"Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it"
(Macbeth)
Nothing apparently is more unbecoming than the manner in which we leave Syria.
Posted on 10/15/2019 7:05:52 AM PDT by RightGeek
Further, what critics do not understand is that the Kurds have been rewarded for their loyalty to the United States. They also confuse the Marxist elements of northern Syria’s Kurds with the pro-American Peshmerga of northern Iraq.
Following Desert Storm, the Kurds of northern Iraq heeded the George H. W. Bush administration’s calls to rise against Saddam Hussein. But politics reared its ugly head: just as the Kurds were standing up to Saddam’s repression in Iraq, the Americans opted to enter into an armistice with Saddam’s regime ...
In turn, the Kurds were slaughtered by Saddam for their troubles. ...
In 1994, though, the United States made up for their earlier abandonment of the Iraqi Kurds by creating a No-Fly Zone that separated Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq from Saddam’s iron grip. Once that occurred, the Kurds of northern Iraq ... built a potent proto-state that was independent in all but its name. Buttressed by lucrative oil supplies beneath their land and shielded from Saddam’s murderous regime by American warplanes, Kurdish Iraq flourished. Today, it is a wealthy and relatively safe place. And, while it remains a nominal part of post-Saddam Iraq ... , the Kurds of northern Iraq are unlike any other Kurdish ethnic group living in the Mideast: they are mostly sovereign.
...
The Kurds of northern Syria are quite different from their Iraqi Kurd brethren. In Syria, the Kurds are represented by the Syrian Democratic Forces (YPG). The YPG were, until the threat of ISIS appeared, an overtly Marxist organization with heavy ties to Turkey’s longtime Kurdish Marxist group, the PKK. The PKK, in fact, are responsible for tens of thousands of Turkish deaths as the PKK has engaged in a decades-long terrorist campaign against Turkey.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
A complicated problem just like everything else in the Middle East. We are best to limit our activities there.
Please don’t try to confuse an already confusing situation with facts. Our National Security Policy needs to be set and run using emotion, even fake, ginned-up emotion (SARC)
We probably could have stopped or at limited the craziness in Rwanda with about 1/100 of the effort,but we would have had to stay their forever, too.
For a lot of reasons, we don’t want Turkey as an overt enemy. We may wish the Kurds well, but they aren’t really friends. It’s a big world, and sometimes are efforts are well-meaning but make things worse. Sometimes they are meant to look well-meaning by U.S. actors with other agendas and they make things worse, too.
But you have to admit, evey time a Dem declares we will pull out, conservatives scream that it’s dangerous to do so and will lead to disaster.
Personally, I don’t mind pulling out. I don’t know why we need to throw our weight around the world “doing good”, losing Americans, when it’s ultimately a fool’s errand. I think we should be out of Germany, FGS.
"Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it"
(Macbeth)
Nothing apparently is more unbecoming than the manner in which we leave Syria.
The Kurds didn’t have the same agenda we did in Syria. (not sure exactly who ours was, unless to put in a gov which could fill politically connected coffers), Remember all of those false flag chemical attacks etc blamed on Assad whenever we were close to leaving? Wasn’t it the Kurds whose agenda was independence who benefitted from continuing chaos?
Yeah, but the only possible way to not have Turkey as “an overt enemy” is to capitulate and not fix things when Turkey makes overt attacks against western nations.
Some of us have never gone along with that.
As they call focus to themselves, fewer people are.
Aircraft and missiles have vastly longer ranges now, and Turkey is disposable. Turkey as an overt enemy when they have long been taking overt actions is only semantics, and extremely stupid semantics at that.
Correct. Sorry for them and lots of others around the world - like Hong Kongers or Venezuelans for example - but it’s not our problem. We are not responsible for fighting everybody else’s battles for them.
I’ve come to support, more and more,the foreign policy advice Sara Palin gave about affairs and warring factions in the Middle East. She felt it best to “let allah sort it out” (allah not capitalized). The only reason we’ve ever been over there is a three letter word and to protect the holdings of those elites who control things.
At this point, too many people are making money over our being all over the world.
Not the only way. We pulled out, and let Russia have the mess.
Russia wants Assad to stay, because Assad provides them with a naval base on the Mediterranean. Turkey won't push into Syria if it means going up against the Russian military. The Russians make a better tripwire than we do.
This president wants to change. No more interventions unless it is truly in our national interest. ISIS was destroyed it was no longer in our interest to be in Northern Syria. We have to real reason to stay .Americansby a large majority are behind this withdraw.
That still leaves Cyprus. Leaving that ongoing is still playing “let’s pretend Turkey isnt a brutal enemy of the west while they kill people”.
Ah yes. Vacationing by the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River.
First, let’s close our bases in Turkey and get our people out. THEN we can talk about things which would piss them off, AFTER we removed potential hostages.
While zippi the a##clown was paying off iran with our tax money where they worried about the kurds?
The media won't be showing any of those for some time.
Doesn't fit the narrative.
Well, thats a given.
There are a lot of personnel in Europe and the middle east
who need moved around and withdrawn.
There are also island bases which need to be reoccupied.
Although (given that they have to be practically rebuilt after bad Typhoons) we saved money while they were closed.
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