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Syria: The Deadbeat Opposition And A Russian Checkmate
The Syrian exile opposition is becoming irrelevant. It has been destroyed due to the rivalities between Saudi Arabia and Qatar and is now denounced by all other parts of the Syrian opposition. The U.S. has thereby lost one of its key political instruments to drive the Syrian government out. It now has no one to present as negotiating partner opposed to the Syrian government side in the planned Geneva II conference.
Hassan Hassan writes from Istanbul about the failed "western" attempt, with Saudi support, to make the exile opposition more relevant and to dislodge the Muslim Brotherhood from the leading role in the Syrian National Coalition:
The Syrian political opposition, in its current form, is a hopeless case.
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One member of the coalition told me Mr Al Sabbagh has been pushed by Doha to block any changes to "give the impression that the new sponsors of the Syrian dossier have failed". By new sponsors, he meant Saudi Arabia, which has assumed responsibilities of sponsoring the Syrian opposition, pushing Qatar aside.
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It is time for Syrians to realise that the political opposition is an important factor behind the stalemate.
The Syrians have realized that. Michael Kilo (a secular Marxist(!)) the U.S./Saudis alliance wanted to push into a leadership role is rather scathing:
"The real, real, real problem is in the Coalition," Kilo told Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabiya, after some dissidents accused Riyadh of imposing his entry into the warring country's main opposition group.
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Though still in Istanbul, it was unclear early Wednesday whether Kilo would stay on in the Coalition.
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The opposition has long been marred by internal divisions and bickering, giving rise to doubts over its ability to present a united front with the proposed peace talks ahead.
The Local Coordination Committee as well as some other opposition groups inside Syria join the criticism and demand a place at the table for themselves:
The revolutionary forces that have signed this statement will no longer bestow legitimacy upon any political body that subverts the revolution or fails to take into account the sacrifices of the Syrian people or adequately represent them.
We consider this statement to be a final warning to the SC, for the Syrian people have spoken.
Edward Dark (a nom de guerre) was one of the original organizers of opposition demonstrations in Aleppo. He witnessed the destruction the armed insurgents waged in his city and has given up on his hopes:
To us, a rebel fighting against tyranny doesn’t commit the same sort of crimes as the regime he’s supposed to be fighting against. He doesn’t loot the homes, businesses and communities of the people he’s supposed to be fighting for. Yet, as the weeks went by in Aleppo, it became increasingly clear that this was exactly what was happening.
Rebels would systematically loot the neighborhoods they entered. They had very little regard for the lives and property of the people, and would even kidnap for ransom and execute anyone they pleased with little recourse to any form of judicial process. They would deliberately vandalize and destroy ancient and historical landmarks and icons of the city. They would strip factories and industrial zones bare, even down to the electrical wiring, hauling their loot of expensive industrial machinery and infrastructure off across the border to Turkey to be sold at a fraction of its price. Shopping malls were emptied, warehouses, too. They stole the grain in storage silos, creating a crisis and a sharp rise in staple food costs. They would incessantly shell residential civilian neighborhoods under regime control with mortars, rocket fire and car bombs, causing death and injury to countless innocent people, their snipers routinely killing in cold blood unsuspecting passersby. As a consequence, tens of thousands became destitute and homeless in this once bustling, thriving and rich commercial metropolis.
But why was this so? Why were they doing it? It became apparent soon enough, that it was simply a case of us versus them. They were the underprivileged rural class who took up arms and stormed the city, and they were out for revenge against the perceived injustices of years past. Their motivation wasn’t like ours, it was not to seek freedom, democracy or justice for the entire nation, it was simply unbridled hatred and vengeance for themselves.
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Whatever is left of Syria at the end will be carved out between the wolves and vultures that fought over its bleeding and dying corpse, leaving us, the Syrian people to pick up the shattered pieces of our nation and our futures.
The original "democratic protesters" like Edward Dark have had enough. They never understood that the role their original sponsor had planned for them was only to be a diversion for the all out armed assault on the Syrian state. They have been abused. They wanted freedom but received anarchy. They will now rather support the Syrian government than support any further strife.
The military leader whom the U.S. supports but who has little control over any units on the ground demands that the war be widened:
“What we want from the U.S. government is to take the decision to support the Syrian revolution with weapons and ammunition, anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft weapons,” Idris said. “Of course we want a no-fly zone and we ask for strategic strikes against Hezbollah both inside Lebanon and inside Syria.
I doubt that any of Idris' sponsors will support an escalation into Lebanon. But some in the "west" are still dreaming of implementing an illegal "no-fly zone" over Syria. They do not believe the Russian commitment to prevent such by sending S-300 air defense systems to Syria:
"Does Russia have S-300 batteries ready to go?" said Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain. "I'm not sure that it does. Is it going to send engineers to integrate it with existing [air defence] architecture? Will they send trainers for the one to two years it takes to train people to use it? This seems more like an exercise in political signalling to me, saying: 'Hands off Syria.'"
This is misreading the Russian plans. I suggested that Russia could move its own fighter planes to Syria to protect the Syrian air-space. This though suggests that Russia will instead move its own S-300 air-defense mssiles:
Four regiments of S-300 air defense systems have been deployed at the Ashuluk firing range in southern Russia as part of another snap combat readiness check of the Russian armed forces, the Defense Ministry said.
The regiments were airlifted on Thursday by military transport planes to designated drop zones where they will carry out a variety of missions simulating the defense of the Russian airspace from massive attacks by “enemy” missiles and aircraft.
“The missions will be carried out in conditions of heavy electronic warfare to test the capabilities of the air defense units to the highest limit,” the ministry said.
The "western" air-forces do know the older export versions of the S-300 that Russia sold to Greece and the ones the U.S. bought from Croatia. They know how to defeat those. But the systems the Russians use themselves have had several upgrades in their radars, electronic systems and have new missiles. If Russia moves those, as it is now training to do, any "no-fly zone" attempt is likely to start with lots of downed "western" jets and a high casualty count. It would be a checkmate move.
The U.S. has no "Syrian opposition" to support in Geneva. The exiles are totally discredited. The unarmed opposition in Syria has given up. The armed opposition in Syria is collection of disunited thieves and takfiris. Russia has the checkmate chance of deploying its S-300PM2 and may well use it.
What is the U.S. to do now? Escalate further and risk an ever widening war throughout the Middle East with heavy Russian involvement? Or will it get off its high horse and agree to Russia's demand to actively stop any additional Libyan weapon supply through Turkey and any other support for the violence in Syria? Are there other alternatives?
Edward Dark evidently follows an agenda. He wants to draw the attention away from payed terrorists and mass murderers toward the “rural Syrian population”.
As for the S-300, b is basically right but there are quite many misunderstandings and mistakes swirling around.
A typical one:
One would need 1 – 2 years of training before using the S-300. That is right if one is talking about freshmen just entering the air force. There is a lot to learn for *any* newbie in air defense weapons handling. Things like details of missiles, software involved and down to mathematics (trajectory calculations) and, of course “reading and understanding the radar”; cheap saturation flying scrap is very different from airplanes trying to take an AD system out or from a serious attack with (at least some) serious missiles involved.
This, however, is true for *any* AD system. Once the basics are learned, understood, and practiced, changing from one system to another (and usually newer, more modern one) are comparably modest. Furthermore most if not all of this can be trained and practiced while the actual AD system is not yet delivered.
There are also many misconceptions about the S-300 system itself. Actually, saying “S-300” is rather vage and similar to saying “a sporty series 5 BMW car” (which can be anything from a 80ies model up to todays high end model).
To break it down in simple (somewhat oversimplified) terms:
Such a system consists of a command and control module, one or more radar (and processing) modules and a battery of launchers and, of course, of the missiles loaded on the launchers.
Each of those exist (by design) of multiple versions (e.g. tracked or wheeled), different generations and configuration levels, a.s.o.
Those elements must be connected to become a system and in a way that can’t be easily jammed and can work under very harsh conditions.
As the elements for obvious reasons are put at quite a distance apart (and as wires by nature act as antennas whether one desires that or not) a seemingly simple upgrade of changing those “wires” (connecting the elements) ti fiber transmitting light actually is a very major improvement.
As one of the guiding principles behind Russian missile technology is to change the equation of ones cost vs. the enemies cost (as in “500 thousand $ missile taking down a 50 Million enemy jet”) a certain modularity (although only really reached with S-300 and successors and modern systems like Buk) is “built-in” by design.
To put it rudely simple: An 80ies S-300 system, properly maintained and upgraded in critical parts, is *way beyond* zatos capabilities.
As for the red herring problems of delivery spread by some western sources b mentioned, this is of course bullsh*t.
Yes, it’s (almost certainly) true; Russia doesn’t keep large stock-piles of S-300 at the factories.
But, as b correctly interpreted the illustrative recent Russian snap exercises, Russia *does have* the capability to bring in complete S-300 batteries “over-night”. Although, evidently, at high cost. Therefore I personally consider that message more a strategic one.
But there is a second source and a major one: Russias military, more precisely, their currently ongoing change from S-300 to S-400. Sure enough, Russia doesn’t put those systems that they properly maintained and upgrade so long and that were in combat ready status yesterday on the junk yard.
And there is another misconception spread by western “news” outlets, namely, that zusa can take out S-300.
First, as explained before, this a akin to saying “my chryler can overtake a 5 series BMW” – it’s meaningless nonsense.
Second the whole issue is way more compley, basically due to a “dimensional jump” in favour of Russia.
There are two variants, oor (out of reach) and ats vs. sta ratio.
Both basically coming down to tradionally rather limited ranges of AD systems, no matter whether artillery or missiles.
While one reads impressing values in brochures they are basically meaningless because they are valid only in certain ideal conditions (which the enemy will not grant in real combat). The real ranges for AD (on both sides) are considerably lower, typically in the 1 digit and lower 2 digit km ranges.
The oor problem was constructively made use of by very high altitude bombers of zusa. They basically relied on the simple fact that almost no AD missile went higher than 12 (and later on) 15 or 16 km.
The second variant is trickier. It derives from the fact that air-born anti-surface missiles have an inherent and major advantage in reach (and trajectory) over surface to air (like AD) missiles.
As almost all pre-S-300 AD systems had an effective reach of 20 to 30 km a fighter jet could fire a 30 to 40 km range air-to-surface missile and take out AD systems (usually after a spotter/marker aircraft relayed the necessary data).
This is, to a certain degree, even true for old S-300 systems (albeit with considerable risk for the pilots). It is however a zato wet dream for any upgrade or modern S-300 (and, of course, S-400) systems; those are basically almost-certain-death-zones for zato aircraft.
Summary:
Russia does have S-300s available, those are not “old junk”, and Russia does have the capability and in fact even diverse ways (up to air transporting) of delivery to Syria. Furthermore, Syria does have personel to work with these systems and Russia does have their own on-board “S-300” with 100+ missiles in their flotilla.
Taken all major factors into account, b is perfectly right to use the term “checkmate” – which also explains israels desperate and extremely dirty attempts.
We could continue to discuss WW3 but that is meaningless because it won’t happen (or only in a very limited, israel instigated variant, leading to the extermination of israel and, very probably, to worldwide *real* jew progromes).
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | May 29 2013 20:22 utc | 25
a tale of 2 military aids: one is legal the other is not
Israel Channels Weapons and Military Aid to Al Qaeda in Syria
Interview with Michel Chossudovsky
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, May 29, 2013
Press TV: Mr. Chossudovsky, today we have Israel threatening Moscow possibly with force. How does Israel play into this equation and how much physical involvement can we expect from Israel?
Chossudovsky: Well, first I should say that Israel is supporting the insurgency. In other words, it is supporting al-Qaeda in Syria.This is not known to public opinion. Through the Golan Heights, it is supporting terrorist units of al-Nusrah, which are fighting the Syrian government.It has logistics, weapons supplies, Israeli vehicles going into Syrian territory; it also has a hospital facility for the rebels located in the Golan Heights.
So, in effect, right from the outset Israel has been involved in supporting the various factions, the so-called Islamist factions, which are, as we know, mercenaries trained in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
So, in effect, we have to ask ourselves who are the main military actors in the Syrian war theater. The al-Nusrah rebels, which allegedly represent the opposition, are supported by the Western military alliance and Israel.
These are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance and they are waging a war against the Syrian people.
Now when the European Union decides to lift the arms embargo, what they really have in mind is to channel military aid to this mercenary force, which is supported by foreign powers.
That is a very different position to that of Russia or Iran for that matter, which provide military assistance to a sovereign country to a government through bilateral agreements.
In effect what we are also dealing with is Western and Israeli military aid channeled to a terrorist entity, which is illegal under the international law but it is also in violation of the US’ anti-terror legislation.
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http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/05/29/306026/west-insincere-in-its-syria-policy/
Press TV: Mr. Chossudovsky, recently US senator John Kerry went to Syria via Turkey. How do you interpret this visit?
Chossudovsky: Well, John Kerry who is secretary of the state, is actually in blatant violation of the US’ guidelines on anti-terrorism.
There is an anti-terrorist list, there is a list of terrorist organizations, which is made up by the State Department and John Kerry is negotiating, interfacing, with representatives of that terrorist organization and the same thing is true for John McCain when he crosses into Syria or the same thing is true with the former ambassador to Syria Robert Steven Ford, who is also supporting these terrorists.
So we have to distinguish between military aid through official channels, from government to government, which is what the Russians are providing to Syria on the one hand, and the type of assistance which Israel, Britain, France, the United States, are channeling to an illegal organization (according to their own criteria).
So in other words these Western officials should be arrested on anti-terrorist charges because they are in violation of international law.
Press TV: Despite the fact that the European Union has lifted the arms embargo on Syria, how optimistic are you that the Geneva II talks would bear fruit and resolve the Syrian crisis politically?
Chossudovsky: Well, I think that the Western leaders are, in effect, attempting to build peace and democracy by threatening war. Essentially that is what they are doing, heightening the threats, channeling weapons to the terrorists,
Incidentally those terrorist have been decimated by the Syrian Armed forced, so in effect the Western military alliance is in a dead end.
So, they are now considering all the options
But essentially if they were concerned and sincerely committed to the peace process, they would immediately cease supporting a terrorist organization which is linked to al-Qaeda and which is involved in atrocities and killings in Syria.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-channels-weapons-and-military-aid-to-al-qaeda-in-syria/5336767
Posted by: brian | May 30 2013 2:04 utc | 53
@b#21:
There may well be many deluded Democracy Lovers in Syria, but I question whether nom de guerre, Edward Dark is really one of them.
@Fernando – Edward Dark – the U.S. always uses such snobby idealistic fools for its “democracy promotion” color revolutions. They did it in Egypt too. Those folks then get thrown aside by the more “robust” forces. In the case of Syria it was part of the plan. The deluded “democracy lovers” were used as a propaganda diversion to hide the real attack by Gulf funded jihadists.
Dark talks a good line about nonviolence, but some of the spin seems just too good to be true. He claims that nice American, Ambassador Ford, gave them such good advice and that it is their own fault for not paying attention:
How did a once inspirational and noble popular uprising calling for freedom and basic human rights degenerate into an orgy of bloodthirsty sectarian violence, with depravity unfit for even animals? Was it inevitable and wholly unavoidable, or did it not have to be this way?
The simple answer to the above question is the miscalculation (or was it planned?) of Syrians taking up arms against their regime, a ruthless military dictatorship held together by nepotism and clan and sectarian loyalties for 40 years of absolute power. Former US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford specifically warned about this in his infamous visit to Hama in the summer of 2011 just as the city was in the grip of massive anti-regime protests and before it was stormed by the Syrian army. That warning fell on deaf ears, whether by design or accident, and we have only ourselves to blame. Western and global inaction or not, we are solely responsible for our broken nation at the end of the day.
Oh yes, the mythically early peaceful days of the protests during the Summer of Love-2011. Yet neither of the links he gives about Ford’s sage advice are about the power of nonviolence nor even as “early” as the summer: The first article is from September 28, 2011, the second from a few weeks ago (keeping in mind that some of the insurgent groups are documented as attacking government forces as early as April 2011). The only “miscalculation of Syrians taking up arms against their regime,” that Ford warned against in the fall of 2011, was that it was too early to fight, that they should wait until Assad was softened up by more sanctions:
Ford, who had a front-row seat to Iraq’s sectarian civil war, is strongly advising the opposition against a turn to arms. “It would be a mistake,” he says, not least because “you want to be sure that if you’re even contemplating this, you have a way to know that whatever you’re going to do militarily is going to be effective … I very frankly say to people, you don’t have enough force to fight the Syrian army, you’re not even close. We have to be realistic.”
… Ford and others are cautioning the opposition to wait for pressure and sanctions to bite, and the economy to crumble further rather than pick up arms. “Time isn’t on Assad’s side,” he says.
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Ford also isn’t looking to re-engage Syrian officials. The ambassador … says he has not had a high-level political discussion with the Syrian government in weeks. His last meeting with an official was Tuesday, at the Foreign Ministry, a “routine issue about embassy operations and visas,” Ford says. “We just have nothing to say,” he adds. “They know we are looking for change on the ground.”
The recent article doesn’t even pretend that Ford met with nonviolent activists in his latest visit. The MREs were delivered to the FSA:
U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford briefly crossed into northern Syria on Thursday to meet with Syrian opposition leaders.
It is Ford’s first visit back to Syria since he left in February, 2012, when the U.S. embassy suspended operations in Damascus as the opposition effort to oust Syrian President Bashar al Assad developed into a full-blown civil war. Since then, Ford has become the Obama administration’s point man on Syria and point of contact with the Syrian opposition.
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A State Department official confirmed that Ford had “spent some time” at a border crossing to discuss the situation in Syria with members of the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian opposition. Ford had gone to the border to participate in the U.S. government’s delivery of Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) that the U.S. is providing to the Syrian Coalition and Supreme Military Council.
National Public Radio had earlier cited Syrian activists as saying Ford met with a rebel leader from Aleppo who thanked him for the delivery of some food aid being provided by the U.S.
Officials did not want to provide additional details of Ford’s visit for security reasons. ”Obviously, this a dangerous area so we don’t want to get into the movement of diplomatic personnel,” said the official.
It is ironic that zionists pull out all of the stops to prevent traditional nonviolent tools of BDS being deployed against Israel, so that American activists have only been able to make tiny steps forward in limited boycotts and divestments. Yet Syrian “activists” like Dark talk as though their nonviolent actions against the Assad government take place in a vacuum. It is as though the crippling Sanctions imposed on Syria over the past decade do not exist. As though rural Syrians, who have been hit hardest by American sanctions and other IMF-sanctioned “economic reforms,” have no cause for their grievances.
Posted by: Rusty Pipes | May 30 2013 2:47 utc | 61
why is the US so keen to arm islamic terrorists in their war on syria? Not because US is interested in freedom democracy or human rights:
‘When democracy-hating Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet and paradise for foreign investors, violently put down a popular uprising last year, Washington sat on its hands. Sometimes raw interest trumps principle, explained the United States’ newspaper of record, The New York Times, as if US foreign policy is normally governed by principle, and departures from it in favor of interests are aberrations, rather than the opposite.
The cracking of Shiite skulls in Bahrain was ably assisted by the Sunni petro-monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which dispatched tanks and troops—the same democracy-abominating countries which have taken a lead role in demanding that Assad undertake democratic reforms. Every one of them absolutist states, they have joined the United States, Britain and France in a preposterously named “friends of Syrian democracy” group. Qatar, one of its members, was instrumental in providing material and propaganda support to the Libyan rebels—many of whom, like their Syrian counterparts, were militant Islamists. The spectacle of the Gulf Cooperation Council aligning itself with what is called a pro-democracy rebellion is a bit like the Wall Street Journal backing the communist-era Solidarity trade union as the true face of socialism in Poland. Whatever Solidarity was, it was not the true face of socialism, which is why the Wall Street Journal backed it.
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No, Washington’s ambition to overthrow Syria’s Ba’athist state is a longstanding one which pre-dates the current uprising. The US state has been keen to install a pro-imperialist government in Damascus since at least 1957, when it tried unsuccessfully to engineer a coup there. In 2003, the United States initiated a program of economic warfare against Syria, and in 2005, if not earlier, started to funnel money to opposition elements to mobilize energy for regime change.
Apart from Syria’s irritating Washington by allying with Iran, backing Hezbollah, and providing material assistance to Palestinian national liberation movements, the country exhibits a tendency shared by all US regime change targets: a predilection for independent, self-directed, economic development. This is expressed in state-ownership of important industries, subsidies to domestic firms, controls on foreign investment, and subsidization of basic commodities. These measures restrict the profit-making opportunities of US corporations, banks and investors, and since it is their principals who hold sway in Washington, US foreign policy is accordingly shaped to serve their interests.
The US State Department complains that Syria has “failed to join an increasingly interconnected global economy,” which is to say, has failed to turn over its state-owned enterprises to private investors, among them Wall Street financial interests. The State Department is aggrieved that “ideological reasons” continue to prevent the Assad government from liberalizing Syria’s economy. As a result of the Ba’athists’ ideological fixation on socialism, “privatization of government enterprises is still not widespread.” The economy “remains highly controlled by the government.” [14]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-s-uprising-in-context/29221
US regime uses expendable islamic terrorists as a proxy weapon, saving US troops and Regime public relations bak home
Posted by: brian | May 30 2013 3:00 utc | 63
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