Juan Cole

So apparently Bush made some remarks the other day about the Lebanon situation that didn't really make any sense...

Juan Cole catches him talking like an idiot(as if that's hard):
"when at a press conference he said this:

' QUESTION: How can the international force, or the United States if necessary, prevent Iran from resupplying Hezbollah?

BUSH: The first step is -- and part of the mandate in the U.N. resolution was to secure Syria's borders. Iran is able to ship weapons to Hezbollah through Syria.

Secondly is to deal -- is to help seal off the ports around Lebanon.

BUSH: In other words, part of the mandate and part of the mission of the troops, the UNIFIL troops, will be to seal off the Syrian border. '

"Note that I can't even understand what he means by "the ports around Lebanon" being sealed. Does he mean Lebanon's ports? Note that you wouldn't want to seal off Lebanon's ports, since Lebanon will need to import things through them. That you could have such good port security in Lebanon that you could altogether screen out missile shipments is unlikely. Does he mean that Turkish, Syrian, and Israeli ports around Lebanon should be sealed. Just Syrian? Impractical.

Note also that the little blue strip at the bottom of Lebanon is generally where the UN peacekeeping troops will be. They aren't in a position to "seal off" the Syrian border, which stretches far to their northeast, and can't be "sealed off" by anyone at all, being rugged and long. The blue helmets of the UN, being a land force, are not in a position to seal off Lebanon's ports, such as Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Jounieh or Tripoli. Nor could they seal off the Syrian port of Latakiya, if that is what Bush meant.

In other words, Bush doesn't have the slightest idea what he is talking about and nothing he said on this subject makes any sense at all. Why does the US press always let him get away with this?"