US: Russia Sending Syria Attack Helicopters

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

By BRADLEY KLAPPER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration says Russia is sending attack helicopters to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime and is warning about a dramatic escalation in the Arab country's 15-month conflict.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the delivery represents the "latest information." She says the U.S. is concerned as the helicopters "will escalate the conflict quite dramatically."

She is calling instead for Moscow to help the U.S. push forward a political transition plan for Syria.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_US_SYRIA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-06-12-13-17-48

[Hugabear]

1. Russia is looking out for its own interests, the rest of the world be damned

Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it.

[DreamSmoker]

3. I agree

[PatrynXX]

7. not really sure how that will reflect well on Russia

X_X

only the amount of the dead. and the victims in Syria will hold both Russia and China at fault. so they'll both get burned eventually. Unfortunately for the people of Russia, they'd help end the war if they could. Alas it's hard to tell the victims and the taliban apart in syria..

[may3rd]

10. Russia see's this differently. They still suffer from the fear of encirclement

Meanwhile, at the heart of the Arab spring movement. How's things panning out ?;

Curfews in Tunisia after overnight riots

......

While Psalmists did not play a major role in the revolution, the struggle over the role of Islam in government and society has since emerged as the most divisive issue in Tunisian politics and several clashes have erupted in recent months.
.....

It was the latest incident in a series of confrontations between hardline Salafis and more secular state and civil institutions, including universities, which have flared over the past year in Tunisia.

In a statement released before the protests, Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party that now leads the government, condemned what it described as provocations and insults against religion but urged its own supporters to respond peacefully.


http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/06/2012612192017707612.html

[Odin2005]

17. Putin is Chimpy with brains.

A brutal psychopath in control of a great power.

[snappyturtle]

2. Oh NO! Not good. imho nt

[pampango]

4. Nice sale for Russia's armament industry. And they must think Assad is desperate if he needs

attack helicopters to hold his own. I would have thought that having tanks and artillery was enough of a military advantage for Assad, but apparently not.

Not good news for Syrian civilians.

[Lars77]

5. The arab league needs to grow a set of balls

And not just have the west do their dirty work like in Libya.


Assad should have been taken out weeks ago.

[Comrade Grumpy]

6. "Let's you and them fight." I understand the FSA is accepted volunteers, though.

[Poll_Blind]

8. Russia is to Syria as the US is to Israel. Pot, kettle, black. nt

PB

[truth2power]

13. You get it. And in only a few words. eom

[may3rd]

14. "X" was to North Vietnam as "Y" was to South Vietnam. Calling the pol pot kettle black

But this one will has private armies contracted to do the advising.

This one seems to have the French chest beating for a stand in a new Dien Bien Phu

[may3rd]

9. Obama said the Russians are sending attack helicopters

but I'm sure Obama is aware of some middle eastern country will supply US made stingers and 'civilian' boots on the ground with the knowledge to teach by example.
oh
yeah
There is a frog on the back burner pot set to simmer. He say's all is well


http://www.france24.com/en/20120612-syria-full-blown-civil-war-says-united-nations-peacekeeping-chief-ladsous-assad




http://www.france24.com/en/20120612-syria-government-forces-torture-execute-use-children-uman-shields-un-report-says

[davidthegnome]

11. If what I've been reading lately is correct...

then the pro regime forces (which is the only remotely adequately armed force in this so called "war&quot are, worse than being on the wrong side, deliberately slaughtering the children of the rebels. Casualties of war are bad enough... but to deliberately target kids? I really don't understand why the Russian government would be supporting this regime. It just doesn't make any sense to me. If the Russian government wants to look out for it's own interests - why is it assisting this tyrannical regime that is daily slaughtering entire families? What this is likely to accomplish is an outcry from the rest of the civilized world and most likely stepped up efforts to further arm the rebels, which will only add fuel to the fire and worsen the conflict.

Much as I hate to agree with McCain, in one instance I do. I think we should help arm the rebels.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

12. Putin wants to be a dictator.

His people are fighting against it, but they're starting to get killed now too. It's a whole screwed up mess.

[octothorpe]

23. I find it hard to take a real opinion on this...

Simply because without being there and seeing what's going on, it's difficult to know what's the truth and what isn't. It's also difficult because in war there is never a purely good and a purely bad side. So you might hear the rebels did some horrible shit, and it could very well be true. The same goes for the government troops.

War is a fucked up thing. Even if we had first hand experience of what's going on, our viewpoint would be skewed by our localized view of events and interpretations. Although, it's difficult to defend purposely shelling civilians. The problem is if that's exactly how it played out. As in, did they really purposely aim to kill civilians, or were they killed during an attack on some rebels who were firing rockets or mortars at government troops? To the civilians, they probably don't care either way though.. Dead is dead.

I guess my point is that it's not all black and white.

[EFerrari]

15. When I heard this claim by Clinton I knew it was b.s.

U.S. Official: Clinton Put "Spin" on Claim About Russian Helicopters in Syria


U.S. officials are backing off claims Russia has sent new shipments of attack helicopters to aid the Syrian regime’s crackdown on opposition rebels. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Russia of supplying the aircraft in what amounted to the harshest U.S. criticism of Russia’s Syria ties to date. But on Wednesday, the Obama administration acknowledged the helicopters had likely been sent back from Syria to Russia for routine repairs months ago and were now just being returned. A senior Pentagon official told the New York Times that Clinton "put a little spin on it to put the Russians in a difficult position." In response to Clinton’s initial comments, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the U.S. of hypocrisy, saying: "We are not providing Syria or any other place with things which can be used in struggle with peaceful demonstrators, unlike the United States, which regularly supplies such equipment to this region." Despite the partial retraction, Clinton continued with her criticism of Russia on Wednesday.



from Amy's headlines
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/14/headlines

[Nihil]

18. Nice catch!

Funny how the "acknowledgement" didn't get the same headlines (or response)
as the initial propaganda release.


> Clinton "put a little spin on it"

No change there then. (Snipers eh?)

[joshcryer]

21. It really doesn't change a damn thing.

They have attack helicopters that they didn't possess. My bet is Hillary messed up the information somewhere along the line, she's known to do that.

[Alamuti Lotus]

19. So unbelievably surprised.. or, not.

At any point during this orgy of hypocrisy and invention, did Hillary happen to condemn her own gov't for expediting weapons shipments to Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf dictators while they kill, kidnap, and torture their own respective opposition forces? Oh, right..."that's different".

[EFerrari]

20. Exactly.

Remember all those pictures of Egyptian protesters holding up gas canisters stamped USA? Or Jeremy Scahill just last week:

"If you go to the village of Al-Majalah in Yemen, where I was, and you see the unexploded clusterbombs and you have the list and photographic evidence, as I do--the women and children that represented the vast majority of the deaths in this first strike that Obama authorized on Yemen--those people were murdered by President Obama, on his orders, because there was believed to be someone from Al Qaeda in that area. There's only one person that's been identified that had any connection to Al Qaeda there. And 21 women and 14 children were killed in that strike and the U.S. tried to cover it up, and say it was a Yemeni strike, and we know from the Wikileaks cables that David Petraeus conspired with the president of Yemen to lie to the world about who did that bombing. It's murder--it's mass murder--when you say, 'We are going to bomb this area' because we believe a terrorist is there, and you know that women and children are in the area. The United States has an obligation to not bomb that area if they believe that women and children are there. I'm sorry, that's murder."

[harun]

22. +1

[Odin2005]

16. It ain't just US arms dealers who profit from war.

Fuck Putin.

[may3rd]

24. Russia is the "Wal-Mart" of weapon sales. quantity on the cheap

While the US is the "Gucci's" in gotta have it

[Odin2005]

25. Good analogy!

[joshcryer]

26. I'm totally shocked Russia's troop deployment in Syria didn't get a post in LBN. Now it's too late.

This is fucking huge!

But it's almost 24 hours old now.

[Odin2005]

27. It's the fucking Cold War all over again.

[joshcryer]

28. Except we have a sane person in the White House.

I don't see Obama doing much. It'll be like Burma 2008.