During an interview with Reuters, US Central Command leader Gen. Joseph
Votel says that even after US forces withdraw from Syria, he believes US interests are served by continuing to arm the Kurdish Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) fighters.
Gen. Votel suggested that the US would continue to see the SDF fighting
against ISIS across Syria, and that this will continue to be true even
after the “last” ISIS villages fall to an SDF offensive.
After that, ISIS becomes a more dispersed insurgency, and Gen. Votel
says that the sort of arms and aid the US would be providing would
likely need to change, to help them adapt to the new conflict.
This is likely not to sit well with Turkey, as they are planning to
invade Syrian Kurdistan in the wake of the US pullout. The US had long
promised to disarm the Kurds after the war, and even if they have
already suggested that’s probably impossible, Turkey doubtless will be
unhappy if the US keeps shipping in arms that will be used against them.
wrong decisions, of course…Erdogan better get cracking.
Maybe this is blasphemy but actually have no problem with this. The IRA accepted guns from Gaddafi, the Vietcong accepted guns from Mao, and now the YPG is taking guns from Trump. A guerrilla’s gotta do what a guerrilla’s gotta do. As long we get troops the f**k out and stop arming jihadists, I can live with it. More importantly, Rojava can live with it. And Erdogan can go f**k himself.
Well I can understand if from their point of view, but from this American’s point of view it sucks. We will be stuck in the middle and blamed when innocent people keep getting slaughtered, then we will get more terrorism or we will get the next president who feels they need to fix everything some more. Best to just stay out of everything. But yes F Erdogan too.
Pragmatically I can understand why they feel the need to arm them. ISIS will be around for a while and they don’t want them taking cities again. Which they could do if the Kurds are not armed well enough to fight them off.But they can always get them from someone else so why get involved if you don’t have to?
You know what I don’t get. Why does the US have to stay? What about France or the UK? They have Special forces there right now, let them stay and if Germany is concerned don’t they have a couple thousand troops to spare? Seriously if they think pulling out 2,000 troops is going to be the end of the world then what the F are they waiting for? Honestly, how big of a threat do they think it is if they are not willing to take over the mission? Must not be to big of one.
While I admire the Kurdish project of Rojava, if it is to survive it will have to be smarter than to rely on military defense from the likes of Gen. Votel.
First, the US will serve only its own interests. Local forces have been abandoned all over the world for a very long time whenever they became inconvenient.
Second, the US cannot give the sort of help Rojava needs. It must make a peaceful place for itself to live, not just make endless war to serve the US Forever War. The US can’t help with that, and does not even want to try anyway.
The Kurds can deal with Erdogan, especially with the help of Assad. They did before. A deal was made by and for them twenty years ago, when Syria and Turkey came very near fighting on their border over Kurdish activities cross-border.
The Kurds could make much the same deal again, trading their current Rojava for help keeping Turkey secure from cross border guerrilla attacks. Do they want to do that? If not, they better get their heads on straight, because it is the only way out of this short of total disaster.
General Votel is nit a general but a neocon politician. Look up any of his testimonies to Congress to hear him drone and on about globalist vision. He is free lancing here. Gid help us with such generals. Reminds me if the crop of generals Trotski put in place in Red Army, all communist ideologues, no commin sense or knowledge of running military. And for as long as he fought unarmed peasants and monks teaching them the virtue of Marksizm al was well. But ss Nazi machine was getting ready, it was time to get them out and pull old Tsarist generals out of mothballs, almost too late. Listeming to Votel in hearings, advancing his globalist vision — makes one wonder ehen can we get cured from nation building. As arming Kurds, who are not jn danger from Syrian government, to secede— is the hight of insanity. There is nobody in the region supporting it, other then Israel. It is understandable. Israel cannot tolerate peace in Arab world, if we can no longer have Sunni and Shia go at each other throats,or have Al-Qaeda and/or ISIS, snd assorted Islamist cults kill mire of their brotherly co,-religionists — why not have Kurds have their own state, surrounded by growling Arabs, taking focus away from Israel occupation. But who cares if we have to pay bill for another nation building! Enough already. If YPG does not wish to lay down arms, or incorporate within Syrian Army —. there will be Turkish action. It is inevitable. When NATO members are at war with each other for Kurds, how will this be solved. Happy General cares not — whatever shakes out will be just additional problem, generals job insurance. No accountability anywhere.
Uh, nope, General.
Arming the Kurds will just justify Turkish aggression. They are far better off hiding behind Syrian Arab Army lines.
As the Kurds are the last pool of even remotely plausible genuinely pro-American sympathies in Syria, getting them killed off is just a bad idea.