Syrian Civil War Developments

[Mihais]

How would that have worked out for your Muslims?

They would have been less inclined in starting terrorist movements.

[citanon]

My general stance on this is unchanged, as I still see this situation as an energy war or scramble to get the crumbs that were left from the oil age and I still think that it is an exercise in futility.
Both the West and the Russia are fighting on a train that is going towards cliff and the engine is out of fuel and the driver died a long time ago, so there is no one to pull the breaks. They are fighting over the control of the train, totally disregarding the fact that both of them don't know how to drive the train. Egoistic, selfish and narcissistic to the bone.

It's not really an energy war for us, as we have plenty of energy in our own backyard. It is an energy war for the Russians since that's their revenue stream on the line.

The world of the 21st century has sort of divided into three groups: nations that rely on internal economic development and international trade, nations that cannot rely on internal development and seek to expand or maintain influence and affluence via international connivery, or nations that can't even get their shit together to be nations.

We and the Europeans and China and other stable developing countries are mostly in group one, Russia, Iran, NK and co are mostly in group 2, some others are still making up their minds, while Syria, Iraq and a bunch of places in Africa are pretty much in camp 3.

Unfortunately for us in group 1, globalization means we can't wall off from group 2 or even 3, so we just have to deal.

It is true that the world is run by arrogant aholes, but the world has always been run by arrogant aholes. There has been so few exceptions to this rule if any that it is probably some fundamental law of the human condition.

[citanon]

If the West and Russia hate each other so much, planet earth is mostly water, why don't you both take your fleets and fight there and leave rest of us to live our ordinary lives? Sure, there will be a lot of dead fish and green peace will brag, but that is acceptable.

You know, like a gentlemen in the olden days, two guns one bullet in each and to the woods, far away from civilization.

How would that have worked out for your Muslims?

[Bigfella]

I wouldn't rule that out either sadly. However despite all they appear to be losing ground in Syria; Morek was apparently recaptured by the rebels for the first time since last October; http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/1...0SV0UW20151106

The list of things I wouldn't rule out is practically infinite. The list of things I consider likely is dramatically shorter. Putin blowing up the plane is not on that list.

[snapper]

If that was the case then a domestic event would make way more sense. Doesn't mean he won't try to pin it on local groups.

I wouldn't rule that out either sadly. However despite all they appear to be losing ground in Syria; Morek was apparently recaptured by the rebels for the first time since last October; http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/1...0SV0UW20151106

[Bigfella]

Or it's another Ryazan type job to give them the excuse to crack down on 'extremists' within Muscovy. No matter what the Russian people suffer.

If that was the case then a domestic event would make way more sense. Doesn't mean he won't try to pin it on local groups.

[Versus]

If the West and Russia hate each other so much, planet earth is mostly water, why don't you both take your fleets and fight there and leave rest of us to live our ordinary lives? Sure, there will be a lot of dead fish and green peace will brag, but that is acceptable.

You know, like a gentlemen in the olden days, two guns one bullet in each and to the woods, far away from civilization.

[Versus]

That's not what Russia is saying publicly Versus. They are still slow to come around to the idea that it was a bomb.

Vladimir Putin is more ruthless than you think and in a way that you don't quite understand. He doesn't care about foreign lives, but he also doesn't care about Russian ones. He is unlikely to be moved by the emotional impact of an event like this. In fact, this is rather inconvenient for him as if this was indeed a bomb by IS then he will either have to deepen Russian military involvement in Syria in a way that may not be beneficial, or have to direct more of his limited military capabilities towards attacking IS instead of supporting Assad, which is also counterproductive in his calculus.

Thus, he will do his utmost to explore other possibilities of this not being a bomb.
Failing that, he will try to cast suspicion on people he wants to fight (eg the moderate rebels) in order to dissipate political pressure for acting against IS.
Failing that, he will marginally increase operations against IS for a limited duration before going back to his main tack.
In addition to that, he will also find a way to blame non-cooperativity from the US and the West for the failure to prevent the bombing and the inability to retaliate adequately.

There is also the possibility that he will find some more creatively devious way of exploiting this, so we will see.

There is no room for mercy or emotions in the geopolitics and geo strategy, so Putin is not an exception. Just like the US (UK) and West, there is no difference in behavior when it comes to these agendas. We know that first hand. Personally I like the saying from the olden days, that proved to be truthful but too ugly for my countrymen to accept it. Often they would say that "there is only God and Russia for us" but I like the reply to that saying which goes something like this, "God is high and Russia is far way" .
My general stance on this is unchanged, as I still see this situation as an energy war or scramble to get the crumbs that were left from the oil age and I still think that it is an exercise in futility.
Both the West and the Russia are fighting on a train that is going towards cliff and the engine is out of fuel and the driver died a long time ago, so there is no one to pull the breaks. They are fighting over the control of the train, totally disregarding the fact that both of them don't know how to drive the train. Egoistic, selfish and narcissistic to the bone.

[citanon]

Latest summary of the evidence either way:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/05/middle...-what-we-know/

[snapper]

Or it's another Ryazan type job to give them the excuse to crack down on 'extremists' within Muscovy. No matter what the Russian people suffer.