Posted on 01/27/2016 3:12:33 AM PST by lowbridge
Western-backed Syrian rebels on Tuesday suffered one of their most significant defeats since Russia's military intervention in Syria turned the tide of the war in favor of President Bashar al-Assad, further complicating prospects for a negotiated settlement at peace talks scheduled later this week in Geneva.
After a month-long offensive backed by Russian warplanes, government forces and allied Âmilitias reclaimed control of the town of Sheikh Miskeen, strategically located at a crossroads commanding a southern supply route between the Jordanian border and the Syrian capital, Damascus.
It was the latest in a string of defeats inflicted on rebel fighters in recent weeks, as Assad loyalists finally start to capitalize on nearly four months of intense Russian airstrikes that have mostly targeted the anti-Assad rebellion.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
That’s Putin’s agenda. Flank the USA on the Med. Prop up a puppet. Keep ISIS fighting as a rationale for Putin and Assad’s crimes.
US backed rebels fighting the legitimate government are foreign-sponsored terrorists, aren’t they? I think I remember you claiming that somewhere before.
The White House has been attempting regime change in Syria for years, so that they can control whose pipelines get to go through Syria.
Under this administration the US has conspicuously avoided injuring ISIS in any way, while systematically demolishing Syrian civil infrastructure (such as the Aleppo electricity grid).
Russia has been blowing ISIS to hell. It’s America - or I should say, America under this pernicious White House - that has been keeping ISIS fighting.
What a mess this administration has created. A proxy war in a land in which terrorists are fighting a dictator.
You’re probably mixing up what you get from RT.
In what decade did Assad ever have crimes on anything close to what the assorted Islamists attacking him have perpetrated?
Frankly, I wouldn’t care if Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung were resurrected from the dead if they would stay in Syria and slaughter Jihadis.
Did you read that in THE NATION? I ask because Lefties are always claiming everything is about oil and oil pipelines.
Using your logic, don’t you ever mind that the main focus of Assad’s killing is of civilians and not of ISIS?
Putin doing the job Obama won't.
Please stop shotgunning the thread with incoherent ad-hominems.
But I sympathize. It’s profoundly disquieting to realize that this White House has - at the very least - not been fighting ISIS in any meaningful fashion.
Let’s ask ourselves why that is. We know this White House wants Assad gone. All of Kerry’s bleating about red-lines made that clear. So why? Why is Syria so important?
I believe it’s all about where Europe gets its natural gas. Gain enough control of that, and the colder parts of Europe are forced to stay in the US sphere of influence. They stay in NATO and they keep using the dollar for trade settlement.
Qatar wants to build a pipeline to Turkey, to sell its natural gas direct to Europe in preference to exporting LNG via ship. Syria is right in the middle of the preferred overland pipeline route from Qatar. If America controls Syria, it would have huge influence over a critical component of Europe’s future gas supply, and therefore over Europe.
As well as LNG from the Middle East, Europe gets over 25% of its gas from Russia. Half of this passes through the Bratstvo and Soyuz pipelines, which run through Ukraine. And as Victoria Nuland so carefully explained, the United States spent five billion dollars to subvert Ukraine and effect regime change.
Russia isn’t the problem here. It’s this White House’s policy of destabilizing countries on pipeline routes - in order to keep its allies in order and maintain the international acceptance of the Federal Reserve Note.
And you know this because.....?
Lol. Well done.
Go Putin ;)
Why? Because the head choppers, pedophiles and rapists are losing?
Left wing reporters are just idiots.
Assad never rose to the level of genocide against entire villages. The people you personally back have.
Assad is no prize but the people opposing him are orders of magnitude worse.
Well, the truth is that Assad kills seven times as many as ISIS. He’s every bit as evil as them. The difference is Assad kills Syrians. ISIS kills people outside of Syria. They’re both evil.
Cite your evidence for your looney toons claim that Assad was slaughtering seven villages worth of Syrians in a few months when he isn’t at war.
The crap you make up doesn’t hold up under the most cursory scrutiny.
And stop with your “evil” red herring. Nobody here thinks that either Assad or the various cookie cutter jihadi groups are good people.
But many of us do favor the West not stir the pot as long as they stay in the middle east. They kill people in fewer numbers when we don’t finance their wars and supply them with better weapons.
And Assad did protect the Christian minorities to a degree. Yes, he did other evil, and yes they were under oppression. But he didn’t allow the genocide that the Jihadis are perpetrating.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/islamic-state-has-killed-many-syrians-but-assads-forces-have-killed-even-more/2015/09/05/b8150d0c-4d85-11e5-80c2-106ea7fb80d4_story.html
http://www.ibtimes.com/syrias-civilian-death-toll-islamic-state-group-or-isis-far-smaller-threat-bashar-1775238
http://www.businessinsider.com/assads-government-still-kills-way-more-civilians-than-isis-2015-2?IR=T
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrian-government-forces-responsible-for-more-civilian-deaths-than-isis-human-rights-group-claims-a6673956.html
http://metro.co.uk/2015/11/29/isis-has-killed-3500-people-in-syria-since-june-last-year-5533191/
http://time.com/4129222/russia-airstrikes-syria-civilian-casualties-isis/
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