable Oogo?

Mar 5, 2005 - 5:07 pm 26. Bruce W.:

“Soccer games are always a problem for the mullahs. Who knows what forty thousand fans will do after a game.”

Y-A: They can learn a thing or two from the europeans on that score. But at least the trampling of a few would be for a reason other than alcohol + testosterone + pointless pride…and might actually lead to some long term good there.

Mar 5, 2005 - 5:26 pm 27. Carol_Herman:

If you’ve been to the Adventures of Chester, yesterday, you’d see what fell under the radar screen. France is involved supporting America around Cape Horn and Somalia in Africa; (because the world’s oil trades routes are there) True, I can’t link you there from here. But see if you can Google, or something, to find this. It’s sweeping.

The American Thinker posted an article entitled, The Next Domino by Douglas Hanson. [h-t: Regime Change Iran.]

Mar 6, 2005 - 11:54 am

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