Syria, 5-6 October 2023: Adventures of Clever & Smart
Hello everybody!
For ‘topical’ reasons, and on popular demand, today I’ll ‘take a break’ from my reporting about Ukraine, and throw a casual look at the Syrian (‘Civil’) War.
Yes, yes, I know: why should you care? After all, Putin declared that war for over.
Three times.
Therefore, so did such pluralist political parties like the AfD in Germany, or the FPÖ in Austria, too.
….and because Putin’s word is as solid as a rock, that war is still going on and there is now ‘another escalation’…
…and what for one! Meanwhile, the USA are shooting at a NATO-ally Turkey. And that in defence of a quasi-Maoist/Marxist organisation considered terrorist by USA, nearly all of NATO, and most of EU.
Sounds ridiculous?
Oh yes, it is. And absurd too. So much so, it takes a dose of explanation to understand. Thus, get yourself some coffee or tea, or coke and popcorn now…
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Ah yes, before I go on, the (un)usual DISCLAIMER: some of British-, some French-, and few of Ukrainian readers of the following might have an unfair advantage. The British because back in the 1980s and 1990s, they’ve been subjected to the TV-show Yes Minister/Prime Minister. The Spanish and the French, because they know the Mort & Phil (also known as ‘Clever & Smart’ in English). And Ukrainians because of their ‘DeepState’ online appearance…
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1.) In early 2011, as the ‘Arab Spring’ (actually: the short-lived Tunisian Spring) was in full swing, all the possible Syria Experten in the West have announced that the Assadist regime is never going to face any kind of problems. Because it is so progressive, reformist, peace-, internet- and Christians-loving.
2.) Few weeks later (in February-March 2011), the anti-Assad uprising erupted in Syria.
3.) This was promptly declared for ‘impossible’ by almost everybody in the West. Especially the Syria Experten.
After all, we’ve been taught for some 100 or so years, and thus everybody here knows: ‘Syrians are crazy terrorists’. So much so, the best wife in the Solar System (and the neighbourhood) was in outright panic when your very own traveled to the country for the first time, some 20 years ago: she expected me to get blown to pieces at the first corner…
4.) Why was an anti-Assad uprising in Syria impossible?
Because, as of February-March 2011, nobody (outside Syria) knew who was in charge. And nobody knew, because it was SYRIANS – ‘every day’ people like you and me – who were in charge of protesting and then the armed uprising.
5.) Therefore, the Syria Experten in the West have declared the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood for instigator of the uprising – although the members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood couldn’t explain (not even to themselves) how comes there’s an anti-Assad uprising in Syria… (they couldn’t also because all of earlier uprisings instigated by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood have failed, miserably)….
6.) As soon as the uprising began, ever growing numbers of Syrians began fleeing to Turkey…and (in slightly lesser numbers) to Jordan and Lebanon…
7.) Therefore, Turkey requested help and leadership from EU/NATO.
To call the reaction ‘lukewarm’ would be an understatement. But, hand on heart: why should Turkey and Syria be EU/NATO’s problem? Since when should it be in EU/NATO’s interest for Syrians to topple such a brutal dictator like Assad? And why should it matter if millions of Syrians fled to Turkey?
….especially where Assad is such a lovely guy, and has such a beatuuuuuutiful wife, Azma, and he’s a bulwark against extremist Islam, and such a good friend of characters like Bush Jr., Dick Channey, Sarkozy, Blair/Brown and similar…
And since NATO is such a serious alliance, and taking care about defence of its members as seriously…. it deployed one MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missiles (SAM) battery and similar stuff to Turkey.
Two years later - and well away from the border to Syria. After all, nobody wanted some civilised and noble NATO-troops from (quote) ‘Garden Europe’ to get hit when Assadists were shelling towns and villages in southern Turkey, killing dozens of Turkish civilians… and, I’m sure you all know how it is in specific circles in the West: if it’s ‘Muslims’ and/or ‘Arabs’ or ‘Africans’ who get killed, (quote) ‘there are no human casualties’…
…while, when the USA denied Turkey the deliveries of MIM-104s, Turkey was ‘ah so bad’ to go buying Russian S-400s, ‘instead’… and primarily because Erdogan was as stupid as to trust the Russian advertising…
8.) Meanwhile (that was April-May 2011), the Syria Experten in the West have announced that there are no defections from the Syrian armed forces: that the forces remained, rock-solid, on Assad’s side, and fully intact.
9.) ….which is why the armed uprising in Syria was run by a body named Free Syrian Army (FSyA), led by defectors from the Syrian armed forces…
10.) …and why the Syrian armed forces fell apart.
11.) Alas, the leadership of the FSyA was naïve enough to request help from Turkey & NATO.
12.) It got nothing from NATO.
13.) Left at its own device, the quasi-Islamist (actually: populist) character Erdogan, conditioned provision of Turkish help on the FSyA subjecting itself to the control of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.
14.) The leadership of the FSyA flatly refused.
15.) ….which is why Erdogan – in cooperation with progressive Wahhabist regime from Qatar – the biggest sponsor of extremist Islam in the EU, but also a shiny Western ally because it’s granting military bases to the USA and France, and buying C-17s, F-15s, EF-2000s, and Rafales (and 10,000 milk-cows from Germany) – then began bribing hand-picked FSyA-commanders to split away from the organisation and create all sorts of armed ‘Islamist’ groups.
16.) ….in turn prompting Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates etc. to follow in fashion, and create their own groups of armed Syrian insurgents…
17.) ….and everybody found it better for Syrians to become ‘Islamists’, rather than pluralists they always were. Because, you know, if there would have been one, unified Syrian insurgency – and then a pluralist one – and this would have formed a government in Damascus…. one of three traditional pillars of power in the Arab World… oh, what a horror! Blasphemy! That would’ve been dangerous for all the progressive forces in the neighbourhood!
18.) Overall result: the FSyA was successfully disintegrated into some 7,000 armed groups, the uprising stalled, Assad remained in power and then was able to secure a military intervention of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF), from Iran, on its side.
19.) The IRGC-QF then brought in Hezbullat (this ‘mistake’ is intentional: the Hezbullat know why) from Lebanon and Iraq to fight for it in Syria.
20.) ….which, according to the Western officials, never happened: until today, even the USA can’t find any kind of IRGC-QF- and/or Iranian-controlled troops in Syria.
21.) …which is why nobody (in the West) cares if Israel is regularly bombing the IRGC-QF bases in Syria, ‘every second week’, and since 11 years, meanwhile…
22.) That Iranian military intervention, plus some US$100 billion of financial aid from Tehran is what saved the Assad regime. Kept it afloat from 2011 to 2015…
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Now mind: this was ‘just the start’. Literally…
23.) Because those nifty Syrians decided they wouldn’t subject themselves to Assadist terror again, the uprising went on.
24.) Thus, by 2012, the time has come for the endlessly wise USA to become involved.
25.) As usually in the USA, inter-service rivalry is more important than foreign enemies. Therefore, the US effort was run along two prongs:
- State Department (Foreign Ministry) & CIA wanted to help the Syrians;
- The Pentagon (Ministry of Defence) and the DIA (Defence Intelligence Agency) – lets call them the Primitives to keep it simple (I’ll explain the reasons, don’t worry)– knew better, and have had their own ideas.
26.) From the point of view of the Primitives, it’s logical that ‘there are no good Muslims’, especially ‘no good Sunni Muslims’, that ‘Muslims are incompatible with democracy’, and ‘Muslims only understand the language of violence’. Ah yes, and that ‘all Syrians are terrorists’.
27.) Therefore, in 2012, the DIA ‘leaked’ one of its reports concluding that the anti-Assad uprising in Syria was ‘instigated by al-Qaeda’.
….so that you all can feel well-informed…
….because it’s illogical for Syrian ‘terrorists’ to want to get rid of an oppressive regime terrorising them for 40 years…
….this simply can’t be: it must be something else….
….and extremist Islam was such a good excuse…
….which, in the case of Syria, was complete nonsense, but in favour of the Primitives – because of their ‘arch rivalry’ with the State Department and the CIA.
28.) Therefore, the Primitives continued ‘leaking’ (to the press) similar documents for years longer, until their ultimate success: in 2015, the public pressure – and President Oblablah’s conclusion (based on DIA-reporting) that the insurgency is ‘led by teachers, pharmacists and students’ – forced the State Department & CIA to stop supporting the insurgency.
…because, you know, the CIA was ah-so-unsuccessful, and wasted US$5 billion to train 50 Syrian insurgents….at least according to the DIA….
…in reality, it was some 50,000, but hey: who cares?
The only thing important was that the Primitives-clique has won that round.
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29.) Meanwhile, in 2011-2012, the uprising in north-eastern Syria has forced the Assadists to abandon the area. Essentially, they withdrew to the towns of Qamishli and Dayr az-Zawr.
30.) In their place, the Assadists have left the PKK assume power.
31.) PKK is an abbreviation (in one of 40+ Kurdish languages) for ‘Kurdistan Workers Party’.
32.) The PKK is an organisation of few Turkish Kurds: contrary to the mass of Turkish Kurds – who are more conservative Sunni Muslims than the mass of Turks – it is following the ideology of quasi-Maoism/Marxism. Unsurprisingly, it’s at war with Turkey since 1986, all the time supported by Moscow and Assadists.
33.) In the light of running dozens of terrorist attacks in Turkey, and killing hundreds of civilians, between 1997 and 2002, the PKK was declared a ‘terrorist’ organisation. Not only in Turkey, but in the USA, most of NATO and EU. Consequently, all support for it is prohibited by law.
….just that hardly any of NATO and/or EU governments cares about this law: why causing any kind of problems with fanatic Kurdish Maoists/Marxists at home…?
34.) While assuming power in north-eastern Syria, and because it’s so democratic, and pluralist, and tolerant, the PKK first named itself the PYD and YPG and whatever else, and then destroyed some 13-14 political parties and movements of Syrian Kurds. Assassinated their leaders or forced them into exile, then imposed itself in power over all the Syrian Kurds.
Which is why the PKK claims to be representative of all the Syrian Kurds….just like it’s already representative of all the Turkish Kurds, too…
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Because this war was too simple, in 2012-2013, an entirely new factor was added.
35.) In 2012, the al-Qaida of Iraq (AQI) was smashed in Iraq. What was left of it fled to Syria.
36.) Once in Syria, they re-named themselves the ISIL, then ISIS, or just IS (for ‘Islamic State’). In Syria, and colloquially, they became known as the ‘Daesh’.
37.) Since it was the Assadists who have left the Daesh in, the Daesh didn’t fight the Assadists.
Even less so the PKK. Nope.
As first, the Daesh destroyed the FSyA in north-eastern Syria.
…prompting the FSyA in north-western Syria (Aleppo area) to become the first armed force to start fighting the Daesh.
That was in late 2014 - still months before anybody in the West cared to think about what’s that ‘IS/ISIL/ISIS/Daesh’ - or ‘IGIL’ in Russian…
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And since that was still not complex enough, then the Primitives embarked on the enterprise titled, ‘lets show the CIA how to do that properly’.
38.) In the light of the Daesh hijacking and beheading a number of US citizens, in late 2014 the UN authorised the USA (and allies) to strike on the Daesh in Syria (and Iraq), as an ‘act of self-defence’.
39.) The Primitives assigned this task to their CENTCOM (stands for ‘Central Command’) and this primarily acted in form of…. air policing.
40.) Air policing is a British invention from Iraq of the early 1920s. Essentially, the air power is bombing the enemy (that lacks own air power, or any kind of serious means of air defence), while the involvement of own ground troops is kept at an absolute minimum.
41.) But, air power was not enough: the Daesh’s advance into Syria had to be stopped – by ground troops.
42.) And the USA were not willing to send ground troops to Syria.
43.) Therefore, the Primitives came to the idea to organise themselves a proxy force.
44.) ‘Logically’, the Primitives didn’t pick any of Syrian insurgent groups for that purpose, but the PKK….ahem… officially, ‘the PKK’s Syrian affiliate PYD/YPG’.
45.) To circumvent US laws prohibiting contacts and provision of support to the PKK, the Primitives have re-named the PKK/PYD/YPG-conglomerate into ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’….
46.) ….and declared it the ‘most-effective anti-Daesh force in Syria’…
47.) ….although knowing that all the 20 or so ‘brigades’ of that group have all been established in the Cizre area.
48.) ….and Cizre is a town in Turkey…
49.) …and the PKK is at war with Turkey, a NATO-ally since 1952…
50.) …and that the PKK is, ‘traditionally’, allied with – and supported by – Moscow and Assadists.
51.) …and that so much so that, when Pudding launched his all-out invasion on Ukraine, last year in February, the PKK-leadership promptly expressed its support for Putin, and wished the Russians good luck in crushing the imperialist regime in Kyiv.
Why that? Because…. oh, come on! Why solve a problem? It’s so much easier to create yet more problems and add them to the pile of the existing ones…. Is creating never-ending wars, and never-ending wars are so great for business.
…and because it’s a centuries-old tradition of the Western powers to (mis)use different local ‘war-like’ minorities in the Middle East (and elsewhere) to fight against local majorities…
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52.) Fast forward… eight years later, the PKK/PYD/YPG/SDF-conglomerate – supported by US troops and air power – is holding about a quarter of Syria under control (the area marked yellow on the map below).
53.) This means that the PKK/PYD/YPG/SDF-conglomerate is also holding a large portion of the local population – predominantly Sunni Muslims – under control. And ethnically cleansing them at every opportunity, or teaching them (in local schools, as far as it took care to reconstruct any), to be good PKK-Kurds… what a surprise then, the locals are not the least delighted with the PKK regime, and are, time and again, launching local uprisings...
54.) ….which both the PKK/PYD/YPG/SDF-conglomerate and the Primitives & Co are then happily declaring for ‘Daesh’…
….and when not, then for IRGC-QF-instigated…
…and, what a surprise then, after another of PKK-instigated terrorist attack in Turkey, few days ago Ankara launched an offensive against the PKK/PYD/YPG/SDF-conglomerate in northern Syria.
…characterised by air policing. See: air strikes.
And so it came that yesterday, a fighter-bomber of the US Air Force shot down a Turkish UAV over Syria.
…because this came ‘too close to US troops in Syria’….
(IUPDATE: as it turned out, the UAV in question was an Anca, operated by the MIT, the Turkish intelligence agency, and it was shot down by an F-16, using a single AIM-9X.)
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With other words: the US armed forces deployed in Syria to support a quasi-Maoist/Marxist terrorist organisation foreign to Syria, and at war with a NATO-member, have shot down an UAV of a NATO-member.
…but you all wonder how comes Turkey wouldn’t agree with Sweden becoming a NATO-member?
Well, regardless what some Messiahs there say, I’m anything else than ‘Erdogan fan’. Thus, not interested in ‘defending’ him. However, I would just recommend you to ask yourself: why should NATO-member Turkey let yet another country tolerating ‘extra-legal’ activities of an anti-Turkish terrorist organisation – to join the alliance?
Damn, I miss the simpler, older times. When there could be the "Union for Liberation of Ruritania" supported by the USA and the "Ruritanian Liberation Union" supported by the USSR (both of them would be supported by Israel and/or China). Now we have eternal fractal 6D proxy warfare.
What a mess