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Radio War Nerd EP#5 — Russia Intervenes In Syria, West Melts Down (Patreon)

Published:
2015-10-14 23:02:08
Edited:
2019-04-04 18:40:56
Imported:
2026-06

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Content

The War Nerd flees across the Adriatic to southern Italy...

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

Comments

Mat LaPoer

If only the western left would take a tip from the YPG/J and focus on earning support from "the people" by getting their shit together and getting shit done for them, instead of expecting to subsist on abstract devotion to the "cause" ...

greend00d

The punchline to the Archemedes story is "don't disturb my circles". The story with "get out of my light" is to do with Alexander of Macedon and the philosopher Diogenes. Diogenes was THE cynic, as in kinos, as in dog. Diogenes would walk around the agora with a lit lantern during the day, and if you asked him what he was doing he woukd say "I'm looking for an honest man", which I assume meant that he had found one whenever asked. There is a story of Plato in his later years defining 'Man' as "featherless biped". Diogenes bust into the Academy with a plucked chicken, like "check out this man I found!". The say that Plato changed the definition to "featherless biped WITH BROAD NAILS". Anyway, Alexander was taught by Aristotle, so he probably wasn't as uninformed as he was boastful, so the story goes that he was in the area and wanted to show his magnanimity to the old cynic. You gotta understand, Diogenes was basically a homeless guy, living in a fucking clay pot and jerkin his dick in the town market. Alexander goes to meet him and finds him in lying in the sun. You can imagine whatever a daddy's boy might say to a homeless guy back when owning a riding horse was basically having an f16 as a private jet. "I am Alexander, and impressed by your teachings, I have come to fulfill for you anything you might desire". And Diogenes goes "yeah, if you could move bit to the left, you're blocking my sun". Supposedly, Alexander said to his friends that "if I weren't me, I'd want to be him", but I like to imagine that everything he did after the Anatolian coast was an attempt to recover from that vicious own.

Hugo Turner

Pyrrhus was killed in urban combat when a woman threw a roof tile which hit him in the head

Peter Berard

The Colorado Springs/Ankara analogy had an additional layer of truth to it. Colorado Springs was, for a little while, a sort of crunchy-earthy hippie New Age type of town, or at least prominent parts of the downtown were. Crystal shops, the whole biz. Then, as the whole evangelical thing got bigger and bigger in the eighties, it came to be seen as a mission field. Who answered the call? None other than Pastor Ted Haggard! The mid-2000s best source of humor. This Jeff Sharlet piece on Haggard (<a href="http://jeffsharlet.com/content/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/soldiers_of_christ.pdf)" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://jeffsharlet.com/content/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/soldiers_of_christ.pdf)</a> alludes to Haggard's flock harassing and pulling pranks on gay bars, New Age establishments, etc., winning the town for Christ (and the red team). But in classic fancy-pants literary/Harper's/Sharlet fashion, he prefers to continue his psychohistory of Haggard rather than talk about this low-speed sectarian conflict. Haggard is a tempting psychological target, alas. Presumably they picked Colorado Springs at least in part because of the Air Force Academy. For a while, the evangelicals were talking about the Air Force as "their branch." There've been news stories about non-Christian or non-evangelical students getting harassed by their peers and superiors into attending prayer meetings, etc. I know people who went to nearby schools (and played USAFA in sports) who say a lot worse happened but didn't make the news... Ever see pictures of the Air Force Academy chapel? Google it sometime- it looks like Saruman designed it. Ankara wasn't ever a crunchy town, to the best of my knowledge -- do the Turks do crunchy? -- but it was a Kemalist town, if I understand the history right. It was his headquarters. It might have been nationalistic and religious, but not quite ISIS-AKP type. That it's deep red now... presumably somebody did that.

Jed Hovey

I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but there's a YouTube channel called CaspianReport that just did a pretty good video on why Russia is getting involved in Syria. His basic case is that the whole thing was a ploy on Putin's part to exchange intervention in Syria for Ukraine. According to him, the bargain presented to Obama at the UN was that if he quit intervening in Ukraine, Russia wouldn't intervene in Syria. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idHQIMrtB2M" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idHQIMrtB2M</a> It seems like a pretty credible case to me.

Matthew Colgan

I think the psychoanalysis style is attractive to many of Sharlet's readers. It is comforting to simply imagine that deeply ingrained cultural/religious/nationalist sentiment is simply some type of mental disorder. A thing that will soon pass. Or it could just be that Harper's/Literary review type liberals find it fascinating to gaze into the thought process of the other.

Hanso

Which Syria control maps do yo consider as good? I btw hear lots of reports on Hezbollah presence outside of the border area. Most of it is from Assad-leaning propaganda outlets, so I don't trust all of it. But it seems likely that they have sent advisors into other areas, notably Aleppo. Remember that a Hezbollah advisor was reportedly killed by a local militia commander (Sunni loyalist), who probably didn't like being told what to do. But it's true what you said. Outside of th Qalamoun buffer, Hezbollah havn't been sending any large frontline units. Looks like the Iranians are planning on using their "Persian Empire"-style mercenaries/volunteers to provide the RuAF with some proper infantry support, though. Iraqi "Kataib Hezbollah" (made famous through videos of IED-ambushes, back in the days of the US occupation) apparently arrived in Aleppo, joining other Iranian-trained (and most likely -led) militias already in Syria. My favourite one is the Liwa Fatemiyoun, whose recruits are mostly Hazara refugees from Afghanistan!

radiowarnerd

Thanks very much Hanso. You clearly know your stuff really well. What sources do you recommend? I used to use Agathocle de Syracuse control maps but they haven't been updating much lately. The best recent one I've seen was from the NYT. I mention it in my new article which should come up today.

Thomas

OK, I think you and Mark have lost the thread on Syria, and I think it's because you're blinded by how much you dislike this Weiss guy. You're becoming reflexively contrarian -- anything he says, you believe that to be proof that the opposite is true. You might loathe the guy, but broken clocks and once a day and all that crap. Or, screw that, forget about him, and look at the way you're discussing the war in Syria: you explain Russia's air campaign as a logical step to protect their client, and argue that the Western media response to that is wildly disproportionate because all their actions look like logical, conventional tactics to achieve their aims -- so far so good, except you're ignoring the undeniable fact that said client has killed the overwhelming majority of civilians in this conflict. You keep arguing that there are no substantial differences among the Sunni militias, then use that to explain that the English language's response to Russia's pro-Assad intervention is just nuts. What is that, the ignoratio elenchi fallacy? I'm not great at rhetoric, I can't distinguish between the finer points. Just because there are a bunch of hawks who are screaming for the US to rattle its sabers against Putin, doesn't mean you have to go to these lengths to explain away the fact that Russia is acting to support the worst actor in a shockingly insane conflict.

Hanso

Not sure about any specific sources to recommend. I get most of it from articles and stuff posted through twitter. "Syria Direct" and "Syria Deeply" are OK, for detailed reports. Italian journalist Daniele Raineri is favourite, and a tip is to have a look at what he is following. Outside of twitter, I have mostly had a good experience from "al-Monitor", that publishes translated articles by ME-based journalists and analysts. "War on the Rocks" and "ISW" can also be good. These are just some of the sites that I visit more frequently. ALL of these "sources" have problems, but not beyond what any common sense-oriented reader might be able to handle. But more than anything, I recommend watching the videos and reading the propaganda of the different sides (the ones on the ground). For a long time, I followed Syria through nothing but maps, rebel cameras and the pompous propaganda of SANA, Manar, etc. It's through experience of understanding "the ground" and the people on it that you can filter away all the bullshit that Western journalists/analysts make up. This is of course an age-old rule, but made much easier thanks to YouTube. People easily underestimate what an insanely large database of battlefield-videos (among other things) the Syrian war has produced.

Chris Kohler

As the war nerd explained, the Assad regime might be brutal and commit war crimes, but they still are what stands between the Alawite and Christian minorities and the Sunnis, who chant "Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the grave!" as their motto. One of the main strategies of the British and French colonial powers was to make oppressed native minorities their accomplices by giving them power over the majority and making sure there are natives who have a vested interest in the colonial status quo. That is what the French did with the Alawites. They were a oppressed, displaced minority, driven from the Syrian main land to the hills and a small coastal strip of land by Sunni immigrants until the French came and made them their chosen people. Of course the Snunni majority started hating the Alawites even more during that time and when the French left, the Alawites had no choice but to use a brutal, autocratic system to keep the Sunni masses in check. They are in a very similar situation to the Israelis, but they don't have a superior high tech military like Israel, which is able to pick its battles and to keep up the appearance of mercy and carefulness in their choice of targets. They can't build walls around the dangerous masses and don't have the IDF Airforce and a Mossad, enabling them to do precision strike killings of prominent individuals. All they have is old, Russian tanks, barrel bombs and torture dungeons. It is ugly, but what are they supposed to do? Just let the poor, heroic Sunni rebels follow through with their promised genocide?

Thomas

What's the acceptable number of dead Sunnis? How many more do we have to burn through before you and I will agree that Assad ought to go? You're equating a hypothetical pogrom with one that is actually happening, and arguing that the one that is potential is more dangerous than the one that is ongoing. Besides, the idea that every Syrian Sunni fits into this ultra-extremist, kill-'em-all-let-god-sort-them-out model is absurd and kind of bigoted; I think it's being latched onto by some here because they want to buck the hawks who are either openly or implicitly arguing for greater support of some of the Sunni groups. Contrarianism is a hell of a rush. I don't agree with the analogizing to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but I'm not going to dig into it now because my main point isn't about how to understand Syria, but instead to discourage John from his present belief that the most interesting thing going on between Bab al-Hawa and Daraa is that a guy in New York whom he hates is getting paid more money than he is for opinions about the conflict. Get Weiss on the podcast to defend the best possible statement of his arguments, or stop complaining about him. Michael Weiss is the least interesting thing about Syria.

Thomas

Oh, and incidentally, do we need to go one empire further back when you're cataloging the sins of imperialism -- didn't the Alawites end up on the outs because of scapegoating by the Ottomans? I think that was how I learned it -- not that it was due to population pressure from immigration, but because ethnic scapegoating of some minority was always a good way to keep the majority population relatively happy.

Chris Kohler

John Dolan's position on this has been consistent since he started writing on The Exiled, as far as I know, so I very much doubt that he is just being contrarian to disagree with one of those right wing pundits.

Chris Kohler

As I said, it is very ugly, but I wouldn't call what the Assad regime is doing a progrom. If he would have wanted to exterminate or displace the Sunni majority of Syria, he probably would have had better opportunities to do so. As distasteful as his methods are, he is fighting a defensive war against a rebellion of people who vowed to exterminate the Alawites. Whether there are rebels who don't want to do that doesn't really matter. Not every Nazi wanted to exterminate the Jews either. If you were an Alawite, would you just surrender to a rebellion because half or maybe 2/3 or perhaps 2/4 of them didn't vow to exterminate you?

Thomas

No, look: from the moment the Russian air war started, Mark and John kept repeating that it changed nothing, that the Western media were clutching their pearls in hysterics. But today, about an hour ago, the BBC reported that 35,000 people are fleeing Aleppo as SAA troops advance under Russian CAS. The impact of Russian military action in Syria _IS_ significant. It has changed the conflict dramatically. But because Michael Weiss et al. were banging the drum about this, John and Mark seemed driven to a knee jerk denial of those facts. The conversation on this podcast and in John's column on Pando have become increasingly obsessed with one commenter -- Weiss -- and are no longer honestly describing the conflict. What Michael Weiss thinks about Syria is not as important as this emphasis would suggest. Invite him to the podcast to defend his arguments, or stop bringing him up. He's not important. Maybe five years ago, at a Kinko's in Austin, I saw an adjunct in the sociology department get furious at a clerk for telling her that she couldn't just photocopy a bunch of text books for her class because she was exceeding some page limit for fair use (the argument was something like that, I'm not getting it verbatim). And she was very upset and said 'Well, you're not FACILITATING anything.......... you, you NEOCON.' And that's what the show has sounded like every time this obsession with Weiss comes up

Chris Kohler

The old black and white "get the brutal dictator no matter what" way of thinking just doesn't work every time. We should have learned that from the example of Iraq by now. Sometimes the murderous dictator prick is the smaller of 2 evils.

Thomas

That's a false dilemma. There are a lot of options besides (a) exterminate or (b) be exterminated.

Chris Kohler

We definitely agree that this Weiss guy isn't important. I don't know him or his position and while I listened to the podcast, I must admit, I somehow missed or forgot the part where they discuss or mention the guy. I'm pretty sure though that the War Nerd's position on Syria has been consistent since I first read what he wrote about it. My Pando subscription ran out 3 or 4 months ago and I haven't renewed it so far, so I'm not up to date on the War Nerd articles or on what people discuss on the message board there, so I can't say anything about that. I didn't really get that they were saying that Russia's involvement in Syria wouldn't be important or wouldn't have an effect either. Guess I should listen to the podcast again, because we seem to have taken quite different things away from it.

Chris Kohler

Sure, but it doesn't seem to me that exterminating the Sunnis is actually what the Assad regime is trying to do. It is a brutal terror regime, fighting a brutal war against the majority of the population, but from all I know about the situation, it still looks like a defensive war to me, which mostly is made so ugly because of the crudeness of the weapons and methods used. The Alawites are lashing out and flailing because they aren't capable of stopping the rebellion in a "clean" and orderly way. That doesn't mean that surrender is an option to them and that they are fighting that war for shits and giggles. I suppose if the Alawites would have known how eager Angela Merkel is to get as many Middle Eastern refugees into Germany as possible, they could just have packed their belongings and left instead of fighting the rebellion at all and from all you hear about Alawite mentality, that would probably have looked like a attractive alternative to most of them, but it is too late for that now. Now they are winning the war and it is the "Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the grave!"-guys who are fleeing to Europe. I think those Alawite "kuffr" and the Christian minorities would have had a easier time and more of a will to integrate into European societies, so I think that would have been a better alternative for everybody involved.

Winterborn

Unless you're a student of the neo-imperial view that western powers should go into Syria and set up a regime to their own liking you're left with choosing a side in the conflict, or at most two sides. Here Assad back in power with major concessions to the Kurds seems like the best situation. It's a hell of a long way from perfect but the alternatives are far too ugly to consider.

Winterborn

I've always found that Air Force Academy chapel a fairly cool design and my sympathies lie a million miles from evangelical christian movements.

PW

Regarding the strange beauty of war from the most recent podcast, the Russian film "Come and See" (now streaming on Amazon!) is one of the most beautiful and disturbing war films I've even seen. Russian story-telling and film-making at their finest.

radiowarnerd

I was just looking at that. Can't object to not liking "whiny boys".

Blue

I read this conversation you had here and it is very good My 2 cents are @ Thomas Jarvis The Sunnis will indeed massacre the Alawites, in all societies in all countries there are always people who want to kill ”the other ethnic/ and or religious group” but they dont have the means or opportunity to do so, just take Yugoslavia lots of people wanted to kill ”the other ethnic/ and or religious group” but they didnt have the means or opportunity, but once an opportunity presented itself they took it, and once the killing has started the the ”normal” people get caught up in it, because now they have friends and families who have been killed by ”the other ethnic/ and or religious group”. So right now there is no chance of a realistic peace between sunnis and alawaites, either the alwaites fight and win, or they will be exterminated. And even if by some miracle that does not happen then they will be massively oppressed, there is no way that a majority group that was oppressed by a minority group will not seek lots and lots of vengeance, even though it was just a few leaders that were calling the shots, the whole group will be blamed, especially now with the war. @ Chris Kohler To read war nerd articles for free check the war nerds twitter, by typing in war nerd twitter and mark ames twitter and pando unlocks twitter you dont need a twitter account to check it just use your favorite search engine and type in pando unlocks twitter, for example

Blue

I am a huge fan of you the War Nerd, but you have some very big blind spots The War Nerd, you falsely assume that 100% of the people who join the YPG are all lefties, the YPG is a fighting force that is operating in a geographical area, and it has “its shit together” so lots of people will join them, especially those living in that area, people who are not political, people who are to the right, everyone, because “they have their shit together” They know how to fight, they get things done, that is why people choose to join them Also you seem to have this huge blind spot that the Kurds would not prevent non Kurds to moving into some areas and throwing non Kurds out Obviously some Kurds in some places want to keep all non Kurds out, this is obvious Equally obvious is that some Kurds in some areas dont mind if the person is or is not a Kurd Just as some Americans dont want to live next to a Mexican, and some Americans dont mind living next to a Mexican And some Americans IF they had the opportunity and means would make sure that an area was Mexican free especially if there was a war and had been a long continuous history of violent hostility between some Americans and some Mexicans