Russian Troops in Syria!!!

[Sixxkiller]

Well the thing about Karzai isnt that he's corrupt. It actually works in our favor for him to be so corrupt. The thing we love about him is if we do want him gone, he's really easy to get rid of. He really has 0 standing outside of Kabul (as almost anyone will ever have there to be honest) but he knows, no matter what he spews to the press, that if we leave, he's a blood stain on the history books and will be lucky to get exiled before they actually fill him with bullets. Our little puppet Hamid, we picked the right guy for the crappy job.

One time, I even overheard one of the Afghan diplomats call him Amerizai. I chuckled.

[Sixxkiller]

Uncle Sam has no problem killing Russians; we and the Yanks, assisted by Inuit scouts, killed a number of spetsnaz intruding on our tundra back in the Cold War. No doubt they returned the favour in Siberia (and Korea and Vietnam).

And I'm reliably informed quite a few USSF, SEALs and SAS went "left of the Khyber" during the Soviet invasion, and a few didn't come back. That stuff from "Charlie Wilson's War" about so many Russian planes being lost that they had to stand down air operations for 3 months, you don't think that was mujahideen behind the Stingers, do you? (at least not initially). And ever wonder why so few Stingers were left behind (none have been confirmed used against NATO forces)?

Actually two reasons for this are: 1. The CIA contracted through the Pakistani's to buy almost all of them back. 2. The last shipments were in 1988-89 so most (if not all) of the ones we didnt get to buy back, most likely will not be in working order. They are quite complicated systems.

[John Kettler]

Now that some of you have had your "fun" at my expense (and likely in violation of the Forum Rules), let's return to the actual topic. I've gotten various panicked E-mail reports from ordinary people regarding Turkish naval forces in Syrian waters. My sensitive contacts tell me those flapped are upset over nothing. The Turkish ships are there to evacuate Turkish nationals, NOT attack Syria.

LongLeftFlank,

We started killing Russians in the Archangel Expedition in 1919, and it was the MIAs from that mess who were the first abandoned by the government and declared dead, when we had clear evidence they weren't. That trend continued through Korea, Laos and Vietnam. We directly encountered Russian piloted MiG 15s over North Korea and shot down a bunch, but not until after they ate our bombers alive; rinse and repeat in Vietnam (not widely known, and they got some of us, too, even in dogfights), but we did let the Russians set up SA-2 sites unmolested there and gave the Russian manned ones a wide berth. Am fairly sure we now know the Russians had people at the "North Vietnamese manned" sites, too. Those we did hit!

As for Stingers being recovered after the Russo-Afghan War, I fear you are woefully misinformed. Pilot, federal agent and FAA accident investigator Rodney Stich found that hundreds were left behind, as we discovered to our horror when Iranian Boghammers were seized circa summer 1988 in the Persian Gulf, with very much functional Stingers aboard. Stich did everything he could think of to get the remaining Stingers back before the problem got worse. He tried to get the government to buy them back from the warlords, have the CIA do something and much more. No one cared. The frustrating story is detailed in his book UNFRIENDLY SKIES http://www.defraudingamerica.com/book_reviews.html A belated CIA buyback didn't solve the problem, either, as detailed here http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19931122&slug=1733233

I have it on excellent authority the US. Navy radar tracked a small, very high speed boat which cleared the area before Navy ships could arrive at the shootdown site of TWA 800. U.S. Intelligence viewed this as retaliation for the downing of the Iranian airliner by the Vincennes. And what were the FBI agents trawling the area surrounding the downing site looking for? Stinger missile components! http://worldaffairsbrief.com/keytopics/twa800.shtml http://twa800.com/pages/missilesearch.htm The Kaptan insulation defect and resulting explosion, not to mention the CIA recontruction vid, were a complete crock. Kaptan cracks do NOT leave rocket fuel residue on seat backs! Further evidence lies in images of missile warhead fragment damage here http://www.impiousdigest.com/index01.htm

The good news is that these abandoned Stingers are probably now finally defunct (batteries being the big issue), but our enemies copied their best features and incorporated them into their MANPADS (manportable air defense systems), which are widely proliferated. By the way, the highly decorated Lt. Col., Ret., Bo Gritz helped train one Tim Osman (AKA Usama Bin Laden) in Stinger launch procedures here in the United States. See A NATION BETRAYED by him for the details.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

LongLeftFlank,

I just learned the old Stingers are still threats. Per my contacts, there are two arms dealers selling replacement batteries, one of whom is even providing installation instructions! Given even halfway decent treatment and working batteries, I'm told Stingers are good practically forever.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Bigduke6]

If Russia is presented with the option of either airstrikes against Syria or tighter sanctions including a ban on all weapons shipments they may accept this as the lesser of two evils. As you say though, Russia's strategic interests are stake and their co-operation in enforcing any sanctions regime may do some serious damage to their future relations with the Syrians.

That assumes Assad or his buddies are really on the way out of the Syrian political arena. Considering the Syrian regime's weaponry, will to use it, and Russia's ability to keep the guns and ammunition coming, I think that is a not a safe assumption to make.

Further, what could Russia possibly gain from turning on Assad and supporting the opposition? Like, the world community will like Russia more? Does any one reading this think even for a moment the Kremlin cares? It's the friggen' Kremlin!

Or, the Middle East will be more stable? Remember, the Russian economy depends on the price of oil, and the bottom of that price is falling out. Middle Eastern Regional tension, not conflict resolution, is in the Kremlin's interest.

(Such instability also is in the interest of the likes of Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, the Saudi regime and amazingly enough Iran - but that's another thread.)

Or maybe, it will make NATO happy? Trust me, that is not a top Kremlin priority. What's more, which do you think the Russians would like more, Turkey able to send troops and share intelligence with NATO, or NATO member Turkey all worked up and focused on the Kurds and the Syrians? This shoot down is terrific from the Russian POV, if it turns out the AC was over international waters NATO has to do something. Turkey is a NATO member and if there was no encroachment of Syrian airspace (admittedly extremely doubtful) then NATO has been subjected to outside aggression.

And what better way to screw with NATO than to have an incident that, for NATO to intervene without getting in big international trouble itself, it would need an approval from the UN Security Council? Which of course is subject to a Russian veto.

I'm not saying the Russians are driving the Syrian situation, indeed, I think that's hogwash. In fact NATO appears to be supporting the rebels to some unclear extent, and Russia the Assad regime to a greater extent. That suits Russia fine. If the outcome is not, "Assad says in charge with no changes," then the next most preferred outcome is "continued violence, conflict and instability inbetween NATO member Turkey and Israel. That's great from a Russian POV.

There is little in the western media and even less from the western leaders, but the Russians have been making crystal clear for, well, years now that they are not going to stand still and let the western nations pull another middle eastern regime change like in Libya. They agreed to a UN intervenion in Libya and when NATO decided to turn that into an air campaign against Gadaffi, there was very little they could do but complain NATO was exceeding the UN mandate. But the Kremlin never, ever forgets stuff like that.

There are policy geniuses in Washington and Paris and London and so forth that decided getting rid of Gadaffi was worth the risk of making the Russians mad. Syria is payback - and the Chinese agree with the Russians.

As for the shoot down itself, I would suggest:

- If it was a Phantom I would say odds are really good it was a reconnaissance flight as most Turkish fighters are F-16s. Pretty much in all NATO air forces once the front-line fighter is replaced, some of them get made over to recon platform. Further, every UAV in the US inventory, Turkey operates. (Oh sure, and by themselves too, no American "assistants" either, Turkey is a sovereign state, yada yada yada)

- If I am speculating about whether the Phantom was on a recon flight or not, then I think we can take it as an established fact Turkey has to be the main base for pretty much all of NATO's intelligence collection effort on Syria.

Which in turn argues for planners risking a manned reconnaissance flight on the edge of or even in Syrian air space. Perhaps Washington would like this shoot down to be seen in terms of an incident between Turkey and Syria. But Russia, which is really mad about all the US bases and UAVs and special forces guys and "reconnaissance assets" and so in Turkey and Iraq, isn't going to see things the way Washington wants. As far as the Kremlin is concerned, it is "The Americans sent a plane flown by their lackeys the Turks, and our lackeys the Syrians shot it down." Washington can talk all it wants, but it won't change the Russian position.

What we are not hearing in reports so far, is what is it the Syrians used to shoot this plane down. Kind of curious. Last year the Russians sold Syria the latest version of the Buk SAM, which should be more than enough to shoot down a Phantom flying straight and taking no evasive measures. Any guesses on whether Russian "technicians" help their Syrian buddies operate Buk? Whatever it was, the US certainly tracked it from launch to impact. Thanks to the NSA they have already identified the launcher type and probably they have a pretty good idea of the launcher location (although if it was Buk then it probably has already moved).

Since the US isn't making that information public, I have to wonder if maybe the reason is that the evidence is pretty clear a Russian missile with Russian technicians in the vicinity shot down a NATO military aircraft. See, because NATO has been concentrating on regime change and supporting democracy and so on for these last 20 years, and they've pretty much been assuming they don't really have the mission to defend the NATO region from Russia. A military confrontation with Russia would not be convenient, and admitting Russians shot down a NATO plane is a reasonable scenario for such a confrontation to begin.

It is also worth noting that NATO would be unable to extract (without truly astronomical cost) its material in Afghanistan without the use of bases in Russia and in Central Asian states friendly to Russia.

If this all seems like geniuses in NATO deciding Russia isn't worth paying attention to, and Russia doing its best to prove them wrong, well, there you go.

From the Russian POV Turkey is a US ally, Israel is a US ally, and Iraq is a US ally. They see no reason they should not have the same thing in Syria. If that sounds all retro and Cold War, well, the Kremlin hasn't forgotten about that either.

[John Kettler]

Bigduke6,

The second Turkish Phantom was almost home when the SAM (type unknown) "ate" it, but that's not the real excitement. The real excitement is that Syria fired a SAM at a commercial airliner Monday and, fortunately, missed. Oh, and the fact that NATO's now screaming for action against Syria, since "An attack on one Member is an attack on all Members." Meanwhile, depending upon whom you believe, the Turks are a) secretly sending in soldiers disguised as Free Syrian Army members to attack the Assad regime or providing helpless anti Assad Syrian civilians the means to defend themselves.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Erwin]

Sounds like a the good ol wind up of excuses/reasons to start a war. Tradition...

It's not that Syrian govt doesn't deserve to get kicked out. But, it's amusing to see the same old well-tried historical methods to justify war being used yet again. Does nobody study history (other than the good folks on these forums) any more?

[MikeyD]

Sometimes the resemblance of real life to CMSF gets spooky.

[Sakai007]

Looks like Aleppo is the new focus for the rebel offensives. It is very strange to hear these cities and towns mentioned in the news and then fight inside them in CMSF. It doesn't seem so far away to me I guess. That explains my rabid interest in these events I suppose.

[John Kettler]

Erwin,

Caught part of on intriguing interview an NPR. Seems the FSA is NOT built primarily around Syrian Army defectors. Those guys are in Turkish refugee camps, because they fear retribution against their families. The real FSA reportedly consists of ordinary people from the neighborhood who took up arms when peaceful protests failed. Some units amount to a mere eight men, with predominant weaponry being AK-47s and RPGs.

Don't know whether or not it's true,but that's what the report said.

Regards,

John Kettler

[FkDahl]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG24Ak02.html

[Bigduke6]

Hi there post-Cold War fans! You will be happy to hear our good friends the Russians are sending three amphibious assault ships to Tartus. The plan is they will "take on supplies".

Here's a linkie: http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/118286/Russian_warships_to_visit_Syrian_port_of_Tartus

The report says one of these ships carries about a company of naval assault infantry, but just a little googling makes clear the upper number is 225 infantry plus 10 tanks. So probably even more APCs if less tanks.

The report says two of these ships will tie up at the floating pier the Russians have in Tartus, while the third will anchor nearby. It also says there are something like 30,000 Russian nationals in Syria. The source is apparently some kind of Russian general staff guy talking to the news agency Interfax, which for practical purposes we can treat as an official Kremlin press release.

My guess is this is one of those planned-stops-that-also-is-a-useful-precautionary-measure.

But in any case it looks like the Russians will have a nice little combined arms battalion in Syria by early next week - and the way things are going not a moment too soon.

[Vark]

Thought that Russia had announced that if its navy personnel in their naval base at Tartus were attacked by Syrian rebels, Russia would shut down their base and withdraw from Syria. Is this reinforcement to make sure that never happens, as I'm sure Russia has plenty of secrets it would like to 'recover', if it feared the regime might collapse.