John Weisman is one of a select company of writers to have had books on both the New York Times fiction and nonfiction best-seller lists. His best-sellers include Rogue Warrior (written with Richard Marcinko) and Rogue Warrior's eight fictional sequels. A former journalist, Weisman has worked in more than three dozen countries. His latest work, the Black Ops novel SOAR, is now available through HarperCollins/William Morrow. He is currently completing the second Black Ops novel, Jack in the Box, for release in 2004. He can be emailed at: blackops@johnweisman.com
Special Event: John Weisman will be appearing to sign autographed copies of his latest thriller, Soar, at the following locations:
August 15: Fort Bragg
11:00-11:30 a.m. - Bldg 80-5050 (2nd street and Buckner Rd)
2:00-4:00 p.m. - Bldg 1017 on Canopy Lane
August 19 & 20: TREXPO EAST (Chantilly, VA)
10:00 a.m.-5::00 p.m. - TEAM ONE NETWORK booth, at Dulles Exposition Center, Chantilly, VA. Official ID credentials required.
August 30: Quantico
12:00-2:00 p.m. - Marine Corps Post Exchange
September 6: Horse Shoe Curve Restaurant (Pine Grove, VA),
6:00-9:00 p.m. at Horse Shoe Curve Restaurant
Pine Grove Road
Pine Grove, VA
Pine Grove Road [Rt 679] runs off Rt.7, just west of the Blue Ridge, and 2 mi. east of the Shenandoah River.
The White House is going to be faced with a series of tough decisions when the Iraqi campaign is finally over. So far as I'm concerned, the only question is whether to turn east to Tehran, or west to Damascus.
There's ample reason to go after Syria. According to the Pentagon, Syrian president Bashar al-Asad has supplied Iraq with military equipment and has given refuge and support to high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein's criminal regime. Recent press reports claim that some of Saddam's weapons scientists, including Rihab Taha, known as "Dr. Germ," are in Damascus (although given Chirac's policies they'll probably find diplomatic asylum in France). Saddam also reportedly placed missiles and other weapons across the Syrian border.
Syria's association with global terror is nothing new. For the past two decades, Bashar and his late father, Hafiz al-Asad, played host to such no-goodniks as the late and unlamented Abu Nidal. Indeed, training camps for the Abu Nidal Organization and the Ahmed Jabril's PFLP-GC were just a short drive outside the Syrian capital. Currently, Damascus hosts Abu Abbas's Palestine Liberation Front and Hamas.
One largely untold story about Syria is its history of covert cooperation with Iran's Seppah e Pasdaran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
And this decades-old liaison is the reason the White House should look east, not west, when the Iraq campaign is over.
Because while Syria has been a facilitator of terrorists and a sponsor of terror, it has not waged a two-decade war specifically against the United States.
Iran's IRGC has done just that. The government of Iran is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans.
Here's some of the history. In the early 1980s, with Syria's tacit consent, Iran's Seppah e Pasdaran set up shop at the Sheikh Abdullah barracks in Lebanon's Beka'a Valley.
The Syrians permitted two senior IRGC officials, Sheikh Hossein Mosleh and Feridoun Mehdi-Nezad, to create an Iranian terrorist front organization called Islamic Jihad, or the IJO.
Unlike previous state-sponsored terror groups, the IJO was not hierarchical. It had no identifiable leaders. Many of its operatives, such as Imad Mugniyah, were former members of Yasser Arafat's Force 17, the Praetorian Guard that protects the PLO chairman. (Mugniyah even maintained his ties to Arafat while working for the Iranians. In 1985, according to former CIA case officer Robert Baer, Mugniyah collected $200,000 from Arafat for IJO operations.) Other members of IJO came from Lebanese Shiite clans. Indeed, the fact that the IJO was clan-based made it virtually impossible to penetrate.
The goal of the IJO was exactly the same as the goal of Iran's IRGC: to wage war against the West in general, and the United States in particular.
And wage war IJO did. In April, 1983, with tacit Syrian consent, IJO bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. The result: 49 dead; 120 wounded. The following October, with tacit Syrian consent, IJO bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut. Result: 241 dead.
It is known from American sources that a month before the Marine barracks bombing, U.S. intelligence intercepted a message from Tehran to the Iranian ambassador in Damascus, instructing him to pass orders to the "suicide group" (the IJO) to stage a "spectacular action" against the U.S. Marines.
Incredibly, the Reagan administration took no countermeasures to prevent the bombing. In fact, even though Iran has waged a bloody, covert war against the U.S. since November 1979, when it overran the American embassy, and even though Iran has kidnapped and killed hundreds of American citizens, there has never been any U.S. military response against Tehran. One wonders why, in the face of such repeated provocation.
After 9/11, President George W. Bush vowed to wage unrestricted warfare, including proactive measures and black ops, against all terrorists and those who harbor and support them. He has shown the grit, the tenacity, and the will to go after al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein's regime. He has aided the Philippines in the struggle against Abu Sayyaf, and Colombia's battle with the FARC.
