On Syria: Thank You, Russia!
On Syria: Thank You, Russia! By Stephen Kinzer, Boston Globe
Once again, Moscow has shown itself better able to make strategic choices than we are. Russia is not an ideal partner for the United States, but sometimes its interests align with ours. In those cases, we should drop our Cold War hostility and work with Russia. The best place to start is Syria.
American policy toward Syria was misbegotten from the start of the current conflict five years ago. By immediately adopting the hardest possible line—“Assad must go”—we removed any incentive for opposition groups to negotiate for peaceful change. That helped propel Syria into its bloody nightmare.
Russia, which has suffered repeated terror attacks from Islamic fanatics, is threatened by the chaos and ungoverned space that now defines Syria. So are we. Russia’s policy should be ours: prevent the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, craft a new regime that would include Assad or his supporters, and then work for a cease-fire.
The fall of Assad would create a catastrophic power vacuum like those that have turned Iraq and Libya into terrorist havens. This would be bad for the United States, and even worse for Russia and Iran. We should recognize this common interest, and work with countries that want what we want…
Interestingly there is not a single mention of Iranian involvement in Syria via their transnational shia jihadists who act much like IS does towards the US….for the Boston Globe to miss this single critical point is interesting for US MSM…
Especially since a number of MA military personnel have been killed or maimed by Iraqi Hezbollah EFPs and KH is now fighting in Syria nor does the Globe mention the killings of the Marines in Lebanon by Hezbollah also fighting inside Syria.
There is not a single mention of the sheer numbers of Syrians being killed by deliberate Russian air strikes and or the use of starvation to kill thousands of Syrians, nor do they mention the continued use of barrel bombs and chemical bombs by Assad which taken together amounts to genocide and war crimes against humanity.
Nor is there any mention of the FSA who is actually fighting IS whereas they suggestion to work with Putin who now is just as complicit in the Assad genocide is strange all together for the Globe….
No wonder many in the US do not fully understand what the heck is going on inside Syria if this is the quality of the work by the Globe that is supposedly trying to educate their readership…….it is almost like “let’s accept genocide” as Putin is “worth it”..due to his “clear visions” and we the US are stupid for not seeing that “clear vision”?
To be more blunt…this is about as close as one can get to a Russian disinformation info warfare article and is striking similar in tone to what is produced daily by “Russia Today”…or even worse Sputnik the 100% Russian owned info war media outlet……
Suggest the editors of the Globe study the 6Ds of Russian information warfare before releasing articles pertaining to Syria.
Russia DepFM Gatilov: Assad could have prevented the escalation if he had taken democratic reforms in time
https://www.rt.com/news/332477-assad…gc9Jh8.twitter …
BUYERS remorse……????
An expression of an opinion that diverges from your own is not “disinformation”, it is simply an expression of an opinion that diverges from your own. So what?
Violent suppression of political dissent does not necessarily constitute “genocide”, and I’ve heard no credible argument suggesting that the violence in Syria now constitutes “genocide” by accepted definition. Even it it was, one could and should question whether a unilateral US response would be appropriate. The US must not get sucked into the role of playing global police force.
Dayuhan…if you had been following us over on the Syrian 2016 thread you would be seeing things like this being placed in the comments..in some aspects this thread is far better informed than the Obama WH right now as it attempts to carry a side of the Syrian rebellion that US MSM is strangely not covering and the WH is totally attempting to ignore.
When CNN tried their hand at it this week with their onsite Assad sponsored PR trip even they got it wrong and had to be corrected by social media……
Quote:
Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
CrowBat….can you confirm as things appear to be bit chaotic right now in the Aleppo area as it looks like FSA is actually holding their own against just about everyone except say the Germans…..
It is ‘chaotic’, sort of.
This is so because there’s lots of re-shuffling and re-organizations.
But, ‘first things first’ as they say….
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JAN – i.e. Jabhat an-Nusra – is WITHDRAWING from Azaz pocket. It’s positions are taken over by FSyA, JAM, JAS, and AAS.
This means that Turkey decided to take out wind out of all of BS-legends launched by Kurds and their US-paid Jaysh at-Thuwwar allies, by Russians etc., that they’re ‘attacking JAN, al-Qaida, Daesh etc. in Azaz’. In a matter of 1-2 days, there will be not a single JAN left in this part of Syria.
All of the JAN Jihadists are moved (via Turkey, of course) down to Bab as-Salma border crossing to Idlib and then to southern Aleppo province (Khan Thouman area, between others).
For example, it’s already known that ex-JAN positions in NE corner of the Azaz pocket, on the frontlines to the Daesh, were already taken over by the Jabhat ash-Shaymia (Sham Front). Similarly, ex-JAN positions on the southern side of the Azaz pocket were taken over by this new coalition of Ahrar, FSyA and other groups (more about this below).
There seems to be a similar – yet reciprocial – movement of insurgents out of Idlib and southern Aleppo (via Turkey, of course) into the Azaz pocket.
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Secondly…
There is de-facto a demise of the ‘traditional’ insurgent structure in northern Syria ‘by umbrella organizations’. I.e. instead of ‘Free Syrian Army’ (FSyA), ‘Ahrar ash-Sham’ (AAS), ‘Islamic Front’ (IF) etc. thee are now four coalitions there, all consisting of mix of units from all four of these umbrella organizations.
Frankly (as always), I’ve got no clear idea how do they decide to re-group, but usual scheme seems to be that some ex-Ahrar or ex-IF commander, perhaps a unit too, is put in charge of mix of anything between 5 and 8 FSyA units, 2-3 AAS units etc., and ‘voila’, there’s a new coalition.
The result is similar to that of JAN’s withdrawal from the Azaz pocket: a de-facto demise of the IF, and quasi-disappearance of the AAS in this part of Syria. Instead, there are now four alliances usually consisting of Islamist commanders in charge of moderate Islamists and FSyA groups.
Sure, their ‘power brokers’ (well, at least those from the AAS) are still around, but nobody can actually complain any more Turkey is supporting a ‘bunch of Islamists, extremists and Jihadists’ there. On the contrary, majority of components of these new alliances are actually ‘ex’-FSyA, some even US-vetted…
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Thirdly…
In the light of all these reports, alone the idea that the JAS – which was one of first such ‘new-modell armies’ of insurgents in this part of Syria – has given up Mare’a to the JAT (i.e. SDF) without any fighting appears rather dubious to me.
No doubt, since the SDF/JAT has captured Shaykh Isa, today, supply links between Azaz and Mare’a appear very exposed. Indeed, ‘easy to cut off’. But, Mare’a is not only easy to defend, but also well-fortified. If the JAS withdraws from there, the YPG/SDF would have it easy to rapidly advance into the back of other insurgent groups holding the frontline to the Daesh, further north.
So, unless we get a 100% confirmation that the JAT has entered Mare’a, I would say such reports are actually based on defection of one of minor local FSyA groups, the ‘Abu Wallid Battalion’, to the JAT – plus re-deployment of several minor Islamist groups (like AAS’ Safwa Islamiya, Quwwa al-Markaziya and Osood at-Tawheed) from Mare’a to Azaz.
OK, can deny this with the ‘fall’ of Mare’a now (I think).
JAT’s ‘entry’ into the town has been denied, i.e. confirmed as ‘wrong’. It didn’t happen: the town is still in JAS hands. JAT is now publishing excuses like, ‘we had a deal to enter peacefully but external parties obstructed agreement’ and similar nonsense.
Dayuhan….you would get a feel for the TOTAL Russian destruction of anything not controlled by Assad and you would fully understand the terms genocide, mass killings, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the use of cluster munitions and thermobarbic weapons against civilians both war crimes as well…If you joined us over on the tread…all commenters are welcome and I even occasionally post Assad’s side to show the info war side of the conflict….
But you don’t come over and post as well…..so you do not know much of the Syrian “story”…..