dagblog - Comments for "Cleric is pawn in Trump-Putin-Erdogan power game"

A recent update on Erdogan's

acanuck — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 21:03:40 +0000

In reply to People turn fearful and look

A recent update on Erdogan's power grab, and a bit of analysis:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-increase-executive...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/01/stream-violence-turkey-shows-...

People turn fearful and look

acanuck — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 20:55:50 +0000

In reply to I read this last week and

People turn fearful and look for men on horseback when their country, especially one with vast potential, faces seemingly intractable social or economic problems. Erdogan, Trump and Putin have the same basic sales pitch as Mussolini and Hitler: "Make X great again." If there's no obvious solution to the vague fears of the majority, a quick fix is to find internal or external enemies to blame. Ethnic or religious minorities fit the bill perfectly, even if targeting them just makes problems worse. I suspect Gülen will stay and put the U.S. court system to the test.

(To be clear, I'm not saying Trump IS Hitler, just noting parallels in the soil authoritarians spring from.)

I read this last week and

Danny Cardwell — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 13:50:40 +0000

In reply to Cleric is pawn in Trump-Putin-Erdogan power game

I read this last week and wanted to comment. I think you've nailed it. The resurgence and normalization of authoritarian leadership placates those living in fear, but ultimately as you put it:

Then there are the losers: Turkish dissidents and Kurds, Syrian dissidents and Kurds, Saudi minority Shiites and dissidents, Russian and American dissidents, Palestinians, democratically minded Israelis, Ukrainians and other eastern Europeans, Europeans generally, NATO, the United Nations and its agencies. And of course, Gülen. Since this summer’s coup, Erdogan has publicly called for the death penalty to be reinstated.

The overwhelming majority of people won't be safer, and those on the margins will feel the squeeze. If I were the Cleric I would try to flee the U.S.

From Daily Beast:

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 30 Dec 2016 22:11:15 +0000

In reply to Flavius, your estimate that

From Daily Beast:

Five months after the first Russian warplanes slipped into Syria to reinforce the embattled regime of President Bashar al-Assad, the Kremlin’s air wing near Latakia—on Syria’s Mediterranean coast in the heart of regime territory—has found its rhythm, launching roughly one air strike every 20 minutes targeting Islamic State militants, U.S.-backed rebels and civilians in rebel-controlled areas.

“From Feb. 10 to 16, aircraft of the Russian aviation group in the Syrian Arab Republic have performed 444 combat sorties engaging 1,593 terrorist objects in the provinces of Deir Ez Zor, Daraa, Homs, Hama, Latakia and Aleppo,” the Russian defense ministry claimed in a statement.

That’s double the rate of air strikes that the much larger U.S.-led coalition has managed to sustain in its own, much older campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Leave out the coalition airstrikes in Iraq, where there are no Russian forces, and the disparity appears even greater. While lately Russia has launched around 60 air raids every day in Syria, the U.S. and its allies have pulled off just seven, on average, since launching their first attacks in Syria in September 2014.

To be fair, the coalition’s daily pace of air strikes fluctuates. On Feb. 21, U.S. and allied planes launched 14 attacks in Syria—a high-than-average number, but still far fewer raids than Russia launched every day in mid-February.

Flavius, your estimate that

A Guy Called LULU — Fri, 30 Dec 2016 14:11:30 +0000

In reply to From Feb 1 2009 to today I

Flavius, your estimate that Russia hs dropped ten times the number of bombs may be right but I doubt it. The U.S. is dropping bombs faster than it can make them.

Here are some figures, maybe accurate, who knows? 17 ,021 Coalition Strikes, 10,756 Strikes in Iraq, 6,265 Strikes in Syria, 870 Days of Campaign, 2,027 Minimum Civilians Estimated Killed by Coalition, 62,788 Bombs and Missiles Dropped.

The problem with this “kill-em’-all with airstrikes” rule, is that it is not working. Pentagon officials claim that at least 25,000 Islamic State fighters have been killed (an anonymous official said 23,000 in November, while on Wednesday, Warren added “about 2,500” more were killed in December.) Remarkably, they also claim that alongside the 25,000 fighters killed, only 6 civilians have “likely” been killed in the seventeen-month air campaign. At the same time, officials admit that the size of the group has remained wholly unchanged. In 2014, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated the size of the Islamic State to be between 20,000 and 31,000 fighters, while on Wednesday, Warren again repeated the 30,000 estimate. To summarize the anti-Islamic State bombing calculus: 30,000 – 25,000 = 30,000.

Following a Camp David summit in May 2015, the US approved a new sale of $1.29 billion in munitions to the Saudis intended to replace bombs already used in the Yemen War. It also approved a $380 million sale of guided bombs to the UAE.

While the US does not routinely report when weapons are delivered to its foreign customers, State Department spokesman David McKeeby did say in US Defense News in January this year that “the US government and industry … delivered 4,500 precision-guided munitions to the GCC countries in 2015, including 1,500 taken directly from US military stocks — a significant action given our military’s own needs.”

From Feb 1 2009 to today I

Flavius — Fri, 30 Dec 2016 04:19:21 +0000

In reply to Even the most brainwashed

From Feb 1 2009 to today I estimate the ratio of the bombs dropped in the Middle East by the US is less than 10% of those dropped by the Russians.

Even the most brainwashed

A Guy Called LULU — Fri, 30 Dec 2016 02:03:42 +0000

In reply to So who will take the Syrian

Even the most brainwashed Trump supporter knows the Russians bombed the crap out of Syria to get to whatever point they are at now ... ...

Pick any starting date and going until now: Of all the bombs dropped in the Middle East, measured by number or poundage, what would the ratio of those the U.S is responsible for compared to those that Russia is responsible for be, by your estimate?

So who will take the Syrian

NCD — Fri, 30 Dec 2016 01:02:33 +0000

In reply to As I said,events in the

So who will take the Syrian countryside and ISIS capitol Raqqa?

Russia may want to declare victory and let someone else finish off ISIS and whatever other groups are left in Syria. There were over a hundred rebel groups.

Take Raqqa, and without the Kurds, who are left out of the deal...again?

Assad doesn't have enough troops, militias or Iranians to take any more ground and still hold what he has. Turkey has a collapsing economy and a paranoid despot running it.

Syria was gamed by the right and Fox as an Obama 'retreat' from the 'strong' GW Bush years, partisan bullshit to throw at Obama as 'weak' when in reality, no American gave a crap about Syrians.

Even the most brainwashed Trump supporter knows the Russians bombed the crap out of Syria to get to whatever point they are at now - rulers of a graveyard and a destroyed major city. They know Trump did not do squat.

Grudges last for centuries in the Middle East, and far too much blood has been shed for a stable peace to reign across the region.

That freak can say whatever

CVille Dem — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 22:44:37 +0000

In reply to As I said,events in the

That freak can say whatever he wants, and the media can quote him with heart ❤️ emojis. At some point the actual damage that he does will come crashing in. I'm not looking forward to it (like the GOP would have if Obama had made catastrophic blunders) but I have no doubt that the hurt will come rolling in.

If the purist, fake "progressives" still want to vote third party or stay home to teach us yet another lesson, and the rubes vote to continue their decline, so be it.

I am working locally. I am organizing a two-day protest of the GOP ruining of the ACA, Medicare and Social Security, and I just donated (bigly) to our Democratic governor nominee.

As I said,events in the

acanuck — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 19:21:50 +0000

In reply to Cleric is pawn in Trump-Putin-Erdogan power game

As I said,events in the greater Middle East are moving fast. Just days after the Moscow Declaration, Putin has announced a Syria-wide ceasefire that will kick in less than three hours from now. Turkey and Russia will be guarantors, and Iran has signed on, as have the Assad regime and the moderate rebel coalition. The United Nations envoy for Syria, Staffan di Mistura, has welcomed the deal. Excluded are Islamic State and (at Turkish insistence) Kurdish forces; there is some confusion as to whether the al-Qa'ida-linked group formerly known as al-Nusra is covered or not.

What is clear is who is being sidelined: the United States, the Saudis, and their Gulf allies. They aren't even invited to the initial peace talks Putin and Erdogan are setting up in Kazakhstan for before Trump is sworn in. I suspect the idea is to have an on-the-ground power-sharing deal pretty much worked out by the time a UN-backed conference meets in Geneva in early February.

Trump can attend, be warmly welcomed into the fraternity of world leaders, sign on the dotted line, and take credit on twitter for having solved the Syrian Civil War. He will, you know.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/putin-agreement-on-syria-ceasefire-1.3915095