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Russia in a 'state of war' with Europe

Guns Of August 2013

In July 1914 the Great Powers of Europe ((Italy, France, Germany, the British Empire, the Austria-Hungarian Empire and Russia) failed to come to a diplomatic solution to the growing nationalism, the colonialism that the Great Powers forced upon the Third World, the growing call for war that was filling the continent of Europe.  Then the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian national member of the Serbian nationalist organization, the Black Hand, in the city of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was the final straw that broke the proverbial camel's back for the Great Powers and the Guns of August fired.

Now in this last week of August we are beginning to hear the Guns of August rolling again.  A different part of the World, (The Middle East not Europe.) and different players (Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, Russia, Israel, United States, Great Britain.).  Diplomacy has failed, Assad of Syria will not listen to the world.  And the Assad regime attacked his own civilian population with Sarin gas.  But the outcome of their actions just might ignite the world into a global war.

From Debka:

Ahead of the US strike on Syria, the Israeli security cabinet in special session Wednesday, Aug. 28, ordered the partial mobilization of select, qualitative IDF reserve forces: Rocket, Air Force, missile interception, Home Defense command and intelligence units. Anti-missile Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome systems were spread out more widely than ever before across the country. US and Syria wound up last military preparations for the US strike. Barring last-minute hold-ups, debkafile’s military sources report the American operation is scheduled to start Friday night, early Saturday Aug. 30-31.(Confirmed)

In the past 24 hours, the US Air Force finished a major buildup at the big US Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. B-1B bombers and F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets were brought over from other US Mid East air facilities on the Omani island of Masirah and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

These squadrons were not assigned to the US military strike against Syria, say our military sources, but will stand ready to move in should unforeseen complications in the course of the US missile assault on Syria call for the introduction of extra assets from outside.

Israeli officials and spokesmen continued to insist Wednesday on low expectations of a Syrian counter-offensive against their country. Nevertheless, the new US air force reinforcements in Qatar will stand ready to rush to the aid of US allies - Israel, Jordan and Turkey - in the event of their coming under Syrian Scud attack.

On the opposite side, the Syrian army Tuesday started scattering personnel, weapons and air assets to safe places to reduce their exposure to damage and losses from US assaults.

Our military sources report that personnel, tanks and artillery of the Syrian Army’s 4th and Republican Guard Divisions, which are held responsible for the Aug. 21 chemical attack on civilians, were being moved into fortified shelters built last year against potential foreign military intervention.(Confirmed)

Syrian army command centers in Homs, Hama, Latakia and the Aleppo region were also being split up and dispersed, after a tip-off to Syrian and Russian intelligence that they would be targeted by the US strike. Syria has also transferred its Air Force fighter planes, bombers and attack helicopters to fortified shelters which are armored against missile and air attack.

In Israel, the IDF Wednesday installed two Iron Dome missile interceptors in the northern “Valleys” region and Safed in addition to Haifa. Another Iron Dome battery was posted in the heavily populated central district. Arrow, Patriot anti-missile missiles, as well as Iron Domes, have been deployed more widely across Israel than ever before. debkafile’s military sources report that Israel’s Arrow and Patriot interceptors are linked to the US missile shield with which their operation is synchronized.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel was ready for any scenario. Although it takes no part in the Syrian civil war crisis, Israel would not hesitate to fight back for any attempted attacks – and would do so forcefully.

Wednesday morning, the machinery for distributing gas masks to the population broke down under the pressure of demands to distribution centers across the country. The Homeland Ministry’s website crashed. Former Interior Minister Ellie Yishay complained of a shortage of protective masks due to budget cuts. He said there are only enough to supply 40 percent of the population.

Will someone please tell me why are we getting involved in a civil war?  Have we not learned from past experience (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) that we cannot defeat a military using conventional military tactics and Obama's idea of rules of engagement.  Rules written to give the enemy every advantage.

All I can see if we attack Syria is that we support al-Queda and enter into a war we cannot extract ourselves from for years.  A war that will cost the US thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

Russia Is Pulling Out Of Syria

By Findalis
Monkey in the Middle

And they are doing it fast.  Very fast.

You know that things are heating up in Syria when longtime ally of Bashar al-Assad's Syria is pulling their troops out of Syria.  Add to that Israel going on high alert, President Obama and his Security Council is not concerned, and one can expect the area to blow up soon.

Shortly after the DEBKA aired a special video on the Syrian war’s widening circle, Moscow announced Wednesday June 26, that the evacuation which had begun Friday of all military and diplomatic personnel from Syria was now complete, including the Russian naval base at Tartus.

“Russia decided to withdraw its personnel because of the risks from the conflict in Syria, as well as the fear of an incident involving the Russian military that could have larger consequences,” said a defense ministry official in Moscow. He stressed that a 16-ship naval task force in the eastern Mediterranean remains on post and arms shipments, including anti-air weapons, would continue to the Syrian government in keeping with former contracts.

In another sign of an impending escalation in Syria, the Israeli Golan brigade staged Wednesday an unannounced war maneuver on the Golan, attended by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and top army chiefs. In London, Prime Minister David Cameron called the government’s National Security Council into session in Downing Street on Syria. Opposition leader Ed Milliband was invited to attend the meeting, a custom observed only when issues of the highest security importance are discussed.

Earlier Wednesday, debkafile carried the following report in its special video presentation under the heading: Putin and Obama cross swords on Syrian. What Next?

The sullen confrontation between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland last week condemned Syria to five months of escalating, unresolved vicious warfare – that is until the two leaders meet again in September.

For now, tempers are heating up between Washington and Moscow on Syria and other things too, notably the elusive American fugitive Edward Snowden.



Click here if the video doesn't load.

US and Israeli intelligence watchers see the Syrian crisis entering seven ominous phases:

1. The Syrian army plus allies and the fully-mobilized opposition will hurl all their manpower and weapons into winning the city.

Military experts don’t expect the rebels to hold out against Assad’s forces beyond late August.

2. Neither side has enough manpower or game-changing weaponry for winning the war outright.

That is, unless Presidents Obama or Putin steps in to retilt the balance.

3. The US and Russia are poised for more military intervention in the conflict up until a point just short of a military clash on Syrian soil – or elsewhere in the Middle East. US intelligence analysts have judged Putin ready to go all the way on Syria against the US - no holds barred.

The Russian president is meanwhile deliberately goading Washington and raising temperatures by playing hide-and-seek over the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, charged with espionage for stealing and leaking classified intelligence. At home, he is considered variously as a traitor and a brave whistleblower.

For several hours Snowden vanished between Hong Kong and Moscow – until the Russian president admitted he was holed up in the transit area of Moscow airport and would not be extradited by Russia to the United States.

4. Iran, Hizballah and Iraq will likewise ratchet up their battlefield presence.

5. A violent encounter is building up between Middle East Shiites flocking to Syria to save the Assad regime alongside Russia, and the US-backed Sunni-dominated rebel forces.

It could scuttle the secret US-Iranian negotiating track on its nuclear program, which was buoyed up by the election of the pragmatic Hassan Rouhani as President of Iran.

6. The Geneva-2 Conference for a political solution for the Syrian crisis is dead in the water. Moscow and the US are divided by unbridgeable issues of principle, such whether Bashar Assad should stay or go and Iranian representation.

7. So long as the diplomatic remains stuck in the mud, the prospects of a regional war spreading out of the Syrian conflict are rising. Iran, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon may be dragged in at any moment – if they have not already, like Lebanon.

A small mistake by one of the Syrian warring parties in Syria could, for example, touch off Israeli retaliation and a wholesale spillover of violence.

Source

What we are seeing is the product of President Barack Hussein Obama's foreign policy of leading from behind.  Behind truly is.  As we are getting the shaft right up our Ass.

Al Qaeda, Barack Hussein Obama, Beirut, Drones, Iran, Lebanon, Middle East, Russia, Syria, US Foreign Policy, US Military,

By Findalis
Monkey in the Middle

Today an US drone was shot at in International Air Space by Iranian Forces.  It was repelled by US fighter Jets which are now flying escort for US drones.

The Syrian High Command issued an ultimatum to the Lebanese government to stop supporting the rebels or they will send their Air Force to strike the convoys and bases.

The Russian Navy decided not to have 3 warships dock at Tartus but diverted them to Beirut.

From Debka:

Middle East tensions are spiraling sharply six days before US President Barack Obama lands in the Middle East. Thursday night, March 14, an Iranian fighter jet tried to bring down a US Predator drone flying over Oman, i.e. the Straits of Hormuz - only to be warned off by flares from its US fighter escort.

This was not the first time a US drone was threatened by Iranian aircraft over the Persian Gulf, but in reporting the incident, the Pentagon revealed that the drones flying in the neighborhood of Iranian shores are now escorted by US jet fighters. A couple of hours earlier that evening, debkafile received an exclusive report from its military sources that the Syrian high command had just issued an ultimatum, on the orders of Bashar Assad, demanding that the Lebanese government put an immediate stop to the passage of armed Sunni fighters from Lebanon into Syria, else the Syrian Air Force would strike the Lebanese intruders’ convoys and also their home bases. Damascus claimed they were coming to fight the government alongside the al Qaeda-linked Jabrat al-Nusra.

Their incursion threatened to engender a major spillover of the Syrian conflict into Lebanon.

The danger of hostilities inching close to the Syrian port of Tartus, where Moscow maintains a naval base, decided the Russian Navy to instruct three warships carrying 700 marines to Tartus to change course and put in at Beirut instead.

The Iranians are openly supporting and fighting for Assad.  Al Qaeda is striving to take the Golan Heights, itching for a fight with Israel.  The Russians don't know which way to turn.  Support Assad or flee from the violence.  The UN peacekeepers on the Syrian-Israeli border have fled to Israel.  A patrol was kidnapped by al Qaeda.

All this on the eve of President Barack Hussein Obama's visit to the region.  A good example of his foreign policy in action.