Tweet
Local residents in a Syrian border town said that American forces killed seven men in a helicopter-borne commando attack inside Syrian territory.
Doctors in the town of Al-Sukkariya, some eight kilometres from the Iraqi border, said seven corpses and four wounded had been delivered to a nearby clinic after the attack.
The eyewitness accounts said that four helicopters were involved in the operation, with two of the helicopters landing in the town and eight American soldiers disembarking. The eyewitnesses said that the seven killed men were supposedly construction workers.
Afterwards, the US helicopters then left Syrian airspace with all the soldiers again on board.
No explanation or comment yet from US forces though as more reports come in, the number of dead has been increased to 9 with 14 wounded.
As the BBC notes:
Whatever the local military factors involved in this US operation, it would be unthinkable to imagine that an incursion would not require a policy decision at a high-level.
Today also saw the second attack in one week by US unmanned drones on Pakistani territory – today’s killing 7, Thursday’s destroying a school (see youtube above) and killing at least 8 students.
And in Iraq, where the SOFA gets deader by the day, a raid in Fallujah in which US forces killed one man in his sleep has led to:
The largest Sunni party in Iraq says it is suspending all official contacts with US civilian and military personnel after the killing of a man in Fallujah.
The Iraqi Islamic Party said the dead man was one of its senior members and that he had been killed during a joint US-Iraqi raid on Friday.
The party alleged that the raid had been politically motivated.
In Mosul, attacks on Christians by the US supported Peshmerga continue to terrorize. At last report at least half the Christians have left the area and the reports of violence escalate daily.
Could someone remind me who the rogue nation is?
80 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Hornets nest meet American in blindfold madly swinging a broomstick.
U! S! A!
We are the rogue nation.
Someone, please, somewhere — stop us.
Crazy, isn’t it? The way people flail at hornet’s nests. There are better ways.
Is this a rhetorical question?
The people who comment on this website are not the ones who pushed the buttons or made the decisions.
But, alas, we pay the price.
It is crazy. But, why incite more sorrow?
Why?
I seem to have missed something – was there a point to this? Two copters, a few soldiers get out, kill a number of people and then leave – what have I missed? It’s nuts. Added to the killing by drones in Pakistan we are really spreading that good will. s/
that should be 4 copters.
I’m sure Secretary Gates will have a perfectly acceptable explanation for this incursion, murder, and escape.
And people talk about keeping him on!
Thanks Siun
digg
FWIW and total speculation on my part; I wonder if these incursions have been happening routinely, but what’s changed is that the news is getting out???
Either way in an age of GPS, it’s egregiously unacceptable.
There’s more to this than meets the eye.
Too bad we can’t trust our own government — on this, or any other matter, for that matter.
Somebody ought to ask around in the right dark corners and find out what the Ospreys are doing that were deployed to Iraq, because they make lousy transports except for high-speed insertions and extractions, such as you’d want for cross-border raids. The borders may not have been sacrosanct for some time.
Hard to evaluate this until someone figures out what we were doing and why.
Teddy Partridge for Sec Def!
The story was about three stories in on the NBC evening news tonight. It was claimed that US forces had attacked an Al-Qaeda outpost, and NBC’s personnel reported it without skepticism.
It’s shameful that BushCheney are still allowed to control foreign policy, with tacit approval from those Democrats we elected to stop them. Possibly it’s designed to generate fear and election support for McAsinine.
Not all of it… If we are going to attack another sovereign nation.. we need a declaration of war.
Shocking!
Not.
Thanks for this, Siun. I sure hope Congress finds the courage to tell Bush to stop this madness right after the election so he can’t make things a lot worse for Obama.
Police actions short of war are not allowed legally?
How come when we project hard power somebody has to die?
Thank God the terrorists don’t have drones or they would murder indiscriminately.
The War Powers Act of 1973 (Pub.L. 93-148), also referred to as the War Powers Resolution is a United States federal law
providing that the President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or if the United States is already under attack or serious threat. The War Powers Act requires that the president notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war.
I am a huge Obama fan, and I want to believe he’ll put a stop to this nonsense.
But if he doesn’t….
Ahhhh, I’ll give the guy a chance. They will be plenty of time to dump on him if he disappoints later.
What’s the difference?
Aloha, Siun! It’s some absolute fuckery, for sure…! 8-(
Hear! Hear!
The optimist in me says Nov. 5th could be a wonderful day on many fronts if, as you say, Congress has the sac to keep Darth & VP McFlightsuit in check for 2 1/2 months.
duration and intensity?
I understand that everyone’s a bit stressed.
Teddy for Secy for defence?
What’s the difference.
Let’s settle down and be rational.
And that’s the nut.
Al the Spook and I were discussing this and he seems to think that they went in to ensure that the plutonium was buried once and for all…
Another installment of “American Exceptionalism” or as some might suggest more like unbridled “American Terrorism” as construed by a Pentagon and this imperial WashingtonDC.
That Americans are so ignorant of what will come of this unbounded and full
disregard of international standards and conduct.
Just who are the “terrorists” now? The “international rogues”? Who?
Can any American can honestly ask “why do they hate our freedom?”
Americans would not tolerate this being done along or across American borders or upon American citizens.
The complete hypocrisy and arrogant ignorance of this American conduct will give cause for others to do the same.
Where is there any defense now? Any valid or principle based accusation?
Either way, deep inside a sovereign nations borders, innocents were slaughtered by us, again.
Nice!
link
Bush/Cheney should have been impeached and removed a long time ago. They are the very reason there is an impeachment provision in the US Constitution.
October surprise?
link
1.807 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
These bastards have been killin’ and blowin’ things up for 8 years and they ain’t gunna let somethin’ as mundane as an election keep ‘em from killin and maimin’ as many as they ken before they retire ta their ranches in Paraguay…this time some folks are gunna hafta stand before the international court at the Hague.
The Israelis can’t be tickled about this shit.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THE WAR IS COMIN’ HOME NOW!!
That line was bullshit from the first time it was served up.
What they ‘hate’ is our occupations and stealing of their natural resources.
You’re the nut! How ya been?
Not to go all paranoid or anything, but there were other nuclear materials being moved around the globe recently. I’m not big on coincidences.
AP reporting 4 children were killed….I guess we wonder what they were doing. We should all be weeping.
Stayin’ sane!
; )
This is utter B*llsh*t…
CT, Did you see this?
Report: Notorious Palestinian Mercenary Was Hired by U.S. to Find Link Between Saddam and Al-Qaeda
What would Republicans say if Mexico chased some bad guys into Texas and a few American citizens ended up as collateral damage?
OT: Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com now has Obama’s chances of victory at 96.7%.
In fact, if Obama loses both Ohio and Florida, Nate still give him a 75% chance.
Meanwhile, if McCain loses Ohio, Nate give him less than a tenth of a percent chance at the prize.
hahahaha!
Isn’t it obvious that they are desperate to GIT bin Laden before next Tuesday? That is the GOP’s last hope.
I can’t think what Bush&Cheney’ve done that wasn’t EXACTLY what our esteemed framers had in mind when they included that provision.
Hehe
could be, but I don’t think he’s in Syria.
Well, he does come from a family with construction interests…
We have been chasing WMDs, Osama, and Al-quaeda for 7 years….I am seeing few signs of success. I think this Al-quaeda pursuit has become the new WMD. Not one escalation has made me feel any safer, and I think I am not alone.
The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan.
Of course Bush would love that. It would send Iraq into chaos and force an Obama admin to stay longer then they’d like.
Haven’t you heard? The United States is in a Global War On Terror.™ This war has no boundaries or battle lines. It is U.S. policy to attack whatever, wherever, whenever, however and whomever the preznit decides he wants to attack. No more Congressional declarations of war. The preznit has declared war on the world, and if you don’t like it, you obviously don’t Support The Troops.™
“Phoenix (mythology), a mythical bird that dies in flames and is reborn from the ashes” Wiki.
National security is now our myth of choice. Our Phoenix never died in flames. It became a changeling, to be continuously reborn to satisfy the myth of national security.
OMG! I can hardly wait. Hope everyone is voting early so that if Cheney tries to save his sorry ass using some national security issue, it won’t be bought.
The correct Iraki response: Fine, now get the fuck out of our country.
CNN now has a video posted. It seems pretty even handed and reports that the attack was at a farm under construction. No mention of AQ (like the NBC report mentioned above.)
You know, if there really is/was plutonium there then I think, no, we really can’t let Syria recover any. Pretty convenient timing though.
One can hope…!
we Gotta Get Outa This Place!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..re=related
There was a mention late last week on “Morning Joe” (of all places) that some Irish bookmaker is already paying off on the Obama bet!
It certainly puts Maliki between a rock and a hard place.
Thanks
Another Republican fallacy, you can’t change the constitution w/ an act . That’s why amending it’s so damn hard .
This also applies to FISA(act)
“Nuke ‘em”
The agents of the imperium need no rhyme or reason. That they do it is justification enough. Just like bad science fiction.
This is nothing new. We bomb third world countries all the time. Read Chomsky for the details.
Check out the awesome pic, ET has posted at his site…! ;-)
That’s a great picture.
Isn’t that good? Side bar note about recall..interesting.
Cool.
teddy is a few flights upstairs
It’s possible the attack was calculated by the U.S. and political leaders in Israel to poison the talks between Israel and Syrian under the mediation of Turkey.
WE blame Iran for sending fighters into Iraq, yet we disregard international law and cross Pakistan and now Syria. Why?-because we’re “right” and fighting for the “right” things. Fact is, Iraq wants us out: even the puppet government we installed wants us out. The puppet we put in Afghanistan is close to coming to that conclusion too. We better leave, if the Shia and Sunni unite they will slaughter us-the only reason the almighty “surge” “worked” is because we’re paying the Sunnis not to kill us. Then what will we say about having all the “high tech” weapons we have, and the fact we have the “greatest” military on earth? This is Bush’s wet dream, he’s still a boy trying to be a man and doesn’t know how. The rest of our” leaders “are repeating, through their own hubris, the mistakes of 30 years ago. The ultimate proof of this is the fact that almost half this nation supports a clown like McCain, whose policies are right out of the 1960’s and which were discredited by the early 1970’s.
as dick cheney might say: “so ?”
i mean what are y’all gonna do .. fire up your attack keyboards and strafe the bushies??
send off e-mail bombs ??
eventually .. i’d love to see these lawless hacks brought before the bar of justice to answer for their crimes .. civil .. criminal ..and war .. but until some part ofd the government decies to stand up and enforce the laws ..
we are simply fucked .. imo .. destined to live over and over the humiliation and indignities visitd upon a captive
herd of sheepuh .. err… peopleincoming consonants and vowels boyz .. hit the dirt .. !!!
Just catching up and wanted to note that the location of the attack in Syria is not the same as the location of the Israeli bombing last year.
Thank you.
This is important and illuminating.
The attack on Syria is depressing and Obama with his promise to enter Pakistan if need be is no better, but perhaps that’s election rhetoric playing to the popular notion of American exceptionalism. The attack on Syria was both unprovoked and unauthorized by Congress, an act of war without a declaration of war or even a resolution which can be said to authorize it.
Were our system operating properly, the attack on Syria would be an impeachable offense ending in a quick impeachment, but the Dems won’t put the process in motion. It is time to realize the system is surely broken, but that does not necessarily mean all is lost. We the people need to find our voice and I don’t mean comments on blogs. We need to organize on the internet in a meaningful way. I don’t know what form it will take, I’m not that technological, but I believe (hope) it’s possible. It’s way past time to start talking about it.