Last week, a deal reached in Munich scheduled the start of a ceasefire in the Syrian Civil War, which is set for the next few days. As is so often the case with these ceasefires that are set many days in the future, it has led to increased fighting in the interim.
We’ve seen this time and again in ceasefires around the world, with the various factions pushing hard in these final days before a pause in the hopes of seizing a little extra territory, or taking a position that would give them a strategic advantage when (no faction ever says if) the fighting resumes.
To that end, Syrian troops seized a small village that overlooks a string of rebel-held Aleppo towns, while the rebels are pushing hard on several fronts. Even Turkey, which wasn’t a direct combatant force, started attacking targets this weekend.
The US is urging some of the factions to halt attacks, particularly urging Turkey to stop hitting the Kurds and Russia to stop hitting everybody. It seems inevitable that the fighting is going to keep going right up until the deadline, and in some cases likely a bit after.
And just in time the Saudis are going to start bombing, what, Damascus to overthrow Assad?
Although I have never claimed to be a supporter of Mr. Trump, and
several of his viewpoints, I agree with his statement about Iraq.
Bush and his war profiteering henchmen not only lied through their
teeth about Iraq, they manufactured bogus evidence about Saddam
possessing WMDs. Their phony war has not only cost the USG taxpayers
trillions of dollars that could have been reinvested into rebuilding
our infrastructure, it killed 1 million Iraqi citizens, and destabilized
an entire region of the planet.
Clinton, and the spineless democrats who voted to give the clown
Bush authority to invade Iraq are just as culpable. Clinton is a
pathological liar, who supported a stooge like Bush; she also made
the comment, ‘Stay the Course’, a year later into this debacle.
That’s like the captain of the doomed Titanic telling his crew to
‘Stay the Course’ – even though there was an iceberg dead ahead.
Again repeat–in 1996 Bill Clinton received a AIPAC demand memo which read–there is a urgent need to destroy 7 middle east countries.
Then again in 1999 by the same thugs–America needs a new Pearl harbor to happen.
First off, the ceasefire does not cover ISIS, al-Nusra, or affiliates, which is just about everybody fighting Assad. So really, it’s a non-ceasefire ceasefire. It was just a silly political ploy anyway, to mollify the world and maybe slow/stop the Russian/Syrian juggernaut. Not gonna happen. Putin will not stop until the Turkish/Syrian border is sealed. Totally legal under the “ceasefire”, permitted by the ISIS/Nusra/affiliates exception.
That’s my prediction, we’ll see how it plays out.