Posted on 02/15/2018 1:11:53 PM PST by BeauBo
About 300 men working for a Kremlin-linked Russian private military firm (Wagner Group) were either killed or injured in Syria last week, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
...A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said last week that a force aligned with Assad, backed with artillery, tanks, rockets and mortars, had on Feb. 7 attacked fighters with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces near Deir al-Zor. U.S. special forces were accompanying the SDF forces that came under attack, officials in Washington said. The U.S.-led coalition in Syria retaliated, killing about 100 of the pro-Assad forces, according to the official.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
but of course, you’re on Team Putin. And we should oblige by his rules. Wherever they apply even beyond his own country be it Europe, Middle East, etc...
Not only should we leave Syria, we should also abandon NATO altogether too. Right?
In addition to the other weapons systems you recounted, other sources reported that AC-130 Spectre gunships took part in the battle.
In open desert terrain with no air cover, it would have been a turkey shoot.
“Do you think this could effect next month’s electins in Russia? Or are Russian elections fixed beyond the effect of anything?”
Everything we do even under Trump, is Neo-Con “empire building” - but for Russia it’s innocent protection of self-interest and they’re entitled to an Empire the likes of the Soviet Union and we should shut up. Okay cool.
I did mention Mr. Spooky I believe.
The air cover incident you mention was during another earlier incident not this one - the Russian-Iranian force had no air cover this time.
BeauBo, I don’t envy the position of Russia right now but the fact of the matter is:
The Russian economy is stagnant. It’s stable. Even blossoming in the big cities. Bad in the provinces, but not enough to warrant the kind of unrest that would pre-suppose some massive change in power on the horizon.
Russians are EXTREMELY averse to ANY form of unrest at this point, so...the question is not whether Putin will win, but how many people will actually show up to vote? (And this also keeping in mind the default vote rigging, ballot stuffing, et al. that is a given in every election there on this scale.)
Young people are under the impression Russia can have an “evolution” not “revolution.” So they will accept Putin for now with the expectation that change (of the positive variety) is somehow inevitable...
And following the election will immediately begin the negotiations for power transition, divisions, financial allotments and deals amongst the oligarchs, elite, etc...
It’s nuts that this opposing faction of pro-regime fighters went right into the gates of hell and got blown away. They must have had some idea what they were getting into. At the least, it looks very unprofessional and could be the result of bad leadership, who knows. It’s like Mattis said, they were perplexed as to why they were doing this, laying portable bridges over the Euphrates, firing at the SDF troops.
What, US jets are now killing Russians???
I was told Trump is a Russian puppet and was elected with the help of “the Russians”.
Russia has very little ability to project force. France almost, but not quite none. UK used to be able to project a modicum of force, but the sun has set on the British. That’s about it, boys and girls. A U.S. President with a pair of balls can bring peace to the world if we don’t get hung up on “nation building.”
http://buchanan.org/blog/us-sucked-syrias-war-128732
Pat Buchanan has a good column, his latest. Pat was disappointing me for a while, so I don’t take everything he says as gospel but he’s usually a good read and often right.
He’s wised up some with this latest column. We will see.
He said once the strikes began, the contractors did not return fire because they believed that would provoke even more strikes from the U.S.-led coalition.
I have a question. Who is more crooked, Hillary and her pals or Putin and his pals?
Assad has been elected twice
But we treat him with less legitimacy than that clown Rocket Man in North Korea who we are willing to accept if he de- nukes
Go figure
We on the other hand are in Syria as occupiers to pick and choose among islamic radicals like AlQaeda to try to come up an army - any army- to join the Kurds who are the only real fighters aside from radicals - and to oppose the secular Assad because Israel and the Saudi want him gone because he made a strategic decision to ally with Iran as did his old man before him
Iran willing to kill islamist radicals Since quite a few Syrian shiites suffered mightily under ISIS and sunni radical militias
This is all grounds for us choosing a new Syrian government now that our ISIS experiment has hopefully been cleaned up for which we take no blame but full credit
Not that we would meddle in another country's elections or anything...
It was not a mistake
MORE dead, please, MUCH more, especially of Iranians and Turks. Let the blood flow.
“They need to refer to their debacle in Afghanistan!”
Yeah, only an idiot government would repeat the Russian mistake of occupying Afghanistan. I can’t imagine how a nation could be that stupid. Nope, never... ./s
I suspect that the Russians deliberately planned to seize the oil fields as a strategic objective, invited the Turks to invade the Kurdish area of Afrin (where Russia controls the airspace) to draw away Kurdish forces, and used their deniable surrogate “Private Military Contractors” for the attack, because they were knowingly crossing the line against the American Military.
They got slapped down hard.
The driving off of the Russian jets was this same operation, but at the time it had not yet been revealed that it was Russian bodies littering the ground. Only when next of kin were notified of death of their their loved ones, and the wounded began to arrive in Russian hospitals over the next few days, did the the reality of what occurred sink in. Hence the separate reports, days apart.
The Russian Government tried against the United States, what they had done to the Ukraine - they tried to get away with murder. Likely they had other militias and a showboat Syrian Arab Army Unit (or even just a guidon), ready to follow on and occupy the site after their assault force captured it for a photo op. But things did not go according to plan, and they have been exposed.
As with Condor Flight - to you, it doesn’t matter whether Trump is in power - everything the United States of America does is Neo-Con Empire Building.
Even World War II.
On the flip side ,the Neo-Connest of the Neo-Cons, Mr. Vladimir Putin can do no wrong. In fact, he’s protecting us! Just like Stalin protected us from the Nazis. Putin is protecting us from Ukrainian Fascists and ISIS terrorists! It’s all out of love.
Oh and he’s TOTALLY entitled to an empire larger than the USSR:
American collateral, European allies, and Israeli collateral be damned.
We did the same thing in Iraq. There’s no stats on how many people Blackwater lost, all our published numbers are purely military personnel.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.