@3 karlof1… i really don’t think israel gives a fuck… since when have have they ever given a fuck over the death of others? certainly not here, or with the countless innocent palestinians they have murdered, and this is all recent too.. if i was to point to what country is eagerly seeking ww3, it would be israel..

Posted by: james | Sep 19 2018 18:23 utc | 4

The western financial system is on shaky ground for many reasons, never having recovered from the 2008 crisis.
Ellen Brown has a great article up about how central banks are actively participating in the stock market. This is not for the common good.

Central Banks Have Gone Rogue, Putting Us All at Risk

“”The two most aggressive central bank players in the equity markets are the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan. The goal of the Bank of Japan, which now owns 75% of Japanese exchange-traded funds, is evidently to stimulate growth and defy longstanding expectations of deflation. But the Swiss National Bank is acting more like a hedge fund, snatching up individual stocks because “that is where the money is.” About 20% of the SNB’s reserves are in equities, and more than half of that is in US equities.””
“”Abolishing the central banks is one possibility, but if they were recaptured as public utilities, they could serve some useful purposes. A central bank dedicated to the service of the public could act as an unlimited source of liquidity for a system of public banks, eliminating bank runs since the central bank cannot go bankrupt. It could also fix the looming problem of an unrepayable federal debt, and it could generate “quantitative easing for the people,” which could be used to fund infrastructure, low-interest loans to cities and states, and other public services.””
————————
This Ellen Brown article was referenced in Michael Hudson’s latest article
The Lehman 10th Anniversary spin as a Teachable Moment

“”Today’s financial malaise for pension funds, state and local budgets and underemployment is largely a result of the 2008 bailout, not the crash. What was saved was not only the banks – or more to the point, as Sheila Bair pointed out, their bondholders – but the financial overhead that continues to burden today’s economy.
Also saved was the idea that the economy needs to keep the financial sector solvent by an exponential growth of new debt – and, when that does not suffice, by government purchase of stocks and bonds to support the balance sheets of the wealthiest layer of society. The internal contradiction in this policy is that debt deflation has become so overbearing and dysfunctional that it prevents the economy from growing and carrying its debt burden.””
“”The beneficiaries are the stockholders who are concentrated in the wealthiest percentiles of the population. Governments are not underwriting homeownership or the solvency of labor’s pension plans, but are underwriting the value of collateral backing the savings of the narrow financial class.””

Posted by: financial matters | Sep 19 2018 18:41 utc | 6

@7 oy.. no additional info on the french frigate dynamic i have heard…
you know, i think it was nato that provided the no fly zone for libya before turning it into a failed state /haven for isis…
i could see russia making a section of syria a no fly zone so they could stop the crazy shit that the west wants in syria..

Posted by: james | Sep 19 2018 18:51 utc | 8

The missile attack on Syria lasted 40 to 50 minutes by all accounts. Four Israeli planes and one french frigate. Perhaps more ships than the French frigate involved. How long does it take a french Frigate to launch its missiles.
A couple of targets hit, but not much damage similar to the other combined missile attacks that have taken place.
Russia homing in on Israel as responsible for downing the Russian plane. Presentation by Russian MoD spokesman, coordinated by Putin, was along the lines that Israel had engineered the event to cause the downing of the Russian plane.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Sep 19 2018 19:07 utc | 10

oldenyoung
Also,
NATO warships moving closer to Syria shores amid looming US airstrikes: Report
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/09/17/574419/NATO-warships-moving-closer-to-Syria-shores-amid-looming-US-airstrikes-Report
Feel sorry for Syria now, they are alone in this fight now.

Posted by: Zanon | Sep 19 2018 19:26 utc | 12

@9
I guess I’m still plugged in to the Matrix cuz I believe Trump is a fucking liar and as dirty as the day is long.
Guess I’ll keep trying to shake it off…..om…..om
I hear he’s got this really weird dick…..om….om

Posted by: peter | Sep 19 2018 19:31 utc | 14

Peter AU 1 @10–
AFP published a denial by France that it launched any missiles. Since Russia doesn’t make false accusations like the Outlaw US Empire and its vassals, the French are likely lying. Viewing all the radar telemetry as specialists do would detail the entire attack–and there were numerous sea and land based Russian radars in action that evening. A question I’ve asked and not provided an answer as yet is related to many saying the flight plan of the IL-20 was known in advance so the attack could be prepared in advance: Was the IL-20 flight plan public knowledge? I know there’re websites dedicated to tracking airplane flights, but do they include military aircraft (I looked at Plane Flight Tracker and Flight Radar24, which only seem to track civilian craft)?
Does knowing there was a deception plan involving the IL-20 made ahead with NATO collusion make any real difference in either the short or long term? Perhaps for the long term as the faulty policy’s already been modified by establishing the no fly zone.

Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 19 2018 19:40 utc | 16

@ 14: LMFAO peter…

Posted by: ben | Sep 19 2018 19:41 utc | 18

IDF delegation heads to Moscow
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/252191

Posted by: partizan | Sep 19 2018 19:53 utc | 20

i hope you made a donation to that reputable paper, lol… what a joke it became some years ago.. there’s poison and then ther’s poison… western msm definitely qualifies..

Posted by: james | Sep 19 2018 20:00 utc | 22

The western armada heading towards the eastern Med includes a German frigate, the Oldenburg.

Posted by: Marley’s Ghost | Sep 19 2018 20:35 utc | 24

partizan
Disgusting but once again show how much Putin have sold himself to israeli interests.
What they will talk about is how to get russia’s approval for IDF to keep bombing Syria.

Posted by: Zanon | Sep 19 2018 20:44 utc | 26

“IDF delegation heads to Moscow”
Haha, Israel obeys. It’s Putin running the show, cut back when the situation is difficult, advance when it suits.

Posted by: Laguerre | Sep 19 2018 20:52 utc | 28

Laguerre 27
All roads lead to Moscow and have done since Russia moved into Syria.
Like cattle pads leading into a water trough.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Sep 19 2018 21:23 utc | 30

@ peter | 14
LOL
He may be a c*nt, but come on, a guy ridiculing another guy for his dick? That’s low! 😀

Posted by: Scotch Bingeington | Sep 19 2018 21:55 utc | 32

finally got to the bottom of what i wanted to know…a ranking colonel in Russian military(2nd in command at AD system in HMeimim) gave a briefing(pain to translate)…
The s200 in syria does have a rudementary IFF system…but once it has locked a foe target and is launched, it cannot be retargeted…it chases its foe…the IDF pilots ran behind the IL20 and matched speed once they had been launched on…the s200 followed them and detonated on the largest piece in its target area, the IL20…just like a decoy…
so…the IDF provoked an s200 launch by attacking syria SAA positions and a government production facility, and then pulled in behind the IL20 to save their own asses…intentionally destroying it…
that is an outright blatant act of war…no wonder Ru military is MAD…they know what happened
regards
OY

Posted by: oldenyoung | Sep 19 2018 22:38 utc | 34

oldenyoung 33
That has been my thought for a while now. The upgraded Syrian air defence control would have a very good recognition system as Russian planes are constantly operation in the area but the Israelis deliberately exploited the gap where the missile themselves don’t recognize friend or foe and were able to drag it onto the Russian plane. As the Russian second in command of air defences said – The Syrian defenses cant fire if a friendly aircraft is in the targeting radar.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Sep 19 2018 22:52 utc | 36

peter au@35
it also looks like they used the IL20 twice…stacked up behind it so they couldnt get targeted early on their approach over hmeimim…got in close, flew to fire positions, fired and were fired on turned and fled behind IL20 again…
dirty war tricks for a “friend” of russias
regards
OY

Posted by: oldenyoung | Sep 19 2018 23:12 utc | 38

FWIW, Tony Cartalucci posted an article yesterday on NEO re the latest developments in Syria.
He concludes with the following:
“It is not to Russia’s advantage to sink French frigates or expose the full capabilities of its air defense systems to shoot down a handful of Israeli warplanes to satisfy public desires for immediate revenge or to protect nonexistent notions of Russian invincibility.
Instead, it is to Russia’s advantage to simply win the proxy war in Syria. Just as in 2015 when calls for immediate revenge were made regarding a Turkish-downed Russian warplane, Syria, Russia, and Iran will continue moving forward – slowly and methodically – to secure Syrian territory from foreign proxies seeking to divide and destroy the country, springboard into Iran, and eventually work their way into southern Russia.
Avenging serial provocations is infinitesimally less important than overall victory in Syria. The fate of Syria as a nation, Iran’s security and stability as a result, and even Russia’s own self-preservation is on the line. The awesome responsibility of those who have planned and executed Syria’s incremental victory over proxy forces backed by the largest, most powerful economies and military forces on Earth could greatly benefit from a public able to understand the difference between short-term gratification and long-term success and how the former almost certainly and recklessly endangers the latter.”
The greatest possible “revenge” to exact upon those who inflicted this war upon the Syrian people, is their absolute and total defeat.
https://journal-neo.org/2018/09/18/syrian-russian-victory-only-way-to-avenge-israeli-french-strikes/

Posted by: spudski | Sep 19 2018 23:26 utc | 40

smoothie on his blog has 2 links to the briefing by the 2nd in command of the AD battalion…i have trouble posting html links that i have had to translate…
regards
OY

Posted by: oldenyoung | Sep 19 2018 23:31 utc | 42

Alastair Crooke’s latest at Strategic Culture.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/09/18/two-major-middle-east-projects-afoot-gaining-mass-they-may-collide-before-long.html
….But a turnaround in Iraq also puts a spike into the balloon of President Trump’s aspiration to reassert US energy dominance over the Mideast. Iran – it was hoped – would ultimately capitulate and fall to economic and political pressures, and as the Iranian domino capsized, it would take with it, crashing down into political acquiescence, the Iraqi domino.
This scenario would leave the US with the main sources of ‘low production cost’ Middle East energy in its hands (i.e. Gulf, Iran and Iraqi oil and gas). On the face of this week’s events however, it looks more likely that these resources – or at least, the greater energy resources of Iran and Iraq – will end up in the Russian sphere (together with Syria’s unexplored Levant Basin prospects). And this Russian ‘heartland’, energy-producing sphere, may, in the end, prove to be a more than substantive rival to US (newly emerged as ‘the world’s top oil producer’) aspirations for restoring its Mideast energy dominance…..
The piece covers both Trump’s plans for global energy dominance by taking full control of middle east oil and also the Trump Kushner moves against the Palestinians.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Sep 20 2018 1:05 utc | 44

lozion @ 44 youre very welcome…after all the good stuff ive gleaned from you barflies over the years…i suspect it was my turn…./wink
regards
OY

Posted by: oldenyoung | Sep 20 2018 1:34 utc | 46

Someone here earlier mentioned Flores, & they were also mentioned in this excellent ZH article, that does a great job of plausibly explaining the situation as well as Putin’s handling of it certainly eases my mind…
Decoding Putin’s Response To Attack In Syria

Posted by: xLemming | Sep 20 2018 1:48 utc | 48

@karlof1 @2
So when I was finally able to follow the link I saw what you mean. Not only does she have a conversation amongst herself but when others chime in it’s a broadside of snark. Interesting that I was blocked from her post, whatever rate limited means, but other posts came up fine. HRC should consign herself to Tupperware parties.

Posted by: Stumpy | Sep 20 2018 2:00 utc | 50

Re: Posted by: Zanon | Sep 19, 2018 3:26:03 PM | 12
Syria are not alone. Syria has state of the art Russian Air Defences that will destroy any incoming planes and missiles.
LOL.
Why do you think Russia got involved? To fold up shop when the going got tough? LOL. This is an existential these to Russia’s independence, they won’t be going anywhere.

Posted by: Julian | Sep 20 2018 3:35 utc | 52

lol peter au! we wish!!

Posted by: james | Sep 20 2018 4:02 utc | 54

I doubt that Peter, they are waiting on further directives now the dust is settled before they croak into chorus again. No one was expecting Putin to give this response to open provocation. They are stumped and I expect when the IDF comes back from its discussions with Russia it will rain again. It’s not as if we haven’t heard Putin betrayed everyone chorus since the Syrian conflict started. Nothing has changed and Russia still has a steady hand on the ship and will be more determined. They all croak the same music but eventually the frogs will croak long-term.

Posted by: Kondor | Sep 20 2018 4:56 utc | 56

T @50
Helmer is unremittingly cynical. I’ve read him for a long time and learned to be careful how his seemingly well-informed views influence me. He resents Putin’s tolerance of Russian crony capitalism and never misses an opportunity to emphasize it. Still, he is a very smart well-connected journalist who does remarkably deep research.
On the ground in Syria it appears to me that it’s Erdogan whose nuts are in a vice. He will have about 5 weeks to do the impossible–separate the “moderates,” which means the Turkish-compliant opposition in Idlib–from those who aren’t compliant. No one has succeeded in the equivalent of this anywhere else in Syria to date. Should he fail, the rest of the Astana cabal will act as the situation develops and he will have shot his wad in full daylight.
That leaves us with the IL-20 incident and the full truth of the matter, which I’ll bet the Russians already know and have yet to disclose. They engage in info wars just as much as their opponents. At the least, the Israelis are stuck with having given one minute of notice to the Russians. That’s not a breach of trust with the Russians they can recover from, all other appearances notwithstanding.

Posted by: pogohere | Sep 20 2018 6:16 utc | 58

A thought… Zionism is to Judaism what wahhabi is to Islam.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Sep 20 2018 6:35 utc | 60

Alas, the French probably did the shooting of the Il-20.
that was supposed to either bring a brutal Russian answer or discredit Putin as the usual are so busy doing here.
Did not work and the sneaky Russians accused the Israel to be the cause of a friendly fire from Syria AA.
https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/09/full-analysis-russian-disinfo-campaign-blames-israel-for-il-20-plane-downing-yet-exonerates-france/
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-19/decoding-putins-response-attack-syria
tom luongo

Posted by: Charles Michael | Sep 20 2018 6:44 utc | 62

@oldnyoung 42
Here is an alternative narrative to Andrei/Smoothie’s:
If an armed assailant busts into your home and raises his gun at you whilst you are holding a gun as well, you happen to shoot just as your child was walking out of the bedroom and you kill your own child. Who are you going to blame – the child, yourself or the intruder?
Then you realize that the armed intruder was actually your boss, your landlord, the owner of everything you think you own, he even prints the money in your wallet. He came armed with a gun only because he wanted to have a bit of fun with your Iranian wife in the bedroom of the house that he rented to you. He apologizes for your accidental killing of your child and blames you for shooting instead of letting him satisfy his lust for the 200th time.
Maybe Putin will “win” in Syria by sacrificing thousands of Russian lives, maybe this is a Russian tradition, or maybe he will not win and all the lives are for nothing. Any non-biased person would probably say that his approach in Syria is not working, no matter how much his and Israeli defenders pooh-pooh us critics.
My critique of Putin is not that he did not kill back the Turks and the Israelis, it is that he keeps making agreements with the non-agreement capable sponsors of terrorism and then entrusts the lives of his soldiers to such agreements.
On the bright side, Saudi Arabia has not killed any Russians yet, thus there is further potential for Putin style “accidents”.

Posted by: Kiza | Sep 20 2018 7:33 utc | 64

Julian
Unfortunately not, as b said the other day:

On Netanyahoo’s personal request Russia had stopped the delivery of original Russian S-300 long range air-defense missiles to the Syrian military. These would have been less likely to veer off towards the wrong target. In consequence an Iranian 747 was damaged and 15 Russian soldiers were killed. Netanyahoo can forget about any further such ‘favors’ from Moscow.

It’s a trechery by Russia on the refusal to give Syria S300 to defend itself against ongoing israeli attacks.
Satellite pics show Syria strike as Israeli Air Force chief goes to Moscow to explain Il-20 incident
https://www.rt.com/news/438876-israel-satellite-latakia-strike/
What do they IDF next time with Putin’s approval?

Posted by: Zanon | Sep 20 2018 7:53 utc | 66

Perhaps Putin uses the lives of his soldiers as bargaining chips or chess pieces to be sacrificed for a great victory. Do not misunderstand me, we little people are the bargaining pieces for the ruling self-declared elite no matter which country. Do you think that the Ukrainians would have shot down MH17 without the order from their Western sponsors? The Western sponsors wanted specifically the EU countries to introduce sanctions on Russia because EU-Russia trade was 10x the US-Russia trade. This is why a plane-load of the Dutch, the Australians, the Germans and so on were sacrificed for a “worth-while” goal of hurting Russia (and EU). 300 people for $300B of annual EU-Russia trade. And this is just one little example (Gladio anyone?), the West is much worse in this respect than Putin. The only difference is that the Western elite sacrifices our lives always in secret/false-flag and blames the enemy of the day for the deed.
At best, we are the regular milking cows of the elite which controls the mindbogglingly rotten financial system, the real matrix that we are all plugged into which Caitlin and Wanchoski Brothers try to describe. At worst, we have to somehow navigate this life away from the situations in which our and our family’s naked lives become the elite’s trading and gambling chips for condolences in return (if they are polite).

Posted by: Kiza | Sep 20 2018 9:02 utc | 68

Replying to Kiza 62 & 63;
I am inclined to agree with you more or less 100%. As many have pointed out this struggle is clearly much greater than a series of individual military engagements. The Russians, Syrians, Iranians and Hez have to date largely played a focused and patient hand, the shooting down of at least one Israeli F-16 and rumoured attacks on specific military and intelligence posts in the Golan being the exceptions rather than the rule. However as grim and as ruthless as this sounds, one wonders how many more casualties these parties are willing to absorb before we witness some tangible form of real-world military retaliation. This seems to be the prospect that concerns and worries so many.
The Russians are nobodies fools and one assumes that that they a have series of robust strategies and objectives laid out, but public opinion within Russia risks starting to simmer and boil. My thinking from deep in the side lines is that the domestic dance within Russia might become just as fraught and tense as the wider geopolitical one.

Posted by: Glossopteris | Sep 20 2018 9:29 utc | 70

A while back I mentioned that Trump’s claims that the JCPOA was a bad deal might be interpreted as meaning it was a bad deal for the Iranians as it was not a treaty and imposed no legal obligation on the United States to withdraw the sanction regime.
It is beginning to look as if that’s the purpose of Trump’s Iran policy:

Speaking Wednesday at the Hudson Institute, US special envoy for Iran Brian Hook says that the US goal is to negotiate a major treaty with Iran covering a wide variety of issues, including its missile program and its “regional behavior.”
Hook conceded that Iran has repeatedly said they are not interested in negotiations because they consider the US pulling out of the P5+1 nuclear deal as proof they’re acting in bad faith. To that, Hook said that the US would impose more sanctions until they get what they want.
Hook also argued that the negotiations the US seeks now would be a proper, real treaty, instead of a “personal agreement between two governments like the last one,” which appears to mean the US would actually honor this one.

It would be quite easy for the Iranians to accept this as they have stated that their ballistic missile development has achieved its target and their involvement with Iraq and Syria is at the governmental level and quite legal. The only real issue is probably their support of Hezbollah in Lebanon and with a few minor changes to Lebanon’s constitution, written and unwritten, the military wing of Hezbollah could soon be in a position where it could be incorporated into the Lebanese Army become the Lebanese Army. That Washington appears to be making this offer suggests that regime change is no longer on the table.
I feel quite sorry for John Bolton as he’ll never get to demonstrate his manliness, flying into Tehran on Air Force One is not quite the way he expected to do it – he sees regime change in Tehran on the horizon and then brutally it’s snatched away from him. ROFLOL.
What would to folks in Riyadh say and do? Who gives a fuck because they are America’s bitches.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Sep 20 2018 9:56 utc | 72

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Sep 20, 2018 5:56:05 AM | 71
If the Iranians think Washington is acting in bad faith, they presumably know what they are talking about.
Iran’s missile programme is elementary for their security to take that out would be a “no”.
To renegotiate with a country that has broken an agreement is another “no”.
Iran has the support of China, Russia and – in a weak but presumably effective way concerning the flow of money granting the sale of oil – the EU.
I checked Theresa May’s statement – even Britain is against the US in this matter.
It makes much more sense for Iran to wait Donald Trump out.

Posted by: somebody | Sep 20 2018 10:06 utc | 74

@59 Peter AU 1

A thought… Zionism is to Judaism what wahhabi is to Islam.

Also Hindutva as to Hinduism.

Posted by: Face The Fact | Sep 20 2018 10:25 utc | 76

Peter 59,
All societies have liberal and conservative polarities. Light expands out, as mass coalesces in. The problem is that Western civilization is ideals based, while reality is a function of polarities, context and contrast. Human civilization grows from our story telling abilities and those which are most repeated are the ones with a climax and a moral lesson. So we think there is some goal, or ideal to every narrative, but time is not really the point of the present “flowing” past to future, but change turning future to past. Potential, to actual, to residual.
It is a dichotomy of energy and form. We have a brain to process information and the digestive respiratory and circulatory systems to process energy. As energy is dynamic and “conserved,” thus only the present, it changes form. So energy goes past to future, as form goes future to past. So if you want to understand where the future is going, study the energy, not the narrative. Currently the social circulation mechanism, “finance,” is going metastatic and eventually will blow up. As government is the social central nervous system, finance is having its “Let them eat cake” moment.

Posted by: John Merryman | Sep 20 2018 10:41 utc | 78

I’m not sure how great an idea these open threads are as they leave the door wide open for the worst kind of whatabouttery by clear trolls. These trolls can then defend their littering on the grounds “The thread was open, you do believe in freedom speech, don’t you?” That in the face of the MSM platforms are almost totally closed to alternative viewpoints now.
For instance comment 18 craigsummers just casually throws out misleading information that V.V. Putin has journalists killed. President Putin killing journalists has been a regularly debunked canard but having it thrown out again into serious discussion, might influence people new to alternative perspectives. Or set us off on a fool’s errand debunking such damaging nonsense charges.
Here goes. Statistics show that mortality for journalists has radically improved in Russia since V.V. Putin came to power.
Violent death of journalists has fallen from about 6 per year to 2 per year. Novaya Gazeta editors do not blame V.V. Putin for their colleague. V.V. Putin was deeply angered by the murder when it was reported to him at a party. In the kleptocracy that the Harvard Group nourished through their proxies Boris Yelstin and Anatoli Chubais, business oligarchs became the rule. Men like Boris Berezhovsky, Vladimir Gusinski and Mikhail Khodorovksy had private armies. In particular, Berezhovsky did not hesitate to use lethal force to take care of both business and PR “problems”.
Vladimir Putin has always stood for the rule of law and for stability of the state. He’s the last man to want to use murder to quiet the press. Those who would use such methods in the Yeltsin period hesitate to use them now as they know there’s a good chance of an honest investigation and substantial punishment. A strong disincentive to employ such methods. Hence the fall in violent deaths of journalists in Russia. V.V. Putin is more likely to use soft pressure – as in the West – to sweeten critics. Journalists die in the West as well. Usually their murders are “car accidents” or suicide.

Posted by: Uncoy | Sep 20 2018 12:05 utc | 80

Mr. Shoigu does violence

Nah, Mr. Shoigu does not do gratuitous violence as the American military does and many so-called progressives support, he does violence as a continuation of politics. A very different thing.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Sep 20 2018 12:25 utc | 82

The Flores hypothesis (see fort-russ.com) stating that it was the French ship that downed IL-20 is well argued but obviously still a hypothesis. As it happens, Flores has in the process taken the heat off both Israel and Putin. After a difficult 24 hours Putin has gone -on so many forums- from weak Israeli puppet back to 3d chess master, having in this latest version brilliantly refused to take the NATO bait. And Israel’s role as primary baddie has been taken over by France. There are several problems with the Flores version of events, however.
Does Macron look like the type of guy who would risk shooting down a large and very valuable Russian aircraft with a crew of 14 on board on its way back to base? Does Macron look like the type of guy who would risk being held responsible for instigating WWIII? No, he most certainly doesn’t. He’s a finance guy. And how would France benefit from such reckless provocation of a formidable opponent?
But France may have agreed, under Israeli pressure, to fire off some missiles at Latakia. Latakia is a bit close to the Russian base so maybe the Israelis wanted a co-conspirator to soften possible Russian reaction. But there could be another motive. Knowing they were going to set the Russian plane up for a hit, would it not be in Israel’s interest to deflect attention away from their part in the downing of the plane by having a French frigate in the vicinity firing off missiles. Sooner or later someone was going to blame the French and create a NATO conspiracy angle., which in fact Mr Flores just did.
If the French had indeed downed the Russian plane, would the Russian military have been so quick to put the blame – and with obvious anger – on the Israelis and admit that the Syrian defences had in fact committed the act. In my opinion they would have been much more guarded.

Posted by: Lochearn | Sep 20 2018 12:37 utc | 84

@83 L
Valid points… Tom Luongo (in ZH article above) takes Flores’ points a step further in that he suggests Putin knows details of the event & who did what, but purposefully implicates Israel as one of the main actors in it (and he said as much too, i.e. “Israel violated Syrian sovereignty”). By choosing to ignore (for now) Frances’ role, and leveraging Israel’s hand in it, he is now free to do that which Israel most desperately did NOT want to happen, i.e. a NFZ, perhaps even coupled with a blanket deployment of upgraded defense systems around Syria
The S-200s may or may not have had a hand in what happened, but regardless, Putin can use what is known (Israel’s presence & actions at the “crime scene” & their betrayal of Russia) as a justification by Putin to scrap his previous agreement with them not to provide Syria with S-300’s, etc. And as a result Israel has only themselves to blame – and rightly so.
In the end, advanced defenses & NFZ, will hopefully shut out the coalition & IDF from Syrian airspace
And so, like in judo, Putin takes the weight of the West efforts to trigger WW3 and uses it against the them.
As for France, they may or may not have been witting participants in this fiasco, but even so, Macron surely knows that Putin knows the details, and as a result, France will think twice (hopefully) before being a patsy in the future
IMHO

Posted by: xLemming | Sep 20 2018 13:04 utc | 86

Peter @70
Here is the link to the Luongo article where he explains the idea that it was the French Frigate (L’Auvergne) which fired missiles, (Where? Were they the ones that shot down the Russian plane?) and who was to be the bait for a missile riposte by the Syrians. In order to provoke a NATO article 5 attack.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/09/19/israel-failed-attempt-start-wwiii-beginning-end-syria.html
I have seen one tweet (unconfirmed) that says that Putin has closed air and Sea space off Syrian coastline. Logical, if they are looking for the remains of their plane with highly sensitive electronics on board. Also I suspect that this “exclusion zone” may become permanent.
——
General note; The above article is also on Zero hedge BUT; comments don’t come up. I hope you are all aware that comments can be silenced at anytime and not necessarily by the web site itself. Happened to me about two months ago (FT). On contacting them, it “appears” it was due to something in my computer ad blocker. For various reasons this is probably not the reason. See also what happened to Paveway – I think censorship is far more prevalent than we assume. (Paveway; my sympathy, I found it was the frustration of not being able to post – that was difficult to support !)

Posted by: stonebird | Sep 20 2018 13:42 utc | 88

“The-French-frigate-shot-it-down” is yet another blatant diversion/dilution/dispersion narrative from the Masters of Narrative and their minions elsewhere and here, who know better than the Russian MoD. Far from a binary choice in the movie, for each red pill the pill-pushers push hundreds of blue ones.

Posted by: Kiza | Sep 20 2018 14:05 utc | 90

@87 sb
I had similar concerns re: ZH comments but found that certain browsers see the ZH comments just fine, i.e. Firefox, Chrome. It’s only on my “older” cellphone browser where I can’t see the comments at all. They reformatted the comments section, so that might have had something to do with it

Posted by: xLemming | Sep 20 2018 14:34 utc | 92

Everyone (including me) assumes way too much but I can’t help interpret some recent stuff I read elsewhere (not here) as to imply that everyone is encouraged to object to a white lie so as to possibly encourage others to also consider it to be a white lie in the best interests of the entire world. So I’ll do just that.
Spudski & Tony Cartalucci and then also pogohere, viking3, and Kondor speaks sense, at least from this perspective.
I feel no obligation to believe we know the truth about what happened nor do I believe the Russians truly expect anyone with critical thinking skills to necessarily believe that the fake jews (by any name or entity) managed to do anything but send some missiles into Syria. How close or far from the truth such an official line is doesn’t seem all that important if what was at stake was a provocation and escalation into a much bigger war. Russia obviously and sanely does not want a bigger war because they know it will easily be the biggest and last war.
If the “dragging missiles” story is what it takes to do so then so be it. The story seems to require that:
– the missile IFF is locked on launch rather than actively reassessed until impact
– there is no destruction mechanism from missile control
– the missile doesn’t distinguish between a fighter jet at some speed and a slow plane
– the missile potentially (depending on whether those jets buzzed the EW plane closely) didn’t distinguish between chasing something far away and something suddenly being right in front of it
– the EW plane was powerless against an old-ish or at least export version of a missile produced by themselves
– the EW plane does not have a range of flares and evasive procedures
– the EW plane couldn’t EW it out of existence
– the EW plane wasn’t aware of the situation
– the EW plane wasn’t aware of being locked on by the missile at any point
– the EW plane wasn’t aware of the possibility of such
– the Russian (not Syrian) control of the integrated systems (both Russian and Syrian) as well as the superior Russian situational awareness in the region’s airspace just sat idly by and didn’t do anything between the launch and the missile coming anywhere close to the vicinity of the EW plane
To me it’s a fucking tall order to believe all those things when instead it could be —as examples—:
– the fake jews shot it down
– the boiling frogs shot it down (figuratively run by a fake jew)
– the fake americans shot it down (figuratively run by a fake jew)
– the poor brits shot it down (figuratively run by a fake jewess)
– someone else did something
– something entirely different happened
At this point I would like to point out that even some fake jews are very nice people, in fact superbly awesomely nice people much nicer than me, but at the same time some other fake jews (like those “leaders” alluded to) obviously aren’t anywhere close to nice, or sane, or intelligent, or even have a shred of a sense of actual self-preservation never mind a thought for the rest of us all.
So no I don’t believe the Russians believe that anyone believes they actually want anyone to believe that story 😀
Instead I think they want people like me and at least some others here to believe that they do know we won’t believe it and that we’ll instead believe it is whatever was required for Russia to salvage whatever they could from whatever actually happened. To make thing better from a bad situation rather than worse.
And then also that they want to encourage us to believe that and tell others we believe that by claiming they don’t want us to do so…
And that is what I’ll believe, but I might of course be utterly wrong 😀

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Sep 20 2018 14:57 utc | 94

Perhaps Putin uses the lives of his soldiers as bargaining chips or chess pieces to be sacrificed for a great victory.

To the extent to which Putin’s approach were like chess, aren’t pawns intevitably
exchanged for other pawns, or sacrificed in a tactical or a positional combination?

Posted by: Guerrero | Sep 20 2018 15:12 utc | 96

The problem with chess analogies is that too few people play chess and fewer still think more than one immediate move (a response right now) and fewer still again are capable of doing this themselves (and I’m not, I suck as badly at chess as just about everything else lol).
Why is this a problem? Because the whole point of any chess analogy is precisely that one has to think several moves ahead which doesn’t simply and only mean thinking about one single move and then another single move and then another single move but all the currently available moves and then all the currently available moves at that point and so on.
It is never about exchanging some pawn for some other pawn or anything like that unless you’re stuck deeply in “Prussian mode” chess playing like some toddler newbie inviting a quick loss (hey I already said I suck at chess, this is how I know it’s called Prussian 😛 (at least around here which is not in Russia, I have no idea what they call it, perhaps simply “stupid”)).

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Sep 20 2018 15:35 utc | 98

Peter @71. That’s my reading as well. We came within a whisker of WW3, and are probably lucky we can still type. Once the Israelis are put in their place then Putin needs to have a strong word with Trump. And of course the frogs will get payback.

Posted by: cdvision | Sep 20 2018 15:41 utc | 100