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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| Post subject: Whoops. has ISIS jumped the shark? |  |
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The person who bombed the train in Russia has been linked to ISIS.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/st-petersburg-attack-subway-bombing-suspect-had-ties-to-radical-islamists-20170404-gvdo7b.html
If I was them I'd be backing away from that one real quick.
Pissing off Putin is a good way to have a large part of the middle east turned into a smoking crater. Tossing around arguments around whether the USA should have aimed bombs better would matter not a jot if Russia decides to throw their weight around.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| Post subject: Re: Whoops. has ISIS jumped the shark? | |
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I think it was inevitable that IS would retaliate since Putin as already been liberally bombing them, and other radical Islamists, in support of the Allawites in Syria. I suspect part of the reason for that bombing, in Putin's eyes, is to provoke this type of reaction back in Russia, as Putin thrives on having an enemy within, and he does not show a high concern for human life where power politics is concerned.
Russia being Russia, it is quite possible that this has been orchestrated by Russian security forces. Russia is one of the few places where starting with a conspiracy theory is the most rational strategy. Regarding IS claiming responsibility, if indeed they have, well, that'd be more evidence that they are sub-Nazi gangsters with the intellect of pig droppings, but we knew that already.
And yes, the Guardian journos who expend so many column inches on a terrible and tragic US incident seem relatively quiescent on the indiscriminate and cynical Russian bombing which has been routine for about a year, now.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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I can only reiterate Mugwump's comments above: Russia has been bombing ISIS for some time now (along with the US-backed democratic resistance). The idea that Putin is going to carpet bomb Syria in response is obviously ridiculous; they are heavily invested in propping up the Assad regime and would have no interest in indiscriminately killing people who support it.
They might escalate their attacks on ISIS, but if the answer was as easy as brute force, then America would have won their wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and indeed Vietnam within months. Whoever wins this war in Syria (and it will quite likely be the Russia–Assad alliance) will win it through slow attrition, not the flash of macho bicep-flexing that right-wing Putin-supporting Westerners have erotic dreams about.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ Agreed, David. I am not as unsympathetic to Russia as some. Though I have minuscule time for Putin, I think we misunderstand Russia's view of the world and its history - esp where Germany, Poland and Ukraine are concerned - terribly. We provoke it unnecessarily as a result.
However, Putin is not Russia, and his regime is not a great deal above gangsterism. It would not surprise me to learn that this attack in St Petersburg was all in line with the plan he had when he opened up in Syria.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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I find that hypothesis unlikely purely because ISIS (or aligned agents) had every reason to attack Russia, and that there's little evidence of the Kremlin – or, really, any government in the world – ever having perpetrated such an attack on its own citizens purely to entrench its own power. Putin's regime is a brutal and undemocratic one, but what you're proposing doesn't seem like a characteristic approach for them at all.
Putin certainly needed a distraction from Navalny's viral video exposing government corruption, but I'm not enough of a conspiracy theorist to find a so-called 'false flag attack' likely here. Many Americans to this day want to believe that no foreign actor could have ever had the motivation or means to fly a plane into the World Trade Centre. Unfortunately, and depressingly, they couldn't be more incorrect.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | I find that hypothesis unlikely purely because ISIS (or aligned agents) had every reason to attack Russia, and that there's little evidence of the Kremlin – or, really, any government in the world – ever having perpetrated such an attack on its own citizens purely to entrench its own power. Putin's regime is a brutal and undemocratic one, but what you're proposing doesn't seem like a characteristic approach for them at all.
Putin certainly needed a distraction from Navalny's viral video exposing government corruption, but I'm not enough of a conspiracy theorist to find a so-called 'false flag attack' likely here. Many Americans to this day want to believe that no foreign actor could have ever had the motivation or means to fly a plane into the World Trade Centre. Unfortunately, and depressingly, they couldn't be more incorrect. |
Oh, a pure false-flag attack is pretty far-fetched, I agree. It's just that in most countries it would be unthinkable, but not in Russia.
I meant that it is more likely that Putin's bombing of IS in Syria was entered into on the optimistic assumption that it would provoke this type of attack from some crazed loony with an internet line in St Petersburg to a slightly more cynical, marginally less- crazed loony in the ME. This would suit Putin's purposes nicely, justifying greater repression and his strongman pretensions, without the necessity of a false flag.
While that type of organic event seems to me the prime likelihood, if the crazed loonies did not pony up the required bombing in reasonable time, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the Russian secret service might help something along. Russia is not a place where truth has much moral value. They might not set off the bomb themselves (though this type of thing has been known, and there are still real doubts over the source of a Moscow apartment bombing early in the Chechen war which effectively consolidated Putin in power), but there are many shades of grey and ways that a secret police can ease this stuff along without actually perpetrating it.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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