So that Israeli attack on Syria was on a missle site being fitted with chemical weapons, not nuclear?
Eh... color me skeptical. All of the original "no comment" pieces doesn't have me thinking it was chemical, or Bush would be pointing at Iraq and Saddam's fictional WMDs immediately.
This can't be good. What the fuck is going on in Syria?
Admittedly, i'm out of the loop. Between the vacation in austin and the work i've had to make up, as well as these recurring headaches, i'm not so up on the news.
My speculation is that this proves once again, Syria did not have WMDs smuggled in from Iraq, or at least any nuclear ones. Why on earth would they import them from North Korea? The reason why the Bush administration is not crowing about the Israeli strike is because they don't know how to spin this. Syria had to import nuclear weapons and North Korea was not contained. Sure, Syria has possibly suffered a setback to what might be a nuclear program, but how is that an argument bolstering U.S. foreign policy?
Bush can cry all he wants about how he warned us that North Korea would be engaging in nuclear proliferation, but where is the United States? Bogged down in Iraq. Idiot.
There are a couple of stories on the Tell Brak site in Syria, on BBC and New Scientist. New research suggests that the city did not arise from centrally directed, autocratic rule. There seems to have been 15,000 people living there 5,400 years ago. Nifty. More details at the stories obviously.
It's wrong of me to think of Space Ghost.
It was the Uruks of southern Iraq versus the fortified town of Hamoukar in Syria. There is a clipping over at Stone Pages, but this is a very slightly different story:
Archaeologists in Syria claim to have found the site of the first war in the world in the ancient city of Hamoukar.Go Fighting Uruks! Gilgamesh! Nimrod!
Thousands of small clay balls have been found during a dig on the Syrian border with Iraq, suggesting that invaders from southern Mesopotamia had besieged the ancient city.
An excavation has been underway in the north east of the country for more than three years and German archaeologist, Clemens Reichel, has described the latest find as evidence of "humanity's first war" between those in the fortified town of Hamoukar and southern attackers, the Uruks.
The archaeologist claims that the 2,300 clay balls, believed to have been used as ammunition nearly 6,000 years ago, were used in the world's first offensive war and Uruk pottery found at the battle site further supports the theory.
He told Die Zeit weekly, "It was not a little skirmish which took place here", adding that the discovery indicated that the site had been a "combat zone".
The dig at Hamoukar for the University of Chicago is expected to provide important information about the beginnings of humanity.
