>The Syrian Ambassador to the U.N. yesterday stated on CNN, “There are no Iraqi leaders or members of the Iraqi family in Syria”! I think I missed something – which family? Leaders?

Ah well, Syria has a dynastic regime so maybe it assumes the same is true elsewhere *cough* bush *cough* hussein *cough* kennedy *cough*.

>Japan attacked Shanghai, China in 1937. What did Japan do when the United States stopped supplying oil in 1937 because of this action? Remember Pearl Harbor? Who cut off the oil supply from Iraq to Syria? You might think twice before taking that Hawaiian vacation.

O dear O dear, this may indeed be the first of various economic sanctions to be imposed against Syria by the US (and potentially others). The sanctions worked so appalingly in Iraq:
A) they were responsible for far, far too many deaths in Iraq (admitedly, Saddam's fault a lot of this, but who's spin did the world believe? and the kids are still dead)
B) They contributed to a significant turning worldwide anger against the US, with one result being 9-11 (remember that the sanctions are one of the three original stated reasons issued by al-Qaeda)

>One of the places my dad was stationed at was Shanghai, with the Fourth Marine division, in 1938. The daily routine was being shot at by Japanese and Chinese soldiers. Dad said the Chinese soldiers killed more civilians than the Japanese. If anyone thinks the pictures released of the recent action in Iraq against civilians are bad, my dad took pictures that make them look like a Walt Disney movie.

It's interesting that the US administration (always great on saying they believe in free speech and promoting it in other countries) have been consistantly critical of stations such as al-Jazeera who dare to show the pictures of injured/dead civilians. From what I have seen over the years, al-Jazeera in a bulwark of independent journalism in the middle east where most stations do what they're told or heads may roll. Curiously, they're fairly disliked by many ME governments, though not by Ahmed Arab - subscriber numbers are up, advertising is down. Even more curiously of course is from whom al-Jazeera drew the most invective - the Iraqi regime. That's right, they were getting denounced by the US as being anti-american at the same time as getting expelled from Iraq for being American pawns. Maybe if Don had actually included some al-Jazeera reporters in the embedding plan...