(As appeared in World Net Daily on January 28, 2002)

If Syria doesn't move quickly to cut its support of terrorism and end its subjugation and military domination of neighboring Lebanon, it's time to take the fight to Syria.

If Syria won't allow a free Lebanon, it's time to free Syria.

According to the head of military intelligence in Israel, General Aharon Zeevi Farkash, terrorists from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization are being provided shelter in Syria and Syrian-occupied Lebanon.

This is nothing new, of course. Syria has provided safe haven to bin Laden's terror network for years. Even the most recent edition of the U.S. State Department's annual report on regimes that sponsor terrorism acknowledges Damascus' relationship with and support for al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah and other violent extremists.

But the report by Farkash was presented to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee only last week. And his report says that al-Qaida terrorists fleeing Afghanistan are being harbored by Syria right now.

Incredibly, the U.S. seems to ignore such reports. Instead, some U.S. officials, on a recent tour of Syria, seemed genuinely impressed with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's experience in fighting terrorism.

Assad lectured Sen. Richard Durbin and Reps. David Price, Jim Davis and Adam Schiff earlier this month. What he told them, and their reaction to it, was not carried by any U.S. press outlets. But it was covered by the Arabic press and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Assad said "the U.S. can benefit from the experience of countries that have successfully fought terrorism, primarily Syria."

As an example of what he meant, Assad pointed to his father's battle with the Muslim Brotherhood between 1982 and 1986.

The most notable moment in that battle came Feb. 2, 1982 – 20 years ago this week. The Syrian army besieged the city of Hama for 27 days, bombarding it with heavy artillery and tank fire. Then, the Syrians invaded their own city, killing between 30,000 and 40,000 men, women and children.

The city was then bulldozed and paved over as a permanent national monument to the futility of rebellion against the Assad regime.

Cold-blooded mass murder. That is Syria's prescription for fighting terrorism.

According to a report in Al-Ba'ath in Syria and Al-Hayat in London, Durbin had this to say: "Syria has a rich experience in fighting terrorism, and it is possible to benefit from it … The analysis we heard on Syria's history, experience and handling of [the terrorism] that struck at it is a useful lesson for us and for many countries in the world."

Durbin's office denied making any statement at the meeting. Good thing. Because there is only one lesson to draw from this lecture: Syria remains a brutal, totalitarian regime that will only – like other brutal, totalitarian regimes – yield to force.

Just like the people of Afghanistan, the Syrians need to be freed from this brutality and slavery. Just like the people of Iraq, the Syrians need to be liberated. Just like the people of Lebanon, the Syrians need to escape this yoke of oppression.

There are three reasons Syria should be in the sights of any campaign against international terrorism:

 

1. It continues to occupy illegally a neighboring country, Lebanon, and has openly expressed its long-term desires at hegemony and annexation of the sovereign nation. It is one of the very few examples in the world today – perhaps the only one – of one nation totally dominating another and militarily occupying it. This must end. This should be the real focus of the world's attention in the Middle East – not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    

2. Syria sponsors and harbors the worst kind of terrorism – including the bin Laden network and a coterie of maniacal allies. This is going on right now – post-Sept. 11.

    

3. The Syrian regime hurts its own people more than it hurts its neighbors. Just as Afghanis were pleased to be rid of the Taliban, so will the Syrians be joyful to be rid of the nepotistic tyranny imposed by the Assad clan.

So, let's not just free Lebanon. Let's free Syria, too.

© Copyright 1997-2004 United States Committee For A Free Lebanon. All rights reserved.

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