A growing number of videos and pictures released in the past week show large numbers of US armored vehicles being delivered into Syrian Kurdistan, suggesting a massive escalation in the positioning of US military assets in the country.
Officials insist that the vehicles shown in the videos are not in any way part of US military aid being provided to the Kurdish YPG, suggesting that the US is deploying the vehicles there with the intention of American troops using them.
This must inevitably raise questions about whether this undeniably substantial vehicle surge into Syrian Kurdistan portends a major new deployment of US ground troops into the area to operate them. That these are armored vehicles also suggests further loosening of the US “non-combat” claims.
Unfortunately, we may not get a definitive answer about more US ground deployments, as the Pentagon has made it a matter of policy not to offer specific US troop levels in either Iraq or Syria, a decision that was made after months of overtly lying about troop levels in Iraq to pretend they hadn’t exceeded negotiated caps.
Well if the Pentagon won’t tell us what we are up to at least the Turks will.
Yeah, wasn’t it helpful of Erdogan to reveal all U.S. troop locations in proto-Kurdistan.
Looks like all that talk about a Shia Crescent was projection for a Kurdish Crescent. Next stop, Iran, eventually. Gotta ‘liberate’ the Kurds there too…
It’s hard to believe even Trump is stupid enough to try that
Kurds maybe the largest ethnic group in the world without a country . As I see it the Kurds have almost always fought on the same side I was pulling for . But I don’t think there will ever be a Kurdistan . Because justice doesn’t often prevail , especially in that part of the world .
Ethnicity is not a functional aspect of civil administration. It is land that needs government, not genes. Kurds benefit from living in a region with a stable government. Starting wars to make governments more kurdish will give you death and destruction with nothing to show for it.
Its not really Trump; the MIC calls the shots. Its easy to see the tentative partition deal being worked out from the Wiki map of the Syrian Civil War. It seems it will not truly end except maybe as setting the stage of the next war. Not a good deal for any, and not the U.S., though some will disagree.
The Russians/Syrians secure space for the much-contested gas pipeline from Iran to go through Syria and into Turkey, and Turkey holds onto a patch of north Syria preventing the Kurds from tapping this source of wealth, dividing Syrian Kurdistan.
The U.S. gets to secure south Syria around the Golan Heights for Israel and gets to try and forge its Kurdish Crescent starting from North Syria.
Erdogan does not appear willing to let a Kurdish crescent go uncontested, as that’s a scimitar that could cut deeply into his own state as well as several others.
U.S./GCC sponsored Islamic terrorism will not stop either. It was vital for lasting peace that all Syria be denied the Deep State, but that may not be possible.
Lt. Col. Ralph Peters drew his famous ‘Blood Borders’ map for the Armed Forces Journal, of a remade middle east. Its broadly accessible from various sources on the internet. A proposed Free Kurdistan takes chunks out of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran and would place a U.S. client state on prime geopolitical turf. Its not part of any official policy, but a strong indicator of U.S. geopolitical thinking.
I don’t think the maps indicate partition. The Kurds are landlocked, divided and surrounded by largely antagonistic neighbours. That’s not really the basis of a stable future.
The US is going to get nothing outside Kurdish held territory. Certainly nothing boarding the Golan Heights, the rebels there will not be tolerated by the Syrian government and its allies.
The MIC’s fantasies about using ethnicity to undermine rival states in the middle east has no more future to it than the plans of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam to create a black homeland in the USA.
The bankers have been working with the Kurds for many years now. Oil deals, banking deals, arms deals, Kurdistan is a done deal.
We might know more if we were told what types the armored vehicles were. Many simply could not be used by the Kurds, who lack the training. Some could. Which are these?
Funny the Kurds even learned how to shoot I don’t know anybody that trained them . We trained the Iraqi’s and gave them tanks but untrained ISIS kids from Europe and Minnesota bought some fast little Toyota pickup and took the tanks away from a much larger us trained Iraqi army . .
This is part of the “boil the frog” plan the US has for Assad. The US intends to incrementally pour troops, vehicles and artillery into Syria and build a number of illegal bases so that when the fight against ISIS winds down, they can turn on the Syrian military with assistance from US assets in the region. They will do this under the guise of fighting ISIS. but the real plan is to destroy the Syrian military so that Israel can attack Hizballah and then start a war with Iran.
They’re planning this despite probably not having a plan to deal with Russian and Iranian and Hizballah forces in Syria who likely will resist. Or perhaps they DO have such a plan…
All we can do is wait and see.
Doesn’t look we are going to be able to tell which way Trump is taking us yet .with troop movement . I guess it is just a good not to tell us as it is to lie about what we have been doing