Russian strikes, Day 1: No ISIS targets; ‘demarche’ to U.S.: ‘Don’t fly here’

Gnarly Russian brass visit troops launching military exercise near St. Petersburg, Mar 2015. (Image: AP/RIA-Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service)

The moral of this story is: don’t send Barack Obama to negotiate your operational modus vivendi with Russia in a combat zone.

On the first day of Russian air strikes in Syria, Russia surprised the U.S. by sending a general officer to the American embassy in Baghdad to issue a “demarche,” or a unilateral demand or statement of intent.  The general – who is stationed with the new joint intelligence command center set up in Baghdad by Russia, Iran, Syria, and Iraq – said Russia would be conducting strikes, and he “requested” that U.S. forces remain clear of the Russian operating area.  (See video.)

Pentagon officials point out that that’s not what anyone meant by proposing to coordinate with Russian forces in Syria. 

Bunny snuff: Syrian rebels have chemical weapons too

According to a video reportedly posted by the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian rebels have their own chemical weapons to match Bashar Al-Assad’s – and you get to watch two rabbits die to prove it.

This link is to the video posted at YouTube.  But Breitbart has helpfully loaded the video to its post on the topic today, so you don’t have to sign in at YouTube to watch it.  Warning: graphic content.

After apparently setting off the chemical agent in a glass box containing the hapless rabbits, the speaker in the video issues this warning (translation cited at Breitbart):

You saw what happened?  This will be your fate,

Read full post at Hot Air