Surprise! Russia's First Bombing Run Isn't Against ISIL, But Against US-Backed Secular Rebels

Of course.

Remember, all of Obama's super-close Interesting Foreign Friends are just here to help us n stuff. At least, that's the fantasy our daydreaming president likes to indulge.

Russia launched airstrikes in Syria on Wednesday, catching U.S. and Western officials off guard and drawing new condemnation as evidence suggested Moscow wasn't targeting extremist group Islamic State, but rather other opponents of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

One of the airstrikes hit an area primarily held by rebels backed by the Central Intelligence Agency and allied spy services, U.S. officials said, catapulting the Syrian crisis to a new level of danger and uncertainty. Moscow's entry means the world's most powerful militaries--including the U.S., Britain and France--now are flying uncoordinated combat missions, heightening the risk of conflict in the skies over Syria.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Russia's approach to the Syrian war--defending Mr. Assad while ostensibly targeting extremists--was tantamount to "pouring gasoline on the fire."

"I have been dealing with them for a long time. And this is not the kind of behavior that we should expect professionally from the Russian military," Mr. Carter said at a Pentagon news conference.

Oh, they're not acting "professionally." What a fierce condemnation.

Russia is going after the US-backed secular rebels because they're the main moral threat to Assad, though not the main military threat. The main military threat is ISIS, but of course the West is willing, in theory, to bomb ISIS. (In theory -- Obama has been conducting desultory air strikes on ISIS that chiefly seem designed to impact American news media headlines.)

But the non-ISIS-aligned rebels are a force the world would generally welcome in place of Assad, so they need to be taken out ASAP. Plus, they're backed by the CIA, so Russia wants to eradicate these American-leaning elements.

Listen to how weakly our Secretary of Defense simpers on:

...

"It does appear that they were in areas where there probably were not ISIL forces, and that is precisely one of the problems with this whole approach," said Mr. Carter, the U.S. defense chief.

U.S. officials said it was unclear if Moscow directly targeted a location held by the CIA-backed fighters in western Syria because of their association with the U.S.'s covert program to fund, arm and train the rebels.

1, this is not a "problem" with the Russian approach, this is the whole point of the Russian approach, and 2, it is plenty "clear" what Russia is up to.

But Obama, however, is forced to cover for our actual enemies, to spin on their behalves, for to admit what they were actually doing would be to admit his own weakness and impotency.

So he has to make up a fairy tale about Russia, to save himself.

Not only that, Kerry had to stand with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and babble impotently about "deconfliction discussions" while Russia was blowing up American allies.

"Deconfliction" is apparently just keeping your jets out of each other's airspace so they don't shoot at one another (and spark World War Three, though we know that won't happen with limpwrist Obama; we'll just apologize for our pilots getting in the way of Russian air-to-air missiles).

Update: I just realized Kerry wasn't talking about jets, primarily -- he was pretending that Russia didn't know they were bombing US allies, that it was a mistake which a "deconfliction discussion" could have cured.

Pathetic attempt at face-saving.

Video of the humiliating spectacle at the above link.

Iranian ground troops will be sweeping in to further attack US interests.

Remember, Iran told Obama that if he gave them the bomb they would fix all that's broken in the Middle East for him, and Obama believed him, because weak people are forced to believe whatever promises are made to them. They have no other options but to trust that someone will help them.

These Iranian forces are under the command of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the Quds Force commander in charge of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s international operations, which runs a network of proxy forces throughout the Middle East, including Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon.

Fox News first reported a secret meeting between Soleimani and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which took place in late July. Part of the discussions between Soleimani and Putin was the future Russian build up in Syria, coordinated closely with Iran.

Suleimani is a terrorist, and his travel is restricted by Western governments due to his status as terrorist.

That meeting was of course during a key moment of the Iran Nuke talks. Didn't take any wind out of Obama's sails, though.

Krauthammer sums it all up.

"The Soviet Ministry announces they hit ISIS targets. Everyone knows it is a lie, like all of the lies that were issued in the Ukraine," Krauthammer said. "They were not hitting ISIS. ISIS isn't in the area. They were hitting... a stronghold for the Free Syrian Army."

Krauthammer labeled Russia’s actions as "humiliating" for the United States, as military leaders were given little more than an hour’s notice of plans for strikes in Syria.

Moreover, he said the Obama administration is failing to act as Russia takes charge in the region, referencing Secretary of State John Kerry’s afternoon media availability with his Russian counterpart.

"[Kerry was] saying, 'Well, you know, we’ve got a little problem about the nature of the targets Russia attacked today, but we’ll go on with other stuff about that later,'" Krauthammer said.

Video at the link.

By the Way: Note how easily Putin could have made this on Obama, had he chosen to. He could have bombed ISIS positions for a week, establishing goodwill, then turned to his real targets, the American-backed Free Syrian Army. Obama could have then spluttered something about "a lot of good" having been done already, and taking the good with the bad.

But Putin does not think that Obama warrants that minimal level of face-saving. Or that America is owed even that little bit of face-saving.

No, he wants us to know what he's doing, and he wants us to know it because he knows then that we have little choice but to accept it, and even endorse it-- so long as this crew of effeminate sybarites is command of the US military and intelligence forces.

posted by Ace at 12:28 PM

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