The AP reports that U.S. special forces have killed eight people inside the border of Syria. The lede of this article reads:
U.S. military helicopters launched an extremely rare attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as “serious aggression.”
I find this lede sort of sad and hilarious. Sure, I guess you can say that U.S. attacks on Syria are “extremely rare”–why not. In fact, U.S. attacks on most of the world are extremely rare, primarily because the U.S. is not at war with most of the world, at least not officially. Is the extreme rarity of U.S. attacks on Syria implicitly being presented here as a justification for or diminution of the seriousness of the attack?
I’m just amazed how under the radar this is. What other extremely rare attacks have happened?
Comment by John — October 27, 2008 @ 1:07 pm
It’s true — the media doesn’t seem to be treating this attack the way we would expect the media to treat news that the U.S. has attacked another country. But Israel apparently Syria a while back and nothing seemed to result from it. It seems we struck an Al Qaida target and I’m pleased about that. I wonder whether the U.S. shared the intelligence it had about the Al Qaida target with Syria before attacking. I wonder whether Syria was aware of the Al Qaida presence, and if so whether Syria was aware of the U.S. awareness of the presence.
Comment by Ian — October 28, 2008 @ 9:55 am