---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Juan Cole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 12:52 PM
US troops made a raid inside Syrian territory near Iraq, according to Syrian media, which left 8 persons (the Syrians say civilians) dead. What is odd is that the Bush administration did not behave that way when the infiltration of fundamentalist vigilantes from the Syrian side was a more significant problem. I don't know if this is election politics on Bush's part, an attempt by Bush-Cheney to mire Obama down in a Syria conflict they started. Or maybe the secular, Alawi-dominated Baath Party of Syria, always afraid of the Sunni fundamentalists, has grown so terrified of Fatah al-Islam that they gave a secret go-ahead to the US to hit the fundamentalists where they had intelligence on them. The ruling clique in Syria, Alawis, are a kind of folk Shiites much despised by Sunni fundamentalists. The feuding between the two has been visible in nearby Lebanon, in the northern port of Tripoli. -- Jim Devine / "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
