Russia launching airstrikes in Syria

[Borgholio]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/30/politics/ ... ikes-isis/

Washington (CNN)Russia has conducted its first airstrike against ISIS in Syria, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Wednesday.

The airstrike targeted ISIS military equipment, communications centers, vehicles and ammunition, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said, as part of pinpoint strikes against ISIS ground targets.

Syrian state-run news agency SANA said Russian warplanes had targeted "ISIS dens" in locations including al-Rastan, Talbiseh and Zafaraniya in Homs province, as well as Al-Tilol al-Hmer, in Qunaitra province, Aydoun, a village on the outskirts of the town of Salamiya, Deer Foul between Hama and Homs, and the outskirts of Salmiya.

But a senior U.S. administration official told CNN's Elise Labott the Russian airstrike near the city of Homs "has no strategic purpose" in terms of combating ISIS, which "shows they are not there to go after ISIL." ISIL is another acronym for ISIS.

The official said the U.S. had no intention of preventing the strikes but that Russian planes didn't seem to be flying in areas where the U.S. was operating. "They are not stupid," the official said.

The State Department said U.S.-led coalition missions were continuing as normal despite an advance warning and request from Russia to stay out of Syrian airspace.

Kerry: 'Grave concerns'

During his statement at the U.N. Security Council meeting Wednesday on fighting terrorism, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: "We have conducted a number of strikes against ISIL targets in Syria over the past 24 hours including just an hour ago. These strikes will continue."

Kerry said the U.S.-led coalition had conducted 3,000 airstrikes against ISIS and that efforts would dramatically increase.

He warned that the fight against ISIS should not be confused with with support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"Moreover, we have also made clear that we would have grave concerns should Russia strike areas where ISIL and al Qaeda affiliated targets are not operating. Strikes of that kind would question Russia's real intentions -- fighting ISIL or protecting the Assad regime," he said.

A senior U.S. defense official told CNN the Pentagon was "taken aback" by Russia's actions. "Our presidents just talked about setting up de-confliction talks and now they just go ahead and do this? They cannot be trusted."

A second U.S. official said, "This is not how military relations are conducted."

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook had told reporters Tuesday that Secretary of Defense Ash Carter directed his staff to "open lines of communication with Russia on de-confliction." The purpose of discussions would be "to ensure the safety of coalition air crews," he said.

Russia: Coalition strikes on ISIS illegal

Earlier Wednesday, the upper house of the Russian parliament gave President Vladimir Putin approval to use the air force in Syria, state media reported.

"The Federation Council unanimously supported the President's request -- 162 votes in favor of granting permission," Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergey Ivanov said, according to state-run ITAR-Tass news agency.

Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said that the Assad regime was the only legitimate force fighting ISIS, ITAR-Tass reported. It quoted her as saying that strikes by the U.S-led coalition violated international law as "interference into the territory of a sovereign state can only be carried out on authorization of U.N. Security Council or on request of official legitimate authorities."

Matviyenko's comments were echoed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, ITAR-Tass reported. "As a matter of fact Russia will be the sole country that will be carrying out that operation on the legitimate basis at the request of Syria's legitimate authorities," Peskov said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia conducted airstrikes after a request from al-Assad.

Speaking at the start of a United Nations Security Council meeting to combat terrorism, Lavrov said: "On the 30th of September in response to a letter by the President of Syria, the President of Russia asked and received the consent of the Council of Federation for the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation in the Syrian Arab Republic."

He continued: "We're referring here exclusively to the operation of the Russian air force to carry out strikes against ISIL positions in Syria. We have informed the authorities in the United States and other members of the coalition created by the Americans of this and are ready to forge standing channels of communication to ensure maximally effective fight against the terrorist groups."

Israeli officials said Russia had contacted Israeli defense officials prior to conducting its airstrike operation in Syria.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France had not received advance warning and he wanted to be sure Russia did not target opponents of the Assad regime or civilians.

"As far as the strikes themselves are concerned, we have to check that it really was Daesh and terrorist groups that really have been targeted and not opponents to the Syrian regime or the civilian population," Fabius told reporters, after giving a statement to the U.N. Security Council. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for ISIS. "I'm not accusing anybody of anything but we have to check the facts," he said.

'No Russian boots on the ground'

Putin, speaking Wednesday at a government meeting, said his country would not become mired in the Syrian conflict.

"This military operation is limited in time. Russian air forces will help Assad's army while it's on the offensive mode," Putin said. "There will be no Russian boots on the ground."

Ahead of Wednesday's strikes Russia's air force carried out several days of familiarization flights, and the collection of potential targeting information by drones.

Four Russian Su-34 Fullback fighter jets are now at the Latakia air base in Syria, and more than 600 Russian troops are in place, a U.S. official with knowledge of the latest intelligence told CNN this week.

RELATED: Russia may be seeking Syria proxy

U.S. officials have previously said Russia's movements suggest that its targets might be something other than ISIS.

"We see some very sophisticated air defenses going into those airfields. We see some very sophisticated air-to-air aircraft going into these airfields. I have not seen ISIL flying any airplanes that require SA-15s or SA-22s (Russian missiles). I have not seen ISIL flying any airplanes that require sophisticated air-to-air capabilities," Gen. Phillip Breedlove, NATO's supreme allied commander, said on Monday.

"I'm looking at the capabilities and the capacities that are being created and I determine from that what might be their intent. These very sophisticated air defense capabilities are not about ISIL. They're about something else," he concluded.

Defense officials have previously told CNN that the U.S. believes Moscow may fear that al-Assad may not be able to retain power in the war-torn country and wants to be in position to be able to support a proxy should the situation collapse.

Russia is also a close ally of al-Assad and may want to bolster him, while the U.S. has repeatedly called for him to go in order to resolve the five-year civil war.

So am I wrong to worry that there may be a "mishap" involving an exchange of fire between Russian and US forces?

[Elheru Aran]

From what I'm seeing they actually hit Syrian forces opposing Assad...

[Borgholio]

Yeah that's what I read too. They're saying they're going for ISIS but they're really propping up Assad.

[The Romulan Republic]

Of course they are. Got to keep their mass-murdering lackey happy and secure.

And Borgholio's not the only one who's concerned about the possibility of a clash, accidental or otherwise, between US forces and Russian forces. When you have two hostile rivals launching airstrikes in the same area, with one bombing the people the other is backing... well, that seems like an invitation for disaster.

In fact, much as I loath the idea of backing down to Putin, this development makes me further reconsider any support for intervention in Syria, because I don't think its worth risking armed conflict between two nuclear powers over.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Of course they are. Got to keep their mass-murdering lackey happy and secure.

And Borgholio's not the only one who's concerned about the possibility of a clash, accidental or otherwise, between US forces and Russian forces. When you have two hostile rivals launching airstrikes in the same area, with one bombing the people the other is backing... well, that seems like an invitation for disaster.

In fact, much as I loath the idea of backing down to Putin, this development makes me further reconsider any support for intervention in Syria, because I don't think its worth risking armed conflict between two nuclear powers over.

Clearly the Russians disagree, or they're assuming the west will back down. Of course, you only have to look at the Ukraine situation to see it's not the first time they've engaged in such brinkmanship.

[Elheru Aran]

Ukraine is a slightly different situation from my read; apart from Russia annexing Crimea, it seems that there has been minimal international repercussions and for the most part the Ukrainian conflict has been within their boundaries. Syria, on the other hand, has had considerable spillover thanks to the refugee situation, and ISIS is fighting in other countries to boot so that conflict is spreading past the country. It's no longer solely a civil war (albeit mostly thanks to ISIS and the various interventions).

EDIT to note: I did forget about that airliner that got shot down over Ukraine. That was a bit of a flap for sure. Compared to the extensive scale of ISIS atrocities against people in neighboring countries, though, it's not quite as massive.

[cosmicalstorm]

CMD Salamander is way to conservative for most posters on this board. Here is an excerpt from his worst case scenario re Syria and Russia.

In very broad strokes, here is how it happens.
1. Russia builds its support for Assad including significant air support, special forces, and limited ground forces. At the same time, it arms and encourages the Kurds.
2. Consolidating their positions to defensible lines in Iraq and eastern Syria, the Kurds proclaim a republic. The Kurdish Republic is immediately recognized by Russia, Belarus, NORK, Cuba, a handful of African nations, and surprisingly, Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Assad will permit Syrian Kurds to join the Kurdish Republic, and declares an alliance with the new Kurdish Republic against the Islamic State.
3. The PKK expands terrorist operations inside Turkey. Turkey responds as expected, and violence spirals.
4. Inside Russia proper, a large-casualty terrorist attack linked to the Islamic State takes place. Russia moves significant maneuver forces in to Syria in order to punish the Islamic State.
5. Combined Russian, Syrian, and Kurdish forces invest Raqqa.
6. In what appears to be a move to ... well no one knows for sure, the Turks say they were pursuing PKK formations ... significant Turkish ground forces move south down the E99 through the Syrian frontier town of Tell Abiad. Russian forces are mostly arrayed north of Raqqa with logistic support along the M4. For some reason, the Turkish air force bombed a meeting between Russian and Kurdish officials in Maaroûda. After that, Russian forces originally destined for the final push on Raqqa coming down the M4, instead wheeled north and the rest, as they say, is history.
7. Turkey finds itself under attack from Russian ground forces in the south, Georgia has allowed free passage of Russian forces to reinforce Armenia. The Kurdish areas on Turkey are in the midst of a full uprising.
8. Turkey invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty ... and ... there is nothing but turmoil in Brussels.
9. Turkey moved its best forces south against Russian and Kurdish forces, its second line forces to the east against what it thought would be a threat from the Armenian border, but nothing happened in what ended up just being a message to the Azeri to behave.

http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.se/2015/0 ... rn-to.html

[LaCroix]

And turkey would find themselves alone with no NATO support, for they probvoked Russia's attack by bombing them...

It might not be 100% according to the treaty, but no one would rush to their defense.

More likely, there would be some calls for moderation, an apology by Turkey and a retreat of Turkish troops into Turkish territory, for they have no legal justification to be in Syria/Kurdistan. If they were attacked in Syria, the would have no leg to stand on for Article 5, as they were the attacking force at that time. Even when getting driven back to Ankara, they still cannot invoke article 5 in good faith if the fighting was initiated by them while invading Syria.

[K. A. Pital]

1. As usual, alarmist bullshit from cosmicalstorm pulled from another blog, offered without his own comment.
2. Fuck Turkey.

[Vympel]

From what I'm seeing they actually hit Syrian forces opposing Assad...

Yeah that's what I read too. They're saying they're going for ISIS but they're really propping up Assad.

"Syrian Forces opposing Assad"? And just who are they? Islamist militants - the al-Nursa Front, the "Army of Conquest", and similar groups. If you think there is such a thing as 'moderate Syrian rebels' and whatever other fantasy faction that the US pulled out of its ass in an attempt to chide Russia, I have a bridge to sell you. I mean for fuck's sake, we've gotten report after report in the recent weeks that US attempts to create a 'moderate' Syrian rebel force have been an utter failure, blowing vast sums of money on tiny numbers of men who defected to ISIS the moment they crossed the border.

The 'other Syrian rebels' are just less extreme variants of ISIS, and its convenient for the US to let them attack Assad, so they whine and complain that Russia bombs them, as if any reasonable person who is pro-bombing-ISIS should give two shits they're getting blown up as well (and yes, Russia has bombed ISIS targets).

The correct view should be that bombing will accomplish very little but bloodletting and dead civilians, as opposed to clutching one's pearls over Islamic militants getting blown to tiny bits.

Hey, let's talk about 'moderate' rebels some more. From HuffPo:

Syria, the Times and the Mystery of the "Moderate Rebels"

After a two-year absence from the international stage -- during which the mainstream media dispatched them to the realm of nonexistent entities -- on October 1 the "moderate rebels" of Syria were back. The New York Times said so. Russian attacks were targeting moderates rather than ISIS, a man with a camera was quoted saying; and the Times story by Anne Barnard appeared to confirm his suspicion; even as a companion report on Russian actions in Syria by Helene Cooper, Michael R. Gordon, and Neil MacFarquhar revealed that these are the same moderates who were carefully vetted by the CIA, and concerning whom little was heard ever after. Their numbers are put at 3,000 to 5,000, though the Cooper-Gordon-MacFarquhar article leaves uncertain if that is their original or their present strength. This illumination, after so long a blackout, will doubtless be a subject for inquiry in coming days. Why it would seem worthwhile for the Russians to attack so small a force, neither of the Times stories bothered to say; nor did they explain why, if the moderate rebels are anti-Jihadist, they were allowed to garrison in the town of Talbiseh in a region north of Homs that (according to the veteran Middle East reporter Patrick Cockburn) has been "ruled" for the past two years "by Jabhat al-Nusra and associated extreme Islamist groups."

One cannot help being struck, in the Barnard story, by a disparity between the thinness of the evidence and the cocksure tone of the analysis. Consider the single piece of local testimony (generically confirmed by US sources) that is used to get us to take on trust a rebel's characterization of himself:

Among the areas hit was the base of a group that had been supported and supplied by the United States and its allies, said its leader, Jamil Saleh. He said the group's base had been hit severely in Hama Province, wounding eight of his men. Later on Wednesday, American officials confirmed that some groups supported by the United States had been hit.

"We are on the front lines with Bashar Al-Assad's army," said Mr. Saleh, whose group has recently posted videos of its fighters using sophisticated American-made TOW missiles to destroy government tanks. "We are moderate Syrian rebels and have no affiliation with ISIS. ISIS is at least 100 kilometers away from where we are."

But ISIS is not the only enemy of American interests in Syria and Iraq, and it is not the only terrorist entity the US government is pledged to defeat. How close are the moderate rebels to al-Nusra? Again, the Times story does not ask.

An editorial tailwind carried the paper's fascination with the moderate rebels into a second day of coverage on October 2. A story by Barnard and MacFarquhar, "Vladimir Putin Plunges into a Caldron in Syria," speculates that Putin's entry into the war will push "independent Islamists" to ally themselves with al-Nusra, and hence presumably will take them a degree closer to ISIS. "One previously independent Islamist brigade declared its allegiance to the Nusra Front, saying unity was necessary because America and Russia were allied against Muslims 'to blur the light of truth.'" Once more, there is a nagging hint of unasked questions. What exactly is an "independent Islamist"? How close was this brigade to the "democratic values" that America espouses? Indeed, how close could it have been if the allure of al-Nusra was just a bombing attack away?

As it happens, the most damaging words ever spoken about the moderate rebels came from President Obama, in an interview with Thomas Friedman fourteen months ago. The president, displaying a candor that is intermittent with him but remarkable when it occurs, said the idea of a Syrian "moderate rebel" force was the sort of miracle cure that Americans dream up when we come to a section of the world we cannot manage:

It's always been a fantasy, this idea that we could provide some light arms, or even more sophisticated arms, to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists, and so forth, and that that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state, but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah. That was never in the cards.

The "moderate rebels" are a good deal like the Third Force once dreamed of by the architects of the Vietnam War, as an alternative to the French colonial government and the communist Viet Minh. The US found an "independent" ally in the corrupt anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem but eventually had him deposed and killed. The upright democratic allies on the ground only existed in numbers too weak to count politically or militarily; nor could the CIA in Vietnam conjure them out of thin air; and a failure of rational doubt set the United States on the long downward spiral of that war.

The truth is that Obama when he spoke those words confessed the self-contradiction of his own policy. For his administration continues to harbor enthusiasts of the Third Force idea like Susan Rice and Samantha Power, alongside persons of a less romantic temper such as Vice President Biden and Denis McDonough. When, in August 2011, Obama said that Assad must go and implied that he must go immediately, he was commanding beyond his power to enforce, and he had nobody in view to replace Assad. The same enthusiasts had already goaded him to commit US power and prestige to the destruction of the government of Libya, without any plan for what would succeed that government. The catastrophe that followed has been so complete that for two years now the word Libya has hardly been uttered by the president; but it must be part of what he thinks of, looking back, when he considers some new piece of high strategic advice on Syria.

During his recent encounter with Vladimir Putin at the UN, Obama conceded that America could approve a "managed transition" from the Assad government to an interim government -- that is, a transition with a middle phase to smooth the exit of the detested autocrat. This would be preferable, he meant, to the direct transition from despotic rule to violent anarchy, such as occurred in both Iraq and Libya. Yet a gradual transition had been offered (so long as immediate departure by Assad was not made a precondition) during John Kerry's visit to Moscow in May 2013; and Kerry's counterpart, the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, said at the time that Russia was not interested in the fate of Assad so much as that of Syria. Look at the distance between Moscow and Damascus, compare the distance between Washington and Damascus, and you can imagine why a Russian might see things that way. Russia is part of Asia; for us, an ocean intervenes. At any rate, shortly after the Kerry-Lavrov initiative all eyes were turned elsewhere by the second chemical attack and Obama's threat to bomb Syrian government forces -- a sequence of events that could not have scuttled the negotiations more neatly if it had been devised for the purpose.

Now it is 2015, and other regional powers are allied with Russia in the battle against the Islamists, but the New York Times is nostalgic for 2003. Michael Gordon has been writing some of the articles once again, and acting as a filter for the other pieces that he co-signs; and it is appropriate for readers to take him with exactly the trust that he earned by his discovery of nonexistent WMD in Iraq. An article on October 2 by Anne Barnard and Andrew E. Kramer -- the most honest of the four Times stories over the past two days -- levels with readers enough to permit a dry assessment of the Russian motives for entering the fight against ISIS and the Islamist insurgents. It speaks of the same group that the paper just five weeks earlier had called Ahrar al-Sham, under a new and more palatable name, "the Army of Conquest":

Often fighting alongside the Army of Conquest are relatively secular groups from what is left of the loose-knit Free Syrian Army, including some groups that have received United States training and advanced American-made antitank missiles. At least one group trained by the C.I.A. was among the targets hit on Wednesday, which drew an angry response from Washington.

Here, at last, one finds the beginning of a picture of the rebels in context, a picture that suggests the wildness of the American attempt to assert our will on this terrain. Barnard and Kramer continue:

But the Army of Conquest itself embodies the ambivalence of American policy. The United States considers the Nusra Front a terrorist organization, but other groups, including some that have received American funding, fight alongside the Nusra Front, saying that they have no choice if they want to unseat Mr. Assad.

The article closes with John Kerry's warning that Russia must not attack any fighting organization except ISIS. But how have we ever known exactly where ISIS is? ISIS stole a march on the US and its allies in both Iraq and Syria. Everything American authorities have said about their progress and their location has proved unreliable.

"Who Is Fighting Whom?" Such was the question posed by a Times analytic chart at the breaking of the first news of Russian entry into the Syrian war. The US, France, and Britain are said to support "More moderate elements among the rebel forces in Syria." That is one way of putting it; another way is "less extreme"; and these two phrases recur in the self-portraits of the Islamist commanders who want continued US support and subsidy. The ambivalence of the Times echoes the ambivalence of US policy as described by the Times. Both the government and the newspaper that sets the pattern for the mainstream media have taught us that al-Qaeda is the sworn enemy of US interests; that al-Nusra is the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda; and that a pact with either terrorist sect, even for the sake of fighting against ISIS, would be desperate and self-destructive. But we are urged at the same time to suppose -- the complicated relationships of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and Israel encourage it -- that al-Nusra is perhaps a milder version of al-Qaeda and that both are necessary allies in the titanic struggle to overthrow Assad and defeat ISIS in a single stroke. The sheer quantity of self-deception that is required to support this fantasy ought to be obvious; but the fantasy will tempt us until our leaders break once and for all with the dreamers of the Third Force.

And here's everyone's favorite anti-Russian propagnada outfit lamenting that the US can't defend these fine upstanding rebels:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... bombs.html

The rebels attacked by Russian forces on Wednesday and Thursday were in western Syria, alongside al Qaeda affiliates and far from any ISIS positions. That suggests the rebels were not there to fight the self-proclaimed Islamic State, as the Obama administration called the top priority. Instead, they were battling the Assad regime as part of a still-active CIA program for rebels which has run in tandem with the disastrous and now-defunct train and equip Pentagon program.

Oh no! The poor allies of al-Qaeda are getting bombed!

[K. A. Pital]

We were always at war with Al-Qaeda, Vympel, but we also were always at war with Russia. This means we are always at war with both of them, but simultaneously with none. This is a typical exercise testing the limits of plasticity of the brains of people who consume the media narrative uncritically.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Considering that Syria is Russia's only ally in the middle east, it seems to me that their involvement is to merely protect their middle east assets. Wouldn't a successful dismantling of Assad's regime be a major blow to Russian influence in the region? Could be the US' real end game regardless of all the talk of moderate rebels vs. ISIS.

[Channel72]

Jesus Christ people, can you guys remember anything that happened, like, yesterday?

There were "moderate" rebels, and there always have been, in Syria. It's not a fiction. (Let's explicitly define moderate here as "not interested in an Islamist government", but simply interested in overthrowing Assad). They exist - it's simply a question of how operational they are now. The Free Syrian Army is not a myth or a fantasy - it exists, and was founded by real ex-Syrian army officers around 2011. They officially announced their existence in a refugee camp in Turkey, and established a headquarters and base of operations in Syria back in 2012.

And yet now, they're reduced to insignificance, overshadowed by the rampaging Islamists, so apparently they were always just a fiction.

The problem, as I've said before, is that on-the-ground developments in a Middle Eastern war zone often change rapidly, and Washington can't always keep up. At the very beginning of the war, back in 2011, the FSA seemed to occupy a prominent place in that theatre - they have since been reduced to almost complete insignificance by Islamist groups, but that doesn't mean they don't exist at all, and in fact, only a few year ago, it actually seemed like they would play a significant role in the war.

A very similar thing happened in Iraq - but people forget, because the rapidly changing on-the-ground situation in a war zone very quickly obsoletes former conceptions - conceptions which often are used by Washington to implement policy. Remember the few months after the invasion of Iraq in 2003? Most people probably don't remember what was going on... the US wasn't fighting Islamist insurgents. No, they were mainly fighting Saddam loyalists, the Fedayeen Saddam, whom now are all but forgotten, swept away into the dustbin of history. But for those few months of fighting, the Fedayeen Saddam actually affected policy, to the extent that the US was so irritated with Saddam loyalism that they went overboard and eradicated the Ba'ath party and anything remotely "tainted" with Ba'athism. In hindsight, that reaction seems absurdly stupid (and it was stupid) - since now we know the real problem turned out to be Islamists and Al Qaeda related insurgent groups. And just like today, the US dragged its feet in terms of admitting that the "insurgency" was anything more than former Saddam loyalists.

And we see that a very similar thing has happened in Syria. The FSA at one point actually seemed like an important group that would play a big role in the Syrian civil war. It certainly seemed that way in 2011. And so Washington implemented policies, training programs, etc., based on this (now known to be false) belief. But that doesn't justify calling the very existence of non-Islamist rebels a complete fiction. It's mostly a fiction now, and arguably the US refused to admit this even after it became obvious the FSA was useless. But again, the on-the-ground reality in a warzone changes much faster than Washington can respond with new policies.

[K. A. Pital]

It is very interesting to what degree the strength and actual goals of this group were true from the start, actually. As we know, in a coalition like the Army of Conquest almost all the fighters are al-Nusra or Ahrar al-Sham. Could it be that this Sunni rebellion was always dominated by islamists, and the secular units were used as a cover?

[Edi]

Probably, and the FSA did not get the kind of covert funding and support that the Islamist groups are getting from the Gulf states, who want Assad gone.

[Channel72]

It is very interesting to what degree the strength and actual goals of this group were true from the start, actually. As we know, in a coalition like the Army of Conquest almost all the fighters are al-Nusra or Ahrar al-Sham. Could it be that this Sunni rebellion was always dominated by islamists, and the secular units were used as a cover?

It's difficult to say exactly, but most information released by the FSA in 2011/2012 indicated their primary objective was to overthrow Assad, with no references to Islam that weren't typical background noise in the Middle East. Although they were primarily Sunni, they also had Shia and Christian members. Their leadership was mostly ex-Syrian army officers.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/poli ... yrian-army

Reading the assessment above is almost sad when read in 2015, because of how utterly useless the FSA has turned out to be.

Back in 2012, tens of thousands were joining the FSA:

http://yalibnan.com/2012/07/10/over-100 ... my-report/

Really, it's not completely crazy to see why Washington backed them.

As for their goals/beliefs:

(A) Washington problem didn't care that much or look into it too much, because outwardly their primary purpose was to overthrow Assad, and they didn't exactly advertise any ideas about beheading infidels.

(B) Their beliefs and character have always been mixed. Various FSA commanders in Syria explicitly announced that they were welcoming of Sunnis, Shias and Christians in their army, meaning they were for all intents and purposes not extremists. Many Christians supported or joined the FSA, but it's clear that there were sectarian tensions within the FSA since 2012, and it's obvious that at least some FSA elements were hardcore Islamists who executed prisoners for sectarian reasons - but they simply didn't have as loud a voice back in 2012.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-16984219

Obviously, the US was too shortsighted to see that the Islamist element would grow out of control and hijack the whole revolution. But still, there were non-Islamist, secular, Shia or Christian elements in the FSA in the early days of the war.

[Simon_Jester]

Jesus Christ people, can you guys remember anything that happened, like, yesterday?

There were "moderate" rebels, and there always have been, in Syria. It's not a fiction... They exist - it's simply a question of how operational they are now. The Free Syrian Army is not a myth or a fantasy - it exists, and was founded by real ex-Syrian army officers around 2011...

And yet now, they're reduced to insignificance, overshadowed by the rampaging Islamists, so apparently they were always just a fiction.

The main problem with the Western view of the moderates is the perception that they are irrelevant, ineffectual, or that they do nothing but hold onto fixed areas of land. Whereas Da'esh routinely goes on the offensive, and Assad still has a fair amount of military heavy metal as I understand it, plus of course good overseas contacts by virtue of being the original internationally recognized government of the country.

So while it's stupid to think the Syrian Civil War actually IS a two-sided conflict between Da'esh and Assad, it is NOT stupid to think that it reduces to a two-sided conflict in effect.

The problem, as I've said before, is that on-the-ground developments in a Middle Eastern war zone often change rapidly, and Washington can't always keep up.

This is far from unique to the Middle East... but yeah, the problem is that Washington is backing a horse that became increasingly slower and more useless as time went on.

It's mostly a fiction now, and arguably the US refused to admit this even after it became obvious the FSA was useless. But again, the on-the-ground reality in a warzone changes much faster than Washington can respond with new policies.

Well... yes and no- Washington, and other similar large imperial polities, have reacted effectively to manage a changing war situation.

What's impossible is doing this while politics is strongly interfering with the prosecution of the war effort. When there are broad categories of options which the government simply cannot consider, and when any major action has to be approved by political parties that have a long history of endless antagonistic bickering... then it is impossible to react in a timely manner to a wartime situation.

Which isn't so much a function of Washington's distance from the theater of war. It's a universal- politically divided nations whose government is vulnerable to internal bickering generally are powerless and ineffectual in wartime. The only difference is that this is survivable as long as the war doesn't present an existential threat to the state, as is the case for the US in Syria.

If the US were actually bordering on Syria and having to deal with a direct threat, the US's political division, arthritic decision-making and politically motivated policies would result in us losing the war and paying a heavy price, as opposed to merely being embarrassed while other nations pay the heavy price for us.

[The Romulan Republic]

In a hypothetical alternate universe where the US bordered Syria, I really doubt that the US would lose to someone like Assad or IS, much less be destroyed, because its so fucking huge and has such a technological edge. Especially because in that scenario, the US would probably be putting a lot more effort into the war and be a lot less divided (the US has a way of uniting when it faces a major threat).

The only player in Syria who could ever approach being an existential threat to the US on its own is Russia.

[Vympel]

Jesus Christ people, can you guys remember anything that happened, like, yesterday?

There were "moderate" rebels, and there always have been, in Syria. It's not a fiction. (Let's explicitly define moderate here as "not interested in an Islamist government", but simply interested in overthrowing Assad). They exist - it's simply a question of how operational they are now. The Free Syrian Army is not a myth or a fantasy - it exists, and was founded by real ex-Syrian army officers around 2011. They officially announced their existence in a refugee camp in Turkey, and established a headquarters and base of operations in Syria back in 2012.

And yet now, they're reduced to insignificance, overshadowed by the rampaging Islamists, so apparently they were always just a fiction.

The problem, as I've said before, is that on-the-ground developments in a Middle Eastern war zone often change rapidly, and Washington can't always keep up. At the very beginning of the war, back in 2011, the FSA seemed to occupy a prominent place in that theatre - they have since been reduced to almost complete insignificance by Islamist groups, but that doesn't mean they don't exist at all, and in fact, only a few year ago, it actually seemed like they would play a significant role in the war.

A very similar thing happened in Iraq - but people forget, because the rapidly changing on-the-ground situation in a war zone very quickly obsoletes former conceptions - conceptions which often are used by Washington to implement policy. Remember the few months after the invasion of Iraq in 2003? Most people probably don't remember what was going on... the US wasn't fighting Islamist insurgents. No, they were mainly fighting Saddam loyalists, the Fedayeen Saddam, whom now are all but forgotten, swept away into the dustbin of history. But for those few months of fighting, the Fedayeen Saddam actually affected policy, to the extent that the US was so irritated with Saddam loyalism that they went overboard and eradicated the Ba'ath party and anything remotely "tainted" with Ba'athism. In hindsight, that reaction seems absurdly stupid (and it was stupid) - since now we know the real problem turned out to be Islamists and Al Qaeda related insurgent groups. And just like today, the US dragged its feet in terms of admitting that the "insurgency" was anything more than former Saddam loyalists.

And we see that a very similar thing has happened in Syria. The FSA at one point actually seemed like an important group that would play a big role in the Syrian civil war. It certainly seemed that way in 2011. And so Washington implemented policies, training programs, etc., based on this (now known to be false) belief. But that doesn't justify calling the very existence of non-Islamist rebels a complete fiction. It's mostly a fiction now, and arguably the US refused to admit this even after it became obvious the FSA was useless. But again, the on-the-ground reality in a warzone changes much faster than Washington can respond with new policies.

I thought the context of my post was quite clear - of course the ineffectual and useless Free Syrian Army existed and still exists, my point (as is the point of the article in my post) was that the Western complaints about Russia bombing 'moderate' rebels now is just a mendacious fantasy. The FSA and any other similar groups are simply not a significant factor in this conflict.

[Simon_Jester]

In a hypothetical alternate universe where the US bordered Syria, I really doubt that the US would lose to someone like Assad or IS, much less be destroyed, because its so fucking huge and has such a technological edge. Especially because in that scenario, the US would probably be putting a lot more effort into the war and be a lot less divided (the US has a way of uniting when it faces a major threat).

The only player in Syria who could ever approach being an existential threat to the US on its own is Russia.

Eh.

What I'm trying to convey here is that people whose approach to a war is dominated by politics, and/or who are too politically divided to engage in coherent, rational policymaking, nearly always lose wars. And that they in particular lose wars when the situation on the ground is evolving rapidly, because military strategic decisions usually need to be made on a timescale of days or weeks while political decisions are almost never made on a timescale less than that of months.

While the US's sheer bulk economic and technological power may make it nearly unattackable, the point remains that as far as I can remember...

Almost every nation as ill-governed as the modern US, which gets into a war for its survival, loses the war. Which I consider to be a bit sobering.

[K. A. Pital]

In a hypothetical alternate universe where the US bordered Syria, I really doubt that the US would lose to someone like Assad or IS, much less be destroyed, because its so fucking huge and has such a technological edge.

In real life the US pretty much lost the Iraq war despite not even bordering the place; and it lost Vietnam. Russia was forced to leave Afghanistan. The US didn't seem to be very united in its support of the Vietnam war despite all the "domino effect" and "commies come to steal ur babies!" brainwashing that happened back in the day.

[The Romulan Republic]

If you seriously think that Assad or ISIS could destroy or otherwise defeat the US if the US was fighting an all-out war on its border that involved a major threat to its territory, you're pretty much delusional.

What would happen is that the US would commit far more resources because it would be happening on America's border and threatening loss of territory and of American cities. Also, (regrettably) the US would probably fight far more brutally.

[Channel72]

Nobody is saying that Syria could significantly hurt the US, that's not the point.

The point is superpowers often lose wars because of dithering, incoherent policies, and lack of will. That's because wars waged by super-powers have degraded from brutal wars of Imperial conquest, to maintaining colonial assets ... to basically "projects" designed to reshape the geopolitical landscape. Modern Post-WW2 US wars are more like "projects" designed to re-architect the geopolitical landscape in favor of whatever the US likes. Historically, most of these wars so far have been designed to isolate and contain Soviet communism. Post-1991, these wars have had even less of any coherent overall purpose - and mostly revolve around vague notions about a "New American Century" or "democratizing the Middle East" so that... something something, cheap oil? Less terrorism? Haliburton needs a boost in share prices? Dick Cheney is bored? Who the fuck knows. (Pretty much the only successful outcome of these various American "projects" has been more contracts for Lockheed Martin, and some good news for portfolios containing Haliburton securities.)

I think the only post-1991 US war that had any clear obvious purpose was Afghanistan (remember it actually had a purpose at one point... something about the World Trade Center or whatever...). And even that has degraded into endless nonsense.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't think Syria could destroy the US, TRR. Leave these idiot stories for your own Hollywood shitpipe that produce games like Homefront and films like Red Dawn 2.0 where DPRK occupies the US.

My only point has been that it is very much possible for the US to lose a war in Syria. As it was possible for the US to miserably lose a war against Vietnam. Because losing a war is so much more than just "uh they can't destroy us so we win". Do you think the US "won" the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? If so, do explain - where is a result that's typical for victory?

You know, like North Vietnam took over the South and created a unified Vietnamese state that endures until the present day. Or like Japan and Germany which were clearly defeated and successfully reconstructed as long-term allies.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't think Syria could destroy the US, TRR.

Fair enough.

Leave these idiot stories for your own Hollywood shitpipe that produce games like Homefront and films like Red Dawn 2.0 where DPRK occupies the US.

Was their a reason for posting that other than to take a cheap shot by association at me for being American?

My only point has been that it is very much possible for the US to lose a war in Syria. As it was possible for the US to miserably lose a war against Vietnam. Because losing a war is so much more than just "uh they can't destroy us so we win".

Of course. And that wasn't my argument.

I was saying that in a hypothetical situation where the US bordered the Syrian war, the US would not be destroyed and would also win, or at least probably win, because that scenario would force them to take the war far more seriously, in addition to the advantages they already hold (size and technology).

Do you think the US "won" the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? If so, do explain - where is a result that's typical for victory?

As both wars are basically ongoing, it would be premature to declare victory, would it not? No Bush-style "Mission Accomplished" here.

You know, like North Vietnam took over the South and created a unified Vietnamese state that endures until the present day. Or like Japan and Germany which were clearly defeated and successfully reconstructed as long-term allies.

Yes, of course I know about this.