Vodka For Assad, Bombs for the CIA

[CommsNBombs]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/world/europe/russia-airstrikes-syria.html?referer=

Just as I, and many others, have imagined - the Rooskies have decided to take on the anti-Assad rebels outside of Homs. Instead of attacking ISIS positions.

This is not suprising but the cherries in the State Dept and the Pentagon are having their undergarments ruffled. Putin and the Kremlin have supported Assad before he became a household name.

I find this whole thing to be amusing. The Huffington Post had a 3-page length flow chart showing the money and support, these last 2 weeks have probably doubled that.

Putin is setting the stage for Assad to fight ISIS so they can look like they saved the day and undermine America. I am sure they will take out a few HVTs. Theyve already taken out some CIA trained guys. Do not be suprised when they "accidently" take out a CAG, SAS or CIA position. Anything to take a stab at us.

Or the tin-foil thought process would be that while Russia is causing a stink in Southwest Syria around Homs, ISIS will be regaining territory on the Turkish border since the Americans will be grounded amidst this giant charlie-foxtrot.

Things in the Middle East just got that much more exciting.

[Oh Shoot]

I love how Putin "announced" it to BHO, sent some general to American embassy in Istanbul, telling them to have US planes clear the skies, as Russian air operations would start in one hour!

 

This just after their little sitdown chat of a few days ago, where Vladimir gave no hint of things to come of course. He really does treat Barack like the putz he is.

 

- OS

[btq96r]

I'm sort of surprised it took this long for the Russians to get involved, they have way too much to lose in strategic interests if the Assad regime falls.

 

Granted the optics of Russia doing what they want while our government releases grammatically proper non-threatening statements are depressing, but I'm actually fine with the Russians plans..for now.  For better or worse, Assad represents a form of stability we can live with at a minimum of cost.  Syria will have to fight ISIS sooner or later, probably in partnership with Iran for common defense, so the current operations are just setting up the inevitable.

 

I'll laugh if Putin tries to spin this as him helping solve the refugee problem to make the case against sanctions with the EU.

[Dolomite_supafly]

Scary times we live in.

 

We have had armored vehicles driving around just across the border from Russia or Russian interests for the last few years. We have been poking the bear way too long for them NOT to do something and I think the Russians going into Syria is part of that something. I just hope if the Russians do decide to do something that we do what we have been doing for a while and let it slide, at least for now. But I can see Obama doing something totally out of character in order to pick a fight so he can continue the systematic destruction of the US. Or perhaps all this was planned out last election when Obama asked Putin's mouthpiece for more time.

 

Personally I do not believe the Russians are in Syria to help fight ISIS. I believe the Russians are in Syria to ensure THEY can control the country if we are successful in removing Assad. Makes one wonder what the Russians will do to prevent Assad from being toppled. Putin is an old school domination type Russian so he will try to gather as much property as he can for Russia while he is in office.

 

The EU will not get involved and definitely will not choose the US over Russia because Russia supplies the vast majority of Europe's energy needs. The EU knows that if they piss off Russia Putin will cut off the EU's supply of energy in a heartbeat. He has already threatened it and is forcing countries to pay in advance for their energy when those countries are not supporting Russian plans. And with winter coming those threats to turn off the spigot hold a lot more weight. 

 

Just yesterday Russia started dropping bombs after claiming it will fight ALL terror in the region. The first set of bombs from Russia were not against ISIS/ISIL targets but against those who oppose Assad regime, including US backed and trained fighters. So, what will be our response to OUR allies being attacked?

 

No matter how this plays out I can see a lot of bad things happening between the US and Russia. We want Assad out of Syria and Russia wants Assad to remain in Syria, what could possibly go wrong?

[CommsNBombs]

It does confused me why Russia WOULD NOT want to take out ISIS positions, a decent amount of their foreign fighters are from Dagestan and Chechnya.

Remember in 2000 when the Rooskies ran into Chechnya and destroyed them to prove a point? Then forced the international community to rebuild them.

Hell - if we are going to fight another war by Proxy we might as well go into all the old Soviet Bloc States and start giving them weaponry to go raise hell in Russia.

This is not going to turn out good.

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[TMF]

Syria has housed a strategic Russian naval base for the Med for over 4 decades. Putin isn't going to give that up for the sake of not upsetting western powers; especially since using the term "powers" is misleading.

The current US policy is that the Assad regime is bad, ISIS is bad, but anti-Assad moderates are wrapped in cloaks of righteousness. The reality is grey. Assad is mostly bad, ISIS is all bad, and the anti-Assad rebels only hate Assad slightly more than they hate us. Letting Putin keep his naval base maintains the status quo, and upsets nothing. Fighting a pseudo proxy war with rebels trained and equipped by US intelligence services/SOF is putting us in a position where we will be forced to react militarily eventually, or look weak. I'd prefer to avoid all that nonsense and suspend all support for anti-Assad fighters, telling Europe and the UN to lead the charge, and stop pretending we care about the plight of Syrian civilians:


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[SupaRice]

[TMF]

While on the subject, it's sad that I'm looking at a POS commie like Putin, and wishing our own President had at least a fraction of his character.

[Dolomite_supafly]

While on the subject, it's sad that I'm looking at a POS commie like Putin, and wishing our own President had at least a fraction of his character.

+1

 

ANY conflict between Putin and Obama will result in Obama cowering yet again. On the plus side maybe Putin can force Obama to lift the sanctions so we can get cheap AKs again.

[CommsNBombs]

The amusing thing is all the libtards in this country LOVE saying we have some sort of imperialist war-machine mindset.

The Russians are the last true Imperialists.

They are just doing what they have done for millenia

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[bersaguy]

I cannot understand something. Didn't we learn anything when we took out the main man with the most power in the region when our stupid Government took out Saddem Hussein. He was the complete law and order in that entire Stone age section of the world. Assad is no different than Hussein was. Just another radical leader of a stone age country. At the present time since we made the stupid move to remove Hussein I think Assad is the only leader still in power or close to being in power over there. All the rest have been taken over by radicals worse than Assad. As far as Russia making their bombing runs and taking out the targets they chose. It does send a clear  message to Obama telling him to go play golf or Pound Sand. As far as I'm concerned we just need to pack up our military and our equipment and come home and let Russia have Syria and then let Russia deal with ISIS because I don't think ISIS has any plans for backing away from any military including Russia's. Hell, back in the 70's when Russia was still a super power they lost 14,000 troops fighting over a stone age big rock called Afghanistan and got their butts whipped. (With our help of course) I say just bring our troops home before Obama does something totally stupid..........jmho

[CommsNBombs]

Russia put out a conscription order for 150,000 troops ASAP.

Looks like they are opening up an uncontested corridor into Israel, and of course America is not going to do anything.

Watch the Russian proaganda - they were just using area denial ICMs and carpet bombing. No pin point strikes at all.

The CIA funded FSA twitter accts are all reporting mass civilian casualties outside of Homs.

At the end of the day the Middle East takes tribal connections over religion. Yes, secterian violence is started over the Shia/Sunni thing, but if they have an uncontested corridor into Israel, courtesy of the Russians making us run away and setting up supply lines it will be to easy.

Im not ready to break out the tin foil yet but....end days?

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[Garufa]

Word is that Iranian troops will be joining the Russians in Syria.  What a great big cluserfuck this is turning into.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Garufa

[CommsNBombs]

Gog and Magog, anyone?

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[gregintenn]

I'm no middle east authority by any stretch, but as long as Russia is bombing Syria, why don't we get out of the way and watch the show. I'm not sure who the good guys are there. I'm also not sure our government knows either.

Edited October 1, 2015 by gregintenn

[Grand Torino]

Obama is doing exactly what he wants to do. One more step in taking us to banana republic status.....no really.

[btq96r]

Personally I do not believe the Russians are in Syria to help fight ISIS. I believe the Russians are in Syria to ensure THEY can control the country if we are successful in removing Assad. Makes one wonder what the Russians will do to prevent Assad from being toppled. Putin is an old school domination type Russian so he will try to gather as much property as he can for Russia while he is in office.

 

They're just using the "fighting terrorists" mantra like anyone else who has used it in history to pretend like they have justification.

 

Russia wants to keep Assad in power, not control things if we somehow manage to set up his downfall.  They've been doing business with Assad and his father before him for a long time, and keeping that relationship intact is to their benefit for the long term.  The opposition wouldn't want to do business with them after all their support for Assad, and ISIS won't do business with them just because.  By keeping Assad propped up, they make things easier for themselves.

 

 

The current US policy is that the Assad regime is bad, ISIS is bad, but anti-Assad moderates are wrapped in cloaks of righteousness. The reality is grey. Assad is mostly bad, ISIS is all bad, and the anti-Assad rebels only hate Assad slightly more than they hate us.

 

The only thing more useless than our current efforts to oust Assad would be an awareness campaign on social media with a hashtag.  Sending every military age male refugee currently squatting in Europe back home with an AK and a chest rig to raise general mayhem would be more effective than what we're doing in our training programs.

 

But I'm sure some field grade officers at CENTCOM got MSM's and glowing OER's for building up the program that's trained a fire team's worth of opposition.

 

 

The amusing thing is all the libtards in this country LOVE saying we have some sort of imperialist war-machine mindset.

The Russians are the last true Imperialists.

They are just doing what they have done for millenia

 

Well, some Americans are in that mindset.  Cheney and crew over at the AEI can raise the table by 6" when they talk about their version of an American foreign policy.  But yeah, the Russians all about it themselves.

 

 

I'm no middle east authority by any stretch, but as long as Russia is bombing Syria, why don't we get out of the way and watch the show. I'm not sure who the good guys are there. I'm also not sure our government knows either.

 

It's more about who in Syria they are bombing and why.  Right now in Syria alone, there is the Assad government with their various allies (most notable Hezbollah), ISIS, the Free Syrian Army, the local Al-Qaeda branch, and Syrian Kurds, who aren't as friendly or good to go as the Iraqi Kurds.  Like TMF said, there aren't any good guys.

 

This isn't a bad list to start with if you want to learn more about Syria's competing forces. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_armed_groups_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War#Syrian_government_and_allies

 

This site will help you go past the basics, and covers the middle east at large.  It's been on my reading list since the intel officer I worked for showed it to me as open source information in 2007.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/

Edited October 1, 2015 by btq96r

[Erik88]

I wonder why Russia is just now jumping in to the mix. This has been going on for 2 years now.

[Dolomite_supafly]

I wonder why Russia is just now jumping in to the mix. This has been going on for 2 years now.

Fears of loosing their allies in Syria would be the easy answer. I would also like to believe this, as well as Ukraine, is in response to the U.S. conducting "exercises" along the border of western Russia with armored vehicles. We have been poking the bear for a very long time and I think we have finally woke it up. Hope it just goes back to sleep but I suspect this will escalate and when it does everyone on both sides will be in for a world of hurt.

[CommsNBombs]

https://www.catholic.org/news/international/middle_east/story.php?id=64417

150K confirmed

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[CommsNBombs]

Russia continues to run sorties on...everyone.

9 ISIS targets and about 15+ Anti-Assad (CIA trained dudes/FSA) targets.

They also had a jet violate Turkish air space and fled into Turkey

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34441201

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/04/middleeast/syria-russia-airstrikes/

Oh and of course Assad says the Russian intervention is important otherwise the entire region will be destroyed.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/syrias-assad-stresses-importance-of-alliance-with-russia-iran-iraq-1443967266

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[Dolomite_supafly]

Every morning I wake up worried to death that the headlines will read "Russia declares war on the US". We are so close to getting into WWIII that it seems inevitable. And no matter who starts it or who wins we will all suffer. I just hope that anyone involved has enough restraint not to launch nukes.

[TMF]

Every morning I wake up worried to death that the headlines will read "Russia declares war on the US". We are so close to getting into WWIII that it seems inevitable. And no matter who starts it or who wins we will all suffer. I just hope that anyone involved has enough restraint not to launch nukes.

 

I'm estimating 10-15 years before we see it.  Either the Israelis conducting a preemptive strike on nuke facilities in a Russia-backed Iran, or the Iranians lobbing one over the fence at Israel, like they've always alluded to.

 

Liberals may be correct, that warmongering and projection of our military in lieu of diplomacy lead to low intensity conflicts and regional instability; small wars.  I get that.  However, policies of appeasement and avoidance lead to very large wars, like WWII.  The bear will not be sated once he knows he is in total control.  Animals such as this only understand weakness and power.  Our continued perception of the US being weak will embolden Russian and her allies until we have painted ourselves into such a corner that war is our only option, and it will be a very large war.  One with the US being directly attacked.  The stage is being set and I don't think there is much we can do about it.

[btq96r]

Every morning I wake up worried to death that the headlines will read "Russia declares war on the US". We are so close to getting into WWIII that it seems inevitable. And no matter who starts it or who wins we will all suffer. I just hope that anyone involved has enough restraint not to launch nukes.

 

I don't think that a Russia/US engagement will kick off anything, but I do worry about any incident between Russia and another NATO country escalating quickly.  Case in point, Russian jets acting in Syria appear to have "accidentally" strayed into Turkish airspace, and the Turks are hardly the kind of people to turn the other cheek to those kinds of insults. 

 

Theoretically, we're a mistake away from wondering if Article V of NATO is worth going to war over.

[CommsNBombs]

Russia is moving artillery batteries, MLRS units and more C4ISR crap into the country

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/05/politics/russia-ground-campaign-syria-isis/

I say let Russia have this one. Nkt worth going to war over our "frenemies" fighting their "frenemies"

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