IRAQ DOCS PROVE PUTIN ISN'T TRUSTWORTHY

POOTY-TOOT: PART OF THE PROBLEM, NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION.

A MUST READ FROM CAPT'S QUARTERS.

Complete roundup of news reports and blog comments HERE.

MUCH MORE HERE AT GATEWAY PUNDIT: evidence of high level miltiary meetings between Saddam and Russian envoys days before the war, AND... contemporaneous reports of the strange movements of Russian ambassador Titorenko - to Syria and back to Baghdad - in the first stages of the war.

(IT ALL SMACKS OF COLLUSION AND MAKES ME SURER THAN EVER THAT RUSSIA PROBABLY HELPED SADDAM HIDE THE WMD STOCKPILES IN SYRIA.)

UPDATE: OVER ONE YEAR AGO I POSTED THAT PUTIN WAS PART OF THE AXIS OF EVIL, PART OF THE PROBLEM AND NOT THE SOLUTION:

PUTIN-IRAN AXIS - (Friday, February 18, 2005)

MSNBC/AP:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he is convinced Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons and said he plans to visit Iran. Putin, at a meeting with Iranian National Security Council chief Hasan Rohani, also said Russia would continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran. Moscow has helped Iran build a nuclear reactor, a project that has been heavily criticized by the United States which fears it could be used to help Tehran develop nuclear weapons.

I have looked into Putin's eyes and seen the soul of an autocrat and an adversary who has joined the Axis of Evil. Putin is helping Iran, Styria, and North Korea. That makes him part of the problem, not part of the solution.

It is HIGH TIME we fomented an ORANGE REVOLUTION in Russia! More HERE.

UPDATE: NRO has a MUST READ on Russia by Ilan Berman. EXCERPT:

Moscow's renewed maneuvers in the Middle East have everything to do with ideology. Over the past year, Putin's increasingly authoritarian governing style has succeeded in eliminating any semblance of serious domestic opposition to the Kremlin, giving the Russian president virtual carte blanche to formulate foreign and defense policy. Worse still, this growing political mandate has been mirrored by the revival of unhealthy notions of Russian greatness and geopolitical opposition to the United States. Whether these ideas actually benefit Russian national interests in the long term remains to be seen. But for the United States, the Kremlin's counterproductive policies in the Middle East — and the corrosive ideology underpinning them — are becoming harder and harder to ignore.

THE RECENT FACTS WHICH HAVE COME TO LIGHT ONLY REINFORCE MY OPINION - JUSTIFIABLY SO.

IF RUSSIA BLOCKS ANY MOVE AT THE UNSC AGAINST ASSAD OR IRAN, THEN IT PROVES THAT THE RUSSIA IS AN ENEMY AND THE U.N. IS USELESS; AND THEN, WE SHOULD WITHDRAW FROM THE UN AND KICK THEM OUT OF THE USA.

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER 130,000 YEAR OLD SUV!

NOT! Today's BIG BOGUS GLOBAL WARMING NEWS is this:

Global warming appears to be pushing vast reservoirs of ice on Greenland and Antarctica toward a significant, long-term meltdown. The world may have as little as a decade to take the steps to avoid this scenario.

Those are the implications of new studies that looked to climate history for clues about how the planet's major ice sheets might respond to human-triggered climate change. Already, temperatures in the Arctic are close to those that thawed much of Greenland's ice cap some 130,000 years ago, when the planet last enjoyed a balmy respite from continent-covering glaciers, say the studies' authors.

(SAME BS HERE AND HERE AND HERE AND HERE - and in 400 other articles today!)

IOW: according to these scientists, the Earth was about this warm 130,000 years ago - in between the last two ice ages (and before humanity burned any fossil fuels!). IOW: These alternating ages have ALWAYS been a part of Earth's NORMAL geo-history. SO, WHY BLAME HUMAN USE OF FOSSIL FUELS NOW?!

It makes no sense at all - except as subterfuge for Leftists to pass all kinds of restrictions on free enterprise and for them to raise taxes and redistribute the revenue to people and organizations they like.

If they succeed, it will DO NOTHING TO CHANGE GLOBAL WARMING, while damaging the world's economies, and hurting the Third World by diverting monies which SHOULD INSTEAD be used to build them water purification plants; (polluted WATER - and NOT polluted air - is the REAL chief environmental killer of most people in the world).

Man-made global warming due to man-made greenhouse gases is one of the most pernicious BIG LIES in human history, right up there with everything Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Bin Laden ever said. SURE: So-called "man-made global-warming" does have many adherents - in science and in politics it's the dominant meme. SO WHAT!? Communism - the fastest growing CULT of all-time (and the fastest dying!) had 2 billion adherents; Islam has 1 billion. Their numbers don't prove their claims.

SECRET TAPE OF NOTORIOUS DANISH "CARTOON" IMAN IMPLICATES AMR MOUSSA IN JIHADOTERROR

FROM AGORA - (VIA GATEWAY PUNDIT WHO HAS ADDITIONAL LINKS):

BREAKING NEWS

This just in. One down. One being tackled as we speak. Imam Abu Laban of pig-eared fame apparently knew about a planned “Martyr action” on February 21st. Quoting from my transcript of previously unreleased footage from Mohammed Sifaoui, the journalist who broke the news of Imam Ahmed Akkari’s death threats against Naser Khader. Imam Abu Laban is speaking of a man who plans to execute a martyr operation in connection with the Battle of Khartoon:

"He’s doing everything to get contacts. ... He’s contacted Amr Moussa and means to wreak absolute havoc. ... He wants to join the fray and turn it into a Martyr operation right now. "

... [a] French TV journalist ... infiltrated the Danish Imam environment. One of his recordings with a hidden camera reveals that Imam Abu Laban speaks of a person who, quoting: “Wants to wreak absolute havoc and conduct a Martyr-operation.”

Danish Police plans to question Imam Abu Laban about that as soon as he return from a conference of Imams in Bahrain.

TO ME THE BLOCKBUSTER NEWS IN THIS ISN'T THAT ABU LABAN IS A LIAR; (THAT WAS WELL KNOWN AND I FIRST POSTED THAT MONTHS AGO).

THE BIG HEADLINE NEWS IS THAT A JIHADOTERRORIST WOULD BE IN DIRECT CONTACT WITH AMR MOUSSA - WHO IS THE FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER OF EGYPT - (FOR A DECADE!) - AND PRESENTLY THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE ARAB LEAGUE! (MORE DETAILS ON MOUSSA HERE AND HERE AND HERE. AND HERE, TOO.)

WHY WOULD A JIHADOTERRORIST BE IN CONTACT WITH MOUSSA - AND WANT TO DISCUSS A "MARTYR OPERATION" WITH HIM BEFORE THE ATTACK!? THERE'S ONLY ONE POSSIBLE EXPLANATION:

MOUSSA MUST BE A PART OF THE JIHADOTERRORIST MOVEMENT.

MOUSSA MUST BE HELD TO ACCOUNT FOR THIS, AND WE MUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL WHEREVER IT LEADS: TO THE ARAB LEAGUE, MUBARAK - ANYWHERE.

JERUSALEM AND THE SO-CALLED "AL AKSA" MOSQUE - AL-AQSA IF YOU PREFER...

Jews have continuously lived and worshipped in Jerusalem - and Judaism has held it as its spiritual center - for over 3000 years. It is literally mentioned in the Bible THOUSANDS of times. Jews have always prayed facing Jerusalem. IOW: Jerusalem is really very important to Judaism.

IS JERUSALEM REALLY IMPORTANT TO ISLAM?

The rational answer is: NOT UNTIL AFTER THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE ISRAEL. In fact, it is not mentioned even ONCE in the Koran.

There is PHOTOGRAPHIC evidence - WHICH PREDATES THE STATE OF ISRAEL - which proves how not only how UNIMPORTANT Jerusalem is to Islam, but how UNIMPORTANT THE SO-CALLED "AL AKSA" Mosque is to Islam.

Here are links to 3 photographs of the "AL AKSA" Mosque which are from the 19th Century, and show it to be virtually abandoned, definitely neglected, and in total disrepair; REMEMBER: these photos were taken at a time when MUSLIMS ruled the region. PHOTO #1, PHOTO #2, PHOTO #3. [More photos HERE.]

If Jerusalem and the "Al Aksa" Mosque were truly important to Muslims then it would have NEVER EVER been allowed to look as it does in these 3 photos. If Jerusalem was truly important to Muslims, then the Ottoman Empire might have made it the regional HQ. THEY DID NOT.

Rational persons have no choice but to conclude that the contemporary claims made by Muslims on Jerusalem and the "Al Aksa" Mosque are NOT based on any historical fact - or even original Koranic thinking, but are an ARTIFACT of the second half of the 20th century, and specifically of "radical/political Islam." [More HERE and HERE.]

ANYONE who argues that Jews should give up their rightful claim on ALL OF Jerusalem - and the Temple Mount - on behalf of an entirely BOGUS 20th Century claim made by radical Muslims is either irrational, unjust, or an anti-Semite. TAKE YOUR PICK.

Justice cannot ever be based on a lie.

AFGHAN CONVERSION CASE VIOLATES THE UN DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Religious freedom is not an American value; it is a universal human right.

Because it's a universal, "trans-national" human right, protecting it when it's threatened is not cultural hegemony; it's the duty of all free peoples everywhere - and every member-state of the UN. We should no more accept compulsion to practice any faith than accept slavery.

TONY PERKINS/CSM:

The new Afghan Constitution incorporates the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights. That declaration's Article 18 specifically recognizes the right of all people to change their religion. Even to prepare a trial for a person who has committed this "crime" is a gross violation of that declaration, and of the new Afghan Constitution as well. ...

Who can claim it is a just war that results in reestablishing a radical Islamic fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan? And what else can you call it if Christian converts are killed, or confined to mental institutions, Soviet-style, as the Afghan authorities are now reportedly considering? For freedom to endure it must first gain a foothold, and that foothold may well depend on the fate of Abdul Rahman.

(Tony Perkins, a former marine who served in the Gulf War, is the president of the Family Research Council.)

RTWT. More HERE and HERE. And a complete roundup HERE.

ABDUL RAHMAN: "DESERTER"?

In the eyes of the clerics who argue for his execution, Abdul Rahman - the Afghan currently on trial for converting to Christianity - is guilty of apostasy.

But in a truer sense, Rahman is really GUILTY OF DESERTION, for radical Islam is NOT a religion, but a tyrannical, militaristic and hegemonistic ideology. The clerics fear that if Rahman "gets away with desertion" that many MILLIONS of other Muslims - who keep their faith only because of fear - will also choose to leave Islam.

COMPLETE ROUNDUP AT MEMEORANDUM. UPDATED ROUNDUP HERE.

AL QAEDA TRYING TO ATTACK ISRAEL

BREITBART/AP:

Signs are mounting that al-Qaida terrorists are setting their sights on Israel and the Palestinian territories as their next jihad battleground.

Israel has indicted two West Bank militants for al-Qaida membership, Egypt arrested operatives trying to cross into Israel and a Palestinian security official has acknowledged al-Qaida is "organizing cells and gathering supporters."

Al-Qaida's inroads are still preliminary, but officials fear a doomsday scenario if it takes root.

I predicted this in September of last year. (And updated it HERE and HERE.) THE REASON?! The closer we get to defeating the jihadoterrorists (al Qaeda in Iraq, and Syria and Iran in the UNSC - for starters), the more desperate they all become and as a result they try desperate attacks to attempt to divert our focus and diminish our resolve - hence the Egyptian beach-resort bombing, the wedding bombing in Jordan and the recent mosque bombing in Samarra.

One of the last "trump cards" that al Qaeda, Syria, Iran and their jihadoterrorists (Hizballah and Hamas) think they hold is instigating a Holy War/Pan-Arab war against Israel - either by carrying out a major WMD attack there, or by blowing UP the "al Aksa" mosque. STAY TUNED...

BUSH'S DECLINE IN POLLS: IT'S CHRENKOFF'S FAULT!

Bush's poll numbers and the poll numbers on Iraq have steadily eroded - due primarily to the nightly onslaught of bad news from Iraq, bad news the MSM focuses on TO THE EXCLUSION of reporting the good news: good news from Iraq and good economic news from the USA.

And, it ain't just me and the blogosphere complaining, either: Many people notice the anti-Bush/anti-war bias of the MSM - AP:

Another standing ovation was prompted by a woman who asked Bush what could be done to keep the press from ignoring progress in Iraq.

"Our major media don't want to portray the good," she said. "If the American people could see it, there would never be another negative word about this conflict." Bush declined the opportunity to tell the media what to publish.

The WH doesn't seem to have any surrogates who can adequately carry the message OVER THE HEADS OF THE MSM; only the POTUS seems to be able to do it, and he's currently on ANOTHER of those PR swings, and he's doing a fine job of it, too. I think his poll numbers next week will reflect that - and he will get another boost when the Iraqis announce their unity government and NEW PM.

I seem to remember that there was time when Bush had a lot of good PR help and his poll numbers - and the poll numbers for the Iraq War - were higher then. The help came from CHRENKOFF, whose monthly dispatches collecting the GOOD NEWS from Iraq and Afghanistan was a staple of the blogosphere which seemed to help keep the entire nation's morale UP.

Bush's numbers only really started to go south after Chrenkoff retired his blog (last fall). (Poll data here.) [LINKS TO ALL 35 "GOOD NEWS "DISPATCHES HERE.] YUP: IT'S CHRENKOFF'S FAULT!

CHRENKOFF: COME BACK! YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU! (OK: it's not your country; you're an Aussie). SO: CIVILIZATION NEEDS YOU! I mean it, ARTHUR: Either start running the dispatches again, or get a job at the WHITE HOUSE!

Welcome POLIPUNDIT and HUGH HEWITT readers! Please make yourselves at home, and check out some other posts!

TIME TO PRESSURE KARZAI - we should demand he issue a pardon

Not surprisingly, the Danes on the Right are saying some of the most courageous things regarding the Abdul Rahman conversion case in Afghanistan. VIA AGORA:

Spokesman on Foreign Issues, Søren Espersen, Danish People’s Party, Jyllands-Posten, March 21:

“I don’t give a damn what laws they think they have. We are sort of an authority in Afghanistan and the President must prevent an execution, or we’ll give it to him good. If the Americans, the British and the Danes weren’t there, President Hamid Karzai would be butcher’s meat in the roadside before long. He knows the stakes and he better do what the Allies say in this matter.”

Politiken, March 21:

“It’s time for Denmark, the United States and Great Britain to apply the thumbs screws to the Afghan government. We are the ones calling the shots in that country and this case displays a complete disregard for all decency - to execute a man for converting. We just will not accept that and we’re gonna tell the Afghan government that.”

BUSH SAID HE IS DEEPLY TROUBLED BY THE TRIAL. IT'S TIME HE PERSONALLY CALLED KARZAI AND PUT THE SCREWS ON HIM. KARZAI SHOULD PARDON ABDUL RAHMAN AND DEMAND THAT THE AFGHAN PARLIAMENT MAKE THIS KIND OF TRIAL ILLEGAL - AND MAKE CONVERSION LEGAL.

VILLEPIN BLINKS - BEGINS SURRENDERING TO DEMANDS OF LEFTIST THUGS

BBC:

French PM Dominique de Villepin has indicated he is willing to be flexible on at least one key element of a controversial youth employment law. He said he is willing to cut the length of a trial period from two years. However, he said he would not withdraw the contract entirely, as trade unions and students have demanded in a battle of strength with the government. French students plan more protests for Thursday, while trade unions are planning a day of action next Tuesday.

This cave-in to the Leftist thugs is no surprise; it's entirely in keeping with his appproach to the Paris Intifada and to foreign policy. Generally speaking, the French ALWAYS surrender to thuggery - whether it's Leftist or of the islamothuggery variety.

France needs a REAGAN - who stood up for what was right whether it was on the domestic front - as when he put it to the illegal strikers of PATCO (the air-traffic controllers organization), or whether it wqas on the international agneda - as when he called the USSR an evil empire, and deployed the Pershinbgs despite MASSIVE WORLDWIDE protests by the Left.

The French have no Reagan, but they do have Sarkozy - BUT, they have to wait two years before they can get him. I hope they last that long. I have my doubts...

EATON WRONG; RUMSFELD RIGHT

CLICK HERE for the proof.

MORE SIGNS THAT ISLAM IS TAKING OVER EUROPE

The Left is LITERALLY aiding and abetting the TAKEOVER BY MUSLIMS OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF EUROPE -

BRUSSELS JOURNAL:

A case in point is the Amsterdam borough of Geuzenveld-Slotermeer. Here the PvdA won 54% of the votes and more than doubled its share of seats from 6 to 13. Of these 13 seats, however, 5 were won by Turkish and 2 by Moroccan candidates. This means that more than half the seats of the largest party were won by Muslims. The situation resembles that in the regional parliament of Brussels, the so-called “capital of Europe,” where the Parti Socialiste is the largest party. Over half its 26 seats are held by (14) Muslim immigrants (10 Moroccans, 2 Turks, 1 Tunisian and 1 West-African from Guinea).

The electoral strength of the Left in Western Europe is increasingly based on the immigrant vote, as the Left caters for voters who favour extensive redistribution of taxpayers’ money to so-called “underprivileged” groups such as immigrants.

Leftists and Jihadists are natural allies because they both want to destroy traditional European economic and social structures and also destroy traditional Judeo-Christian, bourgeiose culture. If and when the Muslim anti-assimilationist invaders take over the local and national governments of Europe... IT IS ALL OVER FOR EUROPE AS A JUDEO-CHRISTIAN CONTINENT.

What must be done? The Pope must do more than merely issue long overdue revisionist histories of The Crusades. The Pope must lead a resurgence of Christianity and the nation's of Europe must demand assimiliation of all immigrants.

The clock is ticking... and the recent COWARDLY reactions of MOST European nations to the Cartoon Intifada indicates to me the clock WILL RUN OUT.

I predict that - unless there is a dramatic about-face of the accommodationist, appeasing policies of Europe in the next two years - self-regulating "Islamistans" will be set up all throughout Europe, and imams will be preaching in the Mosque de Notre Dame by the end of the decade.

WHAT DO HARVARD, CINDY SHEEHAN, DAVID DUKE, JIM MORAN, AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD ALL HAVE IN COMMON?

THEY ALL BELIEVE THAT IT'S IT'S THE JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZE FAULT!

YUP: 9/11 AND THE IRAQ WAR ARE THE FAULT OF THE JEWS, ACCORDING TO THE DEAN OF THE KENNEDY SCHOOL AT HARVARD. YOU KNOW HARVARD. THAT'S THE UNIVERSITY WHOSE FACULTY JUST SQUEEZED OUT THEIR JEWISH PRESIDENT, LARRY SUMMERS.

HARVARD. DAVID DUKE. AND THE JIHADOFASCIST ORGANIZATION "THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD." THEY'RE ALL ON THE SAME EXACT PAGE. IN THEIR OWN WORDS.

PROOF IN TWO MUST READS FROM SCOTT JOHNSON AT POWERLINE; HERE AND HERE.

AS I HAVE WRITTEN BEFORE: SCRATCH A LEFTIST AND YOU FIND AN ANTI-SEMITE. HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE BLATANT ANTI-SEMITISM OF THE ARTICLE; THEY WRITE:

"... Israel is a strategic and moral liability..."

ISRAEL IS A MORAL LIABILITY TO THESE GUYS! (CAN YOU EFFIN BELIEVE THAT!?) AND THESE TWO ANTI-SEMITIC APPEASERS BELIEVE THAT SURRENDERING TO JIHADOTERRORISTS (WHO MURDER CHILDREN, BEHEAD CHARITY WORKERS AND COMMIT GENOCIDE AGAINST THEIR FELLOW MUSLIMS) IS MORAL. THEY HAVE IT EXACTLY BACKWARDS - AS LEFTISTS ALMOST ALWAYS DO.

THESE AUTHORS ARE IMMORAL SCUM.

THEY WRITE IT AS IF THE WORLD AND THE USA WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF BAATHISTS - (LIKE ASSAD AND SADDAM), ARAB TYRANTS - (LIKE MUBARAK AND KADDAFY), AND WAHHABIST PRINCES WERE APPEASED AND IF THEY RULED THE HOLY LAND, AND THAT THE WHOLE WORLD WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF ISRAEL NEVER EXISTED.

THIS IS CLASSIC APPEASEMENT, AND IT WOULD BE AS EFFECTIVE NOW AT MAKING THE FREE WORLD SAFE, AS SURRENDERING THE SUDATENLAND TO HITLER MADE THE FREE WORLD IN 1939. IT DIDN'T WORK THEN AND IT WOULDN'T WORK NOW.

SINCE THE AUTHORS KNOW ABOUT CHAMBERLAIN, THE MUNICH AGREEMENT AND THE SUDATENLAND - AND KNOW THAT IT FAILED, THE ONLY EXPLANATION FOR ADVOCATING SURRENDERING ISRAEL ON THE SAME ALTAR OF APPEASEMENT TO TYRANNY IS ANTI-SEMITISM.

AND MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT: DUKE - LIKE HITLER, SADDAM, ARAFAT, AND CINDY SHEEHAN AND THE AUTHORS OF THIS ARTICLE - IS A LEFTIST -- AS ARE MOST FACULTY MEMBERS OF HARVARD.

MORE ON THE "ANTI-WAR" LEFT HERE - AT THE AMERCIAN THINKER.

A REMINDER THAT ANOTHER LEFTIST MEME IS PURE BS

The Left - and the Democrat Party and MSM they dominate - have been LYING about what Bush and the "neo-cons" claimed would be the "degree of difficulty" of the current project: the democratization in Iraq ans Afghanistan. The Left has REPEATEDLY charged the Bush&Co. claimed that it was going to be a "cakewalk." HERE'S THE TRUTH - VIA YARGB/FLARES IN THE DARKNESS:

October 16, 2003

TO: Gen. Dick Myers
Paul Wolfowitz
Gen. Pete Pace
Doug Feith
FROM: Donald Rumsfeld

SUBJECT: Global War on Terrorism
....
"It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog."

A "hard slog" is not a cakewalk. A hard slog is what we're going through right now. Just like Rummy said. If we persevere we will win. The Left will NOT persevere; the Left will abandon the Iraqis and the Afghanis as soon as they can - JUST LIKE THEY DID TO THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE AND THE CONTRAS. That's why we mustn't let the Left - meaning THE DEMOCRAT PARTY - win any seats in the next Congressional elections.

MORE GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ

NYTIMES:

Iraqi officials announced Sunday that they had agreed to form a council of the country's top politicians to make policy on security and economic issues in the new government. The council, which will include the prime minister and president, is an attempt to include all the country's major factions in decision making at a time of rising sectarian tensions.

... The move is a step forward in the snail-paced negotiations over the formation of a full, four-year government. Debate over creating the so-called national security council, and what powers it would wield, had contributed to the deadlock in the talks.

The main Shiite political bloc, which is expected to hold the most executive power in the new government, had opposed formation of the council, while the Kurds, Sunni Arabs, secular politicians and the Americans had pushed for it.

This is more proof that Iraq is moving in the right direction, and that the Leftist naysayers and MSM doom-mongers are just plain WRONG. Again.

REPEAT: BUSH AND CHENEY ARE RIGHT.

REID, HAGEL, MURTHA, SADDAM, FEINSTEIN, DEAN, PELOSI, KOFI, DURBIN, SHEEHAN, MOORE, CLOONEY, ALLAWI, BOXER, ZARQAWI, LEVIN, KENNEDY, SCHEIFFER, MATTHEWS, BLIX, COURIC, ET AL - ARE ALL WRONG.

BTW: a GOOGLE NEWS search of "iraq civil war" returns 30,700 hits. A GOOGLE NEWS search of "iraq progress" returns only 10,300 hits - (and many of these articles DISPUTE the claim that there is any progress!). A GOOGLE NEWS search for "iraq strife" returns only 6,110 hits. Which proves what the dominant MSM meme is: "civil war" - and it proves that the MSM is WRONG AGAIN,TOO!

ANTI-ASSAD "SYRIAN GOVERNMENT IN EXILE" TAKING SHAPE

TERRANET/(LEBANON):

A group of Syrian opposition leaders in exile agreed to launch a new coalition with the aim of setting up a transitional government if the Damascus regime were to collapse.

The exiles, including former Syrian vice president Abdelhalim Khaddam, agreed a declaration creating the "National Salvation Front" to unite "with a goal of setting up a transitional government," they told reporters.

KHALEEJ TIMES/(DUBAI):

BRUSSELS — Exiled Syrian opposition leaders including a former vice-president and the head of the Muslim Brotherhood said yesterday they were forming a united front to replace President Bashar Al Assad with democracy.

Former vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam, who broke with Assad last year after serving under his late father Hafez Al Assad, told Reuters he held talks with nationalists, liberals, Islamists, Kurds and communists and would announce a common programme for a transition to democracy on Friday.

“The Syrian people are fed up with the current situation and we expect that a lot of new circumstances will lead to the uprising of the Syrian people,” he said in an interview. Khaddam forecast “regime change” in Damascus this year, within a few months...

Let's keep the pressure UP on Assad. The sooner we get rid of him the better we can squeeze Hizballah, Hamas and Iran (and close the Syrian-Iraq border, and reduce the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq). Stay tuned...