BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS

The "Chief UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei" :

...accused Israel of taking "the law into their own hands" with a raid on Syria, and demanded more information about what was hit.

Neither Israel nor the United States has furnished "any evidence at all" to prove that the Syrian site bombed last month was a secret nuclear facility, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN.

"That, to me, is very distressful because we have a system; if countries have information that the country is working on a nuclear-related program, they should come to us. We have the authority to go out and investigate," he said.

"But to bomb first and then ask questions later, I think it undermines the system and it doesn't lead to any solution to any suspicion, because we are the eyes and ears of the international community."

Oh, please.

Is there any sane person today who could possibly take any statements by this person seriously anymore? Oh wait , the blog Think Delusionally does! Why am I not surprised? Elbaradei is a god to the left.

ElBaradei's job is supposedly to prevent countries like Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, not to facilitate or cover for them in their quest with bogus statements like the above. By any reasonable standard, he's done a pretty piss-poor job of the former, and exceled at the latter.

Apparently "watchdogs" at the UN do exactly that: watch; while countries like Iran and Syria etc. (you know, all those nice countries in the Middle East who want nuclear energy for "peaceful" purposes) throw him and his fellow UN "watchdogs" in the international community a few raw steaks to keep them occupied.

But he did win a Nobel Peace Prize...which, these days, is at least as good as staying at a Holiday Inn Express!

But, seriously, folks....

Israel Matzov has more:

Israel bombed first and asked questions later because of the Iran experience where despite years of evidence as to what is going on, the IAEA and the international community have done nothing to stop the mullahs.

ElBaradei said he had been told by Syria that the site was a military facility and "has nothing to do with nuclear...."

And of course ElBaradei believes everything he's told (by an Arab or Muslim country anyway) - every single solitary word.

Meanwhile, DEBKA is telling a very different story:

The following sequence of events unfolds from the garnered documents:

Damascus and Pyongyang settled between them that the nuclear transaction would be masked as a joint venture to build a cement factory in northern Syria; meanwhile, North Korea would sell Syria cement for its development projects.

According to DEBKAfile’s sources, North Korean freighters, which began putting in at Syria’s Latakia and Tartus ports in January 2007, unloaded cargoes of cement in which nuclear reactor components and materials were concealed.

The North Korean traffic at these ports and the Durham wheat transaction attracted the attention of US and Israeli secret services.

During the next eight months – up until the Israeli attack on Syria’s North Korean installation - wheat prices shot up on international markets. Indeed the price of Durham wheat doubled. Had this been a normal commercial transaction, Syria would have claimed additional North Korean goods in compensation. In fact, when import-export officials in Damascus, who knew nothing of the nuclear reactor tradeoff, pointed Assad’s office to the price fluctuations on the wheat market, they were told that the contracts signed by the president in person must go through without changes.

When later, the Syrian wheat crop fell short of expectations, Syrian officials were again told to fill the North Korean orders in full.

On Sept. 3, the North Korean “cement ship” Al Hamed docked at Tartus. The freight it unloaded was trucked directly to the “cement factory” at Al Tibnah in the Syrian Desert, east of the Euphrates River. The Israeli attack took place three days later.

Last Tuesday, Oct. 23, the Syrian ambassador to Washington Imad Mustapha was invited to address the prestigious Institute on Religion and Public Policy. In answer to a question, he acknowledged, “Syria gives North Korea wheat, oil and other products.”

He declined to disclose what Syria got in return. When pressed on this point, Mustapha said in exasperation: “Stuff. We get stuff.”

"Stuff"?? Feel free to begin laughing hysterically at any moment---at least, if you think nuclear weapons in the hands of the fanatics of the Middle East is a hilarious proposition.

I humbly suggest that ElBaradei and all the enablers and appeasers of the progressive left stop thinking delusionally, and get a minimal grip on reality.

And just to make sure you realize that I am in touch with reality... that last statement above is only my attempt to find some humor in the situation.

UPDATE: Others have a slightly different perspective than ElBaradei and the left: "Surgical air strike against Syria might have averted nuclear war" (or here and here):

But the second picture of the same site, which was taken some six weeks after the Israeli attack, provides some powerful indications that this could indeed have been the target of the operation.

The building has simply disappeared. It has been razed to the ground and all traces of the facility, except for the pumping station, have been removed. The site is criss-crossed with caterpillar tracks from heavy earth-movers.

There is every indication that the Syrian authorities have moved swiftly and dramatically to remove all evidence of what was there.

Still there is nothing conclusive, but the evidence is slowly adding up. We still do not know for certain what the Israelis hit. We do not know how successful their attack was. And if this was some kind of nuclear installation we do not know how advanced it was or where the technology and know-how came from.

But all the evidence does point to one fact. The Syrian authorities, whatever their denials, certainly have some explaining to do.(emphasis mine)

Seriously.