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Tag Archives: east-west conflict

Afghanistan’s Violence-Stalling Peace-Encouraging Doha Agreement

29 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Afghanistan, International Development, Islamic Small Wars

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Afghanistan, Doha Agreement, east-west conflict, Phantoms of the Soviet, Taliban

Left: Diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, U.S. Department of State; right: Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Chief of Taliban’s Diplomatic Office, Doha, Qatar. Screen capture, February 29, 2020.

Where it may have begun —

Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Qaeda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014.

How it may have been sustained —

Gibbons-Neff, Thomas. “Russia is sending weapons to Taliban, top U.S. general confirms.” The Washington Post, April 24, 2017.

Where it may have ended this day —

George, Susannah and Dan Lamothe. “U.S. signs peace deal with Taliban, a turning point in the 18-year war in Afghanistan. The Washington Post, February 29, 2020.

Related on BackChannels

Civilizational Narcissism

Related Online

Bellis, Charlotte. “US-Taliban talks: Who is Mullah Baradar? Taliban Cofounder turned political chief, Abdul Ghani Baradar has worked in the shadows his entire life.” Al Jazeera, May 2, 2019.

–33–

Funny Things Happen at Sea – Azov, South China, Hormuz, Oman

13 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Attacks at Sea, Azov, east-west conflict, Gulf of Oman, Hormuz, Incidents at Sea, South China

Related: “The battle for Azov: Round 1 goes to Russia” | Brookings, December 3, 2018 | “Russia confirms signing agreement with Ukraine on fishing in the Sea of Azov” | UAWire, March 4, 2019 — Brookings had recounted the Russian vessel ramming of a Ukrainian fishing boat earlier in 2018, a period in which the Ukrainian fishing fleet on the Sea of Azov had been harassed and run off its own territory.

DW Documentary posted to YouTube March 26, 2019.

It remains to be seen whether the treaty will see Ukraine’s Sea of Azov fleet restored to normal operations in frequency, area, and yields.


“Chinese Ship Sinks PH Vessel, Abandons 22 Pinoy Fisherman | ABS-CBN News, 6/12/2019 — ” The Armed Forces’ Western Command said the incident was “far from accidental” and likened it to a “hit and run.”

The above referenced incident also involved a direct ramming but against a target at anchor.

What was its purpose?


“Tankers Off Iran Hit by Suspected Torpedos” | WSJ \ 6/13/2019

Earlier: “Two Saudi oil tankers among ‘sabotaged’ ships off UAE coast” | Al Jazeera, 5/13/2019.


“Gulf of Oman tankers attacked” | CNN, June 13, 2019, Updated 1:30 p.m. ET.

BackChannels wonders if the enemies of liberal democracy have not chosen the subtleties of seaborne violence to launch attacks that may be received as ambiguous by the western public. The Bush Administration’s WMD cover, which may have been more true in behind-the-curtains details and regime tendencies than in blatant near-time evidence may have damaged future-claims credibility as regards the authenticity of official narratives in the run-ups to war — or, for this blog, the bridge between less obvious and more obvious war.

Did the clump of snow just happen to fall on one’s shoulders or was it hurled?

🙂

Almost by definition, remove events, and especially those at sea, would seem little observed by other than dock and seafaring workers and then, of course, the parties to military listening-watching activities.


China, Russia, and Iran appear to wish for every greater power and control over populations and wealth in the world through the imposition of Draconian laws using Orwellian methods or tools to keep their elites enriched and their subject populations dumb in relation to their grooming at best (and literally so beneath the shadow of the “Islamic Revolution” in Iran) or, at worst, their invisibility (have a look into poverty in the three states operated by wealthy political elites).


CNN, Posted to YouTube June 13, 2019.

–33–

Ukraine’s Portent: A Dying West or Continuous Resurgent and Robust Democratic Revolution?

04 Saturday May 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

east-west conflict, frozen conflict, medieval v modern, Russian aggression, Ukraine, Ukrainian Conflict

Once inured to suffering associated with Russian arms and will, the liberal democracies of the west risk watching the heat rise — or the surroundings change — while being lazed into unconscious acceptance.


Screen capture LiveUA Map May 4, 2019.

Ukraine’s five-year-old “frozen conflict” has not been forgotten by EU / NATO, which methodically if slowly has focused on containing the irritating Bear now pummeling Mariupol and targets north by northwest along a line of embattled territory on the western edge of Donetsk Oblast. In addition to a vigorous round of military exercises conducted by NATO in 2018, typified perhaps by the 31+ nation Trident Juncture 18, the United States has continued training-related deployments to Ukraine in a “train-the-trainers ” effort to improve Ukraine’s defense against greater incursion by Russian forces.

Not to flack the rah-rah: Ukraine has been made to pay a near daily — or daily — price in injury and death for having become a Russian test bed (no different than Syria) for Moscow’s defense technologies and “hybrid warfare”.

Russia’s cynical “Passportization” program appears also under way with the only resistance to it to be found in Ukrainian disinterest.

The Russian propaganda mill plies a familiar routine with web videos: the most recent shelling appears to come from Ukrainian forces without cause (I’ll leave the look-up on such as “Donetsk, fighting” to the reader). However, as displayed on any given LiveUAmap, Russia’s military-integrated activity should seem clear enough.


Primary source for this section:

Chang, Felix K. “Are the Russians Coming?: Russia’s Military Buildup Near Ukraine.” Foreign Policy Research Institute, February 25, 2019.

Drawing from the above source, this is what BackChannels tallies for undeniable Russian military presence in proximity to Ukraine’s border:

12 Battalions
340 Helicopters
500 Tactical Aircraft

Derived from the same source but focusing on what has been observed in relation to Russia’s military presence on the Crimean Peninsula:

A-50 AWAC (1)
BMD-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles
IL-76 Military Transport Aircraft
S-300 Air Defense Batteries (2)
S-400 Air Defense Batteries (5)

Analyst Felix K. Chang’s winter 2019 observation for the Foreign Policy Research Institute:

“Together with two other S-300 air defense batteries nearby, Russian land-based air defenses in the region could simultaneously launch as many as 192 surface-to-air missiles. Interestingly, their crews have been training to counter not only hostile aircraft, but also sea-launched cruise missiles, seemingly in preparation for a NATO intervention. Whatever the case, the airspace above Crimea and Donbas has quickly become among the most well-defended in the world.


For cruising through related offerings on YouTube and elsewhere on the web, the open source seems short of up-to-the-minute Ukrainian war reportage but for the Live UA Map, a conflict pin board, and reporting by Michael MacKay via Twitter and through his column in Radio Lemberg.

Russia attacked Ukraine 21 times yesterday, May 3rd – violating the Minsk Agreement by breaking the ceasefire and by using heavy artillery. 2 Ukrainian soldiers, brave defenders of Europe, were wounded. 1 Russian invader was killed and 4 others wounded. https://t.co/DtzttvUgFs pic.twitter.com/aHuYUgwGze

— Michael MacKay (@mhmck) May 4, 2019

BackChannels has been seeing the numbers, finding Russian-side videos (in which the fire always comes from Ukraine, not the Russian-backed separatists that provoke it), and finding videos from when the conflict was all bloody new, shocking, and hot. Now it’s still bloody and plenty hot, but it has become a part of the daily fare in the world’s conflict-related horror show.

Perhaps a warning should be issued: once inured to suffering associated with Russian arms and will, the liberal democracies of the west risk watching the heat rise — or the surroundings change — while being lazed into unconscious acceptance.


Trump didn’t tell Putin to stop waging war on Ukraine. He didn’t demand the removal of Russian occupation forces from Crimea & Donbas. Trump didn’t do these things because he is a compromised asset of Russia’s intelligence services and therefore a traitor to the United States.

— Michael MacKay (@mhmck) May 4, 2019

MacKay’s tweet, much in line with thinking by America’s Democrats and possibly some Republican moderates, begs a few questions about Ukraine’s “frozen conflict” among others: how much “patience” has the west? How much destruction and how many lives lost is acceptable before jawing about Russian barbarism and kleptocracy and posturing about western defense support and strength lose their charm?


Russia has recently claimed victory in Syria. This is what that looks like:

Ruptly, January 20, 2016

With the winter-is-coming cloud of nuclear warfare hanging over east-west confrontation — and with the incredible billions of dollars laundered out of transnational criminal enterprise spiked into the bloodstreams of states — the way forward for the democratic attenuation of political power and the promotion of faith in rule of law may be difficult to see. While one may hope for hope in that regard, locking related conflicts into one place without limit seems itself dispiriting and on the side of evil.

For how long may Ukraine be expected to endure a Moscow-engineered “status quo”?

And for how long may EU / NATO — already somewhat compromised by Moscow’s use of Islamic Terrorism and Syrian mass migration to induce / “inspire” the western “New Nationalism” — abide Moscow’s favor for Feudal Political Absolutism (worldwide) and its concomitant eroding of the ideals, principles, and values associated with democracy and the still open societies of the west?


PBS NewsHour, May 2, 2019. For more information online:
Wilmont, Simon Lereng. The Distant Barking of Dogs.
VOA, April 9, 2019, prior to elections.
UATV English, April 30, 2019

Related on BackChannels:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

–33–

Re. Syrian SAM Shoot-Down of Russian Surveillance Aircraft

18 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Israel, Middle East, Political Psychology, Russia, Syria

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

east-west conflict, IDF, Israel, Latakia, op-ed, Phantoms of the Soviet, Putin, Russian surveillance aircraft, shootdown, Syria

Moscow (CNN)Syria inadvertently shot down a Russian military plane after an Israeli attack on Syrian positions, killing 15 people on board, Moscow said.
The Russian military said Tuesday that the Russian maritime patrol aircraft was shot down by Syrian regime anti-aircraft artillery amid the Israeli attack on Monday, state news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

Moscow blamed Israel for putting its aircraft in the line of fire, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

Starr, Barbara, Ryan Browne and Nathan Hodge. “Syria accidentally shot down a Russian military plane.” CNN Politics, September 18, 2018.


While it’s good that the IDF took out advanced weapons manufacturing facilities focused on producing missiles intended to challenge Israel’s existence (from the CNN report: “from which systems to manufacture accurate and lethal weapons were about to be transferred on behalf of Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon”), the attack will bring into focus the greater east-west conflict and run-up, perhaps, to greater direct engagement between Russian and Israeli (western-backed) forces.

Here’s the verbatim from earlier comment the editor made on Facebook:


Clearly, “Assad v The Terrorists” has half destroyed Syria (in the years since 2011 — give him a few more years in power, and the state will be gone altogether) but in a surreal fashion clings to the hope of destroying Israel and the Jews. The IDF’s target(s) appears to have been advanced weapons manufacturing facilities from which the output would have been used to challenge Israel.

Medieval Russia has been trying to recover its imperial and imperious attitude in its middle east presence. It may be suggested — at least I will do it — that it may have been shielding the Syrian manufacturing site with the presence of its surveillance aircraft. If true — and we may never know — that would account for Israel short notification to Russian military.

In the larger window: Washington has closed the PLO office serving as a proto-embassay and expelled its representative, a move congruent with the expulsion of Russian spies in the past couple of years. Before that closure, there has been of course the advancing of the U.S. Embassy into Jerusalem, another step forward toward forcing a conclusion to the middle east conflict.

This latest attack may represent further progress against what I have been calling the “phantoms of the Soviet”, i.e.,the continuation of older KGB-managed arrangements in the middle east.


What’s happening between Moscow and Washington and Damascus and Jerusalem is always war, as such may be in the nature of the political lives of nations, but this morning BackChannels feels it is seeing an amplification of conditions.  CNN last week reported a build-up in the presence of Russian warships off the Syrian coast (September 13, 2018).  About two months ago, the west appears to have  evacuated Syrian civilians and White Helmet volunteers into Jordan from  Assad’s theater.  Clearly, the west has been with the Syrian people — and Syrian Sunni Arabs — against the ravaging sadism of the Assad regime and its chief enablers in Moscow and Tehran.

This morning, one of BackChannels contacts said in a brief audio exchange, “The Syrian people are closer to the west anyway.  They would rather have Israel prevail in Syria rather than Assad and Iran.”


BackChannels doubts that Vladimir Putin, whose forces have bombed so many Syrian hospitals and abetted so much horror, pain, and sorrow visited on the children of Syria — adults and children — that the west would have him were he to somehow pivot westward.  Again, he has engaged in or produced active — blood soaking — conflicts in Syria and Crimea and appears to be surrounded in the chaos and horror he himself may have wanted as the “Phantom of the Soviet”.


Also from the awesome conversation:

The timing of this news is propitious, for today marks the evening start of Yom Kippur. The Jewish high holy days remain ever the target dates for anti-Semitic aggressors, essentially pulling the IDF and their support out of the synagogues and away from family on the most cherished and respected of religious observances.


Update – September 18, 2018

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed Tuesday that Israel did not shoot down a Russian military reconnaissance plane with 15 people on board, saying the downing of the plane by Syrian air defenses was a “chain of tragic accidental circumstances.”

Agencies and TOI Staff. “Putin says Israel did not shoot down Russian plane, calls it a tragic accident.” The Times of Israel, September 18, 2018.

Related comment from The Still Awesome Conversation:

Putin knows that to hold Russia’s place and avoid further ruin, he has to make Russia THE responsible actor in a different kind of competition with the west. In the TI piece, he may have signaled a small shift toward the west. No one knows, but now he has as much as said that he’s not going to act — at least not rashly — for Assad and Khamenei. He’s not going to play Erdogan demanding an apology from Israel for the Mavi Marmara incident — and, in retrospect, what a hideous thing that apology was!


Update, September 23, 2018

AP. “Russian Blames Israel for Downing of Plane by Syrian Forces.” VOA, September 23, 2018.

But Konashenkov on Sunday accused Israel of using the hotline to mislead Russia about its plans. He said the Russians were unable to get the Il-20 to a safe place because an Israeli duty officer had misled them, telling them of an Israeli operation in northern Syria while the jets were actually in Latakia, in the country’s west.

Konashenkov said an Israeli fighter jet flying over Syria’s Mediterranean coast shortly before the downing deliberately used the Russian plane as a shield, reflecting “either lack of professionalism or criminal negligence.”

Russia Blames Israel for Downing of Plane by Syrian forces https://t.co/YZxAjUKciX pic.twitter.com/mx1LibZ7YB

— The Voice of America (@VOANews) September 23, 2018


–33–

Estonia – Bugged by The Bear

16 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Norther Europe

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

21st Century Feudalism, 21st Century Neo-Feudalism, east-west conflict, Estonia, Russia, Russia vs NATO

estonia

Captured from Google Maps.
Estonia, a country in Northern Europe, borders the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland. Including more than 1,500 islands, its diverse terrain spans rocky beaches, old-growth forest and many lakes. Formerly part of the Soviet Union, it’s dotted with castles, churches and hilltop fortresses. The capital, Tallinn, is known for its preserved Old Town, museums and the 314m-high Tallinn TV Tower, which has an observation deck. Capital:Tallinn; Population:1.325 million (2013); President:Kersti Kaljulaid; Sources include:World Bank.

As “Moscow” — President Putin; the New Security State; the revanchist ultra-nationalist neo-imperial combine — continues to develop as a belligerent with obvious “credits”, so far, in Syria and Ukraine, the former and now free members of the Soviet Union have been rightly sensitive to the many returns of the KGB mob.

Two items from the former Soviet state caught BackChannels attention this morning:

The Russian Federation’s diplomat, who was caught by the police in a brothel behaving curiously served in Estonia temporarily, which means that the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had not been informed of his presence. In connection with the increasing intensity of Russia’s intelligence activities the number of temporary diplomats in the European Union countries has gone up as well.

Värk, Joosep.  “Brothel patron lacked state acceptance.”  Postimees Estonian News, December 23, 2016.

The “temporary diplomatic official” had been in-country with the barest minimum of Estonian awareness (and without diplomatic immunity).  Värk Joosep’s reporting suggests there have been many such temporary figures in Estonia over the past two years.

A meeting between a member of US president-elect Donald Trump’s close circle and a pro-Putin member of the Russian State Duma in a Eastern European country was picked up by the Estonian Information Board, Newsweek wrote yesterday, based on information from several people with ties to the agency.

Värk, Joosep.  “Estonian foreign intelligence in the spotlight.”  Postimees Estonian News, January 12, 2017.

Related in Newsweek, possibly European edition, and as relayed by Estonian Public Broadcasting: “Newsweek: Estonian foreign intelligence eavesdropped on Russian official meeting Trump associate.”  Estonian Public Broadcasting, January 11, 2017.

Of course the world is at war every day, but some days — and some places — are more quiet than others.  Here on the cusp of an American Presidential Inauguration, these just beneath -the-radar activities tell a story about activity that add to what the world has seen put on display by Moscow, primarily, so BackChannels believes, in Syria and Ukraine.

The Newsweek category for Estonia relates well to the above and in this screen capture (made 1/16/2017/0930-EST) revealing:

nweek-estonia-top-170116-0930

It would appear “The Bear” has been acting aggressively and Estonia has been standing up for itself with confidence in the NATO arrangement.

–33–

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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