U.S. Armed Forces
Attack Syrian Territory
U.S. armed forces based in Iraq staged an attack across the Iraqi/Syrian border late last month. The attack killed eight people including four children. According to claims made by U.S. officials the incursion was aimed at disrupting the flow of fighters from Syria into Iraq. They said the target of the attack was an al Qaida network that is using Syrian territory to funnel insurgents into Iraq.
A Syrian government statement said that four American helicopters attacked the Sukkariyeh Farm near the town of Abu Kamal, eight kilometers inside the Syrian border. The focus of the action was a civilian building that was under construction.
This raid is consistent with the American policy of asserting its power wherever it wants in the world. The U.S. recognizes the sovereignty of no nations other than its own and that of its allies. Countries such as Syria and Iran that have been declared official U.S. enemies can expect ongoing aggression from the Americans as the military situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. Even U.S. ally Pakistan has regularly had its territory violated by the American military’s predator drones. These attacks frequently kill civilians as the weapons used are indiscriminant and the intelligence on which the attacks are based is unreliable.
Cross-border attacks such as the one last month in Syria are illegal under international law. However, the U.S. only recognizes international law if it is the offended party. In all other situations it considers that its actions are above the law and subject to no restrictions other than its own self-interest.
This latest attack on Syria is only the most recent violation perpetrated against Syria by the Americans either directly or through their Middle-Eastern ally Israel. Earlier this year Israel launched an air attack on a Syrian site. On that occasion the justification given was a claim made by Israel and endorsed by the U.S. that the bombed facility was a nuclear weapons development site. In addition, Israel continues to occupy Syrian territory on the Golan Heights with the active support of the American government.
The U.S. government has also waged a constant campaign against Syria on the question of Lebanon. It regularly blames the Syrian military and secret service for bombings and assassinations in Lebanon usually without producing any actual evidence. Following the assassination of Rafik Harriri in October 2005 it engineered the withdrawal from Lebanon of the Syrian military forces that had brought an end to the 20-year sectarian civil war in that country. Since that time the U.S. has regularly attacked Syria for supporting the Hezbollah in its efforts to defend Lebanese sovereignty against repeated attacks by Israeli air and ground forces.
Although the American pretext for its October 2008 raid on the Syria/Iraq border was the disruption of the flow of fighters to Iraq this justification seems highly questionable. The Iraqi/Syrian border is approximately 600 kilometres long and it is unlikely that raids such as this could do much to slow this alleged flow of anti-US fighters into Iraq. A more likely explanation is that the raid was simply another in a series of provocations aimed at destabilizing the Syrian regime. After all, Syria was one of the countries on the Bush administration’s hit list for regime replacement had the invasion of Iraq gone as smoothly as the Americans had hoped. In the absence of regime replacement it appears that the U.S. has decided to engage in a little gratuitous vandalism.