Έχω να γράψω αιώνες εδώ μέσα, αλλά διάβασα το παρακάτω και με έπιασε ένα πράγμα ρε παιδάκι μου να θυμηθώ τα παλιά. Ως γραφικοί (sic) κομμουνιστές λέγαμε κάποιοι κάποτε τα αυτονόητα. Αλλά η ιστορία μας είχε ξεπεράσει…:lol:
ταρα-ταρα-τα ταν!!!
Ν.Υ. ΤΙΜΕS φίλες και φίλοι…
Military Success in Syria Gives Putin Upper Hand in [B][U]U.S. Proxy War[/U][/B]
WASHINGTON ? The Syrian military was foundering last year, with thousands of rebel fighters pushing into areas of the country long considered to be government strongholds. [B]The rebel offensive was aided by powerful tank-destroying missiles supplied by the [U]Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)[/U] and Saudi Arabia.[/B]
But then the Russians arrived, [B]bludgeoning C.I.A.-backed rebel forces with an air campaign that has sent them into retreat.[/B] And now rebel commanders, clinging to besieged neighborhoods in the divided city of Aleppo, say their shipments of C.I.A.-provided antitank missiles are drying up.
[B]For the first time since Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Russian military for the past year has been in direct combat with rebel forces trained and supplied by the C.I.A.[/B] The American-supplied Afghan fighters prevailed during that Cold War conflict. But this time the outcome ? thus far ? has been different.
?Russia has won the proxy war, at least for now,? said Michael Kofman, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
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One problem for Washington: [B]Those groups sometimes fought alongside[/B] soldiers of the Nusra Front, which until recently was officially affiliated with[B] Al Qaeda[/B].
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The Obama administration has officially forbidden any Nusra fighters to receive weapons or training. But the group has at times shown greater prowess against the Syrian government forces than the C.I.A.?s proxies.
Moreover, they have shown that they can and will destroy or sideline C.I.A.-backed rebels who do not agree to battlefield alliances. Moscow cited the battlefield successes of the Nusra Front to justify its military incursion into Syria as a campaign to fight terrorism ? even if its primary goal was to shore up Mr. Assad?s military against all insurgent groups, including the C.I.A.-backed rebels.
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[B]The C.I.A. moved to counter the Russian intervention, funneling several hundred additional TOW missiles to its proxies. [/B]One rebel commander, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of threats from more radical groups within the rebel coalition, said in October that his group could at that time get as many missiles as it wanted.
?It?s like a carte blanche,? he said. ?Just fill in the numbers.?
[B]The flow of C.I.A. arms continued[/B], but the weapons proved too little in the face of the Russian offensive.
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?We are using most of our weapons in the battle for Aleppo,? said Mustafa al-Hussein, a member of Suqour al-Jabal, one of the C.I.A.-backed groups. He said the flow of weapons to the group had diminished in the past three to four months.
?Now we fire them only when it is necessary and urgent,? he said.
Another commander, Maj. Mousa al-Khalad of Division 13, a C.I.A.-backed rebel group operating in Idlib and Aleppo, said his group had received no missiles for two weeks.
?We filed a request to get TOW missiles for the Aleppo front,? he said, but the reply was that there were none in the warehouses.
[B]Rebel leaders and military experts say that perhaps the most pressing danger is that supply routes from Turkey, which are essential to the C.I.A.-backed rebels, could be severed.[/B]
It is the type of Cold War-era battle that Mr. Obama, in October, insisted he did not want to enter.
?We?re not going to make Syria into a proxy war between the United States and Russia,? he said. ?This is not some superpower chessboard contest.?
