Never forget that the original moves for the ouster of Assad was to set up the pipeline to get Qatari gas through Syria and ultimately to Europe -- hence the Russian and Qatari involvement.

Posted by: chet380 | Sep 19 2015 18:46 utc | 1

I don't see the US empire backing down whatsoever. After all, who is the Empire and who isn't, between the US and Russia. You know for sure that the US thinks, ' we're the fucking empire you back down'. Otherwise it would be an admission that the empires power is the dwindeling quicker then they want.
The evil empire sees this as a chance to stamp their authority against rising challengers from Russia and China.
That's why I think it's crucial to see how far Russia is willing to push.

All of John Kerry's bullshit rhetoric about trying avoiding the "mistake" by Russia and the US possibly attacking each other in Syria, is just a PR ploy to pressure Russia into getting less involved in Syria.

The real reason/risk is that if Russia shoots one single US plane or allied aircraft in Syria, the Wests propaganda onslaught campaign against Russia will be enormous. It could be so big, that it could be the forced planned break between Russia and the rest of the US's puppets in Europe that US elites wanted all along. A break off of relations and trade. Isolating Russia from all the economic activity in Europe. Something that a Missle hitting a US aircraft would do more for them what the sanctions are trying doing now.
It's Something the US desperately wants, and much more than the division is now. A military attack by Russia against any US or Europe in force in Syria could be just the final breaking point that the US wanted all along.

PS. I have to say B is doing a fantastic job covering these crucial issues, it's probably the best on the web.

Posted by: tom | Sep 19 2015 19:43 utc | 2

A major problem for the so-called "coalition" is their support for the jihadists has been reported all along, and in the pages of the mainstream press. Attempts to dismiss this analysis as "Putin propaganda" will not get far, as the supporting citations will be from NY Times and Washington Post, not Russia Today.

There will be much said by the coalition about responding to the "root cause" - meaning to them the "brutal dictator" - but this will be expressed in the context of a widening understanding that the coalition itself had in effect created and provided major material support for these terrorist armies. This fact is now being realized by the public, in the coalition countries, with greater clarity than previous.

Posted by: jayc | Sep 19 2015 20:00 utc | 3

Consider the audacity of an Iraqi politician advocating dividing the US into three parts based on ethnic and religious ideologies. The brazen arrogance of the US is mind numbing.

Posted by: Rosco | Sep 19 2015 20:22 utc | 4

@2 tom

You admit that the Empire's power is dwindling but faster than "they " want. I am glad that we agree that some tipping point has past and it not if but when.

In the past month China and Russia have carried out 1-2 weeks of joint military exercises that were not reported in the Western MSM. While the point of the US sword is directed at Russia, I find it unlikely that the US will get Russia to back down on anything. It is true that the Empire may win another battle here and there but without resorting to nuclear stupidity, the decline of the Western empire will continue its trajectory.

I am curious if those committing what we use to call war crimes to forestall the demise of Empire will be prosecuted?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 19 2015 20:26 utc | 5

if some bozo named biden can make a suggestion on syria, i have a proposal for the usa.. divide it up along racial lines - black folks get the south, whites the north east, mexicans - southwest...kkk can all relocate up to the north west - idaho and etc..

Posted by: james | Sep 19 2015 20:30 utc | 6

@4 Rosco, Igor Panarin might well be on to something, you know.

@6 james, I don't know that the Cascadian Republic is going to tolerate that without a DMZ of some sort.

Posted by: Jonathan | Sep 19 2015 20:45 utc | 7

Igor Panarin is a Russian professor and political scientist. He is best known for his hypothesis of possible disintegration of the USA into six parts in 2010, conceived by him as early as 1998 but only gaining world attention ten years later.

Posted by: okie farmer | Sep 19 2015 21:10 utc | 8

@2 tom-

I think we'll see Merkel and Hollande side with Russia before the US can further isolate them. At any rate it would be curious if US strategy was in line with Pepe Escobar's account of Russia's:

Glazyev is arguably going no holds barred. He is in favor of barring Russian companies from using foreign currency (which makes sense); taxing the conversion of rubles to foreign currencies (same); banning foreign loans to Russian firms (depending if they are not in US dollars or euro); and – the smoking gun – requiring Russian companies that have Western loans to default.

Predictably, some sectors of US ‘Think Tankland’ went bonkers, stating with utmost certainty that “the Russian energy sector would not be able to find much financing without connections to the West.” Nonsense. Russian firms would easily find financing from Chinese, Japanese or South Korean sources.

Posted by: nana2007 | Sep 19 2015 21:30 utc | 9

So far, the discussion seems relevant. Not that I agree with any of you. But then the whiskey hasn't begun to addle pates, and the cranks aren't cranking yet. Makes me wonder if the cranks only crank during the weekdays? Maybe they aren't at work?

I do enjoy reading blogs (especially this one) and watching the dialog shift ... fascinating.

Posted by: Rg an LG | Sep 19 2015 21:48 utc | 10

They need another 9/11. So watch the fuck out, people of earth.

Posted by: Ananymus | Sep 19 2015 22:19 utc | 11

"Prediction: Bashar Assad will still be President of Syria when Barack Obama is no longer the President of the United States." ????????????????????????????????????

Disagree. I think Assad will be dead/deposed before november of 2016. But that's a prediction too.

Posted by: Willy2 | Sep 19 2015 22:26 utc | 12

ISIS = United States Proxy Army

When ISIS "overrun" the "Iraqi Army", they stole over 2000 Humvees, and a number of tanks, and it seems to also around 50 new Toyotas. And not only did they travel in groups, they paraded them. Huge parades and the United States of Terror couldn't get them?

ISIS = Small Terrorists < UAE/Kuwait < Qatar < Saudi/Turkey < Israel< USA < NATO

Posted by: Sam.D (AntiNWO) | Sep 19 2015 23:08 utc | 13

@5 psycho

'... without resorting to nuclear stupidity, the decline of the Western empire will continue its trajectory. '

But resorting to nuclear stupidity will reverse the decline of ... what, exactly?

@12 Willy

I thing that'd be January 2017, wouldnt it?

The Europeans, Russia, and Iran are interested in an end to the wars in Syria/Iraq, the Europeans've finally caught the implication of the wars continuing. Turkey's plan has backfired. The US, Turkey, KSA, and of course Israel are interested in the wars' continuance. They all feel that DD&D is the way to go.

So it's DD&D, on a scale that is likely much larger than the Middle East, if the Russians and Iran are forced to counter the US, Turkey, KSA, Israel and ISIS alone ... or perhaps not, if Germany and France join the coalition willing to give peace a chance.

If the US shoots down a French or German jet ... that will be the end of NATO.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 19 2015 23:36 utc | 14

@14 jfl

Nuclear stupidity leads to human extinction and Fukushima may already be taking us there. I was moar saying nuclear stupidity hastens the decline.

I would encourage you to include China in the coalition suggesting peace be given a chance.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 19 2015 23:52 utc | 15

@15

I'd love to include China, and they certainly seem to have a mercantile empire of their own rather than one dominated by force in mind. But they are not a European state, and this has been a NATO/European war. They can help bolster Iran, I suppose. But I think it's really up to the Europeans, the larger states - France, Germany, Italy, Russia - to put an end to this American adventure in DD&D in their own backyard. They - and of course the people who have been on the receiving end of over a decade of the US' DD&D - are the ones who will suffer the most immediate losses if the American adventure continues. America is no longer economically strong enough to support a mercantile empire and so is seeking to dominate the remnants of one by force. But in fact, without the European States in support, it hasn't even sufficient force any longer.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 20 2015 0:13 utc | 16

"Russian firms would easily find financing from Chinese, Japanese or South Korean sources"

Yeah, because it would be unthinkable for Russia to finance its own projects.

Everyone else's currency is alway better than your own.

Posted by: paulmeli | Sep 20 2015 0:27 utc | 17

@2 tom..check out the link @9 that nana left. ditto your comment on b's ongoing commentary.

@8 okie.. thanks. i never heard of Igor Panarin, but he is just tossing the shit back at them which is clearly needed..

@9 nana.. thanks for pepe's article.. it's excellent.. others would enjoy reading it.. he has a good grip on financial matters and sees how as he refers to them " the Western financial ‘Masters of the Universe’" have and continue to play an active role as we move towards the next battle front..

@11 Ananymus.. true enough..

@12 willy..i am not convinced of that.. i can't rule it out either..

2016 is a tough year astrologically, but i don't think it heats up until the fall of 2016.. that's my astro prediction, not that anyone asked.. i think the problems are more centered around saudi arabia though, as opposed to syria which will still be working thru this.. i think saudi arabia is going to come apart.. maybe wishful thinking on my part.. yemen will remain a huge focal point too, even if it is off the msm radar.. ukraine and iran - less so..

Posted by: james | Sep 20 2015 0:28 utc | 18

@jfl - #14
The Europeans? No entity as such exists .. a division of nations pursuing its own interests .. marked by racism, bigotry and battling "pre-historic" grievances. On Libya (North Africa) and Syria (Middle-East) Britain with Cameron and France with Hollande/Sarkozy played an ugly and devastating game for the region. True the oil contracts in Libya were a primary reason and the Qatari gas pipelines another, but for Syria it was the neocon wet dream that stood out. Obama finishing the job George Bush started in Iraq.

Posted by: Oui | Sep 20 2015 0:29 utc | 19

I apologize for not knowing how reliable Elijah is as a source, but the whole theme of combat boots on the ground is coming from one source, and it's Al-Rai learned" and "a very senior field commander said..."

After what we've gone through in the last couple of weeks I'm cautious about the actual boots thing just yet. Thierry Meyssan broke the story - at least in my world - that Russia had started sharing satellite intel with Syria, and that a perceptible surge of materiel by ship was landing - including more ships, which of course carry the electronic defenses for a Syrian no-fly zone, NOT a NATO one. Then that psy-op from the Israeli news source blew this quiet intelligence into a bubble about the Russians landing troops,and MSM went crazy over it - all this discounted and quietly narrated now by Meyssan himself in his latest article: The preparation for Russian military deployment in Syria continues

The Saker has been very skeptical about the boots on the ground, but does allow that the Russians have created a new "bridgehead" at Latakia. So What Are the Russians Really Doing in Syria?

I like the Russians best when I can't figure what they're doing and no one is noticing a thing - that's when I know they're ruling the game. This was quiet activity, Meyssan in his quiet way disclosed it, and why the Israelis wanted it to go viral I'm not sure. It's obvious the game is being ramped up, I'm just not sure about the combat boots there yet - I'd love collateral.

As for a false flag or shooting down a NATO plane, etc - I wonder. I suspect we are now in a time when the massive uproar of the entire MSM could focus on a false flag and try to bury the Russians in hate - and not a damn thing would be affected or changed by it.

Speaking of the humiliation of the US, which has to happen someday in a globally public way, I don't see anything that Israel or the US can do in this theater that can beat the real boots on the ground and the missiles in the air - except lie. And we know the lies are only to keep the US population unaware, that's the weak link in US foreign policy, it requires an acquiescent populace, which takes propaganda. I suspect we may be close to the event when that propaganda fires its last salvo, and fails, massively.

Posted by: Grieved | Sep 20 2015 0:52 utc | 20

OT, but in this week's Comment, George Galloway takes on the Conservative attack on Corbyn - specifically the charge that he is a "threat to national security".

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 20 2015 0:59 utc | 21

@19 Oui

Obama hasn't yet finished the job that W started. He has been stifled once and may yet be stifled again. The measure of success/failure in the ME is, IMO, the most telling odor of the expired shelf date of global plutocrat led American empire.

I do agree with james in the previous comment that Saudi Arabia looks to be coming apart and do believe that is more than our wishful thinking.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 20 2015 1:00 utc | 22

there are small Russian combat units, mostly sniper unit that we call the “Ivan unit”, another reconnaissance unit, a unit of urban warfare, and advanced missiles unit in the area of ​operations run by the Syrian Army.

This comports with the impossibly tiny amount I know of Russian military doctrine, which is (because of the relative small size of their population compared with other great powers) to invest heavily in weapons that can confront an enemy - in physical space and in terms of distance - well before the enemy can engage the Russian forces, thereby increasing the survivability of Russian soldiers.

I probably didn't describe that well at all, but as the doctrine would suggest, all of the units described seem to be "stand off weapons" designed to take on the enemy at long distances. An ability that presumably the takfiris in their Toyota trucks lack very much. And it will be quite obvious, should the takfiris be supplied with such weapons, just whom they came from. So in that strategic dimension, the Russian forces (and the Syrian, Iranian, Hezbollah forces fighting with them) seem to have a winning strategy. The plan is to engage the enemy at long distances, and to know that the backers of ISIS (should any they have desire to take their support to the next level) will be exposed by any response to it.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 20 2015 1:28 utc | 23

The evil empire sees this as a chance to stamp their authority against rising challengers from Russia and China.

I have no doubt that the leaders of the Empire see it this way, but what do the citizens think? Leaving aside the possibility that, in the oligarchical West of today, this may not matter - I don't think the citizens of the West want a confrontation with Russia and China, not because they are weak or weak willed (though some fascists may blame these factors), but because confrontation with Russia certainly means more military danger and more evisceration of civil liberties, and a further expansion of the police state and the deep state. And people of the West, in the majority at least, are already chaffing at this, and do not want more of this.

if the Second World War could be described by some observers as "an international civil war" then surely what is happening in today's world has the same character but even more so. As I described before, Europe seems hinged on political battle not between traditional right and left within the countries there, but even more so on the divide between those who would be the stooges of the Empire and those who would not. Doesn't Corbyn's election show this? Doesn't the Greek referendum (even if it was betrayed) show this? Surely when push comes to shove, the people of the West will say no to war because either (in the case of the US) they've known only peace or (in the case of Europe) they've known it and tasted peace for once and they like it.

Russia and China, on the other hand, know existential threats. They know what it means to face annihilation and though that means (as they've surely shown) they won't seek it out, my guess is that it also means they'll not backed down when faced with the threat of it once again.

I once heard the world described (and it echo's the sentiments of "an international civil war" above) described as a battle between the US Empire and World Public Opinion. I think this is very true. The battle may not turn out the way we like it, but if a third world war is threatened - especially if the threat is that our Western government's will start it - then I think the first battles will be in the political spaces of the West and from there, in Europe at least, in the streets.

That's my hope at least.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 20 2015 1:50 utc | 24

@24

Thanks for that letter from Vito Marcantonio, I think the only member of the American Labor Party ever elected to the US Congress. I knew nothing of Vito Marcantonio until John Marciano mentioned him, and his formative example, appreciated by Marciano and by Michael Parenti as well.

Vito Marcantonio's letter speaks straight to the point made by Donny Gluckstein, first brought to my attention by Ji Ungpakorn as mirroring the relationship between Thaksin and the redshirts here in Thailand, that things are not always (never?) what they seem.

Just as there were two wars against the Axis going on during WW II and are two struggles taking place against the Royalist 'elite' here in Thailand today, there are two wars going on in the Middle East and Ukraine and North Africa and worldwide today.

The one in support of perpetual war itself, headed by those in control of the US government and its European vassals, and the one against perpetual war undertaken by the Syrians, Iranians, and now the Russians.

I hope the people of the United States and of Europe will join the war against, and support those undertaking it ... but nothing has happened so far, and the propaganda machine is over-clocked at full-bore.

Maybe the new Labor leader in the UK can speak up on it?

Posted by: jfl | Sep 20 2015 2:52 utc | 25

If nothing else these developments illustrate the hopeless dumbfuckery of the utterly corrupt and traitorous Australian Govt. Boiled down to its essence, Oz's decision to 'bomb Syria' (for the US & "Israel") can be accurately described as one fake US construct (the OZ Govt) blundering into Syria on the pretext of 'fighting' another fake US construct (ISIS).

With a fake friend like the US of A, nobody needs enemies.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 20 2015 4:27 utc | 26

Read as much as you can by Thierry Meyssan and Gordon Duff on the Obama-Putin relations. This should help you realize how powerful are the forces of evil Atlantists, that have been working incessantly to undermine any successful agreement between the two.

Unfortunately Obama cannot rely on the American people, who lack knowledge and will to understand the game. Instead vast chunks of the zombified society absolutely do not care about others, especially abroad, but are ready to use violence to "defend the homeland against that communist, islamist Obama!" as the lame-scream and "alternative" media war mongers tell them to. Millions believe in the "Russian troops ready to invade!", "Muslim sleeper cells in every major city!" crap Alex Jones style. These traps, also the "birth issue" and other, were set up by the Obama handlers to keep him in check long before 2008, when he was chosen at the Bilderberg meeting in Chantilly, Va instead of Hitlary (the only 2 days of the campaign where the presstitutes in concert turned away audiences attention from the daily schedules of the candidates, reporting before, and after, on every freaking second of their agenda). In 2012 during second TV debate Obama did what he was told, played coy and incoherent, "not himself", as a sign of submission to his masters (like in "Pulp Fiction", Marsellus: "In the fifth, your ass goes down. Say it. Butch: In the fifth, my ass goes down."). But that changed on November 6th, when Obama betrayed his overlords and won instead of the mormon (freemasons) mafia man Romney. See the reaction of Karl Rove in the TV studio, as many times as it takes, until you understand. Rove could not believe, because he KNEW that the voting machines were rigged (in Ohio, just like in 2000 and 2004 for Bush, see "Hacking Democracy") for Romney. But the power structure behind Obama, that emerged into the public view just then, flipped the votes back. Also see what happened to Micheal Connell, Rove's IT guy, and why.

Unfortunately in many respects Obama's hands are tied. FDR comes to mind. When the legendary labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph met with FDR before World War II to get the president to take action against discrimination, the president boomed back: “I agree with you, now go out and make me do it.”

Think about it how much the zionist lobby hates Obama, some Jewish press people called openly for his assassination. Mossad, obviously via some "islamist terrorist" made an attempt on Obama's man, gen. Demspey, who is "no friend of Israel", a few years back in Afghanistan.

Because masses in the US are absolutely dumb, the threat of a civil war, triggered by a nuclear (Cheney talks about it all the time, of course because he's been planning it) or similar scale false flag event, is still a clear and present danger. Fueled constantly along the race and religious lines by the media whores when reporting about the police (trained massively by the Israelis after 9/11) interventions.

There is no anti-war movement, no massive anti-war protests on the streets like in the 70s. Instead just millions watching stupid news, shows and movies on TV. Very effective way to facilitate real change would be cancelling subscriptions to all the major TV global news channels en masse (keeping ISP contracts). Never watch any news "as it happens", "live", it's never that important nor worth it, it poisons your mind, it's just sickening. Instead plan and tape everything you want to watch. It's better for your personal time, energy, health, and budget. You can post later on the Internet important clips and snippets showing their lies and manipulation. Do not let "them" control you, thus you can control "them". This is how you fight back.

Posted by: ProsperousPeace | Sep 20 2015 5:21 utc | 27

@27 you're going out of your way to defend Obama?

Ultimately he had final say in who went into his cabinet and made up his inner-circle. He had the mandate to remove anybody that he wanted to and make them look bad in the press.

He has to take the blame for his administration's policy failures

Posted by: aaaaa | Sep 20 2015 5:39 utc | 28

I meant TM on the relations, GD on the subversion of the presidency, e.g.

Did Bush Move America’s Presidency Offshore?

Rather than allow President Obama to assume a “real” presidential office, sources now tell that “handlers” who, with the help of Vice President Cheney, kept George W. Bush medicated and sober as possible, directed him to facilitate efforts that would guarantee that no subsequent American president would ever be able to enact policies unfavorable to Israel or powerful criminal interests.

Posted by: ProsperousPeace | Sep 20 2015 5:49 utc | 29

27

The 6th missing Minot mini-nuke was never recovered. It seems our Masters need the coup'de grace card, in case the stars fail to align. Who shall experience the Minotaur?

Posted by: AHammer | Sep 20 2015 6:51 utc | 30

On earlier thread: @karlof1 - #101

A carefully and well argumented article can be obsolete in a matter of days ... Putin needed to act to have a say in any political settlement in Syria. Turkey, the USA and the 'coalition of 60' were set for a decisive onslaught on the remnants of Syria on the coastal area of Latakia.

Conclusion

For the Russians to intervene directly in Syria would be illegal, politically impossible and pragmatically ineffective. Russia is much better off playing her role in the Hezbollah-Iran-Russia “chain of support” for Syria.

For all the AngloZionist propaganda about the resurgent Russian Bear planning to invade Europe and for all the sophomoric demands by pseudo-friends of Russia for Russian military interventions – Russia has absolutely no obligation or intention to intervene anywhere.

The Saker

Posted by: Oui | Sep 20 2015 9:31 utc | 31

○ US/Kerry says Assad must go, timing down to negotiation

Kerry said the United States welcomed Russia's involvement in tackling the Islamic State in Syria but a worsening refugee crisis underscored the need to find a compromise that could also lead to political change in the country.

Kerry added: "It doesn't have to be on day one or month one ... there is a process by which all the parties have to come together and reach an understanding of how this can best be achieved."

Posted by: Oui | Sep 20 2015 9:32 utc | 32

○ The ‘magic words:’ How a simple phrase enmeshed the U.S. in Syria’s crisis

After a month of interagency emails, intelligence assessments and legal reviews, the White House settled on a written statement that President Barack Obama would issue on Aug. 18, 2011. There was a preamble hailing the peaceful demonstrators who stood up to the regime’s “ferocious brutality,” and then the money line:

“For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.”

Posted by: Oui | Sep 20 2015 9:33 utc | 33

When the primary technical goals become unachievable, the US almost certainly will set fire to the region and burn it to the ground. Plenty of evidence indicating this began some time ago.

Posted by: IhaveLittleToAdd | Sep 20 2015 12:06 utc | 34

Re the air war on IsUS;Did anyone pick up on the NY lying Times having photos of our heroes fighting it the other day?Talk about promotion.They must have coordinated with their fellow Zionists at the WH.
And its not Americans Aussies can't trust,its Zionists within that one can't trust,they own US.
Over at the Indy,they say an anonyomous British general threatens coup over Corbyn.
Wow.And Japan eschews their Constitution and will join the coalition of the swilling.Morons.

Posted by: dahoit | Sep 20 2015 14:04 utc | 35

UN announces Saudi Arabia(n)? to head human rights council;Ban Ki Moon,the absolute worst SG in UN history.

Posted by: dahoit | Sep 20 2015 14:10 utc | 36

Wouldn't the smartest move that the Russians could make be to establish their very best missile defences around those air bases and then strike a deal with both Syria and Iran to airlift in as many Iranian foot-soldiers as can be shoe-horned into those honkin' big transport planes?

100,000 Revolutionary Guards should tilt the military balance nicely.

And the best part about it is that Netanyahu won't be able to lift a finger against any of 'em.

Posted by: Yeah, Right | Sep 20 2015 14:21 utc | 37

Syrian army bombards Isis positions in Palmyra

Syria’s air force has started using more accurate air and ground weapons supplied by its ally Russia, a source told the Reuters news agency.

Barrel bombs were useful in their time but this meme may have seen its sell-by date.

Posted by: Nobody | Sep 20 2015 15:42 utc | 38

@38

These weapons don't seem to be any more accurate than earlier weapons, the report stated that more civilians were killed than IS fighters. The IS doesn't congregate large numbers of its fighters in captured towns so as the Coalition has learned air power without ground troops is ineffective. The SAA doesn't seem willing or able to attack, with ground forces, so the bombing is more a nuisance and harassment tactic with many civilian causalities creating more refugees for Europe.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Sep 20 2015 16:24 utc | 39

IhaveLittleToAdd @ 34 says:

When the primary technical goals become unachievable, the US almost certainly will set fire to the region and burn it to the ground

indeed. our crisis of capitalism is a major threat to massive defense funding and pretty much the only thing backing the dollar at the present time is the US military. sounds like the perfect atmosphere for some fascist conivance.

i read a while ago that Goldman Sachs hired the former NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, as an advisor.

Posted by: john | Sep 20 2015 16:51 utc | 40

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 19, 2015 9:28:39 PM | 23

This comports with the impossibly tiny amount I know of Russian military doctrine, which is (because of the relative small size of their population compared with other great powers) to invest heavily in weapons that can confront an enemy - in physical space and in terms of distance - well before the enemy can engage the Russian forces, thereby increasing the survivability of Russian soldiers.

======

That much Americans know as well, but Russians know a bit more. After all, they had a failure, Afghanistan, and a success, Chechnya (I know, but still a success of sorts), and before that, "imperial experience". The weapons we are talking about give a "force multiplier", but this multiplier is not as big as American believed. The rule in Afghanistan requires Afghans, in Chechnya, Chechens, in Poland, Poles etc. If you cannot find people you like and who like you, you may as well give up. [Thus some Iranian troops, some Russian troops, some mercenaries -- Afghan Shia -- may help, but it is counterproductive/futile to rely on them too much, do not expect 100,000 Iranians.]

And of course, this multiplier can be subverted by a high tech opponent. Rebels in Syria are not simply armed with machetes and AK-47's. They also have armored vehicles, battle-field missiles, and so on. Number one, it is necessary to have some positive program that attracts a sufficient number of local people to join military and risk their lives (many will die). Number two, weapons that make their jobs possibly, and training. Number three, stop better weapons from reaching the other side. Number three requires the political changes affecting the adversary.

The adversary consists roughly of USA, EU, Turkey and GCC. And the changes that can be characterized as "return to sanity" or "stab in the back" are coming, if in different ways and to a different degree (it will take some time for the ideal of Sunni supremacy to wane in GCC, but Turkey seems on a turning point, while neo-con ideals of "muscular liberalism" seem to be collapsing in EU, but still kicking, and quite a bit hollowed-out in USA. This is what the liberal Administration is now: they are not quite believers, but neither they have the stomach to declare what sanity is and face the full force of "stab in the back" accusation, so they devised a method of "limited mayhem".

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Sep 20 2015 16:56 utc | 41

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 19, 2015 9:28:39 PM | 23

This comports with the impossibly tiny amount I know of Russian military doctrine, which is (because of the relative small size of their population compared with other great powers) to invest heavily in weapons that can confront an enemy - in physical space and in terms of distance - well before the enemy can engage the Russian forces, thereby increasing the survivability of Russian soldiers.

======

That much Americans know as well, but Russians know a bit more. After all, they had a failure, Afghanistan, and a success, Chechnya (I know, but still a success of sorts), and before that, "imperial experience". The weapons we are talking about give a "force multiplier", but this multiplier is not as big as American believed. The rule in Afghanistan requires Afghans, in Chechnya, Chechens, in Poland, Poles etc. If you cannot find people you like and who like you, you may as well give up. [Thus some Iranian troops, some Russian troops, some mercenaries -- Afghan Shia -- may help, but it is counterproductive/futile to rely on them too much, do not expect 100,000 Iranians.]

And of course, this multiplier can be subverted by a high tech opponent. Rebels in Syria are not simply armed with machetes and AK-47's. They also have armored vehicles, battle-field missiles, and so on. Number one, it is necessary to have some positive program that attracts a sufficient number of local people to join military and risk their lives (many will die). Number two, weapons that make their jobs possibly, and training. Number three, stop better weapons from reaching the other side. Number three requires the political changes affecting the adversary.

The adversary consists roughly of USA, EU, Turkey and GCC. And the changes that can be characterized as "return to sanity" or "stab in the back" are coming, if in different ways and to a different degree (it will take some time for the ideal of Sunni supremacy to wane in GCC, but Turkey seems on a turning point, while neo-con ideals of "muscular liberalism" seem to be collapsing in EU, but still kicking, and quite a bit hollowed-out in USA. This is what the liberal Administration is now: they are not quite believers, but neither they have the stomach to declare what sanity is and face the full force of "stab in the back" accusation, so they devised a method of "limited mayhem".

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Sep 20 2015 16:56 utc | 42

re 40

'connivance' that is

Posted by: john | Sep 20 2015 17:16 utc | 43

WasteofWords: "The SAA doesn't seem willing or able to attack, with ground forces..."

You don't know what you are talking about. Hasbara, is this the best you can do?

Posted by: ruralito | Sep 20 2015 17:53 utc | 44

" The Islamic State has attracted some 2,500 fighters from the Russian Federation, mostly Chechen. The return of these fighters to Russia could initiate a renewed terror war against the Russian state. This danger compels Russia to act."

Cannot be understated. What better way to annoy southern Russia (and China's Xingjiang and Iran's Khuzestan) than a "salafist principality" overlapping Syria and Iraq, backed, armed and funded by the USSA, Saudi-Israelia, Turkey and the UK? They would make trouble only for those whom their paymasters wished, plus afford said paymasters the plausible deniability they crave to hide what utter and complete c*nts they are.

Posted by: farflungstar | Sep 20 2015 18:08 utc | 45

@ Horsewhisperer

As a fellow Aussie, I agree. Even with a change of prime-ministership last week, one ever constant here which never breaks stride no matter who is in power , is the cowardly bootlicking whore-ness across the major political spectrum in criminal loyalty to the evil US empire.

That includes our media press-titutes too.

Posted by: tom | Sep 20 2015 19:52 utc | 46

@39

You sound relieved. Good for you. ISIS lives to fight another day.

Posted by: farflungstar | Sep 20 2015 19:56 utc | 47

According to this (and other reports) last September, the (state-of-the-art) electronics aboard the Donald Cook US Warship were totally shut down by a pair of Russian Jet Aircraft. http://www.voltairenet.org/article185860.html

Could be indicative of Russian high-tech weaponry heretofore unknown.

Posted by: fast freddy | Sep 20 2015 20:15 utc | 48

@20 "....and why the Israelis wanted it to go viral I'm not sure. "

That's the good old 'Look! The Russians are snubbing their nose at us!' Doesn't work as well as it used to but still in the toolbox.

Posted by: dh | Sep 20 2015 21:26 utc | 49

Look out here come the Falcons of the Mountain. I guess we'll soon find out how accurate those Russian weapons are.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34306666

Posted by: dh | Sep 20 2015 21:39 utc | 50

"Unfortunately Obama cannot rely on the American people, who lack knowledge and will to understand the game."

Lord have mercy. Has it come to this? To blaming "the American people" now? For what? For the failures of their President? This is preposterous. The comparisons to FDR are ridiculous - FDR fought the oligarchy tooth and nail, Obama has done nothing but give into them. FDR had a clear battle before him - that was against the fascists at home and abroad (his victory was fleeting - their are children in the seats of power today). FDR was from a time, pre-1963, when the US had Presidents who did what they were elected to do. Who took their mandate from the people seriously - as a plan of action. Obama is merely another place holder for the MIC. Its clear in every message that comes out of his mouth that he knows the exact political boundaries (smaller and smaller they are) that he must reside in.

To FDR the phrase "make me do it!" was an entreaty to fellowship in action - to "BHO", it's just a fucking cop-out.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 20 2015 21:48 utc | 51

@49 I think I mean 'thumbing their noses' but you get the idea.

Posted by: dh | Sep 20 2015 21:50 utc | 52

I haven't seen exactly the source its referring to, but Webster Tarpley (a fairly grating politician in his own right) has tweeted that in some piece of Sander's campaign material, Sander's refers to the late, great Hugo Chavez as a/the "dead Communist dictator" to which I have to say... that's fucking bullshit, Bernie.

Hugo Chavez was many times elected, in one of the most democratic systems ever devised. Including in recall elections organized by the Venezuelan oligarchs. He was beloved by the majority of Venezuelan's for such things as eliminating mass poverty and bringing all of Venezuelan's citizens into the political process. He never engaged in any more serious repression than occurs in any Western country and Venezuela always remained an essentially free market economy. NO election was ever claimed to be tainted, in fact, Venezuela was confirmed to have one of the most advanced, fair, and accessible electoral system of any country on earth.

Those who hated (and still hate) Chavez hated him because he followed all of the rules the US claims to believe in, and they couldn't beat him. In fact, the rules of democracy had to be adjusted by no less a personality than Hillary Clinton. In reference to Chavez, she said it wasn't enough, of course, to have "democracy" but that it must be "managed properly". So there you go Hugo, that's your problem. Here you thought democracy was good enough - it ain't. It's "managed democracy" they wanted.

Ask any woman or man on the street, which they'd rather have. "Democracy", or "Democracy Managed by Hillary Clinton" or even one "managed by Bernie Sanders" for that matter (presumably, managed something like a Wal-Mart or Burger King is managed) and see which they prefer. I'm sure the answer will be "no thanks, we prefer the genuine article".

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 20 2015 22:07 utc | 53

@50 "A group of 75 US-backed rebels has crossed into northern Syria from Turkey to fight jihadists, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says."

seventy five plus the four or five the US has already "fighting" there makes... if my calculations are correct... seventy nine or eight whole soldiers to fight ISIS... and the Syrian Army, and Hezbollah, and the Iranian expedition there.

Anyone thinking that ought to do it? Or should we start to collect donations for the ransom now?

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 20 2015 22:11 utc | 54

Seventy five US trained rebels have crossed from Turkey into Aleppo province to join the other five [yes 5] of the remaining Division 30 group, under air cover from the coalition. Sounds like they can get IS in a pincer movement, 20 men converging on IS from North, South, East and West. It will be all over in a few days.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34306666

Posted by: harry law | Sep 20 2015 22:15 utc | 55

Sorry guest77 we posted at the same time.

Posted by: harry law | Sep 20 2015 22:18 utc | 56

@54 & 55 The locals must know exactly where they are. The falcons are going to lose a few tail feathers I reckon.

Posted by: dh | Sep 20 2015 22:38 utc | 57

@56 hahaha, I think yours is better actually. It gave me a vision of that old movie "the Mouse that Roared".

I really can't believe they're serious in this. If you were on that team of 75, would you want your entrance into the war zone announced so some US General could CYA at the next Congressional hearing? Not likely.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 20 2015 22:43 utc | 58

"The rebels crossed into Syria in 12 vehicles equipped with machine guns over the weekend, it added."

Tomorrow: They rebels HAD machine guns over the weekend, but by Monday morning they'd handed them over to ISIS. Half a dozen or five retreated to the north to await further instructions. It is evident that their "Rebel Yells" - war whoops - as Joe Biden calls them - were not sufficiently fearsome, but rather "cringe inducing" according to an unnamed White House official off the record.

Posted by: fast freddy | Sep 20 2015 23:02 utc | 59

guest77 | Sep 20, 2015 6:07:29 PM | 53

Ask any woman or man on the street, which they'd rather have. "Democracy", or "Democracy Managed by Hillary Clinton" or even one "managed by Bernie Sanders"

They're all hopeless. Guess what?

I'll vote not for the lesser of the evil but the most evil and who might that be that will brings the end of endless wars and sufferings?

Can anyone help me?

Posted by: Jack Smith | Sep 20 2015 23:13 utc | 60

The FSA - whatever you want to call them - are just the middlemen in the US => ISIS supply line. The US gives the Turks the weapons/supplies, the Turks sell them to the FSA, the FSA sell them to ISIS. Everybody's happy.

Except the people murdered and driven from their homes ...

... by the USA/Turkey/FSA 'entrepreneurs', all filthy rich by now, selling the US' means to murder.

And that's what the USA is all about today. DD&D. At fantastic expense.

Burn the people, burn the country, burn the money.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 20 2015 23:13 utc | 61

@53

Bernie's selling change without changing ... this time with a Jewish identity. They've burned the 'Black Magic' with Double Stuf Obama. The Democrats hold Bernie in reserve in case Hillary really is as hated as she seems to be.

No problem. If it's not a Demoblican it will be a Republicrat. The difference is barely skin deep.

No donkeys, no elephants, forevermore. Meet with your neighbors and vote for an ordinary American like yourself. Continue until consensus is reached.

Change requires changing.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 20 2015 23:25 utc | 62

"I'll vote not for the lesser of the evil but the most evil and who might that be that will brings the end of endless wars and sufferings? Can anyone help me?"

I sadly think I can say that this time around, there is no one in the race from either party with such a program. Not a single, solitary one.

For whatever you thought of them, honest voices of even mild dissent like Ron Paul and Denis Kucinich (fragile vessels in which to hold one's hopes for sure) are merely memories. People willing to say what they believed, and what most of US citizens believe, in the face of boos and jeers from the party hacks and hired goons are long gone.

As for Bernie "let the Saudi's get their hands dirty" Sanders (good god, he really said that), there's no hope at all I don't think. Though if one was inclined to vote for the least of the two big evils. He'd probably be your man. At least he hasn't been caught publicly chortling over the murder-by-anal-rape of someone. Though by extension, the hands that did that (imagine, for a minute, how dirty the hands that did that are) are who he is calling for to do even more.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 21 2015 0:18 utc | 63

Guess what, boys and girls, Israel has joined the axis of resistance:

http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/In-rare-move-Netanyahu-to-bring-army-chiefs-to-meet-Putin-in-Moscow-416731

Posted by: Louis Proyect | Sep 21 2015 1:09 utc | 64

Israel proved helpful to Kremlin on Ukraine, and the Kremlin proved helpful to Israel on Gaza

---

And although Netanyahu only last week said “commentators” were wrong when they warned of a collapse of ties between Israel and the United States in light of the Iran nuclear deal, Netanyahu’s current visit to Moscow could be seen as an Israeli jab at Washington. The visit seems to reflect Netanyahu’s lack of faith in the ability or the intent of the United States to protect Israel’s security interests.

The visit cannot be considered good news in Washington, which led a campaign of condemnation and sanctions against Moscow over its involvement in the war in Ukraine last summer. (Israel did not take a position on that conflict and was duly rewarded by Russia which issued a moderate response to Israel’s actions in the war on Gaza shortly thereafter.)

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.676885

Posted by: Louis Proyect | Sep 21 2015 1:39 utc | 65

At 64, 65

The Israelis **always** pretend every development is in their favor and under their influence. Jab at Obama? Maybe. But switching golems? Not a chance. Putin is happy to deal with Israel based on Russian interests. But you won't see Russian politicians fawning over Israel. Most likely the Israelis are asking Russia what they may and may not bomb. Putin's answer is most likely stay away from the Syrian army. He will do "the best he can" to prevent weapons so from reaching Hizbullah. And if the Israelis want to bomb a "weapons shipment" they should do it after it crosses the border into Lebanon. (But if Hizbullah retaliates, that's your problem)

At least that's my guess.

Posted by: Lysander | Sep 21 2015 2:25 utc | 66

guest 77 @ 21: Thanks for the Galloway piece, Corybn has a high hill to climb.

guest 77 53:
" that's fucking bullshit, Bernie." Yep, I'll second that. Christ, have we another wolf in sheep's clothing, like Obama?

jfl @ 62: " Change requires changing" Absolutely!

Posted by: ben | Sep 21 2015 2:39 utc | 67

@guest77

Comments made after HRC's Super PAC "Correct the Record" [David Brock] vicious attack on Senator Bernie Sanders.

○ Sanders Likens Pro-Hillary Super PAC To Koch Brothers After Attack Email

How reliable is Webster Tarpley, do you have a link to the Original statement made by Bernie Sanders at a fundraiser? Is there an alternative to Sanders as presidential candidate?

Posted by: Oui | Sep 21 2015 2:42 utc | 68

Links:
○ Website Webster Tarpley
○ Twitter @WebsterGTarpley

Posted by: Oui | Sep 21 2015 2:47 utc | 69

Netanyahu's mouthpieces in the media ...
○ Israel troubled by potential conflict with Russian forces in Syria
○ Netanyahu to Visit Moscow Over Concerns About Russian Moves in Syria by Isabel Kershner in NYT

Posted by: Oui | Sep 21 2015 3:12 utc | 70

About Isabel Kershner:
○ Another New York Times’ reporter’s son is in the Israeli army

Posted by: Oui | Sep 21 2015 3:13 utc | 71

Oui @ 68: "Is there an alternative to Sanders as presidential candidate?"

Not yet, unless an American Corybn emerges.

Posted by: ben | Sep 21 2015 3:52 utc | 72

g77 & oui, at 53, 68-9

Tarpley, as a follower of "The World's Greatest Living Economist," L. LaRouche, is a priori unreliable.

But even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The "dead commie" crack came in response to an e-mail circulated by Clinton hack David Brock trying to link him to assorted unsavory actors. There's plenty of to-and-fro between the camps documented on the internet (as well as from the Venezualans), this short item is a good start.

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 21 2015 4:28 utc | 73

@68, 72

"Is there an alternative to Sanders as presidential candidate?"

I think Jill Stein is running for the Green party again this time but she is Jewish as well as Bernie. I expect to vote for Jill Stein again because I doubt Bernie Sanders will be the Dems candidate.....and then I would only vote for Bernie if I felt the GOP candidate was a serious threat.

I like what Bernie is saying but he is way to compromised by AIPAC and the MIC to be seriously effective as a president.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 21 2015 4:32 utc | 74

@20

' I sadly think I can say that this time around, there is no one in the race from either party with such a program. Not a single, solitary one. '

There was last time? or the time before that?

@68

' Is there an alternative to Sanders as presidential candidate? '

There are 313,000,000 million alternatives ... OK, there are 207,643,594 eligible voters in the US, but the constitution requires one 35 years of age to be president ... call it 150,000,000 alternatives, about the same number as registered voters.

Standing around complaining that the political parties ... designed to deny decent candidates and choices ... don't provide same is crazy.

We need to organize in each of our 175,000 precincts, hold our own primary/ies, and chose all our elected officials from among ourselves.

There is a sign over the entrance to the elephant/donkey party room, "Abandon ye all hope who enter here."

If we want change we must change things. Or maybe we're so happy complaining, so reluctant to take responsibility for all the murder and mayhem, in the first instance, and fraud floor to ceiling in the second that we'd rather things remain as they are?

Blame it all on Trump/Sanders/Bush/Clinton?

Of course, if we wait until we all have a family member in prison and there's been a coup that has eliminating voting all together ... as presently here in Thailand or soon in the UK if the "senior serving generals" have their way ...

Then it'll be a moot question, won't it? What might have been.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 21 2015 7:04 utc | 75

What It Means to Be a Socialist

There is a reason no establishment politician, including Sanders, dares say a word against the war industry. If you do, you end up like Ralph Nader, tossed into the political wilderness. Nader was not afraid to speak this truth. And it is in the wilderness, I am afraid, that real socialists must for the moment reside. Socialists understand that if we do not dismantle the war industry, nothing, absolutely nothing, will change; indeed, things will only get worse.

Adolph Hitler was a 'socialist', Ne Win was a 'socialist', Bernie Sanders is a 'socialist'. Bah!

Socialism, like Captitalism, is a word that attempts to describe something which can only come into existence after the fact, before the fact of its coming into existence. You can't do that. But you can recognize it when you see it.

Socialism, like capoitalism, can only be seen and apprecatiated in the rear-view mirror. And that view, the one described as socialism, can only come about via the actual work done in a small 'd' democracy. So said Paul Sweezy, and I'll go along with him.

So what does it mean to be a socialist? Nothing. Ask Hitler, Ne Win, Bernie Sanders. To be a democrat is to act, to enable the good society, to create socialism.

Socialism is like a description of the weather. It's a beautful day. Like pie in the sky when you die. Everybody talks about the weather, small 'd' democrats do something about it.

Small 'd' democrats live in the real world, not the wilderness, and they will find in short order - those who haven't realized it already - that 'if we do not dismantle the war industry, nothing, absolutely nothing, will change; indeed, things will only get worse.'

The key to small 'd' democracy is that the people decide what's to be done. That is certainly not the case at present, so we have our work cut out for us. We don't need anyone's permission, there is no authority that can grant - or withold - democracy, democracy precedes government of any formal kind.

And it works if we work it. And if we don't there are endless lines of oligarchs waiting to decide us and tell us what's to be done. That's gone on for tens of thousands of years. We can slip back into that old soft shoe - it's definitely old, and for too many of us it's still too soft.

Or we can change things.

+++

There's an analysis at the Saker which argues that in fact Russia is just trying to take the military 'solution' off the table in Syria. I'll vote for that. Sorry to have furthered the detour taken by this thread.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 21 2015 8:12 utc | 76

Jesse Ventura would love to be in the race, but has been converted into a nonperson by our MSM. He was, imho, the only person with the brains, understanding and personal stature to start leading the country in the right direction, out of wars and repression and lies.

Posted by: lew | Sep 21 2015 18:40 utc | 77

I didn't see anyone mention a link to this http://thesaker.is/russia-is-constructing-a-military-base-in-syria/ Same photos as Zerohedge on the 16th, but the commentary is illuminating:
"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."

There's more.

Posted by: Penelope | Sep 21 2015 21:45 utc | 78

jfl at 76 --

That a definition is complex and difficult to arrive it, the underlying phenomena being complex and difficult, does not make the definition invalid.

Properly defined, socialism is a political and economic system where the workers control the means of production, as private property in those means has been abolished.

As a Fourth Internationalist, I would way Sanders is socialist, just not a very good one.

Ne Win, of Burmese junta fame, was a socialist in a sense common in mid-20th. century. The deformed workers' state, the Soviet Union, offered a model of non-capitalist development that was quite appealing to post-colonial elites. The range of possibilities there ran from Yugoslav to India and on to Egypt, Syria, and Burma, with stops along the way too numerous to mention.

As to Hitler, IN NO WAY CAN THE NAZIS BE CALLED SOCIALISTS. A look at the founding of the party by Anton Drucker in the aftermath of the German Revolution of 1918, as the DAP (Deutsche Arebeiterpartei), later renamed the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), would reveal the operative terms to be "German" and "Nationalist," with "Socialist" and "Worker" being artifacts of the revolutionary period.

Wikipedia conveniently points out:

The party was created as a means to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric, although such aspects were later downplayed in order to gain the support of industrial entities, and in the 1930s the party's focus shifted to anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist themes....

To ease concerns among potential middle-class supporters, Drexler made clear that unlike Marxists, the party supported the middle-class, and that the party's socialist policy was meant to give social welfare to German citizens deemed part of the Aryan race. They became one of many völkisch movements that existed in Germany at the time. Like other völkisch groups, the DAP advocated the belief that through profit-sharing instead of socialisation Germany should become a unified "people's community" (Volksgemeinschaft) rather than a society divided along class and party lines. This ideology was explicitly antisemitic.

To be anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist is not being a socialist. Sociologically, the movement was from the first drawn from petty-bourgeois and lumpen-proletarian strata. Small shopkeepers and professionals suffered from the competition of emerging department stores and corrosive inflation. Non-unionized workers suffered from inflation and unemployment as well. The industrial proletariat never broke ranks with the Social-Democratic and Communist parties. The industrialists came to like their "Herren im Haus" ("Master in the House") approach to labor relations.

Without storming the commanding heights of the economy, small-d democracy is a pipe dream. The Citizens United ruling is perhaps the clearest evidence of this. Hedges quotes Engels in the piece you cite -- socialism or barbarism. Barbarism seems, sadly, to be leading for now.

The main threat to me seems not be militarism (which in principle could be easily managed) but the accelerating roast of our one and only planet.

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 21 2015 23:36 utc | 79

If I remember rightly (my copies of *Mein Kampf* and *The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich* are long gone) the Nazis were quite conscious in their misappropriation of "socialist" terminology and symbols such as a mostly-red flag, as they wanted to steal the "revolutionary wave of the future" meme from the socialist movement. I've even seen references to Nazi Party members having called each other "comrade."

Of course everything they said was effectively "The Big Lie." But the problem with the lie of Naziism being in any way equivalent with socialism is that it's been for far too long "the lie that keeps on lying", muddling political analysis and understanding.

Posted by: Vintage Red | Sep 22 2015 1:06 utc | 80

@rufus magister@79

The main threat to me seems not be militarism (which in principle could be easily managed) but the accelerating roast of our one and only planet.

They go hand in hand, two wings of the same (hopefully a Phoenix) bird. Suffices to see Russia's visionary military build-up in the Arctic, about the only probable living space left once the belt of the planet gets roasted. Well, there is the Antarctic too, both extremes melting at a fast pace. Whoever gets there first, will have to defend the (scarce) resources to survive against the rest of the planet. Militarily.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Sep 22 2015 3:25 utc | 81

@rufus magister@79

The main threat to me seems not be militarism (which in principle could be easily managed) but the accelerating roast of our one and only planet.

They go hand in hand, two wings of the same (hopefully a Phoenix) bird. Suffices to see Russia's visionary military build-up in the Arctic, about the only probable living space left once the belt of the planet gets roasted. Well, there is the Antarctic too, both extremes melting at a fast pace. Whoever gets there first, will have to defend the (scarce) resources to survive against the rest of the planet. Militarily.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Sep 22 2015 3:29 utc | 82

Every picture tells a story and this one brings home Russia's interest in stopping the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate's endless stream of takfiris as only a picture can.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 22 2015 5:57 utc | 83

@82

Russia is joining the Drone War in Syria with their Israeli supplied drone force and they are coordinating with the IDF to avoid conflicts.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Sep 22 2015 6:25 utc | 84

@80 Vintage

So call it (small 'd') democracy instead. Or don't call it anything. Drop the name and accomplish the fact? I know that reds of a certain vintage have a heartfelt attachment to the name but ...

O monks, even if you have insight that is pure and clear but you cling to it, fondle it and treasure it, depend on it and are attached to it, then you do not understand that the teaching is like a raft that carries you across the water to the farther shore but is then to be put down and not clung to.

-Majjhima Nikaya

The name is like a red-flag to the bull-shitters, nothing but a source of ambivalence to all those who remember not its pristine theory but all the corrupt, top-down regimes which bore the name in lights on their marquees, and nothing at all to the ever-growing herd of millennials who have no such fond remembrance of things past.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 22 2015 6:33 utc | 85

The Council on Foreign Relations Proposes a New Grand Strategy Towards China

1. The Obama administration should ... deliver on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement (excluding China) and “immediately” institute a new technological regime toward Beijing, with “the aim of tightening restrictions on the sales of militarily critical technologies to China, including duel-use [sic] technologies.”

2. Secondly, the current U.S. edge in military power should be strengthened by “substantially” increasing Washington’s military budget while maintaining the existing dominance of the United States over China in nuclear arms, drones, and undersea warfare. The United States should also reform the military’s force design to blunt China’s military advances and accelerate U.S. ballistic missile defense posture and network in the Pacific Ocean. Washington should also employ more aggressive military tactics ...

3. Third, Washington should end its “passivity” and institute a get-tough approach with regard to China’s “incessant cyber-attacks.” Recommended measures include a tariff on Chinese goods, as well as better cyber defenses and imposing a policy of “equivalence” through an increase in U.S. cyber offense capabilities and actions.

4. Fourth, to “defeat” China’s “corrosive” efforts to “undermine” the bilateral relations between the United States and a number of Asian nations, Washington should “reinforce” its alliance system in the Indo-Pacific region, especially with Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, Taiwan, and six Southeast Asian states (the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Myanmar [Thailand is wholly-owned ... or lost completely?]). The Japan-U.S. relationship is viewed as central to maintaining U.S. domination in Asia: “without close and enduring U.S.-Japanese security cooperation, it is difficult to see how the United States could maintain its present power and influence in Asia.”

5. Finally, the study group report also recommends building up the military power of Taiwan and six Southeast Asian nations ... Recommended measures range from pushing harder for “defense reform” in the Philippines; to expanding joint international military exercises with Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Myanmar; to improving air force fighters for Singapore; to expanding the “strategic International Military Exchange Training” throughout Southeast Asia.

The fifth aspect [6th?] of a new U.S. grand strategy is a focus on diplomacy, to attempt to “mitigate the inherently profound tensions as the two nations pursue mutually incompatible grand strategies.” Part of this would be to reassure U.S. friends and allies worldwide that Washington is doing “everything it can to avoid a confrontation with Beijing.”

U.S.-China relationship not a zero-sum game: Rice

On the eve of the upcoming state visit to the United States by Chinese President Xi Jinping, a top American foreign policy official vowed Monday that the U.S.-China relationship is not a zero-sum game, as the U.S. is "steadily and methodically expanding the breadth and depth of our cooperation with China."

Americans are the ones who don't subscribe to the CFR's endless stream of malevolent machinations, and we, along with "U.S. friends and allies worldwide" are the target of the US' devious bullshit. Xinhua is the 'inscrutable' face the Chinese show to us 'foreign devils'. I'm sure they have the meanderings of the US 'diplomatic' team quite well-deciphered among themselves.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 22 2015 7:01 utc | 86

Netanyahu: Russia Will Allow Israeli Attacks on Syria

Russia hasn’t commented on the matter, but Netanyahu said he told Putin “in no uncertain terms” that the attacks would continue, and that Israel has a “right and duty” to attack Syrian military sites that might be transferring arms to Hezbollah, one of Syria’s main allies in the ongoing civil war.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 22 2015 8:15 utc | 87

jfl at 84

The raft has seen better days, but nothing a little quality time on the ways can't take care of. The trick is picking the right yard and marine architect. Socialism or barbarism.

LW at 81

Well, in this interconnected world, all problems are linked, of course, if only indirectly. The Arctic links a number of problems with militarism, though; good example.

But it seems to me that more people have a vested interest in the production, distribution, and use of carbon fuels than in the production of military hardware. Militarism is a highly dangerous symptom, but it's not the disease.

If I'm understanding our futurists correctly, arable land and fresh water will be the real objects of conflict if global warming persists.

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 22 2015 11:39 utc | 88

Posted by: Vintage Red | Sep 21, 2015 9:06:23 PM | 80

The word is "Volksgenossen". Nazi's transformed class war to people's war. The problem in both is the "war" part.

Posted by: somebody | Sep 22 2015 12:11 utc | 89

guest #51

Why are you blaming _only_ Obama?

Why are you sparing the Congress - is your manipulation out of perfidy or folly?

Blaming only one person from the establishment for all the wrong and evil in a country is a known prerequisite for "color revolutions", soft regime change. Are you an agent who purposefully tries to box the discussion on this topic in?

What can you tell us about the Congress's responsibility for arming the terrorists in Syria and Iraq (and Libya, and Tunisia, and Egypt)?

And who elected current Congress? Somebody did.

Posted by: ProsperousPeace | Sep 22 2015 13:02 utc | 90

@ProsperousPeace

"Unfortunately Obama cannot rely on the American people, who lack knowledge and will to understand the game."

I'd missed that. Has Obama started his own hasbara (Obama Announces Readiness To Accept Another $1 Billion In Bribes) ... already?

What's he paying? You can tell us. Hey, we understand you have to make a living.

There must be some people - possibly Americans - Obama can rely on, those with the knowledge and will to understand and play the game. Just as he does himself.

And hey, there's a buck in it for willful, knowledgeable people, isn't there? That's where the 'Prosperous' and Nobel Peace Prize meet the road, right?

No flies on that Obama, never have been. He was born running. And so were his new recruits apparently - in their green mohair suits.

Prosperity meets those who are knowledgeable and willing to play the game halfway.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 22 2015 15:02 utc | 91

Long live the axis of resistance!

Israel has quality intelligence on everything that is taking place in Syria and as time goes by the Russian army might need Israel's assistance in confronting the complexities of the fighting there. Sources at Israel's Defense Ministry explained that Israeli intelligence operatives have made contact with their Russian counterparts and said that there is a new interest. Defense Ministry sources have hinted that if Israel has accurate information about plans to hit Russian army targets or intelligence about people they are seeking, Israel's intelligence community can pass on the information, under certain restrictions.

http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-netanyahu-to-offer-putin-intelligence-from-syria-1001069759

Posted by: Louis Proyect | Sep 22 2015 16:25 utc | 92

About accuracy of new weapons: however accurate you can hit, you must figure out what to hit, and is obviously tricky. There are civilians, decoys and bona fide targets. What is most tricky is the cooperation of air force with ground forces.

One thing that instantly benefits Assad's ground forces is that the basic countermeasures against aerial attacks are hindering attack plans of rebels and ISIS. According to Al Masdar News, SAA actually gained some ground in Damascus area and near Palmyra.

With new planes and new ammunition, Russian can increase Syrian aerial firepower by a large factor, perhaps ten. Locally based, a plane can make even 10 missions during a day. An obvious problem is that ISIS is exposed to air attack for a year, and they learned how to minimize losses. However, when Americans properly supported ground advances of YPG, ISIS had to retreat, and reclaiming a large swath of Syrian desert, say, connecting Damascus with Palmyra and Deir Ezzor, seems like a reasonable goal, especially if Russian can supply enough drones to patrol the territory 24/7 -- that's quite a few drones, a hundred? They have a factory or two of observation drones.

Concerning "cooperation with Israel", I can only imagine that Netanyahu and Putin exchange some threats. Israel has a history of destroying weapons supplied by Russia, and some Russian missiles/rockets got the into hands of Hezbollah. Russians will want IDF to stay away from Syrian sky, Israelis will want that Russian give no supplies to Hezbollah, realistically, there will be an exchange of vague promises to be followed by backstabbing.

What is somewhat disconcerting is that Russians have an ulterior motivation: they spend last 10 years modernizing various weapons, and they need a convincing exhibition that they work well, and now, with cheap ruble, they can sell them for a good price. That has various implications.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Sep 22 2015 20:36 utc | 93

@93

What is somewhat disconcerting is that Russians have an ulterior motivation: they spend last 10 years modernizing various weapons, and they need a convincing exhibition that they work well, and now, with cheap ruble, they can sell them for a good price. That has various implications.

That's just tanks. I guess, given Russia's history, Russians cannot have too good or too many tanks.

The real play will be when Russia turns off the electronics in Israel's F-16s, predators, and reapers. They won't even have to shoot them down. They'll just fall out of the sky. Maybe they'll use a few S-300/S-400s on some Turkish planes. Just by way of demonstration.

And yes indeed, with the world clamoring for defensive weapons to protect themselves from the Great Satan (that'd still be US, 50 years later) ... at half-price ... that could put a hurt on the Evil Empire's sole-remaining export product : engines of destruction. As in fact they are instead destroyed themselves, and on TV.

After years on offense, selling to generals who'll buy any damned thing from their future employers, as long as it costs too much, we in the USA are about to appreciate the real meaning of military waste, fraud, and abuse.

I wonder what we could get for 'our' 10 sitting-duck carrier task forces? The savings in fuel alone would shut-down the world's frackers, bankrupt the KSA, and cut the world's CO2 omissions ... well, an estimate for the US Navy is 14,000,000 tonnes/year, 49,000,000 tonnes/year for the US Wehrmacht in total (Demilitarization for Deep Decarbonization, table 1, p. 20)

First the arms business and then the finance business. And then the Great Satan will be no more.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 23 2015 1:42 utc | 94

@84, jfl

I hear what you’re recommending, and believe me it’s not the first time I’ve heard advice to “rebrand”. I’ve heard it in frustration with having to deal with the Big Lie smear (“Naziism is equivalent to Communism”)—I reply that you don’t deal with a lie by caving in and letting it rule. I’ve heard it as a way of distancing from disillusionment with Stalinism—I reply that you can’t be disillusioned unless you’re under an illusion to begin with, and that’s exactly what we’re against. I’ve heard it from those who say the millenials don’t connect with it, think it outmoded and speak of a “care and share economy” instead…

US communists have oft debated such rebranding, some have gotten quite creative (the Panthers!)… and many have just lost their way. It’s more than simply having a heartfelt attachment to the name. Yes, we have all the media and academic propaganda to work against, but to give up on our identity shows the PTB that they’ve put us on the run even in our own heads. Once that’s done it’s not long after that heart is lost also. I myself don’t feel particularly vulnerable to this, but my experience over the years is that for most who’ve done this rebranding it’s a stepping stone away from activism itself.

For generations the Empire has tossed down a few crumbs from its planetary loot down to strategic sectors of the population, not just to coopt politically but to create a culture of American Exceptionalism, including the idea that communism and revolution don’t apply here. But the material basis for this is breaking down, and now we—especially the millenials—are seeing a future of nothing but austerity, wars on terror both foreign and domestic, and climate chaos. People are looking for a way to break free from a dictatorship of dollars and drones. Many say Occupy was a failure; no, it was merely “the beginning of the beginning”—how fast it spread from Wall Street to over 1100 towns and cities across the US actually freaked out the PTB, showing just how fast a spark could become a prairie fire. They *had* to break it up. In the thick of it even I was amazed at what levels of discussion and organization were achieved in just a few weeks in the encampments simply by people coming together and sharing experiences and perspectives. Small-d democracy? You would’ve been blown away if you could’ve taken part in our General Assemblies. Even the corporate media’s own polls showed that people here, especially millenials, are growing more open to the ideas of socialism and communism. The paradigm is shifting. As I once wrote a friend who also said I should consider "rebranding":

"What might seem outdated and outmoded to folks here in the land of decaying American Exceptionalism is ironically incredibly connecting outside the Empire’s bubble. Whenever I meet people from other parts of the world—even those who aren’t on the left—they are at least intrigued and often visibly delighted to meet a US communist. It seems to restore their hope that not everyone here has been zombified by the kool aid [yes, jfl, I did use that term!], and talk deepens. I’ve often felt both like a translator and an ambassador. Certainly among other revolutionary-minded people, but also among those who are simply wondering why it’s taking so long for the US people to *get it*, to leave Exceptionalism and rediscover solidarity, rejoining the rest of humanity and planet."

For US communists, in organizations or not, it’s been a long, long haul to keep the flame burning through the decades when nothing seemed to be happening or even possible, getting nothing in return but misunderstanding, derision and repression. The flame isn’t just wanting peace, justice and that “care and share” economy, it’s also knowing what we’re up against, remembering the lessons of our hard-earned experiences—what strategies and tactics work, and when—and the fighting spirit we call revolutionary optimism. If the flame goes out it’s very hard to rekindle it, having to relearn all those lessons over again. And as apocalyptic warnings forebode we may not have near the time that we might wish.

I hear your meaning in quoting Nikaya; I’ve found much of use and interest in what Buddhism I’ve encountered, and I try not to have ego-attachment to a particular term or hue of flag if the revolutionary job gets done. But when I seek spiritual wisdom I often go back to my memories of talks with a Native American I once knew, a veteran of Wounded Knee, who would probably laugh at my thinking of him as a mentor. He said, “My people have taken the worst hits that the Empire could dish out and we’re still here fighting. We are able to do this because they’ve never been able to make us forget our real names.”

Posted by: Vintage Red | Sep 23 2015 7:02 utc | 95

@95 Vintage Red

Well, keep on keepin' on. Socialism and Communism to be are just one and a half more variants on top-down government. I've convinced myself that the only transformative change is bottom-up. It's not really a question of rebranding ... it's more than that. Socialists and Commies aren't really democrats in my view. Just a different, 'scientific' ruling class. At least that's the way it's always seemed to work out, with the pigs tottering around on their hind legs in high heels and the rest of us animals betrayed.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 23 2015 7:27 utc | 96

Well, let’s see about a different aspect of what’s “top-down” vs. “base-up”…

Even if you could institute the kind of grassroots “small-d” democracy you speak of without (as rufus magister points out) “seizing the commanding heights of the economy”—socializing the major means of production such as land, communications, infrastructure and above all capital—it would only result in a brief “democratic interlude" before the capitalists corrupt and subvert it back to the oligarchic “best government money can buy” we now oppose. How do you see to preventing this without a repressive apparatus directed at the capitalists—the state, as Lenin defined it in *The State and Revolution*?

Even if you went a long step beyond this and instituted both “small-d democracy” alongside breaking up and redistributing every concentration of capital and private property such that every individual had not only “small-d democratic” equal voting power but an absolutely equal economic leverage as well, it wouldn’t last. History shows property and capital concentrate over time—unless you institute invasive/repressive measures to prevent that too?

Bottom line: “small-d democracy” will never work unless it’s instituted alongside “Big-S Socialism.” Then it’s called the worker’s state: democratic with regard to working people, but repressing any and all attempts by the capitalists to return to power. Lenin termed this “winning the battle of democracy” because the great majority would finally rule.

Why have most socialist states then seemed “top-down” and repressive in Western media portrayals?

(Historical sidebar: the first capitalist revolutions meted out some pretty harsh repression to their oppositions as well. Remember Cromwell? France’s Reign of Terror? Tories were killed during the US War for Independence, which held out “small-d democracy" to gain mass support for the mercantile/slaveowner revolt against Britain, but pulled a neat bait-and-switch right afterward with their Constitutional Coup. Had significant numbers of “Tory dissidents” remained behind to subvert the new regime, perhaps allying with British Canada to the north and Native Americans to the west, how repressive would the new US have become?)

The “top-down socialism” meme exists partly because those who pay the western media piper call the tune—the capitalist media will of course report a socialist society’s every failure, challenge, conflict and contradiction in the worst possible light, and partly because it’s themselves (international and local capital) that the socialist state is repressing. Add to this hot and cold running wars to force socialist states into siege mentality, economic warfare, arms races, cultivating dissidents, etc. and any socialist state would have to guard its revolution pretty assiduously to survive. But there’s more.

Above all, the reason the first socialist states have seen it necessary to have a more controlling hand on the social helm is scarcity. When the Russian Revolution occurred, most of the then-left couldn’t believe it—the revolution was supposed to happen in the most developed countries first, with their organized, conscious working classes, highly developed means of production and technology, political culture, etc. Many argued that the Russian Revolution couldn’t possibly result in a socialist society, even if it should be supported out of solidarity. In *The Revolution Betrayed* Trotsky summed up the social base for a bureaucracy as rooted in scarcity: when there is not enough to go around and egalitarianism demands rationing, two social actors come to the fore—a bureaucrat to administer and a gendarme to make sure everyone keeps their place in line. Needless to say this begins corrupting egalitarianism, and workers’ democracy soon after. When China and other countries broke free from the capitalist empires, many of them were in equally poor condition, ravaged by war and colonialism.

(I’m not particularly Trotskyist—I learn from the past although like Borotba I don’t want to be mired in historical reenactments—but this particular seems a fair observation of what was happening at the time.)

This is why such stress is laid on the long process known as “building socialism”—it isn’t just reorganizing things, it’s building abundance, often from ruins. It’s about laying the basis for winning the battle of democracy, and winning the battle of equality through abundance to back it up. The most important part of Lenin's *The State and Revolution* isn't his oft-quoted definition of the state as a ruling class's organized, armed force, it's the section on the economic basis for the withering away of the state, including even democracy. Seeing your “small-d democracy” and raising you one classless society.

Why hasn’t it happened yet? Because scarcity still rules, made much worse by capitalist war threats, economic sanctions, etc. I mentioned that all socialist revolutions made till now have been in underdeveloped countries ravaged by war, but if Western Europe and North America had “gone red” a century ago when it was thought they would lead the way, I suspect that even then the forces of production weren’t yet developed enough for true abundance. Capitalism still had room to develop them further, and as Marx put it, “No mode of production is overthrown until it has developed the forces of production to its maximum potential, and thereby becomes a force retarding their further development.” Any socialist societies existing while capitalism still predominates globally are effectively swimming against a prevailing current, with all that that entails in terms of what it takes to stay the course.

Today, however, with all the powers of information technology and high tech manufacturing, the way is clear for building true socialism once we can overthrow them, particularly in the US, Europe, Japan, with China fast coming up. In fact, I suspect that the US capitalist class actually *wants* climate chaos so that it can bring about the conditions for *permanent global scarcity*. With what little surplus that remains reserved for them, of course.

“Well, keep on keepin' on.”

Absolutely.

"... the only transformative change is bottom-up."

That's exactly what communists are all about. Instituting "small-d democracy" without revolutionizing the economic base *is* the top-down approach. You take the high road and I’ll take the low road…

Posted by: Vintage Red | Sep 25 2015 7:37 utc | 97

in re top vs botton

Ah, the Immaculate Conception, the Holy Grail of pwogwessive opinion. A pure movement, free of contradictions, unsullied by contact or compromise with cruel reality. NO one is inconvienced, and the former elite goes willingly and quiety. The trope of "democracy," abstracted from it's historical environment, in search of the lost chord, the rallying cry of the petty-bourgeoisie.

Democracy has been around as an idea for over 2000 years. Why only really popular now? Wasn't Cromwell the result of democracy? Both Napoleons? Hitler's formal ascent to power was democratic.

Vintage --

Thanks as always for your insight. Been a little preoccupied.

A little less snarky and punch drunk this a.m. "Is that all?" -- in principle, the evolution of those structures could be rapid (in historical terms). We would need a "1905" to build to a "1917." But hopefully, it won't take two demoralizing and devasting military defeats. Certainly, cages will need to be rattled and illusion dispelled. And again, I still do worry about time.

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 25 2015 12:45 utc | 98

@rufus magister, 98:

"Democracy has been around as an idea for over 2000 years. Why only really popular now?"

The short answer I'd venture is that, as Lenin wrote in *The State and Revolution*: "Democracy is the best possible political shell for capitalism." Capitalists can conduct their internecine struggles and political influence-grabs with relatively little of the messy and unpleasant assassinations, palace coups and organizational rigidity of many other political forms. When capitalism has to resort to these messy and overtly forceful measures, it's an admission that the capitalists are growing less secure in their rule, not more.

Agreed that it will take what time it takes, but as the saying goes "The sooner begun, the sooner done." It may often feel painfully slow, but then as Lenin said "There are decades when nothing seems to happen, then weeks when decades happen." It wouldn't surprise me that some tragedies and nastiness will be experienced along the way--this seems to be what it takes to expose the system and dispel illusions. But whatever the hazards we need to be ready for them. When a window of revolutionary opportunity finally does open here in the US, if we do not rise to the occasion for whatever reason (letting perfect be the enemy of good, or through our letting Victory-brand political despair and apathy [tm] immobilize us), future generations will not remember us kindly.

I also worry about time, about the Empire with its endless wars and climate sabotage running out the clock on the potential for sustainable abundance for humanity and the rest of life on Mother Earth.

Posted by: Vintage Red | Sep 25 2015 17:54 utc | 99

"The alternative for the U.S. and its allies is to use the Islamic State to create another Afghanistan like quagmire for the now deployed Russian troops. But doing so would also create the possibility of alike consequences: another 9/11."

9-11 was a proven false flag, named after extremely popular TV show start running from late 80s (romanticised era of those involved in savings and loan scams, later pardoned by Climptoons) all the way intto 2000. Is it still running? Real question is what exactly does should be doing in this nicely stitched-up tickle.

"The real reason/risk is that if Russia shoots one single US plane or allied aircraft in Syria, the Wests propaganda onslaught campaign against Russia will be enormous." ---tom

Then we should try not to be vinegar flies with 5s memory block, remember that US is just there for flash and poser involvement and eventual "FALSE FLAG SCENARIOS" and put into action plan of resettlement corporocratic caveman back into its cave habitat. Some _tinned alu cans_ had no rights flying in war zones, even if same wars are produced by their bosses-comptrollers, as soon as they don't represent any honest involvement in resolving problems that human-cattle has on the ground biut only to serve for some corporocratic madmen acid illusions pour into shattered world reality. So any tin cans incidents should be disregarded in case of accidents ... as we CompGeeks Era get familiarized with everyday phrase "we don't accept any responsibility or liability to you", which is actually snatched sharks' rephrase of AJ's "shit happens". Gobbies openly operate this way since Reagun's Yuppie boom so why should AJs be maggots which should care about some flying cans and false flags as long they're not part of some nice prank-up comedy show. Thou admittable, weird shit is boggling me, how's possible that they yet hadn't start to feed us CG generated false flag hot-news on hourly basis.

Posted by: agendaFX | Sep 27 2015 1:40 utc | 100