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Israel’s Failed Attempt to Start WWIII Is the Beginning of the End in Syria

by Tom Luongo, via Strategic Culture

There is one thing that Israel fears more than anything else in Syria. The loss of its ability to fly its F-16’s with impunity and hit whatever targets it wants claiming defensive measures to stop Iran, their existential enemy.

Israel finally admitted to carrying out over 200 such missions over the past 18 months, only a few of which ever made any kind of international media, recently.

And with the sneak attack on Latakia which involved using a Russian IL-20 ELINT war plane as radar cover Israel has now not only raised the stakes to an unacceptable level, it has also ensured that this may be the last such aerial assault it will ever be able to carry out.

The setup is pretty clear. Israel and France coordinated an attack on multiple targets within Syria without US involvement but with absolute US knowledge of the operation to provoke Russia into going off half-cocked by attacking the inconsequential French frigate which assisted Israel’s air attack.

Any denunciation of sinister intent by Israeli Defense Forces is hollow because if they had not intended to provoke a wider conflict they would have given Russia more than one minute to clear their planes from the area.

That would constitute an attack on a NATO member state and require a response from NATO, thereby getting the exact escalation needed to continue the war in Syria indefinitely and touch off WWIII.

This neatly bypasses any objections to a wider conflict by President Trump who would have to respond militarily to a Russian attack on a NATO ally. It also would reassert NATO’s necessity in the public dialogue, further marginalizing Trump’s attacks on it and any perceived drive of his for peace.

That this took place within the 60 days window of the mid-term elections should also not be discounted.

This attack took place just hours after Presidents Erdogan and Putin negotiated a ‘peaceful’ settlement for Idlib province by declaring a De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) 15-20 kilometers wide which everyone, including Erdogan’s pets Jabhat al-Nusra would have to abide by.

Peace was breaking out in Syria and Israel and the war-hawks in D.C. weren’t standing for that.

By conducting this attack like this Israel and the NATO crowd figured it would be a win/win for them.

If Russia strikes back at France, then NATO invokes Article 5 and they get their wider war.

If Russia doesn’t strike back Putin loses face within Russia, his popularity drops 5 points and John Bolton begins salivating at the prospect of regime change in Russia. Yes, they are that insane.

It was a neat piece of geopolitical maneuvering, almost judo-like. Russia and Syria looked to be on the verge of victory, extending themselves in a major conflict that would result in months of bad press. We were expecting a possible false-flag chemical weapons attack, cries of humanitarian crisis and all the rest of the tired virtue-signaling we can expect by US ‘diplomatic’ officials that has been all too common even under Trump.

What we got was the opposite, a carefully-crafted assault on Russian military forces wherein Russia’s vaunted air-defense systems would be blamed for its own people’s deaths and a mistaken counter-attack that justifies the “Putin is a Vile War-Monger” narrative to justify a US invasion of Syria which has been held in amber since 2013 and Putin’s skilful defusing that situation via diplomatic means.

For once, this almost looked like a well-thought out plan. Not the usual ham-fisted crudities we’ve been treated to over the last few years. But, here’s the rub.

It didn’t work.

By naming names and immediately not responding militarily during the ‘fog of war’ Russia and Putin again prove to be more skilled at this than their adversaries.

Because none of what I just outlined will come to pass. And France, Israel and the US will be the ones to lose face here. And with Israel betraying Putin’s forbearance after April’s air strikes on Damascus, he will have no choice but to upgrade Syria’s air defense systems from S-200’s to S-300’s and possibly S-400’s.

This is Israel’s worst nightmare. A situation where any aerial assault on targets within Syria would be suicide missions, puncturing the myth of the Israeli air force’s superiority and shifting the delicate balance of power in Syria decidedly against them.

This is why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked Putin so hard over the last two years. But, this incident wipes that slate clean. This was a cynical betrayal of Putin’s trust and patience. And Israel will now pay the price for their miscalculation.

Giving Syria S-300’s does not avenge the fifteen dead Russian soldiers. Putin will have to respond to that in a more concrete way to appease the hardliners in his government and at home. His patience and seeming passivity are being pushed to their limit politically. This is, after all, a side benefit to all of this for the neoconservative and globalist hawks in D.C., Europe and Tel Aviv.

But, the real loss here for Israel will be Russia instituting a no-fly zone over western Syria. Any less response from Putin will be seized upon by and the situation will escalate from here. So, Putin has to deploy S-300’s here. And once that happens, the real solution to Syria begins in earnest.

Because at that point it will be the US’s move to flat-out invade without provocation, now that a solution is in place in Syria between Russia and a NATO member, Turkey.

The only good news in all of this is that US forces were not involved. This still tells me that Trump and Mattis are still in charge of their chain of command and that other forces are conspiring to drag them into a conflict no one in their right minds wants.

Photo: Twitter

 

 

 

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Einstein
Einstein
Sep 25, 2018 11:32 AM

But Britain is continuing to prepare for WWIII over Syria.
Theresa May has just agreed to accept into Britain a hundred jihadi propagandists (“White Helmets”) and their families.
Haven’t we got enough to do managing the integration of law-abiding, moderate Muslims?

vexarb
vexarb
Sep 24, 2018 6:55 PM

Be careful what you wish for; you might get it. BTL Saker:

Amerikanski on September 24, 2018 · at 11:52 am EST/EDT
Hillary gets her wish. She always said she wanted a no-fly zone over Syria.

Harry Law
Harry Law
Sep 24, 2018 11:49 AM

Russia does the right thing, eventually..
“During a Monday briefing, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow will deliver the S-300 air defense systems to Syria within two weeks as an adequate response to Israel’s role in the downing of the Russian Il-20 plane last week.
“The Syrian Armed Forces will be supplied with the advanced S-300 air defense missile system within two weeks. It is capable of intercepting air threats at a range of more than 250 kilometers and simultaneously hitting several aerial targets,” Shoigu said, adding that the S-300 would significantly boost Syria’s combat capabilities”. https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201809241068279653-russia-syria-s-300/

BigB
BigB
Sep 24, 2018 8:48 AM

It’s not true until it is officially denied: the UK had no subs in the Med, due to lack of assets.

https://sputniknews.com/world/201809241068277088-royal-navy-sub-syria-lack-assets/

Daniel Bruno
Daniel Bruno
Sep 24, 2018 3:11 AM

Dear Major General Igor Konashenkov: You are sincere but naive. The rulers of Israel do not keep their word because they do not consider you to be their equal. They do not value the lives of others who are not of their own race. Why do you allow Israel to bomb Syria while you are fighting to preserve Syria? Why do you sell S400 systems to Saudi, to Turkey, to India, but not to Syria and Iran? Why do you deny that Russia and Syria operate friend or foe technology? http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/13836/its-official-russia-and-syria-have-linked-their-air-defense-networks

axisofoil
axisofoil
Sep 23, 2018 8:18 PM
vexarb
vexarb
Sep 23, 2018 7:04 PM

BTL today’s Saker Vineyard, re Russian MOD report on Israel’s treachery::

Auslander on September 23, 2018 · at 1:27 pm EST/EDT
We were at a facility for a memorial service for the lost soldiers, and about all I can say of the mood there is ‘ice cold anger’. No one will do anything without specific orders, but in my opinion, if the order comes to teach someone a lesson, that lesson will be delivered with alacrity.

The first fact is the Israeli MoD and other minions flying to Moskau with such speed speaks volumes, in other words, they know they’ve intercoursed up big time. Second fact is Shoigu did not give them the time of day whilst the Israelis cooled their heels in Moskau. That alone speaks better than words of what is coming. Third fact is the emotionless and careful laying out of evidence of the event and evidence of betrayal, and that’s what Israel did, betrayed Russia, and this again speaks clearly of what is coming.

Russia is run by a troika. Lavrov has MoS, Shoigu has MoD, and all three speak and come to agreements about State, Defense and Country. VVP is the first among equals, so to speak, it is he who has brought together this team and it is he who makes the final decisions. In this case, I have no doubts that General Shoigu has virtual carte blanche to do whatever he deems necessary.

The next few days and weeks will be of interest, and that’s an understatement of vast proportions. You can do many things to Russians, and while they will never forget, they may grudgingly forgive. However, betrayal goes to the very root of Russian Culture, and this act will never be forgiven nor forgotten, both in the near time and far time. No one gets a second chance to betray Russia.

candideschmyles
candideschmyles
Sep 24, 2018 11:42 AM
Reply to  vexarb

The Zionist, not precise I know but the best popularly recognised label, Mafia have been badgering Russia since Napoleonic times. The Russians have suffered desperately from many acts of warfare perpetrated from within Russia but very much orchestrated by the Rothschild loyal servants. Russia has never effectively gone to war with that Mafia. It’s high time it did.

binra
binra
Sep 24, 2018 9:08 PM

The blood feud may go back to the Khazarian Empire. But I feel the addition of ‘mafia’ or ‘power class’ acknowledges a difference between those who share in the Jewish identity and those who manipulate identities – whatever their actual allegiances. Likewise any nation’s citizens are not directly responsible for acts carried by their governments, or those nominally of a particular faith and ‘religious’ extremists.

War by guile and stealth is the nature of modern thinking that goes back to the Trojan Horse.
Mafia is also a term for ‘organised crime’ in terms of inter ‘family’ or inter-corporate alliances operating to protect the ‘class’ of power over key areas of influence. So they limit inter ‘family’ competition in cartel agreements so as to operate greater power in combination than going it alone.

The use of inducements and incentives by deceit, to recruit support, funding or protection from threat is simply the way people are operated, captured or tricked into serving against their good while believing it if a worthy or necessary cause.

The underlying self-definitions are what I see as the deeper framework that induces perceptions and behaviours to see and act in terms of seeking power as a intergenerational broad spectrum discipline – for at the higher levels it seems inhuman – and yet no doubt sees the mass of humanity as subhuman. The leaders and the led – knowingly of otherwise make a pact together at a deeper level.

I read this recently and in its specific it also illuminates a general principle.

“… men would rather live under anesthesia and enjoy half-efficiency than live twice as long and enjoy full efficiency by dropping the habits that bring discomfort and make stimulants necessary. There is a fascination about deadened sensation, and the mental indifference it brings, which average human beings cannot rise above when once under the spell. The drug system of treating disease appeals to this maudlin sentiment; hence its great popularity–it appeals to the vagabond in man. ” ~ (Impaired Health ITS CAUSE AND CURE, A Repudiation of the Conventional Treatment of Disease BY J. H. TILDEN, M.D.)

Most (of us) are not as conscious as we presume, and are more ‘controlled’ by unconscious thought and desire than our conscious intentions. Others who seek to gain control as part of their own (unconscious) fear of loss and humiliation, seek out and use points of leverage over others. The guilty and the fearful are predisposed to wish true what of course is not true. Such a wishful identity runs under ‘mind-capture’ because it gives power to the illusion under the illusion of gaining power.

My sense is that one cannot meaningfully go to war with our own shadow. But one can bring what was kept hidden into light and become unavailable to self-destructive thinking and reaction.

BigB
BigB
Sep 23, 2018 12:15 PM

To answer Bevin’s criticisms, again: and to highlight the unsustainability of the current economic rationality…

To recognise the futility of continuing to follow the same diadic capitalist/socialist economic rationality of growth: whilst expecting different results …think of the bioshpere as a client, and the economic calculus of the capitalist/socialist diadic as their personal trainer. This PT gets paid, not by the hour, but gains profit only by increasing the maximal heart-rate of the client. Their rate of return (profit margin) is proportional to the net increase they can achieve. It is not a hard and fast scientific metric, but currently the heart-rate is at 170% of maximal. The laws of accumulation, motion and compounded exponential growth vectors of the current economic calculus require that heart-rate to increase to 175%, 180%, 200% (a new planet is required) …how long do you think the client will last?

A new economic rationality would obviously require that maximal output to degrow to at most 100%. But that is still too high: 85% would be better. As another rough metric: currently, Earth Overshoot day falls on May 8th in the UK. That means our resource use is unsustainable from that day to the end of the year – over 7 months of unequally developed unsustainable wastage of resources (imperialistically acquired). A new economic rationality would need to push that date into at least December, but ideally …to May 8th the following year. That would require more than nationalising a few natural monopoly utilities.

Globally, we tripled our extractivist resource consumption between 1970 and 2010. Can we triple that again by 2050? Or triple the already tripled amount again by the end of the century? We are among 16% of humanity that consumes 80% of the resources: will we increase our bourgeois socialist consumption forsaking all others? Shall we tell the Unborn that we have monetised and foreclosed their future for our pseudo-prosperity today? What of the morality of ethical, universalist, statist capitalism? Is it a real concession, or is it just a counterfeit feelgood factor while we live in a stolen future today?

“The old world is rapidly changing, those interested in building a new world and helping to design it should join in.”

Only ask yourself, do Labour really stand for the Unborn Many, or the current existing Few?

What will lead nowhere but to the concentration camp and the graveyard is not my “hand wringing and lamentation”: but the blind, uncritical and soporific thoughtlessness of following the same failed economic calculus that precipitated the current ecological and economic crisis. What is needed, is not to follow the same 19th century bourgeois socialist

And the treachery of leaders- which is something that only ever concerns the led and those anxious to be shepherded into the future.

BigB
BigB
Sep 23, 2018 12:23 PM
Reply to  BigB

That was only part of my comment, not sure what happened to the rest. This page is a bit dead, and Bevin never replies to my comments …he just wants to blow his own capitalist imperialist pseudo-socialist trumpet. O well, if he wants to make it personal, I’m sure this will run and run elsewhere …

King Kong
King Kong
Sep 23, 2018 4:41 AM

“The setup is pretty clear. Israel and France coordinated an attack on multiple targets within Syria without US involvement but with absolute US knowledge of the operation to provoke Russia into going off half-cocked by attacking the inconsequential French frigate which assisted Israel’s air attack.”
This is wild speculation, and not helpfull presented as it is. It may be true but it is not a fact, so dont present it as it is. The author uses the same tools as the MSM, we should hold our standards higher.
Very, very few people know what happened on that fateful day and they are mum, please abstain of assigning guilt, before due process, else you look like T. May or B. Johnson.
We do not sink that low.
We can and do speculate if there was a concerted effort to start a large scale conflict, but things went wrong.
I for one do not think the Israelis willfully would jeopardize their good relations with Russia in such a scheme, but I do acknowledge that the presence of NATO forces is suspicious.
We will learn in time what happened.
God have mercy on the Russian crew and condolences to their relatives.

vexarb
vexarb
Sep 23, 2018 7:27 PM
Reply to  King Kong

Kong, by now the Russian MOD report has come out, and you can see for yourself that OffG was spot on: Israel has committed a cold-blooded act of treachery toward Russia, and nearly precipitated WW3 by Criminal Irresponsibility.

Jo
Jo
Sep 22, 2018 9:36 PM

Should peace come soon to Syria via Astana process….Syrians vote for new consitution etc…..will Syria need still to be under constant defence alert…or is the west still going attack under their pretence they might accept it….remember how much they attacked others without UN resolutions and with their lies and scheming….they will always want it….to get revenge in whatever way they can and against Rusdia.

alaffcreator
alaffcreator
Sep 22, 2018 4:05 PM

The content of this article seems reasonable to me. The only thing, I don’t quite understand how NATO could think that Russia “mistakenly” would sink a French frigate in response to an attack by Israel on Syria? It’s hard to believe that fools are working in NATO. I don’t want to praise [too much], but the Russian S-400 complexes are too good to think so badly about them (as, apparently, in NATO they think). If the French really launched a missile on a Russian aircraft, this launch would be immediately tracked, recognized as hostile & aimed at the Russian facility, and the missile would be destroyed. Concerning the destruction of the French frigate itself (as a carrier of a missile), I think the Russian military leadership would have made a decision to destroy it or not. And it seems to me that the decision to destroy it would not have been accepted.

NATO believed that Russian weapons would become “confused” and could not distinguish a missile launched from a frigate and Israeli aircraft that struck Syria? This is very naive. Amazing. Apparently, NATO’s “strategists” are degrading if they thought their trick would succeed.

bevin
bevin
Sep 22, 2018 3:45 PM

‘BigB’ s contributions-below-require correction. This is the short version- the long version is “A History of England within a global context” I’m still working on that!

” there appears to have been a silent coup d’etat in the UK …one that no one seems to have noticed.”
No. There is nothing new about this. The UK has always been run by The Establishment. Since the Korean War, roughly, there has been as progressive dismantling of the constitutional arrangements which can be summed up as sovereignty.
A series of arrangements both informal- of which the best example is the ‘special relationship’ a sado masochistic bond between The Establishment and Washington – and formal, NATO, the EU, the WTO and successive trade agreements, have eroded the powers reserved to The Crown in Parliament until that institution has become the ‘talking shop’ in theory that it has long been in fact.
Foreign Policy, Economic policy, social policy, commercial policy, command of and procurement for the military have all been, to a greater or larger extent, removed from the control of elected representatives.
This is not new, but an old tendency, a default which has become extremely evident for two reasons. The first is that the UK is now a subordinate part of the US based Empire and hence weak. The second is that the current government is the weakest since…,.Ethelred the Unready?
At any rate there is nothing new about the fact that the decision to risk a nuclear war by using the RAF is one taken not by Parliament, but by military men who see themselves as owing allegiance not to that institution but to The Pentagon.

“the level of political insight, even among many of the ‘woke’ is that Jeremy Corbyn will save us. ”
This is mere projection. The election of a Labour government committed to mild and tentative moves back to the ‘welfare state’ and to the rescue of public transport, the basic infrastructure, the NHS and those about to die of malnutrition and neglect, is merely a first and necessary preliminary to the consummation of the pledge made by the Chartists and the democratic reform movement from which they came.
In order for the people to rule, to impose their wishes, to implement their policies it is necessary for them to organise, not to lament their impotence in the face of treachery and inequality but to monitor and control those acting on their behalf.
In other words what is needed, simply to take the first steps towards socialism, is to pour into the Labour Party in millions and turn it into a social movement, in permanent session, as the sans culottes used to put it.
What has happened in the UK is not mysterious, nor is it novel. It is being run by the ruling class in their own interests, which they cannot separate from those of the Empire in front of which, like a Welsh regimental mascot, they dance on all fours, winning its approval by reducing the British people to if not always obedience then curbing its resentment of ill treatment.
There is only one way out of this predicament, mass action. And that begins, though it does not end, with coming together in interlocking, overlapping movements in the community, in the constituency, in the workplace, wherever two or three are gathered.
What will lead nowhere but to the concentration camp and the graveyard is hand wringing and lamentation at the inadequacy of others and the impossibility of changing mens minds. And the treachery of leaders- which is something that only ever concerns the led and those anxious to be shepherded into the future.

People left in the dark
People left in the dark
Sep 22, 2018 10:02 PM
Reply to  bevin

“Foreign Policy, Economic policy, social policy, commercial policy, command of and procurement for the military have all been, to a greater or larger extent, removed from the control of elected representatives.”

Thanks for the great post. What is described in your comment apply 100% to Australia where the term ‘Foreign Policy’ has been effectively removed from public discourse.
Probably, the same apply to the other FIVE EYES members.

Don’t you think, the same is happening in most countries in the Western Hemisphere?

bevin
bevin
Sep 22, 2018 11:09 PM

“Don’t you think, the same is happening in most countries in the Western Hemisphere?”
Yes. And the people of the South, the imperial periphery, some of whom briefly regained sovereignty of a kind (Argentine for example) and began to develop their abilities to rely on themselves, have either never had anything approaching sovereignty or lost it to the IMF/World Bank in the last half century.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Sep 23, 2018 12:27 AM

Austfailia is a puppet-state, a complete stooge of the USA, which controls our military-intelligence apparatus completely, and Israel, which controls our politics through direct monetary generosity and the ‘antisemitism’ industry. That an American, Satan Murdoch, controls much of the media and utilises it as a brutal propaganda hate-machine (STILL denying climate destabilisation today, as it accelerates destructively)to the benefit of the hard Right, also worsens the nightmare.

People left in the dark
People left in the dark
Sep 23, 2018 2:08 AM

Murdoch’s toxic agenda is on full display in Australian politics. Kevin Rudd bravely and accurately described Rupert Murdoch as ‘the greatest cancer on the Australian democracy’.

But do we know why Murdoch wanted Australia’s Turnbull removed?

Why would Murdoch want to replace a prime minister with someone identical? What would he gain by replacing one conservative elitist with another elitist fuckwit?

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Sep 23, 2018 3:49 AM

Turnbull wanted to do something about anthropogenic climate destabilisation, even if was a pathetically inadequate ‘something’. That is anathema to the omnicidal Right, led by Murdoch’s death-machine media, where fanatic denial of climate destabilisation is obligatory, along with frenzied hatred of all environmentalism, all Greens and all renewable energy. Murdoch, in my very firm opinion, represents absolute Evil, and at 87 it seems that his remaining life’s work is to destroy humanity, for some hideous psychopathological reasons that defy understanding.

People left in the dark
People left in the dark
Sep 23, 2018 6:25 AM

What was considered hyperbole, is now an accurate description of the situation.
We are indeed living under the:

Omnicidal Fascist NeoLiberal Death-Machine

.. and it’s all legal in this so-called democratic system!

Thanks Mulga, I appreciate your reply.
A nice Mid-Autumn Festival meal might make us feel better!

Jim Scott
Jim Scott
Sep 24, 2018 4:37 PM

You have Murdoch appropriately tagged but for one aspect. He doesn’t make as much money from newspapers and television except that he uses the political influence they create to make money in other areas such as fossil fuels. For instance his desire to get rid of Assad is very much tied to his oil ventures in partnership with Dick Cheney based in the Golan Heights.
The desperation to have more power and influence makes him act irrationally not only in denying the scientific basis of climate change but also because fossil fuels do not have a much longer future as an energy source than Rupert has left in the land of the living. Perhaps the selfish bastard thinks that the world should stop when he does.

King Kong
King Kong
Sep 23, 2018 4:56 AM

Dear Mrs. Mumblebrain
Yes indeed Austfalia (formerly known as Australia) is in deed a fail. I had the pleasure of living there from 1968-1971, and we were never really integrated. Locals looked on us with suspicion, (I am Danish) too good schooling, to much knowledge, I had a hard time in school, even having learnt English in less than 3 months.
I went from a Danish class 4 to an Austfalian class 6, and had not problems barring initial language problems. In the years there I ever only managed to have 1 friend of Aussie heritage, the rest were immigrants like myself, Greeks , Italians, English. Aussies never understood our European sense of understanding the world. ( At the time I had visited ALL European countries).
I am thankful we went back to Denmark in 1971, but with an experience richer.
(Driving in acar across Australia at the time was a huge experience, Nullabor Plains was a dirt road then)

Jim Scott
Jim Scott
Sep 24, 2018 4:59 PM

Yes Australian Government’s are stooges of the USA but most Australians are not yet aware of it. Perhaps the masses will turn their minds to it once the footy finals are over.

Jim Scott
Jim Scott
Sep 24, 2018 5:20 PM

I notice Like Harding has put out another work of fiction regarding RUSSIA . Lots of unnamed officials and innuendo but not a single fact to be seen. I wonder If the Guardian would pay me for a work of fiction.

Dancing merrily
Dancing merrily
Sep 22, 2018 12:04 PM

We saw the term ‘crocodile tears’ used frequently in the past few days.
Evidently, the crocodile is everyday in the news, but there weren’t any tears. Just a monster crocodile.

You’ve got to see the Israelis in private, how they dance and congratulate each other after each deadly military operation. Like their US protector, they thrive on seeding chaos.

Should the IDF precipitate the much-talked about larger conflict, NATO will find a purpose for their existence and will be grateful to the Israelis for it. Trump will enjoy bipartisan support and he will look ‘presidential’ again!

Not to forget, under Bush and Obama, Israel was given a guarantee of military superiority in any military conflict. And shouldn’t they be dancing and singing since they never have to pay for this guarantee?!

Manda
Manda
Sep 21, 2018 11:38 PM
Portonchok
Portonchok
Sep 21, 2018 9:14 PM

Another great article pasted here.

No criticsim intended, just curiosity…why are 90% of articles here concerning Russia vs NATO? I would have thought that ‘Off Guardian’ is the anecdote to the Guardian Of The British Establishment? The Guardian publicises all manner of articles of which I guess even in these heightened times are not more than 25% Russophobic.

Let’s have a broader range of stuff here rather than the very frequent articles concerning Russia by Vaska and others.

mog
mog
Sep 21, 2018 9:31 PM
Reply to  Portonchok

Disagree. Firstly, there has been a wide variety of articles posted on this site this summer.
Secondly, ‘World War Three’ kind of pushes certain stories up the priority list.

David Macilwain
David Macilwain
Sep 22, 2018 10:52 AM
Reply to  Editor

It might be true in theory that “only 25% of the Guardian is Russophobic”, but the anti-Russian narrative is currently dominating all of the public debate and the Guardian is following that, if not actually leading it. When did you last see a positive or simply truthful story about Russia in the Guardian, say one detailing the Russian point of view, or explaining their recent demolition of the lies about MH17? Or Novichok? You might just need to get used to seeing those “Russophilic” stories on the Off Guardian, which has duty to publish all the stuff that the Guardian won’t …!

ComeonRooonay
ComeonRooonay
Sep 22, 2018 12:03 PM

Barnay Ronay, their reporter during the WC became quite flattering and surprised by his experiences of ordinary Russia, the only objective reporting i read. Poor Barnay seems to have been relegated since. He should tell them to fuck off and get online.

Jim Scott
Jim Scott
Sep 24, 2018 4:52 PM
Reply to  Portonchok

Portonchok the huge amount of anti Russian dross in the MSM and particularly in the Guardian needs to be unlocked or the propaganda will be accepted as truth. And as Mog says I find the idea of WW3 extremely abhorrent and that it should be taking a prime part of our discourse.
Along with WW3 I am deeply concerned that if we do not oppose the churn of take information and propaganda we will soon be dispensable to the oligarchs or their slaves.

archie1954
archie1954
Sep 21, 2018 8:47 PM

What disgusting pariahs Americans and other Western nations are! They will kill or provoke killing until their lust for blood sates them and then demand more. They’re Vampiric and evil. Honestly when I read that France had dispatched a missile out of the blue, so to speak, my first thought was, “Russia, sink the French ship”. This article explains how Putin is smarter than I am, or any American or French leader, for that matter. If anyone, but Putin, were the President of Russia, we would all be glowing ashes by now.

Tom Welsh
Tom Welsh
Sep 21, 2018 8:40 PM

“It was a neat piece of geopolitical maneuvering, almost judo-like”.

More like a Go player who congratulates himself on having surrounded his opponent’s stone, only to realise – far too late – that his own forces have been surrounded.

axisofoil
axisofoil
Sep 21, 2018 8:15 PM

This is on topic, in reference to the shoot down being discussed. I don’k know quite what to make of this, but within this dialog the inference of Israel having tried to lend support to the Liberty after realizing a tragic mistake is certainly something I have not previously heard.

Big B
Big B
Sep 21, 2018 7:58 PM

It is well worth reading Joaquin Flores’ follow up article, that quotes another earlier Tom Luongo article. Or Pepe Escobar’s version

https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/09/more-experts-confirm-that-france-took-down-il-20-identify-friend-foe-system-did-not-fail/

I don’t think VVP comes out of this smelling of roses, but I’m prepared to cut him a lot of slack …thanks mainly to the fact that I am still alive to write this. And that is a genuine, not a figurative reference.

Being British, my main concern is the fact that two RAF Tornadoes were either out for a jolly, at my expense, or, more likely, they took part in Monday nights attack. There is no official confirmation of this, but I can hardly infer otherwise from the fact they were in a holding pattern above the IDF F-16s. Waiting for what: clear blue sky?

[If anyone is interested, I did all my reasoning on the Flores forum, and came to the same conclusion as Tom].

My main concern, other than narrowly avoiding Armageddon, which I take very seriously: is that there appears to have been a silent coup d’etat in the UK …one that no one seems to have noticed.

Admittedly, it is an inferred coup d’etat: because there has been no confirmation that the Tornadoes did anything other than ‘hold’ …while a naked act of aggression and act of war was being perpetrated in the environs of Latakia …but I’m way too cynical to believe they just ‘held’. There is also a Royal Navy submarine in the NATO Maritime Group 2 that has amassed in the waters off Latakia.

Who, in the UK, authorised this? Do we retain sovereignty over our armed forces? Who do they answer to, not Parliament, which is in recess for the Party conferences? I do not believe for one second that Treason May is in charge of anything, not even Brexit.

We appear to have a democratic crisis of legitimacy, just who is running the country, and what is their foreign policy? The provocation of war, and the defence of terrorists, versus the wellbeing, well, of the planet. This is dangerously insane, and I do not even know who the perpetraitors are.

This has been an issue I have been highlighting for a while, a nation state without control of its currency or military forces is not a nation state. We are being controlled by invisibilised unaccountable dark shadow actors. It’s all very well saying vote in a Labour government, but will they have any more control. Not from what I have seen: they defer to the global governance architecture of the UN-OPCW-JIM, for instance, that are part of the shadowy superstate apparatuses.

We’ve given our minimised autonomy and sovereignty away to who knows who. The very presence of two Tornadoes in a ‘holding pattern’ above the Eastern Med, while a naked act of war was committed is too much of a coincidence for me. That it will pass by 99% of the population is perhaps, more frightening. It is all very well blaming VVP, and I don’t think he is totally exonerated (200 IDF raids in 18 months is perhaps 199 too many: let’s hope Monday night was the last) …present company excepted, I think the blame lies much closer to home.

There is a fascist dictatorship rising in this country, and for that, we only have ourselves to blame.

Big B
Big B
Sep 21, 2018 8:22 PM
Reply to  Big B

I just read in the Saker article posted below, that the British sub, HMS Talent, cancelled launching it cruise missiles because it was being shadowed by two Russian subs. I do not think it irrational or hysterical to claim the UK is under new management, as of Monday night. The question is who? It will require something more than the obsequity of a vote to get them out. We’ve been regime changed, and we don’t even know it. 🙁

jdseanjd
jdseanjd
Sep 21, 2018 8:35 PM
Reply to  Big B

The Brit news service http://www.ukcolumn.org has long been bewailing the continued “merger” of our armed forces with the French in particular & the coming EU army under Federica Mogherini.

Founder & ex naval officer Brian Gerrish is most unimpressed.

John Doran.

Big B
Big B
Sep 21, 2018 9:14 PM
Reply to  jdseanjd

That’s what I was alluding to. There has been a bureaucratic takeover with a shadowy Pearle Office running policy: but for whom? We are paying Brussels to unify the EU’s military (David Ellis: testimony to Commons Select Committee); we’ve cut our forces to the bone to suit the EU integrated structure; we’ll be paying into a common procurement fund; then, very probably, a common Treasury for our taxation …all under the singlepoint control of Brussels. It is not even on the political spectrum, let alone within the Overton Window of acceptable discourse. It is being done in circumvention of Parliament, not that the self-serving elite would oppose it. The country at large are being kept in the dark, whil an elitist militarist imperialist invisible junta do as they please. And the level of political insight, even among many of the ‘woke’ is that Jeremy Corbyn will save us. All they have proposed is that we wait a while for the pre-determined result to come back from the OPCW …THEN we attack!

I’m a little old for revolution, but I do get irritated when left liberal progressives chant “Oh. Jeremy Corbyn” like it will make the slightest fucking difference to the fascist dictatorship installing itself in front of our very eyes.

UK Column is the only media outlet with the balls to tell it like it is. My one tiny critique would be they are short on revolutionary praxis, they seem to be content with returning the UK to a former state …a halcyon state that never existed.

If we want our country back, we need to be be more politically astute than just chanting for Corbyn!

/end rant!

jdseanjd
jdseanjd
Sep 22, 2018 2:05 PM
Reply to  Big B

Rant away mate: I agree with every word. 🙂

candideschmyles
candideschmyles
Sep 25, 2018 1:43 AM
Reply to  Big B

As someone who listens to every UK Column broadcast I agree with you 100%, even to the niggles. And I wholeheartedly agree with every word on Corbyn. It is the ultimate irony that we have the ability like never before to be politically and socially savy yet so many choose to ignore our collective reality. Perhaps 8000 individuals are running our planet and our species into an abyss that they themselves will not want to survive. Yet we hope that the other 7.5billion will listen to us. Perhaps we are hoping to persuade the wrong people. I think we need a satirist to make grandmother appeals to these errant waifs of the NWO! In the meantime I think it incumbant on me, on my one wage packet away from destitute – but steak and claret till then – Utopia to continue my priviliged fiddling while Rome vapourises. Even though existentially I yearn to hunt them like Im playing Call of Duty: NWO Takedown.

binra
binra
Sep 25, 2018 11:33 AM

What if the presumption of human agency to make or change truth/reality is the illusion of power running like a ‘matrix’ over the (denied or ruled out) true heart knowing?
The assertive presentation of power is the puffed up sense of self-specialness cloaked in justifications FOR the response. I see that our interpretation therefore generates the response and the conviction we are right is in the ‘Inquisitor’s’ conviction as to the evil in the sinner – which of course is a projection acted out in ‘righteous’ hate upon them.
What if true and truly Human agency is always an expression and embodiment of a SHARED reality, rather than an attempt to kill or deny parts of ourself that we hate, fear or are shamed to uncover?

The seeking OF power OUTSIDE our truly shared and connected self is the lure to a false dependency culture or protection racket. Be vigilant against ANY thoughts that divide you from the truth of yourself, your world or your fellow beings. Their MASKING may be every kind of ugliness but to substitute the mask for the reality is to choose to live under and OF the mask or matrix of fear-defined self as the need to attack (judge) other’s reality and then act AS IF what you then perceive is TRUE!

My sense of our times is of the ‘deconstruction’ or illumination of the dis-integrity of the mask – so as to recognize our own – and wake by extending the recognition of true as a willingness to ‘see’ in new ways.
Inherited models or cultural perspectives, ideologies or ‘identity-assertions’ may have a baby in their bathwater, but to evaluate anything truly, one has to withdraw personal investment from it – or of course we will find ‘self-reinforcing’ outcomes.

Personal investment in the illusion of power is the belief that you are OF YOURSELF a power and this belief makes you alone and isolated within a Living Universe or Living being. Running with the bait until we run out of slack, and then struggling all the way as we are reeled in, to a death of all the illusion seemed to give us – (because we wanted it for ourself). We fight ourselves under illusions made of denied and projected fear, and protect the fear from the light of a truly present awareness.

Facing and recognizing fear for what it really is, is no longer to use it as a basis for Self-evasion.

WE choose to give responsibility away to ‘others’ and external justifications, while taking on responsibilities that we can never fulfil because they are not our functional capacity or purpose to usurp.

The idea of human as mere mechanism is the idea of control and development of systems of control that mask over and override the true movement of being – which is not movement in ‘time’ so much as movement of focus within being that uncovers desire and fulfilment – from which all else is then an embodiment. The ‘trauma’ is the freezing of a framework of attack that operates a defence against its re-living. This then operates the ‘self-survival’ of a separated sense of being split off by, deprived and denied – and we thus persist in acting as deniers and deprivers of a quality of love that we see others and our world as underserving of. That of course draws an defensive or suspicious response from others.

And in our self-illusion are we in some sense the last to own our OWN errors.
If all that a ‘political understanding’ can invoke is a desire to kill, then no wonder such institutional embodiments of power are HUGELY defended against attack – so much so as to make communication almost impossible.

The desire to kill is a variation on the need to judge or attack the truth of another o support a self in need of reinforcement. The nature of truth is that we REST in it. The nature of illusion is perpetual war – because without our investment of support and allegiance illusion would have no power over us. So become aware of where and how we are triggered into emotional reaction and self-division rather than truly known and owned communication of being we stand in just because truth is true and not in appeals to make illusions true so as to then fight, fix or overcome them. Illusions FUNCTION is to usurp true and therefore hide you from your true function, meaning and being.

tonyopmoc
tonyopmoc
Sep 21, 2018 9:02 PM
Reply to  Big B

Big B,

Joaquin Flores’ article seems quite credible at first reading, except for a few things.

The French, are not quite THAT stupid – sure they probably lobbed a few bombs at Syria but not at The Russian Aircraft. They knew they were sitting ducks, and have now probably worked out why. This is not going to enhance French-Israeli relations.

Even us British are not quite THAT stupid. They admittedly were up in the air and watching what was going on – and they had a sub underwater – and they knew they were being tailed by 2 Russian subs, and even they realised.it simply wasn’t worth starting WWIII by shooting down a large old Russian airplane that had 15 very experienced Specialists onboard simply watching what was going on…and reporting live back to the groundstation as fast as modern communications allow.

Isreal. They are That Stupid.

The Americans weren’t even there.

Good result – We are all still here, and can mainly thank President Putin

In the process of dying, these Russian Servicemen may have prevented World War III from starting, and no human being can be more heroic than that.

Thank You

Tony

Big B
Big B
Sep 22, 2018 8:24 AM
Reply to  tonyopmoc

Tony

I’d like to share your view of the British and French being rational actors, but I do not. Whilst I would not seek to underplay the part of the IDF, and I certainly am no apologist for the child murdering cowardly bastards, neither do I think their role should be overplayed. After all, in a minor way, they have taken the heat for an act of war, and allowed a de-escalation for now.

The Anglo-French part of the attack needs emphasising: it being the culmination of decades of behind the scenes furtive planning. You’ll have to go to the UK Column for the timeline, but the Anglo-French supra-state agreements date back decades, but culminate in the 2010 Lancaster House ’50 Year Defence Pact’ which is the core of EU Military Unification.

https://www.ukcolumn.org/series/eu-military-unification

The point I am making is that I can infer, but not prove, that the Anglo-French forces on Monday night, were neither under control of the French, or the British …and still less acting in the national interest. This was an act of war, unilaterally undeclared, with no announcement, no debate, no reason, no diplomatic or democratic oversight or accountability …perpetrated by whom: Treason May? I very much doubt that.

I can infer, but cannot prove, a ‘Synarchic Suprastate’ of elite, corporate, and banking interests; an invert totalitarianism that has circumvented the normal state checks and balances and acquired itself a military capability. Which is, perhaps, the most frightening thing I have ever wrote.

The IDF have always been insane, but within their insanity is a weird and warped rationality. If they have lost their impunity to attack Iranian, Syrian, and Lebanese assets in Syria, that would be a huge blow for them. I do not think they would lightly jeopardise that. Personally, I believe the FS Auvergne took down the Il-20, and I believe it was targeted deliberately. Which is an insanely reckless act with unconscionable consequences, for all of us.

Where to order originated is anyone’s guess, but I can infer in whose interests it stands. Correlation is not causation, or even confirmation …but right now I stand to be convinced that the UK armed forces, and probably the French are being controlled by invisibilised dark actors, working above International Law, and beyond any national security interest, for an international Deep State.

And yes, I do hope I am wrong. How do you fight an invisible enemy that doesn’t exist, and 99% of the populace (in the UK and France) do not even know they have their hands on the levers of a military superpower?

Outside the confines of this little oasis of sanity (OffG) I’d be laughed all the way to the nearest Mental Institution (oh, their all closed down!)

melt banana
melt banana
Sep 22, 2018 1:17 PM
Reply to  Big B

I’m with you mate. Sooo..who controls NATO? Obviously not their general secretary sock puppet.
Are we getting into David Icke territory with such questions? Finally, perhaps?
After all, some of the big, visible, for some reason legal, corporate players in this mess make zero attempts to hide their, uhm.. affiliations with the dark side. With names like “Blackrock” (..end scene of Gilliam’s “Time Bandits” anyone?), logos like bitten apples, etc. Do super-entities such as these not have “owners”?
In our times, who can AFFORD total privacy, invisibility even? Who in their right mind would even consider founding a friggin “shadow bank”?

summitflyer
summitflyer
Sep 22, 2018 6:14 PM
Reply to  Big B

I tend to have a belief along the same lines and you have a much better way of putting it into words.

Cassandra
Cassandra
Sep 25, 2018 6:09 PM
Reply to  Big B

“The Anglo-French part of the attack needs emphasising ..” (Right) … but the Lancaster Treaty is not “core of EU military unification” but a modern version of the old “entente cordiale” (a pact between two colonial powers to diminish the power of Germany and Russia (even if it means a World War) and then draw new borders and divide the spoils (Sykes-Picot etc.) …

http://www.voltairenet.org/article199528.html JAN 2018
The Franco-British « Entente cordiale »

As I have suggested before, the shooting down of the IL-20 should be seen in the context of the “Suez Crisis” (where Britain, France and Israel secretly conspired to get rid of Nasser and prevent Arab nationalism from spreading but only Israel appeared as the aggressor…)

http://www.voltairenet.org/article203086.html Sept 2018

“The confrontation which recently occurred in Lattakia may result in a complete global redistribution of the cards. There are two reasons for this, the second of which is being hidden from the Western world. First of all, it cost the lives of 15 Russian soldiers; secondly, it not only implicates Israël, but also the United Kingdom and France. This is potentially the most dangerous crisis in more than 60 years. We now have to find out whether President Trump, currently in the middle of his election campaign, is capable of supporting his Russian counterpart, in order that the United States and Russia may sanction the colonial powers as they did in 1956, during the SUEZ CRISIS…”

(don’t hold your breath Thierry, it won’t happen this time …)

More on French-British collusion:

(article 189385 on voltairenet, Nov 2015)
France and Israël launch a new war in Iraq and Syria

(article 178963 on voltairenet, June 2013)

“Former French Foreign Minister confirms preparations for Syrian war underway since 2010
…former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas said he was sounded out by the British in 2010—that is to say before the “Arab Spring”—to SUPPORT A WAR against Syria, in Israel’s interest.
The revelations made by Dumas would seem to confirm our hypothesis that the attack on Syria was envisaged by the secret clauses of the Treaty of Lancaster House on November 2, 2010. This document, purported to be a framework for Franco-British military cooperation, included secret clauses relating to the attack on Libya. However, we have always pointed out that the wars on Libya and Syria were planned simultaneously…”

One need not invent “sinister forces” who “invisibly” control the British and French military, simply call it capitalism (which is psychopathic enough)…

jonny
jonny
Sep 22, 2018 10:41 AM
Reply to  tonyopmoc

Great points Tony, and fellow Brits. I feel they may have delayed it, but sadly not prevented it.

DunGroanin
DunGroanin
Sep 22, 2018 12:37 PM
Reply to  Big B

Indeed BB – an attack on Israel would not be an attack on Nato.
The French ship was setup to be retaliated on. The UK fighters would have recorded it, if not actually gone to ‘help’ our EU cousins. Macron and May would have pre approved it. The US strike force would have arrived to impose the ‘No fly zone’. Trumps hand would have been forced.

Putins orders not to retaliate against the French must have been hard for the watching Russian ship. But they really are pro’s. Putin/Trump direct communication channel must have confirmed that Trump did not approve the plan.

The US generals are nothing but outlaw thugs. I speculated that it is only a matter of time before some crazed gung-ho, trigger pulling, Admiral starts shooting down Iranian and other airlines just so he can finally have his glorious final fight! Expecting at least a future tub with his name on it ir a seat next to Jesus!

They are and have always been mad and bad, in our name.

An election must be called. And we must vote for the first peace seeking PM since Wilson told the potuscidal US to fuck of and not send our teenagers to suffer and die in Vietnam.
Make sure everyone is registered to vote – the constant reregistration now required is designed to stop voters.
We may well have to take mass protests to the streets and even general strikes to force the Deep State establishment to RESPECT the democratic choice of the people over the aristo throwback warmongering murderous robber barons.

I recommend that everyone read and reread the last speech that JFK was on his way to give, before having his brains blown out in the most public execution since Julius Caesar. He and Kruschev had agreed to take the world in a different direction after the near fatal evens that would have destroyed most life in Earth. By the same idiot thinking generals and religous loons as there are now.
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2013/11/22/Full-text-JFK-s-never-delivered-speech-from-Dallas/stories/201311210356

Peace.

Wolfe tone
Wolfe tone
Sep 21, 2018 7:49 PM

I don’t think the NATO terrorists want ww3. I’d hazard a guess and suggest they were wagering that Russia would shoot itself in the foot by retaliating so much so that international pressure would force them to remove themselves from Syria. No doubt NATO wouldve denied their planes,ships and Israel jets were involved in the shooting down of the Russian plane and in fact Russia and Putin were just acting as usual I.e warmongers. NATO and especially the yanks want Russia out of Syria so they can continue with their plan for Syria. Remember the west went Buck mad when Russia decided to enter this contest. So far Putin and its allies have not taken the bait. Long may that continue.
Btw, with Turkey entering a pact with Russia it has unnerved the NATO terrorists even more I.e any fake flag attack and the inevitable NATO response from it, will have to take into account the Turkish forces now on the ground I.e will NATO want to bomb a fellow NATO member?

axisofoil
axisofoil
Sep 21, 2018 7:08 PM

In whatever context one chooses to view the following info….it is interesting none the less. One way or another, there will likely be another big surprise on the way soon.

https://www.brasscheck.com/video/the-simple-case-for-israeli-involvement-in-9-11/?omhide=true

rilme
rilme
Sep 22, 2018 12:57 AM
Reply to  axisofoil

The vid is far too complicated. The “is” sappers were in the WTC. They had boxes and boxes of fuses. Just stop there.

axisofoil
axisofoil
Sep 22, 2018 1:53 AM
Reply to  rilme

It does remind me of the pink umbrella with the poison dart that killed Kennedy. I just sent for the book anyway.You never know. Somewhat surprising that after 17 years people still think they have groundbreaking news about 9/11, Then again, after over half a century we are still getting new truths about the JFK assassination all the time. Maybe the real truth passed us by in the flurry?
What isn’t surprising is that it hardly matters any more.It almost seems that what is most important now is producing a video with an eerie sound track. It has become almost an art form. By the time ww111 arrives we will all be yawning and not know if it real or not.I rather think it will be quite spectacular myself. I wonder what is taking it so long.

binra
binra
Sep 23, 2018 3:22 PM
Reply to  axisofoil

Perhaps ‘ww3’ is waged against the human spirit as the undoing of consciousness as a kind of ‘regime change’ to an incapacity to have a voice, that can be heard or effect any outcome?
This is a variation on uploading human consciousness to digital form.

How much is the ‘world’ used as a sideshow of diversionary or false flagged causes and triggers, while an operating system ‘upgrade’ or is it down grade? – is being enacted.

The most rudimentary pattern being that of the seduction to a personal sense of power effecting a subjection to powerlessness – with the ‘naked emperor’ being the last to know.

axisofoil
axisofoil
Sep 24, 2018 11:10 AM
Reply to  binra

Thank you

Steve
Steve
Sep 21, 2018 6:37 PM

This is not about judo or 3D chess, it is about a sudden, massive dose of brute force annihilating the Syrian army in strategically chosen locales and taking out Assad. There is no way NATO will allow Syria and Russia to be victorious now that the end of the war appears to be so close.

Here is a comment from Bob written on 9/21/18 in response to a post by The Saker on the same date.

“I have seen a lot of praise for Putin every time he “avoids being drawn in” by this or that provocation. It is true that Putin’s course in Syria has necessarily required him to avoid certain “traps” by not reacting as expected to various provocations. Each time he has “not responded” to a provocation, many of us have pointed out the danger of not maintaining Russia’s ability to deter the Anglo-zionists, we have been dismissed as just not understanding Putin’s brilliance. But no more Saker. We are now beyond the point where anyone can reasonably argue that Russia can continue to deter the Anglo-zionists in Syria. The only thing worse than not enforcing your red lines in this kind of situation is not having red lines that your adversaries can readily discern. That is precisely where we are in Syria today.

My prediction, as previously stated, is that there will be a massive US intervention in Syria within the next 30 days. The US will not directly attack the primary Russian bases, but they will mercilessly go after the SAA, the Syrian government and Assad himself. They will seek to reverse the fortunes of the jihadi army in Idlib and I expect to see a major jihadi offensive against Aleppo in the wake of those US strikes. The Russians will not respond and will be reduced to hunkering down in their bases and hoping not to be struck by an errant projectile. At this point Russian attempts to enforce these red lines that nobody can see will probably be futile and will only lead to the destruction of the Russian expeditionary forces and perhaps to a nuclear holocaust. I hope I am wrong, but if the Russians cannot find a way to establish these red lines and re-establish their ability to deter the other powers, this is going to end very badly.”

https://thesaker.is/putin-israel-and-the-downed-il-20/

Big B
Big B
Sep 21, 2018 6:56 PM
Reply to  Steve

Your fears seem to be confirmed by the presence of the USS 6th Fleet, that has amassed 200 TLAMS (Tomahawks) in the Eastern Med off Latakia: as part of NATO Maritime Group 2.

https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/09/nato-warships-amassed-by-syria-just-before-attack-on-lattakia/

Big B
Big B
Sep 21, 2018 8:42 PM
Reply to  Steve

I just read the Saker, and some of the hysterical comments. There is much being made of the IDF part in this, and I’m no IDF apologist, but I do not think they shot down the Il-20. In fact, I’m not even sure they had much to do with it. If we look at the map Russia produced, the Il-20 flew on up the coast, AFTER the contact with the IDF. Now, I have no idea if the map is to scale or a mere infographic …but taking it as a reasonably real depiction: I’m guestimating the Il-20 was 15 miles further up the coast, on approach to Kheimim, before it went down at 22:07. If I’m correct, the F-16s were half way to Haifa at the time on the flight path, as depicted. Which puts the FS Auvergne in the frame.

http://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/5-7.png

Of course, it could be that the map is inaccurate. I’m sure it will all become clear when the Russians release the IDF data! 😀

DunGroanin
DunGroanin
Sep 22, 2018 1:15 PM
Reply to  Steve

Steve and all who believe that the Russians would be unable to defend against the Nato fleet – don’t be too sure. The Russians could take out the whole US fleet/ Cyprus/ IDF/ Saudis and others from their Black Sea bases. Never mind the hypersonic and stealth weaponery.

Look these forces have been planning for a nato first attack ever since Patton threatened to keep going to Moscow.

The Iranians being poked by the thugwits to get a reaction now.

Trump is being forced into his JFK moment – i trust he doesn’t have Ex idf bodyguards but his own!

tony0pmoc
tony0pmoc
Sep 21, 2018 6:11 PM

Brilliant analysis.

I think we were exceedingly close to starting WWIII on Monday, yet hardly anyone seems the slightest bit concerned. All it takes is one mistake, or one itchy finger, and then it would spiral out of all control. Nuclear War is Terminal. It would put the planet back several Billion years.

Tony

binra
binra
Sep 23, 2018 3:40 PM
Reply to  tony0pmoc

Worry does not add anything but more fear to a fearfully defined identity conflict.
Live this day well! relates to being truly present in what IS here.
Emotional experience based on what is not here is in my opinion part of what attracts the very thing it fears.
If it is your business to be involved, go about your business.
Fear operates as belief. If you fear something, it is necessarily invested in, and then a mind or strategy of evasion operate the defence against the reliving of the fear – because we cannot really be afraid of an unknown, but only of projections and associations onto the ‘as yet unrecognized’.

The Earth has had ‘extinction events’, or world epochs, come and go before our time.
To what degree are we fixated in a fascination with horror and getting off on the ‘dynamic’ of conflict?
Is consciousness a matter of the channel we attune to?

“Where do you want to go today” – I thinks that was Microsoft PR stunt to mask their ‘tech control’ within associations of freedom. The freedom is freedom, but tech control is forsaking freedom for the channel of ‘possession and control’ based on an implicit sense of lack – or why else shift the ides of freedom to operate slavery and take slavery as the freedom from real relations and communications under a doctored and strange love?

Brian Eggar
Brian Eggar
Sep 21, 2018 5:57 PM

Excellent article.

However, with no comment by France that one of its ships was firing missiles into Latakia, I wonder if it was an Israeli sub doing the firing? Certainly, it would make excellent sense for an Israeli sub to remain very close to any NATO ship in the area. It may be why Russia has set up the naval exclusion zone so that it can attack any unidentified vessels in the area and say it was an unfortunate accident.

Certainly, there will be another attempt to provoke a crisis. You do not call up an aircraft carrier plus its attendant fleet all the way from the east coast of America to join the party only to have to postpone it.

I did read the narrative put out by mainstream media that it was all an unfortunate chain of circumstances but you cannot get away from the fact that the F-16s arrived at the very moment that the Il-20 was coming in to land, the choice is coincidence or design?

I am sure that the mid term elections and the Putin Erdogan peace agreement is very much a part of Israeli FUKUS reasoning and I am sure that this little upset will not stop them from making yet another attempt in the near future.

If I was Putin, I would let this crowd of warmongers now that if they do provoke a serious fight and many Russian lives are at risk that I would lob a small tactical nuclear device high into the atmosphere over the middle east and for the resultant EMP blast knock the whole of the area back into the camel age.

When, when, when will the US and NATO pull out of Syria and allow it to rebuild and allow the migrants back. Like all the wars they have instigated, they have lost and cannot get used to it. Just think what could have been done with all the wasted trillions?

Unfortunately, I think it is going to get worse before it gets better.

Paul X
Paul X
Sep 21, 2018 5:49 PM

But will Russia really give Syria modern air defences? It’s a taboo in the West and no doubt Putin is constantly reminded of that by Netanyu in his frequent visits to Moscow. Putin is on a high wire but it turns out he’s a brilliant acrobat. The ‘West’, the forces of Reaction long for the chance to ‘get him’ in a way that doesn’t seem imperialistic but the bugger keeps dodging them. Putin’s credibility is sky high after this week’s events – and he still retains his ability to provide advanced weapons if and when really needed as well as his own military forces. Jumping into a war he can’t win is clearly not on his bucket list.

mark
mark
Sep 21, 2018 8:34 PM
Reply to  Paul X

I don’t think Putin’s credibility is very high at all.
He immediately excused and minimised Israeli operations as an “accident” and “tragic series of events.”
If I was a Russian servicemen I would be asking for another commander in chief, one who values the lives of his servicemen.
If Shoigu had any sense of honour, he would resign.
Syria has had to defend itself with 50 year old S200s. These museum pieces are the equivalent of 1950s Bloodhound missiles. Putin would prefer to sell the S300/400s to Shady Wahabia, the Dictator of Qatar, and Sultan Erdogan. Russia refused to supply S300s to Iran that had been paid for.
Putin doesn’t have to start WW3. there are many other things he could do to respond and protect Russian forces.
He could end travel by aircraft and ships between Israel and Russia.
He could impose economic sanctions on Israel.
He could stop endorsing and facilitating Zionist aggression and regime change stunts against Iran, Libya and other countries.
He could supply Syria and Iran with proper air defence – but he won’t.

Israel won’t pay any price for this or any other of his 200 attacks on Syria – Putin will do NOTHING.

Haltonbrat
Haltonbrat
Sep 21, 2018 11:44 PM
Reply to  Paul X

The UK is selling modern defences to Israel to protect them from sling projected stones from the Palestinians who don’t like the fact that they are being occupied and oppressed. The French sold nuclear weapons to Israel because they hate Muslims after being defeated in Algeria.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Sep 23, 2018 12:39 AM
Reply to  Haltonbrat

The UK and French slave regimes aid Israel because Zionazi money power controls politics in both countries. The hatred of Israel’s victims is mandatory-as we see from the Corbyn lynching, refusing to join is is ‘antisemitic’.

Jim Scott
Jim Scott
Sep 24, 2018 5:09 PM
Reply to  Paul X

I note that the S300 missiles are now being installed in Syria. Much better that Syrians shoot down Israeli and NATO aircraft while defending their country.p openop ist

summitflyer
summitflyer
Sep 21, 2018 5:39 PM

Thank you so much for providing us with a healthy analysis of the facts .It was really depressing to hear how things had played out .Although I did read about no fly zone being imposed by Russia for Israeli flights over Syrian territory yesterday , giving time for Russia to implement the S-300 installation in order to ensure this will not happen again.
No more Israeli flights over Syrian territory because they will indeed get shot out of the sky by the SAA , and with proper justification.You always come through ,Vaska , with the proper interpretation of the facts .

Admin
Admin
Sep 22, 2018 2:25 AM
Reply to  summitflyer

Vaska didn’t author the article. The author’s name is at the top of the piece under the header

summitflyer
summitflyer
Sep 23, 2018 12:53 AM
Reply to  Admin

Then Kudos to Tom Luongo. Well done.

Michael Cromer
Michael Cromer
Sep 21, 2018 5:25 PM

Time to say Goodbye – Israel will be awarded the John McCain Medal for Cowardice.

Haltonbrat
Haltonbrat
Sep 21, 2018 11:47 PM
Reply to  Michael Cromer

The Israelis cry whenever one of their IDF psychopaths is captured or killed.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Sep 23, 2018 12:41 AM
Reply to  Haltonbrat

Old proverb, adapted for modern usage-‘The Zionazi cries out in pain, as he smashes you in the face’.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Sep 21, 2018 5:16 PM

Good strong reasoning, the best I’ve read so far. Nice one!