International Military Review - Syria (Dec. 22)

Today I find myself, as seems typical the last two years, focused on news from the conflict zones around the world. Studying Syria because of the U. N. Security Council unanimously endorsed a political roadmap , I wanted to delve into the potential of this agreement. Then I saw Google had indexed a CNN piece about Russia's "creeping war" in Syria, and I was again trapped into calling BS on the mainstream. This one's dedicated to you, Matthew Chance, champion whiner and party line disseminator for the western oligarchs.

Have you ever taken note of just how consistent and nasty western media is when it comes to Russia? Surely you must have noticed that Google News has nothing listed in its indexes that could remotely be construed as dissent. A piece this morning entitled "Inside Kremlin's creeping military campaign in Syria," it's the shabbiest form of media propaganda of all. Matthew Chance, CNN's Senior International Correspondent does the full monte on Russia after the network sprung for his trip to Syria (I assume they paid). The correspondent opens his "report" bitching and whining because somebody did not kiss his royal cable news network ass, and fly him into Hmeymim airbase located outside Latakia in Syria. I am serious, the lead into this tongue in cheek Assad-Putin mud slinger is all about the "me-me-me-oh-me" hardships a reporter has to suffer, when covering the Russians.

I know, you think I am kidding, so let me quote from the "trials" of Mr. Chance:

"Certainly our journey into Syria with the Russian defense ministry was testing: Seven hours on a bus to a military airport outside Moscow, three hours going through security, then six hours on a Soviet-era Tupolev passenger jet to Syria."

What a pansy. A reporter is given the opportunity to see the Russian offensive against ISIL first hand, cameraman in tow, and all he knows how to do is bitch, cast dispersion, show shipboard cats, and then whine some more about the food, the noise of those big powerful Russian killing machines!!! You feel me, I know. For one thing, anyplace to Syria these days involves more than your typical Miami Beach drinking holiday, for God's sake dude. Beside this, the Tupolev you b*tch about probably has more leg room than any Boeing medium range airliner. If you rode in the Tupolev Tu-154, you were in a very safe and dependable aircraft too. As for the flight time, give me as break. There are no flights from Moscow to Damascus even, except for one Syrian Airlines hop each day. Flying from Luxembourg, the closest airport to me, it takes over a day to get to Damascus. But I'm on a tangent, surely Vladimir Putin could have sent his private jet to carry CNN to the Russian front in Syria. (This is why we Americans are exceptional)

In an outcome celebrated as a rejection of austerity not only in Spain but across the European continent, the Spanish general election Sunday resulted in a splintered parliament, with the conservative People's Party losing significant ground to the anti-austerity Podemos party.

The ruling People's Party, led by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, won the highest number of votes on Sunday but it only obtained 122 seats out of the 350-seat parliament, falling short of the 176 needed for a parliamentary majority—and marking its worst result ever in a general election.

This means Rajoy will have to form a coalition or minority government with the Socialist party, which won 91 seats, or newcomers Podemos and Ciudadanos, which secured 69 and 40 seats respectively. Any of these results could see progressive policies breaking austerity's stranglehold on the country, where the Popular Party government has been pursuing harsh budget cuts and tax increases.

Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias—who formed the party in January 2014 with a group of fellow leftist university lecturers, inspired by the grassroots protest movement Los Indignados—hailed the birth of "a new Spain."

Addressing supporters in Madrid late Sunday night, Iglesias added: "Spain is not going to be the same again, and we're happy. Our fight against corruption goes ahead."

Meanwhile, Socialist party leader Pedro Sánchez said the results prove voters want a change in political direction, telling a crowd early Monday that "Spain wants a move to the left."

In late October, we noted that for the second time this year, Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as the biggest exporter of crude to China.

Russia also took the top spot in May, marking the first time in history that Moscow beat out Riyadh when it comes to crude exports to Beijing. "Moscow is wrestling with crippling Western economic sanctions and building closer ties with Beijing is key to mitigating the pain," we said in October, on the way to explaining that closer ties between Russia and China as it relates to energy are part and parcel of a burgeoning relationship between the two countries who have voted together on the Security Council on matters of geopolitical significance. Here's a look at the longer-term trend:

The latest Seymour Hersh piece alleges that the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) under General Dempsey undermined the official White House policy on Syria. Their impetus to do so came after a Defense Intelligence Agency analysis found in 2012 that there were hardly any "moderate rebels" in Syria but only Islamists fighting against the Syrian state. The CIA was at least since early 2012 delivering weapons from Libya to Turkey as well as through other routes. The U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi over some issues with the weapon transfers. Once in Turkey those weapons, as well as plane loads of others purchased by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, were given to "moderate rebels" who took them into Syria. There they sold off at least part of every weapon and ammunition haul to the Islamists terror gangs which were and are financed by the Wahhabi Gulf states. A new BBCRadio4 report by Peter Oborne explains in detail how that scheme works.

The JCS under Dempsey was quite disturbed that weapons transferred by the CIA were going to exactly those people they had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan just a few years ago. They decided, according to Hersh's source, to undermine the White House's and CIA's regime-change program. They provided intelligence to Syria via Germany, Russia and Israel. They also convinced the CIA that it was preferable to give away very old weapons that could be sourced in Turkey instead of newer but more difficult to transport weapons from Libya. As Hersh writes:

'Our policy of arming the opposition to Assad was unsuccessful and actually having a negative impact,' the former JCS adviser said. 'The Joint Chiefs believed that Assad should not be replaced by fundamentalists. The administration's policy was contradictory. They wanted Assad to go but the opposition was dominated by extremists. So who was going to replace him? To say Assad's got to go is fine, but if you follow that through - therefore anyone is better. It's the "anybody else is better" issue that the JCS had with Obama's policy.' The Joint Chiefs felt that a direct challenge to Obama's policy would have 'had a zero chance of success'. So in the autumn of 2013 they decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.

And Hersh on the weapon dealing:

By the late summer of 2013, the DIA's assessment had been circulated widely, but although many in the American intelligence community were aware that the Syrian opposition was dominated by extremists the CIA-sponsored weapons kept coming, presenting a continuing problem for Assad's army. Gaddafi's stockpile had created an international arms bazaar, though prices were high. 'There was no way to stop the arms shipments that had been authorised by the president,' the JCS adviser said. 'The solution involved an appeal to the pocketbook. The CIA was approached by a representative from the Joint Chiefs with a suggestion: there were far less costly weapons available in Turkish arsenals that could reach the Syrian rebels within days, and without a boat ride.' But it wasn't only the CIA that benefited. 'We worked with Turks we trusted who were not loyal to Erdoğan,' the adviser said, 'and got them to ship the jihadists in Syria all the obsolete weapons in the arsenal, including M1 carbines that hadn't been seen since the Korean War and lots of Soviet arms. It was a message Assad could understand: "We have the power to diminish a presidential policy in its tracks."'

It seems that the U.S. military is propagandizing against the Islamic State by distributing fake Islamic State documents. This, in effect, will make the Islamic State look better than it is.

Iraqi Forces Fighting for Ramadi Make Their Way Toward City Center

In a telephone briefing on Tuesday, [Col. Steven H. Warren, the United States military spokesman in Baghdad,] said that coalition forces had recovered Islamic State leaflets in the nearby city of Falluja urging its fighters — if they lose control of the city — to impersonate Iraqi security forces and commit atrocities. "Some acts that they're instructed to do on this document include blowing up mosques, killing and torturing civilians and breaking into homes while dressed as I.S.F. fighters," Colonel Warren said, referring to Iraqi security forces. "They do all this to discredit the I.S.F."

Colonel Warren called the instructions in the leaflets "the behavior of thugs, behavior of killers, the behavior of terrorists."

Good job, KDF! It would be hard to get any slimier than this. Kiev military (with clear Ukrainian flags on their military fatigues) lazily presented as evil Russian troops? Check! Paying young unemployed Russians to give fake "Russian soldier confessions" on screen! Check! They even found this guy an on-screen wife and kids.

As they said, "Too many Germans support Russia."

From the good folks at Vox Populi Evo:

In order to restore relations with Russia, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will have to apologize for the attack on Russia's Su-24 fighter jet, which would mean his humiliating defeat, Turkish newspaper Al-Monitor wrote.

Ankara is waging war on two fronts, being involved in the "cold war"-style confrontation with Moscow on the international level and waging "hot war" against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on its own territory, journalist Kadri Gursel wrote for Al-Monitor.

According to the author, Turkish actions may lead to a situation when PKK would receive more support from the outside, particularly, from Russia. The union of two of Turkey's opponents would be a logical outcome, which will, however, pose a serious security challenge to Ankara.

Human Rights Watch blasts Saudi-led coalition for apparent war crimes and failure to investigate

The United States has been party to numerous apparent war crimes committed by the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen, yet—along with all nations responsible—is violating international requirements to investigate bombings of homes, schools, and refugee camps, Human Rights Watch (HRW) declared on Monday.

Coming just hours after peace talks concluded with no clear resolution to the nearly nine-month-old conflict, the report finds that the coalition launched six "apparently unlawful airstrikes" in residential areas of Sanaa, Yemen's capital, that killed a total of 60 civilians during September and October. One September 13 bombing of a home in Sanaa's old city, which is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, killed 18 civilians and wounded far more.

Abd al-Khalik Muhammad al-Khamisi, who was at home with his family 50 meters from where the bomb hit, told researchers, "I woke up to a loud noise, and felt the glass from all the windows in the room shatter on top of us. My wife and I asked each other why a bomb would drop here; there was no military target near here."

Stocks rose Wednesday following the Federal Reserve's announcement of the first interest rate increase since 2006. However, stocks fell just two days later. One reason the positive reaction to the Fed's announcement did not last long is that the Fed seems to lack confidence in the economy and is unsure what policies it should adopt in the future.

At her Wednesday press conference, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen acknowledged continuing "cyclical weakness" in the job market. She also suggested that future rate increases are likely to be as small, or even smaller, then Wednesday's. However, she also expressed concerns over increasing inflation, which suggests the Fed may be open to bigger rate increases.

Many investors and those who rely on interest from savings for a substantial part of their income cheered the increase. However, others expressed concern that even this small rate increase will weaken the already fragile job market.