More: The byzantine nature of the fighting in Syria continues to astound. There are reports that US and German special forces are already operating in the battle zone, putting another lie on the lips of the Current Occupant who promised not to engage in another Middle East ground war. Turkey is revealed to be supporting the Nusra Front, an organization affiliated with al-Qaeda while bombing the Kurdish PPK that is fighting ISIS in Kobane. Israeli intelligence says the FSA, the Free Syrian Army, (the so-called moderate rebels backed by the United States) is completely infiltrated by al-Qaeda, an assessment basically agreed to by the Pentagon. It estimates more than 50% of the FSA is comprised of Islamist extremists. Therefore, it is inevitable that some of the US war material ends up in the hands of ISIS because there is little or no accountability in its distribution. ISIS is funding itself primarily with oil revenues from the Syrian and Iraqi fields it has overrun. Apparently it is able to sell oil refined near the Turkish border and smuggled through Turkey. According to a Turkish MP from the border province of Hatay, the trade is worth $800m. The large extent indicates Turkish official complicity in the MP's opinion. Several EU member states are alleged to have bought oil from ISIS. The same month al-Qaeda took over control of Syria's Deir al-Zour and Hasaka fields, the EU voted to ease restrictions on Syrian oil sold in international markets. To add to this charade of crosspurposes is the fact that many of the leaders of ISIS including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were detained at a US run prison, Camp Bucca, Iraq. There senior extremists were able to recruit other prisoners without interference from their knucleheaded American guards. Former detainees told interviewers the camp was almost an "al-Qaeda school". This "long war" so eagerly envisioned by the neocons at the Pentagon promises to be confusing, chaotic, and perhaps an endless one too. Good news for the warmongers.
Latest:{13.10.14} Heroic Kurd fighers are putting up a last stand against ISIS that is now inside the border town of Kobane. Ominously, US pilots say the are flying blind against the jihadis for lack of usable tactical intelligence. The Current Occupant has rightly assured the public there will be no American ground forces involved in fighting ISIS, but that pledge is hampering the air war according to participants because no JTACs (joint terminal air controllers) are there to guide strikes to the proper targets. GPS guided munitions can be off by as much as 500 feet and are adversely affected by weather or landscape. The argument is a familiar one from a service that has expounded the doctrine--not universally endorsed--that strategic airpower alone can win wars. The dirty secret is that even when this doctrine was formulated during WWII's strategic bombing campaign against Germany, the Eight Air Force failed to reduce Germany's strategic production capacity until late 1944 when the Allies were already on the ground in Europe. Generals will now be trotted out by the always hawkish corporate mass-media to complain gently that the restrictions placed by CENTCOM on target acquisition should be removed and more Americans put on the ground to target air operations. Perhaps training Kurdish fighters to perform this vital function or employing purpose-built A-10s* flying from Iraq or Turkey is out of bounds. It is doubtful the American public is ready to withstand videos of a downed American A-10 'Warthog' driver being beheaded. Kurds certainly have the motivation; right now there is very little cooperation between the 'good' rebel forces and the US military.
*The Nazis were astoundingly talented at designing lethal war machines. A highly decorated and unrepentant Nazi, Luftwaffe Colonel Hans Ulrich Rudel, was consulted for the design of the Air Force's A-10 Thunderbolt II. Rudel wrote Stuka Pilot, a detailed memoir of his combat experiences. He flew both the Ju-87 dive bomber and the FW-190D in over 2500 combat sorties (obviously a true "statistical outlier"). Considering the need for close support aircraft in unconventional warfare and the American army's dependence on such support, the Air Force's desire to rid itself of the subsonic 'Warthog' in favor of the extremely expensive and supersonic F-35 Strike Fighter is both understandable and counterproductive. So far ISIS does not possess advanced surface-to-air missles or radar-guided anti-aircraft guns--so far.
{8.10.14}[A shorter rewrite of a previous post deleted without PNG authorization] Turkish armour sits idle on the hills above Kobane [photo] as ISIS presses home its siege of the Syrian border town. Kurdish defenders say without a coordinated ground attack, the jihadists will eventually take the town because they are out-gunned by ISIS that uses captured American heavy weaponry. Observers say Turkish inaction is due to mistrust of insurgent Kurds and specifically the PPK, the Kurdish Workers Party, that only signed a ceasefire with Turkey last year. Twelve Kurds protesting Turkey's unwillingness to fight ISIS in Kobane were killed in violent demonstrations. It has also prevented Kurds from crossing the Turkish border into Syria to fight the jihadists.
Turkey is said to harbor designs of controling the northeastern region of Iraq to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdistan on its southern border. According to security analysts with connections to the CIA, Ankara wants to maintain a "sphere of influence" in northeastern Iraq, formerly the Ottaman province of Mosul [map below], by aligning itself with moderate Sunni and Turkmen inhabitants to the detriment of Kurds. Kurds have made significant strides toward independence by taking and holding Kirkuk and its oil fields after the Iraqi national army ran away from the ISIS onslaught earlier this year. That army is equipped and trained at great expense ($40bn) by the United States. ISIS forces have also capture Hit and Ramadi in Iraq's Anbar Province showing that the Iraqi army is still unable to mount a credible counteroffensive. Consequently, US foreign policy in the Middle East is crumbling like the ancient ruins of Nineveh.
