"How do you fight against fake videos? These videos come out on the internet showing children, but how do we know they were really dead? And then it's up to us to disprove these fake videos. 100% fabrication."

EDIT: Paraphrasing from TV.

wasn't that a part of the #syriahoax? look at this dead kid who's eyes just opened?

http://thehill.com/policy/internatio...-a-fabrication

Tulsi Gabbard and HastenDan approve.

I think we can safely change this to "America Going To War With The Middle East"

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/13/po...omb/index.html

Yeah, Trumpler really seems to be spreading our military thin. Let's see how many engagements we can handle at one time!

Putin's goal IMO.

It was also bin Laden's stated goal.

No it wasn't.

From his 1998 fatwa

"The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. "

Unless getting America deeper into the war is a step towards this (which would be 5D chess or some **** like that).

He explicit said his goal was to bait America to send troops around the world to fight costly wars, which would ultimately bankrupt us, at which point we would be forced to retreat in shame (just like they did to the Russians in Afghanistan):

http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/200...336457223.html

"All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy."

As much as it's played up that Osama was a strategic mastermind, he really didn't think the US would fully commit to Afghanistan and he would have died in Tora Bora if Bush and Cheney weren't pussy footing the invasion and depended on unreliable natives to be their infantry on the ground. He then ended up holed up in a compound sending out missives once a year or so while Al Qaeda left him behind and he became irrelevant.

Russia, Syria and Iran just issued a warning to the US that any more military action in Syria will be met with "grave consequences." Wonderful news, because threatening Trump is always a good step toward peace and stability.

If IS decides to gass some Syrian civilians and make it look like Assad did it that could really set of some fireworks. It would be a really good strategic move for IS

This was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the story.

You bought into the bull**** about Al Quaeda being some transnational powerhouse.

There's never been any evidence of Bin Laden controlling more than a personal bodyguard of more than a few dozen fighters.

Bump. Surprise, the war is with Russia!

EDIT: From the Trump thread:

Assuming this is true, kind of appalling mismanagement of the conflict by the US. Here is a (fantastic) map of the conflict. If the context is that SDF is pushing across the Euphrates into regime-held territory, what could possibly justify shooting down Syrian aircraft resisting that attack. One possibility is that the US has somehow conscripted itself as the air arm of the SDF, whatever it may be doing, which is stupid. Another is that there were U.S. personnel with the SDF forces under attack, which I would say is more plausible, but suggests that we have boots on the ground fighting the Syrian government on the front lines, which is certainly news to me. The other possibility is that SDF actually took the territory in question from ISIS and is now defensively fighting the regime, which maybe all makes sense, but certainly highlights some long-term questions about what the goals of U.S. military intervention are. Is there some political settlement we're trying to impose, or are we just hanging around bombing whoever annoys us most in the moment?

We've had boots on the ground in Syria; around Manbij (west of the Euphrates) and right on the border with Turkey.

SDF is already across the Euphrates to some degree in Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo.

Syria and Russia have worked with or at least coexisted alongside the SDF as well. My conjecture here is that this is a move by Syria and Russia to define borders rather than expand the conflict. On the US side I think it's less strategic and more just a response to the one attack.

We have been giving air support to the SDF for a while. I think it could just be that, but there could also easily be a small number of US special forces or something along with them coordinating air strikes or something.

https://www.google.com/amp/mobile.re.../idUSKBN16D29G

Things could go a lot of directions from here including negotiated settlement. I wonder if the Syrian regime can really govern Aleppo after what it did there. Maybe. There are stories about people coming back to regime controlled areas.

(Paragraphs messed up and link sucks, but it's a pia to fix on my phone and I gotta go. )

As far as who we have been engaging on the ground, I suspect we are at least trying to fight ISIS although I expect we have quite often not really known what group we engage and "ISIS" ends up getting applied to different groups. And it's a very foggy war, so engagements with Syrian regulars probably happens too.

I don't know what's going on, and in general I agree that Russia/SAA are currently trying to limit the SDF advance. However I do think it's possible the US has intentions of its own.

One thing the SAA may be trying to do by taking the ground south of Raqqa is make sure they're the ones in best position to re-take / relieve Deir-ez Zor when the time comes. The stuff going on around Tanf in the last few weeks, where there were clashes between US backed rebels and Regime forces, seemed to be as much about staging to get there as well (though from the South) as about controlling the border with Iraq too. The US bombed some Regime forces who responded by taking a strip of territory further away and to the north of them - which had the effect that a push South under Raqqa would have, to own the border with ISIS and so be the people in place to then push further.

Blocking the advance South therefore might be important to the US (The SDF isn't involved around Tanf). It's difficult to say for certain, but you can follow events over time on the site bobman posted and it does suggest the SAA was advancing against ISIS South of the SDF front line and there was a decision by the SDF / US to intervene. There was also an article last week about people that Flynn appointed still being around and arguing for attacking Regime forces (as Iran proxies), and that's another possible explanation. I'd say it's safe to assume the US definitely does have a political agenda.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/16/...on-objections/

It's easy to look at the small picture and forget that Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel have interests as well as the US, Syria, Russia, SDF, Iraqi Kurds, Turkey and all the relationships between everyone and there being many groups receiving support from a lot of different places.

Something from the Washington Post about possible US intentions in Syria:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...876_story.html The area they're talking about is exactly the area it seemed as if the SDF and US backed rebels were trying to block the SAA from staging for. That area is certainly the area ISIS will retreat to, so going there is a logical continuance of the fight against them. The problem is it's also an area Regime aligned forces are actively contesting, and very unlikely to back down in. Guess we just have to hope the Trump regime has the strategic and diplomatic chops to navigate it all wisely.

Clearly the do not understand the American economy.

+1