Jimmy Carter provided Russia with maps for increased accuracy in ISIS strikes
Smoke rising after air strikes carried out by the Russian air force on an Islamic State base in Idlib province, Syria Photo: REUTERS/Ministry of Defence of Russia
The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Former President Jimmy Carter said recently that he provided maps of Islamic State positions in Syria to the Russian embassy in Washington, a move apparently at odds with the Obama administration’s official policy of not cooperating with Russia in the Syrian war.
Carter said on Sunday in Georgia that he knows Russian President Vladimir Putin “fairly well” because they “have a common interest in fly fishing.” When he met with Putin in April along with other global leaders [photo above, with Putin and Kofi Annan] to discuss the crises in Syria and Ukraine, the Russian president gave him an email address so the two could discuss his “fly fishing experiences, particularly in Russia,” Carter said.
The civil war in Syria, where U.S. officials say Russia has bombed rebels and CIA-backed groups rather than the Islamic State terrorist group, has also been a topic of conversation between the two. Carter said he sent maps of the Islamic State’s locations in Syria, produced by the Carter Center, to the Russian embassy so Moscow could improve the accuracy of its strikes.
“I sent [Putin] a message Thursday and asked him if he wanted a copy of our map so he could bomb accurately in Syria, and then on Friday, the Russian embassy in Atlanta—I mean in Washington, called down and told me they would like very much to have the map,” Carter said at his Sunday school class in Georgia, according to a video of his remarks first aired by NBC News [see below]. “So in the future, if Russia doesn’t bomb the right places, you’ll know it’s not Putin’s fault but it’s my fault,” he added as the audience laughed. […]
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Reblogged this on Siem Reap Mirror.
Well, unlike the US, Russia is also sharing intelligence with other countries in the region. And the Iraq government seems to be rather pleased about Russia’s intervention in the region.
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6 October 2015
Russia ready to consider Iraqi request for airstrikes – Upper House speaker
Russian Federation Council speaker Valentina Matviyenko stated that Russia was calling upon all states that see the Islamic State as a threat to join the information center in Baghdad used by Russian, Iraqi, Syrian and Iranian security specialists and military. She added that Russia was ready for other forms of cooperation with all nations that share the common goal of fighting international terrorism. (RT)
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Reuters, 13 October 2015:
Iraq has begun bombing Islamic State insurgents with help from a new intelligence center with staff from Russia, Iran and Syria, a senior parliamentary figure said on Tuesday about cooperation seen as a threat to U.S. interests in the region.
The center has been operational for about a week, and it provided intelligence for air strikes on a gathering of middle-level Islamic State figures, Hakim al Zamili, the head of parliament’s defense and security committee, told Reuters.
The new security apparatus based in Baghdad suggests the United States is losing clout in a strategic oil-producing Middle East, where it has been heavily invested for years.
And this deal was reached before Russia’s bombing:
CNN, 28 September 2015:
Iraq says it has reached a deal to share intelligence with Russia, Iran and Syria in the fight against ISIS militants.
The news comes amid U.S. concerns about Russia’s recent military buildup in Syria and would appear to confirm American suspicions of some kind of cooperation between Baghdad and Moscow.
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So the Americans do NOT allow the Iraqi government to run its own defence policies? The masks are slipping.
Reaction from posters here in SLOVENIA to the news about Iraq collaborating with Russia, Syria and Iran to fight ISIS on the website of Slovenian national broadcasting service (13 October 2015):
Bye bye, the US! We have had enough of your wars and devastations. Imagine how lowly the Americans must be when even Iraqis now reject their ‘support’ and prefer to work together with Russia? Even if the Americans ‘liberated them from Saddam? The US is reaping what it has sown, and it should be this way.
— 77 thumbs up, 9 thumbs down
[Notes: My rough translation of the above post from Slovene to English. People have to be registered posters to be able to recommend comments. On domestic political issues, the posters’ votes / recommends on this website are usually quite evenly divided between left and right.]
Jimmy Carter said on 16 September 2015 during an event at the Carter Center (Conversation with the Carters) that the US should cooperate with Russia. Sputnik published an article about Carter’s statements (see blow), and his statements are also on the record in the video of the event (see the link below).
In case anyone thinks that Carter is old and demented and does not know what he is saying and doing (as some American media / blogs are suggesting), I recommend that he/she watches the video.
Jimmy Carter Urges Obama to Solve Syrian Crisis With Russia, Iran
http://m.sputniknews.com/politics/20150916/1027086972/jimmy-carter-russia-iran-syria-assad-cooperation.html
Sputnik, 16 September 2015
The 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, has become the latest politician urging the United States to join forces with Russia and Iran in order to find a solution to solve the protracted Syrian crisis.
“We now have more refugees from war zones on Earth than we have ever had in history even after the Second World War. About the fourth of the total population of Lebanon now are refugees from Syria. Jordan is also heavily afflicted with it. Turkey has also taken a lot of those refugees,” he explained. (video 24 min 40 sec)
“The United States, I think, mistakenly at first excluded any possibility of President Assad being involved in deciding what would happen to [Syria] in the future. … On the other hand, as you known, Russia and Iran have supported the Assad government and now ISIS has basically taken over good portion of the eastern part of Syria,” Carter noted, referring to Islamic States militants. (video 25 min 25 sec)
US cooperation with Russia should not be limited to Syria. Carter asserted that Americans need “to get on the same side whenever we possibly can with Russia and also with China by the way to promote peace in the world and harmony and future economic development for everybody.” (video 10 min 10 sec)
VIDEO: Conversation with Former President Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter
http://www.c-span.org/video/?328117-1/conversation-jimmy-rosalynn-carter
About Putin and Syria, and then also about China: start watching at 8 min 10 sec
11 min 55 sec: “Although we [the US] have been at war with 30 different countries since the second world war, since we normalised relationships in 1980 China has not been at war with anybody.”
22 min 30 sec: Carter answers a question about migration crisis in Europe; also talks about Syria (the role of Assad, the US, Russia)