Canada-China Relations

"We were not very pleased by the request, but it's an open conference.The answer was quickly taken -- Yes." 

"We want to promote contact between different cultures and different knowledge and people with different perspectives."

"I think it's all good that countries are talking to each other. If there are contacts between militaries of different countries, even if they're adversaries, it's good to have channels of communication."

Professor Pierre Jolicoeur, Royal Military College Kingston, Ontario

People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers march next to the entrance to the Forbidden City (L) after the opening session of the National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing on May 22, 2020. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images)

 

Bejing has a habit of covertly seeking information, from scientific to manufacturing to state secrets from developed countries of the west in the interests of hastening its own advances in science, technology, medicine, and manufacturing. By whatever means possible, either through cybertechnology or installing Chinese expatriates living elsewhere burdening them with a commitment to furthering the interest of their nation of birth and alternately convincing non-Chinese to act on Beijing's behalf.

China is a huge country with the world's largest population. Investors and business interests from abroad are keenly interested in the prospective market that the huge population represents. Beyond cheap labour that enabled China to scoop up the world's manufacturing and export crown, outsiders are drawn to the country for the potential they hope to reap in expanded business opportunities. But there too, Beijing has its demands, that trade secrets be open to China as a condition of setting up shop in China.

China does not recognize copyright and is infamous for stealing designs and producing counterfeits for a market eager to accept cheap look-alikes, be it designer label clothing or luxury-brand watches. China today is not the China of yesterday. It has bounded by great leaps over the backs of slower, more consciously law-abiding international nations' corporations to infiltrate a presence, move up an executive ladder and abscond with trade secrets to become a competitor and ultimately outcompete and distroy its source.

“Several interactions [occurred between Chinese military jets and the RCAF’s patrol aircraft flying in international airspace near Japan.]"

"In some instances, the RCAF aircrew felt sufficiently at risk that they had to quickly modify their own flight path in order to increase separation and avoid a potential collision with the intercepting aircraft.”

Department of National Defence

Its rocketry technology has now advanced to the stage where it is busy building its own space laboratory, sending up its own satellites for global intelligence gathering. Investing in the cultivating of rare earth properties to become a major stand-alone possessor of assets that control areas of the technology market. Its long tentacles of control have reached into the West to interfere in politics at the most basic levels to the most sophisticated.

Beijing knows how to take actions that make other nations sit up and take notice.You can't help noticing after all, when your citizens are suddenly arrested and imprisoned and given stiff incarceration sentences on the pretense of planning to harm China's security. As was done to Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor when Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was taken into custody in Canada on an extradition request from the U.S. 

Exceedingly strained relations between Canada and China became more tense as two years passed and the two remained in Chinese prisons on sedition charges. Other Canadians were given death sentences for drug running by specially convened courts. Meng was Chinese royalty. When she struck a deal with the U.S. to return to China, the two Michaels were released after close to three years. Soon after came the Royal Military College turn as host of the annual conference of the International Society of Military Sciences; national defence universities from ten democracies...Canada the Netherlands and Portugal among them.

Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor are back in Canada, after nearly three years of detention in China, September 25, 2021. Photo by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau/Twitter

 

 

Then came a request from the Peoples Liberation Army military science academy to allow their members to attend the conference. A conference the Chinese armed forces had attended in 2018 in Warsaw and 2019 in Vienna with some of its high-ranking military officers in attendance. The Royal Military Academy conference theme was "resilience and cohesion in the face of new forms of disruption", with one session dealing with "China and Russia's information space attacks on democracy".

The request moved from the RMC to the Department of National Defence and the office of the Deputy Minister of Defence before it was sent back down to the Royal Military College with no recommendations for or against. At the meeting, discussions of open-source information available to anyone, representing no matters of high sensitivity; the conference held through the internet where invitees could Zoom in. 

That was late 2020, but before then, Chinese soldiers were present in Canada to participate in winter military exercises under an accord signed by a previous government in 2013. At that time top military leaders in Canada felt the arrangement should be cancelled, urged by the United States. Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs urged against cancelling the arrangement, expressing concern it might sour relations with China at a time that Canada was attempting to free the two Michaels from Chinese prisons.

The 2020 conference was an open academic event, an unclassified level with "broad international representation". Finland for one had organized a panel discussion on military technology from a "conceptual"perspective based on open-source material.

"[Leaving engagement with China to the discretion of various federal departments leads to] chaos."

"We’ll have chaos as long as individual departments and the [CAF] run their own [self-serving] China policies."

"As long as China is engaging in genocide/crimes against humanity, Ottawa should tell the PLA to stay home."

Canada’s former ambassador to China David Mulroney

Military exercises at Canada's CFB Petawawa.

Collective Security Treaty Organization to the Rescue!

Protesters set fire to the city administration building in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, on January 5

"Citizens have the right to make public demands to local and central authorities, but this must be done in accordance with the law."

"Demonstrators must be responsible and ready for dialogue."

"[A commission will] find a mutually acceptable solution to the problem that has arisen in the interests of stability."

"Bandit elements [had beaten police and robbed stores. The unrest had become] a question of the safety of our citizens. [I will] act as toughly as possible." 

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev

 

"This is a government that is highly detached from the reality of what happens on the ground. It's a country where there are no institutions through which to protest; the only route is on the streets."

"[Authorities have announced many different plans to improve life and crack down on corruption but they are never implemented], People have been told things will get better but wealth is siphoned off."

Paul Stronski, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace  

 

"Having made concessions to the main original demand to lower fuel prices, the government is now struggling to reassert control through force."

"The protests are no longer mainly economic in nature but now overtly political."

Zachary Witlin, Eurasia Group

Russia and Belarus have sent troops into Kazakhstan to try to quell violent protests over inflation and rising gas prices.   CBC

 Russian paratroopers were dispatched into Kazakhstan a day ago as ostensible peacekeepers to give assistance to the embattled Kazakhstan government in the face of an uprising that began as a protest and escalated via the usual brutal military response from autocratic governments, into violent riots. What began as a protest after the new year saw a rise in the price of subsidized gas in an energy-rich country where profits have failed to trickle down to the population, became an exercise in an aggrieved public finding the cost of living beyond their means.

Deadly violence on the part of the protesters and that of the responding security troops has resulted in the deaths of dozens of people. Both rioters in the main city Almaty, and security force members as well. Two members of the security forces were discovered to have been decapitated. The city mayor's office and a presidential residence in Almaty were set ablaze in a fiery rebuke to authorities. The airport which had been seized by protesters, by Thursday afternoon was back in control of the military.

The city landscape is scattered with burnt-out vehicles, symbolic of the rage of citizens who will not be docile any longer in the face of hard living, a future that appears little better, and resentment against corruption carried out at the highest levels of government.The long-ruling leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, now 81 and retired has been cast as the major villain in the piece. His successor Kassym-Jomart Tokayev cast blame for the riots on foreign-trained terrorists, claiming they seized buildings and weapons.

Troops are seen Thursday at the main square of Almaty, where hundreds of people have been protesting against the government. (Mariya Gordeyeva/Reuters)

"It is an undermining of the integrity of the state and, most importantly, it is an attack on our citizens who are asking me ... to help them urgently", said President Tokayev. And feeling completely embattled, he called in Russian forces in recognition of the Moscow-led military alliance of ex-Soviet states. Moscow spoke of the joint enterprise as a "counter-terrorist operation", naming the uprising a foreign-inspired effort to violently undermine the security of Kazakhstan.

Armoured personnel carriers and troops entered the main square of Almaty, with gunshots heard as troops approached the Thursday crowd. Social media airing videos showed troops patrolling the city overnight, firing weapons, while wide-spread looting was taking place. Masked protesters, some equipped with shields and batons taken from police, marched through tear-gassed streets with the sound of detonations behind them.

Because the internet is now shut down countrywide, the full extent of the violence is difficult to validate.Troops sent from units in Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, along with those of Russia, all members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization led by Russia, were engaged to intervene. Protesters storming and torching public buildings in Almaty and other cities chanted slogans against their former ruler Nazarbayev. At one point attempting to pull down a bronze statue, but failing.

The current President Tokayev initially reacted to the unrest by dismissing the cabinet, reversing the New Year's Eve fuel price rise and attempting to distance himself from the policies and predatory corruption of his predecessor. The crowds of angry citizens took little notice; as far as they were concerned President Tokayev was simply an extension of the reign of President Nazarbayev, accused of amassing vast wealth at the expense of the Kazakh people.

Eventually matters will settle down, just as the protests of Belarus did with the intervention of Russia. All of these events play directly into the Kremlin's strategy of deploying rapid forces to safeguard its sphere of influence within the former Soviet Union in a patient bid to influence the former satellites to the reasoning they were better off under the protective arms of Russia, their benefactor, which had intervened to halt conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia -- which is even now massing troops on the border with Ukraine.

Protesters rally in Almaty on January 5.

 

NATO, Viewing Beijing Challenges

"China's stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic  challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to alliance security." 

NATO

 

"I want all Europe to know that the United States is there. NATO is critically important to us." 

"[Russia and China are not behaving] in a way that is consistent with what we had hoped."

U.S.President Joe Biden

"If  you look at the cyber threats and the hybrid threats, if you look at the co-operation between Russia and China, you cannot simply ignore China."

"But one must not overrate it, either ... we need to find the right balance."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel

"China is coming closer to us. We see them in cyberspace, we see China in Africa, but we also see China investing heavily in our own critical infrastructure [ports and telecom networks]"

"We need to respond together as an alliance."

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg

 

China's steadily increasing military presence stretching from the Baltics to Africa, alarms NATO. It is presenting "systemic challenges", it announced at the recently-concluded summit with member-nations. The alliance, originally created as a force to defend Europe during the days of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, while still having Russia in its sights, has swerved its attention as well to the actions of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.

China is outraged at its global reputation being besmirched by false allegations it claims, emanating out of the G7 and NATO. China, to be sure, finds itself in an awkward position. While it is aggressive and provocative, it also attempts to be ingratiating, helpful, interested in amity and harmony among itself and other nations of the world. The mystery is how it expects to be viewed favourably by democratic

countries when it provokes India over territorial rights in dispute, and does the same with territory in dispute over its claims in the South and East China seas.

There is the Belt and Road initiative whereby China has set out to substantially 'help' poorer countries gain entry to its new 'silk road' economy by handing out loans in generous payback conditions for the building of critical infrastructure; roads, bridges, seaports and the like. Gargantuan sums of financing arranged, which poor countries are eager to take advantage of until they realize they will face enormous difficulties paying back the loans.

China's generosity evokes gratefulness in those it assists, even as it creates conditions of loyalty to its agenda with a frisson of resentment at both the dependency on China's largesse and a burden of unaffordable repayment. One of the issues at the G7 summit was the announcement of a global infrastructure plan meant to counter China's Belt and Road Initiative by a more generous plan the G7 collective would design and initiate without crippling recipient nations' fragile economies.

 

 

China's soft power and its hard power, both on full display, has earned a lash-back from the influential, wealthy democracies that once harboured the hope and expectation that China would join the world of orderly, restrained, cooperative world politics. Instead, its insatiable hunger for resources, territory, influence, control and respect while marauding other nations' secret military, industrial, scientific and social secrets and indulging in cyberintelligence theft has aroused suspicion and push-back.

China's soft power seen in its vaccine diplomacy with the potential to raise its reputation worldwide, has boomeranged. Sinovac and Sinopharm shipped COVID-19 vaccines to Africa, Asia and the Middle East, occasionally cost-free as a gift, to mollify global opinion over suspicions that the virus that appeared in Wuhan was poorly handled to prevent it becoming a pandemic. Apart from the fact that China's generosity with its vaccines failed to gain it acclaim, partially on the basis of their low efficacy, that impact fizzled even as the world demands more clarification over SARS-CoV-2 origins.

The origins secrecy and deceptions succeeded in renewing calls for deeper investigations, and for China to hand over documents it refused to release to the World Health Organization investigators when they travelled to Wuhan for their initial report which ended up being inconclusive in reflection of that lack of cooperation, while keeping the investigators under their watchful eye and pressing thumb. China remains obdurately obstructionist.

A round of sanctions developed based on a number of glaring issues that Beijing declares to be of no outside interest to anyone or any nation other than China. They include the 're-education' and slave labour imposed upon the Xinjiang Uhghurs and other minority Turkic Muslim populations whom China is committed to de-Islamizing, and re-Communizing for full integration into Chinese CCP culture and social-political expectations of all populations within China. 

 

Courtesy Reuters

 

Beijing's unification threats to Taiwan, its bulldozing of Hong Kong's move toward full democritization, its provocations against its neighbours in disputed territorial ownership, its aggression over international G5 telecommunications and Internet servicing by Huawei and its grudge-fights against countries like Australia and New Zealand, its aggressive interest in the Arctic for navigable trade routes, all arouse suspicion over its ultimate goals. Its micro-military skirmishes with India over Himalayan-area border issues, its strengthened alliance with Russia, altogether paint an unsavoury picture of entitlements.

And then there is the massive expenditure on military infrastructure, modernizing and ultra-equipping its military, on land, sea and air. Western democracies have painted themselves into a troublingly unpalatable position. On one hand, trade and manufacturing and services alongside political infiltration have woven a web of interdependence. Wealthy countries are indebted to China for its production capabilities, even while they welcomed Chinese investment in critical national enterprises and natural resources.

If and when they 'cut off their nose' it will be to spite their face.

The arrival of the Portuguese in Guangzhou, pictured here, in the early 16th century. (Corbis Historical / Getty)

Fascism's Stranglehold

"[The discovery is a] disgrace [for the police in the western region of North Rhine-Westfalia and impacted the force] to its core."

"We are talking about the nastiest and most disgusting neo-Nazi, racist and refugee-hostile hatred."

"I have to tell you that this process makes me speechless. And I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since I found out about it."

"We have to ask unpleasant questions of ourselves. Who knew about this? Why was this tolerated for years? By whom?"

Herbert Reul, interior minister, North Rhine-Westfalia

 

"The battle against right-wing extremism is in the DNA of the police." 

"The fact that there are, nevertheless, officers who share radical, far-right and xenophobic content in chat groups is unbearable."

Michael Maatz,  regional deputy chair, GdP union

Dozens of officers in Essen were asked to hand in their badges and weapons.  BERND THISSEN/DPA/AFP via Getty Images

Germany is undergoing yet another neo-Nazi scandal, to augment those that have already been revealed polluting their national military and law enforcement agencies. Twenty-nine police officers yesterday were suspended on charges of taking part in extremist chat groups sharing images such as swastikas and depictions of genocidal victims in gas chambers. Photographs of Hitler, Third Reich flags and another image showing a Black person being shot were part of the images shared on these chat groups.

 

There were 126 images in total, many of them grounds for lawful punishment, shared on five WhatsApp chat groups predominantly or exclusively dominated by police officers, 25 of whom were on the same police force in the city of Essen, asked to hand in their badges and weapons yesterday. Disciplinary measures are underway for the intention of termination against 14 of the officers, eleven of whom are suspected of having carried out criminal offences.

 

At 34 locations such as private homes and police stations, early morning raids were carried out. Extreme-right scandals have plagued police and military units in Germany. Prominent public figures have received death threats from neo-Nazis. Left-wing politicians and lawyers in recent years have been threatened, the incidents linked to police computers. The WhatsApp chat groups were revealed when an inquiry was launched into those threats, where it was revealed officers shared racist and anti-Semitic content.

 

A group of neo-Nazi "preppers", called Nordkreuz was discovered in 2017 who, according to authorities, were preparing themselves for "Day X", amassing lists of political opponents and storing weapons and body bags toward the goal that "Day X" evidently represented for them. Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer disbanded a combat unit of Germany's elite Special Forces Command in June in the light of suspected extreme-right ties in the ranks.

 

German authorities, according to security experts, have failed to tackle the problem of resurging fascism directly and have avoided answering the obvious; whether police can be trusted to investigate themselves. No officers have yet been charged with relation to the death threats. A police officer who founded Northkreuz who had served in the German military, had been given a 21-month suspended sentence on weapons charges last year.

 

Minister Horst Seehofer in the Bundestag.  Hannibal Hanschke /REUTERS

Horst Seehofer, German interior minister, has resisted any assertion of structural racism within the security forces. He cancelled a scheduled study of racial profiling by police back in July with the explaintion by his ministry that there was no necessity to proceed with the investigation since racial profiling is illegal. He spoke, rather, of a study into police-directed violence. 

 

Far-right networks in three of the country's sixteen federal states, cautioned a spokesman for the federal interior ministry, should not be taken as a"structural" racism issue among the nation's 300,000 police officers. Adding that it was too early to re-evaluate the decision that the racism study be shelved, Steve Alter was anxious in his statements to impress upon the news media that the interior ministry continues to trust the democratic, law-abiding judgement of Germany's security officers.  

After an officer's cellphone had been confiscated over suspicion of media leaks, what was discovered was the presence of the offending chat groups, one of which started in 2012, another created in 2015, where most of the offensive material was found to have been posted and shared. Leading Mr. Reul to warn that there may well be further shocking revelations since cellphones belonging to other officers were seized on Wednesday for examination.

Herbert Reul, North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister presents the state's unit for arrests and securing evidence in February 2019    (EPA)

The Face of Evil : Expunged

"Soleimani's martyrdom will make Iran more decisive to resist America's expansionism and to defend our Islamic values."
"With no doubt, Iran and other freedom-seeking countries in the region will take his revenge."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force commander, Qassam Soleimani, in an Iranian TV interview, October 1, 2019 (YouTube screenshot)

"With Soleiman dead, war is coming -- that seems certain; the only questions are where, in what form and when?"
"While America dominates the world in terms of conventional military force, Iran's advantage is in the asymmetric sphere. So rocket attacks, bombings, assassinations and even attacks like the missile assault on Saudi oil facilities in September 2019 are all possible responses. There really is no underestimating the geopolitical ramifications of this."
"His death will be perceived as martyrdom in Iran and will undoubtedly fuel some form of retaliation -- but not by a disparate terrorist organization, but one of the Middle East's most powerful governments, with an unrivalled and formidable asymmetric tool kit."
"Neither ISIS nor al Qaeda ever had the capacity to expel the U.S. from Iraq and Syria and end the counter-ISIS campaign there, but Iran and its supporters most definitely do. We've entered into very dangerous territory now."
"A single attack on U.S. positions could feasibly catalyze a military withdrawal and second abandonment of the Kurds [in Syria]. The death of Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis alongside Soleimani has just mobilized tens of thousands of PMU militiamen against America's presence in Iraq like never before."
Charles Lister, director, Countering Terrorism and Extremism program, Middle East Instituee, Washington, D.C.

Image circulating on line reportedly shows Iranian general Qassem Soleimani’s severed hand following his death in a US airstrike in Baghdad, January 3, 2020. (Social media)

"The most important military commander bar none in the Middle East [as well as a] mass terrorist [describes the decapitation of the Iranian general considered the second most powerful and influential man in the Islamic Republic of Iran]."
"Iran will avenge his death, we can be sure. The key from a U.S. perspective is how well Trump has anticipated and prepared for Iran's reaction -- in Iraq, in the U.S., throughout the region and across the globe."
Bruce Hoffman, senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

The antecedent to this event of course, is the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq with the express purpose of removing former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power, as the Sunni Islam version of the Shiite Qassem Soleimani whose fate suddenly matched that of Saddam, both mass murderers, both enablers of terrorism, both convinced they were invincible, both relieved of their delusion of being beyond the reproach of violent justice. The reference to preparedness refers to then-President Bush having no back-up plan for post-invasion with the collapse of the Saddam regime.

The outraged and outrageous language of the 'moderate' Iranian President Rouhani speaking in one breath of Iran as a 'freedom-seeking country' and the United States' 'expansionist' agenda has brought language and meaning to Orwellian heights in its contorted new levels of disingenuousness and febrile delusion. Since its occupation of Iran in 1979 the Islamic Revolution that brought the Ayatollahs to power as a theocratic imperial state focused on jihadic conquest has seen a Shiite minority among Sunni majorities reverse ages-old power structures.

Iran's intention to subjugate the Sunni majority to his Shiite Islamist agenda, restoring a historic realm of power and influence, has led to mass murder and huge population displacements in Syria and Yemen, and permanently altered the character of Lebanon's society. The brutal horror of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant that transfixed the world in amazement and fear at the depths of human depravity in the manner of the atrocious deaths visited upon their 'enemies', has its counterpart in the Shiite militias like Hezbollah, Iran's proxies.

Iraq, now completely in the thrall of Iran's web of intrigue and a willing satellite, has joined Syria, Yemen, Palestine and Qatar to counterbalance the Sunni Middle East states weight of majority, leaving the region in a state of suspense and destabilization. Iran's outreach to Africa has been equally disturbing and unsettling. Whatever territory that ISIL amassed and involuntarily vacated created a vacuum that Iran's Shiite militia proxies were swift to occupy, their intentions and violence similar to ISIL's.

Iran's malign influence has spread as far as North Korea and Venezuela. North Korea's Kim Jong Un without doubt is keenly observing events on the ground in the Middle East, to absorb a fuller understanding of American resolve that will have great meaning and consequences for his nuclear ambitions just as it has for Iran's. Perhaps he is weighing just how far he too can push America in the belief that he, like Soleimani and Iran's Grand Ayatollah Khamenei is also untouchable and there are no provocations too advanced, viewed as intolerable by the United States.

Coming Home To Israel

"Several days after the burial ceremony of Zachary Baumel, may his memory be a blessing, the attorney general was requested by government officials to make his opinion known about the possibility of releasing two Syrian prisoners who are held in Israel via a pardon by the president, as a gesture of good will."
Israeli Justice Ministry

"[Returning Baumel was first and foremost] a humanistic gesture [Israel agreed to release two imprisoned Syrians in return for Baumel's body]."
"When the opportunity arose to transfer the body of the Israeli soldier – we decided to do it. We thank the Syrians for their cooperation."
Alexander Lavrentyev, Russian intermediary

Netanyahu attending a ceremony for the return of the body of Israeli soldier Zachary Baumel in Moscow, April 4, 2019    Credit: Kobi Gideon / GPO

"Our military together with Syrian partners established the place of his burial."
"We are very pleased that at home they can give him the necessary military honors."
Russian President Vladimir Putin

"It was a race against time, a competition between ISIS, which was still looking for these corpses, and the Russians who also wanted to have these corpses."
"That's why they demanded the support of the opposition [Syrian Sunni rebels] to get in and get out."
Unidentified Syrian informant

 The National Center for Forensic Medicine in Israel is involved with a critical mission; to identify remains of Israeli military personnel as well as citizens whose bones have been retrieved by government intervention and 'trade' for imprisoned Palestinians or others held in Israeli jails sentenced to prison for crimes committed. Israel has been known to hand over hundreds of Arab prisoners in exchange for one Israeli, or his/her remains.

This is a nation that takes repatriation of body parts seriously; that Israelis must be returned home to be buried in dignity and with all due commemoration. That this is a high priority for the Jewish state is well known to its adversaries. Kidnapping, capturing and taking Israeli prisoners has high value for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, for Fatah and Islamic State, viewing them as means by which deals can be cut to their advantage with Israel in exchange for their return, dead or alive.

"From time to time they'd bring the samples. It's body remains. It's bones. It was always: maybe this time maybe this time, maybe this time...", mused Chen Kugel, head of the forensics centre. He and his unit are assigned to check whether DNA matches that of Israeli soldiers missing in action behind enemy lines. Early this year a bag containing bones arrived at his laboratory. Staff at the Center determined the bones to be those of missing Staff Sgt. Zachary Baumel. Israel had been searching for those remains for 37 years.

When Israel Defence Forces entered Lebanon for the purpose of disarming and disbanding the Palestine Liberation Organization militias that had been staging cross-border assaults from their Lebanon bases into Israel in 1982, during a battle in the Bekaa Valley, Israeli troops clashed with Lebanese and Syrian troops. Staff Sgt. Baumel, driving a tank was attacked and he and his crew wounded and taken prisoner. A reporter for Time, Dean Bretis reported having seen several Israeli soldiers paraded through Damascus, with their tank.

He saw them last outside the headquarters of the Defense Brigade Commandos headed by Rifaat al-Assad, brother of Bashar al-Assad, president of the current regime, notorious for his butchery of Syrian Sunnis, for chemical attacks and barrel bombs, the death of an estimated half-million people.
Baumel's tank commander and another captive were released in an exchange with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command working with the Syrian government; two terrorist entities with much in common.

Russia, which had entered the long-running Syrian civil war at a time when it appeared the rebellion was moving in the favour of the Syrian opposition, changed the course and the outcome of the war with Moscow's support of the Syrian regime. The Kremlin, eager to re-establish its reputation and presence in the Middle East, angled for an air base and a deep-water port in Syria in exchange for its air cover for Syrian and Hezbollah troops fighting the rebels.

It was long rumoured that the missing Israelis had been buried in the Yarmouk refugee camp for Palestinians, outside the Syrian capital. Palestinians living there had been receiving calls and text messages believed to emanate from Israeli intelligence, offering rewards for any information leading to the retrieval of the corpses. Where the bodies were interred in the cemetery was known by senior members of the PFLP-GC and Fatah.

Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin enjoy a fairly robust relationship of mutual trust and agreement and Netanyahu appealed to Putin  to help find and return the Israeli military corpses. By this time the camp and its environs were under control of Syrian rebels and the Palestinian groups battling the Assad government forces. "They were digging between the tombstones for quite a while", reported one camp resident in anonymity.

It transpired that Russia launched an operation of its own into Islamic State territory -- for the geography had in turn morphed into an ISIL-held area -- with the intention of a lightning-raid action that would retrieve the Israeli bodies, using specific co-ordinates supplied by Israeli intelligence. The action failed to materialize the anticipated result; instead Russian troops came under fire, with a Russian special forces soldier injured.

In the end, though, Operation Bittersweet Song eventually succeeded in Russia acquiring Baumel's remains and returning them to Israel where he was laid to rest in a military funeral in April that took place in Jerusalem. The Fatah party denied revealing information, as did the senior commander in Yarmouk of its rival PFLP-GC group.




 

Huawei Doth Protest Overmuch

"Huawei does not work on military or intelligence projects for the Chinese Government. This information is not new and is not secret, being freely available on career websites."
"It is not unusual that Huawei employs people from public service and government."
"We are proud of their backgrounds and we are open about them."
Ed Brewster, spokesperson, Huawei

"Huawei is not aware of its employees publishing research papers in their individual capacity. Huawei does not have any R&D collaboration or partnerships with the [Peoples Liberation Army] PLA-affiliated institutions."
"Huawei only develops and produces communications products that conform to civil standards worldwide, and does not customize R&D products for the military."
Huawei spokesman Glenn Schloss

"Huawei doesn’t customize products nor provide research for the military."
"We are not aware of the papers some employees have published. We don’t have such joint-research projects [with the PLA]."
Huawei Chief Legal Officer Song Liuping

Xi Jinping, left, and Ren Zhengfei in 2015.

Photographer: Matthew Lloyd/Pool/Bloomberg

A bit of a news scoop there, in that it appears a trove of CVs which link quite a few Huawei employees to the Chinese military have been uncovered. Any western intelligence source was always quick to point out the high likelihood of China's largest communications giant Huawei having been enlisted to do work on behalf of Beijing. It was made abundantly clear by President Xi Jinping that the government has every expectation that all Chinese individuals and corporations alike have an obligation to convey intelligence to their government.

That expectation extends most particularly to Chinese living abroad. Chinese students in their tens of thousands studying at Western universities are tasked by a special branch of the Chinese Communist Party that rules China, to render to them or to the Chinese diplomatic corps abroad at their many foreign missions anything that could be useful to China, apart from doing their utmost when the occasion arises to defend their country from criticism and suspicion.

Huawei, as a telecommunications giant with a global reach has diligently insinuated itself and its communications expertise in the G5 upgrade programs of many countries. That following on their years of integration with other nations' telecommunications networks. That infiltration enabling it to electronically monitor other nations' politics, military, corporate interests and technology helps give China a leg up in intelligence as well as furthering its own corporate and research and development interests.

Now, the trove of data that has been unearthed linked to a search of online data, has released vital information of great interest to the very countries whom Beijing and Huawei are attempting to persuade that there are no suspected intelligence links between the Chinese government and its largest communications giant that should leave doubt in the minds of foreign nations that they would be vulnerable to cybertheft and potential threats of Internet interference, by allowing Huawei entry to their databases.

Instances of Huawei-employee links with the Peoples Liberation Army now having been unearthed arms uncertain Western governments with the certain knowledge that agreeing to retain Huawei services would indeed be inviting the possibility of Chinese espionage. That sensitive national programs and projects could be exposed to probing foreign intelligence, placing them at an advantage over the nation's security.

The irony is that the discovery was made when a university search for plagiarism was launched. The revelatory site linked to the CVs was stumbled upon, as it were. Plagiarism? That's China's forte! Its predatory data theft practises have been deplored for decades. Its never-ending search for proprietary formulae are legendary. Its disregard of copyright law viewed as just another impediment to China's progress.

Thousands of papers appear to have been co-published with cooperation between Huawei researchers and those of the Peoples Liberation Army. The full extent of their entanglement and cooperation is speculative but appears logically evident. "Far closer links" appear apparent between the telecommunications company and cyber agencies of the Chinese military. Some Huawei staff -- including its founder -- have been employed as agents in the Chinese Ministry of State Security.

Others worked on joint projects with the PLA, were educated at the country's leading military academy and appear to have worked at a military unit known to have launched cyber attacks on American corporations as well as those of other nations. From just the handful of CVs found on that single source it is now known that a number of staff with Huawei had graduated from the PlA's Information Engineering University representing a military academy known for its "information warfare research".

With this fresh data and its assumed reliability, what government of which country would now be willing to undertake the potential risk of enabling the telecommunications giant to remain a fixture for further intense integration into their national communications grid? A month ago British Prime Minister Theresa May gave permission to Huawei to build parts of the British network national security concerns aside.

Now that Christopher Balding, associate professor at the Fulbright University Vietnam in investigating Huawei's ownership structure uncovered up to 25,000 Huawei employees' CVs, how will that play out?

Recruitment platforms had uploaded the CVs allowing them to appear online and on accessible sites. In collaboration with the Henry Jackson Society, a think-tank based in London, Professor Balding concluded that some one hundred Huawei staff had connections to the Chinese military intelligence agencies; their "backgrounds indicated experience in matters of national security".

There is the example of a Huawei employee whose CV reveals she works for both the telecom giant as a software engineer as well as at the Radar Academy of the Chinese Army. According to Professor Balding, the academy "matches closely her work for Huawei". "We have no cooperation with the military on research. Perhaps we sell them a small amount of civilian equipment. Just how much, I’m not clear on because we don’t regard them as a core customer", said Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei.

"Huawei is not a military company. Do not think that because the head of Huawei used to serve in the military, then the company that he built is part of the military", cautioned Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe. "[Chinese] universities are quite open to working with the military. If it’s very sensitive, it will be classified. Different projects have different sensitivity levels and sometimes the government will own the IP", explained Wong Kam Fai, a Chinese University of Hong Kong professor.

"It’s possible that there’s a lot of research that people are just not seeing, because some military research is sensitive and classified. In the U.S. they have similar arrangements as well. The U.S. has military grants. There are many sources of funding, including from the military for research", accurately pointed out Professor Wong.

Huawei workers walk together at the end of their workday at the Research and Development campus on April 24, 2019 in Dongguan, China.    Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Wrong Move, Trump!

A U.S. military commander, second from right, walks with Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units (YPG) at Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria, April 25, 2017.

"In one decision, the Trump administration abandoned two allies: Israel and the Kurds."
"The American forces operating in the northeastern region of Syria, especially near​​ Al-Bukamal, bordering Iraq, constituted a final buffer between Iran and the Mediterranean Sea."
"Iran has a presence in Iraq and in Lebanon, of course, as well. The US buffer in Al-Bukamal stopped the connection between the two."

"The departure of US forces foreshadows the construction of a 'highway' that will offer a direct route for Iranians and Shiite militias between Tehran and Beirut. As a senior Arab diplomat explained to The Times of Israel, the development will allow Iranian Revolutionary Guards al-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani to drive straight from Tehran to the offices of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Dahiya, Beirut."
"Beyond Israel, it is impossible to ignore the future of the Kurdish region of Syria [and in Turkey as well]. The United States has abandoned those who were its most important allies in the war against the Islamic State."
"At one point the Kurds were the only force that managed to stop the Islamist terror organization.
After the Iraqi and Syrian armies suffered losses at the hands of Islamic State, the Kurdish YPG forces endured fierce battles, fought until their last drop of blood, and managed to stop the terror organization on a number of fronts [most notably, in the northern Syrian city of Kobani]."
"It is difficult to find fighters [both male and female] more heroic than the Kurds as they acted in the name of human rights and women’s rights. They were heroes, and especially heroines, who sacrificed themselves for humanity."
Avi Issacharoff, The Times of Israel

"I think it's fair to say Americans will remain on the ground after the physical defeat of the caliphate, until we have the pieces in place to ensure that that defeat is enduring."
"Nobody is declaring a mission accomplished. Defeating a physical caliphate is one phase of a much longer-term campaign."
U.S. special envoy Brett McGurk, December 11

"We're not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders and that includes Iranian proxies and militias."
John Bolton, U.S. national security adviser, September

"Pulling troops out of Syria in an ongoing fight is a big mistake. Like walking away from a forest fire that is still smouldering underfoot."
"...Big winner is Iran, then Russia, then Assad. Wrong move."
James Stavridis, former U.S. Navy admiral, former NATO commander

Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units (YPG) head a convoy of U.S military vehicles in the town of Darbasiya next to the Turkish border, Syria, April 28, 2017.

Yet another impulsive determination by U.S. President Donald Trump, ignoring the advice of his top-flight military advisers, and leading to the resignation of his Defence chief James Mattis. The Trump decision to withdraw two thousand American military members from their vital role in supporting the Syrian Kurdish-led militias against the presence of Islamic State in their last remaining stronghold while successfully appealing to Islamofascist jihadis to join them, to the point where despite losing thousands of their fighters their fighter strength is back to where it was when their geographic caliphate was still intact, leaves both the courageous Kurds and the Israelis in the lurch.

A scant two weeks earlier General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared there was still a long way to go for the U.S. in training local Syrian forces in prevention of an ISIL resurgence and to ensure the gradual stabilization of the country remains on track. It would require, he stated with the conviction of one who knows his trade and the situation before him intimately, 35,000 to 40,000 local troops in Syria's northeastern region to maintain security levels over the long term, while a mere 20 percent had yet undergone training. That speaks of long-term commitment.

Commitment is a will-o'-the-wisp concept to Donald Trump, he relies on his never-failing intuition to guide his decision-making, no hard facts on the ground need intrude on this instinctive, deep-seated process that reflects the certainty of his reliance on his inner moods and convictions. Expert opinion, boots and observations on the ground be damned. Everyone must fall in line behind his behind, preferably humbly if not obsequiously as befits a commander-in-chief's infallible and cunning decision-making, for his decisions are all of that; infallible and cunning and no one can persuade him otherwise.

He is the President of the United States of America. Look on his mighty works and despair -- with apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Despair is what the Kurds, the sole local fighting forces, both men and women, who have never hesitated to meet the Islamic State terrorists in fierce combat, determined to protect themselves from the jihadis' barbarian influx and intentions must be facing at prospects for their future. Sometimes surprises should surprise no one. Trump, after all, broadcasted just that intention -- to withdraw U.S. troops during the presidential campaign that brought him to the Oval Office. His decision was made not because he consulted with his advisers but because he disagreed with his advisers whom he failed to consult, knowing their advice and opinions and contemptibly dismissing them.

"This is, of course, an American decision", stated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, no doubt as taken aback and concerned as anyone else, with how this will impact on the Islamic Republic of Iran's ongoing controlling and dominating inroads into Lebanon and Syria. A decision which will inevitably bring closer to reality the potential of an all-out war with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iranian Republican Guard Corps and their Shiite militias enlisted by Iran at the Golan Heights in a presumed effort at a pincer movement that would animate Hamas in Gaza in a concerted, three-pronged attack on Israel.

Aside from Iran, however, another country, a NATO member, Turkey, whose volatile Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to get on swimmingly well with Trump, will be delighted. For Trump's decision gives Erdogan the green light he has long agitated for; that the U.S. discontinue its partnership with the Kurds, in essence protecting them by the presence of American military, from the intention of Erdogan to destroy the presence of Kurds adjacent the Syrian border with Turkey and as far beyond as he can manage.

A senior US official has revelead the US decision to withdraw from Syria was made following a Trump-Erdogan phone call last Friday, despite Trump administration denials.  EPA

"This is a clear declaration of war. We take Erdogan’s threats against us very seriously. He has repeatedly expressed his desire to occupy our land in northeast Syria."
"Our partners in the U.S.-led coalition are well aware of these Turkish moves because a Turkish attack against us can also impact the U.S. efforts to defeat [IS] terrorists."
Nuri Mahmud, YPG spokesperson

Now, it won't. The U.S. efforts have been summarily dismissed. And Erdogan has his green light. U.S. forces will be returning home. The Islamic Republic of Iran has free reign. Israel can prepare once again for its never-ending future of war. And the Kurds have once again been abandoned.

Canada's Love Affair with Scrap, Second-Hand

"[Germany has decided to] begin concrete negotiations with Canada for the sale of the Euro Hawk aircraft, two ground stations and possibly certain spare parts."
German Defence Ministry

"The question is what a buyer would do with such a gutted aircraft."
"Without GPS navigation and in particular without flight control systems, the drone would hardly be able to fly."
Thomas Wiegold, German journalist

In this Thursday, July 21, 2011 photo a recce drone 'Euro Hawk' is moved at the air base in Manching, Germany. Germany wants to sell a second-hand drone that’s cost the country over 700 million euros ($823 million) to Canada, without many core components it needs to fly. (Armin Weigel/dpa via AP, file)

This is a technologically advanced, military drone whose future is being discussed. According to the German government the drone has been "demilitarized". Which means U.S.-manufactured radio equipment has been removed, along with the GPS receiver and aerials, as well as all encryption and flight control system. Technicians, it appears, given the order to prepare the aircraft for sale, chose to perform a "hardware uninstallation" rather than labour to delete its individual software components.

Somewhat similar to a complete lobotomy with consequential results, one might safely assume. Back in 2000 Germany ordered the Euro Hawk, a variation of the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk, for use as a long-distance reconnaissance plane. The order was cancelled in view of skyrocketing costs and the realization that the prototype wouldn't be certifiable for flight in Europe, leading then-German defence minister Thomas de Maiziere to characterize the drone as a write-off.

Better, he said, to have a "horrible end than a horror without end". In recognition, most likely, that this was such a complicated mess; that attempts to rectify all the problems attendant on it would only complicate matters further, with increasing costs associated with each consequent effort to make a silk purse out of their sow's ear. Canada has some considerable experience in that type of situation. Remember the four Victoria-class submarines that Britain wrote off and Canada bought from them?

The HMCS Chicoutimi is seen departing in Esquimalt, B.C., on March 2, 2017.

CHAD HIPOLITO/THE CANADIAN PRESS     Liberals to spend nearly $2.5-billion to keep used subs sailing past 2030

"Why were the Canadians daft enough to buy them? My God, it's a sad tale, isn't it? 'Buyer beware' should have been painted on the sides of these submarines.We sold them to you knowing there were intrinsic problems in the submarines. It's either incompetence on behalf of the Canadians, or sheer, smooth-talking salesmen from the MOD [Ministry of Defence] here in Britain", noted Mike Hancock, the Liberal Democrat MP for Portsmouth South. Canada paid $850-million for the wrecks  plagued by dents, rust, fires and leaks.

A Royal Australian Air Force F-18 fighter on a training mission. (Royal Australian Air Force)

More currently, the Trudeau government has rejected the deal made by their predecessors who had signed on to buying CF35s for the RCAF, badly needed aircraft which Justin Trudeau scorned as of "unproven" value, turning instead to Boeing's Super Hornets, only to find that corporation in a competitive spat with Canada's Bombardier, leading the Canadian government to turn away from Boeing and decide instead to buy second-hand F-18 fighters from Australia, planes that are of the same vintage as the ones they're to replace currently in use by the Canadian Air Force.
 
Now, Transport Canada plans to buy that German-reject drone for surveillance missions in the Canadian Arctic, the very drone that many analysts claim to be close to worthless. This time the Department of National Defence isn't in the questioning hot seat, instead it's Transport Canada which refused to confirm its interest other than to state: "In 2015-2017, as part of its technical assessment, the government sought information from suppliers to better understand the technology and the solutions available."

"We look forward to sharing more information on this project as it progresses, but it is still premature to speculate which remotely piloted aircraft system will be purchased." Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat approved $39.5-million in funding for a technical assessment and a system meeting Canada's needs: "We have identified options within this range", noted a spokesperson for Transport Canada. According to the Left Party lawmaker Andrej Hunko in Germany, the drone has "scrap value".

Just down Canada's alley!

Deep-Sixing Deconfliction Channels

In this photo, a Russian air defense system missile system Antey 2500, or S-300 VM, is on display at the opening of the MAKS Air Show in Zhukovsky outside Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, file)

"The presented objective data testifies that the actions of the Israeli fighter pilots, which led to the loss of life of 15 Russian servicemen, either lacked professionalism or were an act of criminal negligence to say the least. Therefore, we believe that the blame for the tragedy with the Russian Ilyushin Il-20 aircraft lies entirely with the Israeli air forces and those who made the decision to carry out such actions."
"[Those actions represented] an extremely ungrateful response to all that has been done by the Russian federation for Israel and for the Israeli people, recently."
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov

"[For Israel, training against the Crete S-300 would be] precisely what you need [to study the system’s radar frequency, pattern and reach]."
"If you know all these details then you are perfectly fitted to replicate this same signal, which means you have a chance to imitate, to sort of bluff-echo [the S-300]."
"You can brutally jam it. You can take the signal and return it, and then you send another ping which imitates the same signal. So instead of one target, the radar operator sees three, five or 10 and he does not know where to fire."
Igor Sutyagin, Russian military expert, Royal United Services Institute, London

"[S-300s in areas where Israel operates or might want to operate would challenge its advanced, U.S.-backed military - but not insuperably so]."
"In general, any system can be defeated this way or that. Some are harder and some are easier. The rule of thumb is that if your friends [the Greek military] have a system that you are interested in, you can learn all kinds of things about it."
Tal Inbar, senior scholar, Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv

Russian S-300 air defense missile systems drive during a Victory Day military parade marking the victory in WWII in Red Square in Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

"The information provided by the Israeli military… runs counter to conclusions of the Russian defense ministry [that the actions of the Israeli pilots had led to the plane being targeted by Syrian air defense systems]."
"The Russian side proceeds from the fact that the actions by the Israeli air force were the main reason for the tragedy."
"According to information of our military experts, the reason [behind the downing] were premeditated actions by Israeli pilots which certainly cannot but harm our relations."
Kremlin statement

Israel had been left with the impression, just several days earlier, that its delegation to Moscow led by IAF chief Amikam Norkin, explaining that it had provided considerable advance warning — 12 minutes according to Israeli reports — and precise information on the target area to the Russians before the strike; that its jets hadn't hid stealthily behind the Russian plane, and that its planes had vacated the airspace before the Syrians ineptly and "indiscriminately" fired one of 40 anti-aircraft missiles downing the Russian plane, had sufficed to persuade the Russian military that Israel had no part in the tragedy that led to the deaths of 15 Russian airmen.

The so-called 'friendly fire' incident whereby the Russian military’s reconnaissance Ilyushin Il-20 was shot down by Syrian missile defense systems responding to an Israeli airstrike now, it appears, in the Russian version, is completely Israel's fault. Data collected by Russian air defense systems in Syria ostensibly indicated that one of the Israeli F-16 fighter jets was flying close to the much larger Russian plane. When the F-16 was targeted by a Syrian missile it suddenly veered off, resulting in the missile homing in on the larger target, a version exonerating Syria. That version disputes the Israeli version that its fighters were gone long before the Syrian missiles were launched.

The Kremlin and its Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu are delivering a punishing resolution that Russia now plans to jam radars of military planes striking off the coast of the Mediterranean — measures obviously geared to complicate Israel’s defensive plans, inclusive of preventive airstrikes, to ensure that Iran's deepening of its military presence in Syria is foiled, and to effectively thwart the transfer of weapons in Syria to Hezbollah. "In regions near Syria over the Mediterranean Sea, there will be radio-electronic suppression of satellite navigation, on-board radar systems and communication systems of military aviation attacking objects on Syrian territory", assured Shoigu.

“This is absurd. The Syrians down a Russian plane and get the prize of an advanced weapons system, said Israeli Middle East analyst Ehud Ya’ari. Quite so. As absurd as a Turkish fighter jet downing a Russian warplane that had strayed into Turkish airspace, and after sanctions imposed to injure Turkish economic interests, Ankara and Moscow find themselves steadfast pals despite their clear differences. As absurd as the Kremlin failing to learn its lesson when it provided Ukrainian-Russian rebels with a sophisticated anti-aircraft missile which it used to destroy a Malaysian passenger airliner out of the skies over Ukraine, causing hundreds of deaths.

The unfortunate episode whereby 15 Russian airmen lost their lives stems from a confusion of actors in the region all of whom focus on their own special perspectives, advantages, priorities and influences. This is a regional tinder-box, apart from the fact that wholesale slaughter has been perpetrated by the leader of the country on his own civilian population in a sectarian rebellion. In the Syrian regime's determination to foil the efforts of the Syrian opposition and destroy its leaders, it has not hesitated to destroy its civilians as well. A half-million Syrian lives lost, and millions made homeless, more millions, refugees.

Without the intervention of the region's most infamous supporter of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran, its elite al Quds division of the Republican Guard Corps involved in blueprinting strategy along with Iran calling in its Shiite militias, including Lebanon's deadly Hezbollah group, Bashar al-Assad would never have been able to surmount the legions of Syrian Sunni rebels, much less the presence of foreign fighters and terrorist groups. The tide turned completely with Vladimir Putin's decision to make a place for Russia in the Middle East, abandoned by the Obama administration.

The Kremlin-backed Syrian regime is guaranteed its survival. Turkey, which serviced the needs of a number of Sunni terrorist groups, could have intervened at an early stage of the rebellion to remove the Syrian ruler it detested, but Turkey, despite having the second largest armed forces in NATO, awaited action by NATO and the U.S. to intervene. Now Turkey, a member of NATO, has aligned itself however reluctantly with Russia and Iran, swallowing their insistence that Assad prevail. Russia has succeeded in ingratiating itself with Syria, Iran and Turkey, a grim balancing act, but one the Kremlin is well suited to.

And Vladimir Putin appeared, while negotiating all of these ties and juggling the various interests with his own, to have had a soft spot for Israel and its existential dilemma, threatened by all the actors, governmental and non-governmental that he dances with. The agreement between Putin and Netanyahu that Russia would countenance Israeli strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah transfers of weaponry being stockpiled for the purpose of destroying Israel was built on slender trust. It appears now to have been shredded.

Sunday's announcement that Russia is now prepared to deliver the advanced anti-aircraft systems it had held off in response to Israel's appeals, testifies to that. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Monday call to Vladimir Putin for a last appeal was rebuffed. Israel, having ensured its military was schooled in methods [war games with Greece] whereby it could strategically bypass detection by the more technically advanced system to be released in two weeks' time to Syria will likely manage the additional challenge to its Syrian overflights to destroy the weapons threatening its survival.

But its very survival is at stake here, which is vastly different from the reason that Russia is in Syria; to advantage Russian political ambitions and military expansion.

A computer simulation released by the Russian Defense Ministry, Sunday, September 23, 2018, purports to show Israeli jets near a Russian reconnaissance plane, in red, off Syria’s coast before it was accidentally shot down by Syria forces responding to the Israeli air strike. The Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday again blamed Israel for the downing of its plane, as Syrian government forces are thought to have mistook the Russian Il-20 reconnaissance plane for an Israeli jet and shot it down Monday, killing all 15 people aboard. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)