Tag: New Lines Institute

Syria’s Rojava [Where They Run Torture Camps] Is in Grave Danger +

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Federalization of Syria a.k.a. Balkanization

Syria’s Rojava Revolution Is in Grave Danger (Reason magazine)

If the Kurdish-Arab alliance unravels, the U.S. military may decide to directly back Arab tribes as a bulwark against Iran and the Islamic State, according to Nicholas Heras, who has advised the U.S.-led military coalition in Syria and is now senior director for strategy at the nonprofit New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington. In 2019, when former President Donald Trump wanted to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, the Trump administration considered a strategy of letting the Kurdish forces fall to Turkey and buying off Arab tribes.

…

The United States has, directly and indirectly, backed all sides of the fight. Turkey is a NATO ally. Some of the SNA [Syrian National Army] units now attacking Kobane had received weapons and training from the CIA and the U.S. military. (After the Trump administration cut off support, a U.S. official condemned these same factions as “thugs, bandits, and pirates that should be wiped off the face of the earth,” and the Biden administration imposed human rights sanctions.) Meanwhile, several hundred U.S. troops are embedded with the SDF.

…

In his Sunday victory speech about the fall of the Assad government, President Joe Biden said that he wanted to support an “independent, sovereign—an independent—independent—I want to say it again—sovereign Syria.” But U.S. policy at the moment seems to be creating the opposite: a Syria chopped up [Balkanization] by foreign powers.

Rojava is also known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

Related:

Read More »

White House Increasing Surveillance of Russian Exclave as Nuclear Tensions Heighten

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The United States has carried out multiple surveillance flights this week around Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave located on the Baltic Sea coast. The American spy planes are likely assessing Moscow’s nuclear weapons activity as the two sides step up threats and warnings over the ongoing war in Ukraine.

White House Increasing Surveillance of Russian Exclave as Nuclear Tensions Heighten

Related:

U.S. steps up intel, surveillance after Putin’s nuke threats

“We haven’t seen any evidence at this time that Russia will use nuclear weapons,” said Lt. Cmdr. Joshua Kelsey. “We take these threats very seriously, but we have not seen any reason to adjust our own nuclear posture at this time.”

…

Intelligence agencies, the official said, are confident that Russia would not risk an all-out nuclear war by launching a massive attack on Ukraine or NATO countries.