Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Syrian Civil War Developments

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Everybody there is against IS already. They would do a good job without the US there.
    When the New Axis of Evil got the chance (after pummeling the FSA/AQ/MB) they went after ISIS in a big way, they are conducting anti-ISIS operations now, letting those gimcrack nations foot the bill for it (in money and lives) might not be the worst thing.

    ==========
    Well I am still unsure what to tell my family... One minute Trumpkin tells the world they are finished (because he was going to after real hard remember) but the next minute he and you tell me they are still there? Is the 'mission accomplished' true or not? Make up your mind.
    As a territorial entity they are finished at the present, time to go.

    Brave and bold decision to leave: America isn't cutting Russia/Iran off from access to Syria, Assad's rule is safe for now, America isn't going to rebuild that corner of Syria, there is a budding anti-PKK insurgency and protest movements, and the PKK is toxic.

    What are you saying? Is there really no public debate under the Tsar Putin? This could be deemed as criticising the authorities for which there are severe penalties. .
    Yawn.

    Do you think it is right to leave your allies to be murdered? I mean that not as a policy question but as a human one
    1. The PKK isn't an an ally, we have used them as auxiliaries (co-belligerents) and they have used the US for money, protection, and weapons. It was a transaction based relationship which is ending.
    2. Murder is a legal term. The Turkish military killing armed PKK members and striking PKK infrastructure isn't necessarily murder.
    3. The PKK is a terrorist group which sets off bombs in markets, uses suicide bombers, is making use of terror in Syria to keep itself in power, has fought shoulder to shoulder with the Axis (Russia provided them CAS), is facing a non-ISIS insurgency, and is the sworn enemy of our testy ally Turkey. Their response to finding out that yes America can and will get the hell out of this morass has been to screech that America owes them protection, for all time, and going to the Axis to make a deal based on the much stronger position American support allowed them to carve out.

    So is everything until it happens.
    Hot take: In my lifetime Syrian Su-22s will not bomb US cities. Ending American protection for a Communist Ethno-nationalist terrorist group isn't going to put us at the mercy of the "Fitter threat."

    Apart from the Kurds and the Brits and French not trusting them.
    The PKK, a terrorist group. You keep making the mistake by conflating the two.

    France has said it is staying. I expect the Brits will do the same but that could mean withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
    Well then let France find two thousand troops to put between themselves and Turkey so as to protect PKK repression of the locals (much of the area isn't Kurdish majority and the PKK has used violence to suppress protests) and the sale of fuel/food to the Assad government. Of course France won't step up and actually replace the United States and protect the PKK from the Turkish Republic, but it sure sounded good.

    Now you have fundamentally lost the plot. No country can stand alone. The more alliances you have the better.
    Only if they are useful alliances with useful nations. Deploying troops to protect a terrorist group (under US law), operating in a remote corner of Syria, from the second largest military in NATO so they can do business and make nice with Assad is stupid. The more "accomplished gangs of thieves", free riders, trouble makers, and terrorist groups the US doesn't have to protect the better.

    ============
    Neo-con and lib-interventionist writers had called at times for the US to push the PKK to the side and support Arab Islamists, leaving in this particular manner (with the PKK in control of territory populated mainly by Arabs which controls what little petrol Syria has) at least gives the PKK a bargaining position.
    Let down by U.S., Syrian Kurdish leaders look to Russia and Assad
    Ellen Francis

    5 Min Read

    BEIRUT (Reuters) - Alarmed by a U.S. decision to leave Syria, Kurdish leaders who run much of the north are urging Russia and its ally Damascus to send forces to shield the border from the threat of a Turkish offensive.
    FILE PHOTO: Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters walk on the rubble of damaged shops and buildings in the city of Manbij, in Aleppo Governorate, Syria, August 10, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

    Their call for a return of Syrian government forces to the border, which Kurdish fighters have held for years, points to the depth of their crisis in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw forces.

    While little has changed on the ground yet - U.S. forces are still deployed and Trump says the pullout will be slow - Kurdish officials are scrambling for a strategy to protect their region from Turkey before the United States leaves.

    Talks with Damascus and Moscow appear to be the focus for the Kurdish leadership. Their worst fear is a repeat of a Turkish attack that drove Kurdish residents and the YPG militia out of Afrin city in the northwest earlier this year.

    They are also trying to convince other Western countries to fill the vacuum when Washington withdraws some 2,000 troops whose presence in northern and eastern Syria has deterred Turkey so far.

    The territory at stake spans about a quarter of Syria, most of it east of the Euphrates River, controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella group dominated by the Kurdish YPG. The area borders Iraq to the east and includes three major cities - Qamishli, Hasaka and Raqqa.

    (Syria areas of control: tmsnrt.rs/2RgCxxb)

    The SDF has been Washington’s main Syrian partner in the fight with Islamic State, but Turkey views the YPG fighters that form its backbone as a threat and has vowed to crush them.

    Officials from northern Syria, who went to Moscow last week, will soon make another trip, hoping Russia will push Damascus to “fulfill its sovereign duty”, top Kurdish politician Aldar Xelil told Reuters.

    “Our contacts with Russia, and the regime, are to look for clear mechanisms to protect the northern border,” said Xelil, an architect of autonomy plans in northern Syria. “We want Russia to play an important role to achieve stability.”
    [...]
    Although the autonomy they seek is at odds with Damascus, Kurdish forces have largely avoided direct conflict with the government during the war, at times even fighting common foes. They held political talks this summer that went nowhere.

    But with their negotiating position severely weakened by Trump’s move, Kurdish authorities may be in a race against time to cut a deal as Turkey threatens to launch its offensive east of the Euphrates River.

    Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdish PKK movement which has been waging a 34-year-long insurgency in southeastern Turkey. Ankara has drawn on Syrian rebel proxies to help fight the YPG in the north.
    [...]
    POLITICAL SETTLEMENT

    In Turkey’s last assault in Afrin earlier this year, the SDF felt let down by Russia, believing it had given assurances that Turkey would not attack the region.

    Turkey-backed Syrian rebels say they have been mobilizing to launch the next offensive, with their first target the town of Manbij that borders the territory under their control.
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-m...-idUSKCN1OQ18E
    Last edited by troung; 28 Dec 18,, 05:17.
    To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

    Comment


    • Originally posted by snapper View Post
      More BS. As if the Saudi's are going to spend anything for the Assad regime so deeply in hoc to Iran.
      Its credible. Read this

      and https://www.trtworld.com/mea/why-is-...f-the-us-22837
      Last edited by Double Edge; 28 Dec 18,, 04:15.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
        Easier to squeeze the Saudis these days

        [ATTACH]47332[/ATTACH]
        Or not

        https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/26/saud...ild-syria.html


        An official at the Saudi embassy in Washington told CNBC that the kingdom has not made any major new financial pledge to Syria since August. That is when the State Department announced that Saudi Arabia had committed $100 million to a fund to stabilize areas of Syria liberated from ISIS militants by a U.S.-led coalition.
        Damn it. Listen to what I mean to say not what I tweet

        On Wednesday, the White House clarified that Trump’s tweet was not meant to announce a new commitment from Saudi Arabia.

        Comment


        • ^Saudis & Emiratis along with Qataris on the opposing side were the ones that started this war.

          Course Assad's initial actions weren't entirely sensible and things just built up from there.

          I've seen that CNBC report. I'm willing to give this some time whether to see if any more commitments from the Saudis show up.
          Last edited by Double Edge; 28 Dec 18,, 14:18.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by troung View Post
            When the New Axis of Evil got the chance (after pummeling the FSA/AQ/MB) they went after ISIS in a big way, they are conducting anti-ISIS operations now, letting those gimcrack nations foot the bill for it (in money and lives) might not be the worst thing.

            ==========
            Since i can't figure why the US went to Syria in the first place i'm not immediately seeing a problem with this withdrawal.

            Fighting along side Iran was a head spinner too.

            One minute say Assad has to go and the next fight in his interest.

            US involvement with Syria was shady to begin with. The story in 2012 was the west wasn't going to provide lethal support because that would just proliferate arms to the bad guys what with Libya and all. Columints in my country at the time who visited Syria were saying the US was doing exactly that. Providing lethal support.

            Then you posted an article couple years later confirming what these columnists said earlier.

            So a lot of dodgy business going on for not much gain or even clear objective.

            Yes, wanted to overthrow Assad but also don't want to overthrow him.

            I credit the Russians for keeping Syria together. Things would have been worse had they not gone in to the extent they did.
            Last edited by Double Edge; 28 Dec 18,, 14:15.

            Comment


            • .
              DECEMBER 28, 2018 / 3:43 AM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
              Syrian army deploys to Manbij after Kurdish calls to deter Turkey
              https://www.reuters.com/article/us-m...rce=reddit.com

              BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian army said it had deployed forces to Manbij in northwest Syria on Friday, after the Kurdish YPG militia urged Damascus to protect the town from the threat of Turkish attacks.

              A resident said the forces had not entered the town, where U.S. troops operate and have a military base. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, said the government forces were stationed out the outskirts, between the town and territory under Turkish influence.

              U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw troops from Syria has alarmed the Kurdish-led fighters who have fought Islamic State alongside them for years.

              Kurdish leaders are scrambling for a strategy to protect their region stretching across the north and east, where the presence of some 2,000 U.S. troops has so far deterred an incursion by Turkey, which deems the YPG a threat to its own territory and has vowed to crush it.

              SPONSORED


              ADVERTISING



              A deployment of government forces, backed by Russia, is likely to have a similar effect.

              With the YPG at its forefront, the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance (SDF) seized Manbij in 2016 from Islamic State, a milestone in the U.S.-backed battle against the jihadists.

              The town is held by the Manbij Military Council, fighters allied to the SDF, and abuts territory held by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels who have been mobilising for an assault.

              =///%====

              DECEMBER 28, 2018 / 6:50 AM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
              Erdogan says Turkey has no business in Syria's Manbij if YPG militia leaves
              Ece Toksabay
              https://www.reuters.com/article/us-m...rce=reddit.com
              ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey will have nothing left to do in the Syrian town of Manbij once “terrorist organizations” leave the area, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, hours after the Syrian army said it had entered the town.

              SPONSORED


              Turkey has threatened an assault on Manbij to drive out the Kurdish YPG militia, which it regards as a terrorist group. Erdogan signaled on Friday that Turkey was not in a hurry to carry out the operation.


              “In the current situation, we are still supporting the integrity of Syrian soil. These areas belong to Syria. Once the terrorist organizations leave the area, we will have nothing left to do there,” Erdogan told reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul.

              Earlier on Friday, the Syrian army said it had entered Manbij for the first time in years, after the YPG urged Damascus to protect the town from the threat of Turkish attacks.

              “It’s not just about Manbij, we are aiming to wipe out all terrorist organizations in the region. Our main target is that the YPG takes the necessary lesson here,” Erdogan said
              To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

              Comment


              • so yeah, about that withdrawal...guess not so much now.
                There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                Comment


                • If chickenhawk supremo Bolton gets fired over the latest mess in the sorry Syrian saga, then I guess some good did come out of this whole withdrawal farce.

                  Comment


                  • So the betrayal of the Kurds? I only ever met one Kurdish person that I know of - a taxi driver, but by all accounts they did the real legwork and took the casualties in the fight against Daesh/ISIS and Trumpkin, who's proclaimed policy is to hem in Iranian expansion, is now betraying the US allies in Northern Iraq, Eastern Syria, South eastern Turkey and Western Iran to a neo Ottoman Turk? No consultation with his military or with the British, who also had teams in the area, it is reported - just imperial decision off the cuff - on a whim. The only secular and democratic ally in the bloodbath of Assad's, Putin's and Khomenie's war crimes carnival. Hell just a year ago Trumpkin was praising the Kurds - and they have an ancient reputation for valour dating back to Byzantine histories of Precopius - Saladin - who conquered the Crusader Kingdom capital of Jerusalem was a Kurd and as history recounts an honourable man.

                    It strikes me that this in no way whatsoever can be considered honourable, decent or a coherent Middle Eastern Foreign Policy.

                    Nor frankly can I see it helping Trumpkin in his ongoing domestic problems regarding the impeachment as this betrayal is contrary to the general taste of the Party he claims to represent.

                    For myself I now think a free independent Kurdistan state along secular and democratic lines if is possible would now be the best stabilising force for the area. As a Hellenophile and Pole who's ancestors fought the Turks in Europe I will have no truck with neo Ottomanism in Turkish foreign policy - it is dangerous and Erdogan's growing alliance with the neo Tsar in Moscow very dangerous for all Central Europe. The Kurds and the Armenians have legitimate historical claims on what is now Turkish territory, the Kurds also in Iran. If you wish you disturb Iran the Kurds there would have been an ideal start backed from Iraqi Kurdistan. Now the Orange Betrayer of Allies has thrown the Kurds to the guns of an uninvited Turk invader, probably also allowing the release or escape of thousands of Daesh/ISIS prisoners to take up arms again, not they were ever totally "defeated" as the Orange idiot claims, the Kurds are likely seek new sponsors; Assad is powerless, a mere puppet of Iran and Muscovy now. Iran is inimical to their secular lifestyle and self interests so most likely is Muscovy. I would bet that Putin already has people there negotiation with them. So Trump sent Putin a Birthday present - have our allies. But this is the US interest - in the interests of peace in the region?

                    Nor is it wise from the Turkish point of view to increase the number of disaffected Kurds within a Turkish controlled 'safe zone'. The Kurds and Syriacs (Christian Syrians) who make up the SDF were not the same the Kurds already resentful of Turkish overlordship in Turkey that fought with the PKK but to take make another enemy of a fairly rational secular and democratic Kurdish/Christian faction seems like foolishness; will they go into Iraqi Kurdistan next? You cannot defeat these people in the end - they will run to the mountains like they did when the 'White Huns' came through in Byzantine times and then come down when your back is turned. Erdogan's neo Ottomanism is doomed to failure and potentially represents a war crime of 'ethnic cleansing' given that he says he wants to settle some 1m Syrian refugees in his Kurdish 'safe zone'. No it is time to say it straight - there must be a free Kurdish state. It's borders we can dispute and whether it have some autonomous powers (as for example Scotland within the UK) or be fully sovereign is just a matter of terms.

                    I also note the total hypocrisy and lunacy of US Government remarks on this Turkish invasion: Trumpkin saying "it's not a good idea' when he gave them the green light. Pompeo denying that the Turks were given a green light is just BS contradiction of what we know to be the facts. Trumpkin spoke to Erdogan and then said he was withdrawing US troops from the area - not asking anyone - probably a few million in a bank account. Oh yes apparently he has bankrupted Turkey before as well... When was that? Though Turkey is increasingly making itself closer to bankruptcy that is largely Erdogan's budget deficits funded by an increasingly unsure foreign investment.

                    Of course the real problem is Erdogan who I pray meets his maker sooner rather than later so that Turkey can return to it's secular modern roots.

                    Comment


                    • The U.S. Is Now Betraying the Kurds for the Eighth Time

                      The White House announced Sunday night that the United States is giving Turkey a green light to invade northern Syria, with the U.S. troops there now apparently pulling back to another area of the country. This is the scenario that Syrian Kurds have long feared. It will almost inevitably lead to a Turkish attack on Kurdish militias in Syria — fighters who loyally helped the U.S. destroy the Islamic State, but whom Turkey bogusly claims to be terrorists.

                      On Monday morning, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman asked why Donald Trump made this decision:

                      What Krugman left out, however, is the most likely explanation: (d) Trump is president of the United States. Nothing in this world is certain except death, taxes, and America betraying the Kurds.

                      The U.S. has now betrayed the Kurds a minimum of eight times over the past 100 years. The reasons for this are straightforward.

                      The Kurds are an ethnic group of about 40 million people centered at the intersection of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. Many naturally want their own state. The four countries in which they live naturally do not want that to happen.

                      On the one hand, the Kurds are a perfect tool for U.S. foreign policy. We can arm the Kurds in whichever of these countries is currently our enemy, whether to make trouble for that country’s government or to accomplish various other objectives. On the other hand, we don’t want the Kurds we’re utilizing to ever get too powerful. If that happened, the other Kurds — i.e., the ones living just across the border in whichever of these countries are currently our allies — might get ideas about freedom and independence.

                      Nothing in this world is certain except death, taxes, and America betraying the Kurds.

                      Here’s how that dynamic has played out, over and over and over again since World War I.

                      1 — Like many other nationalisms, Kurdish nationalism blossomed during the late 1800s. At this point, all of the Kurdish homeland was ruled by the sprawling Ottoman Empire, centered in present day-Turkey. But the Ottoman Empire collapsed after fighting on the losing side of World War I. This, the Kurds understandably believed, was their moment.

                      The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres completely dismembered the Ottoman Empire, including most of what’s now Turkey, and allocated a section for a possible Kurdistan. But the Turks fought back, making enough trouble that the U.S. supported a new treaty in 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne. The Treaty of Lausanne allowed the British and French to carve off present-day Iraq and Syria, respectively, for themselves. But it made no provision for the Kurds.

                      This was America’s first, and smallest, betrayal of the Kurds. At this point, the main Kurdish betrayals were handled by the British, who crushed the short-lived Kingdom of Kurdistan in Iraq during the early 1920s. A few years later, the British were happy to see the establishment of a Kurdish “Republic of Ararat,” because it was on Turkish territory. But it turned out that the Turks were more important to the British than the Kurds, so the United Kingdom eventually let Turkey go ahead and extinguish the new country.

                      This was the kind of thing that gave the British Empire the nickname “perfidious Albion.” Now America has taken up the perfidious mantle.

                      2 — After World War II, the U.S. gradually assumed the British role as main colonial power in the Mideast. We armed Iraqi Kurds during the rule of Abdel Karim Kassem, who governed Iraq from 1958 to 1963, because Kassem was failing to follow orders.

                      We then supported a 1963 military coup — which included a small supporting role by a young Saddam Hussein — that removed Kassem from power. We immediately cut off our aid to the Kurds and, in fact, provided the new Iraqi government with napalm to use against them.

                      3 — By the 1970s, the Iraqi government had drifted into the orbit of the Soviet Union. The Nixon administration, led by Henry Kissinger, hatched a plan with Iran (then our ally, ruled by the Shah) to arm Iraqi Kurds.

                      The plan wasn’t for the Kurds in Iraq to win, since that might encourage the Kurds in Iran to rise up themselves. It was just to bleed the Iraqi government. But as a congressional report later put it, “This policy was not imparted to our clients, who were encouraged to continue fighting. Even in the context of covert action ours was a cynical enterprise.”

                      Then the U.S. signed off on agreements between the Shah and Saddam that included severing aid to the Kurds. The Iraqi military moved north and slaughtered thousands, as the U.S. ignored heart-rending pleas from our erstwhile Kurdish allies. When questioned, a blasé Kissinger explained that “covert action should not be confused with missionary work.”

                      When questioned, a blasé Kissinger explained that “covert action should not be confused with missionary work.”

                      4 — During the 1980s, the Iraqi government moved on to actual genocide against the Kurds, including the use of chemical weapons. The Reagan administration was well aware of Saddam’s use of nerve gas, but because they liked the damage Saddam was doing to Iran, it opposed congressional efforts to impose sanctions on Iraq. The U.S. media also faithfully played its role. When a Washington Post reporter tried to get the paper to publish a photograph of a Kurd killed by chemical weapons, his editor responded, “Who will care?”

                      5 — As the U.S. bombed Iraq during the Gulf War in 1991, George H.W. Bush famously called on “the Iraqi military and Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands, to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.” Both Iraqi Shias in southern Iraq and Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq heard this and tried to do exactly that.

                      It turned out that Bush wasn’t being 100 percent honest about his feelings on this subject. The U.S. military stood down as Iraq massacred the rebels across the country.

                      Why? New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman soon explained that “Mr. Bush never supported the Kurdish and Shiite rebellions against Mr. Hussein, or for that matter any democracy movement in Iraq” because Saddam’s “iron fist simultaneously held Iraq together, much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia.” What the U.S. wanted was for the Iraqi military, not regular people, to take charge. “Then,” Friedman wrote, “Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein.”
                      Join Our Newsletter
                      Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you.
                      I’m in

                      6 — Nevertheless, the dying Iraqi Kurds looked so bad on international television that the Bush administration was forced to do something. The U.S. eventually supported what was started as a British effort to protect Kurds in northern Iraq.

                      During the Clinton administration in the 1990s, these Kurds, the Iraqi Kurds, were the good Kurds. Because they were persecuted by Iraq, our enemy, they were worthy of U.S. sympathy. But the Kurds a few miles north in Turkey started getting uppity too, and since they were annoying our ally, they were the bad Kurds. The U.S. sent Turkey huge amounts of weaponry, which it used — with U.S. knowledge — to murder tens of thousands of Kurds and destroy thousands of villages.

                      7 — Before the Iraq War in 2003, pundits such as Christopher Hitchens said we had to do it to help the Kurds. By contrast, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg had this dour exchange with neoconservative William Kristol on C-SPAN just as the war started:

                      Ellsberg: The Kurds have every reason to believe they will be betrayed again by the United States, as so often in the past. The spectacle of our inviting Turks into this war … could not have been reassuring to the Kurds …

                      Kristol: I’m against betraying the Kurds. Surely your point isn’t that because we betrayed them in the past, we should betray them this time?

                      Ellsberg: Not that we should, just that we will.

                      Kristol: We will not. We will not.

                      Ellsberg, of course, was correct. The post-war independence of Iraqi Kurds made Turkey extremely nervous. In 2007, the U.S. allowed Turkey to carry out a heavy bombing campaign against Iraqi Kurds inside Iraq. By this point, Kristol’s magazine the Weekly Standard was declaring that this betrayal was exactly what America should be doing.

                      With Trump’s thumbs-up for another slaughter of the Kurds, America is now on betrayal No. 8. Whatever you want to say about U.S. actions, no one can deny that we’re consistent.

                      The Kurds have an old, famous adage that they “have no friends but the mountains.” Now more than ever, it’s hard to argue that that’s wrong.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by snapper View Post
                        ...Of course the real problem is Erdogan who I pray meets his maker sooner rather than later so that Turkey can return to it's secular modern roots.
                        we all pray for that no doubts... Erdo, Trump and guys like them.. i still cant believe that they came in to power...

                        but first of all

                        YPG/PKK/PJAK/SDF ETC.. DOES NOT REPRESENT THE WHOLE OF KURDISH PEOPLE...

                        please stop that.. these are terrorist organisations.. their freedom fighter looks are fake...

                        like isis, they terrorise their local people, their own people, be my guest, come and see with your own eyes& ears...

                        yes additionaly,

                        ypg,pkk,pjak are the same organisation with different names at differet regions... they are enemies of Iran, Turkey & Syria...

                        they play the good guys hoping to create a Kurdistan from the ashes of Syria with the help of super powers

                        that is a thing neither Turkey nor Iran nor Syria can afford.

                        so yes Erdogan is a lunatic and made many mistakes at the start of Syrian conflict.

                        But today he must act to prevent ypg/pkk (or what ever BS they call themselves) to become more powerful.

                        oh and the very first betrayal is the US one against Turkey by giving those weapons to pkk... it helps anti-westerners inadvertently...

                        as for slaughter of civilians... i dont see these allegations worthy of answering...
                        Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thine own life's key; be checked for silence, but never taxed for speech.

                        Comment


                        • oh btw,

                          many local Kurdish clans are actively supporting even clashing with ypg

                          https://twitter.com/slmhktn/status/1...669204482?s=20
                          Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thine own life's key; be checked for silence, but never taxed for speech.

                          Comment


                          • 'Big K' I have long agreed with your anti Erdogan stance (the park in Constantinople etc for the son in law etc) and his corruption. I myself do not know how Kurdish society operates in Iraqi areas I believe it relatively free and secular but I have not seen them them in Syria where they lost some 10,000 bringing down the Daesh/ISIS want to be 'califate' for your benefit and everyone else benefits. Sure they are bound to have tribal strife in some areas and injustices at times will occur during a time of war - it has ever been so. But would you rather a imperialistic absolutist Daesh/ISIS neo 'Califate' as a neighbour or a vaguely civilised new Kurdistan whom the West can reign in?

                            Comment


                            • I hear that some 700 Daesh/ISIS prisoners, some of them apparently Turkish have escaped this morning. As with anything in Syria I cannot say if these reports are true. Was this Erdogan's intent? Turnips? If not did the Orangutan in the White House endorse the Turkish foray against the only real allies the West has in the area? I am just bemused by this dishonourable betrayal.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by snapper View Post
                                It strikes me that this in no way whatsoever can be considered honourable, decent or a coherent Middle Eastern Foreign Policy.
                                Recall you said similar back in 2012 in this very thread about protecting the Syrians from Assad. If intervention was justified in Libya why not Syria. It has been difficult to have a coherent policy because the region has become so incoherent. So much that the administration before Trump was struggling. There was a short clip i posted by one of the directors of a ME think tank some years ago that exemplified the contradictions. Can't find it now. So here is an article by him.

                                For myself I now think a free independent Kurdistan state along secular and democratic lines if is possible would now be the best stabilising force for the area.

                                No it is time to say it straight - there must be a free Kurdish state. It's borders we can dispute and whether it have some autonomous powers (as for example Scotland within the UK) or be fully sovereign is just a matter of terms.
                                Am hearing advocacy for this idea on local channels. Note that the anchor there is directly calling out Erdo of desiring a militia ie ISIS that can further his larger vision. That same old game called good terrorist, bad terrorist.

                                The Americans are out of the nation building business for the forseeable future. Which is just as well as the end goal is to push the Americans out of the ME region.

                                As a Hellenophile and Pole who's ancestors fought the Turks in Europe I will have no truck with neo Ottomanism in Turkish foreign policy

                                The Kurds and the Armenians have legitimate historical claims on what is now Turkish territory
                                At the recently concluded UNGA, my PM met with the representatives of Cyprus & Armenia.

                                Why ? Erdo's neo ottoman foreign policy.

                                Browsing the UN's youtube channel i noticed there was a contestation between Armenia & Azerbaijan with counter replies going as far as 5th right of reply. Definitely some bad blood between the two there.


                                Erdogan's neo Ottomanism is doomed to failure and potentially represents a war crime of 'ethnic cleansing' given that he says he wants to settle some 1m Syrian refugees in his Kurdish 'safe zone'.
                                Neo ottomanism is the right term to describe Erdogan. Local commentators keep referring to him as wahabi like not understanding the irony that Erdo is in direct competition with the Saudis for the title of leader of the muslims.

                                Of course the real problem is Erdogan who I pray meets his maker sooner rather than later so that Turkey can return to it's secular modern roots.
                                Back in 2007 their idea was "zero problems with the neighbours", in 2019, he's managed to enter Turkey into India's shit list. This takes some doing as i cannot recall the last time Turkey was even on India's radar.
                                Last edited by Double Edge; 15 Oct 19,, 13:53.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X