Meanwhile, In Syria

[BlackLabel]

(Reuters) - Intensified coalition air strikes supporting an assault by U.S.-backed forces on Islamic State's stronghold of Raqqa in Syria are causing a "staggering loss of civilian life", United Nations war crimes investigators said on Wednesday.

First the US and its allies create an environment for IS and other Jihadis to thrive in Syria. Then when they start bombing the monster they helped put in place they take out countless civilians in the process. Winning hearts and minds........

[grumbledoak]

They are not trying to win hearts and minds. They are trying to destroy Syria.

[QuantumTokoloshi]

Tartan Pixie said:

Globs said:

That the SAA was able to reach Iraq without being bombed by the ISIS allied air force says quite a lot, I suspect the US invasion force in Syria was feeling too vulnerable to allow that to happen.

A few guys broke off from the main force pushing east from Palmyra and drove south through empty desert so that a bit of the map can be coloured red instead of black - Good propaganda but not noteworthy in the grand scheme of things. Southern Front rebels still hold Al Tanf and highway 2.

The SAA are engaged in pushing east from Palmyra while the Tigers push south east in to Raqqa countryside, presumably so they can pocket the largely empty area of desert held by daesh and put themselves in striking distance of DeZ. There is no way they've got the manpower to take on the Southern Front at the same time and there's no will to either as that conflict has been mostly frozen, thanks to the excellent job the Jordanians have done in refusing to work with jihadis.

The wider context of the Southern Front is that there are three possible routes for a 'shia cresent' (route from Tehran to the Mediterranean):
North through KRG areas - Not going to happen while Barzani is in charge.
Centre through DeZ - Held by daesh, I'm not going to make predictions about this one.
South through Al Tanf - No one really knows what's going to happen here but hopefully it'll be a negotiated sentiment rather than a fight.

The Southern Front rebels are Jordanian (read USA) backed and are not friendly with the Assad government. I therefore read the headlines about SAA reaching the border with Iraq as a way of creating pressure for negotiations rather than any meaningful strategic change.

interesting analysis, especially in the light of gains being made towards Raqaa, and DeZ. I cannot see Israel allowing a fully functioning supply route to Hezbollah to be created, and with the strong support of Trump now, they will be more likely to engage in support for "rebel groups" and LGB diplomacy. A continuing war is to their advantage.

[scherzkeks]

The Crack Fox said:

BlackLabel said:

(Reuters) - Intensified coalition air strikes supporting an assault by U.S.-backed forces on Islamic State's stronghold of Raqqa in Syria are causing a "staggering loss of civilian life", United Nations war crimes investigators said on Wednesday.

First the US and its allies create an environment for IS and other Jihadis to thrive in Syria. Then when they start bombing the monster they helped put in place they take out countless civilians in the process. Winning hearts and minds........

Bombing is so simple, isn't it? A relatively cheap and easy way to look like you're doing something without actually jeopardising any of your own people.

Even easier when drones do the work.

[QuantumTokoloshi]

BlackLabel said:

(Reuters) - Intensified coalition air strikes supporting an assault by U.S.-backed forces on Islamic State's stronghold of Raqqa in Syria are causing a "staggering loss of civilian life", United Nations war crimes investigators said on Wednesday.

First the US and its allies create an environment for IS and other Jihadis to thrive in Syria. Then when they start bombing the monster they helped put in place they take out countless civilians in the process. Winning hearts and minds........

But, but, but barrel bombs, targeting civilians, white hats, etc. Etc.

It is quite something to contrast the faux fulmination and rabid foaming at the mouth outrage at Assad and Russians in Aleppo, but almost complete radio silence about the civilian death toll in Mosul, Raqqa etc.

It is remarkable that the Nobel prize winner "white hats" seem unable to pinpoint coalition strikes as well as they managed to find a hospital under every Russian or SAF airstrike. Just do not seem to have the old camera ready.

Quite astounding how the narrative has changed with the tides of geopolitics.

Edited by QuantumTokoloshi on Wednesday 14th June 21:56

[Globs]

QuantumTokoloshi said:

It is quite something to contrast the faux fulmination and rabid foaming at the mouth outrage at Assad and Russians in Aleppo, but almost complete radio silence about the civilian death toll in Mosul, Raqqa etc.

Agreed. And look at what we did to Iraq. And today, do to Yemen and The Ukraine.

Iraq was quite simply inhumanity on a sick scale as they even embargoed children's medicines.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-12/us-govern...

We and the US are selling arms to Saudi Arabia knowing they will be used to murder and maim civilians there.
In both cases against domestic and international law, Yemen looks a bit like Israel's Gaza:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/05/23/yemen-camp...

In the Ukraine the neo-nazi side we put into power is dismantling Donetsk and Lugansk house by house.
They are literally working slowly down each street, blowing houses away, one by one, day by day.
http://novorossia.today/special-edition-novorossia...

And then there's Gaza that the media studiously ignores, a semite people of mainly muslim but quite a few Christians, many descendants of the original 12 Israelite tribes (who were granted that land through The Covenant via Moses), being murdered and stolen from by an invading horde of white european Khazarians.

[grumbledoak]

The US allows ISIS to leave Raqqa
http://theantimedia.org/video-us-allowing-isis-esc...

while carpet bombing the civilians
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/392276-un-raqqa-syria-u...

[Globs]

grumbledoak said:

The US allows ISIS to leave Raqqa
http://theantimedia.org/video-us-allowing-isis-esc...

while carpet bombing the civilians
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/392276-un-raqqa-syria-u...

Good links, I hadn't realised how bad Raqqa was, the question is 'what are they trying to achieve or hide'?
Mass murder on this scale used to be illegal, what is the world coming to when we find the US to be the world most dangerous predator .

In the 1950s the US had a bright future, despite the 1913 subversion of it's wealth (that only now is truly kicking it in the nuts, big time) with the Federal Reserve Act.

The Rest-Of_world are becoming horrified at the US and finding all sorts of ways to dump the dollar and therefore disable this monster. Part of the reason for smashing Iraq, Libya and Syria was because they moved away from the petrodollar: the only thing financing this war machine. Iran also moved away, Russia and China, the two adults in the room are also moving away and this trend is picking up momentum.

Countries around the world like Qatar are realising that it's not enough to be a friend of the US, one day they will sit on you, permanently pollute your lands with DU as they wipe out your people: and the only way to avoid this for everyone to dump the dollar as fast as they can.

The US is already weeks away from a recession that will make 2008 look like a warm up as the FED moves in and hoovers up the remaining wealth to 'try and save the economy': they already own lots of shares and bonds, and the government. I'm hoping this recession will slow the military machine, at great cost to the US citizen however, who will soon be wishing they'd investigated who they were voting for more carefully (not a Trump bash, rather keeping re-electing McCain, Lindsey Graham and the other psychotics.

I note that 160,000+ people nearly got wiped out in Oroville this winter due to lack of dam maintenance (It needed $5m venturis added to prevent cavitation erosion), apparently US National Security is not anything to do with keeping your domestic population alive but instead twisted to justify the mass murder of people abroad to appease Saudisreal and to sell more weapons.

I was reminded of this in the terrible London fire recently, it was so important for Cameron to demand we bomb the Syrian government

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYlnyMgI5gM
Worth a watch of Corbyn being correct yet again as Cameron's words have since exposed as blatant lies.

but keeping us alive at home by running more fire inspectors and concentrating on the safety of our nationals in their beds gets ignored. Over the years I've watched the fire services being attacked while they witter on about 'Security', with may even wanting to directly censor our internet: yet money spent on protecting us in reality is entirely absent

[Digga]

Globs said:

but keeping us alive at home by running more fire inspectors and concentrating on the safety of our nationals in their beds gets ignored. Over the years I've watched the fire services being attacked while they witter on about 'Security', with may even wanting to directly censor our internet: yet money spent on protecting us in reality is entirely absent

TO be fair, you can also argue the same WRT to the police - it generally tends the ordinary people who pay the price of their lack of resources, rather than the aloof elite - and the health service too. Despite obvious waste in the latter, investment is not keeping up with the times or the population.

[Lucas Ayde]

BlackLabel said:

(Reuters) - Intensified coalition air strikes supporting an assault by U.S.-backed forces on Islamic State's stronghold of Raqqa in Syria are causing a "staggering loss of civilian life", United Nations war crimes investigators said on Wednesday.

First the US and its allies create an environment for IS and other Jihadis to thrive in Syria. Then when they start bombing the monster they helped put in place they take out countless civilians in the process. Winning hearts and minds........

Don't worry though, as long as you aren't specifically setting out to target civilians, and you're aligned with the 'West', it's OK to kill as many as you like ... according to some here, anyway.

[Tartan Pixie]

grumbledoak said:

The US allows ISIS to leave Raqqa
http://theantimedia.org/video-us-allowing-isis-esc...

Have you considered what the alternative would be?

While there is some US support the SDF generally do not have access to heavy weapons like artillery and tanks nor do they have the manpower to accept losses, so any attempt to encircle and destroy daesh would be an absolute sh!tshow. The strategy of pushing daesh out of Raqqa and south down the Euphrates is not just sensible it's the only game in town.

Also it's not like Russia doesn't have a capable airforce with considerable experience of operating in that part of Syria. I would have thought the RuAF could be more grateful to the SDF for flushing some targets out in to the open

Another point that's worth remembering is that the SDF works under a system called democratic confederalism, which in practice means that when an area is liberated then a council is set up from local volunteer groups who then become responsible for local laws and governance, which is the key to keeping the peace in ethnically and religiously mixed areas. This is going to have a better chance of working as a long term peaceful solution if the more sharia nutcase type of civilians leave the city of their own accord rather than hanging around to cause problems for everyone once the dust settles.

The SAA employs a similar strategy by punting all the nutcases up to Idlib where they can cause problems for Turkey. Short of genociding all the civilians who support daesh and the other jihadi groups I don't see any other options, though maybe you have a better idea?

grumbledoak said:

while carpet bombing the civilians
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/392276-un-raqqa-syria-u...

I'm sure someone in the RT office has been itching to use the phrase 'carpet bombing' ever since Aleppo. What's not being said is that due to a relative lack of heavy weapons far fewer civilians are being hit by high explosive shells and all the casualties appear under airstrikes. Not that it makes it any better but assuming you want to see daesh defeated then what realistic alternative are you proposing?

[Tartan Pixie]

Globs said:

The Rest-Of_world are becoming horrified at the US and finding all sorts of ways to dump the dollar and therefore disable this monster. Part of the reason for smashing Iraq, Libya and Syria was because they moved away from the petrodollar: the only thing financing this war machine. Iran also moved away, Russia and China, the two adults in the room are also moving away and this trend is picking up momentum.

Well said but lets not give Russia a free pass here, they are also complicit in creating the jihadi menace and have employed considerable brutality. It is no coincidence that many of daesh's most capable soldiers come from Cechnya.

Every democratic or communist government in the middle east gets overthrown and every attempt at Arab unity has met with disaster, be that Nasser's pan Arabism, Ba'athism or any of the other ism's that have been tried. The harsh reality is that the only organisations that have proven strong enough to withstand outside attempts to destroy them are religious, be that the Taliban, Al-Queda, House of Saud, Iranian government or whoever. Given the history of the last hundred years or so it is actually amazing that the Arabs and Persians didn't go full jihadi until the late 70's.

The idea that we can solve this simply by switching from the petrodollar to a Russian/Chinese version of the same thing is laughable because it will be the same problems attributed to different actors - Plus ca change.

The only real answer is to reduce our reliance on oil and gas, thus breaking the link between capital markets and natural resources from the middle east. Difficult as that may be I don't see how else this can be solved?

[Transmitter Man]

Globs said:

Agreed. And look at what we did to Iraq. And today, do to Yemen and The Ukraine.

Iraq was quite simply inhumanity on a sick scale as they even embargoed children's medicines.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-12/us-govern...

We and the US are selling arms to Saudi Arabia knowing they will be used to murder and maim civilians there.
In both cases against domestic and international law, Yemen looks a bit like Israel's Gaza:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/05/23/yemen-camp...

In the Ukraine the neo-nazi side we put into power is dismantling Donetsk and Lugansk house by house.
They are literally working slowly down each street, blowing houses away, one by one, day by day.
http://novorossia.today/special-edition-novorossia...

And then there's Gaza that the media studiously ignores, a semite people of mainly muslim but quite a few Christians, many descendants of the original 12 Israelite tribes (who were granted that land through The Covenant via Moses), being murdered and stolen from by an invading horde of white european Khazarians.

Globs,

I think you cannot compare Yemen with Gaza.

While there is clearly a civil war in Yemen Hamas are in control of Gaza after winning elections against Fatah. Israel left Gaza in 2005 together with nearly 10k Jewish settlers in tow.

The fact they cannot fish or $art without Israeli permission is another subject.

I'm afraid I disagree with the PH collective re Ukraine as people imho have selective memory loss when it comes to the circa $168B that went talkies leaving only a 5-star palace and a few security guards in his wake.

Remember one thing, my opinion is only worth the paper it's printed on as I never have proof of anything that's posted here.

Your mileage may vary.

Phil

[Transmitter Man]

walkies typo

[XM5ER]

Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi might be dead. Possibly.

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1116041/middle-east

[Likes Fast Cars]

That's the second time this week we've heard that ..... I bloody hope so this time!

[grumbledoak]

I don't think his death will matter. IS will continue to exist as long as it is supported and, more importantly, funded.

Mind, it sounds like Russia hit them pretty hard. Go Russia!

[Rogue86]

US F18 shoots down Syrian Su22 yesterday - first air/air hit in combat against a manned enemy aircraft since Kosovo.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-...

[grumbledoak]

True colours.

[scherzkeks]

grumbledoak said:

True colours.

Indeed, but the game was revealed long ago.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/20...