How Putin blindsided the US over Syria

BBC ^ | 30 September 2015 | Jon Sopel

[keat]

There should be no surprises about what the Russians have done.

They have consistently made clear their support for President Assad. It was hardly a great secret that they had moved military assets into Syria - and the Russian pilots hadn't flown their fighter aircraft over to the Eastern Mediterranean to earn some extra air miles.

President Vladimir Putin had a meeting with President Barack Obama on Monday night to explain what Russia's plan was - and although there were profound differences, US officials said they understood better what Russia's intentions were.

And yet.

Isn't there something totally jaw-dropping, gob-smacking, eyebrow-arching, ear twitchingly extraordinary - and not to mention, casual - about the way the Americans learnt about Russian plans?

It began with a phone call from a Russian diplomat to his counterpart in Baghdad to say "we've got something interesting to tell you".

Then a three-star Russian general leaves the Russian embassy compound and knocks on the door of the American one, and asks to see the US military attache.

He tells the American military man that bombing starts in an hour, so you'd better get out of Syrian airspace now and move any assets you have off the ground. And 60 minutes later, the bombing started.

Wow. To say the Americans were blindsided by this unorthodox line of communication is to put it mildly. Having had their "clear the air" meeting on Monday night there was an anticipation that though there might be big policy differences, there would be a degree of co-ordination and openness.

[ETL]

“what an ugly thing to say... does this mean we’re not friends anymore? You know, ETL, if I thought you weren’t my friend, I just don’t think I could bear it.”

Well, there’s at least one thing remotely ‘normal’ or ‘sane’ about you:
You apparently have good tastes in movies.

[Tau Food]

Does it ever occur to you that Putin could be incompetent? Isn't he the guy who armed some drunken Ukrainians who then shot down a commercial airliner with the weapons he gave them? Isn't he the guy who has run the Russian economy into what seems like a perpetual ditch? Has he ever done anything that worked?

Anybody who roots for Putin is going to be disappointed.

[Fitzy_888]

Russia’s Attack Signals Dangerous New Era

September 1, 2008. BY GERALD FLURRY

RUSSIA’S ATTACK ON GEORGIA IN AUGUST MARKS THE BEGINNING OF A DANGEROUS NEW ERA IN HISTORY. This was the FIRST MILITARY STRIKE of a rising ASIAN SUPERPOWER—and there will be more!

It is critical you understand the meaning behind this attack.

(...)

Breaking Promises to Russia

“U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton had promised the Russians that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet Union empire,” wrote George Friedman of Stratfor. “That promise had already been broken in 1998 by NATO’s expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic—and again in the 2004 expansion, which absorbed not only the rest of the former Soviet satellites in what is now Central Europe, but also the three Baltic states, which had been components of the Soviet Union” (August 12).

Today, you have the son of one of those presidents trying to also bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. I don’t believe Russia will ever allow that to happen.

(...)

Russia’s Revenge

Russia shrewdly evaluated these events and saw an opportunity.

In not taking action over the Kosovo issue, “Moscow had two motives, the lesser of which was as a tit-for-tat over Kosovo,” George Friedman observed. “If Kosovo could be declared independent under Western sponsorship, then South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway regions of Georgia, could be declared independent under Russian sponsorship.” Those two breakaway regions have many Russian sympathizers. “Any objections from the United States and Europe would simply confirm their hypocrisy.” In other words, Russia could say, Hey—that’s what you did in Kosovo and the Balkans—you just went in and conquered the whole area! Don’t accuse us for simply doing what you did!

This strategy worked to perfection once Russia invaded Georgia. “The Russians knew the United States would denounce their attack,” Friedman wrote. “This actually plays into Russian hands. The more vocal senior leaders are, the greater the contrast with their inaction, and THE RUSSIANS WANTED TO DRIVE HOME THE IDEA THAT AMERICAN GUARANTEES ARE EMPTY TALK” (op. cit.).

Does Russia fear America? Not very much. And it is using this opportunity to make the U.S. look STUPID AND WEAK BEFORE THE WHOLE WORLD!

Russia had been planning for this invasion for some time. As Ralph Peters wrote in the New York Post, “Let’s be clear: For all that U.S. commentators and diplomats are still chattering about Russia’s ‘response’ to Georgia’s actions, the Kremlin spent months planning and preparing this operation. Any soldier above the grade of private can tell you that there’s absolutely no way Moscow could’ve launched this huge ground, air and sea offensive in an instantaneous ‘response’ to alleged Georgian actions.

(....)

Outmaneuvering America

Melik Kaylan wrote in the August 13 Wall Street Journal about the damage the attack on Georgia will do to the world, especially America. “Having overestimated the power of the Soviet Union in its last years, we have consistently underestimated the ambitions of Russia since. … [F]ew have noticed the direct strategic threat of Moscow’s action to U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Kremlin is not about to reignite the Cold War for the love of a few thousand Ossetians or even for its animosity toward 5 million Georgians. THIS IS CALCULATED STRATEGIC MANEUVERING.”

Maneuvering for what? “[M]ake no mistake, IT’S ABOUT COUNTERING U.S. POWER at its furthest stretch with Moscow’s power very close to home.”

RUSSIA IS CHALLENGING AMERICA. THE SOVIET EMPIRE IS MAKING A COMEBACK! “In effect, we in the West are being challenged by Russian actions in Georgia to show that we have the nerve and the stamina to secure the gains not just of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but of the entire collapse of Soviet power,” Kaylan wrote.

[skeeter]

Do you think Obama is making all of these disasterous decisions all by his lonesome? I don’t.

[gr8eman]

Precisely

[Gideon300]

“People need to stop portraying him as a super brilliant strategist who is always two steps ahead of everyone else. He isn’t. He’s an idiot.”

AMEN! I’ve been saying this for years, and no one seems to understand that simple fact about this simpleton. Buckwheat is a moron, and I’m starting to think the people behind the curtain are not nearly a bright as I once thought.

[DiogenesLamp]

He is an idiot, see ‘corpse-man’ for proof, but what he is principally is a sock puppet. Whose hand is up the sock is the question.

I theorize that it is a convention of Liberal sources, all pushing him hither and yon on this and that issue.

He's just a focusing device for their ideas and agenda, and there is a lot more than just one of them.

[DiogenesLamp]

Do you think Obama is making all of these disasterous decisions all by his lonesome? I don’t.

Yes and no. He's a knee jerk reaction idiot, and much of what he does is instinctively anti-American, but he is guided by a whole host of leftwing nutbags he's encountered throughout his life.

You might say their ideas are along for the ride with everything he does. He chooses to do bad for the US, because that is the crap in which he believes.

[Gideon300]

“He is an idiot, see ‘corpse-man’ for proof, but what he is principally is a sock puppet. Whose hand is up the sock is the question.”

Definitely an idiot. And I think that perhaps the only person on earth who could possibly be dumber is John F’n Lurch “Swiftboat John” Scary Kerry.

[NEMDF]

Yeah, unless he heard about something on TV, “like the rest of the folks”, it is meaningless. Seems he was all up on important stuff this week, like where transgendereds can pee and the scuffle in the Nat’s dugout. People expect too much if he’s supposed to know what Putin’s doing in Syria, too.

[skeeter]

I do think the evidence that there is method in his madness is all around.

As I said initially, his goal is chaos, which would take no more intelligence than a 5 year would need to crash a 767.

[V K Lee]

Bo-Rock prefers to talk a problem to death...see how many conferences he has speared on America, beer summits, lectures. It is no surprise to find he attempted to do the same to Putin’s plan. It enjoys talking far too much. Likes to listen to the reverb much more than WTP do. It may be blindness or Diogenes syndrome.

[mdmathis6]

Obama tried to install a Muslim Brotherhood radical Jihadist regime in Egypt but the Egyptians got wise to it and threw them out of power. The whole Libyan thing (not Benghazi but the Kaddafi thing) was a European deal about ensuring oil and gas supplies thru southern Europe via Africa and the US just hung back offering some feckless air support...but it created a vacuum that led to Benghazi and now Isis infiltrating there. Obama tried to do in Syria what he tried to do in Egypt and now that whole thing is blowing up in our faces. I don’t think Iran is very happy about Russia being in Syria but it puts egg on Obama’s face so they are content to “play along”. Iran also figures that Russia won’t tolerate a nuclear armed Iran so the mad Mullahs have got to be feeling somewhat hemmed in.

(you think Putin feels comfortable about a radical Muslim state like Iran with nukes? I don’t think so...then again the thought of Israel’s probable 200 + nukes of various sorts may also make Putin a bit cautious...as some of them are icbm capable. Israel can put satellites in orbit so they can do icbm’s...or at least some good longer range Intermediate types and cruise as well. Moscow might be an end game strategy target!)

As for ValJar,Kerry and Samantha Powers...they need to be made to disappear from government service...retired, fired or jailed!

[DiogenesLamp]

AMEN! I’ve been saying this for years, and no one seems to understand that simple fact about this simpleton. Buckwheat is a moron, and I’m starting to think the people behind the curtain are not nearly a bright as I once thought.

Was talking with a friend about this very thing earlier today. The Ivy League trained people are full of misplaced confidence in their abilities to control the course of human destiny. They are all Robert Macnamara clones. They are people who think they are so bright and brilliant that they couldn't possibly be wrong, but they have fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of human beings.

Their ideas can appear to work for awhile, but they always run smack dab into things about human nature that they don't understand. Then their ideas collapse, in a way that seems to them "sudden", and then they are at a loss as to explain why their societal equivalent of a perpetual motion machine failed. (Seriously, it really is a "perpetual motion machine" that they are trying to create. This is why it only runs till it runs out of "other people's money." (external input energy) )

Reagan summed it up best.

"The trouble with our opponents is not that they are ignorant... it's that they know so much which isn't so. "

Reagan nailed them.

[DiogenesLamp]

As I said initially, his goal is chaos, which would take no more intelligence than a 5 year would need to crash a 767.

And that is a very apt analogy.

[ETL]

Re: “People need to stop portraying him as a super brilliant strategist who is always two steps ahead of everyone else. He isn’t. He’s an idiot.”

AMEN! I’ve been saying this for years, and no one seems to understand that simple fact about this simpleton. Buckwheat is a moron, and I’m starting to think the people behind the curtain are not nearly a bright as I once thought.

It's not that any of them are particularly smart. How could they be if they push for a socialist or marxist system, both of which have failed miserably everywhere they've been implemented. It's that we have soo many stupid friggin people voting these days. That, plus the lying, scuzzball, snooze media who sugarcoated even the most outrageous things that were brought out about him (Ayers, Wright...). Add to that the leftwing-dominated public school system, private and state run colleges, the leftist music, TV, and movie industries, popular magazines, on and on...

[discostu]

Anybody that was blindsided was not paying attention.

[ThePatriotsFlag]

Blindsided? He just walked up and took it...who is gonna stop him, Ghostbusters?