Turkey votes to fight

One key alley in the western world’s fight against the Islamic State is Turkey. Having a border with Iraq and Syria, Turkey would be the best place for a land and air war against the Islamic terror state. This week the Turkish parliament overwhelmingly endorsed a measure authorizing military action against the Islamic State militants and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The vote would permit foreign troops to launch air and ground attacks from its territory. Previously the Turkish officials only allowed humanitarian efforts to aid Syrians fighting the Syrian Government. (1)

Ankara is well aware that the Islamic State is a growing threat to its security and if the militant threat is removed will only strengthen Assad’s hold on power. (2) They need assurances that any war on the Islamic State must also be waged to remove the Assad regime. Turkey understands she will have to deal with the refugees from Syria and Kurdish tribes people and from Iraq. Ankara also knows there is a possibility of retaliation from either Syria or Iraq or both sides.

You BET it's a tough spot.

Turks are MUSLIMS, born and bred.

MOST Muslims are NOT Arabs or Turks so they really are NOT fighting against their Arab brothers, "only" against their Muslim brothers.

From Wikipedia: *15 million to 20 million Kurds live in a mountainous area straddling the borders of Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
About 8 million live in southeastern Turkey.
* The Kurds are a non-Arabic people who speak a language related to Persian. Most adhere to the Sunni Muslim faith.

The Kurds want INDEPENDENCE from Turkey and have wanted that for quite a while. They want their OWN nation. But, that's another ball of wax.
NOTHING is "simple" in the Middle/Near East, is it?
To have their own nation they would have to either MOVE all Kurds to one place OR take land from other nations to encompass their own precious Kurdish folks, that is, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
NOT gonna happen.

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Those fighting against ISIS and ISIL are fighting against SINNERS and everyone knows that.
ISIS and ISIL are nothing more than two groups of lawless brigands bent on following the evil promptings of SATAN.

The ADVANTAGE that the Turks have is their very independence of thought, NOT being "brother Arabs." The Turks have ALWAYS maintained their own independence.

Their only "problem" the Turks have is those pesky KURDS. THEY too are extremely independent and do NOT consider themselves TURKS.
It's a very interesting situation.

I just hope that pimprez keeps U.S. boots firmly OUT of Syria and the rest of the middle east. It would be a lose-lose for us.

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