That reads like the title to half the spam e-mail I get. EFL.
| Terry McAuliff sez The Gray Davis getting tossed is gonna be bad for Bush, too... |
The Israeli air strike in Syrian territory will enhance his country’s role in the Middle East, not diminish it as sought by Israel, Syrian President Bashar Assad said in remarks published Tuesday.
"Prince Abdullah! Israel's just bitch-slapped the Syrians!"
"Well! We should defer to the Syrians more often, then."
"Yes, effendi! And give them money, too!" |
In his first comments to the media since Israeli fighter-bombers struck Syrian territory on Sunday for the first time in 20 years, Assad told the pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat that the attack was an attempt to provoke war because Israel is led by a ``government of war’’ that employs war to ``justify its existence.’’
"Alas, the Israelis failed in their mission to provoke this war because our vaunted air force wouldn’t climb into their cockpits did not take the bait!"
The Israeli attack came in response to a suicide bombing in Haifa that killed at least 19 people. The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. ``There is no doubt that the role Syria plays in the various issues in our region is painful to this (Israeli) government. What happened was a failed Israeli attempt to undercut this role,’’ Assad told the London-based paper. ``We can, with full confidence, say that what happened will only make Syria’s role more effective and influential in events in the region - contrary to what this government wants,’’ Assad said.
He’s toast -- his father would never have said this.
Sunday’s air strike hit what Israel called an Islamic Jihad camp about 15 miles from Damascus. No one was killed in the Israeli strike. Villagers said the militants’ camp had been abandoned years ago.
I suspect Israeli intelligence is better than this.
Assad, 38, did not say how Syria would respond to the attack.
He didn’t have to!
Asked about pressure from the United States, which has accused Syria of supporting terrorists and allowing fighters to cross into Iraq, Assad said: ``We are not a superpower, but we are not a weak state either."
Oh no, certainly not!
| "Of course, we're not rational, either. That might have something to do with it..." |
"We’re not a country without cards ... We are not a state that can be ignored in the issues under discussion.’’
He wants cards, we can put him on one. How ’bout the six of clubs?
Assad defended the fact that his government has given sanctuary to Palestinian groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which the European Union and the United States list as terrorist. ``It is not important to call them terrorist or not terrorist. There are existing forces that you must deal with,’’ Assad said.
"Keep in mind that these people could kill me!"
| Y'see, if we call them "terrorists," then we're kinda duty bound to eradicate them and the states that harbor them. Nothing personal. It's just business, Mike... |
Turning to U.S. accusations on Iraq, Assad implied his government could not have total control over Syria’s long desert border with Iraq. ``There is big chaos’’ in Iraq, Assad said. ``There is arms smuggling and persons (crossing the border) and we don’t know who they are."
| "We don't want to know who they are." |
If you don’t know who they are, then you won’t mind if we take ’em out, will you? |