Odd to be doing this just as reports emerge that US plan is to hand Raqqa back to Assad after ISIS is gone.Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
BUT WAIT...AI has reported on this far earlier than the DoS....
Thousands of executed prisoners in #Syria cremated." Amnesty reported 13,000 killed 2011-5
http://saydnaya.amnesty.org
https://www.axios.com/us-syria-killi...tent=textshort …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-15-2017 at 04:50 PM.
Hama: #Assad warplanes bombing #Lataminah area in Northern #Hama today.
Assad: "We need #Al_Tanf to cut supply route of #ISIS towards #Mosul."
#Iran: "We need #Al_Tanf to fight the Grand Satan (USA)."
For Assad, "fighting ISIS" means moving troops into the area after rebels have cleared ISIS from it.
http://bit.ly/2r966nv
New joint border checkpoint by #FSA in #Syria & tribal forces in #Iraq to protect borders and trucks passing btwn both countries from #ISIS.
I made an album of ~40 IS-made rocket launchers documented captured by ISF in W. Mosul. Widespread use indicated
http://imgur.com/a/YFZCh
The Russian air campaign in Syria in April predominantly targeted civilians in Idlib, a supposed "deescalation zone"
http://www.understandingwar.org/back...rian-civilians …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-15-2017 at 06:19 PM.
Read the latest from @SyriaSource on #Raqqa and the oil economy of #ISIS:
http://bit.ly/2rioW8E
To OUTLAW 09 RE: Syria
Firstly, the issue is the level of contribution to collective defense not international peacekeeping. European contributions to UN missions in Africa and aid have not made Europe more secure, given that millions of Africans still seek work and welfare in Europe. Indeed, the 2011 intervention in Libya had more of an impact on European security than Europe’s other efforts in Africa have. The only NATO members where humanitarian or foreign aid plus defense spending reaches the 2% of GDP target are Denmark and Norway, not France or Germany. As for Denmark and Norway, helping out in Africa won't make a difference if they clash with Russia in the Arctic. If that scenario occurs, it will be the U.S. and Royal Navies that get there first. Oslo is more interested in investing its oil profits in micro-finance and green energy than on defense or - heaven forbid - returning the taxpayers' money to the taxpayers.
It could very well be argued that Europe can afford the luxury of humanitarian dabbling in Africa precisely because of U.S. conventional and nuclear protection. For instance, Canada emerged from World War II with a very large and capable military by default, and leveraged this new power into a peacekeeping role. Yet Canada hollowed out its military throughout the Cold War to the point that it was incapable of deploying even token forces on peacekeeping missions during much of the 1990s, and now its global “role” exists primarily in the minds of Canadians.
Secondly, Merkel is undoubtedly the worst German postwar leader, whose policies have threatened the stability of Germany and the European integration process. Despite her apparent knowledge of Russia and Putin, she did nothing to prepare for a harsh Russian response to the Ukrainian Revolution of 2014, when the EU’s “soft power” was met with Russian hard power. Germany is the paymaster of the EU and so Merkel could not have been unaware of developments in Ukraine prior to late 2013; her government also took a keen interest in the fate of Timoshenko and other opponents of Yanukovych. Yet there was no grand strategy, which would have factored in energy sources as much as defense spending, and as usual it is the responsibility of the United States to ensure that Russia does not start gnawing on NATO’s borders. Unfortunately, despite being a permanent fixture in the Chancellory and an Albatross in German politics, Merkel is a mere caretaker whose reactive policies are more impulsive and naïve than her current counterpart in the White House.
Thirdly, Afghanistan will remain an open sore permanently, because true Pashtun self-determination is an existential threat to Pakistan, because Pakistan’s antidote to Pashtun nationalism is Islamist Pashtunwali, and because Pashtunistan is a haven for narcotics and terrorism. Hopefully Trump will retreat to the northern areas of Afghanistan and use special forces and UCAVs to police the south.
Lastly, if European NATO was so capable, why couldn't it:
- Handle Qaddafi on its own?
- Handle intervention against Al Qaeda and Daesh on its own?
- Surge forces to the Baltics and Poland on its own?
You as well as anyone should know that the on-paper strength is only the beginning of the story. European capabilities have atrophied and readiness levels are poor; in Germany, they are worse than during the scandalous 1970s. They've enjoyed the "peace dividend" and now Russia is on the move yet again. What'll it be? Thus far, it seems to be a combination of Munich and the Phoney War...
Last edited by Azor; 05-15-2017 at 05:22 PM.
Oh where to start.....??
1. Go back and actually check how long the US and Obama were engaged in the Qaddafi take down.....??Handle Qaddafi on its own?
Handle intervention against Al Qaeda and Daesh on its own?
Surge forces to the Baltics and Poland on its own?
How many days until they turned it over to NATO to include NATO command leadership EXACTLY TEN??
2. Let's see..not exactly sure which NATO partners warned the US about going into Iraq which has triggered the now IS which morphed out of QJBR and the AQI....supported by Assad BUT a little bird said France and Germany....and several others with their predictions of what would happen actually now occurring.....
3. Outside of a US HBCT and one Aviation Bde and one Airborne Bde virtually all other troops are NATO..logistics first initially US and then replaced by NATO logisitics units....even the Baltic Air Patrols are largely being flown by NATO....the 2nd CAV was always in Europe with only the last remaining Aviation Bde (10th CAB) which was to go home before Crimea....after coming back from AFG...
WHAT is not being talked about is that normally all BCTs and HBCTS undergo yearly train up cycles ..about 22 per year with only really one National Training Area big enough to shot and move on the scale now seen in the Baltics and Poland....same for the US artillery units.....NEVER underestimate the value of deploying and shooting live ammo to these units....
AND what is more important to DoD... all of this is being covered by added OCFs which does not come out of the yearly DoD defence budget which has been under sequestion..so basically it is a "free show of force" against Russian intentions....
BTW...since the slow down of combat rotations to AFG and Iraq many units complain about the day to day grind of being "in garrison"...so "fun, travel and adventure" get's a workout....
So in fact the US is retesting the Rapid Deployment concepts of the Cold War Reforger Exercises and giving the HBCTs a chance to stretch their legs and shoot or as the armor units say..."placing metal on metal" in their respective war time combat areas....
And the US taxpayer is footing the bill and NATO picks up the manuever damage piece and is funding the Forward Deployed Storage Depots....which will allow for a rapid deployment and just falling in on their equipment....just as they did for Reforger...
NATO is building out the infrastructure with no cost to the US BTW...
AND we can thank Putin for bringing back the NATO upgrading of their armor and several countries rebuilding their armored forces ie tanks...example Germany....
So I am not sure what the problem is??
AND here is the kicker..ALL these NATO costs mentioned above do not count against their 2% requirements....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-15-2017 at 06:59 PM.
As someone who fancies themselves to be a strategic thinker, you can start by looking at the big picture rather than snippets of anecdotal evidence that is supposed to confirm your rightness.
RE:
1. Irrelevant. The ORBAT, strikes on Libyan ground forces and the special forces embedded with the rebels all point to an operation driven by Doha, Paris and London. The U.S. provided crucial C4ISR, (S)DEAD, logistics, WMD security, and diplomatic clout at the UNSC, but otherwise was not the prime mover.
2. Also irrelevant. NATO members who refused to join the “Coalition of the Willing” had no inkling as to how the War in Iraq would unfold. The subversion and guerrilla warfare did not arise until Bremer’s blunders. The U.S. was also warned that Afghanistan would be a repeat of the Vietnam experience, which was untrue.
3. Baltic Air Policing is a token force. Should Americans be grateful that the Europeans can muster a few aircraft to patrol their own borders? Again, this slow reactivity does not exactly fill me with confidence about Europe’s political leadership. It is an improvement, however.
BTW...the last time I checked you were not part and parcel of the targeting team nor sat in on the classified briefings...nor sat in the NATO planning center ship off shore...
THE first TEN days was under Obama control until Congress virtually demanded he hand off to NATO....which he did.....BTW then the majority of the flown missions were NATO and the US pulled back fighter assets...
Noticed you did not read the SWJ article just posted concerning the failure of AFG..losing in AFG.......even Bill M commented on it...read it ..it is interesting to say the least....So maybe not a true VN loss BUT close enough.
So the Trump leadership in global FP has inspired you??
Right now after two major Ultra Right populist party failures actually counting Austria THREE failures and the fourth coming...I would say EU is holding up nicely when compared to Brexit and Trump....
REMEBER the Trump tweet praising Le Pen...the French did and still do....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-15-2017 at 07:33 PM.
Kyle Orton
✔ @KyleWOrton #Assad's prisons have long been known to be de facto death camps, now they have crematoriums to burn the bodies.
http://reut.rs/2pCQoky
Yawn. Actually you didn't check. But at any rate your snippets aren't convincing me that Libya was a great feat for European arms. If anything, it showed the clear lack of independent capability, which would only be beneficial if the U.S. feared the rise of a threatening great power in West-Central Europe more than Russia.
Your style of debate is perhaps more suited to Disqus or Twitter, where context and facts are less important, and ad hominem rules the day.
Which makes perfect sense considering that the U.S. was required to perform DEAD prior to Anglo-French fighters stealing the show.
I don't have time to read everything. I'm still deciding whether to respond to the "Complex IPB" article by Vicrasta. My opinions on Afghanistan are well-known and haven't changed.
No. But I don't inspire easily. I'm a cynic and the only idealists worth believing in tend to be powerless and soon to shake off their mortal coils.
You continue to conveniently ignore that the right-wing populist movements in Europe are disparate and began long before Putin's influence operations began in earnest. It is logical for Brussels to blame Moscow rather than its own overreach, but it is more concerning to see people with your experience and knowledge guzzling the Kool-Aid.
If Macron recalls Trump's endorsement of Le Pen, Trump recalls the heavy endorsement of Clinton by his opposite numbers. Unless the French plan to keep their forces in Mali permanently and start a colony, or merely hold candles in response to Daesh attacks, Macron would do well to be professional.
The EU model of vertical and horizontal integration is broken. It will face containment and rollback by key constituencies for some time, and will be less attractive to prospective entrants.
Certainly, there was a brief moment somewhere between 2003-2010, when the "correlation of forces" (to use the vague but useful Soviet term), seemed in Europe's favor. By comparison, the recession, asset bubbles, racism, gun violence and foreign adventures of the U.S. did evoke a sense of American decline. Those Neo-Conservatives who had laughed at Western Europe in the early 2000s seemed very wrong. But the world came to learn that Europe was simply more opaque and less willing to confront the problems that it faced.
For all intents and purposes the EU or Eurozone scare of the 2000s has gone the way of the Japan scare of the 1990s. Now the attention is on China, which will probably plateau in the coming decades as a middle income country. How will the CPC retain power without the 6% Mandate of Heaven? The world has been moving in the multipolar direction since the 1960s, but the U.S. has thus far seen off all rival "first among equals"...
Last edited by Azor; 05-15-2017 at 08:55 PM.
Update on Developments in Northern Syria
1. The SDF has captured Shnina, Abdallah and al-Kubra settlements in Raqqa Governorate
2. The YPG has shelled Turkish-backed FSA forces at Khaljibirin in Aleppo Governorate, in the Turkish-FSA zone
3. Eldar or Aldar Khalil of Rojava's TEV-DEM Executive Committee writes at Foreign Policy on the Turkish-Kurdish Conflict and PYD-PKK relations (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/2017/05...rdogan-pyd-ypg). Selected excerpts below:
Emphasis added. Take with a crack cocaine-sized grain of salt.I am a member of the Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM), an umbrella organization made up of six political parties and civil society institutions, including the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the leading Kurdish party in northern Syria. We are recognized by the PYD, as well as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) as their political leadership. We are devoted to building an egalitarian, democratic, and ethical society where Arabs, Kurds, and Syriacs — along with Muslims, Christians and Yazidis — all live peacefully side by side and where women are treated equal to men.
In justifying this egregious attack on northern Syria, Erdogan used a common refrain. The PYD and the Syrian Kurds, he said, are the same as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), making them terrorists.
Erdogan recently repeated this allegation, saying that he is “seriously saddened” by television footage showing U.S. military forces operating alongside what he considers a terrorist insignia — our flag.
We are not the PKK, no matter how much Erdogan wishes it were so, and it is not difficult to explain why.
Modern Kurdish groups can trace their political philosophies to one of two founding figures: Mustapha Barzani and Abdullah Ocalan. The fundamental distinction between the two is that while Barzani, the father of the current president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Massoud Barzani, called for building a nationalist Kurdish state based on aristocracy and the rule of a few, Ocalan called for a socialist state where all were equal. Over time, Ocalan evolved his ideas from socialism to federalism, believing that a democracy where power is decentralized is the best way to protect both individual and collective freedoms.
The influences of these figures and ideas can be seen today. Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) springs from the Barzani school of thought, and as a result the KRG is ruled by a few, with power and wealth concentrated in the hands of the Barzani family and its friends. Ocalan’s school of thought, on the other hand, extends to the PYD, Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and the PKK, as well as other groups in Iraq and Iran. All these groups have implemented Ocalan’s ideas differently and pursued different aims, as we interact with different geopolitical players.
We don’t deny our relationships with all Kurdish parties in the four parts of Kurdistan (spread across present-day Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq), as we don’t deny our connection to Ocalan. In fact, as I write this, I am proud to say I have a photo of Ocalan on my desk next to me. Ocalan’s views and philosophy are at the core of how we govern the Northern Syrian Federation, or Rojava. And they are why, under our control, northern Syria has become a model — respecting the rights of minority groups and women, and ensuring that individual and collective freedoms are not only protected but empowered.
We also don’t deny that PKK also traces its school of thought back to Ocalan. However, their implementation of his teachings differs greatly from ours, and their political circumstances do as well. These distinctions are important, however much Erdogan wishes the world to ignore them. We can share a founding philosophical father without being the same organization. Having different leadership, different members, and publicly stating we are different — as we are doing in this article and have done numerous times in the past — should be a clear indication as to our intent. Simply put, we are our own organization, and we are proud of that.
As Kurds, we of course sympathize with our brothers and sisters in Turkey. Many of their towns are divided along our border, partly residing in Turkey and partly in northern Syria. Historically, many Syrian Kurds joined the struggle in Turkey and were martyred there. Equally, some Kurds from Turkey and Iraq came to Syria to join the heroic resistance of Kobani against the Islamic State, and were martyred in Rojava. The PKK offered its help to Kobani, as did the United States.
It pains us to see those on the Turkish side of the border suffer from oppression and fear under Erdogan. But that is not our struggle, and we have said publicly and will say again that our territory and resources are not going to be used by the PKK or any other groups fighting Turkey. We don’t interfere in the domestic affairs of neighboring countries, and we expect other countries to do the same.
The fact that Kurdish towns are divided between countries is part of the complexity of our region. Yes, this nuance is difficult for those outside our region to understand, but it is critical. If observers or policymakers fail to grasp it, they will be led to believe false blanket statements — such as the ones Erdogan makes — where he equates us with PKK.
For Erdogan, the fact that the Syrian Kurds are not the PKK represents an inconvenient truth...
...as problems in Turkey continue to grow, his appetite for conflict in Syria will similarly escalate. This was not the first time he bombed us, and it will not be the last. Each time he does, he will call us terrorists and accuse us of being PKK.
Until Erdogan’s lies are exposed, it will remain convenient for him to engage in this duplicity. But this is the truth: We are not PKK, no matter how often Erdogan says otherwise.
Azor..another one for you to comment on....
Syria: YPG leader: "We don't deny our connection with PKK and Ocalan. I'm proud that I have a photo of Ocalan on my desk."
NOTICE he says nothing about ethnicc cleansing of Arabs from Arab villages and towns does he....??
Raqqa: Several districts of #Raqqa were flooded after #US airstrikes destroyed a new dam north of #Raqqa City.
Raqqa: #US soldier carrying #YPG flag and badges near #Raqqa City.
BTW..if this particular US soldier was seen carrying this flag on the streets of Germany he would be arrested and jailed up to 3 years just for carrying it....AND does this soldier actually understand he is supporting a US named terrorist organization and that it is Communist inspired and has been fighting against Turkey for over 40 years and Turkey supported in 9/11 the US by voting to trigger Article 5....????
Probably not as most US soldiers are really weak on international politics and affiars....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-15-2017 at 07:11 PM.
DeirEzzor: #US airstrikes have killed 25+ #Syria|n civilians in #Abu_Kamal today.
The US is getting up to Russian levels of terror with aerial bombing.
#Raqqa: 379+ #Syria|n civilians were killed by #US airstrikes and #YPG artillery shelling in #Raqqa Province in the last 30 days.
Raqqa: #YPG has shelled Mazra’et al Asadiya village north of #Raqqa with artillery and killed 18 civilians, including 8 children & 3 women.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-15-2017 at 07:13 PM.
Is he a serving U.S. soldier or a volunteer from the U.S.?
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