Meaning of US troops attack in Syria

Bush is still president, and still trying to spread his war from Iraq to neighboring Syria. The excuse is that insurgents are coming from Syria into Iraq. Even if true, that does not necessarily mean Syria is trying to jam us up--millions of refugees who fled Iraq ended up in Syria, so it's not surprising that some go back with violent intentions. The Syrian government had actually HELPED Bush earlier on in "War on Terror" by letting Bush send prisoners to Syria to be tortured. That stopped when Bush started talking about invading Syria too.

Oddly, Bush never seems to pursue foreign fighters and insurgents into Saudi Arabia even though Israeli, Saudi, and even Pentagon studies say more foreign fighters come into Iraq from Saudi than any other country. And Congress found that it was not Iraq, Iran, or Syria whose intelligence agencies helped the 9/11 hijackers but Saudi. It makes you wonder if terrorism is the excuse not the cause of the war, and the Saudis are helpfully providing the excuse when needed, and dialing it down when it's not (like during and after the surge).

As this attack on Syria shows, we are still in the ironic position of relying on "rogue nations" like Syria and Iran acting with more restraint and foresight than Bush to prevent a wider or even world war.

We had an uneasy peace for decades with two world superpowers with opposing ideologies. Now that Russia and China are capitalist (if not entirely democratic) how hard could it be to come up with a new balance of power arrangement that could preserve the peace even longer than the Cold War?

I guess we won't know until Bush is out of office. If he succeeds in inciting another war or McCain follows him in office, we may never know.

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26 October 2008

'US troops' strike inside Syria

"American soldiers" emerged from helicopters and "attacked a civilian building under construction and opened fire on workers inside - including the wife of the building guard - leading to [the deaths] of eight civilians", it added.

"The helicopters then left Syrian territory towards Iraqi territory," Sana said.

The dead include a man, his four children and a married couple, the Syrian report said, without giving details of the children's ages.

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The area is near the Iraqi border city of Qaim, a major crossing point for fighters, weapons and money travelling into Iraq to fuel the Sunni insurgency.

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