Russia pulling out of Syria

[Ace Pace]

The Wonderful NYT

Quoting just the relevent bits.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday ordered the withdrawal of the “main part” of Russian forces in Syria, a surprise move that he said was justified by the “overall completion” of Moscow’s military mission in the war-ravaged country.

Russia has operated a naval facility on the Syrian coast since the Soviet period, but Mr. Putin’s order seemed to relate to warplanes operating from a new air base in Latakia that since September have carried out intensive bombing against rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Mr. Putin said the withdrawal would not mean the closing of the Latakia base.

“I believe, that the tasks put before the defense ministry have been completed over all,” Mr. Putin told Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov at a meeting in the Kremlin on Monday evening. “Because of this, I have ordered that from tomorrow the main part of our military groups will begin their withdrawal from the Syrian Arab Republic.”

Mr. Putin’s announcement appeared to catch the United States and other Western countries by surprise.

Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said he had not seen reports of Russia possibly pulling out of Syria, but the Obama administration has frequently expressed frustration with Russia’s continued military support for Mr. Assad, whom the Americans have long insisted should step down.

Well, this is somewhat expected since Assad's forces have been making serious gains over the last few months and I think the tide is firmly in their favour.

[Honorius]

Wow!

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the defence ministry to begin the withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria on Tuesday.

"The task that was set before our defence ministry and armed forces has as a whole been completed and so I order the defence ministry to from tomorrow start the withdrawal of the main part of our military contingents from the Syrian Arab Republic," Putin told Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in televised comments.

Guess the FSA saying they will fight on till Assad is brought to account made him rethink his plan. Assad has few manpower reserves left and relies totally on shock troops from Hezbollah and Iran to do the bulk of his fighting while the FSA continues to grow and get more proficient as Turkey and Saudi Arabia give Obama the finger and arm them with MANPADS now which were just used to down a Regime Plane two days ago.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what we want, its what the Syrians want and the FSA has vowed to bring Assad to account for his butchery of the Syrian People and their cities. The west lost the right to a say when it did not bring down Assad when he gassed children on live television. Compared to IS, Assad was always the greater monster with IS and PYD being tied in distant second for scumbaggery.

In EMS we have a saying: Treat the underlying cause, not the symptoms. IS and PYD are symptoms of Syria's implosion into Civil War, Assad is the cause and successfully removing IS and PYD from Syria requires removing Assad and trying him for his crimes first. Once he is gone the symptoms basically take care of themselves.

[Edi]

Duplicate threads merged.

[Ziggy Stardust]

In EMS we have a saying: Treat the underlying cause, not the symptoms. IS and PYD are symptoms of Syria's implosion into Civil War, Assad is the cause and successfully removing IS and PYD from Syria requires removing Assad and trying him for his crimes first. Once he is gone the symptoms basically take care of themselves.

Wait, are you honestly saying that if Assad were removed ISIS would immediately disband?

(Also, why are you lumping PYD in with ISIS?)

[SolarpunkFan]

From what I gather this whole thing, from the beginning of U.S. intervention to now has been one big clusterfuck. ISIS is a depressing reminder of the cruelties humans are capable of and Assad might be better, but that's rather faint praise.

Maybe I'm wrong, I just don't know. If the Russians are right then maybe things might turn around someday.

Not holding my breath though.

[Honorius]

In EMS we have a saying: Treat the underlying cause, not the symptoms. IS and PYD are symptoms of Syria's implosion into Civil War, Assad is the cause and successfully removing IS and PYD from Syria requires removing Assad and trying him for his crimes first. Once he is gone the symptoms basically take care of themselves.

Wait, are you honestly saying that if Assad were removed ISIS would immediately disband?

(Also, why are you lumping PYD in with ISIS?)

1. Not disband, but groups that joined them to fight Assad would desert them and join FSA which would then be free to handle them and set up local security operations to eliminate the hard liners and bring those who only joined to fight Assad back into society.

2. PYD engages in drug running and sex trafficking of women, kidnaps children and uses them as child soldiers, conducts extrajudicial executions of perceived enemies, and is the Syrian Branch of the PKK and takes orders from the PKK Command. It is a terrorist organization and always was. The only real difference between PYD and IS is that IS is honest about its scumbaggery. This group should have never been supported and should have gotten equally as bombed as IS with its terrorist leaders drone struck alongside full support to the FSA in 2014 to quickly overrun Assad.

As it is the FSA has declared PYD a terrorist organization and Turkish backed Kurdish FSA Groups are taking the fight back to them now as well as IS with heavy Turkish Artillery support. Turkish backed Faylaq al-Sham, a Kurdish FSA group, is already showing off Erdogan's latest gifts to them. So much for all the Erdogan Conspiracy theories of him backing IS and wants to exterminate Kurds which flew in the face of all objective facts and observations but Haters will hate.

In the past few days the FSA has taken back Dudiyan and Jakkah and are advancing on el-Rai and Jarabulus on the IS Front. On the SDF Front FSA retook Shaykh Isa and Shaykh Aqil and are pushing on to destroy the PYD stronghold of Afrin and bring its leaders to Justice. They no longer give a damn about Obama's wishes, he stabbed them in the back. They are not going to quit till Assad, IS, and SDF are cleansed from Syria so Syrians, not the West decide Syria's fate. There will be no negotiations with baby killers like Assad and he either leaves Syria willingly or they will kill him. FSA will accept nothing but Assad Regime's complete surrender and the trials of it members for their crimes.

Likewise neither Erdogan or Saudi Arabia give a damn about Obama's aims anymore as they directly threaten their security and his decisions have made the problem worse and led to more deaths than necessary. So FIM-92Js are now being given to the rebels to put a stop to the Barrel Bombings and to take away Assad's Air Force so refugees can start returning to safe zones cleared by the FSA.

Assad is a worse monster than even IS and has killed by an order of magnitude more people than IS has. IS just kills you and quickly. Assad tortures you for months using doctors to keep you alive till your body gives out. Take Assad out and his regime, and IS loses its appeal quickly.

[Sea Skimmer]

The Russians are only pulling out some naval infantry mechanized troops, they no longer see a risk of their airfield being physically overrun so they don't need them. It changes nothing else.

[K. A. Pital]

Honorius reminds me of Bagdad Bob...

[Thanas]

(Also, why are you lumping PYD in with ISIS?)

Because he is an Erdogan fanbot.

IS just kills you and quickly.

Are you fucking serious? Of all the bullshit in your post (andd it is 99.9% that), this is the most horrible one.

[Grumman]

Take Assad out and his regime, and IS loses its appeal quickly.

Tens of thousands of people willingly joined ISIL despite never living under Assad or any other dictator. If they were doing this because fighting evil is the right thing to do, they would not be joining the group you yourself say are honest about how much of a bunch of scumbags they are. ISIL only wants to overthrow evil governments because it's not their evil government. Neither those who support ISIL's claim to being the successor to Muhammad's caliphate nor those attracted by ISIL's promise of war plunder and sex slaves are going to abandon ISIL just because one of their many enemies has fallen.

[Raw Shark]

IS just kills you and quickly.

If lighting people on fire is your idea of a quick, and by implication merciful death... I am very glad that you are not responsible for my execution.

[Thanas]

Apparently torturing someone for over a week is a quick death in Honorius opinion.

[Ziggy Stardust]

1. Not disband, but groups that joined them to fight Assad would desert them and join FSA which would then be free to handle them and set up local security operations to eliminate the hard liners and bring those who only joined to fight Assad back into society.

Why would they join FSA, when ISIS clearly has the upper hand (which would be even more true if Assad were gone)? What makes you think FSA would have the ability to put together an anti-ISIS coalition given their inability to put together a strong anti-Assad coalition?

2. PYD engages in drug running and sex trafficking of women, kidnaps children and uses them as child soldiers, conducts extrajudicial executions of perceived enemies, and is the Syrian Branch of the PKK and takes orders from the PKK Command. <snip>

I presume you have sources for all of these claims? The only sources I can find on a Google search are ones that accuse the PYD of certain human rights abuses, but which also rather explicitly say that they are lesser in both degree of severity and scope than ISIS and other parties involved in Syria. Nobody is saying PYD is perfect, but even Human Rights Watch ranks them as better than ISIS. Why do you single out PYD when every informed party seems to agree they are the least of the regional evils?

[LaCroix]

Who exactly is the FSA, anyway?

I mean, even in Syria, some people deny it even exists as an organization.