This is unbelievable. Who the hell are these 51 people in the state department that want to start world war 3, over fucking Syria?
Let me do the math.
Assad is fighting ISIS.
The United States was supporting the removal of Assad, effectively supporting ISIS, up until it became politically toxic.
NATO, via Turkey, has been helping ISIS, buying their oil.
Turkey shot down a Russian warplane, without provocation.
Russia intervened on behalf of Assad to push back ISIS and was successful in achieving their stated goals. Russia, in addition to taking out military personnel, wreaked havoc on the ISIS oil gravy train, something we didn’t do ‘for environmental reasons’.
We got very mad at Russia for intervening and cock blocking us.
Now we want to ATTACK Assad, who is allied with Putin.
Fuck this.
More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo critical of U.S. policy in Syria, calling for military strikes against President Bashar al-Assad’s government to stop its persistent violations of a civil war ceasefire.
The “dissent channel cable” was signed by 51 mid- to high-level State Department officers advising on Syria policy.
It calls for “targeted military strikes” against the Syrian government in light of the near-collapse of the ceasefire brokered earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing copies of the cable it had seen.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting Copenhagen, told Reuters on Friday: “It’s an important statement and I respect the process, very, very much. I will … have a chance to meet with people when I get back (to Washington).”
He said he had not seen the memo.
Military strikes against the Assad government would represent a major change in the Obama administration’s policy of not intervening directly in the Syrian civil war, while calling for a political transition that would see Assad leave power.
Such strikes would put the United States on a collision course with Russia, which is backing Assad with air strikes, equipment, training and military advice.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had only seen media reports about the memo, but said: “Calls for the violent overthrow of authorities in another country are unlikely to be accepted in Moscow.
“The liquidation of this or some other regime is hardly what is needed to aid the successful continuation of the battle against terrorism. Such a move is capable of plunging the region into complete chaos.”
What’s the goal here? This is wreckless diplomacy of an unbelievable brand of stupidity, rare and astounding to bear witness to.
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How do you combat the millitary complex.
No doubt we are the villian in this story.
Follow the oil
EXACTLY
Not necessarily. Oil is like money. Everyone who can get some, gets some– even if they have to buy it from their worst enemy.
And if one follows the oil, one could easily say that Russia is propping up the thug Assad, while Assad murders his people and sends millions fleeing to Europe, in order for Russia to have Mediterranean access or a pipeline or something for its oil. In that interpretation, neither the U.S. nor the EU is at fault.
I don’t know for sure what interpretation is correct. But I do know that if wanting to buy oil or sell oil or somehow obtain oil is a fault, then every single country on earth is at fault.
Follow the Oil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sxcsrCJlJU
I’ll just leave this here.
Well, if conditions have changed such that the State Department now thinks we need boots on the ground, then they should explain why. Changing one’s mind is not necessarily bad. Having no good reason for doing so– in a case like this– would be very bad.
They are progressives no different than the girls in the white house who push O around (mooshell and valarie jarret). They should be sent to putin and disappeared.
A lot of folks like you do seem to have man crushes on Putin. Hard for me to understand. Not everyone who looks tough is a good person. Sometimes such a person is just a thug.
I’m just glad this didn’t stay on the private email server, otherwise, just the Russians and Chinese (and North Korea) would only know about this.
Secular Assad must go so the “peace” of Islam can advance. It’s insane only if you are against “peace.”
EXACTLY. Assad, Ghaddafi and Saddam were secular. Now we have a caliphate. Very nice.
It’s not so black and white– with secular leaders always good, religious leaders always bad. These are complex situations.
nothing complex about it. Religious leaders are almost always worse.
I will say that “true believers” are always worse, and usually true beleivers are religious.
Religion is not inherently bad/evil, but it make a good lever for evil to take power and control the masses
I’ll grant you, all other things being equal, in the M.E., religious leaders are worse– at least fundamentalist religious leaders. But there are often other factors that are not equal. Secular or religious, Saddam was a butcher and so is Assad. But that doesn’t mean we need to have a war against everyone who is like that.
Overall, I don’t think religion itself is the problem. Fundamentalist religion is the problem. You don’t’ see Unitarians or Sufis committing hate crimes against gay people, or committing terrorist acts, or bombing abortion clinics.
Obama & our “friends” the Saudis aren’t going to stop until that Qatari gas pipeline is running through Syria. Believe that. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-secret-stupid-saudi-us-deal-on-syria/5410130
No kidding.
Let ISIS start doing more attacks in the USA so a gun ban can be pushed through and then another larger war can be started. That’s the only rationale I can come up with. Why we want to fight people that identify with the west while supporting people like Saudi and Pakistan who hate the west is beyond me. Someone in the government just likes Sunnis more?
There is never going to be a ban on guns in the U.S. That’s just a scare story politicians use to get votes for themselves. And surprisingly, it works.
+1 on “never going to be a ban on guns”
We do not support Saudi and Pakistan – we support their semi-secular governments against the radical and powerful religious right-wings within their countries
Yes. Totally agree.
People think the Saudi royals are brutal and they are. But the Saudi clerics would be even worse if they took over instead. Or if ISIS took over instead, they would be even worse. They would be ISISSA then– Islamic State of Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
I don’t think any of us would like to see that happen.
This situation is far more complex than it appears on the surface, with lots of forces from various countries and organizations already fighting each other in Syria. Assad and Putin are far from blameless angels here. However, Saddam was also a brutal thug, and it still did not make sense for us to take him out. I am not in favor of unnecessary wars.
That being said, Assad is responsible for destroying cities and killing large numbers of people in Syria, sending millions of refugees running for their lives.
The U.S. has been bombing ISIS in Syria, in a limited way. We have not been helping ISIS, at least not intentionally or directly . But we have also fighting Assad’s forces. After what Assad has done, there is no reason to believe that most people in Syria want him to remain in power. They are fleeing in droves. Assad fights ISIS simply because he doesn’t want a different butcher than himself to take over the territory he now controls.
U.S. support of the removal of Assad was not effectively supporting ISIS, any more than our taking out Saddam was effectively supporting terrorists in Iraq.
Russia intervened on behalf of Assad. They did push back ISIS. They also fought the anti-Assad forces who wanted to take Assad out because they didn’t want him to keep killing his people and destroying their homes. Some say that Russia did this because they want access to a Mediterranean port and they are willing to prop up a butcher whom the Syrian people don’t want, in order to have it.
Here is Turkey’s side of the story about the Russian plane they shot down, from a BBC article.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34912581
“In a letter to the UN Security Council, Turkey’s permanent representative Halit Cevik wrote that two aircraft of unknown nationality had approached Turkish airspace near the town of Yayladagi in Hatay province.
“The planes were warned 10 times over the space of five minutes via an “emergency” channel and asked to change direction, he added.
Both planes disregarded the warnings and then flew 2.19km (1.36 miles) and 1.85km (1.15 miles) into Turkey for 17 seconds from 09:24:05 (07:24:05 GMT), according to Mr Cevik.
“Following the violation, plane 1 left Turkish national airspace. Plane 2 was fired at while in Turkish national airspace by Turkish F-16s performing air combat patrolling in the area. Plane 2 crashed on to the Syria side of the Turkish-Syrian border.”
The Turkish military also published what it said was the radar image of the path the Russian plane took, showing it briefly flying across Turkey’s southern-most tip.
Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jet preparing to take off from an airbase in Konya on 28 April…”
Donald Trump in the past has suggested that the U.S. NOT fight ISIS at all in Syria– that we let ISIS take out Assad in Syria and then we go in and pick up the pieces.
http://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-donald-trump-isis-60-minutes-ridiculous-2016-3
If it’s a good idea when your guy says it, then it must be a good idea when somebody else’s guy wants to do something similar, no? Unless you are so tribal that you don’t care what the U.S. does, but only care which tribe suggested it.
Clearly you are Commie sympathizer. Love that part about NATO supporting ISIS through Turkey. Was that from Hannity or Savage? Both? Bet your head hurts from trying to keep track of all the conspiracies.
Follow the money.
There is a grain of truth to that conspiracy theory about NATO helping ISIS by buying their oil through Turkey. Lots of forces in the area in and around Syria have been fighting one another. And they get their oil where they can get it, without having to cross borders and get bombed or shot at for crossing them. Many forces, perhaps including Turkish ones, have been buying oil from ISIS because they could not find another source without crossing more borders. Some forces in Syria buy their oil from ISIS, and then use it to run their vehicles to attack ISIS. But it is because that is the only way they can get the oil they need to attack ISIS, not because they want to support ISIS.
Sometimes the saying “Follow the money” will help you. But other times the money is pointing in every direction possible– funding and profiting from all sides of every conflict– funding & profiting from weapons sales, oil sales etc, on all sides of every conflict.
You realy should take your meds.
If you don’t want to read up on Syria and try to understand what goes on there, then don’t.
Btu don’t act like you are superior to me because of your apathy, or because of your willingness to uncritically accept any old explanation for the Syrian War, that is thrown your way by your favorite “news source” which has its own agenda.
I know, it’s a conspiracy and it doesn’t exist
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/12/yes-turkey-buying-oil-isis.html
Why would Turkey buy oil for a 50% discount from ISIS? That’s maddening.
Yes, as I just said above . “Many forces, perhaps including Turkish ones, have been buying oil from ISIS because they could not find another source without crossing more borders.”
It is not inconceivable that Turkish forces might buy oil from ISIS because they have no better alternative source, and then turn around and use that oil to fight ISIS and try to wipe it out.
Buying oil from ISIS does not necessarily mean they are pro-ISIS. It may simply mean that the benefit of buying from ISIS is greater than the cost, or that oil is not easily available to them from other sources. It is possible that they may still plan and try to wipe out ISIS, even though it is their current oil supplier.
But I actually do not know whether overall Turkey is pro-ISIS, anti-ISIS, or neutral. I guess they are calculating what they think is in their national best interests, just like everyone else.
LOL, ok
Guess my list of independant thinking countries with swiss at #1, was valid. Swiss withdrawls application for eu. Those swiss dont create much drama nor art but they are smart.
The Swiss are very smart indeed.
The State Dept. is out of control. Assad was bottled up by the Israeli’s and had a civil war breakout funded and instigated by the State dept., as part of their disastrous Mideast policy that brought us the Arab Spring.
The State Dept. has made the Mideast even more dangerous.
BINGO
The USA is the biggest rogue terror organization on the planet … ISIS only dreams of killing as many humans as the US has in the past 65 years
I agree that U.S. foreign policy has been a mess. Invading Iraq was senseless. But you don’t need to look for any conspiracy by the state department to explain the civil war in Syria. When someone like Assad butchers large numbers of his people and destroys their cities they were living in, sending millions of refugees flooding into Europe, that’s plenty enough to cause a civil war. No behind the scenes conspiracy theories necessary– unless you just love conspiracy theories.
I don’t know what the goal for the U.S. is here either. But one might consider that perhaps it is to stem the tide of the millions of refugees fleeing Assad. Even if you are correct that we should not be in this war, not everyone who disagrees with you is intentionally evil, or even evil at all.
Whether in deciding on foreign policy or domestic policy, we are paralyzed currently in the U.S. by tribalism. Many people have become religious about politics in the U.S., believing that people with different opinions from us are evil. I hope we can turn that around and respect each other in our disagreements.
Because until we turn that around, the population of the U.S. is Divided and Conquered.
The US were heros in wwII. Now we turned into the world bully, picking on the weak to take their lunch money, so we can all have iphones and be distracted by facebook,
BINGO
+1000 UB. this has nothing to do with human rights. Once EU gets the gas up from the M.E., they then block Russian gas to the EU/
This is far from rocket science.
What they have instead is alot of dead and starving people, as well as created terrorists and rape epdemic by refugees. All cus of greed.
BINGO
At least Bingo if you insist on everything being simple black and white. The reality is far more complex than that. Everyone wants 3 word sound bytes about this situation. Most Americans are like G W Bush. They don’t do nuance.
wtf were we doing in Nam? Central America? Cuba? Indonesia? Iraq , Libya… etc etc etc .. why are we on Russia’s borders via our dog NATO? why are we in the China sea annoying the Chinese?
it’s quite simple, really
you are a victim of US propaganda
you complicate the simple because you are confused by US propagandistic lies through their controlled and similarly brainwashed vassals in its complicit media
it’s all about money, power/world domination, control, etc
I wish it were simple but I don’t think it is.
Some people thought we needed to fight Communism in Vietnam. But maybe we were there at least partly because of oil.
We are on Russia’s borders because they used to control Eastern Europe against the will of the people there. And they have invaded Ukraine recently and may be looking to turn history backwards and take over Eastern Europe again. We have a right to defend ourselves and our allies.
I don’t know much about the crazy stuff the U.S. has done in Central America, but it doesn’t sound good to me either.
We don’t need any oil from outside our borders any more, so that can not be the reason why some people at the State Department want a war with Syria.
The U.S. does some good things and some bad things. And so do the other countries involved. This is not black and white. The U.S. is not always wrong or always right.
Even the neo-cons, who have been wrong about almost everything they have done and said, may have had good intentions. They may have been trying to protect America. But they are aggressive and fearful in ways that are out of touch with reality. Their method is:
“Ready, fire, aim.”
We do need a better method of foreign policy than that.
Dragun, what is + 1000 UB?
If the U.S. wipes out Assad, maybe the EU would prefer to get oil from the next
Syrian government, rather than from Russia. But that would not necessarily mean that the war is solely for that purpose. And it also doesn’t say what the U.S. would get out of such a war.
It is possible that the proposed war would be for human rights and/or to stem the tide of refugees flooding into Europe. Even so, that would not necessarily mean that the war would accomplish its purpose, or that a war would be a good idea.
The world is not so black and white.
Probably in every Middle East country there are some people who are pro-ISIS and some against ISIS. And there are people who want to wipe them out, but in the mean time they buy their oil because it is their cheapest option.
The U.S. has done some dumb things and some good things in foreign policy. Some of the bad things happening in the M.E. are the fault of the U.S. But the place has plenty of brutal and chaotic forces, some of which have nothing to do with the U.S.
Certainly some people in the U.S. and in Europe probably think, correctly or incorrectly, that if we take Assad out so that he is no longer there to murder large numbers of Syrians and destroy their homes– that peace will then come to Syria and the refugees can go back home.
We in the U.S. need more transparency from our government. We did not invade Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction. We need to know exactly why these state department officials want to have a war in Syria, what they think it will accomplish, and what is their proposed exit strategy if they get their proposed war.
We don’t need another Iraq invasion type situation.
Regarding the U.S. government foreign policy, here are 2 good books about the Deep State. This is important to know about for many reasons. E.g. it is said that the president and Congress do not tell the Deep State what to do. The Deep State tells the pres & Congress what to do.
The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government Hardcover – January 5, 2016
by Mike Lofgren (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Deep-State-Constitution-Shadow-Government/dp/0525428348/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466187603&sr=8-1&keywords=deep+state
The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil, and the Attack on U.S. Democracy (War and Peace Library)Oct 30, 2014
by Peter Dale Scott
https://www.amazon.com/American-Deep-State-Democracy-Library/dp/1442214244/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1466187640&sr=8-3&keywords=deep+state
We can’t do anything about the Deep State unless we face the fact that it exists and look at how it acts.
I am starting to understand why, although some folks are interested in long comments about a situation as serious as war, some other people do not like them. “TLDR. Instead of this, I want a 3 or 4 word sound byte– even about a situation as serious as a possible war we are getting into.”
I think it is a mistake to insist on everything being simple and black and white. Reality is far more complex than that. But I guess many Americans are like G W Bush. They don’t do nuance.
…and the band played on.
Fly, while your tone may be right, your facts leave out some things:
Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that was flying in Turkish airspace and refused orders to turn around. I assume the US would do the same to a Russian military plane over Alaska.
Russia intervened on behalf of Assad to push back ISIS and was successful in achieving their stated goals. Russia, in addition to taking out military personnel, wreaked havoc on the ISIS oil gravy train, something we didn’t do ‘for environmental reasons’. Russia and Assad do not care about avoiding civilian deaths and have targeted civilian towns with no military significance. Amnesty International also said that “Russia is guilty of some the most egregious war crimes” it had seen “in decades”. As a result, Russia and Syria are helping create the next generation of ISIS fighters.
There are several groups of ground fighters in Syria, it’s not just Assad vs ISIS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War#Belligerents
Personally I agree with letting ISIS and Assad battle it out for now, but it’s incorrect to say that if you oppose Assad then you support ISIS. And you know better.
Yes, Fly’s guy Donald Trump knows that too– that being anti-Assad is not the same as being pro-ISIS. Trump has suggested in the past that the U.S. NOT fight ISIS at all in Syria– that we let ISIS take out Assad in Syria and then we go in and pick up the pieces.
http://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-donald-trump-isis-60-minutes-ridiculous-2016-3
There are mountains of irrefutable evidence supporting the fact that US instigated the whole Ukrainian uprising (a la Arab Spring). If you weren’t convinced by CIA director’s visit to Kiev or the now infamous intercepted phone call between Victoria Nuland (high ranking US state department official) and US Ambassador in Ukraine (the ‘Fuck the EU’ one) in which US officials decide who to put in power in Ukraine, maybe this will help that –> https://youtu.be/y9hOl8TuBUM Spend 3 mins and watch it. Draw your own conclusions afterwards. That was BEFORE the so-called ‘maidan revolution’ in Kiev.