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 ...
I don’t care how many Russians are dead. I just don’t want to hear about one America’s finest dead for this POS country Syria.
“Assad has been elected twice
But we treat him with less legitimacy than that clown Rocket Man in North Korea”
Stalin and Castro, and Rocket Man were elected too. Like Assad, their elections were not free elections, but fixed to ensure the outcome.
Assad’s Ba’ath Party is the last ruling Party on Earth based on the same principles as the German Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) Party - socialist dictatorship based on race.
With the sometime exception of the Russians, just about everyone else he lists can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. They're good only at killing civilians.
Trump has signaled to the Russians that we are not a threat to their interests unless they allow Syria to become an Iranian colony. If they replace Assad with a less Iranian allied client and boot the Iranians out, I think we'd be quite happy to let the Russians run the show.
The problem is that the Russians don't have the strength to do that. So we'll see.
“We did the same thing in Iraq.”
Different in two big ways.
Blackwater provided protective service in the war zone - body guards, embassy guards. They did not field large conventional military units to conduct battles against other armies.
We (US) were openly at war - were were not trying to conduct war, while denying that we were.
Why is it in all these discussions nobody lays out Russia’s exact intentions for being in Syria in the first place? And why should we just give them the benefit of the doubt that it has NOTHING to do with harming our interests in the long run?
Why do people go on as if a “proxy” war between us and them was some accidental chance of circumstance and not their intention all along...
We don’t really know what Blackwater did. We know what various government officials SAY they did, we also know that official government estimates of how many people Blackwater had in country were full fledged lies.
And technically no we were not openly at war. War was never declared.
The Russian economy has been ravaged by falling oil prices. Protest movements appear to once again be gaining steam.
Projecting Russian military power can be a balm to a restive populace, as Mr. Putin doubtless understands from past adventures in Ukraine and elsewhere.
~ Sean Gordon
The Russians I know in Chelyabinsk are getting real skinny.
Not as bad as Venezuela but unless you are with the oligarchs it’s slim pickings.
Assuming China is paying Russia for its actions in Syria (which I do) Russia can project quite a bit of force there.
Or anywhere else China pays them to go.
“We don’t really know what Blackwater did.”
I served in Iraq and regularly interacted with Blackwater.
They did nothing like Wagner/Russia just attempted, with a battalion-sized mechanized/armor unit, supported by artillery and engineer bridging units to seize territory from other standing conventional military forces. Wagner was conducting regular warfare, while attempting to deny that that they were conducting war for Russia.
“And technically no we were not openly at war. War was never declared.”
Semantics. Congress authorized it the UN voted on it, we flew US flags over the forces conducting it - even embedded journalists with the units. It was not an attempt to mislead the public that someone else was responsible. It was conducted openly under the laws of war as a nation state.
Well unfortunately, “the people” are just as responsible for Putin as Putin is. They gave him the mandate and the willingly zombified attitudes necessary for him to plunder the country and exploit them the way he did.
Now they’re dealing with the consequences..and well, who knows.
God is merciful if you seek Him out. He can intervene.
Good shooting.
Not when you were around. And of course that’s just Blackwater, we don’t know if there were other companies that didn’t get anybody arrested so they didn’t become part of the general consciousness.
Not semantics at all. There are very important reasons why we the last time we declared war was WWII. And those reasons are all 100% to mislead the public and make them think about the situations differently. We did not declare war in Iraq for the EXACT SAME REASON Putin hasn’t declared war in Syria, to maintain control of the narrative and be able to change the scope whenever we wanted to.
"He said many of the injured had shrapnel in their bodies that was not showing up on X-rays, making treatment difficult. “The prognosis for most of the wounded is dismal,” he said."
1) find paper bag
2) breathe into it
3) rejoin adults who can discuss the pros and cons of US and other world affairs with some attempt at objectivity
The only thing that fits is Putin was testing Trump. Putin was wanting to see how many red lines he could cross. He learned that with Obama the red line was written in pencil. Every military response down to the squad level had to be okayed by Obama political operatives. President Trump gave the military a mission and let them decide how to accomplish it. Trump’s red line is the red line and the military is guns free after that.
The larger objective IMHO was in shaping the battlefield for a future attack. Putin gambled with his merc’s. He calculated that Trump is in a weakened political position and would not want to risk open conflict with Russians. Wagner group would open up an avenue of approach and set the precedent of battle groups moving past the red line. Future combined Syrian, IRGC group would mimic Wagner and attack USForces. If they killed or captured a large number of US troops it might force us to withdraw.
Putin made a basic miscalculation. President Trump is not operating under the same basic premise as Obama. Trump will not shrink from confrontation.
Putin’s C & C of this op is suspect. There are open lines of communication between US and Russian forces. After the first bomber strike the Wagner group had to be rendered incapable of performing the mission. The Russians had to know that gunships and arty were on the way. Why did they not call the US command and use some cover story to request a cease fire to retreat and pull the KIA and WIA out. Either the Merc/regular army command and control are inadequate or it was just piss poor planning with commanders not up to the task.
Future threats must be considered. The Russians will be much more hands off next time. They’ll use their Iranian Guard counterparts so as to avoid Russian casualties and questions in their ability to project power regionally. The IRGC will aggressively plan to inflict as much political and military damage to US Forces as possible. They have a target within range and forces available. They will continue to explore their options.
Excuse me for interrupting your video game from childhood.
So true my friend. Sadly, we didn’t learn that lesson either at a cost of thousands of American lives and a trillion dollars spent!
Mr. Putin. There’s a new Sherriff in town. No bowing, no apologies, no red lines................just dead Russians if you f with our guys!
FYI: The Wagner Group operates out of Hong Kong, not in Russia where such operations are illegal. It recruits Russian veterans. It may be under direct Russian supervision, but that is not confirmed and could be independent - there are several schools of thought here.
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.