Turks Destroyed 8 Pantsirs.

Yes, yes, that is what Turkey declared in Brussels and I think they, out of traditional humbleness, lowered numbers of destroyed S1 Pantsir AD systems dramatically. I think there were at least 25-30 those systems destroyed together with those 3,500 SAA soldiers and, probably, couple battalions of Russian SSOs. In related news, before lunch I was Napoleon, after lunch I became Marcus Aurelius. Turkish baloney and butt-hurt from what they experienced in Idlib is such that they don't see anything wrong with simply making shit up. So much so, that Russia's Ministry of Defense was forced to flatly debunk those fairy tales. In its statement Russian MoD underscored:

"Представленные главе Турецкой Республики оценки боевой эффективности применения ударных БПЛА в провинции Идлиб, якобы сумевших уничтожить восемь сирийских зенитных ракетно-пушечных комплексов "Панцирь", не соответствуют действительности и являются более чем преувеличением"

Translation:  Assessments of combat effectiveness of strike UAVs in Idlib Province, presented to the head of Turkish Republic, alleging the destruction of eight Syrian gun-missile complexes "Pantsir" do not correspond to reality and are more than just exaggeration". 

Truth is, only four S1s have been deployed around Idlib, two were damaged and repaired. Most of SAA's S1s remained deployed around Damascus and didn't take part in operations in Idlib. But never mind, as long as it is stated that it happened, it DID happen in accordance to NATO's combat doctrine which is rigged towards media and brainwashing, not fighting the actual war against competent adversary. The butt-hurt in Turkey is understandable, but it wouldn't be completed without this S-400 soap opera.

ANKARA (Reuters) - The United States has offered to sell Turkey its Patriot missile defense system if Ankara promises not to operate a rival Russian system, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said, in what he called a significant softening in Washington's position. Two Turkish officials told Reuters that Turkey was evaluating the U.S. offer but that Ankara had not changed its plans for the Russian S-400 systems, which it has said it will start to activate next month. In Washington, the Pentagon said that U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper had not changed his position on the issue, which was: "Turkey is not going to receive a Patriot battery unless it returns the S-400."

Erdogan was in Brussels to "report" on Turkey's great victory in Idlib. Meanwhile lunatic "Ambassador" Jeffrey was thinking on:

Jeffrey also said they had considered possible responses should Russia and the Syrian government break a ceasefire in Idlib, officials said. He suggested other NATO states could individually or as an alliance provide military support to help Turkey. But he ruled out sending ground troops and said there still needed to be a resolution to the S-400 issue for the security relationship to move forward. "You can forget ground troops. Turkey has demonstrated that it and its opposition forces are more than capable of holding ground on their own," Jeffrey said. "The issue is the situation in the air and it's what we are looking at," he said. Washington did not believe that Russia and Syrian had any interest in a permanent ceasefire in Idlib, he said. "They are out to get a military victory in Syria and our goal is to make it difficult for them to do that," Jeffrey said. "Our goal is...to make them think twice. If they ignore our warnings and preparations and move forward, then we will react as rapidly as possible in consultation with our NATO and European allies on what the package of sanctions and other reactions will be."

Jeffrey is delusional and is very butt-hurt, possibly because of his utter professional and human inadequacy, which is expected from a man with background in management and a member of "National Security" team of W (we all know how "well" that played out) and a burden of "victory" in Vietnam War with which utter irrational hatred of Russians comes naturally and, in fact, is a requirement;  enough to recall another American Vietnam War "hero", late John McCain. Obviously Jeffrey's deal with Syria is not to fight terrorism but to support Al Qaeda (and its many iterations) operations there. In general--anything to not allow Syria (and Russia) to defeat Islamic terrorism there. He even speaks openly about it. Jeffery, an infantry officer in Vietnam, then some CIA "spook", in addition to his "diplomatic" background, is a 74 year old and, obviously, cranky man who does not understand modern warfare and, as is expected from US "experts" in Russia, has no knowledge of real Russia. Nor, obviously, he knows his own country, the United States that is, since he still thinks that the United States is this unstoppable military juggernaut which....lost most of its wars. That is why this senior citizen is so eager to start the war with Russia. There are many like him in all kinds of D.C. institutions. 

Highlighted in yellow is a very good indicator of a depth of a delusion this whole cabal of US "strategists" resides in: sanctions are good for Russia. But as was demonstrated in the last 72 hours, Russia can also "sanction" back and that shakes the bejesus out of not only the US, but global economy. But here is the larger issue: how many still rational and competent people are left out there in the US governing institutions? How many of them have real strategic awareness and I am not talking about Mnuchin suddenly having an urge to talk to Russians on "investments" and "sanctions".  Mnuchin is a bankster who understands only debit and credit, black and red, and when he sees red he (and his ilk) react, in pain. I am talking about people who have any strategic vision based on reality. Whole American geopolitical thought in the last 30 years is a permanent record of one failure after another. US "diplomacy" is a laughing stock of the world, US military, ask Iran. Economically? You all know what is going on. How this all could have gone so wrong, so fast? I have a metaphysical answer for that--exceeding established limit on a number of ass-holes populating governing institutions.  It all comes down, in the end, to how many decent, honorable, honest that is, people are still out there and I'd say not many. In final analysis these are always human choices we make, which count most towards the final outcome. Or, as beloved by me Barnett stated: 

… swift decline in British vigor at home and the failure to exploit the empire were not owing to some inevitable senescent process of history....That cause was a political doctrine.... The doctrine was liberalism, which criticized and finally demolished the traditional conception of the nation-state as a collective organism, a community, and asserted instead the primacy of individual. According to liberal thinking a nation was no more than so many human atoms who happened to live under the same set of laws.... It was Adam Smith who formulated the doctrine of Free Trade, the keystone of liberalism, which was to exercise a long-live and baneful effect on British power.... Adam Smith attacked the traditional “mercantilist” belief that a nation should be generally self-supporting. 

We all will pay one way or another for an expected and predicted and ongoing as I type it collapse of liberalism, it is just that one cannot escape a desire to see some of the most ardent enablers of liberalism, who have their hands soaked in blood, be seen behind bars or in a front of a firing squad. Some of them know today that this is not anymore beyond the realm of possible and will try to light the world on fire, thinking that under the cover of ensuing chaos they can make an escape. But I know for sure now that there are those who keep the score. Just listen about "We can repeat":

Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

I think it is really symptomatic that on this 11 September 2018 we read this.

MOSCOW, September 11. /TASS/. The filming of staged chemical attack, allegedly carried out by the Syrian army against civilians, is already underway in the Idlib Governorate with the terrorists’ assistance, the Russian Defense Ministry’s Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides in Syria told reporters. "According to the data from the Idlib Governorate’s residents, currently the filming of a staged provocation of the alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian army against the civilians is underway in Jisr ash-Shugur. Film crews from several Middle East TV channels and also a regional branch of a leading US news TV channel arrived in Jisr ash-Shugur this morning for filming," the center said. The scenario includes a staged video of providing assistance to the citizens of Jisr ash-Shugur and activists of the Civil Defense (the White Helmets) after the alleged use of the so-called barrel bombs with toxic substances. The militants delivered two samples with a poisonous substance including chlorine this morning to ensure that the filming looks "natural," the center said. The Russian military notes that all videos are to be sent to the editorial offices of TV channels for broadcast after they are posted in social networks. In late August, the Russian Defense Ministry warned that militants were making preparations together with British intelligence services to stage a chemical weapons attack in the Idlib Governorate and blame it on the Syrian government. The ministry later said that the US-led Western coalition planned to use this provocation as a pretext to carry out another strike on Syria’s government facilities. The United States is already pulling in its forces to Syria. According to the ministry, in late August USS The Sullivans armed with 56 cruise missiles arrived in the Persian Gulf, while a US B1-B bomber equipped with 24 air-to-surface standoff missiles was relocated to the Al Udeid US air base in Qatar.

Of course, what could be better than to mark a sad anniversary of a slaughter of thousands of innocent Americans and other nationals by supporting the very same people who are responsible for 911 atrocity? There, assuredly, will be many honest average Americans who will be in denial that USAF and US Navy have become Al Qaeda and ISIS' forces—but it is what it is. Same goes for Western media who long ago turned into propaganda machine and they always supported Jihad. Meanwhile, Russia calmly reacts to a hysterical material by Wall Street Journal.

VLADIVOSTOK, September 11. /TASS/. The Kremlin does not take media reports about US airstrikes on Russian troops in Syria seriously any more, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters."We don’t take media reports seriously because they have completely discredited themselves," he said, commenting on a Wall Street Journal publication. "We focus on official statements," Peskov added

This is the only way to handle this and, indeed, what can Russia do? Well, except of being ready militarily to deal with possible escalation. I don't know what Donald Trump wrote to Putin in his recent private letter to him, and there are some reasons to believe that Trump and Putin could be in cahoots, but the probability of that is really low. Russians are extremely well aware of the situation Trump is in, granted he put himself into this situation by assembling a cabinet of ambitious war-mongers, but it is reasonable to assume that Kremlin, at this stage, understands that even the POTUS is not representative of an American power and there is literally nobody to talk to in D.C. American power structure is broken and there is no anymore any particular power center worthy of negotiating with. If that was true several years ago, it is just that today this chaos became much more pronounced and visible to anyone with the IQ higher than room temperature. In other words, American political system is in runaway mode and there is nobody of human and political statue who can take responsibility and restore some kind of order. US Congress is nothing more than organization, which, under the slogans about "democracy", is busy 24/7 in spreading the responsibility for dangerous and damaging decision as thin as possible. We also have a show-biz celebrity and NYC real estate developer in the White House who thinks that boarding school for the boys is a military experience one needs to run a nuclear power. So who? Among current political top—nobody. American top political class today is nothing more than a collection of spoiled brats most of whom have zero hard life experiences and who never served a day in uniform. It is an exclusive club of good ol' boys and girls who are utterly unqualified to run a nuclear superpower and most of who are corrupted to the very core.

This is not the kind of environment which produces outstanding statesmen or stateswomen. Same goes for Europe whose "leaders" like Angela Merkel are nothing more than political parties' apparatchiks—colorless, not very smart and ready to preach whatever is necessary to get elected. Fact is, I suspect that Merkel is not just not bright, I think she is dumb as fvck. This is the human material combined West in general, and the US in particular, have to live with and "choose" from. Indeed, the country which honors John McCain as a "hero"—there are some real issues with the state of mind of such a country. I will have to address the issue of "elites" in depth at some point of time, granted we live, but I want to remind you all that I delved into this topic once and even singled out draft dodger John Bolton. But for now, Russia launched the largest military exercise in her modern history and since 1981 and presses on with operations in Idlib.

Hysteria And Delusion

The signs of this hysteria and delusion among today's US "elites" are all over the country. Nowhere it is more apparent than in US media, including the so called "scholarly" and "professional" magazines dealing with foreign affairs and geopolitics. Late Samuel Huntington was one of the founders of the Foreign Policy magazine, which for years demonstrated a complete lack of expertise on pretty much any serious Russia-related issue but after Crimea's return back home, to Russia, in 2014 this magazine has become a panopticon of BS-pushers, hack-produced "opinion" pieces and, in general, became an openly Russophobic rag which continues to defend indefensible.

It is my long standing contention, which I can back up with facts, that US "diplomacy" today is nothing more than a collection of badly educated and uncultured people who are brainwashed with American "exceptionalism" and most of whom are not really diplomats but have degrees in political "science"--that is have no systematic knowledge of the world around them. As the review of the book by real US diplomat, James Bruno, states:

Our foreign policy is in the hands of the clueless, the self-serving and the politically corrupt. Read this book first. Then fill out papers to emigrate. The author provides a first-hand view from inside the belly of the beast of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. His insights are so spot-on that government censors have blocked out whole sections of text. The Foreign Circus will have you alternatively laughing and shaking your head. And when you read tomorrow's headlines, you'll have a better appreciation why Washington screws up.

Enter the latest opus in Foreign Policy (and Hudson Institute) by yet another hysterical and delusional hack, Peter Rough. His piece has a very promising title: The Best Way to Defeat the Islamic State and Succeed in Syria? Push Back on Putin. The whole piece is a testimony to the depth of the both, yes, hysteria and delusion of American "exceptionalists" when forced to face the reality. I will allow the readers of my blog to make their own conclusions but... But who is Peter Rough? Here is what his biography tells us:

Peter Rough is a Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., where he researches a wide range of national security issues. Currently, he is co-leading two in-depth studies: one that examines Iran’s challenge to the American-led regional order in the Middle East and another that investigates U.S. extended deterrence in the second nuclear age. Until recently, he helped edit Hudson's journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. Prior to joining Hudson, Rough collaborated with Leila Fawaz on a social history of World War I in the Middle East, A Land of Aching Hearts, published by Harvard University Press in fall 2014. A former Associate Director in the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, he also served as Director of Research in the Office of George W. Bush, assisting the former president with his memoir, Decision Points. Rough has completed stints as a Policy Analyst at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he served also as staff briefer to Administrator Henrietta Fore, and as an advisor to U.S. Army Special Operations Command, where he analyzed Unconventional Warfare doctrine for the Commanding General’s Strategic Initiatives Group. In 2012, he was responsible for U.S.-Russia bilateral relations as a member of the Romney for President Russia Working Group. In 2016, he served as a member of the Rubio for President Middle East Working Group. Rough began his career at the Republican National Committee specializing in political research. A proud native of Des Moines, Iowa, he holds a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from The George Washington University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he was a Cabot Corporation Scholar.
He is a native German speaker.


Isn't it a biography of a classic US humanities "educated" hack who knows everything a little bit and nothing at all? Here it is--a perfect embodiment, a portrait, of a current US faux-intellectual "elite" who not only fvcked the surrounding world up to the point of bringing it to the brink of the WW III, but screwed own country, that is US, so badly and have a stunning track record of utter failures in anything they apply their pathetic "skills" to, that the only thing which is left for them is to try to create a make-belief world where their supposed "expertise" is in demand. Evidently Rough (and his publishers), who are totally oblivious to the facts on the ground in Syria, missed the point at which they, accidentally, dropped their mask of "expertise" and "objectivity" and are openly suggesting support for Al Qaeda (and ISIS). This, of course, is apart from open lies which are in the foundation of current (and past) US Administrations' such as this:

If the president is rejecting Kerry’s counsel, the secretary of state should resign. Assad now ranks as perhaps the worst killer since Pol Pot brutalized Cambodia in the 1970s while Putin has revealed himself as an insatiable revisionist intent on exploiting American weakness. Far better for Kerry to exit the stage in a burst of honor than vainly travel the world like a modern-day Falstaff perpetually humiliated by Putin. It is past time for the U.S to end the diplomatic track and impose meaningful costs on Russia, Iran, and Assad. The future of the region and the defeat of the Islamic State depend on it.
 Come to think about it, if I were Peter Rough (or Foreign Policy editor) I would "exit the stage in a burst of honor", but sadly, meanings of such words as honor, integrity and academic honesty are unknown to likes of Rough and these "experts" will continue for now to poison the air with their hysteria, delusions and lies until are smashed by the inevitable march of history or not prosecuted at the war crimes tribunal where many of them truly belong. Unless, of course, they follow the example of their ideological father, Dr. Goebbels, and commit a suicide. Or start facing reality as, once respected by me (not anymore), Nicholas Gvozdev tries to do.

Last year, the calculation of Saudi Arabia—and by extension of the United States—was that Russia could not sustain its more assertive position in the Middle East (and other parts of the world) in light of declining energy prices, and that unsheathing the oil weapon would curb Kremlin ambitions. This was wrong. Today, it is Saudi Arabia that has begun to search for ways to firm up oil prices while Rosneft—Russia’s state oil company—declares that it has no need for capping production. Syria has not proven to be the quagmire that President Obama said it would be for Moscow. The Russia-Turkey partnership now seems to be back on track while Ankara’s ties with Washington worsen. While the Trans-Pacific Partnership, America’s signature economic initiative for Asia, is on political life support, Chinese president Xi Jinping will travel to the BRICS summit in Goa later this week to unveil ambitious proposals for free trade arrangements that bypass the West.

And while I may agree with this "Strategy" professor from Naval War College in this, his closing remarks still have me questioning his degree of the touch with the reality.

As an observer of U.S. policy, I can’t say for certain where the United States might be prepared to compromise and where it would stand firm. But U.S. leaders have to make these calls based on their assessment of U.S. values and interests combined with costs America is willing to pay. But U.S. policy will be on a firming footing once there is a salutary realization that, when it comes to the Kremlin, there are no risk-free options.
 
US policy cannot be on a "firming footing" anymore because the utter bankruptcy of US foreign policy institutions (and concepts) coupled with militant incompetency of its "think-tankdom" and so called "expert communities" is a fait accompli and what US needs is not "firming footing" for yet another military and political disaster and defeat, but a complete renewal of its political and academic elites--not complicit in creation of global chaos and bloodshed. This painful but necessary and long overdue, for national survival, process of beating addiction to perceived hegemony may start with electing Donald Trump to Oval Office. There is no guarantee that he will pursue policies which do serve real American national interests but there is a chance. The alternative to Trump leaves no chance at all and will see delusional people like Peter Rough setting US on the final approach to national suicide and with it, possibly, to a global one too. We still have a choice.

NOTE: I am still struggling with the formatting of this text, I will update links later.