As both Russia and the US escalate their respective wars in Syria, both nominally targeting ISIS primarily, they are each making much of their arms shipments to their allies in the nation, insisting those new influxes of arms will shift the long-stalled civil war in their favor.
Yet increasingly in both cases, those arms shipments are including not only some ammunition and small arms useful for the drawn-out ground war, but anti-aircraft weapons which are of primary utility in targeting one another’s airplanes, adding to the evidence that the US and Russia are steaming headlong into a full-scale proxy war against one another in Syria.
Both the Syrian government and the pro-US rebels are finding themselves recipients of growing amounts of anti-aircraft weapons, and at the behest of Turkey the US is also rushing F-15C fighter planes into Syrian airspace. F-15C planes are only useful against other planes, and the air war is nominally only against ISIS, who has no planes.
Such deployment would make no sense, except it comes amid Turkish threats to shoot down Russian planes. Russia, likewise, seems to be getting more anti-aircraft rocket systems into the hands of the Syrian government, even though they aren’t at war with anyone with planes.
At least not right now. The US deployments seem to anticipate an air war with Russia, while the Russian deployments anticipate the US coalition launching an air war against Syria’s government. It is a war both sides insist publicly they’re trying to avoid, but which only cursory steps are being taken to prevent.
As with the endless tit-for-tat escalations in Eastern Europe, the Cold War mentality seems to be alive and well in Syria, with both nations paying much less attention to the situation in Syria itself than to what the results will mean to their respective influence in the region.
The U.S. has no legitimate standing under international law to be militarily assisting an armed revolution against a state’s elected leader. The arming of so-called “moderate rebel” groups, which are fighting against the sovereign government of Syria, reveals an imperialistic drive by the U.S. across the globe.The “War on Terror” rhetoric the U.S. government engages in is simply a propaganda war. In truth, the “Free Syrian Army” was from the beginning simply a brand created by Western and Gulf governments.Support for terrorist groups is actually a focal point of U.S. foreign policy, which has historically been utilized by the U.S. as a means of destabilizing chosen states across the globe, with the intent of regime change.Like most U.S. related/sponsored terror, the origins of ISIS, which are directly attributable to the United States, have rarely been reported on truthfully by American media.
Russia has no legitimate standing under international law to be militarily assisting an armed revolution against Ukraine’s elected leader.
We can expect the bad actors in the world to fail to respect international law. But when we do it ourselves we can hardly expect to find any support for its enforcement, selectively, when it suits us. And that's the problem with American policies. You can't bring Putin to book for what he's doing in Ukraine if we're doing exactly the same thing in Iraq, Libya, or Syria, just to name a few.
A sham election and a sham "leader".. Fascists are fair game and have been since '41.
Good luck and good hunting, Vlad!
Absolutely true.
It NEVER was a civil war America funded foreign Fighters from the beginning! America is a state sponsor of Terrorism! If another country did this to them supplied training facilities weapons in fact any aid they would bomb them and wage war upon them, In fact they have look at Afghanistan!
The lesson of history (Hitler, Napoleon …) is that sooner or later, people like Putin have to be taken out by military force. He has disturbed the balance of power in the world and only a war will establish a new balance. Historically, the "disturber" always believes that he will win that war, but in fact, he always loses. I think both Putin and Obama now realise that there has to be a war, although Putin seems to be counting on his American supporters to "knobble" their own country in his favour. I don`t see that working forever.
Yeah, you're right; dictators can only be removed by war. The same way Castro was; and Ceausescu in Romania, and Mao in China, Pinochet in Chile. Dictators never leave peacefully.
All of whom were "disturbers" of the international order and could only be removed by war.
Heck, the old Soviet Union would still be with us if not for World War III.
General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years
"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"
https://youtu.be/9RC1Mepk_Sw
General Wesley Clark Asked About 7 Country War Plan
https://youtu.be/_pGkFMho6Co
I get the feel that anti war news-site is not being very anti war. What is brewing in the middle east and in Syria in particular is not a mere proxy war but the build up to a direct war between the US and Russia. The two have no illusions about this as they have both recently carried out mock offensive and defensive exercises involving their strategic nuclear arsenal. Russia has even gone further to drill its officials in how to act in a war situation. It beats understanding therefore if a site that is supposedly anti war is playing it as thought things were less serious instead sounding out the alarm for the American and world citizenry to wake up and prevail upon the political class gone haywire to prevent a catastrophe before it is too late.
"I get the feel that anti war news-site is not being very anti war."
Perhaps you should cut down on the hallucinogens, then.
One can not equate the United States and Russia. Unlike US, Russia did not violate international law when they bombarded IS and other opponents of the Syrian government. US has not received government Assad's permission (which Russia has) the bombing of Syria. US also supports with money, weapons and military training the armed resistance in the country. This is a clear violation of international law. You can say that the United States actions is similar to what they did against Nicaragua when they supported the Contras. For this was the US in 1986 judged by the Hague Court.
International law applies to everyone else, but not the United States.
There are no antiaircraft missiles going to American proxies in Syria. Even this current limited brain trust isn't stupid enough to equip Al Queda with weapons that would take down a Russian Su-35, because that same level of weapon would do a wonderful job on a civilian airliner- as we saw in Ukraine.
On the other hand, Russia shipping that same missile system to Syria under the control of Russian troops makes perfect sense, because the presence of Buk-level missiles will deter several parties from doing something really stupid: Israel and Turkey. The missiles are there to protect Russian air bases.
The F-15c's are there for pretty much the same reason: force protection. They're not going to be leaving Turkish airspace, and are certainly on a short leash.
Your headline is completely mistaken. Neither the Russians nor the Americans are supplying anti-aircraft weapons to proxies. They have such weapons in the theatre, but they're both going to keep a tight sweaty grip on them themselves.
Why are you so anti Russia?
Mr. Ditz has unfortunately relied on the standard US narrative for his news commentary, even if he frequently derides it. The problem with this reliance is that is legitimizes the US narrative by treating it as something to be responded to. Until the day comes when people do nothing more than laugh at anything the US narrative puts forward, it will exert influence through its presumptive legitimacy. With regard to Syria, Mr. Ditz has been particularly reliant on the US narrative, even though that narrative is so objectively devoid of information that no one could even track where the fighting is in Syria, let alone gain operational insight into the war. The true proxy war here is the sham propaganda spewed out by Western NGOs and pressure groups, who serve as proxies for US narrative manufacture. One would think that a quarter century after the Kuwaiti baby incubator fraud, people would have caught on.
….the pro-US rebels are finding themselves recipients of growing amounts of anti-aircraft weapons…
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Arming Islamic fanatics with weapons capable of shooting a plane out of the sky? ?? That makes a lot of sense…..
Our leaders, military, intelligence………..their all completely insane. They've lost their minds.
According to the official dogma, is that not exactly what we did with the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, which morphed into alQaeda?
That's the problem with believing anything they tell you. Nothing they say even makes any sense.
Russia-USA provoking each other toward war — Where is your proof?
Actually quite the reverse, for Putin and Obama have as their highest priority to keep their war-hawk politicians from doing irreversible things that lead to war. So, Obama is doing the norm by shifting troops and planes to make it appear that a first-strike blow is about to go, and in response Putin does the norm by doing what is in the best interest of self-defense.
Now as poster Samuel, the namesake of a great child prophet, has expressed concern that this place may be a covert pro-war place, Jason Ditz has an urgent duty, to state most unequivocally, that no millionaire or billionaire has any part in it’s parent corporation, namely the Randolph Bourne Institute. Wars being of no benefit to anyone but the rich.
"Russia, likewise, seems to be getting more anti-aircraft rocket systems into the hands of the Syrian government, even though they aren’t at war with anyone with planes."
Umm, yes, Syria is most certainly at war with someone with planes: the US, the UK, France, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar — the list goes on. The fact that this "coalition" hides in the shadows to carry out its war against Syria doesn't make it any less real or vicious.
They are moving in the necessary weaponry to kick start World War III.