Yep, bullsh&% at the expense of safety, because petty score settling.

One wonders what other self destructive stupidity might be occurring because of, say, oedipal conflicts, *COUGH* IRAQ *COUGH*.

U.S. delays exporting licenses to Syrian Air

The U.S. government is dragging its feet on exporting licenses for aviation security items to Syrian Air – and the airline thinks there is an ulterior motive. Fortune’s
Marc Perelman reports.
FORTUNE Magazine
By Marc Perelman, Fortune
June 14 2007: 5:42 AM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) — Is the Bush administration toying with aviation safety to pursue its political goals in the Middle East?

That’s what the chairman of Syria’s national airline and other experts say is the effect of extensive delays by Washington in issuing export licenses to Syrian Air for U.S.-manufactured aviation-security items – even though those items are exempt from a three-year-old export ban.

“Since the export ban has been in place, the U.S. has begun to delay the export-license process,” Syrian Air chairman Nachaat Numir told Fortune in a recent interview in Damascus. “In the past the normal export-license application process took one month, maximum. Now it takes several months, even a year.”

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