Syrian containment topic

[Drowsy Emperor]

One thing is certain: Trump will be a one termer, at best. Doesn't matter who goes up against him.

 

Get ready for Cuomo, Oprah, or perhaps worse.

 

If we make it that far...

 

If anything, Trump has demonstrated the irrelevance of the office of the president in directing policy. 

 

He won on a non-interventionist, Russia friendly platform and was browbeaten into conflict with Russia and interventionism. 

 

Cuomo, Oprah, a horse or a bale of hay - what fills the chair at the White House literally makes no difference at all.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Drowsy Emperor

[Malcador]

How are you certain he was browbeaten into this decision, though? Have to consider the man isn't exactly principled

[Drowsy Emperor]

That's also true.

 

The thing is, the presidency is a trophy for him - he is immensely rich and powerful even without it. His political attitudes are very amorphous and inconsistent, but the few things that he did advocate for strongly he has to now swallow and backtrack on.

 

I think that on a personal level this is something he never wanted to happen. Not because he's so committed to these ideas, (Russia, Syria, Islam etc. - it's all neither here nor there for him) but because it's humiliating.

 

I don't see him doing this as a culmination of a 'master plan', I see it as being ground down from the fight with the political class which has successfully nuked all of his people (in which he assisted by not supporting them) and just giving in to their demands. Also, the whole affair has a noticeable toll on his relationship with Melania - even a very driven (idealistic) man (which he is not) would find it challenging to keep pushing for something that seemingly everyone is against.

[Gfted1]

Satellite images show craters at alleged Syrian chemical weapons facilities.

 

Fun, with sliders!

[Drowsy Emperor]

The second slider looks exactly the same?

[Zoraptor]

There's definitely a crater right in the middle of the second picture, it's a big rectangular patch of green in the before pic which makes it look like underground storage. Impossible to tell if that's correct or not, but there's definitely a crater there.

 

The thing is, the presidency is a trophy for him - he is immensely rich and powerful even without it. His political attitudes are very amorphous and inconsistent, but the few things that he did advocate for strongly he has to now swallow and backtrack on.

 
I'm not sure that browbeaten is quite the right term. Yeah, it's pretty clear that his instincts are broadly towards isolationism, the battle is between those instincts and his desire not to look weak which is probably why we ended up with the wild swing in the tone of his tweets from promising WW3 to giving peace a chance over half an hour. His position is probably that he wants out still, but feels he has to respond when US power is questioned. I doubt he particularly cares about kids in Syria, he certainly doesn't care about kids in Yemen, he just cares that it looked like Assad was roostering a snook at him. If the CW attack was staged (if it was it would have been Saudi doing so, Turkey deported 500+ Saudis and they were the ones stopping the surrender agreement) then he was manipulated, if not it was just in his nature to put not looking weak as highest priority.
 
There's some decent satellite imagery of the damage now, far better than the DoD/ Pentagon provided. In terms of craters it looks like 7 and 2 hits at the two Homs sites but that would be minimum number, impossible to say at the Barzah one- though with only 3 buildings being hit there now absolutely confirmed I'd expect 12t of explosives to have done more damage, and 25 missiles per building seems grossly excessive.
 
Edit: took far too long to post that, link is the same as Gfted's

Edited April 15, 2018 by Zoraptor

[Gfted1]

@ Drowsy: Except for that missing hill, yes.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Lol I was staring at the buildings for 2 minutes trying to figure out what the deal was

[Gfted1]

It took me a few slides back and forth too. 

[Sarex]

 

 

edited for full interview

Edited April 15, 2018 by Sarex

[Valsuelm]

 

 

edited for full interview

 

Surprised that made it on the MSM, let alone MSNBC.

 

The professor is right on, except he left out Israel's involvement, and the potential involvement of China (who is 100% with Russia and Syria).

 

The admiral represents the typical warmongering talking head. He acknowledges the numbers of the disaster, even says they're bigger!, but refuses to see that the policies he supports is the very reason for the disaster. Hubris, insanity, stupidity.... whatever it is, it's an ideal that will eventually lead to the destruction of everything he presumably cares about, including him.

[213374U]

whatever it is, it's an ideal that will eventually lead to the destruction of everything he presumably cares about, including him.

Considering that the vast majority of the Wehrmacht brass just went about their lives after the war and some even helped build the Bundeswehr, I'd say the odds of any repercussions directly affecting a flag officer (let alone one that's already retired) are about as high as Syria paying for the tomahawks. Even in the most extreme of nuclear apocalypse scenarios, my money is on these types just waiting it out in hardened shelters.

[smjjames]

 

 

 

edited for full interview

 

Surprised that made it on the MSM, let alone MSNBC.

 

The professor is right on, except he left out Israel's involvement, and the potential involvement of China (who is 100% with Russia and Syria).

 

 

Right on about what? The potential escalation with Russia? That risk has always been there since Russia joined in.

 

Why would China get involved militarily though? They'll certainly back Russia and Syria even just to oppose the US in the UN, but I don't see it going any further than diplomatic support. Although while I could see them supplying Syria with weapons, Iran likely wouldn't appreciate China trying to muscle in diplomatically on what they view as effectively a sattelite state.

Edited April 15, 2018 by smjjames

[Zoraptor]

There are a few Chinese soldiers in Syria mostly due to TIP's (Turkestan Islamic Party; pan Turkic, main Uighur terrorist group) presence. They're not advertising their presence and neither is the west, and aren't actively fighting only advising and providing intelligence. There are also a lot of reconstruction advisers already there.

[HoonDing]

"The thing is, the presidency is a trophy for him - he is immensely rich and powerful even without it."

 

i doubt he's even a billionaire anymore

[smjjames]

It's still not the same kind of presence that Russia has, with active soldiers there as well as Russian based (if not actual Russian) mercs. China is more likely to get involved in the sense of getting caught in the crossfire than actually get deeply involved as it sounds like they're doing their own thing.

 

Right now though, neither Russia or the US have a desire to escalate, which is good. There was that clash between Russian mercs and US based (or allied) forces (I think it was in part due to miscommunication? Sounded like mistakes were made which led up to it.) a few months ago which was rapidly smoothed over. If that was able to be smoothed over, then it would take something really major for it to go beyond words being exchanged.

Edited April 15, 2018 by smjjames

[Drowsy Emperor]

New territories are falling under government control near Homs so I guess after the brief WWIII interlude, it's back to the usual.

 

I just wonder what happens when Idlib, the Kurdish/US area and the vicinity of the eastern US base that is under rebel control are the only territories left to liberate.

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, all the large towns in East Qalamoun (funnily enough Al Jazeera called it west Qalamoun which is largely Lebanon) have reportedly surrendered/ reconciled already and when ISIS gets booted from Yarmouk that will be it for both rif Damascus and city Damascus. The Rastan/ Talbiseh pocket in Homs/ Hama is the obvious next target since with it gone you could drive on main roads from Damascus to Homs to Aleppo rather than on back roads with a huge detour. Bits of Idlib with Turkish backed rebels may be off limits, but areas like Jisr Al Shugour and those with HTS/ TIP presence will be fair game. What happens with the Kurdish areas depends on the US, if they withdraw they'll reconcile with the government to avoid Turkey as in the end Sheikh Maqsood, Tel Rifaat and rump bits of Afrin did. If they'd done so in early January they'd still have Afrin instead of having pro Turks settled in their houses. Long term... probably the Kurdish areas will be back with the Syrian Arab Republic renamed and Kurdish language education allowed andsimilar mostly cosmetic changes, they're far more natural allies than the radical islamists who spent as much time fighting kurds as the government or ISIS.

 

And it turns out the research center destroyed in the strikes had been inspected multiple times by the OPCW, they'd used it for analysis and its last inspection was only November last year. There's also an interview with the girl shown gasping on the hospital video (so far as I'm aware the interviews with the medical staff saying it was smoke inhalation have never even been shown on the Beeb etc though this is obviously meant as refutation of that video) saying it was CW, but she's clearly reading a script since every time she pauses she looks either to her left or down then restarts. To be fair, the medical personnel also seem to be at least soft scripted, except when pointing themselves out in the video where they seem to be way more natural and believable.

 

Right now though, neither Russia or the US have a desire to escalate, which is good. There was that clash between Russian mercs and US based (or allied) forces (I think it was in part due to miscommunication? Sounded like mistakes were made which led up to it.) a few months ago which was rapidly smoothed over. If that was able to be smoothed over, then it would take something really major for it to go beyond words being exchanged.

 

In the recent incident communication was fine, both Russia and the US agree. It was a previous incident where communication failed, and the circumstances were such that it led to accusations that the US was helping ISIS. (It was an hour long attack on besieged government held Deir Ez Zor city's most important defensive position which had been held by the government long term and which allowed ISIS to capture it, it killed or injured between 5 and 10% of the total defensive force of the city since they were completely unprepared for aerial attack and meant that DEZ airport was easily interdicted making supply flights even more difficult; the deconfliction line was only attended by a junior US officer during the incident not the Colonel who should have been there and the US also gave incorrect targeting information to the Russians beforehand. The strikes were also in a general area which was extremely rarely targeted by the US before or after)

 

There wasn't any real chance of escalation in the latest incident since whatever Wagner was doing it was doing it independently from Russia in coordination with the local tribes who wanted Conoco Gas Plant, and revenge on the branch of their tribe which swore fealty to ISIS and had them besieged in DEZ for 3+ years. Deiz Ez Zor is far too far away for effective intervention even if Russia wanted to. If Russia wanted to target the US the base at At Tanf would be a better target anyway, it's way more isolated and has zero credible legal justification

Edited April 16, 2018 by Zoraptor