Overnight Wednesday into Thursday, Turkey cut short a Kurdish offensive against ISIS forces around Afrin, when warplanes entered Syrian airspace and attacked the Kurdish troops, killing 200 of them by Turkish estimates. Since then, Turkey has not let up on the attacks.
There were reports of fighting on the ground between the Kurdish YPG and Turkish-backed rebels, and at least 90 Turkish rockets hit the area around the Kurdish fighters, aiming to push them back and allow the rebels to seize more of the northern Aleppo Province.
Turkey has insisted it intends those rebels to control the entire border, and has further warned Kurds aren’t allowed west of the Euphrates River. This is doubly problematic for Afrin, which is both along the border and well west of the Euphrates, despite being a Kurdish area for centuries.
Though the US has heavily backed the Kurds in fighting against ISIS, they’ve shrugged off the reports of huge Kurdish death tolls in Turkish attacks, with the Pentagon insisting they retain “very close” ties with Turkey, and the State Department flat out refusing comment, saying they don’t get into “day-to-day operations” in Syria.
Excuse my boring references to international law, but since when did Turkey get the right to invade Syria — over the Syrian government’s objections — and then conduct apparently endless military attacks on Syrian (Kurdish) citizens living in their Syrian homeland? Is this really OK with our (US) Government? What happened to the UN Charter’s ban on non-defensive wars? How can our Government possibly continue to condone such blatant violations of that “Rule of Law” which our political “leaders” (both Democratic and Republican) constantly preach to other nations all over the planet? Apart from being morally repugnant, surely the continuation of this defiantly lawless conduct by our Government can only lead to the complete destruction of the United Nations — a peace-oriented institution established after WWII at the cost of more than 55 million human lives. Am I alone in seeing this as an unnecessary, stupid, colossal tragedy?
Int’l Law doesn’t apply when it suits Uncle Sam’s wishes. Remember, when the West kills, they only kill terrorists. When the East kills, it is only innocents and “moderate” rebels, like our good friends al Qaeda.
Since when? Since they saw people who cross the border from there into Turkey to make attacks.
Then again, that may not be true at all, but you asked for their justification, not the truth.
Mainstream media double talk — “Turkish-backed rebels”
There is not one rebel in all of Syria, surely not even one (1) moderate terrorist in all the hills and mountains of Syria, as all such satanic terrorists are killing civilians and trying to terrorize the government out of business in Syria.
More Jason Ditz fiction, so let us go over to http://www.rt.com/ and get the news free of such brainwash.
Go wherever you like. Maybe you’ll eventually find a site that reports from the same alternate universe you so obviously live in.
Rebels are ISIS or al Qaeda or “moderate” according to the political needs of whoever is reporting it. Teh Turks doubtless do not see the rebels they back as ISIS, nor what the Kurds were doing as “attacking ISIS.” They certainly saw the Kurds trying to take and keep a place they were told to stay out of, on the wrong side of the river. The US reaction is no doubt in part because we already told the Kurds that.
This has always been Uncle Sam’s game with the Kurds. Use their superior fighting skills while it’s convenient then throw them to the f**king wolves before they get strong enough to exist independently.
“No one cares.” Sonny in “A Bronx Tale.” Armed to the teeth with weapons manufactured in the United States by american business people and sold with permits granted by the american government without a whimper of protest by the american people Turkey invades Syria. The Syrian country is devastated people are brutally killed and maimed. The silence is deafening. The american people are poised to elect yet another duplicitous corporate shill war monger. Is there no shame, no sorrow, no resistance, no willingness to demand peace?