France’s first airstrike on ISIS in Syria flattens ISIS training camp
Fox News reports that France has launched it’s first airstrike against ISIS in Syria and the opening blow flattened an ISIS training camp. President Hollande says that they chose the target as a response to operations that ISIS sponsored against the French people;
“The camp was totally destroyed,” Hollande said Sunday after arriving at the United Nations, before the start of a major development summit and the U.N. General Assembly bringing together world leaders.
“We’re sure there were no casualties” among civilians, he added.
The French president’s office announced the strikes, without details, in a statement hours earlier.
“Our nation will strike each time our national security is at stake,” the statement said.
My question is “How can there be a training camp left in Syria?” The US has been conducting airstrikes in the country for months, and it seems to me that our folks knew the camp was there, so how did it last long enough for the French to knock it out?
Hollande announced on Sept. 7 France’s intention to start airstrikes, days after the photo of a dead 3-year-old Syrian boy galvanized public concern about Syrian refugees fleeing to save their lives.
Whatever. Good for the French, good for ISIS, but I still don’t see any strategy. All I see a bunch of emotional reaction to stuff.
Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, in eastern Afghanistan, ISIS adherents attacked Afghan police checkpoints – the first time ISIS has engaged with Afghan government forces deviating from their regular gun fights with the Taliban. Three Afghans were killed in the engagements. The Afghan government launched air strikes in response and they claim that the ISIS members they killed were all Pakistanis.
Category: Terror War
And once again, another nation shows more resolute and rational foreign policy than does the US. This time it was France – again.
Seems to me that other nations having more rational and effective foreign policy than ours has been the case quite often during the last 6 2/3 years. But maybe that’s just me.
Hate to break it to you Hondo, but you’re not unique in your thinking.
You know its bad when France is striking back.
What is the US not doing that they should be doing?
Are you also one of those criticizing our not doing enough while also complaining about the Iran agreement that set the conditions for us to better coordinate with Iran on fighting ISIS?
Larsie-poo, the Iran “agreement” is one biblically HUGE piece of shit. We cannot put our trust in a country whose leaders regularly hold rallies screaming “Death to America” and is a known sponsor of terrorism.
Infidel, you are one of the least informed and ignorant people I have ever crossed paths with on any forum in my life.
It is a waste of time to debate the Iran Agreement with you since your knowledge is based on low information bullshit.
Thin-skinned little pissy-head, aren’t you? You have a mind like concrete, it’s permanently set and all mixed up!! You’re also a cotton candy-headed liberal, thus you’ll NEVER dissent with any of the crap emanating from B. Hussein 0bama & Company!
Obama is an above average president and his performance in his second term has improved.
That sums up how I feel about him and that assessment is consistent with his actual performance and not the bullshit rhetoric you are buying into.
“Obama is an above average president and his performance in his second term has improved.”
I’m really beginning to think you’re irreparably brain damaged from all of the Kool-Aid you’ve guzzled over the years chased by bong water. I’ve decided on this year’s Halloween costume, I’m going to be a democrat. Every time kids show up at our door wanting candy, I’ll take half of theirs and hand it out to the kids who were too lazy to go trick-or-treating!
Is he still getting 400% more death threats than previous presidents? I did hear that his golf game has improved.
http://obamagolfcounter.com/
Wow. Just wow.
The debt has doubled (he said he’d half it), the rich are getting richer (stock owners), the poor are getting poorer (the poverty line has increased), Obamacare is a bust (less than 10% of the country is using it), he campaigned about bringing the troops home and then blamed bush when Iraq went to crap. Of most significance is welfare recipients is up 43% since he took office. (Another indicator of the poor getting poorer). (all this from factcheck.org in a quick review.)
So I don’t know what you consider “average” because that’s not average.
“. . . you are one of the least informed and ignorant people . . . “ Lars, you do realize that your statement above, as written, is self-contradictory – right? Seems to me that rather blatant gaffe argues that the maybe API isn’t the one here who is “low information”. Now, regarding what the current group of clueless fools making US foreign policy decisions today Administration should be doing that it isn’t: 1. Freaking decide whether it is the US long-term interest to oppose ISIS or not. So far, they’ve not directly addressed that question. I don’t personally think they know what they want to do in the ME, but that’s me. 2. If they decide opposing ISIS is indeed in the US best interest, drop the “Arab-spring” inspired bullsh!t fiction of supporting the now-nonexistent “moderate Syrian opposition” and make common cause with Russia, Iraq, and Syria to do exactly that. Supporting a non-existent “moderate Syrian opposition” merely shows how naive and foolish our current regime actually is. 3. Decide whether maintaining Iraq as a local counterweight to Iran is in the US national interest. If so, re-open SOFA negotiations for a US presence there after ISIS is destroyed. 4. Let any US forces involved in fighting ISIS actually, you know, fight – using ME rules, more or less. Quit pandering to every Euroweenie libidiot out there who doesn’t understand that war is “nasty, brutish, and (hopefully) short” – and involves killing on the industrial scale in that part of the world. The cultures there simply don’t appear to understand or respect much beyond raw power – and they don’t fight IAW “Marquis of Queensbury” rules. 5. If fighting ISIS isn’t in our interest, then leave – and STFU about it. Quit supplying either side, and get our folks out of there. If opposing ISIS is not a vital enough interest to commit and use US forces meaningfuly, then we by default are willing to accept whatever happens. Complaining in the latter case is simply whining. 6. Realize that the current Iranian nuclear deal is completely idiotic, as it… Read more »
Hondo, I don’t believe the native denizens and/or their ‘governments’ ascribe to the rules of the Geneva Convention, either, unless it is convenient for them to do so. The most recent example of that ipsy-dipsy thinking was executing a Jordanian military pilot by fire and the top-heavy trading of 1 US soldier for 5 extremely bad AQ leaders.
They do whatever is convenient to get what they want.
Very much so. Nor do they ascribe to the UN’s human rights doctrine. Nor do they care for rules of a “modern” culture, society, or state.
They don’t even care when their own people are being tortured, raped, murdered, starved, etc.
It was not contradictory, it was redundant.
No. Were it redundant, it would have read “least informed and most ignorant”. As written, the term “least” modifies both adjectives which follow – e.g., “least informed” as well as “least ignorant”.
The latter is clearly self-contradictory. The latter is the meanting of you wrote, regardless of what you meant.
1. They have addressed the question. Opposing ISIS is in our long term interest. That is the official position of the US government with numerous substantiated sources.
2. Supporting Russia is not in our long term interest. Supporting the Assad regime is in Russia’s interest and is not in our long term interest.
3. Iraq will likely never be a counterweight in Iran unless we were willing to commit the troops to establish and support a Sunni majority government. Something we lack the desire or resources to do. And there is no need to have Iraq as a counterweight to Iran. Iran’s military expenditures is 61st in the world.
4. We signed a Geneva Convention and we are expected to follow it. Abandoning it would not be in our interest because the rules of the geneva convention favors the capacity and capabilities of industrialized nations.Think of the Geneva Convention as a framework of rules an expectations that shape warfare in a manner that is advantageous to established nation states and industrialized nations in particular. While violations occur frequently the perceived legitimacy of the convention shapes warfare to our advantage. If we were to violate it routinely as a major superpower we would delegitimize and its ability to shape how wars are fought and armies structures would be lost and we would enter a new era of warfare where even established states fought in a manner much more difficult and costly for us to defeat.
We are better off cooperating with elements and nations that will fight according to “ME rules” such as Iran. While Iran is a signatory they pay a much lower cost and do not delegitimize the convention is they violate it.
5. It is in our interest.
6. The self monitoring is a debunked myth. It was caused by sloppy journalism. There is nothing about the deal that makes thing worse than before the deal and the deal sets the conditions for us to coordinate in defeating ISIS.
Babble, babble, babble,…
That is exactly how you maintain your ignorant views on the world.
I love your responses, you shriek like a chihuahua when someone steps in its tail!!
Someone smarter than you would have read that last comment as a helpful life tip encouraging them to be less ignorant.
You think you’re SUCH a precious snowflake when in reality you’re just another concrete-headed Kool-Aid guzzling liberal POOP STAIN!!
Excuse the frequent typos and aphasia. I frequently type “is” instead of “if” and make other mistakes with similar sounding, meaning, or with words that serve similar grammatical purposes.
In other words, you’re only marginally literate, pay little attention to detail, and are too lazy to proofread what you write carefully. Got it.
Aphasia. Caused by a neurological problem. Suspected to be CTE.
I can use a word processor to proofread and cut and paste, but this is a web forum not a professional document and I have to invest enough time overcoming my disability that I don’t waste time when the benefit is relatively inconsequential. Especially since I often introduce new errors when I make corrections, and may errors are not detected by a spell check since they are not spelling errors.
HERE HE GOES AGAIN with the “OHH, POOR ME!!!” routine trying to con us into thinking he’s SUCH an extra-special snowflake. Larsie-puffy-poo, if you have THAT much difficulty writing then WTF were you doing overseas in that capacity?
Go fuck yourself, infidel. I have to write several pages a day in my chosen career path and I write at a slower rate than my peers.
I already consider this forum to be a huge waste of time despite my compulsive tendency to engage with it. So I cut corners where I can.
Not bothering to spend much time checking my posts is one of the corners I cut.
MAYBE it’s from when you banged your head too hard on the toilet bowl every time the Jocks stuck your head into the toilet and gave you a “Swirly” back when you were in high school! 😀
Period, dot, bingo. Victim status unlocked.
Oh, here we go. The victimhood status has erupted in the public square.
‘Mommy! Mommy! They’re all being mean to me!’
Has anyone ever noticed how these ‘victims’ always have an excuse for doing sloppy work?
What’s next, Lars? Temper tantrum?
I’m sure of it. Like I said earlier, he’ll screech like a chihuahua when someone steps on its tail!
I have Aphasia (as well as dyslexia) and I do not think the forum is worth the extra effort it takes to fully correct for them.
That is not being a victim it is just not giving enough of a shit about you or you opinion of me.
You have what, ASS-headia? I’ll buy THAT for $1.00!! 😀
Aphasia is defined as loss of ability to understand or express speech, caused by brain damage. It’s obvious that he needs a second opinion on that.
(Wait for it….)
Aphasia effects all communication including written/typed.
It has a very broad variety of effects and symptoms but it is essentially an impairment of you ability to communicate.
It does effect my speech as well. But the effect is much stronger in my writing. Which may be due to my prior history of dyslexia/dysgraphia magnifying the difficulty of writing.
Larsie-poo, I bet you drive around in either a Prius or “Smart Car”! 😀
Hell, most of the time I drive a scooter. It is a 170 so it is pretty fast.
It’s a free country. Delude yourself as you wish, even if you have to ignore reality to do so.
Despite the fact that we never agree at least you keep your responses, and even your dismissals of my points pretty civil.
ISIS only became a “concern” when they started taking over a good portion of Iraq and Syria, along with killing and torturing women and children who didn’t accept “ISIS” doctrine in their own lives.
We haven’t been able to trust Iran for decades, what makes you think we can trust them now? This is the same country that for years was supporting AQIZ with training, resources, equipment, etc., in Iraq in order to kill US personnel.
They are going to take what benefits they can from the deal and disregard anything else they don’t feel like abiding by. Do you really think they don’t already have secret nuclear facilities they will never tell anyone about?
What I find QUITE curious about Lars the dimm is his utter lack of understanding of simple and/or compound sentences.
At this post http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=62047&cpage=1#comment-2683385
I said “I don’t believe the native denizens and/or their ‘governments’ ascribe to the rules of the Geneva Convention….”
Nowhere did I reference the US’s participation in those rules.
But for some odd reason, Lars decides that I did make such a reference with this:
4. We signed a Geneva Convention in this comment: http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=62047&cpage=1#comment-2683408
And then, he expounds on it ad nauseum, as if no one else could possibly know anything about it. His consistent lack of simple understanding is amazing. The prosy, toffy-nosed attempts to educate the rest of us are rapidly becoming the stuff, not of legend, but of unearned pomposity.
He makes Polonius look to be merely a concerned parent, instead of a pompous, meddling ass. (Any bets on how long it takes him to start on Polonius?)
What the hell are you talking about? I was referring to point 4 in Hondo’s post. He does explicitly talk about the US.
I never even responded to your post.
And what I wrote about the Geneva convention is how it shapes warfare and the way armies are organized to our advantage. This is not something widely understood by soldiers otherwise so many soldier would not be arguing that we abandon the Geneva convention and fight “according to ME rules.”
The Geneva convention establishes a structure of warfare and the way armies are organized that gives industrial societies a decisive advantage. That is why the Iraqi Army was defeated in weeks but the insurgency has taken years, and whenever insurgents adopt tactics that comply with the Geneva convention we devastate them.
We want our enemies to fight according to the convention and because the convention’s perceived legitimacy in International Relations most of the time in most places countries and Armies do mostly follow it.
Maintaining the legitimacy of the Geneva convention is in our interest, even if it makes fighting insurgencies more difficult.
The ONLY time I’d ever pay attention to the Geneva Convention is if we went to war against the Swiss. Piddle-headed pimplefaced candyasses like you pimp it and hamstring Grunts like me with asinine ROE’s.
You reinforce that you are a complete moron.
And you overplay your “grunt” card. A lot of service members did a lot of dangerous work in Iraq and Afghanistan and we were all constrained by the ROE. Many had jobs at least as dangerous if not more dangerous than you.
And the ROE in Iraq and Afghanistan was generated for reasons beyond the scope of the Geneva convention and further constrained us beyond the convention.
Like it or not there are legitimate strategic and operational reasons many of those constraints existed.
These wars are bigger than you, you nitwit, and you not following the Geneva convention creates the possibility of you manufacturing operational and strategic consequences through your irresponsible, petty, and immature decisions.
I did not agree with the ROE that prevented me from killing two different insurgents that under the Laws of Land warfare (Geneva convention) were legal targets but I was forced to arrest and turn them over to the Iraqi Army under the ROE knowing they would eventually be released.
The ROE also prevented me from removing from the battle-space at least a few local leaders I knew to be insurgents, one of them even knew I knew he was insurgent, but they were essentially “untouchable” due to their positions in the Iraqi government. I also had to meet and cooperate with them regularly and coordinate those meetings despite the fact that doing that nearly got me killed at least twice.
These constraints the ROE imposed had nothing to do with the Geneva Convention but the ROE was structured to address greater considerations than what happened in my tiny piece of the battlespace.
However, since you are complaining about how constrained you were under the ROE I am going to assume you were just talking shit about not paying attention to the Geneva Convention since you clearly followed the ROE was more restrictive than the rules under the Geneva Convention.
Was it 400% more constrained? Need the info.
Lars “Butthurt McBabble” Taylor blithers yet again… 😀
Let’s all remember that Lars was a desk jockey. He may have been exposed to paper cuts and flying staples.
Yeah, I emember him babbling about that, and I’m sure that his “Ass-headia” helped him fit right in! 😀
EX-PH2,
I spent far less time behind a desk than most officers during my career and I spent an entire tour on the ground.
I explained this in the past, but like most information that does not agree with your assumptions you just dismissed it and held firm to your assumptions. Because you know more about what I did during my service than I do.
OH, I just love this kind of defensive twaddle.
First off, Twinklebum, the ONLY comment referring to the Geneva Convention WAS MINE.
Period.
Second, you claim to have aphasia, which does not fit at all with your behavior.
Based on your insistence on correcting everyone within a 150 mile radius of you, the more appropriate term for your disorder is egocentricity accompanied by inefficient information processing, which may or may not be intentional. Basically, you ignore what doesn’t suit your need to stultify those you deem beneath your notice. You also have a lazy intellect that demands you find the easy way to feed your needy ego.
And stop pretending that you have aphasia. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve known several people who actually did have it. You have no idea how much you are insulting those who actually have that physical disability when you claim to have it. That makes you lower than chomped-up squid in a whale’s gut.
You’re nothing but a pompous-assed, psuedo-intellectual fraud.
He’s like the rubber chew toy that keeps squeaking NO MATTER how much the dogs chew on it!!
My mother had a German Shorthair pointer that would run around with her squeaky toys in her mouth, squeaking them until they drove my mother nuts. Even if they went into the trash, that dog would go find them and start squeaking in the middle of the night. Now, who does that remind you of?
“4. Let any US forces involved in fighting ISIS actually, you know, fight – using ME rules, more or less. Quit pandering to every Euroweenie libidiot out there who doesn’t understand that war is “nasty, brutish, and (hopefully) short” – and involves killing on the industrial scale in that part of the world. The cultures there simply don’t appear to understand or respect much beyond raw power – and they don’t fight IAW “Marquis of Queensbury” rules.”
I took reference to “using ME rules” as a reference to abandoning the Geneva convention when fighting ISIS.
If you look at the structure of that entire post it is very clear I was responding to Hondo point by point. I even structured my response according to his numbering system.
You jumped in, assumed I was responding to you, then when I told you I was not, you insist I was.
That is damn obnoxious of you.
Good job on ignoring his point. Not.
I am not sure which point or whose point you are referring to.
I do not have the time to respond to every point of every response that gets dog piled onto my posts. Especially since half of them are blind ideological idiocy and ridicule with no substance.
No substance. That’s rich.
My brother lives in France and via Skype we talked for hours. France is not going to take crap from another country again. He said France was attacked by nazis after less then a week of fighting and it’s not GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN. Where he’s located, there’s one road in, but lots of water they can come in from.
His town is really small, but the citizens who live there had a city meeting and they are preparing just in case. Their putting people in the mountains with weapons, cell phones and scanning the waterways’. I asked him aren’t you guys going a little too far? If you saw what happened, you would be doing the same thing.
We talked about letting Syrians refugees relocate to different countries and he said bad idea. You know there’s going to be ISIS assholes in batches going to all the countries and they should be checking everyone who comes in. How can we possibly identity who is ISIS and who’s a refugee. That’s what the Military has to figure out with intelligence they’ve been collecting.
In all honesty, I don’t trust any country that takes them in is going to do that. So, I guess we wait and see.
And of the dozens of pictures we’ve seen of the refugees and all the video footage, the significant majority is military age males who are taking the easy road and going to Europe for free stuff as opposed to supporting their own country and fighting to exist.
And hell yes. There are a good portion of those refugees that is going to fight for terrorist organizations like ISIS in Europe and the US to try to turn our countries into the shitholes their homelands are.
What is of great concern is that in the raw videos I’ve seen coming from Croatia (I think that’s where it is), the entire train load is military-age adult men. They are not only NOT accompanied by women AND/OR children, they also will not take even bottled water given to them by the local police. Instead, they throw it under the train they were on or onto other tracks.
Drinking water does not require anything but verification that it is potable. There is NO halal requirement for drinking water. This behavior reeks of arrogance and insults the host countries that are trying to help these morons, who should be sent right back where they came from, and quickly.
To add to your point, Islamic tenets state very clearly that if you are traveling you can eat what you need to in order to sustain. Even during Ramadan, if you have a physically difficult job you are allowed to eat during the day to have the energy to complete it.
There are exceptions to most rules in the Quran. I’d speculate they aren’t taking the water to appear more significantly the victim. Especially when they get to where they want to go.
Something is going to happen in October.
Things are building up to it; that much is plain.
Lars is going to be butt hurt on your critique of the Prez’s handling of this.
Lars is the QUEEN OF BUTTHURT!!
A PROUD AND LARS. I’ve read your comments and I’m 100% sure that LARS is a bigger pain in the ass then Bernath. Trying to out talk A PROUD with worthless chattering makes me think this.
A. Your a child
B. A crybaby
C. A wimp and wosh
D. Plain stupid
E. Claims mental disabilities to get a pity party going
F. Dyslexia is a curable problem while attending school
G. Don’t think your military
H. You blow a ? load if hot air
G. In all honesty, I just don’t like you and don’t except to in this lifetime or the next.
I’ve made my living in the Blue Collar world for years, Reb. I enjoy what I do, and I make a good living at it. Soft and thin-skinned hot-air-blowing know-it-all dweebs like Lars wouldn’t last thirty minutes around the crowds I’ve been part of in Military or Civilian life. IF he ever was in the Military, I guarantee you he wouldn’t last more than five or ten minutes among “Line Dogs” I’ve served with! He hasn’t been back on for a few, I’m sure its because either his local public or school library is now closed and he can’t get back on the Internet,or his mommy has told him he needs to do the dishes and clean his room before bedtime tonight!!
PROUD..I’M not military but support every branch. I let my granddaughterread his weirdness’ and about the phony POW. LARSASS doesn’t have a picture but she insists that it’s a kid writing. She said if I hit him with my BO, it might knock some sense into his brain, but really gamma, I don’t think he has one. Yes, the school library is closed ?
I just think you are a waste of time Infidel. I can’t fix stupid.
Oh, hey, everybody! Lars just figured out something he should have known all along: he can’t fix stupid.
That completely explains why he does not understand how to stop making an ass of himself by repeatedly posting long-winded, rambling twaddle every time he gets a chance.
A. No
B. No
C. No
D. Empirically false.
E. Nope, just explaining what I frequently substitute similar words.
F. Dyslexia is not curable. Idiotic to claim it is.
G. I have no idea why dumb fucks on this board like to claim someone that does not agree with their idiotic world view never served but I most definitely served.
H. No. Or at least no more than any other person expressing their opinion or viewpoint on this board. You just don’t agree with mine because it does not reinforce your assumptions about the world.
G. I could give a fuck. Chances are I would not like you much either.
He is doing a fair job. The rest is bullshit political rhetoric from the right.
Larsie, I bet you drive around in a Prius or a Smart Car, those fit you to a “T”! Have you ever considered becoming a comedian? You make me LAUGH!! 😀
“The camp was totally destroyed.” I wonder have they considered overflying a/c fitted with water tanks to destroy the adobe-like structures. Seems a good waste of hard bombs and missiles just to let ISIS know that you haven’t forgotten about them. I think that this is all a game w/o commitment and these attacks are contrived feel-good stories w/o any lasting effect.
No strategy – emotional reaction.
Isn’t that what has been going on for close to – what? – a decade, now?
I love it every time a leftist populist pacifist “world leader” makes that realization that some people deserve killing. Here Hollande, have a cookie.
The French hit a camp and completely destroy it. Meanwhile Obama wants to target their slit trenches, just to let them know we are there but not really hurt any of his brothers.
We (and allies/coalition) seem to be really good at destroying ‘training camps’ and killing ISIS/a-Queda #2 leaders.
And yet somehow these groups manage to keep fighting
One-nothing that I am going to say should be construed as supporting our current foreign policy, which is a train wreck, but…
Two-I see no reason to believe Hollande’s spin on this, either that the camp was completely destroyed or that there were no civilian casualties. The only way to defeat an enemy is to physically control his territory and that will almost certainly involve a large military presence in that territory and some civilian casualties. What Hollande says here sounds good for the media, but is almost impossible to verify.
Three-I’ve been reading a couple of articles that have talked about how the European left-most particularly the French left and Hollande-need the Muslim vote as groups like Marie Le Pen’s Front Nationale gain traction on the right, So whatever he says here, at election time he will be desperate for the vote from the Islamic ghettos around Paris, and we will see how zealously he pursues the fight at that point.
Four-God help us (and everyone else) if Daesh starts to become a force to be reckoned with in Pakistan. That is a nightmare of cataclysmic proportions.
Well, in my personal and untutored opinion, I do not think anything like these random airstrikes will have a real effect. It only prolongs the business, with no conclusion.
The most effective way to end this poking and eye-gouging is to engage in continuous carpet bombing until there is nothing anywhere left but rubble.
One whole camp and years late to the party.
I feeler safer already.
Well good for France for finally realizing that there is a clear threat. While I may not have the depth of knowledge or experience as many on this forum, I can recognize what pure evil is. and ISIS is just that.
It pains me to see a Great Country such as the U.S. being racked with indecision and derisive policies that serve to further only one agenda. When Countries Such as France and even Canada traditionally supportive and in a secondary role taking the lead. It shows that Washington has turned a blind eye and POTUS is more invested in his golf game then anything else.
I sent Jonn a news item from FRance24 this afternoon, regarding Kunduz. It seems that the city of Kunduz has fallen to the Taliban. The UN compound evacuated itself.
Didn’t we take Kunduz away from the Taliban awhile back?
I read something else that said some of the ISIS peeps are trashy little Paki gits. No surprise there.
It is very disconcerting that they would take a “Northern territory” city in Afghanistan. Kunduz is right along the Tajik border which gives them some considerable strategic capability.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were Paki’s in Afghanistan. It isn’t difficult for Paki’s to move anywhere in Afghanistan.
I know. I was thinking about that. The Tajiks had a dustup when the USSR broke up, something about keeping their autonomy. Tajikistan, which is rugged, beautiful and stark, is a go-to place for hikers and climbers. The Tajiks are quite independent people, and while they do have a border crossing with China, they maintain their independence.
But what if they felt threatened by ISIS and went to the Chinese for help, and not to Vlad, who is kanoodling with Khameini in Tehran? Now that would be something unexpected.
I think October is fetching up to be a very, very tumultuous month.