America is getting blindsided: How our imperial arrogance is continuing to wreak havoc

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In the halcyon days of the Cold War, it was rare you saw a phrase like “White House surprised by Russians” in your morning paper. But recently taxpayers, who spend billions of dollars on our president’s situational awareness, learned he was surprised twice this week: first by Russia’s muscular advance into Syria and then by President Putin’s success at getting Iran, Iraq and the Syria to share intelligence with Russia on fighting ISIS.

How can this be? The brain trust that advises President Obama didn’t see the Putin gambit coming. As a consequence, President Obama had to take the world stage at the UN General Assembly armed only with grimaces and lame excuses for a failed U.S. counter-terror policy that has proliferated terror, left a trail of failed nation states behind and helped prompt the biggest refugee migration since World War II.

No doubt the Russians and Iranians have been up to their own destabilizing antics in the region, but for them the proximity of the ISIS dead zone is a lot closer than it is to us, less than the distance between Washington DC and Mexico City. There’s a conflagration in their neighborhood and the US does not seem able to do anything about it other than waste money, continue bombing and avoid putting boots on the ground.

And even bullies can tell the truth. So when Russian President Putin raised the example of the miserable status of places like Libya, where the U.S. and NATO took out Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, only to see the once-stable nation descend into a chaotic terrorist haven, President Obama had a poor rhetorical hand to play. “Even as we helped the Libyan people bring an end to the reign of a tyrant, our coalition could have and should have done more to fill a vacuum left behind,” explained President Obama. Let’s just call this the “Could’ve, Should’ve” foreign policy doctrine and put a bow on it — just make sure to watch it unfold from a safe distance.

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/01/america_is_getting_blindsided_how_our_imperial_arrogance_is_continuing_to_wreak_havoc/

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1. A neocon never learns: Beware the cry of the Syria war hawks

On Wednesday news broke that Vladimir Putin had launched Russian military action in Syria, bombing rebel groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. War-hungry neoconservatives in America immediately leaped into action to denounce President Obama’s lack of a Syrian policy and aim some tough talk at Moscow, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have all internalized this scene from “Animal House”: “He can’t bomb Syria! Only we can bomb Syria!”

Sen. Tom Cotton, a man who has apparently never ran across a foreign national he didn’t want to shoot, released a statement saying, “The U.S. must reject Russia’s interference [in the bombing of ISIS in Syria] and rally our partners to do the same.” Sen. John McCain immediately ran to the Senate floor to demand Obama do something, anything, so long as it involved leading with leadership. (This is known in political journalism as “The Full Fournier.”) Reacting to news that the Russian military had warned the United States to stop flying its planes over Syrian airspace, McCain sneered, “What we should be saying to Vladimir Putin is that you fly, but we fly anywhere we want to, when and how we want to, and you’d better stay out of the way. That’s the message that should be sent to Vladimir Putin.”

Hm, maybe McCain has internalized another classic movie.

McCain did not have any suggestions for how to defuse the international incident that will occur if American and Russian fighter jets wander into each other’s flight paths in the middle of a shooting war. Which, of course, is the problem with the “bomb everyone” crowd. Their solutions, such as they are, would likely intensify the Syrian civil war, increasing the already overwhelming flow of refugees to Europe and spilling over Syria’s borders, drawing in the militaries of neighboring countries.


http://www.salon.com/2015/10/01/a_neocon_never_learns_beware_the_cry_of_the_syria_war_hawks/

[cprise]

12. Neocons did their homework. They're getting everything they wanted

Except Iran.

[bemildred]

13. Then why are they so upset?

They were as happy as pigs in shit when they were bombing Baghdad. Maybe it is the unintended side-effects. Maybe Iran was always the main objective and we just cut a deal with Iran.

[cprise]

14. Because they're heroically chained to the altar of conflict and suffering

They're a mixture of Zionists and Calvinists. The former will only be satisfied with the formation of a "Greater Israel". The latter feels commanded by God to look for black/white, good/evil in *every* situation -- there is always an enemy, at least until the Rapture happens.

In the meantime, the stated intention of razing Israel's powerful/non-aligned neighbors has mostly come true. Once having the ability to engineer and produce goods and somewhat modern weapons, they are now halfway to living in the stone age. Plus, their old alarmist narrative of liberal Europe someday being inundated with non-whites and Muslims is now coming true.

As a bonus, their acolytes remain in the halls of power -- employed by the Obama administration -- while the corporate-connected heavies keep raking-in the dough.

[bemildred]

15. I have this image of Cheney being dragged to the altar of conflict and suffering by

someone who hacked his wheelchair.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Our intelligence community is too busy spying domestically these days.

Plus, of course, they got outed on spying on allies, and are having to clean up after that mess as well.

[bemildred]

3. Yep, "blindsided" again. Arrogance makes you stupid. Humility makes you smart.

Last edited Thu Oct 1, 2015, 04:07 PM - Edit history (1)

That Putin is intervening to prop up Assad should surprise absolutely no one. Syria has long been a client state of Russia, which has armed Assad’s military and intervened with the United Nations to keep it from trying to stop the 4-year-old civil war. Putin is an ardent nationalist, in love with the Russian self-image of itself as an important empire on the world stage. He would love nothing more than to reassert his nation’s hegemony across the globe.

And the refugees crisis we have been so carefully ignoring has given Pooty-Poot the opportunity he was waiting for. And As with Crimea, if you offer Putin an opening, you better expect he might take it.

[MattSh]

4. Except this part...

Putin is an ardent nationalist, in love with the Russian self-image of itself as an important empire on the world stage. He would love nothing more than to reassert his nation’s hegemony across the globe.

is blatantly wrong. And stupid.

From the comments:

Putin's hegemony. What a joke.

Vladimir Putin is the only one willing to stand up to America's Neocon madmen (and madwomen), and their pathological insistence on regime-change in order to advance the PNAC agenda. Tragically, Putin is the ultimate target of such regime-change, even though such a coup would surely mean the rise of a Russian nationalist - and war.

[bemildred]

5. Well, the last sentence anyway, is projection, like a lot of US "coverage" of Putin.

Putin is a realist, and he lives right next door to China, and he knows Russian global hegemony is not going to happen. The question is why we don't know that.

[bemildred]

19. We are harassing China in the South China Sea right now.

We do not know that.

[bemildred]

6. Russia's Syria strikes reveal incoherence in US policy

Fears that Russia's military intervention in Syria would not be confined to degrading the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were heightened on Wednesday, when President Vladimir Putin ordered the first Russian air strikes in Syria. According to the U.S. and Syrian rebels on the ground, Russian warplanes steered clear of ISIL entirely and instead focused on areas held by other rebel factions fighting the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, Moscow's longtime ally.

Conflicting accounts were still being sorted out on Wednesday night, but analysts said the confusion portends an important reality of Russia's intervention: The U.S. has no means of preventing Moscow from pursuing its own agenda in Syria — and as the four-year diplomatic stalemate over the fate of the Assad regime makes clear, Russia's agenda in Syria is at odds with that of the U.S. and its allies.

On some level, the alleged targets of Russia’s opening salvo in Syria came as little surprise. Moscow, after all, had consistently explained its sudden military build-up in Syria over the past few weeks as primarily an effort to bolster the Assad regime, which Russia considers its last foothold in the Middle East and a bulwark against “terrorism.”

“ISIS was the excuse that Putin has been using to justify intervention because there’s global concern,” said Nader Hashemi, a professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, using another acronym for ISIL. “So this was an opportunity for Putin to step in.”

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/1/russian-strikes-in-syria-reveal-incoherence-of-us-policy.html

[Blue_Tires]

7. Putin has no moral fucking high ground to stand on

Syria, Ukraine, Chechnya, Iran, etc...

[bemildred]

8. Syrian air strikes: Russia demonstrates its strategic superiority

Russia sees the war in Syria as an opportunity to reassert its "greatness". But president Vladimir Putin is pushy, not stupid, which means he won't want any military clashes with America, writes Damien Kingsbury.

When it comes to international politics, the United States might still be the world's greatest power, but Russia's intervention in Syria has proven yet again that it is more accomplished at strategic manoeuvring.

Russian war planes are now bombing anti-Assad regime targets in Syria. But unlike the US, they are doing so at Syria's official invitation and hence entirely within the framework of international law.

Ironically, Russia's intervention - seen very much as the decision of president Vladimir Putin - has been portrayed in the US and the UK as "defying" the West and its warnings not to intervene. Yet the pro-US position of air strikes in Iraq under the rubric of "collective self-defence" is marginal, especially compared with Assad's direct invitation to Russia.

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2015-10-01/syrian-air-strikes-russia-demonstrates-its-strategic-superiority/1498850

Another one for Matt, you will notice the similar framng to what you objected to?

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9. How to End the Civil War in Syria

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While the conflict may appear to be as intractable as ever, there are concrete measures that nations can take, both individually and collectively, to relieve the agony, even as they must urgently renew talks toward a negotiated solution. First, the UN and other aid agencies need an immediate vast increase in funding. World powers may disagree on how to resolve the conflict, but nothing is preventing them from addressing the humanitarian crisis, which increasingly threatens the stability of Jordan (now hosting 600,000 refugees), Lebanon (more than 1 million), and Turkey (about 2 million). Second, the United States and European countries must increase, by orders of magnitude, the number of refugees they accept for asylum. The United States could easily absorb at least 100,000—many more than the paltry increase recently announced by the Obama administration.

As for broader American policy toward Syria, it has reached a dead end. The air campaign begun more than a year ago has failed to turn the tide against ISIS, and the US effort to train and field a “moderate” Syrian rebel army to complement the air strikes has collapsed. While the Kurds in the north have proved to be useful allies in the fight against ISIS in Syria as well as Iraq, the same cannot be said of Washington’s regional Sunni allies, who continue to pursue their own particular interests, with Turkey more focused on targeting the Kurds than ISIS, and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states still funding jihadi rebel groups in Syria, even as they pretend to join the war against ISIS.

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In his UN speech this September, Putin may have sounded bellicose in his insistence on the legitimacy of the Assad regime, but that posture obscures long-standing Russian indications that the fate of Assad is less important than the need to ensure that any transition results in stable governance. Putin is correct in pointing out that the violent removal of dictators without retaining some functioning government structures to replace them—as with Gadhafi in Libya and Hussein in Iraq—has led to regional chaos and extremism. On the other hand, Obama is surely correct in his insistence that the Assad regime’s brutality “is not just a matter of one nation’s internal affairs—it breeds human suffering on an order of magnitude that affects us all.” And it’s certainly reasonable for Obama to call for “a managed transition away from Assad and to a new leader, and an inclusive government.”

The parties to a new peace conference must focus on creative ways to bridge that divide, even as they pursue other steps to de-escalate the conflict. Those interim steps should include support for local cease-fires, like the one recently agreed to in Zabadani and Idlib province. A second step should be deeper cooperation among all nations in stemming recruitment by jihadi extremists, in particular ISIS. A third step is an arms embargo, preferably one agreed to by the UN Security Council. That may seem a distant possibility now, given Russia’s recent steps to buttress its military base in Latakia and increase the flow of arms to Assad’s government, not to mention the continued supply of weapons to rebel groups, whether moderate or jihadi. But an embargo agreed to by Washington, Moscow, and the other P5 nations, as well as the Gulf monarchies, Iran, and Turkey—and applied to all parties, rebels as well as government forces—is an eventual necessity.

http://www.thenation.com/article/the-syria-crisis/

[KoKo]

22. ...!

[bemildred]

23. There are still a few sober minds around. nt

[geek tragedy]

10. Putin's getting a sugar high from this intervention, but getting sucked into that quagmire

and inviting the associated blowback is hardly the work of a master chess player, but rather someone trying to hold onto his pieces on the board.

The Russian people aren't on board with this maneuver, and this won't get any more popular, especially after the first Russian jet is shot down and the pilot features in his own ISIS video.

Intervening militarily rarely lowers the stakes or simplifies a situation.

[bemildred]

11. You are probably right.

He will certainly find it easy to over-reach. And he may well find it hard to justify the cash-flow if it goes on very long, or goes very wrong. And it is always so much easier, politically, to stick it in, and so hard to pull it back out. We are still trying to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

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16. U.S. assessment on Russia in Syria: A 'strategic blunder'

Washington (CNN)There is no ambiguity now about Russia's current tactics in Syria -- they are seeking to take over the airspace in the region and be the agenda-setting force on the ground, several senior administration officials told CNN.

"Yesterday's demarche to the U.S. by Russian officials in Baghdad was clear in its intent," one senior administration official said. "Make sure you don't have anyone around ISIS targets and get out of the air."

And while U.S. officials have no plans to cede Russia any ground, they also said it appears that Russian President Vladimir Putin made a dramatic chess move that the Russians have not thought through -- one official even called it a "strategic blunder."

Had the Russians been clear that they are providing support in Syria to prevent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad regime's collapse -- a scenario that would benefit ISIS -- they might have gotten some credit on the world stage.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/01/politics/russia-syria-isis-bashar-al-assad/index.html

Edit: this one is for you, Geek.

[KoKo]

24. See alot of "Buzz" around this viewpoint in our MS Print Media....

No doubt the Think Tank "Think" is working full speed sorting out their varying but similar positions. Meanwhile, somewhere in Maryland, ..a certain "Former VP" clicks away on his Laptop communing with his Coven of fellow "Powerful Thinkers" in the Shadows of Night where both he, and they, are most comfortable.

From the article:

And while U.S. officials have no plans to cede Russia any ground, they also said it appears that Russian President Vladimir Putin made a dramatic chess move that the Russians have not thought through -- one official even called it a "strategic blunder."

[bemildred]

25. Projection masquerading as "analysis".

Lots of anger. And a deep faith in bullshit.

I try to keep track of the narratives, you have groups of sources that tend to "agree" a lot, and they form a narrative.

So you have collections of narratives that develop around an issue like the Syrian Civil War, like Turkey and the gulf Arabs and Iran and the Alawite government and US/NATO minions and Russia's.

So if you follow those for a while you can see who is lying or blowing smoke and how the lies change when they are exposed.

And you see patterns. And that can tell you a good deal about lots of things.

Like some of them just make shit up all the time, so they are mostly useful for emotional content, their "facts" are worthless.

And others are reliable except on certain subjects, that's most of them.

I can't think fo anybody I'd trust on their word alone.

Putin may well regret his Syrian adventure, but the point for us is that we aready do, and we ought to get out, not be trying to pretend the people who got us here are not incompetent buffoons.

[awoke_in_2003]

17. Let somebody else handle it for a change...

we need to stop playing world cop.

[KoKo]

21. I can go with that.......

[840high]

26. Yes we do.