THE HORROR, THE HORROR

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Anybody can fisk.

REUTERS/SUZANNE PLUNKETT

Russia is engaged in "classic asymmetric warfare" in Syria by using its military clout to prop up President Bashar al-Assad while saying it is attacking Islamic State militants, Britain's foreign minister said on Sunday. The actual goal of warfare is to kill and destroy one's enemies. That's why warriors actively seek to outnumber the enemy or surprise him and then kill and destroy. Most foreign ministers know that sort of thing. Usually, once enough have been killed people start to talk about opening diplomatic channels and negotiating. But, not usually until then.

Russia last week began striking targets in Syria - a dramatic escalation of foreign involvement in the civil war which has been criticized by the West as an attempt to prop up Assad, rather than its purported aim of attacking Islamic State. The US, NATO, Turkey, et al are all bombing and shooting ISIS so just what got escalated when the Russians joined in?

"It looks like a classic bit of Russian asymmetric warfare - you have a strong propaganda message that says you're doing one thing while in fact you are doing something completely different and when challenged you just flatly deny it," Philip Hammond told Reuters in an interview in Manchester. The Russians are very direct. They never had any of that wafflie 'indirect approach' nonsense. ISIS is both Russia's enemy and Assad's enemy and they get goodies if they help out Assad and benefit themselves from killing ISIS. It's a real no-brainer.

He said Britain had held discussions with Russia but kept on getting the same response - that Moscow was attacking Islamic State militants in Syria. I'll bet the Russians remember years of begging Britain to open a second front on the Atlantic coast to reduce the nazi pressure to kill every living Russian.

"You try talking to the Russians," he said. "They just keep repeating their position – that is by the way also the Iranian position – and it is just incredible." Is this dolt's father the prime minister? Is that how he got the job as foreign minister?

He said that Britain needed "absolute clarity" that Assad would not be part of Syria's future and rubbished proposals put forward by Russia and Iran for elections as a means to end the conflict. What a pity he doesn't bring that same demand for action and clarity to the issues affecting the EU and Britain's referendum.

Hammond said Syria was "a million miles away" from being able to hold a free and fair vote. Does this guy think he's Woodrow Wilson? Where does he stand on Palestinian elections or Ukrainian elections? Say, why isn't he bleating about Russian attacks in Ukraine?

"In a country where 250,000 people have been killed and 12 million people have been displaced, half of them outside the country – how can you talk about free and fair elections?" he said. So that's how Labor defeated Churchill in July of 1945!

ASSAD END GAME?

Hammond said the key to ending the suffering caused by the four-year civil war was a managed transition to peace - even if it meant Assad retained power temporarily. Just 3 paragraphs above this idiot said that Assad would not be part of Syria's future and rubbished Russian proposals for elections.

"If the price for doing that is that we have to accept that Assad will remain as titular head of state for period of time, do I really care if that's three days, three weeks, three years or even longer? I don't think I do," he said. His problem, which Reuters is blind to but Assad and Russia are not, is simply that nobody at all believes a word uttered by any UK or US diplomat or minister since they have the ugly truth about what happens next. They can look at dead Sadat, imprisoned Mubarek and equally imprisoned Morsi and dead Shah and dead Qadafi and ex-Yugoslavia and the unhappy Iraq and Afghanistan and know that no American or British word on anything can be trusted. Toppled dictators are so much dead meat to the English speaking world. The Frogs love them.

But Hammond said that for such a transition, Assad should make a pledge not to run in any future election and that he would give up control over Syria's security apparatus. Isn't this the same chump that crowed about the Assad agreement to give up all his WMD years ago and 'discovering' just a few months ago that they lying bastard didn't actually surrender all of his chemical weapons after all? He'd still accept Assad's word though on a simple matter of life and death. Assad knows that if he leaves power he'll be dragged to the Hague and tried as a criminal in a heartbeat that lasts 50 years.

He added that there was no agreement with Moscow and Tehran on such a transition. Just now still not realizing that the Russian and the mullahs  have a totally different agenda that doesn't include any kind of 'agreement' about Syria.

"The key is that there must be a transition – at the moment there is no agreement with the Russians and the Iranians even that there should be a transition," he said.

Hammond also said Russia represented a threat to the international system upon which Britain's security depended, saying it had shown that it did not respect diplomatic norms. This idiot is so used to schooling putrid little losers like Clinton and Kerry that he hasn't yet grasped that he is dealing with real statesmen who know very well how to play the Great Game.

He pointed to Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region last year as an example of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin's approach to international law. But Hammond is utterly determined to learn nothing from previous behavior. Nothing! He is still outraged that Russia isn't playing by his rules.

But, he said that Moscow still had an important role to play in the Middle East and that Britain could not afford to ignore Russia's role in negotiating peace in Syria. Russia is not negotiating any peace. It is going to exterminate its/Assad's enemies until they run away or die trying.

"It would not be in our own interests to say that we will not talk to the Russians about the situation in Syria because we object so strongly to what they are doing in Ukraine," he said. Having proven to be total and complete pussies over Ukraine, no real player is going to pay any attention at all to your pathetic little bleatings.

"We have to compartmentalize these disputes," calling for Russia to re-engage with the international system. "We're getting our asses  handed to us on that front so we're going to stick our head way up our ass and pretend it doesn't exist while we sally forth to get our ass kicked even harder in this other current unpleasantness. We cannot do things at the same time you know!

"We just need a Russia that accepts there are rules in the system, and you can't throw your toys out of the pram and resort to military force every time you don't get your way," he said. WTF!? and why can't they resort to military force when you and all the rest of continental NATO have conclusively shown that you cannot and will not resort to force because all of you have disarmed so totally that you couldn't put two fighter squadrons over Syria if your lives depended on it.

And seriously, the minister said they tossed their toys out of the pram? 

(Editing by Liz Piper and Guy Faulconbridge)

and I helped....