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Putin dismisses calls for Syria intervention as ‘utter nonsense’ – video (Posted today too).
I’ve maintained that Syria has been for decades in Russia’s sphere of influence — and across quite a few military, political, and trade issues — and rightly in the post-Soviet period should have been of concern to Russians. It may have been so but with the Assad regime and society overall still difficult and remote in its own right.
Putin’s challenge to the IDF SIGINT intercept — BackChannels: “Syria – Chemical Warhead Launch Ascribed to 155th Brigade — 4th Armored Division — Syrian Army” — may involve showing a part of the hand owned by the American intelligence industry difficult to disclose without compromising security.
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As an aside here, the spy games popping up through Manning, Assange, and Snowden (oh my!) have been a much obscured part of the Islamic Small Wars throughout the range. For Pakistanis, “ISI” is ever on the lips but equally off the radar and inscrutable; for Somalis, the Al Qaeda types come and go — I got my first online news glimpse in the Islamic Courts Union era and my last somewhere between Al Shabaab and a separate raid on kidnappers that raised a lot of unanswerable questions, starting with, “So how did you guys (SEALS) know who, where, and when?”
The world “behind the curtains”, from diplomatic missions to intelligence operations coursing through every sector of state-defined societies is immense, and it’s foolish to think that those hidden hands (plus eyes and ears and mouths) are not playing around in Syria.
Indeed, these are the best of times for the writers (and movie producers) of spy thrillers.
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At stake in Syria, perhaps beautifully so, is a test of the definition of political and social obligation to others.
It’s much easier to express that when children, displaced persons, and refugees are the subject of whatever topic may be at hand: such are the victim of horrific circumstance and a portion of the soul of the world evident in the NGOs and the United Nations and all who support them comes out to do its thing, which is being helpful in the absolute worst conditions.
The spectacle of jets flown against neighborhoods, mass beheading, savage, if symbolic, cannibalism, and, finally, the taboo of chemical warfare brings something else into display, and it confronts these two incredibly unique men, President Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama with exactly what each might detest or fear most: differentially, a test of conscience on one hand, and a test of courage on the other: however, neither the former nor latter involve Syrians per se.
Instead, they involve the political grammars and structures on which the present has arrived, and in light of the savagery exhibited in Syria, as much seem to have grown old and to be moving out of favor.
I’ve been deliberately oblique in this last section, but fit to context, I think the poetry about right.
Additional Reference
From the News
Oudat, Bassel. “Who’s fighting in Syria?” Al-Ahram Weekly, September 4, 2013. This story recaps the development of rebel forces from about six months after the start of popular protests. Excerpt:
According to opposition figure Ayman Abdel-Nour, Al-Assad told the Syrian media recently that the regular army’s inability to take the city of Daria near Damascus after 120 days of non-stop shelling was because of the presence of foreign contingents fighting in the city, including Israelis and US commandos, for example.
However, the regime itself has been involved in forming the armed groups and of being a key mover in some of them. During the first year of the uprising, the regime released more than 60,000 prisoners by presidential decree, which facilitated the creation of the armed rebel groups and served its interests in painting them as criminals and former prisoners.
Nearly 47 amateur video clips reportedly filmed on the morning of the attack and showing the impact on civilians had been authenticated by French military doctors, according to the intelligence. French evidence gave details of other suspected chemical attacks, in the towns of Saraqib and Jobar in April, which now appeared to have killed about 280 people, the report said.
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