Sic Semper Tyrannis

Hypocrisy and the Surveillance Hawks - TTG

So now, with yesterday’s (30 December) WSJ report, we witness the tawdry spectacle of large numbers of people who for years were fine with, responsible for, and even giddy about NSA mass surveillance suddenly objecting. Now they’ve learned that they themselves, or the officials of the foreign country they most love, have been caught up in this surveillance dragnet, and they can hardly contain their indignation. Overnight, privacy is of the highest value because now it’s their privacy, rather than just yours, that is invaded.

What happened to all the dismissive lectures about how if you’ve done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide? Is that still applicable? Or is it that these members of the U.S. Congress who conspired with Netanyahu and AIPAC over how to sabotage the U.S. government’s Iran Deal feel they did do something wrong and are angry about having been monitored for that reason? - Glenn Greenwald in “The Intercept”

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Adam Entous, the author of the Wall Street Journal article (behind a paywall), described the situation in an interview with Gwen Ifill. In this interview, Entous describes how the White House decided to limit collection on some allies, but continued collection on Netanyahu was a no brainer. He was doing his best to subvert our political process and scuttle the Iran deal at the time. To not bring all our surveillance capabilities to bear on Israel would have been egregiously negligent. Entous also mentioned NSA’s use of minimize in their reports of recorded conversations between Netanyahu’s aides and the Congress critters. That means the Congress critters weren’t identified by name. They were referred to as U.S. Person #1, U.S. Person #2 and so on. That’s standard practice.

The same Congress critters who fought for years to maintain NSA’s programs to collect it all on U.S. citizens are now harumphing in the most exuberant fashion about their conversations being caught in the dragnet. Unfortunately, I doubt these sorry bastards have the sentience to realize the ridiculousness of their positions.

 I’m damn proud that we continued collecting on Israel, Turkey and probably many more of our supposed allies. I wasn’t bothered about tapping Merkel’s phone either. It was somewhat embarrassing when we were caught, but that’s the nature of the business. I expect the Germans to do the same to us, just as the Israelis do. It’s up to each country to protect their own communications… and to protect their people. In the U.S. that means mandating and encouraging more protection for our information and communications. I’ve said it before. We need ubiquitous encryption.

TTG

 

Wars of all against all.

 

"A war seen by the United States as primarily aimed at preventing future terrorist attacks in America is being prosecuted for very different reasons by the diverse assortment of Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni fighters battling in both Iraq and Syria, often in pursuit of competing agendas that work to subvert the goal of defeating the militants.

In northern Iraq and Syria, Kurds are busily carving out the borders to new Kurdish enclaves. Shiite militias, now the most powerful force in Iraq, are extending their reach deep into traditionally Sunni areas of northern Iraq. The Syrian government is focusing its energies on reclaiming land seized by its opponents during the five-year-old rebellion against it, while deeply divided Syrian rebels in turn are fighting a two-front war to hold their ground against both the government and the Islamic State."  Washpost

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To paraphrase Colin Powell in the days when he sounded sane rather than a mere "member of the team" for Georgie Bush, the US broke the ME and now we should "own it" but are incapable of doing so.  We de-stabilized all those bad, bad dictators who used to keep order in the nursery and now a nursery fight with deadly hatreds and weapons has created a Hobbesian world of chaotic struggle in the non-system.

The old imperial powers came to understand that the peoples they ruled had to be kept from killing each other.  If that meant breaking some of the harder heads...  The post-colonial autocrats understood the same thing.  American and European liberals have not understood that and still do not.  As a result we have now the spectacle of John Kerry (who occasionally sounds like an adult) trying to paste together a "peace conference" for Syria that aspires to find common ground among the various prides of lions.

The economic determinists and self justifying Middle Easterners will insist that it is the evil plotting of the West that has brought this sorry pass but,  there is no peace and there will be none for a long time.

President Sisi and the Egyptian Army saved their country from this chaos.  Does no one recognize that?  pl  

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/on-the-front-lines-of-the-war-against-the-islamic-state-a-tangled-web/2015/12/30/d944925a-9244-11e5-befa-99ceebcbb272_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_border-10pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Iraqi forces still s--k.

 

"... even in victory, roughly 30 percent of Ramadi remains under ISIS control, the officials said.

The Iraqi Security Forces “aren’t doing house cleaning. I don’t think they have the depth, experience, or numbers to be able to consistently conduct clearance operations in contested, urban areas,” said Christopher Harmer, a naval analyst at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. “It appears that they are approaching the fight, and when it exceeds their capabilities calling in American airstrikes. It takes a long time and there are severe limitations with that kind of warfare.”

The early figures provided by the Pentagon also suggest that conventional Iraqi forces were not engaged in prolonged fighting. Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Army Col. Steven Warren told reporters Tuesday that the Iraqi Security Forces took less than 50 casualties; that there was no indication of ISIS fighters being captured; and that the airstrikes were 80 percent of the reason the city fell."  Daily Beast

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Well, well, I have seen troops act like this before.  Units that do not have any real confidence in themselves or their leaders act like this.  They advance to contact and when it is made halt in place, hunker down and call in enough air to remove the contact with the enemy.  They then move cautiously, very cautiously forward to see if the opposition has left.  I would rate units that behave like that as combat ineffective.  Three men with a radio and a laser designator can do the same thing.  This does not require 10,000 men.  This is the number that Iraq employed at Ramadi to "defeat"  a 300 to 500 man IS rear guard.  Ready for prime time?  Hell no!

At the same time the panoply of varied ISF, police troops, Shia militias and Sunni Arab tribal fighters led by their sheikhs all seem to be hostile to each other and politically unable to cooperate with each other.

This is quite different from the situation in Syria where the R+6 forces fighting the rebels and IS seem well coordinated.

It should be pointed out that the statements being made by various spokesweasels in the Pentagon do not correspond to reality and they must know that.  These officers are waging "Mind War" against the American people seeking to hold support for the BHO Administration's policy by propagandizing the American people.

We have fallen a long way since the days when Marshall was the guardian of the flame of honor.  For shame!  pl

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/30/how-isis-actually-lost-ramadi.html

Syrian rebels' political demands.

 "Character of future Syrian state: The SOC, FSA, and Ahrar al-Sham agree on the desire for a unified, independent, and sovereign Syrian state. The character of this state, however, is the subject of much debate. Ahrar al-Sham, desires an Islamic state in Syria. As such, Ahrar al-Sham is against the establishment of a democratic and pluralistic Syrian state pursued by the SOC and the FSA. Ahrar al-Sham will only permit an electoral process to select candidates responsible for ensuring the implementation of Sharia law, although “voting on the sovereignty of sharia” is unacceptable.

The future Syrian judiciary: In accordance with disagreements regarding the character of a future Syrian state, Salafi-jihadist and Salafist groups pursue a post-Assad state ruled by Sharia law, and likely desire a Sharia court-based structure rather than a municipal system. The character of the future Syrian judiciary is not specified by most of the rest of the Syrian opposition; most groups merely call for a future judiciary to be independent from any future head of state. This ambiguity leaves space for those hardline, armed opposition elements with a determined vision for a Sharia-based future judiciary in Syria to shape future judicial structures.

Full destruction of the regime: Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) and other allied jihadist elements such as Jund al-Aqsa and Hizb al-Tahrir rejected the Riyadh conference and denied the possibility of any truce or political settlement with the Syrian regime. These groups maintain maximalist demands, including the full destruction of the Syrian regime and all of its institutions. JN’s leader Abu Muhammad al-Joulani accused those groups that were in attendance at Riyadh of committing “treason” and suggested they do not possess “the ability to implement things on the ground.” JN also held at least one demonstration against the Riyadh conference in Northwestern Syria." 

http://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/syrian-opposition%E2%80%99s-political-demands?utm_source=The+Syrian+Opposition%27s+Political+Demands&utm_campaign=The+Syrian+Opposition%27s+Political+Demands&utm_medium=email

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 The groups that want this have been supported by the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.  pl

George Washington, Valley Forge, and the Reification Fallacy. (By Matthew)

A  few years ago, I took a deposition in a shabby hotel in the magnificently named town of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The town may be famous for its mall (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Prussia_Mall), but its real value lies in its proximity to Valley Forge.  To my mind, Valley Forge is our Bethlehem.  At Valley Forge, the trinity of the army, the nation, and the cause merged into one man.  For anyone else except George Washington, this claim would be an absurd example of a garden-variety reification fallacy.   See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy).

But George Washington the symbol is actually the same as George Washington the man.   And Valley Forge National Park proves it. 

The National Park Service overseas this sacred site. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Forge. The Park’s emotional center is the array of (rebuilt) small log cabins, where often shoeless Continentals froze during the winter of 1777-1778.  These cramped, primitive structures are almost a perfect metaphor for state of the Continental Army during that cruel winter.  However, any emotions of sympathy felt by a visitor quickly turn to anger when you consider Valley Forge lies in Philadelphia’s shadow.  And Washington’s men starved while British soldiers rested comfortably in winter quarters, often being entertained in the homes of the “best families” of the City of Brotherly Love. Many of those “good people” enriched themselves by supplying both General George Washington and British General William Howe.  Alas, seasons come and go, but the fence-sitters will always be with us.

Maintaining the Continental Army at Valley Forge was (IMHO) the second of Washington’s three great achievements. The first was steadying some of General Braddock’s panicked troops during the catastrophic Battle of Monongehela on July 9, 1755.

 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braddock_Expedition.  According to Ron Chernow in “Washington:  A Life,” Colonel Washington was appalled by the complete collapse of discipline that beset the Redcoats once their officers began falling. See http://www.amazon.com/Washington-A-Life-Ron-Chernow/dp/0143119966.  In the disorder, Redcoats fired into their own ranks and into the ranks of allied colonial militiamen.  

Facing almost certain annihilation, Washington steadied a remnant and his grace under fire allowed them to disengage and survive. Although he was only 23, the youthful Colonel Washington was already the father of the man (General Washington) who similarly steadied his retreating forces at the Battle of Monmouth on July 28, 1778. 

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monmouth.

Thanks to Washington, the city that now bears his name governs the richest and most powerful nation on Earth. That city in our time thrives despite the arrogance, veniality, and deceitfulness of its residents. But unlike Washington’s era, our time is one of obfuscation and exaggerated threats.   Politicians, for example, blabber about the jihadi menace as an “existential fight for our survival,” but then cynically recast extremists like Zahran Alloush as “moderates.” For those of you who may have wet a hanky over this recently departed “freedom fighter,” remember he was accused of putting Alawite women in cages as human shields.  Here is some background on his group:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaysh_al-Islam.

Back to Washington.

Washington’s third great achievement was retiring at height of his power and prestige. We often overlook the magnitude of this act.  He could have been president for as long as he wanted. Instead, he returned to Mount Vernon.  Scan the globe for similar examples.  They are few indeed.

Washington was the Revolution made flesh. He was the necessary First and Greatest American.  And by retiring, he foreclosed in our collective mind the idea that any subsequent American is—or should be--indispensible.  The man became the idea and then became the man again.

Now that is truly exceptional.

 

--Matthew

The latest and greatest from Syria and Iraq

"At least 130, mostly wounded, rebel fighters left the town of Zabadani for the nearby Lebanese border at the same time as 350 fighters and civilians from pro-government besieged Shi'ite towns in northwestern Syria headed for the Turkish border.

Under the deal, the fighters from the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham group and other local Syrian rebel factions holed up in Zabadani for months have been promised safe passage to Beirut airport and then on to Turkey.

At the same time, families and fighters in two besieged Shi'ite towns in the mainly rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib were heading to Turkey and were then due to fly to Beirut.

Relief workers and rebel fighters helped carry several young men in wheelchairs onto ambulances in a square in Zabadani, one witness told Reuters.

The once popular resort city, northwest of the capital Damascus, was one of the rebels' last strongholds along the border. Before the 2011 outbreak of the Syrian conflict it had also formed part of a supply route for weapons sent by Syria to the Lebanese Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah.

Much of the town was devastated in a major offensive launched in July against the insurgents by the Syrian army and its Hezbollah allies."  Reuters

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 Zabadani was truly the last bastion of the rebels/jihadis in the Anti-Lebanon.  You can be sure that the Lebanese will make sure these people are all flown to Turkey where their friend Sultan Tayyip will feed them back into the coming meat grinder in Idlib Province. 

That kesselschlacht battle is being carefully prepared with a new Syrian force being formed up just for the task.  This main effort will be heavily supported with Russian artillery of various kinds and a large contribution from Russian air.

The two Shia towns Kafiriya and Fou'a are in the upper right part of the image next to the M5 corridor.  I don't know if they are 12er or 7er Shia.  I learned recently that there are 7ers (Ismaili) in this part of Syria.  These are actual Shia as opposed to Alawis.  They will go around through Turkey into government held Syria through Beirut International Airport. 

The Borgist press is, of course, trying to make Iraqi government control of Ramadi sound like a great victory.  In fact IS withdrew from the place leaving behind 300-500 men to make life difficult.  It took 10,000 men and a mass of air power to overcome this minimal resistance.  Let's see what happens next   pl 

http://in.reuters.com/article/mideast-crisis-syria-evacuation-idINKBN0UB04N20151228

The Kurds Seize Tishreen Dam - TTG

On 23 December, the primarily Kurdish forces of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) began an operation south of Kobane to take control of the Tishreen Dam over the Euphrates River. Today several sources report the dam to be completely controlled by the SDF and rumors abound of Kurds on the west bank of the Euphrates poised to push towards Manbij. This interview with a YPG commander participating in this offensive appeared in the twitter feed of one A Dunon (@4rj1n) as the operation began.

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ANHA (Hanar News Agency) interviews SDF commander Dijwar Xebat (member of YPG) regarding latest operation south of Kobane.

ANHA: How high is the level of Arab participation?

DX: 30% of those participating are Arabs. [Arabs in YPG + Arabs in local FSA groups].

ANHA: Do you coordinate with the Coalition?

DX: Yes and we got material support. They carry out airstrikes, but we believe they can do more.

ANHA: Has Russia tried to coordinate with the SDF?

DX: No,we know Russia carried out airstrikes in Raqqa, but right now there is no coordination.

ANHA: Do you have contact with the villages you are going liberate?

DX: We tell all to not support ISIS. Many asked us speed up liberation.

ANHA: Turkey says crossing Euphrates is a red line, will you cross the river?

DX: SDF will go wherever it's necessary [to fight ISIS]. 

ANHA: Turkey says crossing Euphrates is a red line, will you cross the river?

DX: Turkey had many red lines, but could not do anything.

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The offensive began with the capture of a massive IS underground tunnel network south of Sirrin. These tunnel networks have become a hallmark of IS operations. The capture of the Tishreen Dam severs the shortest route between Jarabulus and Raqqa. The remaining LOC must now pass south of Lake Assad. SDF/YPG forces also control the electric power station that supplies all of Aleppo province. They intend to route some of that power to Kobane.

The offensive appears to be well coordinated and supplied. CENTCOM reported many strikes in and around Manbij as well as in direct support of the advancing SDF. The Russians may also be striking Manbij. Photos and videos of SDF kit now show late model pickups and trucks, many sporting the twin 23mm barrels of the ZU-23-2. Thankfully, the light infantry are still lightly armed and armored. Intelligence operations in IS controlled territory are also improving. In addition to what the SDF commander reported above, IS found it necessary to execute a score of Kurds in Manbij for passing information to the enemy. Perhaps the Pentagon and CENTCOM have decided to let the few teams of Green Berets operating in the area do their job without interference from above. Hallelujah!

This offensive is well outside the range of artillery interdiction from Turkey and, thanks to the R+6 imposed Turkish no-fly zone, the Turks cannot provide air interdiction for their IS brethren. If the SDF pushes west towards Manbij and the R+6 pushes east from Aleppo, the question of Jarabulus becomes moot.

TTG

Turkey continues massive trade in IS oil

The Russian Ministry of Defense continues to present briefings of the action against IS and other mostly jihadi rebels in Syria as well as against the continuing massive Turkish/IS oil trade.  The photographic evidence of the scope of this trade is impressive. 

What emerges from these briefings is the impression that the US led coalition is doing nothing serious about this trade which is largely destined for re-shipment from Turkish ports in the international "spot market."

One must ask cui bono?  pl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzYHp2KiD6c

Ceasefire!, well not in Ramadi...

"... safe passage would be given from the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk on the outskirts of Damascus and neighboring Hajar al-Aswad.

The families and some fighters will be taken to the ultra-hardline militant group's stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria and other ISIS-controlled areas over several months, ultimately ending the group's presence in areas near the Syrian capital.

ISIS has had a significant foothold in Hajar al-Aswad, just a few kilometers from President Bashar Assad's seat of power.  Reuters.  Daily Star

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 During his pre-Hawaii presser Obama said something about wanting "more ceasefires" in Syria as part of his master plan.  To say that he and Assad share the same goal in this would be an understatement.  Of course this cease-fire and removal of the rebels (in this case IS rebels) will leave the government in charge of yet another piece of ground.

There are other rebel held pockets in the Damascus environs, pockets that are held by non-IS jihadi rebels.   IMO these will be under even greater pressure with the removal of the people in this IS held pocket.  Look to see more ceasefires with concomitant government recovery of territory and population.  IMO this is yet another example of developing history following the line suggested in "Jihadi Apocalypse."

Meanwhile over in Iraq the Iraqi police troops trying to take Ramadi are making slow, slow, progress.   There is a lot of happy talk on the tube by active duty and retired officers who are really acting as Obama Administration propagandists in the big IO show.  but, there is now a blizzard of leaflets falling over IS held parts of Ramadi.  These tell civilians to leave.  IMO this foreshadows what Ted Cruz likes to call "carpet bombing."  B-1s, B-2s, B-52s.  pl   

http://dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Dec-24/328869-families-of-isis-fighters-to-leave-south-damascus-in-un-deal-monitor.ashx

ISW year's end analysis of operations in Syria.

"The direct intervention of Russia into the Syrian Civil War has shifted battlefield momentum in favor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since ISW published its last Control of Terrain in Syria Map in mid-September. Russia began its air campaign in Syria on September 30, enabling the regime to mount renewed offensives against opposition-held terrain throughout Western Syria. In Aleppo Province, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and associated proxy forces launched a multipronged offensive on October 15 that has seized large swaths of rebel-held terrain in the southern countryside of Aleppo City, threatening to sever the strategic M5 Highway. Meanwhile, pro-regime forces relieved the besieged Kuweires Airbase in Eastern Aleppo Province on November 10 in a key symbolic victory that positioned the regime to exploit future U.S.-led coalition operations against ISIS along the Syrian-Turkish border. The regime also achieved tactical gains against the opposition in Northeastern Latakia Province and parts of Northern Hama Province as well as the Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus.

 

The regime nonetheless suffers from chronic shortages of manpower that render it unable to fully capitalize upon the expanded support provided by Russia and Iran. Rebel factions seized the town of Morek in Northern Hama Province on November 5, securing a strategic position directly north of Hama City. Regime forces have also struggled to repel repeated incursions by ISIS into Central Syria despite the presence of Russian airpower. ISIS temporarily severed the vulnerable regime ground line of communication to Aleppo City in October, disrupting ongoing operations in Southern Aleppo Province. ISIS also engaged in back-and-forth battles over the town of Mahin in the Eastern Qalamoun Mountains over the past two months, threatening to disrupt the M5 Highway between Damascus and Homs City. ISIS currently retains its position in Mahin despite the deployment of Russian helicopter gunships to the region."  ISW

 

http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/control-terrain-syria-december-23-2015

 

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This will not be greeted as a Christmas card by the Obama administration.  The only worrisome thing in this analysis from the POV of the previous opinion of the course of the war here at SST is the business of the supposed "chronic shortage of manpower."  If this analysis is valid then I expect that we will see the direct intervention of Russian ground forces in the next months.  the instances of gains by the rebels that are cited were all passing events that were quickly reversed.  Russia continues to focused on achieving a negotiating position that excludes all jihadi groups from the talks.  I continue to think that in the near future we will see a sudden collapse of rebel activity in NW Syria.  pl  

Posting comments on SST

Anyone having problems with the "send" function?  pl

Search Module Added to SST

Check it out!  pl

"Fighting Joe" Dunford, USMC

Dunford?  What think we of him?  More importantly, does Puller still mean something to the USMC?  pl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Dunford

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesty_Puller

"Christmas in Killarney" Dempsey and the 1st AD band

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kxc5Inqo7U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfmhyOA2osk

pl

Hersh article on the JCS, the Borg and Syria

"The military’s resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria’s takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya. A former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document was an ‘all-source’ appraisal, drawing on information from signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the Obama administration’s insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups. By then, the CIA had been conspiring for more than a year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to ship guns and goods – to be used for the overthrow of Assad – from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria. The new intelligence estimate singled out Turkey as a major impediment to Obama’s Syria policy. The document showed, the adviser said, ‘that what was started as a covert US programme to arm and support the moderate rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, and had morphed into an across-the-board technical, arms and logistical programme for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State. The so-called moderates had evaporated and the Free Syrian Army was a rump group stationed at an airbase in Turkey.’ The assessment was bleak: there was no viable ‘moderate’ opposition to Assad, and the US was arming extremists."  Sy Hersh

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You will probably be surprised but I am not.  George Marshall abstained from telling FDR a variety of things in spite of his friendship with the president.  He believed FDR was too likely to tell real secrets to his political cronies to be told everything.  pl

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military

 

UN Resolution on Syria - TTG

Earlier this week many here wondered if Kerry went off the reservation when he announced that the US was no longer seeking regime change and the removal of Assad in Syria. If Nuland sought to take back Kerry’s words and make him eat crow again, she failed. Kerry chaired a meeting of the UNSC to discuss and vote on a new peace plan 

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The Council called for a Syrian-led political process facilitated by the UN to establish within six months “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance,” setting a schedule for drafting a new constitution, with free and fair elections to be held within 18 months under UN supervision with all Syrians, including members of the diaspora, eligible to vote. It acknowledged the close linkage between a ceasefire and a parallel political process, with the former to come into effect as soon as the sides have begun initial steps towards a political transition under UN auspices.  (UN News Centre)

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The resolution came after Russia and the United States clinched a deal on a text. The two powers have had very different views on what should happen in Syria, where Islamic State militants control considerable territory that Western governments suspect has been a launch pad for attacks on Western nations and Russia. Kerry made clear that there were still differences on the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Russia and Iran who Western countries want ousted. "We are under no illusions about the obstacles that exist. There obviously remain sharp differences within the international community, especially about the future of President Assad," Kerry added.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said about the resolution: "This is a clear response to attempts to impose a solution from the outside on Syrians on any issues, including those regarding its president."

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the talks between the Syrian government and opposition would only succeed if there were credible guarantees on Assad's departure. There must be "guarantees on the departure of Bashar al-Assad," he said. "How could this man unite a people that he has in part massacred? The idea that he could once again stand for elections is unacceptable to us."

The resolution does not touch on the question of Assad's fate. (Reuters)

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It is clear to me that Kerry is deliberately working with Lavrov to seek a sensible solution to the mess in Syria and that Obama is, at a minimum, letting him do so. Sure the bands of howler monkeys are still in the trees raising a ruckus and flinging their poo, but the big boys led by Lavrov are ignoring this annoyance. They are trying to create the conditions necessary for the return of the great purple assed mandrill of peace.

The R+6 will continue to shape the situation on the ground in Syria as they shape the political discussions at the UN. Iran has decided to unify its stance on Assad with Russia. They are not saying Assad must stay, but that the question is up to the Syrian people. This is the position even Assad seems to accept judging by this interview with a Dutch news show. As you watch the interview take special note of Assad’s comments at the twelve minute mark when the interviewer told him of Kerry’s new position on the “Assad must go” question and that the French now see him as part of the solution. Such mirth and sarcasm cannot be going over too well among the witches of Nuland’s coven. Good.

TTG

Be careful this Christmas season.

Be careful this Holiday Season.  Pay attention to your surroundings.  Our jihadi enemies will have found this period of particular devotion among Christians to be a tempting target.

Be careful!  pl

Iraq Declines US Offer ...

 

Ashton Carter was told in Baghdad in the last few days that the Iraqi government does not want US troops or US manned attack helicopters to be sent to help them at Ramadi.

John Kirby, the State Department shill was on MJ this morning blathering on about how everything is "going well." 

Things are not going well, and the media cretins are still spouting the meme that Putin and Assad are BAD!  BAD!  BAD!

pl

  

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/world/middleeast/ashton-carter-iraqi-officials-isis.html?_r=0 

Romney, business and the presidency - republished 18 December 2015

"Paradoxically, the bar was high for Mitt Romney's speech to the Republican convention not because much was expected of him but because it was not.

In six years of campaigning for the presidency, he has managed to leave such a hazy and sour impression in the minds of the mass of American voters that he is barely regarded as a human being. In the days and hours leading up to Romney's big moment, delegate after delegate at the convention told me, with a glint of panicked hope in their eyes, that in Romney's speech he would finally have a chance to introduce himself -- to seem real, to be understood."  The Atlantic

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I didn't watch any of the convention and will not watch the infomercial in NC either.  In my distant youth, national political conventions were fun.  The issues were settled in lovely smoke filled rooms.  Demonstrations marched about the hall and journalists of high reputation presided over black and white images that they clearly did not take seriously.  Now.....  Sigh....  The commercializtion of America is nearly complete, as is the momification, the political cleansing, etc.  As part of that, the idea has taken hold that politics is merely a sub-division of marketing.  People prattle of "market shares,"  "media markets,"  TV "buys,"  and above all "branding," as though we are engaged in buying f-----g toothpaste.  The old guys on Mt. Rushmore would not be pleased.

Included in this mess is the notion, seemingly accepted by all that the president is the "commander in chief" of the United States.  He is not.  He is commander in chief of the armed forces.  He has no more right outside civilian law to command civilians than does Alfred E. Newman.  (Look it up) 

An even more egregious folly is the notion that the president of the US is CEO of the USA.  The United States of America is nothing like a business corporation.  I have been in government as a civilian and I have been in business as a corporate officer of a large international company and I assure you that business and government are not alike at the top in the USA.

The CEO of a large corporation has freedom of action within the guidance of the board of directors of the company.  He/she is hired to make money for the company.  Other than going to jail, the only thing the board of directors is concerned with is the bottom line on the balance sheet that represents the only reason for the company's existence.  This is MONEY.  How much money (profit) did we make this year and how much are we likely to make next year?  Those are the only really important questions for a business.  General Motors does not exist to make vehicles.  It exists to make PROFITS.  If that does not occur then the board and/or the stockholders get a new CEO.  Until that happens the CEO has a free hand to make money for the owners doing pretty much what he/she wants to do.

The president of the US exists within a very different system.  He does not have a free hand, except perhaps within the bounds of certain foreign policy and war making features that originated in the Cold War.  The constitution of the US created a system designed to limit power, not to enable it.  The assumption was that the power of those who have the money and guns is unlimited unless it is restrained by law. In the president's world, the board (Congress) sits every day properly watching to insure that the non-CEO president does not exceed the standing and ever  changing authorizations of power and money that the Congress grants or has granted.  In BHO's case the Republicans in Congress began to limit his freedom of action within weeks of the inaugural. They have never ceased to do so and will continue if he is re-elected.  In Romney's case, his cretin business friends seem to believe, as does he, that he would arrive in Washington with the discretionary power of a corporate CEO.  He would not.  Unless the Republicans win the presidency and control of both houses of Congress, Romney will be in the same position that BHO has been in for four years.  "Payback is a bitch."  What do they think Romney is going to do, stage a coup against the Congress?

Government does not have a "bottom line" in the business sense.  The US Government is not like a third world government.  Individuals can measure how much they made from government contracts, but the government itself is a "cost center" (business speak) not a "profit center."  It is a non-profit entity that provides services without earning money to pay for them other than fees at parks and similar trivialities.  It gets its money by a levee on the consumers of the services.  It also borrows money and has the ability, along wth banks, to create money by simply putting the right numbers on paper.

In this set up, how would Romney and the Republicans measure their "success?"  Would it be by any growth that occurred in GDP?  Would it be by reduction in expenditure for social services?  Great!  Let's see them do it!  pl

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/mitt-romney-capitalist-saint/261823/

Yahya McCain is unhappy with Kerry

The senior  senator from Arizona (and Washington advocate for the non IS rebels and jihadis) took the floor in the US Senate today to denounce Secretary of State John (Winter Soldier) Kerry for his apparent willingness to compromise with the Russians in the matter of a possible future peace in Syria.

Long ago I had a senior civilian colleague in DIA who hated the Soviets with passion and bitterness..   She had an equivalent position to mine, but hers was altogether concerned with the USSR.  She was so obsessed with the Sovs that it truly clouded her judgment, caused her to deny the possibility of Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, to deny the possibility of Soviet collapse and in so doing she placed the Director of DIA, a good and effective man, in deep jeopardy in the jungle world of Washington.

It took me years to understand that the USSR was for her a second best enemy.  She, her mother and brother had been interned by the Japanese on Java.  If you mentioned the Japanese to her, the eyes began to glow red.  The Soviet thing was not about them.  It was really about the Japanese.

IMO Yahya McCain has the same problem.  The people he would really like to get his hands on are beyond his reach.  All that matiness on his part in Hanoi was just anger management.  pl

Let Assad Run in a Syrian Election

Howard Stern made a joke about the recent Vienna meeting on his radio show.  He said that Putin supposedly whispered to this lady.  "Me Vladimir.  Nuland, you my woman now."

In spite of the obvious surrender of the US in Vienna over the issue of regime change in Syria, the Obama Administration continues to insist that the Russians are accepting defeat on the ground and in the air in the war against the US coalition of FSA phonies and jihadi groups like Nusra and jaish al-fath.

In fact the R+6 forces are making very good progress.  This is something that is clear to anyone who actually has real military expertise. 

McGurk from State told the "Mornin' Joe" crew today that we (the US) are succeeding in our strategy of Assad removal prior to a negotiated peace.

McGurk stressed the point that there is no place in a future Syria for President Assad.   He said this was true because Assad would be unacceptable to the Syrian people.

Well, pilgrims, as I wrote here a while back, why not test that assertion?

If there is an internationally supervised election there in a year or two, let him run and then we can know how acceptable or unacceptable he is to the Syrian people.  pl

Don't just "follow the money", look closer (by CP)

In a recent conversation on these pages a recurrent theme came up - the assertion that this that or another policy pursued by the US is for this that or another material, economic interest. Such economic determinism is at its purest and most simplistic in the assertion that the US went to war in Iraq in 2003 'because of the oil'.

Material incentives play a role, and depending on which individual actor you're talking about, this role may be significant. But, in the larger collective of the Borg and their consensus narrative this plays a rather more limited role than generally assumed I argue. Whatever material benefits individual players derive from policy don't matter so much for the rest of the pack.

I will exclude trade policy here, since that is a field in which the assumption that the US imposes corporate interests as part of foreign policy actually does hold some water IMO - not so in foreign policy proper.

Monetary concerns usually do not drive decisions over matters of confrontation, war and peace. In the larger context of foreign policy the allegation of economic interests ruling supreme is IMO hogwash. Take the US war on Iraq from 2003:

The US went to war in Iraq in pursuit of the harebrained idea that the Greater Middle East could be remade in America's image, and that war would be the tool of choice. The righteous use of force would, without compromise, cleanse and deliver these countries from oppressive evil, starting with Iraq (but, according to the initial plan, not ending there).

This scheme is rooted in an ideological point of view that sees the West as having arrived at the end of history, the pinnacle of civilisation - and that it is the US burden to drag the silly backward Middle Easterners into modernity, kicking and screaming if need be. There is no profit interest in any of that. The idea was to 'cut the gordian knot', and remake Iraq from a clean slate, waiting for spontaneous order to emerge (Iraqis apparently no 'homo oeconomicus', more like a 'homo gentis'), into a (per se peaceful) democracy (not-so peaceful counter-example: the US), and the opportunity to do business is a bonus, embraced by US opportunist with relish, and in neoliberal thinking free trade and free enterprise would be good for peace anyway, would uplift the locals from their statism and is, in effect, doing god's work etc. pp.

If one buys into the notion of economic determinism, all of that is irrelevant or just hogwash for the rubes.

But that is simply not so: It ignores that the neocons and other players are decidedly not rubes (fools and buffoons perhaps, but that is another matter entirely), their ideas are all stuff being taught as orthodoxy in US universities and, indeed, they believe(d) in what they called for as policy. You have neo-liberals for instance believing with quasi-religous zeal that they are doing god's work i.e. the pursuit of economic policy is a means to an end. To suggest that these players invaded Iraq 'for oil' doesn't do their motives, and errors, justice, and is not conductive to an understanding of what actually happened in 2002/2003.

This point is not trivial. It is the explanation why many economic determinists, often on the left, have been unable to engage in effective discussion over matters or foreign policy. Just like the folks who rely only on Fox or MSNBC as a source of news, viewing events through the materialist prism they get less than half the story.

Screaming 'No blood for oil' will forever fail to engage for instance a man like Cheney to whom Iraq never was about 'blood' or 'oil'  anyway. Selectively looking at only at potential economic drivers (Secret energy task force! Halliburton no-bid contracts!) at the exclusion of the rest of a much wider picture means to seriously misread policy and getting the story dead wrong.

It also, and this is worse, prevents desperately needed serious debate on the success, failure, merits and demerits of past and present policy. Economic determinism reduces the other side to a monster who kills out of greed. In fairness, Cheney, for all his flaws, vices and follies, is more complex than that. When Dick Cheney, for good reason, cannot take serious the 'no blood for oil' crowd, they got no one to blame but themselves - they they are, after all, not making a reasonable argument but reduce Cheney to a cartoon villain (for which he is eminently suitable). They are, as a result, talking to themselves. Cui bono?

Think instead of the policymakers in and around the US administration as a layer cake. Each layer has its own colour, flavour and texture and it is that slice of pie, the sum of it, that makes up policy. Money and material interests are just one layer in the slice. Domestic, partisan politics is another, so is economic policy, strategic interest (Risk, not Monopoly) and finally - though the list is far from exhaustive - ideology (neoliberalism, neoconservatism, hard right nationalism, R2P do-gooderism, Izrul über alles, abstract political or economic theory etc. pp.) - and PR/propaganda provides the icing.

Policy is being created at the hands of the president in the policy making process, where all these players, to varying degrees, succeed to add their views, goals and interests and in which obscure bureaucrats like Nuland can play a very decisive role. But policymaking is a collective effort and the outcome is rarely as neatly clear cut as one of Martha Stewards cakes.

by confusedponderer

Crude prices continue to fall

Inventories continue to grow, prices continue to drop.  Tell me again about the "peak oil" thingy.  pl

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/4-reasons-crude-oil-prices-are-in-a-nasty-death-spiralagain-2015-12-10

 

pl

Assad Must Go… ahh fuhgettaboutit! - TTG

Following lengthy talks with Russian President VladimirPutin in Moscow today, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said the United States is not seeking regime change in Syria and that the U.S. and Russia see the conflict "fundamentally very similarly."

“The United States and its partners are not seeking so-called regime change as it is known in Syria,” Kerry said in a news conference inside the Kremlin, before immediately adding that the U.S. continues to believe that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has no possibility of remaining the country’s leader in the future. However, Kerry said the talks didn’t focus on “what can or can’t be done immediately about Assad” but rather on establishing a political process where Syrians will be able to choose their own leader.  (ABC News)

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Well I’ll be damned. Earlier this afternoon I commented that “it was obvious to me that nothing would come out of this meeting other than a firm reiteration of the Russian position and intended actions. If Kerry and Nuland thought anything else would happen, they are fools.” I never expected Kerry to be the one reiterating the Russian position and signing up our partners to the Russian position as well. Did old Vladimir Vadimirovich use a Jedi mind trick on Kerry?

TTG

Bergdahl to face a General Court Martial.

"Monday’s decision rejecting that recommendation means that Sergeant Bergdahl now faces a maximum five-year penalty if ultimately convicted by a military jury of desertion, as well as potential life imprisonment on the more serious charge of misbehavior before the enemy, which in this case means endangering the troops who were sent to search for him after he disappeared."  NY Times

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In the US Army an investigating officer (in this case MG Dahl) does his investigation in the name of and at the behest of the Convening Authority (in this case General Robert B Abrams).  Abrams is the Commanding General of US Army Forces Command, a headquarters that "owns" all US based Army ground and aviation forces.  Since Dahl was acting as Abrams' "agent" in this matter Abrams was in no way obliged to accept Dahl's recommendation and chose instead to apply the full rigor of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).  This is the law code created by Congress for the US armed forces.

I thought Dahl's recommendation far too lenient.

Desertion in combat (Article 85) has normally carried a maximum penalty of death by firing squad.  I see from this article in the NY Times that the maximum penalty now allowed in these circumstances is five years at hard labor.  Misbehavior in the Presence of the enemy (Article 99) is usually applied in cases of cowardice in combat.  In this case it is being applied for conduct resulting in aggravated risk to his comrades because they had to go out and search for him in "Indian Country."  A conviction under Article 99 normally resulted in the past in death by firing squad.  Apparently the maximum penalty now is life imprisonment at hard labor.  BTW, death by firing squad has traditionally been thought preferable to hanging in the military profession because it is a soldier's death.  You may think death is death but, what do you know? 

 Robert B Abrams is Creighton Abrams' son.  The father was a legendary and beloved Chief of Staff of the US Army.  He was a highly effective tank battalion and "combat command" (brigade) commander in Patton's Third Army.  He was quoted as having told his men as they approached the German border in 1944 that "the shortest road home leads through Berlin."  I first met him when he walked up behind me during a fire fight in a rubber plantation in 1968.  He had been passing by in a helicopter and stopped by to see how things were going.

We live in a time in which the nanny state and a lot of soft people want to treat combat soldiers as though they are all mentally wounded children and therefore not responsible for their actions.  Dahl's recommendation smelled of a desire to accommodate the president in this kind of attitude.  In fact, soldiers must be held to their duty, the duty they swore to.  If that is not done, discipline in the military will fall to bits and then the soft people will have to look to their own defense.

I do not know Robert B Abrams but I think his father would approve of his decision.  pl 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/us/bowe-bergdahl-to-face-court-martial-on-desertion-charges.html 

R+6 captures Marj al-Sultan air base in al-Ghouta

"Syrian troops and allied militiamen seized control of a sprawling military air base near Damascus on Monday, bolstering the government's presence in a key area overwhelmingly controlled by opposition forces.

The Marj al-Sultan air base lies in the eastern suburb of Damascus known as Eastern Ghouta, and had been held by rebels for the past three years."  ABC news

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So much for the BS Obama dog and pony show today at the Pentagon.  pl

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/airstrikes-hit-damascus-suburb-day-45-killed-35751112

Ribal al-Assad (cousin) on "Mornin' Joe" kaffee klatch today.

 This fellah, Bashar's first cousin is an exile from Syria.  He was on the mentally flatulent 'Mornin' Joe' show today trying to explain Syrian realities to the crew of New Yorkers who infest this TV space.  Well, there are a few good ones.  Anyway, Ribal al-Assad tried to tell them that Syria is about 50% minorities; Christians, Alawis, a few remaining Jews, Druze, Ismaili Shia, etc. and that the great defect of present policy is that it is completely focused on the Syria civil war as a conflict between an Alawi minority government and a Sunni Arab majority.  Ribal said that was wrong because the minorities have not been given a viable alternative to the present government of Syria.  Why is that important?  Well, pilgrims, the jihadis, including the ones the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey support intend to enslave the minorities.

Yes, I know,  There are also Sunni Arabs who support the government and many serve in the Syrian Army but that does not obviate Ribal's point that the 50% of the Syrian population who are minorities have not been given any alternative to the present government.

He further pointed out that the supposed "mediators" (Saudi Arabia) in the process of building an alternative future government do not respect democracy, the rule of law other than their view of Sharia, and any thought of a multi-confessional national entity. 

 Mikka and Joe listened for a few seconds and then their eyes glazed over as he violated the parameters of their Borgist conditioning.  After a bit you could see that they just wanted him to go away and not further disturb their bovine content.

A few days back I mentioned a well educated woman neighbor who explained to me that the American people lack the "software" in their heads to grasp what is being written here on SST about the ME.  I agree.  Borgist repetitive propaganda has IMO re-structured the collective American brain to such an extent that the truth is for most unfathomable.  pl 

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe

Fred Hof on Syria

Fred  Hof is presently a Senior Fellow at the Rafik Hariri center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council.  Parenthetically, Rafik Hariri and his son Saad were/are Sunni Lebanese politicians with deep ties to the royal family of Saudi Arabia.  IMO, the Hariris have always been implacably hostile to the Alawi dominated government in Damascus.  It seems reasonable to assume that Hariri money funds the Hariri Center.

It is an infrequent event when a tinkerer with history and people's lives comes out of the shadows and into the light so that the the population can see for themselves who the Borgist dwarves are and have some idea of what they have wrought.

 I have a lot of history with Hof.  I have known him for something like 30 years.  I first met him when he was an Army LTC or major serving as assistant army attaché in the US embassy in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.  He was shot by someone among the many "player" groups at a road block in Beirut while driving.  I handled his evacuation and wrote him up for a Purple Heart for the wound.  I was then the DIA manager for a number of ME attaché posts. 

It seems to have been during his adventure in Beirut that Hof developed a virulent hostility toward the Syrian government.  The Syrians then had 30,000 odd troops in Lebanon at the request of the Arab League.  They were there supposedly to try to referee among the Lebanese sectarian and political factions, but clearly they enjoyed the experience of lording it over the Lebanese, especially Lebanese politicians and played that role with a swaggering crudeness that was unwise.  Syria finally withdrew its forces from Lebanon after the death of Assad pere, and the accession to power of Assad fils.

In the diplomatic community of Beirut and among the Lebanese upper classes during the Syrian semi-occupation, the opinion was generally held that the Syrians, their army and police were the lowest of the low and that Hafez al-Assad was the guiding spirit in all this evilness.  The Americans on post in Beirut were more or less besieged in the embassy and became subscribers to this idea set through constant association with the moneyed Lebanese they had access to.  These people bitterly resented the attitude that the Syrian "occupiers" displayed toward them.  The same anti-Syrian perspective permeated the larger network of diplomats, media, academics, think tankers, erc. throughout the world.  This was part of a general attitude among the foreign policy intelligentsia of the West concerning existing governments in the Arab countries.  The FP intelligentsia professed to believe that the autocrats; Mubarak, Assad, Saddam, etc. were the worst thing imaginable and that they personally were responsible for all the ills that afflicted the various states of the ME.  The belief somehow was common among the FP intelligentsia that if the rulers could be removed and replaced with locals who professed to admire Western values, all would be well.  Well, we have seen how badly flawed that idea really was.  In Iraq, Egypt, Syria, what happened was that the more or less secular autocrats were removed from power and the raging demonic passions of sectarian fury were released when they were no longer suppressed.

Hof was eventually assigned to be the military assistant (aide) of Richard Armitage, then Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (ISA).  In other words, he sat in Armitage's outer office as gate keeper.  I was then the senior Middle East/South Asia person in DIA and of necessity spent a lot of time working with Hof and others among Armitage's staff.  I found Hof to be very aggressive, disdainful of others' opinions and increasingly willing to throw Armitage's weight around.  Politically, I would have described him as a liberal internationalist who shared the belief common in those circles that the ME badly needed reform.  Hof retired from the Army as a LTC.  He followed Armitage into the consulting world of Washington where he was made a partner in Armitage's company.  He and Armitage were appointed to negotiate several international problems including one for sharing the waters of the Yarmuk river among Jordan, Syria and Israel.  The Yarmuk is a stream that one can wade across just about anywhere.

Hof next appeared in the Obama Administration where he worked as a consultant on Syria policy.  It appears to me that he has been one of the leading cheerleaders and policy drivers for regime change in Syria.  In this oped piece he seems to me to mock both Obama and Kerry for their lack of resolve in getting rid of Bashar Assad.

Well, pilgrims, they deserve it for listening to him.  pl 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-and-kerrys-wishful-thinking-on-syria/2015/12/11/94bbcc90-92f1-11e5-a2d6-f57908580b1f_story.html

 

Homs is coming back to life.

"Traffic lights are blinking again, gleaming cafes are crowded, and Christmas lights twinkle in the corners of stone churches and lobbies of smart hotels.

But there are dark corners, too, in Homs, Syria’s third largest city. Entire neighbourhoods remain a haunting landscape of blackened buildings pockmarked by gunfire or flattened by ferocious bombardment into grey pancakes. Homs is a place where the return of light startles and the darkness still shocks.

Last week the city that witnessed some of the first protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, and some of the fiercest fighting, became the first to return fully into government hands. A local truce in the last rebel-held district of al-Waer saw the departure of the last fighters. Some 300 men, most belonging to the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front, were bussed, under security escort, to an opposition stronghold in the north-west, where they will live to fight another day.

Their families went with them. Bewildered children clutching teddy bears were hurried to waiting buses by their mothers. “I don’t want to leave my home,” sobbed one woman, carrying with her whatever worldly goods she could manage. “But my son is a fighter, so I want to go with him.”

An official with the UN, which backs this agreement, tried to console her. “You’ll come back some day when there is a ceasefire across Syria.” But the woman was inconsolable.

About a 15-minute drive away and a world apart, in central Homs, a resident whom I have met on visits over the years expresses relief. “Remember when we couldn’t walk across the street because it was too dangerous?”"  The Guardian

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Christmas has returned to the Syrian city of Homs.  A lot of people will not know that in large parts of the ME Christmas is celebrated with vigor and enthusiasm by both Christians and Muslims.  Christmas trees are a commonplace and holiday parties common.

IS says it exploded a 150 kg. car bomb near a hospital in the city today.  That won't do the trick.  Actual civilized life is returning to Homs.  pl 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/12/homs-syrian-rebels-assad-ceasefire

 

Of Manly Men and Womanly Women - TTG

Having just returned from another week refurbishing a fifty year old ranch house in Half-moon, New York, I was quite pleased to find a small triumph for humanity in my hometown newspaper. The lead story on the front page tells the story of a Spotsylvania woman caring for her beloved pit bull in the last days of the dog’s life. All who came in contact with this pair gave of themselves in the most unselfish and caring way. These are my neighbors. I am proud of all of them and their willingness to rise to the occasion in the small things. I have faith they will do the same in the big things. 

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Spotsylvania woman leaves trail of tears as she and pit bull check off bucket list

BY CATHY DYSON/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Saturday, December 12, 2015  

Meghan Martin thought she was giving her cherished pit bull, Honey, a final gift: One last thank-you for all the love the dog had shown her. Turns out, Martin was the one who benefited, but it wasn’t the first time Honey gave as much, or more, than she’d been given.

Martin rescued her from abusive owners and death’s door, then watched as the dog that hadn’t known an ounce of kindness early in her life became as sweet as, well, honey. The dog helped Martin through a difficult pregnancy, sensing when her blood pressure dropped to dangerous levels and standing between her legs and whining so the woman would sit down before she passed out.

After the cesarean-section delivery, Honey stood by Martin, literally, as the new mother gingerly walked upstairs, hanging on to Honey’s collar for support. “She has paid me back tenfold for anything I ever did for her,” Martin said. “She’s been the most dedicated companion. For all the times I saved her, she saved me right back.”   (Continue reading at The Free Lance-Star)

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It’s these little things that build neighborhoods and communities. This is where the work must be done. Such actions reinforce more such actions. The right thing to do becomes the only thing to do. This is how communities that can withstand the pressures of an often hostile world are built. And it takes hard work and discipline. Those of us with the grit and determination to see our nation survive and prosper must work to build strong communities. Do the little things that cement our neighborhoods... face-to-face, not in the abstract. These communities then make up the regional culture and, eventually, our national character. To just rail against all the evils in the world, real and perceived, accomplishes nothing. 

TTG

Open Thread - 12 December 2015

pl

ME/SA conspiracy BS

Be advised that anyone who sends me lunatic ME/SA conspiracy BS will be banned. For example theories that the CIA is behind jihadi attacks.  I have dealt with nuttiness in the ME/SA for a very long time and will not tolerate it.  IMO such nuttiness reflects a childish inability to accept reality.  pl

"Do it yourself" realities in the policy world

"... divisions and obstacles remain.  Islamist delegates objected to using the word “democracy” in the final statement, so the term “democratic mechanism” was used instead, according to a member of one such group who attended the meeting.  And one powerful Islamist rebel brigade, Ahrar al-Sham, announced that it was withdrawing from the conference, accusing other delegates of being too close to the Syrian government and saying that conference failed to “confirm the Muslim identity of our people.”  But Abdulaziz Sager, the Saudi academic who moderated the meetings, said afterward that the representative of the group had not known about the statement and had signed the final agreement anyway — suggesting a split between the group’s political officials and its hard-line base."  NY Times

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The minions of the foreign policy sector of the US branch of the Borg are hard at work seeking to sculpt a reality in which the current R+6 offensives in Syria are said to be ineffective, bogged down and doomed to failure because no military solution to the Syrian Civil War is possible according to Obama and the Harpies.  The Russians are said have been taught a severe lesson by the death of two soldiers and are supposedly having a bad case of "buyer's remorse" over their intervention in Syria.  This is an amusing idea if you know anything about Russian national character as displayed at places like Stalingrad and Leningrad in WW2.  It is also said that the Iranians are withdrawing from the war having been disheartened by the death of several senior leaders of the IRGC in combat.  This, too, is amusing if you were around during the Iran-Iraq War when IRGC and Baseej men lay down their lives by the tens of thousands in massed frontal attacks against the Iraqis. 

The rebels have recently evacuated what they held of Homs.  They are the people who left, not the government.  In the end the rebels were defeated at Homs but you would never know that from the BS flowing in Washington and New York where the surrender agreement (truce) is said to be a sign of crumbling of resolve on the R+6 side.  R+6 troops are steadily chewing up rebel forces in Lattakia and Aleppo Provinces in the process of preparing the battlefield for a great action soon to come.  Numerous airfields have been re-captured and Syrian/Russian air assets are being moved forward onto these airfields.  Russian sortie rates continue to rise, but the Borg insists that Russia will soon withdraw from Syria in exhaustion.

This thematic IO campaign in the think-tanks and media may well have some effect on Western populations but the Russians, Syrians, Iranians, Hizbullah and associated militias are unlikely to be impressed.

John Kerry said today that there are "kinks" in the Riyadh agreement stitched together by Adil (the Chihuahua) al-Jubair.  Well, yes, the obvious intention of the Saudis and the jihadis among the rebels to make Syria a Sunni sharia law state might be considered a "kink."

Does Obama really not care about that?  Does he not care?  Does he not care about his brothers and sisters in Christ who would be reduced to dhimmitude by a "kinky" Islamist government in Syria?  And what of the others; the non-Islamist Sunni Arabs, the Yazidis, the Alawis, the Shia, etc?  Does he not notice that these people are all sheltering behind R+6?

Daniel Patrick Moynihan is reputed to have remarked that while "you are entitled to your opinion, you are not entitled to your own facts."

Evidently Obama and the Harpies do not agree with Moynihan.  pl 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/world/middleeast/syrian-rebels-form-bloc-for-new-round-of-peace-talks.html?ribbon-ad-idx=5&rref=world/middleeast&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&pgtype=article

SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: What is "radicalization" ?

By Patrick Bahzad

As the investigation into the two San Bernardino terrorists and mass-murderers is gathering momentum and bringing in new details, some of which are already public knowledge, a lot of media attention has been devoted to sometimes trivial questions, such as whether "she" radicalized "him", or whether "they" got some training somewhere in the wider Middle-East, etc. While these questions are certainly legitimate, they should probably  not be so high on the public opinion's priority list, especially as most of the answers are already "out there".

By and large, the media are failing the American public, once again. Instead of enlightening the citizenry about what is at work and at stake here, the focus has been on avoiding really fundamental questions, for fear of losing control of the narrative, and on diverting the public's interest on trivial and - often - futile aspects of the investigation, turning the whole case into some real life episode of "Homeland" or some other bull-shit spooks' series.

Too bad actually, because what could and should be said has already been out there since 2007 basically, when the NYPD published a declassified version of their report about Islamic "Radicalization in the West". That report has sometimes drawn sharp criticism from Muslim groups, for fear of an overreaction in surveillance and monitoring activities, or from civil rights' activitsts, who saw a case for "racial" and "religious" profiling being made in the report's recommendations.

Personally, I think this criticism is a bit harsh, however sound it may be to have people expressing legitimate concerns when basic rights in a democratic society are at stake. But this is a debate for the US public to have and as a foreigner it is not my business as such. What I am interested in are the findings of the NYPD report, which are still mostly valid up to this day.

Commentators, journalists, politicians and even "experts" would do well to get back to basics. And those basics are perfectly explained by the NYPD research team, which included specialists from various walks of life and countries, among them a Frenchman. 

As illustration and answer to the one question that keeps coming up in the MSM, I attached a chart showing that radicalization is often a lengthy process. Thereforen it is highly unlikely that Rizwan Farook was brainwashed or conditioned by his Jihadi wife. Furthermore, as investigation details released by the FBI already show, both Farook and his wife have actually been on a radical path for way longer than 2013 or 2014.

Below are a few excerpts from the NYPD's report:

"The military virtue of an army." by Carl von Clausewitz

"This spirit can only be generated from two sources, and only by these two conjointly: the first is a succession of wars and great victories; the other is, an activity of the army carried sometimes to the highest pitch. Only by these, does the soldier learn to know his powers. The more a general is in the habit of demanding from his troops, the surer he is, that his demands will be answered. The soldier is as proud of overcoming toil, as he is of surmounting danger. Therefore it is only in the soil of incessant activity and exertion that the germ will thrive, but also only in the sunshine of victory. Once it becomes a strong tree, it will stand against the fiercest storms of misfortune and defeat, and even against the indolent inactivity of peace, at least for a time. It can therefore only be created in war, and under great generals, but no doubt it may last at least for several generations, even under generals of moderate capacity, and through considerable periods of peace."  Clausewitz

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

As FB Ali wrote, the Sunni Arab men of the Syrian Army have taken heart  from the help that has come to them and now "in the sunshine of victory" they go forward.  pl

 

http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/OnWar1873/BK3ch05.html

The battle of encirclment for Idlib Province is impending.

 

"The Syrian Arab Army’s 103rd Brigade of the Republican Guard has gotten off to a fast start this week, capturing several key regions from the Al-Nusra Front, the Free Syrian Army’s 'Liwaa Suqour Al-Ghaab,' and Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham terrorist groups in northeast regions of Latakia province."

Syria's National Defense Forces, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and Syrian Resistance also took part in the offensives against terrorists in the northern countryside areas of Latakia.

"In a matter of four days, the Syrian Armed Forces have seized over 100 square kilometers from terrorists in Northeastern Latakia; this is likely to increase in the coming days as the pro-government forces eye the rebel stronghold of Salma," reported Fars."

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151209/1031497423/syria-lattakia-army-liberate.html#ixzz3twAiNALF

**********

"Syrian government forces backed by Iranian troops edged closer to a major rebel-controlled highway south of Aleppo on Tuesday, pushing further into insurgent-held areas supported by heavy Russian air strikes.

After seizing a series of villages including Zitan, Humaira and Qalaajiya, the army said it had thrust to the outskirts of Zirba and encircled the town of Khan Touman, an advance rebels said had left them outgunned from the air and ground.

The aim of government forces appeared to be to cut the main Aleppo-Damascus highway that fighters use to transport supplies from rebel-held Idlib province to the north."  Reuters 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-aleppo-idUSKBN0TR25I20151208#vrr1WM8XPZgWkcgD.97

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

You can see from this reporting that the kesselschlacht battle to be fought in Idlib is shaping up nicely.  The rebels (of various persuasions) will have to fight hard to try to hold the M5 highway open to the south from Aleppo and that will make them superb targets out in that open country.  IMO the expectation of large numbers of surrenders/defections from the rebel forces grows greater by the day.  Faced with all the Russian fire power and in the face of  a reinvigorated SAA and their allies the temptation to experience a "come to Bashar" moment will be very strong.  pl

Channukah!

Happy Channukah!  pl

Ortega by Richard Sale

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2015/12/ortega-by-richard-sale.html

R+6 now controls Homs

"Syrian rebels have begun evacuating the last district they control in the city of Homs under a ceasefire deal reached with the government.

Those leaving al-Wair, under siege for almost three years, will travel to rebel-held areas of Idlib province.

Homs was once dubbed the "capital of the revolution" and saw some of the first protests of the 2011 uprising.

But the truce means the entire city returns to government control, in a boost for President Bashar al-Assad.

Buses arrived on Wednesday to transport fighters and their families out of the Homs suburb of al-Wair. 

About 700 people, including rebel fighters and civilians, are due to depart throughout Wednesday, Homs governor Talal Barazi said.

Fighters linked to al-Qaeda are among those due to leave, but moderate groups who have accepted the ceasefire are expected to remain."  BBC

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

R+6 holds Homs, once considered the "capital" of the rebellion.   The hard line jihadi elements leaving the city are being evacuated by bus north to Idlib where they will be nicely positioned for R+6 when the force being assembled in Lattakia Province moves NE into Idlib where it will meet R+6 forces working on severing jihadi LOCs south of Aleppo City.

This all follows the generally expected line of future history anticipated in SST's recent "Jihadi Apocalypse" war game and Patrick Bahzad's latest Syria SITREP.

R+6 keeps grinding away, shaping the battlefield to come and effectively re-positioning SNC forces so that they will be suitably placed as objectives for a decisive kesselschlacht in Idlib.

Illustration above.  pl 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35048404 

Turkey and Mosul (FB Ali)

In an earlier post (highlighted by CP in his latest thread) I had said that Turkey's move of a troop contingent to Iraq, near Mosul, was a part of the West's plan with regard to that country.

On further reflection, I think that is incorrect. While I still think that the West's ultimate aim is to have Iraq end up in three entities ‒ Kurdish, Sunni and Shia ‒ I believe this move was made by Turkey on its own, to serve its own purposes. Turkey's ultimate aim in Iraq is to have its Sunni areas come under its own control, or at least influence. This move is designed to ensure the furtherance of that aim.

It is based on the expectation that, with the further weakening of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq, and thus on its control of Mosul, at some stage an attack on the city by the anti-IS forces will become possible. This may well occur along with an uprising in the city. Best placed to carry out such an operation are the Iraqi army plus Shia militias and the Kurds.

Mosul's population is currently almost entirely Sunni, and Turkey will pose as its protector. It will not let the Iraqis attack the city, ostensibly to avoid the inevitable casualties among the Sunni civilian inhabitants. Its preferred course would be to have Mosul taken ostensibly by the Iraqi Sunni militias (which it is organizing under Atheel Nujaifi, former governor of Mosul) aided by Turkish troops (it would rapidly reinforce its present relatively small contingent).

If the situation is fluid, Barzani may take the opportunity to send in the Kurdish Peshmerga to seize Mosul for the Kurds. Turkey is now well-placed to stop such an attack, and (should the Sunni option not be practicable) force the Kurds to conduct a joint operation with the Sunni militia, supported by Turkish troops, to take Mosul. The Kurdish reward would be retention of the formerly Kurdish portions of the city. But the fate of the city and its surrounding region would remain firmly in Turkish hands.

The emerging truth in San Bernardino

"Marquez is related to the Farook family by marriage. Reuters, citing California marriage documents, reported that Marquez married Mariya Chernyk on Nov. 29 of last year, four months after Farook and Malik began their married life in the United States. Maria Cernyk's sister, Tatiana, is married to Syed Raheel Farook, the shooter's older brother. The documents show that Raheel Farook and Tatiana Cehernyk witnessed the marriage.

A law enforcement official told Fox News earlier Tuesday that investigators were looking closely at the possibility that Malik was a terror "operative" who had been radicalized before she came to the United States in July 2014. The official said that authorities were also looking at whether Malik's family had any links to Islamic terrorism, noting that family ties are the "number one" way jihadist groups recruit new members.

Malik was one of just 519 Pakistanis allowed into the country last year on a K-1, or fiancee visa. Her path to the United States has raised warning flags on the U.S. government's immigration vetting practices after she was identified as one of two attackers."  foxnews

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

Well,  well,  well.   IMO what emerges is the pattern I had suggested concerning Malik.  IMO she was an operative of some jihadi group or other before she married Farooq.  IMO the marriage was either arranged by the group specifically to find a path into the US for her or she recognized in this doofus Farooq character a golden opportunity to marry a "magic carpet" that would get her through American border controls.

Once in the States she and he began to plan for their own bloody apotheosis (perhaps an inappropriate term for a carefully planned act of shahada).  They amassed equipment, and avoided having Farooq's name and address on the paperwork for the rifle sales.  They worked on shooting skills at local ranges.  They planned a specific operation and then called it off because of counter terorist operations in California.  Do we really doubt that she was the leader in this personal jihad?

And then, pilgrims, we have the apparent existence of what amounts to a group of jihadis or jihadi supporters and sympathizers in that part of California and possibly in surrounding states.   The money loan thing in Utah is intriguing.  Are there no loan companies in San Bernardino?  Marquez married a relative of Farooq and had at least toyed with the idea of conversion to Islam.  Farooq's kinfolk claim to be as innocent as Bambi and his mommy.  Are we really supposed to believe all the baloney about this pair having acted alone and without support?  Really? 

IMO this was a well run infiltration of the US homeland.  How many more are there in existence across the country?

SECDEF Carter just told the senate that the great majority of people in the recent refugee flows are young men of military age.  This truth has been ignored by the sentimentalist media in their search for heart wrenching images of little girls.  Carter also pointed out that only about half the "refugees" are Syrians.  The rest are from all over the Islamic World. 

I certainly hope that Marquez will be prosecuted as a co-conspirator and accessory before the fact to murder.  pl 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/09/investigators-believe-syed-farook-planned-attack-prior-to-san-Bernardino/ 

SYRIA SITREP: What now ?

By Patrick BAHZAD

It has been a little over two months now since Russia started its air campaign in Syria. An already complex equation on the ground, this game-changing move was further complicated by events having taken place over recent weeks in the larger Middle-East and in Europe. While it is now more difficult to forecast the timeline of possible military developments, a few conclusions can nonetheless be taken away from the latest round of fighting in Syria.

More than anything else, what is striking about the last month is the number of factors that have come to play an additional role in what was already a very entangled situation. In that regard, one of the most interesting events from an information point of view is Western media reports and analysis regarding the downing of the Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula, in late October. There is quite a paradox in the MSM's reactions to this terrorist attack, which killed 224 innocent people.

The Russian airstrikes

On the one hand, we were told for over a month that the Russian airstrikes were not intended at degrading ISIS, but at bolstering Assad's grip on power and at destroying Western backed "moderate rebels", an expression now so widely used it can mean almost anything bare ISIS itself. Statistically, it is true that most of the Russians strikes hit rebels in the Aleppo, Idlib and Hama area, meaning rebels not affiliated with ISIS. However, some 10 % of these strikes were directed at ISIS positions in the first five weeks of the Russian airstrikes, then some 20 % in the following month, bringing the average ratio of Russian anti-ISIS strikes to somewhere around 15 %.

Admittedly, not an overwhelming figure, but these 15 % are far in excess of anything the Western and GCC coalition has done in the same period. The decision to target ISIS' fleet of tanker trucks in particular implies a Russian strategy that is more comprehensive, in terms of targeting the finances of the "Caliphate" as well as its Turkish connection, than anything the Obama administration or other Western governments have come up with so far.

In the past eight weeks or so, more than 1 000 trucks were destroyed that way, out of a fleet that totals roughly 8000 vehicles. This is far from being insignificant and any truck owner or driver moving to and from the "Islamic State" will have gotten the message loud and clear.

"Tahrir" and "Takbir"

Not much of this has made the headlines in the MSM though, quite the opposite. It is the continuous criticism about so-called "moderates" bearing the brunt of the Russian strikes that has been a recurring theme in most of the big news outlets in the US and Western Europe. The fact these moderates include outfits that are barely any better than ISIS, basically sharing the same ideology and performing similar atrocities on the ground, doesn't seem to stand in the way of the Putin bashers.

In truth, there is one common denominator all rebel groups share basically and it can be summed up with two expressions: 'Tahrir' (freedom … from Assad obviously), and 'Takbir' (the Arabic term for the expression "Allāhu Akbar", meaning they want a State ruled by the laws of Islam). Democracy is not part of the deal and it is no coincidence that the initial rag tag army of anti-Assad rebels was called the "Free Syrian Army" not the "Democratic Syrian Army", or the "Free Democratic Syrian Army". Freudian slips happen in the Arab world as much as in the West ...

Be that as it may, the loudest critics of the Russians' involvement in the conflict hardly managed to hide a satisfactory smile when news were confirmed that ISIS had downed the Russian airliner over the Sinai. The same commentators and pundits who had been arguing only days before that Putin was not targeting ISIS were now claiming that Putin was "cashing in" on his reckless and irresponsible policy in Syria.

Rep. McCaul says jihadis are trying to use the refugee flows.

 

"U.S. intelligence officials believe individuals linked to terror groups in Syria have tried to enter the United States as refugees, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in a national security address today.

McCaul’s comments were sourced to an unclassified letter from the National Counterterrorism Center he received earlier this week, which said the center has identified “individuals with ties to terrorist groups in Syria attempting to gain entry into the U.S. through the U.S. refugee program.”

Federal officials have previously indicated that terrorist groups have wanted to exploit the refugee program into the United States."  abc news

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

Hmmm.  This would indicate that the NCTC believes IS or other jihadi groups have deliberately attempted to place people in the refugee stream in order to infiltrate them into the US. 

Canada will start receiving essentially unvetted Syrian refugees on the 12th of December.   As I have written before it will be impossible to keep these people in Canada if a few of them want to enter the US illegally on a mission.  The notion that confining the Syrian immigrants to Canada to family men is somehow a defense against jihadi infiltration is ludicrous.  Siyed Rizwan Farooq was a family man.

BTW the southern border is where detected attempts at jihadi infiltration have apparently occurred thus far.

It would seem that it is not easy to move jihadis to the US.  Border controls are tight.  Fiancée visas, refugee flows, these are not routes that would be used if it were easy to move doubtful people in.

IMO if they are trying something like refugee flows and fiancée visas, the alternative must be a walk in the desert or forest, or perhaps the visa waiver program.  pl 

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-house-republican-michael-mccaul-fears-terror-linked/story?id=35635873

 

Loose ends at San Bernardino

These are things that puzzle me about this attack and these people.  Tell me what I have gotten wrong about these points:

1- Siyed Nizwan Farooq was evidently never on any warning list, was not under surveillance, was not on a "no fly" list.  Therefore the Democrats' bleating about keeping suspected terrorists from legally buying guns is just silly.  He was not a suspected terrorist.

2- Nevertheless, he chose in 2011 and 2012 to have a neighbor, a "shade tree mechanic" buddy, buy the two rifles.  These were California-legal versions of the semi-automatic AR-15.  These were limited in magazine capacity to ten rounds by design to make them California legal.  Why did he not buy them himself?  He could have and would have passed the federal/state background checks as he evidently did for the two handguns.  Was he afraid that some "trail" he had left would have emerged in the background check and cause him to be surveilled?  Was he afraid that the very act of buying them would have caused him to be surveilled?  In any event, he was careful that far back to hide the purchase.  That indicates to me that even then he intended to use these guns in a criminal act or acts.

3- Someone modified the two rifles to make them fully automatic.  This is a federal crime in itself. Someone modified the two rifles to make them capable of larger magazines, 30 rounds I believe.  This is probably a California crime.

4- The person who modified the two rifles had a considerable amount of skill as a gunsmith.  Who was that person?  Was it Farooq?  Did he have that kind of skill? I know a lot about small arms and could not have done the job.

5- His mother either lived in Farooq's town house or visited it often.  She saw nothing that would have made her criminally liable for not notifying the police?  I doubt that.

6- His father, evidently a drunk, and divorced from the mother, is also called "Siyed."  Since both father and son are so named it is likely that this is an honorific and that the family has some pretensions to descent from the Prophet Muhammad.  This may well be fantasy on their part but did this influence the mental attitudes of the son?

7- This woman, Malik, seems to have been virtually invisible both in the larger community and in the Muslim community of San Bernardino.  Her brother in law said he had never seen her face.  Did Farooq do all the shopping?  Did she never go out alone?  She did not go to the local Mosque while he prayed.  She waited out in the parking lot in their car.

8- Farooq was born in Illinois, and had not lived in the ME or Pakistan.  He had visited but one does not learn languages well on that basis.  She was Punjabi and had lived in Saudi Arabia.  When she had returned to Pakistan the local people called her "the Saudi girl."  I suppose that tells us something of what they thought of her.  She spoke Urdu and Arabic and broken English.  What language did they communicate in and do all this planning in.  It must have been quite a romance.

9- Why did they not leave town after the attack?  Flight would have been understandable and easily prepared.  Instead they hung around town, and returned to their house at least once.  The police picked up the chase there and the two lovers were killed a few blocks away.

You will think of other unusual things about this.  pl

Jihadis now integral part in US designs for Syria (by CP)

Yesterday, our esteemed FB Ali commented on the US plans for Syria:

„In Syria [the US] plan was to use the non-IS jihadis against IS by promising them a part in the post-Assad Syrian regime. That is the reason why Kerry is promoting a political transition there to get Assad out, hand over Syria to these jihadis with a bunch of old Syrian politicians being the external face of the regime (mainly for pacifying public opinion back home). Saudi Arabia and Qatar have provided the necessary assurances that the US will have nothing to fear from this new Syrian government, and that it will follow the plan.

The US will provide more arms to this 'new Syrian army' (ie, the non-IS jihadis) and hope that, with the Kurds and Western air support, it’ll knock IS out (or at least push it out of Syria).

This plan has been stymied by the Russian intervention, and the rejuvenated Syrian army's successful offensive against the jihadis. Kerry is still pushing the political plan, but Russia will never agree to anything that hands Syria over to these jihadis. The outcome is, therefore, likely to be decided on the battlefield, where it currently seems the R+6 will succeed.

For Iraq the West's plan appears to be to split it into three portions: a Kurdish entity, a Sunni one, and a Shia rump. The first part of the plan has been put into effect. The Kurdish peshmerga, supported by US airpower and SF, captured Sinjar. Additional SF have now been sent to support the Kurdish peshmerga. The Turks have moved troops near Mosul to support the coming Kurdish attack on the city. This expanded Kurdish region will be one entity in the new Iraq.(The Kurds would never attack Mosul or any other non-Kurdish areas unless they had solid assurances that they could keep their gains).

It was because of this plan that the US's air campaign in Iraq was so devoid of results (often because planes weren't cleared to attack targets). Large-scale air attacks with their attendant civilian casualties would have alienated the local Sunni population of Anbar. That is also the reason why IS's oil operations weren't attacked until Putin shamed Obama into it; even then special steps were taken to avoid Sunni casualties. The hope was (is) to revive the old Sahwa (Sons of Iraq) movement (a Sunni force friendly towards the US) and let it take over Anbar and other Sunni areas of Iraq to form the Sunni entity.“

~~ * ~~

FB Ali’s very helpful analysis is an excellent basis for futher inquiry. For instance it sheds light on the reasoning behind the accusation that Assad is allied with IS. Lies and omissions have putpose - misdirection.

♦ Conflating Assad with IS

Just like Assad is regularly accused of colluding with IS by only going after "moderate rebels", Russia is now regularly accused of not really fighting IS, but bombing "moderate Rebels" instead. Assad is also accused of "buying oil from IS" (formerly his own oil, seized by ISIS, and sold back to him at an inflated price, due to the embargo for lack of a choice - elsewhere one does call that sort of deal not collusion but extortion). Trifles, I know.

The accusation of complicity conflates IS (Assad’s deadly enemy, which have routinely massacred his troops, given the opportunity) - the only Jihadis everybody can agree on opposing - with Assad - the secuarist everybody already agrees on opposing anyway - and marks them as one target, lest the disgust over IS leads to undesired sympathy for Assad and lest enthusiasm for regime change falters. The objective is to nip in the bud the the insight that one would have to choose between Assad or IS, or that Assad is a lesser evil.

Indications of that insight emerging were already visible in Hollande's rather reasonable second thoughts after IS' Paris massacre. These localised outbreaks of common sense forced Kerry into hurried emergency diplomacy, specifically aimed on excluding Iran and Russia from the anti-Syria coalition sometimes also fighting IS, and to prevent France from breaking out of the Washington straightjacket consensus on Syria. For the US and their nominal regional allies preventing that from happening was imperative.

♦ Breaking the "Shia Crescend"

Key to understanding how Syria has become what it is today is that the Obama administration early on decided to "not do stupid shit", like occupying countries such as Iraq. By itself, laudably prudent. Alas, one must not make the mistake of assuming, based on that, a lack for appetite for destruction intervention. Interventions would of course take place, the sly and smart 'soft power' way (neatly branded and twittered), and if force was needed, it would come through deputised local proxies, balanced from offshore 'led from behind'  - in the case of Syria, through Turkey, the Gulfies, and to a lesser extent, Israel.

Taking on Syria was probably concocted in DC as an "assurance" to the Israelis and the Gulfie monarchs to help them over their hysteria over the Iran deal. Normalisation with Iran perhaps, but only if it is 'defanged' and it’s greater influence (handed to Iran by the destruction of Iraq by the hapless hands of the Bushmen) curtailed.

Israelis, Gulfies or Turks have made demands for US guarantees, quietly firmly in pursuit of their own goals: Turkish neo-ottoman irredentism or Erdogan's brand of Islamic pan-Turkism. With the Saudis and the Gulfies Wahhabi chauvinism and the goal of Sunni hegemony to the Mediterranean. With the Israelis it's about the Golan, and of course, about getting back at their nemesis Hezbollah. It's hard to not notice the impatience and independence shown by the Turks (especially in their attempts to  draw the US into Syria) and the Saudis (their unannounced aggression against Yemen). These also indications that 'leading from behind' didn’t suffice to reassure these "special needs" proxies. It also calls into question the ability of the US to effectively exercise leadership over these trigger happy "allies".

It also suggests that there are, as of yet unrealised, plans for a finish in Lebanon and against Hezbollah (pitting, presumably, the victors of Syria - and/or Israel - against Lebanon's majority group represented by Hezbollah, the Shia).

The army that will never be...

On the Farid Zakariya newsie today Susan Rice explained with some brevity and clarity that No Fly Zones/Sanctuary Areas in Syria are not favored by the BHO branch of the Borg because they are "resource intensive" and would require "tens if thousands of troops to defend them."  Well, duh... I would bet some of my own money that it took a lot of time and many briefings by the JCS to persuade the herd of squirrels at the WH of those simple facts.  Good!  Someone managed to do that.  One wonders if HC could be similarly persuaded.

An equally important element in the active fantasy life of the Obama Administration as well as most Republican and Democratic presidential aspirants is the notion of a regional ground combat force that would in their field of dreams  go to Syria and Iraq and destroy the Islamic State.  The truth is that such an army will never be.

• The Gulfies (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc.) are core supporters of Sunni jihadi groups in Syria and Iraq.  They may have washed their hands of the IS specter but the reason for doing that is the arrival in the Gulf of the idea that the petty princes on the Gulf are inevitably seen by IS as a collective abomination to be destroyed as soon as conveniently possible.
• Even if the Gulfie group decided to accede to Obamanite wishes for them to fight IS on the big chess board of north Arabia they are impotent to do so.  Their collection of foreign built military equipment is one of the largest static displays of military materiel in history.  They are poorly trained, under-manned and commanded by sycophants of the princely (to include SA) houses, men for whom their wages are all they live for.  To top off the list of the defects of the armed forces of the Gulfies they lack "the stones" for real war.  They can be killers, but not fighters.  Look at the mess they have made of their aggression in Yemen.  Look at it!
• Egypt.  The Egyptian military is a large money making enterprise that is built to control internal political activity in Egypt itself.  They do that well but have neither the taste nor an inclination to go fight IS in northern Arabia.
• Iran.  They DO have "the stones," but we reject their participation.
• Jordan.  The country's small but effective armed forces are fully committed to blocking both internal and external threats to the kingdom.  IMO King Abdullah is not going to risk Islamist revolt at home while his men are engaged in Syria or Iraq.
• Turkey.  Basically on the Islamists side.
• Iraq.  What will be on the Sunni Arab side already is.  There are Sunni Arab units in the Iraqi Army.  They are largely worthless as combat power.  There are tribal forces that the central government thinks of as enemies and refuses to arm.

When you add this all together you find that the only Sunnis seriously fighting the Islamists (IS, Nusra, etc.) are Kurds and the Sunni Arab soldiers and militia fighting on the side of the government in Syria.  They and their Russian, Hizbullah, IRGC and sectarian and ethnic militia allies are alone and will remain alone.  pl 

FICTION ONLY : Voodoo Creek (excerpt 1/2)

By Patrick BAHZAD

A while ago, someone asked me for an excerpt of a piece of "fiction" I had written a couple of years ago. Well, here it is ... Original version is in French, so you'll have to excuse the quality of my English. I don't exactly intend to win a Nobel prize for litterature with this, but still, enjoy !    

It was 8 am only, but the sun was already high in the sky. Grabbing a bath towel, Basquier was about to go for the showers, after his morning jog. It had been two weeks already since he had joined Fleischer and the rest of the group.
Around him, the small FOB was getting busy. “Voodoo Creek”, that was the name Fleischer had come up for it. A fitting description for a dozen housing containers that looked almost lost in that dried up valley, surrounded by a double wire fence, somewhere near the air base.
Basquier was just taking off his watch when he heard his boss outside, almost knocking down the door with his fist.
- Basquier, meeting in five ! Let’s go.
No shower then today, was Basquier’s first thought. He turned around, threw the towel unto his bed and started getting dressed. Outside, he could hear Fleischer knocking on another container door.
- Soubeyran, wake up, come on.
For a minute or so, nothing happened, but then Basquier heard the door open. He had a quiet laugh while putting on his desert fatigue. Soubeyran had been out all night, meeting one of his “girlfriends’” as he used to call them.
- Jesus, man, you look like shit, was Fleischer’s reaction as he probably saw Soubeyran’s unshaven face peeking through the container door.
Soubeyran was from the Cévennes Moutains in the South of France. Those mountain folks had a reputation as a tough people and Soubeyran was no exception, although he had picked another line of work than sheep farming, like his dad.

Continue reading here: 'The Athenaeum - Fiction only : Voodoo creek (excerpt 1/2)

The MSM are ignorant about Islam

 

 I have now several times seen well dressed, lucid, patriotic American Muslims who identify themselves as officials of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in California interviewed on 24/7 news as representatives of Muslim leadership.

The reporters obviously do not understand that the Ahmadiyya movement is considered by all other Muslims as heretical and non-Islamic.

These Ahmadi gentlemen are quite rational, quite modern, quite American.  Their sect was founded in British India specifically as a reform movement reaching out to all people of all faiths and proselytizing on the basis of teaching and community building.  They make a specialty of translating the Qur'an into many languages to make it accessible to people world-wide.  If you own a Qur'an in an English translation it most likely was published by the Ahmadis.  For this translational effort the Ahmadis are roundly condemned by every other Sunni Muslim group that I know of. There have been translations of the Qur'an but they have always been thought to be a bad idea.  In the view of all Muslims (except the Ibadhis) the Qur'an is the word of God as God thought it.  For them the Qur'an is not a created document.  It descended to Muhammad in God's words.  In other words it is an aspect of the mind of God and God thinks in classical Arabic.  It is for them liisan al-mala'ika (the tongue of the angels).  Therefore, it can never be translated.  I am told that the 12er Shia allow translation.  That is a new datum for me.

Even more problematic for Muslims concerning the Ahmadis is the claim of their founder to have been the true messiah.

In fact the Ahmadis are persecuted everywhere in the Islamic World and are thought to be murtadd (apostates) and subject to death sentences in places like Saudi Arabia.

The West and its values have natural allies in the Islamic culture continent and I would number the Ahmadis and a lot of Sufi groups as being among them.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that the MSM is so ignorant of the internal structure of Islamdom that it does not register mentally with them that these Ahmadis are outliers in the broad panoply of Islamic groups.  pl 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya#Persecution

So let it be written. So let it be done. - TTG

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said Thursday that he is opening all jobs in combat units to women, a landmark decision that ends a three-year period of research with a number of firsts for female service members and bitter debate at times about how women should be integrated.

The decision opens the military’s most elite units to women who can meet the rigorous requirements for the positions for the first time, including the Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces and other Special Operations Units. It also opens the Marine Corps infantry, a battle-hardened force that many service officials had openly advocated keeping closed to female service members.

“There will be no exceptions,” Carter said. “This means that, as long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before.” Carter said that the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force all recommended that all jobs be opened to women. The Marine Corps recommended that certain jobs such as machine gunner be kept closed, but the secretary said that the military is a joint force, and his decision will apply to all services. (Washington Post)

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This news shocked me, although I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. The decision was probably make months ago by the culture warriors in the Administration. What does this mean? Our very own Fred made a comment that “the goal here is solely to have a woman be chief of staff or chairman of the JCS.” Fred’s right. Now I am pretty damned sure that there is or will be a woman or two out there who can be a competent chief of staff or chairman of the JCS.  I’ve known a very good commander of an aviation element and another very good medical company commander who were female. Anything’s possible. But those were not combat outfits.

I have two problems with this decision. First, the way this decision was made is a slap in the face to the Services and those officers who were studying this question. The Army and the Marines spent a lot of time, money and effort and were about to recommend keeping some positions closed to females. Knowing the way the political winds were blowing, those combat officers had to feel quite strongly about their recommendations. Not to wait for the Services to present and defend their case before issuing this decision was an act of gross disrespect. 

The second problem I have with the decision is the effect it will have on the platoon, company and battalion level of our combat units. Our combat units will become social experiments... experiments were the data will be skewed to fit the desired results. Sure females have passed the Ranger Course. Those women are probably fine officers, but the process corroded the Army. They were not treated as equals. They were given many more chances to succeed than their male counterparts were afforded. A general officer came to the field and walked lanes in order for the female students to pass their final patrols. Do the Washington bureaucrats think the troops would not notice? Clearly the bureaucrats have no respect for those troops. Females in combat units will be cut slack whether they want it or not. That’s the nature of command influence. The final test for this social experiment will be administered by our enemies in combat. They will not skew the data.

Finally, this process will be unfair to the very female soldiers and officers that this decision is supposed to help. One or two might make it on their merits and will become legends. Most will be tainted by the effects of command influence and the ensuing corrosive command climate. Their careers and perhaps their souls will inevitably suffer. 

TTG

Clinton CNN poll results - 4 December 2015

"Clinton trails each of the five Republican contenders among men, falling furthest behind when matched up against Carson, who leads Clinton by 21 points among men.

But it's the leanings of independent voters picking between Clinton and five of the top Republican candidates that could be sending alarm bells ringing through Clinton campaign headquarters.

Clinton trails all five Republicans in hypothetical head-to-head matchups.

Carson has the widest lead among independents, with 54% siding with Carson compared to 42% with Clinton."  CNN

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Looks like this is actually a wide open race.   The rumor is around town that President Obama is not functioning well.  His recent behavior in public supports this rumor.  If he keeps acting this way, the effect is bound to be bad for Clinton who cannot escape her service in his cabinet.  pl 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/04/politics/hillary-clinton-republicans-head-to-head-poll/index.html