The #AdmiralKuznetsov's group is near Tartus.
ISIS advancing around #Palmyra in E-#Homs; took control of Hayyan Mount & Qasr Hallabat. Activists said many Regime fighters killed. #Syria
The #AdmiralKuznetsov's group is near Tartus.
Aleppo: Photos of #IRGC militiamen from #Pakistan who were killed by rebels in #Aleppo during the last days.
Iran|ian-led militias set up their main defenses around #KhanTuman Dam in S. #Aleppo. HD: https://jpst.it/Qauj http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36....074738&z=13&m …
Defensive system N. of #KhanTuman Dam, including Sabqiyah. All barriers are connected to Tank Battalion
(here: http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36....117996&z=13&m …)
Homs: #ISIS has killed 97 pro-#Assad forces around #Palmyra today. 5 regime tanks & 1 BMP were destroyed or captured.
Ramzan Kadyrov denied Chechen soldiers being sent to Syria. However, his right-hand man Magomed "Lord" Daudov saw them off personallyOriginally Posted by OUTLAW 09
Charles Lister Verified account
@Charles_Lister
Good God. SecState candidate @DanaRohrabacher *totally* refuses to acknowledge #Russia's proven abuses at home & abroad.
Extraordinary...
To Outlaw 09 RE: Various
Firstly, I respect your thinking and I do rely upon your knowledge of Russian and Arabic with respect to translating open-source intelligence on the respective conflicts. We both value HUMINT, which was always an American weakness where the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact were concerned. Soviet and allied intelligence was able to use diaspora communities in the West and take advantage of the West’s openness and freedoms to conduct outstanding HUMINT, a necessity given their relatively poor technical capabilities.
Secondly, I have a strong bias against Russia that I work very hard to keep in check when analyzing and commenting on geopolitics concerning Russia and East-Central Europe. This is probably due to the fact that Russia was never defeated in the manner of Germany or Japan, and never underwent de-Stalinization, which is why Russian attitudes tend toward the unreconstructed Stalinist and center on the Muscovite culture inspired by the Mongols and Tatars, rather than the European culture associated with Novgorod and St. Petersburg.
Thirdly, I thought that Putin was objectively good for Russia during his first term as President. Not because I didn’t believe that he orchestrated the apartment bombings as a pretext for renewed war in Chechnya, not because I didn’t believe that he was less discriminate in Chechnya than Milosevic, Qaddafi or Assad, and not because I didn’t believe that he was a KGB officer at heart. But I was being realistic, I saw that bumbling Yeltsin was capable of worse, I knew that the Russian people could not permit Chechnya to secede, and I knew that the Russian people needed a leader to instil in them a sense of pride and strength again, albeit not a Hitler with ICBMs. I also believed that Medvedev’s managed election as Putin’s successor was an outstanding decision, but my hopes for Russia were crushed when Putin returned for a third term. Here we are…
I am very curious about what the CIA officers involved in Operation Timber Sycamore really think about the rebels, and whether they feel that US weapons are being funneled to Sunni Arab supremacist units at the behest of Turkish, Saudi, Qatari or Jordanian intelligence, or whether they believe that the mission should be expanded so that the FSA has a level playing field against the other factions who receive lavish foreign support.
I agree with you, but after Obama’s “red line” was crossed in 2013, he realized that his public statements about US preferences were being construed as policy goals. After Ghouta, it made no more sense to focus on the Syrian Civil War, as Obama would be accused of permitting it, encouraged to intervene, or accused of preparing a case for intervention along the lines of Operations Iraqi Freedom or Odyssey Dawn. Compare Obama’s statements on race relations and police use of force during his first term with those of his second: you will see the same result.
I agree, but I also understand the Russian perspective. In 2008, Russia was pilloried in the media for intervening in Georgia after Georgia’s indiscriminate surprise attack on South Ossetia that killed Russian soldiers (peacekeeping under international auspices) and civilians. Invading territory in a breakaway part of one’s country is still an invasion e.g. American Civil War, 1st and 2nd Chechnya. The Georgian perspective dominated Western mainstream media (e.g. John McCain’s “We are all Georgians now”) and only months later did we learn that:
- Georgia had started the war (perhaps the South Ossetians provoked them, but the Georgians started it)
- Georgia killed over 160 South Ossetian civilians during its indiscriminate use of rockets, shells and cluster munitions (2/3 of South Ossetian deaths were civilian)
- Georgia began the conflict, hoping that NATO would intervene on its behalf if Russia did
- Georgia’s actions included war crimes
- War crimes attributable to Russia resulted from a lack of precision-strike capability rather than intent, and the actions of South Ossetian and Abkhaz militias whom Russia did not directly control (if Russian generals had to direct air strikes via civilian mobile phones, how could coordinate local militias behind the front?)
I believe that the South Ossetia War galvanized Russian investment in information warfare with respect to propaganda, and that the Kremlin truly believed that Western mainstream media reporting on the war was in the same vein as that on:
- Iraq War: Hussein’s non-existent nuclear weapons program and non-existent support for Al Qaeda
- Kosovo War: a “genocide” of under 300 civilians of which 36% were Serb, a group of Islamist criminals transformed into “freedom fighters” by US and German intelligence, “refugees” that were using the Serb-Albanian border as a revolving door, and a “humanitarian” US Secretary of State who hated Serbs
- Libyan Civil War (after South Ossetia, obviously): another “genocide” of 2,200 people, half of whom were POWs, and a NFZ that became CAS for the rebels on day 1, French arms to the rebels, Qatari special forces embedded with them, and “responsibility to protect” becoming “we came we saw, he died”
When Putin balances the Western media treatment of Kosovo, Iraq and Libya, and then compares it to the treatment of Chechnya and Georgia, he cannot help but see a clear bias. So by the time of Crimea, his machine is ready to swing into action after already cutting its teeth on American disgruntlement over CENTCOM’s wars and the proposed NATO BMD system. Note that Putin does not believe in freedom of the press, as a principle or as a reality, any more than he does free elections, and so he truly believes that Sputnik and RT are no different than CNN, the BBC, FOX, MSNBC, etc.
Putin has enjoyed his years as unpredictable showman, always confident that the West will wag its finger at him and keep its mature composure. Now that Trump has been elected, Putin is up against a similar man who would rather create events than react to them, and for whom image is important to popularity and therefore legitimacy.
I do think that Trump is the Reagan to Obama’s Carter, and note that Reagan cooperated with the Soviet Union far more than Carter did, did not invade Iran to release the hostages (strong black coffee can help with that), and responded rather weakly to the attacks by Iran and Syria in Lebanon as well as to the KAL 007 shootdown. The election was very much about style over substance, as Hillary has a much harder bark than she let on during the campaign…
Rohrabacher is a fool, and has little support…
Azor...my personal take on Russia.....I am probably the only on here at SWJ that comments and was actually in the Soviet Union twice in 72 and again in 73 as a student camping my way through the SU each time for over 8 weeks each time...Firstly, I respect your thinking and I do rely upon your knowledge of Russian and Arabic with respect to translating open-source intelligence on the respective conflicts. We both value HUMINT, which was always an American weakness where the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact were concerned. Soviet and allied intelligence was able to use diaspora communities in the West and take advantage of the West’s openness and freedoms to conduct outstanding HUMINT, a necessity given their relatively poor technical capabilities.
Secondly, I have a strong bias against Russia that I work very hard to keep in check when analyzing and commenting on geopolitics concerning Russia and East-Central Europe. This is probably due to the fact that Russia was never defeated in the manner of Germany or Japan, and never underwent de-Stalinization, which is why Russian attitudes tend toward the unreconstructed Stalinist and center on the Muscovite culture inspired by the Mongols and Tatars, rather than the European culture associated with Novgorod and St. Petersburg.
Thirdly, I thought that Putin was objectively good for Russia during his first term as President. Not because I didn’t believe that he orchestrated the apartment bombings as a pretext for renewed war in Chechnya, not because I didn’t believe that he was less discriminate in Chechnya than Milosevic, Qaddafi or Assad, and not because I didn’t believe that he was a KGB officer at heart. But I was being realistic, I saw that bumbling Yeltsin was capable of worse, I knew that the Russian people could not permit Chechnya to secede, and I knew that the Russian people needed a leader to instil in them a sense of pride and strength again, albeit not a Hitler with ICBMs. I also believed that Medvedev’s managed election as Putin’s successor was an outstanding decision, but my hopes for Russia were crushed when Putin returned for a third term. Here we are…
I am very curious about what the CIA officers involved in Operation Timber Sycamore really think about the rebels, and whether they feel that US weapons are being funneled to Sunni Arab supremacist units at the behest of Turkish, Saudi, Qatari or Jordanian intelligence, or whether they believe that the mission should be expanded so that the FSA has a level playing field against the other factions who receive lavish foreign support.
I agree with you, but after Obama’s “red line” was crossed in 2013, he realized that his public statements about US preferences were being construed as policy goals. After Ghouta, it made no more sense to focus on the Syrian Civil War, as Obama would be accused of permitting it, encouraged to intervene, or accused of preparing a case for intervention along the lines of Operations Iraqi Freedom or Odyssey Dawn. Compare Obama’s statements on race relations and police use of force during his first term with those of his second: you will see the same result.
I agree, but I also understand the Russian perspective. In 2008, Russia was pilloried in the media for intervening in Georgia after Georgia’s indiscriminate surprise attack on South Ossetia that killed Russian soldiers (peacekeeping under international auspices) and civilians. Invading territory in a breakaway part of one’s country is still an invasion e.g. American Civil War, 1st and 2nd Chechnya. The Georgian perspective dominated Western mainstream media (e.g. John McCain’s “We are all Georgians now”) and only months later did we learn that:
- Georgia had started the war (perhaps the South Ossetians provoked them, but the Georgians started it)
- Georgia killed over 160 South Ossetian civilians during its indiscriminate use of rockets, shells and cluster munitions (2/3 of South Ossetian deaths were civilian)
- Georgia began the conflict, hoping that NATO would intervene on its behalf if Russia did
- Georgia’s actions included war crimes
- War crimes attributable to Russia resulted from a lack of precision-strike capability rather than intent, and the actions of South Ossetian and Abkhaz militias whom Russia did not directly control (if Russian generals had to direct air strikes via civilian mobile phones, how could coordinate local militias behind the front?)
I believe that the South Ossetia War galvanized Russian investment in information warfare with respect to propaganda, and that the Kremlin truly believed that Western mainstream media reporting on the war was in the same vein as that on:
- Iraq War: Hussein’s non-existent nuclear weapons program and non-existent support for Al Qaeda
- Kosovo War: a “genocide” of under 300 civilians of which 36% were Serb, a group of Islamist criminals transformed into “freedom fighters” by US and German intelligence, “refugees” that were using the Serb-Albanian border as a revolving door, and a “humanitarian” US Secretary of State who hated Serbs
- Libyan Civil War (after South Ossetia, obviously): another “genocide” of 2,200 people, half of whom were POWs, and a NFZ that became CAS for the rebels on day 1, French arms to the rebels, Qatari special forces embedded with them, and “responsibility to protect” becoming “we came we saw, he died”
When Putin balances the Western media treatment of Kosovo, Iraq and Libya, and then compares it to the treatment of Chechnya and Georgia, he cannot help but see a clear bias. So by the time of Crimea, his machine is ready to swing into action after already cutting its teeth on American disgruntlement over CENTCOM’s wars and the proposed NATO BMD system. Note that Putin does not believe in freedom of the press, as a principle or as a reality, any more than he does free elections, and so he truly believes that Sputnik and RT are no different than CNN, the BBC, FOX, MSNBC, etc.
Putin has enjoyed his years as unpredictable showman, always confident that the West will wag its finger at him and keep its mature composure. Now that Trump has been elected, Putin is up against a similar man who would rather create events than react to them, and for whom image is important to popularity and therefore legitimacy.
I do think that Trump is the Reagan to Obama’s Carter, and note that Reagan cooperated with the Soviet Union far more than Carter did, did not invade Iran to release the hostages (strong black coffee can help with that
Rohrabacher is a fool, and has little support…
The SU I saw then shocked me as it was very apparent they were a military superpower but not a superpower in the realms of economics and global politics....the images I had then via photos would make you stop and think you had landed in the years of Tolstoy.....one farming village not far from Minsk had simple wooden clap board sides...no insulation and everyone slept in one area over the wood fired hand made fireplace was a single room with a small dish washing corner and an outhouse.....the housing in say then Leningrad was out of the 20/30s and had three families living within one apartment.......one family per bedroom sharing the bathroom, kitchen and living room.
NOW jump forward to the Putin era and the high price for oil and initially it was invested into the Russian society and the living levels did climb as did the salaries and pensions....BUT somewhere in about 2004 the oligarchs and Putin decided they wanted the better part of the
5T USDs being made in oil every year and it stopped flowing to the civil society...their current rainy day National Reserve is estimated to run completely dry from over 150B USD by the middle of 2018.....largely due to the sanctions and low price of oil...
Right now the brain drain on Russia in the bracket of say 25 to 45....is both massive and very educated.....and strangely while they fully dislike what is ongoing inside Russia and never want to go home they are quite open to the current Russian disinformation and propaganda aimed at them outside Russia....it is that "Russian spirit" that the propaganda plays very effective towards....
Had Putin decided in say 2003/2004 to truly invest the 5T or so into the Russian economy every year to modernize it and rebuild the infrastructure...medical facilities and healthcare and new housing he would be President until say 2050....instead he went the militarization route and we have what we now have a "third Rome Russian jihad built on the ROC".....supporting the view of a "Russian world"......
In some ways NATO got it initially bight with Russia when after the Wall they fully offered to integrate Russia into the EU economy and do jointly a military concept with Russia both of which were turned down by Putin....as NATO after 1991 was in the process of shifting from a war footing to a peacetime downgrading phase and did not view Russia as a true military threat any longer...
I do not pretend to have eaten "knowledge with a spoon" but I have had the opportunity to do things since 1966 that now allows me to sit back and judge exactly what is ongoing around me....what many in the US have never had....
As much as CB and I often push back on you.....you do challenge and have great thoughts about some topics that actually very critical to the US...AND I am not so sure Trump and company fully understand that.....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 12-09-2016 at 06:56 AM.
Azor....one of the things that seriously bothers me with Trump and company is the inherent close ties to Russian individuals never seen before in the US national level politics as well as a total lack of interest by the RP to clarify those ties as well as the Russian info/cyber attacks on the US election process....and now this.....
There was a WOW effect with the new Russian non linear warfare doctrine that has worn off after the over two years of solid fighting in eastern Ukraine and now Syria....which needs to be urgently revisited but it will not under Trump and company.......as he and his security advisors are in fact solidly tied into Putin and his oligarch company...simply based on their investments into 247 Russian companies carrying the name of Trump and his sold real estate to them....
Especially the Russian tie ins into the right wing...neo Nazi and alt right movements inside the US and those in Europe........
It is all tied together inside non linear warfare....and it is a war whether we call it one or not....what I see and push back on Russian cyber activities here inside German would scare most Americans. to the point they would never sleep well again if they use the internet....and what we are seeing now being directed by Russia as info warfare against Merkel.....
The heart of #Calexit beats in–where else? Yekaterinburg. @leonidragozin on Russia & California's secession movement
AND this was being totally overlooked by Obama and it will as well with Trump and company......
Agreed. Russian snap exercises since 2014 have shown they can put significant numbers in the field in 48-72 hrs.
And growing numbers of modernized older platforms continue to shift the regional balance in Nordic/Baltic/C.Europe in Russia's favor.
Russia Seen Moving New Missiles To Eastern Europe
https://n.pr/2hkWb5L
BTW....they are far better at this now in 2016 than they ever were during the height of the Cold War in the mid 80s....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 12-09-2016 at 07:10 AM.
Azor....this is just how crazy it has gotten in the US and one must ask themselves is this really what Americans want.....????
REMEMBER what many around Trump and company want the American civil society to totally forget....."Trump does not speak for the majority of US voters that voted in the election".....Right now popular vote wise HRC has a lead of 2.7M lead over Trump and will probably when the counts are finished have matched the Obama 2008 numbers.... so in fact he does not speak for the majority nor has a so called "mandate" to speak for all Americans.....BUT he constantly deflects/distorts/distracts from this using his twitter feed...MUCH as Russia uses info warfare....
NOW that is a topic for many SWJ contributors to write about BUT they do not..WHY is that????
I will go on record and openly state the info warfare being driven by Russia against both the US and EU is no different than what was/is still being used by the Trump campaign/transition and even now....take every single Trump tweet and or rally/interview statement and then use the Russian 6Ds method of propaganda....Distort....Deflect....Dismay....Dist ract ALL designed to created Doubt and Distrust...and tell me I am wrong????
WHEN it is verified that a US President is blatantly and often lying we as a society are in serious trouble....if it is simply being passed off as "normal".....
THAT is what is actually behind the new term "fake news"....it is simply disinformation/propaganda driven by social media....WHY is the US open to actually "believing it"....take the latest results of the worldwide PISA education studies on the levels of learning reached by 15 year olds......THE US did not even rate in the top 30 countries for our 15 year olds....our own education system is basically failing and failing badly as it is largely profit driven once you leave HS.......
You can't make this ......... up??????
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 12-09-2016 at 07:36 AM.
Final note......I am not the only one seeing a "clear and present threat" to the US via Trump and company ties to Russia......
WHY does it take a VN vet and an former Army JAG coupled with Democrats to drive this train....especially when even the Obama WH does not want to talk about it.....
GOP ready to launch aggressive probe of #Russia, despite collision course with #Trump"
http://www.adn.com/nation-world/2016...se-with-trump/
https://www.esquire.com/news-politic...rump-campaign/ …
Trumps Treasonous Campaign activities with the Russians really should receive MORE attention from Electors.
There's overwhelming evidence of Russian hacking of our elections. By denying it Trump has essentially become a propaganda piece for Kremlin
Trump is uninterested in intelligence briefings
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-ha...ffered-to-him/ …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 12-09-2016 at 08:05 AM.
Azor...this goes to my thoughts on the key Russian non linear warfare cornerstones....1) info warfare...2) cyber warfare.....
I drive a very good IT security company and this is my daily war with Russia ...it is deep..harsh and brutally being fought here in Germany and we are barely hanging in just to keep up as this war is centrally directed by Putin and company while in the West we have to constantly hold to regulations and laws that separate security services and say myself....WHEREAS Russia does not have such restrictions.....
BTW....I personally view this war as being far more dangerous than anything IS can throw at Europe or the US.....
German maker of Israeli submarines says secrets stolen in 'massive' cyberattack
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.757734 …
German private warnings and some public comments about such potential incidents have been made months ago but one simply cannot protect everything 100% of the time...as long as the world lives on email/Skype/MS this will continue to happen....
BTW....at least the Germans are going full force to inform the general public VS....the US is attempting desperately to hinder any discussions about Russian hacking inside the US...WHY is that????
This is big: unprecedented, stark warning by Germany's BfV against aggressive Russian influence ops, false flags, APT28, goals—full text:
German agency BfV (German Federal Agency for the Defense of the Constitution) is the equal to say the UK MI5
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 12-09-2016 at 08:12 AM.
Great little study into the evolution of #Putin's rhetoric. Can't even believe now the stuff he said in 2000. http://intersectionproject.eu/articl...k-and-fracture
Ah...now we have "clean shaven jihadists" running around in Russian uniforms....
So, huh, Kommersant reports that the chechen soldiers sent to Syria are all shaved so that "they don't get mixed up as ISIS fighters
BUT they are only suppose to be protecting Russian airfields not fight on the front lines????????
Aleppo Heavy Turkish airstrikes & shelling targeting al-Bab as FSA rebels backed by Turkish forces start battle to liberate city from #ISIS
As #Aleppo falls, Turkish-controlled forces seem to have been given permission to to go al-Bab.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNzfzaxLtss …
Footage
Endless #EuphratesShield convoy en route to near al-Bab.
Most vehicle have aerial ID markings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcxKtgI8bLk …
Syria #Aleppo #FSA retook 2 villages from #IS at NW outskirts of al Bab
AND there is no Russia/Turkey "deal" over Aleppo.....?????
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 12-09-2016 at 08:04 AM.
Panic in #Idlib city during an air raid alarm yesterday.
The next major city to be entirely destroyed by #AssadPutin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tXy...ature=youtu.be …
CTC at West Point
@CTCWP
Foreign fighters: IS v AQI. Our new report shows how make-up, scale, scope of problem has evolved. Findings 2 follow https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/then-...-islamic-state …
WELL worth reading anything they produce....
NOTE: the CTC has always produced some very good analysis as they have the ability to hit the US intel DOMEX database for captured documents....which holds millions of captured documents many never translated and analyzed....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 12-09-2016 at 07:56 AM.
Russia Blindsided In Syria As ISIS Launches Attack Against Palmyra
http://bit.ly/2hoY9Sn
Spot on "the capture of Palmyra was for show, and that show is no longer needed."
CrowBat.....here is more of that so called Russian "humanitarian truce"....all a farce for global PR as you indicated.....Russia as you also indicated has no control over Assad and or Iran right about now......
BREAKING: Heavy Syrian army shelling hits #Aleppo: monitor - AFP
It seems that Syria no longer exists, but it is now is SSSR under control of Khamenei and company...
(Syrian Soviet Socialist Republic)
WHAT is extremely interesting is that some have said for years the way around the Russian USC veto is by using the procedural processes built into the UNGA that actually "foresaw" the eventual blockage by the UNSC of pressing issues....by one of the five permanent parties...
The UNGA process sees the ability to have a clear majority ruling on a specific event and if the UNSC does not then institute the desired results the UNGA can then in turn use this denial to order the UNSC into action as the will of the majority of the UNGA even if the Russians and any of their USC supporters ie China...vote against it....the rest of the UNSC can then override their veto and take action......basing their decision then on the UNGA resolutions...
SO we are now seeing a massive Russian info warfare effort to dismiss anything done by the UNGA.......
Russian Mission UN
✔ @RussiaUN #Churkin: To expect that tmrw #UNGA vote on Syrian resolution going to produce kind of dramatic U-turn in the stn in #Syria is unrealistic
Russian Mission UN
✔ @RussiaUN #Churkin: The draft resolution on #Syria is not strong enough on fighting terrorists –
http://russiaun.ru/en/news/cm_sr0812 …
NOTICE the unique Russian argument against humanitarian assistance....NOT strong enough statement on fighting terrorists....a really weak argument even for the Russians....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 12-09-2016 at 08:21 AM.
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