The establishment just negotiated a cease fire in Syria

[BainsBane]

Syria: cessation of hostilities 'within a week' agreed at Munich talks – live

What we know so far

A cessation of hostilities is to come into force in Syria within a week, US secretary of state John Kerry has said.
In an agreement brokered between the US, Russia and other powers in Munich, a UN task force will work over the coming days “to develop the modalities for a long-term, comprehensive and durable cessation of violence”.
bjtHumanitarian aid is to be delivered to besieged areas across Syria in the next few days, with a working group to monitor progress meeting on Friday in Geneva.
The deal agreed by the 17-member International Syria Support Group called for “ full, sustained, and unimpeded access” to people in the regions most affected by the conflict.
The cessation deal explicitly excludes Islamic State and al-Nusra front, against whom military action will continue.
Russia has not committed to end airstrikes, but repeated its insistence that it was targeting terrorist groups – as the agreement permits. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, in a late-night press conference to announce the breakthrough, said:
Our airspace forces will continue working against these organisations

http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/feb/12/syria-ceasefire-agreed-munich-peace-talks-live

But who needs an establishment with knowledge of foreign policy, who takes the issue seriously enough to understand the actors in the region. Far better to have someone who considers foreign policy, a job that is a central component of the presidency, a mere distraction, not important enough to even assemble a foreign policy team to help prepare him for executing the job of president for which he expects the American public hire him.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy-deficit-218431

[litlbilly]

1. You mean the establishment that created the whole mess in the first place?

[berniepdx420]

2. +1

[BainsBane]

9. Please feel free to answer my post below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1209369

I am fascinated to know how you connect the dots.

[Skwmom]

3. + 1,000,000,000

[tk2kewl]

4. ...or the establishment that wasnt hawkish enough on Syria for Hillary's taste?

[Live and Learn]

8. + a gazillion. nt

[BainsBane]

11. You do realize there is a distinct possibility

that if the Obama had followed Clinton's advise and assisted the rebels after Assad was discovered to be using chemical weapons that ISIS might not exist today? The vacuum in Syria played a central role in their formation.

[tk2kewl]

14. or if we never waged a war of aggression in Iraq ISIS might not exist today.

war begets suffering.

[BainsBane]

17. Also true--in regard to ISIS

Or if Malaki had not purged and massacred Sunnis after the US withdraw. That worked in combination with the Syrian uprising to enable ISIS to become so powerful.

But this cease fire is not about ISIS. It's between the anti-government Syrian rebels and Assad.
It is entirely possible--even likely--that Syrians would have risen up against Assad if the US had not invaded Iraq. Unlike Cheney and the rest of the neocons, I do not give them credit for the Arab Spring. I think people rise up against oppression because they've had enough, not because Cheney and Bush pull the levers in a neighboring nation.

[tk2kewl]

26. my last reply was to your post about ISIS...

You've inspired me to post this http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511209442

[Fawke Em]

19. Fuck that.

She created this shit.

[jfern]

27. There's a certain possibility that if Hillary and other Senators hadn't voted

for the Iraq war, that ISIS wouldn't even exist.

[jfern]

22. Exactly

Hillary said taking out Assad should be our top priority. It sounds like Obama ignored her.

[BainsBane]

7. How do you figure that?

Do you think Syrians would not have risen up against Assad if not for the US invasion of Iraq? Are you actually crediting the neocons for the Arab Spring?

[berniepdx420]

12. well... we've been destabalizing the middle east since the 1950's

Are you supporting the Sunnis in the Sunni / Shia fight .. Isis is a Sunni organization funded mainly by Saudi Arabia.. We the left warned what would happen in the power vacuum that would be created from the Iraq war

[BainsBane]

13. We are talking about Syria

not Iraq and not the 1950s. Try to stay on the subject.

However, reading between the lines it appears that you do in fact credit the neocon war for the Arab Spring.

[berniepdx420]

16. Thanks for the snarky response..typical from what I have seen from

you .. If you don't think Iraq and Syria are intrinsically related then ..well I don't think this conversation will amount to much... to separate the two is just not possible... destabilization and CIA covert operations are the precursors to the uprising in Syria

[oberliner]

18. You don't think the protests against Assad were real?

They were just CIA operations?

[berniepdx420]

24. I think it was a mixture of the two... how bout you...tell me what you know of

the Syrian uprising..

[BainsBane]

35. It was not snark.

It was an attempt to get you to answer the question. Evidently you believe people rise up, not because they are fed up with living under a brutal, murderous dictator but because of covert operations and destabilization. In their authentic state, Syrians would love nothing more than living under a notorious brutal dictator.

I think the CIA would be very interested to know how they were able to wield such influence in Syria since they have tried, unsuccessfully, to generate uprisings through covert action and destabilization efforts in the past. That, after all, was what Kissinger directed them to do in Chile under Allende. He famously said, "make the economy scream." They seceded in causing economic discontent, but not an uprising. That is why they sponsored a military coup.

They tried the same thing in Cuba. They thought they need only send US forces onto the Bay of Pigs and the people of Cuba would rise up to greet their American saviors. Only it didn't happened, and the Castros remain in power to this day.

Nor did it work in Nicaragua, despite significant CIA investment, not simply covert action but recruiting, training, and running opposition armed forces.

The CIA has never been able to engineer an uprising. You see, it's not easy to convince a population to risk their lives, their families, and their entire way of live to take up arms against their own government. To do so is to risk everything, which people only do when they feel they have no alternative. Instead, the CIA has resorted to coups, overthrowing what are usually democratically elected governments to replace them with dictators. Bernie himself has talked about some of those actions (not always accurately, but he has discussed them).

Additionally, there is no way you could have proof of any of this absent FOIA requests, for which it is decades too soon. But I realize evidence is irrelevant because the singular goal is to make complex international conflicts fit into a one-dimensional framework that requires no knowledge of the region, its history or actors but fits a woefully simplistic ideological agenda. It is not informed or persuasive. It is, however, perfectly in keeping with, what one academic has called, "the fetishization of not knowing" approach to foreign policy--and policy more generally--that is the heart of our current politics.

I must say I find it ironic that people who buy into campaign slogans about "revolution" are so contemptuous of actual social revolutions/movements when they see them.

[m-lekktor]

10. exactly.nt

[BainsBane]

15. I'll ask you the same question I directed at the others

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1209369

[PonyUp]

20. Mic drop! n/t

[oasis]

5. Kudos to John Kerry.

[Glamrock]

6. Kick ass! (I'M SERIOUS)

Now the establishment can get back to work on getting the TPP passed. (STILL SERIOUS)

[Skwmom]

21. Can't wait to see how Hillary takes credit for this. n/t

[frylock]

25. +1

[frylock]

23. And it all happened without the "help" of Hillary.

Thank GOODNESS for John Kerry.

[jfern]

28. Yes, he's been a much better SoS

[bvf]

30. Yeah, but you know

how it will go: "Me too!"

[JonLeibowitz]

32. Was considering making this an OP but you've touched on it...

What major progress in international relations was achieved:

2009-2013: ??

2013-present: Paris climate talks, syrian ceasefire, Iran nuclear deal, Cuba.

What does it all mean..

[jillan]

29. John Kerry as sos has really put her to

Shame. He really has been an amazing Sec of State.

[Luminous Animal]

31. After plotting to ruin the country. Now the vultures enter in.

http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/33180-wikileaks-reveals-how-the-us-aggressively-pursued-regime-change-in-syria-igniting-a-bloodbath


Like Iraq, a country which Hillary touted as a business opportunity on the backs of death, starvation, and homelessness… Syria will be open for business.

[Iliyah]

33. K & R

[flamingdem]

34. What about Isis? Nt

[Motown_Johnny]

36. Good thing someone didn't get a no fly zone when she wanted one n/t