A bucket of cold doubts to pour over 'Barry 'n' Dave'

Not much time today so I am committing larceny again by providing you with last night's KGS NightWatch summary of the Syrian firestorm which our (less than) glorious leaders seem intent on stoking:

Syria: Update.
The mainstream media headlines with slight variations predict that an attack
against Syrian targets by US missiles could occur as early as Thursday. The UK
and France are lobbying hard for action because of the alleged chemical attack.

Special Comment:
Numerous pundits and experts have expounded on the need for the US to take
action, the consequences of inaction, and the potential for a US attack to
generate a regional conventional war. Curiously, they have not mentioned the
probability of Iranian-instigated terrorist attacks in the US.

NightWatch has little to add to all that "wisdom," but
prefers to comment on matters not covered.

Feedback from one of the finest analysts alive provided a
reminder that the "bugs and gas" (biological and chemical warfare)
lobby in US intelligence contains fine people who get few opportunities to
shine. That's because of the limits of intelligence on bugs and gas. Next to
nukes (nuclear weapons) they are the most protected weapons a country, such as
Syria and North Korea, has.

As a result, studies of national capabilities and stock
piles of bugs and gas are notoriously suspect, but err on the side of caution
because a little goes a long way. As a result, the record of predictive accuracy
tends to be poor. That record includes the inaccurate judgments about various
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003.

The detection of actual use of bugs and gas agents and of
the specific agents used, as during the last year of the Iran-Iraq War, is even
harder. It always requires reliable and competently educated and specially
trained investigators on the ground at the site. Actual use cannot be inferred
from radio intercepts or any other indirect or remotely collected information
source.

A second observation derives from the Russian use of a
chemical agent in 2002 when Chechen terrorists held more than 700 Russian
hostages in a Moscow theater. The Russians used a crowd suppression agent that
killed 116 people, but enabled 650 to be rescued. The agent is not banned by
the Geneva convention on chemical warfare.

If the Syrians used such an agent, which can be delivered
by mortars and artillery as well as aircraft, there would be no international
legal justification for attacking Syria based on the Geneva convention. It
would not have been violated. The possibility that a non-banned substance was
used makes it all the more urgent that competent investigators inspect the
sites to identify the agent as well as the culprit.

A third observation is that the use of lethal gas is
notoriously and inherently dangerous, often depending on the weather and the
delivery system. It can blow back, in some instances, for miles. That is why
military forces do not use it.

A fourth observation from Feedback from chemical warfare
experts is that lethal gas kills effectively. There are no large numbers of
people left alive but suffering. Victims die by the thousands. Survivors are
few, if any. That is the lesson of Iraq's use of such weapons at Hallabjah
against the Kurds and later against the Iranians. Casualty reports from Syria
are precisely opposite of the lethality pattern in a chemical weapon attack.

A fifth observation is that US media have given Syrian
forces more than enough warning to enable them to protect themselves and their
weapons. Leaks about US attack plans represent either monumental incompetence
in operational security or a deliberate effort to tip off the Syrians for
arcane political purposes.

In either event, the leaks ensure that Syrian military forces
will suffer no significant damage from a US attack. An attack under these
conditions must be considered entertainment for the benefit of the
international press instead of a serious military operation.

As for Syrian defense capabilities, Syria has a respectable
integrated air defense system, but the Israelis have defeated it thrice in the
past year. It poses no serious impediment to a missile or air attack except to
the unwary or unlucky.

Syria has supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles that have a
range of 300 nm. Syria will use them if it can acquire the US destroyers off
its coast.

As for the value of limited punitive strikes, Syria already
has shown that it can withstand limited, genuinely surgical, punitive attacks
by the Israeli air force. The Israelis have attacked three times in the past 18
months and the Syrians have not retaliated. Apparently that is because the
Israeli attacks have had no demonstrable impact on Hizballah's operations or
Syria's prosecution of the fight against the opposition.

Syria is in an existential battle. Surgical, pin prick NATO
attacks are trivial compared to the prospect of Syrian forces destroying the
rebel concentrations east of Damascus. This means Syria might not retaliate for
a US attack, but just continue to prosecute the fight. Iran and Lebanese
Hizballah are the more dangerous sources of retaliation.

As for ripple effects, Iran is so heavily invested in the
survival of the government in Syria that US and NATO planners must plan for
retaliatory attacks in Western Europe, in the US, in the Persian Gulf states
and everywhere the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force has a
presence. Iran's responses will depend on the damage inflicted on Syria.

Concerning leading from behind, American audiences
apparently are not aware that in Libya and in Mali, Western European air forces
were unable to sustain combat flight and logistics operations without
comprehensive US support, from intelligence to mission planning to all types of
resupply. Some US military personnel are resentful because they received so
little recognition for so much effort to compensate for European NATO lack of
capabilities.

The notion of leading from behind is a political and media
myth. NATO is incapable of sustaining any but the most elementary level of air
combat for a minimal amount of time without comprehensive US support. That
means the feel-good notion of a coalition of the willing is actually a cover
term for US military operations with minimal NATO help for window dressing.

Is anyone, do you think, saying, or perhaps, shouting, this sort of sceptical commonsense into the ears of our leaders?  Take that as a 'no', shall I?

 

Comments

[Whyaxye]

Excellent find, DD. I can only conclude that either our leaders know something extremely important that they are not going to tell us (i.e. military or diplomatic intelligence) or they are a bunch of utter idiots. I have difficulty deciding which until I remember the pasty tax. That normally does it for me.

[dearieme]

"Syria has supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles that have a
range of 300 nm." I have to say that three hundred nanometers is a pretty unfrightening range for a missile.

[Michael Adams]

What the Russians used was fentanyl, which I did not know, before then, could be made a gas. I've given tons of it, as transdermal patches for cancer patients. If the Russians had had adequate supplies of naloxone, preferably in prefilled syringes or just an army of paramedics on hand, to put in endotracheal tubes and get the patients on ventilators, (or even just an even bigger army of nurses to squeeze the air bags), even if they had insufficient vents, they could have gotten the death rate down to single digits, and really impressed me with their cleverness. As it turned out, not so impressed.

[Philo Vaihinger]

None of our damned business, anyway, even if it actually did happen.

[Jimmy Glesga]

Tory MP from Stratford upon Avon was on the roger melly tonight stating that WMD was banned after WW1.
Maybe the interviewer should have mentioned Hiroshima or Nagisaki! Ooops!! Was that the yanks that done it. Boom la la, la la la Boom.

[JK]

DM, that'd be nautical miles.

Michael. I'm given to understand the Spetznaz operators weren't accustomed to working "with" whatever constitutes Russia's 'Search & Rescue' folks - the 'Fire Department' guys removed the victims from their seated positions (inside the theater) and unceremoniously dumped them (on their backs) on the sidewalks outside.

The theater op coulda been worse - I might've been another school.

[Michael Adams]

JK, That's a detail I had not known. I have a problem with our over-deployment of SWAT teams, but they do have paramedics standing by. Some cities, like Dallas, even have a mobile operating room on the scene, perfusion pump and all. I'm fairly sure the UK has something similar, I know that the Canadians do(Probably minus the mobile surgical suite.)

But, on a much brighter note, it would appear that France and Britain have succeeded in making their governments see sense, at least for now. This may have a beneficial spill-over for us. I know that many British people think their government follows the leader, in DC. However, there is a great deal of similar complaint over here.

Note, I said that the countries, i.e. the people thereof. We HAVE governments. The governments are not the country, whatever they might think.

OK, time to go save lives and stamp out suffering, or at least, not the contrary.

[Lawrence Duff]

Cynical though it may seem, it is not in our interests for the Syrian conflict to end any time soon.

If the Sunni and Shia Islamist / Jihadi nutters wish to get on planes, trains and automobiles and leave the West (and anywhere else in the world, for that matter) to go to a place we don't give a shit about and slaughter each other, we should be rejoicing!

There is no hatred like brotherly hatred, and when two bully brothers have menaced a street of neighbours, what better outcome for the neighbours than the two brothers decide to fight each other?

When they fight each other they're too busy to bully the neighbours. If anything the neighbours should be holding their coats while they knock six bells out of each other! We should be handing out plane fares to the Taliban and Hezbollah; instead of points reward cards, give them an AK47, RPG with ammo, pat them on the back, and send them on their way to Syria.

And when one of the bullies has finally snuffed out the other, and emerges exhausted from the fight, even the weak and feeble neighbours can muster up the will to rub him out.

What better solution for Russia, the West, Arabia, Afghanistan, well, the entire world in fact, to solve its Islamist / Jihadi problem than to help them on their way to somewhere where they slaughter each other - something they are keen to do themselves?

The last thing we want is for one or other side to win the war too quickly. Chemical weapons could do just that for Assad. So a surgical strike on Assad, if correctly explained as being confined only to make his side stop using chemical weapons, would rebalance the conflict nicely.

Bring to the boil and simmer consistently for about 100 years. Like the wars of religion that were confined to Christian lands, it's only fair that an Islamic land hosts its own factional conflict. And in 2113, when the victor stumbles away from the body of the vanquished, we can squish him too; then like Christianity after the wars of religion, Islam can enter Enlightenment and join the modern world.

[Lawrence Duff]

A bit like the way we fought world war 2 really: we hung back on our island and held off those feisty yanks who wanted to get stuck in too soon, while we let class-Socialism and race-Socialism beat each other to a pulp, only helping and stoking just enough to keep the violence levels between the two to a max. And then only when decency was stretched to the limit, we joined in - more or less just in time for the victory parade!*

And wasn't class-Socialism so much the weaker for having battered itself to death with its brother-from-another-mother? The strategy saved us from facing another hot war, rather it was cold. I can't remember who it was who said that Stalin did more for democracy in Europe than anyone else.

SoD

* Yes DM, I know, try telling that to those who fought in the Normandy bocage, I'm talking relatively.

[Michael Adams]

One problem is that what we sometimes call 'Wars of Religion' were really about something else, the rise of the Bourgeoisie. (e.g.Catholic France fighting on the side of German Protestants.) If the Moslems are really, actually fighting about Mo Hammad's succession, I don't have a good picture of what might emerge. A great deal of it is tribal, if I am understanding correctly. I really can't see an end to that. If we get rid of O'Bozo, and oil exploration takes off, the diminishing oil reserves in most of the Middle East will bring in less revenue, so they'll be able to afford less ammo.(Maybe?) Trouble with that rosy scenario is that, when the UN sanctions were cutting deeply into Saddam's revenue stream, he just spent what he had on weaponry, and then complained his people were starving and dying for lack of food and medicine. However, your starting premise is right, better that they fight each other than us. Yes, it's cynical, and I am a little ashamed for agreeing with it, but it is the unvarnished truth.

[Able]

The familial allegory is apt. They're fighting each other with gusto but if an outsider steps up .. they'll 'both' turn on him.

This is not, as you say, about some doctrinal differences, this is about power and wealth.

My worry on the scenario of 'stand back and let em have at it' is just how the 'communities' here in Blighty will react. Will we have a few 'altercations'? What are the odds on a Bradford vs Luton match? (or more probably both sides attacking us for not supporting them, saying the wrong thing, looking the wrong way, being offensively white)

[Lawrence Duff]

You're right, keeping a "long slow burn" war going between our enemies requires some skill to avoid becoming the cause of a "kiss-and-make-up" scenario and thence a target. Possibly beyond the competency reach of our lot.

The vote has decided we won't even try now, anyway. We must just hope the Saudis are sneakily supplying some decent gear to keep the Sunni nutters in the fight.

SoD