And next, Syria?

[teqniq]

 

[teqniq]

U.S. is trapped between its allies’ ambitions in Syria

 

[CrabbedOne]

On war On The Rocks THE DECAY OF THE SYRIAN REGIME IS MUCH WORSE THAN YOU THINK

Suggest Assad's military is a bunch of warlords running predatory mafia operations and this has worsened as militias spread. Therefore there is no real Syrian state and Assad's removal makes little difference. These parasites will just fall to fighting each other over the spoils.

Doubts the basic assumption of air power interventionists and those seeking regime change by more covert means. That you can decapitate Damascus and just jog on with the body of Syrian state intact and less nasty management. In that the article is probably right what it's missing though is that wishful thinking stems from an extreme reluctance to even considering a trillion dollar Iraqi style ground up reconstruction or the place turning into the embarrassing permanent chaos of their last project in Libya.

There's another view though: that this fragmented criminality is inherent to the SAA's design. The Assad clan decades ago broke the military into essentially competitive Divisional HQs so a coup could not easily emerge from anything but a small faction. The officers were to be appointed based on loyalty not military ability and poorly paid and expected to dip their beaks in local rackets. The SAA is meant to be easily fragmented so après nous le déluge carries some weight. The depressing truth is the Syrian state has proved rather robust. Much of the civil infrastructure is still run by salaried employees even were it does not rule. The SAA may fight poorly but has only ever lost one Divisional HQ, Raqqa. Damascus may have less and less control as militias and army units operate like bandits. The Russians have little leverage despite all their help to the SAA as there's no obvious winner to pick amongst its factions. Damascus has less ability to buy the military's loyalty directly as the currency devalues but this soggy apparatus of corruption is hydra headed and difficult to knock over.

 

[Geri]

Good article by Robin Yassin-Kassab about the recent Turkish intervention:

Another War Opens

Recent events once again demonstrate the inflammatory results of US policy, both the failure to work with rebel groups in the Sunni Arab communities most immediately concerned by the anti-ISIS fight, and the refusal to focus on the main cause of Syria’s trauma – the depredations of the Assad regime.
They also threaten spiralling ethnic-nationalist conflict between Turks and Kurds, and Arabs and Kurds, to add to growing sectarian and regional tensions. Assad’s repression of Syria’s freedom movement, compounded by the aggressions and appeasements of foreign states, has sparked an endlessly proliferating series of wars.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Still depending on the remnants of the Baathist state, more than a wee bit repressive often unpopular even with Kurds.

You do have to stack up what the PKK has done in Rojova with living under the arbitrary brutality of the Baath, the banditry of some rebels or the repressive highly reactionary Talibanism of radical Salafists. Then while far from perfect it really does not look so bad, they are at war after all.

Nearly every group in Syria has child soldiers. It's seen as heroic for boys to take up arms the PKK differs in that girls do as well which isn't a regional norm. Conscription is also routine in Syria. The KDP in the Iraqi KRG also represses critical media and is pretty ruthless with political opponents.

The problem is the PKK in Syria have made too many enemies and lack loyal allies. They know they can't trust the US to back them with airpower against all comers. And they've already bitten off a big hunk of territory only because of that. Holding it is the tricky bit.

 

[coley]

Hate to say it, but who, honestly, in the realms of 'joe public' gives a Shyte anymore? The endless list of initials, the ever changing loyalties, the religious/ ethnic divisions, the power struggles?
Most, even those who are concerned and care about the suffering, are just too numbed by the ever changing scenarios and just 'switch off' and bung the odd tenner to the latest disaster relief appeal.

 

[butchersapron]

Hate to say it, but who, honestly, in the realms of 'joe public' gives a Shyte anymore? The endless list of initials, the ever changing loyalties, the religious/ ethnic divisions, the power struggles?
Most, even those who are concerned and care about the suffering, are just too numbed by the ever changing scenarios and just 'switch off' and bung the odd tenner to the latest disaster relief appeal.

I do. I choose not post on this thread right now. Loads of people working 24-7 to get stuff in and break the regimes sieges - the public was never key here. There's never been any support for FSA groups in this country - and that's not how they weigh things up.

 

[butchersapron]

It's impossible to switch off. We have a pic drawn by a young girl from Al-Abrar - barrel bombed out of the country - 9000 barrel bombs on daraya

 

[teqniq]

It's a disaster zone for sure and by far the worst in the Middle East but so are Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Egypt is possibly worse than it was under Mubarak

 

[coley]

I do. I choose not post on this thread right now. Loads of people working 24-7 to get stuff in and break the regimes sieges - the public was never key here. There's never been any support for FSA groups in this country - and that's not how they weigh things up.

Aye, I know you do and you have my utmost respect for your efforts, the point I was making, is that the GP hasn't stopped caring, it's just got to the point where most of us can't follow WTF is going on anymore so just 'switch off'
It happens all the time, and I suspect it's deliberate, the main actors, of whatever stripe, briefly engage the public in order to justify their actions, then, after a brief burst of seemingly positive results settle down to attrition, having got the GP to endorse their latest round of lunacy.
It's all about power and influence and capitalism, bugger the poor buggers suffering in the middle.
Sorry, I know you and others can tear my arguments to shreds, but I'm just too disillusioned these days to see any real hope for the poor buggers stuck in the middle, other than let them come here and let the mad bastards who want to fight to the death get on with it.

 

[butchersapron]

Aye, I know you do and you have my utmost respect for your efforts, the point I was making, is that the GP hasn't stopped caring, it's just got to the point where most of us can't follow WTF is going on anymore so just 'switch off'
It happens all the time, and I suspect it's deliberate, the main actors, of whatever stripe, briefly engage the public in order to justify their actions, then, after a brief burst of seemingly positive results settle down to attrition, having got the GP to endorse their latest round of lunacy.
It's all about power and influence and capitalism, bugger the poor buggers suffering in the middle.
Sorry, I know you and others can tear my arguments to shreds, but I'm just too disillusioned these days to see any real hope for the poor buggers stuck in the middle, other than let them come here and let the mad bastards who want to fight to the death get on with it.

No worries mate. See tmw. Always a tmw.

 

[coley]

No worries mate. See tmw. Always a tmw.

Ta.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Vice News The US is pissing off everyone in northern Syria

...
"Of course the Kurds feel betrayed, and they were betrayed," he said. "I'm sure the US Special Forces who worked with the Kurds over the past two months are feeling very embarrassed, because they feel like they lied through their teeth as they gave encouragement to the Kurds to do the heavy lifting."

The question now, Landis says, is whether this will affect future US plans to use the Kurds as the tip of its anti-Islamic State spear, especially in the battle to take the group's de facto capital, Raqqa. The new US general in charge of the US war against IS has said the US and its allies intend to take Raqqa by next August — and the US is depending on its Kurdish allies to comprise the main ground fighting force in the effort.

Landis points out that the Kurds have no strategic interest in going to Raqqa since it's a Sunni Arab city far east of their territory.

"If this undermines the Kurdish will to go after ISIS, then our efforts to combat ISIS in Syria will be stalled," he said. "[If] the Kurds go back to their tents and sulk, any effort to send them to Raqqa is going to be seriously compromised."

Robert Ford, former US ambassador to Syria pops up here to say he always thought the US should have backed the Sunni Arab rebels more strongly rather than "The Kurds" because of precisely this kind of situation.

You can argue if the US had used its airpower to cripple the regime early on and toppled Assad Syria would have been spared a lot of carnage. This rather ignores the war that likely would have followed Assad's fall. As in Libya there was no new regime in waiting just lots of risen local militias with often very different ideas about a future state. One was the PKK's Syrian outfit which would have fought for the goals it seeks now. We'd have a different mess that probably would have required a large peace keeping occupation to tamp down that no one seemed eager to contemplate. Few considered it then but we also might have found the Russians inserting themselves as they did in 2015 to prevent another inshallah operation regime change like libya.

As in Libya there were "flickers of al Qaeda". Even in the first year radical Salafists were surfacing and talking Jihad. We knew the Syrian regime had sometimes hosted human infrastructure "ratlines" into Anbar for the war against the hostile US occupation there along which the radical beards of places like Derna flowed. It was predictable Iraq's infestation of Salafi-Jihadis would exploit chaos in Syria for rear basing.

I think foreign powers covertly supporting the rebellion after the call to Jihad in 2012 escalated what had been a fairly low level civil insurrection in some parts of Syria into a wider bloodbath and indirectly aided the rise of Salafi-Jihadis in Syria. We didn't support the PKK much in Syria initially because of the complications Ford correctly foresaw and them being practically regime aligned. By the time of the siege of Kobane it was all going pear shaped. Damage limitation was needed to contain IS. We hoped the Turks would intervene but they just sat in their armour watching IS roll up the PKK building by building. The PKK were the only large ground force in Syria motivated to fight for the turf IS was on other than the regime which was busy fending off the rebels.

However the US needed to address the PKK issue head on when it backed Apo's Syrian mob. Instead Uncle Sam pretended there was no connection to the PYD. There was no high level effort by State to push the Ankara-PKK peace process. There were no strings attached to the PKK resuming a war footing with Ankara and that was another likely consequence. We tended to blame Erdogan for being simply obtuse while we were being deliberately myopic and obsessing on tactical gains against IS.

 

[camouflage]

Hate to say it, but who, honestly, in the realms of 'joe public' gives a Shyte anymore? The endless list of initials, the ever changing loyalties, the religious/ ethnic divisions, the power struggles?
Most, even those who are concerned and care about the suffering, are just too numbed by the ever changing scenarios and just 'switch off' and bung the odd tenner to the latest disaster relief appeal.

I care about this issue, but shouting into the storm of lies and agenda that surround a war does no good. It's not apathy or disinterest, just sick of the propaganda.

 

[butchersapron]

I care about this issue, but shouting into the storm of lies and agenda that surround a war does no good. It's not apathy or disinterest, just sick of the propaganda.

9000 barrel bombs on one small w/c town, barrel bombs that you've disgustingly justified on the grounds of the four state multi-power regime fighting asymmetric warfare - is this lies and propaganda?

 

[camouflage]

9000 barrel bombs on one small w/c town, barrel bombs that you've disgustingly justified on the grounds of the four state multi-power regime fighting asymmetric warfare - is this lies and propaganda?

You and your "barrel bombs". It's not the opposition to the infliction of massive amounts of collateral damage I have a problem with, it's the obvious use of the term itself as a device... I see what you're doing, it's similar to the use of images of bloodied children when it's said they were targeted by the government forces. We never hear anything about children bloodied and killed by your rebels though. A child is a child regardless of which set of adults unleashed fire on their homes, but to you children injured and killed in areas held by the Syrian government are of no use. The term "barrel bomb" is useful but "hell canon", not useful... doesn't serve the purpose. Didn't Lenin say something about the right kind of victim, how it matters not what is done but who it has been done to?

The level you're so invested in here is along the lines of being able to say "barrel bomb!" and immediately have the public foaming at the mouth in their eagerness to support intervention or the pouring in of more weapons or the refusal to engage in talks etc. "Barrel bomb" as a trigger word basically, you have bombs and bullets and the like (many of which our country does a swinging trade in at places like Yemen for instance) and then you have a class of weapons whose target is public opinion. It's the difference between a hammer and a picture of a hammer, the two serve completely different purposes and I see the purpose the term "barrel bomb" serves you, regardless of what sort of bomb leaves people to be dug out the rubble back in actual Syria.

One can spot it immediately by the way the likes of CNN or the BBC never let an opportunity to mention barrel bomb and Assad in the same sentence, it's not as if it makes a difference if Assads forces target civilians what sort of bomb was used, but this is because the use of the term isn't really about the fact civilians were killed in a particular attack or battle, as this is about the cultivation of a certain habit of thought or emotional response to the use of a particular term. I'm no scholar of propaganda or how to engineer public opinion or any of that sort of thing, I'm sure there are think-tanks for all that, perhaps you can check your news-letter for the latest approach on this sort of technology.

All I have to say is fuck your trigger words, fuck your manipulations, your twitterganda, your red-line triggering chemical attacks and your selected images of the child victims of this war (this one yes, very good... ignore those). Civilians getting blown away by LH Martin aren't somehow less dead than those blown away by a bang-for-buck maximizing barrel full of explosives pushed out of a helicopter... you can engineer media buzz-words all you like but the cynicism of it is obvious to me either way. Let the ears of your flock perk up on cue but I'm not going for it. I remember when the war was starting up, your rebels were pretty keen on having blooded-up children lying in hospital beds with bandages around their heads make victory signs and repeat the words "Death to Assad", for Western consumption. 9 year olds, fuckit- 4 year olds why not... did they even know what an Assad is, lying on a gurney missing a leg with their ears still ringing and with some camera stuck in their face? It was obvious then and it's obvious now, you make like you "care about the children" but really you care about their use to you. Fuck you.

 

[butchersapron]

9000 barrel bombs. They made this:

of this:

And they made this of the home of the peaceful revolution - the one that rejected violence as long as possible. This for saying no to a dictator. A city almost the size of bristol gone. What's wrong with you?

 

[butchersapron]

The poor regime, forced into using barrel bombs against civilians.

One line.

 

[camouflage]

The poor regime, forced into using barrel bombs against civilians.

One line.

That's not what I'm saying for fucks sake. This is pointless.

 

[butchersapron]

Sheeple

One word.

 

[camouflage]

9000 barrel bombs. They made this:

of this:

And they made this of the home of the peaceful revolution - the one that rejected violence as long as possible. This for saying no to a dictator. A city almost the size of bristol gone. What's wrong with you?

Pictures and stories. Truth died in this thing long ago. Perhaps one day the historians will be able to give as a clue about what that truth is. I don't hold out much hope we'll ever know. Cities have been destroyed, many many dead, that's all we know.

 

[butchersapron]

That's all this is to you. Pictures and stories. That some might be true, nah. Why do you even speak?

 

[camouflage]

That's all this is to you. Pictures and stories. That some might be true, nah. Why do you even speak?

Yes, pictures and stories is all this is, what else can be known from an internet forum? I know why you speak though, you want to sell your stories. A picture of a destroyed city I'm willing to believe is a picture of a destroyed city, and there's no doubt that thousands have been killed in the struggle between the Syrian government and its adversaries. Like fuck will I believe what the Whitehall intranet has to say about it all.

 

[butchersapron]

What's wrong with you?

 

[Geri]

Turkish troops are firing tear gas over the border into Kobane and shooting at civilians who are protesting against the wall being built. A 17 year old boy is reported to have been killed and several suffering from the effects of the tear gas.

Edit - now reported as troops crossing the border into Kobane. The number of injured has risen to 80 with 17 considered in critical condition.

 

[coley]

You and your "barrel bombs". It's not the opposition to the infliction of massive amounts of collateral damage I have a problem with, it's the obvious use of the term itself as a device... I see what you're doing, it's similar to the use of images of bloodied children when it's said they were targeted by the government forces. We never hear anything about children bloodied and killed by your rebels though. A child is a child regardless of which set of adults unleashed fire on their homes, but to you children injured and killed in areas held by the Syrian government are of no use. The term "barrel bomb" is useful but "hell canon", not useful... doesn't serve the purpose. Didn't Lenin say something about the right kind of victim, how it matters not what is done but who it has been done to?

The level you're so invested in here is along the lines of being able to say "barrel bomb!" and immediately have the public foaming at the mouth in their eagerness to support intervention or the pouring in of more weapons or the refusal to engage in talks etc. "Barrel bomb" as a trigger word basically, you have bombs and bullets and the like (many of which our country does a swinging trade in at places like Yemen for instance) and then you have a class of weapons whose target is public opinion. It's the difference between a hammer and a picture of a hammer, the two serve completely different purposes and I see the purpose the term "barrel bomb" serves you, regardless of what sort of bomb leaves people to be dug out the rubble back in actual Syria.

One can spot it immediately by the way the likes of CNN or the BBC never let an opportunity to mention barrel bomb and Assad in the same sentence, it's not as if it makes a difference if Assads forces target civilians what sort of bomb was used, but this is because the use of the term isn't really about the fact civilians were killed in a particular attack or battle, as this is about the cultivation of a certain habit of thought or emotional response to the use of a particular term. I'm no scholar of propaganda or how to engineer public opinion or any of that sort of thing, I'm sure there are think-tanks for all that, perhaps you can check your news-letter for the latest approach on this sort of technology.

All I have to say is fuck your trigger words, fuck your manipulations, your twitterganda, your red-line triggering chemical attacks and your selected images of the child victims of this war (this one yes, very good... ignore those). Civilians getting blown away by LH Martin aren't somehow less dead than those blown away by a bang-for-buck maximizing barrel full of explosives pushed out of a helicopter... you can engineer media buzz-words all you like but the cynicism of it is obvious to me either way. Let the ears of your flock perk up on cue but I'm not going for it. I remember when the war was starting up, your rebels were pretty keen on having blooded-up children lying in hospital beds with bandages around their heads make victory signs and repeat the words "Death to Assad", for Western consumption. 9 year olds, fuckit- 4 year olds why not... did they even know what an Assad is, lying on a gurney missing a leg with their ears still ringing and with some camera stuck in their face? It was obvious then and it's obvious now, you make like you "care about the children" but really you care about their use to you. Fuck you.

I can understand your argument and the emotions behind it, but look at it objectively, why 'barrel bombs' they are a casual, cheap,easily deliverable weapon, but totally indiscriminate, obviously used to cow large areas of civilians, is Assad so beleaguered and hard up that his regime can't afford decent ATG munitions? or are they hoarding their loot for the inevitable relocation to some favourable spot where the only 'admissions policy' is plenty of dosh?
And the use of indiscriminate force agains civilians is being used as a way of forcing the international community to 'hold their noses' and allow him and his coterie to escape war crimes prosecution and enjoy a comfortable retirement?

 

[Geri]

Looks like the SDF is falling apart.

ARAB FIGHTERS DEFECT FROM US-BACKED SDF

 

[Mordi]

Article from a Times journo (paywalled original) who recognises one of his kidnappers in aTurkey/CIA backed FSA unit in Jarablus.

Looks like the SDF is falling apart.

ARAB FIGHTERS DEFECT FROM US-BACKED SDF

Saw a twitter response from some analyst/western academic which suggested the elements of the FSA were happier being free to run their own little patches of warlordism. Not sure what the difference between democratic accountability and YPG dominance were, but there you go.

 

[camouflage]

just to go through the motions...

 

[camouflage]

I can understand your argument and the emotions behind it, but look at it objectively, why 'barrel bombs' they are a casual, cheap,easily deliverable weapon, but totally indiscriminate, obviously used to cow large areas of civilians, is Assad so beleaguered and hard up that his regime can't afford decent ATG munitions? or are they hoarding their loot for the inevitable relocation to some favourable spot where the only 'admissions policy' is plenty of dosh?
And the use of indiscriminate force agains civilians is being used as a way of forcing the international community to 'hold their noses' and allow him and his coterie to escape war crimes prosecution and enjoy a comfortable retirement?

I'm sorry, but this is so cartoonish I can't believe you expect a serious answer.