The Consequences of Putin's "Holy War."

a reply to: Glinda

Moving along....

Quite frankly, this reminds me when Hitler took Austria.
In another year, it might escalate to a world war.
Whatever you say, Assad is a murderous tyrant. Just as bad as ISIL. Or Daesh, or whatever.
Obama screwed up, I agree, but if you guys imagine that Putin's any better, just look at his country and the story of Chechnya, Grusia, Ukraine. And the countries he takes by other means - economically for example, like Hungary.
He buys them an atomic plant (for Russian loan) and props up an antidemocratic bunch or aggressive, macho mafiosi.
He just banned all opposition media. He has two hundred thousand trollers paid to infirltrate the Internet in scrappy English.
His idea of Russian nationalism and bringing back a Christian moral vestige that is "Eurasian" is clouded racism and machoism.
When Hitler won in Germany, radio helped him - without that technology, he could not have gotten his charismatic message across to the German-speaking world.
Putin is different. He uses the Internet. And television. Very cleverly. He does not need to become hysterical like Hitler did on the radio. All he needs is to hook every single website that has anti-establishment articles and observations in the West. Because the West just likes self-criticism, it goes with that more democratic style.
Russia has never gone through the equivalent of the French or American revolutions - in fact it helped crush a few democratic movements in Europe in 1949. So what do you expect? Democracy and capitalism and anti-corruption measures? Come on. Yeah, we can have this chimpanzee style or we can try to be more human.
Every second poster here sings praises to Putin and Assad as if they were real alternatives to surpassing Western development. Well, go and live in Russia or Syria and you will come back screaming...

That does not excuse foreign policy blunders like what Obama did in Syria, Libya and so on. Democratic presidents in the US usually have a pretty bad foreign policy because they cannot face the role the US is supposed to be playing in the world after defeating Japan and Germany. Read some geopolitics e.g. Stratfor.

Russia's only warm seaport (Crimea is checked by Erdogan) is in Tartus, Syria.
It's a long game. But it will escalate into another demise of Europe like the last two times.

Syria is like the Spanish Civil War was before the last World War.

How come 8% of ISIL fighters speak Russian? Well, because they come from Chechnya, primarily.

originally posted by: DJW001

originally posted by: seeker1963
a reply to: DJW001

You do realize that as not only being a Vet but a US citizen I am sick and tired of the rest of the world blaming ME for what my government has done don't you?

I understand. Now Russians will be blamed for the mess Putin is creating. That's all I've been saying for weeks.

It would be pretty hard to not be blamed for the mess, when the entire established order (finance, government, media) is working against you.

If there isnt some angle to spin against Putin (even something as weak as this thread) I would eat my hat.

You and I can both be assured...

Putin is a frustrated ex-KGB operative who desperately wants a good ol fashioned war to fight. As for the Russian muslim population: the Kremlin controls most of their spiritual leader. An if you cross the Kremlin, you wind up dead or in jail..so you won't hear them complaining..at leat not in public.

a reply to: DJW001

In other words, instead of destroying Islamist terrorists, Putin's actions are creating more. Everyone could see this coming. The Russians have had experience of this in Afghanistan, Chechniya and other places. What was Putin thinking? Isn't wrestling with NATO difficult enough without mobilizing a fifth of the population of the Earth against Russia?

According to Ashton Carter; He said in a hearing that.... quote: It is hard to find People (rebels) who can be counted on to have the right mind set and ideology...Not be alined With Groups like ISIL.

According to Gen Austin in the same hearing: Quote: The once who remain in the fight are from 4 to 5 (Free Syrian Rebels).

Secretary of defence Ashton carter dont even know if training the free Syrian Rebels to fight against Assad is legal.




If any one is messing up Syria it cant be no other than the US and it's coalition.

According to Gen Austin there are only 4 to 5 fighter who represent the free Syrian Army (rebels).

And these 4 to 5 are said to be fighting against ISIL and Assads forces. Come on..... They wouldnt last 5 minutes on the Battlefield.

Ashton Carter seams to be trying to create a Free Syrian Army to get a pretens to Attack Assad "not if but when Assad drops barrelbombs on these forces". It is what he is implying in the hearing.



What the US secretary Ashoton Carter and Gen Austin are sying is that the majority of the rebels fighting in Syria are terrorists.

a reply to: spy66

It is hard to find People (rebels) who can be counted on to have the right mind set and ideology...Not be alined With Groups like ISIL.

This is because the United States' policy is to combat the Daesh insurgents, not Assad's army. This is the opposite of the Russian strategy.

“For a rebel commander seeking to convince his fighters that cooperation with Washington is in the rebellion’s best interest, American strikes that ignore the Assad regime while hitting [Islamist rebels] are extremely difficult to explain,” Noah Bonsey of the International Crisis Group wrote recently in Foreign Policy.

foreignpolicy.com...

Also, that number refers only to a group of about sixty who were vetted and trained by the United States recently. It does not mean that all of the "Free Syrian Army" and other groups are cooperating with Daesh:

The first signs of trouble with the program came in July, after the first group of 54 Syrians to emerge from the training program were attacked by al Nusra almost immediately upon crossing the border into Syria. Earlier this month, U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Lloyd Austin angered members of the Senate Armed Services Committee when he was forced to admit that of those first 54 fighters, only “four or five” remained in the fight.

foreignpolicy.com...

Obviously, the training program is a failure:

The United States has stopped pulling new recruits from the battlefield in Syria for training outside the country as the U.S. military program to forge a force of moderate rebels undergoes review, a Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday.

The program has been troubled from its inception, with some of the first class of less than 60 fighters coming under attack from al Qaeda's Syria wing, Nusra Front, in their battlefield debut. Some were killed or captured, and the whereabouts of 18 fighters in the first class are unknown, a U.S. military spokesman said this month.

www.reuters.com...

So no, they are not saying the majority of rebels in Syria are terrorists. That is a lie Assad tells to justify killing civilians. Russia is accepting this lie to further its designs in the region.

a reply to: MALBOSIA

It would be pretty hard to not be blamed for the mess, when the entire established order (finance, government, media) is working against you.

Are you saying that the Arab financial, governments, and media are already blaming Putin for creating the mess? Come to think of it, some of them are.

a reply to: spy66

It is hard to find People (rebels) who can be counted on to have the right mind set and ideology...Not be alined With Groups like ISIL.

Well, then I think that answers the question that nobody in the government seems to be thinking about. The 'post-war planning'.

Suppose the moderate rebels, by some miracle, were to win and push out Assad. What then? Who's going to run the country? If those moderate rebels are, by DefSec's admission, so sparse and few in number, how would they possibly hold the country together politically and not fall to an immediate ISIS onslaught? Like it or not, ISIS does have more experience running a country---a barbaric medieval and wicked one, but they do have the brute force basics down.

A Russian military occupation is a better outcome, as bad as that sounds.

Also, the Saudis are doubly delusional. They're desperately committed to overthrowing Assad, which would almost certainly result in ISIS victory and strengthening that group. ISIS is deeply committed to running a Caliphate, which cannot be fully legitimate until it conquers and controls Mecca and Medina, i.e. overthrow of the Saudi state (no doubt aided by internal sympathizers). ISIS has explictly set this out as a goal---one thing about almost all radical movements, they rarely lie about their ultimate aims; people just don't believe them.

Saudis are blinded by Sunni religious fervor.

a reply to: mbkennel

Neither side seems to have given much thought to what comes next. Russia cannot afford to occupy Syria, which means Iran would have to do the job. Given that Iraq fought a particularly ugly war with them, this might lead to further conflict. The United States needs to bail now and let the situation run off the rails on its own.

Moscow warns against attempts to present Syria conflict as conflict between Sunni and Shia

MOSCOW, December 23. Some participants in the International Syria Support Group from the Middle East region are trying to present the Syrian crisis as a conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Dozhd television, noting that Russia regarded this approach as a most dangerous tendency.

"We have always said that it is a very dangerous tendency," she said. "And it is evident that such efforts are being made," Zakharova added, referring to "certain players" trying to interpret the Syrian conflict as a religious one.

Zakharova said such attempts were being made by "a number of regional countries," without naming them. "I can say that we hear very tough debate, including on this matter, even within the framework of the Vienna group that is now called International Syria Support Group," she noted.

"We hear statements about a possibility to interpret the developments as a sectarian conflict," she added.

"Enemy number one at the moment is Islamic State (outlawed in Russia), Jabhat al-Nusra (outlawed in Russia) and all small and big units that profess this terrorist logic, ideology and methods of action," the spokeswoman said.

She said the main task at the moment was to consolidate all existing possibilities "to fight what is a threat of an absolutely new type".

a reply to: theultimatebelgianjoke

I agree with Russia, that it shouldn't be a religious conflict, but unfortunately al-Nusra and Daesh aren't on board. They sure think it is, and motivate their followers that way.

Daesh/IS is certainly not any kind of nationalist or territorial militia (like the Kurds are)---they get international recruits motivated by ideology and religion.

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: InnerPeace2012

To label Holy War is laughable, I think Putin is forcing his religion on the Islamic State, Violence is violence, whether Holy or not, IS have to go and Putin is doing the right thing of bombing the Western backed insurgents.

The problem is, the factions that he has been bombing have not been Daesh for the most part; he is trying to determine the outcome of the civil war. He can do that, but it's going to have major blowback, as they say in the trade.

It is not, nor was ever a Civil war. The Muslim Brotherhood started it in their holier than tho take over of ALL secular Arab governments in the former old Ottoman empire territory.

They are one and the same. Turkey is using the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood to regain what they feel they lost a long time ago. ISIS is a sad excuse and name for Turkeys Muslim Brotherhood fighters. They are direct control by the Turkish leadership and Turkey should be destroyed for what they have done.

They were politically embarrassed in Egypt so they abandoned the Muslim Brotherhood name for ISIS and let their true colors show, now thanks for Russia, Turkeys true colors are shown for all the intelligent ones in this world to see.

Remember how adamant Obama was in his support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt over the U.S. long time Ally? How about when they were tossed out by the people and the army? Obama screamed Coup while the rest of the world was like WTF did you just say lol.

Obama is right there side by side with the Muslim Brotherhood and till he, Hillary and the likes of John McCain are gone the U.S. is at the risk of a major attack by the sensible rest of the world for our support of Turkey and their terrorist driven, territorial ambitions. The Caliphate ISIS seeks is the same old Turkish Ottoman empire duh!!!

any act of war is going to create opposition. russia either fights or they do not both have consequences. your little slander post says nothing about the situation other than the fact that you are extremely misinformed on russias relationship with the Muslim world. really dude, a holy war? is that what you see happening here? putin is trying to wipe out islam now? where do you get this stuff form? jesus crist.

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: mbkennel

Neither side seems to have given much thought to what comes next. Russia cannot afford to occupy Syria, which means Iran would have to do the job. Given that Iraq fought a particularly ugly war with them, this might lead to further conflict. The United States needs to bail now and let the situation run off the rails on its own.

How about the world piss off and the Syrian Army and Assad have their dam country back after Russia destroys that pest on their northern border named Turkey.

If Russia does not step up to the task Israel will have to if Syria falls to Turkey and their terrorist. The again im sure Russia and Israel are making war plans as we speak since the Gulf states plan to send 100 thousand more terrorist into the fray. What was that about, they will be burying the dead for seven years?? People over there need to read the Bible rather than listen to any nutjob leader who wants to fight a war.

I don’t have anything close to the in-depth knowledge of foreign affairs and the calamity in the ME that many of you have. I just pickup bits and pieces and have a general impression/feeling about what’s taking place. That being said, just take the rest of this post for what it’s worth (2 cents maybe?).

Reading this thread reminded me of another thread on ATS that I read a couple months back. In that thread I posted my general impression as to the escalating situation in Syria. Since then my impression hasn’t changed much, but for some unexplainable reason I feel like expressing it again here. So, the remainder of this post will pretty much be a copy/paste from the original. It’s just what I imagine to be the worst possible outcome from all this madness.

To begin with, Vladamir Putin’s feeling a little mischievous these days. Crimea and the Ukraine were fun, but the rewards were limited, and now he’s ready to up the ante. With the Russian economy struggling, OIL is the name of the game. Taking over the M.E. and securing a direct pipeline would make a fine trophy, and standing alongside Assad and Iran could be the key to making it all happen. Since the U.S. and it’s allies have done a bangup job of softening up and destablizing the region, it’s now ripe for the taking.

Destroying Israel isn’t really part of Putin’s plan, but Iran’s intent isn’t so clear. In any event, though, one or more of their allies would likely find the idea appealing. Israel, of course, is keeping a close eye on events, and if tested may feel it has no choice but to enter the fray. This is definitely a hotspot.

The Russian invasion, and ensuing chaos and mayhem, will serve to ignite the entire M.E. region. NATO will not know how to appropriately respond, as the global balance of power is thrown completely out of kilter. Death and destruction will rain down unlike the World has ever seen, as the situation rapidly intensifies. Looking back at Afghanistan, Putin is beginning to have second thoughts at this point, but it’s too late to turn back.

Somewhere along the way, amidst the insanity and confusion, the 1st nuke lights up the sky. Then another, as Damascus is consumed in a blinding, furious fireball. This is the point of no return. The war is no longer just a Syrian, or middle-eastern, conflict. It now spreads quickly into Europe and Asia. And soon to follow, we are all inevitably sucked into a full-blown global thermonuclear war.

Exit Mankind. Enter the Planet of the Apes...

I realize this scenario is a bit exaggerated. But hey, it’s a crazy, dangerous world right now. Who knows?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!!