Hillary is still triangulating

She still wants a "no-fly zone" along the Turkish border in Syria.  As I have said before, only the Russian and Syrian governments have airplanes.  The jihadis do not have airplanes unless you want to count Turkey as among the supporters of jihadism.

Therefore, the "no fly zone" would be directed at Syria and Russia.

She and her "friends" want Syria and Russia to agree to creation of a rebel/jihadi sanctuary?

Excuse me? pl

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/19/politics/hillary-clinton-isis-speech/

Comments

[Tyler]

Make America Great Again or Big Grandma is gonna start a hot war with Russia and import poor little IS refugees to your street.

[Origin]

I guess the mind of the Borg is unanimous. http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=john+mccain+no-fly+zone&FORM=VIRE6#view=detail&mid=217542B50CEADDB5A4B4217542B50CEADDB5A4B4

[no one]

The Clinton foundation has received as much as $50 million from KSA and Gulfies. I guess that buys a no fly zone or two.

[toto]

Sir,

Are there any local, Sunni, non-jihadi forces in Eastern Syria that Western powers could ally with to fight ISIS ? Sort of like the Anbar Awakening in Iraq?

[turcopolier]

toto

Sure. there are Kurds and there are Sunni Arab tribes like the Shammar, but we screwed the Shammar after the awakening succeeded. we abandoned them in favor of the Shia run government that the Borg favored. we are trying to work with them now again but we are not as attractive as we once were. pl

[Fred]

Col.,

Do the Russians have any contacts within Iraq that date back to their days as military advisors that might give them some influence there beyond what they have gained working with the current Shia run government?

[turcopolier]

fred

So many Iraqis were trained in Soviet service schools that there must be some. Quite a few were also educated at British service schools. pl

[Liza]

I thought a comment posted by General Ali yesterday was particularly insightful: "What I find mind-boggling is the way public discourse public discourse in the US, especially the media, is so totally 'brainwashed'. I don't think it was this bad under the Soviets or in Nazi Germany."

The war in Syria is the prime example of this. The Syrian conflict is now rapidly coming to a close. The Vienna Conference reached an agreement that a ceasefire will begin by January 1st, Assad will remain in power, and elections will be held in 2017. The Russian-led military forces are completely decimating ISIS and other Takfiri groups. John Kerry said two days ago that fighting may end in two weeks. David Cameron has already announced that Great Britain will lead a "Friends of Syria" group to finance the reconstruction of Syria.

This is an unparalleled military and diplomatic achievement for Russia. Yet the US media has completely ignored the imminent end of the war.

Hillary Clinton's call for a no-fly zone reflects the American media's disconnection from reality. The press no longer has any foreign coverage, so political leaders can ignore inconvient truths. Only a day after the Vienna conference agreed that Assad would remain in power, David Cameron wrote on his website that he told President Putin at the G-20 summit that Assad must step down The difference between reality and the news presented in the American media is so vast that Americans now live "down the rabbit hole". I suspect our political leaders are now waiting for the Russian-led coalition to end the war so that they, with the acquiescence of the media, can claim to have won it.

Here is the link to Kerry's statement, which was reported in a Canadian paper:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/ceasefire-in-syria-could-be-only-weeks-away-kerry-says/article27291628/?service=mobile

[J]

Colonel,

According to Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov of the Russian General Staff, the Jihadists can't keep up burying their dead in accordance with Islamic tradition, the Jihadi commanders decided to dump the bodies of ordinary militants in sewage pits.

[Christopher Fay]

Government of Syria is the most readily at hand moderate force. But the Royale Kingdom and Israel demands Assad's head and a subjugated state.

[FB Ali]

See this piece on the Kurd-Sunni alliance cobbled together by the US:
http://tinyurl.com/p2rcnck

The real fighting force are the Kurds, the Sunni tribesmen are just window dressing. The Kurds are not going to fight IS except for areas that they can incorporate into a future Kurdish statelet (and that doesn't include Raqqa!).

[oofda]

Speaking of Russians- they have made a concerted effort in air strikes.
127 sorties in the last 24 hours…on 206 terrorist targets. The video shows Bear bombers- used for the first time in actual combat since they entered service in the 50’s. Next is the Blackjack, and then the Backfire bombers.

https://francais.rt.com/international/10640-syrie-frappes-russes-intensifiees

[João Carlos]

I am starting to believe that the real objective of the Borg is create the "empire of Chaos"...

[John]

Of course Borgessa wants to ground the Russian planes, they just bombed a 500 truck convoy carrying the oil funding ISIS. We held back doing this out of "humanitarian concern and fear of collateral damage" until last Monday and only took out a little over 100. The Russkies are messing with our long/short sell to both sides war merchant model. Comes to you from Goldman Sacks...sell the collateralized trash (color revolution anyone) to the rubes and short it at the same time. Bring on the hookers and blow, the money makes itself.

[Lisa]

Liza I love your optimism: "The Syrian conflict is now rapidly coming to a close.".

And IS, Al Nasra (and the rest of the Jihadist Army of God) are going to follow a ceasefire? Doubt it.

Is the supply of arms, men and material from the GCC (and US) to the jihadists going to stop? Doubt it.

The Coalition of the Terminally Insane (CoTI) the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and the minnows (Qaatar, UK, France, etc) will not waver from their 'strategy' of ending Syria as a functioning and secular state. They might pull back a bit for PR reasons but that is the limit.
Their idea of a 'ceasefire' is that the Syrian Army stops fighting and IS/AN/etc wins.....

The only thing that wll end it will be: (a) defeat of the Jihadists on the battlefield (b) coup in Turkey (c) coup (or collpase) in Saudi Arabia.

I suspect the planning for a coup in Turkey is well advanced by now, Erdogen has made way too many enemies (even the Chinese amazingly).

[different clue]

The irrational do-goodering desire to "remove Assad" goes far beyond the neoconservatives. Liberal and Leftist academics who are not the least bit neoconservative share it as well. For example, Professor Juan Cole right here at University of Michigan ended a recent comment with this last paragraph:

"President Obama is still correctly demanding that al-Assad step down (he has loads of blood on his hands), but it may be that his view is losing support in Europe, and the Realpolitic view of Vladimir Putin is coming up in the world."

OMG . . . really? Professor Cole is a very intelligent and learned man, but his liberal offendedness at all the "blood" on Assad's "hands" still prevents him from understanding that he faces the same hard binary choice we all face: that he is either with Assad or he is with the terrorists. He got some pushback in the comments against his support for Obama's petulant childish narcissistic demand that Assad step down. And Professor Cole is NOT a neoconservative, and never has been.

Here is a link to the whole comment, for those who just can't believe a liberal professor would still be against Assad, after everything that has happened.
http://www.juancole.com/2015/11/attacks-bolster-lesser.html

[different clue]

Lisa,

I am still emotionally attached to the phrase I invented for the CoTI and the minnows and that phrase is . . . the Axis of Jihad.

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

Robert Kagan (WSJ) on what US ought to do in Syria:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-crisis-of-world-order-1448052095?alg=y

[Chris Chuba]

Babak, is there anything special about Robert Kagan, he looks like just another drone of the Borg.

The painfully long WSJ article was just another rendition of ...
1. No fly zone with U.S. ground troops which is nominally billed as a means to protect Syrian refugees but is later revealed to be unabashedly a means to protect all of the rebel elements in Northern Syria.
2. Assad must go, while never stated, I am guessing that they actually want a full Baath party purge to go along with their endless WW2 analogies comparing this to de-Nazification. This of course would guarantee an Islamic state in any subsequent election.

And of course, just like a good neocon, or liberal interventionist, the most important thing the Borg want is that the U.S. HAS to take the leading role in all things M.E. He used the phrase, '[with U.S. ground troops] Assad now has to deal with new facts on the ground'.

BTW I am not being critical of you personally, it's just that I do not find this editorial remarkable at all except for its identical nature to the plans offered by any the member of the Borg, Hillary, Jeb, Rubio, Christie, Graham, etc. The only difference here is that he comes right out and admits that U.S. ground troops are required.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Yes, I think in Syria at least the choice is no longer between the good and bad but rather between the bad the worse.

Sort of like the Spanish Civil War.

[Origin]

There is something very special about Kagan. He is one of the high priests of the Cabal that feeds the Borg its thoughts. Read what Kagan publishes and in a few hours all of the Borgistas will be talking it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kagan

[Babak Makkinejad]

Thank you for your comments.

I know that you are not being critical of me personally or otherwise.

I posted that WSJ opinion because to me it was the very definition of insanity.

This man, lives a comfortable life in a boringly placid and characterless suburb, attends cocktails with like-minded people and generally lives in peace and tranquility.

He is the proverbial man living in a glass house that advocated throwing stones at others - all the while being oblivious that the course of action he advises could lead to the destruction of the United States and the way of life he is so used to and takes for granted.

That is what astonishes me about these people and their opinions; as though they - and the United States - are invincible and untouchable - like Siegfried, Esfandiyar, or Achilles.

And this man and his ilk have been the beneficiaries of the best education that money could buy. They cannot plead ignorance.

[Chris Chuba]

It is remarkable that there is broad consensus among the Washington elite on how to handle Syria.
I'll summarize how incredibly harmful the implementation of their plan is.
1. A no fly zone with or without U.S. occupation would not offer a haven for refugees but would only guarantee the survival of Jihadist rebel groups and prevent the defeat of ISIS.
2. The subsequent stalemate where Assad's coalition cannot advance against them or ISIS and they cannot oust ISIS would guarantee a partition of Syria, the EXACT thing they accuse the Russians of planning. In fact, they would blame it on the Russians for not forcing Assad to step down.

A partitioned Syria, as opposed to the Syria where ISIS is defeated and then there is multi-party election including Assad's Baath party, would create a Sunni state that would ALWAYS be susceptible to turning into ISIS 2 once the occupation is lifted. In fact, ISIS would survive in all of its affiliates because they could claim that they were never defeated and their eschatology was not proven false. A defeat in Syria by Russian backed SAA forces would prove ISIS's eschatology false and be a devastating blow.

I am really hoping for the success of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, I think he understands how important it is to have a local force to defeat ISIS rather than an 'external coalition of Sunni armies'.

[rjj]

"High priest ... Cabal ...."

what we hoi polloi call a circle jerk.

[David Habakkuk]

Chris Chuba, Babak Makkinejad,

Kagan writes about Europeans:

'They failed to arm themselves for the jungle, materially and spiritually, and now that the jungle has entered the European garden, they are at a loss.'

If he bothered to spend a couple of hours looking at comments on the 'Express', 'Mail' or 'Telegraph', he would discover their authors aren't at a loss at all.

What they are saying, time and again, is 'go get 'em, Vlad'. The last thing anyone wants is American leadership, and least of all, American leadership along the lines recommended by Kagan. The contempt for Obama, and Cameron, is pervasive.

The change in the tone of comments in the 'Financial Times' is almost equally striking.

A recent article in the paper was entitled: 'The west cannot trade Ukraine for help in Syria: An anti-terror alliance with Russia must have clear goals and limits.'

It included the paragraph:

'Conditions for an alliance in Syria should include commitments from Russia to concentrate its forces on attacking Isis positions. There should be agreement that while every effort is made to preserve Syria's state institutions, any settlement should include the departure of president Bashar al-Assad, even if after a transition period.'

The top-rated comment, from someone calling themselves 'AllergicToBS', read:

'Another article prescribing a one-sided solution. The West carries on as usual, Russia makes compromises for the right to join with us. Oh the arrogance of fools!'

(See https://next.ft.com/content/297b724c-8f85-11e5-a549-b89a1dfede9b#comments .)

What Kagan simply cannot grasp is the dramatic nature of the shifts of opinion underway.

He 'carries on as usual', as indeed 'the Borg' as a whole does, without realising the scale of these shifts. What kind of outcomes these will produce is unpredictable. It could be a massive improvement – but then it might not be: we might just jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

But for one of the principal cheerleaders of the invasion of Iraq, which set the processes now underway in motion, essentially to ask for 'more of the same', is little short of surreal.

'Oh the arrogance of fools!'