Upper House Sanctions Use of Russia's Military Force In Syria

Lawmakers authorize use of Russian military force for anti-IS airstrikes in Syria | Tass.ru |

The Federation Council has unanimously granted permission to the Russian president to use the nation’s military force in Syria, Kremlin chief of staff Sergey Ivanov told journalists on Wednesday.

“The Federation Council unanimously supported the president’s request –
162 votes in favor [of granting permission],” Ivanov said.

Russia will use only its Air Force in Syria against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group upon the request of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Ivanov said, stressing that no ground troops will be sent.

“The operation’s military goal is exclusively air support of the Syrian armed forces in their fight against the IS,” he said. This operation by the Russian Air Force is limited in time and the types of the used weapons are not disclosed, Ivanov added.

“The use of armed forces on the theater of military operations is ruled out,” he said.

President Vladimir Putin has earlier requested the upper house of parliament to authorize the use of Russia’s armed forces outside the country “based on the generally recognised international law norms and principles,” the Kremlin press service said.

Satellite Image Analysis of Russia’s Military Buildup in Syria | Stratfor |

From my two diaries of Sept. 6, 2015 …
○ Ex-DIA Head: ‘White House Knowingly Backed Al Qaeda In Syria’
○ Kerry Warns Russia Not to Intervene In Syria

From FOIA records on secret memos in 2012 .. no surprise to me as that was my analysis all along. Question to be asked, why is U.S. Congress spending time on Benghazi deaths and not on the failure of policy in Syria and costs in human lives of regime change!

Former DIA Chief Michael Flynn Says Rise of Islamic State was “a willful decision” and Defends Accuracy of 2012 Memo

In Al Jazeera’s latest Head to Head episode, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Michael Flynn confirms to Mehdi Hasan that not only had he studied the DIA memo predicting the West’s backing of an Islamic State in Syria when it came across his desk in 2012, but even asserts that the White House’s sponsoring of radical jihadists (that would emerge as ISIL and Nusra) against the Syrian regime was “a willful decision.”

Amazingly, Michael Flynn actually took issue with the way interviewer Mehdi Hasan posed the question–Flynn seemed to want to make it clear that the policies that led to the rise of ISIL were not merely the result of ignorance or looking the other way, but the result of conscious decision making:

Hasan: You are basically saying that even in government at the time you knew these groups were around, you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who wasn’t listening?
Flynn: I think the administration.
Hasan: So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?
Flynn: I don’t know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision.
Hasan: A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?
Flynn: It was a willful decision to do what they’re doing.

Hasan himself expresses surprise at Flynn’s frankness during this portion of the interview. While holding up a paper copy of the 2012 DIA report declassified through FOIA, Hasan reads aloud key passages such as, “there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria, and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.”

EXCERPTS FROM DIA MEMO – 2012

Read also today’s article @MoA …

Under Russian Pressure U.S. Accepts “Unified”, “Secular” Syrian State

Putin’s realist talk about Syria at the UN, which embarrassed the platitude spouting Obama, led to a change in U.S. policies.

The White House has halted the Pentagon training of the unicorn riding “moderate rebels”. That program is toast but the real question is if the “secret” CIA run program, which is vastly more extensive, is also suspended. My hunch is that it is.

On top of that Secretary of State Kerry made a very new statement that amounts to a really significant change in policy:

The United States and Russia agree on “some fundamental principles” for Syria, the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday, adding that he plans to meet again with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday.

“There was agreement that Syria should be a unified country, united, that it needs to be secular, that ISIL (Islamic State) needs to be taken on, and that there needs to be a managed transition,” Kerry told MSNBC, adding that differences remained on what the outcome of such a transition would be.

Never before has the U.S. officially expressed a demand that the Syrian state should in future be “secular” as it is now. This is a rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood dominated Syrian exile coalition and of the GCC states’ proxy fighters in Syria who demand a sectarian state based on Islamic law.

Since Israel lost the 2006 war against Hizbullah the U.S. and Israel plotted to overthrow the Syrian government which they accuse of facilitating Hizbullah’s military supplies. The U.S. planned, prepared and financed a “color revolution” scheme and an exile opposition.

As Seymour Hersh reported in 2007: The Redirection – Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?.