On February 23, I wrote “Syrian Ceasefire Agreement: How Putin got what he clearly articulated in October 2015, and why Western Elites are worried” followed by “How Western Media is Setting Up Assad and Russia to Blame for Ceasefire Failure” and on February 24, “Seems the US Government is Backtracking on Efforts to Make the Ceasefire Stick“. As events move forward, there are every indications that the analysis presented earlier is on track and that Western Governments are going to:
(A) level accusations that CLEARLY LEGAL military Operations (as defined in the ceasefire agreement) against the ceasefire exempt Al-Nusra and “others the UN Security Council deems exempt from the ceasefire agreement” that the Russians have re-iterated they are going to continue, are violations of the ceasefire agreement;
(B) Use this to escalate various options being discussed about John Kerry’s “Plan B” and as the Wall Street Journal reports of Pentagon officials wanting to “inflict pain on the Russians” by the “game changer” of supplying anti-aircraft weaponery and other means to arm the so-called moderate rebels to prolong the war with humiliating the Russians and Putin as the goal.
(C) Leaving these rebels emboldened to claim being attacked and attack Syrian positions which will invite LEGALLY SANCTIONED attacks back by Syrian forces (as clearly defined in the ceasefire agreement).
with the Western Media
(D) Echoing the narrative that the Russians “as expected” have “broken the ceasefire” and “can’t be trusted” and analysts crowing that “those who wanted peace were naive” and “Putin only understands force”.
Rationale For Predicting What’s Coming
1. As I wrote earlier in the blogs above, Putin has been quite energetic in promoting the ceasefire agreement. This was also mentioned elsewhere in “Putin’s Frenetic Day of Diplomacy“.
2. The Russian military has at the same time said it is scaling back attacks on groups that had accepted the ceasefire but reiterated it will continue to target Al-Nusra.
3. At the same time the Russian Military has expressed concern that the USG has been unresponsive or going slow on certain modalities of military cooperation that the agreement called for; monitoring the ceasefire; and coordinating targets from those exempt from the ceasefire.
4. The Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed alarm andrejected talks of Plan B made by John Kerry and other statements amidst foot dragging by the USG.
5. Meanwhile the US Government and media have been uniformly negative about prospects of the ceasefire holding. The Russian alarm has not been mentioned as much as statements from the US Government, NATO, Opposition leaders and the standard Western think-tank analysts.
In particular, the standard line that has been taken so far by the Government-Media complex is:
The Russians and Assad are going to break the ceasefire because they are inherently untrustworthy and they are going to take advantage of the fact that it’s virtually impossible to tell Al-Nusra from the rebels in many key locations.
with virtually no Western Government or mainstream media outlet willing to call on the rebels to disassociate themselves from al-Nusra or groups that may be exempt from the ceasefire as defined by the UNSC.
This is such an important point, it’s worth stating again.
WESTERN GOVERNMENTS AND MEDIA, INSTEAD OF CALLING ON OPPOSITION FORCES TO DISASSOCIATE THEMSELVES WITH THE SYRIAN BRANCH OF AN ORGANIZATION THAT WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE TERRORIST ATTACKS IN NEW YORK, LONDON, SPAIN ARE SYMPATHIZING WITH THE REBELS DEEPLY ALLIED WITH THIS ORGANIZATION (by their own admission) AND GETTING READY TO BLAME THE RUSSIANS FOR BREAKING THE CEASEFIRE BECAUSE OF ATTACKS ON THIS GROUP AS THEY ARE LEGALLY ALLOWED TO.
That the Western Media can get away and have absolutely no sense of shame with the absolute Orwellian chutzpah of making the organization it made a central villain to kick off its Regime Change orgy of violence 15 years ago, into a sympathetic figure in Syria is absolutely assured because they have indeed been doing that in Syria for years. This chutzpah is even more pronounced given that in other parts of the World, RIGHT NOW, whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mali, Nigeria, Western Governments (and Media) are fighting not just Al-Qaeda franchises but those sympathetic/allied to them or have like minded extreme Islamist ideologies (eg Boko Haram, Taliban etc.)
In other words this is back to the future to the events which kicked off modern Jihadism: the US Government support of Islamist insurgents against a secular Soviet backed Afghan Government as part of a geopolitical strategy to get the Russkies amidst much media cheering and acquiescence of this strategy.
Originally published (ludwitt.wordpress.com)
