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Trump’s proud of his rationalization for abandoning the Kurds


TexasTiger

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24 minutes ago, japantiger said:

Let me make this easier for you.  

  • Turkey is a NATO ally...The Kurds are not
  • We have extensive security and economic ties to Turkey and Iraq ... We have none with the Kurds
  • Iraq is an actual sovereign nation ... the 20 miles of Northern Syria are not
  • Should Iraq fall; it would destabilize the middle east, further Iranian interests and undermine our other allies in the region ... if the Turks kick the Kurds out of those 20 miles of Northern Syria; it will be a return to past status quo
  • We had over 50,000 US troops in Iraq ... we had 50 in the disputed zone in Norther Syria

So yeah; other than nothing substantive in common; these situations are just alike.  As I said; you guys constantly misread analogies.  The military teaches a course on this topic.  I suggest you try to read up on how to evaluate situations so you don't make blunders using bad analogies.  

 

Nola, is that you? ;D

Only a lawyer could take a simple analogy about the potential consequences of precipitous or ill-advised actions and make it so complicated using irrelevant points.

But you left out the point about the Kurds not helping us in WWII. :no:

Being such an admirer of the "stable genius", I am sure it was a simple oversight.

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6 hours ago, japantiger said:

Please let me know 1) what is the defined goal of getting into a what is a hundreds of year old domestic dispute with the Turks and the Kurds 2) when do you leave? and 3) how many young American deaths are ok to you?  What is you body bag target?

These are shitpost questions and you know better.

1.  You tell the Turks that the Kurds are helping us deal with ISIS in Syria and that they can settle their old scores another time.  Being a NATO ally doesn't mean we give you deference in your ethnic squabbles.

2.  We aren't leaving.  We are pulling a few troops out of a few areas and the rest are just getting out of the way to allow the Turks to attack the Kurds.

3.  This the most egregious of all the shitpost questions.  Erdogan is an Islamicist.  He may be a NATO ally but he's one to be held at arm's length, not one to be placated and deferred to.  You don't hide behind "how many Americans do you want killed" to cover for backing the wrong side and lacking the backbone to stand up to a tyrant.

The main thing this tells people all over the world is, not to risk their lives or the lives of those they love to help the Americans in trouble spots whether it be the Middle East, Africa, or anywhere else.  The Americans will use you for a time, then break their promises and leave you to be slaughtered by your enemies on a whim.  You'd be better off keeping your head down and letting the Americans sacrifice their own lives for their own goals and stay out of it the best you can because the United States has no honor and cannot be trusted.

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8 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

These are shitpost questions and you know better.

1.  You tell the Turks that the Kurds are helping us deal with ISIS in Syria and that they can settle their old scores another time.  Being a NATO ally doesn't mean we give you deference in your ethnic squabbles.

2.  We aren't leaving.  We are pulling a few troops out of a few areas and the rest are just getting out of the way to allow the Turks to attack the Kurds.

3.  This the most egregious of all the shitpost questions.  Erdogan is an Islamicist.  He may be a NATO ally but he's one to be held at arm's length, not one to be placated and deferred to.  You don't hide behind "how many Americans do you want killed" to cover for backing the wrong side and lacking the backbone to stand up to a tyrant.

The main thing this tells people all over the world is, not to risk their lives or the lives of those they love to help the Americans in trouble spots whether it be the Middle East, Africa, or anywhere else.  The Americans will use you for a time, then break their promises and leave you to be slaughtered by your enemies on a whim.  You'd be better off keeping your head down and letting the Americans sacrifice their own lives for their own goals and stay out of it the best you can because the United States has no honor and cannot be trusted.

So basically, you think you can bluff them...and have no real policy goal otherwise.  Nice one dimensional thinking.  I don't blame you for dodging the body bag count question.  

# 1 is what has been happening since 2014...so that's ship sailed.

#2 is what we are doing

#3 so what?  half the Iraqi army are islamists...the saudi's are islamists, jordan is full of islamists...so we should just be prepared to have young Americans killed at anytime to avoid making concessions to islamists?  you must own a lot defense stocks.  This is the problem...the world is an ugly place.  Deal with reality.  This is not America's fight and serves no US interests.  Not the 1st time we've pulled out of somewhere...won't be the last.  At least more young men will grow old enough to have kids, watch them grow up and worry about them when they are in the Army.

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4 minutes ago, japantiger said:

So basically, you think you can bluff them.

I think we can stop being p*****s and stand up to them instead of ditching people who help us because we lack character.

 

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...and have no real policy goal otherwise.  Nice one dimensional thinking.  I don't blame you for dodging the body bag count question.  

Because it's not a dodge.  We aren't bringing a bunch of troops home, safe from harm.  We're just turning our back on people who helped us at great person cost to allow someone to slaughter them, then going back about our business.  

And honoring your commitments and being seen as a trustworthy partner to work with *is* a policy goal.  It affects everything we do everywhere else in the world.

 

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2 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

I think we can stop being p*****s and stand up to them instead of ditching people who help us because we lack character.

 

Because it's not a dodge.  We aren't bringing a bunch of troops home, safe from harm.  We're just turning our back on people who helped us at great person cost to allow someone to slaughter them, then going back about our business.  

And honoring your commitments and being seen as a trustworthy partner to work with *is* a policy goal.  It affects everything we do everywhere else in the world.

 

"Mrs Jones, your son died so I didn't look like a *****" ... yeah, that'll make her proud.  Grow up.  

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Just now, japantiger said:

"Mrs Jones, your son died so I didn't look like a *****" ... yeah, that'll make her proud.  Grow up.  

Mrs. Jones, your son died because the US honors its commitments to those who help us defeat terrorism, and Erdogan is just another terrorist.

Quit being a p****.

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I mean, don't just take my word for it.  This isn't an "orange man bad" thing, a left-right thing, or a hawk/dove thing.  He's getting it from all quarters.  The Pentagon was shocked at his decision.  The troops are ashamed and embarrassed.  Israeli newspapers are hammering him for it.  You're part of a lonely, small band of idiots and sycophants defending it with emotional sounding words about Americans lives when you know the logic is bull****.

 

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Never before in history has the US worked with a group and then opened the skies to have another US ally bomb and destroy it. On October 9, the Syrian Democratic Forces, a group of mostly Kurdish fighters who fought ISIS for five years and helped create a peaceful and stable area in northeast Syria, were bombed and bombarded by Turkey as US forces withdrew and watched.

In an unprecedented reversal for Washington’s policy in Syria the Americans armed, trained and encouraged the SDF to liberate wide swaths of Syria from ISIS only to turn around on October 6 and, under the leadership of US President Donald Trump, give Turkey the open skies and borders to attack US partner forces. Like thieves in the night, US forces withdrew from their positions without explanation, processes, discussions, or leaving behind people to monitor the area, and made it clear to Ankara that nothing would be done to impede an attack.

https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/They-fought-alongside-the-US-for-five-years-to-be-bombed-by-US-NATO-ally-604103

 

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President Trump’s decision to suddenly withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria has angered evangelical Christian leaders and Republican hawks, cleaving his political coalition at the very moment he is trying to fortify his standing to survive the intensifying impeachment inquiry in Congress. 

Instead of enjoying uncontested GOP support as he plunges into a constitutional showdown with House Democrats and prepares for a bruising reelection campaign, Trump is now fighting on two fronts within his party.

https://www.msn.com/g00/en-us/news/politics/trumps-syria-decision-tests-the-bounds-of-republican-support-as-he-demands-solidarity-on-impeachment/ar-AAIxy7x?i10c.ua=4&i10c.encReferrer=&i10c.dv=15

 

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A member of U.S. Special Forces serving alongside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria told Fox News on Wednesday they were witnessing Turkish atrocities on the frontlines.

“I am ashamed for the first time in my career,” said the distraught soldier, who has been involved in the training of indigenous forces on multiple continents. The hardened service member is among the 1,000 or so U.S. troops who remain in Syria.

“Turkey is not doing what it agreed to. It’s horrible,” the military source on the ground said. “We met every single security agreement. The Kurds met every single agreement [with the Turks]. There was no threat to the Turks -- none -- from this side of the border."...

Troops on the ground in Syria and their commanders were “surprised” by Trump's withdrawal decision Sunday night.

Of the president’s decision, the source said: “He doesn’t understand the problem. He doesn’t understand the repercussions of this. Erdogan is an Islamist, not a level-headed actor.”

“The Kurds are as close to Western thinking in the Middle East as anyone,” said the longtime member of Special Forces. “It’s a shame. We are just watching. It’s horrible.”

“This is not helping the ISIS fight," the military source said.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/turkey-syria-invasion-special-forces-soldier-kurds

 

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The White House announced late Sunday that Turkey will soon move forward with a planned military operation in northeast Syria, as U.S. troops who have been deployed and operating with Kurdish-led forces in the area began pulling back from their positions.

The decision sent shockwaves through the region and Washington, with U.S. officials telling Fox News that top Pentagon officials were “completely blindsided” and “shocked” by the order to pull back hundreds of U.S. troops, a move that effectively green-lights the Turkey operation. President Trump spoke with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by telephone.

Some officials see the move as a betrayal of the Kurds, whom the U.S. supported against ISIS for years.

Speaking on "Fox & Friends" Monday morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called it an "impulsive decision" by Trump that would undo U.S. gains in the region and give ISIS fighters a "second lease on life."

He tweeted: "If press reports are accurate this is a disaster in the making."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/turkey-announces-incursion-of-northeast-syria-us-backed-kurds-have-vowed-all-out-war

 

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian Kurdish-led authorities accused Turkey of shelling a prison holding Islamic State (IS) militants of more than 60 nationalities, calling this “a clear attempt” to help them escape. 

There was no immediate comment from Turkey. 

The shelling on Wednesday night targeted part of Chirkin prison in the city of Qamishli, the Kurdish-led authorities said in a statement. 

“These attacks on prisons holding Daesh (IS) terrorists will lead to a catastrophe the consequences of which the world may not be able to handle later on,” the statement said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-security-turkey-prison/turkey-shelled-prison-holding-is-foreign-fighters-kurdish-led-administration-idUSKBN1WP15C

 

Our other NATO allies and even Netanyahu don't seem to have any problem stating the truth about Turkey's actions:

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LONDON — Governments across the world joined in condemning Turkey's military incursion into northeastern Syria as the conflict ran into its second day.

The European Union's foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, in a statement released by Germany's foreign office, called on Turkey to stop its military action in Syria, to prevent undermining the stability of the region.

"Military action will indeed undermine the security of the coalition's local partners and risk protracted instability in northeast Syria, providing fertile ground for the resurgence of Daesh," she said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State militant group...

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's action "risks destabilizing the region, exacerbating humanitarian suffering, and undermining the progress made against Daesh."

Italy's Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said the Italian government "condemned" the Turkish operation and called for "an immediate end to this offensive which is absolutely not acceptable given that the use of force continues to endanger the life of the Syrian people."...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned what he called an "invasion" and warned against "the ethnic cleansing of Kurds by Turkey and its proxies," while offering the Kurds humanitarian help...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/world-leaders-unite-condemnation-turkey-s-syria-operation-n1064591

 

How about a policy objective of not letting 12,000 ISIS fighters back into the wild?  

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WASHINGTON — A sustained Turkish military operation against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria — which President Donald Trump appears to have permitted — would vastly increase the threat to Americans from the Islamic State militant group, which remains intent on attacking the West, current and former intelligence officials tell NBC News.

The immediate concern, officials say, is what will happen with the 12,000 ISIS fighters currently being guarded by the American-backed Kurds. The ISIS prisoners are the world's largest concentration of terrorists. If those fighters are set free, officials fear a replay of what happened in Iraq between 2010 and 2013, when the core group who founded ISIS were released or escaped from detention after U.S. forces left the country.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/intel-officials-say-isis-could-regroup-after-u-s-betrayal-n1064306

 

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12 minutes ago, Tiger Sue said:

It's pretty telling that if Trump said tomorrow he was sending 10,000 troops to Syria the left would scream and call him a war monger.

It’s telling that would show how impulsive he is.

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2 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

I mean, don't just take my word for it.  This isn't an "orange man bad" thing, a left-right thing, or a hawk/dove thing.  He's getting it from all quarters.  The Pentagon was shocked at his decision.  The troops are ashamed and embarrassed.  Israeli newspapers are hammering him for it.  You're part of a lonely, small band of idiots and sycophants defending it with emotional sounding words about Americans lives when you know the logic is bull****.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our other NATO allies and even Netanyahu don't seem to have any problem stating the truth about Turkey's actions:

 

How about a policy objective of not letting 12,000 ISIS fighters back into the wild?  

 

 These all get down to "we should risk American lives because of peer pressure"...that's it.  If the Brits, Italians, or EU don't like it; tell them to deploy to the region.  They have a military...the issue is in their back yard; not ours.   I should care about one alleged "anonymous"  sourced "Special Forces" soldier thinks?  Really... we didn't go to war with Russia when Patton, the theater Commander wanted to do it...but I should do it based on an anonymously sourced Green Beret soldier....we all know that is probably just a lie anyway.  Who said it...give me the name..the main reason I think that source is bull**** is the statement "the Kurds are as close to Western thinking in the middle east as anyone".  The Kurds are largely Suni Muslim followed by Shia....after that, it is the Yazidi's  (who believe they are lead by the Peacock Angel who is re-incarted on earth every few years) and finally Zoroastrianism.  So yeah; they might as well be New Yorkers.  Reporters are just making s*** up like they do on everything else.     

This is a crap sandwich and is just the Lefts latest "But Trump" annoyance and the Neo-cons never having met a war they didn't like.  Trump ran on getting us out of wars.  Time to start now.  Crap sandwiches are no reason to get Americans killed.    It will be a crap sandwich 50 years from now just like it has been for the last few hundred years.  Do we want Turkey thrown out of NATO?   Then where will we move our air base; the largest in the region?  How would that change the balance of power in the region?  Are we prepared to kill Turks to stop this?  What happens to the 5,000 Americans at Incirlik if we do that?  What is our long term goal with the Kurds?  Are we going to demand a homeland?  Are we going to protect them from everyone in the region who doesn't like the; which is just about everyone.  How big a US presence are we going to deploy to the region to guarantee their safetyin perpetuity?  If you can't answer these kinds of questions;  then you're not serious.

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10 hours ago, japantiger said:

 These all get down to "we should risk American lives because of peer pressure"...that's it.  If the Brits, Italians, or EU don't like it; tell them to deploy to the region.  They have a military...the issue is in their back yard; not ours.   I should care about one alleged "anonymous"  sourced "Special Forces" soldier thinks?  Really... we didn't go to war with Russia when Patton, the theater Commander wanted to do it...but I should do it based on an anonymously sourced Green Beret soldier....we all know that is probably just a lie anyway.  Who said it...give me the name..the main reason I think that source is bull**** is the statement "the Kurds are as close to Western thinking in the middle east as anyone".  The Kurds are largely Suni Muslim followed by Shia....after that, it is the Yazidi's  (who believe they are lead by the Peacock Angel who is re-incarted on earth every few years) and finally Zoroastrianism.  So yeah; they might as well be New Yorkers.  Reporters are just making s*** up like they do on everything else.     

This is a crap sandwich and is just the Lefts latest "But Trump" annoyance and the Neo-cons never having met a war they didn't like.  Trump ran on getting us out of wars.  Time to start now.  Crap sandwiches are no reason to get Americans killed.    It will be a crap sandwich 50 years from now just like it has been for the last few hundred years.  Do we want Turkey thrown out of NATO?   Then where will we move our air base; the largest in the region?  How would that change the balance of power in the region?  Are we prepared to kill Turks to stop this?  What happens to the 5,000 Americans at Incirlik if we do that?  What is our long term goal with the Kurds?  Are we going to demand a homeland?  Are we going to protect them from everyone in the region who doesn't like the; which is just about everyone.  How big a US presence are we going to deploy to the region to guarantee their safetyin perpetuity?  If you can't answer these kinds of questions;  then you're not serious.

Please stop. You are just trying to add cover to the indefensible. Trump has really stepped into it this time. The Gassing the Kurds is probably 80% of the reason we took out Saddam. We have about a 30 year history with them. They are our one true ally in the ME other than Israel. This is bad no matter what you say. And in the future, when we need help to defeat whatever the next tyrant's name is, we arent going to get bupkis from the Kurds or anyone else. This is literally the Montagnards all over again and as a man, it is as repugnant to me as it can be. F Trump and his invertebrate ways. This smells like the old aspirin factory bombing back in the 90s. We bombed the hell out of a factory for no other reason that to get the headlines changed. SSDD.

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14 hours ago, japantiger said:

These all get down to "we should risk American lives because of peer pressure"...that's it.  If the Brits, Italians, or EU don't like it; tell them to deploy to the region.  They have a military...the issue is in their back yard; not ours. 

I know you only have precious few arrows in your rhetorical quiver, but no one was suggesting that we "risk American lives because of peer pressure."  The only reason the Brits, Italians, et al were brought up was to 1) counter this notion that simply because Turkey is a NATO member, we should stand down and let them do whatever they want and 2) to show that the opposition to Trump's feckless and impulsive decision here is not a political opposition.  This isn't the Democrats or even the Neo-cons.  This is opposition and condemnation from all sides and from people and factions that have little to nothing in common in most matters.

 

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I should care about one alleged "anonymous"  sourced "Special Forces" soldier thinks?  Really... we didn't go to war with Russia when Patton, the theater Commander wanted to do it...but I should do it based on an anonymously sourced Green Beret soldier....we all know that is probably just a lie anyway. 

If it's a lie, then show how it is.  You don't get to float idiotic theories based on "it doesn't align with my feelings" thought processes.  If this were an anonymous Special Forces soldier praising Trump or talking about how terrible things were under Obama, you'd take it as the fifth Gospel and sleep with a copy under your pillow.  Because your doubts have nothing to do with it being anonymous and everything to do with it not confirming what you already want to believe.

FoxNews has been the biggest Trump knob-slobberer this side of Jerry Falwell, Jr.  For them to post a story like this says something about how bad it is.

 

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the main reason I think that source is bull**** is the statement "the Kurds are as close to Western thinking in the middle east as anyone".  The Kurds are largely Suni Muslim followed by Shia....after that, it is the Yazidi's  (who believe they are lead by the Peacock Angel who is re-incarted on earth every few years) and finally Zoroastrianism.  So yeah; they might as well be New Yorkers.  Reporters are just making s*** up like they do on everything else.     

He didn't say "they are just like us."  And it doesn't take a genius to gather that we weren't talking about religious beliefs.  He's talking about their (previously) favorable attitude toward the the West and the US, their willingness to participate and help implement Western democratic govt principles, their attitude toward Islamic terrorism and their views toward Iran and other Middle East baddies.

This is pathetic even for a smack forum.  I mean, just because we let some sarcasm and insults go a little more freely here doesn't mean that you just get to put forth completely idiotic arguments and turn every discussion into a clown show.

Step it up and make sensible arguments or you won't be in the smack forum much longer either.  You don't have to agree with me or anyone else here, but you don't get to just toss out stupidity and waste everyone's time either.

 

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This is a crap sandwich and is just the Lefts latest "But Trump" annoyance and the Neo-cons never having met a war they didn't like.  Trump ran on getting us out of wars.  Time to start now.

He's not getting us out of the war over there.  He pulled back a few troops and told people to stand down while a key ally was attacked for no good reason other than the Turks and Kurds hate each other.  No troops are coming home.

 

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Crap sandwiches are no reason to get Americans killed.    It will be a crap sandwich 50 years from now just like it has been for the last few hundred years.  Do we want Turkey thrown out of NATO?   Then where will we move our air base; the largest in the region?  How would that change the balance of power in the region?  Are we prepared to kill Turks to stop this?  What happens to the 5,000 Americans at Incirlik if we do that? 

You don't have to throw someone out of NATO to stand up to them or refuse to let them to certain things.  The NATO alliance isn't built on some idea that being part of NATO means that everyone has to go along with whatever some other member wants to do.  If the Brits and other NATO allies can call Turkey out for this behavior, so can we.  It doesn't mean the alliance has to end.

And Turkey isn't going anywhere anyway.  At least not over this.  They don't want to be a Russian puppet state.

 

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What is our long term goal with the Kurds?  Are we going to demand a homeland?  Are we going to protect them from everyone in the region who doesn't like the; which is just about everyone.  How big a US presence are we going to deploy to the region to guarantee their safetyin perpetuity?  If you can't answer these kinds of questions;  then you're not serious.

That's bull****.  You don't have to have everything in the world figured out to do the right thing that's right in front of your face at the moment.  We don't have to know exactly how the Kurdish issue and Turkey will be resolved right now to know that letting men who have fought alongside you for the last several years to kill and capture ISIS terrorist and who are currently guarding a prison with over 12,000 of these murderers be mercilessly bombed and attacked while we pull out and allow it to happen is wrong.

Stop posing false dichotomies pretending to be smart.

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14 hours ago, japantiger said:

Trump ran on getting us out of wars.  Time to start now.  Crap sandwiches are no reason to get Americans killed.    

Just an addendum to this poorly thought out, ill-informed talking point.  For the record we have about 1000 troops in Syria.  They are mostly in a “train, advise and assist” role.  Our allies in the theatre do most of the fighting, while our troops provide intelligence, operational planning, fire support and airstrike coordination from behind the front lines:

 

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“Over four years, the SDF freed tens of thousands of square miles and millions of people from the grip of ISIS. Throughout the fight, it sustained nearly 11,000 casualties. By comparison, six U.S. service members, as well as two civilians, have been killed in the anti-ISIS campaign.”

The Kurds bore the burden of the fight and the brunt of the casualties, and they drove the Islamic State from its physical caliphate. But the terrorists are far from defeated. They still have tens of thousands of fighters and vast financial resources. If we take our boot off their necks, they will come roaring back — just like they did in Iraq on President Barack Obama’s watch.

Who is going to stop them? Since Trump has reduced the U.S. military presence in Syria to just 1,000 troops, that means we are depending on the Kurds to keep the Islamic State down. But if we allow Turkey to wipe out our Kurdish allies, who will be left on the ground in Syria to fight the Islamic State? Answer: No one. Is Trump ready to deploy American ground forces to do the job? His abandonment of the Kurds is a recipe for endless war, not a strategy to end one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/10/trumps-cry-that-america-is-fighting-endless-wars-is-canard/

 

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All these are interesting responses; but still don't represent a US policy or reasons to risk American lives here against a NATO ally.  And if you think thourogoing Muslims in the region are in any way "more Western"; you are grossly misinformed on how the world works; especially over there.   Oh, and another "let me ban you"  threat...Wow, how original...man, you have a serious issue with opinions that don't align to yours.  Why is that?  Just put your ideas out there and make me look foolish if you are so convinced my ideas are bankrupt....nah, that's not what leftists do...can't risk exposing someone to non-leftists ideas can you.  

So let me see if I have this right; what you propose above is just get involved and hope it turns out ok in the name of "doing the right thing"..that's it?   That's some solid strategy.  I'm sure some mother would think that her sons life was worth it for that strategic-masterstroke.  Let me help you here.  My son's mother and I have talked about it...we don't think it's a good reason to have to travel to Dover.  Killing ISIS at least made sense....Fighting a NATO ally with no plan to get out; nah.  But, that does sound like familiar US policy masterstrokes of the past like Vietnam and Iraq.  At least you didn't make up some contrived fake strategy.  You just admitted you don't have a strategy.  

  • Right now we have the Turks responsible for ISIS...
  • Turkey and Russia are now at odds;  not moving closer together like after arming of the PKK accomplished...not moving closer together thanks to putting Turkish interests at odds with Russia's Syrian interests...this is all in Syria.  There is no Kurdish state.  Turkey is invading Syria.
  • This also puts Turkey and Iran at odds.
  • We're no longer supporting the PKK; a Marxist group designated a foreign terrorist group under US law ... so we're done with that.
  • Oh, as an aside, we still have no congressional authorization to be in Syria ... that kind of thing used to be a problem for you Hippies...what happened?
  • President Trump has an exit strategy...it's called Exit, now.  
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16 minutes ago, japantiger said:

All these are interesting responses;

japantiger shorthand for:  "I can't rebut this, so I'll gloss over it in lieu of prepared talking points I'm more comfortable with."

 

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but still don't represent a US policy or reasons to risk American lives here against a NATO ally. 

Yes I did, you intellectually dishonest waste.

We have 12,000 ISIS fighters imprisoned in Syria right now.  Because we only have 1000 troops in the area and they are not there to actually fight but to assist the Kurds and other allies in the SDF, we rely on mostly Kurdish soldiers to continue to fight ISIS and to guard these prisoners until we figure out what to do to them.  Telling Turkey to stand down and settle their ethnic squabbles later is the right course of action.  Allowing them to bomb the Kurds and the prison complex is a way to release multiple thousands of dangerous murderers and terrorists back into the wild.

Good god, do you even read before typing?

 

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And if you think thourogoing Muslims in the region are in any way "more Western"; you are grossly misinformed on how the world works; especially over there.

Some Muslims are more Western friendly than others.  This is a well-known thing.  Quit making stupid arguments.

 

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Oh, and another "let me ban you"  threat...Wow, how original...man, you have a serious issue with opinions that don't align to yours.  Why is that?  Just put your ideas out there and make me look foolish if you are so convinced my ideas are bankrupt....nah, that's not what leftists do...can't risk exposing someone to non-leftists ideas can you.  

The ban threat isn't over disagreeing.  It's over being unable to express disagreement with even a modicum of intelligence and serious thought.  Your posts are a timesuck - a vapid blackhole of stupidity and hubris that the board would be better off without.  So if you end up getting booted from here, it's for that, not for holding contrary opinions, you big whiny baby.

 

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So let me see if I have this right; what you propose above is just get involved and hope it turns out ok in the name of "doing the right thing"..that's it?   That's some solid strategy.  I'm sure some mother would think that her sons life was worth it for that strategic-masterstroke.  Let me help you here.  My son's mother and I have talked about it...we don't think it's a good reason to have to travel to Dover.  Killing ISIS at least made sense....Fighting a NATO ally with no plan to get out; nah.  But, that does sound like familiar US policy masterstrokes of the past like Vietnam and Iraq.  At least you didn't make up some contrived fake strategy.  You just admitted you don't have a strategy.  

  • Right now we have the Turks responsible for ISIS...
  • Turkey and Russia are now at odds;  not moving closer together like after arming of the PKK accomplished...not moving closer together thanks to putting Turkish interests at odds with Russia's Syrian interests...this is all in Syria.  There is no Kurdish state.  Turkey is invading Syria.
  • This also puts Turkey and Iran at odds.
  • We're no longer supporting the PKK; a Marxist group designated a foreign terrorist group under US law ... so we're done with that.
  • Oh, as an aside, we still have no congressional authorization to be in Syria ... that kind of thing used to be a problem for you Hippies...what happened?
  • President Trump has an exit strategy...it's called Exit, now.  

HE'S NOT EXITING, YOU BLITHERING IDIOT.  Can you not read?  Not one troop is coming home.  And his "strategy" will result in thousands of ISIS prisoners being able to scatter and eventually regroup to force us back in to fix the mess.

 

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This is a very thought provoking read and I think makes a lot of good points about the situation we're in:

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Turkey and the Kurds: It’s More Complicated Than You Think

 
 
We are grateful for the Kurds’ help, and we should try to help them in return. But no one wants to risk war with Turkey.
 
On Monday, President Trump announced that a contingent of fewer than 100 U.S. troops in Syria was being moved away from Kurdish-held territory on the border of Turkey. The move effectively green-lighted military operations by Turkey against the Kurds, which have now commenced.
 
Some U.S. military officials went public with complaints about being “blindsided.” The policy cannot have been a surprise, though. The president has made no secret that he wants out of Syria, where we now have about 1,000 troops (down from over 2,000 last year). More broadly, he wants our forces out of the Middle East. He ran on that position.I’ve argued against his “endless wars” tropes, but his stance is popular. As for Syria specifically, many of the president’s advisers think we should stay, but he has not been persuaded.
 
The president’s announcement of the redeployment of the troops in Syria came on the heels of a phone conversation with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This, obviously, was a mistake, giving the appearance (and not for the first time) that Trump is taking cues from Ankara’s Islamist strongman. As has become rote, the inevitable criticism was followed by head-scratching tweets: The president vows to “totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey,” which “I’ve done before” (huh?), if Turkey takes any actions “that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits.” We can only sigh and say it will be interesting to see how the president backs up these haughty threats now that Erdogan has begun his invasion.
 
All that said, the president at least has a cogent position that is consistent with the Constitution and public opinion. He wants U.S. forces out of a conflict in which America’s interests have never been clear, and for which Congress has never approved military intervention. I find that sensible — no surprise, given that I have opposed intervention in Syria from the start (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). The stridency of the counterarguments is matched only by their selectiveness in reciting relevant facts.
 
I thus respectfully dissent from our National Review editorial.
 

President Trump, it says, is “making a serious mistake” by moving our forces away from what is described as “Kurdish territory”; the resulting invasion by superior Turkish forces will “kill American allies” while “carving out a zone of dominance” that will serve further to “inflame and complicate” the region.

Where to begin? Perhaps with the basic fact that there is no Kurdish territory. There is Syrian territory on Turkey’s border that the Kurds are occupying — a situation that itself serves to “inflame and complicate” the region for reasons I shall come to. Ethnic Kurds do not have a state. They live in contiguous parts of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Most are integrated into these countries, but many are separatists.

The Kurds have been our allies against ISIS, but it is not for us that they have fought. They fight ISIS for themselves, with our help. They are seeking an autonomous zone and, ultimately, statehood. The editorial fails to note that the Kurds we have backed, led by the YPG (People’s Protection Units), are the Syrian branch of the PKK (the Kurdistan Worker’s Party) in Turkey. The PKK is a militant separatist organization with Marxist-Leninist roots. Although such informed observers as Michael Rubin contend that the PKK has “evolved,” it remains a formally designated foreign terrorist organization under U.S. law. While our government materially supports the PKK’s confederates, ordinary Americans have been prosecuted for materially supporting the PKK.

The PKK has a long history of conducting terrorist attacks, but their quarrel is not with us. So why has our government designated them as terrorists? Because they have been fighting an insurgent war against Turkey for over 30 years. Turkey remains our NATO ally, even though the Erdogan government is one of the more duplicitous and anti-Western actors in a region that teems with them — as I’ve detailed over the years (see, e.g., here,here, here, here, and in my 2012 book, Spring Fever). The Erdogan problem complicates but does not change the fact that Turkey is of great strategic significance to our security.

While it is a longer discussion, I would be open to considering the removal of both the PKK from the terrorist list and Turkey from NATO. For now, though, the blunt facts are that the PKK is a terrorist organization and Turkey is our ally. These are not mere technicalities. Contrary to the editorial’s suggestion, our government’s machinations in Syria have not put just one of our allies in a bind. There are two allies in this equation, and our support for one has already vexed the other. The ramifications are serious, not least Turkey’s continued lurch away from NATO and toward Moscow.

Without any public debate, the Obama administration in 2014 insinuated our nation into the Kurdish–Turk conflict by arming the YPG. To be sure, our intentions were good. ISIS had besieged the city of Kobani in northern Syria; but Turkey understandably regards the YPG as a terrorist organization, complicit in the PKK insurgency.

 

That brings us to another non-technicality that the editors mention only in passing: Our intervention in Syria has never been authorized by Congress. Those of us who opposed intervention maintained that congressional authorization was necessary because there was no imminent threat to our nation. Contrary to the editorial’s suggestion, having U.S. forces “deter further genocidal bloodshed in northern Syria” is not a mission for which Americans support committing our men and women in uniform. Such bloodlettings are the Muslim Middle East’s default condition, so the missions would never end.

A congressional debate should have been mandatory before we jumped into a multi-layered war, featuring anti-American actors and shifting loyalties on both sides. In fact, so complex is the situation that President Obama’s initial goal was to oust Syria’s Assad regime; only later came the pivot to fighting terrorists, which helped Assad. That is Syria: Opposing one set of America’s enemies only empowers another. More clear than what intervention would accomplish was the likelihood of becoming enmeshed, inadvertently or otherwise, in vicious conflicts of which we wanted no part — such as the notorious and longstanding conflict between Turks and Kurds.

Barbaric jihadist groups such as ISIS (an offshoot of al-Qaeda) come into existence because of Islamic fundamentalism. But saying so remains de trop in Washington. Instead, we tell ourselves that terrorism emerges due to “vacuums” created in the absence of U.S. forces. On this logic, there should always and forever be U.S. forces and involvement in places where hostility to America vastly outweighs American interests.

 

President Obama has wrongly been blamed for “creating” ISIS by leaving a vacuum in Iraq. Couldn’t be the sharia-supremacist culture, could it? No, we’re supposed to suppose that this sort of thing could happen anywhere. So, when Obama withdrew our forces from the region (as Trump is doing now), jihadist atrocities and territorial conquests ensued. Eventually, Obama decided that action needed to be taken. But invading with U.S. troops was not an option — it would have been deeply unpopular and undercut Obama’s tout that Islamic militarism was on the wane. Our government therefore sought proxy forces.

Most proved incompetent. The Kurds, however, are very capable. There was clamor on Capitol Hill to back them. We knew from the first, though, that supporting them was a time bomb. Turkey was never going to countenance a Kurdish autonomous zone, led by the YPG and PKK elements, on its Syrian border. Ankara was already adamant that the PKK was using the Kurdish autonomous zone in Iraq to encourage separatist uprisings in Turkey, where 20 percent of the population is Kurdish. Erdogan would never accept a similar arrangement in Syria; he would evict the YPG forcibly if it came to that.

Yes, we had humanitarian reasons for arming the Kurds. But doing so undermined our anti-terrorism laws while giving Erdogan incentive to align with Russia and mend fences with Iran. ISIS, meanwhile, has never been defeated — it lost its territorial “caliphate,” but it was always more lethal as an underground terrorist organization than as a quasi-sovereign struggling to hold territory. And al-Qaeda, though rarely spoken of in recent years, is ascendant — as threatening as it has been at any time since its pre-9/11 heyday.

Those of us opposed to intervention in Syria wanted Congress to think through these quite predictable outcomes before authorizing any further U.S. military involvement in this wretched region. Congress, however, much prefers to lay low in the tall grass, wait for presidents to act, and then complain when things go awry.

And so they have: The easily foreseeable conflict between Turkey and the Kurds is at hand. We are supposed to see the problem as Trump’s abandoning of U.S. commitments. But why did we make commitments to the Kurds that undermined preexisting commitments to Turkey? The debate is strictly framed as “How can we leave the Kurds to the tender mercies of the Turks?” No one is supposed to ask “What did we expect would happen when we backed a militant organization that is tightly linked to U.S.-designated terrorists and that is the bitter enemy of a NATO ally we knew would not abide its presence on the ally’s border?” No one is supposed to ask “What is the end game here? Are we endorsing the partition of Syria? Did we see a Kurdish autonomous zone as the next Kosovo?” (We might remember that recognition of Kosovo’s split from Serbia, over Russian objections, was exploited by the Kremlin as a rationale for promoting separatism and annexations in Georgia and Ukraine.)

It is true, as the editors observe, that “there are no easy answers in Syria.” That is no excuse for offering an answer that makes no sense: “The United States should have an exit strategy, but one that neither squanders our tactical gains against ISIS nor exposes our allies to unacceptable retribution.” Put aside that our arming of the Kurds has already exposed our allies in Turkey to unacceptable risk. What the editorial poses is not an “exit strategy” but its opposite. In effect, it would keep U.S. forces in Syria interminably, permanently interposed between the Kurds and the Turks. The untidy questions of how that would be justifiable legally or politically go unaddressed.

President Trump, by contrast, has an exit strategy, which is to exit. He promises to cripple Turkey economically if the Kurds are harmed. If early reports of Turkey’s military assault are accurate, the president will soon be put to the test. I hope he is up to it. For a change, he should have strong support from Congress, which is threatening heavy sanctions if Turkey routs the Kurds.

Americans, however, are not of a mind to do more than that. We are grateful for what the Kurds did in our mutual interest against ISIS. We should try to help them, but no one wants to risk war with Turkey over them. The American people’s representatives never endorsed combat operations in Syria, and the president is right that the public wants out. Of course we must prioritize the denial of safe havens from which jihadists can attack American interests. We have to stop pretending, though, that if our intentions toward this neighborhood are pure, its brutal history, enduring hostilities, and significant downside risks can be ignored.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/turkey-and-the-kurds-its-more-complicated-than-you-think/

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1 hour ago, Tiger Sue said:

It's interesting that CNN America is blasting Trump's decision but CNN in Turkey is referring to the Kurds as terrorists.

Take any Turkish source with a grain of salt. Turkey could be bombing someone in South East Asia and wouldn't miss an opportunity to drop a few on a Kurdish elementary school or two on the way there. 

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2 hours ago, Auburnfan91 said:

This is a very thought provoking read and I think makes a lot of good points about the situation we're in:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/turkey-and-the-kurds-its-more-complicated-than-you-think/

McCarthy,  ever the little sycophant trying to turn chicken s*** into chicken salad. 

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