By John Helmer, Moscow
"I wish I had sent one more helicopter to get the hostages," former US president Jimmy Carter said at one of his farewell appearances in Atlanta recently, "and we would've rescued them, and I would've been re-elected."
Compared to his predecessors and successors Carter was intellectually superior. He also didn't suffer from the corruption of Bill Clinton, the untruthfulness of Barack Obama. But unlike all of them, Carter had an inferiority complex. It started with his career mentor, the Polish Jewish admiral Hyman Rickover, and ended with his national security advisor, the Polish Catholic Zbigniew Brzezinski. Their combination has produced the eventual destruction of the US positions in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and these days, Syria.
The other side to Carter's complex is Carter's and Brzezinski's
wishful thinking. Not their misjudgements have brought these defeats
about, they say aloud. Why, they weren't defeats at all, but victorious
strategies missing just one increment of the force multiple, and costing
the US little blood, affordable treasure. One more gunship in the sky,
and their triumph would have been recognized for what it was. That's to
say, what they in their dodders think it was.
Brzezinski is saying the same thing. In an editorial for the Financial Times, published on Monday, Brzezinski claims "the Russian naval and air presences in Syria are vulnerable, isolated geographically from their homeland. They could be 'disarmed' if they persist in provoking the US." When Brzezinski says he will disarm the Russian expeditionary force in Syria, he means to raise the force multiple on the US side until it is so large, he thinks it can either destroy the Russians, or force them to run away. That's the US Sixth Fleet, above and below the surface of the Mediterranean; plus USAF and NATO units in their dozens deployed in Italy, Greece, Turkey, the Persian Gulf. To protect the command-and-control bunkers from which they run the Syrian war, and the resupply lines through which they run men, money and munitions, they must also take the air cover away from the Russians. With this week's demonstration of Russian cruise missile firings from Russian territory, that's a tall order. This is a shooting-match which, in order for the American side to run the Carter-Brzezinski risk record, must have a force multiple over the Russian arms of not less than 5 to 1; better 6 to 1, to be on the safe side.
Now exactly who at the Pentagon and at NATO headquarters is confidently calculating what the safe side of this multiple should be so that the plan to "disarm" the Russians will be more successful than the military walkover Carter and Brzezinski presided over in Iran on April 24, 1980?
Scratch presidential candidates of any party (or no party at all) at the start of the 2016 election campaign: they all know that foreign wars don't win election votes, and hot, almost-world war with Russia --well, that's off the polling scale. American blood isn't affordable at election time -- not the smallest drop, not of "volunteers", "mercenaries", not of US special forces or US regulars. Remember the calculus of the days when the Vietnam War was being lost -- battlefield casualties + inflation + unemployment = death to presidential candidates
Take a close look then at the map of Syria, as drawn by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Source: Syria Crisis Map: http://irevolution.net/2012/03/25/crisis-mapping-syria/
On to this map draw 300-km range lines from the Russian naval base at Tartus, running north and south along the coast, and eastwards inland. Cross out every ridge-line bunker in which US advisors guide Chechen, Arab, and other mercenaries to their targets; blind their electronics and jam their communications for calling in the air cover required to operate in force against the Syrian government forces; and train for operations in the Ukraine and Russian Caucasus, including Dagestan and Chechnya.
Draw 1,500-km lines from Russia, across Iranian and Iraqi territory, to every trail, track or road across which American dollars, arms and men can move. Destroy what is there right now, and imperil everything which may be moved to replace it.
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