This gent is simply epic. Epic.Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
I haven't seen any other summaries about Syria that would be even distantly as clear as his.
This gent is simply epic. Epic.
I haven't seen any other summaries about Syria that would be even distantly as clear as his.
CrowBat...it is amazing just how many "talking heads" sound great but honestly say little to nothing when compared to actual ME SMEs....who fully understand Syria and the war within wars.........
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016...ref=d-topstory
Inside Obama’s Syria Choices (A Guide for Dissenting Diplomats)
By Derek Chollet
June 20, 2016
The Obama/Rhodes WH just keep on ignoring those that truly understand Syria and Syrians and just spin and spin and spin...........Here are six ways we in the administration could’ve approached Syria differently – and why we didn’t.
Last week’s revelation that over 50 State Department diplomats have formally dissented from the Obama administration’s approach toward Syria—calling for greater use of U.S. military power to put pressure on President Bashar al-Assad—is yet another reminder of how frustrating and demoralizing the policy has been, especially for those of us who played a role in shaping and implementing it.
But that’s not the same as asserting it is all Obama’s fault. Looking back on the course of the Syria crisis, it is tempting to see this only as a story of lost opportunities, serial missteps, and inept decision-making. The outcomes have been truly horrific—as many as 300,000 killed, millions of refugees, the rise of the Islamic State, or ISIS, and a disintegration of regional order that the world will be grappling with for at least a generation. This might seem to be a clear failure of American policy. But when one weighs the possibilities for greater U.S. action alongside competing goals, and the demands of managing trade-offs and risks, it is more accurately a cautionary tale of the limits to American power, or anyone else’s.
Given the threat ISIS poses and how horrific the situation in Syria has become, one must constantly ask what the U.S. could have done differently. Aside from a full-scale intervention like in Iraq in 2003, were there alternative courses in Syria or Iraq? The short answer is yes. One must acknowledge, however, that none of these alternatives would have been easy, may not have worked, and risked making things even worse.
Six possibilities stand out.
Continued..........
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-21-2016 at 06:09 PM.
Raqqa: No reports in the western media about the failed #Assad regime offensive in Western #Raqqa, but huge coverage 2 weeks ago.
Russia blasts senior UN officials for criticizing Syria's government
http://read.bi/28Ls84L
FootageUNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia blasted senior United Nations officials on Tuesday for their criticism of the behavior of Syria's security forces during the country's five-year civil war and failure to acknowledge that those troops are fighting terrorist groups.
Speaking at a special meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien and U.N. assistant secretary-general for human rights Ivan Simonovic criticized all warring parties, including the government, for rampant violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
Their assessments of the situation in Syria came after U.N. peace mediator Staffan de Mistura cited recent progress in unifying Syria's fractious opposition and in bringing aid to besieged areas, though the process was fragile. He said a new full round of peace talks was unlikely before July.
Deputy Russian U.N. Ambassador Vladimir Safrankov took issue with the criticism of the Syrian government.
"Today's discussion ... is being held in such a way as if there are no terrorist threats in Syria," he told the 193-nation Assembly. "Why aren't you saying that these officers, generals and soldiers are facing terrorist organizations - the Islamic State, Nusra Front, al Qaeda?"
He said a real ceasefire was needed and that Russia and the United States were doing what they could to push for one.
Russia, like Iran, is a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and is using its military to provide air cover for Syrian government forces.
O'Brien presented a number of statistics about the damage the war has done to the Syrian population: life expectancy has dropped by 20 years; half the population is forcibly displaced; 13.5 million people are in urgent need of aid; and 80 percent of Syrians now live in poverty.
"Warring parties have displayed a brazen and brutal disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law," he said.
O'Brien said the government was the main force behind the siege of some 590,000 civilians in Syria and that the horrors of the war make people flee abroad, hundreds of whom end up drowning in the Mediterranean at the hands of human traffickers.
Simonovic cited "millions of human rights violations" in Syria. He said the conflict began with violations against peaceful protesters in 2011 who were calling for freedom of expression and assembly.
"This should have led to reforms and peaceful political development instead of the violent crackdown that unleashed the unspeakable violations we see today," he said. "Terrorists gained ground in this lawless environment."
1 child killed, 5 civ wounded in another #Assad/#Putin air attack on #Aleppo city.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVd2g2PUKmc …
Also today the #Assad/#Putin coalition conducted air strikes on #Anadan near #Aleppo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nueUk1acBzY …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-21-2016 at 06:40 PM.
Footage
Rebels take some points in limited counteroffensive in #EastGhouta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnJAMqQUh7Y …
The Russian T-90 tank shown here by Nur al-Din Zinki will be delivered to Nusra after a sharia court ruling.
Hassan Hassan @hxhassan
A video of my testimony on ISIS earlier today before the US Senate Homeland Security committee
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/template...3-7D81A2EE52B9 …
starts at minute 24
http://www.businessinsider.de/state-...16-6?r=US&IR=T
The State Department's Syria revolt could have one important effect in the Middle East
Natasha Bertrand
REUTERS/Mike Theiler
A dissent cable signed by 51 mid- to high-level State Department officials calling for US airstrikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad is unlikely to spur a military incursion into Syria in President Barack Obama's last months in office.
As The Washington Post's Greg Jaffe pointed out, "few things frustrate President Obama more than what he calls the 'Washington playbook' — a view that US military firepower is the solution to most of the toughest foreign policy problems."
Obama's deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, made that point clear in a recent interview with the New York Times Magazine. He referred to Washington's foreign-policy establishment "the blob" and described the lengths to which the administration has gone to circumvent the beltway's agenda.
But some experts say the cable, which the White House says Obama has not read, will at least show Syrians and US allies in the Middle East that many in the administration are deeply unhappy with Obama's Syria policy — and that they will advocate for a new approach once he leaves office.
"I think it's useful in terms of telling Syrians, their neighbors, the regime and its supporters that there are indeed American officials who care deeply about the humanitarian abomination that's taken place and want to do something about it," Fred Hof, a former special adviser for transition in Syria at the State Department, told Business Insider in an email.
"That said, I doubt it will have any effect at all on President Obama and his White House entourage," he added.
Most analysts agree that the cable will have no effect on Obama's current policy, which is focused on defeating the Islamic State in Syria via a US-backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The CIA has operated a separate train-and-equip program that supports anti-Assad rebel groups largely associated with the Free Syrian Army, but those factions have at times clashed with the Pentagon-trained SDF fighters. Their divergent military objectives and ethnicities have bred mistrust and fighting that is ultimately counterproductive to the cause of the revolution.
Still, "what these 51 signatories have done is spoken truth to power," Richard Haass, the former director of policy planning for the State Department and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in the Financial Times.
He continued: "And even if what they have to say is rejected now, it might be welcomed by the next occupant of the White House — especially if it were to be Hillary Clinton, who, as secretary of state, showed considerable willingness to use military force in pursuit of US foreign policy aims."
Clinton, the former secretary of state and the presumptive 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, has said that she would support the implementation of a no-fly zone inside Syria.
“I personally would be advocating now for a no-fly zone and humanitarian corridors to try to stop the carnage on the ground and from the air, to try to provide some way to take stock of what’s happening, to try to stem the flow of refugees,” Clinton said last October.
The cable also reportedly echoed echo Secretary of State John Kerry's position on how the US' Syria policy should look, as well as his frustration with Obama's unwillingness to act more forcefully against Assad.
The cable does not specifically mention a no-fly zone. But it calls for "a more assertive US role to protect and preserve opposition-held communities, by defending them from Assad’s air force and artillery." It also calls for "targeted military strikes in response to egregious regime violations of the Cessation of Hostilities."
That cessation, brokered by the US and Russia at the end of February, has been violated repeatedly by both the government and the rebels — Assad loyalists with airstrikes, and rebels with shelling — and is crumbling as peace talks falter in Geneva.
"With the repeated diplomatic setbacks of the past five years, together with the Russian and Iranian governments’ cynical and destabilizing deployment of significant military power to bolster the Assad regime, we believe that the foundations are not currently in place for an enduring ceasefire and consequential negotiations," the cable read.
Regardless of whether those foundations are ultimately established with US military intervention, however, the dissenters who signed it evidently thought participating in this kind of revolt was worth the very real risk it could pose to their careers.
"Death by suffocation is unlikely to be the fate of the Syria memo, both because of the press attention it garnered following its leak and because the large number of signatories is so noteworthy," former diplomat Joseph Cassidy wrote recently in Foreign Policy.
Dissenting, moreover, "is a difficult and emotional decision, and fear of retaliation is widespread," Cassidy said. And "while there are formal 'whistleblower'-type protections built into the Dissent Channel regulations, the State Department personnel system is so subjective, and an unblemished reputation is so essential to promotion and good assignments, that the potential for stealthy retaliation is significant."
Ultimately, the cable's signatories may feel it is worth having their name on something that makes explicit their frustration with the US' decision to refrain from intervening against Assad, whose brutality has fueled a civil war that has killed more than 400,000 people in just over five years and created the largest refugee crisis since World War II.
"Fifty-one State Department officials who have loyally helped to implement a dysfunctional White House policy have finally said, 'Enough,'" Hof, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote in Foreign Policy on Monday.
He added: "Even if Obama is content to bequeath to his successor a humanitarian abomination and geopolitical catastrophe, these officials have placed before the world the proposition that the United States can and ultimately will do its duty."
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-21-2016 at 07:09 PM.
Russia'n airstrike with Phosphorus on #Aleppo's northern suburb Huraytan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThcXBCiUPEk …
Confirmed rebels have taken Tal Battal, Mazra’at Shahin & Kasajik from #ISIS in north rural #Aleppo. Sha’abania also reportedly taken
2 dozens dead in #Raqqa after #Russia'n airstrikes
-probably mainly residents
Again: Reports of infightings tonight btw #Assad-forces /Quds Brigade & Shiite foreign militias in northern #Aleppo's Sheikh Najjar
Interesting development......
It seems @ivanSidorenko1 account is deleted. It was one of the most reliable pro-Gov source
Another proAssad commenter stated he deactivated it and will do something more useful...IHMO he was defending something he could no longer do without it really appearing to be propaganda....as the ground reality changes kept proving he was lying...
This is how #Putin says "good morning" to the free Syrian people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO21rQKMJV0 …
#Hayyan shortly ago.
Just another night of unthinkable #Russian terror vs. the Syrian population.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThcXBCiUPEk …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-22-2016 at 06:00 AM.
Kyle Orton is standing out as somebody having really clear insight into the 'great picture', and then being able to word that in fantastic fashion. My hat is off for his work.
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More of 'funny' news about the catastrophic end of regime's 'On Tabqa' Offensive.
Namely, you know the situation is really bad when even such regime-fans like Leith Fadel aren't trying to downplay the catastrophe that struck loyalists, but start talking about 'disasters' and calling for court-martials:
- Desert Hawks and Syrian Marines left the 555th Regiment at Sufiyah and withdrew all the way to Zakiyah; 23 soldiers are confirmed dead; dozens MIA, 49 wounded
- I am literally sick to my stomach after hearing what happened in west Raqqa. Some of these commanders should be court marshaled.
- Disastrous turn of events force the Syrian Army to withdraw from west Raqqa:
Who knows: perhaps some day Eliah might going to come to the idea to call Suqour as-Sahra and Dir as-Sahel for what they are. Sectarian militias, composed of loyalist Ba'ath officers and gangs of Shabiha. Then it wouldn't be surprising these 'elite branches of Syrian Armed Forces' are running away and leaving the SyAA behind, and on its own.The Syrian Armed Forces were filled with optimism this past weekend after they seized the Thawrah Oil Fields near the strategic Tabaqa Military Airport in west Raqqa.
However, this jubilant feeling would not last long, thanks in large part to the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham’s (ISIS) major counter-offensive along the Sukhanah-Tabaqa Road.
Not only did ISIS recapture the Thawrah Oil Fields, but they also fought their way to the Sufiyah Oil Fields that overlook the Rusafeh Crossroad.
While, this initially appeared to be a small setback for the Syrian Armed Forces; it would turn disastrous on Monday after the Desert Hawks and Syrian Marines abruptly withdrew from the village of Albu Allaj and Rusafeh Crossroad. Unbeknownst to the Syrian Arab Army’s 555th Regiment at the Rusafeh Crossroad, they were about to lose their second and third lines of defense.
ISIS ultimately overran the Syrian Arab Army’s positions at Rusafeh, resulting in a disorganized retreat that left behind weapons and several soldiers. According to a military source, 23 soldiers have been confirmed “killed-in-action” (KIA); 49 soldiers were wounded; and dozens of others are currently “missing-in-action” (MIA).
The soldiers that considered MIA are believed to be either dead, captured, or trapped behind enemy lines. On Tuesday, the Syrian Armed Forces remained idle at the Zakiyah Crossroad in west Raqqa. Currently, all of the Syrian Armed Forces involved in this offensive have been ordered to remain on standby – no plans to continue this assault have been communicated to Al-Masdar News.
...
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Not to be outdone, some Russian reporter is citing similar details (roughly): catastrophe in Raqqa (and east of Palmyra too). Daesh 'attacked Suqour as-Sahra around 19.00hrs causing it to flee', many 'SAA' soldiers dead', 'Raqqa Task Force completely destroyed' and forced out of the Raqqa Governorate (i.e. its forward lines are about 2-3km inside Aleppo Governorate now). Daesh attacked the Syria Tel with 'dozens of car bombs', causing 'hundreds of casualties', and some 'SAA' (probably that 555th SF Regiment) are trapped there now inside a small pocket.
Mind: subsequently - and apparently after realizing what a panic he's causing - he changed the tune of his messages to 'organized withdrawal'. Ho-hum...
Considering Russian SF troops were around too, one is left to wonder what happened with them...
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On the top of this, the Daesh claims the capture of two tanks and a 23mm cannon on the Ithriya-Raqqah road.
My assumption is that this is only the start of actual problems. Namely, regime simply has not enough troops to do what it is trying to do in so many places, while there is meanwhile a clear limit of what Putler is ready to do for Assad, and the IRGC able.
In this case, the regime went for the Daesh all on its own. The Daesh figured out that the loyalists were advancing on a narrow front along one road, and then attacked simultaneously at several points into their northern or southern flank. In this way, it cut them off from reinforcements, then prompted survivors to flee in all possible directions, and then choped up remaining pockets of resistance.
To make things better, this happened after all the possible pro-regime tweeps were reporting 'dozens of Russian air strikes' and 'air support' for this operation. Eventually, it turned out the VKS is doing its usual business of massacring civilians instead of providing CAS - this time in Raqqa. There are already reports citing 'dozens of casualties'.
Shame on all of them.
Footage
#Assad air force MiG-23 bomb civilians south west of #Damascus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpvWCtmye1o …
Russia/Assad have long been using incendiary weapons across #Syria but this mth in #Aleppo, almost on a daily basis
https://youtu.be/7AgSxOJNDEA
CrowBat....I admit I have been reading and following Kyle's work for a number of years as he clearly and concisely puts everything into a perspective that can be understood and his info is solid and he is not from the intel world.....shame that the Obama WH/Kerry never reads his writings nor asks for input in their so called decision making processes...especially as what Kyle suggests as well as others has never been talked about by Obama/Kerry/Rhodes, JCoS, CENTCOM, CIA and the entire NSC.......
One does have to wonder WHY?????
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-22-2016 at 08:13 AM.
Footage
Syrian rebels destroyed a pro-#Assad position north of #Aleppo with mortars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_YVF1hD_Cs …
Bombing raids on #Douma near #Damascus this morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-DZMbwUjI0 …
Footage
2 children killed, some civilians wounded, in air strikes on #Aleppo this morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGc-E6uI10A …
Footage
Syrian rebels TOW destroys 23 mm regime gun south of #Aleppo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDi2...ature=youtu.be …
JaN (#JaF) used a T-72 with Iranian Mirage-1 (IR jamming anti-#ATGM) during S. #Aleppo offensive
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-22-2016 at 11:22 AM.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/20/...the-west-wing/
A Humanitarian Intervention in the West Wing
The State Department's Syria dissenters realize it’s time to plan for a post-Obama Middle East.
By Frederic C. Hof
June 20, 2016
The decision of 51 State Department officials to sign a document dissenting from President Barack Obama’s Syria policy elevates perspective over distortion. These officials resuscitated the artificially depressed reputation of the United States in the eyes of despairing and disgusted Syrians, their neighbors, and American allies in Europe. They killed the White House pretense that critics of the administration’s Syria policy are partisan politicians, war-mongering neoconservatives, and clueless think tankers. Although their dissent will not likely alter the Obama administration’s failed policy over its final six months, it’s a meaningful gesture that might help to restore U.S. honor.
Those who signed the document exhibited courage and character. Secretary of State John Kerry and his media spokesman have forthrightly defended those who dissented in the right way in the proper channel. Still, by speaking out, these diplomats knowingly put their careers on the line. When the document and the names of its authors become public — as they inevitably will — those who felt morally compelled to dissent will be subjected to all manner of abuse and harassment by back-shooters lurking anonymously in the digital world and, more quietly, in the corridors of the government. One can only hope the White House will not count among those questioning their motives and qualifications.
The essence of the administration strategy to date has been to divide, artificially and ineffectively, the problem of Syria in two: an Islamic State half, and a Bashar al-Assad half. The former has been harassed with coalition air attacks and ground operations by a Kurdish militia. The latter has been left free to conduct an unlimited campaign of civilian eradication, one that has benefited the Islamic State incalculably in terms of local and worldwide recruitment while creating a humanitarian catastrophe and a migrant crisis. Assad and the Islamic State are inescapably two sides of the same coin, one purchasing the destruction of Syria and the dispersal of its people.
Obama has vowed to degrade and destroy the Islamic State. His director of central intelligence, John Brennan, just told Congress that this is not going so well. How can it — at least in Syria — with Assad piling onto his own citizenry endless war crimes and crimes against humanity? Since late September 2015, Russia has joined the regime and Iran in both facilitating and committing crimes against civilians. Moscow, incidentally, loses no sleep over Syrians emptying into Turkey and Western Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin enjoys and promotes the resulting nativist, populist drift of European (and American) politics.
None of the foregoing is disputed by the administration. Barely a day goes by without some senior American official or spokesperson condemning a civilian-centric military campaign by the Assad regime supported by Russia and Iran, one that guts the Geneva peace process on which Obama has bet everything. But the likelihood of peaceful political transition for Syria and the protection of its civilians (two issues that are inextricably linked) have been left entirely at the disposal and discretion of three parties: Assad, Iran, and Russia. Kerry earnestly implores these parties to show mercy. He may as well speak to a mirror. His boss has given him nothing beyond a smile and a shoeshine with which to work.
It would be reasonable to conclude that Obama has reluctantly accepted mass murder in Syria as a cost of doing nuclear business with Iran. No doubt he hates it. No doubt he wants it to stop. But to push back against Assad — to take limited military steps to make his attempts at mass murder slightly more difficult — risks angering Tehran and perhaps causing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to abandon the nuclear agreement. Indeed, while the agreement was being negotiated the president assured his Iranian counterpart in writing that Tehran’s murderous client — a person who has put Syria at the service of Iran’s Hezbollah militia in Lebanon while breathing oxygen into the lungs of the Islamic State — would not be attacked as the United States chased the Islamic State in eastern Syria.
No doubt resisting mass murder in Syria would offend Iran. Would it be enough to cause Tehran to renounce the nuclear agreement and the economic benefits connected thereto? My assessment is probably not, although the risk is not zero. Preserving the ability of Hezbollah to menace Israel and imprison Lebanon is of paramount importance to Tehran. Iran knows that Assad is essential to its grand strategy: Even Syrian army officers reportedly cringe at their country’s subordination to foreigners, and surely Syria’s humiliation would not last long in a post-Assad era. Khamenei has had no problem pursuing policies and practices in Syria that undermine the fight against the Islamic State and threaten America’s regional partners, even as he authorized closure on the nuclear agreement. It is Washington that has been unable to walk and chew gum simultaneously, with millions of people paying the price.
All of this requires urgent review by the U.S. government. The State Department dissenters have proposed a specific military methodology with cruise missiles to make it hard for the Assad regime to kill on an industrial scale where and when it wants. Although such action might well complicate and frustrate some aspects of civilian slaughter, the real center of gravity in this matter lies with the intent and leadership of the American commander in chief. If he decides that U.S. passivity in the face of a monumental massacre causing lethal political fallout is no longer sustainable, he must make clear his desires to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and demand from the Pentagon a range of options aimed at making it hard for Assad to do his worst. It might be that cruise missiles aimed at Syrian military aircraft bases would top the list. But this is a matter for military professionals to sort out and for the president to decide.
There are, to be sure, risks associated with changing course and protecting civilians — at least some of them — from mass homicide. These risks cannot be swept under the carpet. Yet neither can the risks associated with leaving 100 percent of leverage in the hands of mass murderers — Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime — be ignored. The progressive emptying of Syria caused by the symbiotic Assad-Islamic State relationship cannot be permanently contained by Turkey and other neighbors of Syria. And as long as civilians are on the bull’s-eye the prospects for diplomacy and political compromise are zero.
Fifty-one State Department officials who have loyally helped to implement a dysfunctional White House policy have finally said, “Enough.” Even if Obama is content to bequeath to his successor a humanitarian abomination and geopolitical catastrophe, these officials have placed before the world the proposition that the United States can and ultimately will do its duty. They have rendered a powerful service. They deserve the thanks of the nation.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-22-2016 at 11:58 AM.
Russian/Assad Raqqa offensive is going from bad to worse in hours not days....
#IS regain Talila east of #Palmyra
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34...31199&z=14&m=b …
Aleppo/#Hama: #ISIS has killed 30+ pro-#Assad forces east of #Ithriya since the morning.
Aleppo/#Hama: #ISIS has captured the #Ithriya Main Regime Barrier, #Ithriya Oil Field & several regime checkpoints.
SAA BM-27 Uragan with #Russian Airborne VDV marking on the side, during Tabqa offensive #Raqqa #Syria
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-22-2016 at 12:06 PM.
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