"This is reality, Greg"

Elliot: He's a man from outer space and we're taking him to his spaceship.
Greg: Well, can't he just beam up?
Elliot: This is *reality*, Greg.
ET

I have said in the past that when I read Chomsky, I was impressed....but then realized his worldview was pretty and exciting but did not correspond to reality as I had observed it. A similar distortion of course can be found in conspiracy sites, of course, but remember: Alex Jones doesn't run the White House, but the left wing ideologues do.

By obeying the meme and talking points without comparing it to reality, eventually reality bites back.

So although I support the Russians defending the innocent from their ISIS murderers, there is fall out from this, and a lot of it can be laid at the coterie around the President Obama, who are too busy following the talking points and theories without bothering to see reality. Of course, as I have noted before, it is sort of a choice between Stalin and Hitler, and in this case Stalin represents Iran, who is evil but a little less so: They might fund terrorists locally but won't fly airplanes into your office.

Ah but there is fallout.

Belmont Club notes that this could be seen as a blood feud between macho man Putin and metrosexual wimp Obama, who has gone out of his way to ignore anyone outside of his circle and is reaping the consequences. I mean, does anyone think this would be happening if Romney (or even Hillary with her husband advising her) was President?

But formerspook notes this has implications in the "Great Game" that go beyone an incompetent president's popularity in the polls.

LINK2

"Putin is making his move in Syria now, says Tony Badran, research fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “because he understands not only that Obama would never intervene militarily in Syria, but also because the [deal with Iran] means that the White House wouldn’t challenge Iranian, and by extension Russian, holdings in the region. Moreover, Putin saw that Obama continued to disregard the concerns of his traditional allies, both on the Iranian nuclear program and Syria, when they sought a more active policy to bring down Assad.     

StrategyPage's take HERE.

October 7, 2015: The Russian intervention in Syria has caused Iraq to openly accuse the United States of being ineffective and unwilling to do what it takes to defeat ISIL (al Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant). Iraqi leaders pointed out that over a year ago the U.S. and its Arab allies promised sufficient air support and other military assistance to defeat ISIL. That has not worked. Iraq believes the United States lacks the will to get the job done while Iran and Russia do have what it takes. Iraq also announced that it had established an intelligence sharing arrangement with Iran, Syria and Russia and invited the United States to join. Finally Iraq was considering asking Russia to extend its bombing campaign to attacks on ISIL in western Iraq and Mosul. This would involve allowing Russia to operate from Iraqi air bases.

read the whole thing....

another note:

What is meant here but not being said is that Iraq disagrees with the American ROE (Rules of Engagement) which puts more emphasis on protecting civilians than in destroying the enemy. ISIL uses lots of human shields to protect its men and facilities from air attack. Russia and Arab air forces will bomb a target even if there are human shields present. 

 So do you kill a few civilians to get a lot of bad guys killed? If you do, the outsiders who follow the meme ("america and it's allies are evil") will point fingers. Look at the 'doctors without frontiers" (Founded by a left wing murderer) hyperventillating about war crimes right now because local troops asked the US to bomb a hospital where the bad guys were being treated for wounds, and lots of bad guys hiding around and possibly inside the hospital.

Remember that if you don't kill the bad guys hiding among civilians, these same bad guys go out and bomb and kill dozens if not hundreds of innocent civilians...the locals figure it is a good strategy to kill them, but for those following the meme and whose families won't be killed, it's better to follow the lawyer's advice and let them get away.