Friday, December 4, 2015

RUSSIA: THE DOWNING OF THE RUSSIAN SU-24 WAS ULTIMATELY AN AMERICAN ...

...and while we're on the subject of Russia, Syria, France, and Germany, according to his article from the U.K.'s Daily Mail which many of you sent to me, President Putin is now placing the blame for the downing of the Russian Su-24 jet very firmly not just at Mr. Erdogan's feet in Ankara, but at the feet of... well, whomever is really running things in Washington:
Turkish president warns Russia not to 'play with fire' after Putin suggested Su-24 jet was shot down after America passed on details of its flight path
In one sense, there's nothing new here from Turkey. "Good relations" is hardly a phrase that qualifies the relationship of the two countries. One need only think of the Crimean War, the previous attempt of the West to wrest control of that peninsula - traditional seat of Russia's Black Sea fleet - from Russia, with the help of the Ottoman Empire.
What is worth noting here is both something mentioned by the article, and something not mentioned by the article, and oftentimes, it's the absence of words that speaks more loudly than anything else. But first, what is mentioned:
Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan has warned Russia 'not to play with fire' after Vladimir Putin suggested the Su-24 jet was shot down after the U.S passed on details of its flight path.
Relations between the two countries have been deteriorating since Turkey shot down the Russian military plane near the Syrian border on Tuesday after claims it entered their airspace.
Moscow has threatened Ankara with economic retaliation for the incident and Putin even accused the U.S of leaking information about the flight to Turkey after they gave them prior warning of the mission.
The "behind-the-scenes" story here is indeed what Russia is claiming, for Russia did, and does, keep the USA apprised of its bombing runs and flights in Syria, if for no other reason than to avoid any accidental confrontations. The US, Mr. Putin is charging - or rather, elements within the US - then passed along this information, which allowed the Turks not only to shoot down the Russian aircraft, but to have cameras suspiciously close by on the scene to  video the whole event. Accidental intrusion of Turkish airspace? Hardly, and that's if one buys the Turkish story that Russia actually DID violate Turkey's airspace to begin with.
The real story here I suspect is not the gradiose Ottomania of Sultan Erdogan's fulminations, nor even Mr. Putin's indications that someone in US intelligence leaked the information to the Turks, so that a "provocation" - Mr. Sergei Lavrov's words, not mine - could be engineered. THe real story might be what I suggested on Nov 24, on this website: there is real fullblown factional infighting taking place in Washington:
And thus the real story here might lie in the silences between the lines over the past few days, for recall from yesterday's blog that France and Russia have decided to share intelligence in their joint efforts to stem the tide of IS in Syria. Enter Turkey, for Sultan Erdogan's heir apparent, his son Bilil, has been caught red-handed helping to launder ISIS oil into money for the group. And, of course, one cannot forget the Saudi role in the mess.
So in this context, what, really, does sharing intelligence mean? I suspect it means these things:
  1. Regardless of whether the attacks in Paris were false flag operations or not, France, by sharing intelligence with Russia, knows there is something quite amiss, one would even say rotten, in the entire NATO command, control, and intelligence structure. Don't expect Paris to be as easy and carefree with intelligence sharing with Turkey, or its US backers, save on matters of direct threat to either;
  2. It also means that the French intelligence services, like Russia, have analyzed the situation in the American deep state, and have come to a similar conclusion as the Russian, namely, there there are severe fissures and cracks - factional infighting as I've called it - within the American :"deep state' between the White House and some sections of State, and the rest of the American military-intelligence complex(see today's "Tidbit" for a further corroboration of this view);
  3. Since Germany has indicated its willingness to provide supporting operations to France in Syria, this means the "intelligence sharing" likely involved the German services as well, and again, for similar reasons, butressed by German anger at American spying on German leaders(remember the NSA-Merkel cellphone incident).
What thus appears to be emerging is a de facto establishment of new relationships in intelligence between the three countries, and all grounded in the possible conclusion that each country is perceiving dangerous splits within the American deep state. This intelligence sharing is also going to be focussed on longer term analysis of the state sponsors behind IS, and in geopolitical-intelligence terms, that's an earthquake, for we all kjnow who those countries are... More importantly, Turkey's presence within NATO now means that the alliance itself is fracturing in a severe faction, and that in France's case at least, if not Germany's, the conclusion has probably been reached that NATO institutions - particularly its command, control, and intelligence functions - can no longer be blindly trusted. Let that one sink in for a moment, for if the Turkish shootdown was an engineered provocation, it's an indicator of just how fantastically stupid some NATO leadership in Ankara and Washington has become.

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