Good Read: The ‘Anti-Imperialist’ Who Got Libya Wrong Serves Up The Same Failed Analysis on Syria

By Stephen Gowans

Paris Match: Many people say the solution lies in your departure. Do you believe that your departure is the solution?

Syrian president Assad: What was the result (of NATO policy when they attacked Gaddafi)? Chaos ensued after Gaddafi’s departure. So, was the departure the solution? Have things improved, and has Libya become a democracy? [1]

The ultimate explanation of the Syrian conflict... NOT!

President Assad (who is bad) is a nasty guy who got so nasty his people rebelled and the rebels (who are good) started winning.

But then some of the rebels turned a bit nasty and are now called Islamic State (who are definitely bad) and some continued to support democracy (who are still good).

ISIS ON THE RUN, RUSSIA-SYRIA CLEAR PALMYRA, HOMS, SET TO STORM RAQQA SOON

SEEMA MUSTAFA. Wednesday, December 9, 2015

NEW DELHI: The Russians are set to finish Daesh “in less than a year” with a major war driving the terrorists out of the safe havens they had occupied in Syria. 

The Syrian Army is just three days away from controlling Aleppo, and has already cleared large parts of Palmyra, and cleared Homs altogether of Daesh elements, according to Syrian Ambassador to India Riad Abbas. The Russian air power has cleared the path for the Syrians to take control of their country again, with the troops on the ground making steady progress as a result. 

Ambassador Abbas who for the first time in the past three years sounded very optimistic told The Citizen, “finally the war is actually against Daesh. The Russians are driving it, as till now everyone but these militants were being killed.” 

Supporting terrorists, Turkey shoots down Russian plane

by crescent-online

November, 2015

Turkey's shooting down of a Russian plane over Syria has dangerously escalated tensions in an already volatile region. Fearing its consequences, Turkey has also requested a meeting of Nato ambassadors. This exposes Nato and its allies' support for the terrorists in Syria. No amount of rhetoric can camouflage this fact.

Beirut, Crescent-online
Tuesday November 24, 2015, 10:07 EST

Bashar Al-Assad Interview: “Al Qaeda was Created by the Americans With the Help of Saudi Wahhabi Money”. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar Support ISIS

Damascus, SANA-President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to Italian TV channel RAI UNO. Below you will find the full transcript of this interview:

Question 1: Mr. President, thanks for the opportunity of talking to you. Let’s start from Paris. How did you react to the news coming from Paris?

President Assad: We can start by saying it’s a horrible crime, and at the same time it’s a sad event when you hear about innocents being killed without any reason and for nothing, and we understand in Syria the meaning of losing a dear member of the family or a dear friend, or anyone you know, in such a horrible crime. We’ve been suffering from that for the past five years. We feel for the French as we feel for the Lebanese a few days before that, and for the Russians regarding the airplane that’s been shot down over Sinai, and for the Yemenis maybe, but does the world, especially the West, feel for those people, or only for the French? Do they feel for the Syrians that have been suffering for five years from the same kind of terrorism? We cannot politicize feeling, feeling is not about the nationality, it’s about the human in general.

Russia Warns: 4 terrorists brought by Lt Gen Ron Lewis into US

RUSSIA WARNS AMERICA FACING THANKSGIVING 'BLOODBATH' NEXT WEEK

Nov. 18, 2015

 

A grim Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report circulating in the Kremlin today warns that the United States is facing a “potential bloodbath” during next weeks Thanksgiving Holiday period at the hands of Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/Daesh) terrorists—the leaders of whom are now being actively searched for after they were secreted into America by a top US Army General fired by President Obama just hours before the Friday the 13th Paris Massacre.

According to SVR intelligence analysts, and as we reported on in our report titled Only Jews Were Saved After France Ignores Russia-Israel Warning Of Paris Massacre, the Federation issued a 12 November warning bulletin to the French General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) that a terror attack was about to take place—a warning that was, shamefully, ignored.

World govts secretly trade with Islamic State - terror financing expert

Have people seen the Sophie Shevardnardze interview with Christine Duhaime?

​World govts secretly trade with Islamic State - terror financing expert  

https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/270322-islamic-state-terror-financing/
Duhaime tends to classify ISIS as mostly a criminal enterprise that extends its assets to grabbing territory from which it then extracts product and sells this, and also use of kindnapping for ransom as an important source of income, as well as human trafficking.   Makes it sound like the Italian mafia with a more public profile.  I found that approach an interesting contrast to the way I had been conceptualising ISIS as an ideologically motivated political entity that supported itself with crime. This way it would be more a criminal enterprise that markets itself as a religious state because that works for it. One can then see how it could be used for money making and money laundering by god knows what private individuals and other governments. It also obviously soaks up unemployed or dissatisfied psychopaths, then gets them to explode themselves before they become dissatisfied with the employment conditions. 

I was interested to hear that the ISIS members who self-destructed in Paris whilst the police were trying to extract them were living in circumstances surrounded by drug paraphernalia.  From the perspective of a some time drug counselor, I have felt from the beginning that such widespread gruesome violence (as opposed to that enjoyed by rare psychopaths) carries the hallmarks of methamphetamine use - ICE notably.  You can quickly foster delusions (righteous wars; women as objects of abuse; paradise after suicide) and make addicts utterly careless with ICE.  That would explain how people could be sucked in by ridiculous promises of resort-style living and also how they might blow themselves up fearlessly, on a whim or under pressure, and how they would do anything to continue drug use, or prefer to self-destruct with ICE on board as opposed to being executed without any.

Looking ahead to the general election, Clinton takes hawkish stance on Syria

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/looking-ahead-to-the-general-election-clinton-takes-hawkish-stance-on-syria/2015/11/19/fe1d46ae-8edd-11e5-baf4-bdf37355da0c_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-politics%3Ahomepage%2Fcard

NEW YORK — Hillary Clinton laid out a broad agenda Thursday for confronting the Islamic State terrorist network — and sent a larger signal that she intends to be a more aggressive commander in chief than President Obama, under whom she served as secretary of state.

The front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination also portrayed the United States as the leader of a global fight to exterminate the Islamic State and other terrorist threats. She doubled down on her call for a no-fly zone to protect Syrian civilians.

Clinton’s prescriptions — which are hawkish and more specific than either her Democratic or Republican rivals have set out — could raise discomfort in liberal circles and among Americans made wary by the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Her comments suggested that she is looking past her primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), and positioning herself for a general-election battle against whomever the Republican Party puts forward.

She also indicated that hers will be a different brand of leadership than that of Obama, who has been roundly criticized for declaring shortly before last week’s attacks in Paris that the Islamic State had been “contained.”

Clinton, in contrast, said the threat is an urgent one.

As secretary of state, she lost a policy struggle within the Obama administration about whether to intervene by arming and training Syrian rebels in 2011 and 2012, before the group also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL emerged as a potent threat.

“ISIS is demonstrating new ambition, reach and capabilities,” she said in a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations. “Our goal is not to deter or contain ISIS, but to defeat and destroy ISIS.”

“Time is of the essence,” Clinton added.

Recent history teaches that sending a large U.S. ground force “is just not the smart move,” she said, although she described a wider and deeper U.S. military commitment than Obama has yet to mount.

Her repeated calls for the United States to take the global lead marked a change in emphasis.

As recently as Saturday, during a Democratic presidential candidate debate in Des Moines, Clinton had said: “It cannot be an American fight. And I think what the president has consistently said — which I agree with — is that we will support those who take the fight to ISIS. . . . This cannot be an American fight, although American leadership is essential.”