Bloodless Coup

American Troops Fighting Syrian Troops

I'm guessing that this will get a fair bit of attention in the news next week. It could be leading up to a US war against another country, and that's not exactly a minor matter. But then again with Rove, Tomkat, and Mary Kate all busy of late, maybe we just won't have time for any more war news on the airwaves until we cross that 2,000 dead in Iraq threshold (though, sadly, that's likely just weeks away). So in case you don't see it elsewhere, here are some highlights from Saturday's article by James Risen and David Sanger:

A series of clashes in the last year between American and Syrian troops, including a prolonged firefight this summer that killed several Syrians, has raised the prospect that cross-border military operations may become a dangerous new front in the Iraq war, according to current and former military and government officials ...

...other officials, who say they got their information in the field or by talking to Special Operations commanders, say that as American efforts to cut off the flow of fighters have intensified, the operations have spilled over the border - sometimes by accident, sometimes by design.

Some current and former officials add that the United States military is considering plans to conduct special operations inside Syria, using small covert teams for cross-border intelligence gathering ...

Increasingly, officials say, Syria is to the Iraq war what Cambodia was in the Vietnam War ...

Think about the implications of that, and what that may mean to the Americans who hope to see US troops returning home sooner rather than later.