M. K. Bhadrakumar was invited to participate in the recent Valdai Club conference in Sochi, gathered under the topic “Societies between War and Peace: Overcoming the Logic of Conflict in Tomorrow’s World.” Bhadrakumar’s talk was titled “Diplomacy in the 21st Century: Can it prevent wars? Is another golden age of diplomacy possible?”
The following piece was written on his arrival to Sochi, and it is more of a reflection on war and peace in our times, than the sharp analysis he’s well known for.
Putin, pine forests and war and peace
[…] As the Merc which picked me up at Sochi airport tore into the mountains overlooking the Russian Riviera like a hungry beast and entered their hidden crevices through a 90-minute drive on a splendid ‘autobahn’ with breathtaking hairpin bends (I counted 10 and gave up), the expectations began to rise as to the myriad revelations that lurked ahead. Watching the thick forests of pine trees that surround this spa, cut off from habitations by at least a dozen miles, which I can almost touch from the terrace beyond my study table, as dusk descended on the valley last evening, it all dawned on me that I was with Robert Jordan in Ernest Hemingway’s classic war novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. The forest floor is a compelling motif of that novel; it begins and ends with Robert Jordan lying on the brown pine-needled floor of the forest with a beating heart as a ‘volunteer’ with the guerilla fighters in the Spanish Civil War. It is also a novel about the loss of innocence in war and the value of human life — and romantic love as salvation. What a setting Valdai chose to reflect on war and peace!

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Oct 25 2015 16:26 utc | 4

Right now YouTube is killing the dream of independent journalism on YouTube. Please help by sharing the link to this petition with your readers because I think everyone will see that we are all in the same boat with this policy change: PETITON
I think many will see the need for solidarity and want to share this petition.

Posted by: Tom Murphy | Oct 25 2015 16:34 utc | 6

partly cultural etc. From the Balkanist net.
Following the Turkish corruption trail, from central Asia to the Balkans. 2014
http://balkanist.net/following-the-turkish-corruption-trail/
http://balkanist.net/following-the-turkish-corruption-trail/2/
Another article same site, The Islamic sex cult supporting Turkey’s PM , 2014, exposes weirdness not usually discussed. Happily perhaps some of the linked vids have turned grey (use one’s imagination.)
Step inside this surreal world where religious piety meets psychedelic softcore porn, led by the world’s foremost Islamic creationist.
http://balkanist.net/the-islamic-sex-cult-supporting-turkeys-prime-minister/

Posted by: Noirette | Oct 25 2015 17:10 utc | 8

Thank you, Lone Wolf @ 4. That was a delightful piece – the video made me feel warm all over. I’m sure I shall enjoy bhadrakumar’s talk; he gives a hint of it in the short essay you link to: Putin’s ‘fourth way’ of diplomacy.

Posted by: juliania | Oct 25 2015 17:23 utc | 10

German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be about to resign
http://yournewswire.com/german-chancellor-angela-merkel-may-be-about-to-resign/
Rumours are circulating around Berlin that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going to resign from her post due to the atrocious handling of the migrant crisis.
If rumours are true, Good Riddance!

Posted by: RussianBoy | Oct 25 2015 17:52 utc | 12

@13
Murdoch CIA Wall Street Journal!! LOL

Posted by: RussianBoy | Oct 25 2015 18:02 utc | 14

To denigrate an entire nation by ascribing to its people the characteristics of the gangster oligarchs — the characteristics of a primitive illuminati cult obsessed with reducing all of humanity to subservience– surely you can see that this counters your own interests. Does it make sense to press down the American people with undeserved guilt at precisely the moment when their strength is most needed for our survival? From somewhere among the American people must come the knowledge, the resolve and the certainty to defeat the militarized arm of an international cabal that is reversing all of human civilization. To ascribe to the entire American people fear & timidity, or greed, or the desire to rule the world, or complicity in events which occurred hundreds of years before they were born, or the desire for nuclear war, is unjust.
The dream of conquering the known world was acted upon by many Attilas before this one, and the covert banking technology to fund it was invented 500 years ago in Venice. The principality of evil which today burdens the people of the earth is not an outgrowth of normal American society or of any other nation. It is the survivor of mystery schools and secret societies, of cults and the longing after supernatural powers– and rebellion against the limitations which human nature and existence impose upon us. But it is the banking technology which empowers these pathologies.

Posted by: Penelope | Oct 25 2015 18:57 utc | 16

As comments 1 and 2 seem to get, Putin is becoming the hegemonic presence in Syria, at least, and possibly Lebanon as well. Or at least he’s giving that very strong impression to the rebels. This long-term change means the sleaze, the semi-mercenaries, the guys that joined the Muslim Bro’hood cuz they saw it as a good ‘career’ move, all those bourgeois layers will quickly point their ‘me me me’ begging bowls at Moscow. Not anymore at the US and its local cop Israel.
That’s why — once Putin, Assad and the Kurds complete the hard work of securing the border with Turkey — the ‘moderate rebels’, the MB guys paid by the US to give away their weapons to Al Qaeda and then hide under rocks, will come around to the new master, “Have I got a deal for you!” Putin. Watch, it will happen very quickly.
Lavrov and Putin know these people, there are a lot of them, and it will be good to have them on the good guys’ side, at least for awhile. Good PR, at least. The proposals and enticements of the last 24 hours are the bait. Soon there will be a feeding frenzy. ‘Care-e-e-e-e-ring!’

Posted by: fairleft | Oct 25 2015 19:16 utc | 18

@ Noirette | Oct 25, 2015 1:10:31 PM | 8
Well, Noirette, I’ve just dug a little bit deeper into this alleged “Erdogan’s Islamic sex cult”. This narrative is brought to us by an ultra-slick website called BALKANIST. They claim:
/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BALKANIST — The Islamic Sex Cult Supporting Turkey’s Prime Minister — March 28, 2014
http://balkanist.net/the-islamic-sex-cult-supporting-turkeys-prime-minister/
Harun Yahya is said to be the messianic leader of an apocalyptic Islamic sex cult. He’s also the owner of a Turkish television station called A9, and the host of his own religious talk show, which just might make your eyeballs pop out of your skull. The entire set and everyone on it glow like irradiated ultraviolet rays. Five amazing looking women usually co-host the show, wearing things like false rainbow eyelashes, wigs, and diamond-studded Versace bondage gear. The backdrop is a blinding fake lavender cityscape. Conversations often focus on how materialism and Darwinism are dead, how to recognize the face of a real Muslim, and how Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — with whom the host is rumored to enjoy friendly relations — is “one of the important figures for the End Times”.
\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, Turkey’s Erdogan is all tangled up in an “Islamic sex cult”! What could be more predictable? It all makes perfect sense — not.
This slick BALKANIST site also publishes such enlightening fare as:
/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BALKANIST — Russia Clamps Down on Contemporary Art (and History) — February 11, 2015
http://balkanist.net/russias-clampdown-on-contemporary-art/
Russia’s Ministry of Culture has shut down a major “contemporary art and culture hubs project” and repurposed it with a new agenda: spreading “patriotic education” and “promoting moral values” for the “development of the Russian national spirit” in line with the Orthodox Church.
The entire team of curators involved in the original “cultural innovation initiative” (CII) has been fired, some say without notice. Their replacements have suggested that contemporary art is “American” or “Western” and “alien to our own country [Russia]“.
\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Evidently this BALKANIST site is no great friend of Russia.
Here is what the renowned journalist and former NSA analyst Wayne Madsen has to say about what’s going on in Turkey:
/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Strategic-Culture.org — The Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret (Part I) — October 25,2011
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2011/10/25/the-doenmeh-the-middle-easts-most-whispered-secret-part-i.html
[Note: Dönmeh is rendered simply as Donmeh in many English writings.]
American politicians and journalists, whose knowledge of the history of countries like Turkey and the preceding Ottoman Empire, is often severely lacking, have painted the friction between Israel’s government and the Turkish government of Prime Minister Erdogan as based on Turkey’s drift to Islamism and the Arab world. Far from it, Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) seem to have finally seen a way to break free from the domination and cruelty of the Dönmeh, whether in the form of Kemalist followers of Ataturk or nationalist schemers and plotters in Ergenekon. But with Turkey’s “Independence Day” has come vitriol from the Dönmeh and their natural allies in Israel and the Israel Lobby in the United States and Europe. Turkey as a member of the European Union was fine for Europe as long as the Dönmeh remained in charge and permitted Turkey’s wealth to be looted by central bankers like has occurred in Greece.
When Israel launched its bloody attack on the Turkish Gaza aid vessel, the Mavi Marmara, on May 31, 2010, the reason was not so much the ship’s running of the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The brutality of the Israelis in shooting unarmed Turks and one Turkish-American, some at point blank range, according to a UN report, indicated that Israel was motivated by something else: vengeance and retaliation for the Turkish government’s crackdown on Ergenekon, the purging of the Turkish military and intelligence senior ranks of Dönmeh, and reversing the anti-Muslim religious and cultural policies set down by the Dönmeh’s favorite son, Ataturk, some ninety years before. In effect, the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara was in retaliation for Turkey’s jailing of several top Turkish military officers, journalists, and academics, all accused of being part of the Ergenekon plot to overthrow the AKP government in 2003. Hidden in the Ergenekon coup plot is that the Dönmeh and Ergenekon are connected through their history of being Kemalists, ardent secularists, pro-Israeli, and pro-Zionist.
\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I assure folks that it may be rather enlightening to read all of the above Madsen article. All this gives me much food for thought.

Posted by: blues | Oct 25 2015 19:33 utc | 20

Just noticed something: in images.google you used to be able to search for pics ot Assad addressing his parliament, with shots of the assembly wherein were women, blacks, whites, in-betweens, men in suits, men in tribal robes. Now all you get is shots of Assad gesturing to somebody. Or maybe I’m using the wrong search terms: assad+parliament+speech?

Posted by: ruralito | Oct 25 2015 20:27 utc | 22

I want to provide two links from ZH and talk about how they are related.
The 1st is about the US agreeing to sell military goods to the house of Saud
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-25/us-approves-11-billion-deal-sell-combat-ships-brutal-dictatorship
The 2nd is about how the house of Saud could precipitate a US dollar crisis
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-25/forget-china-saudi-arabia-could-demolish-us-dollar
So now the US is aiding and abetting war crimes in order to hold off the inevitable collapse of US Dollar/Reserve Currency hegemony.
Is the world ready to abolish private finance to end the effects of financial dictatorship? Is the world ready to neuter inheritance globally so none can accumulate enough to effect social policy?
My take is the answer is no, humanity is still too brainwashed to overcome their pain and suffering. It is sad to watch.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 25 2015 20:43 utc | 24

following @22
an member of NATO (have noticed that NATO has never commented on Israeli’s war crimes in Gaza), also a fellow neocon, etc

Posted by: okie farmer | Oct 25 2015 21:08 utc | 26

@ okie farmer | Oct 25, 2015 4:33:10 PM | 22
The Turkish Gaza relief ship Mavi Marmara was brutally attacked by Israel on May 30, 2010; Erdogan was elected president of Turkey on August 10, 2014. That’s quite a stretch. And Ergodan is now making deals with, and overtures to Russia. A conservative, yes, ruthless, yes. But apparently not neocon.

Posted by: blues | Oct 25 2015 21:22 utc | 28

Erdogan was Prime Minster for 11 years before he was elected Prez.

Posted by: okie farmer | Oct 25 2015 21:42 utc | 30

One Happy Kalibr Family
This is a technical article on the SLCM Kalibr missile system recently used by the Russians in Syria, launched from ships in the Caspian Sea. The article was written by Nikolai Sokov , a nuclear-weapons, non-proliferation Russian scientist, for Arms Control Wonk, a blog on arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, as part of a discussion on alleged Russian violations of the 1978 INF Treaty, with the introduction of the new Kalibr missile.
Beyond all the military capabilities of the Kalibr in its different versions, (sea, land, air, domestic and export)the “worst side of the Kalibr” is its versatility. The Russians have designed it to fit standard shipping containers, that can be carried in trucks, trains, ships, not different from the millions of containers carried across the seven seas by merchant ships. It is completely mobile, and, in a shipping container, completely innocuous, hence its “sneaky” quality and lethal danger.
Sokov on Russian Cruise Missiles

I was discussing reports of a new Russian sea-launched cruise missile with my colleague, Nikolai Sokov. He has a number of thoughts about what is going on, so I was delighted when he offered to write them up. There are a lot of really interesting things in Nikolai’s piece.
One comment — I remain undecided about the idea that the alleged Russian INF violation arises from a ground-based test of a sea-launched cruise missile. The new information, though, does seem to bolster that case, at least a bit, but my intuition is that it is a new ground-launched cruise missile. In any event, its a discussion worth having. And this is a really great start […]

This marketing video of the export version of the Kalibr, Club K, shows how the missile works, from deployment to targeting acquisition to launch to target approach to the kill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbUU_9bOcnM

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Oct 25 2015 21:45 utc | 32

@ blues | Oct 25, 2015 3:33:13 PM | 19
You’re dead right about the Madsen article on the Dönmeh. Both parts are keepers.
Here’s some more corroboration. In fact, the 1994 article is where the story broke. Last I checked, Lexis-Nexis erased the 1994 article. Only Highbeam Research has it.
1994

HILLEL HALKIN
The Forward
01-28-1994
When Kemal Ataturk Recited Shema Yisrael: `It’s My Secret Prayer, Too,’ He Confessed
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-2268322.html [Paywalled]
Free copy here: http://radioislam.org/islam/english/jewishp/turkey/ataturkjew-1.htm
I can confirm that the Radio Islam version and the Highbeam Research article are identical.

2007

HILLEL HALKIN
The New York Sun
July 24, 2007
Ataturk’s Turkey Overturned
“>http://www.nysun.com/opinion/ataturks-turkey-overturned/58997/

Posted by: MRW | Oct 25 2015 23:04 utc | 34

@ MRW | Oct 25, 2015 7:04:36 PM | 33
It appears your second link, to The New York Sun, is broken. But I found and saved a page:
Ataturk’s Turkey Overturned By HILLEL HALKIN | July 24, 2007
http://www.nysun.com/opinion/ataturks-turkey-overturned/58997/

Posted by: blues | Oct 25 2015 23:24 utc | 36

Bye Merkel

Posted by: RussianBoy | Oct 25 2015 23:59 utc | 38

Fact check at aisle 19
Again with the Donmeh and Wayne Masden — a top conspiracy from one of America’s top conspiracy theorists (and that’s saying something, given the competition).
Masden asserts that “Abdulhamid II was vilified by the Young Turks as a tyrant, but his only real crime appears to have been to refuse to meet Zionist leader Theodore Herzl during a visit to Constantinople in 1901 and reject Zionist and Dönmeh offers of money in return for the Zionists to be granted control of Jerusalem.”
There were actually plenty of people who had cause for anger with Abdul Hamid II. As an authoritarian westernizer, he both promulgated and suspended a constitution and parliament and presided over early mass repression of the Armenians. As his Wiki puts it, “Despite his conservatism and despotic rule, evidence of modernization of the Ottoman Empire occurred during Abdul Hamid’s long reign….” He alienated both conservatives and Young Turks.
And a much simpler explanation for Mavi Marmara — the Israelis are quite rigorous in their isolation of Gaza (the international airport there was destroyed long ago). Even when these challenges originate from regional allies.

Posted by: rufus magister | Oct 26 2015 0:23 utc | 40

Nobody’s talking about the debt limit deadline in Washington. Congress has till November 3 to raise it. Boehner says he hasn’t got the votes for a clean, simple increase. Ryan hasn’t said anything about it yet. He will be elected on Thursday as speaker – just days before the hour of judgment.
It’s frustrating that the media undersells the consequences of default. I just read a mealy-mouthed piece in The Washington Post that said it’s “anyone’s guess” what happens if the United States of America misses payments on T-Bills. But it’s not anyone’s guess. You don’t even have to guess. It’s obvious. The Treasury market implodes and interest rates skyrocket; the major banks fail as the stock market goes to limit down; and the world plunges into a true Great Depression while the U.S. sinks to third-world status – with all the looting, rioting, social dislocation and unrest, psychological trauma, and, eventually, martial law and dictatorship – the putrescence – that comes w a dying superpower.
Last time we went to the brink, in 2013, the media was much more willing to plainly lay out the apocalyptic ramifications. Now, it doesn’t wanna look like chicken little, and the audience is already bored (“haven’t we seen this movie before?”). So the media’s downplaying or ignoring the crisis, and people are happy to tune out, because who needs that kind of anxiety. The complacency and head-burying makes default all the more likely. My prediction is that it comes down to the final hour – which is damaging enough. But I’d rank the chance of a default at 40 percent.

Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 26 2015 0:47 utc | 42

And please stop calling people “conspiracy theorists” when what they actually are is disinformation resisters.

Posted by: blues | Oct 26 2015 1:09 utc | 44

@ PhilK | Oct 25, 2015 9:27:22 PM | 43
Italics fail — worked in the preview, but failed in the actual post. Was supposed to read:
Oh, come on, you’re making it sound like this would be a bad thing.
Just go over to ZeroHedge and buy their book, “How To Get Rich in the Coming Social Dislocation, Psychological Trauma, Martial Law and Dictatorship”. You’ll be set for life!

Posted by: PhilK | Oct 26 2015 1:31 utc | 46

@44
Let me guess. Since its from zero hedge, its about buying gold and silver, isn’t it?
You cant possibly really imagine a book like that is going to teach you how to get a positive roll with such highly turbulent dice.

Posted by: Massinissa | Oct 26 2015 1:49 utc | 48

@3
(Interesting comment at that site regarding Woodrow Wilson signing Federal Reserve Act into law:)
“Q: Who thinks they know what blackmail or other pressure-point was used to get Wilson to sign the Fed Res [Act] into law?
Don’t be shy. Speak-up. It had to be far more threatening than his quiet affair with a Princeton professor’s wife. More like a chronic, progressively debilitating disease would make him unelectable if publicly known.”
Someone in internetland probably knows something. Perhaps a hand-me-down relative of an interested medical party?

Posted by: curiouser | Oct 26 2015 2:20 utc | 50

blues at 41 —
I took one element of the tissue of fact and fancy that Masden concocted in the name of “disinformation resistance” and looked into it. I think the old-fashioned late Twentieth Century slogan “Question Authority” more specific and better sounding, BTW.
The now-banned “Lord” Charles Drake had tossed the Donmeh out in one of his offerings (tried to link the House of Saud to them). I had fact-checked that little gem, so I was familiar with the term.

Posted by: rufus magister | Oct 26 2015 2:37 utc | 52

Here is lots more proof out of Iraq how the US is supporting ISIL, not
fighting it
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940803001157

Posted by: curious | Oct 26 2015 3:00 utc | 54

Glen Ford on the BLM movement sucking up to HRC:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=14956

Posted by: ben | Oct 26 2015 3:59 utc | 56

Thanks, Lone Wolf @ 47 – I did the same and got to that link finally myself – agree with you on the Valdai site – it looks great, but hard to find more than a few video offerings and some concluding reports. I did go back to Bhadrakumar’s blog, and he has an entry there describing the Prime Minister of Iran’s visit to Putin and what they talked about in some detail. That was fascinating.

Posted by: juliania | Oct 26 2015 4:38 utc | 58

in re 53
Can one resist disinformation by creating it? The plainly observed and the easily demonstrated about the status quo is damning enough, one need not probe the “hidden secrets.”
One is free to believe what one will. But the sort of cavalier attitude towards matters of historical fact that Madsen displays always raises red flags with me.

Posted by: rufus magister | Oct 26 2015 4:50 utc | 60

@ rufus magister | Oct 26, 2015 12:50:38 AM |
Historical fact?
Disinformation?
What’s the difference?

Posted by: blues | Oct 26 2015 5:28 utc | 62

Poland Ousts Government as Law & Justice Gains Historic Majority. Law and Justice is a conservative party from the identity politics perspective, which is the only perspective the mainstream ‘liberal’ media looks at politics with. But, then again, the banks are unhappy which is always a good thing from a left perspective, and look at this (from the first link):

Beata Szydlo, Law & Justice’s candidate for prime minister, is poised to overhaul the $548 billion economy with pledges to raise taxes on the financial industry, increase spending on child support and start a 350 billion zloty ($90.3 billion) central bank loan program.
More than a fifth of Polish workers make less than the $720 a-month poverty threshold. The number of Poles living abroad has more than doubled in the past decade to 2.3 million.
The new government will look to tax bank assets from January by imposing a 0.39 percent levy, and another measure planned targeting bigger retailers …

Of course the financial industry pundits all think she’ll back out on her promises to tax the banks. Politicians often do, so we’ll see.

Posted by: fairleft | Oct 26 2015 6:01 utc | 64

@Penelope #15,
“To denigrate an entire nation by ascribing to its people the characteristics of the gangster oligarchs — the characteristics of a primitive illuminati cult obsessed with reducing all of humanity to subservience– surely you can see that this counters your own interests.”
There are a lot of people here who get some kind of kick running down the USA. Let them have their fun. For that, there are too many Americans who do not understand the difference between patriotism and chauvanism and mindless nationalism.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Oct 26 2015 8:33 utc | 66

John ‘the singing canary’ McCain, Media has reported in October that Syrian rebels asked Washington for Stinger missiles to use them against Russia’s military jets.
“Absolutely… Absolutely I would,” McCain said when asked whether he would support the delivery of Stinger missiles to the opposition in Syria.
“We certainly did that in Afghanistan. After the Russians invaded Afghanistan, we provided them with surface-to-air capability. It’d be nice to give people that we train and equip and send them to fight the ability to defend themselves. That’s one of the fundamental principles of warfare as I understand it,” McCain said.http://freespeechtwentyfirstcentury.com/2015/10/22/john-mccain-white-freemason-calls-on-us-to-provide-stingers-missiles-to-syrian-rebels/ The man should be in a straight jacket Weapons in the hands of terrorists in Syria [good or bad] are instantly traded to the highest bidder or stolen. If stingers are supplied we can assume all flights from Ben Gurion airport, even from Turkey will be suspended. McCain is a delusional fool.

Posted by: harry law | Oct 26 2015 9:37 utc | 68

@66 hl
‘ McCain is a delusional fool. ‘
Living in Thailand I conclude : it’s the uniform. Whether it’s an attractor or a transformer I don’t know, but it does the job. Lights out.

Posted by: jfl | Oct 26 2015 11:14 utc | 70

@69 fth
Funding and arming Al CIAda, transporting terrorists all around the world, pushing USAID and the NED, running the State Department, assassinating random people at great expense by drone, whole families at a time … you might say – ‘Hey, that has nothing to do with intelligence!’ And of course you’d be right. And that’s the answer to your question. There is no intelligence operation in the USA. We have the CIA instead.

Posted by: jfl | Oct 26 2015 12:27 utc | 72

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004t1s0/microsite
Hardtalk Dmitry Peskov

Posted by: okie farmer | Oct 26 2015 13:20 utc | 74

PB@71
Your last paragraph shows you are either a failed humorist or a true Crazy Ivan. Russia is doing its best to bomb parts of Syria back to the Stone Age but is losing the war by assisting the Islamic State in its expansion, they cut off the SAA supply route to Aleppo and are gaining ground against nationalist rebels thanks to Putin’s impulsiveness.
Now you recommend Putin start a new war in the Gulf that he also can’t win, brilliant!

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Oct 26 2015 15:09 utc | 76

Yes, wayoutwest, al Nusra and their buddies did “cut off the SAA supply route to Aleppo” temporarily, but ask yourself “why”?
It’s because they know that the Russian-SAA-Iranian-Hezbollah noose is tightening around Aleppo, so they launched a desperate attack on the main artery north.
Now they’re going to be bombed into oblivion.
Anyone who thinks Russia is losing the war in Syria, needs a crash-course in how to read a map.

Posted by: plantman | Oct 26 2015 15:28 utc | 78

Yes WoW at 74, that’s why KSA and USA are screaming at the top of their lungs: because Russia is loosing, and they are very sad about that.

Posted by: Lysander | Oct 26 2015 16:07 utc | 80

This article encloses a letter from an organic farmer in India that eloquently states the advantages of ‘first do no harm’ in farming practice:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/26/the-passing-of-bhaskar-save-what-the-green-revolution-did-for-india/

Posted by: juliania | Oct 26 2015 16:28 utc | 82

Almost impossible to believe:
http://genieoilgas.com/about-us/strategic-advisory-board/
This company’s main and ONLY goal is to exploit the oil and gas reservoirs in the occupied Golan heights.
You can read more in NEO by W.Engdahl, holy shit the devil worshipping BARON is everywhere…

Posted by: Sufi | Oct 26 2015 16:35 utc | 84

Wayoutwest…
You can’t be serious…
You think these bedwetting misfits can beat the combined forces of Russia-SAA-Hezbollah-Iran?
My guess, is that by the end of the week, we’ll see Luweris airbase recaptured by government forces while the battle for Aleppo will have begun.
If I’m wrong, I’ll admit you were right.
Will you do the same?

Posted by: plantman | Oct 26 2015 16:38 utc | 86

Sufi@82. All those Investors will be guilty of stealing the Natural Resources of the Syrian people if that oil is extracted and sold.Here is UNSC Resolution 497[December 17th 1981], nothing has changed.
Having considered the letter of 14 December 1981 from the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic contained in document S/14791,
Reaffirming that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, the principles of international law, and relevant Security Council resolutions,
1. Decides that the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect;

Posted by: harry law | Oct 26 2015 16:53 utc | 88

L@78
The KSA and the US certainly have reasons to be concerned about Putin’s stability and loosing his Crazy Ivan military on Syria. Threatening to start another war with the Gulf States and making contradictory statements about who are or aren’t terrorists. Lavrov’s pitiful pleas to the FSA, who they are incinerating, to join the Russian Crusade against the IS while asking the US to locate them is an indication of something very wrong in the Kremlin.
If this diplomacy is an act it is dangerous, if it is not an act it is even more dangerous.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Oct 26 2015 17:08 utc | 90

Re Shillary;As Bob Hope once quipped,it’s nice to see the new faces on the old faces here tonight.(Oscars)
And Ms.Cobban;The N word is a blanket condemnation of a whole race? of people,while c*nt is just a description of a subset of gender,like being a dick or prick re males.
Different.

Posted by: dahoit | Oct 26 2015 17:30 utc | 92

This is an insightful conversation about the true state of sectarianism in the middle east & how the memory of a non-sectarian time is being erased. It’s about 20 minutes long; I didn’t time it. http://www.telesurtv.net/el-canal/senal-en-vivo in English.
There was information new to me in it.

Posted by: Penelope | Oct 26 2015 18:13 utc | 94

@59 physohisorian.
Of course there are more evil entities with worse records that you referenced, which is quite a bit obvious if you already read my record here.
As well, You’re playing a dangerous game with your principles if you isolate the right wing for criticism but don’t do the same for the “left” that deserve it.
And Trump is obviously full of shit and evil himself. He singled out the Democrats for Iraq criticism but not Bush and the Rethuglicans in Trumps propaganda piece above. He would never be so open and tell some half-truths if the Republicans were in power now, or if he was in power.

Posted by: tom | Oct 26 2015 18:50 utc | 96

Brief cost of US $$ down rabbit hole on our 2 biggest (and ongoing) stupidities:
Iraq/Afghanistan (not counting Syria/Libia): $6 trillion (2013)
Wall St. Bailouts: $14.4 trillion
I suspect both those low: B. Ritholtz estimates later over $29 b.
2015 US GDB just under $18t. Even taking these low #’s, between the 2 over $20.4t… well over a years’s total GDP of US.
Especially on this site (presumably) American visitors better apprised of absurdity, these kinds of comparisons with pointing out in letters to your Reps in this election season.
Would be curious is anyone has a better reference to our ME costs in $$: I suspect lots of “off budget” spending to contractors, secret prisons/rendition, CIA arms/logistics spending in Syria/Libya etc. would push this well over $10t.

Posted by: jdmckay | Oct 26 2015 19:01 utc | 98

Wayoutwest #76,
funny use of the western meme “bomb Someone back to the Stone Age”.
I suppose you’re aware that’s pure Pentagon lingo, yes?

Posted by: citizen X | Oct 26 2015 19:53 utc | 100