Dating back to 2004, the United States’ military has been given authorization to perform raids inside any foreign country believed to be harboring al Qaeda terrorists. The active order, signed by President Bush and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, has allowed U.S. special operatives to conduct over a dozen secret missions in sovereign countries.

Huge political implications have come from these covert military attacks.

On Oct. 26, an incursion in Syria left eight civilians dead, killed by American special forces.

Syrian ambassador to the U.S. Imad Moustapha was disgusted by the outcome of the raid.

“(It was a) coldblooded, terrorist, criminal attack for no reason whatsoever,” said Moustapha to U.S. News and World Report.

U.S. officials have said that their target was a high-level al Qaeda operative believed to be traveling through Syria. The Syrian government has asked to be shown proof.

Moustapha condemned the attack for spoiling the tentative diplomatic negotiations between the two countries.

Robert Duncan, assistant professor of political science, thinks that the illegal strikes are in fact undermining the United States’ image abroad.

“What they (the covert raids) say to the rest of the world is that if it’s in our interest then we are going to do it.”

The New York Times reports that according to a senior administration official, the secret order called “Al Qaeda Network Excord” gave new freedom to the military to carry out missions in countries not considered to be at war with the United States.

The order was authorized during a post-9/11 time when the Bush administration was under pressure to get results from an eager American public.

In the past four years, the U.S. has conducted missions in several countries including several raids in Pakistan, under the president’s present “self-defense” order.

“We aren’t getting around international laws; we are just violating the hell out of them,” said Duncan regarding the order’s justifying raiding countries as self-defense.

In September, U.S. Navy SEALs, under presidential order, crossed the border of Pakistan into a small fishing village. Fifteen people were killed as the SEALs carried out their orders. Of those who died, one was believed to be a militants’ sub-commander and the rest were civilians.

The U.S. is also believed to be commonly sending pilot-less drone planes over the borders and bombing Pakistani tribal areas.

Pakistani officials, angered by U.S. missile strikes and covert attacks, lashed out saying that the U.S. military causes more civilian deaths than al Qaeda or Taliban soldiers ever have.

Duncan, judges this to be a gross exaggeration and considers the Pakistani government to be unstable and not trustworthy at this time.

“We lost nearly 3,000 people because of 9/11,” said Duncan. “Add another 1,000 for all the embassy bombings and we’re looking at 4,000-plus innocent lives, all lost at the hands of al Qaeda.”

U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus has refused to halt the air strikes in Pakistan, but he did recognize the collective civilian death toll publicly.

As U.S. officials try to carefully work out diplomacy with many of the countries they are simultaneously attacking, the already muddled situation becomes even less promising.