This page is a narrow-focus warblog. In fact, it's a blog of a war that is only verbal, so far. The content consists primarily of pronouncements by various government officials in the US, Syria and around the world, as well as analysis and commentary from media outlets.

Archive

Sources (non-exhaustive)

AFP -- France
Al Bawaba -- Jordon, UK
Al Jazeera -- Qatar
Arab News -- Saudi Arabia
Arabic News
Asia Times -- Hong Kong
Associated Press (AP) -- USA
BBC -- UK
CNN -- USA
The Daily Star -- Lebanon
Financial Times -- UK
Forward -- USA
The Guardian -- UK
--- The Observer
Google News
Ha'aretz -- Israel
.......... Ha'aretz vs. haaretz.com
The Hindu -- India
IRNA -- Iran
IslamOnline -- Qatar
Maariv -- now in English -- Israel
Monday Morning -- Lebanon
New York Post -- USA
New York Times -- USA
Reuters -- UK
Scoop -- New Zealand
United Press International (UPI) -- USA
US DoD Defense Link
US Dept. of State Int'l Information Programs
US White House, Press Briefing Archive
Washington Post

Cast of Characters

Syria
.......... CIA Factbook
.......... Global Security, Syria Special Weapons News Archive
.......... BBC, profile
Bashar al-Assad, President
.......... BBC, profile
.......... Slate, profile
.......... Arabic News, biography
.......... Forward, profile
Farouk al-Shara, Foreign Minister
Imad Moustapha, Deputy Syrian Ambassador to the US
.......... Boston Globe, profile
.......... personal page?
.......... Greta's Fox News show, photo

USA
George W. Bush
.......... US White House, biography
.......... A&E, biography
.......... Iraqi News, biography
.......... Realchange.org, Skeletons
.......... awolbush.com
.......... bushwatch.com
.......... whitehouse.org, biography, may contain satire
.......... bartcop, profile of Bush's military career
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
.......... A & E, biography
.......... The New Republic, profile
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
.......... US DoD, biography
.......... Wikipedia, biography
.......... ABC News, profile
Colin Powell, Secretary of State
.......... US White House, biography
.......... Behind Colin Powell's Legend
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
.......... US DoD, biography
.......... US DoD, transcripts
.......... American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, biography
.......... Slate, profile
.......... Foreign Policy in Focus, track record in Asia
.......... The Australian, profile
Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor
.......... US White House, biography
.......... Hoover Institution, profile
.......... BBC, profile
John R. Bolton, Under Secretary of State, Arms Control and International Security
.......... US Dept. of State, biography
.......... Foreign Policy in Focus, profile
Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
.......... US DoD, biography
.......... Middle East Infromation Center, profile
.......... American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, biography
Richard Perle, Defense Advisory Board
.......... AEI, biography
.......... Center for Cooperative Research, biography -- scroll down
.......... Slate, profile
Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State

NGOs
AEI
AIPAC
PNAC
.......... PNAC's website
.......... pnac.info

UK
Tony Blair, Prime Minister
.......... 10 Downing St., biography
Jack Straw, Foreign Minister
.......... 10 Downing St., biography


Israel
Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister
.......... Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, biography
.......... Electronic Intifada, biography
Shaul Mofaz, Defense Minister
Silvan Shalom, Foreign Minister
Dov Weisglass, Sharon's chief of staff
Ephriam Halevy, National Security Adviser

Palestine
Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen)
.......... Middle East Information Center, profile
Hamas
.......... UPI, background on Hamas/Israel connection
.......... Terrorism Research Center, profile

Lebanon
.......... CIA, profile
.......... Dept. of State, profile
Emile Lahoud, President
.......... Lebanese Embassy to the US, biography
.......... American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, profile
Rafiq Hariri, Prime Minister
.......... Lebanese Embassy to the US, biography
.......... BBC, profile
.......... The Estimate profile
Nabih Berri, Speaker of the Parliament
.......... Lebanese Embassy to the US, biography
.......... Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, biography
.......... Encyclopedia of the Orient, biography
Jean Obeid, Foreign Minister
Hizbullah
.......... Hizbullah's website
.......... US Dept. of State, profile
.......... Momkey Media Report, Hezbollah links
.......... Yellow Times The History of Hizbullah

Multi-national Organizations
United Nations
European Union
Gulf Cooperation Council
Arab League

Reciprocity

::: wood s lot :::
Providence Journal
random walks
blogs against war
The Memory Hole


War (of Words) with Syria

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Sunday, May 04, 2003

Lebanon nixes U.S. call to remove Hezbollah from border area
The Associated Press via Ha'aretz -- May 4


BEIRUT - Lebanon's president rebuffed U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's call to end Hezbollah's military presence in the country's south and replace it with Lebanese forces, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Emile Lahoud told Powell, who visited Beirut on Saturday, that Hezbollah is a "legal political party," whose guerrilla war helped end Israel's 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, a leading independent daily newspaper, An-Nahar, reported.

- mark 5-04-2003 10:07 pm [link]

Syrian Reaction to Powell Visit Mixed
Voice Of America -- May 4


Greg LaMotte
Cairo - There is a mixed response from Syrian media to Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit Saturday to Damascus. While some view the visit as beneficial, others say the United States needs to drop its demand that Syria close offices of Palestinian groups the United States views as terrorist organizations.

The moderate Syrian Christian newspaper Al-Anwar said Mr. Powell, through discussion, received a Syrian pledge to cooperate in a regional peace process.

But Syria's ruling Baath party newspaper An-Nahar said Mr. Powell's call for Syria to close the offices of radical groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, violated the Palestinians' right to plead their case to the international community. Both groups have boasted of carrying out suicide attacks in Israel.

- mark 5-04-2003 9:53 pm [link]

Lebanon clash
Sun Network (India) -- May 4


Beirut - Anti-Syrian demonstrators clashed with Lebanese security forces near the Foreign Ministry in Beirut. Several hundred protestors called for freedom and independence from what they said was the Syrian occupation of their country. They urged U S Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is currently in Lebanon, to ask the Syrians to pull out of their country.

Syria maintains thousands of troops in Lebanon … something the right-wing Christians oppose. The US wants both Lebanon and Syria to cut off support to militants in the region, including the Hezobllah. The protestors carried pictures of Genral Michel Aoun, a former Lebanese army commander who lives in exile in France and urged supporters to continue protesting the presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon. The demonstrators then broke through two security barricades and headed to the offices of opposition TV and radio station which were closed by authorities last year. They clashed with security forces, who used batons and rifle butts to break up the protest in the Ashrafieh neighbourhood in Beirut.

- mark 5-04-2003 9:26 pm [link]

Hizbollah, Hamas Brush Off Powell's Syria Demands
Reuters -- May 4


By Joseph Logan
BEIRUT - Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrillas said on Sunday they were confident Lebanon and Syria would not bow to U.S. demands to rein them in and vowed to keep up armed resistance to Israel.

The militant Palestinian group Hamas, whose Damascus office Washington demands Syria close to get in line with U.S. plans for the Middle East after the Iraq war, also shrugged off U.S. pressure and said its fight with Israel would continue.

"I doubt anyone would answer their call, for as long as there is (Israeli) occupation, no one can even propose disarming the resistance," Sheikh Hassan Izzedine, a senior official of Syrian and Iranian-backed Hizbollah, told Reuters.

"We are not worried a bit about the future and we consider ourselves people with a just cause and we reject any threat."

Since helping drive Israel from south Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year-occupation, Hizbollah has periodically clashed with Israeli troops in a disputed border zone that Lebanon and Syria claim is Lebanese, but which the United Nations sees as Syrian land occupied by Israel.

Lebanon has resisted pressure to fully deploy its army in the area, and Hizbollah officials on Sunday echoed the Lebanese government's argument that doing so would be tantamount to guaranteeing the Jewish state's security.

"We have to distinguish between sending the army to the border...and the army being protection for Israel, defending the Zionist entity and being a policeman for Israel in the region," Hussein Khalil, an aide to Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, told Hizbollah's TV station.

- mark 5-04-2003 9:16 pm [link]

[Oops, this story has changed slightly since I linked it.]

Militant groups shrug off Powell
BBC -- May 4


Militant Palestinian groups have shrugged off US pressure on Syria and Lebanon to stop supporting them, saying it will have no impact.

"This is just talk, it's a storm in a cup because we are merely media offices," Abu Jihad Talaat of Islamic Jihad told Reuters news agency.

Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official speaking from Lebanon, said: "The Americans know well that our presence is part of the Palestinian presence in Syria and Lebanon and that it's not voluntary.

"It is forced, because of the occupation of our land and the expulsion of Palestinians (at the creation of Israel)."

And Marwan Abou Sami, of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said the groups had not been officially told to move their offices.

Israeli officials expressed doubts that Syria would crack down on militant groups.

One foreign ministry spokesman told AFP news agency: It's a good step by the United States to try to put an end to this. The future will tell but I have my doubts."

- mark 5-04-2003 9:01 pm [link]

{Powell did the rounds of the Sunday talk shows. Here are some of his comments from Meet the Press.]

Powell: Syria knows what U.S. expects
CNN -- May 4


WASHINGTON -- Syrian President Bashar Assad "has no illusions" that the United States expects him to curb the activities of terrorist organizations in his country or face the consequences, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday.
- mark 5-04-2003 8:57 pm [link]

Saturday, May 03, 2003

[More on Powell's visit to Syria and Lebanon.]

Analysis / No more Mr. Nice Guys
Ha'aretz -- May 4


By Zvi Bar'el
In an unorthodox move that enraged Syria and Lebanon, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell held a press conference even before meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud. Powell was making the point that if Syria is inviting him for "dialog," as Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Shara put it, Syria had better be informed publicly of the rules of this dialog and of who exactly it is who's setting them.

- mark 5-04-2003 4:36 am [link]

[Analysis of Hezbollah's threat to Israel, and likely outcome of US pressure on Syria and Lebanon.]

Analysis / Hezbollah's outposts won't be touched
Ha'aretz -- May 4


By Ze'ev Schiff
The Lebanese Army's entry into South Lebanon would be an important step, one that Damascus and Beirut have postponed repeatedly since Israel withdrew from the area in May 2000. The real question, however, is whether it will mean the evacuation of Hezbollah outposts along the Lebanese-Israeli border - and the information available to date indicates that neither Hezbollah nor Syria has any such intention.

All the signs indicate that the Lebanese Army will merely deploy on a few main roads in South Lebanon and in a few large towns where Hezbollah does not maintain a fighting force. It will apparently not deploy along the border, where Hezbollah is.

As for the Palestinian terrorist groups headquartered in Damascus, such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, Syria continues to insist that these are merely public relations offices. Yet many orders for terrorist attacks emanate from these offices. When Damascus came under pressure to close these offices in the past, it usually kicked the leaders out of the city for a while and then gradually allowed the offices to be reopened. Israel is familiar with this trick.

Today, Jerusalem's approach is that if orders for a terror attack in Israel once again come from an office in Damascus, Israel will not overlook it. If security coordination between Israel and the new Palestinian government headed by Abu Mazen proves effective, and efforts to blow up the truce come from Damascus, Washington will surely understand an aggressive Israeli response.

- mark 5-04-2003 4:33 am [link]

CIA: Syria Harboring More Than 15 Million Known Arabs
The Onion -- April 30


LANGLEY, VA—In an alarming report released Monday by the Central Intelligence Agency, Syria may be harboring upwards of 15 million known Arabs within its borders.

via The Electronic Intifada

- mark 5-04-2003 4:27 am [link]

Syria shows no sign of ejecting terrorists
The Daily Telegraph -- May 4


Damian McElroy in Damascus reports that Colin Powell's demands that extremists be driven out of the Syrian capital are being ignored

Backgammon games at the doorway and a steady stream of fresh, sweet coffee from the scullery kept the Damascus office of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine busy yesterday, even as the US secretary of State, Colin Powell, claimed that Syria has begun forcing groups the Bush administration considers terrorist organizations to close down.

- mark 5-04-2003 4:17 am [link]