US putting more energy in anti-Russian agitprop than fighting IS and AQ

Every move the Obama Administration made against Russia about Ukraine has backfired. Now the Russian air strikes in Syria have helped expose how much the US has supported Terror, Inc. And I think only Obama's fan club hasn't realized by now that he's made a fool out of himself with his Get Putin campaign. Trouble is, he's also made a fool out of the U.S. military and State Department.

So I don't know what to say; he won't listen if you tell him this isn't a high school popularity contest.

At any rate the Obama Administration is cranking out so much agitprop it's getting to the silly stage. Today we have the U.S. Department of Defense telling USA TODAY they're worried Russian jets are being used so much in Syria they're wearing out. I'm sure the Russian MoD will send flowers to thank DoDo for their concern:

Russian warplanes sent to Syria to back the regime of Bashar Assad are breaking down at a rapid rate that appears to be affecting their ability to strike targets, according to a senior Defense official.

Nearly one-third of Russian attack planes and half of its transport aircraft are grounded at any time as the harsh, desert conditions take a toll on equipment and crews, said the official who was not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive intelligence matters.

The Russians appear to be having difficulty adapting to the dusty conditions, and the number of airstrikes they have conducted seems to have dipped slightly.

How many weasel words can you find in those paragraphs? And if the unnamed official isn't authorized to speak on such sensitive matters, why flap his gums at USA TODAY?

But the topper of the day is from a New York Times report:

Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict.

Do you realize what this means? The Russians could actually crash the global economy, as the Times carefully explains. Plus the Russians are causing high-ranking U.S. commanders lost sleep:

 Inside the Pentagon and the nation’s spy agencies, the assessments of Russia’s growing naval activities are highly classified and not publicly discussed in detail. American officials are secretive about what they are doing both to monitor the activity and to find ways to recover quickly if cables are cut. But more than a dozen officials confirmed in broad terms that it had become the source of significant attention in the Pentagon.

“I’m worried every day about what the Russians may be doing,” said Rear Adm. Frederick J. Roegge, commander of the Navy’s submarine fleet in the Pacific, who would not answer questions about possible Russian plans for cutting the undersea cables.

Well if they're highly classified why would you be tipping your hand to the Russians from the front page of the New York Times?

But let me ask whether anyone in uniform taking orders from Obama thinks this blizzard of baloney will cause the American public to take its eye off the ball? 

The ball isn't Russia. It's the steadily increasing power and reach of very dangerous terrorist groups. Now stop fooling around and go kill Islamic State. Kill al Qaeda. AND STOP PLAYING FOOTSIE WITH THE SAUDIS AND MODERATE TERRORIST GROUPS.

[flipping a pen in the air]  Do you realize why I'm in such a crummy mood all the time? I am surrounded by idiots here in Washington. I'm beginning to understand exactly how Colonel John Boyd felt. Did I ever tell you the story about what he used to do at the Pentagon? Yes I did, but read it again:

One of Boyd's nicknames was "Thunder and Lightning," which derived from his habit of standing in the doorway of his office at the Pentagon while gesturing and screaming, "Out there -- business as usual! In here -- thunder and lightning!"

Gee, could we ever use some thunder and lighting at the Pentagon now. 

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I am still asking why Joshua Wheeler had to die

I've read the reports today at CNN, which I will no longer quote because I've reached my gag limit with their water carrying for the Obama Administration, and the Guardian, on the helmet cam footage from the raid on the Islamic State-run prison in which Master Sergeant Wheeler was mortally wounded.  And I've watched the footage.

I have one question. How long did the U.S. command in Iraq know the prison was an Islamic State site?

Now it looks as if Sputnik has lit a fire under the U.S. Department of Defense, unless it's a coincidence that DoD has started getting onto Google News a daily press release on U.S. kills of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Here is the one for October 24.  

I'm going to be looking five days a week for the DoD kill list; Sputnik takes a break on the weekends from publishing Russian kills so I don't have a problem with the DoD doing the same. But I want to see significant kill reports from DoD -- not just an IS truck or gas station. Understand?

I would also like to see how many of those kills happen during night raids. Or is the U.S. allowing IS in Iraq their beauty sleep? The Russians are bombing 24/7 in Syria. All night. Which of course is a good way to keep up pressure on IS and the rest of the terror alphabet soup.  
Now I have before me another Sputnik report, datelined today, about Iraq's government allowing the Russian air force to cross into Iraq territory to bomb Terror, Inc. fighters as they flee across the Syrian border. Of course that's another way to keep up pressure. And it will help the Iraqi military cut off the supply ratlines from Iraq into Syria.

I would like to see the U.S. help the Russians in this operation, given that shutting down the ratlines is vital, and so is preventing the Syrian branch of Terror, Inc. from regrouping in Iraq.  

If this means the U.S. ends up bombing some of their assets in Terror Inc., and similar assets provided by the governments of Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia -- let's not make Joshua Wheeler's death in vain.

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Jonathan Pie has meltdown reporting real fuc**ng economics and daily news

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Why did another American soldier have to be killed in Iraq?

I think the answer boils down to a person with a serious case of ADHD running U.S. CENTCOM military operations. However, because it looks to me to be the same for AFRICOM and NATO, I'm forced to conclude that ADHD is now an occupational hazard for high-ranking U.S. military commanders and/or that America's civilian Commander-in-Chief is himself in need of ADHD medication.

Granted, this armchair diagnosis is too late to help a very valuable and courageous American Master Sergeant named Joshua Wheeler, who was killed while saving a poorly planned mission in Iraq to rescue 15 Kurdish peshmerga prisoners of Islamic State, who weren't even in the prison it turned out.

The U.S Department of Defense interpreted the raid quite differently. From an Oct 23 Reuters report:

A U.S.-backed military operation that freed 70 hostages who had been held by Islamic State in Iraq produced a cache of intelligence, and U.S. forces supporting Iraqi troops are likely to undertake more raids in the future, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Friday.

Carter said he decided on the rescue mission after intelligence showed that executions were imminent and mass graves had been dug.

"When we find opportunities to do things that will effectively prosecute the campaign we're going to do that ... raids is one of those categories and I suspect that we'll have further opportunities in the future and we're going to avail ourselves of them," Carter said.

The U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State will also intensify its assault on the group's oil production and sales enterprise, Carter said, pointing as an example to a recent strike against a pump station and site for crude oil production in eastern Syria.

That's not all they hit, according to this Associated Press report dated Oct 22:

U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq and Syria carried out a large-scale attack on Syria's Omar oil field as part of its mission to target the Islamic State group's ability to generate money, a coalition spokesman said Thursday.

Operations officer Maj. Michael Filanowski told journalists in Baghdad that airstrikes late Wednesday struck IS-controlled oil refineries, command and control centers and transportation nodes in the Omar oil field near the town of Deir el-Zour. Coalition spokesman Col. Steven Warren said the attack hit 26 targets, making it one of the largest set of strikes since launching the air campaign last year.

The refinery generates between $1.7 and $5.1 million per month for the Islamic State group.

"It was very specific targets that would result in long-term incapacitation of their ability to sell oil, to get it out of the ground and transport it," Filanowski said.

Turn to Sputnik's Oct 23 report on Islamic State's oil business and the U.S. strike on Omar to get a very different interpretation of events:

According to [Filanowski] the strike took out refineries, command and control centers, and transportation nodes. All in all, that could affect the Islamic State’s income by as much as $1.7 million to $5.1 million a month.

But that’s a far cry from the estimated $500 million IS rakes in from crude each year.

So the United States bombed a drop in the bucket as far as Islamic State is concerned -- but a drop which was crucially important to the reconstruction of Syria. A self-evident fact the U.S. government well knew.

Moreover, some of Islamic State's biggest customers are just those "moderate" anti-government fighting forces in Syria that the United States has been supporting. See the Sputnik report for details.    

Moreover, Islamic State's biggest customer is the government of Turkey, a NATO ally. To return to the Sputnik report:

In a statement provided to the AP, the office of the Turkish prime minister said it was already working to tighten its border security and "has effectively stopped oil smuggling."

I think Erdogan's government is doing a passing imitation of Pakistan's, which crosses its heart and swears to God it always tells the truth and lies every time it speaks. In any case bombing Omar begs the question asked by Sputnik: 

The self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group earns millions from its oilfields in Iraq and Syria. ... But the question remains: How, after over a year of the US-led coalition’s bombing efforts, can this advanced [oil processing and transport] infrastructure remain in place?

The report also notes:

According to Iraqi officials, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity, IS has also begun adapting to the threat of airstrikes. While oil shipments used to be smuggled in caravans of large tankers, the terrorist have started using smaller trucks that attract less attention.

Because of its cheap prices and stranglehold over local markets, IS has also woven itself into local economies. Many communities in Syria and Iraq, in desperate need of fuel, are forced to conduct business with the organization.

In other words, it's as foolish to waste time launching a financial war against Islamic State as it is to find and field "moderate" militias to fight it. 

Yet this type of foolishness has stretched what should be a straightforward military operation into a generational struggle, with American bureaucrats padding their budgets accordingly. 

Gentlemen. KILL ISLAMIC STATE. If you don't know how to take this direct approach, ring up the Russians and ask for pointers. Take meds if you have a hard time focusing on the replies.  

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SYRIAN ARMY KILLS NUSRA FRONT LEADER DURING BATTLE - Updated 10:40 AM EDT

I first saw the report on his death at Sputnik but an updated version of their report shows it was actually The Daily Mail that broke the story. (I note the Mail has wrongly identified the capital of Syria (Damascus) as Aleppo.

Al-Qaeda leader in Syria is killed in Aleppo in a 'devastating blow' to terror group

• Leader of al-Nusra confirmed by terror group to have died in Syrian capital
• Images of his lifeless body, containing a bloody head wound, shared online
• Death is considered a devastating blow to organisation's operations
• WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT [photo omitted from my re-post of the report]

By EUAN MCLELLAND 

FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 07:36 EST, 24 October 2015 | UPDATED: 09:00 EST, 24 October 2015

Al-Qaeda's leader in Syria has been killed, according to local reports.

The al-Nusra Front, the Sunni Islamic jihadist militia fighting against Syrian Government forces in the civil war, confirmed Sheikh Abu Sulaiman Al Masri's death this morning.

Images of his body, containing a bloody head wound, have been shared online.

It is believed he was killed in the Syrian capital of Aleppo.

The cause of his death has not yet been confirmed.

However, it is considered a devastating blow to the terror group's operations in the war torn Middle Eastern country.

Al-Nusra - or The Front for the Defence of the Syrian People - first announced its existence with a video posted online in January last year.

In the statement, the group said it was behind many of the suicide bombings that have rocked Syria since civil war broke out in the country in March 2011. [emphasis mine]

The group - which is said to target its propaganda at ordinary Muslims - has developed a reputation for discipline and honesty, according to local reports, which helped it gain a key roles in rebel-held areas in Aleppo when the uprising first began.

The news of Sheikh Abu Sulaiman Al Masri's death comes as Syrian troops backed by Russian air strikes battle Islamic State group fighters in a bid to restore a key supply line to the capital.

At least 28 IS fighters and 21 troops and militia have been killed in the battle for the road that leads to the government-held sector of the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. [Pundita note: I consider SOHR to be a questionable source for all Syrian news]

The jihadists' cutting of the highway from the rest of government-held territory on Friday dealt another blow to the regime, which has launched multiple ground offensives since Russia began an air campaign on September 30.

Aleppo was Syria's pre-war economic hub but it has been ravaged by fighting since mid-2012 and is divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east.

The surrounding countryside is controlled by a patchwork of armed groups, including Islamist and moderate rebels as well as IS and its jihadist rival, Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

With the support of Russian air strikes, the army has recaptured territory south of the city in recent days and is seeking to break an IS siege of the Kweyris airbase to its east.

The clashes to the south of the city have killed at least 16 rebels since Friday, the Observatory said.

The army has also been on the attack in Hama and Homs provinces further south.

Twelve rebels and 14 troops and pro-government militia were killed in the fighting in Hama province, the Observatory said. 

****
Sputnik, October 24 - 17:09

BREAKING NEWS

The Syrian army killed head of the Jebhat al-Nusra (Nusra Front) terrorist group Abu Sulaiman Masri in Aleppo, a source confirmed to Sputnik Saturday.

According to the source, the terrorist was killed during the fight near the village outside Aleppo.

The Nursa Front terrorist group is an al-Qaeda affiliate operating in Syria.

DETAILS TO FOLLOW

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This is the first and probably last time I will thank President Jimmy Carter

From Sputnik, datelined today and timestamped 23:10 (Russia time):

...  Earlier in October, reports emerged, claiming that former US President Jimmy Carter had given the Russian Embassy in Washington maps with ISIL terrorist locations in Syria after speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed the information.

"Jimmy Carter actually turned to the Russian side with the offer of sending us maps created by his Presidential Center with the current locations of opposing sides in Syria, including the positions of the government troops, ISIL, and other groups," Zakharova told journalists.

The maps are not considered classified since most of them could be found on the Carter Center foundation's website, according to the diplomat. 

On Friday [today], Peskov stated that Putin had familiarized himself with the obtained documents. ...

The Carter Foundation scrambled to explain itself yesterday, maybe after it dawned that the Kremlin was going to use their nice gesture as anti-White House propaganda:

Carter Center Statement on Syria Conflict Maps

ATLANTA — The Carter Center closely follows events in Syria and regularly publishes reports about conflict developments on its website. These reports are publicly available and are forwarded to all interested parties, including Syrians across political divides and governments in the west and in the region. A recent report details Russia's ongoing airstrikes in Syria, underscoring that the vast majority of the airstrikes do not target ISIS, as the Russian government asserts.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter brought the Carter Center's published reports and maps on the Syrian conflict to Russian President Vladimir Putin's attention on Oct. 15, and his office shared a copy of the same publicly available online report and maps with the Russian Embassy in Washington on Oct. 19.

As to the Carter Foundation's dig at Russian targeting decisions, the Sputnik report adds:

 SEARCH FOR ‘MODERATE’ OPPOSITION

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Syrian leader Bashar Assad agreed with possible Moscow’s support of Syrian opposition factions in case they were ready to fight terrorists.

On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed that Russia was eager to establish and maintain contacts with any Syrian opposition group interested in the struggle against terrorism and radicalism.

Neither the United States nor European countries have been able to help Moscow identify "moderate" opposition groups in Syria for possible cooperation in the fight against the ISIL group, he added.

Yes, searching continues for the unicorn.

The same Sputnik report mentions the Syrian Army is busy raising hell:

SYRIAN ARMY SUCCESS

More than 300 terrorists were killed in the western province of Latakia, Syrian Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Ali Maihub told reporters Friday.

"In the province of Latakia more than 300 terrorists and vehicles armed with mortars were destroyed near the cities of Salma and Sad Badradun," he specified.

The Syrian Army killed 45 ISIL terrorists travelling in a motorcade in the Hama Governorate, Maihub added.

Moreover, according to him, control over a number of villages in the provinces of Homs and Aleppo has been reinstated.

Syrian Army burnin' leather. You go, guys!

    

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Battle of Damascus: Syrian Army raises their flag over key suburb

Haras controls both the road from Damascus and the towns of Jobar and Harasta.

A large chunk of Syria's capital, Damascus, which has been bombed so many times in Syrian Army airstrikes it looks like Swiss cheese, was taken over earlier this year by Islamic State (Nusra Front also has a big presence in the city.)  But now the army has launched a serious ground assault -- and without Russian air cover on account of the Russians don't want to bomb heavily populated areas so as not to upset the International Community. 

The Russian correspondent (or his English translator) embedded with the army might have been so excited by yesterday's victory he spelled Harasta as "Haras" a few times in his report, if they're not two different suburbs. Anyhow it's a victory for Syria's Army and one more step to clearing IS and Nusra from the city, which is going to work out to house-to-house combat. 

The caution is this Associated Press report from April 15, 2013: Syrian Troops Capture Strategic Town Otaybah In Major Blow To Rebels:

After five weeks of battle, Syrian government troops captured a strategic town near Damascus, cutting an arms route for rebels trying to topple President Bashar Assad's regime, state media and activists said Thursday.

By taking the town of Otaybah, east of the capital, the army dealt a major setback to opposition forces that in recent months have made gains near the city they eventually hope to storm. [...]

Onward:

Syrian Army Fights With Terrorists, Plants Flag Over Damascus' Suburbs
21:58 - 23.10.2015

Updated 22:08

Sputnik 

A RIA Novosti correspondent reports on the Syrian army's combat activity in the northern part of Harasta.

HARASTA. Syria (Sputnik) — A week ago the Syrian Armed Forces launched a large-scale military operation to liberate the towns of Duma, Jobar and Harasta located eastward of Damascus that had been occupied by the terrorist groups for some three years.

A RIA Novosti correspondent became the witness of Syrian army's combat activity in the northern part of Harasta.

NIGHT ASSAULT

It was almost impossible to get to the assault position from Damascus, so we moved through an industrial area covered with the portraits of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the leader of Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah.

Shortly before arriving to the line of contact with terrorists, an escorting officer proposed us to put on the armor vest, because we arrived “to the war.” It was surprising that civilians continued living near the army's disposition as if nothing had happened.

After a short briefing, the officers moved to the unit’s lines to give the orders to their soldiers. We moved forward under heavy fire to the building on the frontline with a group of mortarmen to specify the positions for the mortars.

After the deployment of mortars, the officer gave me a night vision device to look over the battlefield. As a result I could see that dense fire and bombs falling on the terrorists’ positions prevented enemies from serious retaliatory strike. During the battle, groups of soldiers from both sides started moving [forward] under cover of darkness and clashed in a close combat.

FLAG OVER HARAS

The active phase of the battle was finished at 4 a.m. local time and the soldiers returned to headquarters. The next stage of the operation was scheduled on the morning and all the tired warriors could sleep for a while.

"Friend, you should get up. It will be a bit noisy, we have to go to the commander. You should see it,” Capt. Hassan said wakening me.

After arriving to the commander’s position we were invited by a general to look how the Syrian warriors would plant a flag on the strategic Haras high ground. Haras controls both the road from Damascus and the towns of Jobar and Harasta.

“Our strategy is quiet [sic] easy. The enemy is hiding in the tunnels firing at us from the mortars and machine guns. Our soldiers conduct special operations on the enemy positions in a small groups. They mop up the enemy’s firing-posts and take control over the tunnels’ entrances. We support them with artillery and tanks,” the operation’s commander, Gen. Mahmoud, said, describing the army's strategy.

The soldiers that returned to the base reported about dozens of killed militants and only about a few wounded Syrian soldiers and militias during this operation.

[...]

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DoD update on US-led airstrikes on Islamic State. Step it up gentlemen, step it up

The single Coalition airstrike in Syria this past week destroyed an Islamic State vehicle and mortar tube. Whoopee. 

I don't want to hear, 'The Russian and Syrian air forces are flying so many strikes we can't find a place in the air for our planes.' 

That could have been the excuse, although a lame one, before the U.S. and Russia signed their deconflict agreement -- or I hope it's signed. At any rate, there is something known as coordination. Now stop clowning around.     

In addition to airstrikes the U.S. needs to pressure those members of Inherent Resolve, such as Saudi Arabia, to stop supplying war materiel to all jihad groups -- materiel they know will end up in the hands of Islamic State and al Qaeda. 

The pressure needs to extend to the White House, if it's still authorizing the CIA to supply "moderate" jihad groups. Does it get wackier to supply the bad guys while at the same time bombing them? Granted the bombing has been half-hearted. Oh look, we bombed a cactus in Islamic State territory!  

 

Coalition Airstrikes Continue Against ISIL in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, October 23, 2015 — U.S. and coalition military forces have continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Airstrike in Syria

Remotely piloted aircraft conducted a strike near Mar’a, which destroyed an ISIL vehicle and an ISIL mortar tube. 

Airstrikes in Iraq

Attack, fighter, and bomber aircraft conducted 15 airstrikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:

-- Near Kisik, a strike destroyed an ISIL fighting position.

-- Near Makhmur, a strike destroyed two ISIL weapons caches.

-- Near Mosul, four strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units, suppressed ISIL mortar fire, and destroyed five ISIL heavy machine guns, five ISIL fighting positions, and an ISIL tactical vehicle.

-- Near Ramadi, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units, denied ISIL access to terrain, and destroyed seven ISIL fighting positions, four ISIL heavy machine guns, three ISIL mobility obstacles, two ISIL roadside bomb clusters, two ISIL mortar positions, an ISIL building, an ISIL vehicle, an ISIL bomb and an ISIL anti-tank guided missile system.

-- Near Sinjar, three strikes destroyed 15 ISIL fighting positions and two ISIL command and control nodes.

-- Near Tal Afar, two strikes struck two separate ISIL bomb-making facilities.

-- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, the region, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.Coalition nations conducting airstrikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. 

Coalition nations conducting airstrikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

[END PRESS RELEASE]

This is how real war is fought: Russians bomb bridge over Euphrates to cut off ratline

Russian Air Force cuts off ISIS supply lines by bombing bridge over Euphrates
23 Oct, 2015 - 15:06

RT

Russia’s airplanes cut off routes used by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) to deliver supplies to Syria from Iraq by bombing a bridge over the Euphrates River, the Russian General Staff said.

“The bridge over the Euphrates River near [the Syrian city of] Deir ez-Zor was a key point of the logistics chain [of IS]. Today Russian pilots carried out a surgical strike against the object,”the deputy chief of the General Staff of Russia, Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov, said on Thursday during a news briefing, adding that the terrorist group’s armament and ammunition delivery route had been cut off.

Kartapolov also stressed that the strike was delivered in a region that, according to the US military, was fully controlled by IS militants.

Since the beginning of the Russia’s operation in Syria, Moscow’s air forces have destroyed 819 IS targets in 934 sorties.

Photo:  Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation / YouTube

[END REPORT]

Patricia

Here we go.  

By Weather.com
Mexico's Pacific coast is in the crosshairs of Hurricane Patricia, which became the most powerful tropical cyclone ever measured in the Western Hemisphere on Friday morning as its maximum sustained winds reached an unprecedented 200 mph (320 kph).

The hurricane is forecast to make landfall in the Mexican state of Jalisco Friday evening as a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane capable of causing widespread destruction. Residents and authorities in Mexico are rushing to prepare for what will likely be the strongest hurricane to ever make landfall on that country's Pacific coastline.

Unprecedented Among Pacific Hurricanes

Hurricane Patricia became the strongest Pacific hurricane on record shortly after midnight CDT early Friday. Air Force Hurricane Hunters had flown through the eye of Patricia and reported a sea-level pressure of 894 millibars as measured by a dropsonde inside the eye itself. Wind measurements suggested that the pressure measurement was not in the exact center of the eye and was probably not the absolute lowest pressure, prompting NHC to estimate the minimum central pressure at 892 millibars in its special 12:30 a.m. CDT advisory.

Tropical cyclone strength comparisons are typically based on minimum central pressure. At 892 millibars, Patricia shattered the Eastern Pacific basin's previous record of 902 millibars set by Hurricane Linda in 1997. [...]

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What's going on over there in Germany?

I must start reading Gates of Vienna more often. They do a lot of reporting on Europe with emphasis on Muslim activity.  GoV has developed over the years an extensive network of volunteer European 'citizen journalists' who translate into English relevant newspaper reports in Europe that are rarely published in English-language European press outlets.   

But for the last three weeks I've been glued to Sputnik, waiting to snap up situation reports on the war in Syria. The news agency also carries many stories about terrorism and jihadi activity in Europe. Some of the stories about Germany strike me as odd. 

What does Sputnik mean by "the infamous Salafist scene in Dinslaken-Lohberg, North Rhine-Westphalia?" What infamous scene? I thought the German security apparatus had everything under control. Is this Londonistan all over again?  

From another story at Sputnik, I suppose I should be asking what's going on in my own country. Oh drat, now the report is gone. This happens a lot at Sputnik, I've noticed. Now you see it, now you don't, although it can pop up later. Anyhow, the headline is about Islamic State activity in America. 

The quote about the Salafist scene is featured in an October 21 report, ISIL Stormtroopers Torture Secrets Revealed by German Jihadi Defector. 

A companion piece is today's report, German Gangs Rob Churches to Fund Islamic State Terrorists. They also robbed schools. 

I guess because of German political correctness the press can't refer to the thieves as, say, Moroccan-German. They refer to them as German, which creates some cognitive dissonance, at least for this reader.

Although it's a little off topic I note Sputnik carried a report yesterday headlined, Qatar threatens military intervention in Syria. 

Monkey-see, Monkey-do. First they copied America's pussyfooting style but now that they're seeing the direct approach used by the Russians, of course they're going to get in jets and go bomb Syrian Army ground forces in the name of peace. 

Qatar who has been a major sponsor of jihadist groups fighting in Syria for years, now is actively considering a direct military intervention in the country, according to its officials.

Throughout Syria’s bloody civil war, the government of Qatar has been an active supporter of anti-government militants, providing arms and financial backing to so called "rebels." Many of these, like the al-Nusra Front, were directly linked to al-Qaeda. That strategy has, of course, done little to put a dent in terrorist organizations in the region.

Hello, Sputnik; it's not a civil war and never was. And of course it hasn't made a dent. Wikipedia notes that Qatar's emir -- an absolute monarch -- is tight with the Muslim Brotherhood.   

Moving along: 

But as Russia enters its fourth week of anti-terror airstrikes, Qatar has indicated that it may launch a military campaign of its own.

"Anything that protects the Syrian people and Syria from partition, we will not spare any effort to carry it out with our Saudi and Turkish brothers, no matter what this is," Qatar’s Foreign Minister Khalid al-Attiyah told CNN on Wednesday, when asked if he supported Saudi Arabia’s position of not ruling out a military option.

"If a military intervention will protect the Syrian people from the brutality of the regime, we will do it," he added, according to Qatar’s state news agency QNA. [...]

Syria's government had a few choice words in response.   

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad was fast to warn the Middle Eastern monarchy that such a move would be a disastrous mistake with serious consequences.

"If Qatar carries out its threat to militarily intervene in Syria, then we will consider this a direct aggression," he said, according to al-Mayadeen television. "Our response will be very harsh."

Still, Attiyah stressed that Qatar is also considering a more diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria. ...

He'd better stress a diplomatic solution. Syria's military has turned into a very effective fighting force. That's what happens when foreign fiends attempt to overthrow a government and destroy the country's sovereignty. Civil war, my foot.

From the Independent (UK) 

... Syrian commanders are now setting the coordinates for almost every Russian air strike. They were originally giving between 200 and 400 coordinates a night. Now the figure sometimes reaches 800. Not that the Russians are going after every map reference, of course. The Syrians have found that the Russians do not want to fire at targets in built-up areas ...

More good news from Sputnik, from a report yesterday:

MOSCOW, (Sputnik) — Yazidi militias are preparing the operation to liberate the city of Sinjar in the north-west of Iraq, captured by the Islamic State (ISIL) militants in August 2014, Lukman Ibrahim, a commander of the Yazidi forces told Sputnik Tuesday. ...

If it's news to you that the Yazidis, heretofore a very nonviolent religious sect, have sprouted militias, that's what happens when fiends attempt to wipe out a people who never did harm to anybody.

Blowback. Which returns me to Europe, and Germany. A decade ago Michael Leeden told me the Europeans were a bunch of wimps in the face of the Muslim threat. This caused me to wonder aloud if he had cheese tostitos for brains because he very well knew the history of Europe. 

One can't confuse wimpiness with a great determination to refrain from warlike behavior. But the Europeans are very warlike peoples. The Muslims from MENA who've been shoving them around the past couple decades don't know this. They, too, see a bunch of weaklings.

So I got a chill the other night when John Batchelor mentioned a big PEGIDA torchlight rally in Dresden and worriedly told Steve Cohen that this was an unsettling echo. I think most in John's audience would understand the reference, although I'm not sure it's the same for the American general public, especially the younger generations. And few Middle Easterners would recognize it, certainly not the types that have flooded into Europe.

The photograph at the top of this post is from film footage of a Nazi torchlight rally in Nuremberg. 

The combined forces of the Russian and Syrian military in Syria are the last best hope to halt the Syrian diaspora, and with this comes the last best hope to avert the hardest turn to the political right in Europe since Nazi Germany. 

Even now it looks as if Marine Le Pen will be France's next president, but her political party is a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals next to what will materialize in Europe if the migrant and refugee onslaught isn't stemmed.        
   

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Putin to Obama and other terror-sponsoring heads of state: The party's over

"Russia has basically gatecrashed an underground party that has been going on for four years. Countries like the US, Turkey, Jordan and NATO allies like the UK and France have been able to operate in the shadows. Russia has basically barged in, switched on the lights and said the party’s over. " -- Patrick Henningsen

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad traveled to Moscow yesterday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Putin's top-level policymakers and to thank the Russian people for their help in preserving Syria's sovereignty beepbeepbeep banned word in USA and freeing Syrians from the grip of terrorists.

Meanwhile the U.S. Department of State graciously granted al-Assad leave to stay on a bit as Syria's president during the nation's beepbeepbeep banned word in USA "transitional process."     

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The Axis of Sneaks

Russian airstrikes destroyed 83 Islamic State targets during past 24 hours. IS and Nusra Front are now so worried about the Syrian Army that they're negotiating to join forces. Wonderful; that'll make both groups of demons even easier targets for Russian and Syrian airstrikes.  

How long has it been now that Russia's been carrying out strikes? Three weeks? There was one Syrian official who said that the Russians had done more in 15 days against the bad guys in Syria than the US had in two years. Hello, the US and its allies Al Saud, Qatar, and Turkey ARE the bad guys. All right Pundita; settle down. 

The Axis of Sneaks. All right, that's enough. Then of course there's that other member of the Axis of Sneaks, Pakistan. Another great American ally. Along with Canada and the rest of the Commonwealth. Enough! Enough! 

Okay, I suppose there's actually nothing funny about my country being a rogue state. But what a bunch of two-faced sneaks. Justice, democracy, and sharia law for all. All right. THAT IS ENOUGH. [laughing] If Russia doesn't watch out, soon it's going to be hosting millions of American refugees. 

I'm sorry I can't finish writing this post. Here's the Sputnik report on the latest Russian bombing raids.

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Um, just how many Islamic State targets did Canada's Royal Air Force actually hit?

CNN, October 21
Canada's new leader-in-waiting says he intends to follow through on his campaign promise to pull the country out of the U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIS militants in Syria and Iraq.

Justin Trudeau, who led the Liberal Party to a stunning victory in elections Monday, said he has already told U.S. President Barack Obama of his plans.

"He understands the commitments I've made around ending the combat mission," Trudeau told reporters Tuesday, without giving a time frame for when Canada's airstrikes would stop.

Trudeau is expected to take office in the coming weeks, replacing Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who sent Canadian warplanes to carry out airstrikes against ISIS.

Canada's bombing raids started hitting the Islamic extremist group's positions in Iraq in November 2014 and expanded into Syria in April.

As of last week, Canada's six Hornet fighters in the region had flown 1,046 sorties in the anti-ISIS operation, according to the military, which didn't specify how many of the flights involved airstrikes. Other aircraft have conducted hundreds of refueling and reconnaissance missions.

Canada to 'engage in a responsible way'

Trudeau said Tuesday that Canada would remain "a strong member of the coalition" against ISIS but would "engage in a responsible way."

His party wants to provide more humanitarian aid in Iraq and Syria and for the Canadian military to take part in training rather than bombing missions, CNN partner CBC reported.

The White House statement on the phone call between Obama and Trudeau didn't mention the Canadian leader's intention to withdraw from the air campaign. It said the two leaders "committed to strengthening the countries' joint efforts" on combating terrorism and other issues.

Other nations that have taken part in the U.S.-led coalition's airstrikes against ISIS include Australia, France and Britain as well as Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

As of early October, the coalition had carried out more than 7,000 strikes, nearly two-thirds of them in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. The U.S. military has conducted close to 80% of all the strikes.

[END REPORT]
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Syrian civilians now giving Russians, Syrian Army more tips then they can deal with.

It's these civilians, who dug in and refused to leave their homeland, who are now playing an important role in the war. It was pretty useless to rat out the terrorist next door when their army was overwhelmed; now however, there is hope.

Hope is the greatest gift the Russians brought them. So now they're pelting the Russians and Syrian Army with targeting tips. This is happening in all the provinces where Islamic State, Nusra, etc., had established a presence.  And no sooner do the Saudis and Americans drop in weapons and ammo to resupply the "moderates," there's a Syrian to see this and dial a hotline.   

Many of the bad guys are shaving off their beards and fleeing, or squabbling with their commanders, or surrendering to the Syrian Army.         

The other day Sputnik or RT mentioned that the Russian air force was planning on making 300 sorties a day. I don't know how they'd get that many off the runways. And every tip has to be checked out. But they probably get 500 tips a day.  

There's also a compounding effect. Despite the fact that even Western polling organizations find a majority of Syrians in Syria support Assad, his name has been mud among the refugees. But those refugees have been getting Western propaganda along with their food and shelter. Now word will start to travel among refugees that Assad's forces are really and truly beating the heck out of the bad guys.  Even the London-based Syrian Observatory -- SOHR -- which supports the "Free" Syrian Army and has been the biggest source of information on the war for Western press, has modified its tune a little in the past week.

The latest: 

Russian Jets Hit 60 ISIL and Nusra Front Targets in Syria  (Oct 20, Sputnik)

Combat report: Russian jets strike 60 terrorist targets in Syria in 55 sorties (Oct 20, RT)

Among those targets, they destroyed an IS or Nusra command post in Idib.  

More, from Sputnik today:

The Syrian army continued its military operation in the suburbs of Damascus, in the district of Dzhobar, which had come under the control of the Islamists several years ago, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported.

Fierce battles are taking place almost in all buildings, most of which the terrorists had taken under control and used for weapon emplacements. Most of the houses are connected with each other through underground passages, enabling militants to quickly retreat and suddenly reappear in the rear of the Syrian army, the correspondent wrote.

The clashes between Islamist militants and the Syrian army started in 2012.

Dzhobar is one of the outlying districts of Damascus (earlier a Jewish settlement). Before the war started, its population was about 300,000 people, but most of the civilians left the place and migrated to Europe since then.

The militants, who took control of the area, destroyed the old synagogue and many other buildings. Now the area is mainly controlled by the members of the al-Nusra militant group, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.

The Syrian military and militias launched an attack on Dzhobar, as part of the offensive, which started in October in the context of Russia’s military operation in Syria. ...

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Of course the Western press is putting a completely different emphasis on the Russian-backed Syrian Army operations.  The latest, filed by Bassem Mroue for Associated Press less than a hour ago (note that "activist" has replaced "moderate" in the reportage):

Fresh wave of displacement as fighting in Syria intensifies

BEIRUT (AP) — A U.N. official said Tuesday that recent fighting in northern Syria has displaced tens of thousands of people — some of them staying in open fields with nowhere to go — as clashes between Russian-backed Syrian government forces and opposition fighters intensified.

Activists meanwhile said that Russian airstrikes killed at least 45 people in a Syrian coastal province, including a rebel commander who formerly served in President Bashar Assad's army. If confirmed, it would make it one of the deadliest incidents since Russia began its aerial campaign in Syria Sept. 30.

The Russian airstrikes have allowed Syrian troops and their allies from Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group to launch multiple ground offensives in northern, central and southern Syria as well as in the rebel-held suburbs of the capital, Damascus.

That has increased pressure on Western-backed rebels and pushed more civilians out of the areas of fighting, potentially creating a fresh wave of refugees.

A U.N. official in Geneva said that around 35,000 people are reported to have been displaced from the villages of Hader and Zerbeh on the southwestern outskirts of Aleppo city over the past few days.

"Many people are living with host families and in the informal settlements in areas west of the city," said Vanessa Huguenin, a spokeswoman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "People urgently need food and basic household and shelter items," she said in an e-mailed statement, adding that aid agencies are growing more and more concerned for families living outdoors as the weather gets colder.

The Syrian American Medical Society, which has volunteer medical personnel treating victims and reporting on attacks in Syria, said Russian airstrikes in the area over the weekend targeted the only two hospitals in southern Aleppo, forcing both facilities to shut down and evacuate patients.

Opposition fighters have so far been able to slow down the push by government forces, thanks to U.S.-made anti-tank missiles, although fighting on multiple fronts is draining their resources.

Jamil Saleh, leader of Tajammu Elezzah, a rebel group backed by the CIA operating in the central province of Hama, said no new types of weapons have reached the rebels but that their stocks have been replenished. He refused to elaborate.

"There is assistance but qualitatively there is nothing new," he said in a written exchange. He said the rebels are putting up a fight and pushing back against advances and that the government is accumulating more losses.

"Hezbollah, Iranians and Russians are not from Syria and they don't know its geography. They also have the traits of mercenaries," he said.

Turkey-based activist Faraj Shaheed and Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said government troops captured the villages of Shqaidli, Abteen and Safera in the southern parts of Aleppo province.

The goal appears to be opening a path to the strategic northwestern town of Jisr el-Shughour in the northern province of Idlib, which Assad's forces lost to insurgents in April.

The loss of Jisr al-Shughour, followed by the fall of the entire province, was a resounding defeat for Assad, opening the way for rebels to threaten his traditional stronghold in the coastal province of Latakia.

Meanwhile, activists said Russian airstrikes killed and wounded dozens of people in the rebel-held Jabal al-Akrad region in Latakia province. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said at least 45 people died.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activist-run monitoring group, said 57 people were killed in the province on Monday, mostly by Russian airstrikes. Both groups said the dead included army defector Basel Zimmo, who was the commander of the First Coastal Division, a rebel faction active in the area. 

The First Coastal Division is one of several groups believed to have received U.S.-made anti-tank missiles that are being provided through a covert CIA program. U.S. officials have said there is little they are able to do to protect CIA-backed rebels from Russian air strikes. They are unwilling to provide the rebels with anti-aircraft weapons, for example.

"The Russians are destroying all the (opposition) fortifications before the attack on Jisr al-Shughour," Abdurrahman said.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said hundreds of Russian airstrikes over the past three weeks have killed 370 people, including 127 civilians. The group said the dead civilians included 36 children and 34 women.

The airstrikes also killed 243 fighters from different insurgent groups, including the Islamic State group and al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front.

Russia has said its air campaign is aimed at helping the government defeat the IS group and other "terrorists," but many of the strikes have targeted Syrian rebels in areas where the extremist group is not present.

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"Syrian Forces Poised to Retake Aleppo From Terrorists in 'Decisive Battle'"

From Sputnik - Published  09:18 20.10.2015 (updated 10:05 20.10.):

Syrian ambassador to Russia, Riyad Haddad, said there was “heavy fighting” ahead, as Syrian troops braced for a “decisive battle” to retake the country’s second largest city of Aleppo from jihadist terrorists.

“Half of the city remains in the hands of the terrorists, while the other half is under our control… Our troops, backed by Russian aviation, are encircling the city and preparing for a ground offensive. This is going to be a heavy fight because the terrorists are getting a lot of support from [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan,” Haddad said in an interview with Gazeta.Ru.

The ambassador also said that Russian airstrikes had brought immediate results destroying many enemy strongholds and arms depots, and cutting off the terrorists’ supply routes.

“Another major result [of the Russian airstrikes] is that many terrorists have laid down their arms and surrendered to the Syrian army, while many others retreated towards the Turkish border,” the Syrian envoy added.

Riyad Haddad emphasized that the Syrian authorities were closely coordinating their actions with Russia, but maintained no contact with the command of the US-led coalition.

[END REPORT]

Hajj death tally skyrockets from 769 to 2,177. Saudis still stonewalling.

Many if not most news organizations describe the disaster as being caused by a stampede and/or "crush."  I have a vague recollection of seeing one report in which someone who was caught in the crush saying later that she was having trouble breathing or people near her were having trouble. 

In light of the latest death tally, I'm beginning to wonder how many of the deaths were from trampling and how many from suffocation when trampling wasn't a factor. If the latter number is high, that might suggest zero or very poor crowd management even before a specific incident triggered a stampede. And if people started fainting or keeling over dead from suffocation, that would have been the trigger, I should think.         

The Associated Press has been doing a public service by collecting estimates of death tolls of nationals that are provided by individual governments.  On October 14 AP reported the tally was at least 1,621 people, with hundreds still reportedly still missing. 

... The Associated Press count is more than double Saudi Arabia’s official tally of 769 killed and 934 injured in the Sept. 24 disaster in Mina, a few miles from the holy city of Mecca. Saudi officials have not updated their tally since Sept. 26. 

Officials in the Saudi health and interior ministries have not responded to recent AP requests for comment. ...  The AP figure comes from state media reports and officials’ comments from 19 of the over 180 countries that sent citizens to the five-day annual pilgrimage. 

Then on October 20, another shocker from AP:

The crush and stampede that struck the hajj last month in Saudi Arabia killed at least 2,177 pilgrims, a new Associated Press tally showed Monday, after officials in the kingdom met to discuss the tragedy.

The toll keeps rising from the Sept. 24 disaster outside Mecca as individual countries identify bodies and work to determine the whereabouts of hundreds of pilgrims still missing. [...]

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif bin Abdul Aziz, who is also the kingdom's interior minister, oversaw a meeting late Sunday about the disaster in Mina, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. The agency's report did not mention any official response to the rising death toll. ...

The AP count of the dead from the Mina crush and stampede comes from state media reports and officials' comments from 30 of the over 180 countries that sent citizens to the hajj.

Iran leads all the affected countries, saying it had 465 pilgrims killed. Many of the dead also came from Africa. Mali said it lost 254 people, while Nigeria lost 199, Cameroon lost 76, Niger lost 72, Senegal lost 61, and Ivory Coast and Benin both lost 52.

Others include Egypt with 182, Bangladesh with 137, Indonesia with 126, India with 116, Pakistan with 102, Ethiopia with 47, Chad with 43, Morocco with 36, Algeria with 33, Sudan with 30, Burkina Faso with 22, Tanzania with 20, Somalia with 10, Kenya with eight, Ghana and Turkey with seven, Myanmar and Libya with six, China with four, Afghanistan with two and Jordan and Malaysia with one.

The previous deadliest-ever incident at hajj was a 1990 stampede that killed 1,426 people.

To return to the October 14 report:

On Sunday, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal rejected the idea of sharing the administration of the hajj with other Muslim nations, raised by regional rival Iran, saying Riyadh considers it both “a matter of sovereignty” and a “privilege.”

The Saudi officials haven't simply been silent about the rising death tally. The BBC reported on September 29 that they issued a denial:

Saudi officials have denied reports that more than 1,000 people were killed in a stampede near Mecca last week while undertaking the Hajj pilgrimage.

A Nigerian official told the BBC the bodies of 1,075 victims had been taken to mortuaries in the city of Jeddah -- higher than the official toll of 769.

Other countries also said they had been sent the photos of some 1,090 bodies.

But the Saudi officials said the photos included unidentified people who died at the Hajj - not just in the stampede.

Spokesman Maj Gen Mansour al-Turki told the Associated Press that some were foreign nationals who lived in Saudi Arabia and carried out the Hajj without the required permits. ...

As to how the Ummah is responding to the stonewalling from Riyadh, I'd guess that Saudi officials have been papering the bereaved and governments in affected Muslim countries with hush money.  

Some support for this idea comes from a website called ABNA, a news agency directed to Shiite Muslims worldwide.  I'll stick with the AP tally rather than ABNA's (more than 4,000 dead, 2,000 injured).  But I found this part of a September 30 report from the agency to be interesting:

Pakistan is among those nations who have lost the largest number of nationals in the Thursday stampede, and Islamabad’s leniency towards Saudi Arabia over the Mina crush has angered the Pakistani people.

Reports from Pakistani media and journalists on Monday revealed that the country’s intelligence body, ISI, has issued serious warnings to all the country’s media outlets to avoid conducting interviews with pilgrims and their families about the lethal incidents in Mecca this year or releasing figures of those who have lost their lives or gone missing in the stampede.

A Pakistani citizen has also filed a complaint against the Islamabad government for not declaring true figures of the Pakistani nationals who have died or gone missing in the Thursday stampede in Mina near Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

Mahmoud Akhtar Naghavi has sued 14 senior Pakistani officials, including prime minister and religious affairs minister, for not providing accurate information on the number of the Pakistanis killed in Mina, the Urdu-language Express newspaper reported on Monday.

“The (Pakistani) government is duty-bound to publish a list of the names and the real number of the victims and the missing Hajj pilgrims in order to remove concerns among the families of the pilgrims,” the daily quoted Naghavi as saying.

On the other hand, I note the AP October 19 report reflects a big jump from the October 14 one in the number of governments that were willing to go on the record with Hajj death tallies in their countries (from 19 to over 30).  So, hush money or no, governments in the worst affected countries might be under increasing pressure from their citizens to acknowledge the true death toll.  

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The USA's "as long as" political solutions for other countries are unerringly wrong

Long War Journal's Bill Roggio told The New York Times:

 ... about one-fifth of [Afghanistan] is controlled or contested by the Taliban, but based on his understanding of how the Taliban operate, he said, “they probably either control or heavily influence about a half of the country.”

That much control didn't come about in one fighting season; it happened over the years when the U.S.-led ISAF had a significant troop presence in the country. And it happened despite the fact that the vast majority of Afghans despise the Taliban and rightly see them as a mercenary army taking orders from Pakistan's military.

Yet year after year, the United States has not only tolerated Pakistan's covert war against Afghans, it's also encouraged the war  by making limp protests every time the Taliban blew up a news-making number of American or British troops, when it wasn't piling more money on Islamabad and more weapons and military training on Rawalpindi.

Why? NATO, led by the United States and United Kingdom's views on the matter, had decided that the best outcome for Afghans was to be minded by Pakistan, as long as Pakistan would always try to take over the country anyway.

Then there was the time the United States tried to give Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhood on the belief that as long as Islamist government was inevitable in Egypt once Hosni Mubarak died, might as well have the government run by 'moderate' Islamists.

That went over like a lead balloon with the vast majority of Egyptians. The largest street protest in the documented history of street protests, worldwide, was in Cairo to protest the Muslim Brotherhood's mercifully short-lived rule -- a fact that was suppressed in the American mainstream media.

Then there was the time in the early 1980s the Muslim Brotherhood tried to overthrow the Syrian government, which resulted in a great many American Leftists still wringing their hands over the "Hama massacre." From Max Fisher's The truth about the near-miss Israel/Syria deal that some think could have averted the war at Vox today, and which for some reason I'd prefer not to understand was featured at the top of the Google News Syria headlines this morning:

The Hama Rules, as Thomas Friedman termed them, have defined the Assad regime since it took power decades ago. The name refers to Hama, where, in 1982, Syria's then-leader, Hafez al-Assad, massacred thousands of civilians as "punishment" for a popular uprising that had originated there. The message Hafez sent was that he would gladly mow down every last Syrian if that was what it took to put down uprisings against his rule.

Fisher didn't mention that the thousands of civilians were Muslim Brotherhood, and that their "popular uprising" was an armed attempt to overthrow Syria's government.

At least he gives the reader a slender chance by providing a link to an article at PBS that mentions the uprising was one staged by the Brothers. This same neglect to detail is standard issue at CNN -- long a veritable propaganda outlet for the American government -- which I've heard use the same language as Fischer to describe the Hama uprising to its TV audience.

However, there is much more neglect to details of the Hama uprising whenever the American media talks about it, as can be appreciated from a term paper snapped up by Wikileaks (PDF). This footnoted passage on page 23 will get you in the ballpark:

The attacks of the Brotherhood [in Syria] included Soviets inside Syria as well as governmental officials of Ba´th and Alawis. In October 1981 an attack of the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus damaged an apartment-building of Soviet military experts that were in Syria to train the Syrian army in new weapons. The Soviet news agency TASS blamed the USA and Israel of supporting the Brotherhood in order to achieve instability in Syria. 

Did the United States use the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria?  Does the sun shine?  The USA used them everywhere it could to fight the Soviets.  

The kicker, as you'll learn if you trouble yourself to read the paper, is that Syria was not a puppet of the Soviet Union -- far from it. 

(The paper is from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev MA Program for Middle East Studies Course, The Hama Massacre – reasons, supporters of the rebellion, consequences, with a special emphasis on the triangle between Asad, the Muslim Brotherhood and West Germany by Nina Wiedl. ) 

Moreover, Israel and Syria have a very complicated relationship, as this June 2015 article by Assaf Uni for Newsweek, Inside Israel’s Secret War in Syria, conveys. Yet it's just the complexities in the Middle East that were ground underfoot by America's prosecution of the Cold War, and caused Israel's government to tear out their hair.  

But as long as Syria was involved with the Soviets, well, something had to be done to quash the Red Menace there. 

The problem for the U.S. government was that nobody expected that Hafez al-Assad would mount one of history's very few counterinsurgencies that was actually successful. He pulled off the feat because he treated the Muslim Brotherhood 'uprising' as an invading conquest rather than an insurgency. So the military killed every Brother and every relative of a Brother in sight, and wasted the city of Hama. It was practically the apocryphal Carthage Solution. 

The upshot, besides a lot of dead Brothers and a city in ruins, was that nobody messed with Hafez after that. Even his worst enemies including the Brothers respected him. And nobody meddled in Syria again for many years. 

Until early 2011, when all hell broke loose. In short order, Obama had returned an ambassador to Syria. Bashar al-Assad had shot off his mouth to the Wall Street Journal regarding his seriousness about making peace with Israel, yapped to Vogue magazine on the need for diversity in the Middle East, and secretly detailed to the U.S. Department of State his plan to make peace with Israel. That was as much telling the secret to Saudi Arabia's king. 

Which is to say Bashar wrote out his own death warrant with his tongue. I think only his brother Maher has kept him alive since.    

In any case all these events came within weeks of each other, starting around December 2010. To top it off, the Arab Spring struck. Maher and/or the Syrian mukhabarat overreacted when a bunch of Syrian school kids, who'd obviously been watching Al Jazeera and CNN International on satellite TV, tried to launch their own Arab Spring by writing anti-government graffiti on schoolyard walls.  

Those school kids and their parents had no way of knowing that the Tahrir Square protests were stage managed by Egypt's top generals, the Muslim Brotherhood, and factions in the U.S. government using Egypt's Leftists as useful idiots. Too late did the clever schemers in Washington realize they'd been the biggest useful idiot, which happened only after Egypt's generals unleashed General Sisi on the Muslim Brotherhood.  

All that didn't come out until later -- although within hours of Hosni Mubarak stepping down, four people warned independently of each other that he'd actually been removed by a coup. 

The four were Hamza Hendawi, the Cairo Bureau Chief for Associated Press; Richard Engel, the Chief Foreign Correspondent for NBC News; George Friedman, the chief of Stratfor, and Pundita, the chief of Pundita blog -- although my take, based on familiarity with Worldbankia Civilization and reading of reports on Egypt's troubled economy that Hendawi had filed for AP before Tahrir Square protests, was not quite the same as the other three. I argued that the target of the coup was Hosni's son Gamal and the Gamalists in Egypt's government and that Hosni was simply collateral damage. I think unfolding events proved me right but enough ancient history. 

Nor was the American public told that many Syrians in the mobs gathered to demand Bashar's removal when hell broke loose were actually shouting that Manar was a coward because he wouldn't invade Israel to get back the Golan Heights.        

And here we are today. 

I've only named a few country situations that the United States has gotten completely wrong by taking the "as long as" approach.  Yet until the current era the results worked out pretty well for Americans. This led to accusations from various quarters that 'Washington' sows chaos on purpose to further its geopolitical goals. 

Even if true in some cases, the accusations are mooted by the fact that events snowball beyond anyone's ability to control outcomes during an era of devastating droughts and water shortages, very high unemployment, and huge youth populations. Bashar al-Assad's wife told Joan Buck, author of the Vogue magazine piece on the Assads, that almost half of Syria's population was 14 years of age or younger. That was in December 2010.

As to the consequences of Syria's on-again, off-again drought since the late 1990s, the water shortages are so bad you don't even want to think about it -- although some are (H/T Taylor Orci at Take Part), including Syria's beleaguered government, which for years has begged and pleaded for help from other nations after doing everything within its limited power to deal with the country's water crisis.

But as long as Bashar al-Assad is in power, the other nations including the USA have dragged their feet.

This despite the fact that the most dangerous aspect of Islamic State is its use of water sources as a siege weapon.

So. From all the above, should the U.S. government reduce the State Department to a passport agency and never again step foot beyond American borders?  

Believe you me I would love to say yes. But it's a little late in the day to walk away from catastrophes that we ourselves had a large part in helping create. 

What we can do is dispense with the "as long as" approach to meddling in other countries  The approach was always grounded in a blinkered view of the most important situations in the countries. However, it's really hard to remove blinkers when one is fixated on taking down a specific opponent. 

Thus, instead of saying, 'Oh look the cavalry's here,' the official U.S. reaction to Russia's entry into the Syrian war is strikingly evocative of the chandelier scene in War of the Roses.  

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