Aftermath of the alleged gas attack on Douma, an evolving narrative: Part 1
a map of potential confrontation
April 9 2018
It seems almost certain now that the attack on the Syrian airbase near Homs last night was by the Israeli airforce, though we can assume this was with the approval of the USA. While Israel has attacked that airbase before in recent months, the coincidence of timing, less than a day after the alleged “chemical attack” at Douma, obviously raises a lot of questions about what agenda was being served.
Was this a one-off attack using Israel as a shield for US action as discussed in a Brookings Institution paper from 2009? (we agree with the author of that article that this aspect doesn’t get enough discussion).
Was it a prelude to a wider involvement by the USA, France and maybe even the UK? How far is NATO intending to push the risk of a direct confrontation with Russia? How will Russia respond to the Israeli assault or to any subsequent action? Is there any kind of off-ramp or is an escalating confrontation all but inevitable?
And what on earth is Trump really doing?
With the UNSC meeting today and almost any development possible thereafter, the next few days will be interesting.
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I’ll accept ‘down votes’ from anyone who thinks I’m being self-indulgent in conveying this but I have just written a three page email to my MP about our Govt’s attitude towards Syria and Russia. I attached a link to the Veterans Today article of 8 April. He’s Labour so I don’t know his views so it might be interesting to see if I get a reaction. I simply laid out factually what my concerns are regarding the Govt and recent events. I didn’t see any point in asking any questions other than rhetorical but I ended by saying that in the event of a vote on military action in Syria I would implore him to vote against. I just wanted to tell someone as my two collies have told me they’re not interested … rather like my former partner. Sorry – going OT.
That’s a very good idea – well done for doing that. We should all be doing that more frequently.
Only thing I would quibble with is that if you are going to link to sources to support your points you shouldn’t be linking to VT when emailing an MP. Using mainstream or mainstream-alternative sources instead will making it harder for the MP to just ignore it.
Thanks for that and I take your point about supporting material. The point with sending the VT article was that it contains information particularly pertinent to what may be going on behind the scenes here and in the US that we are not party to and which is more than likely influencing the decision-making that we are all victims to. I have not seen, and suspect I am not likely to see, the same controversial information published anywhere else but if anyone can point me to any comparable, more ‘mainstream/mainstream alternative’ articles which convey the same or equally damning (alleged) facts about background machinations I would be more than happy to make use of such material.
Good Idea. The world loves a trier. I’ll give it a go…and enclose a pair of concrete slippers to make sure my MP get’s the message.
Good for you Judy. I have contacted my Congress members here in the US. I lost my internet for 2 and weeks once and the next I never received a reply back. I believe my suggestions and questions were valid. I was probably marked up as a ‘dissenter’ though.
Media Watch. From the Indie, BTL:
BillSykes007 7 hours ago
Why are they so scared of inquisitive minds? Of dissenting voices? I am now here under a different name because this morning a long post I put up explaining point by point why and how this Skripal case has been orchestrated by the British. The post was originally accepted and was up on the board for over 90 minutes then it was removed. I tried to repost it but I got the green sign (moderator) and yet it wasn’t deemed necessary to moderate the original….
+20
Ourfriend47 7 hours ago
It happens to all of us if we question the scam which is the official account of this Skripal affair.
It’s as if MSM hacks have been warned off real journalistic investigation and D-notices threatened.
The only real information and analysis is to be found on sites like OffGuardian
and Craig Murray’s Twitter site, both of which have had DDoS attacks and Murray’s interview on Sky News mysteriously dropped.
When I can be bothered to post on the DM I find that as soon as I include any details of what the Govt seems to have been up to or reflecting the reality of the situation in Syria or Russia which contradicts what we are commonly told the posts don’t get online. Tip: I tried to post info about the Veterans Today article from 8 April and failed, but my post got through when I simply referred people to the article and said they should read it! The other annoying thing the paper does is count rejected posts as part of your quota so you’ll find that, say, three get through and seven fail and you’re told you’ve surpassed you limit of 10 on a subject for that day.
One person who definitely had a press suppression DA Notice put in place by the UKGov was Christopher Steele. As Tweeted out by Julian Assange less than a week before his internet access was cut off. Coincidence: probably not? He also identified Joseph Mifsud as being instrumental in setting up the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016. This article [1], originally from Disobedient Media, (thanks Bevin for the link) also links another Brit, Robert Goldstone, with setting up that meet (on behalf of his client, singer-songwriter Emin Agalarov). For those not familiar with the ins and outs of this case: that meet was between Trump Jr, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and several others (including Goldstone). It was the characterisation of this meeting with “Russian nationals” that became the second pillar of Russiagate (the first being the Steele Kompromat dossier). Only, as the Elizabeth Vos article makes clear: instead of Russian collusion, that should be British collusion?
So, of the two pillars of Russiagate: all (criminal) roads lead to London. The Steele dossier – according to Assange [2]- “UK government TV then “verified” the dossier. The reporter? Paul Wood, a reporter who has been repeatedly operated within UK military and intelligence covert operation zones.” This is what I have referred to as a ‘collaboration loop’: because it was Steele himself who briefed the press. The Trump Tower Meeting was set up by people with connections to British intelligence – not Russian. Both sides were duped into this meeting. Trump Jr thought he was getting dirt from Russia on Hillary (a Mifsud/Goldstone fabricated story) and Natalia Veselnitskaya thought she was lobbying against …guess who? William Browder. Browder then brought attention to this otherwise innocuous meeting by sending the DOJ a FARA report stating, amongst other things, that Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya was colluding with Fusion GPS to get the U.S. to lift sanctions against Russia. This happened a week before the first Wikileaks dump of DNC emails.[Source: Jimmysllamma.com] Coincidence: probably not.
[1] http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49138.htm
[2] https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/976943608136982528
Given that Steele was a career MI6 Agent and had been Head of the Russia Desk in recent times, a senior ranking, it is inconceivable that he wasn’t required to seek permission to reveal information gleaned as an Agent. Whoever gave him the OK must have been aware of the end receipents and to what purpose it was to be put; to diss Trump. As an Intelligence Agency of some repute they can hardly say nobody told them! As there hasn’t been a functioning government for some years now the culprit is presumably –.
Complicit with Steele are former MI6 heads John Scarlett and Richard Dearlove who were behind the Iraq war, a previous dodgy dossier, and a compromised JIC. The article also mentioned Claire Smith: who oversaw and vetted UK intelligence placements: as well as being a member of the Cabinet Office and JIC. The Cabinet Office and JIC brief Ministers. Can you see a pattern developing? This goes to the heart of government, and that includes the opposition.
Vexarb, the Indy comment facility is useless. It’s only merit is that it is generally open. All that you have to do to get a comment removed is flag it from two separate posting accounts, and it is easy to set up two posting accounts. A few infantile trolls (whose ‘contribution’ to the debate goes no further than one-line accusations of ‘Putinbot’, ‘Kremlintroll’ to anybody they disagree with) have discovered this, and are now making hay.
Unfortunately the Indy comment forum administrators are too weak and feeble (and to be honest, stupid) to deal with the problem.
Syrian Arab News Agency Reports:
Beijing, SANA. Chinese Foreign Ministry called for conducting a “comprehensive, objective and impartial investigation” into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma, warning of the consequences of the use of force on the basis of accusations.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that before a “comprehensive, impartial and objective investigation” had been conducted into the incident, no party should “prejudge the results and come to conclusions randomly.”
He added that his country was “opposed to the wanton use of force or threat of force” and that “military means will lead us nowhere”.
They’re mad, all completely bonkers. Blair, May, Macron, mainstream journalists, the whole damn lot. Reporters: “Well of course May is in a difficult position … does she stick by Trump and join in with an offensive with Parliamentary approval or not, or does she do nothing and incur the anger of the US, who has stood by us through the Skripal case, and leave France to do the bidding. And if she goes for a Parliamentary vote she runs the risk of losing it like Cameron did when we had the chance to bomb Syria in 2013”. Blair: “Well we have to go in militarily if necessary without Parliamentary approval, we can’t stand back and let the Syrians get away with it”. May: “Well this attack, as we have all seen, was terrible and something has to be done and I am considering the matter”. Not one of them, not one of them even acknowledges the possibility that no attack took place or that, even if some incident, did occur, there is every reason to suspect their friends, the jihadis. No mention of an investigation. Can’t any of them acknowledge, or even pretend to acknowledge, that there is clearly a distinct possibility that the Russians may be right about their findings? But no, they have laid out their case for Assad and the Russians being guilty and being perpetual, incorrigible liars to hide the fact that that is exactly what they themselves are. I even have trouble just looking at those mad, cold staring eyes and shifty twitches of Theresa May. If/when they do attack Syria and kill people, knowing full well that there is no justification, it would be premeditated murder and they are no better than the Harold Shipmans, Yorkshire Rippers and Fred Wests of this world but on a much larger scale and should be taken to the Hague if they and we survive for long enough to do that. They obviously do not care one iota for the consequences for innocent people in all countries.
Yes. But we citizens of the West need to realize that governance by proxy isn’t working. Governments are kakistocracies and are not there for our benefit. Not as they are as of now. And I also agree that the entire lot, there in Europe, here in North America, NATO, all of them are completely bonkers. They are indeed the criminally insane.
BTL SyrPer 1hr ago: hussein
news coming in that china orders it’s navy to join russian fleet in the mediterranean in anticipation of an attack.
[Rerun of 2013. I expect the Iranian warships to turn up again likewise. But will Izzie’s little German-built Dolphin sub hold place of honour in NATZO Armada this time? Their missiles veered off course last time, and now Russia has let loose an Orca dolfin-killer in the waters.]
Saker BTL: Peter from Oz on April 10, 2018 · at 5:48 am UTC
Syrian Girl reappears on YouTube when we need her most. For years, this young Syrian-Australian woman who resides in Australia but is in close contact/visits with her homeland reported regularly on the details of the proxy war ravaging her mother country.
When she started getting 100,000s views and threatened the mainstream narrative her YouTube channel and videos were deleted by the powers that control YouTube.
Good therefore for Russian Insight channel to host her. What she presents about the Douma false flag is shocking and needs sharing:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AbffI52stc0
I thought her channel got deleted. I was a subscriber to Syrian Partisan Girl. Nice.
Marie Colvin: Syria assassinated reporter, court told
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43711617
“Israel: 40 Years On”
On 14 May 1988, the Daily Telegraph wrote:
Tonight’s edition of After Dark… will mark the 40th anniversary of Israel. The programme is likely to cause controversy, as the Shadow Foreign Secretary Gerald Kaufman and a number of Israelis will appear alongside Faisal Aweidah, the hardline PLO representative in London. For Kaufman, the appearance will not be without a political risk, mainly of a backlash from British Jews who are unlikely to be happy about him appearing alongside Aweidah, a supporter of Yasser Arafat. However for the Israelis involved in the programme there are even greater dangers. They will brave the wrath of the government of their country – where it is illegal for citizens to share a platform with the PLO. One participant…has already backed out after being told she would face arrest when returning home after the broadcast.[53]
14 May 1988 Israel: Forty Years On John Underwood Yohanan Lahav, Anton Shammas, Marie Colvin, Gerald Kaufman, Moshe Amirav, Faisal Aweidah, Nadia Hijab
The plot thickens,
We may not be sure who killed Marie Colvin, but we do know who killed Yesser Murtaja. In full daylight, whilst wearing a blue flak jacket with PRESS written across his chest, he was gunned down by Israeli soldiers who had been given permission to murder unarmed Palestinians by their leader, Netanyahu.
Marie Colvin’s Wikipedia entry shows that Colvin had entered Syria illegally and was in the Baba Amro News office building when it was hit by shelling during the siege of Homs in February 2012. An autopsy done by the Syrian government indicated that she’d been killed by an IED filled with nails.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Colvin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Mahmoud_Othman#Baba_Amro_News
It would be interesting to know if that Baba Amro News office was a real news office or some entity akin to the “Aleppo Media Centre” or “East Ghouta Media Centre”.
That wasn’t my recollection. I remember her being in a small building with another reporter or camera man. Quick look on search engine gives Guardian obit:
“The following morning I listened for her voice again on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, but she was not there. By then her body was in the rubble of a house that had suffered a direct hit from a Syrian government shell.”
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/22/marie-colvin
And the 2018 award for the Fake News (that’s lies to normal people) trophy goes to………….. Wikipedia!!!!
Couldn’t the house also have been the office of a local news outlet? Seems not unlikely if there was also a camera man and another reporter there.
I’m sure I saw a picture somewhere and a report that she had taken emergency shelter and was trapped in a demolished building. I’ll do a search in the morning and post anything I find.
Mikalina – I don’t have any reason myself to believe one narrative over the other but do let me know if you have reason to believe an old GUARDIAN obituary over an up to date Wikipedia entry? We all know how the actual truth can emerge silently over the passage of time.
The Guardian was reporting fairly accurately in 2012 and the quote I gave was a personal recollection from a friend of Marie Colvin. The article also confirmed my own memories of the time.
The updating and re-inventing of the Wiki page on novochuks when the ‘substance’ was first mention practically every minute for most of the day was quite bizarre (as confirmed at the time of my mentioning it by Catte). Wiki has progressively taken an establishment viewpoint over this past year.
History is being rewritten or worse, forgotten, and I think ‘news’ is being treated in the same way. This was shown on UKColumn this week when they traced several newspaper headings + BBC to show that the original ‘revealing’ article had been changed although the heading stayed the same. Interestingly, this was Winston job in 1984 – to find any articles which didn’t ‘fit’ with that day’s given interpretation of the world situation and change it for one that did.
Colvin was making agit-prop for the takfiri butchers. She got her just desserts, and it’s a real shame that more of her ilk have not suffered the same fate.
Completely off topic, but as we lurch towards WWIII we could probably do with a laugh.
In today’s Guardian, Suzanne Moore, white middle-class middle-aged feminist scourge of the mansplainers, will somethingsplain* to us all why young black men are stabbing each other in epidemic numbers:
“Drill music isn’t making boys kill each other – knife crime is about something much deeper”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/10/drill-music-police-cuts-knife-crime-teenagers
Thanks Suzanne. We’re bloody lucky you were here to whateversplain it to us.
*There must be a proper name for this kind of splaining.
Condescension?
Looks like the writing is on the wall guys. Going back to WW2, the first danger signals came from the punitive imposition on Germany of the Treaty of Verseilles in 1919. That left Germany embittered and revanchist, which was predicted by Keynes in his short work, ”The Economic Consequences of Peace”. After a period of virtual civil war, the Nazis came to power in Germany, circa 1934. Then followed Anschluss with Austria, the reoccupation of the Rhineland and the annexation of the Sudetenland, and eventually Prague. All of which pointed unequivocally to a new war in Europe. Chamberlain’s phoney peace deal in 1938 was shattered one year later and the Churchill – a war leader – took over the shortly thereafter.
The present conjuncture has all the hallmarks of another prelude to war. There has been provocation after provocation by the Anglo-Zionists which started with the expansion of NATO to Russia’s western frontier. A development noted by the American statesman George Kennan and the historian John Mearsheimer.
Then the abrogation of the ABM treaty of 2002, two-part regime change in Ukraine, the Orange Revolution in 2003 and the coup in 2014 concurrent with these events was the siting of BDS in Romania and another planned Poland this year. I almost forgot to add the ongoing attempt to include Ukraine and Georgia into NATO.
I am afraid all the arrows point to war. Provocation has been heaped upon provocation and Russia has to a large degree been forced back onto its western frontiers. So where do we go from here. I think that Putin has brought Russia practically back from the dead since 2000. This has been no mean achievement. But I wonder if he is aware of the situation facing, not only Russia, but the world. I think that Russia needs full mobilisation for war and possible a leadership which is cognisant of this imperative. I am not convinced that at this stage in this situation Putin – with his talk of ‘our partners’ and his somewhat over-conciliatory approach, is the man with policies which will bring this about.
Britain in 1940 switched leadership from Chamberlain to Churchill and in 1941 the US economy was mobilized for war to the extent that it ceased to be a capitalist economy and instead became a command economy. In both the UK and US the war economy did not stimulate the private sector it REPLACED the free market and capitalist investment for profit.
Time has become perilously short, and big decisions have to be made – pronto
The nuclear option makes these kinds of retro analyses not very useful as comparisons. A straightforward declaration and invasion of Russian territory is not going to happen, whatever the less informed armchair generals suggest. That’s not remotely a plan. The plan is to force Russia to retrench, to attack its ability to stay in Syria, to force it to either engage or retreat in Ukraine, and to nibble away at its borders thereafter by indirect and proxy engagements.
The risk of full scale war arises from miscalculation, not from a Sept 3 1939 style declaration. It arises from NATO’s failure to understand that Russia has red lines, and Syria is one of them. Everything Putin has done over the past few weeks has been aimed ay signalling this red line to NATO. But NATO seems not to have understood.
The point is the only way for either side to win this particular war is to succeed in preventing it, and that is what Putin is trying to do. Once the war starts there are no winners, as he’s always said.
”The risk of full scale war arises from miscalculation, not from a Sept 3 1939 style declaration. It arises from NATO’s failure to understand that Russia has red lines, and Syria is one of them.”
Yes, and chief of those miscalculations was the belief by the British/French that war with the Axis powers could be prevented by diplomacy, the Munich Agreement and ‘Peace in our time.’. The ultimate denouement , the invasion of Poland, was the last piece in the jigsaw of Anglo/French miscalculation. Germany kept pushing, Britain and France kept vacillating – result? WW2.
You write: ”NATO’s failure to understand Russia’s red lines …” this in spite of Putin’s pointing out the salient fact on numerous occasions, seems to be another such ‘miscalculation’. More often than not the formal declaration of war, including WW2, is often the end product of a series of such miscalculations.
I also think that it has not been a misunderstanding on NATO’s part about Russia’s red lines. On the contrary NATO knows perfectly well what Russia’s red line are, but it chooses to simply ignore them. Now the talk is of fast-tracking Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. Push, push, push, another provocation. More to come.
And BTW I think we can learn a lot from retro analysis. Human nature – the pursuit of power and the urge to dominate doesn’t change – only the weapons change. To think that the crossbow had such a devastating effect and the wounds it could inflict are reflected by early weapon bans. In April 1139, the Second Lateran Council, under Pope Innocent II, banned the use of the crossbow against Christians, although against the Saracens it was considered okay.
And now we have ICBMs!
Look Catte, I hope you are right. I hope that Putin’s approach of ‘softly, softly, catchee monkey’ works, but given the historical record, I am not entirely convinced that it will. One way or another we’ll find out.
I suspect Putin is only too aware of the coming problems. Mobilisation can be irreversible as 1914 illustrates. And what exactly is it that demands Russia should step up and sacrifice itself to the megalomaniac in the WH? To save our bacon? It’s asking one heck of a lot!
”And what exactly is it that demands Russia should step up and sacrifice itself to the megalomaniac in the WH?”
Errm let me see. Self preservation as a sovereign state perhaps? Or the alternative option – abject surrender, and a massive step forward for the Anglo-Zionist project of a global empire.
Self preservation sounds right, he represents millions of ordinary Russian civilians. Bomb a US carrier if it launches missiles? The neocons would ejaculate with delight “got him!” Russia is a relatively weak country with its economy under fire from all directions. It has top end missiles but I believe Nato has a few too. The millions of Russian soldiers are teenage conscripts. Stalin saw that France and the UK were never going to form an anti-fascist alliance; they hoped Germany would take on Russia alone and leave them out of it. The Non Agression Pact forced France and the UK into the World War against their heartfelt wishes, a diplomatic master stroke. Maybe Putin will look to Eastern Europe for an Alliance? many there fear American economic dominance.
Frankly if the choice is between annihilation and more power to the ‘Anglo Zionist bloc any sane Russian would say, ‘its your problem, not ours’. Which is correct, we support the bloc and encourage it at every turn.
Putin is sane, decent and intelligent-what Western leader qualifies for any of those descriptors?
Another point to make is that the Chamberlain deal was only phoney because the UK ditched it and the US/UK manipulated Germany into the move against Poland.
I don’t understand the point. The UK declared war on Germany when they invaded Poland. It was a stupid guarantee that Chamberlain gave as there was nothing the UK could do to help Polsnd and eventually abandoned them altogether in 1945. The Dark State of the time certainly wanted Germany to attack Russia but how did they ‘encourage’ Germany to attack Poland? One suspects that was a decision taken by Hitler alone, he didn’t need encouragement just satisfaction Russia wouldn’t resist.
These ridiculous, suicidal gas attacks by Assad seem to coincide not only with battleground victories against the head-choppers, but co-incidentally with Israel’s murderous attacks on unarmed Palestinians “throwing stones”.
What nobody seems to have picked up is the emphasis – and red lines – on Gas; gas, gas attacks. Why is gas so much worse than being dismembered, disembowelled, and mutilated by high explosives? Certainly I would favour unconsciousness and death by gas before being smashed to pieces by depleted uranium.
Thinking about it, these relentlessly repeated claims are an exercise with the dual purpose of providing a subliminal message about the greatest tragedy in human history, repeated ad nauseam. The massive ‘gassing’ of European Jews some 65 years ago. Lest we forget.
You probably have a point. Here in Austfailure ‘Holocaust’ stories are interminable. This pseudo- religion has now discovered that the trauma suffered by survivors has affected them epigenetically, in a way that descendants of, say, famine, are affected by changes in gene expression, manifested through succeeding generations. So we can expect heart-wrenching ‘Holocaust’ stories for, well, forever, really. Meanwhile EVERY other Holocaust in history, the genocides of Armenians, Congolese under the Belgians AND Washington’s favourites, Kagame and Musuveni, the Indian victims of the Great Famines imposed by the English etc, even our own Indigenous Holocaust, that is completely denied, or celebrated by the hard Right, and which continues to today, are ALL totally ignored. One genocide, and there is no doubt in my mind that it is real, whether four or six million makes no difference, garners more attention and mock-religious dedication than all the others put together. A very odd situation, indeed.
Yes, Mulga, until recently I shared your belief: 50 years of propaganda and brain-washing does that. Now I do not believe a word about the false wartime history of 65 years ago – see https://barnesreview.org and “ The hoax of the 20th Century” by Arthur Butz for example.
Once you realise these falsehoods – and the lies that can be promulgated, with power – then the current situation begins to fall into place.
Every other “Holocaust’ or genocide pales into insignificance, historically, compared to this new religion.
Might the alleged victims of alleged gas attacks be somewhat easier to stage photographs of, whereas the beheaded, the disembowelled, the dismembered (etc) cannot be depicted on rolling “news” channels without causing offence to the delicate sensibilities of viewers? The same sensibilities which prevent the considerate “news” channels from showing the horrific effects of Western bombs dropped by Saudi proxies on Yemeni children, for example. I merely pose this question, you understand, one would not want to be construed as a sock puppet for the animal Assad and all the other Official Enemies.
Mankind can’t see the forest for the trees.
So many confused minds, so many screaming voices frothing at the mouth.
War has become a ‘reality’-show. Observed from afar – sides taken based on
bias and propaganda. The lazy mind is hardly awakened.
Cool minds would prevail – if they could. But the name of only God there is,
is Mammon. It’s all about money, always, everywhere. And the meek go along
with it, because they too, could once become a millionaire to host a game show
and turn president.
Who wrote the script for this cheap soap opera? Who is really in control in
a Universe in which the only ‘Boss’ is called ‘Evolution’. Too all-encompassing
to be fathomed, to difficult to grasp. The Universe is just unfolding and on
some planet, somewhere in what folks call the Milky Way, a species comes
and goes.
It will only matter to wo/mankind if it goes out with a bang – croaking away
in a nuclear winter. The Universe will just have another day, another night,
Stars will be born, Stars will die.
The collective consciousness is delirious from egoism that is worshiped and
not as recommended treated for what it is. A cancer on humanity.
Enjoy the life that was given to you. Bless those whose lives are taken for the
rabid greed of a few monsters. Over seven Billion Davids to one hundred
Goliathes. And it can’t be done?
What a shame.
Correction:
But the name of the only God there is…
Too all-encompassing
to be fathomed, too difficult to grasp.
For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.
The images are almost iconic, the ones from the fake ‘gas attack’ in Syria, which is why they are so powerful and why they false and a piece of elaborate propaganda theatre. Reality, alas, is more prosaic and boring. In real life the people would be the central part of the visual narrative, but here, it’s the camera that occupies the central role, and who is holding the camera… nobody seems to care. The camera isn’t neutral or just a truth teller, it’s a participant in this theatre, powerful propaganda designed to hit the heart way, way, before the brain has a chance to process and understand what it is we are actually seeing. Only we’re not ‘seeing’ at all. The camera is ‘seeing’ for us and telling a story that’s a pack of lies designed to provoke war. Our Sarajevo trigger moment, back to 1914.
When the Russians use the phrase ‘grave consequences’ this means… war in diplomatic code language. They cannot allow, at this late stage, the West to launch a massive air-strike on Syria that would destroy what’s left of Syria’s infra-structure and wipe out the Syrian air-force and air-defences. The dilemma for Russia is stark. Do they retaliate directly against the Americans or do they ‘only’ shoot down American cruise missiles over Syrian territory. If Russians are killed do they go further and hit the launchers, taking the fight to the Americans? What happens then? Can the conflict be contained to Syria alone? Does Russia fight a conventional war against NATO in Syria or not?
A clip from EM reposted on SyrPer with comment by MD:
@ejmalrai 1 hour ago
More Elijah J. Magnier Retweeted Elijah J. Magnier
My sources are telling me: this is an #Israeli response to the Iranian trap. Therefore it is a hit and run ops, but also trying to please #SaudiArabia [Israel’s only ally in the ME] and drag #USA [Israel’s chief sponsor] into an aggressive response against #Damascus: many birds in one stone +
MD: Sign of Israeli weakness, they sneaked in a hit-and-run move against Iran which doesn’t change the course of the war. It shows they are scared of Iran. The Iranians will study everything. They’ll do an investigation how Israel carried out this operation and plan relevant future actions.
What many forget: things started going bad for Assad + Syria right about the time when Assad started making serious peace offers to Israel around 2004.
https://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1130/p06s02-wome.html
The USA/Israeli militarists fear nothing more than peace in the region, which would finally force a real solution to long-time issues, on which Israel/USA are clearly on the wrong side of international law.
This is speculation, but AR on SyrPer may be holding up a finger to find which way the wind blows: Anti_Republocrat 8:20 PM —
Trump’s meeting with military leaders just ended, which means it lasted less than an hour.
When new NSA John Bolton left the room and walked past a pair of reporters, who asked him how first day was going.
“What could go wrong?” Bolton said.
Any time Bolton does not sound happy, that’s perhaps a good sign.
In a galaxy far, far to close to home. In a time that maybe our last. The elites of the US and its vassal states have finally realised that they have lost their dirty little proxy war in Syria. Russia has humilated the Empire, bloodied its nose. Pipelines lay unconnected. Plans for global dominance lay in disarray. Will the Empire strike back? Will it now attack Syria, rain down cruise missiles on Assad the ‘Animal’ and call the Russians bluff? Is it a Russian bluff? Will Putin really be willing to enter into a full scale war, which retalitain to any American or large scale Israeli aggression will inevitably lead to. A war that will pull in Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the whole Middle East. And perhaps lead to the final apocalyptic nuclear conflagration to end (finally) all Wars on planet Earth! Will the Russians and Iranians really go toe-to-toe with the ‘crazies’ in Washington over Assad and Syria? Or has the Empire finally eginereed a way to outcrazy everyone and force its hegmony and tyranny over an exhuasted and acquiescent humanity? Who knows? Who can fathom the machinations of the psychopaths that rule over us all.
We stand on the brink my friends, truly.
Who will lead us from this madness.
Where is the rebel alliance?
Where are the leaders and the voices of truth?
If I believed in a God, now would be the time to ask him to bless us all!
Peace.
I think the central question MUST be -why are Western ruling elites behaving with such psychopathic mendacity, hypocrisy and recklessness? In the end, in my opinion, all roads to answer that question lead to Tel Aviv.
It would appear the US are going to take action against the Syrian Government, even before a team can be sent in from the OPCW to determine whether a chemical weapons attack has even taken place, and who, on his first day in office, will help decide what actions to take, why John Bolton, you could not make this stuff up. If the US, the UK and France decide to launch an attack. It simply will not do for Russia and Syria to try and intercept a barrage of missiles, this will encourage the West to bomb again based on other false pretexts, knowing there are no consequences
But to give a robust response is fraught with difficulties. Putin has spelt out more than once over the past year that he will only remain in Syria if it is in Russia’s interest to do so. To do otherwise is absurd, it is his prime responsibility.
“But to give a robust response is fraught with difficulties” that’s true, but to give no response could be fraught with even greater difficulties, no response would enable the Neocons surrounding Trump to declare Putin weak, Putin would then be inviting more military action against Syria and a descent into greater conflict. To stand up against the bully in this case is the correct thing to do, in my opinion, that is in the long term interests of Russia. Remember this Western aggression based on a coalition of the willing outside the UNSC is against the UN Charter and all International Law. Just like the invasion of Iraq.
International Law and the ‘rules-based international order’ (the catch-phrase that the local baboons have been trained to gibber or grunt, like a mantra) is what the US says, goes. Nothing more, nothing less. It is a global dictatorship by the greatest force for Evil the world has ever seen, and one that seems Hell-bent on destroying humanity now that its own eclipse is imminent. It is acting PRECISELY as its history and malignantly narcissistic credo foretold that it would. Don’t neglect the ‘religious’ aspect, either, as the Trump regime is full to the gills with fundamentalist loons who would do anything to bring on the End Times. Lucky us. Like watching a hyper-nova collapse, very close to home.
It will not be in Russia’s interests to abandon Syria. The reason why Putin decided to intervene in the war against the jihadists in Syria in the first place was to confront the jihadists in Syria otherwise he would be confronting them in Chechnya and Dagestan. A Russian retreat is no longer and option, it will be taken as a sign of weakness and this would only embolden the Anglo-Zionist death cult. The Anglo-Zionist bloc can walk away from Syria without too much loss of face, Russia can’t.
The OPCW is hopelessly compromised by US and/or other Western control-like all other multilateral organs.
So it would seem, Mulga. The main reason I can see for the unexpected receptiveness of USUK reps at UNSC to an OPCW investigation is the confidence that OPCW is now in safe hands, and may actually be directed to, say, a stash of A-234 in a sock drawer somewhere in East Ghouta. If not, as Mercouris has argued, the prospect of an OPCW investigation would make a Western bloc attack more likely–that is, if there was no chemical attack at all.
Hey team, I’m picking that’s a typo in the article?
“While Syria has attacked that airbase before in recent months……”
Unless I’m missing something!
Thanks – fixed
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43706709 The timing of this raid on Trump’s offices speak to the Deep State still leaning on Trump. They clearly do not think they have enough in their Control File for him to guarantee he will do their bidding under the current Provocation
Catherin Austin Fitts has written about Control Files and how the Deep State keeps those allowed to progress into the higher positions of Apparent power.
http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/catherine-austin-fitts-scandals-control-files-and-blackmail/
I suspect that the control File on Gerard Kushner Trumps son in law is quite healthy and that is keeping Trump in line , but the spooks are still very nervous because of this sort of thing.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/04/trump-netenyahu-greater-israel-and-rove.html
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/08/six-ways-to-sunday-trump-and-deep-state.html
Mueller PLAINLY has nothing on ‘Russian collusion’, so he is trying to get sacked so that Trump can be ousted for ‘obstruction of ‘justice”. I just heard one gibbering presstitute insect declare, straight-faced, that investigating Ms Storm or whatever is part and parcel of ‘Russian collusion’. Did Putin send her to Trump with secret instructions, hidden upon her person?
Trump has a got a lot of links to organised Russian (very Jewish) crime.
No hard evidence yet that this means link to the Russian state however Russian mob is powerful and will have some contact with high-level Russian state personell.
They haven’t left us with much time to somehow organise a mass anti-war protest!
Not much time to organise a mass wake, either.
NATO/EU can bluster all they want but they know there’ll be serious kickback from their own citizens if this conflict escalates into a serious battle with Russia. Added to that the west must surely know their dumbed down and tamed public will not have the stomach for an all out war despite all the rhetoric.
Personally the way the west has really focused on this hoax despite the jihadis all but beat really does add to the rumour that the Syrians/Russians are fast approaching very important and embarrassing western personnel trapped within douma. The pleas to open a humanitarian corridor is perhaps their pathetic attempt to rescue their personnel. Coupled with the fact that the jihadis have now almost surrendered suggests that they know the game is up I.e their saviours can’t save them?
Do you think the Israelis ASK the USAsset for permission to to anything they decide to do?
They MAY inform them before or after the event – if it suits them.
You have that power dynamic correct.
The last time the world was in a position of danger similar to this I was twelve but both Nikita Khrushchev and John Kennedy knew all too well the real meaning of war having both fought in World War 2. We now have strategists in the US who believe a nuclear war is winnable and we know too that thinkers in the west are arguing for massive depopulation. Frankly, this may be the pretext they are looking for.
The time may be coming very soon when all of us who see through this strategem will have to be prepared to march on our capital cities throughout the west in order to make it clear that the coming war will not be in our name. I’m not sure they wlll take us seriously because psychopaths don’t listen to people like us, but if we are about to be gulled into World War 3, then we should at least make an attempt, however futile, to stop it happening.
I’m sure others throughout the world will be as determined as we will be to make our feelings clear. I’m sure too that organs such as Off Guardian will wish to keep us informed of organised moves in order to stave off annihilation.
The world is vastly overpopulated and population needs to be reduced by >90%. Fact. One that only the ignorant and deluded refused to acknowledge and understand.
Nobody who is truly aware of the overpopulation crisis thinks nuclear war is the way out of it.
That nuclear war will be a consequence of the overpopulation crisis is one of the biggest concerns of people worried about ovepropulation.
And while we do not know the real motivations of the people pushing for war now, it may well be that the US is getting desperate to place Russian resources under its control while it still can (another decade or so and it may be too weak to do so). The Russians have a lot of everything, including what will be some of the best farming land remaining relatively intact once global warming really hits. And it looks like they may well have to defend those resources both against the West and against a billion and a half hungry Chinese to the south of them…
The tactic of trying to confect some conflict between China and Russia is one of the Empire’s propagandists’ most tired efforts. China will buy food from Russia-they have money, you know.
Peaceful trade is not what tends to happen historically when you have a sparsely populated resource rich territory with a vastly overpopulated neighbor.
We will hopefully live to see what the future brings.
But objectively the potential for conflict is there. It doesn’t even to be at the state level, BTW.
It still looks like you are projecting ‘Western Moral Values’ onto the Chinese and Russians, to me.
”The world is vastly overpopulated and population needs to be reduced by 90%” Methinks you’ve been reading too much Thomas Malthus my friend. Actually Europe’s population is in decline with a falling birth rate and in the case of Eastern Europe a rising death rate. Also there is no necessary correlation between population density and wealth. Mongolia is a country the size of western Europe but with a population the size of Birmingham in the UK. The over populated London and the south east of England has a higher standard of living than the rest of the UK particularly under populated Scotland and Wales. Russia’s population is stable at best and there are huge areas in Siberia which are virtually uninhabited. And on and on.
Not a student of ecology then.
Methinks whoever your math and science teachers were in school should have been fired for letting you past the 8th grade, because they betrayed their mission as educators. So appalling is your mathematical and scientific illiteracy.
Question: if a place that is several times over carrying capacity is decreasing its population by some very small percentage, what does that make it?
Answer: a place that is still deeply in overshoot.
Another question: if one region of the world is slightly decreasing its population, but the world as a whole is on a steady trajectory upwards, how relevant to the overall picture is the small decrease in that one particular region?
How difficult are these simple concept to grasp?
Given peak oil, climate change, aquifer depletion, soil degradation, deforestation, the ongoing mass extinction, and all the other ways that the fact that we are already deep deep into overshoot is manifesting itself, one has to be a complete lunatic to think “Oh, but Europe’s population is declining a bit so everything is OK”.
I think you should go sit on the naughty step until you have learnt some manners.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/08/feeding-world-malthus-wasnt-such.html
Extreme carrying capacity estimates go far outside the broad, fourfold range bracketed by the estimates just cited. They have been defined by true believers in the antipodal camps of catastrophist and cornucopian futures. A generation ago Ehrlich (1968) wrote that “the battle to feed all humanity is over” and that “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death” during the 1970s.2 Ehrlich’s global population maximum would have to be well below the 1970 total of about 3.7 billion people. In contrast, Simon (1981) maintained that food has no long-run, physi-cal limit. These extremes leave us either with the prospect of eliminating about half of humanity in order to return the worldwide count to a sup-portable level or with visions of crop harvests surpassing the mass of the planet itself.3 As Sauvy (1990[1949]: 774) noted crisply, “Lack of precision in data and in method of analysis allows shortcuts toward reaching an ob-jective predetermined by prejudice, shaped largely either by faith in progress or by conservative skepticism.”
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2018/02/possibilist-perspective-on-post-growth.html
Limits to Growth is now pretty much past its sell by date
Criticism of LTG was immediate. Peter Passell and two co-authors published a 2 April 1972 article in the New York Times describing LTG as “…an empty and misleading work …. best summarized … as a rediscovery of the oldest maxim of computer science: Garbage In, Garbage Out.” Passell found the study’s simulations to be simplistic, while assigning little value to the role of technological progress in solving the problems of resource depletion, pollution, and food production. They charged that all LTG simulations ended in collapse, predicted the imminent end of irreplaceable resources, and, finally, that the entire endeavor was motivated by a hidden agenda: to halt growth in its tracks.[17]
In 1973, a group of researchers at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex, published Models of Doom; A Critique of The Limits to Growth. The Sussex group examined the structure and assumptions of the MIT models. They concluded that the simulations were very sensitive to a few key assumptions and suggest that the MIT assumptions were unduly pessimistic. The Sussex scientists concluded that the MIT methodology, data, and projections were faulty and do not accurately reflect reality.[18] Claiming that the Sussex critics applied “micro reasoning to macro problems”, the LTG team, in “A Response to Sussex”, described and analyzed five major areas of disagreement between themselves and the Sussex authors.[19]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/07/fanatical-climate-evangelist-pot.html
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/11/re-framing-war-on-carbon-carbon-surplus.html
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2018/04/wwiii-is-nothing-but-another-colonial.html
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2018/04/conclusion-that-msm-is-lie-machinemsm.html
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/06/was-inconvienient-truth-always.html
One thing that puzzles me is why when draws the conclusion that the MSM is a lie machine, Which I agree with. Then why is it the Anthropogenic Global Warming due to the CO2 Hypothesis is somehow a Truth that the MSM is Consistently Telling? I can not reconcile that contradiction, I am curious how you do yourself?
Addicted to Distracted By Bruce Charlton Makes for compelling if Uncomfortable reading.
http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.se/
It will offend most readers but he has a very good point, I do not share his pessimism but the rest is hard to argue with.
“People and events presented by the media as Good are always, in reality, bad; and people or events presented by the media as bad are usually (but not always) Good — and when bad people or events are not presented as Good, then they are condemned as bad for the wrong reasons.
Also, if genuinely Good things happen to be presented as Good by the Mass Media; then it will invariably be the case that they also are said to be Good for the wrong reasons.
Thus, the major output of the modern International Mass Media consists of only four categories:
1. Good presented as bad
2. Bad presented as Good
(That is to say simple inversion)
3. Good presented as Good for a bad reason
4. Bad presented as bad for a bad reason
(That is to say explanatory inversion)
These four categories, which can be summarized as either simple or explanatory inversion, account for all sustained and high-impact modern major Mass Media stories without any exceptions.
Therefore those who want to free their minds from the Mass Media must first avoid as much Mass Media output as possible, and secondly develop automatic negativistic behaviour towards the Mass Media output which they cannot avoid”.
https://off-guardian.org/2017/06/17/the-revolution-is-being-televised-but-why/
For what its worth here is my investigation of The Carbon Cycle, Climate Science and all of that.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/11/climate-change-agw-and-all-points-from.html
Climate Population and Green Fascist misanthropic Catastrophe Porn makes me think that Green are the new BrownShirts.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2018/04/ww111-another-colonial-resource-war.html
There is no force greater than human stupidity and ignorance, and you once again provided further proof of that.
GM, Are you going to make an argument or does Ad Hominem count as a reasoned discussion in your book.
Go on give it another try, if what is presented above is so lacking in intelligence or empirical evidence you should really have very little trouble.
You accuse me of using an “ad hominem” argument when I was simply making an observation.
In any case, do you seriously expect me to try to correct the gigantic failure of the educational system that you represent in a comments section?
I would the real idiot if I tried to do that and if I expected it to work.
For people like you euthanasia is the only cure. Sad but true.
And they represent 98% of the population
Which is why the planet is doomed.
GM, It seems quite clear that you are deficient in both manners and in Arguments.
Letting your psychopathic wet dreams out in public is perhaps not the best idea, you ought to get some help with that.
Give yourself a break from all the self-hatred Life can be much better than you seem to believe.
https://steemit.com/dumberanddouma/@tonefreqhz/psychopathy-and-internet-discourse-dumberanddouma
Challenging the Climate Alarmist dogmas led to this outburst yesterday. I should be euthanised for my abhorrent views and represent a failure of the Education system. There is the future folks right there.
Your denialist thesis falls at the first hurdle. Only some of the fakestream media supports the thesis of anthropogenic climate destabilisation caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The hard Right fakestream media is still, like you, fully denialist, and much of the rest actively downplays the gravity of the situation. Hardly surprising at all, as fossil fuels represent the ‘greatest material prize in history’.
We must recall that the anthropogenic climate destabilisation theory is supported by >99% of recently published climate scientists. The US Academy of Science declared it ‘settled science’, and ALL the Academies of Science and scientific societies on the planet concur. Moreover denialism becomes more than usually lunatic, even for a Rightist, when global average temperatures are rising rapidly, Arctic temperatures are now often ten to forty degrees Celsius above average, the jet-streams are increasingly deranged, montane glaciers are disappearing world-wide, Arctic summer sea ice is rapidly disappearing, Antarctic glaciers are melting and destabilising far quicker than expected, the AMOC is at its weakest for 1600 years and still rapidly weakening further, records of leaf and flower budding and opening of plants show rapid changes, the permafrost line in the northern hemisphere is rapidly heading north, megafires are raging across the Earth and I could go on all day. To deny all that takes real fanaticism, but some hard-core Rightists are still down to the task.
Mulga,
1.Denialism is the language of religious dogma, not science.
2. Science is based upon falsification, not consensus
3.Corporate Media is as down with AGW as it is with The Military Industrial Complex.
4. My Handy PDF which covers all sides of the question.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6ZHfkDjveZzYXU3UHhLem1HQms/view
5. The Rocket Science Journal.
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/
6. What happens when the general Public are presented with a critical examination of the science.
7. Climate Communication Psychology, or the propaganda of the AGW Consensus.
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/10/climate-psycology-lordlawson-and-bbc.html?view=flipcard
Settled Seance 99% of all Clairvoyants agree.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/08/more-on-eroi-letting-greens-know-score.html
Denialism is certainly religious dogma, not science-you are living proof of that.
Do try harder meanwhile Syria is being discussed, some Climate catastrophists claim the Uprising of the rebels was caused by Climate Change.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629816301822
Abstract
For proponents of the view that anthropogenic climate change will become a ‘threat multiplier’ for instability in the decades ahead, the Syrian civil war has become a recurring reference point, providing apparently compelling evidence that such conflict effects are already with us. According to this view, human-induced climatic change was a contributory factor in the extreme drought experienced within Syria prior to its civil war; this drought in turn led to large-scale migration; and this migration in turn exacerbated the socio-economic stresses that underpinned Syria’s descent into war. This article provides a systematic interrogation of these claims, and finds little merit to them
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2018/04/re-opinion-turning-against-maywait-to.html
contrary to the
claims of its advocates, ‘threat multiplier’ discourse is neither
cautious nor rigorous, instead typically combining dystopian
speculation and exaggerated accounts of the likely impacts of
climate change (see esp. CNA Military Advisory Board, 2007),
together with periodic, if contradictory, calls for the avoidance of
over-simplification (e.g. Werrell & Femia, 2015). Given the urgency
of the climate change challenge and the contestation around it, plus
the mass media’s preference for striking, overblown stories e as is
clearly illustrated by the take-up of Kelley et al. (2015) e it is in our
view incumbent on analysts not to exaggerate climate-conflict
linkages, or to champion false but headline-friendly statistics.
Equally, given the complexities involved in analysing the socioeconomic
and political impacts of climate change e as clearly
demonstrated above e it is crucial that researchers working on
these impacts draw upon cross-disciplinary expertise, and not, as
Femia and Werrell, Gleick and Kelley and colleagues do, expound
on the causes of migrations and conflicts without even drawing on
social scientific research on the subjects. The case for international
action on climate change is strong enough without resort to
dubious evidence of its impact on the Syrian civil war.
I would recommend anyone to read the paper linked to. I personally disagree that the case for International Action is strong as regards CO2 emissions, that case and theory has been falsified. Climate Change can, of course, have devastating effects I think Bjorn Lombergs approach of adaption and prioritisation as set out in his Copenhagen consensus and Popular Book CoolIt.
We have a lot of still open climate change threads guys – shall we try to keep this one on topic
I have said all I wish, The threat of War presently is real amd the propaganda obvious, something more of a priority.
The #Contrick19 episode seems to open up these population questions.
https://www.yumpu.com/s/OWV56oUEJMibeSpf
Roger Lewis
1 second ago
Great Video I have put it on the distributed web to avoid censorship. https://d.tube/#!/v/tonefreqhz/yyt1knw5
@GM (Monsanto copyright). The world of humans has always been “vastly overpopulated”; and always will be, GM or no GM. It was already “vastly overpopulated” when there were fewer than 20 people on Earth, and Cain killed his brother Abel for Stepping over the Line into Cain’s little farm. It will go on being “vastly overpopulated” for as long as people refuse to listen to Christ and Buddha and Allah the Compassionate but rely on good old Original Sins such as Greed, Envy and Rage .
“Raum fur alle hast die Erde”. — Wolfgang Johan von Goethe, 18thC evolutionary biologist, cited in Darwin’s Origin of the Species.
https://d.tube/#!/v/tonefreqhz/yyt1knw5
https://gph.is/2qmBjBR
@RogerLewis. Interesting, the video looks and sounds as though it had been carefully made by a lunatic — but no more onvolutedly lunatic than the current schemes of most of the people who run the Western world. Weren’t s,me of these schemes for forced sterilization put into practice in Sweden and USA? But I still approve of China’s one-child policy; and I likewise approve of China’s reversal of this policy now that their population has begun to fall. I wish the same had been done in some parts of Africa, halting the increase in population until resources and infrastructure had caught up. But the sort of intricately lunatic schemes listed in the video are pure evil; see Eugenics and Other Evils, by GK Chesterton, written prophetically before Hitler.
Vexarb, with respect, perhaps you approved of China’s one child policy as you were not a woman having to choose sterilisation if she wanted a good job (party job); or a woman undergoing a forced abortion; or a mother who left her girl baby out in the streets shortly after it was born as her husband wanted a boy? I met all three when I lived in China. Policies around population growth are always paid for by women.
And this should be a concern because what reasons exactly?
Cockroaches do not like it when you step on them or you poison them, yet you still have to do it.
How hard is it to make a proper distinction between the personal and the important?
Nearly impossible for a lot of people, apparently…
@Mikalina and GM. As the Scots say, I hear ye, and I regret my sweeping assertions. On reflection, perhaps the British way would be better, even for a country which is facing (or which thinks it is facing) a population crisis. Let the State provide the family planning service, and let the Individual decide how much to use it. Women who, as you say bear the brunt, will probably home in on a proper overall balance quite soon.
Kevin, your marching will make NO difference, particularly in the highly unlikely event that it is led by the ‘antisemite’ Corbyn. If the hyper-belligerent war-monger Thornberry hasn’t ousted him already, of course.
What purpose will marching serve? It will make the marchers feels better, sure, but it doesn’t send any kind of message to the administration that they’re not already aware of. They do not care what we think or feel about their pre-planned wars. Marching will not change that.
No, I’m not going to march this time. I’m tired of having a target painted on my back.. or front… or face…
The Saker has concluded from the evidence gathered after his call for a period of calm, that the incident was merely an opportunistic hit-and-run by the IDF.
“Bottom line: don’t mistake the Israeli (or French) clowns for the US armed forces.
As for Syria, let’s see what happens today at the UNSC meeting called by Russia.”
The Saker
http://thesaker.is/so-it-was-the-invincible-tsahal/
The Saker sums up this incident:
bevin, “Is Trump really willing to escalate towards that?” Donald Trump said at a cabinet meeting that “major decisions on Syria” will come in the next 24 to 48 hours after he figures out who was responsible for the alleged attack in Douma — Russia, or Syria, or Iran, or “all of them together.”
“This is about humanity and it can’t be allowed to happen,” Trump was quoted as saying by a White House report.
When asked by reporters about the military option in Syria, Donald Trump said that “nothing is off the table.”
https://sputniknews.com/us/201804091063372414-trump-syria-major-decisions/
Trump truly is strange or as Justine Raimondo said on Antiwar.com..A child could see through the fake “chemical attack” supposedly launched by Bashar al-Assad just as his troops defeated the jihadists and Trump said he wanted out of Syria. But our President can’t, which raises the question: is he as stupid or stupider than George W. Bush? Or is he crazy? The bad news is: possibly both.
The worst news is that he is surrounded by gamblers to whom the lives of others are of absolutely no interest. We know this because they have merrily presided over the killing of millions-literally millions- in the past fifteen years.
They have done so with complete impunity.
Warmongering is the lowest form of treachery in public life, because it calls for the commission of what was at Nuremberg defined as the ultimate crime-a war of aggression.
Those calling for war now, including Simon Tisdall of The Guardian, ought to be liable for punishment. We live in a society in which the definition of illegal ‘hate speech’ leads to the punishment of marginal political figures while allowing corrupt propagandists to spew forth hatred in the avowed hope that it will lead to bombing of, for example, Baghdad and Damascus.
Tisdall called for attacks on Iraq, gave full support to ‘shock and awe’, demanded attacks on Libya and has for years been calling for more killing in Syria, to add to the hundreds of thousands already killed there to his applause.
And in every case the rationale he has given for his calls for war has proved to be false, contrived and quite evidently so.
Now he is calling for war against Syria. How can this be tolerated?
The reason that the genocidists get away with it is that the ruling elites of the Real Axis of Evil, the USA, Israel and the Sauds are all in thrall to ‘religions’ where mass murder and genocide are regarded as sacred acts to propitiate their ‘God’. Talmudic Rabbinical Judaism makes no bones about it, the Wahhabist death-cult is unambiguous in seeking the extermination of Shia, Alawites and others, and US Exceptionalism, and more frankly ‘religious’ manifestations like Dominionism, have presided over numerous genocides, starting with that of the Native Americans, and truly ache for a final slaughter in the End Times.
It looks increasingly as if the next phase in the war will be one in which Israel and the US openly provide air cover to their proxy militias. Underlying this escalation is an official belief, characteristic of the neo-cons, that they can tell any lies they choose- the public is either too apathetic or too stupid to care.
The Skripal case can be seen as a rehearsal for this:
Q. “But why would Assad use nerve gas in a battle that he has already won?”
A. “I know. It is hard to believe isn’t it. But it is what people like him do- look at Putin assassinating old spies that everyone else had forgotten about.
Now, about Brooklyn Bridge, the daily toll revenues alone will repay the purchase price within months…”
According to MoA:
“Trump and the U.S. military claim to “fight ISIS” but have completely stopped doing so. There are some 3,000 ISIS fighter in east Syria near the border with Iraq. Most of these are north of the Euphrates where U.S. troops are stationed. If Syrian government troops cross the Euphrates northwards the U.S. attacks them. But ISIS can cross the Euphrates southward and launches large attacks on Syrian government positions in east Syria:
“[I]n a surprise attack, the militants stormed Boukamal on Monday, triggering heavy fighting before Iranian-backed Shiite militias beat them out, according to a war monitoring group and Syrian opposition activists with connections to the region. Approximately 400 Islamic State fighters crossed the Euphrates River and ambushed the town, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, killed 11 pro-government fighters in clashes, and losing five of their own.
From their desert territory, the ISIS militants have harassed forces at oil stations, as well, according to Mohammad al-Ayed, director of the Palmyra News Network.
“Another group of ISIS fighters is in the south-eastern corner of Syria and under protection of U.S. forces stationed in al-Tanf, near Jordan.
“Despite large concentrations of ISIS troops, air attacks of the U.S. coalition against ISIS have practically stopped….
“Trump is playing theater to the crowd that wants the U.S. out of Syria. He claims that U.S. troops will leave soon. At the same time he is asking the Saudis to come up with $5 billion to pay for the U.S. ‘service’ of occupying a third country. Trump claims that he wants to eliminate ISIS, but the U.S. military is doing absolutely nothing to achieve such. On the contrary – it protects ISIS from Syrian government attacks.
“Russia has troops embedded with every Syrian unit. Russia had warned that it will attack U.S. launching platforms, ships and air planes, should the U.S. strike at Syrian forces and thereby endanger its own soldiers.
“Is Trump really willing to escalate towards that?”
Isn’t this the blueprint for the next 2 or 3 years? Islamist forces including Jihadis are safe in Turkish And American hands. A US General stopped cooperating with some Turkish backed forces on the grounds they were Jihadis. The money and arms will flow across the Turkish Border as it has done for 8 years.
According to the Angry Arab:
ISIS-Israeli collusion: not in the Western or Arab oil press
This won’t be reported in the Western press: but Israeli bombing of Homs seems coordinated with ISIS as its fighters-according to Al-Mayadin-began advancing in the area in the wake of the Israeli raid.
I wouldn’t write Israel but Netanyahoo, a serious difference. Why he and like-minded fear a few million militant Iranian Shia over hundreds of millions of militant Sunnis is an enigma to me. Common sense says that minorities should stick together, not battle each other. ME Christians are another minority being ground to dust now.
Apologies, I said the broadcast from Vanessa Beeley was yesterday (8/4/18), in fact it was a week ago. She was unable to obtain a link out from Douma/East Ghouta for yesterday’s live update, however she is still reporting live via Twitter @VanessaBeeley .
One thing is clear in Syria, the Russians have no ‘partners’ in the West, The US coalition have breached International law over and over again, and have conived with any group opposed to the legitimate Syrian Government. Plan ‘A’ regime change has failed. Plan ‘B’ the partition of Syria is a work in progress via the Kurds, this will fail because of Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian and Turkish opposition and not forgetting those Arab tribes in the East who do not want to be governed by the Kurds. In order to hold all that Syrian territory they need boots on the ground [a lot more than the 2,000 they have]. So the US presence in Syria is tenuous, hence Trumps bluster. One truly discouraging note was the Turkish claim supporting the theory that Assad gassed his own people, I’m sure Putin took that on board. In my opinion Putin made two tactical mistakes when he prematurely reduced his forces before the head choppers were smashed, this has allowed the West to keep their foot in the door, this was inevitable, the US will never concede defeat until they are smashed in the teeth and lying prostrate on the ground, the ‘Masters of the Universe’ would lose too much credibility. A US defeat in Syria would mean the loss of the Middle East and leave their “Friends” the Saudis and Israelis up the creek without a paddle. This is a crucial test for Russia, if they fail to support Assad with ‘all options on the table’ he should slink back to Russia and prepare to defend Moscow because, as night follows day, he will be next.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2018/04/the-benefits-of-conservative-mindset.html
The attached is linking to a Blog by Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail. The Guardian would probably not publish this. Strange Times.
#DumberandDouma
Strange times indeed! Hitchens at least has his readership with him. Take a look at the online Mail comments Best Rated and see how the official narrative is simply disbelieved by substantial margins. Putin is something of a hero for Daily Mail readers and has been since 2014 when he got shafted in Kiev during the Winter Games.
I haven’t read much Daily Mail to be honest. I have seen their readers denigrated by commentators BTL in the Guardian. I have visited a couple of articles in the last few weeks and found the comments were mostly running against the official narrative on the Skripal Incident, the Jeremy Corbyn smear and now this false flag attack in Douma.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2018/04/daily-mail-server-problems-or-memory.html
Peter Hitchens is speaking out and being heavily shadow banned worth reading his two blogs on this. Whether on the Daily Mail Site if you can access him there or reblogged at these links.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2018/04/the-benefits-of-conservative-mindset.html
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2018/04/daily-mail-server-problems-or-memory.html
”This is a crucial test for Russia, if they fail to support Assad with ‘all options on the table’ he should slink back to Russia and prepare to defend Moscow because, as night follows day, he will be next.”
Agreed. The more Russia retreats the more emboldened the Anglo-zionist axis of evil will become. But there comes a time when there is nowhere left to retreat. Russia is already now facing NATO on its borders after being pushed back from Berlin. At this point Russia must make a decisive stand as the USSR did in WW2 before Moscow, before Leningrad, at Stalingrad and Kursk. Sooner or later and possibly quite soon, Russia must simply call the US-NATO bluff or, either than or sign the terms of surrender and settle for slavery.
I also think that it is imperative that other states must back the Russian stand in defence of sovereignty. If there is a nuclear exchange the northern hemisphere will no longer exist, and, moreover the ensuing nuclear winter and radiation will slowly but inexorably roll over the southern hemisphere. East Asia, the African and Latin American continents as well as Oceania will freeze and starve to death.
Why aren’t these non-aligned states making their feelings felt in the United Nations? They will perish as well as the belligerent powers. Russia is shouldering the whole burden of stopping the Anglo-Zionist death cult. It cannot do this alone.
China would never tolerate such a sharp collapse in the international world order and naturally back Russia. The Chinese see straight through this western belligerence and lies.
You actually think that Russia is trying to stop what you call the “Anglo-Zionist death cult”?
You realise that Russia is forming ever closer economic and technological links with Israel?
Israel gets oil, gas and other raw materials from Russia on a large scale. Russia gets Israeli military technology in return (particularly drones).
Remember Israel abstained on the Ukraine crisis UN vote and only released a tepid statement (that condemns no side) only AFTER being pressured to by the US administration.
Israel has a large number of residents who immigrated from Russia after the collapse of the USSR – many of these residents were PhDs, scientists, engineers, etc. who have taken up extremely important positions in the booming Tel Aviv tech sectors. Something else that brings the countries closer together.
You also have to look at the oligarchs surrounding Putin – many are dual Israeli and Russian nationals of Jewish heritage. In fact many are ardent Chabad Lubavitch supporters (ultra-racist Orthodox cult suppported by Kushner and Trump) which is something that Putin has in common with Netanyahu who is also close to Chabad. Putin actually created a new “official” Russian Jewish group so that a Chabad member could become the official Chief Rabbi of Russia.
Israel is moving closer to Russia for the simple reason that they can and it is in their interests. The US is so totally controlled by ardent Zionists that they don’t need to worry too much about upsetting them or acting against US interests – they can easily move closer to Russia and actually pass powerful military technology to Russia.
Putin is not some benelovent guy “fighting the Anglo-Zionist death cult” – he’s just a guy who has genuine power (compared to US puppet Presidents) and who is looking for numero uno first.
There are no saviours beyond ourselves as ordinary people.
We are steeped in binary thinking; it has been part of our indoctrination for decades (centuries) now and the latest weaponised propaganda continues the brainwashing.
Orwell warned us of this with his precis of this reductionism: two legs good, four leg bad.
Yes, it’s dialetics.
What we are seeing is a return to the Cold War binary world. I think this is deliberate and better for fear factor and the arms industry.
They needed to push the terrorist threat before this could truly return as they needed the surveillance state, the police state and the restrictions on free speech. Now that has happened the big foreign national threat is what will be focused on.
Interesting. I think 3 members of the Israeli cabinet are Russian speakers and there are over a million immigrants from Russia with a vote. The day after Russia decided to protect Syria in September 2015 Netanyu, his Chief of Staff and head of Intelligence traveled to Moscow and had 8 hours of talks with Putin et al. There was clear resentment from the US Neither side ever said what agreement they came to but it seems one condition was that Russia didn’t complain about Israeli air strikes on Iranians in Syria and there have been about 100 since. I wonder what else they agreed on?
Yes, exactly there are lots of Russians or ex-Russians in Israel. Chomsky has even talked about how many of those Russians in the IDF actually are Christians and just pretended to be more Jewish than they actually to get into Israel. I would take that with a pinch of salt considering Chomsky’s record of disinfo but interesting nonetheless.
Think about it:
If you are Netanyahu (i.e. powerful psycho with the US wrapped around your finger) why wouldn’t you get closer to Russia? The US might be resentful but they can’t do anything about without Abe Foxman on their case.
@ DS
The logical question provoked by your thesis is :
What in your opinion was Putin’s reason for becoming embroiled in Syria in the first place ?
The entire conscious world knows that US / UK / Saudi / Israel are behind ISIS ripping up Sykes-Picot, so I’m fairly sure Vlad does too.
MG
Russia has a lot of logistical interests in Syria.
You’ve got the Tartus navy base which is the Russian navy’s only overseas base. It gives them access to the Med.
Then you’ve got the oil pipeline logistics as well.
There is no question that Putin is aware of that – we know that and that is without the vast military intelligence that he is privy too.
What it seems like is that Russia and Israel came to an accommodation between themselves (see Paul’s post above) – this is why Russia hasn’t called outright Israeli attacks on the Syrian army and has allowed Israel to tactically air-strike Iranian targets that Israel sees as a threat.
I wouldn’t be so sure that Israel necessarily sees Assad as his family as the threat. The real threat is a strong and stable Syria which no longer exists and won’t for a long time now.
Also when Putin or Russian officials talk of the funding and material support provided to the “rebels” and ISIS in Syria: who do they blame? ALWAYS the US, the UK, “the West”, Saudis and the “Gulf States” but NEVER Israel who have been caught red-handed on multiple occasions.
Hmm. I think you are going one argument too far. This sounds like an ‘assumption’ based on your knowledge of what the US/US/NATO do. Russia doesn’t go in for a lot of blaming.
Anyway, some proof please.
See this clip where Putin blames the US by name only. No mention of Israel for purchasing oil from ISIS. Not even a mention of Turkey (who Russia is also getting closer to but not as close as it is to Israel).
I don’t see it that way. The Russians choose to use terms that indicate an upfront willingness for negotiated settlements of differences in a cooperation that honours mutual self interests.
I may be fooled by fakery on this but I do not see Russia as running hate-based nationalism – but quite the contrary. It may be said their hand is forced by a certain realpolitik – but I also see certain core principles for humanity that a global unipolar corporate technocracy runs counter to and Putin either refuses to bend the knee to – or plays a longer game with insider cooperations that we are no privy to.
The vivisection of Syria, according to the Oded Yinon Plan, was always Plan A. The stooges to rule in the rump statelets hardly matter, so long as they tremble before Israel.
BTL Saker Vineyard: Paul Greenwood on April 09, 2018 · at 10:19 am UTC
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/04/08/proof-intel-drop-trump-bolton-behind-syria-chemical-attacks-confirmed/
“The Syrian Arab Army and with the help of Russian captured a shipment of chemical weapons destined for the Eastern Ghouta. These were British weapons produced at Porton Down in Salisbury. Russian suspects that the Skripal incident is related as by their records, Skiripal was working at Porton Down as a chemical weapons trafficker in partnership with a Ukrainian firm. Russia denies attacking Skripal but admits he was under surveillance for his activities involving support of terrorism in Syria and arms trafficking.
Russia also confirms that there are British, American, Israeli and Saudi intelligence officers who were caught by the Syrian army in one of the heavily fortified operations rooms during the invasion of the Syrian army and its allies of the East Ghouta
The BBC is pushing the war narrative but it seems the public isn’t buying it, well at least in the north of Ireland anyway. Their popular radio talk show had three talking heads on(amnesty international was one of them) all one way or another egging the narrative that ‘the world must do something’. Alas every caller called their comments propaganda and that the west was heavily involved in this Syrian campaign.
Yes, I think those of us from that part of the world have heard enough of the nonsense over the years to be skeptical of everything they say.
Well worth a listen. Vanessa Beeley reporting yesterday direct from Damascus: ‘Ticket to Idlib’ with Vanessa Beeley & Mike Robinson Starts at 32mins into the broadcast and lasts for about an hour – good background and up-to-date information.
August 2013 was a great time for British democracy when the Commons voted not to attack Syria. Can we expect something similar this time or will the Labour Right wing back the Tories? It wouldn’t be a great surprise if the government engineered a vote just before the local elections; you can imagine the headlines!
Agreed, 30 August 2013 was a good day for Parliamentary democracy.
BBC : 30 August 2013 : Syria crisis: Cameron loses Commons vote on Syria action
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23892783
Cameron’s masters were hoping for the oppostite outcome, with the vote scheduled to take place on a very important Zionic date – the 116 th anniversary of Theodor Herzl’s “Basle / Basel Declaration” on 30 August 1897, demanding Palestine as a homeland for the Jews …
https://web.archive.org/web/20150101211103/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Zionist_Congress
Two days later, Herzl wrote in his diary :
“Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word – which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly – it would be this : At Basel I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today l would be greeted by universal laughter. In five years perhaps, and certainly in fifty years, everyone will perceive it.”
*
Unfortunately, the rationale to overturn that decision was provided by murderous dialectic, precisely 666 days later, when an “Islamic terrorist”, reportedly murdered British tourists on the beach in Sousse, Tunisia on 26 June 2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Sousse_attacks
https://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?d1=30&m1=8&y1=2013&d2=26&m2=6&y2=2015&ti=on
The predicatble synthesis of the thesis and anti-thesis then followed, with Parliament fulfilling it’s enforced, “hostage to fortune” obligation by reversing the original nays into ayes on 2 December 2015 and so began the UK’s involvement in Syria …
That is how “business” gets done and it is always thus.
MG
A direct western attack on Syria, now that our proxy terrorist army has been soundly defeated, would be a highly dangerous development. The pretense that we’re Not attacking Syria at all, in fact we’re ‘holding back’ and watching a mad, bad, dictator slaughtering his own people, would be impossible to maintain any longer and people would start to ask questions, like why exactly are we fighting a war against Syria?
Iraq was possible, a hard sell, but it worked. Iraq had WMDs after all. Afghanistan had helped Bin Liner and 9/11. What was Libya about? I can’t remember! But after Iraq it became harder to send our own soldiers to invade and occupy these countries, so we used rebels/terrorists/Islamists as our infantry. Bombing Syria isn’t gonna change anything at this stage of the game and I seriously doubt the public will stand for sending ‘our boys’ or ‘heroes’ to fight their way into Damascus and topple Assad and the Syrian Arab Army, which has now become a battle-hardened force tempered by years of bitter warfare.
The Russians don’t want to give the Americans any excuse to attack Syria directly, because it could escalate. I don’t believe they will do anything reckless like sinking USN ships which are sitting targets. Whatever happens the Russians must not fall into any US trap and be seen as the aggressor directly attacking US forces. It’s one thing to ‘help’ the Syrians to shoot down US planes over Damascus. That’s doable. But they will try to avoid a direct open conflict with the US until it’s no longer an option and we’re a long way away from that.
Concerted air strikes that destroy the Syrian Air Force won’t involve ‘our boys’. The Coalition will use the Islamists in the NW to fight their war. The Americans are already on the ground and in control of the big oil fields in the NE and Turkey will prove only too willing to back an Islamist fight back. The Gulf States give them the money and the guns and by Jingo they’ll fight to destroy the Assad government; they aren’t going to give up after 8 expensive years. Those in the West who oppose an expansion of the War should look to what they can do rather than hope Russia can sort it.
I just hope before we go to far down the road to Armageddon. The US/NATO has a escape plan to preserve the reputation of all parties?
Iraq and Afghanistan is it 7 or 8 years?
Or we in a game of who can piss the furthest?
It’s Russia that faces the biggest problem, not Israel or the West. They are outnumbered and face the enormous military resources of the US. A few downed jets won’t compensate for missile attacks on the Syrian airforce and Damascus itself and a sudden explosion of activity in Eastern Ukraine. Can Russia really afford to take on the rest of the World? They’ve been built up as the bogeyman of the World and therefore ‘all powerful’ but they’d soon lose a WW3 scenario. If the US doesn’t use nukes first Russia won’t either.
If Russia is attacked to any serious extent China would step in, because it knows once Russia is down China is next. There’s also Iran. That’s a formidable combined foe for a NATO that struggles to perform basic functions. In a conventional war Russia/China/Iran would have a reasonable chance, but at who knows what cost of human life. But of course there’s every likelihood it would not remain a conventional war for very long. Which is why such a confrontation needs to be avoided at all cost
Would China really ‘step in’ if for example Russia was attacked in Syria after say downing a Coalition plane? They might offer support but ‘step in’? Like Iran it might think it wiser to keep their powder dry?
@Paul: “y are outnumbered and face the enormous military resources of the US. ”
Loudest and most expensive army in the world. Prime milk fed beef. Enormous military resources include icecream divisions and letters-from-mom divisions. Reminds me of the Kennedy era (“go anywhere, pay any price) when I was trying to dissuade a couple of Yankee academics not to invade Vietnam because the Vietnamese would be too tough for them. They just stood there looking dumb; I’m not sure they even knew where Vietnam was.
By the way, the Vietnamese were also outnumbered and much poorer in military hardware. Only, nobody seems to have informed them.
But they don’t intend to ‘invade’ like Vietnam. Air power is enough these days if you’ve got paid proxies on the ground. They don’t have to hold any territory because the War aim is disruption; reduce a country to chaos and civil war, as in Libya, and you’ve won.
what do you mean by taking on “the rest of the world?”It’s”only”nato that is the rest of the world
The rest of the World is Nato, Israel, Turkey and the Gulf States? You could throw in the Kiev Regime as they are bound to take advantage of any attack on Russia.
”If the US doesn’t use nukes first Russia won’t either”. Big ”If”. Putin has already said that if the Russian state is in danger of being defeated in a conventional war it will use nukes. Similarly if the US starts to use tactical nukes then this will very soon escalate into a full-on nuclear exchange, particularly as NATO has the manpower advantage.
Once any conflict starts you cease controlling the battles, and they start to control you. There are so many uncontrolled variables in play as to make planning very contingent. At least that was the view of Kutuzov the Russian C-in-C in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It was also the view of the Prussian militarist Von Moltke the elder who stated that ”No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” Or as Mike Tyson said. ”Everyone has a plan to win until they get punched in the face.”
“It’s Russia that faces the biggest problem, not Israel or the West.”
I really don’t have intention to hurt or insult you, but you see the whole situation completely distorted. In other words – you’re wrong.
The idea is simple – the West (and first of all, US’ mad political elites) is l o s i n g t h e g a m e in Syria (and, btw, not only in Syria, but I’ll not reason about it now). The further, the more.
Losing battles [the Syrian army frees and occupies more and more cities], losing territories [most Syrian territory is under the control of the Syrian government], losing the leadership role [initiatives for peaceful settlement – Astana format, Congress in Sochi, Reconciliation Center etc., – belong to Russia], losing influence in the region [leaders of the Middle East World, in order to solve the problems, come in Moscow, not in Washington], losing human resources [terrorists, “rebels” & “freedom fighters”, militants, “moderate opposition” and even foreign military advisers etc.], B. Assad still in power [and many of those Western politicians, who demanded “Assad must go”, have sunk into oblivion]…
This is the problem. And this is not Russia’s problem. This is a one big problem for the West, first of all for the US. Tortured by the inability to solve this problem, the West (read, US) falls into anti-Russian tantrums/hysteria and launch a non-stop regime of illegal sanctions against Russia, and all kinds of threats. It is a sign of weakness, not strength. And Russia knows this.
Therefore, please do not be mistaken about who “faces the biggest problem”.
“they are outnumbered and face the enormous military resources of the US.”
Oh…
I will only say that this is a very big fallacy/delusion – to think that superiority in numbers guarantees victory.
Btw, you said Russia is “outnumbered”. What do you mean – people, weapons, equipment..?
I think you are in some ways giving out wishful thinking. For example, the army. I may be wrong, but as far as I heard, the number of US regular armed forces is approximately 1,3 million military personnel and about 700,000 civilian personnel (+ reserve). So ~2 million people total.
Russian regular army is ~2 million people (+ reserve).
And, by checking out even Wikipedia’s (though, i’m not a fan of this source) “List of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel”, we see that:
Where is the superiority?
Moreover, the general (joint) army of all 29 countries of NATO is ~6,170,000 people.
The strength of the Russian army is ~4,220,000 people, and add here Belarus with 556,750 people army (as you maybe know, Russia and Belarus are a union state – in case of an attack on Russia, Belarus will enter the war, and vice versa). I mean, “modest” alliance of just 2 countries – Russia and Belarus – have army of ~4,800,000 people, and this is about 80% of NATO’s full joint army (i.e. an army of 29 countries).
It is also worth recalling that the Russian army possesses many types of weapons that have no analogues in the world (the production of which is, at the same time, much cheaper than Western models – and this gives another advantage).
Hmm, by some reasons “enormous military resources of the US” could not do (were unable) in Syria what Russia has done with much less recources (and, btw, in a much shorter time). Wonder why…
The idea is not how much resources you have, but what they are and how you can use them.
And the last thing that the Western political elites (i mean US’ elites first of all) must never forget – Russia will always be able to turn the entire territory of the USA into an ash desert. Russia does not want this, because we understand that we, in our turn, will suffer very much too. Therefore, for everyone, the best option is peace, not war.
Alaff: I seem to remember that the psychopaths at the Pentagram have wargamed a conventional war with Russia: Russia wins every time. By dint of the single fact that all their forces are concentrated In the Homeland. NATO’s paper material superiority is deployed globally: end of.
@BigB. So isn’t it time our Anglo Forces were concentrated in our Homelands instead of poncing around the world wasting our blood and treasure? Then we might have a chance of winning some wars against real enemies (should such real enemies turn up).
The general assumption in the West is that Assad and Russia used chemical weapons despite every indication it was Jihadis hoping yet again to attract US “help”. It’s worse than the assumption Russia carried out an attack in Salisbury because there is clear evidence that the Jihadis had stores of chemicals and had every reason to do this as they face defeat in Damascus.
look at that first sentence here!
https://youtu.be/S5Ahc6PkSWk
typical warmongering mouthpiece. no wonder i dont watch mainstream news anymore. no context. just the subliminal assumption that assad is mad and sometimes uses chemical weapons ‘on his own people’.
tuned in, saw this, had to change the channel. significantly to RT. whats this world coming to when you have to rely on a foreign news source for balanced reporting?
The problem is that few people in the west ask the obvious questions, though the war propaganda whioch goes on is quite clear.
My colleague at work, usually a very rational person, said that “he knows the person” (Assad), so he thinks that Assad launched the attack (so it is given for granted that the attack took place).
Psychopathy fuelled by paranoia.
Is that how the world ends?
The Saker appeals for calm until the facts are clear; meanwhile his Vineyard is hosting an open thread for readers to post what they know. This morning Bundy on Syrper, who is usually knowledgeable, claimed most of the missiles came from Israel submarines; but now he posts that ‘Russia give an entirely different account of what happened, they sat 2 F15, fired 8 missiles and 5 were intercepted..
SAA has one soldier injured and no loses or damage in SAA equipment. All loses were Iranians and support and drones used to monitor ISIS.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP7L8bw5QF4
Israel is playing a dangerous game- if there is a military response to this air raid the obvious targets are in Israel-for example the base from which the snipers are operating against Gaza.
The nature of the situation is one in which, unless Syria and its allies consent to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, they must deter attacks on their bases.
And there is no obvious deterrent available-absent the movement of quarter of a million anti imperialist troops plus air cover into Syria- on the sunny side of nuclear confrontation.
But then, of course Israel does play dangerous games, it is what fascist governments, particularly those in political difficulty do. And they are enabled in this respect by the United States and its all too willing executioners in NATO.
When civilisations run out of ideas they start seeking the simple substitutes for solutions: mass incarceration rather than reformation is one, torture, as opposed to questioning, is another.. for Israel, peace with the Palestinians is held to be impossible (that is the Jabotinsky theory to which not only they but Trump, Kushner and Bolton all subscribe. War then is not merely inevitable but desirable.
In the UK and Canada what running out of ideas means is that the governments simply follow the US and Israel. The alternatives, to assess the problems facing their countries and the world and to set out to deal with them, are simply to difficult to bother with. Much easier to lie and smear and slander and kill people in distant lands as required by the great god of the intellectually idle.
The ‘west’ have given upon peace just as they gave up on climate change-their mandate has run out, all they are good for is to order killings.
Reblogged this on MUSO MUSINGS ON FATHERHOOD THEORY AND STUFF and commented:
https://twitter.com/TonyCartalucci/status/983283834786537472
Tony Carlucci is one of my Favourite contributors to Global Research he produced the same document earlier.
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.se/2018/04/strikes-on-syria-failed-us-wmd-lies-and.html?spref=tw
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-us-engineered-arab-spring-the-ngo-raids-in-egypt/28433
Trump risks alienating his base.
https://twitter.com/RogerGLewis/status/983280060953251840
Patrick Cawson, Wesley Clarke 5 ciountries in % Years , Peanac etc etc
Complete, unedited video of Patrick Clawson’s responses to questions regarding U.S. policy toward Iran at a Policy Forum in Washington, DC, on September 21, 2012.
oRIGINAL ‘
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6LKmhDRWFc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Clawson
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/04/trump-wont-be-cancelling-world-war-3.html
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2018/04/douma-syria-same-old-shit-different.html
#DumberandDouma
https://goo.gl/images/3vfr74
It would appear that Washington for once is hiding behind the coat-tails of Israel. They wish to see the reaction of Russia.
If no reaction, then Washington may ramp up its war machine.
Otherwise it is just a token strike to compensate for Trumps bellicosity and understood by Putin as such, Russia may even have been informed beforehand.
The other angle is that israel carried out this attack,hoping for a Russian/Syrian response against US assets, and a direct confrontation.
Deceit is the Zionists usual weapon.
Israel was given to Lord Rothscild. He runs the show. Ask him.
So it is true then .The bastards have once again attacked Syria .IF this was Isarel’s doing ,Syria needs to make them pay otherwise they will ratchet it up and it will never stop.Where are the S-400s.
the cowards attack from lebanese airspace,once they start flying over syria they will get shot down
It seems as if they don’t need to over fly Syria? The US has its armada not far away as does France (the carrier Charles de Gaulle). Cruise missiles and drones don’t risk US or French personnel. If you were in Putin’s shoes would you be prepared to attack the American fleet, even if Russian troops were killed or injured? Russia is being sorely provoked for a reason; the West would love Putin to take the bait and then they could go all out, on all fronts. Putin has to deal with a supremely powerful Empire that is looking for enemies to make an example of them. He has to think whether it’s in Russian interests to fire back. He’s unlikely to risk everything to please left of centre Westerners. Nobody ever gave him that job. Westerners opposing a wider war should sort their own house out, if they can. Like one of his predecessors he isn’t there to pull other peoples chestnuts out of the fire.
He has no choice except to respond or watch his country be next on the list of “regime change” targets. The difference is he isn’t stupid and will respond appropriately without taking “the bait” as you put it. That is too obvious, the western leaders are so transparent it is embarrassing. However these are all signs of a desperate group of people watching their empires crumble around them. Dangerous times for all of us. Good luck to those doing the right thing.
Wish I could agree, but Russia’s already on that list.
The US itself too: president Trump is not as pliable as Obama became for resident US Deep State.