Nancy Pelosi | Syria

On a search last night for something political, I came across this site: Talking Points Memo. I do like the way the people at this site write, their tone and humor.

*laughing*

Greg Sargent (April 03, 2007 -- 01:26 PM EST), from the above mentioned site, says:

Bizarre.

In its coverage of Bush's presser today The New York Times fails to report Bush's acknowledgment that Republican House members visited Syria. Instead, the paper only reports Bush's criticism of Pelosi's trip.

What Mr Sargent is overlooking in his evaluation is the Republicans that went to Syria had specific, administration-sanctioned discussions to hold with that government.

Josh Marshall had this to say:

... Unless I'm a lot more dense than I think, neither of those was an answer. So it stands: Republicans visiting Damascus, Okay. Democrats, visiting, Hurts America.

As Greg notes here, the president said today that he doesn't like Republicans or Democrats visiting Syria. But he only gets his press office to make a stink when it's a Democrat.

Enough on this one. A bunch of reporters got played on this one. And now they're too embarrassed to retrace their steps.

President Bush doesn't want Speaker Pelosi to discuss matters of foreign policy because with her terrorist-sympathetic leanings, during this sensitive time of war, anything discussed with a government that sanctions, finances, and supplies personnel for the terrorist causes we're fighting to defeat, will give the impression the US doesn't stand united in its foreign policy. She has willingly become Syria's toy of propaganda, the photos taken during her tea party will be used against us in some fashion in the near future. The Administration, to its embarrassment in having to say it because of a defiant Pelosi, reiterated her trip was not, in any way, to be interpreted as a message to Syria.

Speaker Pelosi, wild-eyed, power-hungry, Soros-agenda-driven, and in complete and utter defiance of the strong advisement not to go there by President Bush, took it upon herself to visit Syria to "carry out the findings of the Intelligence Commission". No one asked her to go. Pelosi is having discussions with Syria the President and/or Vice President will be having when they believe the time is right.

Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel need the United States to be firm, strong, and unwavering in its Middle East foreign policy. Especially where Syria is concerned. Pelosi's trip will only screw up the works. Pelosi's visit is adding another, and wholly different leaning, voice to the Middle East mix. Bad thing. Very bad thing. In times this difficult, in this time of war, Pelosi should remember she doesn't know or have access to the same information the President receives. She may own wineries in San Francisco and come from a staunch Democratic background, however; her recent behavior has illustrated to me Pelosi is incapable of linear thinking or rational thought. Facts become confused. Lies become her "version" of the truth. All the pork she helped to stuff into the war's emergency funding bill was smarmy. Not a good person to be visiting with an enemy.

Pelosi's aids said she went with the specific purpose of discussing foreign policy. But Nancy says she's only there to begin bridge-building, have a dialogue, converse - a proper tea party.

She's saying "no", she won't be discussing foreign policy but she's nodding her head at the same time. The usual twisted talk in which the Liberals are fluent. And, according to the news today, foreign policy is exactly what Pelosi is discussing with Syria. She lied to the President and the American people.

She was so eager to get herself to Syria, she precluded The House of Representatives from publicly condemning Iran for taking hostage the British sailors and Royal Marines. She was too busy packing to take the time to condemn bad behavior against an ally. Her personal glory was more important. There was ample time to bring a measure to the floor. Greedy, greedy girl.

I believe the moral compass of Pelosi and the Majority is non-existent. They've become infected with the Soros-MoveOn mentality (and dollars?).

UPDATE: 05April2007, 0648 hrs

Nancy Pelosi is vapid. How could she possibly botch the simple and important message she was to deliver from Israel to Syria? How? Knowing she is under intense scrutiny, from around the world, everyone watching her every step, she manages to demonstrate her complete lack of ethics, responsibility, and intelligence in leaving out the most important portion of the Israeli message; that talks of peace are contingent upon Syria ending all ties and relationships with Hamas and Hezbollah, and that Syria must renounce terrorism and all those that support it.

She couldn't manage something that simple and clear. Did she leave out that important part of the Israeli message deliberately? Maybe. She and her policy making team at MoveOn are unethical people that believe turning the tide their way, by any means necessary, is the goal.

Will Pelosi apologize for her egregious behavior in relaying an incorrect message? Most likely not. She'll explain it away with rationalizations, justifications, and a dismissive wave of her hand. And, if she does apologize, she (and the Left) sincerely believe "I'm sorry" or "I forgot" will get her off the hook.

She blew it. Big time. She is a complete and utter disgrace as a representative of America. After willfully defying President Bush and heading out on her own, putting on this embarrassing sideshow, how she can come back to America with her head held high is confounding.

She's heading to Saudi Arabia. This will be interesting. Will she sternly address equal rights for women while discussing things? I doubt it. She'll just nod and smile, as it seems that's all she's truly good at doing.

This wildwoman needs to be reined in and kept on a very short leash. She is dangerous and unpredictable. Her sheer lack of intelligence demands it. From now on, Pelosi should keep herself confined to the County of Marin where airheads can roam freely.

Update: 05April2007, 1006 hrs

I went back to read what was happening at The Talking Points Memo. I've changed my mind about the writers. In reading this post from late yesterday, the author of the post is simply thick. The Liberals just... don't... get it. Good grief!

UPDATE: 06April 2007, 1425 hrs

Per a report in The Wall Street Journal today

Conducting Foreign Relations Without Authority: The Logan Act

The Logan Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953, states: Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

Although it appears that there has never been a prosecution under the Logan Act, there have been several judicial references to it, indicating that the Act has not been forgotten and that it is at least a potential point of challenge that has been used against anyone who without authority allegedly interferes in the foreign relations of the United States. There have been efforts to repeal the Act, one of the most significant occurring in the late 1970’s. For example, Senator Edward Kennedy proposed in the 95th Congress to delete the Logan Act from the bill to amend the United States criminal code. Senator James Allen insisted on reenacting the Act in exchange for promising not to prolong debate over the bill, and Senator Kennedy agreed to this. However, since the House was unable to consider the criminal reform bill in the 95th Congress, the possibility of deleting the Act in a conference committee was eliminated. It is possible, nevertheless, that the issue of whether the Logan Act should remain will be considered by another Congress.

UPDATE: 06April 2007, 1745 hrs

From The Baltimore Sun, 05Apr07

Congressman Tom Lantos, who is a member of the delegation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led to Syria, put the mission clearly when he said:

"We have an alternative, Democratic foreign policy."

Democrats can have any foreign policy they want - if and when they are elected to the White House.

Congressman Tom Lantos has spelled it out for us clearly, succinctly, plainly.

He's used language that is easy to understand. Just as Nita Chaudhary did when she clearly and plainly stated MoveOn.org hires lawmakers.

When will people actually LISTEN to what these people are saying? LISTEN! They're not pussyfooting, they're not hiding a thing! They're telling you to your face exactly what they're doing!

This isn't misspeaking, this isn't a Kerry-botched joke, this isn't "what I actually meant to say was...", this is it. People do mean what they say. The first time over the lips is the truth.

UPDATE: 18 April 2007, A Blast From the Past

Saddam, Syria Colluded Under U.N. Watch
Friday, October 15, 2004
By Claudia Rosett

NEW YORK — For dirty deals done with Saddam Hussein, France and Russia may take the cake — but that’s just the beginning.

Packed into the Iraq Survey Group report from CIA chief weapons sleuth Charles Duelfer is news that there were some mighty big crumbs for many more countries that loudly defended Saddam during last year’s debates at the United Nations. For a taste, take Syria.

During the U.N. showdown over Iraq in 2002 and early 2003, Syria held a seat and had a vote on the U.N. Security Council. From that world platform, in February 2003 — a month before the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq — Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Shara pitched a high-minded plea that the only solution was not war, but yet more haggling by the UN: "We can achieve peace if we pursue it with determination and armed with political will."

Meanwhile, Syria was pulling in big bucks for arming not the United Nation's "political will" but Saddam himself.

The Duelfer report says that in that same month before the war, while Syria’s Al-Shara was arguing for "peace," Saddam’s government was signing contracts with a Syrian company owned by a relative of Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad. The contracts were to buy "portable air defense systems, Kornet antitank guided missiles, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), heavy machine guns, and 20 million machinegun rounds for delivery to Iraq," according to a former high-ranking Iraqi official.

In the case of those particular munitions, delivery was apparently interrupted by the U.S.-led coalition's overthrow of Saddam’s regime. But plenty of forbidden items had poured through Syria to Iraq already, including munitions that may still be killing coalition troops and Iraqi civilians. For the final two years of Saddam’s regime, Duelfer’s report explains: "Syria was Iraq’s primary conduit for illicit imports," handling contracts for $1.2 billion worth of forbidden goods and services, including weapons and military technology.

This burst of Iraqi-Syrian commerce was no freelance spree. It came under the auspices of a formal trade protocol, signed in 2000 between the regimes of Saddam and Assad — a flagrant violation of U.N. sanctions. Under this government-to-government agreement, Syria re-opened the Iraq-Syria pipeline, which became Saddam’s prime conduit for smuggling out oil, and over the life of the protocol helped bring Saddam about $2.8 billion in illicit income.

Syria’s dirty traffic with Iraq included deals with state-owned firms in fellow dictatorships such as North Korea (global retailer of the covert missile market) and Belarus (one of Saddam’s financing and procurement hubs in the former Soviet bloc). Within Syria, according to Duelfer, such business involved a number of firms run by cronies or relatives of President Assad and entailed "support from agencies or personnel within the government itself."

For instance, one of Saddam’s regular dealers, signing some 257 illicit contracts with various Iraqi ministries, was SES International, a firm that Duelfer says was owned by the head of Syrian Presidential Security, Dhu al-Himma Shalish, and run by his nephew — both relatives of Syria’s president.

Through SES and similar Syrian companies, Saddam during his final years in power was busy procuring such stuff as surface-to-air missiles, missile navigation components from North Korea and laser and night-vision technology from China.

Syria also served as an illicit banker for Baghdad, with the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria laundering hundreds of millions in Saddam’s secret funds, and by some accounts channeling Saddam’s stash onward via a CBS subsidiary in Beirut, capital of Syria’s vassal state, Lebanon.

Saddam’s shady business with the Commercial Bank of Syria is all the more disturbing given that this past May the U.S. Treasury designated this bank as a conduit for "numerous transactions that may be indicative of terrorist financing," including "two accounts at CBS that reference a reputed financier for Usama bin Laden."

So flagrant was Syria’s cooperation with Saddam that in October, 2002, while the U.S. was trying to reason with the U.N. Security Council, Syria, according to the Duelfer report, was helping Saddam import from a Ukrainian military manufacturer an entire massive pontoon bridge set.

All this was made much easier by a setup in which, despite the reassuring label of sanctions on Iraq, the United Nations in practice did nothing to police the Iraqi-Syrian border. Under the 1996-2003 Oil-for-Food program, which was supposed to restrict Saddam’s trade exclusively to humanitarian goods (expanded early on to include oil industry equipment), the U.N. Secretariat collected $1.4 billion in commissions on Saddam’s oil sales, to monitor and ensure the integrity of the U.N. program.

But, as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan ran the program, the U.N.-hired inspectors were tasked only to check whether shipments into Iraq qualified for payment from U.N.-held escrow accounts for Iraq — not to stop contraband. Under the U.N. setup, it turns out, there was nothing to prevent trucks filled with forbidden munitions rolling from Syria into Iraq. And that, it seems, is what happened.

The Duelfer report, in hundreds more pages, lays out details of more than a dozen countries involved in Saddam’s illicit arms deals, including other nations in which the government played a direct role: "Belarus, North Korea, former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yemen and possibly Russia."

All this was part of a deliberate strategy by Saddam to corrupt the United Nations debates, erode sanctions, and re-arm his regime. The multi-billion-dollar bonanza of sanctions-busting business Saddam lavished on Syria was just one slice of such stuff, but it’s enough to give a pretty good idea of the realities behind the U.N. debates over peace and political will in dealing with Saddam.

Claudia Rosett is Journalist-in-Residence at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, and writes a column, "The Real World," on issues of tyranny and human rights, especially as these relate to the war on terror, for The Wall Street Journal’s Opinionjournal.com and The Wall Street Journal Europe. Previously, Ms. Rosett has served as a member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board in New York, as bureau chief in The Wall Street Journal’s Moscow Bureau and as editorial-page editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal. For her on-site coverage of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, Ms. Rosett won an Overseas Press Club Citation for Excellence.