Syria

[kscarbel2]

2 hours ago, Underdog said:

The politicians have nothing to say, so the rest of us are numb to the atrocities. It happens every day, but we know nothing will be done about it. The evil has reached our shores yet no change of tack in Washington.

But.........they are of a religion of peace.

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The legal system of Saudi Arabia is based on Islamic Law (aka. Sharia Law) derived from the Quran.

Wahhabism, a strict form of Sunni Islam, is today the dominant for of Islam in Saudi Arabia, and seemingly at the core of world's dilemma.

Its barbaric corporal punishments include flogging, amputation and eye gouging.

Capital punishments include death-by-stoning, crucifixion and beheading.

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[kscarbel2]

Speaking for an outraged America that thinks beheading a child is.......wrong, White House spokesman Mark Toner's strong words and firm demeanor must certainly put the "fear of god" into our enemies overseas (sarcasm on my part).

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to claim that we're clueless on what happened. We only know what you know from CNN, and nothing more. That's our line and we're going to stick with it, " said Toner to reporters.

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[kscarbel2]

US-backed Syrian rebels responsible for toxic gas attack in Aleppo

RT  /  August 3, 2016

Syrian fighters from a rebel group considered ‘moderate’ by Washington are responsible for using toxic gas-filled (chlorine) shells that killed seven and injured 23 in Aleppo on Tuesday, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

On August 2, 2016 at 19 hours 05 minutes militants from the Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki group, considered by Washington as ‘moderate opposition’, launched poisonous materials from the Sukkari district towards the eastern part of Aleppo,” the ministry said.

The ministry added that the territory is under rebel control and that shells were fired towards “the residential area” of the Salah-Eddin district.

Moscow informed Washington of the use of toxic shells on Monday, Lieutenant-General Sergey Chvarkov, head of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria, said.

On Tuesday evening, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported that Syrian officials said an attack using poisonous gas had occurred in Aleppo.

A “terrorist attack” on the Old City of Aleppo with “shells containing toxic gas” led to the deaths of five and suffocation of eight more civilians, said city health director Mohamad Hazouri.

Terrorist groups fired rocket shells at the al-Hamadaniyeh neighborhood, injuring six. They also targeted the Salah-Eddin neighborhood, killing two and injuring 11 more.

“We’ve taken 12 injured people, six other patients have already died from suffocation. Our doctors were prepared to treat people showing symptoms of gas poisoning. We’ve been expecting terrorists to use weapons of this kind,” said an Aleppo hospital doctor.

The gas in question was reportedly chlorine – a highly toxic substance that leads to breathing problems, a loss of consciousness, and illnesses among those exposed to it.

The al-Zenki rebel group was in the spotlight in July after two videos appeared online showing its fighters taunting and then cutting off the head of a Palestinian boy. (http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/41827-syria/?page=2)

State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said it would look into the case and warned of ‘possible’ consequences for the rebels (http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/41827-syria/?page=3).

On Wednesday, Tone said the U.S. is still “looking into that incident.”.

“One indeed can ask the United States why it still continues to support this group,” says Belgian journalist Willy Van Damme. He added that despite promises from Washington to look into the case, there has been “no reply” since.

In a separate incident, Tuesday media reports suggested that toxic gas had been dispersed in an area in which a Russian helicopter had been shot down, in Syria’s Idlib province.

The Kremlin said that it has no information on the issue adding that it’s not always clear what such claims are based on. The UN also said that it can’t confirm these reports, while Washington said that it is investigating the claims.

[kscarbel2]

Taxpayer footed US weapons found abandoned in Aleppo, Syria

RT  /  August 4, 2016

A vast quantity of western (mostly US) -made weapons and ammunition have been discovered in the Bani Zaid district of Aleppo.

The area was recently abandoned by fighters from the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra). It is considered a terrorist group by the UN and is not part of the cessation of hostilities in Syria. The group recently rebranded itself while breaking its ties with the global terror network Al-Qaeda.

The majority of the weapons appear to be of US origin and include US-made anti-tank missiles system (TOW 2A), American UN0181 missiles, as well as US-made 81mm mortars and ammunition. Some of the boxes containing weapons are labeled with the letters ‘USA’. 

Among other weapons that can be seen in the video are a 57mm infantry mortar of a type produced in Germany, and rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) made by the Czech Republic.

Security analyst and former UK counter terrorism intelligence officer Charles Shoebridge said the video appears to be “genuine”.

“The United States has openly announced in the last year or so, that it is supplying anti-tank missiles, and anti-tank missiles of a type I should say that do appear to be in this video, the TOW as they are known,” to ‘moderate opposition’ in Syria, he said.

Shoebdrige added that “as predicted from the start” such weapons end up “in the hands of extreme rebel groups”.

In October last year a Pentagon-trained group of Syrian rebels known as Division 30, handed over their US delivered weapons to al-Sham terrorists.

Shoebdrige said Washington does not resort to any “proper scrutiny” while delivering weapons to the ‘moderate’ rebel factions in Syria. That’s despite “almost certainly knowing that they will end up in the hands of the groups such as al-Nusra.” 

Shoebdrige doesn’t expect any change in America’s stance, noting that such groups are one of the most “effective fighters” against the Syrian government.

In November 2015, the Free Syrian Army’s 1st Coastal Brigade, a US-backed rebel group, fired a U.S.-made TOW missile at a Russian helicopter on the ground. The rescue helicopter was on a search mission for the pilots of the Su-24 jet shot down by Turkey in Syria on November 24. The FSA has received US Tow missiles among other weaponry.

Also in November, rebels attacked journalists with a US-made anti-tank missile.

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[kscarbel2]

How Bush's Bad Idea that Turkey Could Join the EU Bombed

The National Interest  /  August 8, 2016

It was 2004, and the geopolitical chess pieces were positioned very differently from how they are today. Back then, Turkey wanted to join the European Union, Great Britain thought that that was a magnificent idea and France was skeptical.

Oddest of all, the most vocal advocacy for Turkish accession and democratic reform came from an unlikely alliance of then-president George W. Bush and then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. An Associated Press photo from 2002 shows the two of them sitting together, grinning for the camera, with the former’s hair and the latter’s mustache having yet to gray.

Bush’s support for Turkey had precedent. American presidents have historically backed EU enlargements, viewing a stronger Europe as strategically preferable. Clinton-era diplomats had also been receptive to Ankara’s ambitions, helping Turkey secure status as a candidate for membership at the Helsinki Summit in 1999. But the forcefulness of Bush’s advocacy was surprising: “We join you side-by-side in your desire to become a member of the European Union,” he declared while sitting next to Erdogan in 2002.

Two years later, he was even more explicit, asserting in Istanbul that “as a European power, Turkey belongs in the European Union,” and comparing the geopolitical line between the two entities to the division of Germany at Yalta. Bush’s tone ruffled French President Jacques Chirac’s feathers, whose stance on Turkish membership was lukewarm to begin with, who groused that “not only did [Bush] go too far, but he went into territory that isn’t his.” He fussed: “it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans how they should handle their relationship with Mexico.” But Bush was never one to be swayed by Chirac, and in 2006, a year after Turkey’s accession talks with the EU began, the former again encouraged admission.

There were several reasons for America to prefer a Turkey inside the EU. Strategically, the White House wanted Turkey fully behind its Iraq policy, a request Ankara shrewdly tethered to its EU accession. Economically, membership would ensure stability for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which transports oil out of the Caspian Sea and terminates in Turkey. Politically, Turkey was home of Ataturk, burial ground of the last recognized caliphate, a rare secular democracy in a Middle East gripped by dictatorships.

It’s that last one that likely intrigued Bush. When it came to geopolitics, the forty-third president was a big-picture thinker who disdained what he called “mini-ball” and preferred boldfaced words to fine print: a democracy in the Muslim world joining up with Europe would advance the cause of freedom. Smaller issues, and even somewhat larger ones like Turkey’s refusal to recognize EU member Cyprus, were squashed in his mind by enduring and abstract concepts. Bush also wanted to short-circuit the narrative that the war on terror was a religious crusade against Islam. Accordingly, he contended that Turkish accession would “expose the ‘clash of civilizations’ as a passing myth of history.”

To Bush, the great ideological tug-of-war in the Middle East was between the democratic West and the dark theocracies favored by Islamists, and he was determined that the former win out so Muslims could be free. To usher Turkey into the EU, to claim it for the good guys, would have been a heady moral victory. Bush never accounted for a potential authoritarian reversion in Turkey; he certainly never imagined the EU could be seen as anything less than democratic. His perception was enhanced by Ankara, which did a lot during this period to allay Western suspicions over its history of coups. For example, passed a suite of reform packages that diminished the military’s power.

Alas, a lot changed 2004: the Iraq war went south, Syria was immersed in chaos, refugees flooded into Europe, Germany throttled Greece with failed economic reforms, discontent with the EU spread, Britain voted for Brexit, Erdogan took a sudden dictatorial plunge and tens of thousands in Turkey were detained after a coup attempt. Bush’s idealistic hopes were crashed on the shoals of reality.

Meanwhile, Turkish negotiations with the EU have been mired for over a decade. The impedimental Cyprus issue still remains unresolved, and the Cypriots have vetoed several of the requisite accession chapters. While Turkey once sought to meet EU standards, today the EU is scrambling to appease Turkey so an agreement on the migrant crisis doesn’t get scrapped. Ankara is threatening to pull out of talks unless it’s granted visa-free travel within the Schengen Area—which would play into the hands of European nationalists, which could weaken the EU even further. Turkish membership has also grown unpopular; in Britain, it was a potent issue for the successful Leave campaign.

Surely this isn’t what George W. Bush had in mind. Today, the prospects for a European Turkey appear bleaker than ever. The chessboard is almost unrecognizable.

 

[kscarbel2]

British Special Forces in Syria

Images published by BBC depict SAS soldiers securing the perimeter of a rebel army base following an attack by ISIS.

Originally founded in 1941, the Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army.

The pictures were taken in June and were first published on Monday by the BBC.

The images depict British special forces sitting atop Thalab long range patrol vehicles* as they move around the perimeter of a rebel base close to the Syria-Iraq border.

The BBC reported the soldiers were working at the base in a defensive role and a spokesman for the New Syrian Army acknowledged that British special forces had provided training, weapons and other equipment.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has refused to comment on the pictures.

On Monday, the MOD released information about British air strikes against Isis in Iraq and Syria.

 

* The Al-Thalab is a 4x4, high-mobility long-range patrol vehicle (LRPV) based on the legendary Toyota LandCruiser 79-Series (http://www3.toyota.com.au/landcruiser-70).

The Al-Thalab was developed by Jordan Light Vehicle Manufacturing, which was formed in 2003 as a collaborative joint venture between King Abdullah II Design & Development Bureau (KADDB) of Jordan and Jankel Armouring of the UK.

The Al-Thalab LRPV was first produced in June 2005.

The vehicle can accommodate four crew members and comes with an option for two stretchers in the rear for medical evacuation. It is designed for surveillance, reconnaissance, internal security and border patrol forces.

The Al-Thalab is also available in medium range and commando variants.

Al-Thalab Brochure - http://www.jankel.com/media/images/ThalabBrochureemail_177.pdf

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[kscarbel2]

Norfolk, Virginia-based Turkish rear admiral seeking asylum in United States

Reuters  /  August 9, 2016

A Turkish military officer on a U.S.-based assignment for NATO is seeking asylum in the United States after being recalled by the Turkish government in the wake of last month's failed military coup, U.S. officials told Reuters.

The asylum bid is the first known case involving a Turkish military officer in the United States as Turkey purges military ranks after mutinous soldiers commandeered fighter jets, helicopters and tanks in an unsuccessful attempt to oust President Tayyip Erdogan.

The case has the potential to further strain ties between the United States and Turkey, which is already demanding Washington hand over a U.S.-based Turkish cleric it alleges was responsible for the failed coup.

The two U.S. officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the Turkish officer was working at the headquarters of NATO's Allied Command Transformation, located in Norfolk, Virginia. They did not name him or offer his rank.

However, an official at Turkey's embassy in Washington said Turkish Navy Rear Admiral Mustafa Ugurlu had failed to report to authorities after Turkey issued a detention order for him last month.

"On July 22, on that day he left his badges and his ID at the base and after that no one has heard anything from him," the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Turkish official said he was unaware of a subsequent asylum request.

An April news article on the NATO website identified Ugurlu as the Norfolk-based command's assistant chief of staff for command and control, deployability and sustainability.

The Turkish official said two other lower-level officers had also been called back from the United States to Turkey.

"But there's no detention order for them," the official said. "One of them has gone back, and the other will go back shortly."

MILITARY PURGES

The purges within Turkey's military, which has NATO's second largest armed forces and aspires to membership in the European Union, has resulted in thousands of soldiers being discharged, including around 40 percent of generals.

There are concerns within the Turkish opposition that the restructuring lacks parliamentary oversight and is going too far.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis refused to comment.

The Norfolk mission where the Turkish officer was assigned is the only NATO command in North America. It directs Allied Command Transformation's subordinate commands, including the Joint Warfare Center in Norway and the Joint Force Training Center in Poland.

A spokeswoman at the Norfolk-based mission said 26 Turkish military personnel were assigned there, and she [being politically correct] praised Turkey's contribution, including hosting U.S. and allies at its Incirlik Air Base, an important staging area for the U.S. forces fighting ISIS militants in Syria.

"We want to state that Turkey is a valued NATO ally that continues to make important contributions to the fight against ISIS," said [a politically correct] U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Karen Eifert said, while refusing to comment on questions about an asylum request.

A NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Turkey's internal reorganization of its military has not had a practical impact on NATO-led commands.

"Turkey has notified NATO about the changeover of a number of Turkish military personnel. There has been no impact on the implementation of NATO-led operations and missions or on the work of NATO commands," the official said, refusing to comment on any asylum request.

"I would refer you to the Turkish authorities for any further details on their staffing."

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services refused to discuss the case.

The State Department has refused to comment.

ANTI-U.S. SENTIMENT RISING

The case comes as Turkey presses Washington to hand over U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Gulen, an ally of Erdogan in the early years after his Islamist-rooted AK Party took power in 2002, has denied any involvement in the coup, which came at a critical time for a NATO state facing Islamist militant attacks from across the border in Syria and an insurgency by Kurdish rebels.

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said anti-American feeling among Turks was on the rise and "turning into hatred" and could only be calmed by the United States extraditing Gulen.

Still, the U.S. and Turkish militaries have long had extensive ties, extending beyond the NATO alliance.

One U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, estimated there were around 160 Turkish military personnel on assignment in the United States, including those at NATO in Norfolk and others at exchanges at prestigious U.S. military institutions.

Navy Lieutenant Commander Patrick Evans said 123 Turkish military personnel were participating in the U.S. International Military Education and Training Program in the continental United States as of August 9.

Asked how many of those participants had been recalled to Turkey, Evans said: "We are aware of one student currently at the Army War College who received a recall notice to return to Turkey."

The status of the student at the War College, located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was not immediately clear. Evans refused to comment on any individual cases.

[kscarbel2]

U.S. taxpayers give $50 million of military hardware to Lebanon

Reuters  /  August 9, 2016

The United States delivered 50 armored Humvees, 40 M198 155mm howitzers with 1,000 tons of ammunition and 50 grenade launchers to the Lebanese army on Tuesday, part of its efforts to bolster Lebanon against a threat from militant groups in neighboring, conflict-ridden Syria.

The equipment, worth $50 million [actually more], is part of an aid package that has now topped $220 million this year, making Lebanon the fifth-biggest recipient of American military assistance, U.S. ambassador Elizabeth Richard said during the delivery.

Fighting between Islamic State and other Islamist militant groups in Syria often flares in the mountains along Lebanon's northern frontier and the violence has periodically spilled across the border.

Eight Islamic State suicide bombers targeted a Christian village in Lebanon near the Syrian frontier last month, killing five and raising fears of a new campaign of attacks.

Fighters from Islamic State and other groups also stage regular incursions across the poorly demarcated border around the northern Lebanese town of Arsal, which they briefly overran in 2014 before the army drove them out.

Lebanon has a weak government and a number of countries support its armed forces as a bulwark against destabilization in a country where around a quarter of the population are Syrian refugees.

This year Saudi Arabia, traditionally an important financial backer of Lebanon, suspended a $3 billion aid package for Lebanese security forces because of what it called Beirut’s failure to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran in January. The move has raised concerns in the US, prompting it to discuss the issue with the Saudis in early March.

Syria once dominated its smaller neighbor, whose own sectarian fissures fueled a 15-year civil war from 1975-90. Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has fought alongside Syrian government forces in Syria's civil war since 2013.

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[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

Why the Middle East knows not to trust the United States

The Washington Post  /  October 25, 2016

When the United States fights its wars in the Middle East, it has a nasty habit of recruiting local forces as proxies and then jettisoning them when the going gets tough or regional politics intervene.

This pattern of “seduction and abandonment” is one of our least endearing characteristics. It’s one reason the United States is mistrusted in the Middle East. We don’t stick by the people who take risks on our behalf in Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon and elsewhere. And now, I fear, this syndrome is happening again in Syria, as a Kurdish militia group known as the YPG, which has been the United States’ best ally against the Islamic State, gets pounded by the Turkish military.

The YPG is a special case for me because I had a chance to meet some of their fighters in May at a secret U.S. Special Operations forces training camp in northern Syria. They described battling to the last man — and sometimes woman — as they drove the Islamic State from its strongholds. Special Ops officers embedded with the YPG recounted their battlefield exploits with deep respect, expressing what one called “the brotherhood of the close fight.”

Unfortunately, allying with the United States can be a dangerous proposition in the Middle East. Last Thursday, Turkey said its warplanes shot 18 targets in YPG-controlled areas of northern Syria. The Turks want to block the YPG from linking up with its fighters in a pocket known as Afrin, northwest of Aleppo. The Turks also want to prevent the YPG from playing a leading role in the liberation of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s capital, as the United States had planned.

“If it doesn’t stop, it could preempt all plans for Raqqa,” warns a Pentagon official about the Turkish onslaught. Kurdish sources tell me that because the United States isn’t responding to pleas about Afrin, the YPG is appealing to Russia.

The U.S. alliance with the YPG was forged during the liberation of Kobane from the Islamic State in late 2014. The Kurds were down to a few hundred fighters when U.S. Special Operations forces intervened. The assistance was brokered by Lahur Talabani, the intelligence chief of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK. He sent several of his operatives into Kobane with GPS devices to call in U.S. close air support, via an operations center in the PUK’s headquarters in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq.

“It was the right thing to do,” Talabani told me Tuesday in an interview in Washington. He explained that the YPG’s success against the Islamic State has saved Kurdish lives in Syria and taken pressure off Kurdish forces in Iraq, who are now fighting to liberate Mosul from the extremists.

The Obama administration embraced the YPG because the Kobane victory was the first major battlefield success against the Islamic State. At last, the United States had a partner that could fight. But this alliance was built atop an ethnic fault line. That ruptured in August, when a YPG-dominated force captured Manbij, just south of the Turkish border. A few weeks later, the Turks invaded Syria and began their barrage against YPG targets.

The United States has tried, unsuccessfully, to finesse the Turkish-Kurdish animosity. Before the Manbij offensive began in May, the United States brought to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey a delegation from the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition that nominally oversees the YPG. But this effort to paper over Turkish-Kurdish differences crumpled after the attempted coup in Turkey in July. Some of the Turkish generals who met the SDF are now said to be in prison as coup suspects.

Turkey’s regional ambitions have swollen as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan consolidated power after the coup attempt. Even as Turkish forces harass the YPG and consolidate a border strip in Syria, they’re also advancing in Iraq, seeking a role in the liberation of Mosul despite warnings from Iraq and the United States to stay out. Erdogan speaks of Aleppo and Mosul as former Ottoman regional capitals.

“One wild card is how to manage the role of Turkey in both theaters,” says a senior U.S. official.

Maybe the Kurds should have known better than to ally with the United States, or to trust Turkey to stay out. Kurdish history is a story of betrayal. Fortunately for the United States, some goodwill remains from “Operation Provide Comfort,” the no-fly zone over northern Iraq that the United States imposed after the 1991 Gulf War, which helped create a thriving Kurdish regional government in Iraq.

But people in the Middle East have learned to be wary of American promises. One Iraqi Christian leader recently rejected the suggestion of new American help, post-Islamic State. “You’ll walk away,” said the priest. “That’s what you do.”

[kscarbel2]

Why Hillary Clinton's plans for no-fly zones in Syria could provoke US-Russia conflict

The Guardian  /  October 25, 2016

Many in national security circles consider the risk of a confrontation with Russia to be severe: ‘I wouldn’t put it past them to shoot down a US aircraft’

Retired senior US military pilots are increasingly alarmed that Hillary Clinton’s proposal for “no-fly zones” in Syria could lead to a military confrontation with Russia that could escalate to levels that were previously unthinkable in the post-cold war world.

The former strategists spoke to the Guardian as Clinton’s Republican rival Donald Trump warned that Clinton’s proposal to establish “safe zones” to protect beleaguered Syrian civilians would “lead to world war three”.

The proposal of no-fly zones has been fiercely debated in Washington for the past five years, but has never attracted significant enthusiasm from the military because of the risk to pilots from Syrian air defenses and the presence of Russian warplanes.

Many in US national security circles consider the risk of an aerial confrontation with the Russians to be severe.

“I wouldn’t put it past them to shoot down an American aircraft,” said James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, on Tuesday in response to a question from the Guardian at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Those who have patrolled no-fly zones over the relatively freer skies of Bosnia and Saddam-era Iraq fear that a President Clinton would oblige the US to what one retired US air force three-star general described as an indefinite “air occupation”. Such a move would risk the lives of US pilots – and dare confrontation with a Russian military which is more aggressive than it has been in years.

Critics of the plan also question how using US military power to establish and police a safe space for beleaguered Syrian civilians would contribute to the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad – the explicit goal of US policy in Syria.

“If she is not politically posturing, it’s going to be a disaster. I hope it’s political posturing,” said John Kuehn, a retired navy officer who flew no-fly zone missions over Bosnia and Iraq. Kuehn who called denying an adversary its airspace “the cocktail party military application of power of choice”.

David Deptula, a retired air force lieutenant general who commanded the no-fly zone operations over northern Iraq in 1998 and 1999, said the Russians were a “complicating factor” but considered the problems with a no-fly zone to be more fundamental.

“Until a strategy that defines the desired end-state is clearly laid out in a comprehensive way, it’s difficult to advocate for a no-fly zone,” said Deptula.

“Right now, the way it’s being discussed, it’s a solution in search of a strategy. Until coalition powers define what it is they wish to accomplish, banding about a solution like a no-fly zone is a non-starter.”

The challenges for a no-fly zone over Syria outstrip those the US has faced over Libya, Bosnia and Iraq. Assad’s surface-to-air missiles, protecting the Mediterranean coast and southern regions the regime still controls, were formidable before the recent Russian addition of what Clapper, a former air force general, called “very advanced” S-300 and S-400 systems that can blanket the majority of Syrian airspace with missiles.

Staging a no-fly zone requires either the assent of regional allies – Turkey is the nearest potential partner to Syria, but it has concentrated in recent months on improving ties with Moscow after Turkish forces shot down a Russian jet in November 2015 – or an expensive, open-ended and risky deployment of aircraft carrier groups to the eastern Mediterranean.

But the most distinguishing feature of a Syria no-fly zone in 2017 would be the aerial presence of another great-power air force with an objective which is diametrically opposed to Washington’s.

Russia and the US currently share the skies above Syria and maintain a military-to-military communication channel to avoid confrontation.

But since they operate over different parts of the country and with different objectives – the US in the east against the Islamic State, Russia to the west against Assad’s opposition – a US-imposed no-fly zone would put their objectives into conflict. No one knows how either side would respond if Russian aircraft violated a US air cordon, nor how to de-escalate a clash before it spiraled into extended combat.

Russia said on Tuesday that it would continue a moratorium on air strikes in the besieged city of Aleppo, but local sources said that rebel-held neighbourhoods had been struck in recent days.

Kuehn, now a professor of military history at the US Army Command and General Staff College, said that escalation could occur by accident, either through a direct confrontation in the air, or through a Syrian or Russian capture of a downed US pilot.

“I see almost nothing positive that can come from implementing [a no-fly zone] at the current time over Syria. Conversely, the potential to make a bad situation worse is very, very high,” Kuehn said.

For years, senior US military officers have expressed reluctance to intervene in the Syrian civil war. In 2013, Martin Dempsey, then the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said that even a limited safe zone would cost over $1bn a month and require substantial air assets and ground troops to maintain. His successor, Joseph Dunford, told the Senate last month that a no-fly zone would “require us to go to war against Syria and Russia” before walking his assessment back under pressure from proposal advocate John McCain.

Clinton, who has long backed a no-fly zone as the Syrian bloodshed has accumulated, acknowledged those concerns in last week’s third presidential debate.

“I’m going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria not only to help protect the Syrians and prevent the constant outflow of refugees,” Clinton said, “but to, frankly, gain some leverage on both the Syrian government and the Russians so that perhaps we can have the kind of serious negotiation necessary to bring the conflict to an end and go forward on a political track.”

But strategists have a hard time understanding how a no-fly zone provides the US with a large enough leverage to trade with Assad or Russia, given their objective is, respectively, self-preservation and the preservation of a client.

“I don’t understand how a no-fly zone gets you to a political settlement. There’s no history supporting that. There were no-fly zones in Iraq for close to a decade and it settled nothing,” said Joshua Rovner of Southern Methodist University.

“I wish this would be the kind of leverage she seems to hope it is, but I don’t see why this would pose a serious threat to Assad or Putin. It’s accepting a lot of new costs with very few benefits.”

[41chevy]

Sadly I believe  with our neutered military, state of the steel industry and the legislating away the arms makers the Russians will probably kick the crap out of us. Our only chance is the first shot.

[kscarbel2]

Two points here.

1) The Pentagon provided Iraq with 140 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks. In one way or another, you know the U.S. taxpayer paid for them.

2) Apparently, the dated Abrams tank, still the backbone of U.S. forces, is not capable of dealing with the latest anti-tank weapons.

In this video, you see an ISIS-fired Russian 9M133 Kornet ATGM (anti-tank guided missile), which utilizes a tandem "shaped charge" HEAT warhead, taking out an Iraqi Abrams around Mosul, Iraq.

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[41chevy]

Iraq had them in 2003 and hit an Abrams than. They were used in 2006 in Lebanon, Hamas and  Hezbollah used them in 2014 against IDF armor and Russia supplied over 1000 MKIII's to Syria in 2015.

Only thing is the Abrams was not an up armored M1A2SEP.

[kscarbel2]

What really happened ?

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Three U.S. trainers shot dead at Jordan base

Reuters  /  November 4, 2016

Three U.S. military trainers were shot dead in Jordan on Friday when their car [allegedly] failed to stop at the gate of a military base and was fired on by Jordanian security forces, a Jordanian military source said.

The incident occurred at the Prince Faisal air base in the south of Jordan, which is a close strategic ally of the United States.

Two trainers died immediately and the third later in hospital.

[Oddly] A Jordanian army guard was also shot and wounded.

"There was an exchange of fire at the entrance to the base after an attempt by the trainers' vehicle to enter the gate without heeding orders of the guards to stop," the military source said. "An investigation is now under way to know exactly what happened." [they already know]

Another Jordanian security source said it was not possible to rule out political motives in the incident at an air base, where dozens of U.S. trainers work alongside Jordanians.

A third Jordanian source who requested anonymity said authorities were examining reports of friction among the U.S. trainers and Jordanian army officers that might offer clues helping to explain the shooting. He did not elaborate.

The base where the incident occurred is in the heart of the traditional Bedouin region of Jordanwhere radical Sunni Muslim influence has grown over the last decade.

Several incidents over the past year have jolted the Arab kingdom, which has been relatively unscathed by the uprisings, civil wars and Islamist militancy that have swept the Middle East since 2011.

In November 2015, a Jordanian army officer shot dead two U.S. government security contractors and a South African at a U.S.-funded police training facility near Amman before being gunned down.

The incident embarrassed Jordanian authorities, who did not publicly disclose the motive of the assassin. The gunman was later said by security sources to have been a sympathizer of ISIS with strong anti-Western feelings.

"What is worrying is that if this (Friday's shooting) turns out to be deliberate, it would be much more damaging than if this was a suicide or terror attack on a base because it was perpetrated by someone within the Jordanian military," another security source said on condition of anonymity.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity [why???], said they were reviewing the incident and could not rule out the possibility of a deliberate attack.

Many ordinary Jordanians harbor strong anti-American sentiment over Washington's strong support for Israel and its military interventions in the Middle East.

Jordan is among a few Arab states that have taken part in a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State (IS) militants holding territory in Syria. But many Jordanians oppose their country's involvement, saying it has caused violent deaths of fellow Muslims and raised security threats inside Jordan.

U.S. officials worry about radical Islam's growing profile in Jordan and support in impoverished areas for militant groups.

Six Jordanian border guards were killed in June by an IS suicide bomber who drove a car at speed across the border from Syria and rammed it into a U.S.-funded military post.

Jordan hosts several hundred U.S. contractors in a military cooperation program which includes the stationing of U.S. F-16 fighter jets that use Jordanian airfields to hit Islamic State positions in neighboring Syria.

Since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, Washington has spent millions of [taxpayer] dollars to help Jordan set up an elaborate surveillance system known as the Border Security Programme to stem infiltration by militants from Syria and Iraq.

U.S. officials say that aid to Jordan, one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign military assistance, is expected to rise to [an acknowledged] $800 million in 2016 and grow in future years.

[kscarbel2]

In a huge but downplayed policy change, the Obama administration has decided to stop trying to overthrow Assad (regime change), which inherently reopens the door to cooperation with Russia. With the argument of whether or not Assad should go out of the way, we now will have a clear common goal.

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Obama directs Pentagon to target al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, one of the most formidable forces fighting Assad

The Washington Post  /  November 10, 2016

President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to find and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria that the administration had largely ignored until now and that has been at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian government.

The decision to deploy more drones and intelligence assets against the militant group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra reflects Obama’s concern that it is turning parts of Syria into a new base of operations for al-Qaeda on Europe’s southern doorstep.

The move underlines the extent to which Obama has come to prioritize the counter­terrorism mission in Syria over efforts to pressure President Bashar al-Assad to step aside [Major strategy change], as al-Nusra is among the most effective forces­­ battling the Syrian government.

That shift is likely to accelerate once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump has said he will be even more aggressive in going after militants than Obama, a stance that could lead to the expansion of the campaign against al-Nusra, possibly in direct cooperation with Moscow. The group now calls itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham — or Front for the Conquest of Syria — and says it has broken with al-Qaeda, an assertion discounted by U.S. officials.

(This is the U.S. supported rebel group that beheaded a 12-year-old child before the world...... http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/41827-syria/?page=2)

Obama’s new order gives the U.S. military’s Joint Special ­Operations Command wider authority and additional intelligence-collection re­sources to go after al-Nusra’s broader leadership, not just al-Qaeda veterans or those directly involved in external plotting.

The White House and State Department led the charge within the Obama administration for prioritizing action against the group. Pentagon leaders were reluctant at first to pull resources away from the fight against ISIS.

Aides say Obama grew frustrated that more wasn’t being done by the Pentagon and the intelligence community to kill al-Nusra leaders given the warnings he had received from top counter­terrorism officials about the gathering threat they posed.

Obama was repeatedly told over the summer that the group was allowing al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan to create in northwest Syria the largest haven for the network since it was scattered after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Officials also warned Obama that al-Nusra could try to fill the void as its rival ISIS lost ground.

Lisa Monaco, Obama’s White House homeland security and counter­terrorism adviser, said Obama’s decision “prioritized our fight against al-Qaeda in Syria, including through targeting their leaders and operatives, some of whom are legacy al-Qaeda members.”

“We have made clear to all parties in Syria that we will not allow al-Qaeda to grow its capacity to attack the U.S., our allies, and our interests,” she said in a statement. “We will continue to take action to deny these terrorists any safe haven in Syria.”

To support the expanded push against al-Nusra, the White House pressed the Pentagon to deploy additional armed drones and intelligence-collection assets in the airspace over northwestern Syria, an area that had been sparsely covered by the United States until now because of its proximity to advanced Russian air-defense systems and aircraft.

A bitterly divided Obama administration had tried over the summer to cut a deal with Moscow on a joint U.S.-Russian air campaign against al-Nusra, in exchange for a Russian commitment to ground Syrian government warplanes and to allow more humanitarian supplies into besieged areas. But the negotiations broke down in acrimony, with Moscow accusing the United States of failing to separate al-Nusra from more moderate rebel groups and Washington accusing the Russians of war crimes in Aleppo.

Armed drones controlled by JSOC stepped up operations in September, according to military officials.

Drone strikes by the U.S. military under the program began in October and have so far killed at least four high-value targets, including al-Nusra’s senior external planner. The Pentagon has disclosed two of the strikes so far. One of the most significant strikes — targeting a gathering of al-Nusra leaders on Nov. 2 — has yet to be disclosed, officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operations.

So far, Russian air-defense systems and aircraft haven’t interfered with stepped-up U.S. operations against al-Nusra. Officials attributed Moscow’s acquiescence to the limited number of U.S. aircraft involved in the missions and to Russia’s interest in letting Washington combat one of the Assad regime’s most potent enemies within the insurgency. U.S. officials said they provided notifications to the Russians before the al-Nusra strikes to avoid misunderstandings.

Officials who supported the [policy] shift said the Obama administration could no longer tolerate what one of them described as “a deal with the devil,” whereby the United States largely held its fire against al-Nusra because the group was popular with Syrians in rebel-controlled areas and furthered the U.S. goal of putting military pressure on Assad. Russia had accused the United States of sheltering al-Nusra, a charge repeated Thursday in Moscow by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“The president doesn’t want this group to be what inherits the country if Assad ever does fall,” a senior U.S. official said. “This cannot be the viable Syrian opposition. It’s al-Qaeda.”

Officials said the administration’s hope is that more-moderate rebel factions will be able to gain ground as both the Islamic State and al-Nusra come under increased military pressure.

A growing number of White House and State Department officials, however, have privately voiced doubts about the wisdom of applying U.S. military power, even covertly, to pressure Assad to step aside, particularly since Russia’s military intervention in Syria last year.

Trump has voiced strong skepticism about arming Syrian rebels in the past, suggesting that U.S. intelligence agencies don’t have enough knowledge about rebel intentions to pick reliable allies.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and other Pentagon leaders initially resisted the idea of devoting more Pentagon surveillance aircraft and armed drones against al-Nusra. In White House Situation Room meetings, Carter and other top Pentagon officials argued that the military’s resources were needed to combat ISIS and that it would be difficult to operate in the airspace given Russia’s military presence, officials said.

While Obama, White House national security adviser Susan E. Rice, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and special presidential envoy Brett McGurk agreed with Carter on the need to keep the focus on ISIS, they favored shifting resources to try to prevent al-Nusra from becoming a bigger threat down the road.

A senior defense official said additional drone assets were assigned to the JSOC mission. Carter also made clear that the Pentagon’s goal would be to hit al-Nusra leadership targets, not take strikes to try to separate the moderate rebels from al-Nusra, officials said.

“If we wake up in five years from now, and ISIS is dead but al-Qaeda in Syria has the equivalent of [the tribal areas of Pakistan] in northwest Syria, then we’ve got a problem,” a second senior U.S. official said.

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[kscarbel2]

Let me hear your thoughts.

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[kscarbel2]

Hezbollah apparently in possession of American M113 armored personnel carriers.

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[kscarbel2]

Why Are State Sponsors of Terrorism Receiving U.S. Taxpayer Dollars?

The National Interest  /  November 19, 2016

How a President Trump will approach relations with Russia — and especially what that means for U.S. policy in the Syrian civil war — has become one of the most discussed issues during a tumultuous transition.

But we should be paying at least as much attention to what America’s putative partners — including those groups currently receiving U.S. taxpayer funding — are doing to prolong a brutal conflict that has claimed nearly 500 thousand lives, and driven more than ten million from their homes.

During the campaign, Trump even tangled with his running mate Mike Pence over Syria. When Pence suggested during the vice presidential debate that the United States institute a no-fly zone over Syria, Trump promptly swatted the idea away. “He and I haven’t spoken, and I disagree.”

Late last week, Trump admitted that he “had an opposite view of many people regarding Syria,” and suggested that he would withdraw support for anti-Assad rebels, and focus on fighting ISIS.

Members of the GOP foreign policy establishment, however, are doubling down on the status quo.

On Tuesday, in one of the first post-election warning shots fired across Team Trump’s bow, Senator John McCain warned the president-elect not to trust “a former KGB agent who has plunged his country into tyranny, murdered his political opponents, invaded his neighbors, threatened America’s allies and attempted to undermine America’s elections.”

“At the very least, the price of another ‘reset’ would be complicity in Putin and Assad’s butchery of the Syrian people.

“That is an unacceptable price for a great nation. When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side [of] those fighting tyranny,” McCain added. “That is where we must stand again.”

Alas, finding those who are “fighting tyranny” but not secretly committed to imposing it once they prevail is the tricky part.

The abundant evidence from Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya — not to mention the Cold War — shows that legitimate freedom fighters are often indistinguishable from charlatans and thugs.

Despite this unhappy track record, McCain retains his childlike optimism in the United States’ ability to find the “good guys” and help them to reshape fractured foreign polities.

Few Americans are so inclined. President Obama was caught between wanting to see Bashar al-Assad’s regime overthrown, but not wanting to see violent extremists take its place, for example, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (Conquest of Syria Front), the one-time Al Qaeda affiliate formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra.

Unsurprisingly, the president’s efforts to arm the few factions that cleared the vetting process were an abject failure, in part because the tools available to protect the U.S.-approved anti-Assad factions are deeply problematic.

A no-fly zone, for example, may forestall the complete annihilation of certain groups, but only at the risk of widening the war. Since Assad’s Russian ally is also operating from time-to-time in Syrian airspace, a no-fly zone would necessarily threaten Russian planes and pilots. And U.S. planes and pilots would also be at risk. At a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations last month, National Intelligence Director James Clapper told CBS's Charlie Rose, “I wouldn't put it past them to shoot down an American aircraft.”

Some in Congress have pushed back against the executive branch’s occasional zeal for intervention in Syria. In the late summer and fall of 2013, members of Congress were flooded with phone calls urging them to block U.S. military action there. Obama got the message too, and backed away from his ill-advised red line that would have entailed direct U.S. military action in the civil war.

But the Obama administration continued to funnel money to some anti-Assad rebels. Since then, a few in Congress have tried to cut off funds for the so-called “Syrian Train and Equip” program. An amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill sponsored by Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and Austin Scott (R-GA) garnered 135 votes from both Republicans and Democrats, despite opposition from party leaders and the White House. It is reasonable to believe that a similar effort would fare even better in the post-election environment.

For now, U.S. law bars the federal government from providing support to terrorist organizations, but the United States’ putative allies and de facto clients operate under a very different set of rules. They have been fueling the civil war by plowing money and material support to a host of organizations that couldn’t survive the U.S. government’s vetting processes.

In other words, other countries, some of whom are recipients of U.S. foreign assistance, are funding terrorist organizations, including ISIS. We might even call them state sponsors of terrorism. And, in any other context, that fact alone would and should disqualify them from receiving U.S. taxpayer dollars.

[kscarbel2]

“The distance from the ISIS-held territory and Palmra is approximately 100 miles. It is inconceivable that the American-led coalition could not have seen this massive army moving towards Palmyra. Unfortunately, under the Obama Administration, I believe there has been a great deal of coordination between the terrorist forces and the coalition.”

Virginia Senator Richard Black

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[41chevy]

On 11/17/2016 at 0:20 AM, kscarbel2 said:

Hezbollah apparently in possession of American M113 armored personnel carriers.

 

Cosidering that more than 80,000 were made and over 60 countries use them, is it a surprise?

[kscarbel2]

Reuters  /  January 25, 2017

Democratic U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard said on Wednesday she met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and discussed the possibility of achieving peace.

The Hawaii Democrat said that during her four-day visit, she wanted to get a first-hand view of the suffering of the Syrian people.

She said she met with Assad because "we've got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we could achieve peace, and that's exactly what we talked about."

Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran, spoke out against the Democratic Obama administration's policy of supporting the moderate opposition against Assad in Syria's six-year-old civil war.

Republican President Donald Trump indicated during the 2016 presidential campaign that he could abandon the rebels to focus on fighting Islamic State, which controls territory in parts of Syria.

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[kscarbel2]

Recently declassified CIA document shows that the U.S. explored multiple scenarios of Syrian regime change - decades before the start of the war in 2011. The reports contains some striking passages, and it's remarkably accurate, showing what actually went on to happen.

The CIA predicted the rise of ISIS, and the ramifications, back in 2012.

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[kscarbel2]

BBC  /  March 30, 2017

The US representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Nikki Haley, said on Thursday that "we can't necessarily focus on Assad the way that the previous administration did".

Under President Obama, the US said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go and backed rebels fighting against him.

But US resources shifted after the rise of the so-called Islamic state.

"Our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out," said Haley.

"Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done, who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria," she added.

(The big question is, should our employees in Washington be spending time, money and effort meddling in the internal affairs of another country on the other side of the world, at a time when we’re forced to use private funding to upgrade our national infrastructure due to a lack of money?)

[kscarbel2]

“We cannot be the policemen of the world. We cannot protect countries all over the world"

Donald Trump (Sept 26, 2016)

I couldn’t agree more. Based on what we’re told, we simply can no longer afford to be.

In 1941, with the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) well on their way to taking over the world, the U.S. was the last major nation capable of mounting a decisive offensive. We fell into a major global role that the United States until that time never had. The same metrics however do not apply today.

Tomahawk missiles allegedly cost $832,000 each. (Do you really trust them to tell you the true cost?)

Trump ordered the launch of 59 missiles, meaning the U.S. taxpayer just spent US$49 million.

Note: A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said only 23 of the 59 missiles hit their target. There’s probably some truth to that, as British observers saw aircraft take off from Shayrat Airbase just hours after the strike.

Now remember, U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said on March 2 that we must unleash private investment to fund U.S. infrastructure upgrades, because  "our country can no longer take decades to build a new bridge or a new road, a new highway or airport" due to a lack of funding.

If the President of the United States wants to give Israel US$38 billion in military assistance, if the Pentagon wants to reorder $49 million plus worth of replacement missiles (price increase), or if the state department wants to build maternity wards, water wells and school bathrooms in Cambodia, taxpayer funding is “always” available.

However, if we need new bridges, roads, highway or airports…………..right here in the United States, we’re always told that there is an inadequate amount of funding (taxpayer money) available for said projects.

What’s the truth? One side says that Assad launched an attack with chemical weapons.

On the other hand, Russia might be more likely to know the truth, whatever it may be, due to its on-the-ground support of the Syrian government. Russia said Wednesday that the toxic gas that killed 83 people [including 27 children per UNICEF] and wounded 150 in northern Syria the day before was released accidentally when a Syrian air strike hit a "terrorist warehouse" containing "toxic substances."

"According to the objective data of the Russian airspace control, Syrian aviation struck a large terrorist warehouse near Khan Shaykhun that housed a warehouse making bombs, with toxic substances," the Russian defense ministry said.

"The arsenal of chemical weapons" was destined for fighters in Iraq, the Russian defense ministry added.

Certainly, truth has long been an illusive commodity in the Middle East. In fact, the region thrives on disinformation.

Note that you didn’t hear a peep in condemnation of the toxic gas attack from the Middle East’s United Nations-like body, the Arab League, nor from the powerful and wealthy members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).

The Middle East is their “neighborhood”. It’s their problem. But you never see their words, if any at all, supported by actions.

As Trump said, the United States cannot be the policemen of the world. We cannot protect countries all over the world.

It’s a hard sell to the U.S. taxpayer in year 2017 why we need to do what other neighboring countries on the other side of the world should be doing.

The event as told to us, by whoever’s hands, was a disgusting and barbaric act. But if we keep stepping in around the world, we’ll be expected to the next time……and the next time……and the next time.

Pro-Bexit leader Nigel Farage said:

‘I am very surprised by this [the U.S. attack]. I think a lot of Trump voters will be waking up this morning and scratching their heads and saying “where will it all end?”

‘As a firm Trump supporter, I say, yes, the pictures were horrible, but I’m surprised. Whatever Assad’s sins, he is secular [not subject to or bound by religious rule].’

‘Previous interventions in the Middle East have made things worse rather than better,’ said Farage.

Many western countries congratulated the U.S. on its attack, including the UK, France and Germany. Given their ongoing nightmare with Syrian refugees and close proximity to Syria (versus the United States), why didn’t they one or all man up and orchestrate the attack, rather than the distant United States?

Why didn’t NATO collectively attack? It’s mandate has been distorted to justify doing almost anything else.

Because the UK’s military is a mere shell of its former self?  (https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/46404-what-the-us-should-learn-from-britain’s-dying-navy/#comment-341940)

Because Germany refuses to fulfill its NATO obligation of spending 2 percent of its GDP on military spending?

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on March 1 said:

“While Germany accepts it must increase its defense spending from today's 1.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), 2 percent is too much (no appreciation for the U.S. letting Germany Inc.'s Volkswagen off the hook for billions).

Gabriel said it is "completely unrealistic to raise expectations in Germany or among our partners that we will add 30 billion euros to our defense spending over the next eight years."

Speaking on the strike, UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said the UK would not be involved in any military action without parliamentary approval.

Where is it written that the U.S. is always obligated to ride in and right the world’s problems?