Having just met with the French Foreign Minister, Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik has publicly made clear that Turkey is demanding France choose between supporting them, or supporting the Kurdish YPG.
The Turkish government has expressed growing annoyance at NATO nations for backing the YPG, and a lot of that recently has centered on France. This is because President Macron has been very public in backing the Kurds, and suggested supporting them in Manbij.
Turkey considers the YPG terrorists, and has vowed to expel them from all territory in Syria. Turkish officials have indicated they’ll attack Manbij, a YPG-held city, even if it means going over US and other NATO troops.
This ultimatum to France is probably going to be presented more formally to the US in the days to come as well. Turkey has long warned they wouldn’t let the US keep supporting the Kurds, and with a fight over Manbij looming, Turkey seems set to start making people decide.
A NATO power with long-standing alliances to the US, France, and Britain, Turkey seems to assume that the nations will have to choose them over the YPG. It isn’t at all clear that this is the case, however, as all of these nations have invested heavily in supporting the Kurds as allies in Syria, and may not feel comfortable changing sides.
(“Changing Sides”?) The YPG isn’t a side.. It”s more like an inside corner (a turn neither obtuse or acute). “however, as all of these nations have invested heavily in supporting the Kurds as allies in Syria, and may not feel comfortable changing sides.”
Not changing sides, but changing reflexes. And whose, which side is the YPG on right now…. Arguably not our side, which we are still on… No need to Change sides, just position! Easy solution in a fight with such ill-defined & transient sides”
The reason why the elephant cannot sleep safely with mice. Every innocent toss and turn is potentially fatal for the mice…. And the Kurds need be less promiscuous with whom they sleep…..!!!!!!!!!!
Such strange imagery in this age of genetically modified organisms…
Off course they choose Kurds.
That is the policy to maintain Turks keeping busy with Kurds and somehow their higher interest of them,mean time keeping maintaining eternal enemy of the Turkey.
This dirty diplomacy is continuing.
OK, so about the House cafeterias sides; are French fries still freedom fries, will Turkey fingers become ‘freedom bird’, and will poutine be served with curds or Kurds?
Can’t have the House’s main dish of pork and gravy go without righteously names sides.
Turks are slipping into complete fascism, and their goons beat up protestors right here in the US (and charges were dropped against them for some reason), but you’ll see anti-war.com people supporting them over the Kurds, who have factions that even explicitly embrace libertarian principles.
What makes you think that “Antiwar.com people,” who are for the most part US non-interventionists, will support any side in a war that should not involve the US at all?
Here’s what one of the “Antiwar.com people” wrote concerning Turkey a couple of years ago.
Great article.
Very interesting article, and now we see Turkey buying Russian weapons and refusing to join the parade of puppets in the EU and NATO following the May/Boris Novichok accusations.
The worst thing we can do for the Kurds is provide them with imperial sponsorship. It undermines their whole revolution. Suggesting America should f**k off is the best way to support Rojava. A revolution that can’t stand on its own two feet can’t stand.
It should not be at all difficult For the former Christian NATO countries to switch sides from Kurdish Sunni’s to Turkish Sunni’s They have all had a lot of practice shifting from Christian to Muslim preference . The Truth of the matter UN , NATO and the NWO they plan on themselves replacing all belifiefs Kinda l;ike communism did .
Maybe it’s time NATO tells Turkey, Russia or NATO it’s time to choose.
“Goodbye NATO”
Show them the door. Tell Turkey not to send a post card
I suspect a hidden agenda.. for this threat to be formally made immediately following the summit Erdogan had with Putin and Rouhani, and even to the point of refusing the proposed mediation between the Kurds and Turkey by Macron, I have to wonder if Turkey cut a deal with Assad to clear Syria of groups that the US/Israel can support, leaving them no alternative for making a presence – no more FSA, no more ISIS, no more YPG.. and the US withdrawing “soon”…what’s left? The Kurds have to move much further east… they bit off more than they can chew in Syria !
The meaning of “the Kurds” changed with the US involvement.
They had been a defensive militia in their own communities. That was not a problem for Turkey or Assad, and the Kurds had deals with both of them to live and let live, the Turkish deal applying to staying away from the border of Turkey, and the Assad deal to keeping out the anti-Assad forces in return for autonomy.
The US recruited and re-equipped and provided logistic and fire support for a transformation of the Kurdish forces into an offensive force that went out into non-Kurd communities to change control of Arab communities from one Arab group to another, or to Kurds themselves. That violated the deals with both Assad and Turkey.
It was however exactly what the US needed, a ground force it could use, that it had been unable to find among “moderates” it sought from the Arabs.
It is also exactly what Israel sought, both to break up Syria into powerless cantons on its border, and to create a puppet proxy force on Iran’s border like the Christian militias it had manipulated in Southern Lebanon (until disaster that led to Hezbollah).
What may or may not move is not Kurdish communities, nor their defensive ability, but the proxy offensive forces in the field, which have moved into and tried to occupy Arab, non-Kurdish zones to serve their masters, not local Kurdish communities.
The Kurds were opportunists just like everyone else. They expanded too far with what they thought was carte-blanche blessing of the West.. now that is challenged – and they will have to shrink back.
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/kurdish-repression-turkey
The Kurds, a group of approximately 18 million people, are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East. Occupying a region of 500,000 square miles in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and the USSR, the Kurds are one of the most persecuted minorities of our time. Nowhere is their future more threatened than in Turkey where Kurds are one quarter of the population. Since World War I, Kurds in Turkey have been the victims of persistent assaults on their ethnic, cultural, religious identity and economic and political status by successive Turkish governments.
I know of no other Ethnic group with that large of a population that does not have a single country that they can call their own . So Evidently the world has already chosen nothing for the Kurds . The United States and their NATO allies including Turkey was more than willing to bomb the hell out of the Orthodox Serbs to create the little country of Kosovo , special for their Albanian Muslims
God bless Erdogan if he can bust up NATO.
When oh when is the EU, NATO and US going to tell Erdogan to shut the hell up and get lost.
Why do you not look at a map?
Without Turkey, US-EU-UK have no access to the Caspian sea, the Black sea or any means of getting to Central Asia. That means that enormous mineral and oil reserves are gone! Pakistan and Afghanistan are gone. India is going as soon as they have taken every cent that they can extract. Koreas and SE Asia gone. Middle east, gone. When the Silk Road is complete, Russia and Central Asia will have the ability to export to the East and will no longer need US, EU or UK.
Without Central Asia, the economic world is ceded to China and Russia. US-EU-UK are desperate to maintain some sort of control and have not yet realised that it is over.
are you a member of the flat earth society? The US can trade with Asia via the Pacific Ocean. Who cares about Central Asia? The only thing they have is good cuisine.
The US has a lot of oil (and a lot of coal to turn to oil when that runs out. )
And China did this thing called the “one child policy” which pretty much messed them up as well.
The future might look like Mad Max or Blade Runner but even in that future the US is going to be number one if only by default.
Good grief!
Have you been living in an igloo on Antarctica?
Zbigniew Brzezinski
The Grand Chessboard
American Primacy And It’s Geostrategic Imperatives
Key Quotes From Zbigniew Brzezinksi’s Seminal Book
This has been the USA bible for strategy for the last 30 years!
“Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power.”- (p. xiii) (Eurasia means “the Middle East”)
“… But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.” (p. xiv)
“In that context, how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.” (p.31)
He and every intelligent American realises that time is running out and that a plan has to be implemented if the US wants to dominate for at least the next 10 years.
Get your head out and start reading important stuff. Your family’s lives depend on it.
http://www.takeoverworld.info/grandchessboard.html
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f80182495e37bc3aeb3e39fc7b45bb94f0d419ff985ac70e239af254ed21bae.jpg
That was written before FRAKING the US has plenty of oil.
The US even has the most pro US ruler ever in Saudi Arabia.
The world has changed a lot since that was written.
Saudi is irrelevant.
It is not about the US oil needs it is about control of the worlds energy.
It is still the bible for USA Foreign strategy.
Nothing has changed.
“About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.”
The US can not and is not trying to control the worlds energy. The US doesn’t need Russian oil and can not control it either.
There is no conspiracy. The US is the Saudi Arabia of coal and one of the biggest oil producers . Plus alternative energy will replace oil in 25 years or so.
So why is USA in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and 180 other countries?
Don’t bother, it is clear that you do not understand and have no need to learn anything beyond “USA, USA, USA”
The US was attacked on 9-11/ and to stand up to Iran. that is why the US is in Afghanistan. and mid east .
The US used to be dependent on imported oil . But that is NOT the case anymore but policy doesn’t quickly change to match reality.
The US was in Europe and North East Asia because of the cold war.They are still in many countries because of inertia and because the US doesn’t want to appear like they were driven out of anywhere. Much of that might not be worth the cost.
Did you just fall off the turnip truck? The US had been in the middle east since the “Carter Doctrine” went into effect. You don’t understand a thing about what is going on. Iran? Terrorists? You are a child.
At that time the US needed oil . They US doesn’t . The world has changed a lot since then but you can’t seem to get that.
OK, so the US was in the Middle East because it needed oil, and now it doesn’t need oil. So what’s the new argument for the US being in the Middle East?
Things don’t change overnight But which part of the mid east. Things ought to change that doesn’t mean that a complete withdrawal is in the best interests of the US.
Anyway the US has a lot less forces in the middle east than it used to
America to withdraw troops from Saudi Arabia
By David Rennie in Washington12:01AM BST 30 Apr 2003
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/1428786/America-to-withdraw-troops-from-Saudi-Arabia.html
It is also kind of sad to drop the kurds again who stood up the the US.
“The US was attacked on 9-11/ and to stand up to Iran. that is why the US is in Afghanistan. and mid east .”
So what, the US had a time machine to go back and get involved in Afghanistan 20 years before 9/11 and the rest of the mideast well before that, after 9/11?
9/11 was not the CAUSE of US involvement in the Middle East. 9/11 was the EFFECT of US involvement in the Middle East.
was it ?
In his second book, Imperial Hubris, a New York Times bestseller, Scheuer writes that the Islamist threat to the United States is rooted in “how easy it is for Muslims to see, hear, experience, and hate the six U.S. policies bin Laden repeatedly refers to as anti-Muslim:
U.S. support for apostate, corrupt, and tyrannical Muslim governments.”
U.S. and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula.
U.S. support for Israel that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis’ thrall.
U.S. pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low.
U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Scheuer
How many of the things above does the US have zero to do with ?
Besides why ought the US listen to creeps like Bin Laden and those like him?
What Bin Laden means by support is the US can not have trade military or diplomatic ties with anyone that he doesn’t approve of. Screw him and all those who support him approve of him or think like him.
I am sure that Al Qaeda doesn’t like US foreign policy but they fight for much more. They demand the Caliphate and more . Not that they can get it but they think they can.
Quoting Scheuer as supporting EXACTLY what I said is a funny way of trying to argue against what I said.
Scheuer says what Bin Laden and those like him demand . But look there are lots of things that the US has nothing to do with
Each thing that Scheuer listed was an irrefutable and publicly documented fact.
And it’s not about whether or not bin Laden and his successors like it. It’s about whether or not the people in the region like it. They don’t, which is why they fund and support al Qaeda.
If the US completely withdrew from the Middle East, al Qaeda and groups like it would still exist. They’d just be 1/100th the size they are, have 1/100th the money they do, and not be able to use the US as a punching bag in a way that keeps the recruits coming and the money flowing.
“Besides why ought the US listen to creeps like Bin Laden and those like him?”
Exactly.
The US shouldn’t be supporting Muslim governments, or any other governments. That’s true regardless of what bin Laden thought.
The U.S. shouldn’t have troops on the Arabian Peninsula. That’s true regardless of what bin Laden thought.
The U.S. shouldn’t support for Israel. That’s true regardless of what bin Laden thought.
The U.S. shouldn’t be pressuring Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low. That’s true regardless of what bin Laden thought.
The U.S. shouldn’t have invade and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s true regardless of what bin Laden thought.
U.S. shouldn’t be supporting for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants. That’s true regardless of what bin Laden thought.
The US gave bin Laden a bunch of excuses. Moreover, the US made itself into bin Laden’s biggest funding and recruiting poster child. All bin Laden had to do was exploit “how easy it is for Muslims to see, hear, experience, and hate” those policies.
When you go pushing people around, don’t be surprised when those people applaud you getting punched in the nose and support the guy who landed the punch.
What is support for muslim governments?
What is support for Israel?
You mean the US can’t have diplomatic , military and trade relations with those whom Bin Laden objects to? Screw him
Does the US help Russia and China oppress muslims? Not that I know of
The US keeps oil prices low. It is called FRAKING for oil .
9/11 happened before the US took down Saddam.
The US is in Afghanistan because the Taliban will invite Al Qaeda types back in if they win.
“The US keeps oil prices low. It is called FRAKING for oil .”
Actually it’s called fracking, and it’s more expensive, not cheaper (even discounting the negative environmental effects).
It’s not the US that’s keeping oil prices low, it’s OPEC. Although the US is their reason. Fracking and oil sands extraction are more expensive that drilling from easily reached reserves, so OPEC is under-cutting the frackers/sand extractors to keep their operations unprofitable.
“9/11 happened before the US took down Saddam.”
Really? No shit? When Saddam invaded Kuwait, bin Laden tried to get the Saudis to use al Qaeda to dislodge him rather than bringing in American gofers like me. The monarchy’s decision to invite US troops in was part of his casus belli.
It’s not about who’s right or wrong. It’s about what works. US involvement in the Middle East is what drives people and money to al Qaeda. Without the US as bogeyman, they’re just a few idiots squatting in caves with AK-47s and whining. With the US as bogeyman, they get the money and the people to bomb Khobar Towers, attack the US Cole, and take down the World Trade Center.
We don’t always agree but you are a good guy. I hope others could take your lead.
It would do wonders for the anti interventionist movement. Even if I don’t totally agree
Now that’s something I don’t hear very often around here 🙂 Thanks!
Here’s what Robin Cook wrote in the Guardian, published on July 8:
‘Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally “the database”, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden’s organisation would turn its attention to the west.’
IF you believe that 2 small aeroplanes can knock down 3 huge buildings I have a tunnel to sell you between UK and France. You can relocate it to where ever you like.
The 5 dancing (and 70 others) Israelis tell you who actually did 9/11. You are beyond logic and reason and therefore it is pointless to continue.
Because some idiots dance ( the report is fuzzy) or take pictures is not proof of anything. Many onlookers took videos were they on the attack too?
Al Qadia wants the Calipahte
And they knew to position themselves an hour in advance with mounted cameras, because ???
There is no al Qaeda dummy!
There is no ISIS dummy!
It is all theatre and you are the sucker that buys into it.
There is no Al Qaida? Flat earth society
So everyone who took a video or a picture that day was in on it?
9 11 conspiracy theorist = urban terrorst wannabes
In short, the new study by Wood and Douglas suggests that the negative stereotype of the conspiracy theorist – a hostile fanatic wedded to the truth of his own fringe theory – accurately describes the people who defend the official account of 9/11, not those who dispute it.
Recent studies by psychologists and social scientists in the US and UK suggest that contrary to mainstream media stereotypes, those labeled “conspiracy theorists” appear to be saner than those who accept the official versions of contested events.
“The CIA’s campaign to popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make conspiracy belief a target of ridicule and hostility must be credited, unfortunately, with being one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time.”
In other words, people who use the terms “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” as an insult are doing so as the result of a well-documented, undisputed, historically-real conspiracy by the CIA to cover up the JFK assassination. That campaign, by the way, was completely illegal, and the CIA officers involved were criminals
No wonder the anti-conspiracy people are sounding more and more like a bunch of hostile, paranoid cranks.”
By Dr. Kevin Barrett
Any other comments dummy?
Russia isn’t going anywhere either . They have awful demographics.
It isn’t about the oil moron. It is about power and control. That is the game. Oil is just a tool. Like control of financial markets and the petro dollar it is just one tool the empire uses to maintain control. The goal is “full spectrum dominance” and not allowing any competitors.
The US acts in its self interest but not any worse than other countries and probably somewhat better.
Moreover ,the means of power and control have changed a lot in the last 25 years what was very important then is much less important now.
By the way please give a list of competitors and then say why it would be good if they got what they wanted and (separately) why it would be good if they got what they wanted at the expense of the US.
If the US acted in its self-interest it would start minding its own business and cut its military budget by about 90%.
Since the US isn’t doing those things, the US obviously isn’t acting in its self-interest.
Never Erdogan is partnering with NATO and tells them when to shut up . And they all do and call it politically correct .
Good-a fight within NATO.
The three certainties in life are death, taxes, and betrayal of the Kurds by the US (and its French poodle).