In the great tradition of US covert combat violating international boundaries and trampling the rights of neutral parties, US forces in Iraq are increasingly engaging Syrian border forces. We have “pursued insugents” into Syrian territory; there have been Syrian casualties. Although this will never be admitted, I am sure this is by design and not an inadvertent blunder by MBM (Man’s Best Military ®). It is likely US special forces are involved in covert operations in Syrian territory.

It is said that the US dysadministration will not commit itself to toppling Bashir Assad for fear of who might replace him. That is certainly more likely to be a surmise — or wishful thinking? — by the press than a clear indication of dysadministration thinking, though, which doesn’t usually involve such foresight or acumen and which has ongoingly demonstrated that it has learned nothing from the debacle in Iraq. Why, then, rattle sabres with an outraged insistence on action in the face of the Hariri assassination report and the overblown and disingenuous focus on Syria as a supposed source of, and a safe haven for, foreign jihadist insurgents? This is clearly a pretext for US military adventurism and an excuse for utter US failure (which is mostly said by critics to be a failure of our counterinsurgency measures, but the real failure was, of course, creating and perpetuating the conditions for insurrection and civil war by our invasion and occupation!). The real “jihadist extremists” spreading their ignorant and dangerous fanatical faith are the neocons running US foreign policy.