Meanwhile, in Syria

Agent Sorchus · Post by **Agent Sorchus** » 2016-02-20 12:47am

Esquire wrote:...Turkey does not have hundreds of thousands of troops on the Syrian border and nobody is going to invade Syria*.

At least this is wrong and yeah I know Im about to link to wikipedia buuut seriously, seen it elsewhere including a map of deployment down to brigade level.Turkish Second Army Now how much they are there to fight the PKK is a better question but there are 100,000 turkish soldiers on in the border regions. (The map is here.

Esquire · Post by **Esquire** » 2016-02-20 12:52am

Of course there are. But that's the Second Army's usual deployment, as far as I know, and the total strength of the Turkish Army is only a bit over 300,000 total. The line quoted was "hundreds of thousands," plural. It's a slight nitpick; I'm just saying that asserting that Turkey is building up for a full-scale invasion of Syria requires more support than either article presented.

cosmicalstorm · Post by **cosmicalstorm** » 2016-02-20 01:53am

Esquire wrote:I think you need less hyperbolic news sources. President Obama is not a neoconservative, the chemical weapons were not some bizarre false-flag operation, the Washington Post is not a neocon mouthpiece, Turkey does not have hundreds of thousands of troops on the Syrian border and nobody is going to invade Syria*. Even if they did, it wouldn't cause World War Three, because - contrary to popular belief - it isn't possible to end up in charge of a major power and be the kind of nutjob who'd throw the world on the fire for a few scraps of 75%-empty desert.

*The Russians are the only people likely to do so, and they're a) already there, and b) were invited by the legal, if not necessarily the legitimate government.

There are some.pretty serious doubts about the chem attack, maybe thats why Obama did not follow up on the red line promise. Erdogan seems like more than corrupt enough to do something like this.

The post-attack intelligence on Turkey did not make its way to the White House. ‘Nobody wants to talk about all this,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘There is great reluctance to contradict the president, although no all-source intelligence community analysis supported his leap to convict. There has not been one single piece of additional evidence of Syrian involvement in the sarin attack produced by the White House since the bombing raid was called off. My government can’t say anything because we have acted so irresponsibly. And since we blamed Assad, we can’t go back and blame Erdoğan.’

Turkey’s willingness to manipulate events in Syria to its own purposes seemed to be demonstrated late last month, a few days before a round of local elections, when a recording, allegedly of a government national security meeting, was posted to YouTube. It included discussion of a false-flag operation that would justify an incursion by the Turkish military in Syria. The operation centred on the tomb of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of the revered Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire, which is near Aleppo and was ceded to Turkey in 1921, when Syria was under French rule. One of the Islamist rebel factions was threatening to destroy the tomb as a site of idolatry, and the Erdoğan administration was publicly threatening retaliation if harm came to it. According to a Reuters report of the leaked conversation, a voice alleged to be Fidan’s spoke of creating a provocation: ‘Now look, my commander, if there is to be justification, the justification is I send four men to the other side. I get them to fire eight missiles into empty land [in the vicinity of the tomb]. That’s not a problem. Justification can be created.’ The Turkish government acknowledged that there had been a national security meeting about threats emanating from Syria, but said the recording had been manipulated. The government subsequently blocked public access to YouTube

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m- ... e-rat-line

cosmicalstorm · Post by **cosmicalstorm** » 2016-02-20 02:14am

Rumor is the Air Force was the target, some say many of the dead were AF officers. The suicide bomber was nice enough to carry his passport which survived the 30kgs of high explosives

MURAT YETKİN >
Difficult questions on the Ankara attack

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A bomb blast rocked central Ankara at rush hour on the evening of Feb. 17, killing 28 and wounding 61. Government sources stated that a suicide bomber pulled the trigger on 30 kilos of explosives next to two buses stopped at a red traffic light carrying military and civilian personnel back home from military offices.

After paying a condolence visit to Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar on Feb. 18, Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan said 20 of the 28 killed were ranking military officers. He and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu - who had also earlier visited Akar - identified the attacker as Syrian national Salih Neccar, born in the northern town of Amuda in 1992. They said Neccar had links with the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the military wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is the Syrian affiliate of Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Recalling the recent words of Bashar Jaafari, the Syrian regime’s representative at the U.N., who said the Bashar al-Assad regime now supported the PYD and the YPG, Davutoğlu said Ankara held the Syria regime responsible for the attack and reserved its right to retaliate.

Meanwhile, President Erdoğan said Turkey’s friends and allies would now be able to understand the link of terrorism between the PKK and the PYD/YPG. The latter is trusted by the U.S. as a partner in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and Erdoğan called on Washington twice in the last week to “choose” between the “terrorist” PYD and NATO ally Turkey.

In response, Washington stressed that Turkey was an ally, but it did not regard the PYD/YPG as a terrorist organization. The U.S. has been outsourcing ground operations in Syria to the PYD/YPG and supporting it with air strikes against ISIL. Russia has also been using the PYD against ISIL and other opposition forces against al-Assad, leading to opposition forces refusing to accept the PYD on their side in the recent Geneva talks.

The ambassadors of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France and China, plus Germany - were invited to the Foreign Ministry on Feb. 18 and presented with documents showing links between the bomber Neccar and the YPG.

Despite the accusations, PYD head Salih Muslim denied responsibility and said he did not recognize the name of the attacker, while PKK military chief Cemil Bayık also said he did not know the details of the attack, while adding that “it could be a retaliation” - mocking Ankara in a way.

After PM Davutoğlu said they identified the attacker because he was carrying an identity card, immediate questions emerged from the Turkish opposition in parliament and on social media. Why would a suicide bomber carry his ID? How on earth could a bomb go off in a supposedly well-protected area, near the parking lot of service buses, next to the Air Force command, within hundreds of meters of the Chief of Staff headquarters and parliament? What’s more, amid reports of new planned suicide bombings in Ankara and Istanbul after the ISIL attack in Ankara on Oct. 10, 2015 (killing 103 people) and the attack in Istanbul on Jan. 13 this year (killing 11 German tourists), what measures had the intelligence services and police taken?

Security sources talking to the Hürriyet Daily News on condition of anonymity said it was not uncommon for suicide bombers to carry IDs. “It’s like signing a letter,” one underlined.

Neccar, the name revealed by Davutoğlu, first entered Turkey from Syria in July 2014 as a refugee. That was around the same time as the PYD’s resistance in Kobane against ISIL. “If the name is correct, we know that the Neccar family is in contact with the Syrian army intelligence Amn ul-Askeri,” one source said.

The “early assessment” of Turkish security units is that the attacker’s real target was the Air Force headquarters, which suggests that the blast could be a retaliation to the downing of the Russian jet by a Turkish jet on Nov. 24, 2015. This is one of the scenarios that experts in Ankara have been working on.

The Ankara attack may have considerable consequences for Turkey’s relations with its Western allies, mainly the U.S. It is even possible that Turkey opts to revise its relations with the U.S. and the EU if they continue to back the PYD.

But lingering questions about the lack of intelligence or police measures still have no satisfying answer, which might also signal certain consequences within the Turkish government, especially in the security bureaucracy

Esquire · Post by **Esquire** » 2016-02-20 03:52am

You'll understand why I'd like a bit more proof than fourth-iteration hearsay for an international conspiracy theory. It's not enough to go "well, an unnamed source heard it from an unnamed intelligence guy who heard it from an unnamed Turkish diplomat," particularly when - as far as I'm aware - no proper investigation has concluded that anybody but the Syrian government was responsible for the gas attacks.

Thanas · Post by **Thanas** » 2016-02-20 04:40am

The US Congress has never refused to fund a military adventure and has never defunded a war. This argument has no value.

cosmicalstorm · Post by **cosmicalstorm** » 2016-02-20 06:53am

The Saudi POV:

Tl:dr they think somehow Assad will go away despite the current situation and perhaps they will supply SAMs to the "moderates".

In an interview, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir expresses his continued support for regime change in Syria and his desire for rebels to be supplied with anti-aircraft missiles that could shift the balance of power in the war.

The wait for the interview with the minister takes six hours, but then he greets the journalists in a large conference room in a grand hotel in Munich. Adel al-Jubeir, 54, a slim, amiable man, wears a traditional robe and looks a bit fatigued. He and his counterparts spent the previous evening negotiating a cease-fire in Syria well into the night. And since early this morning, they have been busily discussing current global events. Al-Jubeir is the embodiment of a new breed of top Saudi Arabian leaders: He went to school in Germany and college in the United States and then served as the Saudi ambassador to Washington. In contrast to his longtime predecessor Prince Saud al-Faisal, who served as the country's top diplomat for decades stretching from the oil crisis in the 1970s until early 2015, al-Jubeir is not a member of the royal family. At the time of his appointment as foreign minister last April, Saudi Arabia had just gone to war with neighboring Yemen and the situation in Syria was escalating. Al-Jubeir is now responsible for representing his country's controversial foreign policy. And he allowed himself plenty of time to do so in this interview with SPIEGEL. When his staff sought to end the interview after 45 minutes because he had a speech to give at the Munich Security Conference, al-Jubeir suggested we continue the discussion in his limousine -- both on the way to his talk and back to the hotel afterward.

SPIEGEL: Mr. al-Jubeir, have you ever seen the Middle East in worse shape than it is in today?

Al-Jubeir: The Middle East has gone through periods of turmoil before. In the 1950s and 1960s, there were revolutions. When monarchies were collapsing in a number of countries, we had radicals and we had Nasserism. Today it's a little bit more complicated.

SPIEGEL: The most complicated and dangerous situation, obviously, is the one in Syria. What does Saudi Arabia want to achieve in this conflict?

Al-Jubeir: I don't think anyone can predict what the short term will look like. In the long term, it will be a Syria without Bashar Assad. The longer it takes, the worse it will get. We warned when the crisis began in 2011 that unless it was resolved quickly, the country would be destroyed. Unfortunately, our warnings are coming true.
SPIEGEL: What do you want to do now that the Assad regime has gained the upper hand?

Al-Jubeir: We have always said there are two ways to resolve Syria, and both will end up with the same result: a Syria without Bashar Assad. There is a political process which we are trying to achieve through what is called the Vienna Group. That involves the establishment of a governing council, which is to take power away from Bashar Assad, to write a constitution and to open the way for elections. It is important that Bashar leaves in the beginning, not at the end of the process. This will make the transition happen with less death and destruction.

SPIEGEL: And the other option?

Al-Jubeir: The other option is that the war will continue and Bashar Assad will be defeated. If, as we decided in Munich, there will be a cessation of hostilities and humanitarian assistance can flow into Syria -- then this will open the door for the beginning of the political transition process. We are at a very delicate juncture, and it may not work, but we have to try it. Should the political process not work, there is always the other approach.

SPIEGEL: Assad has said he considers a short-term cease-fire in Syria to be impossible. Has the Munich agreement failed already?

Al-Jubeir: Bashar Assad has said many things. We will see in the near term whether he is serious about a political process.

SPIEGEL: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev spoke of the danger of "World War III" at the Munich Security Conference.

Al-Jubeir: I think this is an over-dramatization. Let's not forget: This all began when you had eight- and nine-year-old children writing graffiti on walls. Their parents were told: "You will never see them again. If you want to have children, go to your wife and make new ones." Assad's people rebelled. He crushed them brutally. But his military could not protect him. So he asked the Iranians to come in and help. Iran sent its Revolutionary Guards into Syria, they brought in Shia militias, Hezbollah from Lebanon, militias from Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, all Shia, and they couldn't help. Then he brought in Russia, and Russia will not save him. At the same time, we have a war against Daesh (the Islamic State, or IS) in Syria. A coalition that was led by the United States, with Saudi Arabia being one of the first members of that coalition.

SPIEGEL: You've just named all the actors. Is that not already a world war of sorts?

Al-Jubeir: I will get to this in a second, if you allow me. The air campaign started, but it became very obvious that there may have to be a ground component. Saudi Arabia has said that if the US-led coalition against Daesh is prepared to engage in ground operations, we will be prepared to participate with special forces. The Russians say their objective is to defeat Daesh, too. If the deployment of ground troops helps in the fight against Daesh, why is that World War III? Is Russia worried that defeating Daesh will open the door for defeating Bashar Assad? That would be a different story. But I don't think World War III is going to happen in Syria.

SPIEGEL: Would Saudi Arabian ground troops only battle Islamic State or would you also join the fight against Assad?

Al-Jubeir: We expressed our readiness to join the US-led, international coalition against Daesh with special forces. All of this, however, is still in the discussion phase and in the initial planning phase.

SPIEGEL: Is Saudi Arabia in favor of supplying anti-aircraft missiles to the rebels?

Al-Jubeir: Yes. We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground. It will allow the moderate opposition to be able to neutralize the helicopters and aircraft that are dropping chemicals and have been carpet-bombing them, just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there. This has to be studied very carefully, however, because you don't want such weapons to fall into the wrong hands.

SPIEGEL: Into the hands of Islamic State.

Al-Jubeir: This is a decision that the international coalition will have to make. This is not Saudi Arabia's decision.

SPIEGEL: The Russian intervention has had a big impact on the situation in Syria. How would you describe Saudi Arabia's relationship with Russia at this point?

Al-Jubeir: Other than our disagreement over Syria, I would say our relationship with Russia is very good and we are seeking to broaden and deepen it. Twenty million Russians are Muslims. Like Russia, we have an interest in fighting radicalism and extremism. We both have an interest in stable energy markets. Even the disagreement over Syria is more of a tactical one than a strategic one. We both want a unified Syria that is stable in which all Syrians enjoy equal rights.

SPIEGEL: That sounds well and good, but you are also providing support to the opposing camp in a war. Even more than your relationship with Russia, the world is worried about the deep schism between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Al-Jubeir : Iran has been a neighbor for millenia, and will continue to be a neighbor for millenia. We have no issue with seeking to develop the best terms we can with Iran. But after the revolution of 1979, Iran embarked on a policy of sectarianism. Iran began a policy of expanding its revolution, of interfering with the affairs of its neighbors, a policy of assassinating diplomats and of attacking embassies. Iran is responsible for a number of terrorist attacks in the Kingdom, it is responsible for smuggling explosives and drugs into Saudi Arabia. And Iran is responsible for setting up sectarian militias in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen, whose objective is to destabilize those countries.

SPIEGEL: If all this is the case, then how can you possibly establish "the best terms you can" with Iran?

Al-Jubeir: Yes, we want to have good ties with the Iranians, but if they want good ties with us, then I tell them: Don't keep attacking us as you have done for the last 35 years. As long as Iran's aggressive policies continue, it's going to be bad for the region. Iran has to decide whether it wants a revolution or a nation-state.

SPIEGEL: Are the Iranians the only ones to blame? What can Saudi Arabia offer to improve this vital relationship?

Al-Jubeir: Show me one Iranian diplomat we killed! I can show you many Saudi diplomats who were killed by Iran. Show me one Iranian embassy that was attacked by Saudi Arabia. Show me one terrorist cell that we planted in Iran. Show me one activity by Saudi Arabia to create problems among Iranian minorities.

SPIEGEL: Your Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, accused Saudi Arabia of provoking Iran by actively sponsoring violent extremist groups.

Al-Jubeir: What's the provocation that he's talking about?

SPIEGEL: Is Saudi Arabia not financing extremist groups? Zarif speaks of attacks by al-Qaida, the Syrian al-Nusra and other groups -- of attacks on Shiite mosques from Iraq to Yemen.

Al-Jubeir: Yes, but that's not us. We don't tolerate terrorism. We go after the terrorists and those who support them and those who justify their actions. Our record has been very clear, contrary to their record. They harbor al-Qaida leaders. They facilitate al-Qaida operations. They complain about Daesh, but Iran is the only country around the negotiating table that has not been attacked by either al-Qaida or Daesh.

SPIEGEL: Can the West play a role in mediating between Saudi Arabia and Iran, following the example of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the organization which helped end the Cold War?

Al-Jubeir: The Iranians know what they need to do in order to become a responsible member of the international community and in order to become a good neighbor, and it's really up to them to change their behavior.

SPIEGEL: So there is nothing that Saudi Arabia itself or the West could do to encourage this process?

Al-Jubeir: There is nothing to encourage. The Iranians should just stay away from us.

SPIEGEL: How do you explain the ideological closeness between the Wahhabi faith in Saudi Arabia and Islamic State's ideology? How do you explain that Daesh applies, with slight differences, the same draconian punishments that the Saudi judiciary does?

Al-Jubeir: This is an oversimplification which doesn't make sense. Daesh is attacking us. Their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, wants to destroy the Saudi state. These people are criminals. They're psychopaths. Daesh members wear shoes. Does this mean everybody who wears shoes is Daesh?

SPIEGEL: Are you contesting the similarities between the extremely conservative interpretation of Islam in Saudi Arabia and Islamic State's religious ideology?

Al-Jubeir: ISIS is as much an Islamic organization as the KKK in America is a Christian organization. They burned people of African descent on the cross, and they said they're doing it in the name of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, in every religion there are people who pervert the faith. We should not take the actions of psychopaths and paint them as being representative of the whole religion.

SPIEGEL: Doesn't Saudi Arabia have to do a lot more to distance itself from ISIS and its ideology?

Al-Jubeir: It seems people don't read or listen. Our scholars and our media have been very outspoken. We were the first country in the world to hold a national public awareness campaign against extremism and terrorism. Why would we not want to fight an ideology whose objective is to kill us?

SPIEGEL: At the same time, your judges mete out sentences that shock the world. The blogger Raif Badawi has been sentenced to prison and 1,000 lashes. On Jan. 2, 47 men were beheaded, among them Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. His nephew Ali has been sentenced to death as well and his body is to be crucified after the execution.

Al-Jubeir: We have a legal system, and we have a penal code. We have the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, and people should respect this. You don't have the death penalty, and we respect that.

SPIEGEL: Should we respect the flogging of people?

Al-Jubeir: Just like we respect your legal system, you should respect our legal system. You cannot impose your values on us, otherwise the world will become the law of the jungle. Every society decides what its laws are, and it's the people who make decisions with regards to these laws. You cannot lecture another people about what you think is right or wrong based on your value system unless you're willing to accept others imposing their value system on you.

SPIEGEL: Is it even compatible with human rights to display the body of an executed person?

Al-Jubeir: This is a judgment call. We have a legal system, and this is not something that happens all the time. We have capital punishment. America has capital punishment. Iran has capital punishment. Iran hangs people and leaves their bodies hanging on cranes. Iran put to death more than a thousand people last year. I don't see you reporting on it.

SPIEGEL: We have reported on it.

Al-Jubeir: Anyway, Nimr al-Nimr …

SPIEGEL: … who was executed on Jan. 2 and was the uncle of Ali al-Nimr …

Al-Jubeir: Nimr was a terrorist, he recruited, he plotted, he financed and as a consequence of his actions a number of Saudi Arabian police were killed. Are we supposed to put him on a pedestal? He was put on trial. His trial was reviewed at the appellate level. It went to the supreme court, and the sentence was death, like the other 46 people who were put to death.

SPIEGEL: Your foreign policy has become more aggressive as well. According to the United Nations, about 6,000 people have been killed in Yemen since the beginning of the Saudi Arabian offensive in March 2015. What do you want to achieve with this war?

Al-Jubeir: The war in Yemen is not a war that we wanted. We had no other option -- there was a radical militia allied with Iran and Hezbollah that took over the country. It was in possession of heavy weapons, ballistic missiles and even an air force. Should we stand by idly while this happens at our doorstep, in one of the countries in which al-Qaida has a huge presence? So we responded, as part of a coalition, at the request of the legitimate government of Yemen, and we stepped in to support them. We have removed, to a large extent, the threat that these weapons posed to Saudi Arabia. Now 75 percent of Yemen has been liberated and is under the control of the government forces.

AFP
Yemeni men inspect the damage at the site of a Saudi-led coalition air strike which hit a sewing workshop in the capital Sanaa, on Feb. 14, 2016.
SPIEGEL: For how long is this supposed to continue? Half of the victims in this war have been civilians.
Al-Jubeir: We will continue the operation until the objective is achieved. We hope that the Houthis and Saleh will agree to a political settlement, and we are prepared, along with our Gulf allies, to put in place a very substantial reconstruction plan for Yemen. We have no interest in seeing an unstable Yemen or seeing a Yemen that is devastated.

SPIEGEL: With several interventions in Yemen, Syria and other countries in the region, it appears that Saudi Arabia is aspiring to become the Middle East's hegemonial power. Isn't your country punching above its weight?

Al-Jubeir: We are not seeking this role for Saudi Arabia. What we want is stability and security so we can focus on our own development. But we have these problems in our region, and nobody has been able to resolve them. The whole world was saying that the countries of the regions should step up and resolve their problems, so we stepped up. Now people are saying, "Oh my God, Saudi Arabia has changed." It's a contradiction. Do you want us to lead, or do you want us to play a supporting role? Because we can't do both. If you want us to lead, don't criticize us. And if you want us to play a supporting role, then tell us who is going to lead.

SPIEGEL: Does Saudi Arabia feel threatened by the Iranian nuclear deal, by a possible rapprochement between your hostile neighbor and your closest ally in the West, the United States?

Al-Jubeir: We support any deal that denies Iran nuclear weapons, that has a continuous and robust inspection mechanism and that has snap-back provisions in case Iran violates the agreement. Our concern is that Iran will use the income it receives as a result of the lifting of the nuclear sanctions in order to fund its nefarious activities in the region.

SPIEGEL: The United States' foreign policy in the Middle East has become more restrained under President Obama. Is that a mistake?

Al-Jubeir: I don't believe in the theory that the United States is reducing its presence in the Middle East. Quite the contrary, in the Gulf, we see an increase in American military presence, as well as an increase in American investments. The argument is more accurate when one says America is focusing more attention to the Far East. But I don't believe it comes at the expense of the Middle East.

SPIEGEL: Your Excellency, we thank you for this interview.

cosmicalstorm · Post by **cosmicalstorm** » 2016-02-20 05:06pm

Posting this for some lol. While a board like this may be used to seeing through such rants it's important to consider that many people from around the world will ultimately consider this version to be the one closest to the truth, which is a pity for the US foreign ambitions. But the people in Washington certainly deserve to be viewed with atrocious mistrust due to their incompetent actions in Libya, Iraq and Syria.

What is the Point Spread on WW III?

Bob Moriarty
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Feb 20, 2016

Boobus Americanus seems to utterly have lost the ability to think for themselves. So when the totally controlled US media mumbles on about how Al Assad needs replacing, no American could dream of asking, "Why? What did he do to us?" The answer, of course, is nothing. He didn't attack us, doesn't threaten us and is the democratically elected leader of Syria. You don't have to like him.

I am an equal opportunity anarchist. I despise all governments equally. That said, I don't support military overthrow of legal, sovereign nations by anyone. Syria is a sovereign nation led by a legal ruler. That's a lot more than can be said of several of the players in our new World Series of War or Super Bowl of Conflict or simply World War III.

After World War II, a Military Tribunal was held in Nuremberg Germany that determined the waging of aggressive war, "essentially an evil thing... to initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime: it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

As I write, Turkish forces have been shelling Syria for almost a week. They have ground forces on the border and have shifted small units into Syria. In the south of Iraq and Syria, Saudi Arabia has mobilized the largest military maneuvers in the nation's history. Estimated participation in "Operation North Thunder" indicates between 150,000 and 350,000 troops from 20 countries are participating. As a result, both Saudi Arabia and Turkey seem poised to invade Syria in a war of aggression in order to overthrow Al Assad.

Since we seem on the verge of World War III, just what is the point spread between the teams? I have to dumb down this piece so Americans can faintly understand it and putting it in terms of a point spread makes it easier. Between Fox News and fluoride in the water, Americans seem to have lost the ability to think for themselves.

Syria is obviously the most important team; after all it's a home game. For now.

The military conflict in Syria goes back to early 2011. The western press calls it a civil war but it is hardly a civil war. The legal and democratically elected government of Syria has been attacked on a variety of fronts by terrorists sponsored directly and financed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Israel, the US, the UK and France have all contributed money and arms to what is generally considered ISIS. So the totally controlled press in the west talks about "fighting" ISIS when in fact they both created ISIS, and they continue to finance ISIS.

Given the overwhelming support of foreign nations to ISIS and other terrorist groups, the army of Syria had lost considerable ground until Russia stepped up to the plate in 2015.

Currently Russian, Kurdish and Syrian forces have ISIS on the ropes and the terrorists are on the verge of total destruction in Syria. The state sponsors of terrorism in Syria have their knickers in a twist as a result.

Israel is a central player in this game even if the media utterly ignores their participation. As late as 1996 in a position paper prepared by dual national Neocons suggested that, rather than pursuing a "comprehensive peace" with the entire Arab world, Israel should work jointly with Jordan and Turkey to "contain, destabilize, and roll-back" those entities that are threats to all three. Of course the Neocons were referring to Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Israel managed to drag the US and other allies into the debacle in Iraq that continues to fester. Western forces turned Libya into a hell on earth with the entire country turned into a conflict between warlords after the legal ruler was murdered. Libya has changed from the richest country in Northern Africa to a giant wasteland. Every country other than Israel now recognizes that the invasion of Libya was a colossal mistake.

Regardless of what shows up in the controlled media, Israel is certainly a player in the conflict with Syria. They have provided both supplies and weapons to the terrorists. They remain a wild card with their immediate intentions unknown.

Israel is a state founded on a concept of constant warfare. Israel needs enemies to keep focused. They have no intentions of ever turning to peace. They stage a series of constant wars, one melding into another. They are armed with nuclear weapons, submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles from anywhere in the world. They have the most experienced organized army in the Middle East.

In 2006 Israel invaded Lebanon with the intention of destroying Hezbollah. The Western press sort of mumbled about the fight going on in favor of Israel. The Asia Times wrote a comprehensive series of three articles that told the truth. Israel got their butts kicked when they fought an actual armed opponent. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here and part 3 is here.

Israel does manage to bomb Gaza back to the Stone Age on a regular basis. Given the overwhelming military force possessed by Israel, all they ever really manage to accomplish is to further damage their international image. Israeli forces seem most effective when they are killing teenagers.

It's entirely possible that Israel could stage a false flag operation and even provide Turkey and or Saudi Arabia with limited tactical nuclear weapons but the IDF lacks the courage to fight an actual uniformed army. They would far rather have their proxy forces do their fighting for them as was done in Iraq. Israel remains a wild card but I highly suspect Putin will have had a heart to heart conversation with Netanyahu. Israel threatens the entire world with their 400 nuclear weapons and the "Samson Option" save two. That would be China and Russia.

When you are driving to the big game in your brand new Ford F-350 truck with the dual wheels in back and a clunker almost runs into you, you are the one to swerve, you have the most to lose. The fool in the clunker doesn't care what happens to him.

Both Russia and China have the ability to take a lot of damage and still survive. Israel doesn't. All Putin would have to suggest is that unless Netanyahu either sits on his hands or Tel Aviv gets turned into a giant hole in the ground, he will get Netanyahu's attention. All Putin has to worry about then is a little extrajudicial assassination on the part of Israel. Carrying a dead man's switch in his hand would be a good alternative.

The most powerful legal position in Turkey is the Prime Minister. Erdogan was the Prime Minister from 2003 until 2014. Erdogan is now the President and that is a titular position but the current Prime Minister seems ok with letting Erdogan make all the decisions. Erdogan and his son have been doing over $1 billion a year in stolen oil from Syria and Iraq. Their military and financial support of ISIS seems far more designed to protect their rice bowl than to accomplish any political goals by destroying Syria.

Turkey has a large and powerful army, one of the most powerful in the Middle East. Major units of that army are poised to invade Syria. The ostensible goal is to fight ISIS and the Kurds but since ISIS IS Turkish, their argument holds no water.

I wrote a piece on the 15th of February suggesting that Turkey would stage a false flag operation in order to provide a legal justification for the invasion of Syria. In a way I was incorrect. On the 18th the New York Times reported a car bombing in Ankara that killed 28. In a marvelous development right out of CSI, the Turks managed to retrieve the fingerprints from the suicide bomber and managed to identify him as a member of a Kurdish splinter group in less than six hours. That was almost magic because the terrorists right index finger landed in a small alley in Paris and his left thumb landed in Sydney Australia.

I accept that I was dead wrong in suggesting Turkey would stage "a" false flag operation. They didn't do "a" false flag operation, they did two. Since the first bombing was so obviously a false flag operation, they did another false flag bombing the next day as reported on CNN.

The real issue with Turkey in this Super Bowl of Murder or World War III will be just how willing the brave soldiers of Turkey will be to die for the crimes of the Erdogan family. There are going to be a lot of dead Turks soon. I don't think it's going to take all that long for the survivors to get it. They aren't dying to protect Turkey. They are dying to protect the ill-gotten gains of Erdogan.

Saudi Arabia is the remaining big player on the challenger's side. Again, the country is being run; not by the legal ruler, but by 30-year-old Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Deputy Crown Prince bin Salman is 2nd in line to the Saudi throne. The Crown Prince is Mohammad bin Nayef and is considered loyal to the interests of the US.

Prince bin Salman as defense minister launched the disaster that is the war in Yemen where one of the most well equipped armies in the Middle East has been fought to a standstill by a ragtag local army intent on overthrowing the puppet government supported by Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia spends $56 billion a year in defense spending. But their army is mostly made up of mercenaries led by Saudi nationals. If they can't defeat Yemen, the poorest nation in the region, they stand no chance against Russia/Syria. There are unconfirmed reports of what appears to be a tactical nuclear weapon used in Yemen on the part of Saudi Arabia. Certainly Saudi Arabia funded the Pakistan nuclear weapons program and there have been reports for years that Pakistan would provide nukes to Saudi Arabia upon demand.

Saudi Arabia is a loose cannon at present. With Prince bin Salman making the decisions, we essentially have a 30 year-old kid with no military experience attempting to wage a war of aggression against a nation with Russia as an ally. The real question will be just how many mercenaries have to die for bin Salman before the nation starts a revolution. We already have some idea of what the Saudi generals think. A few days ago, ten of the top Saudi generals sent a letter to bin Nayef warning him that any incursion into Syria could lead to unintended consequences.

Russia has a treaty dating back to 1971 with Syria that allows them use of the port of Tartus. That is Russia's only Mediterranean warm water port. Russia entered into the conflict on September 30, 2015 when they began to bomb the terrorists on behalf of the government of Syria in support of Al Assad. Russia has made it clear that they intend to help defend Syria and would consider any invasion force an act of aggression against their ally and a declaration of war.

Russian military tactics are weak on defense and exceptionally strong on counter attack. If Turkey invades Syria, they will have the military upper hand for probably a week or so. Russia will allow Syrian forces to fall back in order to allow Turkey to make it perfectly obvious that this is an act of aggression. Once Turkey is fully committed and their supply lines stretched, Russia will attack with all the power they possess. They will hit Turkey in ways Turkey cannot even imagine. They will use tactical nukes and tens of thousands of Turks will die in the exchange.

If Saudi Arabia enters the fray in any way, with either ground forces or their air force, their oil fields will be destroyed. Their capital cities will be destroyed. Tens of thousands of their military will die.

Readers should remember that World War I started with minor events just as stupid as that of an attempted regime change in Syria. At the conclusion of World War I ,17 million had been killed, 11 million military and 6 million innocent civilians. At the end of World War II 60 million had died. In the Soviet Union there were 30 times as many deaths as in the US during the war. Russians know how to die in war. They also know how to win.

Three empires ended as a result of World War I. The Ottoman Empire was broken in pieces, the Russian Empire collapsed and the Austria/Hungary Empire fell apart.

Few wars are quite as clear as the upcoming conflict. It is a clear act of aggressive war on part of the US, Israel, France, the UK, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. All of those countries are calling for regime change and are directly supporting the terrorists. Depending on how long it will take for adult supervision to take over there may be from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions of deaths.

At the conclusion there will be war crimes trials. This conflict has the potential for being the demise of the Saudi regime, Turkey as a regional power and the end of the road for Israel. The US has a fleeting tiny chance of showing responsibility and respect for international law. Should it not take affirmative action there is an excellent chance that for the first time in history a Nobel Peace Prize winner will be standing in the dock accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

And there is an excellent chance that it will mark the end of the American empire.

The western media is in a feeding frenzy demonizing ISIS daily. But they ignore who is fighting ISIS and who is fighting for ISIS. The last vestiges of credibility of the media are on the line.

I'm betting on the Russians. The line is Russia and 50 points. In any war it always helps to hold the high ground. Putin does. The West does not.

Those who launch wars rarely win them. Wars are very easy to start but very hard to end. This war needs to end soon or it will grow far bigger than we can imagine.

###

Bob Moriarty
President: 321gold
Archives

http://321energy.com/editorials/moriart ... 22016.html

jwl · Post by **jwl** » 2016-02-20 06:29pm

Highlord Laan wrote:
Thanas wrote:
Broomstick wrote:I keep hearing "Obama fucked up". I'd be interested in hearing what people think a non-fucked course of action for the US would have been.
1. Put ground troops into Iraq to fight ISIS
2. More aid to Turkey and Libanon to create refugee camps that actually have livable conditions
3. Sharing a bigger refugee burden
4. Fund the UN refugee organizations
5. Give incentives and political cover to states who take in refugees

Any of those options would be better than what he has done.
And all of those options would have been shat on by Congress, blocked at every turn, defunded if they even started getting off the gorund, and obstructed to death, thus leading back to where we are now. People keep thinking that the President is able to somehow rule by decree, and that the american people are capable of thinking past soundbytes.

IIRC, a President has only 90 days to use military force without congressional approval, after that, it goes to the pit of voles the most obstructionist pack of assholes is US history. Now, any branch of the US military could have smashed Assad, the rebels, and ISIS to smoking rubble and ash inside that timeframe, but to do so would require using tactics that everyone would be bitching about afterwards.

Now, we could also have very well not got involved at all. At which point every hypocritical jackass screaming about Syria now would be screaming about how it's a moral duty for the US to "do something."

In short, the wrong politician is be blamed. Pardon. The wrong politician is being assigned all the blame. If you want to point fingers, do it at Capitol Hill.

The politician that should be blamed for this is Basher al-Assad, not anyone in the US.

Purple · Post by **Purple** » 2016-02-20 06:35pm

jwl wrote:The politician that should be blamed for this is Basher al-Assad, not anyone in the US.

Why? He is the only one who was dedicated to restoring order in Syria for the entire duration of this mess.

jwl · Post by **jwl** » 2016-02-20 06:44pm

Purple wrote:
jwl wrote:The politician that should be blamed for this is Basher al-Assad, not anyone in the US.
Why? He is the only one who was dedicated to restoring order in Syria for the entire duration of this mess.

>If he reacted less violently to food protests at the start of this thing the whole civil war many never have happened.
>If he was more willing to negotiate earlier on in the war, this whole thing could have been resolved before the more radical groups emerged.
>In terms of both body count and displaced refugees, Assad's forces are worse than everyone else. This may be due to them having better capacity to cause damage, but that doesn't change the statistics.

Purple · Post by **Purple** » 2016-02-20 07:11pm

jwl wrote:>If he reacted less violently to food protests at the start of this thing the whole civil war many never have happened.

And had the west shut up and not made overtures to the rebels thus implying support he would have massacred the protesters and we would have had peace in the region.

>If he was more willing to negotiate earlier on in the war, this whole thing could have been resolved before the more radical groups emerged.

Same thing could be said of if the west had helped him win the war instead of constantly pushing for his removal. If all those moderate rebels that existed up until not so long ago had been told to stand down because they ain't getting help the war against ISIS would have been a lot more one sided.

>In terms of both body count and displaced refugees, Assad's forces are worse than everyone else. This may be due to them having better capacity to cause damage, but that doesn't change the statistics.

You can't win a war without killing people.

jwl · Post by **jwl** » 2016-02-21 03:27am

Purple wrote:
jwl wrote:>If he reacted less violently to food protests at the start of this thing the whole civil war many never have happened.
And had the west shut up and not made overtures to the rebels thus implying support he would have massacred the protesters and we would have had peace in the region.

I doubt that the war wouldn't have happened if the west hadn't condemned Assad. The rebels might have hoped for Western military support, but they would have to have been idiots if they actually expected it.

>If he was more willing to negotiate earlier on in the war, this whole thing could have been resolved before the more radical groups emerged.
Same thing could be said of if the west had helped him win the war instead of constantly pushing for his removal. If all those moderate rebels that existed up until not so long ago had been told to stand down because they ain't getting help the war against ISIS would have been a lot more one sided.

Why is it so unreasonable to ask that Assad stands down? Al-Maliki stood down in Iraq and the Iraqi civil war is less his fault that the Syrian civil war is Assad's. In democracies, corporations and organisations, an unpopular leader standing down is fairly normal.

>In terms of both body count and displaced refugees, Assad's forces are worse than everyone else. This may be due to them having better capacity to cause damage, but that doesn't change the statistics.
You can't win a war without killing people.

[/quote]
Yes, but you can win a war without indiscriminately barrel bombing random groups of people like Assad has been doing. There have been other civil wars in the region and they don't seem to be getting the same body count or refugee count that the Syrian war is.

cosmicalstorm · Post by **cosmicalstorm** » 2016-02-21 04:23am

I wonder if they dare to move into Syria considering their dire situation. Maybe that kind of desperation will make them do stupid things. I'm not gonna mourn them if they turn into Saudi Somalia.

Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom
It can’t last. The U.S. better get ready.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Reuters

Sarah Chayes and Alex de Waal Feb 18, 2016 Global

For half a century, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been the linchpin of U.S. Mideast policy. A guaranteed supply of oil has bought a guaranteed supply of security. Ignoring autocratic practices and the export of Wahhabi extremism, Washington stubbornly dubs its ally “moderate.” So tight is the trust that U.S. special operators dip into Saudi petrodollars as a counterterrorism slush fund without a second thought. In a sea of chaos, goes the refrain, the kingdom is one state that’s stable.

But is it?

In fact, Saudi Arabia is no state at all. There are two ways to describe it: as a political enterprise with a clever but ultimately unsustainable business model, or as an entity so corrupt as to resemble a vertically and horizontally integrated criminal organization. Either way, it can’t last. It’s past time U.S. decision-makers began planning for the collapse of the Saudi kingdom.
More From Our Partners
Defense One

In recent conversations with military and other government personnel, we were startled at how startled they seemed at this prospect. Here’s the analysis they should be working through.

Understood one way, the Saudi king is the CEO of a family business that converts oil into payouts that buy political loyalty. They take two forms: cash handouts or commercial concessions for the increasingly numerous scions of the royal clan, and a modicum of public goods and employment opportunities for commoners. The coercive “stick” is supplied by brutal internal-security services lavishly outfitted with American equipment.

The United States has long counted on the ruling family having bottomless coffers of cash with which to rent loyalty. Even accounting for today’s low oil prices, and even as Saudi officials step up arms purchases and military adventures in Yemen and elsewhere, Riyadh is hardly running out of funds.

Still, expanded oil production in the face of such low prices—until the February 16 announcement of a Saudi-Russian output freeze at very high January levels—may reflect an urgent need for revenue as well as other strategic imperatives. Talk of a Saudi Aramco IPO similarly suggests a need for hard currency.

A political market, moreover, functions according to demand as well as supply. What if the price of loyalty rises?

It appears that is just what’s happening. King Salman had to spend lavishly to secure the allegiance of the notables who were pledged to the late King Abdullah. Here’s what played out in two other countries when this kind of inflation hit. In South Sudan, an insatiable elite not only diverted the newly minted country’s oil money to private pockets but also kept up their outsized demands when the money ran out, sparking a descent into chaos. The Somali government enjoys generous donor support, but is priced out of a very competitive political market by a host of other buyers—with ideological, security, or criminal agendas of their own.

Such comparisons may be offensive to Saudi leaders, but they are telling. If the loyalty price index keeps rising, the monarchy could face political insolvency.
The Saudi ruling elite is operating something like a sophisticated criminal enterprise.

Looked at another way, the Saudi ruling elite is operating something like a sophisticated criminal enterprise, when populations everywhere are making insistent demands for government accountability. With its political and business elites interwoven in a monopolistic network, quantities of unaccountable cash leaving the country for private investments and lavish purchases abroad, and state functions bent to serve these objectives, Saudi Arabia might be compared to such kleptocracies as Viktor Yanukovich’s Ukraine.

Increasingly, Saudi citizens are seeing themselves as just that: citizens, not subjects. In countries as diverse as Nigeria, Ukraine, Brazil, Moldova, and Malaysia, people are contesting criminalized government and impunity for public officials—sometimes violently. In more than half a dozen countries in 2015, populations took to the streets to protest corruption. In three of them, heads of state are either threatened or have had to resign. Elsewhere, the same grievances have contributed to the expansion of jihadist movements or criminal organizations posing as Robin Hoods. Russia and China’s external adventurism can at least partially be explained as an effort to re-channel their publics’ dissatisfaction with the quality of governance.

For the moment, it is largely Saudi Arabia’s Shia minority that is voicing political demands. But the highly educated Sunni majority, with unprecedented exposure to the outside world, is unlikely to stay satisfied forever with a few favors doled out by geriatric rulers impervious to their input. And then there are the “guest workers.” Saudi officials, like those in other Gulf states, seem to think they can exploit an infinite supply of indigents grateful to work, whatever the conditions. But citizens are now heavily outnumbered in their own countries by laborers who may soon begin claiming rights.

For decades, Riyadh has eased pressure by exporting its dissenters—like Osama bin Laden—fomenting extremism across the Muslim world. But that strategy can backfire: Bin Laden’s critique of Saudi corruption has been taken up by others, and it resonates among many Arabs. And King Salman (who is 80, by the way) does not display the dexterity of his half-brother Abdullah. He’s reached for some of the familiar items in the autocrats’ toolbox: executing dissidents, embarking on foreign wars, and whipping up sectarian rivalries to discredit the demands of Saudi Shiites and boost nationalist fervor. Each of these has grave risks.
The U.S. keeps getting caught flat-footed when purportedly solid countries come apart.

There are a few ways things could go, as Salman’s brittle grip on power begins cracking.

One is a factional struggle within the royal family, with the price of allegiance bid up beyond anyone’s ability to pay in cash. Another is foreign war. With Saudi Arabia and Iran already confronting each other by proxy in Yemen and Syria, escalation is too easy. U.S. decision-makers should bear that danger in mind as they keep pressing for regional solutions to regional problems. A third scenario is insurrection—either a nonviolent uprising or a jihadi insurgency—a result all too predictable given episodes throughout the region in recent years.

The United States keeps getting caught off-guard when purportedly solid countries come apart. To do better this time, U.S. military and intelligence officials should at the very least, and immediately, run some rigorous planning exercises to test different scenarios and potential actions aimed at reducing codependence and mitigating risk. They should work hard to identify the most likely, and most dangerous, regional outcomes of a Saudi collapse—or the increasingly desperate efforts of its rulers to avoid one. And above all, they should abandon the automatic-pilot thinking that has been guiding U.S. policy to date.

“Hope is not a policy” is a hackneyed phrase. But choosing not to consider alternatives amounts to the same thing.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... se/463212/

AMX · Post by **AMX** » 2016-02-21 04:27am

Purple wrote:And had the west shut up and not made overtures to the rebels thus implying support he would have massacred the protesters and we would have had peace in the region.

Seriously?
Killing protesters pisses of their friends without actually solving the underlying problem.
So there would have been another batch of desperate people soon after... except they would have been aware that protesting doesn't help, and angry at the government.

That's not a recipe for peace...

Purple · Post by **Purple** » 2016-02-21 05:34am

jwl wrote:I doubt that the war wouldn't have happened if the west hadn't condemned Assad. The rebels might have hoped for Western military support, but they would have to have been idiots if they actually expected it.

Why do you say that? The west actively supported other revolts in the same time such as the one in Libya. And the west has a history of supporting revolts they like.

Why is it so unreasonable to ask that Assad stands down? Al-Maliki stood down in Iraq and the Iraqi civil war is less his fault that the Syrian civil war is Assad's. In democracies, corporations and organisations, an unpopular leader standing down is fairly normal.

Assad is not the issue here. At least not as a person. It's what he represents. And that is order, stability and a strong and oppressive government willing to use any means at its disposal to establish and maintain order and destroy ISIS and any equivalents.

The portion of the Syrian people that oppose Assad don't oppose him as a person just as those that support him don't support him as a person. They oppose or support this form of government. And yet it is this sort of government that is the one and only bulwark against jihadist movements such as ISIS taking hold.

Fact of the matter is that quite a lot of people on the ground do in fact want an Islamic theocracy such as ISIS. And if the world is to ever have peace from such organizations this segment of the population absolutely must be oppressed by a tyrannical government hell bent on not allowing them to succeed. Thus for the sake of the world the middle east needs governments that are willing to oppress and tyrannize a significant portion of their populace.

So if not Assad we need to ensure Syria gets someone just like him.

Yes, but you can win a war without indiscriminately barrel bombing random groups of people like Assad has been doing. There have been other civil wars in the region and they don't seem to be getting the same body count or refugee count that the Syrian war is.

WW2 has set the standard for how brutal a modern industrial war is. Any modern war fought competently and to completion by sides which are fully dedicated to the fighting can not be any less brutal.

Fact of the matter is that the days of chivalry are dead and gone. Now a days if you want to win a war you have to kill a hell of a lot of people, most of whom are civilians that happened to find them self in the wrong place at the wrong time.

jwl · Post by **jwl** » 2016-02-21 11:45am

Purple wrote:
jwl wrote:I doubt that the war wouldn't have happened if the west hadn't condemned Assad. The rebels might have hoped for Western military support, but they would have to have been idiots if they actually expected it.
Why do you say that? The west actively supported other revolts in the same time such as the one in Libya. And the west has a history of supporting revolts they like.

By the time the west was supporting the revolt in Libya, the Syrian civil war was already well underway. And the reason why the Libya war got the support was that the Libyan military is fairly weak so it is reasonably easy to do in a short timeframe, and the rebels were going to win anyway, the difference was how many people Gaddafi was going to take down with him. The Syrian military was much more powerful and was not obviously losing, meaning the war would have been much longer requiring much greater resources, causing the fatigue from the iraq war to kick in. The Assad regime also had the backing of Russia, making an overthrow more politically difficult. If the rebels were serious in the idea of a civil war against Assad, they should have known this, therefore they should have known that they couldn't count on western support.

Why is it so unreasonable to ask that Assad stands down? Al-Maliki stood down in Iraq and the Iraqi civil war is less his fault that the Syrian civil war is Assad's. In democracies, corporations and organisations, an unpopular leader standing down is fairly normal.
Assad is not the issue here. At least not as a person. It's what he represents. And that is order, stability and a strong and oppressive government willing to use any means at its disposal to establish and maintain order and destroy ISIS and any equivalents.

The portion of the Syrian people that oppose Assad don't oppose him as a person just as those that support him don't support him as a person. They oppose or support this form of government. And yet it is this sort of government that is the one and only bulwark against jihadist movements such as ISIS taking hold.

Fact of the matter is that quite a lot of people on the ground do in fact want an Islamic theocracy such as ISIS. And if the world is to ever have peace from such organizations this segment of the population absolutely must be oppressed by a tyrannical government hell bent on not allowing them to succeed. Thus for the sake of the world the middle east needs governments that are willing to oppress and tyrannize a significant portion of their populace.

So if not Assad we need to ensure Syria gets someone just like him.

They partially don't like him because they don't like this form of government. But a large reason why they don't like Assad is simply because they don't like Assad, in the same way that groups of Iraqis didn't like Al-Maliki because they didn't like Al-Maliki.

Yes, but you can win a war without indiscriminately barrel bombing random groups of people like Assad has been doing. There have been other civil wars in the region and they don't seem to be getting the same body count or refugee count that the Syrian war is.
WW2 has set the standard for how brutal a modern industrial war is. Any modern war fought competently and to completion by sides which are fully dedicated to the fighting can not be any less brutal.

Fact of the matter is that the days of chivalry are dead and gone. Now a days if you want to win a war you have to kill a hell of a lot of people, most of whom are civilians that happened to find them self in the wrong place at the wrong time.

No they don't. Other civil wars in the region didn't kill as many people. Other sides in the Syrian conflict didn't kill as many people. Why is Assad required to kill this many people? Also, if the deaths were a necessary by-product of the Syrian war the displaced Syrians would move to other areas of Syria and expect to be safe there. But they didn't do that, they left for Turkey Jordan and Lebanon. Why? Because they didn't think that Assad was trying to kill the rebels and they were collateral damage, they thought Assad was trying to kill them.

Purple · Post by **Purple** » 2016-02-21 11:55am

jwl wrote:By the time the west was supporting the revolt in Libya, the Syrian civil war was already well underway. And the reason why the Libya war got the support was that the Libyan military is fairly weak so it is reasonably easy to do in a short timeframe, and the rebels were going to win anyway, the difference was how many people Gaddafi was going to take down with him. The Syrian military was much more powerful and was not obviously losing, meaning the war would have been much longer requiring much greater resources, causing the fatigue from the iraq war to kick in. The Assad regime also had the backing of Russia, making an overthrow more politically difficult. If the rebels were serious in the idea of a civil war against Assad, they should have known this, therefore they should have known that they couldn't count on western support.

Except that america was openly issuing statements of support and is in fact still openly issuing such statements and openly demanding Assad step down. How does "america openly says they support X" and "X should know not to expect american support" compute? I am asking you to explain to me the logic you used to derive #2 from #1.

They partially don't like him because they don't like this form of government. But a large reason why they don't like Assad is simply because they don't like Assad, in the same way that groups of Iraqis didn't like Al-Maliki because they didn't like Al-Maliki.

If this is true, and I doubt it (unless you can provide reasonable proof or reasoning) it still means nothing as we, the rest of the world need a strong dictator in power capable of oppressing the radical Islamic population. And so the Assad faction still needs to win, with or without him. And we don't really have anyone to replace him at this point in time.

But like if you can come up with a replacement Stalin for Syria I would not disagree.

No they don't. Other civil wars in the region didn't kill as many people. Other sides in the Syrian conflict didn't kill as many people. Why is Assad required to kill this many people? Also, if the deaths were a necessary by-product of the Syrian war the displaced Syrians would move to other areas of Syria and expect to be safe there. But they didn't do that, they left for Turkey Jordan and Lebanon. Why? Because they didn't think that Assad was trying to kill the rebels and they were collateral damage, they thought Assad was trying to kill them.

Put your self in their position. If your country was indulged in a civil war and you had the option of moving a short distance away to an area that might be safe now but might be on the front lines come next week, month, year (assuming ISIS does not win in which case nowhere in Syria is safe ever again) or moving to one that's far away and perfectly 100% safe for the rest of your life and that comes with a bust in living standards to boot. Which would you pick?

Post by **Broomstick** » 2016-02-21 12:17pm

Purple wrote:Put your self in their position. If your country was indulged in a civil war and you had the option of moving a short distance away to an area that might be safe now but might be on the front lines come next week, month, year (assuming ISIS does not win in which case nowhere in Syria is safe ever again) or moving to one that's far away and perfectly 100% safe for the rest of your life and that comes with a bust in living standards to boot. Which would you pick?

Oh, that's easy - get the fuck out of Dodge.

Of course, I come from a long line of "cowards" who did exactly that, which is why we survived - those of our family who didn't are utterly gone.

But that's ignoring that many, many people are far more attached to location than either my family or Americans in general who are notorious for moving all over the place. These situations are not simplistic, one solution for all situations. Whether to run or stay is a complex decision. Staying can often be a viable long-term option depending on the circumstances or brutality involved.

Barrel bombs and poison gas goes beyond the typical civil tactics.

cosmicalstorm · Post by **cosmicalstorm** » 2016-02-22 02:24am

Kurds getting nice hit on svbied from IS with some weird rocket (sagger perhaps?)

http://isis.liveuamap.com/en/2016/21-fe ... e-reaching

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2016-02-22 03:24am

I'd like to note that it is a blatant rewriting of history to say "the Syrian Civil War was already well underway" when the West intervened in Libya. The Syrian protests started in April 2011, when Libya was already in the middle or even end phase of a conflict in which the West chose to back a "coalition" of spineless foreign puppets and hardcore islamists funded by KSA and Qatar.

And the West was doing the very same thing in Syria, encouraging and giving support to "rebel groups". The rebel warlords who fled to Turkey or even further West and enjoyed full immunity and protection there while they were planning the overthrow of Assad immediately come to mind.

The West did encourage the collapse of Baath regimes like that of Assad and similar. In fact, for a certain time the West even blindly supported whatever shit Turkey and KSA told them to support.

So no, the Syrian Civil War was not "well underway" when NATO intervened in Libya. You can't just pull this "we were always at war with Ostasia" shit, jwl, and expect people to accept it. Read up on the timeline of both civil wars and come back, that is assuming you were honestly mistaken.

cosmicalstorm · Post by **cosmicalstorm** » 2016-02-22 06:40am

Interesting analysis, one Sunni and one Alawite perspective.

Why Aleppo matters
Al Jazeera speaks to two Syrian analysts about why Aleppo matters

Kheder Khaddour is a senior researcher at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. His research focuses on issues of identity and society in Syria. He is the author of Assad’s officer Ghetto: Why the Syrian Army Remains Loyal.
Q.
Can you explain why is it crucial for the Syrian regime to retake Aleppo? What is so important about the city politically and militarily? And what consequences would such an event have on the potential settlement?

Ammar Waqqaf worked originally in management consultancy in the UK. He recently founded Gnosos, an organisation that focuses on the lesser-known views in Syria and the Middle East.
A.
Kheder Khaddour: Aleppo is not a goal in itself, but territorial gains are limited to the aim of fragmenting the opposition forces before any political settlement is reached. The regime and its allies know that it would be impossible to defeat the armed oppositions and reclaim all the Syrian territory.

They have opted for a strategy which isolates rebel-held areas from one another. By consigning the opposition to “islands”- isolated pockets of rebel-held territory surrounded by regime-held territory - the regime makes opposition forces vulnerable to repression and siege and dependent on regime allies to access further humanitarian supplies.

This strategy is systematic and coordinated at the highest levels within the regime. A military headquarters, called the United Center of Operation for the North, is managing a variety of regime-affiliated forces, including militias led by regime figures and Iranian advisers. It leads operations in Idlib, Aleppo and the north of Latakia, with the help of Russian air strikes.

Beginning February 2, the headquarters moved to systematically confine rebel forces to the territories they control by cutting off their supply lines between the borders into the interior. This prevented them from being able to receive external military support.

Rather than focusing on attacking Idlib, an opposition-held stronghold, the military headquarters has prioritised cutting off roads between opposition-held areas on the outskirts of Aleppo, isolating the northern countryside from both the eastern countryside and the city’s centre. The regime has also directly benefitted from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units’ (YPG) advances along the Syria-Turkey border, which are further challenging the opposition’s ability to receive military and humanitarian supplies.
This strategy is not specific to Aleppo, but is also being employed by the regime in Deraa in southern Syria. There, the regime and its allies have also created islands of rebel-held territory, preventing them from controlling any areas bordering Jordan.

A.
Ammar Waqqaf: Apart from Aleppo being the largest city in Syria and the economic capital, whose recapturing would be of a military and psychological significance, liberating this particular city would be a boost to the Syrian government’s popular legitimacy. The people of Aleppo, who are predominantly Sunni, had stubbornly refused to get dragged into the “revolution” and, as a consequence, have suffered a lot. Therefore, a win in Aleppo would not only vindicate their steadfastness and sacrifices, but would be a win against the alternative project that is backed by regional players.

A win for the government in Aleppo would convince the armed rebellion that its fall is not imminent. People on the opposition side would be bound to ask questions on the sanity of continuing a fight and a suffering with no achievable goal on the horizon, which should lead to them attending the negotiations table with more realistic demands.

Q.
Is the regime fighting to take over Aleppo or just to gain more territory to take back to the negotiation table?
A.
Kheder Khaddour: Taking back Aleppo is not a question of territorial gain per se, but is part of the regime and its allies’ strategy to foster the further fragmentation of the already-fragmented rebel factions so as to begin the political negotiations from a position of strength. As this strategy unfolds, pockets of rebels will remain on the ground, but they will be so divided and disconnected one from one another that the regime can negotiate ceasefires on a case-by-case basis. This will allow the regime to remain the strongest player in any future negotiation.

A.
Ammar Waqqaf: I don’t believe that the Syrian government views gaining back territory as a negotiating card in terms of percentages. Perhaps it is more preoccupied in proving that the tide has turned and that the more the armed rebellion continues with its struggle, the fewer the options they’ll have every time they sit at the table.

Q.
Can you explain who the forces fighting in Aleppo are? We understand there are areas under regime control and areas under opposition, but who are the key fighting forces and where are they located in the city?
A.
Kheder Khaddour: A mosaic of forces is deployed around Aleppo, each one entertaining a different relationship with the regime and with different aims. Regime forces are deployed on the eastern outskirts of Aleppo, with several Syrian army units and armed militia groups under the command of Syrian Air Force General Suheil al-Hassan. These are the only regime forces keeping a frontline against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Their presence - although marginal to the overall struggle in Aleppo - allows the regime to claim legitimacy as one the players engaged in the fight against terrorism.

Iraqi militias, supported by Iran and led by [its] Revolutionary Guards, hold the frontlines north and west of Aleppo.

The Syrian Democratic Forces are also deployed in the northern outskirts of Aleppo, close to the border with Turkey. This group is dominated by the Kurdish YPG and occupies an ambiguous place in the conflict.

Despite the fact that they are not part of the regime operation rooms, they are advancing in heavily Kurdish Afrin (immediately to the north of Aleppo). They also indirectly fulfil the regime’s aim to deprive the opposition of control over borders, thereby preventing the opposition from receiving supplies from its foreign backers.

A.
Ammar Waqqaf: I believe that trying to find out who is who, in specific, is somewhat a waste of time. The belligerents can be roughly divided into those who prefer the current Syrian setup to a new untrusted one and those who wish to overthrow it at any cost in order to establish a new setup that would be based on different terms.

The divide between the fighting groups can be drawn along rural versus urban lines, which is very evident in Aleppo itself, as much as it can be drawn along the lines of those who wish for a state in which all citizens can be first-degree citizens versus those who wish for a state in which citizens would be treated as per their tribal affiliations.

Q.
The Russians called for a ceasefire, but would that include Aleppo as well? And if not, then how viable would that ceasefire be?
A.
Kheder Khaddour: Russian air strikes pave the way for these diverse regime-affiliated ground forces to create a new reality on the ground before reaching any ceasefire agreement. The fact that rebel-held territories are now scattered and isolated will shape the conditions and content of any ceasefire agreement.

Rather than freezing the hostilities altogether, Russia might now advance the proposal of agreeing on ceasefire over specific rebel-held areas, case-by-case. Individual ceasefires could appear to be a success for the international community, but would paradoxically serve the regime’s interests by allowing it to continue the offensive against certain rebel-held areas in Aleppo while consuming others step-by-step through siege without even necessarily fighting them.

A.
Ammar Waqqaf: It is hard to believe that the Syrian government and its Russian ally would stop hostilities in areas where designated religious extremists are present. Part of their logic is that these groups won’t stop fighting anyway because they’re doing so for reasons of ideology. What makes this particular issue a bit complicated is that groups who are not necessarily al-Qaeda-affiliated are so intertwined with such groups, like al-Nusra Front, which is an al-Qaeda branch in Syria, that it would be hard to separate them into mini frontlines on which ceasefires could actually be maintained. Take the Army of Conquest, for example, which is a merger of fighting groups whose backbone are al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, which is a Salafi group that almost fully adopts the al-Qaeda intellect but is not officially affiliated with it.

This army is spread in all areas of the province of Idlib and in most areas of the province of Aleppo, and there are no clear lines of territorial control between the various groups. It would also be hard to strike a deal with one of its lesser-weight groups, who might wish to do so for the sake of saving their people some hardship, as they could easily be attacked by the more radical ones.

All in all, cessation of hostilities would be a real challenge, but there could be an opportunity in areas where the al-Qaeda-affiliated groups are either non-present or lightly represented. Progress on both the military and humanitarian fronts could be made in such areas, and, therefore, the situation is not all doom and gloom.

Q.
What do you make of the Saudi military intervention and will it be confined to air strikes or will ground interventions take place? How plausible is that given the many actors already involved in the Syrian quagmire?
A.
Kheder Khaddour: Saudi Arabia cannot rely on a network of allied affiliated forces as the regime and its backers do. Yet, the strategy of putting boots on the ground looks increasingly unlikely to succeed, considering that rebel forces are becoming more scattered and localised on both the northern and the southern front; without some on-the-ground forces to link up with, a Saudi intervention is not likely to achieve much. Whether the Saudi government will attempt such an intervention is difficult to say, however.

The only way Saudi Arabia might counter the growing strength of the regime and its allies in Syria, therefore, is not by channelling support to the rebels, but by attempting to claim leadership in the fight against ISIL. The regime has already secured a swath of territory on the frontline against the jihadis - the front managed by Suheil al-Hassan, whom I mentioned earlier - allowing it to claim that it is combating ISIL. Saudi Arabia might look for a means to outdo the regime in this respect and challenge this claim to legitimacy.

A.
Ammar Waqqaf: There are reasons to believe that the Saudi/Turkish direct military intervention in the Syria crisis had been put on the table since early on in the crisis, as an option to secure their objectives, should attempts to bring down the Syrian government through the rebellion fail.
The current intensive talk about this sort of intervention indicates that these regional players are running out of options. However, it is highly unlikely that they would enter Syria without an explicit backing from the United States and NATO, which doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.
NATO seem to have grown unease as of late with Turkey’s handling of the Syrian refugees crisis, including the exodus towards Europe, as a means to force a free hand in Syria.
NATO, and especially the United States, also feel a bit suspicious about Turkey’s real intentions towards a possible future ally in the region, i.e the Syrian Kurds.
On the other hand, it could well be the case that the Russian/Syrian/Iranian alliance have calculated such a move and have some sort of a counter measure up their sleeves.

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jwl · Post by **jwl** » 2016-02-22 08:19am

K. A. Pital wrote:I'd like to note that it is a blatant rewriting of history to say "the Syrian Civil War was already well underway" when the West intervened in Libya. The Syrian protests started in April 2011, when Libya was already in the middle or even end phase of a conflict in which the West chose to back a "coalition" of spineless foreign puppets and hardcore islamists funded by KSA and Qatar.

And the West was doing the very same thing in Syria, encouraging and giving support to "rebel groups". The rebel warlords who fled to Turkey or even further West and enjoyed full immunity and protection there while they were planning the overthrow of Assad immediately come to mind.

The West did encourage the collapse of Baath regimes like that of Assad and similar. In fact, for a certain time the West even blindly supported whatever shit Turkey and KSA told them to support.

So no, the Syrian Civil War was not "well underway" when NATO intervened in Libya. You can't just pull this "we were always at war with Ostasia" shit, jwl, and expect people to accept it. Read up on the timeline of both civil wars and come back, that is assuming you were honestly mistaken.

I've just checked and you are, in fact, correct; the Libyan intervention was before the start of the Syrian civil war. Which is really weird because my memory suggests otherwise.
Although the rest of your post seems to miss the difference between moral support and military support.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2016-02-22 08:58am

I think the narrative spin has changed itself in the Western media. Once it became clear what a colossal fuckup Libya and Syria have become, it was suddenly fashionable to portray these wars as "always in the making", some sort of running conflict when the West decided to intervene. It is a PR matter.

I think moral support and military support are different, but until some time passed, I think the Western powers earnestly geared up for a Libya-like intervention in Syria. But this time Russia and China were vetoing resolution after resolution, unlike Libya where they did not veto for whatever internal reasons and then were severely dissappointed with the result of this "don't veto" policy.

cosmicalstorm · Post by **cosmicalstorm** » 2016-02-24 12:29pm

Really enjoying the Turkish/Saudi butthurt from this

The Russian-American Agreement on Syria?

Written by TheSaker, originally appeared at TheUnzReview

The recent agreement between the USA and Russia really solves nothing, it does not even end the war, and both sides are expressing a great deal of caution about its future implementation. And yet, this is a huge victory for Russia. While it is too early to say that “the Russian won in Syria”, I think that it is now fair to say that the Russian position on Syria has won. Here is why:

First: nobody is suggesting anymore that Assad will be ousted or Damascus taken. That, in turn, means that everybody has now recognized that Syrian Arab Republic, backed by Russia, has successfully repelled the aggression of the huge coalition the AngloZionists built to overthrow Assad.

Second: Russia has forced the UNSC and the USA to admit that the vast majority of those who fight Assad today are terrorists. Of course, this is not how this was declared, but if you look at the organizations which the UNSC has already declared as ‘terrorists’ then you already have an absolute majority of the anti-Assad forces. This means thatthe moral and legal legitimacy of the anti-Assad forces is lies in tatters.

Third: regardless of what Erdogan does actually try to do next, there are now clear signs that neither NATO, nor the EU nor even the Turkish high military command want a war with Russia. And that means that Erdogan’s gamble has not paid off and that his entire Syria policy is now comprehensively dead. Keep in mind that following the treacherous attack on the Russian Su-24 the Kremlin made it a policy goal to “Saakashvilize” Erdogan. This goal is now almost reached and Erdogan’s future looks very, very bleak: everybody ( except maybe the Saudis) is sick and tired of this maniac. The best thing which could happen to Turkey now would for the military to get rid of Erdogan and to replace him with somebody willing to repair all the damage he did.

Fourth: all the threats to impose a no-fly zone or to occupy Syria have now been invalidated by an agreement which basically declares that anybody not respecting the cease-fire is a legitimate target for engagement and destruction.

Fifth: the USA had to accept the humiliation of having to agree to all of the Russian terms for the current ceasefire. Yes, of course, the USA can, and probably will, try renege on part, or all, of this agreement, but the precedent has been set and it will be very hard, if not impossible, for the USA to openly return to the pre-2016 policies.

Sixth: does anybody still remember the rhetoric of Hillary Clinton about Syria and Russia? Her position was crystal xclear: Assad must go and those who support him “punished”. Even after the Russian military offensive began, the US refused to tell the Russians where the “good terrorists” were and where the “bad terrorists” were. No exchange of information with Russians was acceptable. Now the Americans had to agree to work with the Russians on a map of Syria designating where the participants of the ceasefire and were those who were not included in the ceasefire were deployed. In other words, the US will now have to share with Russia all the info it previously refused to share and work with the Russians on a daily basis.

Seventh: Russia has basically co-opted the so-called “Free Syrian Army”. How? By basically forcing every single faction in Syria to chose between one of two possible statuses: being a ‘terrorist’ (and a fair target for destruction) or being a participant in a political process entirely designed by Russia. The Russians are now even opening a “Truce Center” at the Khmeimin airbase near Latakia which will now “render assistance” to all the parties to the ceasefire.

This, for the time being, mainly a diplomatic victory, of course, but a Russian diplomatic victory made possible by a Russian military victory. A tiny Russian military contingent has basically completely neutralized the plans of an entire worldwide Empire. That, in itself, is an amazing achievement.

The other big winner here iare, in my opinion, the Kurds who, according to British officials, appear to be coordinating their military operations with the Syrian army and the Russian Aerospace Forces and who now might well even achieve their dreams of joining the Iraqi and Syria regions of Kurdistan. Which is just about the worst nightmare for the Turks come true, hence the still remaining risk of a Turkish military operation ostensibly to create a ‘buffer zone’ but really to save face. That kind of intervention will remain a possibility for as long as the Turks can continue to hope to commit aggression against their neighbors under the protection of NATO and the USA. And that ain’t gonna change anytime in the future.

And then there are the Saudis. They are very, very angry. They are angry to the point of making not so subtle threats about using nuclear weapons to deal with their adversaries. See for yourself:

Actually, since Pakistan got The Bomb, I would not dismiss any Saudi claims of having a number of nuclear devices. But what does that really mean?

Absolutely nothing.

It is quite possible that the Saudis have the know how for a nuclear device. And it is quite possible that they even got their hands on enough nuclear materials for a few bombs. They might even have succeeded in purchasing a few nuclear devices from the Pakistanis or Israelis. But even if that is true, the reality is that the Saudis don’t even have the military capability to deal with the poorest Arab country on the planet (Yemen) and that they most definitely don’t have the military capability to engage their nuclear devices in a way which would allow them to achieve any kind of military advantage. After all, what are we talking about here? Using nuclear weapons against the Syrian military? Against Iran? Against Russia? This is absolutely ridiculous. The reality is that whatever nuclear capabilities the Saudis might or might not have, the fact that they would make nuclear threats is just a sign of weakness and fear, not a sign of strength. This is why nobody is impressed by these statement, least of all the intended targets of such threats.

While it is quite true that the latest agreement between the USA and Russia does not mark the end of the war in Syria, it is a turning point, a kind of a Minsk-2 Agreement which nobody really wants to comply with, but which seals the defeat of the AngloZionist plans in Syria as much as Minsk-2 meant the defeat of the Ukronazi dream.

Time is now on the Russian/Syrian side. With each passing day the Russian task force in Syria will become more powerful, as will the Syrian Armed Forces. That, by itself, will not be enough to defeat Daesh, and we can expect a stiff resistance from the Takfiri crazies, but the writing is on the wall for all to see: the more the Russians and the Americans become directly and jointly involved, the less Turkey and Saudi Arabia will be able to determine the outcome of the war. In other words, while this is far from being the end of Daesh, it is the beginning of the end for Daesh in Syria.

Yet again the nay-sayers and Putin-haters have been proven wrong. To be honest, so have I: I would never have guessed that the Russians could have achieved so much with so little and yet they did pull off this extremely dangerous gamble and they won. Only an extremely skillful combination of military, economic, diplomatic and political means could have yielded such a remarkable result but Putin, apparently, found this perfect mix. The path ahead remains extremely dangerous, for sure, but the outcome of the 20 week Russian military intervention in Syria is nothing short of remarkable.

http://southfront.org/the-russian-ameri ... -on-syria/

Some Saudi nut who claims they have nukes (MEMRI translation + nut = grain of salt)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXuJkVPRjNI

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

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