On Thu, 01 Oct 2015 20:31:06 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 01 Oct 2015 19:55:09 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Thu, 01 Oct 2015 19:50:32 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 01 Oct 2015 16:16:55 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Thu, 01 Oct 2015 16:14:09 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 01 Oct 2015 11:44:34 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Thu, 01 Oct 2015 11:31:40 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 1 Oct 2015 07:38:54 -0400, Keyser Söze wrote:

On 10/1/15 2:12 AM, wrote:
CNN had the Russian bomb sight photos of their Syrian air strikes. I
guess we are used to seeing the thing in the cross hairs blow up.
I saw one where they simply hit everything in the frame with something
that looked like a cluster bomb. The second one blew a huge hole about
75 meters from the building they appeared to be aiming at.

Maybe CNN just picked the misses but they certainly had some.


Hopefully, Syria will turn into another Afghanistan for the Russkies.

It is a different situation altogether.
In Syria, Russia will have a willing partner on the ground. That is
more than the US can say, unless you count a rabble of Kurdish
fighters we can't really trust.
It turns out our "allies" are giving some of the weapons we supply to
ISIS. Personally I would just let the Russians deal with it, even if
it means Assad stays. Every time we have deposed one of these
dictators it turned out worse for us.

I think we're going to see a much bigger Russian presence in Syria than was ever
imagined, and I'm not talking about a destroyer making a social visit.

Russia is going to try to reach out and regain some of it's previous
power. I doubt we will stop that. I am not even sure we want to.
They have always wanted a have a base on the Med and Syria offers that
opportunity. I suppose the foreign policy question for us is who is
the most dangerous to us? A stronger Russia or a stronger ISIS?
If Russia stabilized Iraq and Syria, I think I vote for Russia.
We have never had a war with the Russians, we have been at war in Iraq
for 25 years.

Russia may well have oil in its sights.

Russia has plenty of oil.

It's about control of oil.

Everything is not about oil.

The bases on the Med are a lot more important to the russians.
They can get there from the black sea but it is a much harder route
and easy to block off. There are two choke points.

Absolutely! That's a given.

Just think how much they would enjoy a base in Bandar Abbas, Iran. And I'll be damned
- Iran and Russia are doing some heavy hand-holding as we speak:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/0...s-a-weak-hand/
--

Ban idiots, not guns!

On Fri, 02 Oct 2015 10:38:32 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Thu, 01 Oct 2015 20:31:06 -0400, wrote:


The bases on the Med are a lot more important to the russians.
They can get there from the black sea but it is a much harder route
and easy to block off. There are two choke points.

Absolutely! That's a given.

Just think how much they would enjoy a base in Bandar Abbas, Iran. And I'll be damned
- Iran and Russia are doing some heavy hand-holding as we speak:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/0...s-a-weak-hand/

Iran is not as friendly as Syria.
The med is also a very attractive base for them if they are sailing
east.