America's Plan To Destabilize Syria With Democracy

Bush claims he wants more troops to stabilize the Middle East, while he's got a planning cell hoping to bring more destabilizing democracy.

The same people who brought us the Iraq disaster are planning to bring more "reforms" to Syria. All this on the eve of the 2008 election. What better gift to the DNC. When you have an operations groups involving intelligence, DoD, State, Treasury, you've got a DoD Planning cell: The same system which failed on the eve of Iraq.

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America can't be serious with "concerns" about "other nations" interfering with American or Israeli interests or internal affairs.

We're talking cover options, but if you want to whine about what other nations are doing, stop doing what you're whining about.



Note the US is talking about "quietly" doing something, which is meaningless -- they're openly talking about something. For all we know, this could be a ruse, and the US hasn't made any real progress.

___ If the US was making "real headway" why would it announce publicly what it was doing, and not surprise Syria?

That there may or may not be a "classified two page document" is meaningless. The US had a 35-page paper of drivel on Iran that didn't amount to anything. It's one thing to have a plan, and another to have a vision. The US can talk all day long about what it prefers, but it’s a separate matter whether it can implement that vision.

Let's suppose, within the four corners of the 2-page document about Syria, that the US has a plan to replace the Syrian government. The US botched the plans in Iraq.

___ Why should we believe that the US government, without changing plans in Iraq, is going to learn the lessons of Iraq, and prepare for a post-Assad government in a manner any better than the disaster in Iraq?

When the US says it is "supporting regular meetings" in Europe, this is meaningless.

___ Is the US government inviting the activists to blogging parties and ordering takeout lunch, in the vision of Delay?

___ Why should we believe that the US "led-anything" will result in a "coherent" anything?

The US, when it whines about foreign involvement in the US, certainly has a double standard when it openly admits that there's an operation to destabilize Syria. Perhaps a less stable Syria is what the US would like on the Israeli border. That makes no sense, but perhaps the US wants that.

___ Why should the world believe the US is "interested in democracy" when the means to brining about democracy is through instability?

___ Didn't the US learn that it is better to have a dictator in charge of Iraq, than have a destabilized Iraq?

___ Why is a destabilized Syria in a "better position" to fight common US objectives in the Middle East?

Recall the recent statements of the President -- words to the effect, echoed by SecDef Gates -- that instability in the Middle East would be a "calamity" or a "disaster" should the US lose control in Iraq.

____ What's to be said of the US talking out of both sides of its mouth: Arguing for more US troops in Iraq to "prevent instability," while it openly works with activities to destabilize governments?

When any US document says "potentially", it's not saying that anything is certain, as was the case with WMD. To suggest that the US is going to "lead" and "internet election monitoring system" is absurd. The US has no record of having implemented that approach in the US.

___ What is the US pointing to as a basis for this?

Nobody needs to have a meeting to tell someone, "There's something on the internet." You can send them an e-mail, "Hay, shit for brains -- there's something that you might want to read so we can destabilize your country."

When someone says they're going to "surreptitiously" give someone money, but they put it in a document, this means that the goal isn't to do something, but to distract attention from something else. This is absurd.

___ Is the FBI taking notes on this "big plan" to oversee Syrian corruption?

___ Why is the US government suddenly "concerned" about Syrian election laws?

Saying there were "extensive" contacts is an overstatement. There's no reason to say this, unless it were false.

"Giving serious consideration" isn't something you consider: You either do it, or you don't.

This is a sham proposal: Nobody in the US has to "approve" this -- it can be done without any US government decision. The question they want you to focus on is designed to distract your attention from what the US isn't able to bring or offer as an alternative: Stability in Iraq.

____ Are we trying to destabilize the Syrian government?

This plan is a ruse to shift attention from the failed US government approaches in Iraq, and pretend that the US still has "power" to do anything. This is total fiction. If it were true and a real covert option, there would be no reason for the US government to release this, and not run it through the SecDef's new covert ops unit.

This isn't a plan to "secretly" do anything. It's designed as a smokescreen.

____ We're not promoting democracy with force, why will destabilization have a better result?

Where did we hear this under the Iran-Contra affair:

____ Violent Islamists are now peaceful US allies?

It's illegal to advocate the violent overthrow of the US government.

____ Why should the US oppose other nations' efforts to do in the United States what the US proposes to do in Syria: Bring about democracy?

Promoting democracy, when done at the end of a gun, makes people annoyed. Topple someone who is unfriendly, and you'll have an entire country that is openly engaged in combat operations.

It's absurd to argue the US has an election monitoring program; or that it is concerned about "any information" getting released. The US is making a sham-election monitoring system: There could be nothing there, and the US could say, "See, we were so stealthy, nobody detected us."

That opposition leaders "might be imprisoned" for violating the law is irrelevant. This is a phony, speculative argument and a distraction from the real problems in Iraq: US detention of innocent Iraqis for engaging in lawful warfare against an illegal occupation.

Whether the Syrians do or do not have an internal network of spies is irrelevant to whether the US-led effort to destabilize Syria is going to bring democracy. The aim is to incite a Syrian crackdown, not democracy.

The US hopes to say, "Because we tried to bring democracy, we can't talk with Syria." This is absurd. Greater interest in democracy should inspire the US to discuss issues more, especially during a transition.

Whether the Syrians opposed or supported the invasion of Iraq is irrelevant to whether the US can or cannot credibly do anything in Syria. If the US had real power, it could quietly do this without the leak of the plan.

Syria does not have to cooperate with the US, especially when Hezbollah shows that a marginally outfitted force can defeat a highly mechanized army.

The US made no mention of the Iraqi refugees in Syria. It is meaningless to require Syria to cooperate with something the US officials have no fully cooperated: What the NSA did or did not know about upcoming events like 9-11 or the Hariri situation.

If you're talking State Department, you're talking Abraxas and commercial covers. There's no reason to have a "secret" meeting to do good things to promote education, reform, and economic development.

___ Why isn't the US openly sending money to the Iraqi refugees in Syria?

___ How much money, otherwise going to Abraxas overhead, could be more effectively targeted if it was given directly to the Iraqi civilians in Syria?

The problem with the US approach in Syria is that it’s promoting the idea of "reforms" but the people can only see the legacy of Iraq: Reforms from America brings chaos.

Nobody can credibly call a program to do good things "sensitive"; rather, it should be called what it isn’t: A new era of US-Syrian bilateral cooperation. Rather than work on mutual problems, the US talks about excuses to use force, but brings more instability.

Judgments

This funding should be given scrutiny, and more effectively targeted at Iraqi refugees in Syria.

The objective of the US disclosure is to get the Syrian government to overreact. US influence is waning. The US-led meeting is meaningless.

This election monitoring plan is a ruse, at odds with the US President's stated intention of increasing troop levels in Iraq: To bring stability.

The announcement of the activist meeting is not designed to be stealthy, but to distract attention from the quagmire in Iraq, and possibly annoy the Syrian President.