And next, Syria?

[butchersapron]

Under 4 weeks.

 

[LDC]

Cosmic, you're a thick cunt of the highest order.

 

[J Ed]

The good doctor, can't wait to hear what he has to say

 

[CrabbedOne]

Somebody's in blame the Yankees mode.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On War Is Boring Turkish Soldiers Are Dying in Operation Euphrates Shield

...
These operational shortcomings on the part of Ankara are likely the result of heavy reliance on its FSA proxy fighters and the widespread purges of military officers by the Turkish government in recent months following the failed July 15 coup attempt.

If not rectified, Turkey’s Euphrates Shield operation will undoubtedly prove more costly for Ankara as it pushes deeper into the Syrian quagmire.

IS not running away in al Bab.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On VoA Officials Count Around 30,000 War Dead in Afghanistan This Year

About half the number of dead in Syria but after a decade and a half Afghan barely gets a mention. More than half Terry but that has barely slowed them down. I can remember when CIA estimates had their entire strength at 40K.

 

[Cosmic]

This twat's going on ignore.

Wow...just wow...

How in heavens name will I survive with the approval of Halliwell?

 

[Cosmic]

Cosmic, you're a thick cunt of the highest order.

Yeah right. In that case you better put me on ignore like that other cry baby if you don't have anything intelligent to contribute. You'd be doing me a favour.
Cheers.

 

[Cosmic]

 

[CrabbedOne]

...
“Our security has surpassed our geographic borders,” he said, adding that “exporting Islamic revolution” is one of the achievements of his country led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Well-known Iranian agencies, which have Arabic and English pages, such as Fares News and Tasnim News did not translate the paragraph in which Jafari made this statement as such a statement contradicts with Tehran’s official position that it only supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and consults with him on what it describes as “terrorism” in Syria.

Shocking! The Iranians butt into other countries for security reasons and are set on exporting their batshit ideology all over Syria just as they have in Iraq. You know the place we invaded to get rid of a troublesome despot and tried to set up as a free market democracy hoping to destabilise Iran by example. Some in Foggy Bottom may have seen supporting the Syrian revolt as a second try for badly executed policy goals. Yes; there are plenty of slow learners at State.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Al Monitor Would Putin accept a Turkish buffer zone in Syria?

...
A total of 38 TSK soldiers have been killed during the operation, including 16 on Dec. 21 alone. In addition, a video recording appeared last week on social media of two abducted Turkish soldiers being burned alive by IS. Turkish officials only said, ‘‘We are investigating,” while the government kept totally silent. All the government did was to curtail social media to prevent the discussion of the IS claim.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during his daily routine of delivering speeches and attending ceremonies, did not even mention the IS video. Finally a statement came from Defense Minister Fikri Isik, who said, "We are assessing the reports on our three missing soldiers in the hands of Daesh [IS]. Nothing else has been confirmed.” The statement did not satisfy anyone.

The Turkish public is split by the tragic news. Some were frantically calling for total annihilation of the enemy, and some were asking, “If the objective is to prevent a Kurdish corridor and push IS away from our border, why are we insisting on entering al-Bab?’’

Those who had supported the operation across the border despite warnings that Syria could become a quagmire were not expecting such a heavy toll. Compared with US and Russian casualties, Turkey’s losses in Syria are too high. The United States, which has been conducting air operations in Syria since 2014 and providing advisory and training support with 300 soldiers to the Syrian Democratic Forces, has lost only one soldier. Russia, which fields 4,000 soldiers, has lost 23 since Sept. 30, 2015. But Turkey had 38 of its soldiers killed in four months of Operation Euphrates Shield, not including the two soldiers reported immolated.

There are occasional brief mentions of civilian casualties caused by the operation, but they go mostly unnoticed in a mood of extreme chauvinism, bravery and militarism. The TSK denied a report by Syrian Human Rights Observatory that 250 civilians were killed by the Turkish operation. Turkish public opinion doesn’t have a tradition of challenging what the TSK says. Incessant declarations by the TSK of how it is hitting IS helps cool down public anger over losses of soldiers. In a nutshell, there has not been heavy public pressure on the government to make changes to Operation Euphrates Shield.

...

My bold, if you think of it as part of other anti-PKK operation the TSK losses are not exceptional. The Turkish public have less reason to fear IS than the PKK. IS are a new arrival with a far smaller footprint in Turkey than the decades old PKK which is capable of taking over entire cities in the SE.

Still I doubt Euphrates Shield would be expensively trying to take "The Door" of Aleppo while liable to be disputed by the regime if the recent failed military mutiny hadn't enabled Erdogan. Retired TSK's Generals were very skeptical and with good cause. It's not the taking of al Bab it's the holding.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On RT Russians name Syrian war as biggest international event of 2016

...
VTSIOM, a major Russian state-run public opinion research center, said in its Monday release that 33 percent of its respondents named the war in Syria as the most important international event of the year, down from 43 percent in 2015. Meanwhile, 31 percent thought the US presidential poll took precedence, and 13 percent named unspecified sporting events as the most important of 2016 (the doping scandal was a separate entry in the questionnaire, and was named by seven percent of the public).
...

Quite a big fall in attention there. Trump's election nearly as important to Russians as Syria despite a steady barrage of state propaganda.

I get the impression traditionally Islamophobic Russians simply are not mobilised by Putin's Crusade in the way Americans were by Bush taking Baghdad in it's early days. The grubby little war on IS in contrast looms large in the US public imagination as Trump spooks giddy GOP voters with bedtime stories of dusky hordes waging a Civilisational war on the White Man.

When a signifiant part of the population believes their own security services stage mass casualty Black Flag ops for the leadership's political gain the GWOT is going to be a tough sell. Ironically enough Alex Jones has increasing numbers of American wingnut's as paranoid about such things as wearily cynical Russians who have rather more reality based cause.

 

[teqniq]

Tell us something new. It is widely accepted by most interested parties that atrocities have been committed by all sides; it is after all a war. What is not so widely accepted is that the regime and it's allies have been responsible for most of these atrocities and that the majority of them have been civilians, including deliberate targeting of medical personnel and facilities.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Rudaw Syrian army turns attention to Kurdish neighborhoods of Aleppo

...
Syrian military authorities have told the Kurdish forces affiliated with the Democratic Union Party (PYD) to pull their People's Protection Units (YPG) from eastern outskirts of Aleppo or integrate them into the army and "restore the institutions of the state", according to a high ranking general in the Syrian military.

"The government had entrusted the PYD with these areas and now the government wants them back. Their (PYD's) work in confronting the terrorists has been completed," General Haitham Hassoun of the Syrian army told Rudaw without specifying when the regime takeover is likely to take place.
...

Well that would be typical of Assad.

 

[squirrelp]

Unusually some sense in the British media courtesy of Peter Hitchens and the Daily Mail

The sources for these reports are so-called ‘activists’. Who are they? As far as I know, there was not one single staff reporter for any Western news organisation in eastern Aleppo last week. Not one.
THIS is for the very good reason that they would have been kidnapped and probably murdered. The zone was ruled without mercy by heavily armed Osama Bin Laden sympathisers, who were bombarding the west of the city with powerful artillery (they frequently killed innocent civilians and struck hospitals, since you ask). That is why you never see pictures of armed males in eastern Aleppo, just beautifully composed photographs of handsome young unarmed men lifting wounded children from the rubble, with the light just right.

It is on the behalf of these ‘moderates’ that MPs staged a wholly one-sided debate last week, and on their behalf that so many people have been emoting equally one-sidedly over alleged massacres and supposed war crimes by Syrian and Russian troops – for which I have yet to see a single piece of independent, checkable evidence.
When I used to travel a lot in the communist world, I especially hated the fact that almost every official announcement was a conscious lie, taunting the poor subjugated people with their powerlessness to challenge it.
I would spend ages twiddling dials and shifting aerials to pick up the BBC World Service on my short-wave set – ‘the truth, read by gentlemen’ – because it refreshed the soul just to hear it. These days the state-sponsored lies have spread to my own country, and to the BBC, and I tell the truth as loudly as I can, simply because I cannot hear anyone else speaking it. If these lies go unchallenged, they will be the basis of some grave wrong yet to come.

PETER HITCHENS: Amid the bombs of Aleppo, all you can hear are the lies - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog

 

[GrowbagUK]

Tell us something new. It is widely accepted by most interested parties that atrocities have been committed by all sides; it is after all a war. What is not so widely accepted is that the regime and it's allies have been responsible for most of these atrocities and that the majority of them have been civilians, including deliberate targeting of medical personnel and facilities.

Uhm lets use some facts shall we?
Casualties of the Syrian Civil War - Wikipedia

 

[CrabbedOne]

Unusually some sense in the British media courtesy of Peter Hitchens and the Daily Mail



PETER HITCHENS: Amid the bombs of Aleppo, all you can hear are the lies - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog

Funny, not being much one for ingrown nostalgia I can't remember a time when the BBC was not prone to respectfully follow the Foreign Office's line on world affairs with an FO was full of able liars.

Amusing to see the Anglo right gradually lining up obediently behind the low on facts, Putin fancying Trump on a variety of issues. They've had enough of experts and are back to simply willing a difficult world into a fanciful shape much as the neocons did under Bush. It's like watching a toddler eagerly opening a box razor blades except without much expectation of a learning process.

 

[CrabbedOne]

...
Senior military sources said that from next Spring the RAF is likely to "pivot" its focus from Iraq to Syria as it seeks to bolster rebel forces fighting Syria.

Last year the RAF mounted just 60 air strikes in Syria compared to 347 in Iraq, where British planes have been heavily involved in the campaign to liberate Mosul from Isil.
...

At about one strike a week in Syria the small RAF contribution against IS has been a bit of damp squib in Syria.

There's still liable to be quite a lot of IS activity in Iraq after Mosul as they still own or threaten a fair chunk of real estate there and their support is far more extensive.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Evidently rather well equipped by insurgent standards.

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[teqniq]

Uhm lets use some facts shall we?
Casualties of the Syrian Civil War - Wikipedia

And?

 

[rekil]

Cosmic, you're a thick cunt of the highest order.

The thread is irredeemably fucked but fwiw Cosmic is banned returner cunt degsy

 

[teqniq]

The thread is irredeemably fucked but fwiw Cosmic is banned returner cunt degsy

I'd love to know how you guys work these things out.

 

[rekil]

I'd love to know how you guys work these things out.

Spotted by Fridgemagnet on the Bristow thread. Also 'degsy' was banned on Nov 6th then 'cosmic' joins on Nov 6th. And both post same shit from same conspiraloon anti-semitic sources.

 

[squirrelp]

Funny, not being much one for ingrown nostalgia I can't remember a time when the BBC was not prone to respectfully follow the Foreign Office's line on world affairs with an FO was full of able liars.

Amusing to see the Anglo right gradually lining up obediently behind the low on facts, Putin fancying Trump on a variety of issues. They've had enough of experts and are back to simply willing a difficult world into a fanciful shape much as the neocons did under Bush. It's like watching a toddler eagerly opening a box razor blades except without much expectation of a learning process.

So what you are saying is that Peter Hitchens is not wrong to completely distrust our media narrative, but he was wrong to have ever trusted it? And this is supposed to read as a criticism of his current position?

 

[Cosmic]

Tell us something new. It is widely accepted by most interested parties that atrocities have been committed by all sides; it is after all a war. What is not so widely accepted is that the regime and it's allies have been responsible for most of these atrocities and that the majority of them have been civilians, including deliberate targeting of medical personnel and facilities.

It has been widely reported in the MSM that "the regime" has been responsible for most of these atrocities. Incubator babies was also "widely reported" as was the belief that WMD's were deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them, and Gaddafi was ruthlessly and indiscriminately bombing his own people.

As the saying goes, the devil is in the detail and seeing as you are allegedly faaaaar more knowledgeable on these matters than I am, it should be easy to you to post the evidence in support of your vague claims.

When you're ready...

 

[Cosmic]

The thread is irredeemably fucked but fwiw Cosmic is banned returner cunt degsy

lol @ this idiot school snitch pointing out the bleeding obvious like he's made some kind of major discovery.
It's almost like we've got Colombo right here in this thread dusting down the Cluedo for Christmas. It was Professor Plum, with the Candlestick in the conservatory.

Spotted by Fridgemagnet on the Bristow thread. Also 'degsy' was banned on Nov 6th then 'cosmic' joins on Nov 6th.

lol @ "spotted". I did not try to hide who I was after the ridiculous and outrageous ban and was in direct communication with the editor via pm immediately after so the boss knew who I was even if apparently his deputy didn't catch on until month later, not sure what happened to the communications between them but anyway I have since been "unbanned" by the editor himself, which was the the right outcome given that the original decision was poor.

And both post same shit from same conspiraloon anti-semitic sources.

...more vague and baseless accusations from an idiot without an argument. Par for the course.

 

[CrabbedOne]

So what you are saying is that Peter Hitchens is not wrong to completely distrust our media narrative, but he was wrong to have ever trusted it? And this is supposed to read as a criticism of his current position?

I doubt he ever really trusted the BBC. He's been banging on The Ministry Of Truth being a font of evil for decades. He's a Right-Wing ideologue currently following the direction of the Atlanticist herd someway behind UKIP. They'll all be at it shortly.

The BBC has always had biases and inaccuracies; all media does even The Daily Mail. The level of utter bollox out there is just higher these days due mainly to the internet with its ability to crowd out anything fact based with sensationalism.

 

[squirrelp]

I doubt he ever really trusted the BBC. He's been banging on The Ministry Of Truth being a font of evil for decades. He's a Right-Wing ideologue currently following the direction of the Atlanticist herd someway behind UKIP. They'll all be at it shortly.

The BBC has always had biases and inaccuracies; all media does even The Daily Mail. The level of utter bollox out there is just higher these days due mainly to the internet with its ability to crowd out anything fact based with sensationalism.

I am struggling to get the gist of your argument here.

You are saying that the foreign office was full of liars, always has been, but that our government narratives are basically trustworthy?

And that the BBC has become less trustworthy now because of the internet?

But that Hitchens is wrong to think that our media is now less trustworthy than in the past?

I honestly do not understand where you are coming from.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

Maybe not on a personal level, however our NATO/"coalition" regimes rather conveniently "overlook" the misdeeds of dodgy countries that happen to be our allies and refer to them as if they are legitimate governments and not as "regimes". Back in the day when the Ayatollah was the enemy du jour, we were backing Saddam. There are plenty more examples of dodgy regimes that we've supported just because we wanted to keep out the commies.

I made the comment in a personal capacity, not as a stand in for NATO.