Jawbone #75 & fast freddy #98,
Yeah, I hardly ever listen to anything on NPR any more. Ever since Bob Edwards got the boot oops, left for greener pastures, NPR, in my opinion, has been the Left’s trusted handmaiden of the corporate Right, i.e. CIA. Those links, fast freddy, confirm what I have believed for the years ever since. Thanks.
Full disclosure, I still listen to Car Talk even though they’re reruns since Ray passed. I had it on this morning while in my car awaiting the tappet brothers.

Posted by: juannie | Sep 27 2015 20:38 utc | 104

20:35 GMT
Israeli rockets target Syrian army posts on Golan Heights
Israel fired upon two Syrian army posts after Syrian Armed Forces misfired rockets into an Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights Sunday, an Israel @34 penelope.. thanks.. and, i think you need to read harry laws comments again @2 to understand better what he was saying..
and in today’s news…
Defense Forces spokesman said. The rocket crashed into a field causing no casualties or damage, according to IDF. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the Israeli fire targeted army positions in a town in southwest Quneitra province, but did provide any details on casualties. Golan, part of which was unlawfully seized by Israel in 1967, has seen numerous cases of stray rockets hitting the Israeli-occupied side prompting an Israeli response.
and”>http://www.rt.com/news/316624-france-bombs-isis-first/”>and also from rt France carries out first airstrikes against ISIS in Syria..
looks like it is business as usual for the western gang.. all; this goes into what H was saying @10 except applied to the other countries who are participating with the usa in regime change, but using ISIS as cover for it..

Posted by: james | Sep 27 2015 21:39 utc | 106

Piotr Berman @ 71,
“To summarize, if the opponent has enough troops and some minimal level of weapons, air superiority provides force multiplier, but not a drastic game changer. And ending insurgency requires some ratio of force, sometimes described like 10 to 1, but this just an indicator of asymmetry. Syrian forces have more battle experience and motivation than GCC and KSA, but in a country with 100 battle fronts, 40 new planes and few thousands of foreign troops do not make drastic changes.”
Thought this might interest you: (This guy seems to have some familiarity w actual history of the battle so far.)
“The above asks for a brief explanation. The Syrian warfare is characterized by high front instability and fluid battlefield which partly stems from the critical shortage of weaponry and ammunition supplies the warring parties have been continually experiencing. Forming a well-armed and equipped striking force at any side of the front line – either among government or Islamist troops – would guarantee mounting a successful military operation resulting in the adversary’s retreat.
“The chronology of the hostilities proves that nearly every act of delivering arms to the targeted front site has resulted in a successful operation. Given that the government troops’ fleet of wheeled and tracked vehicles has considerably thinned out in these four years of the ongoing warfare, the supply of Russian armored vehicles could give the war course a sharp turn. In case the Syrian offensive near Homs, Hama, Idliba and Latakia receives a due air backing, the Islamists will almost certainly have to retreat thus rendering the Mediterranean coast no longer dangerous to the Alawis.
A number of military analysts claim that conducting airstrikes in the area of Idliba parallel to the reinforcing the government army with even 50 armored vehicles would contribute to its gaining a considerable advantage over the Islamists. The Kurds’ offensive supported by the aviation of the coalition forces demonstrates how effective the interaction of the strike aircraft and advancing ground troops can be.
“This is indirectly confirmed by the Stratfor’s report: “Even this level of the Russian logistical and operational support could crash the insurgents’ resistance. Enhancing the loyalist forces’ stance, Moscow hopes to strengthen its own position in the peace negotiations. Moreover, creating a secure “air bridge” enables Russia to launch a rapid military intervention if and when needed”.
With regard to the functions of the Russian airbase in Latakia, we can too make some assumptions:
The airbase will serve as the second channel providing an uninterrupted supply of weapons and military equipment to the Syrian government forces. The situation at the front line being unstable, third parties increasingly interfering in the conflict, and the sea channel failing to meet the current demands, – owing to all these factors Russia’s intervention might at any moment become imperative. The Syrian Express for obvious reasons is not efficient enough especially in respects of operational flexibility. The Stratfor’s report repeatedly featuring “supply channel”, “channel of operative measure” and similar wording speaks in favour of this version.
“The runway improvements and constructing infrastructures might signify the airfield is going to be actively used by military aircraft. We have already mentioned that the extension of the runway will enable several planes to take off simultaneously, as well as that the government troops definitely require air support. The hysterics the entire international community headed by the United States is writhing in only bears out this inference. The point is the Russian political and military leadership renounces any Islamists’ gradation rightly considering the notion of “moderate” Islamist fighters nonsensical. This fact is of great concern to Washington which has placed its political bet in this war conflict on so called moderate opposition; accordingly, the perspective of the latter’s ranks getting considerably thinner as a result of the Russian air strikes is barely exciting for both the USA and the “opposition”. Hence the hysterics.”
http://thesaker.is/russia-is-constructing-a-military-base-in-syria/

Posted by: Penelope | Sep 28 2015 0:07 utc | 108

Mouthpieces from Brookings are at it again.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34371501
“Assad is not and should never be seen as a better alternative to IS.”
“Assad and his intelligence apparatus have consistently facilitated the rise of jihadists…Assad helped give birth to a thriving Islamist insurgency, including an al-Qaeda affiliate.”
“…the Assad regime has conducted a consistent policy of intentional mass killing of civilians – first with air strikes and ballistic missiles, then with barrel bombs and widely alleged use of chemical weapons.”
“IS remains a potent force in Syria and must be countered, but it will not be marching on Damascus anytime soon, contrary to some uninformed fear mongering. Al-Qaeda also poses a pressing and more long-term threat, perhaps more so than has been acknowledged. But at the end of the day, the root cause of the entire Syrian crisis is Assad and his regime.”
” it remains the international community’s moral and political responsibility to find a solution in Syria that ensures the best chance of a sustainable peace. This means genuinely engaging with Syrians of all stripes, including the armed opposition and incorporating their views into a potential solution. Contrary to popular opinion, the Syrian armed opposition is not divided, but has in fact spent much of the past year focused on developing a clear and unified political vision.”
So the “advice” is: Assad must go, let the jihadists take over Syria.

Posted by: jayc | Sep 28 2015 0:45 utc | 110

Dear morons – turn off NPR. They are a joke neo-con News source as bad as Reuters, FT, Guardian and the rest. The people at NPR are not Republicans. They are NeoLibs or really zio-Libs.

Posted by: MarkB | Sep 28 2015 0:54 utc | 112

@111 “…the Assad regime has conducted a consistent policy of intentional mass killing of civilians – first with air strikes and ballistic missiles, then with barrel bombs and widely alleged use of chemical weapons.”
Love that tortured phrasing. Obfuscated to the nth degree – but an admission that the Syrian government had nothing to do with the Ghouta attacks nonetheless. The mouth pieces generally have no regard for the truth, so I’m surprised that they even paid reality this much service. I guess its just too obvious at this point, all of the people in the know (ie, not taking USA TODAY as gospel) know it was a Saudi/Turkish operation.
It is interesting that Brookings seems to have no problem with ISIS – beheading children, priests, throwing gay people off of buildings, etc, etc – so long as they aren’t threatening Damascus. Rather a dim view of human rights in the rest of the country, but of course for these folks human rights – as I heard it expressed recently – are just an excuse to kill humans.
Ambassador McFail is truly one of lowest human beings on the planet. He regularly takes to Twitter to explain Russian history… to Russians. It’s ridiculous. His accusation that the Assad regime is “responsible” for ISIS is just trotting out talking points from the very emergence of the group. They’re that desperate and out of touch. Accusing Assad of creating ISIS is akin to accusing the Abolitionists for creating the Confederacy. Sorry, it doesn’t hold.
The world has seen many, many rebellions and civil wars. The world has had many, many chances to have to ponder who is a terrorist and who is, indeed, a freedom fighter. It is as clear as day that ISIS are not just terrorists, but the most violent, bloodthirsty terrorists that the world has ever seen. For McFaul to try and say that their vile actions are somehow a normal response to repression is really quite a shocking apology for them.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 28 2015 1:11 utc | 114

Mr Pollack and Mr. Goldenberg write: “In the end, a serious American effort to tip the scales in Syria and bring the civil war to an end would send a powerful signal both to our Arab allies and to Iran. It may also set the table for a new regional order where, in the aftermath of a negotiated agreement on Syria as well as the nuclear issue, there is a precedent set for greater engagement and diplomacy between the United States, Iran, and the Arab States to solve the region’s problems.”
How cynical. Apparently “bringing the civil war to an end” is code for “dragging out the civil war until we win”. How Orwellian of these two cretins.
Let’s be clear – the only reason there is still a war in Syria is because of the actions of the US and its allies. Peace has been on offer many times, and the US and its allies have decided that there is no means too atrocious to accomplish their end. What these two criminals are calling for is merely the next step down that death spiral – a purely sectarian invasion of Syria with Sunni Arab armies from the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, in conformed alliance with ISIS and al Qaeda.
So, the goal is greatly expand the civil war in Syria to the point where it becomes a general Middle Eastern war, all in the fondest hopes of creating a “new regional order”.
Only 3,750,000 deaths to go fellas…

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 28 2015 1:34 utc | 116

@Piotr Berman@71
…To summarize, if the opponent has enough troops and some minimal level of weapons, air superiority provides force multiplier, but not a drastic game changer. And ending insurgency requires some ratio of force, sometimes described like 10 to 1, but this just an indicator of asymmetry. Syrian forces have more battle experience and motivation than GCC and KSA, but in a country with 100 battle fronts, 40 new planes and few thousands of foreign troops do not make drastic changes. A combination of improved weapons, air support, and improved external situation decreasing supplies to the opponents should make a difference, but some basic questions are not resolved yet.
Very good questions to very old dilemmas facing any interventionist force against an irregular army. We know air superiority will not cut it against an entrenched enemy, VN a good example, Afghanistan/AfPak a more recent one.
How the Russians are going to solve this conundrum remains to be seen, but intel coordination between the forces at play is a good beginning. Clearly, the Russians are not focused on Syria only, their counter-strategy to IS/Qaeda a regional one. Covering this expansion of territory will require a coordinated strategy targeting focal points with “boots on the ground” supported by air, bombing enemy positions, reinforcements, supplies, retreating forces, etc., cutting them off into pockets of resistance, easier to manage (surrender/annihilate), a land-air strangulation tactic denying oxygen to the enemy from all sides.
What the distribution of forces is going to be like, who is going to put the “boots on the ground” (I suspect the SAA/Iran’s IRGC/Hezbollah/Shia-Alawite Militias will carry the weight) remains to be seen, and until the dust from the arriving armies settles down, it all will be pure speculation. The Russians are itching to join the fray, a very convenient reality training added to the multiple military exercises the Russian army has sustained just this year; however, their role will be mostly at C&C, they are not there for cannon fodder.
The 10 to 1 ratio is a CI figure that mostly applies to insurgencies rooted in their points of resistance. There is a difference, however, between “entrenched” and “rooted.” An insurgency movement is rooted when fighting for their ancestral land, their families, their means of sustenance. It can be both rooted and entrenched (Hezbollah); but this is not the case for IS/Qaeda et al. IMHO, there are plenty of towns and regions, in Syria and Iraq, who are desperately waiting for the first opportunity to get rid of the takfiris, and the Russians brought for them a ray of hope. A good intel network could insure their collaboration at multiple levels, even in combat roles if necessary.
We will have to wait and see how the new “Axis of Containment,” (my name for Russia/China/Iran/Iraq/Syria/Hezbollah) perform their initial combat operations. As Count von Moltke warned us, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.”
PS: These two can be examples of a beginning pattern of land-air coordination for battle operations.
Russian Military Takes Command of East Aleppo Operations
YPG Cuts Off the Islamist Rebels Main Supply Route to Aleppo

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Sep 28 2015 4:08 utc | 118

Does the Turkey/Uighur connection mean that the rumors of attempts to use Uighurs as the US/Saudi used Chcens against Russia are true? Why import a gang of men from across the planet if you don’t already have a strong working relationship?

Posted by: Crest | Sep 28 2015 4:44 utc | 120

Piotr @ 106.
I don’t think it was a stalemate.
Assad lost his Idlib base only a few weeks before ago that he was desperate to hang onto but lost it after a 2 year battle , and there was closer battles near the top of Damascus.
Putin acted recently because not there was a stalemate, he reacted because he can see the writing on the wall.

Posted by: tom | Sep 28 2015 5:45 utc | 122

To support my point @123 and yours JFL @ 124
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/world/middleeast/thousands-enter-syria-to-join-isis-despite-global-efforts.html?_r=0
Foreign jihadis have been increasingly flooding into Syria. Created and allowed.
What stalemate !

Posted by: tom | Sep 28 2015 5:55 utc | 124

Juannie @ 88,
I think these will answer your questions as to whether US is responsible for jihadis.
http://nsnbc.me/2015/09/03/confirmed-us-to-use-al-qaeda-to-take-syria/ cartalucci covers The Redirection
9/16/15 http://yournewswire.com/declassified-documents-obama-ordered-cia-to-train-isis/ as a counterweight to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad- but also that ISIS members were initially trained by members and contractors of the Central Intelligence Agency at facilities in Jordan in 2012. The now declassified document appears to confirm that the U.S., the European Union and other nations viewed Muslim extremists in ISIS as “a strategic asset toward regime change in Syria.” Also Iraq

Posted by: Penelope | Sep 28 2015 6:09 utc | 126

Apropos Russia/China/Syria/al-CIA-da … there’s a very striking map at Why Syria is Russia’s Stalingrad. I urge you all to take a look. It’s definitely worth a thousand words and then some.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 28 2015 6:30 utc | 128

jaye@111 “Contrary to popular opinion, the Syrian armed opposition is not divided, but has in fact spent much of the past year focused on developing a clear and unified political vision.”
These Brookings guys are nuts, the political vision the Islamists have is, anyone not like them i.e, with a vision from the seventh century, with very strict Sharia law interpretation, will be killed their children raped and sold as slaves. Sounds like the US will support that vision. Is it any wonder all the minorities and the vast majority of Sunni Muslims support Assad.

Posted by: harry law | Sep 28 2015 9:55 utc | 130

Thanks for the links Penelope. They support what I thought but in an ironic way support the pundit on NPR. If Assad didn’t exist then Syria would probably have fallen to the satisfaction of FUKUS and thus there would have been no need for ISIS. Ha, what twisted logic but I doubt the pundit thought that way and was only demonizing Assad to support the official propaganda line.

Posted by: juannie | Sep 28 2015 11:36 utc | 132

Anyone who thinks the Yankees aren’t soiling their underwear over Russia & China’s commitment to de-Yankifying Syria hasn’t heard what NASA has been told to tell us about Mars … soon (oh the irony!).
NASA is going going to announce something so Earth-shattering (or not) about Mars that they’ve pre-announced the forthcoming announcement.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 28 2015 11:57 utc | 134

tom @123: Piotr @ 106.
I don’t think it was a stalemate.
Assad lost his Idlib base only a few weeks before ago that he was desperate to hang onto but lost it after a 2 year battle , and there was closer battles near the top of Damascus.
====
You can cherry pick examples. There is a number of isolated government positions, and Assad did not have resources to keep all of them, but ISIS was stopped near Palmyra, and front lines with both north and south rebels were stable, Qalamoon offensive removed some isolated taqfiri positions, so the pattern of gain and losses was stable. The biggest instability was in opposition using foreigners as cannon fodder, while Assad can loose only so many Syrians.
The exact balance is not important. The important thing is that foreign help is most effective when directed to people who manage well with little help. For some reasons (what do they have in common?), Afghan army and Iraqi army did not manage well. The business of force multiplier has to consider the case that two times zero is still zero. But this is manifestly not the case in Syria.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Sep 28 2015 14:19 utc | 136

I slouch – it’s the best way to sit imho

Posted by: aaaaa | Sep 28 2015 15:00 utc | 138

Talking about Heavenly stuff, NASA’s non-news has just been eclipsed.
Xi Jinping’s UN Address began with a warning to unnamed big powerful countries that national sovereignty is a universal concept – not the exclusive preserve of some countries.
Suck on that Obama.
Putin is up next.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 28 2015 15:42 utc | 140

I used to adore NASA. But timing a non-news announcement for the precise moment when Xi & Vlad’s UN addresses began makes NASA look a lot sluttier than … Human Rights Watch, or Saudi Barbaria as the UN’s preferred defender of Human Rights.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 28 2015 15:55 utc | 142

Vlad is ripping into the Axis of Evil (Zio-FRUKUS) without naming names and asking if the UN has passed its use-by date?

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 28 2015 16:14 utc | 144

Whoever is listening to Putin, he’s not mincing words against the usual suspects, clearly defining Russia’s positions, and marking red lines re: Syria, Iraq, et al. He’s inviting for coordination in fighting the takfiris, of course, under the UN Charter. This is Putin at his best.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Sep 28 2015 16:19 utc | 146

With Russia announcing that they are not coming to Syria and the new arms and trainers will have little affect on the conflict what is announced after the US meetings will show what is the new master plan for Syria. Russia failed to interest many of the rebel groups in peace talks in Moscow because the removal of Assad was never offered and that is the only offer that will bring the rebels to the negotiation table.
Trying to bypass the rebels even with Western help is a fools errand unless the Russians have some unknown leverage, which is doubtful.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Sep 28 2015 16:58 utc | 148

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Sep 28, 2015 12:58:30 PM | 148
Guess how surprised I wasn’t to find your name at the end of that drivel?

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 28 2015 17:16 utc | 150

DH@150
Money or arms drying up in the ME, that’s a quaint and naïve pipe dream.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Sep 28 2015 18:33 utc | 152

IS-rael & ISIS-rael, one and the same. This flood of muslim refugees into White CHRISTian Democratic Europe is a repeat of Israel’s actions in 1948 , terror used to depopulate areas that Israel wishes to grab for “Greater Israel” and at the same time to dilute and destroy CHRISTian Europe.
————–
Before the state of Israel was founded, the terrorist underground militias that were to become the Israel “Defense” Forces committed over 100 massacres of civilians. The atrocities intensified in the months leading up to the “declaration of indeperndence”. In March and April 1948 alone over 25 massacres were committed including infamous ones such as Tantura and Deir Yassin. Israeli leaders themselves credited these actions as of great use in getting the Palestinians to evacuate Palestine so that a Jewish state could be established without a demographic “burden” of “non-Jews” (Christains and Muslims). The massacres continued after the war with government ordered slaughters at Kufr Kassem in 1956 (see http://www.taayush.org/new/kas…, and more until the latest slaughter of 1400 in three weeks in Gaza (most of them civilians). This showed that the state of Israel is still addicted to these policies of terror.
“The Zionist version of the Palestinian exodus is a myth manufactured after the cataclysm took place. If the Zionists could show that the refugees had really fled without cause, at the express instructions of their own politicians, they would greatly erode the world’s sympathy for their plight — and, in consequence, the pressure on themselves to allow them to return. Thus in public speeches and scholarly-looking pamphlets they peddled this myth the world over. It was not until 1959 that the Palestinian scholar Walid Khalidi, exposed it for what it is. His painstaking researches were independently corroborated by an Irish scholar, Erskine Childers, two years later. Together, they demonstrated that the myth was not just a gross misrepresentation of accepted or even plausible facts; the very ‘facts’ themselves had been invented. Orders for the evacuation of the civilian population had not simply been issued, the Zionists said, they had been broadcast over Arab radio stations. One had come from the Mufti himself. This was the cornerstone of the Zionist case. Yet when these two scholars took the trouble to examine the record — to go through the specially opened archives of Arab governments, contemporary Arabic newspapers and the radio monitoring reports of both the BBC and the CIA — they found that no such orders had been issued, let alone broadcast, and that when challenged to produce chapter-and-verse evidence, the date and origin of just one such order, the Zionists, with all the apparatus of the State of Israel now at their disposal, were quite unable to do so. They found, on the contrary, that Arab and Palestinian authorities had repeatedly called on the people to stay put and the Arab radio services had consistently belittled the true extent of Zionist atrocities.”
—David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, Faber, 1977, pp. 136-7.

Posted by: albert | Sep 28 2015 19:37 utc | 154

@22 France announced last night that they will be bombing “Daesh targets in Syria” where they “know” terror attacks against France are being planned, justifying the bombing as “self-defense” under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Posted by: Snake Arbusto | Sep 28, 2015 11:49:46 AM | 142
Ha! The French might just as well put a sign on their back: Liar, liar. Pants on Fire.

Posted by: Penelope | Sep 29 2015 6:43 utc | 156

The Russians will help the regime to secure and fortify its bases, but not to claw back lost territories. The problem for the regime is not firepower but ground forces capable of pushing back incessant rebel attacks, something that Hizbollah and Iranian fighters are better equipped to provide in the Syrian terrain. Hizbollah has made successive gains against the rebels in some areas but it also suffered defeats or impasse, including in areas where it has a strategic depth, notably near the Lebanese border. A Hizbollah-led three-month offensive in Zabadani, for example, failed to clear a few hundred rebel fighters, compelling Iran to negotiate a truce with the militants.
The idea that Russian fighters will enable the regime to reclaim territory is a fantasy. Russia also has little to offer against ISIL in eastern Syria, except perhaps to reinforce three airbases under attack by ISIL in Deir Ezzor, Aleppo and Homs. Moscow will bolster the regime’s capabilities to defend itself in key towns and cities, but nothing more.
full: http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/putin-cant-save-assad-its-far-too-late-for-that

Posted by: Louis Proyect | Sep 29 2015 12:25 utc | 158

Russian-Israeli coordination in Syria includes air, sea, land and cyberspace
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/21318-russian-israeli-coordination-in-syria-includes-air-sea-land-and-cyperspace

Posted by: Louis Proyect | Sep 29 2015 14:44 utc | 160

@159 uh-huh.
fast-forward to about 6 months when syria is mostly SAA territory again

Posted by: aaaaa | Sep 30 2015 0:20 utc | 162