According to Russia, as of today they have launched airstrikes in Syria against ISIS forces. John Iadarola (Think Tank), Ben Mankiewicz (Turner Classic Movies), and Elliot Hill (The Lip TV), hosts of the The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
“President Vladimir V. Putin ofRussia ordered a round of airstrikes in Syriaon Wednesday, adding an unpredictable and potentially destabilizing element to a complex sectarian war that has drawn in the United States and regional powers while creating millions of refugees.
While Moscow’s stated purpose in Syria is to fight Islamic State militants, Russian warplanes and helicopter gunships dropped bombs north of the central city of Homs, in an area held by rebel groups opposed to Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally. The attacks were unleashed hours after Mr. Putin pushed a measure through the upper house of Russia’s rubber stamp Parliament authorizing the use of force abroad.
At a meeting of government officials in Moscow on Wednesday, Mr. Putin defended the Russian intervention as a broad stroke against terrorism. “The only right way to fight international terrorism — and it is gangs of international terrorists that are fighting in Syria and in neighboring countries — is to act preventively,” he said, “to fight and destroy militants and terrorists on the territories that they already occupied, not wait for them to come to our house.””*
Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/wor…
Comments
Russia entering Syrian conflict
It is a fact that Syria is an ally of Russia and out of pride of strength the Russians are coming to help an ally. A secondary interest and it might be the primary one for involvement is that Russia does not want to lose its only naval base on the Mediterranean. That said the first objective for Russia is to knock out the resistance to the Syrian leader and then join forces with Syria to defeat ISIS. This is a doable strategy but it is in contradiction to what the United States wants and that is to have the Syrian leader removed. The way I see this is if we interfere the situation could lead to a confrontation with Russia that could get out of hand. Powerful nations are serious about defending their allies and could be forced into a corner by another powerful nation which could lead to a catastrophe. The United States is very protective of its allies and will do whatever is necessary to defend them, Russia is doing that with Syria. It is the republican hawks in congress that encourage us to militarily engage in any situation in the world. When Obama presented the red line it was meat for the republicans even though the solution of getting rid of WMD was achieved without conflict. Syria is an ally of Iran and Russia, let them resolve the conflict. There is more to be gained by a stable Syria and we can begin to continue getting Iran into the world economy and Russia has a lot of business opportunities it would like to pursue. If we interfere the way the radical republicans are talking world war could erupt and it would only erupt out of greedy ambition, and chest pumping on the part of republicans in America. It is not cowardly to step away from the Syrian debacle, it is common sense and the right thing to do. We should never have given support to one side in a conflict against the Syrian leader in the first place. Again it is the war thumping republicans like McCain who pushed for this and makes it look bad for us to pull our support back from the rebels that we shouldn’t have supported in the first place. Remember there are many countries in the world that are repressive and commit crimes against its people that we are not engaging in militarily so why are we so obsessed with getting involved in Syria. Tell the McCain’s, Cotton’s, Graham’s and Cruz’s to shut their mouths and sit on their thumbs for world peace. Dave Clark 10/2/15