Perhaps we should christen him, "The President Who Cried Wolf".

We've recalled our ambassador to Syria, Margaret Scobey, for "urgent consultations" and repeated the notion that Syria's troops in Lebanon are a "destabilizing force" that need to be withdrawn. Objectively, the latter statement is debatable. Syrian troops in Lebanon certainly mean that Syria has more influence there than we would wish, but it is pretty easy to imagine things getting worse if Syria were not sitting on various groups.

Hariri, and a former member of his cabinet with anti-Syrian leanings before him, seem to have been murdered because they threatened the status quo. Bad as that is, it may just be the tip of the iceberg should Syrian troops pull out. The in between state may be a low-grade escalation of violence, in which Syria bumps off more anti-Syrian politicians as a counterweight to US pressure for Syrian troops to leave.

Actually, kharris, the current media speculation about this crime, which probably will never be solved, is that it might involve Hariri's Saudi connections and Al Quaeda-style motivations, which makes more sense that the Syrian military pulling off such a de-stabilizing move against a wheeler-dealer who was only moderately opposed to them. It certainly was a big bomb though, and must have been long and carefully planned.

A related story

On the Whiteness of the Whale and Nick Lemann's Blindness to it

This discusses the nature of the courtier press and why it is chronically unable to discover the existence of news of a certain type.

This Administraton suffers from the same problem that the LAPD does: it can't help itself from lying despite the facts. I have no doubt that the LAPD investigators guilded the lily when they smeared blood around. But they didn't need to do it. They ruined their credibility. The same with the Bush Administration. They are compelled to lie.

Sorry, the URL is www.phoenixwoman.blogspot.com/2005/02/on-whiteness-of-whale-and-nick-lemanns.html

John,

True enough. There I was, caught up in the White House spin. It couldn't be the Saudis and must be the Syrians, 'cause that's the way things are - QED. Suspicion that Saudis might be behind the killings also helps explain why the State Department is saying it's too soon to tell who killed Hariri - it will remain too soon to tell as long as the evidence points to the wrong guys.

Still, didn't Hariri dissolve his last government over a disagreement with Lebanon's president - a pro-Syrian kinda guy?

Kharris,

Yup, he did. And who won that little contretemps ? The pro-Syrian President, which would explain why he's an ex-Prime Minister.

Frankly, Syria whacking Hariri makes as much sense as the IRA whacking John Major, and for the same reasons.

Ian Whitchurch

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, and I am new to this site, but I thought that Liberalism (Secularism more specifically) was a rejection of the notion of Consequences for Action?

Conservatives are the looneys who believe that “God” will hold them ultimately accountable for their actions … right?

But a Truly “Enlightened Individual” doesn’t believe these silly superstitious Medieval fairytales … do they?

Or are you asserting that deep down George W. Bush is actually an Atheist (a Secularist (a denier of Causality))??

What's God got to do with it? International relations, that is.

Wasn't that notorios Deist Thomas Jefferson reported to have said "I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just".

After the State of the Union Speech the President submitted his budget to Congress.
It had military expenditures of some $419.3 billion. Now, suddenly a few weeks later they discover they need an emergence appropriation of $81.9 billion -- roughly 20% -- to cover expenditures they could not possibly have foreseen less then a month ago.

Can you believe they are really this stupid?

Serpent, you are gravely misinformed. Liberals hold strong moral values. Belief in causality is independent of politics -- there are religionists on both sides who hold that God can suspend it at any time, but certainly the "secular liberal" believes in causality and that all actions have consequences. One does not have to believe in God to believe that some actions are essentially wrong and that the rest of us have a right to hold you to account for your misdeeds.

So I think that Bush really is trying to get some kind of scam going where he can destroy social security and evade the political consequences of his decision. A democratic discussion would give him cover for saying that some democrats agree with him. But he will lie, get a bill passed in both houses, arrange for it to have some discrepancies, and rewrite it in conference to be what he wants. No point to even trying to negotiate.
The liberals could put up a counter bill and make sure that it was unacceptable to the conservatives. Maybe they could propose transferring the social security trust fund to TIPS, so the financial holocaust and bond default by inflation the Republicans are arranging wouldn't work. The Republicans lose both ways in that case.
Remember, if the Republicans succeed in transferring large amounts of money to the conservatives, it builds a Democratic majority in the next election. The Democratic majority will simply change it back.
The Republicans can spend the governments money on different groups of poor people, but it still costs the same. Remember when the Republicans bought off the farmers from the other poor people? They wound up spending far more money that way. Then they complained about higher taxes to pay for those farm subsidies all through the fifties and sixties.
Now of course the farmers have all sold out to agribusiness so the subsidies aren't splitting off the farmers as a voting block because there really aren't that many farmers left.

spencer wrote, "Can you believe they are really this stupid?"

No, they're dishonest. The stupids are the media and the citizens who voted for them.

Isn't Syria on the PNAC hitlist? I think the order of invasion was Iraq > Iran > Syria. Right on schedule then.

If the Shrub administration said the sun was shining today, I would run to the window to make sure.

Cal, the LAPD is just a totally dysfunctional mess. The city council made their bed in the 50's when they got William Parker in, the man who installed an us (white cops) vs. them (blacks and Latinos) attitude. Of course, it's not helped by the white West Valley-ites who howl at any mention of a tax-increase that would fund more cops on the street. The latest "shoot first, make up lies later" incident involving the 13-year old joyrider is so typical that it barely rates on a Top 10 list of LAPD fuckups.

the serpent
My mail to you was returned as an invalid address.

Re: Syria having carried out the attacks. I am persuaded by the two analyses at Slate that the Syrians probably did it. But Lee Siegel -- who IIRC correctly was in favor of the Iraq invasion and has been generally sympathetic to the neocon "free the Middle East!" impulse -- says that even if they did do it, it's partly Bush's fault:

Assad is gambling that for all its tough talk, the White House has neither the troops, the time, the energy, nor the domestic political credibility to back up its threats. The Syrians are probably not wrong. After all, what kind of meaningful action can the United States take? A missile strike against Damascus will add much to Syrian prestige in the region and little to that of Washington, unless the White House is willing to commit troops—and right now those troops are tied down in Iraq. In short, Assad has called Bush's bluff.

Full article: http://slate.msn.com/id/2113566/

Ack. I had a redundancy typo in "IIRC correctly". I did not mean to imply he was correct in favoring the invasion.

Auros
The US army is not designed to put down an insurgency. It is doing so, but that is not what it is designed to do. It is designed to smash the Syrian army quickly and thoroughly.
The Syrian government is, like the Iraqi government, ruled by a minority. In Iraq the minority is the Sunnis, in Syria the minority is the Alawites, and the Sunnis are the majority.
How long do you think it will take the Syrian Sunni majority to avenge Hama?
Twenty minutes after the America armor roars in to town the massacres will begin. The Sunnis of Syria have learned from the US attack on Iraq that the US will not allow vengeance masssacres to take place when the US has established control, so the Sunnis of Syria will strike at once so we can't cheat them of their revenge on the Alawites like we cheated the Shiites in Iraq of their revenge on the Sunnis of Iraq.

the serpent
My mail to joeblow was also returned as an invalid address. Must be something about my machine.

I know little about the subtleties of Lebanon's politics, so forgive me if this post sounds naive.

But it seems to me Syria had no compelling reason to kill Hariri. He didn't want Syria in Lebanon, or controlling Lebanon's government, but the pro-Syrian President's term was extended and Harriri had *resigned.* How was he still a factor? Was he poised to lead a general walk-out of other government officials in protest of the extension? Was he about to galvanize the opposition?

It seems to me that, unless Harriri's resignation was going to be a catalyst for a large anti-Syria movement, Syria's assassinating him makes no sense. Hell, it doesn't make sense even in that context, as Harriri's *murder* has galvanized the opposition.

Lebanon has been stable, and despite opposition, Syria still seemed to be in firm control. Why commit murder and destabilize the situation? What does Syria gain?

Casey: I think the idea is that Syria was afraid that Lebanon was on the verge of finding its "Yushenko", a democratic leader who could coalesce a serious movement that would drive them out. In any case, I'm not firmly committed to that interpretation, just noting that if it is the case, as Bush seems to want it to be, we should place some of the blame for increased Syrian aggression squarely on his doorstep.

Walter Willis: I'm sure we could roll through Syria and smash the current regime, if we wanted to relocate some of the troops currently trying to secure Iraq. Then we'd have yet another dysfunctional state to try to secure, and keep out of civil war. Great idea.

Next thing you know, we'll be hearing about how the Syrians will welcome us with candy and flowers. I am optimistic that not even the Republicans in Congress are stupid enough to fall for such a line again.

Why not invade Syria? Syria is Sunni. If Syria was annexed to Iraq (like it used to be) then we would have to hold a new election and the Sunni would have a majority again in Iraq. Iraq is the part with the oil, and that's the one we control.
Why not?

Maybe because the Sunni's are the ones doing most of the fighting against the US in Iraq? Are you that desperate to reinforce the resistance, mr. Willis?

Auros, I would say that one’s political beliefs are merely a manifestation of one’s more deeply held religious beliefs. Religious beliefs being one’s fundamental notions regarding the origin and nature of existence.

You say there are Theists and Deists who believe that “God” can suspend causality at any time, but I do not believe this is true; or at least if it is these are “Theists” and “Deists” who are deliberately mislabeling themselves. What you are asserting is the same as claiming that God does not always reward the just and punish the unjust (i.e. God is “arbitrary” and/or “random”). That’s what Atheists believe.

You say that Secular Liberals can believe in Causality and the notion of ultimate consequences for action, but I do not perceive how this could be true. I would assert that those who believe the universe “ceases to exist” when they “die” behave exactly as if that is what they believe.

Serpent, so how did you find this site?

Atheists don't believe in God. They don't beleive God is random. They believe He doesn't exist.

I would say that one’s political beliefs are merely a manifestation of one’s more deeply held religious beliefs.
Is this always true? I know a lot of Christians who don't care about poverty and are for the death penalty. Christ, himself, felt the opposite.

The serpent apparently believes that politics are simply a manifestation of religious belief. I do not doubt that this is true for him, but it betrays a serious degree of confusion about what motivates others. For actual atheists the Golden Rule can serve perfectly well as a moral foundation. Not all of us have to be frightened of punishment beyond the grave to lead a moral life, after all.

I also think that contemporary religious right politicians are not paying attention to the central teachings of Jesus, and that they'd be first in line to crucify him if he appeared on the contemporary scene and preached as he did in Galilee. But that is a topic for another post...

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Rogers
Actually, I am not interested in boosting the resistance of the Sunnis in Iraq and therefor I will not order the US army to invade Syria. Also, the US army doesn't take orders from me. But Bush might be interested in boosting the resistance of the Sunnis in Iraq...which is why he might invade Syria.
Or, as I said, he might invade Syria because he might think that if the newly elected Shiite legislators are giving us trouble in Iraq, invading Syria and annexing it to Iraq and holding new elections would switch all that oil back to a Sunni government.
I would prefer that we weren't in Iraq at all, and since we invaded and didn't find WMD. I supported the invasion, but not the occupation. I have zero interest in the Gulf as a source of oil. I am only interested in the Gulf as a source of WMD, and Iran looks like the best location for that, with Syria only a secondary target.

To say that one does not believe in a transcendant, mentally-aware actor who ENFORCES order, and provides rewards and punishments, in no way implies that the universe is not ordered in the sense of having "rules" that govern the behavior of its constituents, which can be described and modelled.

Nor does it preclude the belief that sentient beings have a responsibility to each other and to posterity.

You are either a troll, or woefully ignorant of moral philosphy.

A bit more:

I am a "soft atheist". I don't ASSERT that there is no God. I just believe there is no particular evidence in favor of a God (and I find the Argument from Evil entirely persuasive against the existence of a benevolent, ominpotent, omniscient creator). In the absence of positive evidence, I hold God's existence to be about as likely as the existence of invisible pink unicorns, or a mystic teapot in orbit of Neptune that dispenses the Boiling Water of Justice. I have no evidence against, but they seem silly and unnecessary.

Furthermore, I pursue justice and "good" because I consider that the right thing to do; the psychological reward of being a Good Person far exceed any hedonic pleasure I might derive from, say, stealing candy from a baby. Furthermore, because I want to live in a society where, if I have a baby, I can expect others not to steal candy from it, I think I owe it to that society not to be a baby's-candy-stealer myself -- this principle of reciprocity (also called the Golden Rule) can be seen in action among NON-sentient social animals. If they can figure this out, with no interest in a God, or in rewards in an afterlife, or in anything really beyond the next meal and finding a mate, it'd be rather pathetic if we were unable to do as well.

Personally, I think that trying to be "good" only out of fear of the Big Daddy in the Sky is quite pathetic.

Additionally, I think that justice is beyond the capacity of any entity to prescribe. If "God" came down in all his glory and asked me to kill an innocent, I'd tell him to go join Lucifer. Abraham was wrong.

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