14-10-2003 14:24									#31
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Yeah, you'd kick their ass, but you'd look bad for trying.

I think Syria may be deliberately talking 'big' to try and get some concessions from the international community -as well as Israel. Any unjustified aggression would lead to sanctions/a possible US invasion.

However, Syria is probably bolstered by knowing that Arab opinion is behind them, and US aggression would be unpopular.

	14-10-2003 14:25									#32
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Oh, and my wife's in Syria at the moment.

	14-10-2003 14:25									#33
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Just a wild thought - are the Syrians going to use these reservists to build hundreds of fake terrorist training camps? Then the intelligence people will be having a nervous breakdown and the IAF will be overloaded with possible targets.

	14-10-2003 14:28									#34
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Evil Knevil: sucks to hear that. As you already know, I hope this all ends in peace (esp. since I am LIVING here. )

	14-10-2003 14:34									#35
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S'okay she's in the NE doing some research about the Armenian genocide. She'll be home in a week.

	14-10-2003 14:38									#36
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oh, NE is like the complete other side of the country.

	14-10-2003 14:48									#37
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Yeah, the Govt will collapse before your powerful tanks get there, I hope... but if the US invades

Could you tell the Elders of Zion to hold off for a week, since I can't afford a funeral and she'd have to be buried in an unlaquered pine coffin

	14-10-2003 14:51									#38
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"Armenian" and "genocide" is something you don't mention in one sentence in Turkey. Talk about the Japanese not admitting their guilt

	14-10-2003 14:53									#39
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I mentioned it in a Kebab house the other night. (drunkenly and loudly) Nothing happened!

	14-10-2003 14:56									#40
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quote: Could you tell the Elders of Zion to hold off for a week, since I can't afford a funeral and she'd have to be buried in an unlaquered pine coffin

This is both funny and eery as hell.

quote: I mentioned it in a Kebab house the other night. (drunkenly and loudly) Nothing happened!

You sure it was a turkish Kebab house.

	14-10-2003 15:01									#41
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Why eery?

It was a Turkish one, I think. Doesn't matter, I'll have to wear sign around my neck with "900,000 Armenians can't be wrong", next time in Istanbul

	14-10-2003 15:04									#42
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Why not just have a good time in Istanbul?

	14-10-2003 16:54									#43
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Some of you guys are totally freaking me out...
...as if the news itself is not freaky enough.

quote: Eli, so what? We have them surrounded, and they're low tech. The only downside to destroying them in battle is the cost of rebuilding their country and economy so that next go round they're high tech.

quote: I wished to hell they would do something. Peace is so over rated. War helps restore the proper balance and I for one need to be balanced.

See? The thread is loony enough, even without Sirotnikov posting in it.


All I want to ask the Israelis but foremost the Americans in this forum is this:
What has Syria done to deserve such aggression?

To the United States, it has done absolutely nothing. Yet since the capture of Iraq, Suria figures in the axis-of-evil. Now, after Israel bombed camps in Syria, the President is pushing for a bill to impose sanctions to Syria, as if they were the agressors and not the victims of aggression.

Now the Israelis hold their usual claims about funding terrorism, fighting a war by proxy, etc. However they are the ones who occupy the Golan heights and have invaded Lebanon so they shouldn't expect anything less from them.

The big question is why now? What has Syria done this last year that it hasn't been doing during the last 20 years?

The obvious answer is that of power politics. Syria is at it's weakest strategic condition ever and the fascist Israeli government feels that it is at their best interests to drag the USA in a war with Syria. The United States government is IMO run by reactionary freaks, whose actions cannot be justified by reason, except perhaps the kind of reason that calls for more wars and more armaments, lest some companies should run out of contracts.

However the average American has nothing to gain from funding another war, nor the average Israeli has anything to gain from more bloodshed. So why are you getting all so freaked-out about Syria, all of a sudden? Can't you resist even a little bit at the urge to conform to whatever propaganda they're throwing at you?

	14-10-2003 16:59									#44
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quote: What has Syria done to deserve such aggression?

Why do you climb a mountain?

	14-10-2003 17:04									#45
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This isn't funny you know...

	14-10-2003 18:16									#46
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I think that this is the plan of the Nazi Greek government, and their Alien overlords.

	14-10-2003 18:47									#47
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Why is this surprising? Wasn't Israel launching missile attackes on Syria just last week?

If Canada (for example) launched missile attacks on the US, what would the US do? (It wouldn't need reservists of course, but you get the point...)

	14-10-2003 19:25									#48
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quote: Originally posted by axi What has Syria done to deserve such aggression?

Syria hosts, in the open, offices of major terror groups.

quote: What has Syria done this last year that it hasn't been doing during the last 20 years?

Stepped up covert funding. Acted as a money wash for Iraqi Baathist making an escape. Helping smuggle people across boarder from Iraq to help them escape prosecution in Iraq. Refused to enforce disarmament of Pal terror groups required under so called "Road Map".

quote: So why are you getting all so freaked-out about Syria, all of a sudden?

Uh...Where have you been? Syria has been on State Departments list of states sponsoring terrorism for over 20 years. In case you didn't notice, we are at war with terrorism.

	14-10-2003 20:07									#49
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel Why not just have a good time in Istanbul?

Not Constantinople?

	14-10-2003 20:09									#50
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I think the place hasn't been called Constantinople for at least 50 years (quite possibly more).

	14-10-2003 20:22									#51
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quote: Originally posted by pchang I think the place hasn't been called Constantinople for at least 50 years (quite possibly more).

Americans never get Monty Python references

	14-10-2003 20:26									#52
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Its a question of age too.

Older Generation = Dr. Who - Monty Python
Middle Generation = Benny Hill
Younger Generation = Who wants to be a millionaire?

	14-10-2003 20:43									#53
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I'm not that old.

quote: Istanbul was Constantinople Now it's Istanbul not Constantinople Been a long time gone Old Constantinople's still has Turkish delight On a moonlight night Evr'y gal in Constantinople Is a Miss-stanbul, not Constantinople So if you've date in Constantinople She'll be waiting in Istanbul Even old New York was once New Amsterdam Why they changed it, I can't say (People just liked it better that way) Take me back to Constantinople No, you can't go back to Constantinople Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks'

	14-10-2003 21:57									#54
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How does ones wife get to Syria? If my wife came home and announced she was going to Syria, I think the reply would be 'the hell you are!'.

	14-10-2003 22:20									#55
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Syria is ocupying Lebanon, you know. The reservists might be headed there.

	14-10-2003 22:23									#56
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I don't think they currently needed into Lebanon. There is no upsurge in anti-Syrian activity, there.

	14-10-2003 22:57									#57
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quote: What has Syria done to deserve such aggression?

The US is pissed because Syria allows Islamic militants to move through Syria into Iraq and it is believed that several billion dollars in gold and cash which Saddam and his sons looted the day before the war started was transported out of Iraq via Syria. Further, ever since 9/11 the US government has declared that they reguard any state which sponsors terrorism to be it's enemy and thus subject to preemptive military action. Syria and Iran remain the single largest sponsors of terrorism in the world therefor they are on the Americans' list.

	14-10-2003 22:58									#58
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Assad knows he's in a very weak position militarially thus the threat of force and/or a bit of diplomatic & economic pressure just might be enough to get him to give up supporting terror organizations.

	14-10-2003 23:04									#59
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300,000 reservists for a country the size of Syria is a large number. This could be a WWI-type situation where mobilization leads by chain reaction to war.

	14-10-2003 23:41									#60
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Syria together with Iran is a sponsor of Hezbollah. Now Hezbollah is said by some to be no threat to the US, just another anti-Israeli "militant" group, that only truck bombed a couple of hundred US Marines cause they were "occupying" Beirut - and "only" killed a bunch of Argentinians, cause some of them were Jews, thus "connecting" it to the Mideast.

Thus the following from the Washington Post (via Rantburg) is interesting:

"Mugniyah, a Lebanese national and senior Hezbollah leader, is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of several Americans, as well as the hijacking of aircraft and the bombing of U.S. military barracks in Beirut in the 1980s, according to the FBI and CIA. Before Sept. 11, 2001, he was responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other terrorist.

According to court testimony of former al Qaeda operatives, Mugniyah met bin Laden several times in Sudan in the mid-1990s and agreed to train al Qaeda combatants in the use of explosives and other techniques in exchange for weapons.

A description of Mugniyah’s ongoing role was provided to authorities by a member of the Jerusalem Force who defected to Britain earlier this year. In a February interview with the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sarq al-Awsat, the defector said Mugniyah remained in Iran and had personally "planned the escape of dozens of al Qaeda men to Iran."

The defector, Hamid Zakiri, said Mugniyah served as "a liaison officer with Dr. Zawahiri and with commanders of other fundamentalist organizations."

Zakiri said that among those Mugniyah aided were bin Laden’s youngest wife, Amal al-Saddah, and her infant child, whom he provided with safe passage from Afghanistan through Iran to her homeland of Yemen as the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan began.

European intelligence sources said that much of Zakiri’s information had been verified."