War in the Dollar Zone: the Syrian Gambit

[oddlots]

Re: War in the Dollar Zone: the Syrian Gambit

No.

An un-alloyed good?

No.

Does it evince some recognition that whatever potential the Syrian opposition might have could be literally snuffed out through sheer client-sponsored firepower?

Yes.

Is that good? I think so.

Does it give a conclusive answer to what the "right" thing to do here is? No.

It's a difficult calculation but the possibility of putting Syria's army back on its heels as a counter-balance to their Russian material support is worth the risk here I would say. Especially given the escalating carnage against ridiculously ligtly armed resistance trying to protect helpless civilians.

I really defy anyone here to claim that whatever horrors a civil war might bring, the prospect of no change for another generation is a sad excuse for the world.

Signing off.....

[unlucky]

Re: War in the Dollar Zone: the Syrian Gambit

Just here to note that politically contentious threads that six years ago belonged in Political Abyss on our forums now reside front and center.

Wonder why gold is $1,750 versus $550 as then?

There is an on-going near-global collapse of popular faith in the "authorities". (Certainly in the west, middle east, and russia - though the BRIC nations have escaped for now). Fascinating to watch.

The other possible explanation is that iTulip has attracted a wder audience as its message has been validated by events. A wider audience means the message boards start filling up with the same arguments that all other messages boards fill up with.

[don]

Re: War in the Dollar Zone: the Syrian Gambit

A wider audience means the message boards start filling up with the same arguments that all other messages boards fill up with.

Hope not. Examining the connection between the aggressive play of the military card as a partial response to the threats to the dollar's reserve currency status, and its domestic fiscal repercussions, is a discussion outside the mainstream blogs.

[don]

Re: War in the Dollar Zone: the Syrian Gambit

we've seen this movie before . . . .

Jihadi democrats ready for their close-up

By Pepe Escobar

Such a pity that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn't make the 2012 Oscars. La Clinton would stand a good chance of upstaging even tweet-exploding Angelina Jolie's right leg - that force of nature now all over the net, landing on the moon and even invading Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. [1]

The Empress of Libya ("We came, we saw, he died") did try hard, including a photo op for the BBC, where she finally admitted that the US is fighting side by side with al-Qaeda to unleash regime change in Syria. [2]

Well, old Cold War fox and former Russian prime minister (under vodka junkie Boris Yeltsin) Yevgeny Primakov actually beat her to the punch on Russia's Rossiya channel - adding that no one could seriously believe that regime change in Syria could lead to democracy.

Yet when Clinton mentions "a very dangerous set of actors in the region" who "are on our terrorist list" she is just, once again, plugging the notoriously profitable Pentagon/Central Intelligence Agency /State Department franchise of Resident Evil - whose instalments, among others, include mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, mujahideen in Bosnia in the 1990s and, recently, Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) stalwarts.

Global war on terror (GWOT)? This is sooo George W Bush Dumb and Dumber era. As certified blockbusters go, The Invasion of the Regime Change al-Qaeda Democrats is the real deal.

The Muppet show

The Empress of Libya sometimes displays a Meg Ryan-esque inability of staying close to the script. In her BBC promo, she insisted on the official narrative; the "people of Syria" are under "relentless attack" from "government forces". At the same time she incites "security forces" to go for regime change. So what's the story; the killers suddenly become democrats? Why not? That's a classic Hollywood plot twist.

Meanwhile, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland could give Octavia Spencer a run for her money as best supporting actress. Nuland - married to uber-neocon Robert Kagan - blasted Syria's referendum on the grounds that this "ridiculous proposal" put forward by Bashar al-Assad coincided with "the guns and the tanks and the artillery ... still firing into Homs and Hama and cities all over the country".

Nuland seems to have conveniently forgotten that that's exactly what the US had been doing when promoting "free" elections in both Iraq and Afghanistan - with the helpful addition of electoral forces such as killer drones, F-16s, Apache helicopters and compliant corporate media shills reciting the Pentagon script.

Both State Department actresses also conveniently forgot that if you're an unemployed sniper in the West or in the Arab world, the place to go - apart from Hollywood - is Syria. Many of the snipers who have been killing civilians in Syria belong to the Friends of Hillary coalition. They are working for the NATOGCC compound - the American, partly European and partly Arab coalition that financed, trained and weaponized a shadow army inside Libya and now Syria.

Syria has nothing to do with a unilateral state-sponsored massacre; it's an internal war between a government and a shadow army - with civilians caught in the crossfire.

La Clinton herself has been forced to admit "a very strong opposition to foreign intervention from inside Syria, from outside Syria"; that implies that most Syrians, not only minorities but even secular Sunnis, know al-Qaeda-style jihadists and/or fanatical Salafis are heavily infiltrated. They also know the Syrian National Council (SNC) is a Muslim Brotherhood and/or Washington puppet.

What the Empress of Libya also conveniently leaves aside is how the "opposition", split between SNC opportunists and their rivals, the National Coordination Body (NCB), are virtual nullities inside Syria. The resistance against the undoubtedly police state Assad regime is mostly coordinated by local committees.

Sunset Boulevard, revisited

On with the show. Expect the Salafi-jihadist fest in Syria to soon rival Vanity Fair's after-Oscars party. After all, that's the official strategy of those paragons of democracy, Gulf Cooperation Council stalwarts Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The House of Saud's Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said that arming the rebels is "a very good idea". Same for Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani. The GCC loves the smell of a napalmed Arab secular republic in the morning. Feels like ... victory.

What's actually happening, as Asia Times Online has reported, is that both Qatar and the House of Saud have been weaponizing the Free Syrian Army (FSA) for months now, while Washington sticks with the "lead from behind" plot twist.

Now try arguing that arming Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia's eastern province, or the pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain is also a "very good idea". You'll be visited by a Hellfire missile - or hit by a sniper - in less time than it took Angelina to show off her leg.

Anyway, as a Hollywood plot, what a better sequel to the Resident Evil franchise than this: Sunni Persian Gulf monarchies weaponize al-Qaeda-style freaks to promote democracy and human rights in Syria. This is even bigger than Angie's right leg. Forget this is not Hollywood, it's real life. And forget Norma Desmond; now it's al-Qaeda's CEO Ayman Al-Zawahiri who is ready for his close up. He used to be big, but now that the pictures became small, he's bound to be even bigger. Angie's right leg better watch out.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NC01Ak04.html

[Shakespear]

Re: War in the Dollar Zone: the Syrian Gambit

Somewhere back in my "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" days of reading spy books I recall someone mentioning that liberal arts education was thought to be a prerequisite for a good spy. Especially the study of theater, as this is just the type of mentality you need to work in the world of smoke and mirrors. Cooking up a Color Revolutions I suspect needs good choreography as well. Plus you need the right actors, props and CASH to get results

[don]

Re: War in the Dollar Zone: the Syrian Gambit

Syria: Straining credulity?
By Alastair Crooke

The UN Secretary General was reported on March 3 saying that he had received "grisly reports" that Syrian government forces were arbitrarily executing, imprisoning and torturing people in Homs after retaking control of the Baba Amr district from insurgents. Did he really believe this; or was he just "saying it"?

"One of the defining bifurcations of the future will be the conflict between information masters and information victims" the US officer assigned to the Deputy Chief of Staff (Intelligence), charged with defining the future of warfare, wrote in the US Army War College Quarterly in 1997.

"But fear not", he writes later in the article, for "we are already masters of information warfare ... Hollywood is 'preparing the battlefield' ... Information destroys traditional jobs and traditional cultures; it seduces, betrays, yet remains invulnerable. How can you [possibly] counterattack the information [warfare] others have turned upon you? [1]

"Our sophistication in handling it will enable us to outlast and outperform all hierarchical cultures ... Societies that fear or otherwise cannot manage the flow of information simply will not be competitive. They might master the technological wherewithal to watch the videos, but we will be writing the scripts, producing them, and collecting the royalties. Our creativity is devastating."

This information warfare will not be couched in the rationale of geopolitics, the author suggests, but will be "spawned" - like any Hollywood drama - out of raw emotions. "Hatred, jealousy, and greed - emotions, rather than strategy - will set the terms of [information warfare] struggles".

Not only the US army, but it seems mainstream Western media insist that the struggle in Syria must be scripted in emotional image and moralistic statements that always - as the War College article rightly asserts - trump rational analysis.

The UN Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry condemns the Syrian government of crimes against humanity, but only on the basis of what the opposition says, and without having investigated evidence of opposition "crimes": and then proceeds to "charge" the Syrian government with this process based simply on "reasonable suspicion": Do they really believe what they have written, or is it just a part of "writing the script"? [2]

Having quite forgotten what US Marines did to Falluja in 2004 (6,000 dead and 60% of the city destroyed) when armed insurgents there also sought to establish a Salafist "Emirate" - the Western media focus on Homs gives vent to the indignant cry that "something must be done" to save the people of Homs from "massacre". The question of what effect exactly that something - whether external military intervention or providing heavier weapons for the insurgents - might be, and what its wider consequences might entail, meanwhile recedes entirely from view. Those with the temerity to get in the way of "this narrative" by arguing that external intervention would be disastrous, are roundly condemned as complicit in President Assad's crimes against humanity.

This school of journalism - the Guardian and Channel Four are good examples of this "I-was-there" reporting - that emphasizes the reporter as participant, and indeed victim, a co-sufferer amid the charged, heart-tugging emotional sufferings of war, uses emotive images precisely to underline that "something must be done". By focussing on mutilated bodies and weeping bereaved women they assert and determine that the conflict must be viewed as being of utmost moral simplicity - one of victims and aggressors.

"In Baba Amr. Sickening. Cannot understand how the world can stand by. Watched a baby die today. Shrapnel: doctors could do nothing. His little tummy just heaved and heaved until he stopped. Feeling helpless". [3]

Those who try to argue that Western intervention can only exacerbate the crisis, are confronted by this unanswerable riposte of dead babies - literally. As the War College article so rightly states: how can you counter attack this manner of "information warfare" unleashed against the Syrian government who are on the receiving end of those "writing the scripts, producing them, and collecting the royalties"?

I too, saw such terrible sights in Afghanistan in the 1980s: It does of course create an emotional abyss into which the helpless spectator slips; but do these reporters really believe that innocents and children are not always the victims of conflict? Do they believe their personal distress to be somehow so primary that it must set aside all complexities, and all potential possibilities? Is more conflict the answer to the awful death of an infant?

This reductionist, emotional ardor is but a form of concealed political advocacy - little different to that of an information "warrior" such as AVAAZ, who help write and produce those info-war videos. [4] And while nobody openly endorses such "journalism of participation", this approach seems to have triumphed in certain journalistic quarters. And indeed it is creeping further: increasingly we see even certain Western diplomats acting as though they are "activists" and participants in the internal struggles of the states to which they are posted. What sort of reporting must their governments be getting?

Are we now to understand that the armed opposition, who originally brought Western journalists to Homs - and then insisted to exfiltrate them perilously, and at the cost of many lives, via Lebanon, rather than through the good offices of the Red Crescent to the nearest airport, were not motivated by a desire to advocate, and impel the argument for externally-imposed humanitarian corridors to be opened to Homs? In other words, were not witness to the construction of une piece de theatre in favor of a type of external intervention? Will a Kosovo-type solution will make things better in Syria?

What has become so striking is that, whilst this "information warfare" may have been almost irreversibly effective in demonizing President Assad in the West, it has also had the effect of "un-anchoring" European and American foreign policy. It has become cast adrift from any real geo-strategic mooring. This has led to a situation in which European policy has become wholly suggestible to such "advocacy reporting", and the need to respond to it, moment-by- moment, in emotive, moralistic blasts of sound-bites accusing President Assad of having "blood on its hands".

In one sense the West inevitably has fallen hostage to its own information warfare: it has locked itself into a single understanding, stuck to a "singleness" of meaning: a simplistic victims-and-aggressor meme, which demands only the toppling of the aggressor. Europe, in this manner, effectively is cutting itself off from other options - precisely because the humanitarian theme, which policy-makers may have thought would suffice to see Assad easily deposed, now impedes any shift towards other options - such as a peaceful negotiated outcome.

But does anyone really believe American and European objectives in Syria were ever purely humanitarian? Is it not the case - given that the turnout of events in the Middle East are taking such an ominous and dangerous turn - that it has now becoming somewhat awkward openly to admit that their info-war was never primarily about reforming Syria, but about "regime change", and that it was that even from before the first protest erupted in Dera'a?

In his recent interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, [5] given in advance of President Obama's American Israel Public Affairs Committee speech, the president, inter alia, was questioned about Syria. His response was very clear:

GOLDBERG: Can you just talk about Syria as a strategic issue? Talk about it as a humanitarian issue, as well; but it would seem to me that one way to weaken and further isolate Iran is to remove or help remove Iran's only Arab ally.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely.

Do these Western interventionist proselytizers really believe that the onslaught on Syria is only about democracy and reform? Obama said it plainly. It was always about Iran. And, as Europe and America increasingly become bystanders to a Qatari and Saudi frenzy to overthrow a fellow Arab leader by any means it takes, do these "apostles" truly think that these absolute Arab monarchies simply share the Guardian's or Channel Four's nice humanitarian aspirations for Syria's future? Do these reporters really believe that the armed insurgents that Gulf states are financing and arming are nothing more than well-intentioned reformists, who have simply been driven to violence through Assad's recalcitrance? Some perhaps do, but others perhaps are simply "saying these things" to prepare the battlefield?

Notes: 1. Constant Conflict, Parameters, Summer 1997, pp. 4-14.
2. The United Nations Accuses Syria of "Crimes against Humanity", 3. The danger of reporters becoming 'crusaders', spiked-online.com, Feb 27, 2012.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.p...intable/12159/ 4. See 'How Avaaz Is Sponsoring Fake War Propaganda From Syria', March 3, 2012.
5. Obama to Iran and Israel: 'As President of the United States, I Don't Bluff'

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NC09Ak03.html





USAF Strategic Studies Group: Special Operations Forces Are "Already on the Ground," Training the "Free Syrian Army"
by WikiLeaks' "Global Intelligence Files" Email-ID 1671459

Email-ID	1671459
Date	2011-12-07 00:49:18
From	bhalla@stratfor.com
To	secure@stratfor.com

A few points I wanted to highlight from meetings today --

I spent most of the afternoon at the Pentagon with the USAF strategic studies group -- guys who spend their time trying to understand and explain to the USAF chief the big picture in areas where they're operating in. It was just myself and four other guys at the Lieutenant Colonel level, including one French and one British representative who are liaising with the US currently out of DC.

They wanted to grill me on the strategic picture on Syria, so after that I got to grill them on the military picture. There is still a very low level of understanding of what is actually at stake in Syria, what's the strategic interest there, the Turkish role, the Iranian role, etc. After a couple hours of talking, they said without saying that SOF teams (presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground focused on recce missions and training opposition forces. One Air Force intel guy (US) said very carefully that there isn't much of a Free Syrian Army to train right now anyway, but all the operations being done now are being done out of 'prudence.' The way it was put to me was, 'look at this way -- the level of information known on Syrian OrBat this month is the best it's been since 2001.' They have been told to prepare contingencies and be ready to act within 2-3 months, but they still stress that this is all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation.

I kept pressing on the question of what these SOF teams would be working toward, and whether this would lead to an eventual air camapign to give a Syrian rebel group cover. They pretty quickly distanced themselves from that idea, saying that the idea 'hypothetically' is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within. There wouldn't be a need for air cover, and they wouldn't expect these Syrian rebels to be marching in columns anyway.

They emphasized how the air campaign in Syria makes Libya look like a piece of cake. Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much denser, esp around Damascus and on the borders with Israel, Turkey. THey are most worried about mobile air defenses, particularly the SA-17s that they've been getting recently. It's still a doable mission, it's just not an easy one.

The main base they would use is Cyprus, hands down. Brits and FRench would fly out of there. They kept stressing how much is stored at Cyprus and how much recce comes out of there. The group was split on whether Turkey would be involved, but said Turkey would be pretty critical to the mission to base stuff out of there. EVen if Turkey had a poltiical problem with Cyprus, they said there is no way the Brits and the FRench wouldn't use Cyprus as their main air force base. Air Force Intel guy seems pretty convinced that the Turks won't participate (he seemed pretty pissed at them.)

There still seems to be a lot of confusion over what a military intervention involving an air campaign would be designed to achieve. It isn't clear cut for them geographically like in Libya, and you can't just create an NFZ over Homs, Hama region. This would entail a countrywide SEAD campaign lasting the duration of the war. They dont believe air intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Ghadafi move against Benghazi. They think the US would have a high tolerance for killings as long as it doesn't reach that very public stage. Theyre also questiioning the skills of the Syrian forces that are operating the country's air defenses currently and how signfiicant the Iranian presence is there. Air Force Intel guy is most obsessed with the challenge of taking out Syria's ballistic missile capabilities and chem weapons. With Israel rgiht there and the regime facing an existential crisis, he sees that as a major complication to any military intervention.

The post 2011 SOFA with Iraq is still being negotiated. These guys were hoping that during Biden's visit that he would announce a deal with Maliki, but no such luck. They are gambling ont he idea that the Iraqis remember the iran-iraq war and that maliki is not going to want to face the threat of Iranian jets entering Iraqi air space. THey say that most US fighter jets are already out of Iraq and transferred to Kuwait. They explained that's the beauty of the air force, the base in Kuwait is just a hop, skip and jump away from their bases in Europe, ie. very easy to rapidly build up when they need to. They don't seem concerned about the US ability to restructure its forces to send a message to Iran. They gave the example of the USS Enterprise that was supposed to be out of commission already and got extended another couple years to send to the gulf. WHen the US withdraws, we'll have at least 2 carriers in the gulf out of centcom and one carrier in the Med out of EuCom. I asked if the build-up in Kuwait and the carrier deployments are going to be enough to send a message to Iran that the US isn't going anywhere. They responded that Iran will get the message if they read the Centcom Web Site. STarting Jan. 1 expect them to be publishing all over the place where the US is building up.
Another concern they have about an operation in Syria is whether Iran could impede operations out of Balad air force base in Iraq.

The French representative was of hte opinion that Syria won't be a libya-type situation in that France would be gung-ho about going in. Not in an election year. The UK rep also emphasized UK reluctance but said that the renegotiation of the EU treaty undermines the UK role and that UK would be looking for ways to reassert itself on the continent ( i dont really think a syria campaign is the way to do that.) UK guy mentioned as an aside that the air force base commander at Cyprus got switched out from a maintenance guy to a guy that flew Raptors, ie someone that understands what it means to start dropping bombs. He joked that it was probably a coincidence.

Prior to that, I had a meeting with an incoming Kuwaiti diplomat (will be coded as KU301.) His father was high up in the regime, always by the CP's/PM's side. The diplo himself still seems to be getting his feet wet in DC (the new team just arrived less than 2 weeks ago,) but he made pretty clear that Kuwait was opening the door to allowing US to build up forces as needed. THey already have a significant presence there, and a lot of them will be on 90-day rotations. He also said that the SOFA that the US signs with Baghdad at the last minute will be worded in such a way that even allowing one trainer in the country can be construed to mean what the US wants in terms of keeping forces in Iraq. Overall, I didnt get the impression from him that Kuwait is freaked out about the US leaving. Everyhting is just getting rearranged.
The Kuwaitis used to be much better at managing their relations with Iran, but ever since that spy ring story came out a year ago, it's been bad. He doesn't think Iran has significant covert capabililiteis in the GCC states, though they are trying. Iranian activity is mostly propaganda focused. He said that while KSA and Bahrain they can deal with it as needed and black out the media, Kuwait is a lot more open and thus provides Iran with more oppotunity to shape perceptions (he used to work in inforamtion unit in Kuwait.) He says there is a sig number of kuwaitis that listen to Iranian media like Al Alam especially.

On the Kuwaiti political scene -- the government is having a harder time dealing with a more emboldened opposition, but the opposition is still extremely divided, esp among the Islamists. The MPs now all have to go back to their tribes to rally support for the elections to take place in Feb. Oftentimes an MP in Kuwait city will find out that he has lost support back home with the tribe, and so a lot of moeny is handed out. The govt is hoping that witha clean slate they can quiet the opposition down. A good way of managing the opposition he said is to refer cases to the courts, where they can linger forever. good way for the govt to buy time. He doesnt believe the Arab League will take significant action against Syria -- no one is interested in military intervention. they just say it to threaten it.

---

"On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files (GIF), over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011." The text above is one of the GIF emails.