Flashback: Nancy Pelosi leads Dem delegation to Syria over Bush objections
We haven't heard a lot from Nancy Pelosi on Syria. Maybe
this has something to do with why (original source
here).
Ms. Pelosi was criticized by President Bush for visiting Damascus at a
time when the administration -- rightly or wrongly -- has frozen
high-level contacts with Syria. Mr. Bush said that thanks to the
speaker's freelancing Mr. Assad was getting mixed messages from the
United States. Ms. Pelosi responded by pointing out that Republican
congressmen had visited Syria without drawing presidential censure.
That's true enough -- but those other congressmen didn't try to
introduce a new U.S. diplomatic initiative in the Middle East. "We came
in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road
to peace," Ms. Pelosi grandly declared.
Never mind that that
statement is ludicrous: As any diplomat with knowledge of the region
could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding
priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N.
charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime
minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The really striking development here is the
attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own
foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president. Two weeks ago
Ms. Pelosi rammed legislation through the House of Representatives that
would strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander in chief to manage
troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to introduce a new Middle
East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have
found much to criticize in Mr. Bush's military strategy and regional
diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi's attempt to establish a shadow presidency is
not only counterproductive, it is foolish.
At the time, Pelosi accomplished her goal of rehabilitating Assad. A month later, President Bush's own secretary of state met with Syrian foreign minister
Walid Moallem on the sidelines of a conference in Sharm-el-Sheikh. Pelosi played a major role in ending Syria's isolation.
Isn't it strange that she doesn't seem so proud of that anymore?
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Condoleeza Rice, George W. Bush, Logan Act, Nancy Pelosi, Syria, Walid Moallem
McCain steals into Syria
Arizona Senator
John McCain (R) stole into Syria from southern Turkey on Monday to meet with Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army.
McCain, one of the fiercest critics of the Obama administration’s Syria policy made the unannounced visit across the Turkey-Syria border with Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army. He stayed in the country for several hours before returning to Turkey. Both in Syria and Turkey, McCain and Idris met with assembled leaders of Free Syrian Army units that traveled from around the country to see the U.S. senator. Inside those meetings, rebel leaders called on the United States to step up its support to the Syrian armed opposition and provide them with heavy weapons, a no-fly zone, and airstrikes on the Syrian regime and the forces of Hezbollah, which is increasing active in Syria.
Idris praised the McCain visit and criticized the Obama administration’s Syria policy in an exclusive interview Monday with The Daily Beast.
“The visit of Senator McCain to Syria is very important and very useful especially at this time,” he said. “We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation.”
Read the whole thing.
Anyone want to bet that the Obama administration rolls out the
Logan Act?
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Free Syrian Army, John McCain, Logan Act, Nusra Front, Syria, Syrian uprising
Abu Mazen met with Barak and Peres last month, met with Israeli traitors on Monday
Barack Hussein Obama isn't the only one trying to bring about a change in the Israeli government.
'Moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen met with
Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Amman last month, and he has met with President Shimon Peres several times recently. But he will not meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu. No way no how.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas revealed on Monday that he recently met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Jordan and discussed with him the future of relations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Abbas made the revelation during a meeting in his office in Ramallah with a group of Israeli intellectuals and academics. He said that the meeting took place on August 24, but did not give further details.
But this story gets even better. Guess why those 'intellectuals and academics' met with Abu Bluff.
Writer Sefi Rachlevsky, who was among the group that met with Abbas, told The Jerusalem Post that he and his colleagues came to Ramallah to express their full support for the PA's plan to ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines later this month.
"We warmly support the declaration of a Palestinian state," Rachlevsky said. "This is the realization of the Zionist dream when a people declare their independence."
He added that the group of Israelis have called on the international community and US President Barack Obama to support the statehood bid. Rachlevsky also voiced support for the idea of land swaps between the future Palestinian state and Israel.
He said that as far as he and his friends were concerned, the West Bank and the Western Wall are under occupation and should be placed under Palestinian control. "When there's a Palestinian state, Israel can always demand that certain parts of the West Bank and the Western Wall be placed under Israeli control," Rachlevsky explained.
He and other members of the group, including historian Yehuda Bauer, former Labor MK Yael Dan [Yael Dan is an actress. This might be a reference to Yael Dayan, the former MK who used to get her picture taken on the beach on Yom Kippur. CiJ], author Yoram Kaniuk and Alon Liel, former director general of the Foreign Ministry, said they were deeply impressed by the "extremely moderate" views expressed by Abbas during the meeting.
"We even think that he's too moderate," he told the Post. "He wants a state only on 22% of Palestine. He is really a very moderate leader. We felt much closer to him than the Israeli government although we are very Zionist and some of us had fought in the War of Independence in 1948."
Mind you that the 'academics' - and probably most of the 'intellectuals' - have their salaries paid by... the State of Israel.
Of course, here in Israel we don't even have a
Logan Act, so morons like Bashar Al-
Assad's shill Alon Liel (that name has
come up a lot lately, hasn't it) can go around creating the impression that they represent more than 3% of the country' s Jews (which they don't).
Given that our
opposition is not any more loyal to the country than these 'intellectuals and academics' what can we expect?
Here's the bottom line: Unless and until Abu Mazen meets with Netanyahu there aren't going to be any meaningful negotiations. Meeting with Peres and Barak does nothing except to prove that Abu Mazen doesn't want peace. But then, we knew that already.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Alon Liel, Ehud Barak, Logan Act, Shimon Peres
Only in Israel....
We have to be the only country in the World where the international media is more interested in '
peace initiatives' backed by private citizens with no support than they are in what the Israeli government puts out.
Called the Israeli Peace Initiative, the two-page document is partly inspired by the changes under way regionally and is billed as a direct response to the Arab Peace Initiative issued by the Arab League in 2002 and again in 2007. It calls for a Palestinian state on nearly all the West Bank and Gaza with a capital in much of East Jerusalem, an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, and a set of regional security mechanisms and economic cooperation projects.
“We looked around at what was happening in neighboring countries and we said to ourselves, ‘It is about time that the Israeli public raised its voice as well,’ ” said Danny Yatom, a signer of the document and former head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. “We feel this initiative can bring along many members of the public.”
Another member of the group, Yaakov Perry, a former head of Shin Bet, the internal security agency, said he sent a copy of the document on Sunday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who replied that he looked forward to reading it. The official unveiling is set for Wednesday in Tel Aviv, but a copy was made available to The New York Times.
We really do need a
Logan Act here.
Labels: Israeli peace initiative, Logan Act
Don't repeal the Logan Act
Liberals have been outraged by Representative Eric Cantor's (R-Va) meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu last week, and especially with the
statement issued at the end of the meeting that said
"Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington," the readout continued. "He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other."
The liberals have called for Cantor's prosecution under the Logan Act.
In an earlier post, I mentioned House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi's trip to Damascus during the Bush administration. The liberals were silent on that occasion, but now some of them are
quoting Cantor's
reaction to Pelosi's trip in calling for his prosecution.
Laura Curtis gives a lengthy list of apparent violations of the Logan Act over the last 40 years - mostly by Democrats - and argues that the Logan Act should be
enforced or repealed.
Are all these examples actual violations of the Logan Act? That’s for a court to decide, but the problem is that one never will. Government officials, especially Democrats, violate it with impunity because they’re confident they’ll never be prosecuted. It’s rare they even get bad press for doing so. If these were social visits, perhaps Democrats should reconsider who they’re hanging out with.
Isn’t the real lesson here that the Logan Act is meaningless except for its value as a political cudgel? If the Logan Act is not going to be enforced, it should be repealed. I don’t know whether Cantor violated the Logan Act by making those comments to Netanyahu but if the DOJ thinks he did, by all means, prosecute him for it. Democrats are going to be hit a lot harder by Logan Act enforcement than Republicans will. And if the DOJ continues to enforce the law unequally (sanctuary cities get a pass, yet Arizona is prosecuted; some voter intimidation is more equal than others) then the 2010 teanami is going to seem like a pleasant day at the beach for Democrats in comparison to the 2012 wipeout.
I believe that there is value to a Logan Act even if it is never enforced. I've been in Israel long enough to see the unfettered discretion self-appointed leaders appropriate to themselves in the absence of a Logan Act-type statute. In Israel, it's not just politicians who attempt to make their own foreign policy; private citizens attempt to do the same. For example, see
this incident involving a 'Peace Now' activist who took US officials on a tour of Jewish towns in Samaria, apparently to point out construction going on in the aftermath of the 'settlement freeze.'
The value of a Logan Act that is never enforced is what the US Supreme Court has referred to as a 'chilling effect.' Even if the law is unlikely to be enforced, knowing the law is on the books is likely to make a person obey it, or at least be more discrete about violating it. For example, while the odds of being caught speeding may be quite low in certain areas, one will drive within the speed limit anyway, because there's always that small chance. It is for this reason that states were forced to remove laws - for example - that forbade inter-racial marriages in the 1950's and 1960's. Even though those laws were rarely, if ever, enforced, their existence acted to deter what they prohibited. The same is true of the Logan Act. That's why the Logan Act ought to stay.
If the Act is going to be enforced, it ought to be enforced fairly. But with the Holder Justice Department in power, there is little or no chance that anyone other than Cantor will be prosecuted. If anything, Cantor ought to be treated more leniently than most of the other cases Laura Curtis cites, because Cantor was dealing with an ally while the other cases dealt mostly with enemy states. There ought to be a difference.
Labels: Eric Cantor, Eric Holder, Logan Act, Nancy Pelosi
