Posted on 06/15/2013 8:58:50 AM PDT by lbryce
Russia's spokesman for international cooperation in fighting terrorism Alexander Zmeyovsky said that Russia is "gravely concerned" about U.S. reports of Assad's chemical weapons use in Syria, according to The Voice Of Russia.
Earlier today, the Obama administration advised Moscow that it should "pull its support" from the Assad regime.
As we've already reported, there are Russian troops in Syria, and should a fight take place, those troops would be in harm's way.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
It’s better for Assad to stay in power. Better Assad than the Muzzie Brotherhood leading to a revived Ottoman Empire.
Plus Putin has to keep those arms factories running.
Russia has a spotty history in supporting their allies. Kosovo was a good example of them basically turning tail and running after a symbolic “flipping the bird” at NATO/US by beating them to the Airport. I think that Iran has gotten more support from China than Russian as far as the economic embargo that the US set up as well.
Part of the problem is that the Russian don’t have near the military power that they used to have so going up against the US and or Europeans is not something that they really want to do. That may change here as Syria is important for a number of reasons.
First they are the last of Russia’s allies in that region and the only port that they really have outside of Russia so militarily this is a very strategic country for them.
Second Russia has a strangle hold on Europe for natural gas and one of the main reasons the US and Europe are pushing this war is so that they can build a Natural Gas pipeline into Europe and basically blunt the Russian monopoly. So this represents a very real threat to the Russian economy and very powerful oligarchs.
Third Putin has been building up the military and has dreams of resurrecting the super power status of the old USSR. This may be the ideal place for him to give the US a bloody nose. He’s been treating the US representative like s%^t and dissing Obama, Kerry and most other US politicians to try and see what their reaction would be. Kind of like a bully that tests to see if his victim will fight back before really going full Monty on him.
Fourthly the US leadership has been very weak, Obama and his practically all female staff just don’t seem to have the testosterone needed to appear even remotely credible here which suggests that they will cut and run at the first sign of serious resistance. If Russia via Syria hit the US hard enough to generate significant US death toll they may believe that the US would bolt (and I think that would be true). This kind of weakness displayed is just inviting someone like Putin to see how far he can push this.
If we’re on board with supplying natural gas to Europe, why hasn’t the administation permitted the new facilities on the eascoast and the Gulf of Mexico that are waiting for approval. Granted that would be a nightmare for Russia as demonstrated by the recent Ukrainian scam persumably by Russia.
I pray we stay out of Syria and Putin is still a commie and all rooskie commies want to kill Americans. Sheesh.
LLS
We need to sit this one out. A secular Syria is better than an Isamist Syria. Its all bad but I think Sarah Palin said “let Allah sort it out”.
“The Shooter”. I can probably recite that whole movie. I always thought the senator from Montana was deliberately cast to mimic john mccain. It DID bother me some to see memphis wearing a che tee shirt though.
Russia is “gravely concerned” about U.S. reports of Assad’s chemical weapons use in Syria....#1 I doubt Russia puts ANY stock in what Obama says. #2, they MAY be gravely concerned because those chemicals were shipped from Iraq at the beginning of Desert Shield in a truck convoy which was shielded by Russian vehicles (remember the international protest lodged at the beginning about US troops shooting the hell out of Russian diplomat vehicles, hmmm?)#3. Russia don’t give a shiite about ‘Troops’ caught in the middle.
You wear the outfit the director tells you to wear.
I know...which is why it bothered me.
If I was Russia—I wouldn’t back down. America is a paper tiger under Obama—his war is un-popular. A few bodies and the USA will call it quits. We have no really good idea what we are doing there? If Russia can win the Civil War for Assad they will enhance their standing in the Arab world. This isn’t the old USSR—Its Putin’s Russian Empire. We are not the USA of JFK or even Nixon. We have lost the moral high ground.
100% correct.
In some ways, this is a rerun of the Crimean War.
The Russian struggles against the Turks, oddly enough, included the participation of John Paul Jones, in the 1780s, but reach back a couple more centuries, the culmination of Ivan IV (the Terrible)’s campaign against the Tatars (a Turkish people), destruction of their capital Kazan, and conquest of the Crimea. The Tatars who survived were brought under nominal Russian rule, but were permitted to operate their own traditional courts. And the Tatars had been extracting tribute from the Russian kingdoms for a few hundred years prior to that.
In the 19th c Otto von Bismarck assembled the modern German nation-state, and created a treaty system that diplomatically isolated France and kept the peace in western Europe for more than forty years (no UN, no satellite verification), and in the east created an alliance which cooperated in the dismantling of the crumbling Ottoman Empire.
http://www.xenophon-mil.org/ruscity/volga/kazan/kazsiege.htm
http://www.history.navy.mil/bios/jones_jp_conrad.htm
[snip] While in Denmark, he was offered a commission in the Imperial Russian Navy. Attracted by the opportunity to command a fleet and hoping that his new title would impress Congress enough to award him with an admiral’s rank, and attracted by the prospect of adventure and glory, Jones accepted the offer and set out for St. Petersburg. Sent to the Black Sea, the new rear admiral believed he would command all the naval forces in that theater in their operations against the Turks, but quickly learned that three other rear admirals served in the command and each jealously guarded his powers and privileges. Jones was instrumental in the Russian navy victory at Liman, but another admiral, Prince Nassau-Siegen, a friend of Empress Catherine II’s key advisor, Gregorii Aleksandrovich, Prince Potemkin, successfully usurped all the credit for the victory. Jones was recalled to Moscow and spent several months making plans until a trumped-up sex charge linking Jones and a young girl scandalized the empress and ended any chances for his restoration to command. [/snip]
Well said. Russia’s following the script, and digging in deeper. This is their last ally in the Middle East, and they’re going to stick as long as they can without suffering outright defeat. They will have to leave, and Assad will fall. They should set up an enclave for the fairly numerous mixed marriage couples (Syrians married to Russians) and their families, against the need to evacuate them, but I doubt Assad will permit that, for his own security. In Afghanistan the Russians set up a puppet, then decided it was the wrong puppet for the job, and sent commandos in to kill their first puppet. Months ago, during the rumors that Assad had either narrowly missed assassination or had been assassinated, my guess was that the Russians had tried to kill him off. The earlier attack that killed everyone at a meeting of a bunch of high-ranking Assad regime thugs never got attributed to any of the rebel groups, so that was probably a Russian op to get rid of Assad and his inner circle — but Assad missed that meeting.
Well put.
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