Yeah, maybe if you actually dated the two videos that have been conflated, it might actually mean something.Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
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Yeah, maybe if you actually dated the two videos that have been conflated, it might actually mean something.Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
Not a question of influence, more direct nose to nose that Putin doesn't need. Your own post says as much, that Iran and Russia both support Assad and got what they want in Syria, which happened during the Obama regime. It should follow that their next step is to consolidate their strategic gains, rather than compromise them by facing off with Trump's more pugnacious character.Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
Or you can argue for the sake of arguing.
Looks like a selective edit.Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
Argue what? I stated that there is no "big regional influence gain" for Russia and Iran in keeping Syria in power: It simply maintains the status quo.Quote:
Originally Posted by jabir
Ergo there is no "gain" to consolidate.
Thus I have no fucking idea what you're on about.
I should say that I can't see any strategic value in the US protecting a small enclave of Syrian rebels.
Frankly they should all be focusing on wiping out that black stain.
https://teakdoor.com/attachment.php?a...id=20023&stc=1
The UNSC resolutions are still active. Or have I missed the UNSC, unanimously voted, resolutions where throat slitting terrorists have been baptised and their sins against humanity, absolved?Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
The dates of the videos are and will continue to be irrelevant to the situation in Syria. The "forgetfulness" of their obligations and morals, by the ameristanis and their vassals, will not.
Try zooming out from your microscopic view. The UN Charter is till considered the standard to adopt, yes?Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
Or have the ameristanis and their vassal moved on and abandoned the "accepted international laws, treaties and obligations" as they have in so many other world norms?
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Condemns Trump Administration's Protection of Al-Qaeda in Syria
“Two days ago, President Trump and Vice President Pence delivered solemn speeches about the attacks on 9/11, talking about how much they care about the victims of al-Qaeda’s attack on our country. But, they are now standing up to protect the 20,000 to 40,000 al-Qaeda and other jihadist forces in Syria, and threatening Russia, Syria, and Iran, with military force if they dare attack these terrorists."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=B7A8VuRFGmQ
^I believe the current POTUSE said similar comforting words during his run for the big prize. How long those sentiments linger, 20 seconds?
It surely get a lot of guts to say something like this. (perhaps because she is so far from D.C.?)...Quote:
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Condemns Trump Administration's Protection of Al-Qaeda in Syria
Possibly she has already been given the nod by some influential people as one who will have a bright future.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
It's like you never understood a single word. And just waffled a load of irrelevant tripe. Again.
The US are blaming Syria.
Russia are subtly pointing the finger at the blue suede shoes and the cheese eating surrender monkeys....
Quote:
A Russian military plane with 14 servicemen on board has disappeared near Syria's Mediterranean coast.
The country's defence ministry said the IL-20 jet disappeared from radar 22 miles (35km) off the coast late on Monday as it was returning to Hmeimim airbase near the Syrian city of Lattakia.
It disappeared as Israeli jets and a French ship were attacking targets in the same area, according to Russia's military, which has so far not confirmed whether it was shot down or crashed.
An unnamed US government official told the Reuters news agency it is believed the plane was accidentally shot down by Syrian anti-aircraft artillery.
"The missiles were not fired by the US military and we have nothing further at this time," added a Pentagon spokesman.
The fate of the people on board is not yet known, but Russia said it had launched a rescue mission.
Russia's TASS news agency quoted officials as saying: "The trace of the Il-20 on flight control radars disappeared during an attack by four Israeli F-16 jets on Syrian facilities in Lattakia province.
"At the same time Russian air control radar systems detected rocket launches from the French frigate Auvergne which was located in that region."
When asked about the incident, a spokesperson for Israel's military said: "We don't comment on foreign reports."
Syrian officials have so far not commented.
A spokesman for the French military said France was not involved in the aircraft's disappearance.
Colonel Patrik Steiger said: "We deny any involvement."
https://news.sky.com/story/russian-m...syria-11501133
Losing one of their few AWACS is just stupid.
On the bright side, they don't need to worry about the seppos finding it and nicking any new technology.Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
Russian Il-20 downed by Syrian missile after Israeli F-16s used it as cover during attack – MoD
"On Monday evening, four Israeli F-16 fighter jets attacked targets in Syria’s Latakia after approaching from the Mediterranean, a statement by the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. The Israeli warplanes approached at a low altitude and “created a dangerous situation for other aircraft and vessels in the region,” it said.
If they shot it out of the sky one would suspect either their electronics, radar or ability to hide/jam incoming missiles. Not to even consider their alleged fighter "protection"."
But we must believe it's "more likely" the Russian. They do seem to be constantly lying and RT reports it.
Fake news then eh, 'arry.
The Russian Military, according to RT, is blaming the, Israeli government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=187&v=YEioP7zJzMc
Poor old Russia. First it gets laughed at for trying to blame someone else for shooting down its own plane with its own missiles, now it has to face the embarrassment of having its bluff called by the seppos.
Quote:
The Russians appear to have backed off their earlier threats after the US Marine Corps sent them a clear message.
The Pentagon, US Central Command, and Operation Inherent Resolve have all confirmed that Russia has stayed out of the deconfliction zone and is no longer insisting on conducting operations or launching precision strikes in the area near the At Tanf garrison, where US Marines are based.
Russia warned the US twice on September 1 and again on September 6 that the Russian military, together with Syrian and pro-regime forces, planned to carry out counterterrorism operations inside the 55-kilometer deconfliction zone. It accused the US and its coalition partners of harboring terrorists.
Immediately following Russia's threats, the US Marine Corps conducted a live-fire demonstration at the At Tanf garrison to drive home the point that the US military did not need Russia's help eliminating terrorists.
"The United States does not seek to fight the Russians, the government of Syria, or any groups that may be providing support to Syria in the Syrian civil war," the US Central Command spokesman Lt. Col. Earl Brown previously told Business Insider, adding: "The United States will not hesitate to use necessary and proportionate force to defend US, coalition, or partner forces as we have clearly demonstrated in past instances."
"The US does not require any assistance in our efforts to destroy ISIS in the At Tanf deconfliction zone, and we advised the Russians to remain clear," he added.
In the nearly two weeks since, the Russians have not contacted the US military about operations inside the deconfliction zone, an area the Syrians and the Russians want to access to build a strategic land bridge between Tehran and Damascus.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/russia...n-syria-2018-9
Oooh a bad day for IS, first Baghdadi is reported to have died of lung cancer, and now this:
Quote:
ERBIL — The deputy for Islamic State (IS) chief Abubakir al-Baghdad has been given the death penalty by a court in Baghdad, judicial authorities confirmed.
Ismail al-Eithawy, IS’s second man in charge, was arrested in Turkey and extradited to Iraq where he was tried for his membership in the leadership of the extremist group.
Spokesman for the Supreme Judicial Council, Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, stated that he previously had served in different ranks of IS.
He worked as the chief of the Iftaa (religious edict) committee and was responsible for developing the group’s educational curricula.
http://www.basnews.com/index.php/en/news/iraq/467155
Another "Opinion":Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
The original opinion can be found here:
https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/09/full-analysis-russian-disinfo-campaign-blames-israel-for-il-20-plane-downing-yet-exonerates-france/
It focuses on the Russian/French/NATO relationships more. The requirement for Russia and France/French opinion to continue in an advantageous option.
The "summary":
"My hat is off to Joachin Flores for his analysis here. It is long and involved and worth your time to read. I will summarize it here.
His thesis? Putin is trying to save Russian/French relations by not naming France as the culprit for the lost plane and the 15 men.
That Russia noted French missile launches but didn’t say what or who they hit. And before the Russians said anything about the attack the French denied they had any involvement in the attack.
Instead, Russia went along with the story the U.S. et.al. prepared in advance, which doesn’t fit what facts we know about the situation, that Syrian Air Defenses shot down the IL-20 by mistake.
Both the French denial and the U.S. statements about Syrian air defenses being the culprit came before anything official came from the Russians.
This is a classic “preparing the narrative” technique used by the West all the time. Seize the story, plant seeds of doubt and put your opponent into a rhetorical box they can’t wiggle out of with the truth.
MH-17, Skripal, Crimea, chemical weapons attacks in Ghouta, Douma etc. These operations are scripted.
And Flores is exactly right that this script was going off as planned with one small problem.
The Russians went along with it.
Russia, and Putin, did the one thing that makes this whole thing look like a frame job, it accepted the narrative of Israeli malfeasance in the interest of stopping a wider conflict by accusing and/or attacking a NATO member, France. [Whose ship may or may not have fired the missile which shot down the Russian AWAC]
Flores makes the salient point that the S-200 friendly fire scenario is highly unlikely. That, in fact, France shot down the plane, was prepared to accept blame (which it did by preemptively denying it was involved) and destroy what was left of Russian/French relations.
Now Russia can use the excuse of Israeli betrayal as justification for upgrading Syria’s air defenses.
Citing the very thing that caused the tragic death of their soldiers, antiquated air defense systems which didn’t properly identify friend from foe.
It may be a lie, but since when did that matter in geopolitics?
And as I point out in my other article…
This is Israel’s worst nightmare. A situation where any aerial assault on targets within Syria would be suicide missions, puncturing the myth of the Israeli air force’s superiority and shifting the delicate balance of power in Syria decidedly against them.And it means that if the FUKUS alliance — France, the U.K. and the U.S. — want an invasion of Syria they will have to do so openly without a casus belli. And this is something we have avoided for five years now.
This is why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked Putin so hard over the last two years. But, this incident wipes that slate clean. This was a cynical betrayal of Putin’s trust and patience. And Israel will now pay the price for their miscalculation.
Giving Syria S-300’s does not avenge the fifteen dead Russian soldiers. Putin will have to respond to that in a more concrete way to appease the hardliners in his government and at home. His patience and seeming passivity are being pushed to their limit politically. This is, after all, a side benefit to all of this for the neoconservative and globalist hawks in D.C., Europe and Tel Aviv.
But, the real loss here for Israel will be Russia instituting a no-fly zone over western Syria. [and possibly Lebanon] Any less response from Putin will be seized upon by and the situation will escalate from here. So, Putin has to deploy S-300’s here. And once that happens, the real solution to Syria begins in earnest.
Because lying us into war is how we maintain the illusion of fighting wars of conquest under the rubric of Christian Just War Theory which supports our national spirit of manifest destiny."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...e-attack-syria
More by the original author:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/ne...end-syria.html
The fog of war thickens.
https://teakdoor.com/attachment.php?a...id=20324&stc=1Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
What is more important, the letter and it's content or the postman's name?
In your case, it seems the more mental it is, the more likely you are to believe it.Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
Do you actually even read this shit?
So France did it and was prepared to accept the blame by denying it?Quote:
France shot down the plane, was prepared to accept blame (which it did by preemptively denying it was involved)
You fucking idiot.
:rofl:
Try reading the articles prior to attacking the postman.
FTFY.Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
The Syrian Ceasefire Proves How Far Putin Has Come Out on Top
"A ceasefire seldom gets a good press. If it succeeds in ending violence or defusing a crisis, the media swiftly becomes bored and loses interest. But if the fighting goes on, then those who have called the ceasefire are condemned as heartless hypocrites who either never intended to bring the killing to an end or are culpably failing to do so.
Pundits are predictably sceptical about the agreement reached by Russian president Vladimir Putin and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi on Monday to head off an imminent offensive by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces directed against rebels in Idlib province. This is the last enclave of the armed opposition in western Syria which has lost its strongholds in Aleppo, Damascus and Daraa over the past two years.
Doubts about the accord are understandable because, if it is implemented, the anti-Assad groups in Idlib will be defanged militarily. They will see a demilitarised zone policed by Russia and Turkey eat into their territory, “radical terrorist groups” removed, and heavy weapons ranging from tanks to mortars withdrawn. The rebels will lose their control of the two main highways crossing Idlib and linking the government held cities of Aleppo, Latakia and Hama.
There is a striking note of imperial self-confidence about the document in which all sides in the Syrian civil war are instructed to come to heel. This may not happen quite as intended because it is difficult to see why fighters of al-Qaeda-type groups like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham should voluntarily give up such military leverage as they still possess. The Syrian government has said that it will comply with the agreement but may calculate that, in the not so long term, it will be able to slice up Idlib bit by bit as it did with other rebel enclaves.
What is most interesting about the agreement is less its details than what it tells us about the balance of forces in Syria, the region and even the world as a whole. Fragile it may be, but then that is true of all treaties which general Charles de Gaulle famously compared to “young girls and roses – they last as long as they last”. Implementation of the Putin-Erdogan agreement may be ragged and its benefits temporary, but it will serve a purpose if a few less Syrians in Idlib are blown apart.
The Syrian civil war long ago ceased to be a struggle fought out by local participants. Syria has become an arena where foreign states confront each other, fight proxy wars and put their strength and influence to the test.The most important international outcome of war so far is that it has enabled Russia to re-establish itself as a great power. Moscow helped Assad secure his rule after the popular uprising in 2011 and later ensured his ultimate victory by direct military intervention in 2015. A senior diplomat from an Arab country recalls that early on in the Syrian war, he asked a US general with a command in the region what was the difference between the crisis in Syria and the one that had just ended with the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. The general responded with a single word: “Russia.”
It is difficult to remember now, when Russia is being portrayed in the west as an aggressive predatory power threatening everybody, the extent which it was marginalised seven years ago when Nato was carrying out regime change in Libya.
Russia was in reality always stronger than it looked because it remained a nuclear superpower capable of destroying the world after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 just as it was before. It should be difficult to forget this gigantically important fact, but politicians and commentators continue to blithely recommend isolating Russia and pretend that it can be safely ignored.
The return of Russia as a great power was always inevitable but was accelerated by successful opportunism and crass errors by rival states. Assad in Syria was always stronger than he looked. Even at the nadir of his fortunes in July 2011, the British embassy in Damascus estimated that he had the backing of 30 to 40 per cent of the population according to The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East by Christopher Phillips, which should be essential reading for anybody interested in Syria. Expert opinion failed to dent the conviction among international statesmen that Assad was bound to go. When the French ambassador Eric Chevallier expressed similar doubts about the imminence of regime change he received a stern rebuke from officials in Paris who told him: “Your information does not interest us. Bashar al-Assad must fall and will fall.”
Such wishful thinking and flight from reality continues to this day. Miscalculations by Washington, Paris and London have provided Putin with ideal political terrain on which to reassert the power of the Russian state. The agreement signed by Russia and Turkey last Monday deciding the future of Idlib province is a token of how far Russia has come out on top in Syria. Putin is able to sign a bilateral agreement with Turkey, the second largest military power in Nato, without any reference to the US or other Nato members.
The accord means that Turkey will increase its military stake in northern Syria, but it can only do so safely under license from Moscow. The priority for Turkey is to prevent the creation of a Kurdish statelet under US protection in Syria and for this it needs Russian cooperation. It was the withdrawal of the Russian air umbrella protecting the Kurdish enclave of Afrin earlier this year that enabled the Turkish army to invade and take it over.
As has happened with North Korea, President Trump’s instincts may be surer than vaunted expertise of the Washington foreign policy establishment and its foreign clones. They have not learned the most important lesson of the US-led intervention wars in Iraq and Syria which is that it is not in western interests to stir the pot in either country. Despite this, they argue for continued US military presence in northeast Syria on the grounds that this will weaken Assad and ensure that any victory he wins will be pyrrhic.
Russian dominance in the northern tier of the Middle East may be opportunistic but is being reinforced by another process. President Trump may not yet have started any wars, but the uncertainty of US policy means that many countries in the world now look for a reinsurance policy with Russia because they are no longer sure how far they can rely on the US. Putin may not always be able to juggle these different opportunities unexpectedly presented to him, but so far he has had surprising success."
The Syrian ceasefire proves how far Putin has come out on top, by Patrick Cockburn - The Unz Review
Another suggested scenario.
"As mentioned above there seems to have been significant Il-76 airlift going on since the middle of last week so the S-300 are probably in Syria and working up to live operation in a couple of weeks. We can probably assume that a couple of Pantsir have gone along for protection, all operated by Russians in the short term, unless Syrians have been quietly being trained up already. Wonder if it is one system or all the systems that Syria had on order back in 2013 when the Russians conceded to Israel's request to not deliver.
It must be highly likely that these are full RuAF specification units probably just come out of RuAF use being replaced by S-400. This makes it probable, given the need for success, that the Syrians will not have actual control of the system for quite a while if ever, particularly if it is a RuAF specification (as one might expect given the importance) system not export. Probably shipped on 'evaluation loan' basis. However, this will definitely be labelled a SyAF system as soon as it is installed. As such Syria is likely to have complete control of the political fallout of any action but little technical control in it. Lots of SyAF operatives in the area, especially with the probable associated Pantsirs, but not actually in the front row in the control cabin.
If the situation arises and they hit an F-16 then Syria gets the glory and shit fallout whilst Russia smiles and gets its back slapped. If they miss its the fault of the undertrained SyAF not a S-300 failure.
An interesting aspect to this is that there will now be yet another Russian defence system in Syria under testing in a war situation. The existing directly RuAF controlled S-300/400 systems not really being in that category. As it is a member of the S-300/400 family this is a massive opportunity for a system with tremendous export potential to potentially become a proven under duress product with a new page in the sales brochure and an increased price!
As shown by Bolton today and previous Israeli and US pressure not to deploy it, this is something that the MIC in Washington and especially manufacturers of US SAMs really did not want to happen. In the event that it works and a S-300 missile hits a high spec F-16 operated by probably the most highly trained AF in the World, it will be a sales disaster as well as a massive hit against the confidence of Western air forces. Confirming in the worst possible way the fears already expressed by USAF Generals. Its difficult to envisage any pilot volunteering to become the first to try to beat a S-300 missile!
Israel, quite understandably works to try to minimise the risk of losing an aircraft, this has now become more difficult as it is unlikely that the Syrians will worry about where within the range of their S-300 they hit any IAF plane that has attacked them with a standoff device. Now, as an added complexity, the IAF is likely to be under pressure from the US not to give the S-300 any chance to become proven in battle.
Some have accused Russia of being effectively a wimp not prepared to respond to events like this. But in this situation responding in kind by killing Israelis would be, for a multitude of reasons a totally stupid response. If I am correct, then this is very subtle revenge for Russia's 15 dead in the Il-20, targetted primarily at those in Israel who caused it and those in the US, like Bolton, who will understand the significance of what has just happened. Right up Putin's street I'd say.
Posted by: JohninMK | Sep 24, 2018 2:33:52 PM | 68
MoA - Russia Beefs Up Syria's Air Defenses - Tells "Hotheads" To Cool Down
A win/win for THE LORD,again.