Russia Bombs CIA-backed Rebels in Syria

Did Putin go into Syria to help his own economy back home by driving up oil prices?

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3559236-russia-is-not-in-syria-just-to-help-assad-hint-think-oil
Is Russia's effort to escalate their presence in Syria an economic tactic? Is there more to the backing of Assad than meets the eye? We think so. Take a look at this chart:

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Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, U.S. Shale, and everybody else that depends on higher oil prices is feeling heat. With China's economy spiraling downward, demand for oil isn't going to increase. Also, Iranian oil hits the market in January which ought to suppress prices further.

I don't see oil prices rising until production is disrupted somewhere. That could be the result of war, sabotage, or revolution. Syria is not an oil producer, so Russia's involvement should not effect oil price unless this evolves into a greater conflict. Hope that doesn't happen but it may.
 
Interview with Russian Colonel. Some might find this interesting. How many in depth interviews does the press issue with knowledgeable people in the US armed forces? Practically nil? What does that say about government by the people when the people don't even have a clue about what's going on?


Link.
 
Musburger1 said:
Interview with Russian Colonel. Some might find this interesting. How many in depth interviews does the press issue with knowledgeable people in the US armed forces? Practically nil? What does that say about government by the people when the people don't even have a clue about what's going on?


Link.
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Or it means that the military in the US isn't part of the political propaganda machine yet in Russia propaganda goes much deeper.
 
Seattle Husker said:
Or it means that the military in the US isn't part of the political propaganda machine yet in Russia propaganda goes much deeper.
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The mid level military in the US definitely isn't part of a propaganda machine. But I think the reason for that is that there simply isn't the freedom to speak openly. Anyone stating an opinion about policy that may be unfavorable or second guessed is opening up themselves for retaliation. What you have instead of investigative journalism is talking points handed down from the State Department, the Pentagon, or the Oval Office and spewed out as unquestioned fact by the media.

Can you Husker, or anyone else for that matter, lay out what the objectives of US foreign policy are with respect to the Middle East and Eastern Europe? Can you connect foreign policy objectives to the economy or to the impact with respect to geopolitical implications? Will any politician, military leader, or even journalist, whether from right or left, attempt to accomplish that? Of course not.

The typical American doesn't know jack about what this country's foreign policy objectives are and doesn't really give a ****. All they want to hear is that America is strong and that other countries respect them. Americans for the most part are ignorant with respect to the decisions being made on a world stage by their leaders and how it might impact the country. And if Americans aren't even concerned enough to find out what our leaders are doing, they sure as hell don't care to find out what people in other parts of the world think.
 
Joe Fan said:
My take is that everything he says and does is aimed at his domestic market. I don't think he really cares much what people outside Russia think of him.

As far as Syria goes, I don't think the Russian people, generally, give a crap what is happening or has happened in Syria. The two things they care about in this context are (1) They like the projection of Russian power on the world stage again; and (2) They do not want to see dead Russians coming back. No casualties. .......
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CENTCOM claims they dropped one into enemy hands then ordered an air strike to destroy it. Maybe we got lucky enough to kill us some ISIS soldiers?
 
Conflicting reports that Gen. Qassem Solaiman Soleimani was seriously injured in Iraq by an ISIS suicide squad
Soleimani is bigtime Al Qods/IRG guy
The US Govt has him on the terrorist list
They had lost another general a few days ago in the same fashion
 
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Joe Fan said:
Conflicting reports that Gen. Qassem Solaiman Soleimani was seriously injured in Iraq by an ISIS suicide squad
Soleimani is bigtime Al Qods/IRG guy....
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Update on this -- The story seems to be confirmed by the Iranians of serious injury.

However, the cause might not have been an ISIS suicide bomber, but rather a TOW anti-armor missile. If this is true, then it is quite possible if not likely that we supplied the TOW and it was not ISIS shooting it but rather one of the Syrian "rebel groups" we support. Another possibility is that it was actually USSF who made the shot (although, even if true, I doubt we would admit it anytime soon).

There have been several stories before this one that US supplied TOWs have been able to completely halt any advance of Assad tanks and armor. Now it seems they are also stopping advance of Iranian armor. Will the Russians try to advance their armor next? While we are not going to arm the "rebels" with SAMs to let them shoot down Russian aircraft, they already have the TOWs.
 
Joe Fan said:
Update on this -- The story seems to be confirmed by the Iranians of serious injury.

However, the cause might not have been an ISIS suicide bomber, but rather a TOW anti-armor missile. If this is true, then it is quite possible if not likely that we supplied the TOW and it was not ISIS shooting it but rather one of the Syrian "rebel groups" we support. Another possibility is that it was actually USSF who made the shot (although, even if true, I doubt we would admit it anytime soon).

There have been several stories before this one that US supplied TOWs have been able to completely halt any advance of Assad tanks and armor. Now it seems they are also stopping advance of Iranian armor. Will the Russians try to advance their armor next? While we are not going to arm the "rebels" with SAMs to let them shoot down Russian aircraft, they already have the TOWs.
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To summarize:
Assad, the Russians and Iranians are fighting terrorists.
We are arming the lesser terrorists (Al Nusra, Al Qeda, etc.) with TOWs to fight against Assad, the Russians, and Iranians.
ISIS benefits because we are fighting ISIS enemies.

Tell me again why we need to increase our defense budget.
 
Here is the Syria timeline with regard to Obama--

The precursor to ISIS was Al-Qaeda in Iraq. If you recall Bush's much criticized-at-the-time Surge, it actually worked. AQI had been reduced down to ~ 700 members (per CIA director John Brennan). Since that time, their ranks have been allowed to grow 4,000%.

As it was regrouping and growing, Obama was not interested, calling them the “JV team.”

Then Assad violated Obama’s “red line.” But again, Obama was uninterested. This is when and how the refugee crisis began.

In Aug 2014, Obama began to publicly admit his strategy was not working and he needed a new one. However, when questioned by the NYT, Obama said building up pro-American Syrian forces as unworkable “fantasy.” Within weeks, ISIS beheaded American James Foley. On vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Obama made a brief statement about Foley -- but 8 minutes later, he was caught on video hitting the golf course.

On Sept 10, 2014, Obama went on TV to state his new plan to deal with ISIS -- arming Syrian rebels (which he had called fantasy not long before). Obama said, “This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years." By late Jan, the Yemeni government had collapsed.

In Sept 2015, in Congressional testimony, the head of Central Command, General Lloyd Austin, was forced to admit that Obama's $500M program to train the rebels had produced only “four or five” fighters. When asked about this by 60 Minutes, Obama said he always knew it wouldn’t work.

Less than one day before the Paris attacks and shortly after ISIS had killed hundreds of Russians, Turks, Iraqis, and Lebanese civilians, Obama told ABC that ISIS was “contained” inside its borders. The next day, ISIS slaughtered over 100 civilians in Paris.

In Turkey for the G-8 a few days later, it seemed US journalists had caught on to Obama at least for a moment. For the first time in his presidency, they asked him some pointed questions. He called the Paris murders kind of “setback" to his otherwise successful strategy.

The truth is Obama has never been serious about ISIS. He clearly thinks other things are more important and is just kicking the ISIS can down the road, leaving the mess for the next person to deal with. Unfortunately, the press is back to playing along as evidenced by how willingly they allowed themselves to be diverted onto whether Republicans are racists with regard the importing Syrian refugees.

So, we have a situation where Obama’s screwing around with Syria caused the refugee crisis but he is now using the refugee crisis to divert attention away from his screwing around with Syria.
 
Joe Fan said:
The precursor to ISIS was Al-Qaeda in Iraq. If you recall Bush's much criticized-at-the-time Surge, it actually worked. AQI had been reduced down to ~ 700 members (per CIA director John Brennan). Since that time, their ranks have been allowed to grow 4,000%.
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Isn't it amazing how conservative history always starts after the topple of Sadam when referencing Bush? It's uncanny. It also never mentions that Bush put the original deadline for leaving Iraq in place.

With that said, Obama has certainly been chasing the threat as opposed to playing in front. Clearly he has chosen to avoid the drumbeat for war or making the case for boots on the ground in Syria. I suspect he thinks this is an unwinnable situation. The combination of the franchise model with the exportation of terrorism by ISIS will most certainly force his hand to be more aggressive.
 
Seattle Husker said:
Isn't it amazing how conservative history always starts after the topple of Sadam when referencing Bush? .....
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This thread is about ISIS which did not exist at that time. Isn't it amazing how non-conservative history never wants to look at Obama's actions?

Seattle Husker said:
...... It also never mentions that Bush put the original deadline for leaving Iraq in place.
.....
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The Rs wanted troops to stay. There was a fight at the time over this. The record is clear. Also, US intell. warned loudly of the dangers of leaving. It is likely that, had we stayed, there would be no ISIS today. US presence probably could have kept such a large number of the Iraqi-Sunnis from defecting to ISIS. They felt caught between two bad options and, sadly for them, they saw ISIS less worse than staying in an Iranian-directed shia Iraqi Army. A US presence would have given a 3rd option. And certainly had the US stayed, the Iraqi troops would not have been allowed to throw down their guns and run away at the first sight of ISIS. But I concede it is impossible to prove all this, either way.

The most difficult part of this aspect of the ISIS/Obama debate is that the Iranians told al-Maliki that if he wanted a 3rd term then US troops had to leave. So, Maliki gets his share of the blame for ISIS as well. Even so, the bottom line is that if Obama wanted troops to remain, they would have. But that would have taken a vision, a plan, a lot of courage and real leadership.
 
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ruh row

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My guess is that this was payback for Russians bombing Turkmen.
The Turks protested over this incident a few days ago.
But just a guess.

 
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Joe Fan said:
......
There have been several stories before this one that US supplied TOWs have been able to completely halt any advance of Assad tanks and armor. Now it seems they are also stopping advance of Iranian armor. Will the Russians try to advance their armor next? While we are not going to arm the "rebels" with SAMs to let them shoot down Russian aircraft, they already have the TOWs.
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Here is a separate article on the use of a TOW to stop an Assad armor advance, about 2 Reuters reporters who were injured. But demonstrates the increased use of TOWs by what Reuters is calling the FSA (free Syrian Army).
https://www.rt.com/news/323216-rt-correspondents-injured-syria/
 
It seems like this point I raised above is already happening. Here, a report says one of the non-ISIS rebel groups were able to shoot down a Russian heli using a TOW

Joe Fan said:
......
There have been several stories before this one that US supplied TOWs have been able to completely halt any advance of Assad tanks and armor. Now it seems they are also stopping advance of Iranian armor. Will the Russians try to advance their armor next? While we are not going to arm the "rebels" with SAMs to let them shoot down Russian aircraft, they already have the TOWs.
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