U.S. Could Strike Northern Syria

[ECH1969]

The United States has been considering attacking Sunni insurgency centers in Syria.

Western diplomatic sources and analysts said the U.S. Defense Department and Central Command have been warning of the increasing activity of a Sunni insurgency network in northern Syria. They said the Pentagon has been discussing a U.S. strike that could end the network's operation.

The insurgency network was said to be based in Aleppo, the sources said. They said fighters from such countries as Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Lebanon, Sudan and Tunisia arrive in Aleppo and undergo recruitment and training by Sunni insurgency groups linked to Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, head of Al Qaida in Iraq.

http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2005/july/07_18_1.html

[DBoon]

1. Assad murders Islamic fundamentalists

There is no love lost between Assad and Islamists.

I'm sure he would be very happy to have the US murder his enemies for him.

[Jara sang]

2. Just like Vietnam and the bombing of Laos and Cambodia.

It's the inverted domino theory.

[nine23]

4. I was barely pre-teen back then...

...but I DID watch the evening news, and I AM getting some pretty strong flashbacks here. B52's and Agent Orange? (So what if Syria's sans foilage...just don't mention "chemical".)

[MnFats]

8. hell. with Cambodia as a precedent, we're probably there now...

read: "Sideshow: NIxon, Kissinger and the destruction of Cambodia."
details the whole sordid, murderous story.
Air crews sent out with regular assignments, then diverted into Cambodia once airborne. Then required to falsify action reports to cover up U.S. attacks on an officially neutral country, which began the long slide to Pol Pot and the Killing Fields.

wonder where attacking Syria would end....?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Wag the Dog?

A little action in Syria to take the heat off Rove and the WMD vacuum coverup?

[Imagevision]

47. I agree, wag that freegin dog Bush!

[wli]

51. war powers need to be curtailed while under investigation

Presidents under investigation for criminal activity need to have war powers curtailed.

[grytpype]

5. Expanding the war

This is like Johnson and Nixon going into Laos and Cambodia, and we know how well that all turned out.

[shank]

7. The bombing should be successful

as long as those terrorists in Syria don't read this news article and move thier location

[LynnTheDem]

9. "successful" such as killing off more non-white men, women & kids?

It's what Jesus would do!

:sarcasm:

[shank]

14. Everyone knows

its Iraqi women and children who were responsible 9/11. Otherwise why would we be murdering so many of them?

[TomClash]

15. Only the children were responsible

especially those 5, 6 and 7 year olds.

[LynnTheDem]

18. Yep had to kill 128,000 of them for killing 2700 Americans. Them Saudis

were actually Iraqi women & kids in disguise.

[nine30]

28. Most of the 128,000 had nothing to do with the killing of the 2700

[LynnTheDem]

39. NONE of the 128,000 had anything whatsoever to do with the 2700.

NO Iraqis had anything whatsoever to do with 911.

[Imagevision]

48. I agree- just chalk it up to good ole fashioned "collateral damage"

The war was a rip off and plamegate is putting the puzzle together -- all these people dead for what? wmd's-Saddam was a bad guy anyway then there's always democracy - would Bush have invaded Iraq if it let's say....had the largest peanut farms in the world.

Death and destruction brought to you by a $elect group of elitists!

[nine30]

54. OK, I stand corrected.

[uppityperson]

19. Welcome to DU shank, if you get flamed for sarcastic responses do this

Sometimes dry sarcasm gets misunderstood, if it happens, insert sarcasm smiley Click on the smilies lookup table above "subject line" when you are typing your message. : sarcasm: without the space between the : and the s gives you :sarcasm:

Welcome and exactly, those darn children.

[shank]

24. .

thanks:)

[saskatoon]

36. smilies etc.

you mean tnat some people on here are so Effing dumb and or unaware that they can't recognize sarcasm when they see it-jeez i pity theose dummies.

[TheWatcher]

21. I Hope for your sake this is Sarcasm

You're going to have a bad day if it isn't.

[Rebellious Republican]

22. I suppose we can call it off now, don't you? Damn who leaked this

info. You know someday they are going to catch the high level rat bastard traitor that keeps leaking secret information to the press.

With an administration so full of leaks like this, its no wonder we can't win any wars on anything, don't ya think!

:wow:

[saigon68]

46. DON'T WORRY ---- THEY HAVE ALREADY MOVED.

[pfitz59]

6. Odd...most Al-Qaeda are Saudi nationals....

Why not attack Riyadh, or some such? Sounds like smoke scereens to me!

[KaryninMiami]

10. That's odd. I thought Iran was next - then Syria.

Leave it to those fiesty neocons to keep us all guessing on who they are plannng to bomb next.

[wli]

11. who's the Western diplomatic source?

A crock, all of it. Never trust an anonymous source.

[Barrett808]

12. Unlike Cambodia, we'd know about it immediately

Iraq is like Viet Nam on Internet time.

[thecrow]

13. Have they forgotton the pact Iran and Syria made recently

the to attack one of them was the same as attacking the other?

Oh....! Nevermind.

[johannes1984]

16. Suuuuure

Saddad would allow sunni fighters in his own back-yard .The whole part of him retaining power is a granite solid inteligence/waste disposal bussines .If you even sneeze islamist they find ,..and consequently dispose of you .

But i guess if gun-ho neocon says so , it must be true .maybe there all busy keeping the trucks with fresh produce at the lebanese border from entering .

DEEEP BREATHS >>>DEEP BREATHS

[Todd B]

17. Where have I heard that before?

Western diplomatic sources and analysts said the U.S. Defense Department and Central Command have been warning of the increasing activity of a Sunni insurgency network in northern Syria. They said the Pentagon has been discussing a U.S. strike that could end the network's operation.

Yeah, just like the "strikes" on Fallujah could end the insurgency in Iraq when, in reality, all it did was destroy the infrastucture and harm innocent civilians. Do they think Syria is just going to roll over and say, "OK, you can bomb us.. be our guest, we won't strike back"?

God, the arrogance of the government is astounding.

Can we please stop pissing off the rest of the world now? Please?

[Davis_X_Machina]

20. Aleppo is a city of nearly 2 million...

...and they're going to conduct a strike that would 'end the network's operation"?

Mr. Needle, meet Mr. Haystack.

[IndianaGreen]

50. I think the US wants to provoke Syria into defending itself

The Bush militarists are following the same script they did leading up to the war in Iraq. The DSM described their plans of provoking a reaction from Iraq that would give them an excuse to attack that country.

[Whoa_Nelly]

23. Wouldn't there have to be an Act of Congress to attack Syria?

Wouldn't there have to be concensus to attack yet another sovereign nation? Are the members of the PNAC/Bush Cabal working to invite an attack on the US to justify the invasion of Iraq?
:wtf: :nuke: :wtf:

[ECH1969]

25. Clinton didn't need an act of Congress to bomb Iraq in 1998

I doubt Bush would need or want one to bomb Syria. If he wanted to overthrow the Syrian government they would have to go to Congress.

[Peace Patriot]

30. Congress is full of Bush "pod people" (mindless repeaters of Rove "talking

points"), many of whom were themselves illegitimately elected. They will rubber stamp whatever the Bush Cartel wants them to rubber stamp. 58% of Americans opposed the Iraq war BEFORE THE INVASION--that is, before all the lies were even exposed. (I will never forget that stat.) And opposition today is about 80%! We didn't want this war, and don't want it now, yet it has been thrust upon us by fiat, with a "mandate" confirmed by Diebold and ES&S (the Bushite voting machine companies who "counted" all our votes with secret, proprietary software). WE HAVE NO REPRESENTATION IN OUR GOVERNMENT. THOSE WHO ARE RULING US, and WHO ARE USING *OUR* POWER AND *OUR* MONEY, DO NOT HAVE THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED!

The reason for Nixon's secrecy in bombing Cambodia was that our government still had some semblance of the RULE OF LAW. That is not the case today. THE BUSH CARTEL CAN DO WHATEVER IT WANTS TO DO. There is nothing to stop them--not the Congress, not the Democrats, not the courts, not the new monopolies. Nothing! They are completely out of of control. They can make up whatever shit they like, and it will be promulgated and treated as truth. It is EXACTLY like Nazi propaganda about Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Beware! Beware, these red flags going up; these rumors in "the news." This is not just bad policy; this is an extremely dangerous situation, with desperate, power-mad psychotics in control of the U.S. military and of all the levers of legal and political authority in the U.S.

There is only one mechanism by which the people of this country can regain control of our government, and this is restoring our right to vote. We must begin by throwing Bushite electronic voting machine companies--Diebold, ES&S and brethren--out of the election business NOW--or, at the least, achieving some measure of election transparency with paper ballot backups, no secret programming code and strict auditing. And the only place where we can get that done is in state/local jurisdictions, where the authority over election systems still resides, and where ordinary people still have some say. See the DU Forum "2004 Election Results and Discussion" for information and action ideas:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203

As long as they have control of our election system, THEY HAVE NO REASON TO LISTEN TO US and NO REGARD WHATEVER for the will of the majority or the "consent of the governed." They don't care. They don't NEED to care. Get it?

We are heading for a holocaust in the Middle East, and world war! Election reform is what you can do to stop it. We have one year. Get on it NOW! Do your part! Join a local election reform group. Help out! No one can do it alone. But together we, as a people, can and will restore democracy in the U.S. of A.

[HereSince1628]

27. What's a piece of paper?

Going to war under the IWR was questionably legal. This admin will care nothing about getting permission. They will come up with some "hot pursuit" or "necessary pre-emptive" strike bullshit.

And why do they want Syria? Because the value of oil pipelines going to the Med is very high. Iran is capable of choking shipping in the Persian Gulf with a few silkworm missles.

And besides, the Syrian people deserve democracy. They will welcome our bombs like rain at the end of a long drought.

[NYC]

38. Hot pursuit.

That's an excuse for crossing a border.

[rocktivity]

26. "If we don't put some thought into HOW we retaliate

we'll end up with a war that has VIET NAM'S fingerprints all over it."

rocknation (9/15/2001)
:headbang:

[hnsez]

29. It wouldn't suprise me if Bush nuked Cambodia 'just because'

[daleo]

31. I thought this might be coming soon.

Here is a snip from the source's "About Us", to get a feel for the source. It seems legit, but others may have more knowledge than I:

Middle East Newsline is directed by Steve Rodan, a journalist with more than 20 years experience who has worked for U.S., European, Arab and Israeli newspapers, radio and television. Rodan is fluent in Arabic and Hebrew and has won awards for investigative and enterprise reporting. He was one of the first journalists to write on Iran's missile and nuclear weapons programs, Israeli-Russian joint defense marketing, and the first to document Egyptian-North Korean missile cooperation. He has provided exclusives to such publications as Jane's Defence Weekly in London, Defense News in Washington, Military Technology in Bonn, The Jerusalem Post in Israel, The Sunday Express in London and Le Nouvelles Actuelles in Paris. He has traveled extensively and is both an expert of the region as well as a specialist on military and strategic issues.

[krkaufman]

32. If they're under Zarqawi...

... then they're NOT part of the Sunni insurgency.

[ECH1969]

33. The media talks about them as if they are the same

They talk about insurgents blowing up Iraqi children like they are all one thing.

Of course the media sucks, but we already knew that.

[krkaufman]

57. Gotta stay away from the "nuance" -- n/t

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

34. Are there any other outlets publishing this?

[Greeby]

35. I see

So I'm guessing this'll be called Operation While-You're-Up-There, huh?

[lovuian]

37. What we need is to declare war on syria!!!

Anything to gt the press of our backs!!!

[asianmale]

41. "What we need is to declare war on syria!!!"

Yikes. No way. A declaration of war would bring out the treason hounds. Free speech would go out the window. You think the gov has power now with the patriot act just wait until you see a formal declaration of war.

[Deja Q]

40. But Princes of Malibu is on!

[bemildred]

42. The desperate search for something to bomb continues.

Even if one allows the premise that these "networks" exist, the idea of attempting to deal with them by bombing is fatuous.

[IndianaGreen]

43. And we are expected to support the troops

At what point do we stop supporting the troops? Do we wait until Bush invades Venezuela, or do we wait until our glorious troops open fire on Americans demonstrating against the war?

[bemildred]

44. I support the troops, it's the Bushites I don't support.

They should all be up on corruption and treason charges.
The troops should get back to their families where they belong.

[IndianaGreen]

45. The troops are part of Bush's military machine

I won't support the troops when they invade Venezuela. I won't support them when they invade Cuba. I did not support them when they willingly marched into Iraq. I won't support them when they do what American troops have done on US soil so many times in the past: break up strikes and shoot peaceful demonstrators.

The only thing about the troops that I support is their immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Iraq and an end to this war.

I refuse to become a good German!

The Bonus Army

President Hoover ordered the army to clear out the veterans. Infantry and cavalry supported by six tanks were dispatched with Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur in command. Major Dwight D. Eisenhower served as his liaison with Washington police and Major George Patton led the cavalry.

By 4:45 P.M. the troops were massed on Pennsylvania Ave. below the Capitol. Thousands of Civil Service employees spilled out of work and lined the streets to watch. The veterans, assuming the military display was in their honor, cheered. Suddenly Patton's troopers turned and charged. "Shame, Shame" the spectators cried. Soldiers with fixed bayonets followed, hurling tear gas into the crowd.

By nightfall the BEF had retreated across the Anacostia River where Hoover ordered MacArthur to stop. Ignoring the command, the general led his infantry to the main camp. By early morning the 10,000 inhabitants were routed and the camp in flames. Two babies died and nearby hospitals overwhelmed with casualties. Eisenhower later wrote, "the whole scene was pitiful. The veterans were ragged, ill-fed, and felt themselves badly abused. To suddenly see the whole encampment going up in flames just added to the pity."

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/snprelief4.htm

[Voltaire99]

49. Listen to Indiana Green.

The man is talking sense, as usual.

One either opposes immoral uses of military power, or one supports it. There is no middle ground--no Clintonian triangulation to be done.

[Seabiscuit]

52. "...a U.S. strike that could end the network's operation" ????

Like the U.S. strikes that ended the insurgency in Iraq? Lurching from quagmire to quagmire, Booosh is not one beholden to learning from his mistakes.

[NuttyFluffers]

53. Because smearing shit over a bigger area makes everything clean again!

Yay! :crazy:

And once it's spread all over everything will be fixed. This is how two year olds fix problems. :D

[Megahurtz]

55. Oh Fucking Great. n/t

[Supersedeas]

56. odd how Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are left off the Aleppo list

[Robeson]

58. They're business partners with the energy and military industries in the..

...U.S. That makes them allies....:sarcasm: