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International bloggers on U.S. helicopter attack in Syria

Categories: Americas, East Asia, Middle East & North Africa, Western Europe, Canada, Egypt, Netherlands, Palestine, Thailand, United Kingdom, Democratic Party, Republican Party, Government & Politics, International Relations, War & Conflict

Bloggers around the world are reacting to the U.S. helicopter attack on a Syrian village, which American officials claim killed an Iraqi named Abu Ghadiya, an insurgence leader and suspected smuggler of foreign operatives crossing the Syrian border into Iraq. The government of Syria said the attack killed eight civilians and labeled it an “act of aggression.”

At Voices without Votes, we’ll be looking at the geo-political fallout for the U.S., especially in light of next week’s Presidential election.

The Palestinian Pundit [1] worries that “[t]he raid on Syria is a dark portent. The current president has three long, unaccountable months to cement his legacy.”

BRAP at the forum entitled The Liverpool Way [2] has more bad news.

Bidden, Obama`s running mate stating something big is about to happen after the election. an mi5 whistleblower saying an attack is coming to the west and we cant do anything about it. And what better excuse for a global credit crunch,lets have a f**king war.

Zeinobia, who writes at Egyptian Chronicles [3], wonders what are the short- and long-range effects of this attack.

I don’t understand why America launches this attack at the time when its relations with the Syrians began to mend , but after this attack I think the Syrians decided to close the American school and cultural center in Damascus , it is their right.

Does Bush and Neocons want to leave for the new president “hopefully Obama” heavy burden more than the one that it exists ?? Opening new fronts or what ?? Why does this man insist on making the people hate America more and more ??

Contrary to popular opinion, the blog Roads to Iraq [4] (from the Netherlands) argues this was not a “goodbye” operation from George Bush.

Rather,

[T]his operation connected to the American presidential election. American public shifted their intention away from the war-on-terror to the financial crisis and this is a reminder that terror still exists.

The question on many peoples’ mind is with less than a week to go before the U.S. Presidential election, how will the attack and its aftermath affect the electorate?

Robert Winnett, writing in Telegraph Blogs [5] in the United Kingdom, argues that the attack may be McCain’s last electoral hope.

There has been some puzzlement in Europe about the timing of the air strike. But in the US it is being heralded as a great success and John McCain is trying to turn it to his advantage. The Republicans are in desperate straits and national security may be their only trump card.

McCain says he wants to be “commander in chief” to Obama's “redistributionist in chief”. Meanwhile, McCain's campaign is claiming the strikes would not have been successful under an Obama Presidency. They are also challenging him to say whether he supported the action.

At Vancouver Secrets [6] in Canada, Blair declares the attack can only help McCain. In fact, he points to three reasons why a McCain victory isn’t that far-fetched. Number one: public opinion polls are skewed far to the left; Second, poll watchers have only heard from a minority of either party.

Third:

Today’s attack into Syria may lead to events that will bring up national security as an issue again. Obama will drop significantly if this issue were to become one of top three before the election…

Fingers crossed…

From Thailand, Jotman [7] agrees that the Bush’s new aggressive policy will only arm the McCain campaign. But he comes away with a different conclusion.

First, Jotman quotes from a McCain campaign spokesman email that stated while the Republican candidate was pushing Syria to do more to crack down on terrorists, “Barack Obama allowed one of his closest foreign policy advisers to travel to Syria for discussions with the leaders of that rogue regime.”

He then argues:

Will this line of attack become a new television advertisement? And part of McCain's next speech?

How dare anyone suggest the political use to which McCain has put the military action was not the ultimate rationale for the White House to have approved it in the first place. No, the US news media will not go there.

A commentator named John T [8] to Winnett’s post in the Telegraph predicts that U.S. voters may look beyond the attack. However, that does not mean the waters are safe for an Obama presidency:

US voters will not choose McCain just to have the a la carte option of bombing Syria.

My fear is that Hizbollah and Hamas will view an Obama presidency in the same light their predecessors and the Iranians viewed Carter – as a sign of detachment that they will take to be a weakness.

From Arabisto, Ray Hanania [9], a Palestinian now living and working in Chicago asserts that the Bush administration may just expand a war for electoral gain:

The deaths of Pakistani and Arab civilians are meaningless in American politics. The bigger concern is the heated political war between presidential candidates John McCain, a Republican, and Barack Obama, a Democrat. 

Although McCain insists he is a maverick, he more than Obama is likely to continue President Bush’s war in Iraq. McCain more than Obama will continue to help Vice President Dick Cheney’s “former” company Halliburton enjoy billions in war related contracts. McCain more than Obama will stir up the fears of voters that regardless of whether the cross-border strikes were justified or not, the situation will worsen and there will be another terrorist attack like the one on Sept. 11, 2001.
 
…The American media won’t be spending much time investigating the attacks or sifting through the evidence at the site which included a home where a man named Daoud Mohammed Abdullah, his wife and his four sons once lived.
 
The civilian family members killed when American soldiers stormed from the helicopters and entered the home guns blazing and grenades flying.
 
Watch the debate as it unfolds. All anyone will care about is how the attacks —  not the deaths, though – will impact the final vote count on Tuesday, Nov. 4, election day.
 
Will it help McCain overcome Obama’s lead?