International Turkey announces invasion of Syria

[Islam Imamate]

Terrorism is a loaded term though, abused far too much now to mean anything. Kurds are responding to Turkish violence and oppression against Kurds. Every country likes to portray those it fights against as "terrorists" . It all just boils down to Turkish supremacy, which we shouldn't be a part of. Just as we shouldn't support Israeli supremacy over Palestinians. Erdogan and other Turkish Nationalists will do what it takes to ensure their hegemony, but why would any of us support it or show deference? One can apply the same understanding to conservative White grievances in America , that their concerns of illegal immigration and diversity should be respected because it poses a real danger of undermining traditional Euro-American hegemony.

I agree that terrorism is a loaded term and that too often people overreact to it while downplaying state violence, especially when its structural state violence. And as I said before in both conflicts we should hold the state actor to a far higher standards because while its true that the separatist movements are a legitimate threat to the citizens of Israel and Turkey those states are themselves a far greater threat to the stateless people they're in conflict with than the other way around.

But on some level both those states still have legitimate security concerns in regards to the separatist movements they face. Now they could defuse some of that with some just concessions and unfortunately both seem unwilling to do so. But ultimately Turkey has two failed states on its border which is emboldening a separatist movement they've been in conflict with for decades. People are right to be concerned with how the Turks will carry out the operation but that doesn't mean they don't have good reasons for carrying it out in the first place. Its not just Turkish supremacy, that's what the secular nationalist leaders in Turkey were pushing for with enforced disappearances of Kurds and the banning of their language. This is an extreme solution to an extreme situation.

If I were president of course this is not how I would handle. I think the best way forward for the Kurds would be to carve out Kurdistan from the Kurdish occupied areas of Syria and Iraq since those are failed states. Make it a federated state giving some level of autonomy to both Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan under one central Kurdish government and hopefully in the future the Kurdish occupied areas in Iran and Turkey could reach some agreement not unlike the Good Friday Agreement where those areas remain under the sovereignty of those states but with relaxed borders so that Kurds can virtually access all of historic Kurdistan without much resistance. But that's a pipe dream at this point and the kind of deal that I find highly unlikely to happen under a president like Trump.

 

[Arkain2K]

Sevres had the value of an interim belt, the final form was Lausanne.

The ethnic-based "interim" belt was simply stripped and a new "undisputed" belt was given out on economic grounds.

Damn British and French are just like Dana.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Maybee Bibi can change Trump's mind. One of the rare times I agree with Israel/Netanyahu

* Israeli media portray Trump's move as "betrayal" of Kurds
"Israel strongly condemns the Turkish invasion of the Kurdish areas in Syria and warns against the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds by Turkey and its proxies," Netanyahu wrote. "Israel is prepared to extend humanitarian assistance to the gallant Kurdish people."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-uneasy-over-trumps-refusal-170029290.html

Israel attacked Syria countless times, so why not militarily aid the Kurds against the Turks. Even though Turkey still enjoys the NATO defense pact, the West is not going to confront Israel if it decides to interfere with Turkish air operations.


Which governments? Couldn't the US just force them to take their ISIS nationalities back , or just try them for war-crimes and send them to prison?

Bibi only supports the Kurds to undermine Assad and the Shiite crescent.

they are only doing a buffer zone of 30 miles

That's what they say now but that's a common excuse for expansionism. You set up the buffer zone, provoke a skirmish with the opposition at the edge of it and then use that to justify expanding the buffer zone. There's probably a limit to how far Turkey will go into Syria though and in the end they could end up sticking to just that. We'll see.

 

[Stoic1]

like hell they were. The Christians and minorities of the Syrian Arab Army fought ISIS tooth and nail. And the Kurds didn’t do shit until ISIS finally came for them as well. The PMU were made of volunteers who stopped ISIS in its tracks.

the Kurds refused To go on the offensive until they were bribed.

Wrong.

Ask me how I know.

 

[Happy Man]

Wrong.

Ask me how I know.

you’re wrong, and I don’t care how or why you’re wrong.

 

[AgonyandIrony]

Like the OP clearly stated, Turkey agree to take care of the thousands of foreign ISIS fighters currently in SDF custody that he spent the last 3 years demanding their own governments to take back and prosecute, to no avail.

Millions of your tax dollars goes to the housing, feeding, and guarding those prisoners by the way. Their own governments contributed nothing, pretends they don't exists, and assume their people are America's problem to take care of.

We soon will find out what "take care of" actually means. Not even gonna be surprised if those prisons will simply be shelled, to be honest.

Oh cool. Thousands of fighters... 30,000 Kurds are already fleeing the invaders.

Not to mention he's purging Turkey currently of pro Kurdish mayors.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/...rdish-mayors-arrests-400-190819090927327.html

Although the coup was not directly linked to the Kurdish issue, the crackdown saw 95 of the 102 pro-Kurdish mayors removed from their posts and replaced with central government appointees.

HDP legislator Garo Paylan said on Monday that all parties and the public must oppose this "vile coup".

Now the impending battle to come against the invaders will be interesting.

Kasapoglu outlined two options for Turkish air operations.

The first would be to ignore the US and carry out flights with F-16 and F-4 fighter bombers.

"In such case, the Pentagon would find itself in an even harder situation of deciding between scrambling fighter jets to intercept a NATO ally's aircraft ... or allowing its 'airspace closure ultimatum' to be inevitably rendered abortive," Kasapoglu said.

The other choice would be to use armed aerial drones to back up ground troops, although these would not be able to carry the heavy weapon payloads of manned aircraft.

The Kurds have vowed to fight an all out war against the Turks even with a Yankee knife in their back but they do have decent anti air and anti tank munitions. Turkey will have to blitz the line. If they fall back the ISIL prisoners, the Kurds might consider releasing them to create a buffer and let the Turks and ISIL fighters kill each other.

 

[MicroBrew]

Erdogan is blackmailing Europe.

He has threatened to send millions of refugees to Europe if they criticize Turkish action as occupation.

(Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday Ankara will send the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey to Europe if European countries label the country's military incursion in Syria as an occupation.


"We will open the gates and send 3.6 million refugees your way," Erdogan said in speech to lawmakers from his AK Party.

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1WP1ED?__twitter_impression=true

 

[Phr3121]

It seems likely that Turkey will make impressive inroads into Kurdish territory initially, but can they sustain a successful offensive for the long term?

I think you mean Syria.
Yeah, Turkey is invading and going to war against Syria (and the Russians) now that they have crossed the 'Syrian' border.

 

[Phr3121]

Wrong. Ask me how I know.

"HappyBoy" is an idiot. Don't feed the trolls...

 

[AgonyandIrony]

You seem like a lot of the “revolutionaries” I knew. You romanticize battles and war...you might even have the heart to be involved but then you are kicked squarely in the balls with the reality

Are you willing to go fight Turks?

Honestly I regret not going when I had the option. Hemingway certainly would have. I fundraised for Rojava and contributed money to their cause.

The Lions of Rojava went dark and even England punished a straight up fucking hero and charged him with terrorism.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/static...alker-isis-uk-terrorism-charge-ypg-syria.html

I'll organize a fundraiser soon, and try to reach contacts to see how I can help from over here.

I've been putting a lot of thought in leaving the US in general due to our policies foreign and domestic, but I adore Americans as people and love our cities and culture.

You ever see that Rolling Stone article about the Norcal anarchist who got out of rehab and flew to Syria? Talked to my buddy about him since he hung out with him for years, dude didn't even tell his girlfriend. Hell of a way to bail out of a relationship.

 

[MicroBrew]

Bibi only supports the Kurds to undermine Assad and the Shiite crescent.

That's what they say now but that's a common excuse for expansionism. You set up the buffer zone, provoke a skirmish with the opposition at the edge of it and then use that to justify expanding the buffer zone. There's probably a limit to how far Turkey will go into Syria though and in the end they could end up sticking to just that. We'll see.

Well ofcourse. Just as Trump and Pompeo criticizing China's oppression of the Uighurs only because they want to pressure China on trade matters and see China as a real threat to the Western order. But that said I am glad Pompeo and Trump are bringing up the Uighur issue and condemning China for it. And I am glad Bibi is siding with the Kurds against Turkey, which by the way is a reversal of previous Israeli behavior. Many years ago Kurdish activists in Europe accused Israel of aiding Turkey to capture Abdullah Ocalan.

Israel has been quietly supporting Kurds to a degree for a few years now, since Erdgoan and Israel hate each other. And Israel having an ally in the area, enables it to pressure Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran.

If Turkey does go ahead and tries to wipe out Kurdish forces and subjugate civilians, I am just hoping Turkey gets bogged down in guerilla warfare and suffers , just as Saudi has suffered wealth and prestige in Yemen.

 

[ShadowRun]

I have mixed feelings on this. We should support the Kurds and not have to take care of ISIS captured fighters or be in Syria...

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

I think you mean Syria.
Yeah, Turkey is invading and going to war against Syria (and the Russians) now that they have crossed the 'Syrian' border.

No, I meant Kurdish territory. Syria has little territorial integrity at present. The fighting isn't best characterized as a fight between Turks and Syrians, is it?

 

[AgonyandIrony]

I have mixed feelings on this. We should support the Kurds and not have to take care of ISIS captured fighters or be in Syria...

100 soldiers keeping ethnic cleansing at bay. It's not like we have a huge deployment. The US having them tear down defenses is knowingly supporting this invasion.

30,000 have already fled in fear as the invaders roll in, they have maybe 1,000 foreign ISIL fighters.

We traded
1,000 prisoners of foreign birth
The deployment of 100 US SF operators.

For

9 dead civilians so far
100 dead Kurdish fighters
30,000 civilians fleeing in terror

This also isn't about supporting endless war. This is about knowingly giving Turkey the greenlight for invasion.

 

[MicroBrew]

Trump pulling troops out and giving Turkey the green is a very bad idea.


WASHINGTON — The last time the United States abandoned allies in the Middle East, military officials say, it helped lead to the Iraq War.

... anguished U.S. military and national security officials are sounding alarms that clearing the way for Turkey to bomb the Kurds could have long-term repercussions, just as the desertion of allies did then.

-

At the end of the Persian Gulf War, the United States’ refusal to aid a rebellion it encouraged in Iraq allowed Saddam Hussein to brutally crush the insurgents, leaving him in power and U.S. allies on the ground alienated and slaughtered by the thousands.

-

That is in part because U.S. military officials personally know the Kurds they have been fighting alongside. They consider them friends and even, in some cases, brothers in arms. While the Kurds may not have been with the Americans in Normandy, as Trump curiously noted on Wednesday, neither were the U.S. service members who are now in Iraq and Syria. What those service members know, military officials say, is that the Kurds have been with them in Manbij, and Raqqa, and the Middle Euphrates River Valley.

-

Votel, now retired, wrote that Turkish attacks on the Kurdish fighters, “coupled with a hasty U.S. departure, now threaten to rapidly destabilize an already fragile security situation in Syria’s northeast, where ISIS’ physical caliphate was only recently defeated.”

-

Paul D. Eaton, a retired major general and veteran of the Iraq War, was more blunt. “It takes time to build trust,” he said. “And any time you erode trust, like this, it’s that much harder to bring it back.”


https://www.yahoo.com/news/military-leaders-fear-theyve-seen-185048509.html

 

[MicroBrew]

From above link.

When the US abandoned the Kurds and Shiites post Gulf War


In the north, Iraqi divisions crushed the Kurdish rebellion.

Shiite and Kurdish leaders turned to the Americans, begging for help. It did not come. U.S. warplanes in the south did not engage as the Republican Guard wiped out the rebellious Shiites by the thousands.

Human Rights Watch reported that “in their attempts to retake cities, and after consolidating control, loyalist forces killed thousands of unarmed civilians by firing indiscriminately into residential areas” and “executing young people on the streets, in homes and in hospitals.” The Iraqi military, Human Rights Watch said, was shooting people “en masse.”

 

[AgonyandIrony]

The Kurds working with the US has fucked them. Assad is allowing Turkey to attack Kurdish towns because they're "agents of Washington and Mossad"

 

[AlexDB9]

Honestly I regret not going when I had the option. Hemingway certainly would have. I fundraised for Rojava and contributed money to their cause.

The Lions of Rojava went dark and even England punished a straight up fucking hero and charged him with terrorism.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/static...alker-isis-uk-terrorism-charge-ypg-syria.html

I'll organize a fundraiser soon, and try to reach contacts to see how I can help from over here.

I've been putting a lot of thought in leaving the US in general due to our policies foreign and domestic, but I adore Americans as people and love our cities and culture.

You ever see that Rolling Stone article about the Norcal anarchist who got out of rehab and flew to Syria? Talked to my buddy about him since he hung out with him for years, dude didn't even tell his girlfriend. Hell of a way to bail out of a relationship.

That’s crazy talk brother, you would have been killed for nothing, buried in some shallow grave somewhere. I know of the Kurds through their connection with Cuba and some of their organizations model themselves after fidel. Cuba has been involved in these conflicts since 59...Middle East, Africa you name it. I remember as a kid visiting el zoológico (the zoo). This is where the reality of it kicks you in the balls. Guys with no bottom jaws, legs, arms, etc....and for what? Can’t romance that

I would love for the US to just leave the ME permanently and be done with it. Yet that’s not how life works and what you’re seeing is the reality. There’s no valor or greatness. No one has their hands clean. Hence why I don’t understand the sudden 180 by liberals who once opposed any sort of war. America isn’t the worlds police, there needs to be an end at some point

 

[AgonyandIrony]

That’s crazy talk brother, you would have been killed for nothing, buried in some shallow grave somewhere. I know of the Kurds through their connection with Cuba and some of their organizations model themselves after fidel. Cuba has been involved in these conflicts since 59...Middle East, Africa you name it. I remember as a kid visiting el zoológico (the zoo). This is where the reality of it kicks you in the balls. Guys with no bottom jaws, legs, arms, etc....and for what? Can’t romance that

I would love for the US to just leave the ME permanently and be done with it. Yet that’s not how life works and what you’re seeing is the reality. There’s no valor or greatness. No one has their hands clean. Hence why I don’t understand the sudden 180 by liberals who once opposed any sort of war. America isn’t the worlds police, there needs to be an end at some point

The reason I was researching going was to write about it. To document the valiant fight against ISIS by the Kurds and I thought it would have been a wonderful novel. There's something sexy about a girl with eyeliner and an AK lmao.

Who knows, if I can ever fucking finish the one I'm balls deep in now maybe I'll write one anyway.

And It's not for nothing. To quote Hemingway.

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."

As to leftists supporting the Kurds It's silly to say its because "Orange Man Bad" the Kurds have enjoyed bipartian support since the first Iraq War, and during the Iraq War, and during the fight against ISIL. You may hate us Democratic Socialists but I've been to several small fundraisers ran by them.

 

[MicroBrew]

That’s crazy talk brother, you would have been killed for nothing, buried in some shallow grave somewhere. I know of the Kurds through their connection with Cuba and some of their organizations model themselves after fidel. Cuba has been involved in these conflicts since 59...Middle East, Africa you name it. I remember as a kid visiting el zoológico (the zoo). This is where the reality of it kicks you in the balls. Guys with no bottom jaws, legs, arms, etc....and for what? Can’t romance that

I would love for the US to just leave the ME permanently and be done with it. Yet that’s not how life works and what you’re seeing is the reality. There’s no valor or greatness. No one has their hands clean. Hence why I don’t understand the sudden 180 by liberals who once opposed any sort of war. America isn’t the worlds police, there needs to be an end at some point

Some liberals do and some don't. The stereotype of a liberal being a hippy opposing all wars is just a cliche. Some liberals oppose some wars, depending on whether the war is seen as morally justified. Then there are pro interventionist fake liberals like the Clintons and Madelline Albright who push for some wars.

The problem here is that America is partly responsible for the situation so we should do the best we can to make an amends for the shit we did.