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Jolie Rouge
03-24-2005, 12:58 PM
-- Joe Scarborough

War leads to peace. If you don't believe me, just ask the leaders of terrorist groups across the Middle East who are now suing for peace.

This weekend anti-war activists will take to the streets in New York and across the country to protest America's war effort in Iraq. This despite the fact that there is no doubt among all neutral political observers that removing Saddam Hussein from power led to the first-ever free elections in Iraq.

Even the dazed and confused editorial page of the NY Times reluctantly admits that.

Reasonable people simply cannot disagree on the geopolitical reality that those successful elections led to freedom marches in Lebanon, where this week, 1 million citizens demanded the end of Baathist rule and Hezbollah-sponsored terrorism. Today, we learn that the terror organizations Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad are all declaring an end to terrorist attacks while they seek, for the first time ever, a peaceful settlement with Israel and the United States.

Like President Bush, Israeli PM Ariel Sharon has told the world that strength is the only way to bring terrorists to the negotiating table. He is being proven right. Likewise, George Bush learned from Ronald Reagan that thugs do not respect concessions, but rather, strength.

That simple truth has led to free elections in Afghanistan and the inauguration of the first democratically elected president there in the nation's history. U.S. troops also insured the same for Iraq, which led to a flowering of democratic activity in Lebanon, and Palestine, and even Egypt — who responded to US scolding by promising free elections and releasing from prison its most well known democratic activist.

Ironically, the same protesters who will be cursing this war of liberation, this president, and this country's troops are many of the same forces who opposed Reagan's liberation efforts in Central America and Europe. They convulsed in protest when Reagan dared to call nuclear weapons deployed to Western Europe the "peacekeepers." Millions marched in the streets and predicted Reagan's actions would destroy U.S. alliances with Europe and lead to WWIII.

Sound familiar?

Is there any doubt that if these liberals had their way, Communists would still be ruling tens of millions in Central America and hundreds of millions in Eastern Europe and Russia?

Of course not. And now that freedom is on the march again in the most repressive region in the world — the Middle East — it is disturbing that these left-wing radicals will take to the streets to condemn the very actions that have led to the spread of freedom across the world.

Sadly, it proves once again that too many Democrats and leftists hate the president so much that they would rather see American troops lose overseas than see George W. Bush win at home.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6845031/#050323a

Jolie Rouge
03-24-2005, 12:59 PM
Unleashing Freedom in the Middle East
-- Joe Scarborough

A quick look at Sunday's New York Times reveals a revolution of political thought sweeping through the Middle East.

On the front page above the fold, the Times reported that the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah has recognized that democratic convulsions experienced over the past week make political involvement in that troubled country a necessity.

That means that campaign signs will replace bus bombs in Lebanon sooner rather than later.

On the bottom of A1, Times readers learn a few interesting things.

First, we are told that Hamas is a philanthropic group.

Mind you the NYT reporter didn't write in his lead that Hamas was a philanthropic group who also happened to blow up six-year old kids waiting to go to schools at their bus stops. But that discussion is for another day.

For purposes of this note, just know that the Times is also reported that along with giving to charities in a way that would make Osama Bin Laden blush, Hamas is also moving aggressively into peaceful Palestinian politics.

The charity-loving terror group recognizes that their recent attacks have won them no friends among fellow Palestinians, and that freedom is the future even in their bloody back yard.

Inside the A section, the Times also reported that terror groups stationed in Iraq continue to send out messages over the Internet meant to inspire fellow terrorists to continue fighting for their cause. But those statements are sounding more defensive by the day.

Read through some of Hitler's final messages to the German people while the US Army and the Soviet war machine was racing toward Berlin and you will get a taste for the desperate tone.

There were other news reports from Egypt, Iraq, and Iran but all articles in Sunday's Times point in the same direction: to the spread of freedom and democracy in the Middle East.

At the end of 2004 while few in the MSM were giving the Iraqi elections any chance for success, I told you in this space that the elections would succeed and that I was naive enough to believe that peace could break out among Israelis and Palestinians in 2005.

I predicted that 2005 could be remembered as a historic year for freedom.

Less than three months later, we already find ourselves in a revolutionary age.

Once freedom is unleashed in a meaningful way, that tide of liberty usually sweeps away all those who stand in its path.

So it was in Eastern Europe in 1989. So it will be in the Middle East in 2005.

Jolie Rouge
04-03-2005, 08:08 PM
All Syrian Forces to Leave Lebanon by April 30
By Inal Ersan

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria has promised to withdraw all its forces from Lebanon by April 30 and will let a United Nations team verify the pullout, a U.N. envoy said Sunday.

Damascus ordered the withdrawal, demanded by a U.N. Security Council resolution seven months ago, after coming under intense international pressure over the Feb. 14 assassination of a Lebanese former prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri.

The U.N. envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, said Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara had told him "all Syrian troops, military assets and the intelligence apparatus will have been withdrawn fully and completely ... by April 30, 2005."

Roed-Larsen was speaking at a joint news conference with Shara after talks with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. "Syria has agreed that subject to the acceptance of the Lebanese authorities a U.N. verification team will be dispatched to verify the (full withdrawal)," said Roed-Larsen. A Syrian source said the team would report to the U.N. envoy.


Lebanese opposition figures hailed the announcement, which fulfilled one of their key demands. Syria first sent troops to Lebanon in 1976, early in its 1975-90 civil war, but in recent years had reduced numbers to about 14,000 from a peak of 40,000.


U.N. Resolution 1559, sponsored by the United States and France, demanded the departure of all foreign forces, the disbanding of all Lebanese militias and respect for Lebanon's political independence. "Syria by its full withdrawal from Lebanon would have implemented its part of resolution 1559," Shara said.


The declared timetable means all Syrian forces will have left before Lebanon holds parliamentary elections. The polls were due to have taken place in May, but might be pushed back because of political turmoil since Hariri's killing.

"POSITIVE IMPETUS"

Lebanese opposition leaders have accused Syria or the Lebanese security agencies that it backs of responsibility for Hariri's death. Damascus denies any involvement. "The declaration... is a decisive positive development in the Lebanese crisis," opposition member of parliament Nassib Lahoud said. "We hope that it opens a new chapter in the Lebanese-Syrian relations marked by the highest level of cooperation between two independent states."

Large opposition protests in recent weeks in Beirut have demanded the end of Syria's role in Lebanon. "I do hope that the agreement and understandings we've reached today in Damascus will give a positive impetus into Lebanon in the sense that elections will take place speedily and ... these elections should be free and fair," said Roed-Larsen.

Shara voiced support for the elections, which he said should be held "at the time agreed among the Lebanese."


Last month Assad announced plans for a two-phase troop withdrawal from Lebanon within the framework of the 1990 Taif Accord which ended the Lebanese civil war.


The first stage, under which all Syrian forces pulled back to the eastern Bekaa Valley and some crossed the border, was completed last month. More have left since then. Roed-Larsen said he was informed Syria had withdrawn 4,000 troops and closed its security offices in Beirut. Dozens of Syrian military trucks and some tanks on transporters rolled out of Lebanon Sunday, witnesses said.

They said troops had evacuated seven positions in and round the village of Anjar close to the border. But the Syrian intelligence headquarters in the village and a large army base in an ancient castle were still manned by Syrian personnel.

A Lebanese-Syrian military committee met in Beirut and Damascus in the past few days to agree on the withdrawal timetable and Lebanese army chief General Michel Suleiman met Assad in Damascus Saturday.


04/03/05 12:32


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0002/20050403/1232746372.htm