Just another reason to be prepared with follow-up questions when you hear Muslim interest groups and speakers issuing blanket condemnations of "terrorism": Since terrorism is a tactic, and not an ideology, the term can be applied strictly or loosely to a wide range of situations, while not saying anything more substantial, objective, or even accurate about them. "Jihad," on the other hand, is highly specific; the more one is aware of the jihadist ideology and its basis in Islamic texts and teachings, the less room there is for dissembling by apologists. And hope springs eternal that this fact may yet dawn on the U.S. government.
An update on this story. "Syria: Foreign minister accuses US of 'terrorist aggression'," from AdnKronos International, October 27:
London, 27 Oct.(AKI) - Syria's Foreign Minister, Walid Muallem, on Monday accused the United States of "terrorist aggression" over an alleged weekend raid on a village near the Iraqi border. Speaking in London after talks with British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, Muallem said the attack was in breach of international law.
"We consider this criminal and terrorist aggression. We put the responsibility on the American government," he told a media conference in London.
"Killing civilians in international law means a terrorist aggression," he added, in the first comments by a Syrian minister since the reported attack on the village of Al-Sukkariya, eight kilometres from the border.
Earlier on Monday, Iran joined Syria in condemning the alleged US attack.
Asked if Syria would use force if the Americans mounted a similar operation again, he said: "As long as you are saying if, I tell you, if they do it again, we will defend our territories."
Muallem stressed that all the victims were unarmed Syrian civilians who were killed on Syrian territory.
The Syrian minister said that four American helicopters had crossed the border around 5 p.m/ on Sunday local time. Two of them landed at the village site, while the other two aircraft protected them.
In Washington, White House spokeswoman, Dana M. Perino, refused to comment on the reported attack. However, media reports say that an unnamed US military official confirmed the attack.
More information: "Syrian foreign minister criticizes US raid," from the Associated Press, October 27 (thanks to Eleutheria ´H Thanatos):
[...] The US military said it was targeting the network of al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters moving through Syria to help fight in Iraq. Syria said troops in four helicopters attacked a building and killed eight people, including four children.
"They know full well that we stand against al-Qaida," al-Moallem said. "They know full well we are trying to tighten our border with Iraq."
If the Syrians consider this an attack of "terrorist aggresion" by the U.S, well too bad! Syria should not let terrorists run through Syria as back door to get to Iraq. They have been cooperating for years in letting terorists walk through unhindered into Iraq. It is about time we took this action,and it should not be the last.
I really feel secure that Syria stands against
Al-Qaida and will take the fight right to them. Yeah, sure you go right after them.
Syria is in no position to talking about a breach of international law when they are backing Hizbullah in Lebanon, making sure to keep that country as unstable as possible. The Harari assasination is just one example of Syrian treachery in Lebanon and beyond. The fact that ANYONE is talking to these lying islamofacists is really sad. Of course they were unarmed civilains. Isn't it always this way in the arab world? Syria needs to be dealt with along with Iran and it is a complete waste of our time trying to talk with these islamofacists. Look where it has gotten Israel!
So only women and children and construction workers were killed...Yep...
U.S. Raid on Syria Kills Terrorist Cell Leader
http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/world/us-syria-raid-al-qaeda-attack-6288.html
"They know full well that we stand against al-Qaida," al-Moallem said. "They know full well we are trying to tighten our border with Iraq."
Apparently they're not trying very hard. Maybe they need a little more encouragement.
Islam is a lie and truth is killing it.
Didn't they say that when their nuclear facility was busted and blown up last month? Muslims are always demopaths. I swear, whatever it is that they're guilty of they will always try to project it onto people who wouldn't even be their enemy if they were behaving like decent, defensible human beings. It's like when they call Israel an 'apartheid state,' while all of their countries - if they haven't driven out all the non-Muslims - are actual apartheid states in which Christians, etc. really do live under apartheid now that they've driven out or killed all their Jews, and nevermind that Egypt and Jordan have the same wall to keep out the same Hamas terrorists. But Muslims never mention the Jordanian or Egyptian wall, but are almost invariably fixated on Israel's. Demopathy. Or when they refer to the ''Palestinian' Holocaust.' Yeah, there was a ''Palestinian' Holocaust,' but not at the hands of Israel, who killed fewer 'Palestinians' - all of them in self-defense - than have been killed offensively for trying to break into Egypt, or who were killed in Jordan during Black September, not to mention those 3 million who were systematically slaughtered in Kuwait. Or when they call Western culture 'immoral' because women have human status, access ti legitimate media, and we teach science in our schools, while they're legally raping their daughters and sisters before they pimp them away at age 5 to a 70-year-old cousin for money, owning slaves (in addition to the bred/bought lifelong sex-slave female relatives, I mean), and teaching their children to kill people. In fact, at this point, it's never unfair to assume that whenever a Muslim accuses someone of something they're guilty of it in spades.
It's like the Egyptian guy in my sociolinguistics class last spring who, having no legitimate primary-school education and lacking a basic 7th-grade knowledge of psychology, projected all of his inadequacies onto me in the span of five minutes. He said that women are genetically inferior. Now, I don't believe that anyone is genetically inferior unless they've inbred themselves to within a couple of generations of living in zoos, but he put his shortcomings on display when he said that. Apparently he's even weaker and stupider than he readily appears if he feels the need to project that onto women, who can do everything men can do, most things better, and can also bear children, have multiple orgasms, and control men with our sexuality. Then he said that blondes are genetically inferior, which is interesting coming from an Muslim Egyptian, since, when you remove the 18% (not 10%, as the Egyptian government would hav eyou believe) Coptic population from consang.net's stats, Muslim Egyptians have roughly a 48% rate of consanguinity, which would explain the considerably lower IQs, (in my experience) intolerably abberant personalities, uglier appearance, and 20-fold higher rates of genetic defects and disorders when compared to Westerners or their Coptic counterparts. And of course, he bought his own cousin as a sex slave and lives with her in campus housing for pedophiles, where he's raising his mutilated, inbred daughter. How many dozens of blondes have won Nobel Prizes? And how many Muslims? Removing Arafat and the heretical Ahmadiyya Paki physicist, isn't that number ZERO? But blondes are genetically inferior. Muslims are always demopaths.
" "They know full well we are trying to tighten our border with Iraq."
Syria has been funnelling terrorists and weapons into Iraq fully supporting the terrorists mounting death toll on Iraqi Muslims. I have noticed about two times a year Syria announces they have "captured" a couple of hapless terrorists to "show" their effort in combating terror. If we can find the Syrian terrorists camps..so can they...
Syria is more interested in spreading terror than preventing it...Syria funnels terrorism into both Lebanon and Syria..Gotta support Isalmic Jihad upon those infidels, apostates, and the other Muslims who are not Muslim enough or unwilling to fight...after all the Qur'an tells them to...
Maybe the Syrians are throwing down the gauntlet, much like Qaddaffi's "Line of Death"...yep.
oops..."into both Lebanon and Syria" should be Lebanon and Iraq, although they probably support terrorist activity in their own country..
Anyone else want to tell our special forces to just "do" these slimeballs and get back to us later?
The Demoncrats are pretty quiet over this event. Especially given the 6 years of derangement over the Iraq "Occupation".
attacking terrorists is not terrorism...it is a counter terrorism activity...
Syria certainly is doing nothing to counter terrorism...
"The Demoncrats are pretty quiet over this event. Especially given the 6 years of derangement over the Iraq "Occupation".
Posted by: flowerknife_us"
THe Democrats don't want to offend their Muslims Masters...
Shem's latest cartoon:
http://sheikyermami.com/2008/10/28/the-obaminator/
from the syrian mouths ""We consider this criminal and terrorist aggression." like the pot calling the kettle black. to hell with these thugs whose hands are in Lebanon to bully Israel, let them eat nuke dust!
"Killing civilians in international law means a terrorist aggression,"
So how does Syria justify its support for Hamas and Hezbollah, which routinely kill civilians and which TARGET civilians?
jdamn,
Fascinating. "Women are genetically inferior?
Does that guy realize that without women he wouldn't exist? The most superior man in the world cannot bear a child.
Syria does the bidding of Iran, because the Alawite dictatorship cannot possibly hope for Alawites to receive recognition as orthodox Muslims from the Sunni Arabs, either inside Syria (where the Sunnis constitute 70% of the population, some more and some less determined to get rid of the Alawites), while Iranian clerics issued a ruling that Alawties might be considered to be Shi'a Muslims. But in supporting Hezbollah, it also helps itself. For by preventing stability in Lebanon, Hezbollah keeps alive the "need" for Syrian troops to keep the very peace in Lebanon that Hezbollah does everything it can to keep permanently unsettled.
But there is one area where the Alawite-dominated government necessarily complies with Sunni Arab demands, and that is in allowing Sunni Arabs, as well as members of Hezbollah, to go off to Iraq to fight the Infidel Americans, and to fight against the Shi'a. And why not? Every Sunni Arab who leaves Syria to fight in Iraq is one less fighting the Alawite regime.
But Iran now threatens, openly, to unsettle the Arab regimes of the Gulf. This is worrisome, to the Sunni rule in Bahrain, to the Sunnis who dominate Kuwait, Yemen, even Saudi Arabia where a few hundred thousand Shi'a, or perhaps a million, subject to discrimination, and politically powerless, live in the Eastern Province, the one where all the developed oilfields are located. And stories of Shi'a missionaries at work among those innocent and vulnerable and susceptible Sunni villagers in Syria, the kind of thing that now appears in the press of Egypt and other solidly Sunni states, spreads Sunni alarm and suspicion. And the more this alarm and suspicion about Iran spreads, the more angry Sunnis, and especially the Saudi regime, becomes with the Alawite regime in Syria. And if the suggestion or theme of Alawites as not even real Muslims, as Infidel usurpers, is picked up and hammered home in a big way on the Arab stations, and in the Arab press, this could make things very uncomfortable for the Assad regime. And there are Alawite generals who, becoming alarmed for the future of the Alawites who, after all, constitute a little more than 10% of the population in Syria, might decide to replace the government with Alawites less enthusiastic about any alliance or collaboration with Iran, or even in adventurism in Lebanon, and more inclined to hold onto power, if they can, in Syria itself, a more modest and safer goal.
How many dozens of blondes have won Nobel Prizes? And how many Muslims? Removing Arafat and the heretical Ahmadiyya Paki physicist, isn't that number ZERO?
jdamn -
Despite "The Girls Next Door", I'm going with the blondes.
Arafat's Nobel Prize was the height of dhimmitude.
The Pakistani physicist's Nobel Prize is not celebrated in Pakistan since he is an Ahmadiyya.
It is just not looking good for the Crescent Moon Team.....
"They know full well we are trying to tighten our border with Iraq."
What a joke Walid Muallem. So you also go and shoot up empty houses like the Pakistanis to show that you stand against al-Qaida?
Everyone is a civilian in Muhammad's army.
American military officials are insisting that no women or children were harmed in this attack, only the militants defined by the CIA.
There is an international effort to apply Article 51 of United Nations Charter which enshrines the right of individual or collective self-defense to all member states.
The main focus was on a Al Qaeda operative named Abu Ghadiya who died near his tent on the battlefield or after he was taken into American custody, one senior American official said. Abu Ghadiya is described as an Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia's "most prominent" smuggler of foreign operatives crossing the Syrian border into Iraq, and in February the Treasury Department named him as one of four major figures in that group living in Syria.
Officials said Abu Ghadiya was in his late 20s and came from a family of smugglers in Anbar Province, in western Iraq. He was also suspected of having led an attack in May on a police station in western Iraq that killed 11 Iraqi officers, an American official said.
The Article 51 argument was emphasized when the Israeli military mounted a hostage-rescue mission at Entebbe airport in Uganda in 1976, and similar arguments have been made to defend actions by the Colombian military against the FARC guerrillas seeking haven in neighboring countries, and Turkish troops pursuing Kurdish militants in their sanctuaries in northern Iraq.
Israel also made this argument when, in September last year, its warplanes attacked what Israel said was a nuclear reactor in Syria that was nearing operational capability.
An Iraqi Spokeman has confirmed that this area was ripe with insurgents and weapons coming across the border of Syria for quite sometime now and Syria was not acting to stop it.
Yes, yes, four children died. The cell keeps the kids and their harem around for stage props when attacked. They plow an rpg into a pod of women and children and claim it was done during the attack. The clever ones, of course, the stupid ones shoot them with revolvers and claim the evil Americans gunned them down from airplanes. How would we know we never get to see the bodies. And they'll just make more.
It's possible, of course, that they're not even relatives, but just local enslaved war widows and their children, sitting around waiting to be meat shields and propaganda tools. What a lovely place Syria must be for Muslims and Christians alike.
Cynical? Prove me wrong, criminal state.
In response to Hugh's post, Afghanistan is another front in the Sunni/Shi'ite jihad. Afghanistan was almost entirely Shi'ite before the Taliban. The Pahtuns still practice Shi'ism, although they tend to keep their public self-flagellation and cursing of Ali under wraps, less so the pederasty, which Shit'ites tend to practice more publicly than Sunnis. Lebanon is another front. Official reports state that Sunnis are a majority there, but Shi'ite Hezbollah is running the show and of course defers to Mother Iran. Most of Central Asia is split between Sunnis and Shi'ites, including Azerbaijan, Tajikstan, and even Chechnya. It's not just limited to Irran and Iraq. The only thing that brings them together is the presence of infidels, as was most cleary evidenced by the fact that Osama bin Laden fought to save the Shi'ite Afghans from the Russians. So we should get the hell out and exploit this. They could be too tied up to mess with us for decades.
Sheik, your cartoon was awesome.
"Killing civilians in international law means a terrorist aggression"
.........................................
Uh, no it doesn't. If this were so, then virtually every war in history, including the defensive Allied fight against the Axis, would have been illegal. It's the targetted, intentional killing of civilians, sans any sort of military objective, that is illegal.
It is possible that some civilians did die, as Jihadists infamously set up in the midst of civilian areas (often with full support of said civilians).
But then there is this:
Mackie wrote:
American military officials are insisting that no women or children were harmed in this attack, only the militants defined by the CIA.
................
This is also a likely scenario. Israel and the West go out of their way to *avoid* injury to civilians, and it is well known that the Palestinians (for instance) have faked many cases of civilian injury and death. It is suspicious that so many targetted Western attacks allegedly wipe out large numbers of women and children.
This is all in contrast to Jihadist tactics, when the deaths of civilians, women and children, are not "collateral damage", but are the intended victims. The common Jihadist tactic of targetting markets, restaurants, festivals and even schools confirms this.
Actually, gravenimage, deaths of women an children is not surprising in Muslim nations which are in conflict. First, their leaders use them as human shields. Second, terror organizations intentionally place them in harm's way so that when the Israel/the West defends itself they pick off a few of them. Check out the pic about 1/3 of the way down the page. Hamas does the same thing. There's no reason to think that Hezbollah doesn't. And of course, they inflate statistics and Pallywood is not limited to the West Bank.
Afghanistan was almost entirely Shi'ite before the Taliban."
-- from a posting above
On what basis do you assert this? The Hazara, descended from a clearly Mongol people, who live around Herat, are Shi'a. Indeed, the Taliban often attacked them for that reason, and in his excellent "The Places In Between" Rory Stewart discusses the plans by the uber-Sunni Taliban to eliminate the Hazara altogether -- men, women, children -- for being Shi'a. These plans were foiled by the American invasion. But he never says anything about the Pashtuns, or the Tadzhiks and Uzbeks in the north, being Shi'a. Since the Taliban are entirely Sunni, and are Afghanis, where do you think they came from? Do you think Afghanis in exile in Pakistan started out as Shi'a and ended up as Sunnis?
Please explain.
" and they know full well we are trying to tighten the border.." Syrian official
So allow us to help with a little tuck..right here.
It is very amazeing how us american dolts with the worlds greatest military tech only manage to killinnocent old women men and children im so so ashamed maybe we need to hire osama to help us target the enemy like he did on 911 or heck strian military after all they never kill innocents in lebanon.
Hugh, the Pashtuns were largely Shi'ite. Even the Salafist Wikipedia says that Uzbekistan and Tajikstan have huge pluralities of Shi'ites. I don't know about exiled Afghans in Pakistan. I would imagine that most of them are die-hard Taliban and therefore Sunni, but I do know that the Taliban is seriously persecuting Shi'ites in Pakistan, although I think they're indigenous Pakis who are being persecuted: http://www.naitazi.com/2008/07/26/power-rising-taliban-besiege-pakistani-shiites/ .
Because Afghanistan has been so unstable for so long many Afghans actually did believe that the Taliban would save their tribes, as they care little for their nation. Many were happy to convert. Many were happy to have the means to engage in jihad to take their country back, even if it wasn't on behalf of Shi'ism, just to be martyred. Many converted after seeing the Taliban kill enough of their copats: http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373426
They harbored the Taliban and Al Qaeda because of the same ideology of hospitality that caused them to harbor Yvonne Ridley. For this reason the Taliban took no issue with them: because they were on their side. Islam mainly came to Central Asia through Shi'ite Persia. It was Persians who conquered most of it and it happened after the Sunni/Shia scism, whereas Hindustan was conquered by Sunnis and to some extent Sufis. Pashto is actually an Iranian language, as is Kurdish, by the way. Pashtos are not as close to Pakis, ethnically or culturally, as one would assume based on geography. Same with the Afghan Balochs, as well as the Uzbek and Tajik Sogdians. All that was once Scythian and Parthian before the Persian invasion of the Central Asia. It is also my understanding that most Paki Shi'ites are in the north, along the Afghan border, which would make sense since they would likely have been persecuted and would have wandered into the less inhabited areas.
That was my understanding of the history. Central Asian history is incredibly complicated, though, since it largely deals with tribes rather than nations after the Persian Empire was conquered. Also, I'm a linguist, not a historian, so I could quite plausibly have my historical facts wrong, but I have the linguistic history correct.
"We consider this criminal and terrorist aggression."
Waa!
To quote Bob Dylan: "How does it feeeeel?"
The object of war has always been to terrorize the enemy into submission. This was no revelation, no flash of genius from Dr. Moham of the seventh century.
If you don't want to be terrorized, chill out, grow the hell up, and make some effort to civilize your religion. Otherwise, prepare for some real, industrial strength, "terrorism" over the next decade.
jdam is spot on...it's not illegal.
I'm sick of those Chomsky types arguing that war crimes in WWII were defined as anything the Germans did that we didn't.
All one needs look at to solve this argument is which culture is better, which places are better to live - respect minorities, etc.
If you were to offer 10000 Syrians citizenship in any western country they'd swim if they had to. How many westerners would live in anywhere in the mid-east except Israel though?
The west is stupid. We should be occupying every non-western country and forcing our superior values on them. I can show why western values are superior in an argument.
I.e. killing someone for being born gay is not really on equal footing to cultures that don't, for example.
I say the US in particular should put those million dollar bombs to good use. And the fact they cost a million dollars is proof they don't much like killing innocents.
If they did, why all the specialised GPS? They'd just drop them wherever.
Posted by Benjamin:
I say the US in particular should put those million dollar bombs to good use. And the fact they cost a million dollars is proof they don't much like killing innocents.
If they did, why all the specialised GPS? They'd just drop them wherever.
Benjamin, please don't use facts and reason to confuse the issue. If the One has his way we'll be reduced to "proven systems", i.e. rifles and atom bombs, and Obama wants to give up the bombs. So, we'll either have to draft (government service) a lot of people (fairness) to man the rifles (proven systems) and be prepared to accept the lives lost in more extensive hand to hand combat (sacrifice) or we'll have to be willing to use more cost effective means, or we'll have to give up… and they'll follow us home.
Wait, wasn't Obama the one who says favors a scalpel instead of a hatchet?
Change you can believe in.
... in World War II we chose the cost effective route (bright flash) when it became available.
Just perusing the earlier entries on this thread….
Posted by jdamn: ... Apparently he's even weaker and stupider than he readily appears if he feels the need to project that onto women, who can do everything men can do, most things better, and can also bear children, have multiple orgasms, and control men with our sexuality.
Ouch, ouch, ouch. Damn, jdamn. Ouch!
"The Pashtuns [in Afghanistan]...largely Shi'ite."
-- from a posting above
Please give a reference for this.
Syria has been condemned to pay $400 million to the families to two Al-Qaeda's victims beheaded in Irak by Al-Qaeda:
http://blogfreeworld.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/two-al-qaida-victims-families-win-400-million-in-syria-terror-suit/
"Evidence presented during the trial demonstrated that, “Syria’s support for insurgents in Iraq was evident from the location of the bus transit point to take fighters to Baghdad,” the judge wrote. The transit site was at one time located across the street from the U.S. Embassy in Damascus. The street is heavily guarded and regulated by the Syrian military, “one of the most closely guarded and observed spots in Syria.“
If I were Syria I would never have called any other country "terrorist" after this evidence was released.
jdamn
Hugh is right. The Hazaras are the only Shi'ite group in Afghanistan, and their party, the Hizb e Wahdat, is a front for Iran, just like Hizbullah and the Mahdi Army are in Lebanon and Iraq. So as far as their war with the Taliban goes, it is religious. However, the Pashtun vs Tadjik conflict, or the Pashtun vs Uzbek rivaly is more a intra Mohammedan battle between different ethnic groups.
In fact, Afghanistan is very proud of being a Sunni country and cling to that fact dearly, since it distinguishes them from Iran, whose empire they were a part of until the 18th century. The Hazaras, being descendant of Mongols, don't have that identity problem.
Don't use the 'Salafist encyclopedias' - what Islamic groups claim about rivals is often wrong, and more a tool for propaganda. Just look up any encyclopedia or website on Afghanistan.
Giving a reference would be easier if Shariah Finance Watch hadn't been shut down, since that was where I read the article about the Pashtuns giving up the Ashura, the cursing of Ali, and the mut'a marriages (although Sunnis have the equivalent of it). They may have been talking about the minority Shia Pashtuns, but it sounded like it was a widespread phenomenon. At this point I guess I have to stand corrected. I may have gotten the worng impression reading 'In War We Trust,' which made it sound as if the Pashtuns ad to radically change their way of life when the Taliban came to power, which was probably true regardless of whether they were Sunni or Shi'ite.
My belief that that Pashtuns were Shi'ite was based on a few different sources, but it's entirely possible that I may have assumed that they were a majority. This assumption was not without basis, however, based on the linguistic history of Central Asia more generally and Afghanistan in particular, since it was mainly colonized by Persian Muslims, as well as the openness of pederasty in Afghan society, with which I'm sure we're all familiar. Even under the Taliban it is rare to hide pederastic relationships, which are considered to be more normal than male/female relationships ("a goat for relief, a boy for pleasure, and a woman for breeding"). Kandahar remain the pederast capital of the world, and we all know how Shi'ite mullahs love them some little boys.
In any event, I defer to your knowledge on this matter, Hugh. I guess it's just the Hazaris who are Shi'ites and the Pashtuns, Uzbeks, and Tajiks are only minority Shi'ite. You've gotta admit that Afghan society is pretty darn Shi-istic, with the burkas, the pederasty, the poetry, and even the style of turban they wear.
And Benjamin, I love Israel with every fiber of my being, but I would never live there or anywhere with even a 10% Muslim population, including India and France. It's 15% in Israel, which to me = uninhabitable. I may end up moving to Japan if Obama's elected.
This link gives a somewhat different story.
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/031025.html
It must be terror for the Syrians to know the Americans have them in their sights.
Did something get trapped in their underware or did it land at their feet?