"I told you so..." - Idlib Province - re-posted 7 april 2017

 

Need I say more?  Really?  The jihadi bastards were given enough time to consolidate their position in Idlib Province after the liberation of Aleppo City and you see the result.   The White Helmet film and TV production crew are on the scene.  Jihadi doctors with high production values on camera have been brought in to star in new shows (soon to be screened).  The SOHR hermit is processing thematic material.  The combined forces of AQ derivative "resistance" fighters were unleashed upon northern Hama.  Well, that didn't go too well ... But the forces of salafist jihad always have the internet and gullible reporters across the world.  Well, maybe not in Russia.  Israeli media today seem solidly behind the idea that the beast Assad must have personally ordered this massacre, this abomination against the children of Syria.  He MUST HAVE.  It is in the nature of the beast. 

Well, pilgrims, in 2013 we had Martin Dempsey who went to see Obama to tell him that the available intelligence did not support the idea that the SAA had attacked Ghouta with Sarin. Some of us know that US and UK government testing of the Sarin involved showed it not to be manufactured for military munitions.  But, alas, we have no Martin Dempsey, visible on the scene as yet.  The estimable Irishman has departed to a Carolina (?) university where he teaches a course on Yeats.  A far, far better thing he does ... Ah, that's Dickens, isn't it? 

Well, OK.  IMO the R+6 should learn the lesson of this propaganda debacle and OVERRUN Idlib Province!!  pl

Comments

[LeaNder]

Jihadi doctors with high production values on camera have been brought in to star in new shows (soon to be screened).

To the extend I watched they seemed to have quite visible press labels.

*****
But concerning doctors, associatively: What this vaguely reminds me of are my early excursions into interviews with Islamists, soft spoken and somehow alluring.

I wish, I would remember the ideologue you seemed to consider one of the more dangerous ones in -- that's all that stuck -- in the larger North African context. Muslim Brotherhood 'progeny'?

[Annem]

Unfortunately, when Obama received this information from Dempsey, he chose not to take on the "narrative" that had already been cemented in peoples' minds thanks to our media. Instead, he decided he would not take military action against Syria and absorbed the criticism from his enemies for failing to go through with his "red lines" threat. Actually, he took advantage of the incident to get Russia to deal with whatever chemical weapons that the SAA did have.

[sid_finster]

Logic, facts and evidence are irrelevant when dealing with sociopaths. Right now, the Deep State or whatever you want to call it, wants its war and will use any means to justify it.

[[email protected]]

After 5 years of attrition it looks like the SAA has very limited resources and few competent combat units/commanders left, to do the overrunning with.
The best they seem to be able to do are these "two steps forward, one step back" campaigns.
ISIS looks more and more depleted, and everyone seems to be trying to "cheaply" grab as much land, positions and gas/oil sites as possible.
Idlib is probably to hard of a nought to crack for now.

[Haralambos]

Col.,
With all due respect, I think you were correct on General Dempsey's teaching Yeats since he wrote his master's thesis on The Irish Revival. There is something of a terrible irony in this conjunction given Yeats' poem "The Second Coming" and our Eater Season: http://tinyurl.com/zgwjyto

My takeaway lines are the following:

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

[Jim MacMillan]

Russian news agency TASS reports that Syrian regime aviation inadvertently struck a jihadi chemical weapons lab. That report supposedly came from a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov.

http://tass.com/world/939417

[turcopolier]

PA

Other factors? Yes, but they were given too much weight. Well executed? Yes. Is that not obvious? pl

[turcopolier]

ZK

IMO you are incorrect in your estimation of the SAA. IMO the SAA has grown steadily stronger and more competent in the experience of war. pl

[Mac]

Colonel,

I get the sense this act was timed to follow up on Trump's recent statement re Assad being secondary...who is trying to force his hand?

[Cee]

LeaNder,

Like this doctor now in Syria who has been trying to raise money recently.

Shajul Islam

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2731517/Does-NHS-doctor-hold-key-identifying-Jihadi-John-East-London-medic-accused-kidnapping-journalists-Syria-probed-brother-hunt-world-s-wanted-man-intensifies.html

[Thomas]

"Right now, the Deep State or whatever you want to call it, wants its war and will use any means to justify it."

And they just may get it, all against them.

[Serge]

Why didn't the Russians/syrians deny involvement in the incident altogether by blaming an AQ false flag,as they have done in the past,instead of cooking up this half baked story of chemical weapons stocks destined for IS in Iraq? IMO, because for whatever reason(someone,whether internal or external trying to take power and take out Assad by blaming him for this,maybe a rogue outfit in the armed forces,etc)some element within the SAA is guilty and has been caught redhanded. Article from bellingcat on the implausibility of Russian claim:https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/04/05/chemical-realities-russias-khan-sheikhoun-chemical-warehouse-attack-claims/

[robt willmann]

This new PsyOp and propaganda operation that Assad is "gassing his own people" is going full blast, reminiscent of Frank Wisner (sr.) and the Mighty Wurlitzer. Around the time the Syrian "opposition", a/k/a proxies, launched their attack, this propaganda appears. What a coincidence!

Donald Trump knows to be skeptical of claims during a real estate transaction -- as the other parties would rightfully be skeptical of his -- and he better be skeptical of the high decibel level of claims concerning this latest escapade in Syria, or he is going to be conned out of his shoes.

In my opinion, Assad is not going to "go rogue" on the Russians, who have already saved his derriere more than once, initially on the issue of chemical weapons.

[maningi]

There are some strange rumors, that US is moving massive military equipment close to Damascus plotting an attack/invasion on Syria or Damascus. Anybody here able to confirm or reject this info?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjEdHH0Jys

[turcopolier]

Serge

or Sergei whichever it is, air targeting is an inherently imprecise process. There is nothing "half-baked" about the possibility of inadvertence in an air strike. pl

[turcopolier]

All

After listening to POTUS talk about Syria at the presser with Abdullah I think we are all in big trouble if CJCS and the Chiefs do not go tell Trump to stop watching CNN and the rest of those crazy buggers. pl

[b]

If the incident was staged (which I assume) it would have happened independent of an R+6 attack on Idleb governate. It probably would have been staged earlier, later or in a different place. It would not have mattered. The propaganda would be the same.

The SAA has still too few ground forces available for a wide ranging attack. The strategy of the last months - wait for the enemy to come, move out of its way, bomb it to smithereens, move back in - has worked well in north Hama and elsewhere. Russia and Syria claim that the Hama attack cost al-Qaeda&consorts more than 2,200 men. A few such attacks and they are no longer a force.
Also: 50-70 TOW were allegedly used by al-Qaeda during the Hama attack. An offense against them over wide open areas would be very costly.

The media and the neocons try to goat Trump into attacking Syria. Netanyahoo joined publicly with them on the issue.

One can only hope that Trump is smart enough to see what they try to do with him. Is he already defanged? I hope not. In his press talk today he tried to move away from the issue. That is probably a good sign.

[Peter in Toronto]

Trump lost his most powerful ally at the NSC today; Bannon was the ideologue behind the soft-nationalist platform that got Trump elected (which I doubt Trump himself understands). We're in deep trouble, since the deranged zealot Nikki Haley is already doing the regime change circuit at the UN, and the POTUS is openly servicing the Neo-Con narrative.

Amazing how the so-called Western media all obediently fall in line on a story whose principle source are Nusra Front Jihadists; there is practically NO divergence from the narrative, having scanned most of the network propaganda channels.

This is a concerted effort, with every Borgist asset mobilized for the final push to regime change and the show-down with Iran.

[Peter in Toronto]

The Russians aren't helping here at all, that is hardly believable. I would expect some form of evidence when making a claim like that.

How could they possibly know it's a weapons factory without countless hours of surveillance or informant intel. Why not publish such materials in the face of worldwide condemnation.

IMO, they are not being truthful.

[LondonBob]

Israel's response to Putin slapping down Netanyahoo?

So far the deplorables aren't buying it, the internet and events have changed things.

[Robert C]

I think Obama deserves some credit for choosing Dempsey and after today's presser, A LOT of people are going to miss his restraint.

[Jack]

Sir

The Borg may have finally rolled POTUS. Maybe, only Ivanka could stop it at this point.

Wonder what McMaster and Mattis are telling him?

[Serge]

Colonel,

Serge, after my grandfather. The half baked I was referring to being the hamfisted Russian attempt to connect this to IS in Iraq.

[Peter in Toronto]

Colonel, from my limited observations, it seems that for the most part they (the SAA) have learned very little in these 6 years of warfare. I think their army is structurally incapable of using those men who have become battlefield proficient, and incorporating them into roles of limited leadership. Nepotism, tribal suspicions and loyalties, widespread corruption and an archaic conscription system are responsible for sending rookies into poorly led units where they are attrited until no longer combat effective.

Even recently, in the Hama offensive, countless videos have emerged of groups of SAA being caught completely off-guard, in the open, in convenient clusters, being picked off by ATGMs, a nuisance since pretty much 2012. How have they not incorporated even the most basic countermeasures into their tactical behaviour?

Their prospects for the total liberation of Idlib are not good, in my estimates, not with Turkish mercenaries roaming around, Israeli harassment, Gulf funding and countless unresolved pockets of resistance STILL dotting Damascus and its suburbs.

Stalingrad was fought over a 5 month period, and resolved decisively, having consumed 1 million combatants. Yet the Arabs cannot achieve a decisive victory in 6 years of warfare... These are not warrior cultures like the mountain men of Yemen or the Teutons. They have no martial traditions. They are sedentary agrarian people (the first human settlements are thought to have been established in the Levant). I think they lack the temperament for war.

[Fred]

Col.,

I'm pretty certain that the people who voted for Trump have zero desire to intervene in Syria for any reason.