Free Republic

Why Syria loves Lebanon: Billions in skimmed revenues, Bekaa Valley's drug paradise, top-secret WMD tunnels 3-18-05 http://www.geostrategy-direct.com President Bashar Assad loves little Lebanon because he and his cronies have been sucking their neighbor dry for years. Lebanon feeds billions of dollars into Assad's coffers that allows him to resist Western sanctions and maintain power. Assad inherited this revenue stream, U.S. officials said. His late father, Hafez, created the system. First, Lebanon has been a drug paradise for the Assad regime. The Bekaa Valley, heavily guarded by Iranian and Syrian troops, contains one of the largest drug operations in the world....

Syria-ous TroubleBy Donnel Jones, May 19, 2003 It is probably a commonplace, after September 11th, to note the realism and sheer believeability of black satire. How hilarious, now, is the topsy-turvy madness of Monty Python when "Baghdad Bob" announces the imminent ruin of American forces just as Baghdad itself is falling to them? Does Joseph Heller's pitiless novel, Catch 22, hold anything more heart-breaking yet numbingly bizarre than Saddam's children's prisons? What can compare in the real world to the lurid recesses of perversion and cruelty found in David Lynch's suburban settings? How about the blood libel taught to...