Sic Semper Tyrannis

Green on Blue Attacks in Afghanistan

"An Afghan civilian employee shot three soldiers, all from the US, at a base in Helmand province on Friday evening.

Earlier on the same day, also in Helmand, an Afghan police officer shot three US marines after inviting them to dinner at a checkpoint. The suspected killers in both attacks were detained, the US military says.

The killing of two British soldiers in Helmand was also announced on Friday, bringing to eight the number of coalition soldiers killed in Helmand in 48 hours. There is mounting concern over attacks on Nato troops by their Afghan allies.

Members of the Afghan security forces have killed 34 international coalition soldiers this year, in 26 incidents, US military spokeswoman Maj Lori Hodge told the BBC. "  BBC

----------------------------

Is the Taliban strategy to kill as many NATO people as possible in the belief that this will eventually wear down NATO's will to continue? That appears to be the case.  If it becomes true that NATO personnel cannot trust the people they are training and advising, then that is probably an effective method.  pl 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/afghanistan/story/2012-08-10/afghanistan-attack/56943458/1

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g5Gzdyj23xG8B4pwYdu7MHuzJbkQ?docId=CNG.0a4e52814bdbb17f662d0a35c58373db.7c1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19221821 

"The next president of the ..."

 

"In the shadow of a military  (sic) battleship, Mitt Romney formally named Paul Ryan as his running mate Saturday, saying that the 42-year-old Wisconsin congressman was the “intellectual leader” of the Republican Party with the experience to tackle the fiscal crises facing the nation and the temperament to be effective.

“Paul and I are beginning on a journey that will take us to every corner of America,” Romney told thousands of supporters gathered on a muggy morning here, shortly before introducing Ryan and embracing him. “We are offering a positive governing agenda that will lead to economic growth, to widespread and shared prosperity, and that will improve the lives of our fellow citizens. Our plan to strengthen the middle class will get America back to work and get our country back on track.” LA Times

-----------------------------------

I suppose there might be other than "military" battleships...

Romney introduced Ryan as "the next president of the United States" before correcting himself.  Was this a freudian slip betraying an understanding that Ryan would be Romney's Cheney?  Shouldn't Romney be the "intellectual leader of the Republican Party?"

Romney appeared to be having a difficult time reading the teleprompter (or whatever it was).  He several times tripped over words in his text, misreading them or mispronouncing them.  His writers need to give him easier material. 

Ryan is a choice born of fear, a fear that the right wing base will not vote for Romney in sufficient numbers to elect him in key states.  Remember, an American presidential election is about winning majorities in states, not the country as a whole.  This is still a federal republic This is something that people who are not of us often have a hard time learning.  Fareed Zakariya, now suspended from most of his jobs for plagiarizing material for his attacks on 2nd Amendment rights, has never learned this.  More on that will appear here tomorrow.

Ryan will rally the Republican base but he will also alienate many who understand that Ryan's economic thinking includes privatization of Social Security and Medicare.  The Republicans can spin that all they want but Ryan wants to make the economy whole by taking benefits from most people.  That will cost Romney in November.

At the same time, the event was staged in a navy town in front of a storied WW2 battleship, a ship that represents the period of America's greatest military dominance in the world.  Is this a signal as to Romney foreign policy or what?  For Romney to do that is strange behavior for a man who chose not to serve in the military.  Neither did Ryan.  Too good to serve?  How many sons does Romney have?  How many served anything but their church?

In his speech at Norfolk Ryan referred repeatedly to all the things that "we" will do when elected.  Perhaps he does not know that Romney would be president and not he, or has he been given assurances that power will be shared a la Bush/Cheney?  Under the constitution of the US the VP has no power at all, except to wait for the president's death and to preside over the senate.

IMO Ryan will be at least as much a problem as a blessing for Romney.  pl 

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-declares-paul-ryan-the-intellectual-leader-of-the-gop-20120811,0,35529.story

The search for "Tawheed" in Mali

"Islamists who control northern Mali have publicly amputated the hand of a man they accused of robbery, continuing an increasingly harsh application of what the vast region’s new masters consider sacred law.       

The amputation took place Wednesday morning in the small town of Ansongo, just downriver from the provincial capital, Gao, which is under the rule of an Islamist group, splintered off from Al Qaeda, called the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or Mujao. It was confirmed by a Mujao spokesman in Gao in a telephone interview, and by the Malian government in a statement later from Bamako, the capital.       

A witness in Ansongo said that the accused man’s hand was “placed on a sort of table,” in front of dozens of spectators, in the town’s main square. Then, “a gentleman with a sort of cutlass” — the witness described him as “an Arab” — swung hard, and sliced off the man’s hand, the witness said. “He cut it. There was a lot of blood.”       

“He held up the man’s hand for the people, like a sort of trophy,” the witness, a local teacher, said Thursday in a telephone interview from Ansongo. “He said, ‘God is great.’ It was barbaric.”" NY Times

-----------------------------

I wish I had a photo of this.  From experience I can tell you that it is a lot easier to do at the wrist.  NB that the group is called "The Movement for Oneness...."  (tawheed). 

Perhaps the US should sponsor this group as well.   pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/world/africa/islamists-in-northern-mali-amputate-mans-hand.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120810

A Romney foreign policy team

 

"Other rumored contenders for Romney's NSA are technocratic officials who have served in top policy positions in GOP administrations before, including former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman, former NSC Middle East staffer Elliott Abrams, or former State Department Policy Planning director Mitchell Reiss. Campaign aide Dan Senor, who has been closely advising Romney on all thing Middle East, could be in line for a deputy NSA slot, the kind of role Denis McDonoughplays in the current administration, some advisors say.

At the sub-cabinet level, even speculation is difficult because so much depends on who gets the cabinet level slots above. Senior advisor Rich Williamson seems like a natural choice for U.N. ambassador. But the roster of advisors jostling for other positions like deputy secretary of state, deputy defense secretary, under secretary of defense for policy, and others includes several Romney foreign-policy advisors, including former deputy NSA for Iraq and Afghanistan Meghan O'Sullivan, former under secretary of state Robert Joseph, former State Department counselor Eliot Cohen, former assistant secretary of state Stephen Rademaker, former Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim, and many, many more."  FP

--------------------------------

The president (Mr. covert action) is apparently ahead in nation wide polling.  That doesn't mean a lot but if things go that way we would be spared this horror.

With the exception of Eric Edelman (sorry Eric) I believe that this crew will merrily take the US back to war in one or more places.  That ought to finish off our economy.  So many countries, so few divisions... Oh.  we can fix that!  pl

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/09/who_will_get_top_jobs_in_a_romney_administration

Salah Al Din cleared of FSA

"The Free Syrian Army (FSA) has confirmed it has retreated from Salah al-Din, a densely packed area of narrow streets on the south-west side of Aleppo, where rebel fighters had been heavily dug in. State media had reported the army was in full control of the district, saying it had inflicted heavy losses on hundreds of "terrorist mercenaries". "We have staged a tactical withdrawal from Salah al-Din," rebel commander Hossam Abu Mohammed of the Dara al-Shahbaa Brigade in Aleppo told the AFP news agency by phone. "The district is completely empty of rebel fighters. Regime forces are now advancing into Salah al-Din."" BBC  

----------------------------------

The Beeb seems like a good source on this.  A lack of ammunition re-supply and exhaustion seem the most likely problems for the FSA.

IMO the government will proceed to clear one district after another.  In Damascus they then went house to house looking for their adversaries.

If they follow traditional patterns in a kesselschlacht like this, they will either make a tight cordon around the city to try to intercept fighters leaving the city or leave a corridor through which the enemy can run a "gauntlet of fire" trying to escape.  This latter course of action is always tricky since the enemy may escape in large numbers if the corridor is too wide.  the US Army learned that lesson in 1944 when the Falaise Pocket was insufficiently closed off.  pl

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19192413

http://dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Aug-09/183995-syria-rebels-stage-partial-pullout-from-aleppo-district.ashx#axzz231Jz4vEV

Discourse on SST

Yesterday I counseled someone who call himself RKKA against ad hominem attacks on correspondents here.  He/she has persisted in doing that and I solicit "votes" from the "village" as to whether or not banning is deserved. 

Offending text follows:

"Buying "The Troops" more and fancier stuff does not solve our main foreign policy problems, though that's the only kind of solution USG are really interested in. And writing stuff that would fit right into a marketing brochure on "more and fancier stuff for The Troops" will not improve the situation."   pl

Are the Saudis next?

The US MSM continue to"'drool" over the prospect of the downfall of the Syrian government, you know, the one with the seat in the UN.  A gradual escalation of media manipulation and covert action is moving towards a point at which the Assad government is destroyed.  The government may win the Battle for Aleppo but in the long run....

This struggle is being waged with the support of Saudi Arabia.  Money, materiel, hired trainers, political support for the FSA and AQ; All these "goodies" are being provided in the hope of creating a Sunni run state.

The Saudis should think carefully about this process.  They too fulfill all the criteria to become, perhaps inevitably, a target for the neocon/neo-Wilsonian "crusade" to rid the world of tyrants and tyranny..  They are a highly repressive police state.  They are oppressors of women, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Bahai, gays, etc.  They have no secular constitution.  The Qur'an is their constitution.  They have no civil criminal law code.  Sharia is their law code, Hanbali Sharia.  There ks no political process, no "due process," no democracy.  The country is run for their own benefit by a kleptocracy based on family and sycophancy.  There is, of course, no habeas corpus.

The US needs their oil?  Yes.  The Saudis should take little comfort from that.  It will be asked why such oppressors should have such wealth with which to accomplish rheir selfish, sinful and sybaritic ends.  There are many in Saudi Arabia who would be willing to rise up against the tyrants.

Happily for the Saudis, the US is come upon an era of oil and gas plenty in the Dakotas.  That might save the Saudis from the wrath of the righteous.  pl

"Operation Bonehead' By Richard Sale

Author of Clinton’s Secret Wars

The Aspen Security Forum meets every summer and features notable foreign policy officials such as Admiral William McRaven, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and Gen. Keith Alexander, head of the U.S. military’s cyber war efforts. During a discussion last week, participants were floored when Stephen Cambone, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s undersecretary of defense for intelligence, described the U.S. decision to invade Iraq in 2003 as, “one of the great strategic decisions of the first half of the 21st century, if … not the greatest.” He said the results of the decision resulted in “the aftershocks that you see flowing through the region, whether it be in Libya, or in Egypt, or now in Syria.” All the region’s latest developments “can be traced to it,” he said. As a piece of effrontery, this has perhaps few equals. Think about it for a minute. Imagine luring your country into a war based on false premises, on dubious and contaminated information to remove an Arab leader and destroy his nuclear weapons that were allegedly threatening the peace of the world.

Hillary on "toleration."

"PRETORIA:  Syria must not be allowed to descend into a sectarian war,  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday, and she warned against  "proxies or terrorist fighters" being sent in to join the conflict. 

"We have to set very clear expectations about avoiding sectarian warfare,"  Clinton said, answering a question on Syria during a news conference in the  South African capital Pretoria, her latest stop in a tour of Africa. 

"Those who are attempting to exploit the situation by sending in proxies or  terrorist fighters must realize that will not be tolerated, first and foremost  by the Syrian people," she added. 

The U.S. secretary of state made the comments as Syrian government forces  loyal to President Bashar al-Assad encircled rebels in the country's biggest  city of Aleppo.. 

She did not elaborate on her reference to "proxies or terrorist fighters" or  name any particular country or group."  The Daily Star

-------------------------------------

What the hell is she talking about? "That will not be tolerated?"  By whom would it not be tolerated, the USA, acting without UN sanction? Is this a reflection of the emergence of a "covert action state" mentality empowered by COIN defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan and an easy win in Libya against an easy target?

Somehow, a picture seems to be emerging.  It is not a good picture.  pl

Read more:  http://dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Aug-07/183747-clinton-warns-of-proxies-terrorists-coming-to-syria.ashx#ixzz22tdytPHR
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News ::  http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

Positioning the force at Aleppo

"Syrian rebels trying to fight off an army offensive in Aleppo said on  Tuesday they were running low on ammunition as President Bashar Assad's forces  encircled their stronghold at the southern entrance to the country's biggest  city.

Assad, dealt another political blow on Monday with the defection of his prime  minister, has reinforced his troops in preparation for an assault to recapture  rebel-held districts of Aleppo after repelling fighters from most of  Damascus.

"The Syrian army is trying to encircle us from two sides of Salaheddine,"  said Sheikh Tawfiq, one of the rebel commanders, referring to the southwestern  neighbourhood which has seen heavy fighting over the last week.

Mortar fire and tank shells exploded across the district early on Tuesday,  forcing rebel fighters to take cover in crumbling buildings and rubble-strewn  alleyways.

Tanks have entered parts of Salaheddine and army snipers, using the cover of  heavy bombardment, deployed on rooftops, hindering rebel movements."  Daily Star

---------------------------

As I expected the Syrian government is systematically sealing off the city of Aleppo as it brings up reinforcements.  If this is in preparation for an eventual assault to clear the rebel held parts of the town, then that is probably a winning method.  The rebels are running short of ammunition and food.  High rebel casualties will be a major benefit for the government.  There are a lot of Sunni young people arriving to join the FSA but they will be a hindrance rather than an asset in the short term until they can be trained.

None of this means that the Assad government will last forever, but the odds are improving that it will be around for a number of years.  pl

 

Read more:  http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Aug-07/183719-fierce-fighting-rocks-syrias-aleppo-observatory.ashx#ixzz22s7wvBck
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News ::  http://www.dailystar.com.lb)  

Syrian national TV bombed.

" ... the blast hit the third floor of its headquarters. It remained on the air despite the bombing. Monday's was not the first attack on the pro-government media in Syria.

On June 27, gunmen armed with explosives attacked the offices outside Damascus of the Al-Ikhbariya satellite channel, killing three journalists and four security guards.

"The terrorist groups stormed the offices of Al-Ikhbariya, planted explosives in the studios and blew them up along with the equipment," Zoabi said after that attack."   AFP

---------------------------

Hmm.  A bomb strikes the third floor of the headquarters of Syrian national TV several days after the Syrian Army clears Damascus of Free Syrian Army fighters..   A satellite TV facility was bombed earlier.  Buried in the news from Syria is the information that there have been a number of other bombing attacks on TV stations in Syria.

A bombing campaign against telecommunication networks makes good sense, even if such facilities are hard to gain access to for guerrillas.

What's next, military telecommunications?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j8rSD-PBguv5h3luq2tDyUkaCZ3w?docId=CNG.658cccda826a2bd3b512a293093807c1.8b1

Death from Above? - Basilisk

 

If you wanted to to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?

Why . . . no, sir!'

Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-Bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him . . . but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence. 

Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Death from Above was the motto of the Starship Troopers. It is said that Heinlein was influenced by the feats of the Fallshirmjaegerkorps in the Invasion of Crete and by the largescale airborne operations in Normandy,  Market Garden, and in the Phillipines. By 1959 when he wrote the book it was not such a great stretch. Space travel, yes, still in the future, but Sputnik was in orbit. The "bounce" was still a future capability but the mini-nukes were already in the inventory or at least designed, remember SADM, MADM, Davy Crockett?

Death from above, of course, is not limited to airborne forces. The war in Vietnam spurred the development of air-delivered weapons far beyond the tactical nuclear weapon. As Heinlein implied, somtimes wholesale destruction is not desirable. In April and May 1972 the 8TFW flying out of Ubon, Thailand, essentially destroyed the famous Thanh Hoa bridge in North Vietnam with less than  25 sorties carrying laser-guided bombs.

Predictably, some learned analyst from the RAND Corporation quickly pronounced that the very nature of war was changed forever by the advent of guided weapons. PAVEWAY was not the first guided weapon, nor did the nature of war really change, but we have certainly continued the development of  almost incredible capabilities.

We quickly proceeded to "dumb airplanes" with "smart bombs," and we're currently at the stage of "smart airplanes" with "smart bombs." Bombs need targets, so in the intelligence world we proceeded rather quickly from choosing DMPIs (desired mean point of impact) for multi-ship attacks, to "which window do you want me to put it in?"

With the current capabilities of the armed Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper, Heinlein's troopers would probably feel outgunned. In Waziristan these days there's no place where it's safe to have a meeting if you are a certain kind of individual. Some people scoff at the capabilities of the tactical UAVs, and it's true they are not very stealhy to radar, but if you don't have a radar they are not all that easy to detect. 

If you choose to hide inside a potent, highly integrated air defense environment it's no guarantee of invulnerabiltiy either. There are such things as the Advanced Cruise Missile launched from the redoubtable B-52, the ubquitous Tomahawk Cruise Missile from submarine and surface platforms, and, of course, if push comes to shove, the F-22 is not merely a long range fighter. It is a highly capable immensely stealthy platform capable of supersonic cruise, and capable of carrying the JDAM and the GBU-53 Small Diameter Bomb. Both are guided weapons with impresive accuracy.

It is not hard to imagine a single-ship mission deep into the heart of enemy territory to strike a single immensely valuable target. The nature of war has not changed, but the capability for "controlled, purposeful violence" has never been higher.--Basilisk

"Curiosity" thread on "The Athenaeum"

I have started a thread on TA to cover tonight's attempted landing..  Sadly, there will be no welcoming delegation from the Barsoomians to greet our surrogate.  pl

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2012/08/the-curiosity-landing.html

Kissinger on Arab Spring--Foresman

Over at the Washington Post, Henry Kissinger provides some insight into democratic transitions in the Middle East.  Regardless of your opinions Kissinger the man; his insights should be carefully considered.  HJFJR

 

"The United States can and should assist on the long journey toward societies based on civil tolerance and individual rights. But it cannot do so effectively by casting every conflict entirely in ideological terms. Our efforts must also be placed within a framework of U.S. strategic interests, which should help define the extent and nature of our role. Progress toward a world order embracing participatory governance and international cooperation requires the fortitude to work through intermediate stages. It also requires that the various aspirants to a new order in the Middle East recognize that our contribution to their efforts will be measured by their compatibility with our interests and values. For this, the realism and idealism we now treat as incompatible need to be reconciled."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-meshing-realism-and-idealism-in-syria-middle-east/2012/08/02/gJQAFkyHTX_story_2.html

 

Maybe October will be the cruelest month...

"Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of international relations at New York University's Center for Global Affairs, said Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak used the American visits to send a message to Tehran that Israel won't hesitate to take unilateral action. Ben-Meir cautions U.S. and other officials against seeing the Israeli threats as mere posturing, pointing out the profound national security concerns that shape Israeli defense policy and the country's unshakable faith that Washington will come to its rescue if a strike against Iran triggers retaliation by Tehran or its well-armed allies in the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia. "I don’t think Israel is bluffing entirely. There is an element of exaggerating its readiness to act and likelihood of winning. But many advisors to Prime Minister Netanyahu are saying that if he waits six or eight months, they may end up unable to do anything significant in terms of damage" to nuclear facilities that Iran has been moving underground to protect them from airstrikes, Ben-Meir said." LA Times

------------------------------------

Once again.  Israel, go for it!  If you think that you can't live with technologically advanced Muslim countries then hit Iran.  You go girl, er, country... You show them wogs what their place is...  at your feet, right?  After all, aren't you God's chosen people?  The stupid Americans will come in and clean up after you by finishing off the enemies of God.  And you better do it before November, 'cause Obama might win and then, he might be harder to control with campaign money and the threat of losing the election in a few places like Florida.  Romney, well, if only you could be sure...  pl  

 

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/08/iran-not-yet-on-verge-of-obtaining-nuclear-weapons-experts-say.html

The Afghan military is reverting to type

 

"After U.S. soldiers left Combat Outpost Conlon in February — packing up weapons, generators and portable toilets — their Afghan successors rushed to the American barracks and command center, eager to inspect their inheritance. The Afghans renamed Conlon in Dari and scrawled Koran verses on the walls. The base was now theirs, and they were proud." Washpost

-----------------------------

An old, old story.  If we could have stayed 200 years or maybe even 50 there might have been some significant change in the military.  That was never possible.  Any fool should have seen that was not possible politically.

They can't maintain what we left tham?  What a surprise!  We used contracters?  Yes, but a few decades ago we soldiers used to do much of what contracters do now.  We had no trouble doing that.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/months-after-americans-leave-an-afghan-base-in-disrepair/2012/08/02/gJQApMfzSX_story.html

 

A Sudan adventure?

 

"Now that the specter of mass starvation is looming in Sudan’s war zones, and Sudan’s cities are pulsating with demand for change, the international community must respond more creatively and forcefully, lest an outcome more like Syria than Libya result. If change can be achieved in Sudan, the country could become a catalyst for peace in the region, rather than the engine of war and terror it has been for nearly a quarter-century." Prendergast and Eggers

---------------------------

Does this sound familiar? I have always thought that the neocons are really a left internationalist movement disguised in conservative clothing. A famous neocon once said to me that the "con" in "neocon' is the "con" part. Of course in French the joke has yet another level of meaning. Now we have these two fellows, both apparrently on the the left who seem to be advocating US intervention in the Sudan to "make stright the way" and trigger even more revolution across the world. Could this be more jacobin? A commenter on this Washpost op-ed asks whse blood and treasure will be spent in the expedition these men are suggesting. Indeed, whose children would be fed to this Moloch? 

I ask myself if this is a trial balloon.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/keeping-sudan-from-becoming-another-syria/2012/08/02/gJQAXgrXSX_story.ht

Sir John Keegan 1934-2012 - Foresman

I learned reading the Telegraph this evening that Sir John Keegan has died.  His Face of Battle is a brilliant book.  In recent years I enjoyed his book on Intelligence and reading his pieces in the Telegraph when he was their Defence Correspondent.  Foresman

Iraqi sovereignty is a bitch.

"... the July 30 decision by the Iraqi central criminal court, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, ordered that Daqduq be freed immediately.  It also makes it clear that Iraq believes the legal case against him is over.

"It is not possible to hand him over because the charges were dropped in the same case," the three-judge panel ruled. "Therefore, the court decided to reject the request to hand over the Lebanese defendant Ali Mussa Daqduq to the U.S. judiciary authorities, and to release him immediately.""  Newsday

----------------------------t

Steven Cambone, the staff intellignce flunky for Rumsfeld in the Pentagon said las week that the US invasion in Iraq would be seen as a triumph of strategery because it had re-aligned thE ME to the beneift of the US.  It seems these Iraqi judges have not "gotten the word."  pl

http://www.newsday.com/news/world/iraq-blocks-us-extradition-for-hezbollah-commander-1.3877060

US aid to FSA?

"President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for
rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government,
sources familiar with the matter said.

Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad's armed opponents - a shift that intensified following last month's failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government." Yahoo News

-----------------------------

I haven't seen this in any other stories thus far.  Can it be that an effort is being made to keep this quiet?  I have no personal knowledge of this US government matter and so can comment.  The story says that the "finding" involved" dealt with non-lethal assistance, but also that the rebels have reeceived a couple  of dozen MANPAD shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles.  Provenance?  Who knows?  It will take more than these missiles to even the odds.

It is widely, wildly, jubilantly reported today that the rebels used a captured tank to attack an airport inside Aleppo.  whe it gets to be half a dozen tanks i will start to pay attention.

Rebel over-confidence led them to allow videos of their actions aginst prisoners to be put on the internet.  Americans and Euros are highly sensitive to a lack of moral purity in their proteges. 

Two things:  1.  The rebels will be more careful. 2. An effort wil be made to keep such material off Western media.

pl

http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-obama-authorizes-secret-support-syrian-rebels-010014457.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/02/syria-rebel-tank_n_1732100.html 

 

Syria atrocity videos

The Syrian rebels are good at PR,  They have TV production staff following them around so that they can post on the internet.  These productions of supposed government atrocities have influenced many of the gullible in the MSM.  Send me links of actual atrocities in the process of commission, not dead boies, crying children, complaining doctors, etc.  Either side will do.  Don't send me pictures of smoke over towns, aircraft firing or other normal combat.  pl

When hope was a policy...

Most Americans believe in the idea of the inevitability of "progress" in human affairs.  This belief is descended from the hubris of the "divines" among our puritan founders in New England and the eventual triumph in our history of their thinking.  There were competing idea systems but they lost in the struggle for supremacy that came to blows in 1861.  Since then the notion of a "city on a hill,"' a kind of earthly paradise divinely sanctioned for 'right thinkers" ha prevailed.  This is ironic in light of the simple truth that so many of the "right thinkers" are now unbelievers with regard to the Providence needed to give coherence to their assumptions concerning humanity.  Nevertheless, over the decades, indeed, now centuries, the "center of gravity" in US  thinking with regard to self-image as "savior" of mankind has grown stronger and stronger until we now reach a state of perfection in our own minds that is matched only by the defects in our present situation.

The foreign policy establishment of the US is now dominated by three groupings

1- The neocon/jacobin group who have an unlimited faith in American destiny as the world power, a force for world revolution in pursuit of ancient jacobin goals of "liberte, egalite, fratenite" and also a clear allegiance to Israel as America;s "friend."  The neocons believe that the US "won" in Iraqbecause there is revolution throughout the Arab Wordl.  They seem to believe that the outcome of revolution is irrelevant.

2- There has emerged  what for lack of a better term might be called the Tea Party hyper natonalist group.  For these people  everything is a case of "my country, may she always be in the right, but, my country right or wrong." (Stephen Decatur)  Stephen Colbert does a marvelous job of ridiculing this group, but then, they don't watch his program any more than they read SST.  Mitt Romney seeks their support through a pretentious display of mediocrity.

3- The last, and presently controlling, element in the Executive Branch is the liberal/internationalist/IR trained group.  These people see themselves as shepherds for mankind.  Theiy believe that the US should support and sponsor "democratic" revolution everywhere in the belief that "popular" revolution must lead to good things for the masses across the world.  The possibility that "popular" revolution may disguise itself and secretly harbor regressive political ambitions that can lead to theocracies and sectarian oppression is not given much credence by this group.  The people in this group were taught in university that professions of adherence to ancient idea systems are merely a "surface" illusion, beneath which lie essentially economic realities. They have some things in common with the neocons but are not as fonf of military intervention.  They are often called "neo-wilsonian."

The third group rules.  BHO, HC, Anne Marie Slaughter from Princeton and oh, so many others are firmly in this "camp."  As a result the US believes the drivel fed them by the MB in Egypt, thinks that Turkey is run by "moderates," accepts the idea that fighters in Syria are liberal democrats (like them),even as those these figters cry out for defeat of the "infidel' government and proudly wear the beards that are a symbol of their faith.  Support from the Saudi theocratic plutocracy for those fighters does not seem to have meaning for the the ruling group in the US.  Ah, I forgot, they think Saudi Arabia is a "firend" to the US.  maybe that is what BHO's bow was about.

It will be said in comments here that everything in American foreign policy is secretly about ne-colonialist economic looting.  Ah, well....

I see no particular benefit in foreign policy that would emerge from a Republican victory in November.  All three groups are sailing  aboard a "ship of fools."  pl