[Plantagenet]

It wasn't very smart for Obama and the US to violate the terms of the cease fire agreement that they had just signed with the Russians. Once again it shows that Obama can't be trusted to keep his word.

Its hard to accept the US claim that their hours-long bombing attacks on the Syrian Army were "accidental", given the huge amount of 24-7 aerial surveillance by drone that the US is doing over Syria. This seems more like a deliberate attempt by the US to escalate the war in Syria.


The US is conducting reconnaissance flights over Syria 24-7, and has special forces boots on the ground with the Turks, the Kurd, and with radical Islamists and the Free Syrian Army. It seems unlikely that the US doesn't know exactly what its bombers are bombing.

[Cid_Yama]

Time for Russia to remind everyone about the S-400 with a demonstration, then declare a no-fly zone, which is exactly what they said they would do should this situation arise. They should have shot all 4 planes down while it was going on, simultaneously. That would have got the message across loud and clear.

The State Department has become an embarrassment over the last couple decades. I guess recognition that honorable dealings are necessary to international relations has flown out the window.

Now they just hire spin-doctors to lie. That nonsense just gets you isolated from the world, as everyone gets to know you as untrustworthy.

When you lose that trust with other nations, they will no longer deal with you. And there will be no way to regain that trust.

[AgentR11]

Its kinda funny when the only one in the game who is not a hot head; also happens to be the one everyone keeps claiming is evil incarnate.

[Newfie]

BBC is agog over attack on humanitarian aid column and warehouse.

Many accusations Syria broke cease fire.

Russia denies it, seems to be sketchy reporting. So far it's a jumble.

NO, NONE, NADA mention of US attack.

Starts to sound like the Presidential race, liars and braggarts.

[Cid_Yama]

The US can't claim it was a mistake. The Syrians they attacked were in the Syrian Army Base at Deir ez-Zor.

They attacked the Army Base, not just some Syrian soldiers in some undefined location. This was done deliberately, to try to undermine the cooperation deal just signed. The Pentagon has been opposed to it all along as well as the Secretary of Defense.

What we have here is a mutinous act. If I were the Russians I'd be concerned whether the US President has control over his military.

[Newfie]

That's assuming the Prez did not approve of it.

[Subjectivist]

That's assuming the Prez did not approve of it.

That assumes one of three things, the military acted beyond orders, the military convinced the President to issue risky orders, or the President issued risky orders despite advise not to do so. I don't particularly care for the implications of any of those choices.

[AgentR11]

What we have here is a mutinous act. If I were the Russians I'd be concerned whether the US President has control over his military.

I'll give you one step more worrisome. Once the implications of the Latakia A2D setup became clear, Obama just gave a "do whatever, no regular forces, no trading nukes with the Russians." and then went out for Golf to let the neocon hotheads do their thing.

Its essentially impossible at this point for the US to achieve its strategic objective of an Eastern Syria sufficiently under control to allow for pipeline transit of natural gas; but we don't need to do very much to insure the Russians can't achieve their objective of an intact Syria fully under control of Damascus with permanent leases on one or more Med. facing bases (Latakia, Tartus).

[Plantagenet]

we don't need to do very much to insure the Russians can't achieve their objective of an intact Syria fully under control of Damascus with permanent leases on one or more Med. facing bases (Latakia, Tartus).

????....Why do we want to keep the war going in Syria?

Wouldn't it be smarter for Obama to give up on his support for the Islamist jihadis and join Russia in supporting the existing government of Syria?

Once Obama stops arming the jihadis the "revolution" will collapse and things can be peaceful in Syria again, under a government opposed to ISIS and opposed to Sunni religious extremism.

Wouldn't that be a good outcome?

[Plantagenet]

The US can't claim it was a mistake. The Syrians they attacked were in the Syrian Army Base at Deir ez-Zor.

They attacked the Army Base, not just some Syrian soldiers in some undefined location. This was done deliberately, to try to undermine the cooperation deal just signed. The Pentagon has been opposed to it all along as well as the Secretary of Defense.

What we have here is a mutinous act. If I were the Russians I'd be concerned whether the US President has control over his military.

Of course the US president has control over the military. Obama has been arming, funding, and supporting the jihadi forces batting the Syrians for 5 years now. Why all the surprise when Obama escalates things a bit by having US forces directly attack the Syrian government forces, instead of just using US supported proxies to attack the Syrian government.

[AgentR11]

????....Why do we want to keep the war going in Syria?

Because Obama finds it amusing to keep Putin from getting what he wants?

I dunno. I think its pretty dumb to spend any more money there at all. I'd bail, then tell Turkey, Israel, and Damascus to do whatever the heck they want, just don't ask for any more money.

[dissident]

The US can keep on destabilizing Syria and Russia will keep helping the Syrian government fight off the jihadi hordes. For Russia this is about terrorism inside its own borders and not some stupid gas pipeline from Qatar. This gas pipe talk is tin foil hat drivel. Qatar can ship through Iraq and Turkey and completely bypass Syria.

BTW, this humanitarian aid convoy sob story is so much BS. If the US and its UN proxies want to truck aid into Syria then they need to have Syrian border guards check the contents. This is what happens to Russian aid convoys to the Donbas. Kiev regime border guards check every truck. So Uncle Scam and his MSM mouthpieces should stop whining about what is a legitimate military target. Syria and the SAA cannot allow willy nilly "humanitarian" aid convoys from Turkey without guarantees.

[Cid_Yama]

Why all the surprise when Obama escalates things a bit by having US forces directly attack the Syrian government forces

Because Obama didn't do it. The Executive branch just signed a secret deal with Russia.

On September 9, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new plan on Syria, which stipulates a ceasefire that came into force on Monday.

On Friday, planned UN Security Council's consultations on Syria were canceled at the request of the United States and Russia. The Security Council reportedly wanted to know details of the US-Russia agreement on Syria. According to Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin, the meeting has been canceled because the United States was not ready to share the documents with the members of the Security Council.

Later in the day, Lavrov told Kerry in a phone call that the entire package of the US-Russia agreements on Syria should be made public. However, US State Department spokesperson John Kirby stated in a briefing on Friday that the United States was still not prepared to publicly release the details of the US-Russia negotiated Syria agreement.

They keep calling it a ceasefire agreement, but it's much more than that.

A ceasefire agreement signed by Moscow and Washington in Geneva on September 10 is a sign that Barack Obama wants to ease tensions in Syria even if this plays in the hands of Russia and Iran.

The reason is the lack of an alternative to the peaceful settlement to the conflict.

"What's the alternative? The alternative is to allow us to go from 450,000 people who've been slaughtered to how many thousands more? That Aleppo gets completely overrun? That the Russians and Assad simply bomb indiscriminately for days to come, and we sit there and do nothing? That's the alternative to trying to get this done, if America is not going to go in with their troops – and America's made the decision we're not going in with our troops. And the president's made that decision," State Secretary John Kerry told NPR Radio last week.

link


Obama does not want the Syrian War as part of his legacy. He is trying to extricate us from Syria, even if it requires secret deals with Russia. He wants out before the end of his term, so it doesn't become 'Obama's War'.

This is not to say that the breakthrough ceasefire deal unveiled on September 9 will necessarily crumble. US President Barack Obama, according to Lukyanov, is interested in making the agreement work since he does not want to leave the war-torn country "in a complete deadlock."

"I think that Kerry is determined to reach an agreement [with Russia] and enjoys the president's backing. But the Pentagon has a different point of view," he added.

Rumors that the Pentagon and the State Department did not see eye to eye on the Syrian deal surfaced last week, with US defense officials particularly wary of the military cooperation aspect of the deal.

"That mistrust resides most deeply in [Secretary of Defense Ashton] Carter, who officials familiar with the Russia negotiations said almost single-handedly delayed Friday's final agreement with his repeated questions during the conference call" with John Kerry, the Washington Post reported.

link


This is sounding more and more like the plot from 7 days in May.

[Plantagenet]

Obama does not want the Syrian War as part of his legacy.

Its part of his legacy whether he wants it or not.

He wants out before the end of his term, so it doesn't become 'Obama's War'.

It already is Obama's stupid, worthless, undeclared and illegal war.

Obama is solely responsible for the decision to have the CIA and the US Army provide weapons, funding, training and support for the Free Syrian Army and various jihadi groups in Syria in a futile attempt to topple the secular Syrian government, resulting in five years of war and 400,000 casualties so far. Obama is solely responsible for the US bombing campaign, and solely responsible for sending US "advisors" into Syria to train the Kurds, Turks, Free Syrian Army and various jihadi groups. Obama now has so many US advisors advising so many different groups that on several occasions two groups of Syrian fighters, each with their own US advisors, wind up fighting each other. This happened just a few weeks ago when the Turkish army, complete with complement of US advisors, invaded Syria and seized cities that had just been conquered by Kurdish forces and their US advisors.

Cheers!

[Cid_Yama]

I am talking about how Obama sees it, and his motivation behind the secret deal. He doesn't want to leave
an ongoing war to his successor. And God forbid if Trump were to win, he doesn't want to leave our forces in proximity to the Russians.

The Pentagon is a bunch of warmongering right-wing Cold Warriors just waiting for a chance. They never noticed the transition from the Soviets to a Capitalist economy. Wouldn't acknowledge it if they did.

Like Rip Torn said in Canadian Bacon, "The Russians weren't any fun anyway, we didn't get to kill a single one of them."

The Pentagon is still fighting a war that ended over a quarter of a century ago. They had all the pieces set up on the board and never got to play. They should just be thankful they haven't had to go out and get real jobs.

[Tanada]

The Pentagon is still fighting a war that ended over a quarter of a century ago. They had all the pieces set up on the board and never got to play. They should just be thankful they haven't had to go out and get real jobs.

Pure rhetoric. Nearly the entire military from the most senior flag officers down to the new recruits are people who have joined the service after the Cold War crashed to a halt 27 years ago when the Berlin wall fell. A very small number of the most senior are still in the service, but they are an increasingly small number as retirements attrit their ranks. A very small number of military people serve 30 years compared to almost any other profession, and that goes for officers as much for the enlisted. The up or out practice eliminates most officers at the 20 year mark, the step between flag officer and Navy Captain/Army/USMC/USAF Colonel.

The guys and gals in today's military have been focused on beating up minor powers like Iraq, Libya, and Syria for their entire careers. Gulf War I was 26 years ago Cid, and that has been all they have focused on since. Gulf War I, Somalia, Kosovo, Serbia, Haiti, Iraq (again), Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, Syria. They are not now prepared to have a real fight with a real power like Russia or China, all they have faced for 26 bloody years of fighting have been weak poor countries and insurgents. The mid level officers and the guys on the ground are well aware of the fact that everyone they have fought was a relative pushover. Until they got to Syria they had an unbroken string of victories, or at least insurgency type stalemates. Syria however did not fall apart instantly like the rest because the civil war there really was a minor altercation that Assad would have suppressed within a few months if not for outside aid flowing to the rebel groups AND the insurgents. During the cold war Syria was a solid ally of the USSR and would have gotten whatever aid needed to counteract the supplying of the rebels by USA/NATO. Even without any outside aid Assad held onto power for over a year before Russia finally stepped up to the plate and started helping him beat back the rebels and insurgents.

Our string of victories ran out with Assad in Syria several years ago, but rather than declare victory and go home the USA insists on continuing the mess we stepped into. Syria is Obama's Viet Nam minus the thousands of body bags. It has done nothing but expose our real weakness and cost a trillion dollars of taxpayer funding.