NATO Aircraft Are Warning Syria

[ECH1969]

NATO aircraft have been flying over Syria’s borders in order to send a strong warning to Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad, according to the Kuwaiti A-Siyasah.

The over-flights are taking place above the borders with Turkey and Iraq, and include photographing the areas. The Syrian coastal region is also included in the flights.

“European diplomatic sources” said the flights are a warning to the Syrian regime indicating what can happen if President Al-Asad does not comply with international demands.

The sources said France and the United States are considering sending arms and provisions to the Lebanese army in case of a violent resistance against the government.

http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=11812

[FlemingsGhost]

1. Shades of Cambodia. (n/t)

Flem.

[calimary]

7. No shit.

:grr:

[cantstandbush]

2. Here we go agian. Another sovereign nation not threatening us

and the western coalition will invade or bomb once again.

[Missy M]

3. It sure is hard to understand who is good or bad in the Middle East ...

Iraq is bad (US disses France for not agreeing), Syria is bad, Lebanon is good (US and France agree), Iran is bad, Saudi Arabia is good, Kuwait is good, Israel good, Palestinians are bad, Jordan good, Egypt, up in the air about this country. This is as hard to understand as Iran/Contra and who were the bad/good guys in Central America.

[PurityOfEssence]

21. We're bad; that's pretty easy, isn't it?

n/t

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. Yeah, that will show 'em!

Provocative treaty breaking fly-overs sound par for the course.

[Brundle_Fly]

5. isn't this

us threatening them?

Sorry Syria, you are under Bush control now.

[endarkenment]

6. If we are intruding on syrian territory...

then we are committing acts of war. I don't remember congress being asked to authorize yet another war.

Treason. isn't time we started using the 'T' word?

[amandabeech]

15. The Iraq War Resolution was very loosely worded, IIRC.

The Bushites believe that the resolution covers an invasion of Syria and just about anywhere in the Middle East they please.

You know how they interpreted the famous U.N. resolution.

[Nihil]

18. That has less to do with the IWR than their ignorance of geography!

> The Bushites believe that the resolution covers an invasion of Syria
> and just about anywhere in the Middle East they please.

Discover a country a few thousand miles away and the buggers immediately
want to bomb it ...

[daleo]

8. A strong warning of what?

Bombing? An invasion? U.S. and U.K. planes are more likely than NATO.

Bush needs a distraction war.

[frylock]

9. stay tuned for the next gulf of tonkin incident

[wtmusic]

10. strange story

The NATO aircraft are warning Syria? Has there even been a statement from NATO?

Sourcing looks suspect.

[Realityhack]

16. I agree...

I would like to see some better sorcing on this.

[0007]

17. Any day now, junior will scurry back home from Asia to give a war speech

acting like he's so busy with world affairs.

[lovuian]

11. Its a matter of time for the invasion of syria

it won't take long with Israel on one side and Iraq on the other

and Iran is the wild card so get ready people

WWIII is in the balance here!!!

[allemand]

12. This Kuwaiti newspaper, al-Seyassah, often publishes rumors, but it also

seems to have good connections to Western intelligence agencies. Perhaps they even use it as a platform for their stories. For example, just four days after the assassination of Hariri, the newspaper published a "report" which named Asef Shawkat, Syrian president Bashar Assad's brother-in-law, as chief suspect in the killing.
http://www.newsbackup.com/about591497.html

Months later, the UN-Mehlis report would come to exactly the same conclusion, based on the testimony of a Syrian defector of dubious reputation.

The newspaper's editor in chief, Ahmad Al-Jarallah, is staunchly pro-Bush and has written sycophantic editorials as "The New Iraq Will Be 'the Beacon of Freedom, Democracy", "Arab Regimes Must Understand the U.S. Administration Supports The Freedom and Rights of the Arabs" and "Syria’s Secret Service is Behind the ’Iraqi Resistance".

[jody]

13. If Syria had a few nukes to lob at neighbors, the flights would stop.

That's the major reason second world countries want nukes.

Bush is doing more to destabilize the Middle East than any other leader in history.

[pinniped]

14. Yes, Syria hired Princep like they hired the Lebanon assassin.

.

[legin]

19. This is from a neo-con site (probably)

<<snip>>

Syrian involvement in the Gulf War during 1991 provided an excellent opportunity to learn the lessons of a modern battlefield and highlighted the need to find an antidote to the use of air power. It was about this time that the decision to combat the threat posed by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) through the use of a massive missile assault was taken. It was accepted that it was highly unlikely that the Syrian Air Force (SAF) would ever, by itself, be able to seriously challenge Israeli air supremacy in the near future. While the Syrian military is still struggling to come to terms with its many disadvantages, including chronic lack of funding and technological backwardness, it has succeeded in finding a possible method of counter-balancing Israel's air power.

The Syrians believe that a massive and sustained missile assault against Israeli Air Fields will go some way to nullifying Israel's air supremacy, both by the destruction of aircraft and airfield infrastructure and by the widespread use of runway denial weapons. In addition, Syria has long felt intimidated by Israel's nuclear capability and sees its combined missile and WMD arsenal as the only possible and effective counterbalance, if circumstances were to deteriorate sharply during a major conflict.

The Syrian Missile Command is based in Aleppo and is known to control three mobile surface-to-surface missile brigades, each of which includes one battalion of FROG-7 SSM, one battalion of SS-21 Scarab SRBM and one battalion of SS-1 Scud-B missiles. Two of the three Scud Battalions moved south towards Damascus in July 2001, following at least one test launch of an improved Scud that landed close to Israel's northern border.

The capability provided by some 60 TEL (Transporter-Elevator-Launcher) vehicles with 190 SS-1 Scud-B missiles (range 300 km, payload 985 kg) has been significantly strengthened by the recent construction of hardened silos and a deep network of tunnels. At least fifteen such underground workings, built with North Korean and Chinese assistance, are being readied for some 1,000 Scud-C missiles (range 500 km, payload 500 kg) and an additional four tunnels have been built to house the longer range Scud-D missiles (range 700 km, payload 500 kg), which the Syrians have recently begun constructing with North Korean, Chinese and Iranian help.

This very large force of Scud-C/D missiles does not form part of the Corps structure or the missile brigades, they instead create a massive conventional first strike capability against the defenses on the Golan and Israel's main combat air bases. The tunnels will provide a considerable degree of defense against conventional bombing for both the missile storage and maintenance facilities and are linked to a large number of camouflaged launch facilities. The Syrians also have about 90 antiquated Russian-built Frog-7 missiles (range 70 km, payload 450 kg) and 210 of the more capable SS-21 Scarab missiles (range 120 km, payload 480 kg).

Syria has two large underground missile production facilities near Aleppo and Hamah; both were built with Iranian, North Korean and Chinese assistance, while Iran and Syria jointly produce SCUD-C/D, CBW agents and cooperate on other strategic programs. Syria is believed to be attempting to acquire Chinese MRBM technology in the form of the M-9 and may indeed have already acquired M-11 missile systems.

<<snip>>

http://www.meib.org/articles/0108_s1.htm

[Media_Lies_Daily]

20. Wonderful....simply wonderful. I seriously wonder whether or not....

...we will ever regain a decent reputation in the International community.

We were never the saints that some have asked us to believe, but we have never acted as irresponsibly/dangerously as we have since December 2000.

[bemildred]

22. This is propaganda. nt

[IndianaGreen]

23. NATO is now an aggressor rather than a defender

NATO was created on the pretext that it was needed to protect the West from "godless communism." NATO should have been disbanded when the Berlin Wall was brought down, instead, NATO has absorbed the former members of the Warsaw Pact and engaged in wars of aggression, such as the criminal war in the Balkans.

Now we find NATO, America's newest mercenaries, trying to provoke war with Syria, and to what end?

[htuttle]

24. Chapter 1, Article 2, Item 4 of the UN Charter says...

"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/

Just saying...