uawchild
uawchild's JournalTurkey could cut off Islamic State’s supply lines. So why doesn’t it?
by David Graeber, The Guardian UK
In the wake of the murderous attacks in Paris, we can expect western heads of state to do what they always do in such circumstances: declare total and unremitting war on those who brought it about. They don’t actually mean it. They’ve had the means to uproot and destroy Islamic State within their hands for over a year now. They’ve simply refused to make use of it. In fact, as the world watched leaders making statements of implacable resolve at the G20 summit in Antalaya, these same leaders are hobnobbing with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a man whose tacit political, economic, and even military support contributed to Isis’s ability to perpetrate the atrocities in Paris, not to mention an endless stream of atrocities inside the Middle East.
How could Isis be eliminated? In the region, everyone knows. All it would really take would be to unleash the largely Kurdish forces of the YPG (Democratic Union party) in Syria, and PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ party) guerillas in Iraq and Turkey. These are, currently, the main forces actually fighting Isis on the ground. They have proved extraordinarily militarily effective and oppose every aspect of Isis’s reactionary ideology.
But instead, YPG-controlled territory in Syria finds itself placed under a total embargo by Turkey, and PKK forces are under continual bombardment by the Turkish air force. Not only has Erdoğan done almost everything he can to cripple the forces actually fighting Isis; there is considerable evidence that his government has been at least tacitly aiding Isis itself.
It might seem outrageous to suggest that a Nato member like Turkey would in any way support an organisation that murders western civilians in cold blood. That would be like a Nato member supporting al-Qaida. But in fact there is reason to believe that Erdoğan’s government does support the Syrian branch of al-Qaida (Jabhat al-Nusra) too, along with any number of other rebel groups that share its conservative Islamist ideology. The Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University has compiled a long list of evidence of Turkish support for Isis in Syria.
And then there are Erdoğan’s actual, stated positions. Back in August, the YPG, fresh from their victories in Kobani and Gire Spi, were poised to seize Jarablus, the last Isis-held town on the Turkish border that the terror organisation had been using to resupply its capital in Raqqa with weapons, materials, and recruits – Isis supply lines pass directly through Turkey.
Commentators predicted that with Jarablus gone, Raqqa would soon follow. Erdoğan reacted by declaring Jarablus a “red line”: if the Kurds attacked, his forces would intervene militarily – against the YPG. So Jarablus remains in terrorist hands to this day, under de facto Turkish military protection.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/18/turkey-cut-islamic-state-supply-lines-erdogan-isis
"In Syria, the joke’s on Washington"
By Josh Cohen, Reuters
"When Russia began its military campaign in Syria, the Obama administration and its allies quickly claimed it was a disaster in the making. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called Russian President Vladimir Putin “impulsive” and said he was “winging it” in Syria with no long-term strategy. Former United States Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul ridiculed Putin’s “supposed strategic genius,” arguing the Russian leader “cannot restore Assad’s authority over the whole country.” Even President Barack Obama joined the chorus, publicly warning Putin that he risked an Afghanistan-style Russian “quagmire” in Syria.
It turns out, though, that the joke’s on Washington: Thanks to shrewd tactics plus tailwinds from the Paris attacks, Syria is turning into a major strategic victory for Putin. Here’s what he’s accomplished and how he did it.
For starters, as Putin explained in both 2013 and during his recent United Nations speech, what he fears most is power vacuums filled by extremists. As Putin stated early in Russia’s bombing campaign, Russia did not plan major ground operations, since its goal was simply “to stabilize the legitimate government” to prevent its immediate overthrow. For this reason, as director of the Carnegie Moscow Center Dimitri Trenin argues, Putin never meant to help Bashar al-Assad achieve complete military victory, but rather to stave off Syria’s collapse.
Putin has already met this first objective. The Assad regime is no longer in imminent danger, and with Russian air support it has actually re-taken key areas in central Syria and Aleppo. As a result, the regime’s key territory in its Alawite heartland no longer faces the risk of being overrun.
Putin’s second achievement has been to expand Russian military and political influence throughout the Middle East. Russia established a number of bases in the west of Syria while also expanding its naval base at Tartus — Moscow’s only permanent naval presence outside Russia and a key refueling depot for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Putin can now project Russian military strength throughout the Levant and eastern Mediterranean."
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/11/24/in-syria-the-jokes-on-washington/
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The lack of a coherent US policy in Syria besides vague and indifferently backed up protestations that "Assad must go" is the core of the problem. What is our end game strategy to end the civil/proxy war in Syria? What is OUR peace plan? To keep funneling arms into "moderate islamist rebels"?
It's past time for the US to broker real compromise and conduct serious peace talks in Syria.
Russian entry into Turkish airspace lasted 'seconds': U.S. official
Source: Yahoo News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States believes Russia's incursion into Turkish airspace on Tuesday likely lasted only a matter of seconds before Turkey shot down a Russian warplane, a U.S. official said, saying the assessment was based on preliminary indications.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-entry-turkish-airspace-lasted-seconds-u-official-164618732.html
Trigger happy Turkey -- nice. So much for the 5 minute violation and repeated, what was it, 10 warnings Turkey claimed it gave during this incident, eh?
I am sure NATO is happy as clams about this. This type of incident, where a slightly unhinged NATO member acts in an overboard aggressive manner is exactly the Achilles heel of the alliance -- too many smaller powers with grudges and agendas of their own that then try to invoke NATO to protect them from the consequences of their own military adventurism.
"As her lead in the primary widens, Clinton seems to be moving back toward the center."
"Hillary Clinton is playing a dangerous game: How her anti-Bernie talking points could cost her — and America — big time
As her lead in the primary widens, Clinton seems to be moving back toward the center. This could be a huge mistake."
by CONOR LYNCH
"Hillary Clinton is starting to remind progressives why the name Clinton brings up such a mixed bag of emotions, and why it’s so hard to believe Clinton’s pivot to the left this campaign season. Lately, the “progressive who likes to get things done” has gone after her main competition, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for his advocacy of a single-payer healthcare system, which is a staple of progressive policy, found in many other industrialized states like Canada and Taiwan. Taking a page out of the GOP handbook, Clinton and her campaigners have gone into fear-mongering mode about the fact that such a plan would cause an increase in taxes on the middle class.
“Hardworking, middle-class families need a raise, not a tax increase,” said Clinton during the second Democratic debate, while a senior adviser to a pro-Clinton organization tweeted: “Hillary Clinton was the only one who ruled out raising taxes on the middle class – others talked about raising taxes to 70 and 90 percent.” Of course, this is nonsense. Sanders only stated the fact that the top rate was over 90 percent under Dwight Eisenhower. He was quite clear when he said: “We haven’t come up with an exact number yet, but it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was 90 percent. I’m not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower.” (Plus, people seem to forget that he is talking about a progressive tax, with top rates only on income over a certain level, not all of the income an eligible individual earns.)"
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/20/hillary_clinton_is_playing_a_dangerous_game_how_her_anti_bernie_talking_points_could_cost_her_and_america_big_time/
Bernie Sanders vs. the 1 percent’s propaganda machine
"Bernie Sanders vs. the 1 percent’s propaganda machine: Can he convince Americans to stop voting against their self-interest?
For a generation, working class Republicans have been undermining themselves. This is Bernie's biggest challenge"
by CONOR LYNCH
In “America’s Bitter Pill,” Steven Brill’s masterful work on the passage and implementation of Obamacare, there is an interesting anecdote about an elderly couple from Kentucky, the Browns, who had gone through the ringer of America’s broken healthcare system before the Affordable Care Act was introduced. Unable to get insurance because of a pre-existing condition, they could not afford medication for their many afflictions, from heart disease to diabetes to pain sprouting from a crushed vertebrae. When Obamacare finally came around in Kentucky, with its state healthcare exchange (Kentucky was one of the few red states that complied), the Browns couldn’t believe their luck:
“The Browns had heard about Kynect from television ads [Carrie] Banahan (the Executive Director of the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange) had purchased. “We thought it was too good to be true,” Viola Brown told me. “It seemed like the answer to our prayers.”… Shelbyville is in Shelby County, which had voted 67-33 percent for Mitt Romney over Barack Obama. The Browns are white as is 90 percent of Shelby County. Of the four people among those who were enrolling that afternoon who said they had voted and were willing to share their choice with me, all four had voted for Romney. Yet [Kentucky Governor Steve] Beshear’s message — or perhaps simply the lure of “answered prayers” that Viola Brown had expressed — seemed to have gotten through. What they were doing at those card tables with the kynectors was not about Barack Obama. In fact, none mentioned Obamacare, except for the one enrollee who said that Kynect was “a lot better than Obamacare.”
This short anecdote says a lot about American politics. It is an example of how political ignorance can be harmful, and how working class people, particularly the white working class, seemingly vote against their interests without even realizing it. The right wing propaganda machine — largely funded by the beloved Koch brothers (recall that creepy commercial with the Uncle Sam Gynecologist) and other special interests — created a panic that the government was “taking over” the healthcare system (if only) and that “death panels” (a Sarah Palin myth that remains in the minds of many to this day), made up of Orwellian bureaucrats deciding who is worthy of healthcare, would be introduced. (Because the private industry was so good at deciding who deserved coverage, after all.)"
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/16/bernie_sanders_vs_the_1_percents_propaganda_machine_can_he_convince_americans_to_stop_voting_against_their_self_interest/
Many Americans lukewarm on Obama Keystone pipeline rejection
Source: Reuters
Many Americans are lukewarm on President Barack Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, with more than a third saying they didn't care either way, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.
Of 920 adults asked between Nov. 9 through Nov. 11 about the president's decision, 35 percent said they neither agreed nor disagreed. Another 14 percent said they only somewhat agreed and 13 percent said they somewhat disagreed.
TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline to link existing networks to let oil flow from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, was rejected by the Obama administration on Nov. 6 after years of deliberation.
The 1,200-mile (1931 km) pipeline out of Alberta's oil sands became a flashpoint for environmentalists, who argued the U.S. should keep the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground as the country shifts to renewable energy and not enable additional oil extraction. Activists celebrated Obama's decision in Lafayette Square across from the White House. The poll showed how starkly the issue of approving the pipeline divides along political fault lines, with 30 percent of Democrats saying they strongly agreed, but just 6 percent of Republicans.
The approval process for the pipeline, which became an issue in the U.S. Democratic presidential race, began when Hillary Clinton was Obama's secretary of state. For weeks on the campaign trail she resisted staking out her position, saying she would wait for the administration's decision. In September she said she could wait no longer and recommended the pipeline's rejection.
Clinton's chief challenger, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has long said rejecting the pipeline was a "no brainer."
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/13/us-usa-keystone-poll-idUSKCN0T215920151113#Bx6scSiPXPgCbiOL.97
How anyone could be in favor of thousands of miles of pipeline to further the extraction of the Tar Sands is beyond me. The bitumen from those fields should be left in the ground and never extracted -- already just the local environmental damage in Alberta, Canada alone is enough to preclude further "development".
Time for GOP panic? Establishment worried Carson or Trump might win
By Philip Rucker and Robert Costa, Washington Post
"Less than three months before the kickoff Iowa caucuses, there is growing anxiety bordering on panic among Republican elites about the dominance and durability of Donald Trump and Ben Carson and widespread bewilderment over how to defeat them.
Party leaders and donors fear that nominating either man would have negative ramifications for the GOP ticket up and down the ballot, virtually ensuring a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency and increasing the odds that the Senate falls into Democratic hands.
The party establishment is paralyzed. Big money is still on the sidelines. No consensus alternative to the outsiders has emerged from the pack of governors and senators running, and there is disagreement about how to prosecute the case against them. Recent focus groups of Trump supporters in Iowa and New Hampshire commissioned by rival campaigns revealed no silver bullet."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/time-for-gop-panic-establishment-worried-carson-and-trump-might-win/2015/11/12/38ea88a6-895b-11e5-be8b-1ae2e4f50f76_story.html
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Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind -- enjoy your tea-party base, GOPers.
Bye Bye Merkel Doctrine: German Foreign Policy Shifts Focus to Refugees
"With the refugee crisis showing no signs of abating, Germany is rapidly changing its foreign and security policy focus. Gone are the days of democracy promotion. Now the primary goal is that of preventing people from migrating to Europe."
By SPIEGEL Staff
"On the last Friday in October, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen found herself in a government jet flying just outside of Syrian airspace. She was on the way to an international security conference in Bahrain for several meetings. Her mission: crisis diplomacy.
Meanwhile, diplomats from around the world were gathered in Vienna to discuss possible ways in which the Syrian civil war could be brought to an end -- a conflict that is the primary cause for the enormous wave of refugees currently crashing over Germany and the rest of Europe. While still in the air, Von der Leyen was receiving hourly updates from the Vienna gathering. She was hopeful that a breakthrough could be reached so that she could continue the search for a solution in Bahrain.
A few days prior, the minister had been in Iraq for talks in Baghdad and for a visit to the Kurds in the north of the country. But now, the Gulf was on von der Leyen's agenda. Maps of the region were spread out on the table in front of her. Here, the Russians are bombing, and this is the area Islamic State has under its control, she said, pointing at the maps. It used to be that efforts aimed at pacifying global crisis regions fell into the category of foreign policy. These days though, such trips are part of "refugee policy," as Germany attempts to address the roots of the problem.
...
It is a goal that the German government has made its highest foreign and security policy priority: That of ensuring that as few refugees as possible embark on the long journey to Germany. The pursuit of that strategy has led to the launch of diplomatic initiatives, the questioning of development policy concepts, the subordination of long-held principles and the expansion of military missions.
The task is enormous. Europe, to borrow the vernacular of military leaders, is surrounded by a "ring of fire." Across the Mediterranean, in North Africa and the Middle East, there is an arc of crisis made up of collapsing and precarious states, where a simple selfie with the German chancellor is enough to trigger thousands to begin a journey to Europe in search of a better future.
Because Europe can't simply cut itself off, according to the logic of German refugee policy, much of the world must be transformed into a better place -- an incredibly ambitious goal that is a combination of desperation and megalomania. "We have to restore state power and stability in countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya," Minister von der Leyen said the weekend before last. "
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/refugee-crisis-leads-to-new-focus-of-german-foreign-policy-a-1062116.html
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"We have to restore state power and stability in countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya,"
Am I wrong or hasn't the the US been "restoring state power and stability" in Syria (arming "moderate islamist rebels"
, Iraq (well, you know all about the Iraq war and aftermath...), Afghanistan (pretty much same level of US involvement as in Iraq) and Libya (Arab Spring) already?
Are the Germans finally realizing that the US military solutions are not working in these countries? Is this the first glimmer that compromise and brokered peace talks between rival factions in these countries will happen?
Remember when the cold war propaganda depicted all Russian women as ugly?
And people actually bought into it... lol
Hey, here's a news article from 2014 showing very ugly mannish Russian women police officers:
"Russian Policewomen to Be Disciplined for Wearing Short Skirts"
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-policewomen-to-be-disciplined-for-wearing-short-skirts/502379.html
The ministry imposed a ban against all uniform modifications in response to the growing number of shortened skirts worn by women.
Yeah, yeah, its from the Moscow Times -- but HOLD ON Russia haters -- the Moscow Times is an independent paper! lol Pardon the levity, but this image juxtaposed to the cold war propaganda just has me giddy. lol
"In the aftermath of the Ukrainian crisis, The Moscow Times was criticized by a number of journalists like Izvestia columnist Israel Shamir, who in December 2014 called it a "militant anti-Putin paper, a digest of the Western press with extreme bias in covering events in Russia".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moscow_Times
OK, serious comment added... Thought Question: What propaganda, well, lets call it spin, do you think we are being fed today that is just as false?
Russian ballet to perform Nutcracker Thursday night in Winnipeg
Source: Global News (Canada)
WINNIPEG – The Russian Ballet is in Winnipeg for their performance of the Nutcracker Thursday at 7 p.m.
This comes as the Moscow Ballet Audition Directors in the “Dance with Us” program oversee the rehearsal of student dancers in over 70 cities featuring local children ages 7 to 16 years with at least one year of ballet training auditioned September 7th at the Marquis Dance Academy in Winnipeg.
Read more: http://globalnews.ca/news/2334634/russian-ballet-to-perform-nutcracker-thursday-night-in-winnipeg/
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