When I read some of this stuff, I wind up sitting and scratching my head, missing my lead foil-lined hat. Conspiracy theorists and fake news make it hard to know what’s what, sometimes, and you can’t tell if you’re looking at a story or disinformation to create a story. Or, are you looking at disinformation intended to obscure a story?
I don’t think the word “strategy” works for the US’ policy in Syria, unless there is some secret deep master plan, it’s just the futile thrashing of an imperial power that has failed to learn that military ‘solutions’ are not always efficient, hardly ever clean, and always expensive.
I’m not fond of the “Putin is a chessmaster” meme.
I am, however, willing to say he’s nobody to piss off; it’s just not a good idea to mess with someone whose idea of subtle revenge is to poison an enemy with Polonium-209. Putin doesn’t just say “fuck you” – he says “fuck you” and he means it.
The US cruise missile strikes on Syrian aircraft in revetments destroyed about 20% of the aircraft.
April 4: More than 70 dead in Khan Sheikhoun, of an apparent gas attack. [nyt] Syrian government says it wasn’t them.
March 24: More than 200 dead in Mosul, of a US air strike. US government says it might not have been entirely US bombs that did it because ISIS sometimes keeps explosives in houses.[nyt]
Investigations are being called for in both cases. The Syrian regime says it would only submit to an investigation if it can be sure it’s international and multilateral. The US regime says it’ll investigate itself, thank you very much.
I was going to post something about this Saturday night or Sunday morning but it suddenly became a bit more relevant, now that the US has attacked Syria. You probably should know that the US invaded Syria back in November of last year.
Who needs infrastructure, arts and culture, or medical care – when you can have an F-35!? It’s stealthy!
Kinda.
It’s a great fighter!!
Not really.
It does VTOL off the deck of support ships!
Sorry.
I keep loose tabs on what’s going on regarding the US’ “no boots on the ground” deployment in Syria. And, frankly, it’s really hard to tell: the US media is suspiciously quiet about it (I assume they have been told to shut up) – when I go to outside sources, it gets confusing, fast. The overall impression I come away with is that Turkey is shooting at everyone, the US Air Force has a terrorist organization (the PKK – Kurdistan Worker’s Party, a leftist revolutionary group listed as a terrorist organization by NATO and the US) directing air strikes, and ISIS is cropping up in places that the media hasn’t been talking about.
Warning: war and death
The US has committed unknown numbers of ground troops into Syria,[stderr] and has placed them in position between Turkish and ISIS forces near Manbij to act as some sort of buffer zone.
US Troops in ground war in Syria.