What Does Russia Know?

Interesting developments in the Middle East:

Russia Evacuates Tartus. High War Alert In Israel

Shortly after the DEBKA aired a special video on the Syrian war’s widening circle, Moscow announced Wednesday June 26, that the evacuation which had begun Friday of all military and diplomatic personnel from Syria was now complete, including the Russian naval base at Tartus.

“Russia decided to withdraw its personnel because of the risks from the conflict in Syria, as well as the fear of an incident involving the Russian military that could have larger consequences,” said a defense ministry official in Moscow. He stressed that a 16-ship naval task force in the eastern Mediterranean remains on post and arms shipments, including anti-air weapons, would continue to the Syrian government in keeping with former contracts.

In another sign of an impending escalation in Syria, the Israeli Golan brigade staged Wednesday an unannounced war maneuver on the Golan, attended by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and top army chiefs. In London, Prime Minister David Cameron called the government’s National Security Council into session in Downing Street on Syria. Opposition leader Ed Milliband was invited to attend the meeting, a custom observed only when issues of the highest security importance are discussed.

The sullen confrontation between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland last week condemned Syria to five months of escalating, unresolved vicious warfare – that is until the two leaders meet again in September.

For now, tempers are heating up between Washington and Moscow on Syria and other things too, notably the elusive American fugitive Edward Snowden.
US and Israeli intelligence watchers see the Syrian crisis entering seven ominous phases:

1. A five-month bloodbath centering on the battle for Aleppo, a city of 2.2 million inhabitants.

The Syrian army plus allies and the fully-mobilized opposition will hurl all their manpower and weapons into winning the city.

2.  Neither side has enough manpower or game-changing weaponry for winning the war outright.

That is, unless Presidents Obama or Putin steps in to retilt the balance.

3. The US and Russia are poised for more military intervention in the conflict up until a point just short of a military clash on Syrian soil – or elsewhere in the Middle East. US intelligence analysts have judged Putin ready to go all the way on Syria against the US - no holds barred.

4.  Iran, Hizballah and Iraq will likewise ratchet up their battlefield presence.

5. A violent encounter is building up between Middle East Shiites flocking to Syria to save the Assad regime alongside Russia, and the US-backed Sunni-dominated rebel forces.

6.  The Geneva-2 Conference for a political solution for the Syrian crisis is dead in the water. Moscow and the US are divided by unbridgeable issues of principle, such whether Bashar Assad should stay or go and Iranian representation. 

7.  So long as the diplomatic remains stuck in the mud, the prospects of a regional war spreading out of the Syrian conflict are rising. Iran, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon may be dragged in at any moment – if they have not already, like Lebanon.

A small mistake by one of the Syrian warring parties in Syria could, for example, touch off Israeli retaliation and a wholesale spillover of violence.

Moscow Announces Military Evacuation From Syria

All of Russia’s military personnel have been successfully evacuated from Syria, including from its Mediterranean naval base at Tartus, Russian media reported Wednesday. Moscow is Syria's sole remaining major ally, other than Iran.

A 16-vessel naval task force has been assigned to remain in the eastern Mediterranean, Bogdanov said, and arms shipments to the Syrian government will continue in accordance with current contracts – including anti-aircraft weaponry. He was not specific about any timelines for delivery, however, saying the details were the purview of the “Supreme Command.”
Cyprus meanwhile is allowing Russia to use its ports, and Cypriot media report the government may agree to allow Moscow to use its base at Paphos for military aircraft

Jordan's King Abdullah Warns Of Regional Conflict

Jordan's King Abdullah said Syria's war could ignite a regional sectarian conflictunless global powers helped to convene peace talks soon, a pan-Arab newspaper reported on Wednesday.

King Abdullah also said Palestinians could launch an Arab Spring-style revolt if they felt prospects for a peaceful settlement of their conflict with Israel had reached a dead end, the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper said.

Situated near Syria and next door to Israel and the occupied West Bank, U.S.-allied Jordan is affected by instability in the region. Jordan has taken in more than 500,000 Syrians out of a total 1.5 million who have fled the war, U.N. officials say.

"It has become clear to all that the Syrian crisis may extend from being a civil war to a regional and sectarian conflict...the extent of which is unknown," King Abdullah said in an interview.

"It is time for a more serious Arab and international coordination to stop the deterioration of the Syrian crisis. The situation cannot wait any longer," he added.

The State vs God

This one is worth reading in full - here it is:

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of the United States doubled down on the newly popular perspective that same-sex marriage opponents are motivated by hate and nastiness. Making little pretense at legal reasoning, the Court declared that the Defense of Marriage Act was just a government attempt to "degrade or demean" homosexuals.

While the Court ultimately declined to make same-sex marriage the law of the land, it paved the groundwork for such a decision. Meanwhile, public opinion polls now suggest that a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage. Make no mistake: Same-sex marriage will be the law of the land within the next several years.

The ramifications of that move are stunningly far-reaching. The argument that gay marriage doesn't affect straight marriages is a ridiculous red herring: Gay marriage affects society and law in dramatic ways.

Religious groups will come under direct assault as federal and state governments move to strip them of their non-profit statuses if they refuse to perform gay marriages. Public schools across the country will be forced to teach homosexual marriage alongside traditional marriage. Religious business owners will be leveraged to pay for benefits for same-sex spouses.

In the left's view, all of this is to the greater glory of humanity. In the leftist view, there is no freedom to associate or freedom of religion if those rights come into conflict with the left's view of morality. Religious florists must provide flowers for gay weddings; religious organizations must pay for abortion and contraception. What you do in your church makes you immoral, says the left — so immoral that your church must be removed from the public square or forced to bow to the power of the state.

For years, the left proclaimed that conservatives seek a theocracy, that religious Americans are the domestic equivalent of the Taliban or other religious fundamentalist dictators. That wasn't true; placing the Ten Commandments, the foundation for Western civilization, in public view is hardly beheading religious dissenters. But that rhetoric had an impact. It sent religious Americans into retreat. For several decades, religious Americans have abided by an unspoken libertarian agreement: You leave us alone, and we will leave you alone. And so the debate largely ended with regard to legislation on sexual mores. It largely ended with regard to public displays of religiosity.

But the tacit libertarian agreement didn't exist for the left. The left saw the power of government as a replacement for God entirely. The Ten Commandments the left so despises were reversed to apply to the state. The state is our god, to whom we address our petitions. No other gods may come before the state, including the traditional God. The state's name may not be taken in vain, even to enforce privately negotiated contracts. The state will provide us with Sabbath — years of Sabbaths, actually, at the expense of others. Fathers and mothers are not to be honored. In fact, fathers and mothers are unnecessary. Murder in the name of the state can be justified by political expedience, depending upon whom the state labels an enemy. Sexual promiscuity is condoned and even sponsored by the state. Stealing the money of others is sanctioned by the state. Falsehood in the name of political correctness is mandated by the state. And as for coveting ... well, without it, could we justify a single redistributionist government scheme?

Same-sex marriage is not the final nail in the coffin for traditional marriage. It is just another road sign toward the substitution of government for God. Every moral discussion now pits the wisest moral arbiters among us — the Supreme Court, President Obama — against traditional religion.

"Today we can go back to California and tell all four of our boys that your family is just as good as any other family," said one of the plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case. Of course, she could have told her adopted children that at any time. But she wanted the moral imprimatur of the state to justify her ethics.

And why not? The state now grants moral authority and legitimacy, even in the face of thousands of years of Judeo-Christian-based Western civilization. It answers our prayers and cares for our needs. Sadly, it may take decades before the American people recognize that the state is both fiscally and morally bankrupt. But in the meantime, we'll laud ourselves for our unearned moral superiority, conferred on us by a benevolent government golden calf of our own making.

Also see:

Eco-Assault On America

New 'Crisis' (again): Global Warming

Britain Bans Freedom Fighters