Minister: Germany will not take part in further US attacks on Syria | DW |
Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said that German Tornado reconnaissance jets would not provide assistance for further US attacks on Syria. Speaking to German broadcaster SWR von der Leyen said the German jets had a clearly defined role within the international coalition to carry out reconnaissance for missions against the so-called “Islamic State.”
○ IS targeted Coptic Christians in Egypt on twin suicide bomb attack on Palm Sunday
Reactions to the Syria Strike: A Brief Guide | The Atlantic |
Leave aside the humanitarian and strategic consequences: Trump’s decision to launch cruise missiles at Syria was a tactical political masterstroke worthy of Vladimir Putin. The Syria strike shattered the political coalitions gathered against Trump and assembled new ones from the pieces.
First and foremost, Trump won over the blob. The mainstream U.S. foreign policy community has harbored deep misgivings about Trump since the early days of his candidacy. But they certainly weren’t happy about Obama, either, especially when it came to Syria. In recent days, a number of former Obama officials have retroactively criticized his decision not to intervene in Syria, both on and, most colorfully, off the record.
Obama saw this coming. In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, he denounced the traditional formulas of American power. “There’s a playbook in Washington that presidents are supposed to follow,” Obama said. “The playbook prescribes responses to different events, and these responses tend to be militarized responses.” But, he explained, “In the midst of an international challenge like Syria, you get judged harshly if you don’t follow the playbook.”
In attacking Syria, Trump saw the political utility of playing by the rules once again. A foreign-policy community weary of its antagonism to the grand office of the president would snap in line behind him. And snap in it did, just as soon as the cable networks broke in with somber anchors explaining that America was, once again, unleashing its arsenal over Middle Eastern skies.
Even the centrist and liberal wings of the blob turned out for Trump. Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a blob leader if ever one existed, noted that acting where Obama didn’t gave Trump the chance to define himself as the “new sheriff.” Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former Obama official who has advocated intervention in Syria in the past, said bluntly: “Donald Trump has done the right thing on Syria.” Even Hillary Clinton was supportive of the action in remarks she made before the strike.
○ US Congress Fails In Strategic Thinking Middle East by Oui @BooMan on Jan. 27, 2014
○ America’s Failed Diplomacy and Resort to Threats and Sanctions as Tools of War
○ Cold War Rage Implementing Intelligence, PsyOps, Internet Troops
○ The Fool’s Errand to Topple Assad
○ Obama Got It Wrong On Strength Islamic State
Excuse me, but I would have thought you would be thrilled to see “Russiagate” off the front pages temporarily. Am I wrong?
The Syrian civil war has highlighted the fact that Syria was never a nation state as understood in the West, but rather a restive collection of ethnic and confessional groups held together by coercion and terror as deemed necessary by whichever Assad held power.
Trump’s election has highlighted the fact that the United States were never a nation state as understood in the West but rather a restive collection of ethnic and confessional groups held together by a common mythology and civil religion.
You can make the same argument for all of the Levant as partitioned by the League of Nations after mopping up the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.
Should someone now intervene in US domestic affairs or bomb a US airbase because Trump is willy-nilliy casting aside all of the norms and mythology that has keep the US functional for the past 40 years?
This counting coup on Russiagate is getting a little tiring. There are real issues of war and peace and national security involved here. If Trump is letting DAESH/ISIS/ISIL out of the noose that was around them two weeks ago, that is very counterproductive to US national security. If they are setting up in Egypt, the most populous and potentially most powerful country in the Middle East, that is serious business.
What is clear is that the airstrike was about China and Russia more than it was about Syria and Iraq. But wait for the Trump regime to play for power on every act of terrorism anywhere.
There is the right way to do something; the wrong way to do something; and the Army way to do something. The airstrike on Syria was the Army way, apparently.
I don’t know how you managed to read into my remarks a wish for, or support for, US intervention in Syria.
The US has been a nation state marked by shared values, now being rapidly eroded by cynical attacks by people who stand to profit from chaos.
Your remark about ISIS/Daesh is spot on, but I fully expect someone to post claims that the attacks on Egyptian Copts was a false flag attack engineered by Sisi with US connivance.
You are hung up on attribution to false flag attacks. DAESH/ISIS/ISIL is under stress in Syria and Iraq up to two weeks ago. Their only way of staying relevant is to obtain whatever one-off attacks they can from their supporters outside Syria and Iraq. Thus Paris. Thus Egypt. That makes some degree of sense.
The attribution of the gas attack in Idlib province to Assad does not make sense as a straight-forward attack but serves the interests of the al-Quaeda-affiliate rebels in the area, who want to see US-UK involvement in Syria, which previously was along with Lebanon, a French mandate. It is fairly easy to figure out who the false flag serves there. And whose interests those proxies serve–Turkey (a NATO ally) and Saudi Arabia (the US oil supplier to Europe).
Stop expecting nonsense; often it isn’t.
You don’t have an omniscient view of Assad’s motives, but you can speculate all you want. Why did Hafez, Bashar’s father, send his army in 1982 to level Hama and massacre thousands? TERRORIZE THE OPPOSITION seems like reasonable speculation. An uncomplicated motive, I’d suggest. Ditto for the alleged use of poison gas.
See, I can speculate like you.
You seem to know nothing about the history of Syria … what is your motive to post a comment of no substantive value? I keep repeating myself.
Even if you had bothered to follow closely the events from the Iraq invasion in 2003, the uprising van the Sunni population with support from the Saudi monarchy [think the Fallujah massacre], US/UK big failure in military occupation of Iraq [foltering and rendition], the growth of AQI and spread into the Levant to meet up with support from Turkey for the FSA and foreign jihadists.
Yet once again, the US and its G7 allies met with the Sunni front states of the GCC counntries and Turkey to force regime change after a six year blood bath in Syria. Sanctions in addition to Sunni terror threats, what a God forsaken nation the US has become.
It’s the military complex, intelligence services and corporate money that runs the US Congress and the White House.
Where to lay the blame? With most narcists it’s always clear … with the other guy. No relection, no lessons learned.
What does all that have to do with the massacre in Hama, say?
○ Syria offers picture of Hama revolt | NYT – Feb 24, 1982 |
○ The Great Syrian Revolt of 1925
Again, what’s the point? Hafez Assad’s bio doesn’t really tell us about his order to destroy Hama and massacre the residents. Or are you now going to tell me that the Hama massacre was faked?
“The Arabs are one people.” Really? One, they sure know how to kill each other ovet religious differences. Two, a lot of “Arabs” are indigenous people descended from ancestors who were subjected to rule and colonization by conquerors from Arabia.
○ Bringing Real Muscle to Bear Against Syria – CIA 1983
○ The UK may have helped Syria make nerve gas | Gulf News |
○ Dutchman Van Anraat jailed for 17 years over Iraq poison gas
Same with US chemicals finding its way to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and the silence from the Reagan administration on the gas attack on the Kurd city of Halabja in 1988.
Not to be overlooked is that Poppy didn’t use the “he gassed his own people” in 1990. But sonny did. And we know why.
JoelDanWalls writes:
Tarheel answers:
Score one for TarHeel.
AG
JDW also writes:
Snide, JDW.
Very snide.
My answer?
Excuse me, but I think that you would be thrilled to see “Russiagate” on the front pages forever, no matter whether there was any provable, factual basis for it or not.
Am I wrong?
I think not.
Lies don’t work all that well against a good, professional liar. He just bumps his lying game another notch and there you are with your pants around your ankles, wondering what just happened.
Trump did this on one level to his weak opponents in the primaries…liars and/or total fools, almost all. Then he took on a better, higher-level liar and kicked her ass with even more lies. And now he’s done it again, against top-level pros this time. That’s his game, and he is goddamned good at it!!!
If you are going to go up against a great and gifted liar, the only sure weapons had better be truthful ones, not some make-believe, unprovable, gob-smack story put together by spooks in their fortified, secure back rooms.
Better luck next time.
AG.
P.P.S. I mean that, JDW. I would love to see some part of the govertnment/media complex take him down with some sort of truth.
Why?
Because I am sick of lies, that’s why.
Joseph Conrad, Heart Of Darkness:
Precisely…a flavor of mortality…the stink of death!!! I smell it on both sides of the current Trump competition.
Both sides.
And I don’t like it one bit.
AG
Recent US presidents take quite much time for golfing, ranching, vacationing. Trump criticized Obama for that, and himself promised to golf only for cutting deals. Anyone wonders, whether a big game is coming for Trump, like for W in 2001?
Maybe. Dunno if he can get away with it, though. Too much real opposition in Congress. He’s not a member of the in good standing.
They fear him.
AG
(Sorry…hit the wrong button. here’s the whole post.)
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Maybe. Dunno if he can get away with it, though. Too much real opposition in Congress. He’s not a member of the club in good standing.
They fear him.
As ex-Marine Corps Major Paul Hackett said after giving up trying to make a Dem run at the Ohio Senate seat in 2006:
Same same w/the whole PermaGov-sponsored congress.
Squared.
Cubed, even.
AG
Yeah, whatever happened to lieutenant colonel Paul Hackett — the non-progressive that couldn’t win a House seat against a crazy and dumb, Republican woman in Ohio and that intended to fail upwards by getting the Democratic Senate nomination to run and lose badly against an incumbent Republican.
I pretty much loathe Schumer, but even he gets it right on rare occasions. This was one of those times. And your continuing use of and embrace of Hackett demonstrates that you can be as kneejerk as those you continuously criticize.
I didn’t say I “supported” him, Marie. I said that this statement was absolutely correct. I tend to like people who stick it to the PermaGov from any direction. Then I at least pay attention to them.
He didn’t get that far; I don’t really know his positions on much and I don’t know his electoral history. I do know Schumer’s “positions,” though…the ones he mouth-talks and the ones he’s paid to negotiate in the back rooms. I don’t “pretty much” loathe him…he makes my skin crawl!!! I’m from NY and I see his handwork everywhere.
He’s dirty and he’ll get caught eventually.
Watch.
AG
If you don’t know the facts, then using it as an example to add to one’s criticism of any politician or political party is my definition of kneejerk. Nutters do that all the time and then get huffy when called out as stupid.
Schumer got that one right (even if it pained him that the only non-stone cold loser he could recruit was a progressive). Doesn’t hurt to give him credit for his occasional lapse into rational competence. Sadly, Brown paid up when the DP presented the bill.
The fact is that he said what I posted.
Another fact…
I agree.
Had he risen higher I would have examined him more closely, and I might…or might not…have come to different conclusions.
Only so many hours in the day…
I spend too much time here as it is.
Way too much.
AG
JDW also writes:
Snide, JDW.
Very snide.
My answer?
Excuse me, but I think that you would be thrilled to see “Russiagate” on the front pages forever, no matter whether there was any provable, factual basis for it or not.
Am I wrong?
I think not.
Lies don’t work all that well against a good, professional liar. He just bumps his lying game another notch and there you are with your pants around your ankles, wondering what just happened.
Trump did this on one level to his weak opponents in the primaries…liars and/or total fools, almost all. Then he took on a better, higher-level liar and kicked her ass with even more lies. And now he’s done it again, against top-level pros this time. That’s his game, and he is goddamned good at it!!!
If you are going to go up against a great and gifted liar, the only sure weapons had better be truthful ones, not some make-believe, unprovable, gob-smack story put together by spooks in their fortified, secure back rooms.
Better luck next time.
AG.
P.P.S. I mean that, JDW. I would love to see some part of the govertnment/media complex take him down with some sort of truth.
Why?
Because I am sick of lies, that’s why.
Joseph Conrad, Heart Of Darkness:
Precisely…a flavor of mortality…the stink of death!!! I smell it on both sides of the current Trump competition.
Both sides.
And I don’t like it one bit.
AG
I have nothing invested in Russiagate, AG. I’d like to see Trump and his idiot GOP fellows shown to be conniving, avaricious fools one way or another. Will that happen via the investigation into Russian interference with our election? Beats me. Please quit attributing motive to me. You could at least ask.
The Guardia – Migrants from west Africa being `sold in Libyan slave markets’
Good work all you R2P humanitarians: Clinton, Power, Obama, etal. Back to the 18th century.
No different than the peonage that a lot of Central American and Mexican entrants into the United State have chronically experienced.
It’s what happens when labor is needed but people are classified as illegal or able to be confined in some other way.
Too bad that US business was not on with the Marshall Plan that was supposed to fix up all of these recently defeated nations. Whatever happened to The Mouse that Roared?
No — it may be hell for Mexican and Latin American immigrants getting into this country, but it’s not at all like this:
WRT to Marshall Plan aid, have those countries been defeated?
It only comes when the USA can claim Victory AND permanent US military installations are granted AND a permanent US economic alliance is forged. When’s the last time that happened?
When and where have I heard these same words uttered before? JDW can you help out?
Once again, the US finds Israel by its side in 2017, likewise by the decision in 2002 to conquer Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein, a former ally of the US in the battle against the Ayatollahs of the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
○ Obama following George Bush and the Neocons on regime change in Syria
Cannot help you out here, Oui. I can spot cynical bullshit, too, when uttered by “senior US officials”, but I think you are making a very poor analogy between Syria 2017 and Iraq 2003.