I totaly missed any news of a possible coup in Syria. Checking to see if there is any meat to the story.

Looting isn't a proper term for it?

One could get the inference that you believe the Iraqi government waited till Bagdad fell to begin shipping it's illegal equipment out of the country.

Suppose that could have happened. But I'd say it's a really long longshot.

Davebo is correct, the Iraqi government would have removed stuff before the invasion. That removal process must have been done by someone else. I am not sure who though.

Davebo

"Looting isn't a proper term for it?"

I have to agree with your assessment on that one. Another thing that doesn't seem to be explained is when did the National Organizations know that these sites were in fact a problem. I don't recall any one in the national community advising the American Troops to highly guard certain installations or areas prior to or during the war. If someone has any information on that I'd certainly like to know about it.

I've looked at the BBC, NYT, Al-Jazeera, the Lebanese Bloggers Forum, and various other blogs and sites which might plausibly confirm the news of a Syrian Coup/Military rebellion. NO LUCK.

I don't know when the "looting" necessarily happened, but we should keep in mind that after the First Gulf War started, Saddam ordered his air force to Iran for safe keeping. That Iran is still keeping his air force safe might have deterred a subsequent operation to move his WMD programs out of the country, but it is a potential pattern.

Patrick

I am stunned at the casual pronouncement of a military coup in Syria. I checked MSM and saw no mention of Syria. So what is the deal?

For your America's section, the FARC may have cells in Honduras according to El Heraldo and a couple former Latin American President's met about the possiblity of terrorism in Latin America

That coup appears to be an active disinformation plot:

http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=5346

Jordanian Islamists have slammed terrorists in Iraq, characterised as 'targeting Iraqi civilians and kidnapping of foreigner journalists and workers'. Nothing about 'collaborators', or our guys. Presumably they're fair game.

Strictly speaking, our guys /are/ "fair game". Attacking military targets is not terrorism, it's warfare. Attacking civilians--which does include, incidentally, people collaborating/cooperating with the coalition or the Iraqi government--is terrorism.

This ongoing attempt to redefine "terrorism" to include attacking any target, military or otherwise, that's on our side is not helpful.

Free-Lebanon.com says there has been a military coup in Syria

If true, this is huge news--and I'm not certain at this point whether it'd be good or bad. Is there any substance to this story? I have yet to find anything corroborating it online, but then if news out of the country is being as tightly controlled as the article says, that's not surprising. What is surprising is why that silence isn't as deafening as the news itself, from the perspective of a journalist.

Forget my last, I just notice the date. That is from last year, stupid me.

Everyone,

I emailed a few people/bloggers in Damascus I know. Everything is A-OK, no coup. http://www.publiuspundit.com/?p=674

incidentally, people collaborating/cooperating with the coalition or the Iraqi government--is terrorism.

Going to tell my sister that she lived in a street named after a terrorist.

USMC

I think it's a safe bet that we knew about the vast majority of sites that were looted. According to several reports the UN Inspectors had most under surveillance and had verified the controlled items in many during the inspection period prior to the invasion.

I'm not trying to dog the DOD for failing to secure these sites quickly but I do think it's a reasonable criticism considering our previously stated concerns. I don't think anyone can deny that allocating forces to guard the oil ministry while seemingly ignoring these facilities is at least a bad PR move considering our claims in the runup to war.

PD Shaw

The story makes clear that the looting appears to have occurred in the weeks following the invasion.

Apologies about the casual nature of the top Syria article. It was about 12:30 here...

Going to tell my sister that she lived in a street named after a terrorist.

golf clap Congratulations for setting a new low in creatively editing a sentence to make it mean the opposite of what it originally meant. You don't by chance work for Fox News, do you?

Meanwhile, the intellectually honest can feel free to re-read the original comment, in context, upthread.

Hi, I did a check at sana.com and posted it on several sites!

Have a look at this page :
http://www.sana.org/english/headlines/18-3/newspaper.htm

The Syrian dailies on Friday highlighted the following headlines: (according the french version of their site there was only ONE newspaper published today)
(my remarks between parentheses)
* President Assad congratulates Ireland on its national day. (from where?)
* Turkish Circles hail Turkish president’s expected visit to Syria.. and demand Washington to put an end to Israel’s armament and occupation of Syrian Golan.
* People Assembly re-elects al-Abrash as a speaker and Qaddoura as a Deputy.. it also diverts written questions to its specialized resources. (????)
* Tartous demonstration pledges boosting President’s positions in facing challenge. (which challenges? the french version speaks about “+ABSOLUTE SUPPORT*”)
* Lebanese President Emile Lahoud warns against rising doubt against constitutional institutions’ role.
* Major-General Jamil Sayyed, director general of the Lebanese Surete General, : We reject exploiting the crime of Hariri assassination for political reasons.
* Two years after the US invasion against Iraq.. Bush is facing an expensive war.
—–

Normally they report what Assad is doing during the morning, noon, tea-time etc…
I would not ne surprised that free-lebanon.com has very reliable info. Wait and see…

Should have copied more.

Attacking civilians--which does include, incidentally, people collaborating/cooperating with the coalition or the Iraqi government--is terrorism.

Going to tell my sister that she lived in a street named after a terrorist.
The WWII resistance killed also collaborators. Don't think they will like it when you call them terrorists.

I'm going to use very simple sentences so that you can understand, since reading comprehension does not seem to be your strong suit.

People in Iraq collaborating with the coalition are civilians.

People in Iraq killing civilians are terrorists.

Therefore, attacking collaborators is terrorism.

----

I realize you probably didn't like it when I pointed out that attacking American soldiers is not terrorism. That's your problem--it's not a matter of politics, it's a matter of facts. Some people are willing to distort facts and language to push their agenda, such as widening the definition of terrorism to include attacks on military targets. These people are simply being intellectually dishonest in order to justify including just about everything under the rubric of the "war on terrorism".

You may not like having that pointed out, but it doesn't give you an excuse to further distort what I said in order to try to make it sound like I said the opposite of what I did.

I do get your point but the resistance in Europe did kill a lot of collaborators and those acts are seen as heroic. You call that terorisme but than you will loose the terrorisme == bad effect.

ps. What about the police. Are the military targets or not? Or does that depend on if they are officially military (like the guardia civil) or not (like Scotland yard)

Pressed to fast on post

should have said:

You can call that terorisme but than you will loose the terrorisme == bad effect.