Tuesday, November 10, 2015

The Great Game




This one comes from The Daily Bell - which should be a daily stop in our review of the news:






Dominant Social Theme: Once again, just as in the bad old days, Russia is blundering into places where it ought not to go.
Free-Market Analysis: Is the Syrian war going to plan? It wouldn't seem so ... or not from the West's view anyway.
The Assad administration is still in power and even the "moderate terrorists" that Washington is said to back haven't been able to dislodge him. And yet ... perhaps things are actually going well in Syria from Washington's point of view.
We focused on this previously (here). But in this article we want to analyze what's taking place strategically in more detail and then present a third-party analysis that uncannily buttresses our conclusions.
From our point of view, it is most important that people understand the manipulations that may be inherent in these wars – and the reasons for them. It is certainly possible that the targets of these wars are as much a domestic population as an overseas one.
True, it doesn't sound as if Washington is happy with the way the Syrian conflict is going. The Pentagon has been ranting about Russian "interference" in Syria since Russia began to bomb ISIS.
However, Russian bombing seemed effective. There were, for instance, credible reports that ISIS began to scatter into Iraq and Turkey – those troops that lived through the bombing anyway. And a re-energized Syrian army began to retake ISIS positions.
Russia claimed that the "moderate terrorists" that Washington insisted it was supporting really didn't exist. Here, from the Middle East Eye, quoting Russian officials in late October:
Russia has said it can find no moderate armed opposition to support in Syria, a day after President Bashar al-Assad reportedly told his Russian counterpart that he would talk to any that could be found.
In a statement on Friday, Vladimir Putin's spokesman said: "From the very beginning of the Syria operation, President Putin and other representatives of Russia have spoken of our readiness to cooperate with the so-called moderate opposition.
"We have been unable to single out the so-called moderate opposition. There is not a single central force which one could cooperate with. All the difficulties arise from this. Neither our American nor our European colleagues, nor others are so far able to help us with identifying them."
Russian officials even claimed that the bombing that the US had been doing for a year was mainly aimed at degrading Syrian infrastructure even though the Pentagon was insistent it was aimed at ISIS troops.
Washington struck back, claiming that Russia was bombing civilians, either on purpose or by mistake. Russian officials denied it and called for urgent consultations with NATO to make it clear that such atrocities were not occurring.
Washington also claimed that Russia was seriously impeding anti-ISIS freedom fighters. And the result, inevitably, was this headline in the Washington Post: "Obama seeks to intensify operations in Syria with Special Ops Troops."
President Obama is sending a small number of Special Operations troops to northern Syria, marking the first full-time deployment of U.S. forces to the chaotic country. The latest deployment will involve fewer than 50 Special Operations advisers who will work with resistance forces- battling the Islamic State in northern Syria but will not engage in direct combat,
It is all rather confusing. The Pentagon has claimed in the past to be supporting "moderate" anti-Assad groups, including Islamist groups. But the special ops troops it is sending to Syria will support forces "battling the Islamic state."
What IS clear is that Russians and US troops are now fighting in the same area approximately but perhaps on different sides. Even during the Cold War this sort of situation was looked on with alarm.
A recent article in OnPointPreparedness provides us with an alternative explanation, and it is one we want to draw to readers' attention because it strongly parallels our own. Here is an excerpt:
Do the Elites Want Controlled Rebellion?
"The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves." – Vladimir Lenin
The elite "want" a controlled rebellion/anarchy/civil war in the United States and other parts of the world. Additionally, our role (without us even knowing about it) ... actually facilitates their agenda ...
Rebellions, paired up with the possibilities of economic collapse and war, will create a power vacuum that will need to be filled.
Socio-political and economic control mechanisms fail because they inevitably turn more authoritarian over time. One possible solution: Control this failure by introducing yet more chaos into society.
The resultant violent "anarchy," as the above excerpt suggests, can create a power vacuum that justifies a reoccupation of control by the very same forces.
Is this going on today? Is the purpose of Middle Eastern instability actually an effort to directly involve Russia in a "big power" confrontation? Will the next confrontation occur in Asia and involve China? This is certainly what George Orwell foresaw in 1984. Were his predictions simply off by two decades?
Conclusion: 
The world is not growing more peaceful, and a case can be made that certain powerful factions are trying to make things worse. We've reported on it, and as we can see above, it's occurring to others as well. Protect yourself as best you can. Here at The Daily Bell, we suggest precious metals, additional domiciles and passports and access to food and potable water.



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