U.S. War Plane Shoots Down A Syrian Jet: Russia Warns Of Consequences

[The Industrial Atheist]

Lets not have World War 3 over Syria. Totally not worth it.

[Ravenshire]

Are you honestly proposing genocide and forced relocation as a solution

While I hesitate to speak for others, Vorlon seems to be saying he can envision it happening, not that he's proposing it as a solution.

[Minimalist]

Their intent seems to be to depopulate the country.  I'm still trying to figure out why we are even remotely involved.  The "rebels" are not going to win and if they did it would be every bit as big as massacre as if the government won.  We should be concentrating on Iraq, which IS our problem, and which in spite of brave pronouncements still can't manage to evict a couple of hundred remaining ISIS fighters from fucking Mosul.

[vorlon13]

an absurdist solution is the only viable possibility for peace in the middle east

[Autumnlicious]

Why are the Russians "warning" us? They're a lot more diplomatic with the US than everyone else. What's Putin's angle?

[Minimalist]

an absurdist solution is the only viable possibility for peace in the middle east

Maybe they could tell allah to go fuck himself and live in peace?  How's that for absurd?

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Why are the Russians "warning" us? They're a lot more diplomatic with the US than everyone else. What's Putin's angle?

Cuz Pootey spent a lot of time getting the WLB elected.  Can't have one asshole pilot with an itchy trigger finger fucking up all their plans.

[Anomalocaris]

Why are the Russians "warning" us? They're a lot more diplomatic with the US than everyone else. What's Putin's angle?

Russia is likely to not come out best in any real airpower contest.   In fact if it were anyone else in the White House, the downing of a US jet in Syria by a Russian missile or aircraft would likely lead to deployment of US resources to the region that would collapse the entire Russian position in Syria.   So Putin is giving trump the opportunity to forfeit the air battle first.

People still credit Russia with the weight and punch of something like a superpower.  In fact Russia is extremely weak in military, economic and geopolitical power.  Russia's nuclear arsenal is of no significance since it can't be used and the bluff of its use would be readily called.  Russia has a thin crust of second rate albeit effective conventional forces, but lack the reserves, logistics and support to use it on a sustained basis against any equally second rate force abroad.  Russia has no economic leverage other than cutting the natural gas supply to turkey.   Russia has no geopolitical future to sustain any credible long term geopolitical blackmail.

Putin is in effect trying to seize a win by bluffing at a time of total disfunction in the trump White House, that the Russian military does not the capability of actually attaining in any real showdown, nor does Russia as a country has any leverage to achieve through classical geopolitical blackmail.

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an absurdist solution is the only viable possibility for peace in the middle east

The unpalatability of the options entitles the player to throw the game, as if the game is a discretionary yuppie luxury, not a weighty matter of life and death for millions. That is the same mentality that brought us trump.

[vorlon13]

US forces shot down an armed Iranian drone over Syria today and pissed off the Russians some more while they were trying to bomb more Kurds attacking ISIS forces laying siege to some pro-Turkey militia in an area recently controlled by pro-Wahhabi freedom fighters who also were accepting financial support from Qatar



sorry, I can't keep up with the absurdist reality any more . . .  

V

[Lek]

We should not be so uppity as to think we could be friends with Putin.  We did lose the Cold War, after all.

The whole Soviet Union imploded - and we lost the cold war?

[Anomalocaris]

We should not be so uppity as to think we could be friends with Putin.  We did lose the Cold War, after all.

The whole Soviet Union imploded - and we lost the cold war?

Winner is the side that gets to install a government of its own choosing in the capital of the loser.  So yes, we lost.

It actually looked almost as if we won 25 years ago, and the illusion persisted through about 2008.  But republicunt  fuckwits snatched defeat from the jaws of victory at the last moment by revealing they would gleefully betray their country to Russia for the chance to gain domestic political advantage for the most worthless sects of country.