Bill Barr's first “opinion” as AG was in June 1989, where he reasoned the US President had the right to dispatch FBI agents abroad to arrest foreigners, even in violation of international treaties. The second document was issued as US forces geared up to invade Panama, gave a patina of legality to the president’s desire to use the military in similar overseas operations. Together, the two memos enshrine what has come to be known as the president’s “snatch authority.” Writing in the memo, Barr argued that both the president and, through him, the attorney general have an “inherent constitutional power” to authorize certain overseas operations, including abductions (going against provisions of the UN Charter), to fend off “serious threats” to domestic “security” from “international terrorist groups and narcotics traffickers.” When Congress first got wind of these astonishing theories, in November 1989, Barr insisted that they represented no policy change. Three years later, the U.S. Supreme Court took up the legality of that action, and the conservative majority approved it.
People sincerely seemed to believe that, simply by replacing Mubarak, Egypt’s multitudinous problems would be solved. No one really said how any of these problems would be solved, there was just a general assumption that they would be. You did not need a particularly active imagination to look at Egypt, a country with a poor, under-educated, unskilled, and rapidly growing population, and see the potential for trouble. In fact given the shambolic state of Egypt’s economy, its yawning religious cleavages, and the immaturity of its political institutions, it would have been nothing less than a miracle if the post-Mubarak iteration of the country hadn’t ended in total disaster. Few of the brave young men and women behind the Arab Spring have been willing to publicly admit the possibility of a link between their revolutions, which were organic and home-grown, had anything to do with the wars. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/23/the-cia-says-russia-hacked-the-u-s-election-here-are-6-things-to-learn-from-cold-war-attempts-to-change-regimes/ "In the Muslim world, ungoverned spaces will be exploited by Islamist extremist... the meltdown of a country caused such problems for our NATO allies in Europe that domestic populism was fuelled by the refugee crisis, which saw a tsunami of refugees going all the way into Europe, not just into the region; also the spread of violence and the collapse of a State." David Petraeus. "I urge Europe to do more. After WW2, it was Europeans seeking the world's assistance." Ban Ki-moon, 2009 Secretary-General of UN A tight-knit group closely linked by intermarriage as well as class and old school ties, these were men and women who spent much of their lives living and working in the Arab world as diplomats, military attachés, intelligence agents, scholar-adventurers, and teachers. As such, the Arabists exerted considerable influence both as career diplomats and as bureaucrats within the State Department from the early nineteenth century to the present. Robert D. Kaplan Qatar hosts the US’s biggest military air base in the region, while maintaining cordial relations with Iran; it held contacts with Israel while simultaneously backing the Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hizbollah. Whether in terms of armaments or financial support for dissidents, diplomatic manoeuvring or lobbying, Qatar has been in the lead, readily disgorging its gas-generated wealth in the pursuit of the downfall of the House of Assad. After 2000 international agreements mandated that ships larger than 300 tons, and all passenger ships, carry and use AIS (Automated Identification System) at all times, to avoid collisions. Before AIS came along, most large ships carried (and still carry) INMARSAT, which enables shipping companies to keep track of their vessels. The original AIS only had a range of 20–35 kilometres, but by 2006 space satellites were developed that could track AIS transmissions worldwide. These could be, and were, tracked by satellite, but it was more difficult. , no matter where they are on the planet. After most sanctions were lifted in 2015 Iran continued to smuggle weapons by sea, using the same deceptions it employed to try and get around the oil export ban. The difference was that most of the ships Iran used for the arms smuggling were small enough (under 300 tons) that they were not legally required to carry an electronic radio beacon aka AIS transponder. Iran had an easier time concealing arms smuggling because they could use smaller ships to Shia rebels in Yemen, and small ships are not required to use AIS. Oil smuggling is another matter as large ships (tankers) are used, and they are easier to spot from orbital space (or by recon aircraft and UAVs). Syria says U.S. oil firm signed deal with Kurdish-led rebels: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN24Y0MI/ Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab oil states feel threatened by a militant Iran. Breaking the axis between Syria and Iran has been a major goal of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Arab petro-sheikhdoms since the 1980s. The encirclement of Syria and Lebanon has long been in the works. Since 2001, Washington and NATO have started the process of cordoning off Lebanon and Syria. The permanent NATO presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Syrian Accountability Act are part of this initiative. NATO has been reorienting itself towards asymmetrical warfare, and greater emphasis is now being put on intelligence operations. It appears that this road-map is based on a 1996 Israeli document aimed at controlling Syria. The 1996 Israeli document, which included prominent U.S. policy figures as authors, calls for “rolling back Syria”, outlines pushing the Syrians out of Lebanon, diverting the attention of Damascus by using an anti-Syrian opposition in Lebanon, and then destabilizing Syria with the help of both Jordan and Turkey. De-linking Syria from Iran and unhinging the Resistance Bloc that Damascus and Tehran have formed has been one of the objectives of the foreign-supported anti-government militias inside Syria. This includes preventing the Iran-Iraq-Syria energy terminal from being built and ending the military pact between the two partners. Syrian oil is known as “light crude” and can be burned for heating or cooking as it comes out of the ground. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN24Y0MI/ Such a schism between Damascus and Tehran would change the Middle East’s strategic balance in favour of the US and Israel. The Turks have never got on well with the Assads, especially since the 1980s, when the Assads became allies with Iran (because both Iran and the Assads were Shia and both were enemies of the Sunni minority dictatorship in Iraq that was then led by Saddam Hussein). The Assads are trying to back out of their long (since the 1980s) alliance with Iran and have the backing of Russia for that. Israel believes the Assads are hostile to a permanent Iranian presence because that might lead to an Israeli invasion, which would give the Syrian rebels a boost. To further complicate the matter, the Turks want to eliminate all armed Kurdish groups west of the Euphrates River. Actually, the Turks don’t want any autonomous Kurds in northern Syria and neither does the Iran backed Syrian government. Turkey wants to create a security zone on the Syrian side of the border that has no Kurds or Islamic terrorists in it. Turkey is willing to play diplomatic games with Russia and Iran to achieve these goals, as well as send troops into Syria to fight, and get killed. Russia notes that Turkey is selling weapons to Ukraine. The wars that flared in the late 19th century, including the seismic Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878 and the later Balkan wars that preceded World War. It also led to massive population displacements; the exodus of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim refugees in various directions; and the collapse of the fragile cosmopolitanism that once characterized parts of the Ottoman Empire, especially its port cities. The Turks also remember earlier in the 19th century, when Russian campaigns in the Caucasus and secured major lands north of the Black Sea, in what is now modern-day Ukraine, and huge tracts of territory by the Caspian Sea The lands around the Black Sea saw the massacre and mass deportations of populations of Turkic Muslims. They remember that Britain looked the other way. And, worse still, the British Empire allied itself with Persia - the Ottoman's enemy - rather than supporting Istanbul in its fight against Imperial Russia. It worked in the other direction, as well. Most infamously, as World War I raged, the Ottomans carried out mass deportations and killings of the empire's Armenians, the vast majority of whom lived in what is now central and eastern Turkey. Countless Armenians were executed, raped and forced into grim death marches into the desert. Obama administration pursued 3 tracks in Syria. However, the US policy-makers were able to sabotage the success of each other. In 2015, the CIA was involved in a billion-dollar program to back Syrian rebels from both Jordan and Turkey. But US failed to corral rebel groups into a workable force. Instead, the rebels were a plethora of groups, many of them infiltrated by increasing religious extremism and infighting. Thus the CIA program to support the rebels fell apart. The US State Department also continued to back a Turkey, a US NATO ally, track in Syria. Turkey told US that they could win ISIS capital of Raqqa but there was no plan or evidence of it. US had also entered Syria to support the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to fight ISIS. Through Central Command it helped create the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – the military counterpart of the SDC – based on the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to help encourage Kurds and other groups, such as Arabs and Christians, to all join under one banner to fight ISIS. US has paid $2 billion to buy soviet weapons from Eastern Europe and offered them to Kurdish forces. US DoD officially allocated $500 million & $300 million for 2018 & 2019 budget for training SDF forces. It was Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who finally were able to liberated Raqqa from ISIS in 2017. With SDF gaining success against ISIS, Turkey, accused US of “training a terror army” in Syria. In December 2017, Turkey helped create the Syrian National Army or Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army, a collection of Syrian rebel groups. It wanted to use them to fight the Kurds that were backed by the US. In 2018, Turkey signed a deal with Russia, which allowed Turkey to invaded Afrin and forced 160,000 Kurds to flee. Trump administration responded to Turkey’s flirtation with Russia by bringing in former US ambassador James Jeffrey, who was known to be pro-Turkey. Appointed in 2018, he immediately told Turkish media that any US role in helping Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to fight ISIS was “temporary, tactical and transactional.” At the same time, however, US military officials told the SDF that US would stay to stabilize eastern Syria. Turkey got the Trump administration to agree to withdraw from Syria in December 2018. The goal was to win back Turkey. Russia’s military and diplomats don’t work against each other. They work to sell S-400s to Turkey – while also supporting the Syrian regime, while also being open to talks with the SDC, while also acknowledging Turkey’s views. As US withdrew in October 2019, the Russians swept in for another victory. Just as they had brokered deals in Idlib and Afrin, they now brokered a deal to “save” the Kurdish cities of Qamishli, Kobani and Derik from invasion by Turkish-backed Syrian rebel extremists. The US may have undermined its own successful anti-ISIS partners to appease Turkey – and ending up not getting anything out of it, losing eastern Syria, losing regional confidence in US policy, losing the Iran arms embargo and also letting Turkey get Russia’s S-400s. Seth J. Frantzman Dealing with Iran has been a headache for Turkey for centuries. The two most powerful Moslem nations in the Middle East (Turkey and Saudi Arabia) are at odds over how to deal with Syria and Iran. It works like this. For over 500 years (until the end of World War I in 1918) Turkey ruled most of the Middle East as the Ottoman Empire. This job was never popular with many Turks, who considered the Arabs troublesome subjects and not really worth the effort. So when the Turkish Empire was dissolved and a republic declared (for what is now Turkey), most Turks embraced the new arrangement. Turkey renounced its leadership of Islam and declared itself a secular state (that was composed mostly of Moslems, plus some Christians and Jews). In the wake of that Turkish reform the Arab states became independent (after a decade or two of French and British colonial rule). After World War II (1939-45) rapidly growing demand for oil (which Arabia had lots of) made many Arab states (especially Saudi Arabia) quite rich. The Saud family had taken over most of Arabia in the 1920s and formed a kingdom for the express purpose of safeguarding the primary Moslem holy places in Mecca and Medina. The Saudi royalty tried to use this to become the leader of Islam but found that most Moslems politely ignored them. There was no denying the huge oil reserves (the largest in the world) the Saudis had, and gradually that became quite a lot of power. While the Turks and Saudis (and about 80% of Moslems) were Sunni, the Iranians (and 10% of Moslems) belonged to the Shia sect (which conservative Sunnis considered heretics). In the 1980s Shia clerics in Iran managed to form a religious dictatorship and proclaimed a worldwide Islamic revolution (which most of the word, including Moslems, ignored). The Shia clerics in Iran saw themselves as more worthy guardians of the most holy religious sites in Mecca and Media. The Saudis, and most Moslems, did not agree. The Iranians are still at it and are being quietly supported by Turkey (a traditional and ancient enemy). Although Turkey has been ruled by a moderate Sunni Islamic party for the last decade, the Turks don’t feel they should take sides in some Sunni-Shia conflict. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab oil states feel threatened by a militant Iran. Turkey sees itself as the only adult power in the region and deserving of resuming a major leadership role (without the old imperial burden of actually administering and policing all the people in the region). The Arabs are not keen on this, as they have bitter memories of the harsh Turkish rule. There’s also the ethnic factor. Islam was created by Arabs and while all Moslems are supposed to be equal, many devout Arab Moslems believe they should be a bit more equal. The Turks are trying to demonstrate their new statesmanship by achieving peace in Syria without enraging the Iranians or handing Syria over to Islamic terrorists. At the same time the so-called Free Syrian Army and other NATO-GCC front organizations are also using Turkish and Jordanian territory to stage raids into Syria. According to the Turkish and Lebanese media, France had sent its military trainers into Turkey and Lebanon to prepare conscripts against Syria. The Saudis feel the Turks don’t know what they are dealing with. The Syrian rebels would appreciate some more Turkish help in overthrowing the current pro-Iranian Syrian government. However, the move had been opposed from the outset by Germany and Scandinavian countries as well as by Baroness Ashton, the British head of EU foreign affairs. "There is no shortage of arms in Syria," said Jean Asselborn, the Luxembourger Foreign Minister. The Turks are reluctant to get too directly involved lest Arabs get upset over a return of the old Turkish (Ottoman) Empire in the form of Turkish troops in Syria. Currently the Turks feel the Syrian government will eventually fall. The Arabs would prefer to see this happen sooner rather than later. But, unlike the Turks (who have one of the two, next to Israel, most powerful military forces in the region) the Arabs are unable to just march in and overthrow the Syrian government. This rankles the Arabs but it’s just the way things are (and have been for a long time). Turkey, which has and could again dominate the region, doesn’t want to do it via force. Iran, which wants to turn all of the Middle East into part of its new Islamic empire, doesn’t have the military might to do this. Decades of sanctions have left Iranian forces weak, which is why Iran is so eager to have nuclear weapons. The Arab states have not been a major military power for over 600 years and are nowhere near to regaining the power they had in the distant past. Reality, resentments, and unrealistic aspirations all conspire to create what passes for politics in the Middle East. All this misdirection and posturing also tends to give the Islamic terrorists a free ride and a degree of sanctuary. For centuries it was customary to shelter rebels and terrorists from neighboring states and try to use these zealots as one of your own diplomatic and military tools. The more lucid zealots figured out how this went and sort-of went along. Think of it as another local tradition that just won’t go away. But the break-up of Syria's opposition, got splintered into hundreds of armed groups, and worsens the dilemma faced by the West as they arm rebels which ends up in the hands of hostile Islamist militants. The head of the Islamic State of Iraq, announcement that al Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq had also formally merging with Nusra to form the ISIL. He had financial support from private donors in Arab Gulf countries and from al Qaeda's global support network. Perhaps Saudi Arabia and Qatar were looking to create oil and gas pipelines through Syria to the Mediterranean and beyond into Europe in order to muscle into Russia's energy market. Moreover, Turkey and Israel play a major strategic role in "protecting" the Mediterranean transport and pipeline corridor. US and SDF forces (Syrian Democratic Forces, predominantly Kurdish rebels) expand and improve their fortifications in southeastern Deir Zor province, specifically the new U.S. base at the al Omar oilfield. The Assads want this but the Americans are backing Kurdish efforts to hold on to al Omar and the valuable oil it can produce. Americans are building smaller bases in the nearby Koniko and al Jafreh oilfields. These three oil fields produced over 300,000 barrels a day before the civil war began in 2011 and was a major source of foreign currency for buying foreign goods. After seven years of fighting the oil fields only produce about 20,000 barrels a day and control of these oil fields puts the Syrian Kurds in a strong bargaining position. Syria says U.S. oil firm signed deal with Kurdish-led rebels: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN24Y0MI/ These oilfields were operated (before 2011) by Alawites (the minority the Assads belong to). The Assads want the oil fields back. So do the Russians, who have the contract (from the Assads) to rehabilitate the oil fields and operate them. In the northwest Turkish forces have taken the Kurdish held town of Afrin and despite efforts of Syrian forces to interfere Turkey announced that it will retain control of Afrin. Now the Turks are preparing to move 100 kilometers to the east and take Manbij (northeast of Aleppo city, 40 kilometers south of the Turkish border and near the west bank of the Euphrates River). The Turks insist that they are going to control the Syrian side of the border from the Euphrates River west to the Mediterranean but have apparently have an understanding with the US that will allow the SDF (SDF fighters in Manbij are Arabs, not Kurds.) and US forces to remain in Manbij as long as all the SDF fighters in Manbij (and west of the Euphrates) are non-Kurds. The Russians want an end to the 7 years of fighting but it is now in conflict with Iranian plans to attack Israel. The Iranian goal is for perpetuating the rule of the minority Alawite Shias in Syria, so that Syrian soil can be used. Russia is trying to convince Iran that the Israelis are really, really serious about getting Iranian forces out of Syria. Israel demands this. Turkey agrees with it and the Assads would prefer that. Iranian mercenaries are the key to whatever combat capabilities the Assad forces have. This is why the Assads also want Iran to withdraw its forces once all the rebel forces are destroyed, disarmed or otherwise neutralized. Otherwise the Iranian led mercenaries will be the real power in Syria. This is how Iran created Hezbollah in Lebanon since the 1980s. What this comes down to is the fact that Iran is a foreign (Indo-European, not Arab) power that wants to increase its direct control over Syria. The Assads depend on both Iran and Russia for the unexpected comeback from certain defeat. Iran has been backing Assad since the 1980s while the Russians largely stopped supplying Assads with much material aid after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. The Russians returned in 2015 and the air and tech support put the Assads on the road to victory. But now Russia is siding with Israel on the issue of Iranian efforts to take control of Syria. While Tehran’s allies in Damascus have been weighed down, its allies in Iraq have not. After Syria, the same conglomerate of countries working against Damascus will turn their attention to Iraq. They have already started working to galvanize Iraq further on the basis of its sectarian and political fault lines. Turkey, and the Sunni Muslim countries - Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are playing prominent roles in this objective. Qatar was dominate during the Syrian uprising. In the years before the Arab uprisings, Qatar had cultivated its role as a mediator, capable of talking to all sides on the divisions that polarised the Middle East. Qatar has rapidly become a major power broker across the MENA (Middle East/North Africa) region. Ironically, although the relationship between Riyadh and Doha has long been characterised by mutual suspicion, in many ways they have worked very closely on Syria. What makes this interesting is that Turkey and Iran are traditional enemies of Russia, while Israel and the Gulf Arabs are not. Russians focused on the Arab Spring’s potential for economic disruption, religious conflict, and generalized political chaos. Russia is trying to project power to deter a Libya-style intervention in Syria. The port of Tartus is Russia's only remaining military outpost outside the former Soviet Union. Terrorists are good at defending a specific area using anti-tank missiles and at using air-defenses against low flying aircrafts, helicopters and UAVs; but militants don't use UAVs for coordinating artillery units or conduct electronic warfare operations. On February 7th, advance by Russian and Syrian forces was quickly repulsed by U.S. firepower. The Russian force had no air support or anti-aircraft weapons and no backup plan other than for the survivors to retreat as quickly as possible. The Russians were hoping to push American troops out of a base near oil fields east of the Euphrates. While there are only about two thousand U.S. troops in Syria there are more than five times as many providing support from nearby airbases and even more distant facilities, including intel and other analysts back in the U.S. but on call 24/7 via satellite comms. The Russian force suffered heavy losses which included about 200 Russian military contractors (perhaps Wagner Group). The (Prince Corporation machinery & auto-parts manufacturer) Michigan industrialist Edgar Prince's son and brother of Donald's secretary of education Betsy DeVos is Erik Prince (with Cerberus Investment & Management Co. owner of billionaire Stephen Feinberg who also for $30 million owns DynCorp International) is the owner of Virginia based ACADEMI (also called Xe Services, formerly Blackwater Worldwide) with merged with Reston based Triple Canopy to form Constellis Holdings private Co. mercenaries. The company's reputation was badly damaged after several Blackwater guards shot and killed numerous unarmed Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007. It is supply and demand. After the Iraq fiasco, he went into self-exile, working for his UAE private firm also helped recruit a battalion of 1,000 specialized troops hired mostly from Latin America countries to fight for UAE in Yemen. UAE Prince also ran an operation for the Emirati government using South African mercenaries to train Somalis to fight pirates. In 2011, Erik Prince helped crown prince Abu Dhabi Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan raise a secret private army in the desert for $529 million. He worked with China in eastern Africa such as South Sudan, Kenya, Somalia and the DRC. Erik Prince also created Frontier Services Group (FSG), formerly known as DVN Holdings, security training & logistics (owned by Hong Kong’s 49th-richest entrepreneur Johnson Chun Shun Ko) in partnership with Chinese state-owned conglomerate CITIC Guoan Construction. Erik Prince received assistance from Chinese intelligence to set up an account for his Libya operations through the Bank of China. Frontier Services Group also has four aircraft, trucking, and logistic companies: Maleth Aero Limited, a Malta-based air operation company, Transit Freight Forwarding (Pty) Ltd, a logistics company based in South Africa, Phoenix Aviation Limited, a Kenya-based air operations company, and Cheetah Logistics SARL a DRC-based trucking operation. It is a truth universally acknowledged by every war correspondent, humanitarian aid worker and Western diplomat: Some wars, like Syria’s, receive tremendous public attention, which can translate into pressure for resolution. But many others, like Yemen’s still raging but much ignored conflict, do not. Journalist Alfred Hackensberger of Die Welt visited the fighting front in and around Aleppo during the summer of 2013 and talked with two Nusra Front fighters who recalled seeing the same canisters being carried by rebel troops, although they weren't sure whether they were from Nusra Front or their allies Liwa al-Tawhid. They confirmed to Hackensberger that the munitions were smoke grenades, not chemical weapons. In Aleppo, Hackensberger found two more Nusra Front fighters who recognized the canister and showed him and his photographer other canisters of the same type. They, too, told Hackensberger they were smoke grenades, and that they came from Syrian Army depots that Nusra Front had captured. Sarin is not suited to being deployed in hand-thrown canisters and would not leave marks next to the hole in the canister whereas a smoke grenade would. After the Sheikh Maqsood attack, neighbors who entered the home in which two children died described "smelling a sharp, bitter odor that stung their eyes." Sarin, by contrast, is an essentially odorless gas. The symptoms reported by survivors and eyewitnesses — blurred vision, difficulty breathing, foaming at the mouth, nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, and convulsions — are not unique to exposure to Sarin. Daesh also had used mustard gas since 2015. Sarin gas is five hundred times more effective than Cyanide. Russia had made a deal to clear all chemical weapons from Syrian government. Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin was happy to help Obama avoid invading his Syrian ally. Syria surrendered its entire chemical stockpile in 2013 to the UN. UN inspectors already in Syria investigating earlier alleged Khan al-Assal chemical attack, confirmed Syria was struck by rockets containing large amount of sarin similar to Al-Ghouta in 2013, targeting civilian-inhabited areas, causing mass casualties. These were rockets with improvised nerve agent sarin were again used to target the suburbs in Damascus. Since all known chemical weapons can be identified relatively easily, Assad had immediately called for a UN investigation of the Nusra Front members who were caught in the possession of 2.2 kgs of sarin chemicals by Turkey but later they have all since disappeared. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22720647 A Turkish colonel stressed that it is “crazy” to think that the Turkish state would hand over chemical weapons to the al Nusra Front to make the Assad regime look bad. However, there were officials well aware of Obama's "red line" on chemical weapons as a potential route to drawing the US into the war against Assad, was motivated to "falsify" the samples that found their way into French government hands. "We now know it was a covert action planned by Erdogan's people to push Obama" who “believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.” US intelligence community did not share its fears to the media of Turkey’s role in the alleged chemical attack. British intelligence with the cooperation of Russian military intelligence, whose operatives had recovered samples of the chemical agent from the earlier Al-Ghouta attack, which they then analysed and passed it on to British military intelligence; and which MI6 passed on to the Americans under the data-exchange programme of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Due to Russian cooperation the US Defense Intelligence Agency knew definitively the composition of each batch of Soviet-manufactured chemical weapons involved in the attack. Officials further noted that the evidence lacking in credibility for the alleged chemical attacks (high probability of samples were contaminated during custody or false positives) and it did not confirm the accusation that they were carried out by the Syrian government. "They were homemade rockets". CIA, in an effort to circumvent US laws, took the support of MI6, for sending equipment from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria. Obama administration officials concluded the missiles were carrying riot-control tear gas similar to used by U.S. forces for decades, hence Obama, didn't want to pursue this anymore and call off the U.S strike on Syria, using the excuse that he needed congressional approval. Obama, in other words, was now trapped and the Republicans were eager to expose his administration’s disarray on the matter. Turkey's Erdogan was profoundly angry at the unsteady support he has been receiving from the U.S. government in their joint efforts to eliminate Bashar al-Assad. John Kerry said, when responding to aid workers at a donor conference for anti-Assad forces, “What do you want me to do? Go to war with Russia? Is that what you want?” Whereas Erdogan, has been able to play EU and Russia against one another. Did American bombs kill Russian troops in Syria? Syrian fighters and few Russian military contractors came from the village of Tabiya and attacked the SDF base. Russian military officials said they had no control over the fighters assembling near the river. A total of more than 200 of the attackers died, including 10 to 20 Russian mercenaries. A staffer at the only major hospital in Deir ez-Zor would later say that around a dozen Russian bodies were delivered. The Russians in Tabiya just had the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Defense Secretary James Mattis is reported to have called the incident “perplexing.” The only verifiable sources for the decimation of hundreds of Russians are the photos and videos circulating on the internet. Some of them show footage from eastern Ukraine that was later doctored. For the Russians, of course, the ‘Middle East’ is not in the ‘east’ at all, but to the south of Moscow; and statistics are all-important. The Chechen capital of Grozny is scarcely 500 miles from the Syrian frontier. 15% of Russians are Muslim. Six of the Soviet Union’s communist republics had a Muslim majority, 90% of whom were Sunni. And Sunnis around the world make-up perhaps 85% of all Muslims. For a Russia intent on re-positioning itself across a land mass that includes most of the former Soviet Union, Sunni Islamists of the kind now fighting the Assad regime are its principal antagonists. Russia is deeply invested in the survival of the Assad regime, if not Assad himself. The Russians favour a national unity govt. Russia also benefits from the fact that Turkey is 'messing up' NATO internally. Russia main goal is to maintain its two bases (area of influence) and that is possible if the Assad regime (which granted the use of an airbase and port facilities) survives. Russia, which supplies lots of oil and gas to Europe, would be affected by any Saudi pipelines through Syria to the Mediterranean. The Russian aircraft maintainers made it possible for Russian warplanes to fly 39,000 sorties (an average of 36 a day) that, according to Russian estimates, killed at least 86,000 enemy personnel. These airstrikes were delivered mainly by Russian jets and helicopters at first, but soon the refurbished Syrian Air Force warplanes (which had suffered 70% losses since 2011) were carrying out a lot more airstrikes. On some days there are nearly a hundred air strikes. Russian warplanes are carrying out 50-60 air strikes a day. That was far more than the U.S. led air coalition. The Russian aircraft in Syria initially consisted of Su-34 and Su-30 fighter-bombers, Su-24M bombers and Su-25 ground attack aircraft, as well as about a dozen armed helicopters. There are also many transport helicopters. Russia brought in several thousand of their Spetsnaz (special operations) troops, both as active duty Russian army operators and former Spetsnaz serving as contractors. Russia also sent expert snipers who mainly served as instructors for Syrian Army snipers. Cuban troops were also reported in Syria, brought in to help train and assist Syrian troops. In mid-2018, Russia revealed that they had sent 63,012 troops to Syria since mid-2015. Over a third of the Russian troops and contractors were technical experts to assist the Syrians in refurbishing overworked weapons and military equipment. Russia also revealed that 41 percent of the Russian troops in Syria were officers and that seven percent of the troops sent were “artillery specialists”. Russian civilians in Syria were engineers and other specialists from Russian defense firms that were developing and manufacturing the most modern Russian weapons. In Syria, the Russian private security contractors mainly guarded these Russian bases. By the end of 2017 there were about 1,200 military contractors from the Wagner Group. Russians also had shipped in lots of ammo along with the new parts. The Russians also brought in UAVs and electronic monitoring equipment, and because of that provided a much better picture of where the best targets were. Russian UAVs were providing target information, and the Syrian infantry seemed more precise and confident as they called in supporting artillery and air support before advancing. Another advantage was that the Russians brought in lots of badly needed medical supplies and equipment, as well as medical personnel. By early 2018 Russian casualties (not counting contractors) in Syria continued to be remarkably low. Russia sold advanced Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles to Syrian President Bashar Assad, outfitted with an advanced guidance system that makes them more effective than the older version of the missile Russia sold to Syria. Syria had ordered the coastal defense version of the Yakhont system from Russia in 2007 and received the first units in early 2011. Russia sent at least a dozen warships to its Tartus naval base in Syria, in a move partly meant to send a message to Israel and the West not to intervene militarily in the country. Russia also decided to provide advanced, long-range S-300 air defence weapons to Syria, to prevent even a limited no-fly zone far more risky for US pilots. Russia has insisted that it is within its rights to keep arming the regime, as there are no UN resolutions prohibiting this. It is the Syrian regime's air defences, overhauled and upgraded with Russian help, which have been a powerful deterrent against the West declaring a "no-fly zone" or “humanitarian corridor” stretching up to 40km into Syria (as it is called in US/NATO doublespeak) of the type which, after it became a bombing campaign, brought down Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. For the first time, all of America’s ‘friends’ in the region are Sunni-Wahabi Islamists (who killed thousands of Americans on 11th September 2011) and all of its enemies are Shiites. The slow bleeding of Syria has other interested parties that want to smash the country and its society into pieces. Suncor Energy helped produce oil for export from Libya, but in Syria produces “light crude” energy for local consumption for heating or cooking. In reality, hostile governments are letting these companies to stay, because they siphon money out of Syria. They want to prevent any money from going in, while they want to also drain the local economy as a catalyst to internal implosion in Syria. There is also clamouring for steps to be taken to de-link Hezbollah, and by extension Iran, from its Christian allies in Lebanon. The German Marshall Fund showcased a text essentially saying that the Lebanese Christians that are allies to Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran need to be presented with an alternative political narrative to replace the one where they believe that Iran will ultimately run the Middle East as a great power. Israel mounted an airstrike in 2013 that reportedly destroyed a weapons convoy leaving a Syrian army depot near the Lebanese border, widely seen as a warning to Damascus. Another of the region’s supreme ironies is that Hamas, supposedly the ‘super-terrorists’ of Gaza, have abandoned Damascus and now support the Gulf Arabs’ desire to crush Assad. Israeli airstrikes inside Syria have targeted missiles believed to be from Tehran and bound for Hezbollah. There was a lot of opposition to sending some prisoners back to their own country, because these guys are often wanted there for terrorist activity. The Saudis believed that their rehab program was been a success. However, the Saudis continue to have problems with "rehabilitated" terrorists returning to terror. Saudi Arabia announced that at least 14 of the 117 Saudis released from Guantanamo Bay had returned to terrorist activities. At that point there were still 22 Saudis at Guantanamo Bay, along with about 201 other hard core terrorists. Saudi Arabia said it would either rehabilitate, or keep jailed, those released from Guantanamo Bay. Thus the admission that 14 of these men returned to terrorism (and 11 are still on the loose) was embarrassing. In early 2009, it was revealed that 14% of the 534 Guantanamo prisoners released so far from had returned to terrorist activities. This was not a big surprise, except for the extent of the recidivism. There had long been reports of men released from Guantanamo backsliding. As of 2019, there were still 40 prisoners at Guantanamo. The problem with the 223 remaining Guantanamo prisoners was that, you had to send these men somewhere. ISIL was created largely by Saddam era administrators and technocrats who had run the Iraqi branch of al Qaeda in an unsuccessful effort to regain control of the country. While this effort was defeated many key people, and a lot of cash got away. The Iraqi al Qaeda were not welcome in Syria but set up shop and formed a new “baddest of the bad” group called ISIL. By early 2018 ISIL had reorganized its media operations by getting some key people out of Syria and Iraq and then setting up an operation that could collect and widely distribute Internet based media produced by half a dozen smaller ISIL “franchises” in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. But the new organization was much less productive. The key to crippling ISIL as an organization were those leaders responsible for finance, logistics and media. Decapitation tactics work and while the tactic is ancient they have become more common in irregular warfare because of new technology. These were harder to replace and the senior ISIL leaders knew that success at raising huge amounts of cash (mainly via looting and smuggling, but also extortion and ransoms paid to free kidnapping victims and slaves) and maintaining effective communications for the finance and recruiting operations were more important. The logistics included obtaining weapons and explosives and moving them to where they would be most effective. ISIL would often deny accurate reports of their key people dying or being captured in order to maintain morale. This had been perfected and proven in Iraq before U.S. troops left in 2011 and earlier in Israel where it was developed to deal with the Palestinian terror campaign that began in 2000. The Israelis were very successful with their decapitation program, which within five years reduced Israeli civilian terrorist deaths from over 400 a year to less than ten. The Israeli and American decapitation tactics adapted to the techniques and tactics of current Islamic terrorism. American troops have used them many times in the past (in World War II, 1960s Vietnam, the Philippines over a century ago, and in 18th century colonial America) but tend to forget after a generation or so. Some things had to be relearned. That civilians are also killed is nothing new. During the allied invasion of France in 1944, the several months of fighting required to destroy the German armies in France also left 15,000 French civilians dead in the invasion area and more than that in the rest of France. The Germans did not normally try and hide among civilians, while Islamic terrorists do. The Germans knew they would be attacked no matter where they were. Islamic terrorists do sometimes get away because of the successful use of human shields (and because the order to fire is not given). This attitude ignores the civilians who die because terrorists escape to keep killing. Turkey wants to clear all Kurdish separatists and from the Syrian side of the border and turn that “security zone” over to the Free Syrian Army rebels (working for the Turks). Idlib is the last major stronghold for rebels but given the high concentration of Islamic terrorists and radical Moslems among the Idlib population, no Moslem country (especially Turkey and Lebanon) want them. Aside from sealing their border the Turks are not interested in Idlib and leaving to the Assad forces to take back control of the province. The Turks won’t risk their own ground forces in Idlib but apparently won’t mind if Iranian mercenaries go in and do the dirty work. The rebels in Idlib are also not united. However, ISIL is a minority in Idlib and hated by all other rebels. This is a “kill zone” because the Sunni Arabs crowded into Idlib have nowhere to go. That’s what traditionally happens to “The Unwanted” in this part of the world. A major operation against the active Islamic terror groups in Idlib is not likely right now because Iran is distracted with Israel. Meanwhile Turkey is using that access to supplies to gain the cooperation of more rebel groups. While weapons and reinforcements are no longer getting into Idlib from Turkey, food and other essential supplies are and the Turks can cut that off if any of the Idlib rebels cause problems. "It (ISIL) is not the sort of thing that you defeat even if you take away the geography they once owned. It's an idea that is gotta be defeated and that's much stronger and much more difficult and takes longer." Jim Mattis Fact: Italian ‘Ndrangheta mafia is peddling tramadol tablets for ISIS and Boko Haram fighters. They end up in the hands of the desperate in Gaza, the prostitutes in Amman, and child laborers in Turkey. In Europe and North Africa, peddling the pills, which have a street value of around $5 a piece, is fast becoming one of the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate’s most successful enterprises. Most of the illegal goods are hidden in shipments of pineapples, frozen fish and coconut milk, which often are rushed through because of their shorter shelf life. Myth: Muslim nations have not taken in the refugees. In reality, if all the refugees is taken in, totally, will increase only 1% of the population of Europe. In fact, even though they are not as rich or capable, they have taken in most of the refugees. Jordan has warned that Syrian refugees are likely to make up 40% of his country's population by the middle of next year, with similar numbers predicted for Lebanon. Why are Syrians leaving their homes?
Myth: Migrants or refugees are breeding at high rate and can become the majority. https://www.asrc.org.au/pdf/myths-facts-solutions-info_.pdf
To prevent a human tragedy of epic proportions, Germany generously accepted nearly one million escaping Syrians, only to find that an earlier "Russian speaking" emigration (Volga Germans) was suddenly claiming that the new emigrants were essentially “thieves and rapists.” The whole mess threatened to cause a polarization in Germany’s politics deep enough to provoke the return of old unwanted ghosts.
The Islamic terrorists have allies among the rural Sunni Arab tribes out there and expect that, and continued access to the large ISIL cash stash, will allow them to conduct a forever war against the Assads, the Kurds and any foreign troops they encounter. HTS is a coalition of many of the factions of terror group in Idlib. Many HTS terrorists do have a history of working with Turkey. Many HTS terrorists do have a history of working with Turkey and the many factions never trust each other. Many Turks also oppose any pro-terrorist policy but the current Turkish government is controlled by an Islamic party that favors “cooperation” with some Islamic terror groups to protect Turks from the more rabid Islamic terrorists. Syria used to play this game and it did not work out well. Turkey feels this is the best choice in a bad situation. Turkey also has to worry about more than 3 million Syrian refugees (about 3.6 million) inside Turkey. Historically the Turks and Arabs don’t like each other much. https://www.justsecurity.org/77043/toward-a-true-account-of-collateral-damage-in-u-s-military-operations/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2011-08-12/attacking-the-messenger-how-the-cia-tried-to-undermine-drone-study https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1928963 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2129860
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