Stretch (10-16-2019)
Whenever neoconservatives and liberals chant in unison about American policy in the Middle East — as when they championed the Iraq invasion, for example, or the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, or the thwarted attempt to topple the Assad regime in Syria — it means we are being told a pack of lies. Par for the course is the hysterical response to President Donald Trump’s ‘betrayal’ of the Kurds in the wake of Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria.
Turkey’s goal was to repatriate at least two million of 3.6 million Syrian refugees inside Turkey in a border zone controlled, until the invasion began, by the US-allied, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Ankara considers that group to be an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which is also active in the region, has committed countless atrocities inside Turkey and is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and America.
Since Turkey was never going to back down, Middle East pundits appeared to be arguing that Trump should actually have risked going to war with a fellow Nato member that houses American nuclear weapons at its Incirlik Air Base. Worse, this would have been in defense of the Kurds, with whom the US has no defense treaty and whose ad hoc alliance with the US in Syria was formed with the explicit and limited goal of fighting the now defeated Islamic State.
Going into battle against the Turks would also, of course, have meant betraying a historic ally, not to mention potentially causing the outbreak of a third world war.
Even more bizarrely, almost all the pundits and politicians are of the absurd opinion that — amid the endless cycle of war, revolution and terrorism in that cursed part of the world — we should once again foolishly see this scenario (as in Iraq and Libya) as a simple, folkloric tale of good vs evil. This time around, on one side are the secular, heroic Kurdish freedom fighters, lovers of democracy and steadfast American allies.
On the other there are the bloodthirsty foot-soldiers from Turkey, a country that wants to annihilate them. As usual when it comes to the Middle East, almost all the pundits and politicians are talking balderdash.
in stark contrast to our rose-tinted admiration of the Kurds, they are resented, if not loathed, by many of the non-Kurds they live alongside or rule over in their self-declared autonomous zones.
The estimated 30 million Kurds who straddle the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia have never had a homeland, but claim that their shared historic, ethnic, linguistic and cultural roots entitle them to one.
he Kurdish plight is hardly meticulous. It should be pointed out that they have suffered at various times horrible persecution. However, we do not have to get bogged down in the region’s internecine inter-ethnic rivalries to take a more pragmatic view of the end of our brief alliance with them.
Stretch (10-16-2019)
might Trump have been right to have pulled all US troops out of harm’s way, paving the way for Syria, Turkey and Russia to clean up the mess in their own backyard?
Perhaps the biggest myth being propagated by the media regarding the Kurds in Syria is that they were singularly instrumental in defeating Isis and that, with their defeat, the terrorist outfit will instantaneously re-emerge from the war-torn landscape.
It is therefore preposterous for the media to take seriously the scaremongering from politicians that these last remnants of the failed caliphate, even if they do escape en masse, will prove to be a serious threat to the battle-hardened Syrians and Russians (and Turks themselves if they are true to their word).
In the meantime, by threatening to abandon the camps, the Kurds were shamelessly blackmailing America in a way that was no less contemptible than Ankara’s threat to unleash millions of refugees into Europe if criticism of their invasion was not tempered. Talk about stabbing an ally in the back.
In any event, there was a practical solution open to the Kurds from the outset, which was to hand over the camps to the Syrian Arab Army. Hilariously, because the Syrians eventually rode to their rescue, this is now the most likely outcome. That means the hated Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is doing what everyone was criticizing Trump for not having done.\
the Kurds’ role in defeating Isis, while important, pales into insignificance when compared to the heroic sacrifices of the Syrians, Russians, Hezbollah and Iran-backed militias.
Hezbollah liberated numerous Christian villages on the Syrian-Lebanese borders, and Syrian Christian militias not infrequently fought alongside the Lebanese Shia militia battling the Sunni jihadis. In other ways, too, the Kurds’ behavior has hardly been exemplary. They have ethnically cleansed tens of thousands of Arabs from land they have conquered.
~~
Another thing the neoconservatives and liberals have in common when it comes to the Middle East, apart from wanting to bomb everything in sight, is the racist belief that the locals are incapable of resolving their problems and therefore need the US military to lord it over them.
In Syria, , the most likely outcome of Trump stepping aside to allow for Turkey’s invasion is a Russian-brokered peace deal on the back of US sanctions against Turkey that reins in the Kurdish terrorists, protects the rest of the Kurdish population and restores Syria’s control over a region that contains almost all of its oil, farmland and water supplies. So by pulling US troops out of harm’s way, Trump, rather than betraying the Kurds, has saved their bacon.
https://spectator.us/pulling-troops-...ight-decision/
Stretch (10-16-2019)
neoconservatives and liberals have in common when it comes to the Middle East, apart from wanting to bomb everything in sight, is the racist belief that the locals are incapable of resolving their problems and therefore need the US military to lord it over them.
In Syria, , the most likely outcome of Trump stepping aside to allow for Turkey’s invasion is a Russian-brokered peace deal on the back of US sanctions against Turkey that reins in the Kurdish terrorists, protects the rest of the Kurdish population and restores Syria’s control over a region that contains almost all of its oil, farmland and water supplies
Stretch (10-16-2019)
go fuck yourself Ruskie troll
Trumpet (10-16-2019)
the "spectator," what a suprise, it is not even an American source, extention of a British tabloid
"anatta" keeps portray all of this as if it was Trump's only option, that Turkey was going to invade and slaughter an American ally regardless of what Trump did, or as his blogger implies, risking going to war with Turkey
Even if the case, which he has offered zero proof, that would show how weak Trump is as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, being pulled by another autocrat
Trumpet (10-16-2019)
deadcatbounce (10-16-2019)
attacking the source is really weak sauce.
Can't you understand the article?
yes it's a bit complex, but I broke it down as much as possible, or you could actually engage in a conversation.
Edogan was going in. He's gone in before. He says he's staying despite crippling sanctions.
It can't be any clearer our token contingent force would not stop him,and put us in harms way.
If you want to discuss the dynamics in play -it's an interesting ( and correct) perspective.
Assad and Russia and the Syrian SDF are becoming the intermediaries in the simplist of terms on the battlefield.
As it should be
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