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The US is a loose cannon on a rocking ship in a perfect storm.
There are two options. It jettisons itself through the guard-rail into the sea.
Or it explodes and destroys the ship.
SOS.
Or somehow Russia can lasso the cannon and put it back in place, tied to international law.
Is Russia strong enough? I don’t know. Ask her bankers but don’t expect a straight answer.
No change of course intended or planned, right to the end when they hit the wall full speed.
Fresh on the heels of their drive-by extortion of VW with that BS emmissions claim & $18B fine.
Today CNN news clip one US alphabet “agency” DOJ has widened their investigation of those evil Germans again (who else?), Deutschbank, to their claims of anti-Russia sanctions violations with their branch in Moscow!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-18/epa-says-volkswagon-software-circumvented-car-emissions-testing
Volkswagen Admits to Cheating on U.S. Emissions Tests
Jeff Plungis
September 18, 2015 — 4:30 PM UTC Updated on September 18, 2015 — 10:38 PM UTC
Volkswagen AG admitted to systematically cheating U.S. air pollution tests, leaving the automaker vulnerable to billions in fines and possible criminal prosecution.
The company sold diesel versions of Volkswagen and Audi cars with software that turns on full pollution controls only when the car is undergoing official emissions testing.
During normal driving, the cars pollute 10 times to 40 times the legal limits, the Environmental Protection Agency said. EPA called the technology a “defeat device.”
[…]
Reminds me the story of the USS Intelligence in a fog continually radioing what it thought was another ship ahead: change course or you will be rammed. Then it got a return message: we’re the lighthouse.
:-)
Hi Dennis, I believe you mean this…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fa7nyO2H6w
The US carrier group on route to the gulf…..very funny !!!
Thanks. I had no idea this story was based on a real incident. A friend who was in the Navy told me as a story years ago. I had a good laugh.
DL
The lighthouse joke is not based upon a real incident. The joke dates back at least to the 1930’s when it was written up as a humorous cartoon in a newspaper or magazine. At that time I believe the ship was a destroyer. Do a search on it, if you want more info about. I first came across the joke in a USNI Proceedings in the 1980’s.
Anon re: “extortion of VW with that BS emmissions claim & $18B fine.”
I would like to read more about this about this extortion — especially after the propaganda piece by 60 Minutes on Oz TV last Sunday – featuring the same journalist that bought us the ‘truth about MH17 shoot down by the Russian back separatist’.
Can you direct me to a reliable source?
Nutty Jim (twin of that other Nutty Jim, Willie) has a short summary way down his main page.
I see his forum is either defunct or was expunged by the bunch he rants on against–there would normally be a detailed topic post series there this topic.
Willie also had a good 5 minute run-on of the VW travesty just a few interviews ago up on youtube, but can’t search content of a vid there, only title, name of person, etc.
Maybe 3 weeks or so, but damned if I can recall which one.
————————————————-
A comment I left at PressTV regarding the following:
The only thing VW did was turn the fuel waster off. American emission law requires a large amount of unburned fuel to enter the catalytic converter, along with the correct amount of oxygen, before it can pass emissions. V.W. circumvented this by simply making a perfect engine with their TDI, which improved fuel economy beyond America’s approved levels, and despite having perfect emissions, the cars did not pass because the fuel waster was not engaged during driving.
This bust of VW is an EPA scam pure and simple. The current regime in America has not allowed a single truly fuel efficient car onto American roads because there is too much profit in high fuel consumption, and too much “guilt” to be exploited in the name of climate change.
Despite the fact that many large cars in Mexico achieve 60 mpg, these same cars have difficulty achieving 30 mpg just across the border in America because the law in America basically makes it illegal to accomplish that. I applaud VW for giving Americans a chance to drive a real car. Too bad they got busted.
September 22 2015
Educated guess: V.W. proved that “emission controls” are more about destroying fuel economy than anything else
Volkswagen has the most fuel efficient cars on the road. Pound for pound, they get better fuel economy than all others, including an up to 300 mpg diesel not available in America. And after years and years of them being on the road, and no one noticing anything at all wrong with the emissions, Volkswagen got busted for programming certain parts of the emission control systems to turn off at all times other than when the cars were in for emission tests.
http://82.221.129.208/ifyouareinamericayouprobablycantseethis3.html
Sorry, that’s a load of bull. The problem was not discovered by the EPA, it was found by a scientist for the ICCT and VW at first lied (over at least one year) before finally admitting they were cheating. If VW was in the right you now they’d be fighting this in court. If TTIP were in place I’m sure they could get the corporate kangaroo court to say their commerce was being impeded but unfortunately for them civil laws and regulations are still in force.
The VW is nothing but a selective application of the law designed to destroy the advantage that German carmakers have created for themselves in the past few years.
All the automobile manufacturers (especially those making diesel cars, which includes all the European, Japanese and Korean brands) pull off the same tricks.
VW was chosen because they are the biggest German automobile producer, as well as the biggest German company in general. This also serves as a warning to BMW/Mercedes/Porsche.
As soon as the US authorities announced their intentions to go after VW, the French and the Italians jumped straight in, gleaming with joy!
This is not the first time that something like this has happened. In the eyes of the US, Japan, France and Italy (the other major car-producing members of the G-7) German auto-manufacturers have carved for themselves a disproportionate share of the global car market, and therefore something must be done to ameliorate the situation.
Something very similar happened with Japan by the mid to late 80s. Back then, Japan’s corporations were making giant inroads in several sectors (automobiles, bikes, electronics) against both US and Euro-land interests.
By 1986, Japan was “invited” to the infamous “Plaza” accords when it was made to clear to the Japanese (by the US/UK/France and West Germany) that they would have to raise the price of the yen significantly, so as to “level” the playing field. Moreover, import quotas and tariffs were placed on Japanese car exports to the EU and US. They stand to this day. The rest is of course history. The high value of the yen drew into Japan all kinds of “hot money” that created an epic speculative bubble in both the Nikkei and the Japanese real estate market. The days of Japanese preeminence on the global economic stage were over.
This is what lots of people do not understand. The US Empire plays the role of arbitrator between the other advanced economies, ultimately deciding what share of the pie each one is allowed to have. This helps keep the Empire together, for otherwise, an imbalance of power could be created within the ranks of the Empire bringing along severe friction and even the possible dismantling of the Empire.
I would add that this is a shrewd and correct policy on the part of US Imperial strategists.
You forgot to mention that the US adds an administration fee to every transaction in the empire. And licensing fees.. Bloody hell they even tried to charge us to breath. Nice job if you can get it.. It is like the CEO, they get 99% of the profits, the other 99 people get 1%…. I always wondered what the CEO did that gets him the lions share.. It is not like he creates anything but marketing. He sells what his employees create. Yet the employees get barely anything. How empire like….
Even the US markets seem to have gone this way.. Anything anyone buys or sells, someone gets a cut, who have nothing to do with the buying, selling, making or anything else.. They get a cut because they force themselves into it and stop anyone else from completing a transaction without giving them a cut.
Russia needs to capitalize on these sanctions and get these firms to move holis bolis to Russia-industrial infrastructure and all. Time to asset strip Germany the way they did it to East Germany during reunification-that is the only thing that sustained them over the past three decades now they need more victims…like Ukraine and cheap labour from ME
So much for the “multipolar” world.
Confirmed – it’s a single New World Order http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34647193:
“Analysis: By James Robbins, diplomatic correspondent
The United States has moved significantly. Washington is certainly not welcoming Iran to Syria talks, but will now tolerate Iran’s involvement.
It’s a recognition that things have got so bad that all major regional powers have to be involved. It does not mean the US is easing up on accusations that Iran is playing a malign role in Syria and the wider Middle East.
Iran takes a similarly negative view of American involvement. Washington continues to stress it does not regard Iran as a “key partner”.”
W the f was a multipolar one ever gonna be better than the alternative? rich people are rich fo a reason…
You didn’t think all that was needed was a “snap of their fingers” and the multi-polar World came into being did you? It is a long hard struggle to create it.The empire will fight to the end for the uni-polar “exceptional” World.
Finger snap?
A world run by multiple groups of rich guys = no difference.
What was the benefit of USA v USSR?
MAD
zero benefit.
What was the benefit of the world dominated by USA/USSR. Or basically, what was the benefit when the USSR limited US Imperial impunity?
Oh, that is a perfect question. Let me try to reply to that:
a) Yugoslavia did not have to go through a brutal civil war (supported by NATO powers) and be smashed into a jigsaw puzzle. Belgrade and Novisad did not get to be monkey-hammered by NATO’s “smart bombs”
b) Iraq did not get to be hammered twice. No sanctions on Iraq’s economy that resulted to the deaths of 000,000s of children. No sectarian violence in ME, no ISIS or Jubhat al-Nusra.
c) Libya was the most prosperous country in Africa in all respects and by a wide margin. Look at it now.
d) No crypto-fascist governments in the Baltics that impose a kind of apartheid on the local Russian population.
e) No Banderastan in Ukraine. Back in Soviet times, Ukraine was a moderately prosperous country, now it is dirt poor, totally subservient to the US Empire that uses its male population as cannon fodder against Russia. A dystopia has arisen in that country with any social ill one can imagine.
f) The European part of the USSR went through an economic catastrophe unparalleled in human history during the “liberal reforms” of the 90s. Ukraine is still going through that hell.
g) The fall of the USSR (I am not even saying that the USSR was that great, I am only describing the side-effects) became an excuse for capitalist oligarchy worldwide to run amok with “free-market” lunatic dogma, creating an abysmal divide of haves and haves-not on a universal scale.
I can go on and on and on. And be careful, I am not remotely claiming that the USSR was anything to sing home about, but I am definitely saying that what followed was a lot worse, even for the West. Ideally, there would never have been a clown like Gorbachev, and Brezhnev would have been replaced by the Russian equivalent of Deng Xiaoping. If that were the case, then you can bet your bottom dollar that Russia (by Russia here, I mean more or less the entire former USSR) would now be the richest and most powerful state on the planet and by some margin to boot. No Yugoslav break-up, no annihilation of Iraq, no Banderastan in Ukraine, no war in Syria etc etc etc.
Excellent,and more importantly,an accurate reply. I, like Putin, always believed the collapse of the USSR was a great tragedy.A reformation was needed,but that was all.What they did was “throw the baby out with the bathwater”.
@Stavros H on October 28, 2015 · at 9:20 am UTC
“I can go on and on and on. And be careful, I am not remotely claiming that the USSR was anything to sing home about, but I am definitely saying that what followed was a lot worse, even for the West.”
I have just googled “what suffering was caused by the expansion of the USSR” – a long list of items is returned but I have not started reading any of them (yet).
All of the negative consequences you list are since the fall from power of the USSR. A set of similarly negative consequences could have unfolded (for other population groups) had the balance of power shifted away from “the West” toward the oligarchical control group at the head of the USSR.
In the steady state (assuming a single group of oligarchs has plundered their way to global dominance) then the cause for conflict (between these powerful groups) is removed.
There is no more MAD.
There is no more liver eating.
There is just a single Animal Farm awaiting (instead of two).
The premise of your statement:
“I mean more or less the entire former USSR) would now be the richest and most powerful state on the planet and by some margin to boot.”
implies your own desire for oligarchy.
That stinks.
Except it prevented nuclear war for around 50 years.I would say that’s a pretty nice benefit for the World.And today it’s Russia’s nuclear arsenal that so far has kept away nuclear war for over 20 more years.Its when the empire is stronger that it prey’s on the weak.As long as their opponent can really fight back and kill them,that they come to their senses.Its the “bully effect”,a bully will not pick on those he knows can whip him.
“Except it prevented nuclear war for around 50 years”
er – it’s only when 2 bullies exist that nukes are required.
VW appear to have been targetted perhaps this is due to their engine plant in Russia but
Deutsche Bank are hardly the innocent victim.
There are all of those derivatives for a start and then the pentagon connections
source http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2013/02/23/re-deutsche-bank-alex-brown-and-911-insider-trading/
Under consideration here is the fact that Alex Brown, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank (where many of the alleged 9/11 hijackers handled their banking transactions – for example Mohammed Atta) traded massive put options purchases on United Airlines Company UAL through the Chicago Board Option Exchange (CBOE) – “to the embarrassment of investigators”, as British newspaper The Independent reported. [7]
On September 12, the chairman of the board of Deutsche Bank Alex Brown, Mayo A Shattuck III, suddenly and quietly renounced his post, although he still had a three-year contract with an annual salary of several million US dollars. One could perceive that as somehow strange.
A few weeks later, the press spokesperson of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at that time, Tom Crispell, declined all comments, when he was contacted for a report for Ruppert’s website From the Wilderness, and had being asked “whether the Treasury Department or FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] had questioned CIA executive director and former Deutsche Bank-Alex Brown CEO [chief executive officer], A B ‘Buzzy’ Krongard, about CIA monitoring of financial markets using PROMIS and his former position as overseer of Brown’s ‘private client’ relations.” [8]
Just before he was recruited personally by former CIA chief George Tenet for the CIA, Krongard supervised mainly private client banking at Alex Brown. [9]
In any case, after 9/11 on the first trading day, when the US stock markets were open again, the stock price of UAL declined by 43%. (The four aircraft hijacked on September 11 were American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77 and UAL flights 175 and 93.)
The time for the US to act is shortening every day. The Western Press is even printing snippets of the real facts now and many people are beginning to understand that the US is an empire of greed and duplicity.
Russia cannot and will not accept border area No Fly Zones over Syria where terrorists can flourish.
President Putin knows very well that the US sponsored cancer of chaos will spread to the heart of Russia if the US sponsored terrorists are not destroyed.
Yes a somewhat straight shooting female congress person was on CNN who said the USA has to figure out who it’s enemy is and what the mission is. The mission according to her is fight terrorism. She was on Wolf Blitzer and this news report was posted at CNN. In spite of the obligatory we may not like Assad etc…her line was essentially Russia’s policy. Trump is making allot of noise as well so it is not like the people of America are not getting some “REAL NEWS’ or clarification on the situation. Expect this to heat up domestically. Also heard some reports about dissatifaction in the military over the missions providing air cover for ISIS. That is a campaign any patriot in America should push. I think it stopped them dead in their tracks when the chemical weapons red line false flag was breached.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic Member of Congress from Hawaii, who served in combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and is the Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee, told CNN, that she called on President Obama to work with Russian President Putin, just as President Franklin Roosevelt worked with the butcher Josef Stalin to defeat Hitler in World War II. She blasted both the Bush and Obama administrations for becoming distracted by “regime change and nation building,” and dropping the primary focus, which was to defeat Al Qaeda and now, the Islamic State. Gabbard is a Member of the House Armed Services Committee, who has studied the consequences of US regime change in Iraq and Libya, which led to the rise of ISIS.
http://mebriefing.com/?p=1978
If you can stand CNN and Wolf Blitzer here’s the video mentioned.
https://youtu.be/u7Q8X60KQ9Q
The Iraqis have made it clear that they don’t want US ground troops.
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151028/1029236655/iraq-us-boots-on-the-ground.html
Now what will Carter do? And according to Sputnik:
“The US Central Command (CENTCOM) is not aware of any US government intentions to send more ground troops to Iraq amid the anticipated increase in raids against ISIL, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesperson Colonel Steven Warren told reporters on Wednesday.”
The right hand and left hand don’t know what they are doing and the MSM can’t hide this now.
At the same time Iran, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon are all going to Vienna on Friday – the tide is turning……
It’s a trifecta now, officially!
But whatever you do, don’t call him Suleiman the Magnificent. This guy is Suleimani the Magnificenti.
Without a program, it’s easy to confuse them.
on October 26, 2015 Featured
With the battle for southern Aleppo heating up between the Syrian Arab Army (SAA)/Hezbollah and the Islamist rebels, another 1,100 Iraqi paramilitary fighters have arrived to this province in northern Syria under direct orders from Major General Qassem Suleimani – the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) elite “Quds Force”.
However, this time, the paramilitary fighters did not come from Kataeb Hezbollah or Harakat Al-Nujaba, but rather, Liwaa Abu Fadl Al-‘Abbas; this aforementioned Iraqi paramilitary force has primarily operated in southern Damascus, where they defend the Sayyeda Zaynab Shrine from the sectarian militants attempting to destroy this holy site for Muslims.
http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/more-iraqi-paramilitary-arrive-in-aleppo-under-orders-from-the-iranian-revolutionary-guard/
I question SouthFront’s notion that the US could institute a NO FLY ZONE anywhere in Syria. The idea of Jordan seems to preclude their cooperation. They have joined with the Russia effort.
The whole situation in Syria is about legal versus illegal intervention.
The Putin position is clear. Either a UNSC act or an invitation by Assad.
Neither will happen.
The US is merely staying in the air because the Russians have agreed to let them fly. They are busy blowing up ISIS, AQ and whoever threatens Assad. The US is dropping bombs into areas where no one exists, justifying their sorties but doing nothing against ISIS.
Perhaps, a jolt of testosterone has jumped from one gonad to another somewhere in the American military, but I think they know the game is over playing Hegemon over Syria.
Do they want an air war with Russia?
Putin will not take any hits and not blow up something 10 times more valuable if the US tries something.
In another month, the tide will have turned visibly.
The Kurds best chance is for joining the winning side, not being used as cannon fodder.
Putin may already have Assad’s permission to federalize Syria with a nice chunk of land for the Kurds.
I really don’t believe this talk about NO FLY. The US could not do it before and certainly won’t try it now with 100 Russian planes in the vicinity.
Hi Ryder, thank you for the attention. If you watched the video carefully, you saw that we didn’t argue that the US “will” establish a no-fly zone. We pointed out that the talks over the topic had started again. Moreover, the video’s conclusion includes words “No-fly zone and buffer-zone projects will be hardly supported by the US on the official level.”
Kind regards,
SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence Team
The US Senate hearings with Ashton Carter this morning are addressing the issue.
The only thing needed is “more boots on the ground”, according to US military.
So, the question may be if Russia acquiesces and allows breech of international law and dominance by the US to rule over Syria.
Thanks for your response.
My view is this turf war in the ME is far from over.
The US will try to bleed Russia with weapons to ISIS. And with economic weapons.
Dumping the oil reserves in the US onto the market keeps the oil prices depressed.
Russia’s economy is shaky in some sectors. The US will do all it can to keep it that way, particularly if the sanctions regime continues to weaken and some EU nations end it in fact if not by overt decision.
The easy part of the Syrian move by Russia is over. The threat to Assad is maintained by the same coalition. All their money and arms are aimed at Assad. It will continue until either Russia prevails or the US prevails. ISIS only has Russia to fear.
US boots on the Syrian ground have been there for years. Either through special forces, but mainly through CIA operatives. US officials always publicly announce the fact well after it has already occurred.
Now, if this is a signal that US boots on the ground will increase further (or have already increased further) an unknown to us.
Is this an effort to discourage the SAA/RuAF/IRGC to strike at certain rebel groups? Or against certain locations? Maybe, but I can’t see how that will work.
On Sep 30 (the first day of the Russian air strikes) and while Lavrov was meeting Kerry, the RuAF first bombed the C&C centers operated by CIA operatives (I would also imagine MI6 and Mossad) The US has zero legal basis to be there, Russia does.
This may be a dangerous new strategy on the part of the US, or probably another desperate measure.
As for your other claims, I tend to agree. The US (and its satraps) will do anything in their hand to hurt the Russian economy, that has always been a given.
The SPR, is far from limitless, so it can have only a limited effect on the price of oil.
The oil-price war, like I have claimed on multiple occasions on this blog, is only a temporary measure against Russia. It cannot go on forever, only for a couple more years at the super-maximum.
I highly doubt US will put boots on the ground with air superiority. The RuAF being so close by it is all bluster.. Russia does have first world electronic jamming technology far better than what nato has. Nato has been offensive weapons but that is useless in this situation. If you noticed the US is doing everything they can to create doubt, so as to slow down the Russians moving the lawn of terrorists. Those who failed to get the command to retreat and withdraw are getting creamed. slow going for sure as the terrorists place IED’s everywhere. So it is like a demining operation the entire way. The Iraqi experience is a great experience where IS ran off when the Iraqi’s showed up but for the next month the Iraqi’s lost dozens of soldiers before they stopped and withdrew. IS snipers make it difficult to demine the place. Same thing is happening in Syria. What Russia is doing is cutting off supplies, then the supply lines. As soon as the RuAF moves to support the Kurds, Turkey will think twice about bombing them again. At which point the supply lines will be cut. It will all be over in a few months. There wont be any formations large enough to be a direct threat. No more thousands of terrorists making major wide front offensives across many fronts. The national guard have been trained to do exactly this, to deal with stragglers and demining operations. Everyone forgot about the 10,000 people who left the battle to train in Russia and Iraq. The terrorists made huge gains when they broke through the lines, these trainees are back now. What can the US do no matter how many terrorists they can organize when any large formation will get bombed. Terrorists are effective against soldiers. We have terrorists in many countries and they do cause mayhem but they cant take or hold onto anything. That will take decades to get rid off.. And US troops on the ground wont change anything. Just image if Russia bombs some large terrorist camp and a bunch of US soldiers got hit. Everyone will be asking why the US soldiers were in the middle of a bunch of terrorists. The moderate terrorists wont work.. Not only because no one would believe it, but also because the terrorists wont work with US soldiers. They all think they are working for their deity or some such nonsense. The officer corps already operate in Turkey who direct the battle field. We know that special forces were hitting SAA positions to weaken it for the terrorists to break through but even that wont work now because what happens if the SAA calls in close air support.. The US wont scare away Russian fighters like they do with the Syrian air force.. If the US is stupid enough to target lock on the Russian fighters I bet the S300’s would target the US or Turkish fighters as well.
Russian upper house speaker: US ground missions in Syria would violate international law
Speaker of Russia’s Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko has said one should not take seriously statements about the US ground operation against the Islamic State terrorist group [banned in Russia] in Syria and Iraq.
“I would not take such statements seriously. This is unacceptable, that is too much,” she told reporters.
http://tass.ru/en/politics/832379
The recent Russian intervention in Syria cut through US propaganda like a knife.
US counter to this may be to actually work at destroying ISIS in Iraq while supporting ISIS/al Nusra in Syria. Basically try to create another Afghanistan for Russia. US has stopped strikes in Syria at the moment and talk by the Gulf states of supplying jihadi’s with MANPADS in the next week or so.
One thing to watch is not just propaganda directed to Americans and others in the world, but what influence Russia and its action in Syria affect the different factions in the who are pushing various narratives and agendas. This has not been good for the neocons and war mongers, as shown by their screaming and whining, within US politics. Obama doesn’t smell too good either, but when you look at the deep state factions the war mongers are losing ground — including to the old school regular military who are saying, roughly, ‘Whoa — this is serious and maybe we can’t handle this’ (even if the newer crazy soldier ones are beating their drums while marching in circles). Look at what people like Kissinger, for example, are saying.
Eric Draitser of StopImperialism.org appears on CPR Sunday (October 25, 2015) with security analyst Mark Sleboda and journalist/broadcaster Don DeBar. Eric, Mark and Don discuss the election results in Portugal and the anti-democratic actions of the Portuguese president who has refused to recognize the results. They also discuss the rise of the far left and new right in Europe, and what this means for European politics and organizing. The conversation also touches on the latest developments in the war in Syria, and other regional issues. All this and much more in this hour-long weekly conversation.
http://stopimperialism.org/portuguese-dictatorship-left-and-right-in-anti-democratic-europe-and-the-war-in-syria/
Putin’s on the ropes, again!
Most of Russian aircraft recently sent on a mission in Syria have been grounded due to the dust and desert conditions in the Arab country, says a senior US defense official.
According to the official who was not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive intelligence matters, a third of Russian fighter jets and half of its transport aircraft are assumed grounded at any time as the harsh, desert conditions take their toll on equipment and the crews in charge of operating them, the USA Today reported on Sunday.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/10/26/434990/Syria-Russia-Jets-Failing
Anon.
I am sure that the ” unnamed senior US defense official who is not authorised to speak publicly” can see and hear everything that’s happening in Syria.
A BS piece no doubt.
note ‘assumed”….
which .becomes presumed.That’s why USA is in deep doodoo
Looks like, here, that Russia knows something about operating is deserts and such.
https://www.google.com/search?q=russia+training+in+deserts&client=firefox-a&channel=sb&biw=1024&bih=596&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CFEQsARqFQoTCMHfzJuZ48gCFQk_PgodksEPmg
But the US knows nothing about telling the truth.
Draw your own conclusions, ladies and gentlemen.
Like those missiles that went astray and landed in iran?
Katherine
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud have discussed resolving the crisis in Syria during a phone conversation, the Kremlin says.
According to a statement released by the Kremlin on Monday, during the call, which was initiated by Saudi Arabia, the two leaders exchanged views on “all the questions associated with resolving the Syrian crisis, including four-way talks.”
The statement was referring to recent talks held between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his US, Turkish and Saudi counterparts.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/10/27/435124/Putin-Salman-Syria-phone-
It should be clear by now that Russia and Syria oppose any idea of a “no fly zone” in Syria.I believe Russia and Syria need to “flat-out” say that there will be no “no fly zones” permitted,end of story.Obviously the West and their stooges aren’t smart enough to understand that, without a public statement being made.So just “tell that” and stop this BS right now.
Where/how do they make this statement?
At the UN? Or within Syria?
This has been a source of frustration to me: That Assad or his UN envoy have not (that I know of) declared that Assad is the legal leader of Syria and he and his government get to choose who can LEGALLY fly around in the country’s air space? Just say it!! As Bob suggests, and I too have been asking this question for quite a while
Katherine
Exactly! Give a news conference or interview with the press in Syria.And/or make the statement before the UNSC.The Russians today in reaction to that US idea said it is a violation of International Law.That’s good ,but Syria needs to announce the same thing.
The US is Russia’s “partner”, they say it all the time. So why would they want to tell them to stay out of the play pen? Russia wants to negotiate with the West so they are not going to upset them by saying they can not play.The reality is the US bombing in Syria could be helpful for the Syrian Gov.
The problem is the arms and fighters that are being smuggled in by the US and everyone else. Until they can stop this the SAA will never win.
I think it is part of Russias diplomacy for the SAA not to win, but just not loose either.
That depends,I’ve wondered that myself.But the things happening now make me think differently.The Russians are saying they want to expand the naval base.And Russian companies are posed to move into Syria for join projects,and to develop the oil and gas.I don’t see how those things can be done without security in the country.Which would mean winning the war.I also don’t see how Russia could hope for benefits in Syria without the current Syrian government being in power.If opposition people come to power,its very likely they would ally with the US and expel Russian influence from Syria.So I think the diplomatic solution Russia is seeking (no matter what is said) is to include “some” opposition elements (the peaceful ones) in the government to bring peace.And then hold elections.Which many people believe Assad would “truly” win.It seems to me Putin is putting a lot of effort and his prestige into Syria being a success for Russia’s foreign policy.I don’t see how he could just throw that away.And say “ok,I changed my mind”.That would make him a laughing stock Worldwide.And other countries wouldn’t trust Russia’s resolve.Of course I could be wrong there.But it would certainly shock me if he did.
Yes, but:
Always better to negotiate from a position of strength. The fact is that in international law the USA has no right to be fliwyng around over syria. Not asserting one’s rights and powers never got anyone anything, I believe. At least, not in this situation, where Assad’s legitimacy is constantly in question—qustioning his legitimacy is the main rhetoric trope of his enemies. Look at Bohm. He kept coming back to that. Assad is almost acting like he beleves that. He is not acting like someone whose legitimacy is NOT in question, The legitimacy issue should be turned back on those who raise it concrning Assad. As did Solovyev. Who the F is anyone in the WEst to even rais the issue of Assad’s legitimacy? Because the West keeps using this trope it must be countered at every opportunity. Hard to that when Assad himself keeps mum.
Compare De Gaulle in WW2. He never questions for an instant that HE and his govt in exile represented FRance, not the collaborators, even though his govt was in exile. . Assad could take a page from De Gaulle’s book. Furthermore, the Murkans have often used this “legitimacy” trope to justify their sabotage, for example, in connection with what’s-his-name before teh Iraq invasion, who supposedly was the leader of the real Iraqi govt, not Saddam. So, the more I think about it the more I think: Assad MUST assert his legitimacy. Otherwise he ends up looking like a tool of Russia and not that Russia is responding to his invitation. Assad’s muteness calls into question the legitimacy of the whole Russian operation into question (and the rationale for it) if Assad does not “dare” to declare and assert his legal status in Syrian and international law, plus teh UN charter. IMO it is sort of like posting bans, I mean the marriage bans. Declare to teh world your status. That is a sensible form of belligerency. Not do dare to do so looks weak and therefore is weak.
Another oint: what about the SAA? They also need to hear th is, to know what they are fighting for. The legitimaacy of the Syrian state as it is currently constituted and its head of state.
Katherine
HUH Assad himself said many times the US is illegally bombing Syria. His UN rep has said it many times. If the western presstitudes do not print anything how can you say they don’t say anything? Only Russia saying Assad is part of the Syrian government is printed in a round about way. Remember when McCain invaded Syria to visit his pal Baghdadi and Syria complained to the UN about illegal entry into a sovereign country without permission.. What happened? Even the UN is controlled by nato!!! Russia can force it do something’s but not for it to take action on anything. The entire world except the so called west have been yelling about this for decades. If the US/UK don’t want the UN to do something, it wont happen. I think the US allows some resistance against Israel but only slight.. Controlled opposition.. Just like US elections..
Nothing..
You do know that in many of these bodies where the US has full control, The Syrian government rep has been replaced by the free Syrian terrorist reps? Syrian diplomatic missions are closed and the terrorists are supposedly given diplomatic status? When the UN gives the Syrian rep a chair missing one leg, you know the UN is not an unbiased body. When the Syrian rep is cut off in the middle of his speech explained as technical glitches and is under house arrest. If the MSM prints something, they lie outright. You did not know that reuters and FP and NYT etc make up stories and plant outright lies? Syria’s UN rep confronted reporters about this, he asked her directly about you want me to talk for a few hours so you can find 15 seconds in there to use against the Syrian people. While showing the talking clip of the UN rep they would be showing a window on half the screen where some hospital would be burning and getting bombed.. To get people to think the Syrian government was bombing it. If you want to attack anyone, attack the western presstitueds who have lost most of their power by now. From the comments I see on utube and the like, no one believes any western source. McCain now wants to ban all secondary news sources because well no one believes his bullshit. He thinks if there is only the narratives of his lies, no one will know the difference. How come none of the polls conducted by nato itself which shows over 80% support for the Syrian government ever comes to light, but every day we see 20 different articles about assad is this and assad is that and Syrians need freedom this and freedom that. And how come with like 5% support, terrorists can be considered representing the people of Syria and given diplomatic status in western nations?
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has once again slammed some regional and Western states for their support of terrorist groups operating in the country.
Assad made the remarks during a meeting with a French parliamentary delegation headed by Jean-Frederic Poisson, the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, in the Syrian capital Damascus on Wednesday.
“Several countries in the region and the West, including France, are continuing up until now to support terrorism by giving political cover to terrorist groups in Syria and the region,” the Syrian president said.
Assad also noted that two main causes of the suffering of the Syrian people are terrorism and the damage it had inflicted upon the country’s infrastructure and the “unjust” economic sanctions that had been imposed on Syria.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/10/28/435403/Syria-Assad-France-Daesh-JeanFrederic-Poisson-Ahmad-Badreddin-Hassoun-Jihad-alLaham-West
You and Katherine are both right.I don’t think it is as much a question of the Syrian government declaring their legitimacy.Though,yes,at every opportunity they need to do that.Its more a question ,as you say,that the MSM won’t report it.But here is the “crux” of this matter to me.We all know the MSM doesn’t report it.So because of that.The press on our side must “always” report it.There should be no exceptions to that.And that ,in some cases, is where we fail.So to make up for those failings.The Syrian government (not regime,as even some on our side say),must redouble their efforts to proclaim their sovereignty.And make statements declaring the Western actions illegal under International Law,at every chance they get.Tattoo it on their foreheads if need be.But get that message consonantly before the public’s eyes.
Did you know that Bin Laden gave an interview just weeks after and said he had nothing to do with it? He also said targeting civilians was not jihad and he wanted Muslim lands for Muslims. He died at the American hospital in Dubai I think.. Yea they reported that he was there since he needed dialysis quite often and it was at an advanced stage.. Also the Taliban said they would extradite bin laden to any Muslim country. Or even hold him if shown proof..
So did he get a kidney transplant?? People in such condition do not live for decades..
What About Saddam saying the US was lying? What about ghaddifi saying what Assad is saying that foreign countries are funding terrorists to attack Libya? Ghaddifi has soldiers seal off areas with foreign mercenaries and terrorists so the US got a no fly zone and started bombing the Libyan army.
Oh some of us have been following this for many decades.. And realized that MSM including all western professional organizations are part of the imperial machine. One of them once ins a while will print some truth but just keep watching and they are only one of those controlled media to fool people. Pepe was one of the few well known people although at the time he was not known who reported the truth, remember dhar jamal in Iraq? Pepe went to interview bin laden but I think he died by then. We have forgotten all the lies.. But just take it as, if they are talking or they printed it then it is a LIE…
Just saw an article reporting that Russia has bombed 12 hospitals in Syria.. Supposedly MSF said that.. Just throw some monkey scat on the fan, some of it will stick no matter what..
the ORB 2015 poll says 82% of Syrians believe ISIL was created by the US
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-dirty-war-on-syria-barrel-bombs-partisan-sources-and-war-propaganda/5480362
This is a well organized terrorist regime with the power of Empire..
A neo-con twitter account here I have been watching for a while.
https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister
Visiting Fellow, @BrookingsDoha & Senior Consultant, The Shaikh Group. US-UK dual national. Author – The Syrian Jihad (http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-syrian-jihad/ …) #Syria #Iraq
Doha / Istanbul / DC / London
Interesting to see what the Brookings neo-cons are up to. main one at the moment seems to be MANPADS to Syria.
Also the Shaikh Group where he is senior consultant.
http://theshaikhgroup.ae/creative_communication.html
“TSG aims to develop novel brand identities and support them with relevant projects or experiences that sustain and enhance their identity. Such consumer experiences help raise awareness for the brand mark and generate new customers, whilst engaging existing ones and cementing brand loyalty.
At both the brand and the project level, teams work in tandem to ensure cohesive marketing philosophies are adapted across the client’s portfolio, whilst giving each brand the flexibility to create a thoroughly unique experience for each piece of communication, designed specifically for deployment in specific local markets.”
Brand ISIS, Brand Bellingcat, Brand SOHR?
This or a similar highly professional organisation created those brands.
King Itching for a Putsching now gets involved.
I wonder when his scheming vying princes are going to make their move.
http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/kremlin-president-putin-discusses-with-ksa-king-situation-in-syria/
Kremlin: President Putin discusses with KSA King Situation in Syria
By Leith Fadel on October 27, 2015 Europe
Kremlin announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed on Monday with Saudi king Salman bin Abdul-Aziz the situation in Syria and means to reach a political settlement to the crisis in Syria, during a Saudi-initiated phone call.
The Kremlin added that the talks tackled a number of issues, including the settlement in Syria and the results of the quadruple meeting that was held in Vienna last Friday.
Lavrov, Kerry discusses crisis in Syria
Syria simply has to declare a no fly zone over it’s own territory. Iraq has to ask for Russian aid officially and Russia has to accept. Russia has to provide the s 300 and allot more arms to Syria and Iraq-hit the terrorists including their imperialist air force hard and heavy quickly. The US cannot blame Russia when planes entering Syrian airspace get shot down by Syrian’s. After all bombing power stations is not a friendly act…..that is enough to bring an end to any agreement with the US military. Russia can shrug it’s shoulder’s and say “it is not our decision to make” better still, you made your decision to support terrorists now live with the consequences.
That power station was/is held by ISIS. There has been a compromise between the Syrian government and ISIS that 40% of the electricity would go to Syrian-controlled areas, and the other 60% would go to the rats (these rats need electricity as well!)
The US took advantage of this and destroyed one of the four generators.
So we don’t forget about Ukraine with the Syrian War heating up.There are a couple of reports I saw.One,the elections just held were full of tricks and violations (no surprise there).Around an eye-popping “35%” of voters even bothered to vote.And many in the Novorossian areas spoiled their ballots writing things on them like “Novorossia lives” and “2-5-2014” for the Odessa massacre.The opposition bloc claims victory in all the Novorossian Oblasts except Kherson and Kharkov (in Kharkov they weren’t allowed to register.and are demanding a re-vote.Don’t know about Kherson.)While in Mariupol the junta said the ballots didn’t arrive in time for the vote (?),and rescheduled it for November.They were afraid of the results I figure. And two,a Star Wars character “Darth Sidious” won a seat on the City Council in Odessa with over 54% of the vote.Pretty bad when Hollywood movie characters are trusted to be elected officials, instead of political party candidates.But considering that is Ukraine,the voters probably made the best choice.
Thanks Bob
Scott, oh Scott, where art thou?
A US stink tank has come to the conclusion that a no-fly zone at the Syrian-Jordanian border would be a swell idea?
How pathetic! Will the boys ever wake up or is their befuddlement terminal?
So the US has sent a ship into the waters claimed by China in the SCS and China is furious and complaining about it.There is a “silver lining ” to this affair,as I see it.It “should” do two good things.One it should wake China up to the importance of the Russo-Chinese partnership for China’s security.And two,along those same lines.It should be clear that China can not be secure in her energy needs depending on ship routes.So she should be firm and totally committed to helping speed the pipelines from Russia to China.And also possibly on building one from Iran as well.There should be a time (as short as possible) where all China’s energy imports should be only by “land” based routes.That will take away any danger of the US “strangling” China of energy imports.
Interesting comparison between the Russian operations in Syria and the Chechnia War and an overall good analysis of the current situation in Syria > >
http://southfront.org/syria-express-russia-is-forced-to-increase-its-fighting-power-in-syria/
US think tanks worried about Russian EW (electronic warfare) capabilities.
Quote: “Church (the Army’s chief of electronic warfare) says that he has managed to train only a few hundred soldiers — a fraction of the EW forces that are fielded by potential adversaries like Russia and China.” > >
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/21/russia-winning-the-electronic-war/
There are reports of moderate terrorists receiving Chinese SA missiles.. Things will get interesting but I think almost all contingencies are planned for. Because everything about Syria is already rather well known. Only need to change names and intentions about things. And Putin saying he has times of meetings and how much money changed hands in Ukraine for many years.. He has information on everything that has happened and who was responsible and what was said. He don’t seem to mince words or make threats lightly or even say things he don’t mean. We can assume he knows the same about Syria.
Which might be why….
Russia is prepared to use long-range aviation to destroy IS militants if such a need arises. Tu-22M3 bombers are ready to depart for Syria at any moment, with only 2 hours and approximately 44 minutes of flight separating them from utterly destroying any terrorist target.
http://southfront.org/russia-prepares-to-use-tu-22m3-bombers-against-islamists/
I also saw this but don’t know what to make of it, we already know Russia is using some very advanced ECM systems.
Syria Op: How REB and RYCHAG keep enemy blind and deaf
REB (Rus: Radio Electronnaya Bor’ba) means ‘Radio Electronic Defence.’ This is a complex of advanced systems that renders targeted weapons useless and spying equipment deaf and blind in the radius of 70-200 and more kilometers, depending on application. RYCHAG is one of the REB-related systems, translated as Lever.
Russian military analysts are now starting to come out with hints and careful admissions regarding the Russian operation is Syria. It has been hinted that RYCHAG is being used there.
Putin’s Valdai Forum Admission
The annual Valdai Forum just took place in Russia. One of the things Putin said seemingly casually, has been repeated over and over. He said that he learned one thing from his childhood on Leningrad streets: ‘If the fight is unavoidable, strike first.’ This refers to Russia’s strike on ISIL in Syria, but more so, it sounds like a warning for those who may still have designs to continue advancing NATO to Russia’s borders, messing with Ukraine and stepping on Russia’s toes in Eurasia.
Lately, when Putin speaks, the world listens.
https://futuristrendcast.wordpress.com/
US journalist Michael Bohm taken down on “Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovjev”.
(Russian, German subtitles)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79twBf8XhHA
@ zweistein on October 27, 2015 · at 9:06 am UTC
Michael Bohm is one of the best agents of Putin, helping Russia and her allies defeat the USA
Solovjev is very good. I always enjoy watching/listening to him. Also here.
Boy, very quick on his feet.
Really weird to see Boychik Bohm switching switchign constantly switching his ground, also shouting out his excuses and pathetic formulae in a spout of non sequiturs (his russian seems to be pretty good, I’ll give him that).
But Solovjev is right on top of him, cutting off his passes to new territory and getting in a bunch of hits right between the eyes. Bohm relaly looks like a teenager next to Solovjev.
Katherine
if only there was an english translation……………oh well……….
The US war against Russian propaganda gets serious. Six people demonstrate against RT in Washington.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlzhwVYd9F0
US Officials Asked MSF About Kunduz Hospital Days Before Bombing It – US Troops That Ordered Attack Knew Hospital Was in Operation.
New details about the lead-up to the October 3 US airstrike against a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital near Kunduz, Afghanistan continue to emerge, and further add to the likelihood that the US attack overtly violated international law.
Read more here:http://news.antiwar.com/2015/10/26/us-officials-asked-msf-about-kunduz-hospital-days-before-bombing-it/
————————————————————————————————————————-
BBC Protects U.K.’s Close Ally Saudi Arabia With Incredibly Dishonest and Biased Editing –
The BBC loves to boast about how “objective” and “neutral” it is. But a recent article, which it was forced to change, illustrates the lengths to which the British state-funded media outlet will go to protect one of the U.K. government’s closest allies, Saudi Arabia, which also happens to be one of the country’s largest arms purchasers (just this morning, the Saudi ambassador to the U.K. threatened in an op-ed that any further criticism of the Riyadh regime by Jeremy Corbyn could jeopardize the multi-layered U.K./Saudi alliance).
Read more here:https://theintercept.com/2015/10/26/bbc-protects-uks-close-ally-saudi-arabia-with-incredibly-dishonest-and-biased-editing/
Just look at the miserable bunch of sword waving medieval, backward troglodytes.
Its getting obvious what the US plans are (at least a couple of them).To hit Russia with nitpicking propaganda attacks.The stooge Yats,is saying they won’t pay the 3 billion dollar loan back to Russia.And Turkey is demanding legal action against Russia if they don’t get a gas discount starting in December.While as for propaganda,they have a perfect one coming up.I suspect the MSM will be flooded with in today and for days.A Russian soldier killed himself at the Syrian airbase.He was 19,and his girlfriend dumped him. (I think a “Dear John letter”.) You can bet the MSM will make “hay” over that,”Putin drags poor boys off to Syria.They freakout over it”.I can almost guess how they will play that up.They won’t mention the countless US soldiers that have done the same thing during these wars.There is really nothing to do with that problem.But with Ukraine and Turkey its another matter.If Ukraine doesn’t pay the money, confiscate properties owned by Ukraine in Russia.Or take the payment out of their gas payment.As for Turkey,cut the gas off.I think as much as Russia doesn’t want to play hardball with the gas weapon.This year may be the time they will need to.The winter is projected to be very cold.And its time Russia’s enemies realize the good deal they have.Let Ukraine and Turkey freeze.And if the EU causes trouble,they can freeze too.
There “may” be another problem looming too.I’m not sure yet.But I remember when the UNSC passed a resolution on peacekeepers for UNESCO sites,I cringed,thinking it could be misused.I think Russia should have vetoed it.It seems ISIS has destroyed more historic sites in Palmyra.And the press (RT even) mentioned the resolution.Now,if I was a “conspiracy theorist”,I might wonder about that.What a perfect way to send US or NATO troops into Syria,in the guise of “peacekeepers”,to “protect” the historic sites.And once there,how do you get them out.And what kind of trouble could they cause.If ISIS is working for the CIA.What a perfect plan.Damage the sites,NATO moves it,and “voila”,you get the NATO boots in Syria the neo-cons want.I hope I’m wrong there.Or that Russia squashes that idea before it gets started.But knowing the diabolical nature of the empire it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried it.
“We have summoned the US, UK, French, German, Italian, Saudi Arabian, Turkish and NATO military attaches today asked to give a formal explanation of these statements or to refute them. This especially concerns a number of outrageous allegations in the English-speaking media about alleged airstrikes on hospitals,” Antonov said.
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151027/1029182572/moscow-summons-nato-envoys-syria.html#ixzz3pmbwgvsv
The Russian Defense Ministry is “closely monitoring and analyzing these statements,” he added. According to him, Russia is bringing Russian and international communities to the notice about the Russian aviation’s actions in Syria on a daily basis.
“If our partners have some additional information, we have long called on them to share it with us.”
He added that if no evidence on civilian deaths in Russian airstrikes in Syria was provided in a few days, Moscow would come to a conclusion that the claims were part of the information warfare against Russia.
“But if there will be no evidence [of civilian casualties in Syria] or official refutal we will consider that these anti-Russian media hoaxes are part of the information war against Russia.”
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151027/1029182572/moscow-summons-nato-envoys-syria.html#ixzz3pmbiRaWL
Well Turkey apparently has a “red line” in regards to Kurdish offensives against ISIS. The Kurds were carrying one out and were bombed by the Turkish air force. “Sultan” Erdogan then made it clear that any further offensive will result in the same sort of bombing.
Perhaps Turkey could be reigned in if Washington and Moscow together made it clear this wasn’t acceptable, but I don’t see that happening.
The US, of course, will not back down, period. The only recourse is to pour gas on the flames and ignite the world. But how? How about the tried-and-try false flag? If Russia doesn’t accidentally kill a few Murkans in their strikes, no problem — they’ll use the old Gestapo false flag of killing a few of their own troops and blame it on Russia.
I don’t see how this well end well for any of us. Murka has never taken the high-road, and they’re not about to start now, especially now that Murka has decided to play chicken with China in the Spratleys. They’re itching for a fight and they won’t relent until it happens, since this is an existential battle for the sociopaths in power.
I’m continuously amazed that the Syrian government doesn’t make a public statement on that.That at the very least they say that foreign troops crossing into Syria (including her airspace) without their permission is a total violation of international law and the UN Charter.And demand ,under that law,that it be stopped.Of course it won’t stop them.But it gives “legal” cover to Syria.Its similar to a citizen telling a criminal trying to burglarize their home “stop or I’ll shoot” before shooting them.
Amen Amen Amen.
WHY doesn’t this happen? Why doesn’t Assad act like the head of the governmetn????
Katherine
I wondered the same thing. Seems we’re not alone.
And though it seems like it took an awful long time for someone to state the obvious truth, seems like it’s finally being stated.
Russians saddle slowly, but ride quick.
And now it’s Iraq’s turn:
It’ll be interesting to see how Murka spins this. They’re getting boxed in, either forced to obey international law (and not just the appearance of it); or finally come out of the closet for all the world to see as the naked despotic emperor it is, without a shred of legal cover.
It’s getting increasingly impossible for them to find a face-saving way out of this. Prepare for some unhinged lashing out… (or, as linked below, a false-flag downing of a Murkan plane).
http://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2015/10/27/899904/russia-modernizing-s-300-missile-system-for-iran-report
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Russia is currently modernizing the S-300 missile defense system for Iran and hopes it will able to deliver the system to Tehran, the head of Russia’s largest arms exporters said Tuesday.
“The completion of the contract on the S-300 missile system for Iran was suspended and we’ve been given the order to renew work and as the executors, we are doing this, but much time has gone by and the S-300 system has changed so we’re working on the modernization of the system,” Rosoboronexport General Director Anatoly Isaikin told journalists.
Isaikin said that he was sure the contract would now be honored, Sputnik news reported.
Wanna bet!
Site is horribly slow, times out, etc., so since I finally got through to it here’s today’s news:
A map link or url or pic right in his articles would help! here’s one:
https://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?encType=1&where1=Ar%20Raqqah%2c%20Syria&cp=35.947452545166~39.0367774963379&qpvt=al-raqqa+syria&FORM=MIRE
http://syrianperspective.com/2015/10/aleppo-paratroopers-throttle-terrorists-at-khanaasser-syrian-army-clears-damascus-homs-highway-the-end-of-obamas-war-crimes-is-nigh.html
ALEPPO: It is confirmed as of yesterday, 26th, at 4:00 p.m., the Syrian Army’s paratrooper units dropped by helicopters assaulted the positions of ISIS between Atharyaa and Khanaassir and killed 69 terrorist rats as the Russian Air Force and the SAAF continued dense cover for the soldiers and their allies in the PDC. All routes out of the area were under control of SAA artillery meaning that many more than 69 have been killed. Certainly, the number of ISIS wounded is in the hundreds as they try to make their way either to the Turkish border or to the east toward Al-Raqqa. Going to the east will be a formidable undertaking as more and more SAA forces assemble along the way to relieve the pressure on the Air Force Academy. Preliminary field assessments prove that most ISIS terrorist rodents are foreigners with no ties to Syria other than some delusional belief it is a part of their very ephemeral Caliphate.
Breaking:
This link to the ‘British Bullshite Corruption’ ®
agency, talks about another attack on the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Yemen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34645469
Full Spectrum Dominance in action
Tue Oct 27, 2015 3:40
Riyadh, Ankara in Collaboration to Supply Terrorists in Syria with Ukraine’s SAM Missiles
TEHRAN (FNA)- Turkey and Saudi Arabia have developed a plan to supply sophisticated air defense missile systems to the terrorist groups in Syria from the Ukrainian army.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey are spending huge sums to open their path into the Ukrainian army’s missile depots to transfer the surface-to-air SAM-8 and SAM-9 missile systems to Northern Syria to strengthen the terrorist groups, the Arabic-language Lebanese al-Akhbar reported on Tuesday.
The daily underlined that the Ukrainian army officials are opposed to Russia and its military strikes against the terrorists in Syria.
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940805000633
Be sure to watch for Russian cruise missile strikes leveling Ankara,Riyadh,and Kiev, the day one of those missiles hits a Russian plane.Playtime needs to be over for terrorists and their foreign supporters.They want to play hardball,lets give them “hardball”.
Tue Oct 27, 2015 8:31
Russian Fighter Jets Hits Militants’ Positions in Golan Heights near Israel Border
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Russian air force hit rebel positions in Southern Syria, near the Golan Heights, for the first time since it began its air campaign against the Takfiri terrorists last month.
The Russian airstrikes targeted positions of the ISIL and al-Nusra Front in the Golan Heights in Quneitra province near the border with Israel.
Russia’s airstrikes were the closest to the occupied Palestinian territories since it started its airstrikes in late September.
Earlier today, the Russian air force also struck terrorists’ positions in Daraa province for the first time in the past month.
Jordan just to south of daraa, & daraa very near israhell.:
http://www.yalibnan.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/syria-map-daraa.jpg
Don’t we just love a good quote ?
————————
Economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe – a strongly committed enemy of the State, as the following quote illustrates:
“[The State is] an institution run by gangs of murderers, plunderers, and thieves, surrounded by willing executioners, propagandists, sycophants, crooks, liars, clowns, charlatans, dupes and useful idiots – an institution that dirties and taints everything it touches”.
——————————
“Americans are getting stronger. Twenty years ago, it took two people to carry ten dollars worth of groceries. Today, a five-year-old can do it.”
Henny Youngman
————————————
“An aggressor is anyone who attacks a country before the US does.”–Czech President Milos Zeman
Cm’on tell us what you really think !!</b.
guess where the ‘useful idiots’ came from
Putin is about to have an infestation of rats visit him.
Takfiri Terrorists Aiming for Central Asia, Iran’s Velayati Warns
News ID: 899736 Service: Politics
October, 27, 2015 – 16:17
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Head of the Strategic Research Center of Iran’s Expediency Council Ali Akbar Veleyati cautioned that the Takfiri terrorists have plans to make inroads into Central Asia, a threat which he said necessitates Iran and Russia’s vigilance.
“We know that Takfiri terrorists seek to infiltrate into Central Asia, a region in the security domain of Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Velayati said Tuesday in a meeting in Tehran with a former advisor of Russia’s president.
He stressed that Tehran and Moscow cannot be indifferent to the plots that entail insecurity in Central Asia.
Shocking behavior! Just shocking.
Note he is not a diplomat, just one of the several thousand entitled ones there.
That’s a new one to me, issuing him a diplomatic passport AFTER the fact!
http://article.wn.com/view/2015/10/27/Saudi_prince_held_in_record_Beirut_airport_drug_bust/
A Saudi prince and four others were detained on Monday in Lebanon in the largest drug bust in the history of the Beirut airport, a security source said. Saudi prince Abdel Mohsen Bin Walid Bin Abdulaziz and four others were detained…
sidebar article says this:
Ex-Lebanon PM Hariri seeks to free Saudi prince arrested in Beirut, says a reprort.
Former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri is seeking to issue a diplomatic passport for a Saudi prince arrested with two tonnes of amphetamines in Beirut, a report says….
True, or false?
Check out this outrageous disconnect from on high. Both dated 27th:
video link lower left side lower has this as headline, but look at URL:
UN rescinds Iran’s invite for Syria talks
http://article.wn.com/view/2015/10/27/US_officials_Iran_invited_to_next_round_of_Syria_talks_a/videos
This one just in apparently:
http://article.wn.com/view/2015/10/27/US_officials_Iran_invited_to_next_round_of_Syria_talks_a/
US officials: Iran invited to next round of Syria talks
The Associated Press | 2015-10-27
WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran has been invited to participate for the first time in international talks over Syrias future, U.S. officials said Tuesday, a shift in strategy for the United States and its allies as they…
Moscow Invites Tehran to International Talks on Syria
Iran was invited to take part for the first time ever in international talks aimed at ending the civil war in Syria, US officials said Tuesday.
The United States had previously considered Iran joining the talks, but the invitation was finally given after days of behind-the-scenes negotiation, particularly with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival.
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151028/1029205056/iran-syria-civil-war-talks.html#ixzz3pocywWTj
off topic, but sounds like Ukraine situation is heating up again?
http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/10/ceasefire-chronicles-fierce-fighting-in.html
Here is a good article on Syria’s Christians that Assad and Russia are trying to save.Any Christian in any Western country opposing that must be an “apostate” at the very best.And in my opinion a follower of Satan at the worst.Here are parts of the article:
“In the community of the Syro-Jacobite Orthodox Church near Homs the correspondents of “KP” learned about how Christians now live in the “land of Islam”. The “Third Reich” has found worthy disciples in the Middle East.”
“On Sunday, Syrian President met in Damascus with the Russian parliamentary delegation, and one of the key statements of Bashar al-Assad was about Christians: “I will protect the Christians, because their presence in Syria helps create stability and balance in the country, including for Islam “.
“Assad’s words show wisdom and a taste of hidden bitterness. There are very few Christians in the flow of the current “great migrators” to the Christian Europe. Although, logically, it should be the opposite. Why is that? In part, we got the answer to this question near a catholic church in Latakia – its walls from top to bottom are plastered with memorial leaflets. From the black-and-white photocopies stare the young men in camouflage, who died for their Syria, where there used to be a place for all religions under the sun.”
“The city of Homs had one of the largest Christian communities in the Middle East, and not by accident, the hottest battles were waged in the Christian quarters of the city. Today, there is not much to look at and no one to talk to – the quarters turned into an apocalyptic movie decoration.”
“Plunge into hell
The story of the small town Karyateyn 120 kilometers east of Homs one day will be made into a drama. For the past three months, local priests, risking their lives, pulled out Christians from the village occupied by terrorists, living there on the rights of “subhumans.”
– The population there is mixed – Christians and Muslims, – tells us the abbot of Syrian Jacobite Orthodox Church of the Belt of the Virgin in the village of Fairuz, father Zohr Hazaal. – The armed opposition came to the village 4.5 years ago. But it was not the Islamist fanatics. And life was relatively tolerable. At least, no one infringed on the rights of religious communities, people were not mocked or beaten. But on August 4 came the militants of the “Islamic state”, and the situation has changed dramatically. First of all, the Islamists burned all the Christian churches and the monastery of St. Elias, built in the 4th century. Then razed to the ground the cemeteries. Moreover, both Christian and Muslim – Muslims, setting plates on the graves of their relatives, are equated by terrorists to heretics. ISIS shaved the heads of the entire Christian community, to distinguish them from the Muslims, gathered in one room, declaring them a new set of rules, more reminiscent of a fascist ghetto regime.
– The Islamists have called this document “macroma”. Translated – clemency, – says father Zohr Hazaal. – It was written by the terrorist leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi. This so-called “clemency” force the Christians of the village to balance between life and death. For example, I can not stand in front of a Muslim and a look him in the eyes. I have to bow my head. If an Islamist is sitting on a chair, a Christian should squat next to him. A Christian has no right to engage in trade, and must pay tax – dzhizyi: four and a quarter grams of gold for every man in a family. It is forbidden to leave the village, to pray, to carry the cross or holy books, under threat of death – even a minor act which can be regarded as a threat to ISIS. Also, death awaits those who are secretly working for the state. In disputes a Muslim always wins, because a Christian is not a faithful.
The priest searches in his phone for a photo of “macroma”, flashing pictures of destroyed churches, shaved Christians … And here is the document – signed and stamped: “If any rule is violated, there is no mercy or the offender. He can be executed according to the law by beheading. ” All these rules are very reminiscent of the life of Jews in Nazi ghettos. And the roots are evident, contemporary theorists of “pure Islam” expressed respect for the activities and work of theorists and practitioners of the “Third Reich” on the conquest of “living space”. This is what ISIS is engaged in today, only under a different sign.”
“Behind the spiritual front line
Why didn’t the terrorists just eliminate the entire Christian population of Karyateyn? The softness of the Islamists is explained by typical pragmatism.
– Christians in Karyateyn are fairly prosperous, you rarely see a poor Christian, – says father Zohr Hazaal. – Militants knew where to go and what village to capture.”
– And where did you get these pictures?
– I’m out there periodically.
-?!
– After ISIS militants entered the village, some Christians fled and took refuge in the surrounding farms. We came back and rescued people. Two days after the capture, we were able to take 16 people out. On August 7 – another 12 people. For nearly three months we were able to rescue from captivity more than 100 Christians. In some cases, we put wigs on people to cover their shaved heads.
– But how do you get there?
– First of all, locals know many paths. Secondly, we use fake IDs. By the way, in these operations I am helped by dear and righteous residents of Karyateyn from the Muslim community. These people live with us hand in hand. This helped us to rescue the parish priest father Jacques Mourad. Moreover, we had to evacuate the greatest number of people, who where somehow connected with Jacques. So they don’t have any problems. We were able to plant our own people in the village, thanks to whom we rescued 56 people at one time. Today there are still 150 Christians remaining. But many are afraid to leave for fear of being caught.
– Where there precedents with executions?
– During the rule of ISIS four elderly people died in the village from natural causes. One was executed by the militants. His name is Fouad Hazaal, this is my nephew. He spoke out against ISIS, so he was killed. Five girls and six young men are missing. Five Muslims suspected of sin were beheaded. It is simple – the testimony of two faithful is sufficient to impose a death sentence.
In parting, father once again urged us to blur his face on the video footage and photos. He still has to go back to the territories of “pure Islam”, saving Christians, and terrorist counter intelligence doesn’t operate just on the ground.”
http://fortruss.blogspot.ca/2015/10/christian-ghetto-of-islamic-state.html
There is a video of a Christian Syrian soldier captured by the moderate terrorists, they tortured him to death.
I would have to say the Jacobites are fierce warrior by seeing their order fight each other in church during arguments.. They are the only ones of any order I seen who don’t take the commandment thou shall not beat the crap out of others literally.. For some strange reason all I hear from the Catholics is tolerance and such nonsense. They prefer to do their deeds overtly.. As if god can not see it. I believe the Christian belt is allowing this to happen because there can be only one Christian.. just like the terrorists who believe there can be only one Muslim.. Theirs.. All others are to be used to make lamp shades. Just make up the rules as you go along and say its gods wish…
Yes the terrorists are beasts.I saw a video of them murdering a 19 year old Syrian Army soldier prisoner,by running over him with a tank.And there was a report of them murdering other prisoners by blowing them up with explosives.They tied them to ancient columns in Palmyra and blew them up.You have to be inhuman animals to do things like that.I’m afraid if I was in-charge I’d have them all put before a firing squad as soon as captured.
I read this great article,in of all places the Times of Israel.Will wonders never cease.Even they can publish the truth ever so often:
“This week Qatar’s foreign minister Khadlid Al-Attiyah said Doha is mulling military intervention in Syria alongside Turkey and Saudi Arabia to fight Assad, rather than ISIS.
This directly counters Henry Kissinger’s call in the Wall Street Journal that “the destruction of ISIS is more urgent than the overthrow of Bashar Assad, who has already lost over half of the area he once controlled. Making sure that this territory does not become a permanent terrorist haven must have precedence.”
Al Attiyah even tried to spin the narrative of Qatar as the defender of Syrian people, proclaiming “We will spare no efforts to do anything that can help protect the Syrian people…with our Saudi and Turkish brethren,” and defended Al Qaeda affiliate Ahrar Al-Sham as part of the “moderate opposition.”
However, it is unclear how Qatar is defending the Syrian people when its mercenary jihadists in the anti-Assad groups are committing genocide and ethno-religious cleansing in Syria. The Free Syrian Army and Nusra even made a video to boast of their 2013 massacre of the Christian village of Sadad where 45 Christians including children and women were tortured and executed, while Druze and other religious minorities continue to be slaughtered by these Sunni extremists.
Moreover, these Qatar/Saudi/Turkey backed “Syrian rebels” are not even Syrian, with German intelligence BND estimating 95% of the fighters are paid foreign mercenaries, and in 2013 Saudi Arabia sent more than 1,200 death row inmates ranging from Yemen, Sudan, Jordan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia to wage Syrian jihad.
In truth, the Syrian war has long ceased to be a civil war of Syrian people fighting for democratic reforms, and is now a full-blown war waged by foreign powers of Doha, Riyadh and Ankara to replace a secular autocracy with an extremist Islamic theocracy under their control.
Qatar’s export of jihad destabilizing greater Middle East
Writing in October 2014, renowned Indian strategist Professor Brahma Chellaney from Center for Policy Research, observed that Qatar’s duplicitous role of exporting jihad to the Middle East, North Africa and beyond while supporting the US in its fight against them, has transformed the gas-rich speck of a country “from a regional gadfly into an international rogue elephant” that “must be tamed.”
Chellaney criticized Arab autocracies that aided ISIS rise are now in Obama’s “coalition of the willing,” that is “a coalition of sinners now dressed as knights in shining armour.” He noted how Qatar and Saudi Arabia pouring weapons and funds to Sunni extremists in Syria eventually created fertile ground that spawned ISIS. This nefarious pattern of supporting violent jihadists is further evidenced by their bolstering Afghan Taliban, accelerating Libya’s transformation into a failed state via their breeding of Islamist militia, with Qatar even deploying troops covertly inside Libya in the 2011 campaign to oust Gaddafi—much like they are threatening to do now in Syria.
Writing in Japan Times, Chellaney chastised the anti-Assad coalition’s naïveté in trying to distinguish between ‘moderate’ and ‘radical’ jihadists, and that “the term ‘moderate jihadists’ is an oxymoron: those waging jihad by gun can never be moderate.”
Using Al Udeid Air Base as a weapon to hold US hostage to its agenda and enabling its misadventures with impunity, Qatar’s clout now “allows it to run with the foxes while it hunts with the hounds”, while funding violent Salafi-jihadists in Syria, Mali, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Gaza and elsewhere has left a destructive trail of destabilized and failing states throughout the greater Middle East.
Migrant influx as “hybrid warfare” against EU?
As Qatar is now sabre rattling and threatening to pour more fuel into the jihadi inferno in Syria with no end in sight, it’s the Syrian people who suffer the most at the hands of Doha’s policy. And while Syrians are fleeing jihad at home to neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and Turkey, how many refugees have the “defender of the Syrian people” Qatar, Saudis and other rich Arab Gulf states taken? According to director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth, zero.
Instead, Saudi Arabia offered to build 200 mosques in Germany to preach extremist Wahhabi Islam to further radicalize the new migrant Muslim population, prompting CDU Deputy Chairman Armin Laschet’s quick rebuke that “Instead of talking about funding mosques, Saudi Arabia should be thinking about taking refugees and ending financing of ISIS.” CSU general secretary Andrea Scheuer likewise called the offer “cynical,” given the Kingdom is creating thousands of refugees of its own by bombing Yemen that has already killed more than 2,000 civilians and wounded 4,000 others, including 135 at a wedding party that were mostly women and children.
EU chief Donald Tusk went further and slammed the migrant influx as a campaign of “hybrid warfare” by Turkey and regional states to coerce EU concessions (e.g., financial aid, visa-free travel from Turkey, buffer zone for Qatar/Turkey/Saudi jihadi Army of Conquest and Qatar-Turkey pipeline.)
Meanwhile, as Russia is effectively attacking ISIS and Al Qaeda-infested Army of Conquest that has burrowed itself in Idlib, Qatar is now attempting to sabotage these gains to aid the jihadists. This is a direct threat to not only Russia, but especially China given this Conquest Army consists of anti-Chinese jihadists, as well as thousands of Chechen and Central Asian fighters that are already attacking their homeland. India’s Kashmir has also fallen prey to Qatar’s Syrian policy, with some Indian scholars calling for joining Russian airstrikes against these salafi jihadists.
Should Qatar continue to provoke an escalation of Syrian war, it may very well end up confronting the three nuclear powers of not just the Russian bear, but also the Chinese dragon and Indian tiger to defend their homeland from Qatar-backed jihadists. If the US and Europe do not want Qatar to turn the Syrian war into World War III, then as Professor Chellaney exhorted, “for the sake of regional and international security”, this gadfly-turned rogue elephant “must be tamed.”
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/qatars-jihad-and-mideast-failing-states/
Money does strange things to people, they develop delusions of grandeur especially when you ride the giant gorilla and can kick him once in a while and get him to beg for a banana… Desperate times calls for desperate measures… Seeing trillions just get blown up by the Russians must drive anyone insane.
@Anonymous 3:44
You said it.
A quote from Vladimir Putin at the Valdai Club on the Russian strikes in Syria:
” Vladimir Putin : I can tell you, I watch
the video reports after the strike and they
make an impression. Such a quantity
of ammunition goes off there that it flies
practically all the way up to the planes. You
get the impression that they have collected
arms and ammunition from throughout
the entire Middle East.
They have put together
a colossal amount of arms. You can’t help but
wonder where they get the money from. It’s
really a tremendous amount of firepower
they’ve accumulated.
Now, of course, it is less
than it was. The Syrian army really is making
gains with our support. The results are modest
for now, but they are there, and I am sure
that there will be more.”
I wonder does he and team Russia cheer a
when they watch – yet another – dump get blown up?:)
Haha,probably,at least on the inside.I don’t see Putin as the “high-five” kind of guy.
I saw this short piece by a ex-US military man.Its very interesting,but I think he still thinks the US is interested in destroying ISIS .But is just making mistakes in attempting it:
“What are you gonna do now, Ranger? – TTG”
Seems Obama has no desire to be overshadowed by Putin. According to the WaPo, he’s pushing the Pentagon for a way to still be seen as a major player in GWOT 2.0 while not directly confronting Russia. No fly zones are out. The rent’s too damned high.
One of the suggestions is to put advisors with the newly minted moderate Arab rebels of the newly minted Syrian Arab Coalition, apply air support and advance to Raqqa. This will inevitably require working with the YPG, whether we admit it or not. Turkey will throw a hissy fit and threaten to deny us the use of Incirlik or even use of their airspace. Say Turkey does this. If we have the stones, we could coordinate with Russia for an air corridor just south of the Turkish border to support this attack on Raqqa… if we have the stones. If I was in charge, I would have put Special Forces teams into Kobane last year when it looked like it would be a Kurdish Alamo. If we did that our relationship with the YPG, Euphrates Volcano and the Syrian Arab Coalition would be tight by now. And instead of kissing Erdogan’s ass, I’d be prepared to stick a hot poker in said ass.
Another suggestion is to move the US advisors out of the major bases in Iraq and embed them at the brigade level with Iraqi forces for operations like retaking Ramadi. Would we be willing to get off our high horse and rub elbows with Iranian advisors? I know Special Forces teams in the field would, but I’m not sure about the Borg collective in Washington. They’re so smug and proud, you know.
A third suggestion is to target IS infrastructure to cripple them financially. In other words, go after the oil industry and smuggling networks in Syria. We could have done this a year ago. I wouldn’t go for random infrastructure like our electrical power plant hits in Aleppo a week ago. What the hell was that about? We should concentrate on one key aspect of the infrastructure like tankers and any vehicle that can be used to move oil. If at all possible, leave the oil fields and refineries for use by Syrians after IS is defeated.
Or we could just continue to wander around half-assedly until we fade away… or stumble into WWIII.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-weighs-moving-us-troops-closer-to-front-lines-in-syria-iraq/2015/10/26/4ae2f36c-7bec-11e5-b575-d8dcfedb4ea1_story.html
“but I think he still thinks the US is interested in destroying ISIS .But is just making mistakes in attempting it:”
If this is a true reflection of Obama (which I doubt), then obviously this POTUS is in la-la land – it reveals he knows nothing that is really going on that is being done by people under his command, and as such, worse than useless – for he is then the “useful” idiot of his own subordinates.
That seems to be one of the main complains about him I hear.There seems to be two viewpoints about him.One,he’s a diabolical monster.And two,he’s a total fool.I lean more to the second position,but who knows.
A video of Lindsay Graham questioning Carter and Dunford at fortruss.
http://fortruss.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/sociopath-media-report-27th-october-2015.html
Too much madness in the US political establishment for them to change course now.
I am starting to wonder if Putin has underestimated the rest of the world. At his UN speech he called on the world to unite against ISIS and US led regime change. Iran was already backing Syria, but not one other country is standing beside Russia publicly. A public show of support by China, even just publicly airlifting/shipping supplies to Syria would make a difference, but nothing.
Sometimes I wonder if China will be like a boiling frog. The US just keep turning the heat up and China keeps thinking they can remain a sovereign nation trading with the world without going to war with the US.
Even without entering combat in Syria, a public display of support by China would go a long way by letting the US know that it is taking on both Russia and China.
“Seems Obama has no desire to be overshadowed by Putin.”
IMO, Obama is a vain, foolish young man. Somewhat la George Bush (almost) he got where he is because he was the right boy toy for the time and the place, and the people who took him up in Illinois and Chicago, one of the most corrupt political machines in the country. He may well not quite understand this, hence the vanity—the foolishness of vanity and believing flatterers.
Knowin g the Chicago scene, BO may also well have something to hide (cf. Hastert) and this just adds another string to pull.
Katherine
off topic, but there is irrefutable proof that US uses NGOs for spying. In this case, it is N.Korea:
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/26/pentagon-missionary-spies-christian-ngo-front-for-north-korea-espionage/
“It is unacceptable that the Pentagon or any other U.S. agency use nonprofits for intelligence gathering,” Worthington said. “It is a violation of the basic trust between the U.S. government and its civic sector.”
but hey, we are talking about “Exceptionalistan” here (to borrow from Pepe E.), anything goes.
Example of how not to use special forces.
Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Special Ops “Successes”. America’s Elite Forces Deploy to a Record 147 Countries in 2015
By Nick Turse
Global Research, October 27, 2015
TomDispatch.com 25 October 2015
Theme: Militarization and WMD, US NATO War Agenda
print 145 9 1 180
navy-seals
They’re some of the best soldiers in the world: highly trained, well equipped, and experts in weapons, intelligence gathering, and battlefield medicine. They study foreign cultures and learn local languages. They’re smart, skillful, wear some very iconic headgear, and their 12-member teams are “capable of conducting the full spectrum of special operations, from building indigenous security forces to identifying and targeting threats to U.S. national interests.”
They’re also quite successful. At least they think so.
“In the last decade, Green Berets have deployed into 135 of the 195 recognized countries in the world. Successes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Trans-Sahel Africa, the Philippines, the Andean Ridge, the Caribbean, and Central America have resulted in an increasing demand for [Special Forces] around the globe,” reads a statement on the website of U.S. Army Special Forces Command.
The Army’s Green Berets are among the best known of America’s elite forces, but they’re hardly alone. Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, Army Rangers, Marine Corps Raiders, as well as civil affairs personnel, logisticians, administrators, analysts, and planners, among others, make up U.S. Special Operations forces (SOF). They are the men and women who carry out America’s most difficult and secret military missions. Since 9/11, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has grown in every conceivable way from funding and personnel to global reach and deployments. In 2015, according to Special Operations Command spokesman Ken McGraw, U.S. Special Operations forces deployed to a record-shattering 147 countries — 75% of the nations on the planet, which represents a jump of 145% since the waning days of the Bush administration. On any day of the year, in fact, America’s most elite troops can be found in 70 to 90 nations.
There is, of course, a certain logic to imagining that the increasing global sweep of these deployments is a sign of success. After all, why would you expand your operations into ever-more nations if they weren’t successful? So I decided to pursue that record of “success” with a few experts on the subject.
I started by asking Sean Naylor, a man who knows America’s most elite troops as few do and the author of Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command, about the claims made by Army Special Forces Command. He responded with a hearty laugh. “I’m going to give whoever wrote that the benefit of the doubt that they were referring to successes that Army Special Forces were at least perceived to have achieved in those countries rather than the overall U.S. military effort,” he says. As he points out, the first post-9/11 months may represent the zenith of success for those troops. The initial operations in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 — carried out largely by U.S. Special Forces, the CIA, and the Afghan Northern Alliance, backed by U.S. airpower — were “probably the high point” in the history of unconventional warfare by Green Berets, according to Naylor. As for the years that followed? “There were all sorts of mistakes, one could argue, that were made after that.” He is, however, quick to point out that “the vast majority of the decisions [about operations and the war, in general] were not being made by Army Special Forces soldiers.”
For Linda Robinson, author of One Hundred Victories: Special Ops and the Future of American Warfare, the high number of deployments is likely a mistake in itself. “Being in 70 countries… may not be the best use of SOF,” she told me. Robinson, a senior international policy analyst at the Rand Corporation, advocates for a “more thoughtful and focused approach to the employment of SOF,” citing enduring missions in Colombia and the Philippines as the most successful special ops training efforts in recent years. “It might be better to say ‘Let’s not sprinkle around the SOF guys like fairy dust.’ Let’s instead focus on where we think we can have a success… If you want more successes, maybe you need to start reining in how many places you’re trying to cover.”
Most of the special ops deployments in those 147 countries are the type Robinson expresses skepticism about — short-term training missions by “white” operators like Green Berets (as opposed to the “black ops” man-hunting missions by the elite of the elite that captivate Hollywood and video gamers). Between 2012 and 2014, for example, Special Operations forces carried out 500 Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) missions in as many as 67 countries, practicing everything from combat casualty care and marksmanship to small unit tactics and desert warfare alongside local forces. And JCETs only scratch the surface when it comes to special ops missions to train proxies and allies. Special Operations forces, in fact, conduct a variety of training efforts globally.
A recent $500 million program, run by Green Berets, to train a Syrian force of more than 15,000 over several years, for instance, crashed and burned in a very public way, yielding just four or five fighters in the field before being abandoned. This particular failure followed much larger, far more expensive attempts to train the Afghan and Iraqi security forces in which Special Operations troops played a smaller yet still critical role. The results of these efforts recently prompted TomDispatch regular and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich to write that Washington should now assume “when it comes to organizing, training, equipping, and motivating foreign armies, that the United States is essentially clueless.”
The Elite Warriors of the Warrior Elite
In addition to training, another core role of Special Operations forces is direct action — counterterror missions like low-profile drone assassinations and kill/capture raids by muscled-up, high-octane operators. The exploits of the men — and they are mostly men (and mostly Caucasian ones at that) — behind these operations are chronicled in Naylor’s epic history of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the secret counterterrorism organization that includes the military’s most elite and shadowy units like the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 and the Army’s Delta Force. A compendium of more than a decade of derring-do from Afghanistan to Iraq, Somalia to Syria, Relentless Strike paints a portrait of a highly-trained, well-funded, hard-charging counterterror force with global reach. Naylor calls it the “perfect hammer,” but notes the obvious risk that “successive administrations would continue to view too many national security problems as nails.”
When I ask Naylor about what JSOC has ultimately achieved for the country in the Obama years, I get the impression that he doesn’t find my question particularly easy to answer. He points to hostage rescues, like the high profile effort to save “Captain Phillips” of the Maersk Alabama after the cargo ship was hijacked by Somali pirates, and asserts that such missions might “inhibit others from seizing Americans.” One wonders, of course, if similar high-profile failed missions since then, including the SEAL raid that ended in the deaths of hostages Luke Somers, an American photojournalist, and Pierre Korkie, a South African teacher, as well as the unsuccessful attempt to rescue the late aid worker Kayla Mueller, might then have just the opposite effect.
“Afghanistan, you’ve got another fairly devilish strategic problem there,” Naylor says and offers up a question of his own: “You have to ask what would have happened if al-Qaeda in Iraq had not been knocked back on its heels by Joint Special Operations Command between 2005 and 2010?” Naylor calls attention to JSOC’s special abilities to menace terror groups, keeping them unsteady through relentless intelligence gathering, raiding, and man-hunting. “It leaves them less time to take the offensive, to plan missions, and to plot operations against the United States and its allies,” he explains. “Now that doesn’t mean that the use of JSOC is a substitute for a strategy… It’s a tool in a policymaker’s toolkit.”
Indeed. If what JSOC can do is bump off and capture individuals and pressure such groups but not decisively roll up militant networks, despite years of anti-terror whack-a-mole efforts, it sounds like a recipe for spending endless lives and endless funds on endless war. “It’s not my place as a reporter to opine as to whether the present situations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen were ‘worth’ the cost in blood and treasure borne by U.S. Special Operations forces,” Naylor tells me in a follow-up email. “Given the effects that JSOC achieved in Iraq (Uday and Qusay Hussein killed, Saddam Hussein captured, [al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab] Zarqawi killed, al-Qaeda in Iraq eviscerated), it’s hard to say that JSOC did not have an impact on that nation’s recent history.”
Impacts, of course, are one thing, successes another. Special Operations Command, in fact, hedges its bets by claiming that it can only be as successful as the global commands under which its troops operate in each area of the world, including European Command, Pacific Command, Africa Command, Southern Command, Northern Command, and Central Command or CENTCOM, the geographic combatant command that oversees operations in the Greater Middle East. “We support the Geographic Combatant Commanders (GCCs) — if they are successful, we are successful; if they fail, we fail,” says SOCOM’s website.
With this in mind, it’s helpful to return to Naylor’s question: What if al-Qaeda in Iraq, which flowered in the years after the U.S. invasion, had never been targeted by JSOC as part of a man-hunting operation going after its foreign fighters, financiers, and military leaders? Given that the even more brutal Islamic State (IS) grew out of that targeted terror group, that IS was fueled in many ways, say experts, both by U.S. actions and inaction, that its leader’s rise was bolstered by U.S. operations, that “U.S. training helped mold” another of its chiefs, and that a U.S. prison served as its “boot camp,” and given that the Islamic State now holds a significant swath of Iraq, was JSOC’s campaign against its predecessor a net positive or a negative? Were special ops efforts in Iraq (and therefore in CENTCOM’s area of operations) — JSOC’s post-9/11 showcase counterterror campaign — a success or a failure?
Naylor notes that JSOC’s failure to completely destroy al-Qaeda in Iraq allowed IS to grow and eventually sweep “across northern Iraq in 2014, seizing town after town from which JSOC and other U.S. forces had evicted al-Qaeda in Iraq at great cost several years earlier.” This, in turn, led to the rushing of special ops advisers back into the country to aid the fight against the Islamic State, as well as to that program to train anti-Islamic State Syrian fighters that foundered and then imploded. By this spring, JSOC operators were not only back in Iraq and also on the ground in Syria, but they were soon conducting drone campaigns in both of those tottering nations.
This special ops merry-go-round in Iraq is just the latest in a long series of fiascos, large and small, to bedevil America’s elite troops. Over the years, in that country, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere, special operators have regularly been involved in all manner of mishaps, embroiled in various scandals, and implicated in numerous atrocities. Recently, for instance, members of the Special Operations forces have come under scrutiny for an air strike on a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Afghanistan that killed at least 22 patients and staff, for an alliance with “unsavory partners” in the Central African Republic, for the ineffective and abusive Afghan police they trained and supervised, and for a shady deal to provide SEALs with untraceable silencers that turned out to be junk, according to prosecutors.
Winners and Losers
JSOC was born of failure, a phoenix rising from the ashes of Operation Eagle Claw, the humiliating attempt to rescue 53 American hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1980 that ended, instead, in the deaths of eight U.S. personnel. Today, the elite force trades on an aura of success in the shadows. Its missions are the stuff of modern myths.
In his advance praise for Naylor’s book, one cable news analyst called JSOC’s operators “the finest warriors who ever went into combat.” Even accepting this — with apologies to the Mongols, the Varangian Guard, Persia’s Immortals, and the Ten Thousand of Xenophon’s Anabasis — questions remain: Have these “warriors” actually been successful beyond budget battles and the box office? Is exceptional tactical prowess enough? Are battlefield triumphs and the ability to batter terror networks through relentless raiding the same as victory? Such questions bring to mind an exchange that Army colonel Harry Summers, who served in Vietnam, had with a North Vietnamese counterpart in 1975. “You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield,” Summers told him. After pausing to ponder the comment, Colonel Tu replied, “That may be so. But it is also irrelevant.”
So what of those Green Berets who deployed to 135 countries in the last decade? And what of the Special Operations forces sent to 147 countries in 2015? And what about those Geographic Combatant Commanders across the globe who have hosted all those special operators?
I put it to Vietnam veteran Andrew Bacevich, author of Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country. “As far back as Vietnam,” he tells me, “the United States military has tended to confuse inputs with outcomes. Effort, as measured by operations conducted, bomb tonnage dropped, or bodies counted, is taken as evidence of progress made. Today, tallying up the number of countries in which Special Operations forces are present repeats this error. There is no doubt that U.S. Special Operations forces are hard at it in lots of different places. It does not follow that they are thereby actually accomplishing anything meaningful.”
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch and a fellow at the Nation Institute. A 2014 Izzy Award and American Book Award winner for his book Kill Anything That Moves, his pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Intercept, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. His latest book is Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa.
This is an interesting OT video of Mark Sleboda interviewed by PressTV about Turkey’s role in Syria
https://youtu.be/2y70mNoWXBI?list=PLl454lB46JcJbMj5gSXMaAr3T2-zDx9Pu
The first Jihadi defense line was just north of Homs. The US made TOWS were waiting for the Syrian armor that had to charge straight up the road, and we hear 30 tanks were killed that day. But we have video now from both the Syrian side and the Jihadi’s, some of it from roof tops so airstrikes could be observed. The Russian planes had left the command bunkers in this defense line untouched until attack day so they would be full.
The second surprise came when the Syrians launched a left flank attack split east and west, one force blocking any jihadi reinforcement being able to come down from the hills, and the other taking the jihadi positions west of highway 5 from the rear, making them fight in two directions. The battle was mostly over the first day as the surviving terrorist units pulled back to their next line, the Hama area on highway 5, and in the process learned what is was like to be under bomber and MI-24 helicopter attack while on the roads.
We next saw elements of the Iranian trained Syrian national guard reserves quickly put into the battle doing clearing operations on both sides of highway 5 to clean out any stay behind jihadis that could ambush supply columns. This also allowed the attacking units to keep pushing north in tight formation.
The jihadis began breaking up into smaller units and spreading out to make themselves less visible to air strikes. But this also destroyed their ability to maneuver and support each other while under ground and air attack.
This week we saw some of the first jihadi footage from dead or captured jihadis who had been hoping to record some home movies to be shown to grandchildren someday. They showed poorly trained fanatics with poor radio discipline in total chaos. It almost looked like a contest as to who could recite the most religious slogans while filming bombing strikes and amazing low level MI-24 strikes that sometimes were below the minarets. I had heard they were heavily armored, and they seemed to be totally unconcerned about ground fire.
http://journal-neo.org/2015/10/28/how-russia-and-syria-turned-the-tide-on-terror/
@mmi..
An excellent report from Jim Dean.
He should join the Saker’s team.
I have noticed an increase in your viewership lately. They are probably coming from the Zerohedge. Nobody is believing that the Syrian army doesn’t exist apparently. That was an epic blather on Zerohedge part for sure. Statements like that ruin the trust in you pretty soon, and people shortly start to think you have no idea what you are talking about, or that you are lying or spreading propaganda on purpose.
Dukljanin on October 28, 2015 · at 10:54 am UTC ?????
DUH!
They say the ‘FSA’ aka the ‘free syrian army’ does not really exist!
It is similar to the other US/UK proxies……..Governments in exile ……..exiled opposition … …poor refugees fleeing the persecution by their own government
The one man band of ‘Syrian Observatory of Human Rights’ aka Rami Abdul Rahman who lives as a pensioner of Her Majesties foreign office.
“Informed sources who prefer to remain anonymous”etc..etc.
The reason this site picks up, is because we no longer have to watch the grass grow !! Russia is going to cage this US beast,the timid will be the last to cheer…..but it will happen !!!.
More to Life
An angel came and landed on the shed,
The little shed wherein my life is kept
“There’s more to life than this” the angel said
We looked into each other’s eyes and wept.
I hurried back inside and shut the door,
And all surrounded by the life I love
I lay there weeping on the concrete floor.
And heard the angel weeping up above
M. Leunig
Very beautiful and touching. Thanks.
“You angel you
You got me under your wing
The way you walk and the way you talk
I feel I could almost sing.” BD
http://fortruss.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/ukrainian-wikileaks-mccain-and.html
What do people make of this? Is it a step too far for McCain and Misha? I think so.
Lawrence of Arizonia strikes again!
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3X5oHqdWy_c/US1fIAg0aMI/AAAAAAABGqE/LhI9y-Dvsaw/s1600/JOHN-MCCAIN-2.jpg
I doubt it is really from wikileaks. However, it does not mean MadCain and the Ukrops are not planning something similar, they are fully capable of it, conscience wise, as they have none.
What is it?
Looks like the vineyard soldiers on even with no new article for a couple days.
All this war stuff could change if the elephant in the room wakes up. I mean the financial WMD.
The debt balloon is set to pop. Check out the Keiser Report, especially 826 where the second guest is Dimitri Orlov.
When the US can’t pay its soldiers, contractors and mercenaries wars will morph down to thousands of little ones and/or a Pax Russiana may ensue. No one on earth will be exempt.
“What can I say about Miss Money? She could be happily married or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires.” BD with a twist by DL.
In other news, our exceptional fiends from the US department of morons… Vee Bomba…
Iraqi security sources stated that the US-led coalition’s airstrikes killed 22 army and volunteer servicemen on Tuesday. The coalition warplanes targeted the Iraqi forces’ positions after they advanced the al-Jama and al-Davajen bridges near the city of Ramadi.
US air farce, Al Qaeda’s best defense.. When you have allies like this who needs enemies? Your allies drop supplies to the enemy, bombs you every chance they get, delay giving you any weapons to fight with. Have to sign contracts with fine print you never get the time to read while keeping your fingers between the door and the frame and some 400lbs monkey is leaning against it so you can get out of there and actually do anything. They also don’t get any satellite recon about enemy troop moments but that is not a big loss as all that video gaming and texting makes their eye sight worth shit from figuring out even which country they are looking at let alone who they are looking at. Oh yea the Iraqi’s also found brand new weapons.. American weapons.. in their original foam packing.. in terrorist dens.. I recall a recent 50 ton air drop of weapons somewhere…
http://southfront.org/international-military-review-syria-iraq-battlespace-oct-28-2015/
This is way off topic ..however…it is quite an enjoyable distraction:
Vladimir Putin Sings “Blueberry Hill” at St. Petersburg Children’s Cancer Benefit ( in English! )
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/10/26/vladimir-putin-sings-blueberry-hill-at-st-petersburg-childrens-cancer-benefit/
Thanks. How sweet it is. Putin has a broad range of interests and talents.
If anyone needs more appreciation of what unbridled evil the world is up against then view the domineering control freak Graham and his belligerent hectoring manner in the video at the bottom of this article:
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/crazed-us-senator-attacks-defense-secretary-not-planning-war-russia/ri10798
Excerpts:
“This is nothing short of war with Russia”
” While watching, just notice the rage and fury pulsating in this man. Pay attention to his tone, his eyes. Try to imagine what horrors this wretched individual would unleash on the world if he were to become commander-in-chief….”
@SanctuaryOne
He’ll probably arrest when he hears about this:
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/10/28/435338/Russia-Putin-rouble-dollar-oil-deals
Dedollarization continues apace!
Note he also said (more or less in google transcript)– twice:
most people in Syria want two things they
1:34
wanna fight they want to destroy Iceland get rid of Assad the person is killed
1:38
250,000 their family
———
the average Syrian not only wants
2:53
to destroy ISIL but they’re going to hit on destroying a side because he’s killed
2:58
250,000
so Graham is spreading the lies too. Another evil one, but in competition with some others.
Only place I’ve seen mention this or actively following it.
Poll scroll down on RH side main page asks:
http://www.presstv.ir/
What do you think prompted Blair to admit to mistakes made in the run-up to the Iraq war?
The upcoming Chilcot report (73%)
His guilty conscience (11%)
The consequences of the war (16%)
@Anonymous 6:22
I and three others voted today (me twenty minutes ago).
We’re in the 73 %.
not a good idea because of who owns, controls restricts, censors, & runs all the “social media”.
http://www.presstv.ir/Video/2015/10/28/435287/Gazans-turn-social-media-support-Intifada
Ashraf Shannon
Press TV, Gaza
A social media campaign has been launched in the besieged Gaza Strip to support the new Palestinian Intifada against Israel over its crimes. Ashraf Shannon has more from Gaza.
This guy looks to be the new world record holder under “importing for personal use”, unseating the incumbent champ, the fat neotard tawk show host Lush Limbo after a world record stay at the top.
removed link. Not related to comment
This bust, which happened at the Beirut airport proves that the Sauds are helping ISIS in any way possible. This “prince” traveled heavy, stuffing the pills in “24 bags and 8 suitcases”. That may sound like enough luggage to do away with 2 tons, but consider this – a ton is 2,000 pounds, which means that the prince would have needed a total of 40 suitcases to get them down to 100 pounds each! He did not have that many. How heavy does a Saudi prince travel, anyway? Maybe at least 10 percent of what Michelle Obama will tote along on a family outing . . . . . . geez.
Anyway, CNN threw in the towel and reported the truth for once, yep, the Sauds really do support ISIS, even with drugs and perhaps now that ISIS will be napping more sans amphetamines, Russia will do an even better job.
And where did that Saudi prince get two tons of “Captagon” amphetamines to begin with? I did a little checking, and low and behold, it looks like Turkey is the most likely manufacturing source. So now we most likely have a love triangle, involving Turkey, Saudia Arabia, and ISIS. Cute! That
Anonymous – why not give yourself a name. You post a lot of articles – then people will get to know you/your comments. On this occasion I have had to remove your link as it has nothing to do with the topic or your comment.