A growing number of US attacks targeting the Syrian government and militias aligned with the Syrian government are a sign that the US involvement in the Syrian Civil War is widening, and nothing was so indicative of this than yesterday’s US downing of a Syrian Su-22 bomber.
As a matter of policy, the US has officially supported the idea of regime change in Syria throughout the war, though up until very recently, their military involvement within Syria had been all but exclusively focused on attacking ISIS forces, with some strikes against al-Qaeda forces as well.
The support for regime change was limited to CIA arms smuggling schemes for rebels, and the fact that this often conflicted with the Pentagon’s military operations focusing on fighting against Islamist rebel factions has fueled some tension in recent years.
The sudden US military involvement in attacking Syrian government forces doesn’t make the US agenda any simpler, and rather leaves the Pentagon fighting against a growing array of rivals, with danger of a direct military conflict against Russia growing all the time.
Evidently the U.S. is backing down for now according to late night main stream news.
Nothing new except the CIA has been set aside and the Pentagon now runs that war. They’ve been invading Syria since Obama to ‘rescue’ the situation. Trump gave the Empire a little breathing room in the name of post-election goodwill, but that’s over.
On the bright side, the CIA kineticism was open ended and could be spun indefinitely no matter how badly it was losing. With the Pentagon, World War IV is far more clear cut. Just like Trump’s NK policy; the reality becomes stark and real, forcing interventionists to really think about consequences.
Its those people who have to be won over; antiwar idealism and moral realism alone, unfortunately isn’t strong enough on its own merits. The existential threat – the real material existential threat of nuclear war with Russia – apparently has to be made apparent in no uncertain terms for layers of insulating hubris to burn off the more jaded elitists.
Hmmm
Israel has been “running” the illegal invasion and occupation of Syria since day one.
So far its only been revealed by the Fursan al Joulan terrorist group, via the Wall Street Journal, “Israel Gives Secret Aid to Syrian Rebels” (Rory Jones, June 18, 2017) that Israel has been aiding terrorist groups in South Syria for its benefit to a far higher degree than admitted before. The story was carried by Zero Hedge.
There is no evidence to suggest Israel funds or runs all Syria’s so-called rebels nor could they afford to. However, keeping the Golan Heights is worth a lot to Israel, while Syria has never given up its claim.
Its probably just a reminder to all Israelists not to waver in support of Syrian regime change. The story is not a stunning revelation or quite a smoking gun – Israel refuses official comment – but useful to know Israel wants us to know that it funded some terrorists..
The USA cannot back out Israel won’t allow it.
“The support for regime change was limited to CIA arms smuggling schemes for rebels”
It was always more than that. The US coordinated the rebels from bases on three borders of Syria, Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq. They also meddled in Lebanon on parts of the border, and Israel did it though the Golan. It was money and recruits and training and planning, and longer term logistics of all things needed, not just arms.
Surely, for most all of the war materials in the hands of terrorists are made in either USA or UK, with most coming by way of Saudi Arabia.
It was mostly Saudi and Gulf Arab money. I said the US coordinated. It has done that pattern many times.
It’s not widening, it’s over. The US lost.
All the escalation shows is that the SAA has been released from protecting and regaining the western parts of Syria and is now moving East. Whilst Damascus and Aleppo were occupied by ‘rebel’ forces the SAA was not free to advance on Raqqa and relieve Deir Ezzor. Now that the East is under control and most of the “rebels” returned to peaceful life, they can start sorting out the rest of Syria. America has always had ‘boots on the ground’ but SAA were not there to chase them off.
Much has been made of the Kurds and Peshmerga, but we will see what happens when they are confronted with a trained and experienced army. Up until now, both in Iraq and Syria, they have only had to contend with bandits.
USA will see it’s backside, the SAA (and Hezbollah and Iranian militia) are not some ragtag bunch with ancient AK47s.
If they have any sense they will declare victory over ISIS and quickly pack up and go home.
Then the SAA alliance can take a look at the Golan.
Maybe you’ve been reading too much Saker. If the SAA were a serious professional army the war would be over by now. Mostly its the Russian trained new(er) army and the Allawite core doing the heavy lifting alongside Hezbollah and Iran.
An article written in the Kremlin-connected Gazeta.ru by retired Russian colonel Mikhail Khodarenok indicates that even as late as 2016 the main SAA was a wreck. The article gives a glimpse of what the designated naysayers think of the SAA in the brainstorming that goes on behind Kremlin closed doors.
“Here’s Why Assad’s Army Can’t Win” ( Conflict Intelligence, citeam.org, Se. 09, 2016) describes the typical Arab army, meant for policing at home not fighting real wars; under-rewarded, under-trained, under-motivated and ineffectual. Its that fundamental flaw NATO is banking on in continuing an otherwise foolish escalation.
NATO’s own proxy forces aren’t much better or much worse except for the Kurds, which is why both American and Russian forces are on the ground in Al Tanf.
Although Khodarenok advocates leaving, its only written from a narrow tactical perspective. In terms of grand strategic thinking, its obvious Russia can’t leave Syria; it would be geopolitical suicide to leave Syria to the Anglo-Zionist alliance.
Which of course is why the IDF has had such great success in walking all over Hezbollah. After all it has the best trained, most expensive weapons and huge numerical superiority, so it just waltzed through southern Lebanon and wiped up the stupid Arabs. USA is doing so well in Afghanistan that it is now vying to emulate the 30 year war, with the Hundred Year War as a possibility. USA has the money, the weapons and the best trained soldiers in the whole world, how could it possibly fail?
Here is a new word for you Murawah.
If you can Bomb the country back to the stone-age, and wipe out all the inhabitants then you can beat the Arab. Failing that, expect that you and your children will spend the rest of your lives fighting them, and their children and their grandchildren and their grandchild’s grandchildren.
You and 99% of the warmongers superpose the western – European culture on the actions of other cultures and then wonder why it did not go as planned. It worked so perfectly in Vietnam. You see everything as you do a game, at some point the game is over and the winner is congratulated, the loser then carries on as if nothing important has happened. Yes his parents were killed and his kids maimed and slaughtered, but he will get over it.
This is your home and buried somewhere in the rubble is most of your family.
Some people do not play games.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9a6ddd307dd9f4e00544101971388156765e66c78ef514d4c63105abc8778124.jpg
Expect the payback to visit you for the next 100 years.
You earned the hatred.
In Syria, the SAA was using outdated weapons and systems, the Americans supplied the ‘Rebels’ with modern weapons systems and vastly more of each as they maintained the sanctions on Assad. They supplied modern training and battlefield intelligence from their satellites and drones. They embedded experts to operate the technology and used the staff colleges of their mainland to plan operations and supply logistics.
On an even footing the SAA will clear Syria of all opponents. The Russians supplied the levelling of the playing field.
USA and the west is finished. I take no pleasure in this as I and my children are westerners. But avarice and stupidity has destroyed the good work that advanced technologies have created throughout the world. The Chinese and the East will overtake economically, technically, and (can you believe it?) morally.
If you and your children wish to survive and prosper, learn Mandarin and emigrate.
Why are you asking me to leave?
You are not very good with comprehension. I did not ask you to leave.
I do not care one way or the other what you do.
All I pointed out was that your comment was ill-founded and wrong.
That there are and will continue to be consequences.
The word ‘If’ is a conditional, not an imperative.
Nor are you; my account is public on Disqus and I’m hardly the warmongering imperialist you imagine. Nor do you appear to understand the amateur basics of geopolitics, Deep Statism, and warfare.
Hezbollah is effective light infantry with some special force-like capabilities, but nothing more. Its easy to defend from dug-in positions against an inept opponent such as Israel. Far less easy to assault DAESH terrorists, but they aren’t very good either, just fanatical. Hezbollah is not a full fledged state army, giving them the flexibility to act on realistic needs and reward merit, bypassing political corruption plaguing most ME militaries. They don’t have all the training, funding and equipment of a true modern army.
The Israeli IDF is also a policing army; their experience in 2006 introduced me to the concept of policing versus warfighting armies. Their failure against Hezbollah is hardly a surprise. Israeli air power was busy pounding civilian targets and not covering tank advances, and their infantry spends most of its ‘peace’ time picking on helpless Palestinians civilians.
The U.S. is doing very well on Afghani opium; don’t let the headlines fool you, its a vital source of black ops funding. The chaos and hatreds they’ve ignited serve them well up to a point.
China is adopting every one of the West’s social mechanisms of fail, from cetnral banking to American-style private medical insurance to evangelical Christianity. Even the one child per family was Western Malthusian thought enacted in a way Western social engineers could only dream of doing.
As Westerner, you’re as culpable as myself. No-one is free of the system of fail unless they leave it or fix it.
“understand the amateur basics of geopolitics” nope, I try to be professional.
‘No-one is free of the system of fail unless they leave it’ which is why I have left it.
Your strawman ‘change the subject’ tactics are somewhat amateurish, but good luck.
Goodbye.
Each one of your initial points was addressed; tossing terms of rhetorical reasoning emptied of meaning is a troll’s red herring tactic.
You self-ID’d as a westerner; our crimes as a people are yours too.
Your profession is probably ‘spammer’.
‘tossing terms of rhetorical reasoning emptied of meaning is a troll’s red herring tactic’
Good for you.
Care to address my points or is shifting goalposts to ad homenems against myself the best you can do?
Your initial reply to myself was long on ‘its hopeless’ histrionics and short-to-negative on furthering understanding and reasoning a constructive way forward; a not-uncommon amateurish anti-antiwar tactic.
Except, you don’t seem anti-antiwar.
Your initial post seemed to indicate support for the SAA, even as it posited the suicidal notion that the SAA was freed from securing its western front. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The east Syrian gains are a vital gamble for the Syrian alliance, overstretching their pool of reliable troops. Not surprisingly Russian troops may be positioned there as well. Should the westward SAA garrison forces fail, as Syrian forces were in the habit of doing until the Russian intervention, the eastern forces are at grave risk.
Perhaps you are an anti-Westerner, for all that you claim to be one. You want us to fail, to see the truth about ourselves and drop dead, not redeem ourselves and become stronger.
Hmmm
Mickey mouse is gay and Donald Duck is a quack
Hmmm
What, no “Hold on, this waiting to approved by News from Antiwar.com?
Oh I forgot, it doesn’t express any truth about the evils of Israel and the dangers of Zionism or the lies being told about the “wars” in the Middle East…….
Hmmm
The only reason to ban this comment is if you are actively protecting Israel. It is factual in its entirety, uses no obscene language, attacks no religion….So fuck you Jason Anti-war my ass.
It is truly evil the way so many articles promote the lie that the military
conflict in Syria is a “civil” war. Or that the fight is against the
“Assad regime” when in fact he is the legally and duly Democratically
elected President of an intentionally recognized Sovereign Nation. The
“war” was and continues to be an illegal invasion by foreign powers
attempting to overthrow the legitimate Syrian government and steal the land
from the Syrian people. The primary goal being to make armed resistance to
Israel impossible by destroying all major military and civilian infrastructure,
either exiling or murdering all fighting age men and of course eventually
partitioning the country and installing a puppet regime and thus enabling
Israel to steal the Golan Heights, all its valuable oil and gas and a sizable
portion of Southern Syria from the Syrian people. It is an illegal, immoral,
and totally despicable and completely illegal war being waged by Israel, the US
and Turkey against Syria that never, ever had anything to do with fighting
terrorism, or protecting the innocent. It has everything to do with the
building of a massive Jewish only Zionist empire.
1) Jason had nothing to do with your article being held for moderation. He isn’t the comment moderator. I am.
2) It was held automatically due to imperfect but necessary rules.
3) As soon as I saw that it was being held and that it violated none of Antiwar.com’s guidelines, I approved it.
4) You can hmmm and bellyache all you like. But the only effect of doing so will be to make yourself look like an ass in public.
Hmmm
Once again I must disagree. Your assertion that your actions are benign and are generally speaking an innocent cut and dried act is simply untrue. What typically happens, and why my ire was raised, is that those comments that are blocked awaiting “moderation” are usually held long enough that when they do finally appear they are hidden by pages of new comments. And of course the comment was not given the chance to influence readers in the context in which it was originally intended. Though in this case comments have been limited. But my points and objections remain valid.
Delaying the posting of comments is a very effective method for websites to not just influence, but direct the flow of the conversation. As such, these actions do in fact constitute a form of censorship. The only ass Thomas, is the one that refuses to stand up and speak out against censorship in all its various forms and guises……..
Disagree all you like. I gave you the facts. You don’t have to like the fact that they’re the facts. They’re the facts whether you like it or not.
Let’s try the simple fact one more time:
– The comment that was held was not held by me or by any other human. It was held by an automated rules system that detected something in it requiring it to be looked at by a human before it was approved. Because I only work part time for Antiwar.com, it may sometimes be several hours between a comment being automatically held and me showing up to look at it and approve it. The same thing happened with THIS comment (it was about an hour between the time you tried to post it and the time I popped in to check comments). The automated rules system is not perfect. It is also not going to go away.
– You have never had a comment deleted — or for that matter even held automatically — because of a “stand against the state of Israel in general and Zionism in particular.” Neither has anyone else.