We defeated 100% of the ISIS Caliphate and no longer have any troops in the area under attack by Turkey, in Syria. We did our job perfectly! Now Turkey is attacking the Kurds, who have been fighting each other for 200 years....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2019
"We did our job perfectly!" comes across as such a taunt. It sounds as though he's saying it's okay that "Turkey is attacking the Kurds," and that's got to be so aggravating for many people. Let me hypothesize that Trump is luring his critics into committing themselves to a full scale war with NATO ally Turkey, an indefensible position.
Posts
42 comments:
Since when was Turkey not attacking the Kurds?
Trump continues in his next tweet:
....We have one of three choices: Send in thousands of troops and win Militarily, hit Turkey very hard Financially and with Sanctions, or mediate a deal between Turkey and the Kurds!
Let me hypothesize that Trump is luring his critics into committing themselves to a full scale war with NATO ally Turkey, an indefensible position.
You’re starting to catch on, Professor.
The Kurds allied with us because they and we both were attacking ISIS. Now that common interest is gone and they're just another interest group.
I don't think he's saying it's okay. I think he's saying that it's to be expected.
NATO ally or not, sometimes it's a rebel, sometimes it's a refugee, sometimes it's a child drowning in the Mediterranean. We should carve Turkey and establish a Kurdovo. Slice Jordan and realize the original two-State solution.
People have already been suggesting that, either explicitly or by implication. That's insane, and that's what struck me even more strongly than the callous way we're talking about abandoning allies, even allies of convenience. Rough times.
I think you’re onto something, Althouse.
Going by his immediate tweets, I think someone pulled a fast one on Trump personally, lied to him, and he is not happy about it.
Let's wait and see what develops.
Perfect. Trump keeps using that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means.
This sharpening of the contradictions is very clarifying, but it ain't pretty.
Ok...secret intel time for those not in the know.
It seems counterintuitive (considering the depth of conflict history that's there), but it isn't actually the Turks that would resist an independent Kurdish state the most, it's Iran.
If you read the history a little more closely, you'll come to find Iran has always lusted after Northern Iraq and Eastern Turkey. Shah Pahlavi was on record in the 70s saying how important the region was to them, and their interest in it goes back before that.
So why Turkey? Well, because the Kurds have always considered that Turkey was the 'low-hanging fruit' in getting them closer to an independent state and that - because of NATO - Turkey could be used as a stepping stone towards getting more autonomy from enemies far far less 'sentimental' like Iran and, at the time, Hussein's Iraq. This was a miscalculation on their part.
I feel a great deal of pity for the Kurds. As an ethnic group that has suffered tremendously their suffering doesn't change the geopolitical reality that any independent Kurdish state would likely require them to fight Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and probably also Russia. This is a geopolitical reality that even the USA and other allies would be hard-pressed to influence towards free and independent statehood.
The way forward for the Kurds towards their goals is unclear to me although I do believe their greatest opportunity for independence would be a war between the US and Iran...which in the next 80 years is not unlikely. But Iran would need to be eliminated for it to have hope of succeeding.
don't flatter yourself, we are *ALL* Kurds to donald...he will betray you too
If we did our job perfectly, why does Turkey have to go into Syria? Or is massacring the Kurds now part of the job and we're just outsourcing it?
Let me hypothesize that Trump is avoiding stupidly committing American forces to another stupid mission. My son likes the Kurds. Because he was there with them in the USMC. Any other American who like the Kurds is welcome to go fight with them, or send their sons. If you want to sack Istanbul and restore Constantinople, let me know, I could be interested. I prefer to keep my grandsons at home.
The tweet loads then disappears. Happening to anyone else?
“Après moi, le déluge" comes across as such a taunt. It sounds as though he's saying it's okay that events may spin wildly out of control, and that's got to be so aggravating for many people. Let me hypothesize that Trump is luring his critics into . . .
Nuke ‘me all!
Does someone have a map of Turkey's current operation vs. their earlier safe zone operation vs. their numerous prior interventions in Syria? I'm genuinely having difficulty situating Turkey's current operation in the context of their ongoing military engagement in Syria. See, e.g. Turkey’s Military Plunges Into Syria (August 2016) and Why is Turkey Attacking Northwest Syria (February 2018). Is this qualitatively different from the last time they invaded Syria?
How many recall that the Kurds have a history of persecution of Yazidis and Christians?
SunsInga: "don't flatter yourself, we are *ALL* Kurds to donald...he will betray you too"
LOLOLOL
So. Much. Winning.
Where's Hunter?!!
Dems marry their siblings!!
Burisma paid Creepy Sleepy Joey Biden $900,000 directly!!
The hoax "whistleblower" is a dem partisan sent to the White House by hack brennan to dig up Ukrainian dirt on Trump AND helped VP Biden crush the Ukrainian investigation into ......Burisma!!
Bears repeating: So. Much. Winning.
@Balfegor
Yes and no. It isn't so much what Turkey is gaining as what the Kurds have been defacto occupying due to the shifting battle lines in the closing up of the campaign against ISIL. Turkey is in essence redrawing their lines of control to what they were roughly 2 years ago at least that's how I understand it.
Furthermore, I understand that they've established there'll be a limit to how far South they're willing to encroach and that they've made it clear they've no intention of a land-grab (i.e. the way Turkey looks on the map today is how they intend to keep it).
Their issue - as is the issue in all military affairs - is that fundamentally something doesn't belong to you and you don't control anything as long as people with guns that aren't you are currently residing on it. Turkey, according to my understanding, is using this opportunity to reestablish control and buffer zones both as a strategic move and a message that they intend things will go back to how they were. Ground gained by various Syrian and Kurdish factions will not be allowed to be 'kept'.
Why did Syrian Kurds get the works?
It's nobody's business but the Turks.
Oso Negro: "Let me hypothesize that Trump is avoiding stupidly committing American forces to another stupid mission. My son likes the Kurds. Because he was there with them in the USMC. Any other American who like the Kurds is welcome to go fight with
them, or send their sons."
Exactly.
As suggested by some over the past week, it would not be that complicated to create "Flying Tigers"-like force funded by concerned ARMs and Sunsongs and Freders that would provide support to the Kurds against a NATO ally.
However, before all you lefties go Full Rambo with your not-yet-broken-in outdoorsy gear you just purchased thru the Amazon portal, you might want to consider the Kurds have conducted suicide bombings within Turkey for many years and have been designated a terrorist group by your beloved and much worshipped Europeans.
I wish you all good luck!!
Elsewhere I am reading ...
"Turkey wants to create a 32-kilometer-deep, 480-kilometer-long corridor (20 miles deep, 300 miles long) inside Syria along the border to protect its security... it plans to resettle nearly 1 million of its 3.6 million Syrian refugees who hail from other parts of Syria inside the 'safe zone.'"
________________
is quite humanitarian: could use more help - surprised Europe is not all-hands into this.
did not somebody mention Gaza on another thread?
mockturtle: "How many recall that the Kurds have a history of persecution of Yazidis and Christians?"
Shhhh!
Thats what the left likes BEST about them.
The only thing that could set a lefties heart to stronger pitter-pattering would be for the Kurds to murder Israeli's.
Also, the Kurds and Turks have had numerous violent clashes in the last 10 months. Look it up. There's videos galore on YouTube of Kurdish missile attacks and ambushes of Turkish patrols...some of them inside Turkey proper.
It's just that Turkey has a much much bigger hammer and that they've decided now's the time to bring it out and swing it down. I'm not saying what they're doing is right or fair, just that it's A) not unexpected and B) we (at least I assume) on this blog don't live there.
The Middle-East since the time of the Fertile Crescent and nascent civilization is where reason and temperance goes to die, and nothing there makes sense to American ears or American eyes.
In a perfect world we could ignore them, spill not one drop of US blood, and let them cut each others' heads off till the Tigris runs red. But we can't.
Tim: "The tweet loads then disappears. Happening to anyone else?"
Althouse posts disappear into a timeless near-event horizon purgatory where the posting is lovingly examined to make sure it has all its fingers and toes and responds appropriately to stimuli.
If the posting fails these tests it is unceremoniously cast over the edge of the universe in True (Not Michigan State) Spartan fashion and forever lost to the Black Hole that is I***/LLR C**** comment oblivion.
But do take heart.
Many of these posts do survive this rigorous process and re-emerge with the power of 10,000 suns!l in all their glory!!
Yes, Im talking about Laslo's offerings. Everybody else is just glad to be here, willing to play any position, happy to take the posts 1 at a time and generally proud to be part of a winning team.
mockturtle,
Kurds have a history of persecuting, do they? Y'mean like that guy Saladin???
Will the Dems go for the proffered football or nah?
Reminds me of Metternich's famous statement, after Russia sent forces to help put down the 1848 Austrian revolt, when asked whether Austria would return the favor in the Crimean War: "Austria will astonish the world with our ingratitude." The Middle East then, as now, is no place for sentimental types.
Drago, I think Tim is talking about the tweet text and image at the very top of this thread.
Tim, I have the same problem, and it is because I am using Firefox, which is blocking stuff that has trackers and cookies. I have no problem viewing the tweets using Internet Explorer, so it's definitely a setting in Firefox that is the problem's cause.
Daskol said "...the callous way we're talking about abandoning allies, even allies of convenience."
How about the callous way we send our young men into tribal warfare where they are killed and/or grievously maimed to no good end?
I am not an isolationist, but we can't continue to police the Mideast, we are only creating power vacuums where dictators thrive. In spite of a long standing military presence and investment, the Brits couldn't resolve the "Eastern question" as it was known, nor can we.
At some point the peoples of the Mideast must determine their own destiny. Be it live under a dictator or as free people.
How many recall that the Kurds have a history of persecution of Yazidis and Christians?
*raises hand*
The tweet loads then disappears. Happening to anyone else?
It's been happening to me with Chrome the last month. Open the post incognito or click the "show original post" button at the top of the blogger commenting page.
gerry: "Drago, I think Tim is talking about the tweet text and image at the very top of this thread."
Oh.
Well. That's very different.
Never mind.
Turkey's plan is to relocate Syrian refugees back into Syria. About one million of the 3.5 million they are holding. And the threat is to release them north into Europe.
sunsong drew the short, stupid straw. I, for one, demand better trolls!
Ralph: It's been happening to me with Chrome the last month. Open the post incognito or click the "show original post" button at the top of the blogger commenting page.
That worked. I get the text of the tweets, anyway. Thanks!
Lindsey Graham on the Kurds and turkey back in 2016
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w9RU2zmWxjI
To be clear, I'm not saying it's necessarily callous to abandon an ally of convenience. I'm saying the way in which some folks talking about abandoning the Kurds is callous. The way Trump spoke of his experience in welcoming back our soldiers killed in the line of duty was very moving.
If the incursion sticks to 20 miles deep, the Kurds have a lot of room to retreat. As Mao said, when the KMT or the Japanese attacked the communist base areas, When the enemy attacks, we retreat. And, plan the counterattack.
As has been said, we allied with the Kurds, not the other way around. They, as now, are fighting for their country against ISIS, Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Iran, not so much. Their Syrian position, Turkish border to the Euphrates, is controlled by three different Kurdish factions.
Hit the Turks with sanctions and see what happens.
Post a Comment