A Syria/Berliner ensemble

And instantly forgotten is how Gen. Michael Flynn, who headed the DIA at the time, went on the record stating this was a "willful decision" by the Obama administration.

And then there's CIA top honcho John Brennan recently testifying that the CIA was "alert" to the emergence of the fake "Caliphate" -- and had "correctly" assessed its power by 2012. Good job! And yet by early 2014 -- when ISIS/ISIL/Daesh had already captured Fallujah and parts of Ramadi -- Obama was still deriding them as "a junior varsity of al-Qaeda."

So neither the CIA nor Obama nor any node in the acronym soup of US intel really gave a damn about ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. Willful decision. Let them wreak havoc. Thus the long convoy of gleaming white Toyotas crossing "Syraq" to take Mosul undetected by the most sophisticated satellite surveillance system ever.

Everyone who knows anything about the "Syraq" theatre knows there are no "moderate rebels." And now Moscow is showing how you fight the whole Wahhabi/Salafi-jihadi matrix; a mix of drones, sigint aircraft, and on the ground intel (of which the coalition of dodgy opportunists is sorely deprived.) It's progressive -- starting near the urban areas in the east and moving to the western desert. And it will be relentless, to include direct ground support to the Syrian Arab Army when the "recapturing of territory" phase picks up, side-by-side with aerial support. You are leaving the American sector.

Expect the information war, from now on, to be absolutely vicious. The neocon, neoliberalcon, "humanitarian" imperialist galaxy will be madly trying to sell global public opinion a monster "dreaming collective"; as in Russia is "evil" because they bomb "our" rebels and -- horror of horrors -- kill civilians! We would never commit such unspeakable acts!

And then there's the prime slapstick effect to coronate the farce; Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir -- in the role of proverbial Empire of Chaos lackey -- adamant that the House of Saud petrodollar hacienda would never accept the Russian effort to keep Assad in power. And if there's no political solution, there will be further weaponizing of the non-existent "moderate" rebels.

Now that's a flick to watch: the fearful/paranoid House of Saud picking a fight with the Russian Air Force. But leave that to kindergarten -- and let's see why the Empire of Chaos itself is even more paranoid than usual.

Lubitsch to the rescue

This Friday the "Normandy 4" format is back discussing that bankrupt IMF colony, Ukraine. Normandy 4 is France and Germany plus Russia and Ukraine. At stake is the EU possibly relaxing sanctions on Russia in early 2016.

The Empire of Chaos simply cannot allow the EU to support Russia in Syria -- no matter the seriousness of the refugee crisis in Europe (precipitated, by the way, by Turkey, which released its "holding camps" en masse). The EU now wants -- and needs -- a Syria solution. The Obama administration still dreams of regime change; ISIS/ISIL/Daesh + refugees remain just a pesky detail.

Now imagine the EU eventually supporting Russia in Syria -- if there is clear, substantial progress on the ground -- and on top of it relaxing or ending those painfully counter-productive Ukraine-related sanctions; cue to inter-galactic fear and loathing trespassing the neocon, neoliberal, "humanitarian" imperialist combo.

But enough of this fake "dreaming collective." So much to do. The Botticelli expo at the Gemaldegalerie. Revisiting the spectacular Asian collection of the Pergamon. A long stint at the Lubitsch cafe, under the sign of the cigar-smoking master and his doppelganger. Lubitsch said that a good film is "a mysterious film, with unsaid things." If only we had a neo-Lubitsch to chronicle what's left unsaid in all those regime change dreams. Heaven can't wait.