US warnings and calls for restraint have failed, and Turkey has invaded Syria’s Afrin District, beginning what could be a protracted battle with the US-backed Kurdish YPG. Two major US allies are in open conflict.
US allies have often clashed in the course of the Syrian War, but this is shaping up to be a long military campaign by Turkey, which has been looking to push against the Kurds for quite some time.
The US is so far just calling for “restraint,” but their involvement in the fight could come quite quickly, as Turkish officials have repeatedly said after Afrin, they’ll be attacking the YPG-held city of Manbij, a city that has US troops embedded within.
The US initially sent troops to Manbij to try to deter a Turkish invasion, betting they wouldn’t want to risk causing casualties to a fellow NATO member. That the fight is already ongoing now may change that calculation.
Moreover, Turkey has been complaining about US support for the Kurds for years, and is now demanding that the US totally end all connections with the YPG if they want to “work together,” something the US is unlikely to do.
US intentions to keep troops in Syria for the long-term depend heavily on the idea of the YPG retaining a lot of territory to host those US troops within. Finding a way to retain that territory while still giving Turkey the major anti-Kurdish offensive they want is going to be a struggle, and one which could do long-term harm to US-Turkey relations.
That swath of Syrian land east of the Euphrates to the Iraq border is just startup real estate and its plenty big enough.
Its a mistake to assume this Kurdistan ends at the Turkish border.
The distribution of the Kurdish people, various nationalist maps of Kurdistan, and NATO’s own redrawing schemes indicate American Kurdistan is just the tip of a Kurdish iceberg looking to end Sykes-Picot the way IS could only dream. Cnce the Kurds are armed and radicalized and their more sane leaders and people killed off in Afghanization a new IS will rise. Or so the neocons hope; nightmaring big is a thing they do.
“Map of Kurdish inhabited areas by the Council of Foreign Relations” – Brilliantmaps. com/kurds
“Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East” Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, GlobalResearch. org
It was inevitable that Turkey would strike the Kurdish terrorist groups who have been plaguing Turkey for so long. And it is inevitable that they will win – Turkey’s military is huge, this is right next door, they have had years to plan, and the U.S. neoconned military can’t do anything about it. Anyone could have foreseen they’d repel the Kurd invasion of this area once ISIS was gone. Anyone except the morohns in Washington. It’s too bad Trump has been forced to appease the neocons/Israelis, right up to supporting criminal Kurd drug smugglers, so that the Lobby will tell their stooges in Congress not to attack him.
Folks, you gotta read @Partisangirl at Twitter about the Syrian war and the Kurdish land-grab. (And also Sarah at @sahouraxo.) Few in the West hear about all the crahp the Kurds are doing. They sided with ISIS in Aleppo for one thing, and only switched sides late when it was clear the Syrian military would win. They allowed ISIS forces in the east to march through their territory to attack the Syrian military. They bring in ISIS fighters to their ranks.
Kurds disarmed the Yasidis in Iraq – you never hear of this. They then made sure not to warn the Yasidis that ISIS was approaching. They wanted the Yasidis killed and driven off their land, their women raped. But whenever the media mention the Yasidis attacked by ISIS, they make sure to leave out this part. Kurds in Syria attack Christian towns and drive them off their land.
You could see during the war, pictures of Kurds and ISIS (where there are also many Kurds) sharing cigarettes and fraternizing at their shared borders. Just recently, they released hundreds of ISIS fighters and armed them as new soldiers in their ranks. Armed them with Washington-provided weapons.
The Kurds in Iraqi towns forced people to speak their Kurdish language in the schools, banning Arabic. Luckily they were driven out from the territory they invaded.
The Kurd parties are Marxists who smuggle drugs to Europe. They practice
female genital mutilation – you never hear about that either (or ANY
reference to Kurds as being Muslims – doesn’t fit the neocon narrative).
They kidnap businessmen in Turkey and extort their families. They use
car bombs against those who don’t pay. They decided to side completely
with Israel, a fellow land-grabber, in order to get access to the
American people’s tax money. The Lobby in Washington always gets what it
wants, including when they want terrorists armed.
In Europe, Kurds act exactly the same as Arabs in the schools and in the streets. Don’t believe the neocon propaganda about them. Of course we’re shown some pictures of the very rare Kurd women with light hair color: “Look! Kurds are like us!” There are also equally rare Arabs with light hair, but we don’t get to see that. And we are shown Kurdish women fighting with guns in their hands – the guns they denied the Yasidis – but we never get to see that women fight in the Syrian defense forces too.
Seems like a loss for Syria and Russia to have a bunch of Sunni Muslims in Syria that want nothing more than to remove Assad from power and curb Iran’s and Assad’s influence in the region. Erdogan supported ISIS financially by buying stolen Syrian oil from them and allowing fighters and weapons to flow through it’s borders. That’s the real reason it shot that Russian jet for infringing on it’s borders. Erdogan is using the guise of fighting the Kurds but in reality is really ethnically cleansing it’s borders to install a bunch of Sunni Muslims to create a buffer zone and use as his own proxy force. America, Russia, wake up Turkey is not your friend.
Any nation that has its own interests and seeks to defend them is not America’s friend. America doesn’t have friends, it has abused girlfriends.
For the most part it is the same mercenaries that were there before . Turkey has 25000 mercenaries reportedly.
A textbook example of unintended consequences or “if you stick your nose into a hornet’s nest you will get stung”.
The list of unintended consequences generated by this government will keep growing because it does not believe in such consequences.
The Kurds aren’t an ally.
and neither is Turkey…despite affiliations.
Yes, Turkey is a longstanding formal NATO ally.
It fought on our side in the Korean War, suffering serious casualties as one of the largest contingents anyone sent to help us.
It was home to our first nuclear ballistic missiles that could reach Russia, and even today houses our nuclear bombs.
Just another welfare client like you know who…..
Nope they are paid mercenaries and will eventually turn on American soldiers in Syria. That has happened so many times I have lost count but for the warmongers fighting however isn’t the point. They must keep the region destabilized and continue to fund the military acquisitions that are making so many of them multi-millionaires.
Has anyone else read the article on the Daily Beast from Anna Nemtsova called “A Russian Blackwater”? It’s about the Wagner Group. This is a must read for anyone interested in the tactics powerful nations use and the price the people who serve them pay.
“…whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
Blow back, pure and simple.
Tillerson:…”We’re very concerned with the situation in Syria. With Turkey, and…”.
Lavrov: “…Really? ….We told you. Go on…”
Tillerson: “The US State Department has urged its NATO ally Turkey to exercise restraint against our proxy ‘Border Force’ and…”
Lavrov: “… Hahahah!!”.
Tillerson: “…and in order to avoid civilian casualties… Sergei??…”.
Lavrov: “HAHAHAH!!!!
Not written by me, I found it in the comments