Those invaders of Iraq are at it again. Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and their neo con staff led by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, have conjured up another villain: Syria.
They want to punish Bashar Al-Assad’s regime for Saddam-like crimes weapons of mass destruction and fomenting terrorism. Although, their aggressive verbal assault might have as its real design the deflection of criticism over spying and leaking from the Vice President’s office. Justice Department investigators focus on Cheney’s top aides as likely culprits who fed journalist Robert Novak the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. When Novak "outed" her, Plame abandoned her mission and career. The Bushies thus showed other potential truth-tellers the high cost of "embarrassing" the Administration by telling the truth. Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had publicly demolished Cheney’s "Saddam tried to buy uranium in Africa" story.
More recently, the FBI has named a Cheney aide and members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as involved in spying for Israel. This Israeli lobby that claims to represent the Jewish population has for decades distracted attention away from Israeli aggression and manipulation of US policies by accusing Israel’s unfriendly neighbors of terrorism --first Iraq, now Syria and Iran.
The "t" word took on new meaning in early September when Russian troops and Chechen separatists together killed 300 plus people and Israeli forces assassinated 14 Palestinians in Gaza. In this terrifying atmosphere, Syria should have won status as a major non-issue. Nevertheless, the Israeli lobby’s influence overcame the headlines. So, by the Fall of 2003, the Israeli lobby convinced liberal Democrats like California Senator Barbara Boxer and Los Angeles Congressman Henry Waxman to generate support for the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, legislation that punished Damascus for alleged terrorist connections and accumulation of WMD. Indeed, the vast majority in Congress right, left and center -- voted for the legislation without engaging in any fact-finding or serious debate. Bush signed the Act into law in December and in May 2004 banned US exports to Syria and Syrian flights from entering or leaving US territory.
