How they see us: U.S. forces attack militants in Syria

The U.S. committed yet another “terrorist act” when American forces flew into Syria from Iraq and fired on a group of construction workers at a farm, said Syria’s Al Iqtissadiya.

The U.S. has committed yet another “terrorist act,” said Syria’s Al Iqtissadiya in an editorial. In a “flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty,” American forces flew by helicopter to Syria from Iraq this week and opened fire on a group of construction workers at a farm, killing eight civilians, including children. These martyrs join the long toll of “innocent civilians” slaughtered by American forces, which make no distinction between “a woman or an elderly sheikh or a small child dreaming of his bright future.” Syria immediately summoned the U.S. chargé d’affaires to demand an explanation. And it called on the Iraqi government to “shoulder its responsibilities” and investigate how Iraqi territory was used as the base of an attack on Syria.

There can be no possible justification for this “massacre,” said Waddah Abed Rabbo in Syria’s Al Watan. The U.S. says that it killed Abu Ghadiyah, a man it claims was a key figure in al Qaida in Iraq and who was in charge of smuggling jihadists from Syria into neighboring Iraq. That is a lie. The attack killed “a few workers and a woman.” How could such people “pose a threat against 100,000 heavily armed U.S. troops” in Iraq? Once again, in the name of combating terrorism, the U.S. has proved itself “to be the bloodiest terrorist in the world.”

The Bush administration simply can’t help itself, said Saudi Arabia’s Arab News. The Syrian raid is just another example of America’s “arrogant policy of rushing in with guns ablaze where it does not belong.” It is, in fact, remarkably similar to the raid on Pakistan last month, in which U.S. commandos from Afghanistan violated Pakistani sovereignty and killed civilians. In the Pakistan attack, too, the U.S. claimed to be pursuing al Qaida–affiliated militants. It’s pathetic, really. “Seven years of striding around the world as if he owned it, club in hand like some primeval caveman, President Bush has no more defeated al Qaida than when it first attacked.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

These cross-border attacks aren’t really intended to wipe out al Qaida, said Lionel Beehner in Britain’s Guardian. They are carried out “to strong-arm states like Syria into doing more to patrol their border”—in effect saying that if you don’t go after the militants, we will. Unfortunately, that tactic just doesn’t work. Violating a nation’s sovereignty makes the government resentful and less likely to be cooperative, and killing civilians simply alienates the local population. “The next president would be wise to drop this kind of warfare from his counterterrorism playbook.”

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us