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

 

Comments

[gemini33]

This looks like a response or reaction to the Hersh article via Josh Rogin at Bloomberg View. I thought it was clownish that he claimed Assad was using a "charm offensive" to peel off members of the Obama foreign policy establishment but was glad to see the finger being pointed at one of the R2Pers in chief, Samantha Power.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-12-22/assad-is-reaching-out-to-washington-insiders

[johnf]

I'd say that Shanghai wasn't really Stalingrad. The ordinary Chinese troops with extraordinary courage, fought and were slaughtered there until eventually the few survivors were forced into a shambolic retreat. Terrible misdirections and interference by Chiang.

Taierzhuang was more like Stalingrad. The generals, following Chiang's disgrace at Shanghai, had a far freer hand. The militarily far superior Japanese were enticed into a city wrecked by their own bombs and then followed weeks of hand to hand fighting in the ruins. All of the main Japanese army was drawn into this fight - with huge casualties on both sides. Then, suddenly, the Japanese rear was cut off by Chinese pincer movements and those within the encirclement died.

It was the Chinese's first and decisive victory. After that, the Japanese were sucked into a lengthy war in the interior of China - they'd originally planned for a six month war. Because raw materials for their war effort were so short, rather than invade Siberia which had at that time no raw materials - they were forced South for oil and rubber - and the Americans finally came in on the side of Britain and Russia. Sorge, the communist spy in Tokyo, was able to inform Stalin that the Japanese were not going to invade Siberia and were to go south and that enabled a mass transit of Russia's crack Eastern troops to defend Moscow late in 41. And Zhukov and Chuikov learnt their tactics for Stalingrad.

[DC]

Sy Hersh expounds on his article in an interview:

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/12/22/sy_hersh_backing_assads_ouster_has

No kind words for Hillary Clinton there. The best we can hope for is that she "learns" from mistakes she's already committed. Not good.

[Jack]

Sir

Not only are R+6 progressing in Lattakia they are also taking ground in Southern Aleppo. It seems they now block the M5 route after capturing Khan Touman and have momentum to setup the "kesselschlacht".

http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/hezbollah-syrian-army-capture-tal-dadeen-in-southern-aleppo/

[Jack]

DC

Hillary does not have the personality to learn from mistakes. Her arrogance will lead her to believe her policy was correct but others charged with the execution failed. Expect a doubling down if she is elected. We can only hope that her belligerence will not lead to military confrontation with Russia.

[alba etie]

rjj
I do mean that , I want to build comity - it is not perverse,. These are perilous times , and we need to be respectful of each other here at SST .

[alba etie]

Col Lang
Ms Greenspan comes to mind ..

[alba etie]

DC
Not sure what it means but a former bastion of the Ron Paul for Presidents , the local Bee Caves , Tx head shop Planet K - is now sporting a huge support Bernie Sanders Banner across it front porch . As Tyler says Big Grandma Clinton is just one no fly zone away from being another "rootin tootin " President W revisited . ,, or another President BHO held hostage by the R2P Harpies ..

[The Twisted Genius]

ryan,

I have also been surprised by the success of the Kurdish YPG in northern Syria. They've come a long way from the the desperate days of last year when most assumed that Kobani would fall. IS forces were hammered by mostly US air support and they took heavy losses, losses so severe that they were forced to abandon their attempt to take Kobani. Perhaps that is the reason IS gave up Tal Abyad without a serious fight earlier this year. They chose to conserve their forces rather than defend a major LOC to Turkey. IMO they're betting it all on the Jarabulus crossing and will fight to keep that open as long as they can.

The Latakia and Aleppo regions are of vital importance to those who want to oust Assad and/or establish an Islamic State. IS, the FSA battalions (often no more than a platoon or company in strength), Al Nusra and the rest of them will not give up this territory cheaply. They must be ground down by the R+6. Unless something drastic happens in the correlation of forces, I predict the R+6 will more or less accomplish this in the next six months.

[rjj]

Among the cordiality challenged rations-of-crap is a form of comity building.

[rjj]

oops. clarification: the cordiality challenged = me

[turcopolier]

ryan

Sophist BS game playing. pl

[David Habakkuk]

LeaNder,

Thank you for the reference to the row over Mearsheimer's endorsement of Atzmon's book, which I had missed.

To be quite clear about the rights and wrongs of this, I would need to look more carefully at the specific quotes which Goldberg used, in denouncing both Atzmon and Mearsheimer.

However, I think it is quite wrong to dismiss Atzmon as a 'pop polemicist'.

While he clearly not infrequently goes 'over the top', the piece about the 'Euston Manifesto' to which I linked – and others of his I have read – brings out into the open critical issues about the culture of 'empowered victimhood' which has essentially taken over Jewish 'establishments' in the United States and Britain.

Prevalent in this culture is the insistence that 'anti-Semitism' is, almost invariably, an irrational response to what Jews are, and is almost never in any way a response to what Jews may do. Also prevalent is the conviction that the 'goyim' harbour a deep-seated urge to murder Jews, which may temporarily be in abeyance, but is always liable to resurface.

Of this culture, the article Goldberg published in the 'Atlantic' back in March under the title 'Is It Time for the Jews to leave Europe?' is a critical statement.

(See http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leave-europe/386279/ .)

A critical point at which Atzmon is driving is that if a 'traumatised' response in which Jews both fear the 'goyim', and see the remedy for their fears as attempting to influence, if not indeed control, the destinies of nations of 'goyim', contains within it the possibility of very serious trouble for everyone – or almost everyone.

As he puts when relating the 'Euston Manifesto' to the 'Book of Esther', 'it is the fearful mind the sets itself into a tragic trap of self-fulfilling prophecy.'

And to be blunt the Goldberg piece is a clear vindication of Atzmon's case. It is simple nonsense to suggest that people in Britain have harboured a deep-seated underlying urge to annihilate Jews, and that the recent revival of anti-Semitism is a manifestation of this. A generation ago, I would have said that the 'philo-Semites' – people like myself and my wife – had won a decisive victory.

What has reversed this – only to a limited extent, but it could get worse – are the policies advocated by the 'Euston Group' and Goldberg himself. Of course, they are not in the forefront of those responsible – that distinction belongs to Perle, Wolfowitz, Bremer and Netanyahu.

But still, people like my sometime colleague David Aaronovitch and Goldberg himself have played a non-negligible role.

In his denunciations of the 'secular cult of the Shoah' – to use a phrase from my old sparring partner here, Babak Makkinejad – Atzmon may indeed have written foolish and distasteful things.

But his clear underlying conviction that this 'cult' has become actively dangerous, and indeed is making the most influential sections of Jewish opinion a manifest danger to practically everyone, their fellow Jews very much included, seems to me absolutely warranted.

[sillybill]

Babak Makkinejad,

"evidence of this failure" - sounds more like sour grapes to me.

'destruction of marriage' - marriage hasn't been destroyed, people are now able to marry who they want, not who their parents choose for them, and are able to dissolve a relationship that is not working. that isn't destruction it's liberation.

'militant castrating feminism' - absolute bollocks, obtaining equality of opportunity and women not being slaves to their fathers or husbands is liberation.

what has actually happened is that men have been knocked off the pedestal they built for themselves and now have to use reason instead of force to get their way.

on another note - i have been a little confused by your references to 'Western Diocletian thought' - search engines have not been very helpful, i'm wading through vast numbers of unrelated articles. perhaps i'm structuring the search terms incorrectly - could you give me a couple of pointers? thanks

[LeaNder]

"I would need to look more carefully at the specific quotes which Goldberg used"

don't bother to look into his argument either. That's not really helpful. Goldie is someone I decided a long time ago to not look back on either, even at the time of the debate I doubt I checked his argument.

'empowered victimhood'
is an interesting thing in itself, but the approaches I have seen so far don't concince me.

I may look more closely into your offer at dialog on the issue, but here I stopped reading:

" Nick Cohen also founded the Euston Manifesto ‘think tank’ to support dubious Neocon ideologies on this side of the pond."

I followed Cohen in the post 9/11 universe, as I recall I followed Cohen's blog. But while he even before the Euston Manifesto was easy to be recoognized as a supporter, I doubt he was a founder. But he no doubt was a useful figurehead at the time.

I also always deeply disliked Nick Cohen, but if I would publish something you call an essay on the Euston Manifesto, I would try to get my facts right.

That's where I stopped reading.

Mind you, I stumbled across Atzmon before. Although at that point he wasn't quite present, only in the background as a pusher of the art event of a female friend. I was a bit surprised about the out-roar both managed to create, but it is a basic fact that the "art" itself wouldn't have gotten attention without the out-roar.

Maybe I should slightly modify my self-description as "Culture Marxist/CultMarx", I am not a fan of art of the type of art-and/as-scandal. Like "Piss Jesus". I am vaguely a leftist, maybe a "recovering leftist", to borrow the description of Iannos Glivanos:

https://iglinavos.wordpress.com/

As far as I am concerned, Gilad Atzmon is simply rehashing themes that are in the air for his own benefit without really caring to take a closer look. Why should I take him serious?

No doubt in our world prominence is all. I am told you can get quite prominent on you tube.

[alba etie]

rrj
We all need to work on common courtesy IMO ...

[different clue]

David Habakkuk,

I read a couple of Gilad Atzmon pieces on/at the Saker. It seemed to me that he basically finds the Jews in general to be detestable and racist for continuing to exist at any cultural or communal level and his anti-zionism follows from that. That wouldn't a priori invalidate his analysis of Israeli affairs. Every bad thing he sees and says about Israel could be separately studied and confirmed/disconfirmed based on other sources . . . as our host has periodically advised us to learn how to do with pieces of intelligence and/or information from sources we may not like.