US troops start pullout in Syria as Turkey prepares operation
 

Splain this to me, Lucy??

This does not sound like a good deal for our allies, the Kurds??

:mad:


“Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Sherlock Holmes

Both Turkey and the US are NATO "Allies".

Who does the rest of NATO side with if we get in a dust up?

A conundrum of biblical proportions

and then add in the Christian Yazidi Genocide :mad::mad::mad:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoci...azidis_by_ISIL

I'm afraid this is an example of a relationship (e.g. Kurds) our military has nurtured and continues to value that is not shared by the public (translated into political will), mostly because they're not well informed. Politicians who don't heed military advice may gain in the short term, but perhaps regret it later.

The Kurds are our partner force, not our allies. The Turks, whether we like it or not, are our NATO Allies. On top of all of that, those ISIS prisoners are a problem best left to be dealt with by an entity in that region who knows what and how to do what needs done.

Problem from day one as I see it, is that supporting the Kurds meant indirectly supporting/making a Kurd nation. Wouldn't that require parts of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey?? Lotsa bad feeling doing that. It would be land locked.

Yes - but even if it was only formed from one of the countries none of the others would agree. It would give the Kurds a secure place to launch activities from into the other regions.

Would it also force Iran and Iraq to divide their attentions between the new nation and Israel? If this were to occur, what would be the likelihood of an alliance between the Kurdish nation and Israel?

Concur. Getting involved in the Balkans might be simpler. Feel for the Kurds though.

We can blame the Kurds not having a recognized homeland on the League of Nations and the arbitrary new nations they divided up without an in depth understanding of the groups within the borders who were ignored....Africa has the same issues with their ethic groups who are transient and ungovernable...only those placed in power and the rest of the worlds governments recognize the borders but all the minority groups are left to fend for themselves the Assyrians the Chaldeans the Kurds the Toauregs etc.....are all left flapping. The thing frustrating about our involvement with the Kurds is our government used them and we the U.S. soldiers were the ones telling them we had their back selling it like Amway ignoring the reality of we were going to leave them behind and our promises that emboldened them to action were empty. I understand the Kurds in Iraq are living in their homelands which expands into Iran, Turkey, Azerbeijan? etc....but they are hardheaded when it comes to even discussing moving to either country where the Kurds number 30-40 million where they have safety in numbers unlike Iraq where there are only 5 million or so. We better understand the emptiness of our governments promises but the people we promise live and die by it.

As far as taking land and giving it to the Kurds Iraq is he only nation weak enough and new enough to do it in but today Iraq is a proxy Iranian government

This is a re-post of mine I left on a friend’s FB account.


I’m so sick and f’n tired of hearing “those poor Kurds”..... They are COMMUNISTS and are NOT our allies. As much as I don’t like a lot of what the Turks are doing / have done, they ARE our Allies. On top of all of that, in one fail swoop, POTUS just helped cut the land bridge with LH and Iran, forced the Turks to deal with the ISIL issue they helped to create in Syria, and forced Russia to think through their involvement in the region due to the real threat of a NATO Allied country of Turkey (a known wild card) acting in the region. So yeah, Win, Win, Win. And ohh yeah, I‘m really tired of seeing my Brothers get maimed and killed in a messy and often times pointless endeavor.

Bottom-line: Never fall in love with your Indig, they are not the mission, but simply a tool to accomplish it. Any GB who doesn’t understand that we are making Tactical decisions to influence the Operational Environment in support of the Strategic Goals set by National Policy needs to go back to the line unit from which he came and pull gate guard.

Another thought. How well has the suppression of the Kurds inside Turkey gone?? Does letting the turks into Syria just bleed out the Turks??

View of being Allied with US
 

In the course of history, The US has been a staunch ally.As an older SF, I remember Viet Nam and our montagnard partners. We, the entire 5th Group benefited from the total support from each tribe. We knew it was wrong and tried to make it right in our own way. The Kurds are no different. They are a minority who just want to be left alone. We armed them, trained them and led them then our government betrayed them. Like 45 years ago, we bailed on them. No, the SF community did not bail, but the United States did led by a corrupt leader with power to spare. How can a Secretary of State, a West Point graduate break their code - "I will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do"

“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”

Henry Kissinger

Bubba is 100% correct on this. While it does suck for the Kurds ‘again’ it sucks less than the contemptuous media and “current and former” military leaders condemning the President who ‘IS NOT MAKING THIS DECISION ON HIS OWN’ and has been briefed by current and present experts who don’t rely on “feelings” to make foreign policy decisions from people like John Bolten.

This is from December 2018, so it appears that the idea has been germinating for some time.

americanthinker.com

The Kurd in the Punch Bowl
By Brandon J. Weichert

President Donald J. Trump's recent announcement that he is withdrawing the 2,000 American troops stationed in Syria has sent shockwaves throughout the nation's capital. A bipartisan consensus has formed that Trump not only erred, but has abandoned America's erstwhile friends, the Kurds, to be slaughtered by America's NATO partner, Turkey. This is simply inaccurate. The Kurds do share close ties with the United States. Despite this, however, no American president has ever vindicated the Kurdish dream of an independent sovereign state. Trump is not at all different.

The Kurds are the largest stateless people in the world, sharing a contiguous landmass that cuts across territory controlled by Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Azerbaijan. Like so many oppressed ethnic minorities before them, the Kurds have long envisaged their own country. Unfortunately, partitioning the requisite territory for creating such an independent state would mean disaster. (After all, the partitioning of India, of the Mandate of Palestine, and Sudan have led to nothing but trouble for the world.)

Turkey sits atop the largest part of the Kurdish population. Relinquishing the Kurdish-dominated southern part of Turkey would mean kissing nearly two thirds of the Turks' massive country goodbye. Northern Iraq, northeast Syria, northern Iran, and southwestern Azerbaijan would also suffer massive territorial losses.

Many people sympathetic to the Kurdish cause (such as this author, for the record) have often lamented the injustice that such a large ethnic group with a shared culture, history, and language should be subdivided among five countries that are mostly hostile to them. Few of us have taken the time to consider the geopolitical implications of such notions. It would be a moral good to midwife Kurdish independence. But the costs – specifically to American servicemen – would be onerous.

Do you believe that Iran, Syria, Turkey, or even Iraq or Azerbaijan would simply shrug as large parts of its country were removed by the United States and handed over to a Kurdish government only just getting itself together?

We shouldn't forget also that Turkey is an actual ally – a NATO partner, no less – whereas there is no Kurdistan. Unfortunately, the time for imposing such a new order in the chaotic Middle East has come and gone. That moment was in 1991, when George H.W. Bush decided to "liberate" autocratic Kuwait from the clutches of the (until that time) nominal American client, the equally autocratic Iraq. When Bush opted to (prematurely) end Desert Storm, leaving Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq, the decision was also made to abandon the Kurds to their fate.

Because of this cold decision, the Kurds were slaughtered en masse by Saddam's forces. Yes, America spent the 1990s providing a no-fly zone in northern Iraq, which allowed for the creation of a quasi-independent Kurdish state there. Yet no American leader ever embraced the concept of an actual independent Kurdish state – especially given the implications for Turkey.

Another moment came and went for an American-backed Kurdish state in northern Iraq when George W. Bush toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. Despite the resounding victory the Bush administration enjoyed in 2003, there was no plan to fundamentally redraw the borders of the region to make it more egalitarian (by recognizing the sovereignty of the various ethno-religious groups that existed in the Mideast). Failure to do that consigned the Kurds to nothing more than a subordinate population in the various countries whose territory they lived in.

When President Donald Trump took over the government, he too had the opportunity to honor the Kurds by granting them a state. After all, they had done much fighting on America's behalf against ISIS. Their commitment to that fight was hardly selfless: they had hoped that standing against ISIS as vociferously as they did would win the hearts and minds of Americans, who would, in turn, support Kurdish independence after the defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Plus ISIS was disproportionately slaughtering the Kurdish populations of the region – meaning that the Kurds had little choice but to defend themselves.

Also, the Kurds are not entirely Americans in waiting. They have a long track record of terrorism and kidnapping. While they are mostly Muslims, they are ideological Marxists. Until recently, the various Kurdish groups supporting Kurdish independence were also listed by the State Department as terrorists for decades. The souring of U.S.-Turkish relations can almost entirely be attributed to America's support of the Kurds.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the United States enjoyed its position as the unipolar power. Today, however, the world is a multipolar system, in which many great powers vie for dominance. In such a scenario, then, the United States must take a step back from expensive foreign entanglements and engage in diplomacy meant to align itself with other great powers (such as Turkey).

I have firm faith that the Kurds will one day get their independence. The day for that is not now. The best solution for the benighted Kurds would be to hunker down in their enclaves and lie in wait until their host nations – particularly those in Syria, Iran, and Turkey – become weak and unable to prevent the call for Kurdish independence. President Trump has made the right decision to acquiesce to the brutal autocrats in Turkey on the matter of the Kurds, if only because the United States needs autocratic Turkey to balance against Russia, China, and Iran more than it needs the Kurds at present.

Welcome, great power politics.

Brandon J. Weichert is a geopolitical analyst who runs The Weichert Report. He is also a contributing editor at American Greatness and a contributor at The American Spectator. Recently, Brandon became an associate producer for America First with Sebastian Gorka, which is set to premiere nationwide on Salem Radio Networks January 1, 2019 from 3 P.M. to 6 P.M. EDT weekdays. Brandon is a former congressional staffer who is working on his doctorate in international relations.

Exactly

We know for the military leaders it isn't about loyalty or need for them it is about glory, career and perpetual war that leads to more ad more and more contracts the Military Industrial Complex. F the leaders just watching video of the people we have been working with shows a lack of effective training which I must say just like Afghanistan there is no doubt a lack of a vision and long term goal from the very beginning which has led to more need to have us there...the self licking ice cream cone I say let the Turks take care of it, mend our relationship rifts with Turkey and get U.S. forces out of there. The strategic value of Syria is to reduce Irans influence in the region as they are fighting proxy battles there just like they did with Iraq let the Tars Tars (Turks) fight them and stabilize the region.

Here is an article written by an old team-mate who is echoing the bigger picture of the Kurd issue. Aside from being a total bad ass, Joe is a great guy and one of the smartest GB’s I’ve ever had the pleasure to serve with.


https://www.breitbart.com/national-s...ljqxhUxuy-hLUI

I am honored
 

just to read this discussion. To hear it from the guys that make it.

Joe and I must be from the same time period only he was still serving when I departed. I concur with every single point he is making. Spot on!


Someone needs to send this to Linsey Graham and some other so called Republicans.

Gentlemen,

It's been a very long time since I've posted. I have been observing from afar and have followed this thread.

Thank you for your particular insight into what I have ignorantly concluded to be a complete shit show of circumstances. I do see the merits of pulling out and completely agree that this nation should no longer sacrifice our service members in such a way.


T.O.

Read that a day or two ago & one of the best summaries for the masses short of an Area Study on the topic, written by someone who has also paid the price in terms of stake in the game.

Who the Kurds are?
There is no simple answer.

Some may be interested in why there are so many players in this corner of the world.

If you squint at the attached map, it looks like the Kurds (there are around 35 MILLION) are in several countries.

Simple answer, The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1922 screwed up and made some bad decisions about where the borders should be. They completely wrote off the Kurds. Also the Armenians, and Christian Yazidi

link: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire

That's a great "nutshell" lesson, will be a revelation to some, heresy to others. As to the latter, hell with 'em.

It's the same lesson Poles had to learn the hardway when they found out their Soviet buddy that drove away the Nazi wasn't their "friend" aka "enemy of my enemy." We are/were convenient to the PKK's purpose; time for a divorce.

Lets not allow facts about the historical significance of the region and its demographics get in the way of a good media narrative.

Shame be upon all of you.

Robin Sage is going to have to add a week of "convincing the Pinelanders we totally won't hang you out to dry" training.

Obuma and Killary showed great leadership (not) and decisive decision making (not) when leaving a vacuum in the wake of their hasty retreat from Iraq and the creation of new wars in the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan. Eventually leading to perma-war!

Trump (aka Orange Man) decisively engaged IS decimating them and liberating the oppressed in the region and withdraws support troops from the front lines after the war ends - bad! (Just ask the media pundits and armchair experts.)

Let’s impeach him for dereliction of duty as CinC next!!! (Little Adam Shitt should be along shortly a microphone is waiting.)

Aaaaannnddd... Yeah there it is The "Headline"

Show of hands of those that are surprised by this?

^^^not surprised at all.


Watching Outnumbered on Fox...David Webb just educated four uninformed talking heads and the one (the Dim voice) got schooled.

The problem with the media is they all think they know more about everything then the rest of us. Even when they collectively know nothing!

They already do - its the part when you go around painting fences and fixing barn doors - aka -demobilization.

Nobody seems to remember that part in the SFQC when you are taught that one of the things that MUST BE DONE is to demobilize your force when the USA is done fighting.
...not when the partner forces are done fighting - when "WE" are done fighting.

Well.... "We" are done fighting.

The love affair with the Kurds is the same type of relationship that gets undercover narcotics agents murdered and buried at sea.
Never fall in love with your surrogates...



This is what happens when you have 20 years worth of senior leaders that have forgetten where they came from at the expense of becoming fascinated with direct action.

Exactly.

We helped them when it helped us. Now it no longer helps us and they are on their own.

Hopefully they "free" the ISIS prisoners in place. If not, i'm sure the Turks will figure out what to do with them. Either way it sounds like a win to me.

That wouldn't be Marie Harf, Kerry's little elitist Spox when he was SECSTATE would it? The one that wouldn't answer a direct question because it would be "far too nuanced" for you illiterate peasants?

Yep



On a side note watching the ‘news’ today. No one is asking why Turkey is invading Syria to create a buffer zone. Aren’t a country’s borders usually the point at which you don’t violate sovereignty or create acts of war? Anyone think Bashar al Assad might have an opinion about this?


ETA: President Trump just gave a tremendously awesome answer to a reporters question on withdrawing US Forces in Syria. Very powerful speech about the MIC and perma-war and the true costs of fighting.

IMO if the suits were a little more circumspect in where & when they throw it, that pointy end of the spear would stay sharper, longer. [makes curmudgeon-like FOG sound]

To think if only Trump were president in 2004 then maybe we would have left Afghanistan after achieving most if not all of our national objectives and establishing methods to influence the future in that country. Maybe we would have also left the Baathists de facto in charge in Iraq and and saved so many Americans from being maimed and killed.

Fox doesn’t get it either.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...id=mailsignout

Something about this article... :munchin


35,000,000 Kurds in the region

2% (700,000) is a force that would outnumber all but the top 5 of the Worlds individual standing armies

Throw out the Kurd-commies, go for 1% and it would be the size of Turkey's army

link: 29 Largest Armies In The World

Am I missing something??

Too many Americans are enamored with Kurosawa's Shichinin no Samurai.
Not every village is poor, defenseless, and incapable of defending itself.

You can argue the merits of MTT teams but please refrain from imagining you're Yul Brenner.

After 18 yrs I don't think SWA fits the bill for a re-make of The Magnificent Seven.

Although, in 2001, there was a glimmer. :lifter


My $00.00002

Still no link in the media that Turkey is a NATO member and allied with the USA and continue to mis-state for political propaganda purposes that the Kurds (apparently they are all one for now) are allied with the US and are due the same differentiation.

Also still missing from this reporting is that Turkey is bombing and invading Syria...not Kurdistan (which BTW does not exist.)


ETA: There is this - https://apple.news/AkeHK1LkAT5-dD_6L6w9C-Q where the President of the United States of America has shown the necessary leadership to unite most countries of the world in joining together in opposition of Turkey’s actions. Good job President Trump!

Funny how when Turkey previously intervened in the region there was hardly any media attention or concern for kurds. Another great example of artificially crafted media coverage, and that U.S. relations with Turkey have clearly changed from what they were 2-3 years ago.