War in Syria

So aside scenario previously seen in Egypt, Tunis, Iraq, Libya etc where USA and it’s Israeli counterpart actively worked to overthrow more or less legitimate regime (but ones that at least worked and run country without chaos) came Syria, where there west has cooked up biggest nightmare of all so far for poor Syrians.
Btw, Syria was normal, functional, educated and civilized country (much like Libya) before capitalist scavengers and vultures sensed geopolitic opportunity to expand their “democratic” influence.

Fast forward… USA bombed for 1.5 years ISIL and result was BIG FAT 0 !
Russia is bombing various Syrian rebels (sponsored and created by US) for almost 4 days and ISIL is fleeing for its life :):slight_smile:
Thermobaric weapons worked work marvels for jihad’s and Alah virgins :). It sucks oxygen hundreds of feet away and creates vaccum shortly afterwards which makes lungs burst of anything nearby. Just the typo Jihady John needs, and UK neither pesky mason creation by name EU was able to deliver it where it was needed. All they know is how to overthrow someone’s government. Sick.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-03/russia-claims-isis-now-ropes-fighters-desert-after-60-airstrikes-72-hours

We will stay tuned, I think ISIL will broke down soon after seeing it’s fighters mutilated by devastation.

Add on:
Syrians might just as well erect the biggest monument ever to Mr. Putin for saving their little country of gruesome nightmare cooked up by neighboring Israel and US.

As migrants are concerned, most are young males. Anyone who read Churchill memories would notice his continuing admiration for Yugoslav partisans who managed to tie down no less than 30 Wehrmacht and SS divisions during entire war, with smaller population than Syria. ISIL amount to no more than 2 divisions in total and has no panzers and no freaking Rudels flying stuka’s over Syrian heads.

Terrain aside, how come these Syrians in 21st century are so grossly incompetent compared to mostly illiterate and unarmed 20th century Yugoslav peasant partisans ?

Cant help but post following link
http://themillenniumreport.com/2015/10/washington-finally-meets-its-match-in-syria-isis-made-in-the-usa/

and pls read comments bellow first link. Hilarious read.

I don’t agree with many of your comments in this thread, but I certainly share your, and many others’, puzzlement at the inability of the various forces arrayed against ISIL to defeat what, according to all published figures, is a fairly small land force with no air cover, never mind air superiority.

I think much of the lack of a decisive result comes from Arab / Muslim divisions, as illustrated by Saudi Arabia being closer to ISIL, which is the rabid result of Sunni Wahhabism exported around the planet by Saudi Arabia with its endless petrodollars causing radical foments as far away as Malaysia and Indonesia and, say, the opposition Shia sects represented and funded by Iran.

Not much different to Europe’s Catholic / Protestant wars some centuries ago, yet even more primitive in their modern conduct and theological arrogance, but now compounded by religious arrogance and general ignorance rooted in the 7th century aided by modern weapons and interference from various external powers playing their usual game of proxy wars where mostly other people die in pursuit of the external powers’ aims.

It’s all a recipe for disaster, and the recipe is going exactly to plan. And will continue to do so, because nobody involved wants it to end until they win an unwinnable ‘war’ against ‘terror’, or 'ISIL, or ‘jihadism’, or ‘Western interference’, or ‘Zionists / Zionism / Israel’, or ‘Kurdish independence movements’ etc etc etc blah blah blah. And nobody is going to win, so this is how it’s going to be for the next few generations.

The Russians do not have the same public outcries over ‘accidently’ killing a civilian or collateral damage - Western nations have continuously fought wars or in conflicts with one hand tied behind their backs -

Most NATO countries have a definite aim of just ISIS - Turkey is not friendly to the Kurds (who seem to have been the most efficient force at fighting ISIS on the ground) as well as ISIS (Turkey was accused of supporting or at least turning a blind eye to ISIS operations at the border).

Russia is fairly indiscriminate as it wants Assad - so can bomb anyone not supporting Assad’s regime and does not care about civilian casualties - ‘their fault for being there’

The US has been naive (repeatedly) over removing a dictator and everyone will suddenly follow the US model of democracy - most of the nations required a strong leader to tie them together - once the leader is removed (or dies as in Yugoslavia) - the country starts to degenerate into various factions who each believe they should rule (an area or the whole country) and further heads into war.

Regular government forces (ie the preferred western backed government) despite being provided with equipment and training costing billions often collapse at the slightest reason. The Iraqi Army at the start had not been paid by their government for months due to corruption so why fight and die. The ANA were not interested in learning in many cases, lacking confidence and discipline. The Libyan government controls just about the smallest portion of Libya out of all the factions.

Cmon, guy that established caliphate was CIA
https://www.google.hr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC0QtwIwAmoVChMI3rOk6d2vyAIVgUwaCh173g2h&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DVMrkwRKOgBI&usg=AFQjCNEfUe7hFnjl1glcMKGfOb-iymMksQ&sig2=aQIwlA7PaSyuOk0XvGQhAw

And let me quote comments from 1st. link:
Putin: I killed your fake terrorists.
Obama: Never mind, we paid them with fake money :):):slight_smile:

So where is the advantage to the US in having the CIA run ISIL and fck up the Middle East even more than it is naturally fcked up by the fck ups who inhabit and consistently fuck up that cluster f*cked region?

Yep Witman, Youtube is a trusted, and failsafe research tool, no one ever posts phony information there.

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Agree on both counts, but even with their callous approach in Afghanistan when they pretty much ran it behind closed doors, they still got done by the locals.

As is happening now with the Taliban’s recent successes following the essentially failed Western intervention of about a decade and a half and many Western and many more local lives lost to no purpose.

Not just the US, nor is it the sole fault of the US with its long history to date (as the most recent global colonial power) of imposing its fluid version of democracy on various bits of the planet when it suits US interests while vigorously opposing or quashing rudimentary democracy when it doesn’t.

Britain, Australia, Canada and sundry Western Europeans states have happily jumped on this idiotic bandwagon of bringing democracy to fairly primitive tribal regions which are barely states, never mind being nations, often created by accidents or arbitrary decisions of past Western colonial intrusion.

As I have been saying for close to the last 15 years, the way to deal with the likes of Afghanistan as sanctuaries for the likes of bin Laden or ISIL is to go in and flatten the place; get out; inform the remnants that this is exactly what will happen the next time they do the same thing; and avoid wasting our and their innocents’ lives and resources on bottomless wells of religious venom, human exploitation and misery, and endemic corruption in all senses of corruption.

Trying to bring ‘democracy’ or anything else utterly alien to these cultures is a massive WOFTAM (Waste 0f F*cking Time And Money) which, quite reasonably, is generally resisted at best passively and at worst actively by those upon whom it is being unwantedly forced. As we in the West would resist the attempts of them to impose what we regard as their primitive standards upon us.

The only thing we have in common is the belief in the supremacy of our own cultures, which ensures eternal conflict as long as we maintain those beliefs.

As Putin rightly said, US “regime change” operation is totally illegal, unlike Russian intervention. Now, it is much more publicly acceptable to INVENT ISIL to justify being there and pretending to fight ISIL while original scheme is still only regime change.

Look at facts:

  1. ISIL is 90% foreign mercenaries. Would it really be possible to pay this people without consent, money from neighboring countries most of whoma re NATO or US longterm allies ? What about huge arms depos who blew up under Suhoi days ago ? Did they fall from sky ?
    US failed to identify ISIS headquarters in Ragga by accident for a year ???
    What about 2 mile fleet of Toyota trucks. I don’t remember Toyota factory in Syria… It came from somewhere, and that somewhere is not Iran, Iraq or Russia. US is deeply involved in ME since ww2.

  2. How bout oil exploitation and I mean huge oil extraction towers, refineries, HUGE GAS ****IN trucks and stuff ? Who normal would not bomb that to ashes immediately, you might ask ? Entity that invented and pretend to fight ISIS - that is who. ISIS is only a tool of perpetual chaos necessary to achieve aims of someone somewhere. That someone:

  3. does not want independent Syrian state

  4. wants to depopulate Syrian country

  5. possibly wants parts of Syrian territory

  6. control oil pipelines or take control of pipelines from someone else

And that someone is not Putin, that is for sure !

I don’t think anyone was blaming Putin for creating or running ISIL.

Putin is far too busy running Russia and, curiously as a former Communist apparatchik of modest KGB rank, trying to recapture Russia’s old empire.

I’m just going on ISIL’s own publicity, but that someone is Allah (PBTH) and, judging by events since the start of this century, He has been stunningly successful as a tool of perpetual chaos.

The US didn’t need to invent ISIL in the past few years to justify regime change in Iraq which had already occurred about a dozen years ago when Saddam was ejected.

I wouldn’t put too much faith in Putin’s pronouncements on international illegality, given the involvement of an astonishing number of Russian troops volunteering while on leave to take Russia’s major warfare equipment to Ukraine where, according to Putin, they’re not there and they’re not using that equipment which somehow they’re allowed to take despite Russia not being involved.

Maybe the Australian Army was different around 1970 when I had a bit to do with it, but I’m sure I couldn’t have drawn a bullet, never mind a rifle let alone a tank or artillery piece, to go to the next suburb, never mind the next country.

Putin is in Syria for the same reasons he’s in Ukraine, which is projection of Russian power for Russia’s benefit. If the eye doctor running Syria thinks it’s for any other reason, he needs his eyes, and brain, tested.

Here’s a newsflash: All nations are corrupt and dishonest when it suits them, and it suits most of them most of the time to be so.

As for ‘inventing’ ISIL, it’s a purely Islamic (as in the first letter indicated by ISIL) issue, and it’s an issue of rabid Islamic arrogance and desire to dominate the world which spreads across most of the globe outside Europe and the Americas.

The CIA would have to be certifiably insane to want to create such a cancer of instability across most of the planet which is inimical to America’s interests, and to the interests of the rest of the rational modern world.

The Romans would have agreed with you, RS*, as far as “flattening” is concerned. The military system of the later Republic and the early Principate grew originally out of a situation comparable with civil war (warfare between cities with a fairly high degree of cultural compatibility) and had largely been perfected by the time of the Roman civil wars that eventually destroyed the Republic. One aspect of this was their approach to dealing with pesky “rebels” and opponents of Rome in general. If a city or territory failed to surrender on the approach of a Roman army, it had better have won because the alternative was to be subject to “devastation” (Latin, “devastare” - to lay waste). Everything in the Romans’ path would be burned or knocked to the ground, and the surviving population would be massacred and/or led off in slavery. Usually, soldiers of the opposing army would be killed; often, the men would be killed and the women and children led off in slavery. Homicidal psychopaths like Pompey the Great’s dad would kill everybody as a matter of course, in spite of the considerable value of slaves in the Roman markets. This destructive and sanguinary approach proved effective. For some strange reason, many cities preferred surrender to devastation and, within a few years, were enthusiastic about obtaining Roman citizenship. In the end, the Emperor Claudius extended Roman citizenship to just about everybody within the immense Roman domain (except, of course, slaves). “Flattening” works - but it might appear a bit excessive to modern voters in the states that would have to do the devastating.

Unfortunately, there are few plausible options open to the states involved in the Syrian civil war. As I commented previously (in another thread) regarding Afghanistan and Iraq, once the great bear gets its foot caught in a trap, it is very difficult for it to disengage without losing any advantage of its intervention in the first place. Russia’s very unhappy adventure in Afghanistan (in support, remember, of an allegedly “legitimate” Left-wing government) is a clear demonstration of this; the same country may soon repeat the demonstration in relation to US/UK intervention. The Syrian mess is even more complicated, and it may prove very, very difficult for any of the intervening states (including Russia) to get out of this with any advantage, let alone honor.

And yet - a really serious intervention (short of achieving “flattening” with nuclear weapons) must involve forces capable of taking and holding territory - and that is not air forces. US satirist Tom Lehrer stated the matter well, back in the 1960s -

"What with President Johnson practicing escalatio on the Vietnamese, and then the Dominican Crisis on top of that, it has been a nervous year, and people have begun to feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis. Fortunately, in times of crisis like this, America always has its number one instrument of diplomacy to fall back on. Here’s a song about it:

When someone makes a move
Of which we don’t approve,
Who is it that always intervenes?
U.N. and O.A.S.,
They have their place, I guess,
But first - send the Marines!

We’ll send them all we’ve got,
John Wayne and Randolph Scott;
Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
To the shores of Tripoli,
But not to Mississippoli,
What do we do? We send the Marines!

For might makes right,
And till they’ve seen the light,
They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
Till somebody we like can be elected.

Members of the corps
All hate the thought of war;
They’d rather kill them off by peaceful means.
Stop calling it aggression,
Ooh, we hate that expression!
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo.
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt,
Send the Marines!"

Er, yes - but nobody has any stomach for this. Just as well - the outcome would probably yet another unwinnable war, another trap to seize the bear’s foot. Think of the precedents - Vietnam (supporting a “legitimate” government), Afghanistan, Iraq … not encouraging. One thing is clear - direct intervention by the great bears of the international community should only be considered if said bears are willing to act ruthlessly, and accept the long-term nature of such a commitment. In this context, it will be interesting to see how Russia plays its hand, having committed itself to sit at the table and take a hand. Ruthlessness is quite a Russian thing; whether long-term direct commitment would be welcome to them is more questionable.

Of course, there is another possible solution -

strangelove.jpg

Yours from the Mineshaft Gap, JR.

Through the ages.

Scipio. Hannibal. Two of the greatest military commanders of all time. Carthage, pretty much obliterated. No more problems for Rome from Carthage.

Lyndon Johnson. Got an undeserved Silver Star for being a civilian politician passenger on an unserviceable plane vaguely in a war area. Vietnam, pretty much obliterated Johnson after he kept getting deeper into it with no idea of how to end it and ensuring that his military had one hand, frequently two hands, tied behind their backs while floundering around in a morass of South Vietnamese corruption.

Bush Snr. Naval aviator with war service. Gulf War 1. Pretty much obliterated Iraqi military forces and got out.

Bush Jnr, Clinton, Obama and their counterparts around the Western world, none of whom have any serious military and certainly combat experience, have failed to go remotely close to flattening anything, never mind even a TKO.

And, since 9/11, all the Coalition / NATO partners have distinguished themselves by continuing the longest war for a few centuries, against the least defined and constantly shifting enemy with, predictably, the least result. They have a better chance of winning the war on drugs.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much devoted by so many for so long at such monetary and human expense to achieve so little for such a great cost on all sides, and yet bringing no more than the promise of the same for the future, only worse, with even less benefit.

Brought to you all by the great virtues of capitalist democracies, which got really upset about the communist Soviets going into Afghanistan instead of working out that if the unrestrained Soviets couldn’t defeat the ungovernable and primitive Afghans then the West had no hope. As, indeed, it has turned out.

Scipio would have sorted them out.

Here is quote from Wesley Clark which I read somewhere:
“Most important thing we learned from Kuwait intervention is that Soviets/Russia will not interfere anymore with our foreign interventions !”
Enough said !

Epic :smiley:

2 things:

  1. Iraq wasn’t bout WMD but about reserve world currency-dollar. This paper basically worthless illusion is very powerful, till other countries accept it. Sadam and Gadafi didn’t. And they were executed.
  2. Russia has done more bout ISIS well being in 1 week than US in 1 year. Putin made Assad give up chemicals and has proved to be no modest KGB apparatchik in years so far. I somehow bet Russia didn’t step in for nothing and things will get resolved while Wallstreet banksters learn not to screw with pro-Russia regime change again.

Not sure if we’re talking about different aspects of the same thing, but the best explanation I’ve seen for Bush II / America inexplicably going into Iraq was the risk to the US currency of Iraq converting its oil price from USD to Euros, which threatened the whole US economy.

Sure made a lot more sense than, say, Colin Powell’s embarrassingly unconvincing speech to the UN and the confected alarm about WMDs in Iraq (which, if Iraq had them or the necessary materials, probably would have been supplied by one or more of the US, Britain and France).

It now appears that US “advisers” in Syria, as well as Afghanistan, will “not hold back” should it come to taking part in shootin’ actions in support of their allies, as appropriate. Without a much greater commitment of ground forces (unlikely) it may be that another helicopter evacuation scenario beckons at some point.

At the same time, Assad’s pal, Vlad the Invader, has let loose his fighter-bombers far and wide, zapping “terrorists” of all stripe far and wide with unguided, but very powerful air-to-ground ordnance. It is some consolation that the Pentagon and the Kremlin seem to have arrived at some agreement to prevent US and “coalition” aircraft from shooting down Russians, and vice versa. Little consolation, however, for the citizens of (predominantly) northern and central Syria, wilting under a maelstrom of bombs, missiles and “barrel bombs”. No wonder so many people are desperate to get out.

And just today, Assad’s guys (just to prove they could be as nasty as the Russians any day) fired a dozen ground-to-ground missiles at “terrorists”, that is to say, harmless mums, children, grannies and mature men doing their selling/shopping in the market square of a small town. Fatalities are conservatively estimated at thirty, with well over one hundred injured.

And far away, in some recess - or at least in Geneva - the gaggle of global and regional foreign powers now contributing to this mess are meeting to try to find a “road map” out of the minefield. A BBC commentator remarked this morning that there was no hope of agreement at this “urgent” consultation; the most that could be hoped for is that the ground might be laid down for the next “emergency” conference …

This is an unspeakable, almost unbelievable disaster. Sure, if I had lived in the Syria of Hafez Assad or his son Basher, I have no doubt that I would have been up against a wall wearing a blindfold, long ago. That having been said, this nasty, minority-oppressing-majority tyranny did, at least, sort of work. Just a few years ago, I would have seen Syria as (by Middle Eastern standards at least) a modern, pretty well developed country with limited public security issues (those Secret Police were on the ball). However awful the Assads were (and are), people were not being murdered by the score, every day of the week. Reminds me of somewhere else ? Place called Iraq, perhaps … I need not spell out where we are, now. The fruits of the “Arab Spring” have been bitter here more than anywhere else. Ruthless dictator, foreign interventionists, Kurdish separatists, at least three clearly distinguishable armies of homicidal Islamaniac fanatics, local warlords - all arranged in a patchwork of control, all at each others’ throats, with lots of poor bloody civilians in the continuous crossfire. Yes, no wonder spending the winter in places like Kiel, rather different from Syria, seems attractive enough to sail to Europe clinging to a piece of tree bark (ok, that was Celtic saints, but the boats used by trafficers are not much better) for so many people.

On the last point - one of the most depressing aspects of the huge flight of Syrians towards Europe lies in the fact that, quite clearly, only people and families who have the funds to expend on paying off trafficers can subject themselves to the rigors of flight towards the EU. Of course some poor people are there in the mass (some sold their land to get there). Otherwise … there is a disproportionately high proportion of professional people (teachers, engineers, linguists, technologists, and so on) among the migrants/refugees. Very probably, these products of perfectly respectable and capable colleges in Syria and across the Middle East will make a very positive contribution to their new host countries. Very probably, as previous episodes suggest, they will never return home, even if Syria eventually returns to “peace”. Lacking much of its educated classes, it is horribly possible that any “new Syria” will only move from being one sort of failed state to another.

The Greek tragedians were right - the world is hard, and life really, really is not fair.

“As flies to wanton boys, so are we to the Gods. They use us for their sport” (Shakespeare, “King Lear” - hope I got that right). JR.

Yeah, there is a long history of that working really well in the Middle East and other conflicts spectacularly mismanaged by America and its idiot allies. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Which is why I am opposed to better off ‘refugees’ arriving in my country by, often perilous, sea voyages which the poor bastards stuck in refugee camps all over the planet would jump at if only they had the money.

Plus your point about denuding the country of origin of skilled people, as my country has been doing for decades by admitting people trained overseas at no cost to us while we fail to fund our our training properly, thus denuding their countries of origin of those skills.

I’d say it is more combination of classical Greek science and Hobbesian realism about ungoverned territories.

“Nature abhors a vacuum.” Usually attributed to Aristotle. Applies equally to government.

In Leviathan, appositely written during the English Civil War while he was an English political refugee in France, Hobbes, who was also a scientist of his era seeking to unify science and human behaviour, summed up what happens when the vacuum of government exists .

“In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Throw in the insatiable appetite of major powers such as the US and Russia and their lesser power remoras to run proxy wars outside their borders, and throw in the insatiable appetite of rigid theocracies such as Iran and Saudi Arabia to use these conflicts as proxy wars outside their borders, and, Ladeeeeeees and Gentleeeeeeemen: In the Red Corner in this international cage fight without rules, referees or time limits, we have the latest contenders for mindless violence in pursuit of whatever it is that they’re pursuing, Syria, and in the Blue Corner, ISIS. Seconds may enter the ring whenever it suits them, using whatever weapons they like.

I really don’t know what the point is of sending 20-30 “advisers”. The U.S. has already carried out special operations in Syria and engaged ISIS. But a platoon of Green Berets doesn’t seem secure enough to me nor will it particularly be enough to be effective at training the FSA. One concern I also have is that the same thing may happen as did in El Salvador in the 80’s where U.S. Army Special Forces NCO’s routinely carried out senior leadership roles with the El Salvadoran forces and engaged in combat…

Nobody can really see an Iraq-style invasion/occupation by any outside party - not even Iran (although I suppose Vlad might send in a horde of Little Russian Brothers …). However, when one begins to slip down the slope upon which the Obama Administration now appears to be standing, there is a distinct possibility that numbers of “advisers” could increase substantially over time, short of an all-out invasion. If these “advisers” are to be involved in combat, they may end up shooting at each other - not a desirable situation. More seriously perhaps, these limited interventions are unlikely to be sufficient to secure the objectives of any potential “interventionist”, possibly leading to the "embassy garden helicopter scenario arising at some stage, merely damaging the interests and prestige of the relevant power further. Even as it is, President Assad would appear to be significantly dependent on assistance from his Shi’ite brethren from Hezbollah (in this context, a proxy-Iranian force) and probably on a fairly substantial number of Iranian “advisers”. The latter bunch could easily be increased by infiltration through Iraq, where the pathetic Iraqi government seems already to have the assistance of some three “Iranian-led” militia brigades (in practice, three brigades of Iranian Republican Guards), probably the most formidable fighting force in Iraq apart from ISIS. All of this is a recipe for even more death and destruction, stretching into the future. What is the real solution ? Well, it might have helped if outsiders had steered clear of involvement in the Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan “troika” in the first place, keeping their paws strictly out of the beehive. I know that in dealing with the forces in the region, this would not by any stretch be any sort of guarantee of happy endings, locally. Bit late for that, now. About a century too late. Yours from Main Street, Palmyra, JR.

So, nearly half a million dead, 10 million displaced, ancient country bombed to a rubble… Any chance on some war crime charges any time soon or is it only an illusion of law abiding world we live in ?
But let me guess :D, it is Syrians themselves who suddenly decided to kill themselves after decades of peace and relative prosperity:P

Arab spring in Egypt you say ? Elected Muslim brothers not good… let’s bring back dictators…