Category: Civil War

American Clusterf%$#

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Not Syria this time, Afghanistan:

Afghanistan was plunged deeper into crisis a day after the Taliban seized the northern city of Kunduz, as the insurgents on Tuesday kept assaulting the reeling Afghan security forces and the government struggled to mount a credible response.

Not only did a promised government counteroffensive on Kunduz not make headway during heavy fighting on Tuesday, but the day ended with yet another aggressive Taliban advance, with insurgents surrounding the airport to which hundreds of Afghan forces and at least as many civilians had retreated, thinking it would be safe.

After more than a day of relative silence as the situation worsened around Kunduz, the American military showed the first signs of increased involvement in what the Pentagon called “a setback,” conducting at least two airstrikes, and reportedly more as attacks continued at the airport late Tuesday.

Beyond the Taliban’s gains in Kunduz, there was evidence that the insurgents were also pushing a broader offensive in northern Afghanistan, officials said. One particular point of concern was Takhar Province, just east of Kunduz, where the insurgents were said to be heavily assaulting military checkpoints and government facilities in several districts over the past two days.

The generals in Washington are beginning to look like ……… The Washington Generals.*

Seriously, can anyone remember the last time our military adventures have come even close to success?

*Until recently, the Washington Generals were the team that played, and lost, by design, to the Harlem Globetrotters thousands of time, and won once.

This is a Truly Epic Rant

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In fact, this rant about US missteps on Syria is good enough that I forgive the blogger’s use of the Comic Sans font:

I have decided to voice my opinions on what the situations are in re the MENA area both abroad and in the US concerning Syria and Turkey. More tomorrow on Iraq. These are simply my opinions, feel free to disregard them and come up with your own:

– Petraeus wants John Allen’s wretched job? Give it him. As I understand what happened, Allen found it to be impossible to argue successfully with the WH’s collection of “those whose brains were destroyed in the process of obtaining a Ph.D in poly sci ” led by the country’s community organizer in chief. Let us see if Petraeus will do better. IMO Petraeus is a phony of the sort that David Hackworth used to describe as a “perfumed prince,” in my words, a Byzantine courtier type whose fame was generated in a largely self orchestrated media campaign. Let us see if this “Great Captain” can unravel this skein of wormlike threads that he helped create. Perhaps Broadway Joe Scarborough will turn and burn with him?

………

It goes on from there, and it is truly a thing of beauty.

I also think that it is an accurate assessment, and it shows why the President of the United States cannot blithely accept the counsel of  Council of Foreign Relations types, who subscribe to the “Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics,” which states that so long as the US maintains it will, it can accomplish whatever it wants.

It didn’t work in the Bush administration, and it won’t work now.

This is Significant………

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It turns out that the aircraft that Russia is sending to Syria are not Su-27s or MiG-31s. They are top of the line Su-30SM multi-role fighters:

The Institute for the Study of War had spotted four Russian fighter jets at Al Assad International Airport in Damascus. The Kremlin may have sent air-to-air missiles to Syria along with the aircraft, the D.C.-based think tank added.

But Washington area consultant and War Is Boring contributor Chris Biggers pointed out on the blog Offiziere that ISW had misidentified the jets. As it turns out, Russia sent its maneuverable and deadly Su-30SM multi-role jets.

Recent satellite imagery acquired by Airbus of al-Assad International airport in Syria shows four Su-30SM aircraft, not four SU-27 Flanker as originally reported by the Institute for [the] Study of War. The aircraft are easily mistaken for the SU-27 due to the modern variant’s use of the same airframe. The only predominant identifier on satellite imagery separating these aircraft from the earlier model is the canards positioned forward on the fuselage which assist with the aircraft’s thrust vectoring capability.

Located on the north side of the runway at Latakia, the Su-30SM multi-role fighters are one of Russia’s more advanced 4+ generation aircraft, often compared to the U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle. This variant is equipped with a passive electronically scanned array (PESA) BARS radar, fly-by-wire flight controls, modern ECM as well as thrust vectoring, making this a highly maneuverable and capable fighter.

In March 2012, Russia hired the Irkut Corporation to build a total of 60 Su-30SM fighters. While the new model was the first for the Kremlin’s air arms to feature the small canard positioned behind the cockpit, Irkut had already sold similar MKI and MKM versions to India and Malaysia, respectively.

The reason that this is important is because of the whole “Multi Role” thing.

The Su-30SM is not as well suited for the interception role as the MiG-31, top speed and ceiling are lower, but it can carry a much wider range of munitions, including the KH-58 anti-radiation missile, which has the capability to attack surface to air missile installations at ranges greater than 200 km, which could suppress NATO SAMs in Turkey that have largely prevented the Syrian Air Force from operating in the north of the country.

Syria is a complete clusterf%$#, (When the Assad regime is the best alternative, you know that you have completely screwed the pooch) , and now we are seeing increased Russian involvement in the conflict.

It’s a mess, and it’s getting scary.

This Is a Seriously Cool Person Who Knows Where Their Towel Is*

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An anonymous donor has agreed to foot the bill for the removal of four Confederate-related statues, the city announced in a letter this week to the New Orleans City Council.

It will cost an estimated $144,000 to remove and transport the statues of Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard and Jefferson Davis, as well as a monument to the Battle of Liberty Place, according to the letter. The donor agreed to pay for the entire operation.

“These four statues stand in direct contradiction to the ideal of freedom enshrined in our Constitution and their presence in our city was meant to perpetuate a false history that literally puts the Confederacy on a pedestal,” Deputy Mayor Andy Kopplin said in the Sept. 14 letter. “True remembrance is required, not blind reverence.”

 I would very much like to shake the hand of whoever is behind this.

*It is a reference from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Go read the book.

This Business Will Get out of Control. It Will Get out of Control and We’ll Be Lucky to Live through It.

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It appears that Russia may be building a military base in Syria:

The anonymous officials say Russia has set up an air traffic control tower and transported prefabricated housing units for up to 1,000 personnel to an airfield serving the Syrian port city of Latakia.

 Russia has also requested the rights to fly over neighbouring countries with military cargo aircraft during September, according to the reports.

 The claims, which will raise fears that Russia is planning to expand its role in the country’s civil war, will ratchet up tensions between Moscow and Washington over the future of Syria and its brutal ruler.

 Mr Obama on Friday met King Salman of Saudi Arabia to repeat their demand that any lasting settlement in Syria would require an end to the Assad regime.

 It leaves the US and Russia implacably opposed in their visions for Syria.

I would argue that the vision expressed by Obama is being driven by the House of Saud and the rest of the antediluvian absolute monarchies that dot the Persian Gulf.

 They supported radical Islamic opponents to the Assad regime, because they want to replace a secular Arab regime with Sunni dominated theocracy, because, I guess, it worked so well in Syria.

 ………

 “We are already giving Syria quite serious help with equipment and training soldiers, with our weapons,” he said during an economic forum in Vladivostok on Friday, according to the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency.

 Until now, Russia’s backing has included financial support, intelligence, advisers, weapons and spare parts. Mr Putin insisted it was “premature” to talk of a direct intervention.

………

 Last week the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth cited Western diplomatic sources saying that Russia was on the verge of deploying “thousands” of troops to Syria to establish an airbase from which the Russian air force would fly combat sorties against Isil.

 Those details appear to be backed by satellite images of a Russian base under construction near Latakia, according to anonymous intelligence officials quoted by several American newspapers.

 “If they’re moving people in to help the Syrian government fight their own fight, that’s one thing,” one told the Los Angeles Times. “But if they’re moving in ground forces and dropping bombs on populated areas, that’s an entirely different matter.”

 Moscow increasingly justifies its support for the Assad regime by pointing to the rise of violent jihadists in Syria.

………

 Syria is already home to Russia’s only base outside the former Soviet Union – a naval station in Tartus.

 The reported build-up of military activity, centred on Latakia and Idlib province, is in areas dominated by the Alawite sect, which counts President Assad among its number.

The House of Saud, the other petty tyrants of the Persian Gulf, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (the increasingly authoritarian, and increasingly unstable President of Turkey) have been actively supporting both the civil war and the most extreme religious fanatics in the region.

This did was a disaster in Libya, and it will be a disaster in Syria.

Getting rid of Assad in Syria would be a good thing, if the alternative were not immeasurably worse.

Of note, it appears that there are indications that the Russians might be sending Russian manned MiG-31s to Syria:

Rumours, comments and half-truths are very common in fluid environments such as this. Various news-outlets are offering different theories regarding a large-scale Russian operation about to start in Syria. With information and evidence being often sketchy at best, it is most likely that various players in and outside the region are trying to push their agenda, either vis-à-vis Syria or vis-à-vis Russia. Trusting partisan and biased information, i.e. MSM accounts quoting “official sources“, would obviously be a mistake. That is why this piece offers a totally different read on the reasons and goals of the Russian move, just for the sake of argument.

Preventing a another Libya

Before getting to the core of the scenario that could explain events on the ground, it may be useful to recall the Libyan precedent: a “no fly zone” implemented by NATO under a UN-resolution was hijacked – in the Russians’ view – to support the anti-Gaddafi insurgents and give them close air support for several months, until the Libyan dictator was finally ousted from power.

Ever since the start of the civil war in Syria, the Russians have always made it clear that they would not tolerate another version of the Libyan precedent. In 2013 already, Russian officials made numerous statements formally objecting to a “no fly zone“. A few very strongly worded declarations by President Putin himself didn’t leave any doubt as to the Russians’ willingness to actively oppose such a development.

………

Based on the developments mentioned above, but also taking into account some of the recurrent background noise and chatter that can be heard way outside the beltway – remember Petreaus’ suggestion about “Jabhat al Nusra reconcilables” or Anne-Marie Slaughter’s recent call for a “no fly zone” over Syria – it is pretty easy to figure out what some of the armchair strategists in DC had in mind.

Quite simple in its premises, their strategy is based on increasing the tempo of Coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State, particularly in Syria, thus winning over public opinion for such operations, and supporting Kurdish YPG militias all over the North. At the same time, efforts – quite unlucky and unsuccessful so far – to recruit and train parts of the FSA, and possibly the “reasonable fringe” of Jahbat al-Nusra, are continuing.

The aim is to arm these groups and turn them loose – officially – on the Islamic State, giving them the same air support YPG groups have been receiving, provided the main thrust is against ISIS held territory or disputed areas. Territory that is firmly in the Syrian government’s hands would be off limits in such a scenario, but given that these areas have become quite small in recent months, it is pretty safe to assume that about 75 % to 80 % of Syrian territory would be up for grabs.

In other words, the support of Kurdish peshmergas on the one hand, the help and training of “moderate” Syrian rebels on the other, would be combined with the benefits of a “no fly zone” or at least extensive air support. The official rationale for such a “no fly zone” would be solely the struggle against ISIS, of course, because that would be the easiest way – and actually the only one –to sell such a strategy to the US public.

………

Needless to say that if the Syrian air force was unable to support its ground troops not just in the North, but anywhere in Syria, the balance of power would inexorably shift towards the opposition groups and a de facto partition of Syria would be unavoidable. To the Russians, this is unacceptable. They may be willing to let Assad go, but not to abandon Syria as an ally and a Russian asset in the “grand game”.

Syria is still a sovereign country and there hasn’t been any UN-resolution that could bolster foreign intervention without the consent of the Syrian government. Furthermore, Syria has an extensive defense agreement with the Russian Federation and it would be perfectly within President Bashar al-Assad’s prerogatives to call in Russian military help in his fight against “terrorism” or foreign aggression.

………

What came out of these talks – or should we say negotiations ? – is only rumour, but this rumour has it that a deal was struck for the nomination of a new intelligence chief, if a ceasefire and transitional phase are indeed implemented. The man for that job is supposedly no other than General Mustafa Tlass, formerly a close associate of the al-Assad clan, who jumped ship in 2011 but never formally sided with the rebels. He has been living in France ever since he left Syria.

Now of course, such a settlement to which the US administration would not have been part to would have the potential to drive the Neo-Cons, R2Pers and other D.C. hawks absolutely mad. Not only would it mean that the Syrian regime would not be destroyed, but it would possibly keep a strong foothold in Syrian politics, even if the country was to be partitioned along areas of influence. The biggest downside to such a negotiated solution though would be, that fighting the Islamic State could not be used anymore as a pretence for supporting the actions of the anti-Assad rebels.

The Syrians – and the Russians – certainly realize that contingency plans are also a necessity for them, whether the alleged settlement initiative succeeds or fails. The recent announcement of a second and larger Russian base on the Syrian coast is certainly part of such contingency plans. Both a naval base and a logistics base, it could help stabilize the heartland of the Al-Assad clan and bolster the Alawi minority’s claim and dominance over these lands, cutting of any sea access to whatever Sunni/Jihadi political construct could be established further inland.

………

This is why the establishment of a “no fly zone” and increased operational tempo is so crucial to its most vocal proponents. Short of destroying the regime before any settlement is announced, Bashar al-Assad has to be weakened and his power base eroded to the point where even opposition groups currently willing to sign off on a negotiated peace might possibly change their mind.

This is the context in which Russian troop and equipment movements were recently spotted, allegedly. It all started on August 16th, when a Turkish News Agency (BGN) published a statement announcing that Russia had delivered 6 MIG-31s to Syria. Those planes’ specifications and weapons systems make them an unlikely candidate for close air support to Syrian ground forces, which makes the delivery all the more interesting.

Actually, the MIG-31s, possibly with a Russian crew aboard, are interceptors. They are designed to track, identify and destroy hostile aircraft. The fact they were stationed in Mezze airbase, with a large Russian security and logistics detail, implies the Russians meant business. What aircraft could these planes be possibly intercepting though ? Obviously, not the Coalition jets flying missions against the Islamic State. The Russians aren’t that mad … or dumb.

However, if a “no fly zone” was imposed over Syrian skies without any form of basis in international or UN-law, what would there be to prevent the Russians from answering a call for help from the sill legitimate Syrian government ? Now that would be a worrying development and it should be taken seriously ! However, should there be any truth to such a theoretical construct, the MIG-31s would probably target something totally different from Coalition fighter jets.

………

If you take Libya as the example of what the Russians want to avoid at all cost, it’s fairly easy to guess what their interceptors would be looking for. It’s not the Patriot missiles stationed in Turkey. They only have a limited reach, meaning they can destroy targets up to a distance of about 70 km, enough to interdict Syrian air force operations all along the border, but they are useless for any action deep in Syrian territory.

Furthermore, the Patriot’s radars don’t bring any added value when it comes to identifying enemy moves on the ground. The key component in both a “no fly zone” and in monitoring moves on and off the ground, all over Syrian territory, are AWACS warning and control aircraft.

The Coalition is currently using such aircraft. Several countries are equipped with such planes, notably the United States and Saudi Arabia, but also The United-Kingdom and France. As long as the areas of interest for possible coalition airstrikes are limited to territory close to an international border, AWACS planes can remain out of Syrian airspace.Their powerful radars can monitor anything that happens from a safe distance.

However, if the goal of the coalition was to extend “interdiction areas” or to create “safe areas” deep inside Syria, there would be only one way of doing this: AWACS planes would need to fly over Syrian territory, as any operation of that kind while remaining outside Syrian airspace would require a unreasonable number of planes to cover enough ground.

………

That is where the MIG-31s come in. Sending in these planes, their crews, as well as all the necessary logistics into Syria, could be a clear message intended at disrupting any idea the Coalition might have of establishing “safe zones”, “security perimeters” or “no fly zones”, whatever you want to call them, without actual backing from international law.

Based on current Syrian-Russian defence agreements, Russian – or Syrian – MIG31s would be fully justified in shooting down any aircraft deemed hostile over Syrian territory. The MIG-31s are well equipped for that kind of mission: they can take off and reach a flight altitude of over 30 000 feet in under three minutes, making them immune from any MANPADs the rebels might be armed with.

Coordinates of an AWACS plane – or any other aircraft for that matter – could be sent in from radar stations on the ground, and the signal could not be jammed nor intercepted. The MIG-31 is also equipped with multimode radar, allowing for onboard monitoring over long distances, and it is armed with BVR missiles that have a reach of up to 400 km. Due to the ballistic trajectory of these missiles, their interception also would be very difficult.

In other words, once they are in the air, the MIG-31s could fire their missiles and, at that point, nothing could stop them from reaching their target, whether that is an AWACS or possibly even a fighter jet preparing for close support mission of anti-government forces.

Now, of course, if an AWACS was shut down by a Russian jet, that could be the starting point to something like WW3. The Russians don’t want that, and neither do we. So what this means, is that their troop deployment is signalling us something: they know what we are up to and they are not willing to let go of it.

This aircraft, NATO Designation Foxhound, an update on the MiG-25 Foxbat is a single purpose aircraft designed as an interceptor.

It is designed to do one thing, get to high altitudes and high speeds quickly, and fire big missiles at long ranges to shoot down other aircraft, particularly large and highly visible aircraft, like AWACS,

We really need to tell the House of Saud that we will no longer support their moves for Sunni hegemony in the region, nor will we support the (over a thousand years old) “Great Game” between Sunni and Shia.

Doing the House of Saud’s bidding serves no one but the house of Saud.

While we are at it, perhaps it would be a good idea to drone the guy who founded ISIS, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who as head of the Saudi intelligence services, was instrumental in getting the group up and running.

Gee, What a Surprise………

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The Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating allegations that military officials have skewed intelligence assessments about the United States-led campaign in Iraq against the Islamic State to provide a more optimistic account of progress, according to several officials familiar with the inquiry.

The investigation began after at least one civilian Defense Intelligence Agency analyst told the authorities that he had evidence that officials at United States Central Command — the military headquarters overseeing the American bombing campaign and other efforts against the Islamic State — were improperly reworking the conclusions of intelligence assessments prepared for policy makers, including President Obama, the government officials said.

Fuller details of the claims were not available, including when the assessments were said to have been altered and who at Central Command, or Centcom, the analyst said was responsible. The officials, speaking only on the condition of anonymity about classified matters, said that the recently opened investigation focused on whether military officials had changed the conclusions of draft intelligence assessments during a review process and then passed them on.

The prospect of skewed intelligence raises new questions about the direction of the government’s war with the Islamic State, and could help explain why pronouncements about the progress of the campaign have varied widely.

This is an artifact of rampant careerism in the US military, and is a recipe for military disaster.

We have a senior officer corps that is more interested in PR than the truth, and the more that this compromises the the transfer of information up and down the chain of command, the more our military looks like the Egyptian army circa 1967.

Yep, We are Getting Sick of Erdoğan

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In addition to pulling Patriots out of Turkey, we now have our Secretary of Defense calling out the Turkish disinterest in fighting ISIS:

The Pentagon’s top official said Thursday that Turkey must “do more” to help in the fight against the Islamic State militant group, commonly known as ISIL or ISIS.

US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter called Turkey’s participation in anti-ISIL operations “overdue.” And while the decision by Turkey to help with the air campaign against the militant group is welcome, Carter specifically called out the need for Turkish forces to secure the border with Syria in order to stop the flow of supplies and ISIL operatives.

“We need them — also, as a neighbor to this conflict zone, as longtime NATO ally and a responsible member of the anti-ISIL coalition — to control the border, the long border that they have with both Syria and Iraq, more than it has been controlled over the last year,” Carter said. “It is a border over which logistics for ISIL and fighters cross, and so we’re looking for them to do more in that regard as well, and we’re in active discussions with them in that regard.”

For the last year, Turkey avoided large-scale engagement with the militant group. However, after an ISIS suicide bomber killed 32 people on a Turkish town bordering Syria on July 20, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan decided to clear US airstrikes from inside its territory.

I think that the Turkish government’s priorities, basically promoting Sunni Islamism and bombing the crap out of the Kurds, are clearly not serving the interests of their NATO allies.

I’m wondering if we are going to engineer a coup to remove Erdoğan.

Certainly, military takeovers have been a regular feature of Turkish politics, so if there were a coup, it would not be unprecedented.

This is Interesting………

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The US and Germany have , apparently because Turkey has been using the operations against ISIS to bomb the crap out of the Kurds, in effect aiding ISIS:

The U.S. announced Sunday that Patriot anti-air and missile batteries and 400 troops deployed to Turkey will be withdrawn following a similar move by NATO ally Germany seen as a protest against Turkish airstrikes on the Kurds.

The Pentagon put out a joint statement by Washington and NATO ally Turkey saying that the Patriot batteries, which were sent to Turkey in 2013 to protect against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, would return to the U.S. by October.

Turkey asked for the deployment of the Patriots following the shoot down in 2012 of a Turkish fighter by Syrian air defenses.

………

The Turkish airstrikes have come under increasing criticism in Europe, where the agreement on use of Incirlik is seen by some as a move by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to gain cover for the airstrikes and bolster his support in maneuvering for new elections to regain a parliamentary majority.

Turkey has said that the airstrikes against the PKK were in response to terror attacks in Turkey that have killed civilians, police and troops.

………

The U.S. is concerned that Turkey also might move against the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units), the military wing of the Kurdish PYD (Democratic Union Party), which is allied with the PKK.

YPG fighters have proven to be among the most effective of local forces in the fight against ISIS. The YPG earlier this year successfully defended the Syrian border town of Kobane against ISIS with the help of U.S. airstrikes. The YPG later took the border towns of Tal Abyad and Hasakah to the east while advancing to within 50 miles of Raqaa, considered the ISIS capital in Syria.

I think that maybe Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policy of supporting Sunni Islamic extremists and rolling back civil rights has finally outweighed his support for Wall Street friendly economics.

I guess that actively supporting ISIS has kind of crossed the line.

This is About to Go All Pear Shaped

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Because their indiscriminate bombing of civilians has failed to secure “hearts and minds”, the Saudi led coalition is sending in ground troops:

An Arab coalition source confirmed to Defense News that 2,800 troops landed in Yemen on Aug. 2 and are targeting the country’s largest military base.

The coalition source stated that the forces — comprised mostly of Saudi special operations, intelligence and logistics personnel — are placed to secure Aden and take over Al-Anad military base north of Aden.

“The units are also supported by personnel and equipment from the United Arab Emirates and trained Yemeni fighters,” the source said.

Images of LeClerc main battle tanks, which are operated by the UAE land forces and Presidential Guard strike force, BMP armored vehicles, and M-ATVs being offloaded at a port in the southern city of Aden appeared on social media Sunday.

In what I am sure is a completely unrelated development, a suicide bomber struck a mosque inside Saudi Arabia near the Yemenese border:

A suicide bomber struck Thursday at a Saudi mosque used by security forces near the border with war-
battered Yemen, officials said, killing more than a dozen people.

The Islamic State asserted responsibility for the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online activities of militant groups. The blast follows a spate of suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia claimed by the Islamic State.

It also comes as Saudi Arabia and its allies have escalated their four-month-old war against rebel forces in Yemen.

The official Saudi Press Agency said that at least 10 security personnel and three workers were killed in the mosque blast, which occurred in the southern Asir region.

The House of Saud, concerned about nothing beyond their eternal war against the Shia, are actively aiding ISIS and al Qaeda by bombing their most determined opponents and completely unsurprisingly, ISIS uses this fact to further their campaign against the Saudis.

This has fail written all over it.

Can We Please Not Talk Silver Linings Here?

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Gov. Nikki R. Haley called on Monday for South Carolina to do what just a week ago seemed politically impossible — remove the Confederate battle flag from its perch in front of the State House building here. She argued that a symbol long revered by many Southerners was for some, after the church massacre in Charleston, a “deeply offensive symbol of a brutally offensive past.”

“The events of this week call upon us to look at this in a different way,” said Ms. Haley, an Indian-American, who is the first member of an ethnic minority to serve as governor of the state as well as the first woman.

She spoke at an afternoon news conference, surrounded by Democratic and Republican lawmakers including both of the state’s United States senators, Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, an African-American. “Today we are here in a moment of unity in our state, without ill will, to say it’s time to move the flag from the capitol grounds,” she said.

It was a dramatic turnabout for Ms. Haley, a second-term Republican governor who over her five years in the job has displayed little interest in addressing the intensely divisive issue of the flag. But her new position demonstrated the powerful shock that last Wednesday’s killings at Emanuel A.M.E. Church have delivered to the political status quo, mobilizing leaders at the highest levels.

For Haley, and her ilk, this is not a moral decision, it is merely one of political expedience.

Businesses have never been particularly fond of the flag, and the controversy that it engenders, but politicians who pander to racism (largely the Republican party these days) have been afraid about a backlash from a fanatical minority come election day.

The terrorist attack on the Emanuel A.M.E. Church has changed this political calculus, for a while at least.

I hope that the legislature moves quickly.

Even the Hawks in the US Congress Are Concerned about the Ukrainian Nazis

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The flag flown by the Azov Battalion


Actual iconography on Azov Battalion helmets

It appears that the behavior of the Ukraine’s far right militias that Congress has explicitly forbidden giving them funding:

It’s easy to see why Representative John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, would have a problem with the military unit commanded by Ukrainian legislator Andriy Biletsky: Conyers is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Biletsky is a white supremacist.

The House of Representatives has unanimously approved an amendment to the U.S. military budget, proposed by Conyers and Florida Republican Ted Yoho, banning support and training for “the Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary militia ‘Azov Battalion.'” Azov was set up in May 2014 to fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Here’s how the group’s Facebook page describes the circumstances:

In the first weeks after the Putin invasion of Donbass began, the authorities and law enforcers were confused and demoralized. Nationalists had to take initiative. The Patriot of Ukraine organization and allied unofficial groups of right-wing youth rallied around Andriy Biletsky and challenged the separatists.

By now, though, the Azov Battalion has become a regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard and enjoys the enthusiastic support of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.

Biletsky had run Patriot of Ukraine since 2005. In a 2010 interview he described the organization as nationalist “storm troops” with its biggest unit in Kharkov, Biletsky’s native city in eastern Ukraine. The group’s ideology was “social nationalism” — a term Biletsky, a historian, knew would deceive no one.

………

The war in the east gave Biletsky’s storm troopers a chance at a higher status than they could ever have hoped to achieve. They fought fiercely, and last fall, the 400-strong Azov Battalion became part of the National Guard, receiving permission to expand to 2,000 fighters and gaining access to heavy weaponry. So what if some of its members had Nazi symbols tattooed on their bodies and the unit’s banner bore the Wolfsangel, used widely by the Nazis during World War II? In an interview with Ukraine’s Focus magazine last September, Avakov, responsible for the National Guard, was protective of his heroes. He said of the Wolfsangel:

In many European cities it is part of the city emblem. Yes, most of the guys who assembled in Azov have a particular worldview. But who told you you could judge them? Don’t forget what the Azov Battalion did for the country. Remember the liberation of Mariupol, the fighting at Ilovaysk, the latest attacks near the Sea of Azov. May God allow anyone who criticizes them to do 10 percent of what they’ve done. And anyone who’s going to tell me that these guys preach Nazi views, wear the swastika and so on, are bare-faced liars and fools.


………

Now, Conyers and Yoho have almost succeeded in making Azov ineligible for any form of U.S. assistance. “These groups run counter to American values,” Conyers told Congress. “And once the fighting ends, they pose a significant threat to the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people. As we’ve seen many times, most notably within the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan, these groups will not lay down their arms once the conflict is over.”

As Robert Parry, who was given the Polk award for his work on Iran-Contra observed:


………

The conservative London Telegraph offered more details about the Azov battalion in an article by correspondent Tom Parfitt, who wrote: “Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries to stamp out the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics’… should send a shiver down Europe’s spine.

“Recently formed battalions such as Donbas, Dnipro and Azov, with several thousand men under their command, are officially under the control of the interior ministry but their financing is murky, their training inadequate and their ideology often alarming. The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites.”

Based on interviews with militia members, the Telegraph reported that some of the fighters doubted the reality of the Holocaust, expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and acknowledged that they are indeed Nazis.

Biletsky, the Azov commander, “is also head of an extremist Ukrainian group called the Social National Assembly,” according to the Telegraph article which quoted a commentary by Biletsky as declaring: “The historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival. A crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”

In other words, for the first time since World War II, a government had dispatched Nazi storm troopers to attack a European population – and officials in Kiev knew what they were doing. The Telegraph questioned Ukrainian authorities in Kiev who acknowledged that they were aware of the extremist ideologies of some militias but insisted that the higher priority was having troops who were strongly motivated to fight. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ignoring Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers.”]

But a rebel counteroffensive led by ethnic Russians last August reversed many of Kiev’s gains and drove the Azov and other government forces back to the port city of Mariupol, where Foreign Policy’s reporter Alec Luhn also encountered the Nazis. He wrote:

“Blue and yellow Ukrainian flags fly over Mariupol’s burned-out city administration building and at military checkpoints around the city, but at a sport school near a huge metallurgical plant, another symbol is just as prominent: the wolfsangel (‘wolf trap’) symbol that was widely used in the Third Reich and has been adopted by neo-Nazi groups. …

“Pro-Russian forces have said they are fighting against Ukrainian nationalists and ‘fascists’ in the conflict, and in the case of Azov and other battalions, these claims are essentially true.”

You can find Conyers’ statement on his amendments banning any aid the Azov battallion, as well as prohibiting the transfer of shoulder launched SAMs (Manpads) to anyone in the Ukraine, here.

I think that the prohibition against the missiles is particularly significant, because it not just a measure of concern about neo-Nazi elements in the Ukrainian establishment, it is a vote of no-confidence in their entire military establishment, and arguably the entire government, with regard to securing portable SAMs.

I Guess Obama Wants to Ensure That There Is Someone Worse with a Nobel

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We now have evidence that the US State Department is pressuring the Nobel Prize committee to nominate Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for the Peace Prize:

A leaked letter dated May 19th and sent by the Chairman of Ukraine’s parliament, Vladimir Groysman, to the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Oslo Norway, thanks her for “the efforts you have made to have Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize,” but continues: “Still we consider your assurances of support by the two members of the Nobel Committee as insufficient,” because there are five members of the Committee, and the support of 3 of them is necessary.

Thus, “We expect further efforts aimed at shifting the position of Berit Reiss-Andersen, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn and especially that of the Chair of the Nobel Committee Kaci Kullman Five. Regarding the latter, we recommend that you take advantage of the information you are going to receive from Germany. Your colleagues in Berlin have assured us that the dossier will soon be delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Oslo. It is of utmost importance for Mr. Poroshenko to have firm guarantees that he will be awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize, since it could highlight the unanimous support of Ukrainian integrity by the democratic community of the world. Assistant Secretary of State Viktoria Nuland has highly estimated your job during her visit to Kyiv.”

Once again, like a bad penny, every time there is a harebrained neocon scheme at State, Victoria Nuland is at the heart of the skulduggery.

The three mentioned Nobel Peace Prize Committee members are a politcally varied group. Ms. Reiss-Andersen is from the social democratic or “Labour” party; Ms. Ytterhorn is from the libertarian or “Progress” party; and Ms. Five is from the Conservative Party. The two unidentified members are Thorbjørn Jagland from the Labour Party, and Henrik Syse from the Conservative Party. If this letter is correct, those are the two who are referred to by the letter’s phrase, “your assurances of support by the two members.”

 The letter also makes a vague reference to the poor reputation that the Committee has engendered on account of the Committee’s having granted the Prize to Barack Obama in 2009 (a decision that the Committee’s Chairperson, Ms. Five, concurred with and has been criticized for): “We understand the difficulties you face when promoting the candidacy of the President of Ukraine, therefore we ask you to exert additional leverages by engaging those U.S. Senators who effectively cooperated with the Committee in 2009.” Presumably, this means that whomever “those U.S. Senators” were, the Chairman of Ukraine’s parliament thinks that they were “effective.”

 President Poroshenko entered office on 25 May 2014 after a U.S.-sponsored coup in Kiev that installed Arseniy Yatsenyuk as Ukraine’s Prime Minister on 26 February 2014, after the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Asian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, had instructed the U.S. Ambassador in Kiev on 4 February 2014 to get “Yats” appointed as the junta’s leader; she issued that instruction to him by phone on February 4th and the coup occurred on February 22nd; Yatsenyuk was then appointed on February 26th, and he remains in power today. One pro-Russian part of Ukraine, Crimea, then seceded and joined Russia, and another, Donbass, seceded and was not accepted by Russia; it thus was bombed by the Ukrainian Government during May through December 2014, since Donbass’s repeated requests to be allowed to join Russia were spurned by Vladimir Putin. (Yet, Ukraine accuses Russia of providing the fighters who are actually the men of Donbass, who refuse to be ruled by the U.S.-coup regime. Russia sends them guns, and volunteers have come from Russia and many other countries to help the Donbass defenders.) German intelligence estimates that “up to 50,000” people were killed in that bombing campaign, but U.S. and other official estimates are only around 5,000.

 Even before Poroshenko took office, the new Ukrainian government of “Yats” Yatsenyuk invaded Donbass, using bombers, tanks, rocket-launchers, and everything it had; and, when Poroshenko gave his victory speech in the ceremonial Presidential election on May 25th, he promised, and it was very clear from him, that: “The anti-terrorist operation [he called the residents there ’terrorists’] cannot and should not last two or three months. It should and will last hours.” (Another translation of it was “Antiterrorist operation can not and will not continue for 2-3 months. It must and will last hours.”) But it did last months — Poroshenko’s prediction was certainly false; and, moreover, he lost first one round of the war, and then another — his prediction of its outcome was likewise false. And recently, he said that the war must be resumed for yet a third round, in order that Ukraine win back both Crimea and Donbass. However, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned him on May 12th that he must not do that, and that if he did he’d be violating the Minsk II ceasefire accords which had been arranged by France’s Francois Hollande and Germany’s Angela Merkel. Then, three days later, his Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland, who had arranged the February 2014 coup, told both Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko to ignore what Kerry had just said, and that, “We continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine and reiterate our deep commitment to a single Ukrainian nation, including Crimea, and all the other regions of Ukraine.”

(emphasis mine)

The important thing is not that this is absurd, nor is it why Victoria Nuland has a job at the State Department and a security clearance.

The important thing here is that this is a graphic example of just how f%$#ed up and failed our policy in the Ukraine has proved to be.

We went for a color revolution by funding and supporting Ukrainian Fascists (not hyperbole, the Pravyi Sektor party and its associated paramilitaries are Fascists who idolize Nazi collaborators) for no particular reason, and Russia reacted to what it saw as an existential threat, because it was an existential threat, and we have slavering war mongers in Kiev, and a civil war in which the Russian aligned rebels are winning.

Heck of a job, Brownie Victoria Nuland.

Our Private Little War Is Going so Well

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ISIS just took over Ramadi, the capital of al Anbar provice:

Islamic State fighters used a sandstorm to help seize a critical military advantage in the early hours of the terrorist group’s attack on the provincial Iraqi capital of Ramadi last week, helping to set in motion an assault that forced Iraqi security forces to flee, current and former American officials said Monday.

The sandstorm delayed American warplanes and kept them from launching airstrikes to help the Iraqi forces, as the Islamic State fighters evidently anticipated. The fighters used the time to carry out a series of car bombings followed by a wave of ground attacks in and around the city that eventually overwhelmed the American-backed Iraqi forces.

Once the storm subsided, Islamic State and Iraqi forces were intermingled in heavy combat in many areas, making it difficult for allied pilots to distinguish friend or foe, the officials said. By that point, the militants had gained an operational momentum that could not be reversed.

“The dust storm at the very least neutralized capabilities that could have been decisive,” said one former senior military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential battle assessments.

Translation, the Iraqi army cannot find its ass with both hands, and needs extensive air support not to fold up like overcooked cabbage.

There is a reason that, “A column of 3,000 Shiite militia fighters, many supported by Iran, has arrived at a military base near Ramadi as part of the effort to reclaim the city,” because the US trained army lacks the competence, leadership, and toughness to successfully prosecute this conflict.

Bush’s folly continues.

To Honor the 70th Anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, the Ukraine has Commemorated Nazi Collaborators………

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No, this isn’t The Onion, it’s just the Ukraine being the Ukraine.

They have officially honored Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis:

The U.S.-backed Ukrainian government came up with a curious way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust being brought to an end. The parliament in Kiev voted to extend official recognition to Ukrainian fascists who collaborated with the Nazis in killing Jews.

 Though Official Washington and the mainstream U.S. media continue to dutifully ignore the key role played by neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s February 2014 coup and in the post-coup regime’s subsequent military offensives against ethnic Russians in the east, Ukrainian politicians can’t stop their arms from snapping into Heil Hitler salutes like the fictional character Dr. Strangelove. They can’t hold back this reflex even as the world stopped this week to recall the Nazi barbarity that claimed the lives of some six million Jews as well as other minorities.

 On April 9, the Ukrainian parliament passed a bill making the ultra-nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army eligible for official government recognition, a demand that has been pushed by Ukraine’s current neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist movements, the same forces that spearheaded the overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 and then the slaughter of thousands of ethnic Russians who resisted the new order.

 Ukraine’s honor-the-Nazi-collaborators vote came amid increased repression of opposition politicians and journalists who dare to criticize the U.S.-backed regime as it moves to repudiate the political settlement envisioned by February’s Minsk-2 agreement and instead prepares for a resumption of the war to crush the resistance in eastern Ukraine once and for all.

………

 During World War II, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, an offshoot of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, collaborated with the Nazis in their orgy of mass murder against Jews, Poles and other minority groups. The UIA also joined with the Nazis in fighting against the Soviet Union’s Red Army, although some UIA elements did ultimately turn against the Germans over their occupation of Ukraine.

 Ukraine was the site of several major Holocaust atrocities including the infamous massacre at Babi Yar in Kiev, where local Ukrainian fascists worked alongside the Nazi SS in funneling tens of thousands of Jews to a ravine where they were slaughtered and buried.

 According to the Jerusalem Post, the Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned Ukraine’s recognition of the UIA as well as a second bill that equated Communist and Nazi crimes.

 “The passage of a ban on Nazism and Communism equates the most genocidal regime in human history with the regime which liberated Auschwitz and helped end the reign of terror of the Third Reich,” said Wiesenthal Center director for Eastern European Affairs Dr. Efraim Zuroff, adding:

“In the same spirit the decision to honor local Nazi collaborators and grant them special benefits turns Hitler’s henchmen into heroes despite their active and zealous participation in the mass murder of innocent Jews. These attempts to rewrite history, which are prevalent throughout post-Communist Eastern Europe, can never erase the crimes committed by Nazi collaborators in these countries, and only proves that they clearly lack the Western values which they claim to have embraced upon their transition to democracy.”

You’ve seen a lot of this in the Baltic states, Poland, and the Ukraine.

This is not surprising, as they are ……… the Baltic states, Poland, and the Ukraine.

Note that the US has been aggressively supporting the people who successfully fought for this, the Svoboda party the Pravy Sektor militia, taking it so far as to vote against a measure condemning those who glorify Naziism in the UN.

I do not know if there are any good guys in this conflict, but they ain’t it.

IMF Violates Its Charter to Loan to the Ukraine

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The IMF charter forbids the making of loans to countries that are either engaged in a civil war, or those who are at war with another member state.

That being the case, how the f%$# does the IMF justify making a massive loan to the Ukraine?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed on a scheme of war financing for Ukraine. For the first time, according to Fund sources, the IMF is not only violating its loan repayment conditions, but also the purposes and safeguards of the IMF’s original charter.

IMF lending is barred for a member state in civil war or at war with another member state, or for military purposes, according to Article I of the Fund’s 1944-45 Articles of Agreement. This provides “confidence to members by making the general resources of the Fund temporarily available to them under adequate safeguards, thus providing them with opportunity to correct maladjustments in their balance of payments without resorting to measures destructive of national or international prosperity.”

To deter Russian and other country directors from voting last week against the IMF’s loan, and releasing their reasons in public, the IMF board has offered Russia the possibility of, though not the commitment to repayment for Gazprom’s gas deliveries, and the $3 billion Russian state bond which falls due in December.

On March 11 the IMF board agreed to approve an Extended Loan Facility (EFF) for Ukraine for a total of 13.4 billion Special Drawing Rights (SDR), currently equivalent to $17.5 billion. Here are the IMF papers spelling out the details.

………

Take a magnifying glass to the tables titled “Ukraine Capacity to Repay Indicators” in last year’s SBA, and in this month’s EFF: it can be seen the newly scheduled repayments to the IMF are significantly larger from now until 2019 in the new scheme than they were in the old one, and of course they go on for much longer – another decade in fact. . For comparison, go to the SBA document, “Assessment of the Risks to the Fund and the Fund’s Liquidity Position”, page 10; for the EFF document, open this link, and go to the similarly titled document, page 13.

At the IMF Andrew Tweedie (below left) and Mark Flanagan (centre) are responsible for drafting this sleight of hand; Nikolai Gueorguiev (right), a former Bulgarian finance ministry official, has been in charge of negotiating the terms with the government in Kiev. In 2008 Flanagan was much more sceptical in his assessment of Ukrainian government accountability and capacity to repay much smaller liabilities than is plain today.

………

This trio is now making the IMF loan look less onerous for the Ukrainian economy by projecting faster recovery of GDP and exports than they thought was reasonable a year ago; and also by anticipating that other forms of debt relief, including grants, subsidies, and low-cost loans from the US and European Union will reduce the proportion of Ukrainian debt owed to the IMF.

That’s guesswork. It didn’t work in 2014 — because of the war in the east. As Lagarde’s reference to the ceasefire implies, and the EFF papers now confirm, if the war continues, the government in Kiev will be unable to repay; the IMF board’s loan conditions will falter; and disbursement of the EFF cash will stop, just as the SBA cashflow did from last October. So what calculation is the IMF making of the military costs and the war’s impact on what the IMF is calling the Ukraine’s fiscal balance?

There are 163 pages in the dossier released by the IMF to demonstrate that the new loan to Ukraine meets the Fund’s charter, lending conditions, and criteria for repayment. The term “war” appears only once, referring to “war-induced supply shocks”; the terms “defence” and “army”, not at all. Referring to military spending by the government, the IMF dossier acknowledges the “risks to the outlook are exceptionally high and predominantly on the downside. Fighting in the East may resume and spread. This would unravel confidence, increase the direct loss of economic and export capacity while military spending may rise sharply.” This is an admission that the war is what the IMF charter labels “measures destructive of national or international prosperity.”
………

This reveals that past and future spending on the war and the rearmament programme President Petro Poroshenko announced last week are “one-offs”, below the budget line, and not counted by the IMF in the conditions it has set for the release of the scheduled instalments. Since budget funds are fungible, and since the Ukrainian government and Verkhovna Rada (parliament) have agreed to increase military spending substantially, the IMF was asked to say why it is contributing to the war risks by allowing EFF support for military budget outlays at the same time as it is concealing their magnitude in reporting to the IMF board.

………

For the time being, the Russian Finance Ministry is not demurring. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov (right) followed Lagarde’s announcement of board approval for the EFF with this confirmation that Russia will contribute its share to the loan. “The [EFF] program will be financed via the IMF quota resources, and the funding from shareholder countries in the framework of their participation in the so-called New Borrowing arrangements. As such, the Russian Federation will participate in the funding in accordance with its obligations as a participant, and deliver the first tranche of the IMF program for Ukraine in the amount of $13.75 million dollars. The Bank of Russia will carry out the payment on 13 March 2015.”

Although the Obama Administration claims it will not deliver lethal military equipment, it has been offering loans, repayment guarantees, and cash support for Ukrainian military agencies to buy it through third countries. Russian analysts call this a takeover by the Pentagon of the Ukrainian defence budget. Details of the line items totalling UAH 85 billion (about $4 billion) approved this month by the Verkhovna Rada can be read here. International bankers say they cannot think of a precedent in which the treasury of a country at war finances a defeated opponent to renew the fight. Siluanov hints his reason is tactical. Moscow will not call a default of covenants in the December 2013 bond for $3 billion, he says, if Kiev agrees to exclude this debt from its restructuring of other bond obligations, and repays the Russian debt at maturity this coming December.

Let me get this straight:

  • The US is pushing for the IMF loan to fund the war.  
  • The IMF is pretending that there is no war.
  • The Russians are looking the other way, because it has been implied to the IMF loans might be applied to Russian loans to the Ukraine, and the arrears to owed to Gazprom.

 Am I the only one to find this completely f%$#ed up?

H/t naked capitalism.

Today’s Must Read

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Ted Rall’s essay Obama Destroyed Libya. (alternate link here, the first link is twitchy)

He makes a number of points, that Libya under Gaddafi was generally prosperous, at least by the standards of Africa and the Arab world, albeit with a pretty horrific human rights record, and now it is a basket case with a growing lawlessness and it has become a locus for terrorist activity.

I think that the most important part of his essay though, is his conclusion that Barack Obama did not learn the lesson that he should have from this fiasco:

To Obama’s credit, he admits that he screwed up in Libya. Unfortunately, he drew the wrong lesson. In 2014, he told an interviewer that a large ground invasion force might have helped Libya’s post-Gaddafi government succeed. Because that worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan. But if he really believes that, why doesn’t he order in the troops?

 Obama’s real mistake was to depose a secular socialist autocrat and allow him to be replaced by a bunch of crazy religious fundamentalist militias whose factionalism ensured they’d never be able to govern.

 Bush committed this error in Iraq. Obama made it in Libya. And now he’s doing it again in Syria.

Obama’s already destroyed one country with a “stupid war”, and now he’s trying for a sequel in Syria.

The foreign policy consensus as regards the Arab world is a toxic mixture of hubris, which, when juxtaposed with the incomprehensible need to appease the various Gulf monarchs (UAE in Libya, Saudi Arabia with Syria) has produced nothing but failure and insecurity.

This all looks so much like Athens’ disastrous Sicilian Expedition during the Peloponnesian War.

H/T DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

This is Not a Dilemma Unless You Let the House of Saud Make it One

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The collapse of the Yemeni government under the assault of the Houthi militias is a good thing for everyone but the House of Saud:

The American-backed government of Yemen abruptly collapsed Thursday night, leaving the country leaderless as it is convulsed by an increasingly powerful force of pro-Iran rebels and a resurgent Qaeda.

The resignation of the president, prime minister and cabinet took American officials by surprise and heightened the risks that Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, would become even more of a breeding ground for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has claimed responsibility for audacious anti-Western attacks — including the deadly assault on Charlie Hebdo in Paris this month.

The Houthi are Shia, and Al Qaeda is virulently anti-Shia, and if they take power, they will undoubtedly be an implacable foe of the terrorist organization.

This is not an issue for the United States.

In fact, a Houthi dominated government is likely to be better at fighting Al Qaeda, because they understand the genocidal ferocity of that group against Shiites.

The only people who should have a problem is the House of Saud, who have been applying pressure for years to ensure the complete disenfranchisement of Shiites pretty much everywhere.

Unfortunately, the US foreign policy establishment does not understand that their foreign policy interests are not the same as those of the Saudis.

Your Moment of Eric Arthur Blair

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The Obama administration is claiming that US human rights law does not apply to the mercenary rebels that the US is training and arming in Syria:

Buried down in a report about Pentagon plans to train more mercenaries to fight against Syria we find this declaration of intend by the Obama administration to (again) break the law:

The military screening plan came together after the Obama administration determined that the training program for the Syrians would not be subject to what are known as the Leahy laws, which typically govern U.S. security assistance to foreign forces.

Under those laws, a small office at the State Department works with U.S. embassies overseas to ensure that recipients of State or Defense Department security assistance aren’t linked to major human rights abuses.

…

Because the Syrian rebels will not be part of a state-sponsored force, the laws will not apply, U.S. officials said.

Wait a second. The U.S. congress has set aside $500 million to train, equip and pay these fighters. The U.S. military will do the training. And the Obama administration claims that these are not “state-sponsored forces”? Is the U.S. no longer a nation state?

 Besides that the Leahy law as codified for the Pentagon in Section 8057 of the 2014 Omnibus bill does not say anything about “state-sponsored forces”:

(1) None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for any training, equipment, or other assistance for the members of a unit of a foreign security force if the Secretary of Defense has credible information that the unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.

(2) The Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall ensure that prior to a decision to provide any training, equipment, or other assistance to a unit of a foreign security force full consideration is given to any credible information available to the Department of State relating to human rights violations by such unit.

There is nothing about “state-sponsored” in the Pentagon relevant portion of the Leahy law. Will these trained be “foreign”? Yes. Will they be “security forces”? Arguably because they will likely bring more insecurity to Syria than security. But they will have weapons, will be organized in units and will fight. That seems to fit the expression “foreign security force”.

………

All the groups the CIA has trained and equipped to fight against Syria have committed major human rights violations. But the Leahy law does not apply to the CIA. Now as the Pentagon takes over the training of such groups the Leahy law becomes relevant. I dare anyone to find a group of Syrian insurgents fighting against the Syrian government that has not indiscriminately shelled civilians and not committed other major human rights abuses. There is none.

The Obama administration wants to avoid the applicability of the Leahy law because applying it would leave the Pentagon without any potential recruits to train as mercenaries against the Syrian government. It decided to break the law by using an interpretation that actually not covered by the laws wording. It has thus decided to break the law.

Barack Obama, who was a critic of the expansive view of the Unitary Executive advanced by the Bush administration, has become one of its biggest fans.

Worst Constitutional law professor ever.

Since ISIS was Created by Efforts to Overthrow Bashar al-Assad, It Follows that Fighting ISIS Might Involve Eschewing the Goals to Overthrow Bashar al-Assad

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One of the realities that is studiously ignored in the west is that the Syrian civil war has its roots in efforts by the Gulf monarchies to overthrow the Damascus regime.

These efforts sowed misery throughout the region, and boosted Salafist militias through the area.

Another reality being studiously ignored is that ISIS was, until recently, the private military of the House of Saud, assembled by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then head of the Saudi intelligence agency.

It comes as no surprise that it appears that people are discovering that fighting ISIS is incompatible with the immediate overthrow of the Baathist regime in Syria:

The Obama administration, as I wrote last week, has at least a hypothetical way forward in Iraq, but not in Syria, which it is currently treating as the rear sanctuary for Islamic State (IS) forces besieging Iraq. By the time its long-term plan to train insurgents to fight both IS and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad reaches fruition, there may be very little Syria left to save. Even that’s assuming that the administration takes its own plan seriously, which past history suggests it will not.

What, then, can be done — by anyone — to turn off the Syrian meat grinder?

Last week, David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote about a leaked document proposing a set of local cease-fires between Syrian rebels and the regime that might ultimately lead to a process of political reconciliation. The column whipped up a tornado of speculation in the very small world of Syria experts. That, in turn, led David Harland, the head of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), the Geneva-based organization responsible for the document, to produce a finished report outlining the proposal and then to send it to me. The document remains private, so I can’t link to it, but I can quote from it. The argument it makes must be taken seriously by anyone who cares about Syria.

………

The premise of the HD report, titled “Steps to Settle the Syrian Conflict,” is that neither the regime nor the rebels are capable of defeating the other. The savage stalemate creates conditions in which both IS and Jabhat al-Nusra, the local al Qaeda offshoot, can thrive. Worse, the haplessness of mainstream insurgent groups has “radicalized and salafized” the rank and file, who are increasingly joining the jihadists. With the rout last week of American-backed brigades in the western city of Idlib, non-jihadi rebels are in danger of becoming a marginal force in Syria. At the same time, the Syrian state — which is now functional, but not much more, across much of the country — is coming ever closer to collapse. As the state grows weaker, criminal elements and militias grow ever stronger, while IS and al-Nusra fill the vacuum of governance. Syria could collapse into Somalia. There is an urgent need to preserve the state, so the argument goes, even if that also means keeping Assad in power. “Better to have a regime and a state than not to have a state,” as Harland pithily puts it.

I see any action that can be seen as a big f%$# you to the House of Saud as an independent good, so I am not an unbiased source, but I do think that this is the reality here.