WASHINGTON -- Guess who just popped up in the Kremlin? Bashar al-Assad, Syrian dictator and destroyer, now Vladimir Putin’s newest pet.
After four years holed up in Damascus, Assad was summoned to Russia to bend a knee to Mr. Putin, show the world that today Middle East questions get settled not in Washington but in Moscow, and officially bless the Russian-led four-nation takeover of Syria now underway.
Does the bewildered Obama administration finally understand what Russia is up to?
President Barack Obama says Russia is doomed to fail in the Syrian quagmire. But Russia is not trying to reconquer the country for Assad. It’s consolidating a rump Syrian state on the roughly 20 percent of the country he now controls, the Alawite areas stretching north and west from Damascus through Latakia and encompassing the Russian naval base at Tartus.
It’s a partition. It will leave the Islamic State in control in the interior north and east. Why is this doomed to failure?
Mr. Putin’s larger strategy is also obvious. He is not reconstructing the old Soviet empire. That’s too large a task. But he is rebuilding and reasserting Russia’s ability to project power beyond its borders. Annexing Crimea restores to the motherland full control of the warm water Black Sea port that Russia has coveted since Peter the Great. Shoring up a rump Alawite state secures Russia’s naval and air bases in the eastern Mediterranean. Add to that Russia’s launching advanced cruise missiles from warships in the Caspian Sea to strike Syrian rebels 900 miles away and you have the most impressive display of Russian military reach since the Cold War.
For Mr. Obama, of course, these things don’t matter. “In today’s world,” he told the United Nations last month, “the measure of strength is no longer defined by the control of territory.” That he clearly believes this fantasy was demonstrated by his total abandonment of Iraq, forfeiting U.S. bases from which we could have projected power in the region (most notably preventing, through control of Iraqi airspace, the Iranian rearming and reinforcement of Assad’s weakening regime).
While Mr. Obama counts on the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice, Mr. Putin acts. As soon as the ink was dry on the Iran nuclear deal, Iran’s Qasem Soleimani flew to Moscow (a sanctions violation that we blithely ignored) to plan the multinational Syria campaign he is now directing. His Shiite expeditionary force is composed of Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Iraqi Shiite militias and Lebanese Hezbollah fighting under the cover of Russian airpower.
They are pounding non-Islamic State rebels, many equipped, trained and allegedly supported by the United States and Mr. Obama’s vaunted 60-nation coalition. What a comfort to be pulverized by 60 to 90 Russian airstrikes each day but to know that Belgium is with you.
The immediate Russian objective is to retake Aleppo, the eastern part of which is the rebels’ last remaining urban stronghold.
Russia is not fighting the Islamic State. On the contrary. Its attacks on the anti-government, anti-Islamic State rebels have allowed the Islamic State to expand, capturing rebel-held villages north of Aleppo, even as the Shiite expeditionary force approaches from the south.
Apart from the wreckage to Mr. Obama’s dreams of a “reset” with Russia, think of how these advances mock Mr. Obama’s dreams for Iran, namely that the nuclear deal would moderate Iranian behavior.
What has happened since the signing of the deal in July? Iran convicts an American journalist of espionage, contemptuously refusing to offer even the most minimal humanitarian gesture. Iran brazenly tests a nuclear-capable ballistic missile that our own U.N. ambassador said violates Security Council resolutions. And now Iran’s most notorious Revolutionary Guard commander takes control of a pan-Shiite army trying to decimate our remaining allies in the Syrian civil war.
Mr. Obama’s response to all this? Nothing. He has washed his hands of the region, still the center of world oil production and trade, and still the world’s most volatile region, seething with virulent jihadism ready for export. When you call something a quagmire you have told the world that you’re out and staying out. Russia and Iran will have their way.
“60 Minutes” asked Mr. Obama: Are you concerned about yielding leadership to Russia? Mr. Obama responded dismissively: Propping up a weak ally is not leadership. I’m leading the world on climate change.
Upon hearing that, anyone in any conflict anywhere who has put his trust in the United States should start packing his bags for Germany.
Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post (letters@charleskrauthammer.com)
Reposted from the San Diego Union Tribune, by Sandra Dibble. May follow up with original piece about La Coahulia.
TIJUANA — As the sun went down one night last week, Tijuana’s red light district came to life — with flashing neon signs, scantily clad women lining the sidewalk, bars filling with customers, and police pickups slowly cruising the main drag, Calle Coahuila.
People mill about outside a strip club in Tijuana's red-light district.David Maung
+Read Caption
The business of sex has for decades been conducted openly along these few blocks near the U.S. border at the edge of Tijuana’s downtown, an area of La Zona Norte known to locals as La Coahuila. But in recent days, the mere mention of its name has become a touchy political subject.
The hot-button issue is a program called Tijuana Coqueta, roughly translated as “Tijuana Flirty,” described in a recent Tijuana television news report as a campaign to bring sex tourism to the city. Tijuana’s tourism chief, Miguel Angel Badiola, subsequently denied the campaign’s existence. Mayor Jorge Astiazarán said he would never stand for it. And after days of controversy, both men say they’re done talking about Tijuana Coqueta, which local bar owners say is the name they gave to their own plan to improve sidewalks and add lighting to the area.
But for decades, clients from both sides of the border have brought a booming business to the bars, hotels and cantinas in one of the city’s older and grittier neighborhoods.
On any given night, scores of U.S. visitors mingle with a Mexican clientele crowded inside bars named Adelita, Hong Kong, Chicago Club and other establishments that line Calle Coahuila and a series of smaller side streets. For decades, this has been Tijuana’s zona de tolerancia — a tolerance zone for the sex trade.
“If one wants to understand the social, cultural and economic dynamics of the border, understanding la zona de tolerancia from an academic and anthropological perspective is fundamental,” said Victor Clark, a Tijuana human rights activist and adjunct professor at San Diego State University who regularly takes his students on tours here.
“There’s nothing like it in San Diego,” said a 63-year-old East County resident, stopping for a taco on Wednesday evening. “This is freedom; you can do whatever you want,” he said, then quickly adding: “You’ve got to be very careful.”
The man declined to give his name but said he is divorced, has no children, and works as a government clerk and has been coming down for 17 years. “It’s called living,” he said. “I’ve had many problems, I’ve had 1,000 problems, but the good far outweighs the bad.”
He avoids the tonier clubs, more closely monitored by the owners, where prostitutes ask for $70 for a half-hour in a hotel room. He said he prefers selecting from las paraditas, the women standing on the streets, who ask for $20 for their services.
Prostitution is prohibited in most of the United States, permitted only in a handful of counties in Nevada. But, as in other parts of the world, it is a tolerated activity in Mexico — neither formally endorsed nor expressly forbidden. In Tijuana, the activity is regulated under the city’s health laws.
Juan Manuel Salazar Pimentel, a former Baja California attorney general, said the state’s first governor imposed regulations in the early 1950s requiring prostitutes to pay a daily fee of $3. Josué Beltrán, an anthropological historian who researched the roots of the city’s sex trade, said during the same period, the city’s first mayor ordered prostitutes confined to a hotel on the outskirts of town.
The sex trade “is a topic that has always scandalized Tijuana society,” Beltrán said. “They know of its existence, but they have not wanted to acknowledge it.”
Still, the city adopted new rules in 2005 requiring sex workers to register, carry an electronic card and submit to regular checkups, including testing for HIV. The rules stipulate that establishments must maintain rooms that “are perfectly clean and hygienic,” and that mattresses be protected with a plastic cover to make cleaning easier.
City officials did not reply to requests for the number of registered card-carriers, but Clark, the human rights activist, said there are approximately 1,700 signed up with municipal health authorities — a fraction of the 5,000 to 6,000 sex workers that business owners have told him operate in La Cohuila and other parts of the city. As the city has grown, he said, a few smaller tolerance zones have sprung up.
Tolerance zones have existed on Mexico’s northern border since at least the U.S. prohibition era, from 1918 to 1933, and peaking in the years following World War II, said Daniel Arreola, a geographer from Arizona State University. In some cities, like Tijuana, they grew on the margins of traditional tourist areas. The years after 1945 saw the emergence of enclosed compounds such as Boystown in Nuevo Laredo on the Texas border, he said.
La Coahuila didn’t become a center for the city’s sex trade until the late 1950s, longtime residents say. Jack Doron remembers the days when topless bars proliferated on the city’s tourist strip, Avenida Revolución — until a mayor ordered them removed in 1966.
Doron now owns one of the oldest shops on the street, Hand Art, which sells embroidered dresses and blouses. He heads a merchants group called Ceturmex.
“We want family tourism, people who want to know Mexican culture, gastronomy, that’s what we’re promoting,” Doron said. Asked about the bars and cantinas just blocks away, he shrugged: “We’re not going to be able to say it will disappear because we close our eyes,” he said. “They have their area, we have our area, we don’t mix.”
While apart from the mainstream of the city’s economic activities, La Cohuila has been the subject of much academic investigation. One field study involved interviews at public health clinics with 220 women who worked in the city’s sex industry — from escort services to strip bars to brothels to street walkers. Sheldon Zhang, a San Diego State University professor and the lead investigator, said about 12 percent of the women reported being deceived or forced into sex work, but “the vast majority were in that business on their own terms,” he said.
Another researcher, who studied Tijuana’s sex trade as a graduate student, said that in spite of the regulations, she saw many continue to work illegally, risking fines and jail.
“You have minors, people that do not have a birth certificate to register. There are a lot of barriers to working legally,” said Yasmina Katsulis, now a professor in the Women and Gender Studies Department of Arizona State University.
Those in Tijuana’s sex trade vary widely, Katsulis said. “There is an assumption that there is no violence, that everyone is healthy,” she said. “That’s a misperception, it’s an illusion. No matter what the laws, we aren’t doing enough to address poverty, and the reason that drives people into commercial sex.”
Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Milenio article with additional photos from Google images
[ Subject Matter: The Casarrubias Brothers, Guerreros Unidos Cartel Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required]
Three of the four brothers are accused of participating in the disappearance of 43 normalistas of Ayotzinapa; this past week Federal Forces detained one of them with arms and drugs. Sidronio is now implicating Carlos Ahumada of links with him, La Familia and selling uranium to China, and of helping escape in his helicopter, a leader of a criminal group in Tierra Caliente, Johnny Hurtado, "El Pescado", alleged leader of La Familia Michoacana.
Sidronio Cassarubias Salgado
Reporter: Milenio Digital Mexico City, The Casarrubias Salgado brothers, forged their leadership of the criminal group Guerrors Unidos, which operates in Guerrero, Morelos and Mexico State, and among other activities transported heroin to Chicago, United States.
Three of the four brothers are accused of participating in the disappearance of the 43 normalistas of Ayotzinapa in the Iguala municipality, where the ex municipal president, Jose Luis Abarca, and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, were working with the criminal group according to the PGR.
Mario and Sidronio are detained, Jose Angel is sought by the authorities who have offered a 1.5 million pesos reward for information leading to his capture.
Adan was detained last week with guns and drugs.
Mario, "El Sapo Guapo"
He was leader of Guerreros Unidos until Federal Forces detained him in Toluca on 29th of April last year. The criminal group operate in Guerrero, Morelos and Mexico State, informed the National Commissioner for Security, Monte Alejandro Rubido one day after his detention.
"El Sapo Guapo" is accused by the PGR of being the principal trafficker of drugs to Chicago, United States, hidden in trailers of fruit and passenger coaches, crimes against health, being a member of a criminal organization, possession of fire arms, murder, kidnapping and extortion.
Before being part of Guerreros Unidos, "El Sapo Guapo worked as a security element of the Beltran Leyva Organization, Mario Casarrubias founded his own criminal group with ex members of various groups in Michoacan and Guerrero.
Sidronio Inherited the leadership of Guerreros Unidos after his brother Mario was captured and continued the strategy of violence to control his drug routes. The then prosecutor Jesus Murillo Karam said on the 17th of October that Sidronio is linked with the disappearance of the 43 normalistas of Ayotzinapa.
"He said no, that he was informed, that he didn't order it, and that he opposed it, he remembers in his testimony, he said that he didn't order it and that it was a situation unforeseen", said Murillo Karam.
Sidronio was imprisoned in the maximum security Cefereso no.1 "Altiplano", in State of Mexico, and a Federal Judge initiated a penal process against him for the crimes of being a member of a criminal organization and possession of fire arms for exclusive use of the armed forces.
Adan Zenen, "El Tomate" The authorities had designated him as possible successor to his brother Sidronio. On the 29th of October, military and federal police detained him in Cuernavaca, Morelos, with the municipal president of Cocula, Guerrero, Eric Ulises Ramirez Crespo. Federal functionaries commented to Milenio that day that at the moment of his capture "El Tomate" was in possession of fire arms and a package of drugs.
The PGR consigned "El Tomate" to Cefereso no.11 in Hermosillo, Sonora while waiting for a Judge to resolve his jurisdictional situation.
Jose Angel, "El Mochomo" The PGR are offering a reward of 1.5 million pesos for information leading to his capture, and is allegedly one of those responsible for the disappearance of the 43 normalistas.
The allegations Sidronio, also known as "El Chino", didn't only confess to the PGR that Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa is whom "was really in charge in Iguala", but also about the alleged links that Mayors had with his and other criminal organizations, and businesses with empresarios like Carlos Ahumada Kurtz.
Persons who had access to the initial investigations and testified in the Iguala case permitted Milenio to know the details of his declaration of made on 18th of October of 2014 before agents of the Federal Public Ministry, where he affirmed that Ahumada is an acquaintance of Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga, "El Pescado", leader of "La Familia Michoacana".
Johnny Hurtado
In all, functionaries of the Federal Government revealed that the PGR investigated Ahumada for his probable links to criminal organizations in Guerrero.
An investigator, signalled that SEIDO started the investigation based in part, on the declarations given by Jose Maria Chavez Magana, "El Pony", alleged boss of "La Familia", and Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado.
El Chino affirmed that Ahumada is an acquaintance of El Pescado, leader of La Familia Michoacana in Tierra Caliente, with whom he traffics uranium.
According to information given by consultants both State and Federal, "El Pescado" or "El Pez" assumed the leadership of this criminal group after the detention of "El Pony" in July of 2014 in Guanajuato.
"El Pony" operated in the Mexican Municipalities of Tejupilco, Luvianos, Tlatlaya, Otzolotepec, Amatepec, Zacualpa and Zacazonapan, localities that adjoin Guerrero.
In the investigation opened for the disappearance of the 43 normalistas of Ayotzinapa, that he was not questioned, and that Sidronio declared that Carlos Ahumada is the owner of two mines in Guerrero, where they are digging uranium.
"One of the mines is in Campo Morado, Tierra Caliente, Guerrero. The cargo was transported by boat, but Ahumada hid the uranium ore among other combined ores, and transported them to Lazaro Cardenas, but the majority of the cargo went to Port of Colima, where it was loaded directly onto Chinese ships with which they dealt. This mine is also exploited by a Canadian business", said the Federal Public Ministry agent.
Sidronio mentioned that when "El Pescado" was in danger of being arrested and detained, Ahumada facilitated on several occasions an aircraft to use in escaping Federal agents.
"I add that when "El Pescado" was in danger of being detained by any Governmental authority, Carlos Ahumada helped him with a helicopter that he owned, it was also used to help "El Fresa", who is the cousin of Jose Alfredo Hurtado, who in reality is the brother of Johnny Hurtado".
"In the same way "El Pescado" is an aficionado of Soccer, and utilised the helicopter to access part of Mexico City or Toluca. Ahumada when digging uranium has to pay 20 thousand pesos per boat to "El Pescado", who is the top leader of "La Familia", said the Boss of Guerreros Unidos.
Arrangements with Mayors Guerreros Unidos, referred Sidronio, was founded by Cleotilde Toribio Renteria, "El Tilde", who was detained in the Santa Fe zone in Mexico City, on the 9th of July 2012.
"El Tilde", added Sidronio, is the brother of Sostenes, Federico and Serefino; and points out that this family evades capture particularly the brothers Federico and Moises.
Sidronio and his brother Mario Casarrubias, "El Sapo Guapo", took administrative control of Guerreros Unidos at the start of 2014; however, Mario was captured in Toluca, State of Mexico, during April of this year in an Army operation.
El Chino also detailed the conflicts that there are between the criminal organizations which operate in Guerrero.
"... there exists a war between the different Cartels, they are Los Rojos, led by Omar Cuenca Marino and Santiago Mazario Hernandez, "El Carrete", also a member of La Familia Michoacana, led by Johnny Hurtado and Alfredo Hurtado, "La Fresa".
"The simple kinship with Mario was the objective of these groups, during which they only tried to move in municipalities that had a presence of Guerreros Unidos; among them I could mention Iguala, Taxco, Cocula, Buenavista de Cuellar, Tepecua, where there exist arrangements with the Municipal Presidents, and principally with the Directors of Public Security, arrangements that had already been made between them and Gil (Gildardo Lopez Astudillo)".
In Iguala there were arrangements directly with Jose Luis Abarca Velazquez and his cousin Felipe Flores Velazquez, ex Secretary of Security for this locality, who is sought for the disappearance of the 43 normalistas.
"The arrangements were held with Senora Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa, sister of Borrado ( Alberto) and "El MP" (Mario) who were close collaborators of Arturo Beltran Leyva and that they were assassinated on orders of the capo, this woman Maria de los Angeles is who sent all the money to El MP, and is who is really in charge in Iguala, and the money collected from the municipal presidency pays for the protection of the narcos", he said.
Guerrero Unidos received the money from Iguala and took it to Raul Salgado Hernandez, "La Camperra", and "El Gil", who were in charge of distributing it to their members located in other municipal presidencies.
In the municipality of Huitzuco, they had "El Gualter", but he betrayed and went to the side of "El Carrete", leader of Los Rojos.
"on the part of Teloloapan was "El May", who is also chief of sicarios in Iguala, in State of Mexico, Ixtapan de la Sal; there didn't exist a Captain, as we called plaza jefes, but we appointed the Police Director, who was known as "El Chaparrito", real name of Efrain Pedroza".
"On the side of the state of Morelos is El Carrete, who I already referred to as being against Guerreros Unidos".
Kidnappings in Valle de Bravo "In the town of Acapetlahuaya ( Guerrero ), we have against us already the Municipal President Eleuterio Aranda Salgado known as "El Solitario del sur", he represents the armed wing of Johnny Hurtado; including Eleuterio the can search the Internet and leave singing narco corridos of La Familia Michoacana; in this zone has the presence of a subject nicknamed "El Chainis", whose name is Jose Mendez Lopez, and he controls Palmar Chico and Palmar Grande, Guerrero this group includes those persons who carried out the kidnappings in 2014 in Valle de Bravo, State of Mexico.
"He also gives support to the people of Amatepec, Edomex, and Ixcapuzalco, Guerrero, and who is equal to Rogaciano Mecino, President of Cuetzala, above all they give social support to the sicarios of the organization. Additionally they have that take care of poppy planting in a place they call "Rio Chiquito", he added.
In the town of Arcelia, Guerrero, added Sidronio, they hide "El Pescado", who is the owner of a gas station in this location.
By law, lenders are prohibited from collecting data on the race or ethnicity of its borrowers. And, yet the government alleges racial discrimination on the basis of statistical formulas with no examination of the underlying loan documents or the borrower’s actual risk profile that would justify a higher interest rate commensurate with the borrower’s risk of defaulting on a loan.
To compound this idiocy, the government’s regulatory agency extorts millions from lenders and then proceeds to distribute these funds – not to those who actually have been damaged, but to those whose surname and zip code indicates they have a high probability of being a minority. With a reminder to return the check if you are not a minority.
And, you wonder why the government experiences the loss of billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse?
U.S. Government Uses Race Test for $80 Million in Payments -- Checks are ready for minority borrowers allegedly discriminated against on Ally Financial auto loans
Regulators have been sending letters in recent months to people they believe were minority borrowers overcharged for auto loans from Ally Financial.
By the end of this week, the U.S. government will be a step closer to sending out millions of dollars to minority borrowers who were allegedly discriminated against by auto lender Ally Financial Inc.But there is a potential hitch: No one knows for certain whether all the people getting the checks will actually be minorities.
To find minority borrowers, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Justice Department opted to essentially make educated guesses using an algorithm that assigns probabilities to whether borrowers are minorities based on their last names and locations.
They have been sending letters in recent months to Ally customers they believe were overcharged based on the results. One version of the letter, sent to borrowers that the CFPB estimates have at least a 95% probability of being minorities, tells recipients that they qualify for a payment and don’t need to do anything more. It asks borrowers to write back if they aren’t minorities.
Another version, sent to borrowers whose likelihood of being a minority under the CFPB algorithm falls between 50% and 95%, asks recipients to sign and return the letter confirming that they are minorities. Recipients have until Saturday to respond to qualify for a payment.
The government is expected to start sending out checks, often for hundreds of dollars, later this year or in early 2016.
Amazingly, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was designed by Senator Elizabeth “Fauxcohantas” Warren, and the proceeds will be distributed in an election year to remind recipients that voting for progressive socialist democrats means freebies and rebates,.
However egregious, it is not as potentially dangerous or destructive as the lie behind “no profiling” and the TSA’s “No fly” list …
Profiling works: you look for threats where they are most likely to appear first, and secondarily screen the rest. The truth the government does not want you to know is that terrorists normally do not fly under their real names; most terrorists adopt another religious name for jihad, there are numerous ways to transliterate non-English languages, and without biometric or other information, the list is worthless. But you are supposed to feel safe and secure knowing the government is “doing something” and that politicians “care.”
Bottom line …
I am not against regulatory safeguards. Bring back Glass-Steagall that separates banking and brokerage. Bring back the gaming laws that prohibit derivatives, demand that derivatives used as insurance on stock/bond asset plays be regulated like insurance using sound actuarial principles. And, most of all, eliminate the type of crony capitalism that we saw during the Bush years when politically-appointed leadership at the key financial regulators failed to investigate and prosecute financial fraud. Let us not forget the Federal Reserve which appears to be a criminal enterprise that is re-capitalizing technically insolvent financial institutions by artificially capping the return on investments and bank accounts held by seniors and others on a fixed income.
THE KEY TO OUR FUTURE IS TO REDUCE THE CORRUPTION IN POLITICS AND REINSTATE COMMONSENSE SOLUTIONS!
The U.S. can and should act decisively in Syria in order to protect its national security interests and those of its allies. The current exodus of refugees from Syria presents significant economic and security challenges to America's allies in Europe and the Middle East, and directly benefits the Syrian Assad regime, Iran, Hezbollah, Russia, the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), and the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS). Continued U.S. inaction in the face of these strategic challenges will only exacerbate the security situation and empower America's enemies and strategic competitors. The White House announced on October 30 small adjustments to U.S. implementation, such as adding less than fifty special operations forces to train and assist the Kurdish-Arab Force in northern Syria. These changes are insufficient to meet the strategic challenges. Continued U.S. inaction and half-measures will only exacerbate the security situation and empower America's enemies and strategic competitors.
One course of action for the U.S. in the near term is to establish a No-Fly Zone over select areas of Syria. U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford testified on U.S. strategy in the Middle East before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on October 27, 2015. Carter stated that he does not have a concept of operations for a no-fly zone in Syria to recommend. Dunford stated that it is possible to implement a no-fly zone in Syria but highlighted political and legal challenges, adding that a no-fly zone would divert resources from fighting ISIS. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is said to have asked his staff to explore this option and its implementation.
The Assad regime has used the Syrian Arab Air Force (SAF) to indiscriminately and deliberately bomb civilian neighborhoods. Establishing a No-Fly Zone over certain locations in Syria will significantly reduce the Assad regime's ability to conduct widespread bombing attacks against civilian areas. Establishing a No-Fly Zone is more difficult with Russian aircraft engaged in Syria. It is not impossible, however, and can be reasonable and plausible if certain conditions are set.
This backgrounder details three separate Courses of Action to establish a No-Fly Zone, as well as two additional courses of action for potential action other than a No-Fly Zone. The suggested No-Fly Zones are limited in geographic scope, covering only a relatively small portion of Syrian air space, and are examined to minimize resource requirements and risk to U.S. equipment and personnel while still presenting a viable and enforceable No-Fly Zone. These are technical studies that explain in practical terms how the U.S. could establish No-Fly-Zones. The options presented here assume the support of Jordan and Turkey in order to put forth a set of options that minimize both cost and risk.
Tactically, establishing a No-Fly Zone would eliminate the use of barrel bombs from helicopters and gravity bombs from fixed wing aircraft against civilian population centers located in the No-Fly Zone. Barrel bombs are improvised explosive devices filled with shrapnel or Chlorine gas and dropped on civilian population centers. Eliminating Assad's use of barrel bombs would immediately decrease civilian deaths caused by barrel bombs and gravity bombs, and would decrease pressure on civilian populations in rebel held areas to emigrate. Strategically, establishing a No-Fly Zone could deprive the Assad regime of its ability to continue its kill and depopulate strategy.
If the U.S. established a No-Fly Zone, the Assad regime might be forced to reassess its options. Although the Assad regime is publicly committed to a negotiated end to the conflict, and did participate in the Geneva II conference, in reality, Assad simply leverages his participation in peace talks to legitimize and extend his rule. If the U.S. is genuinely committed to a negotiated end to the conflict in Syria, establishing a No-Fly Zone could have the strategic impact of forcing Assad and his outside supporters to recalculate politically. Assad is unlikely to concede on political accommodations sufficiently to gain the support of opposition power-brokers as long as Russia's support to Assad continues unabated. The current framework for negotiations does not favor U.S. interests because it will not produce a durable solution. The U.S. must therefore take action to change the parameters of ongoing negotiations for a political settlement. Establishing a No-Fly Zone is one option.
The situation in Syria is extremely dynamic, which makes developing detailed technical evaluations and recommendations of different possible U.S. actions difficult. This paper was drafted largely before the Russian military intervention in Syria. It has been substantially modified to reflect the escalation of Russian and now Iranian direct military involvement in Syria, but it is not possible to keep pace fully. It now appears, for example, that the Russians are using cluster munitions in Aleppo, which have reportedly driven an additional 75,000 civilians from their homes. If Russian aircraft continue to use this or similar techniques that victimize innocent Syrians, then the strategic impact of stopping or reducing the Assad regime's use of barrel bombs may well be considerably lessened.
It is not clear how long the Russians will continue this approach or sustain the current level of direct military support to Assad. It should certainly be a primary objective of the U.S. to persuade President Vladimir Putin to cease his military adventure in Syria. The U.S. must not allow Russia to define the parameters of negotiations in Syria through the use of force. The U.S. should therefore consider options to constrain Russia in Syria in order to achieve leverage in negotiations.
Any attempt to set up a No-Fly Zone that risks direct military conflict with Russia must of course be considered most carefully. It is not enough to design methods of mitigating the risk of escalation or escalation counter-measures, although this paper considers both. The U.S. must also weigh the probable benefits of a partial No-Fly Zone against the probable costs of limited conflict with Russia at the moment when the decision must be made.
The most predictable and worrying result of Jeremy Corbyn's election was always the effect it was going to have on the growing anti-Semitism and anti-Israel activism in the UK.
For someone such as Jeremy Corbyn, an elevation to a position of leadership is a vindication of those years in the wilderness, not an opportunity to find an ideological replacement.
One of the reasons Hamas supporters spend so much time speaking to university students is because they hope such students will demonstrate a naïveté about them and their goals that might be unusual elsewhere in society.
What happens when a pro-Hamas speaker is confronted by an anti-Hamas speaker? The anti-Hamas speaker may rightly say that Hamas is an extremist organisation. The pro-Hamas speaker or naïve student might easily come back by asking how an organization can be deemed extreme if the leader of Her Majesty's opposition is a friend and supporter of the group. This certainly makes it easier to depict its terrorists as tolerable and its racism as acceptable.
The British left, under Corbyn's leadership, now harbour the proponents of the greatest racism of our time.
In 2009, Jeremy Corbyn (left) said: "It will be my pleasure and my honour to host an event in Parliament where our friends from Hezbollah will be speaking. I also invited friends from Hamas to come and speak as well." Pictured in the middle is Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Pictured at right is Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
It was never hard to predict the effects of the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the British Labour party. Although some people wondered whether the candidate of the far-left might soften some of his opinions once in power, most observers never doubted that someone who had cherished such opinions almost alone on the backbenches for three decades was hardly going to change them overnight just because he had become party leader. For someone such as Corbyn, an elevation to a position of leadership is a vindication of those years in the wilderness, not an opportunity to find an ideological replacement.
Russian Military Activity: October 27-November 3, 2015
by Hugo Spaulding, Daniel Urchick, and Daniel Pitcairn
Key Takeaway:
Russia continues to leverage its military intervention in Syria to assert its great power status in the Middle East. Following inconclusive multilateral talks in Vienna on October 30, Russia claimed to have conducted airstrikes in direct coordination with the Syrian opposition in order to present itself as a cooperative actor, and possibly to sow distrust among rebel groups. Russia strengthened its military partnership with Iran by closing in on an agreement over a previously-stalled contract to provide S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Tehran. Russia activated its air de-confliction agreements with Israel and the US, carrying out a short range communications test with a U.S. fighter plane on November 3. Russia also responded on November 3 to an attack by ISIS south of Homs city by sending attack helicopters to a forward airbase near the ISIS front line. Preserving the Syrian regime may require Russia to engage on the central Syrian front against ISIS while maintaining its current support to regime offensives against rebels and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria. Meanwhile, Russia continued to project military aggression toward the U.S. and NATO outside the Middle East. Russia launched a snap naval aviation drill near its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad after reports emerged that NATO was considering bolstering its military presence along its eastern border with Russia. Russia launched one of its largest missile tests of the year on the day of the Vienna talks over Syria. Russia also may have backed pro-Russian parties in the former Soviet republic of Moldova, which ousted the pro-EU government on October 29. Russia's operations in the Middle East are part of a larger effort to expand Russia's military presence and political influence at the expense of the U.S. and its allies to an extent not witnessed since the end of the Cold War.
