Facebook Twitter YouTube SoundCloud RSS
 

As Obama Longs For ‘Paris Nights’, Russia Moves Missile Cruiser off Syrian Coast, Warns Turkey ‘There Are Consequences’

PHPatrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire

Yesterday’s international air incident which took place along the Syrian-Turkish border, is potentially the most dangerous geopolitical event to take place in living memory – an incident that is already quickly threatening to kill a number of peace treaties, as well as intensify an international situation that’s already beyond repair.

You’d expect a US leader to bring his A game. Instead, President Barack Obama did something astonishing at yesterday’s White House press conference with French leader, Francois Hollande.

Rather than bother to appear as an honest broker and mediate the international incident (NATO’s last shoot-down of a Russian aircraft was in 1951), he instead blamed Russia for Turkey shooting its fighter down and for its pilots being killed or captured by US/NATO/Turkey-backed militant Islamist insurgents camped along Syria’s northwest border with Turkey.

Equally as childish, CNN trumpeted the tired, camp T-shirt cum hashtag slogan, running with the headline, “Obama: We are all French now”.

If only Barack could speak French like Monsieur Kerry, then he’d have said, “Je suis Français.”

1-Hollande-Obama-two-gay-men-enjoying-apperitif
Presidents Obama and Hollande (Image: White House)

Obama then started his act. Cringe worthy would be an understatement. What was on display can only be described as a national humiliation by a President who remains suspended in an imaginary bubble of his own. With World War Three knocking at the door, you’d expect the President to get right down to business, but no. Instead, he waffled on as if it were just another Rotary Club speech.

Just like his predecessor, this is a President in desperate need of adult supervision.

He began by musing, “They’re part of our memories, woven into the fabric of our lives and our culture.  I am very grateful to the French people for the hospitality they’ve always shown me, and when they welcomed Michelle and our daughters on their first visit to the City of Lights.  By my bed, in the residence, is a picture of me and Michelle in Luxembourg Gardens, kissing.  Those are the memories we have of Paris.  As early on, I had no gray hair.”

Clearly, he just loves all things French. You could almost feel a real bromance coming on between Thin Man and the Frenchman.

After softening up the crowd for 10 minutes, talking about the Statue of Liberty and his romantic ‘Kodak moments’ with Michelle and the girls, from their taxpayer-funded vacation in Paris, the President finally got around to addressing the World War provocation carried out yesterday morning by NATO member, Turkey.

Obama then rolled out the lies: “I do think that this points to an ongoing problem with the Russian operations in the sense that they are operating very close to a Turkish border, and they are going after a moderate opposition that are supported by not only Turkey but a wide range of countries.  And, if Russia is directing its energies towards Daesh and ISIL, some of those conflicts, or potential for mistakes or escalation, are less likely to occur.”

Today’s speech by President Barack Obama was nothing less than a coded warning to Russia, effectively threatening:

“Leave our terrorist fighters on the ground alone and let us overthrow the Syrian government, or else.”

Obama and Hollande proceeded to wring-out that tired old State Department propaganda line, that “Assad must go”, but as usual without actually offering up a real case to support that slogan. The French President did his part by trying to add to an already inflated Syrian ‘civilian’ death toll, one which last month was being touted by western propagandists at a lofty 240,000 – a figure invented by the long discredited UK/EU-funded ‘Syrian NGO’ outfit cynically titled, the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights (SOHR). Yesterday, Hollande pumped it up to 300,000. Who knows, next month it might get inflated up to half a million. Goebbels would be proud. Here, Hollande embellishes the previous fiction stating:

“I commend the work done by ministers Fabius and Kerry to agree a timeline that will enable a ceasefire, of course, as quickly as possible, and to open up to a process that will lead to Bashar al-Assad’s departure.  Because we cannot imagine the Syrians getting together, gathering around the leader who is responsible for some — the most of 300,000 dead in a few years.  So a government of unity is required, but that must lead to Assad’s departure. ”

That’s right. It’s never been about ISIS, and it’s still all about regime change.

It should come as no surprise to the west that Russia would react the way it has – by freezing any diplomatic relations with Turkey and ceasing any military cooperation in the region. Russia also positioned its Naval Destroyer off the coast of Syria to provide sea-to air missile coverage against any threat to its forces in Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russians today that they should cancel any vacation or travel plans to Turkey – a trade which nets Turkey tens of millions per month. In a word, this is war.

No matter what cheap spin is being deployed by Washington and NATO in terms of painting Turkey as the ‘victim’ and its al Qaeda and ISIS ‘rebels’ as moderates – the fact is that both Turkey and its fellow NATO allies are the parties responsible for escalating tensions in the Middle East, and around the world. Even if the US is able to hide this fact from US audiences – everyone outside of the US already knows it. This puts the US public at a severe disadvantage, as its own rogue regime continues to conduct one of the biggest foreign policy frauds in history.

Meanwhile, President Obama is still cracking jokes, trying to be cute and clever to his almost clueless press corps in the East Room of the White House. It’s just another in a long, never-ending series of geopolitical low-points for America and the world.

Here’s a point to consider: should this situation continue to go south, it’s more likely that history will judge Barack Hussein Obama very badly – with the primary responsibility being laid as his feet…

1-Russian-Missile-Cruiser-Navy-Syria
Russian Black Sea Fleet Moskva Class cruise missile destroyer in position off the coast of Latakia.

By now, anyone with a functioning brain should see what’s actually been going on in the region:

Russia is in the region legally (by international law) to fight the terrorist conclave – while US, NATO are there illegally, and like Turkey, the US-led ‘Coalition’ is actually supporting that same terrorist conclave…

RT reports:

Moscow plans to suspend military cooperation with Ankara after the downing of a Russian bomber by Turkish air forces, Russian General Staff representatives said on Tuesday. Further measures to beef up Russian air base security in Syria will also be taken.

Three steps as announced by top brass:

  1. Each and every strike groups’ operation is to be carried out under the guise of fighter jets
  2. Air defense to be boosted with the deployment of Moskva guided missile cruiser off Latakia coast with an aim to destroy any target that may pose danger
  3. Military contacts with Turkey to be suspended

Sergey Rudskoy, a top official with the Russian General Staff, condemned the attack on the Russian bomber in Syrian airspace by a Turkish fighter jet as “a severe violation of international law”. He stressed that the Su-24 was downed over the Syrian territory. The crash site was four kilometers away from the Turkish border, he said.

Rudskoy said the Russian warplane did not violate Turkish airspace. Additionally, according to the Hmeymim airfield radar, it was the Turkish fighter jet that actually entered Syrian airspace as it attacked the Russian bomber.

The Turkish fighter jet made no attempts to contact Russian pilots before attacking the bomber, Rudskoy added.

We assume the strike was carried out with a close range missile with an infra-red seeker,” Rudskoy said. “The Turkish jet made no attempts to communicate or establish visual contact with our crew that our equipment would have registered. The Su-24 was hit by a missile over Syria’s territory.”

Russia now plans to implement new measures aimed at strengthening the security of the country’s air base in Syria and in particular to bolster air defense.

Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva, equipped with the ‘Fort’ air defense system, similar to the S-300, will be deployed off Latakia province’s coast.

We warn that every target posing a potential threat will be destroyed,” lieutenant general Sergey Rudskoy said during the briefing.

The Moskva (‘Moscow’) missile cruise is a flagship vessel of the Russian Black Sea fleet and is one of the fleet’s two biggest ships. The cruiser was stationed in Sevastopol but left in summer 2015 after being deployed to the Mediterranean Sea where it joined Russia’s standing naval force in the Mediterranean.

Turkey claims that it downed the Russian bomber in Turkish airspace after the plane was given 10 warnings in the space of five minutes as it approached the country’s territory.

“Nobody should doubt that we made our best efforts to avoid this latest incident. But everyone should respect the right of Turkey to defend its borders,” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

“The data we have is very clear. There were two planes approaching our border, we warned them as they were getting too close,” another senior Turkish official told Reuters.

“Our findings show clearly that Turkish air space was violated multiple times. And they violated it knowingly.”

US President Barack Obama and his French counterpart Francois Hollande urged Russia and Turkey away from further escalation during a meeting in Washington, while NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg voiced the alliance’s support for Turkey.

A US military spokesman also said that the incident involves only Turkey and Russia and does not affect the US-led campaign in Syria, which will continue “as planned”.

Since September 30, the Moskva cruiser acts as a covering force for the Russian air forces in Syria while deployed in the eastern Mediterranean.

All military contacts with Turkey will be suspended,” Rudskoy added.

READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria Files

 

 

Get Your Copy of New Dawn Magazine #203 - Mar-Apr Issue
Get Your Copy of New Dawn Magazine #203 - Mar-Apr Issue
Surfshark - Winter VPN Deal