Posted on 10/08/2019 12:14:38 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
No Trump did not authorize the Turks to attack the Kurds, he just got our people out of the way of an attack he knew was coming.
The Turks were going to attack anyway.
OK, you are catching up. It has been Turkeys goal to have this buffer zone for the last 60 years that I know of. There have been dozens of armed exchanges back and forth over this area between the turks and kurds over the years.
I’m not ignoring any of this, I have literally walked that ground.
You are acting like this is something new and huge, no it is not. This is just the same shit different year.
Over the decades the Kurds have conducted terrorist attacks inside of Turkey over this struggle.
I like the kurds, they treated me well, I do not like the Truks, they treated me like crap, BUT, we, the US military, are not going to make any difference in this struggle. It has been going on for decades and I do not see it ever going away.
We can not win in this situation, period. If we went to war with Turkey and won, we have won nothing but a big pile of worthless crap that we do not want. The cost of winning this huge pile of crap would be billions of dollars and many thousands of US lives.
Not quite that bad then but still basically saying he is OK with the Islamist Turks invading Syria and slaughtering Kurds?
Now if he withdrew US troops and told the Turks to stay out of Syria or be hit with US missiles, that I would understand.
However, we have ZERO to lose, long term, by refusing to give Erodgan the green light. What in the hell can he do. Attack some area controlled by the Kurds knowing he will kill some Americans? He knows he can’t get away with that.
So Trump keeping the status quo would mean less actual conflict, not more, and Trump knws our current trip wire there is powerful, even if it is small and not a giant financial burden on us. Juts being there we are keeping more peace, than not being there will mean.
Good find but they are also guessing. There are prob less than half dozen small teams out and a small stationary logistical support unit someplace out of harms way. Not all are going to be within the area of contention.
Again I still don’t know where they are pulling them back to and how much of what they have been up to can be duplicated with satellites and drones.
It looks like Trump kept the air cover over most of the area at risk.
This reeks of what the troops hate the most. It smells like political trade offs to keep someone’s egos satisfied. I’m not talking about Trump’s ego this time.
The ego’s out there right now are the Russians, the Turks, and Syria.
My Best GUESS is that Trump got something he wanted out of this and the net result to the Kurds and our troops will be next to nothing.
The Kurds knew the Turks were coming and if they didn’t get out of the way they are stupid.
One more facet of this is Trumps Campaign promises that we are going to stop being the worlds policemen and get ourselves out of these constant little pissing contests all over the world.
There was a war with ISIS but they are pretty much crushed. Now it is a local clean up operation that has turned back into the historical pissing contest between the Turks and the Kurds.
We can not win anything in that situation.
“We are 7000 miles away and will crush ISIS again if they come anywhere near us’
One of the stupidest things President Trump has ever said.
So 25 US soldiers really are needed to sacrifice themselves for a bunch of Muslim sect people who aren’t US citizens?
If that is what it takes to be a loyal and faithful ally, with an ally we have shared sacrifices with in a good cause, in a world where we NEED allies, then so be it.
If not, then it would have been better to have never USED the Kurds against ISIS to beging with.
We saved them from ISIS and gave them lots of money, weapons, and training.
Your appetite for outlandish handout until the end of time smells like that of a liberal.
“Your appetite for outlandish handout until the end of time”
Name calling won’t win an argument.
The world is not YOUR utopian dream, and never will be.
Loyalty between nations or peoples that have struggled together is no different than loyalty between individuals who have sacrificial experiences together. Even when your loyal friend is not perfect you still stick by them, when you are needed. Not because you “have to” but because loyalty achieved must be kept, not discarded because it is convenient.
“The world is not YOUR utopian dream, and never will be.”
You are the one who wants to leave US citizens there for an indeterminate time, despite massive funding, provision of weapons and training, and military cover for years. These people are not US citizens and we have no authority over them.
Wuli, you are like a liberal. You believe everyone should have our largess, even if we’ve more than helped them already.
To Wuli, the US is supposed to provide all forms of welfare possible to keep Muslim sects happy, healthy, and more protected than US citizens are near our Mexican boarder.
“You are the one who wants to leave US citizens there for an indeterminate time”
That is a straw man argument. You came up with that idea all one your own, not from me.
“despite massive funding, provision of weapons and training”
Not true, in terms of the Kurds in Syria. The defeats against ISIS in Syria with our mostly special forces aid has been one of the most dollar effective military ofensives we have had. One of the main reasons is the Kurds have provided 99% of the “boots on the ground”. Yes we have lost a few lives tragically, but the Kurds have carried 99% of the weight in that regard. Most of our aid has been in air cover, some military hardware and the expertise and aid of our special forces. The Kurds have taken the biggest risks and the brunt of the spear in the fighting.
Name calling does not an argument make.
“You believe everyone should have our largess, even if we’ve more than helped them already.”
Again, every piece of that is your words. The Kurds are not “everyone”. They are an ally we have fought and died with. I don’t think you can define “more than helped them already” in any meaningful way in the context of what we and the Kurds have done together. Any answer is a subjective one which I am sure even our own military has different opinions on.
The world is filled with bad actors. They do not act up just because we exist and they are not going to behave just because we leave them alone. In your utopian world everything would be peaceful and nice everywhere if the U.S. just stayed home, and no matter how successful the bad actors got they would not be injurious to our interests. Dream on.
You are putting words in my mouth.
I have had no problems helping the Kurds, but the time is past to get out.
The stuff you accuse me of is what you do, too. And you still haven’t justified your need for our continued involvement there. You think it comes down to simply “They are an ally we have fought and died with.” So, to you, that appears to mean we need to keep troops there and continue to fund and protect them.
I don’t think you have to pay off your friends. I think you teach a friend to fish rather than give them the fish. With the Kurds, we have more than done both. You think it’s no where near enough.
“I have had no problems helping the Kurds, but the time is past to get out.”
Some agree, some do not. I accept that you think it is time. I do not.
“The stuff you accuse me of is what you do, too. And you still haven’t justified your need for our continued involvement there. “
It is still too unstable, and Turkey’s incursion is going to make it more so, not less. It will weaken the Kurds and strengthen the ISIS types in Syria that we have defeated, with the Kurds, so often. Kurdish and American lives will have been spent to create an ISIS free area in northern Syria, just to throw it away to please Erdogan.
We did not really scale down in western Europe until the fall of the Soviet Union. Leaving western Europe sooner could have made the Soviets stronger and taken more years for them to fall apart. Our continued physical presence in Europe made them spend themselves into the ground.
“I don’t think you have to pay off your friends.”
I don’t tbink it is paying off a friend. I think it is being a friend, and ally, and continuing to be a friend, not a fair weather friend or mere friend of convenience. That we have more resources is not suppose to make us less of a friend, just because they are not our equal. You, wrongly, call that paying off a friend.
Hi.
In the fwiw department, some Kurds are PPK, other Kurds are YPK. Some Kurds are Christian, some Kurds are Muslim.
This conflict didn’t start in 1978 like some claim. This shit has been going on for over a hundred years. Even before the Balfour agreement.
And guess what? No one, to include the U.N. or anyone else is going to fix it...
The Turks and Syrians are responsible for what happens there, not us. Let them fix it.
5.56mm
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