If Trump goes to war with the Assad regime

One airstrike does not make a war.
For instance, President Clinton bombed Iraq every week for eight years, but it took Bush to lead us into a disastrous war.
So are we going to war with the Assad regime? The rhetoric is unclear at this point, but it is alarming.

"There's not any sort of option where a political solution is going to happen with Assad at the head of the regime," Haley told "State of the Union" anchor Jake Tapper. "It just -- if you look at his actions, if you look at the situation, it's going to be hard to see a government that's peaceful and stable with Assad."
Haley's remarks come just a day after she warned that the United States was prepared to take further actions in Syria during a special session at the UN following a US military strike against a Syrian air base.

The Syrian government has issued threats in response, but they can largely be ignored. Why do I say that?
Because the Syrian military has been absolutely devastated by six years of war. It's completely unable to mount a major assault without the air support of Russia and Iranian ground forces leading the charge. To make matters worse, the Assad regime isn't really a dictatorship anymore. Syria is completely broken.

Indeed, after five years of war, the regime’s force structure today is not entirely different from that of opposition militias. While much better supplied by the Syria Arab Army’s still-standing logistics skeleton, the government’s fighting force today consists of a dizzying array of hyper-local militias aligned with various factions, domestic and foreign sponsors, and local warlords. Aymenn al-Tamimi’s profiles of loyalist militias provide some insight into their diverse backgrounds. Among these groups, only a handful are still capable of anything close to offensive action. Much more so than sectarian or demographic limitations, this fragmentation is the direct result of the interaction between national and local economic and governance pressures. As the once totalitarian Syrian central state atrophies, its constituent parts — be they sectarian, rentierist, or simple brutes — have gained a stunning degree of political and economic independence from Damascus. Contrary to what others have claimed, Assad’s regime has not struck some grand bargain with a large section the Syria’s urban Sunni population. Instead, he has elevated to power the most brutish elements of the country and doubled down on the sectarian, tribal, and thuggish inclinations of its base.
Today, where briefing maps now show solid red across Syria’s western governorates, they ought to distinguish dozens and perhaps even hundreds of small fiefdoms only nominally loyal to Assad. Indeed, in much of the country, loyalist security forces function like a grand racketeering scheme: simultaneously a cause and consequence of state collapse at the local level.

The government-allied militias that make up the bulk of the Syrian forces are basically a collection of warlords.
Forget for a moment that knocking off Assad would empower the al-Qaeda-linked jihadists. Consider the nightmare of a chaotic power-struggle would happen within the government-controlled areas. Think Afghanistan circa 1995, but with more minorities.
That's the future that liberal interventionists are demanding in the name of "humanitarianism".
I wonder if Democrats even care?

The biggest danger here is that Assad has two big external allies, and their rhetoric is ratcheting up.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev issued a statement today criticizing US airstrikes against Syria, saying attacks on the airbase were illegal and brought the US “one step away from military clashes with Russia.”
There is growing concern on that front, as the two nations already had very bad relations, and Medvedev warned today the US-Russia ties were “completely ruined” after the attack.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for a meeting with his security council on Friday to discuss the US attacks, and potential Russian reprisals. Already, Russia is promising additional air defenses for Syria, and deploying ships into the region.
Russia also cut off the “deconfliction” communications with the US military to protest the attacks, which Kremlin officials are warning significantly increases the threat of military conflict.

That's a very high price to pay in order to "send a message". Iran isn't happy either. Iran and Russia has drawn up their own red lines.

Russia and Iran have warned the US they will “respond with force” if their own “red lines” are crossed in Syria.

The Trump Administration, instead of trying to smooth out the hard feelings, threatened more sanctions, despite Russia and Iran not having done anything wrong.
I won't go into the potential scenarios of conflict with Russia and Iran. I'll leave that for another day. Although I will point out that the U.S. and Iran are headed toward conflict in Iraq, regardless of what happens in Syria due to Shia militias that are beyond the control of Baghdad.

Instead I'll draw attention to another complicated scenario - the Kurds.

In two towns, Sinjar in Iraq and Manbij in Syria, Syrian Kurds are fighting not only against the Islamic State, but primarily against their Kurdish brethren and the Turkish forces that invaded Syria last summer.
Earlier this month, Syrian Kurds clashed with peshmerga forces from Iraqi Kurdistan over control of Sinjar...
Kurdish aspirations on both sides of the border have “parents” who are working to achieve their own interests. Turkey, for instance, which invaded Syria’s Kurdish areas last August, wants to prevent the establishment of a contiguous Syrian Kurdish zone, lest it become a base of operations for fighters from the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, and form the nucleus of an independent Kurdish state in Syria that would attract Turkish Kurds in its wake. To achieve this goal, it forged an alliance with Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani and asked his peshmerga forces to fight against the Syrian Kurds.

You got that? Turkey is helping the Iraqi Kurds to fight the Syrian Kurds, while still bombing Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan.
This is the political environment that our thousands of our troops are in right now. And then it gets really complicated.

Turkey hastened to warn that if the Syrian Kurds didn’t evacuate Sinjar, Turkish forces would take over the city. But that would risk embroiling it in a three-way conflict – with Iraq; with Iran, which wants its Shi’ite militias to take over the town and the district; and with the United States.
The Syrian Kurds’ backers include both America and Russia.

Syrian Kurds want autonomy from Damascus, which Damascus rejects. Overthrowing Assad and plunging Syria into chaos would make the Syrian Kurds independent by default, which would send Turkey into a panic and probably cause them to invade Syria Kurdistan.

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boriscleto's picture

As blowing up a baby formula factory in Libya or an empty training camp in Afghanistan...Both part of the Klinton legacy...

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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

Russia. Russia in return said America's poodle doesn't even get a doggy bag from the table.

The rhetoric is like that leading up to Iraq. No fly zones tend to lead to ground invasions.

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@LaFeminista

What is really going on is that Trump appointed and surrounded himself with Neocons (McMaster, Tillerson, Nikki Haley, Pompeo,, Kushner, etc.), just like Obama had done, and now we are seeing the horrifying results of that.

He has been brought to heel and is now abandoning his Campaign pledges (and his grassroots base), and is doing exactly what the Oligarchy and Globalists want....Regime Change and War against Syria.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj4h99lIZ84]

---

And, here is the real reason why Worldwide Chaos, another failed State, and possibly World War III (with Russia) have to be created:

The Assad government had opposed the construction of the U.S. Oil Pipeline going right through his Country. So for the Globalists, naturally it is better for them to force the (legitimate) Assad government out of the way, and have the Country just destroyed and overrun by Terrorists groups (which they fund and control)......because this way then the U.S. Oil Pipeline -- and their crooked Monopoly and Global theft over World Resources -- is assured for them. That's what's going on.

And Trump has turned his back on the electorate, and decided to just become yet another controlled President by the Elites, by the Globalists, by the Neocons.

Very sad and reckless ....and WW III literally now hangs in the balance.

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@FreeSociety on this site were well aware of that risk. A friend and I had sort of a small argument this weekend when she snarked that "Hillary would have started a war" and now Trump has. Well, once again, if we actually allow ourselves to believe what these lying politicians have to say to us, then shame on us as well as them.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

dervish's picture

Americans will get tired of fighting Israel's wars. In this past election, both major candidates were completely in Israel's bag, but I hope that that will change in future elections.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

CB's picture

@dervish

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snoopydawg's picture

@dervish @dervish
have you read any right wing websites that have Trump supporters on them? They agree with everything he does and agrees that the military should drop bombs on ISIS and their families.
After reading the comments I was dumbfounded by how people buy the propaganda or come to other views of the wars on their own.
There were many military members commenting on my local website and people wrote "thank you for your service" over and over. They believe that our military is fighting to defend our freedoms.

Israel doesn't want ISIS defeated because the superpowers would leave the Middle East leaving them alone to fight their enemies themselves.
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/israeli-intelligence-chief-not-want...

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lotlizard's picture

@snoopydawg

have you read any right wing websites that have Trump supporters on them? They agree with everything he does and agrees that the military should drop bombs on ISIS and their families.

But obviously, that’s what makes them “alt” or “alternative” Right as opposed to ordinary-Right Trump supporters.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@lotlizard Syrian episode is NOT the beginning of a larger escalation, which my earlier essay stated.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkmnSeCZYX0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SoN0ySZl7k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0Tc31NkBXo

More on this later, but I think many here, as in the mainstream are completely missing the target.

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dervish's picture

@snoopydawg we're dropping bombs on those that are fighting ISIS. The US is ISIS' Air Force.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

snoopydawg's picture

@dervish
our government and our allies are creating and funding ISIS, AQ and other terrorists groups but most Americans aren't aware of that. They get their news from the msm and believe what they are told.
I read an article on antiwar that was about how the Syrian rebels could call for more US attacks by releasing more chemical weapons.

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CB's picture

@dervish
are the US military's proxy army. The following area of interest is where the CW release took place. It appears the US is not happy with SAA moving into this area before the Americans can prepare their 'troops'. These rebels would NOT be tasked with fighting the Al Qaeda linked HTS which fighting the SAA in this same area. I suspect the HTS will again go after the US backed 'rebels' and steal their US weapons and trained men as was done before.

The US has no interest in destroying any of the Al-Qaeda extremist Salafist jihadists in Syria because they have been, by far, the most effective group that has been fighting Assad. ISIS has been pushed out of Aleppo and Idlib provinces back towards Raqqa, Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor.

Take note that 'funding' also means arming.

Syria's 'moderate rebels' to form a new alliance
6 April 2017

US funding for rebel groups in northern Syria has been partially restored, opposition sources tell Al Jazeera.

A new military alliance of rebel groups in northern Syria aims to consolidate military control over Idlib province, the western part of Aleppo province and parts of Latakia province, according to a Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander.

Two sources from FSA have confirmed to Al Jazeera that the new military operation room, under discussion, will be supported by the "Friends of Syria" - a coalition of the US, Turkey, Western European and Gulf states - which have supported the Northern Front's operations room, known by its Turkish acronym MOM.

The commander said that the rebel forces will fight against the Syrian regime in northern Syria. He denied media reports that their goal would be to attack Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham, a Salafist alliance dominated by Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS, formerly known as al-Nusra Front) which formally renounced its affiliation to al-Qaeda in 2016.

The FSA commander confirmed that the funding and logistical support for rebel factions in northern Syria which the CIA froze in February have been restored to a certain extent.

Another FSA source told Al Jazeera that Turkey and the US are still to decide what form the new rebel command will assume and added that pressure is exerted on other rebel factions to join it. He also said that in January the CIA told FSA factions it was funding not to join the Moscow-sponsored Astana talks in which Turkey participated along with Russia, Iran and the Syrian regime. High-level US officials did not attend the talks.

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snoopydawg's picture

@CB
Russian jets are bombing the terrorists that the US and its allies are supporting to help overthrow Assad.
Remember the how the ceasefire that was brokered was undone by the pentagon and others who didn't agree with what Obama was doing. They bombed the Syrian army that had taken control of an air base. The bombing killed 82 Syrian troops and then ISIS was able to take the air base back. Ash Carter was part of the group and I didn't understand why Obama didn't do anything to them when they went behind his back like that.
And they were the neocons from the Bush administration who were backing Hillary because they too wanted a no fly zone and more troops on the ground in Syria.
That's one promise Obama kept. He said that he wouldn't put more troops in Syria.
I watched the video of him saying that last night and if anyone wants to see it I will try to find it and post it.

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Dhyerwolf's picture

@snoopydawg And Breitbart is practically the defining place of the alt-right.

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@snoopydawg
got one of my email addresses. today, one of them breathlessly informed me that Syrians are saying they are so happy about Trump's attack on the air field, they are going to name their next child, "Donald".

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Stop saying it was a false flag attack (it was likely simply the destruction of a chemical plant).

What needs to be emphasized is the violent chaos that would follow the fall of Assad.
Recall how people said "How can it get worse than life under Saddam?"
Well, it got a lot worse.

Same with Assad. Regime change in Syria would mean a disaster resembling the Second Congo War when millions died.

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CB's picture

@gjohnsit
babies tossed out of incubators onto the cold hard floor.

War mongering is now done by experts in propaganda. The US MIC has the most advanced propaganda machine in the world working against people with the lowest attention span in history.

We have just had our new incubator moment for Syria.

The problem is that Putin and Assad along with Iranian forces were steadily making large gains against HTS. This is not in the US playbook. They will have to put more of their players into the game.

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dervish's picture

@CB That's some seriously good propaganda.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Big Al's picture

@gjohnsit is based on and how illegal and immoral it is for the U.S. to have manufactured and administered this war. And it was a false flag, has all the earmarks, all the after reactions. They knew this was going to happen and were ready.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Big Al
The Russians and our military leaders speak to each other so that both countries know what the other is doing and Russia informed us that the Syrians were going to bomb the building where they believed they were stockpiling the ammunition.
And that is what Russia is saying when they say that they are going to stop communication.
I can't find the article I read about this.

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Big Al's picture

@snoopydawg they knew it would happen and had a response prepared. That's a false flag.

"The US decision to rush unilaterally without UN approval and before any form of formal investigation could be carried out verifies the staged nature of the attacks. Were the US confident genuine use of chemical weapons were carried out by the Syrian government, a formal investigation would not only lead to a definitive UN resolution against the Syrian government, but likely also to long-desired regime change in Damascus.

Knowing that a formal investigation would reveal the staged nature of the attack, the US has rushed into action seeking to provoke a response from the Syrian government that will retroactively justify an otherwise unjustifiable first strike."

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2017/04/us-missiles-strike-syrian-forc...

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@Big Al
because it makes the anti-war crowd look like CT people.

It's not necessary to oppose this war.

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Big Al's picture

@gjohnsit I'm for the in your face approach and I want people to call me a CTer. It doesn't scare me at all. To me it shows their ignorance and bias'. Expose the lies, tell them they're the liars that they are. We've put up with too many lies to stay silent.

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@Big Al
There are countless obvious reasons to oppose this war. You don't need to grasp one you can't prove.

But you're an adult. You do what you feel is right.

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Big Al's picture

@gjohnsit Tony Cartalucci of Land Destroyer Report and Ulson Gunnar are each calling it a staged event or a staged attack. I can live with that.

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gulfgal98's picture

@gjohnsit @gjohnsit There are certain topics I avoided bringing up first when talking to people during our Peace vigils. My approach with the average person, who does not have the benefit of background on these things other than the mainstream media propaganda, was to avoid talking about anything that smelled like a conspiracy theory or moralizing. Our first engagement was always on grounds that the average person could grasp, like the enormous cost of these wars or how many countries we are bombing and why that is not keeping us "safer." We used to try to explain to people that the only people benefiting from these wars were the corporations involved in the MIC. If the conversation went further, then other issues would be brought up.

So I understand why you are opposed to the term "false flag" operation, gjohnsit. But I also believe that among those of us here who have a greater knowledge of why we are fighting these wars, the use of the term "false flag" is not necessarily problematic.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

dervish's picture

@Big Al CT isn't a label that harms to any great degree. Heck, solve 9/11, and these wars will finally stop.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Big Al's picture

@dervish Everything goes back to 9/11 yet few want to talk about it. In some ways we get what we deserve.

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@gjohnsit

Anti-war opposition needs to change tactics, stop saying it was a false flag attack...What needs to be emphasized is the violent chaos that would follow the fall of Assad.

Actually, I think we need to emphasize both. We need a full-court press, attacking all the BS on every level, to generate a general feeling of mistrust of our Idiot Leaders.

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James Kroeger

ggersh's picture

how tptb control all thoughts and actions IRT the war machine, the neocons/neolibs
control everything, the narrative,etc.etc, why, what and how it all goes down.

donnie tinyhands and clowngress are nothing but paid actors in this movie.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Steven D's picture

Rubio says the exact same thing:

Sen. Marco Rubio said he is "concerned" by a Trump administration official's assertion that there is "no change" in U.S. policy on Syria despite the American airstrike against a Syrian government air base.

Rubio, in an interview on ABC's "This Week" Sunday, responded to earlier comments on the show by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the U.S. priority in Syria is to defeat ISIS. “I think that the strategy [Tillerson] seems to be outlining is based on assumptions that aren't going to work," Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos.

Rather, the Florida Republican said, the U.S. must work to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power before it can hope to defeat ISIS.

"There is no such thing as 'Assad, yes,' but 'ISIS, no,'" Rubio said. "This focus that you can defeat ISIS as long as Assad is there is not true. They are two sides of the same coin."

The senator continued: “As long as Bashar al-Assad is in power in Syria, you will have a reason for people to be radicalized in Syria and that's what's going to happen."

He added that other extremist groups operating in Syria could later step in to replace ISIS.

"In all this about ISIS, there's an al-Qaeda group growing in strength, this al-Nusra coalition, that are prepared to step into the vacuum left behind by a defeated ISIS. You cannot have a stable Syria without jihadist elements on the ground as long as Bashar al-Assad is in power.”

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

CB's picture

Netanyahu gets his wish - Assad gone from Syria and Syria partitioned.

The US has shipped multiple thousands of pieces of heavy military equipment to Europe along the Russian border and Mediterranean. This has been the greatest buildup of US war materiel since the height of the cold war. More shipments are coming into German and other European ports as we speak. Something big is going on.

I expect a rapid increase in American forces on the ground in Syria in the coming months probably staged from Romania. The following shipment is one of a number of train loads that are currently coming in from Poland. These are in addition to a very large shipment of 300 tracked and wheeled vehicles that came in by ship last July.

Published on Apr 7, 2017

Armored vehicles of the 3-29 Alpha Battery, arrive at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, April 7, 2017. U.S forces are in Romania as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which seeks to promote regional stability, deter aggression throughout the region, and enhance relationships between NATO Allies.

Published on Feb 14, 2017

News Events invites you to watch ….
US Military Tanks & Trucks In Romania In Large Numbers, Worlds Largest Nightmare For Putin.

US troops began to disembark their armoured vehicles on Tuesday at the MK Base, Constanta, as part of the US commitment to secure and to reinforce the Eastern NATO flank. The deployment is part of Operation Atlantic Resolve.

Published on Mar 15, 2017

Odo Puiu Events invites you to watch ….
Is US Preparing For A Major War? 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade.

"Cross-country trips require a lot of packing. For the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, that includes packing dozens of tanks. Over the past week, the brigade’s soldiers have been moving more than 1,000 pieces of heavy equipment, including tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers into a staging area of Fort Stewart and loading them onto rail cars. ... He and others from the 1-64th were among the 1st Brigade soldiers working to load and secure equipment on rail cars Friday morning. It was the third train of about seven that will be sent to Fort Irwin, Calif., in preparation for the brigade’s rotation at the National Training Center in April."

RAF Typhoons being sent to Romania to ward off Russian aggression over the Black Sea
British warplanes will be based in Romania as part of NATO's policing of the skies
27 MAR 2017
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snoopydawg's picture

@CB
I wondered if those troops are mindless bots just doing what they are told to do, are in agreement with the mission or even bothering to question what they are doing?
Are they aware how this war of terror is not to defend our freedoms and country, but to line the pockets of the defense industries?
I am aware that there is an economic draft and that is why a lot of people join the military, I just don't understand how they can be part of something that causes so much misery and death.
Reminds me of this picture.
IMG_0673_0.JPG

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@snoopydawg the PTSD after they fight these wars. Many most likely do not think about just what they are doing while they are doing it, and really, I guess you don't have much time to do what when you're busy fighting a war. I was Army but peace time so I have no combat or wartime experience but even for me, it was always about working for the people around you, in your unit. Politics is something most don't discuss, at least we didn't when I was in, and really, you pretty much aren't allowed to have your own beliefs as you signed a contract promising yourself to the government.

I'm going to have to have this discussion with my niece, Air Force, when she comes in on leave in a month. I'll be gentle as I don't want to actively condemn her for what she's doing, but I know me and I won't be able to say nothing either. She went in for college money, I would have helped her with that as much as I can but she wanted to do it on her own... I get that and respect it, but I wish to hell she'd get out. She's an F-16 crew chief, she keeps the planes in the air that are dropping the bombs. How in hell I'm going to address that somewhat tactfully I'm not sure yet.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Alex Ocana's picture

The account you gave doesn't mention the Yezidis, who are the indigenous people of the area around Sinjar. It also didn't mention what is meant by "Syrian Kurds".

In short, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, who abandoned the Yezidis to Daesh in 2014. The YPG (anarcho-communitarian Syrian Kurdish militia who are a main fighting part of the Northern Syrian Federation and SDF) rescued the Yezidi from Syria with light weaponry and formed/trained the local Yezidi defense force.

Since that time the KRG has blockaded the Yezidis who have formed their own defensive forces and the YPG. The KRG has also formed an alliance with Turkey and formed a militia called the Rojava Peshmarga which is made up of Kurdish refugees from Syria. The KRG/Turks are trying to resettle the Yezidis i.e. a sort of ethnic cleansing operation.

Trying to say that there is the Yezidi people protected by themselves and Syrian Kurds of the YPG against the Iraqi Kurds with Turkish allies and a group of paid Syrian Kurdish refugee mercenaries.

OK, complicated so I suggest you read the linked detailed and intelligent analysis.

http://www.nrttv.com/en/birura-details.aspx?Jimare=4855

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From the Light House.

huffpo

Al Nusra has a long history of manufacturing and employing crude chemical weapons; the 2013 chemical attack on Ghouta made use of low-grade Sarin nerve agent locally synthesized, while attacks in and around Aleppo in 2016 made use of a chlorine/white phosphorous blend. If the Russians are correct, and the building bombed in Khan Sheikhoun on the morning of April 4, 2017 was producing and/or storing chemical weapons, the probability that viable agent and other toxic contaminants were dispersed into the surrounding neighborhood, and further disseminated by the prevailing wind, is high.

The counter-narrative offered by the Russians and Syrians, however, has been minimized, mocked and ignored by both the American media and the Trump administration. So, too, has the very illogic of the premise being put forward to answer the question of why President Assad would risk everything by using chemical weapons against a target of zero military value, at a time when the strategic balance of power had shifted strongly in his favor. Likewise, why would Russia, which had invested considerable political capital in the disarmament of Syria’s chemical weapons capability after 2013, stand by idly while the Syrian air force carried out such an attack, especially when their was such a heavy Russian military presence at the base in question at the time of the attack?

Such analysis seems beyond the scope and comprehension of the American fourth estate. Instead, media outlets like CNN embrace at face value anything they are told by official American sources, including a particularly preposterous insinuation that Russia actually colluded in the chemical weapons attack; the aforementioned presence of Russian officers at Al Shayrat air base has been cited as evidence that Russia had to have known about Syria’s chemical warfare capability, and yet did nothing to prevent the attack.
...
Even slick media training, however, cannot gloss over basic factual inconsistencies. Early on, the anti-Assad opposition media outlets were labeling the Khan Sheikhoun incident as a “Sarin nerve agent” attack; one doctor affiliated with Al Qaeda sent out images and commentary via social media that documented symptoms, such as dilated pupils, that he diagnosed as stemming from exposure to Sarin nerve agent. Sarin, however, is an odorless, colorless material, dispersed as either a liquid or vapor; eyewitnesses speak of a “pungent odor” and “blue-yellow” clouds, more indicative of chlorine gas.

The lack of viable protective clothing worn by the “White Helmet” personnel while handling victims is another indication that the chemical in question was not military grade Sarin; if it were, the rescuers would themselves have become victims (some accounts speak of just this phenomena, but this occurred at the site of the attack, where the rescuers were overcome by a “pungent smelling” chemical – again, Sarin is odorless.)

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@gjohnsit

(I assume that's your name Smile ) You gotta publish this one at Dailykos, man. If it doesn't open up some eyes, then that place is really beyond the pale.

I think we need to try to rally some of the anti-war folks at TOP who ended up getting sucked into Hillary's orbit, many of whom I assume are publishing there.

It's getting scary...we've got to try to expand the resistance against this war in any way we can, and there is reason to believe that there is some fertile ground there.

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James Kroeger

@James Kroeger jamess wrote about the Ritter article, made the rec list, but the current rec list leader is a diarist calling him out.
I expect to be insulted and called an idiot by a right winger. I do not take it well when a supposed lefty does it. Going over there with anti-war sentiments is an invitation to be slammed.
I doubt there are more than a handful of progressives remaining at TOP.
I stayed on the site about 3 minutes, did not log in.
There is no good reason to do so.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp

Yeah, it's awful unpleasant to try to publish sanity over there, but I'm starting to feel really anxious about how this could all end up.

The war mongers have definitely been carrying the day over there, so tightly do they cling to Hilary's bosom (and to the funding they get from CIA bots?).

But, damn the torpedoes, ya know? We gotta expand the opposition to this madness or I fear we may regret not doing everything in our power...

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James Kroeger

dervish's picture

@James Kroeger our best bet is likely currency collapse. Not much short of that can stop this juggernaut. The next best option is probably a quick and clean end.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

lotlizard's picture

@dervish that the EU common currency, the euro, would falter.

The euro is never going to be allowed to succeed, lest more and more countries dump the petrodollar and, led by Russia, Iran, Venezuela etc., start trading oil in euros instead.

The petrodollar system is why even purported human-rights organizations actually serve a function of parroting Saudi and Gulf regime propaganda.
https://angryarab.blogspot.de/2017/04/hrw-director-now-reproduces-all.html

our best bet is likely currency collapse

Any loosening of the petrodollar’s iron grip and, boom! there’s your currency collapse.

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mimi's picture

@lotlizard
so, I guess, I am lost whatever happens. I barter my livelihood in food currencies. One brown-spotted rotten banana against one brown-spotted rotten apple. If you cut out the brown rotten parts it's still edible, so I guess I am good...

Hi, lotlizard... Smile

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lotlizard's picture

@mimi Wunderschönen Sonnenschein ham wir in Dresden heit’.

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mimi's picture

@lotlizard @lotlizard
my mood switches like the weather here and that means, very often. I try to figure out how to build a new life and where. Getting a little old and sometimes lose my "hopey, changey" feelings to do it.
But my son gets stronger while I get weaker and that gives me tremendous pleasure ... over the darn mobile phone that is. It sounds much like this (he can sing too, a little)
Smile
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwOU3bnuU0k]

Nice dialect you have there over in Dresden ... can't tell you how I dislike my fellow neighbors one, but if you look carefully and listen attentively you'll find something nice about them too. Just a matter of good will...

Have some more sunshine. Sorry to say, I love that song, but if Stevie would sing that in today's White House, I think it would even be a worse edition that this one is (imo).
[video:https://youtu.be/gZXjFV8nT4E]
It could be like this and that's what I like better:
[video:https://youtu.be/uPyq4iqt6Go]

I need Joe or NCTim to find the best version of that "sunshine" song. Love 'em guys for their musical donations to the C99p folks too, yeah.

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The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Hillbilly Dem's picture

@The Aspie Corner . Loved War Pigs. Ozzy at his best.

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"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey

CB's picture

Compare his pictures to White Helmet video. Completely different areas. This story is falling apart rapidly.

'The dead were wherever you looked': inside Syrian town after gas attack

Exclusive: Kareem Shaheen reports from Khan Sheikhun, where he was the first reporter from western media to reach the site of this week’s devastating atrocity

han Sheikhun is a ghost town, its streets deserted and silent as though mourning the victims of the atrocity that occurred here two days earlier.

The only reminder of what happened is a small, blackened, crater near the northern part of town, where a rocket laced with a nerve agent fell, killing more than 70 people in one of the worst mass casualty chemical attacks in the six-year war in Syria.

All that remains of the attack on the town in rebel-held Idlib province is a faint stench that tingles the nostrils and a small green fragment from the rocket. The houses nearby are emptied of the living.

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If memory serves, one of the outcomes of Pavlov's experiments was the complete apathy to pain when the electric shocks and rewards were totally random. Didn't the dogs just lay on the electrical grids when the charges were administered? It looks to me that anything we say or don't say, protest or not protest, write to our representatives or not write to our representatives, the outcome is war and human death.

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lotlizard's picture

@MrWebster @MrWebster Obama did his part with 8 years of “electric shocks” (betrayals) to his anti-war, pro-99%, pro-civil-liberties voters, reinforcing apathy on the Left.

According to this reading, Trump will now administer X years of “electric shocks” (betrayals) to his anti-war, pro-99%, pro-civil-liberties voters, draining energy from and inducing apathy among the working-class Right and Alt-Right.

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The Aspie Corner's picture

@Hillbilly Dem Ozzy's definitely up there though. Dio too. Sabbath with Gillan as front man wasn't bad either but I fail to see why Iommi kept the Sabbath brand after that.

I'm also into some other weird obscure bands like this one...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8Zc7TJa1zU]

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.