While the White House has declined comment and other US officials defended the strike on a Syrian border town yesterday which killed eight, international condemnation rained down on the strike from a number of sources. The Syrian government, which already summoned the US Charges d’Affaires to complain about a strike which they labeled as “serious aggression,” had further condemnations and a warning today. Foreign Minister Wallid al-Muallem condemned the strike as an act of “criminal and terrorist aggression” and warned that his government “would defend our territories” in the event of a future attack.
The Lebanese government, which has been on shaky terms with Syria, also harshly condemned the move. Prime Minister Fouad Seniora released a statement condemning the attack as “dangerous” and “unacceptable” and “constitutes a violation of Syrian sovereignty.” Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh likewise condemned the raid as a violation of international law.
punditman says...Even Punditman gets a little shell-shocked when he occassionally watches the TV news. It's amazing how far down the road to pimpdom they have gone.
Case in point: the world may condemn a US action, but don't for one second believe that this matters -- at least not within the elite corridors of Big Media. In fact, just tonight, Katie Couric told me on CBS News that the US attacked Syria in order to kill a “smuggler of foreign fighters into Iraq” which apparently they did do (trust them, right!). No mention of anything else. No dead construction workers or anyone else. No violation of sovereignty. No mention of a possible eight civilian deaths. No, it's simply the end of the story. Certainly no comment from Syria is allowed, despite this interesting tidbit over at antiwar.com:
The attack comes as particularly surprising considering the US was reported earlier this month to be mulling lifting sanctions against Syria in light of their indirect peace talks with Israel. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem had said there was “good progress” in a dialogue aimed at improving US-Syrian relations. Syria has reportedly summoned the US Charges d’Affaires to officially complain about what it calls an attack on its sovereignty.
So, consider this: if you were a news organization that actually cared about giving some context to international events in order to fulfill your mandate to educate, inform and act as government watchdog, or you were, perhaps, merely interested in the intrigue behind an event, you just might offer up some of the above as background.
Alas, we don't live in such a world, as I was so bluntly reminded earlier this evening. No, instead I am to infer from CBS that there is nothing else to this event other than what the US military told us and what the lame-ducked, lying war criminals in the White House who have no business even sitting in office anymore, refuse to talk about.
CBS: you suck!
