OTHERS WANT AN INDEPENDENCE DAY, TOO – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  Syria is still boiling while Western nations do some tut-tutting, and little else.  From Reuters:

AMMAN - Tens of thousands of Syrians took to the streets nationwide on Friday shouting that President Bashar Assad should "leave", extending a protest wave despite a military assault on restive northwestern towns, witnesses and activists said.

Demonstrations ranged from the suburbs of Damascus to the Lebanese border, the desert bordering Iraq and Idlib province, where tank assaults on hill villages near Turkey killed three civilians overnight, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

That raised the death toll to at least 14 villagers in the last two days, it said.

"Bashar get out of our lives," read placards carried by thousands of Kurds who marched in the northeastern city of Amouda, according to a YouTube video taken by a resident.

The renewed protests come after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday said Syria is running out of time to reform and will face more organized resistance if it does not.

Speaking at a news conference in Lithuania, she also said she was disheartened by the Syrian government's decision to allow one opposition meeting in Damascus was not sufficient.

Asked about the apparent contradiction between permitting the meeting while pursuing a tank offensive in the north, Clinton said: "It doesn't appear that there's a coherent and consistent message coming from Syria.."

COMMENT:  The fact is, there's no sign that the regime is even thinking of ending its crackdown.  Reportedly, more than 1,400 people have been killed thus far.

Hmm.  That number, 1,400, is about the same as the Gaza death toll in the Israeli defensive operation against Hamas several years ago, an attempt to silence the rocket launchers that had sent 11,000 rockets into Israel.  Remember the uproar against democratic Israel by the international Marxist left?  Notice the silence of that same left in regard to the Syrian dictatorship. 

Instead, a gang of Western leftists is next week sending a "relief" convoy to Gaza, where two luxury hotels are being built, where loads of large-screen TV's are being imported, and where two major shopping malls just opened. 

When will some medical school diagnose the mental illness that is the international left?

July 1, 2011