THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

From the NY Times we get this lovely compilation of cross border fracases with Syria.

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.

The firefight, between Army Rangers and Syrian troops along the border with Iraq, was the most serious of the conflicts with President Bashar al-Assad's forces, according to American and Syrian officials.

It illustrated the dangers facing American troops as Washington tries to apply more political and military pressure on a country that President Bush last week labeled one of the "allies of convenience" with Islamic extremists. He also named Iran.

One of Mr. Bush's most senior aides, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that so far American military forces in Iraq had moved right up to the border to cut off the entry of insurgents, but he insisted that they had refrained from going over it.

But 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.

Having misused the armed forces until they are stretched to the max, he seems to think they can go a little farther.

Increasingly, officials say, Syria is to the Iraq war what Cambodia was in the Vietnam War: a sanctuary for fighters, money and supplies to flow over the border and, ultimately, a place for a shadow struggle.

And those of us who are old enough remember how well that little adventure went.

Frankly the reasoning behind this is hard to understand. The attack on the WTC was perpetrated by religious fanatics. Still, after a half-hearted attck into Afghanistan, where ODEL failed to catch the ringleader of the religious fanatics, he went haring off after one of two secular regimes in the Middle East. Bad as Saddam was, he had no use for Al-Quaeda or any other religious types, and kept them at bay with maximum force. The other secular state is Syria, which has long battled its own religious fanatics. We seldom hear that after the WTC, Syrian security opened their extensive and detailed files on religious terrorists to the US. Not only has this gesture been spurned by ODEL, he seems determined to remove Assad and open the way to success to the religious fanatics, as he has done in Iraq. It really makes me wonder which side our government in on.

So remember, the next time someone says ODEL is dumb as a stump don't you believe it. He is proudly, defiantly dumber