Kurds abandomed by Trump

Discussion in 'World Events' started by mathman, Oct 10, 2019.

  1. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    If you would blame Trump for Turkish land grab and killings, then you are blaming the USA for the Turkish land grab and killings.

    Why would you want to blame the USA for the Turkish land grab and killings?
    Is there anything else you want to blame us for?

    Is your brain a permanent guest in the place where the sun don't shine?
     
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  3. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    I just pulled my brain out of my ass, and it's telling me that there was this thing Trump said about his predecessor making silly commitments and then failing to follow through on them, and how Trump said that he's a man who follows up on his own word when he gives it, and doesn't give his word when he has no intention of backing it. If he went to the Kurds and told them "We're going to help you for a few years and then once you've accomplished what we want from you and made Americans safe from terror, we're going to abandon you to be slaughtered by Russia and Turkey," then Trump is certainly acting like a man of his word at this point.

    What was the value in fighting ISIS if the people who did most of the dirty work for you are now going to be abandoned to the same parties who allowed and enabled the rise of ISIS in the first place? Yeah talk about peoples' heads up their own asses, I'm sure you've got plenty of experience with that.
     
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  5. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Because they're guilty. That doesn't mean they're exclusively guilty: they had plenty of accomplices, but sharing the blame doesn't extinguish the blame.
    Trump pretty much trumps all your previous crimes.
     
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  7. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    So, we've got 3 canadians who want to blame the USA for Turkeys crimes, one of whom thinks he knows what trump said to "the Kurds"---does he have a bug in the white house? Is he a spy?

    Did you also wish to blame the US for someone's bleeding hemorrhoids in china?
     
  8. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Either Trump told the Kurds that he would eventually abandon them once he had what he wanted from them, or he promised to protect them in exchange for their allegiance. Which seems more plausible to you? And yes I’m a Canadian spy, but I don’t have to do any actual snooping because all the info I need is available on the public record.

    Did you promise to stop the bleeding in exchange for them risking their lives for you? Well no worries man, now everyone knows you’re a flake and just like Nixon and Kissinger, you don’t consider anyone to be a true friend worthy of sacrificing anything to protect. Have fun doing business in the world with no partners, maybe you only care to visit Nebraska and drive a horse buggy like the Amish, so that should work out great for you.
     
  9. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    We may be the only country, except maybe Mexico, that doesn't.
    But we are holding a Chinese hot-potato at your Supreme Commander's behest, and a couple of Canadians in China have already been sentenced to death for that. As Kissinger famously said:
    "The only thing more dangerous than being America's enemy is being America's friend."
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2019
  10. mathman Valued Senior Member

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    Adding to the mix: ISIS is getting active in the Kurdish area. Kurds don't have enough resources for Turks and ISIS at the same time.
     
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  11. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Erodgan will release all 11,000 ISIS prisoners from captivity as soon as he gets the opportunity, just watch and wait.
     
  12. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    You seem to be inserting a hidden premise: That if the United States provides military assistance to or fights alongside somebody overseas (not even a sovereign nation in the Kurds' case) then those that we help become the United States' "allies", and somehow (insert smoke and mirrors here) become our eternal responsibility forever more.

    In real life, the Kurds were already battling ISIS, had been reduced to several small pockets and were at risk of having ISIS' dark-ages Islamic fundamentalist tyranny imposed on them. They were fighting for all they were worth but were losing. They needed help wherever they could get it.

    After Mosul suddenly fell and whole Iraqi Army divisions ran away, after all kinds of videoed atrocities, after the slaughter of the Yezidis, the US decided to intervene. But the US didn't want another never-ending Middle East war. It didn't want to commit the whole US Army. So, the US determined to fight ISIS by supporting and beefing up local forces while supplying capabilities they didn't have, like air support.

    And the Syrian Kurds were of obvious value in such a strategy. So we supported the Kurds, our aircraft (not just ours, there was a whole international air coalition including Canada) conducted many airstrikes in their behalf, and after Trump was elected US Special Forces were sent to Syria to assist, advise and train the Kurds. (I believe that the British SAS were in there too.) Together, we eliminated ISIS as a territorial state.

    The point being that the Kurds weren't fighting alongside the US out of any loyalty to the United States. They were fighting alongside the US to prevent themselves being engulfed by ISIS and needed any help they could get. (And perhaps later to establish their Rojava statelet.) And the US was fighting alongside the Kurds, not because we had adopted the Kurds as a British-empire style "protectorate" (colony-lite), but because we needed to find local fighters for the limited purpose of defeating ISIS.

    Once again, IF CANADIANS FIND IT SO INTOLERABLE THAT THE US HASN'T GONE TO WAR WITH TURKEY TO DEFEND THE KURDS, WHY ISNT CANADA IN THERE DEFENDING THEM??? WHY ARE WE TO BLAME FOR NOT DOING SOMETHING THAT CANADA (AND THE EU) ARE UNWILLING TO DO THEMSELVES???
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2019
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  13. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    If the US had told the Kurds they were going to be abandoned as soon as it's convenient for Trump, they would have made deals with the Assad regime a long time ago to block ISIS out. Now they're left in a position where Turkey, Iran, Assad, Hezbollah and Russia all want to have a go at them, and their only reliable allies just proved to be utterly unreliable (which doesn't entirely shock those who read about the history of US foreign relations).

    If the goal of being in Syria was to prevent the rise and spread of ISIS, then the mission is still far from accomplished. Thanks to Turkey, 785 ISIS prisoners are reported to have escaped today, only 10,215 or so left to go.

    Who said the US necessarily has to go to war? What happened to those sanctions Trump was threatening if Turkey "went too far"? Now the Turkish operation is in the process of being extended even further than originally announced, soon we're going to hear about how unborn Kurdish babies are destined to become terrorists too and the whole population must be subdued.

    As for Canada, if it were up to me we would have the military spending (and equally importantly, more competent procurement with an eye to real value for the dollars we already spend) to support interventions in foreign conflicts in coordination with other partners. As it stands, our military has been neglected for decades and therefore isn't currently suitable for anything but peacekeeping and basic national defense, because the federal government is more concerned with building shitty beaver statues to stimulate economies in one horse towns where the people think they deserve to earn an eternal living based on a single obsolete skill/industry, and our current prime minister was elected because his last name is Smith.
     
  14. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Because, hysterical capitals notwithstanding, the USA created the mess, and were never, despite repetition of the same misconception, in any danger of having to go to war against Turkey.
    Over the past ten years for which there are confirmed records, the State Department has provided military funding to Turkey through a variety of “peace and security” programs.
    All they had to do was refuse Turkey permission to commit genocide, and make further military aid contingent on compliance with previous treaties.
    If Canada, or the EU, were to mount a military offensive against Turkey, it would effectively
    1. unilaterally dissolve NATO and
    2. incur the wrath of the US - or whichever components of that fragmented administration is currently in charge.
    That's not a step any sane government would take lightly, and that no government could possibly take during an election.
     
  15. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Now the @2 million Syrian Kurds will work out an agreement with Assad's Syrian government. thereby gaining russian backing. What do the Kurds bring to the table? The Syrian kurds have an army of 70,000 battle hardened veterans trained by our special forces(the killer elite), who will not run away from battle and are trained on and equipped with modern american weapons.

    They partnered wit the USA for survival---and they are still there(except for the 11,000 Kurd soldiers who died in the battles).

    With the Kurds back in the fold, Syria will be better able to fend of the Turkish land grab.
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2019
  16. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Well the Iraqi army was also trained by the US and didn't even put up a fight when ISIS showed up, although there are other potential explanations for that debacle besides a lack of quality training or inability to learn. I wouldn't count on anything promised by any of the world's leaders right now, but especially not promises from Donald "I don't give a ^$@# about anyone but myself" J. Trump, and even more so still when Russia is on the other side of the table.

    Syrian officials have already labeled the Kurds as traitors on many occasions and have continued to do even in the past week, their fate at Assad's hands is guaranteed to be miserable just like everyone else who's "reconciled" with him thus far, and you can count on Trump to do diddly-squat about it.

    Meanwhile count on ISIS to come out of retirement, both Turkey and the Assad regime have a long history of cultivating and supporting them.
     
  17. mathman Valued Senior Member

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    Latest: Kurds and Assad forming an alliance.
     
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  18. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    The US probably did contribute to to the mess, if we go back to our (and the Saudis, the Turks and the Europeans) intentional destabilization of Syria during the so-called "Arab Spring". The US continued that disfunctional policy until 2017, when President Trump halted it. (It's the same policy that the US and Europeans used to turn Libya into a failed state, that reduced Yemen to failed state status and almost handed Egypt over to the Muslim Brotherhood.) Most of the Europeans were belatedly out by 2018. Today the hugely Islamist forces in Idlib are largely supported by Turkey and Qatar. What all that bullshit accomplished was spreading civil war throughout Syria, destroying the country without removing Assad from power, and without much thought for what would replace him. And yes, that was the anarchic vacuum in which ISIS festered.

    Of course the proximate "mess" was created by Turkey deciding to send its military across the border against the Kurds.

    How do you propose Turkish tanks be prevented from crossing the Syrian border?

    I think that you dramatically overestimate the power that the US has around the world.

    The United States is in no position to "refuse Turkey permission". If we shouted "We forbid you!!" at Turkey, they would have simply sneered and rolled their tanks anyway. That's because it's in Turkey's interest to suppress the PKK, which is agitating for Kurdish independence in eastern Turkey and has been complicit in a number of terrorist acts. Turkey has its own motives, which have little to do with the United States.

    Of course if we are talking non-military leverage that might get Turkey's attention, trade sanctions might work. And collectively the European Union has far larger trade with Turkey than the United States does. (They border on Turkey. At least on paper, Turkey is still a candidate to join the EU.)

    Just look at Germany alone. 9.6% of Turkish exports go to Germany, and only 5.5% to the US. 9.1% of Turkey's imports come from Germany, and only 5.1% from the US. Germany's a smaller country and it conducts 80% more trade with Turkey than we do. And that's just one EU member. If the entire EU announced a 100% total halt to trade with Turkey unless Turkey withdraws, Turkey might pay attention.

    Will the EU do it? Of course not. It's so much easier to blame everything on the United States.

    What treaties? The Turks have entered what is de-jure Syrian territory. As such, any applicable treaties would be those with the Syrian government. The Turks have as much legal right to be there against the wishes of Damascus as the United States does (in other words, none).

    Regarding military cooperation, we have already cut Ankara out of the F-35 program. That was our biggest arms program with Turkey.

    I think that Turkey's current membership in NATO already has a big asterisk next to it.

    Are you sure the US would object? We probably would be concerned about the war's destabilizing effects. (Effects that would even be bigger if we were fighting it.) We would probably be doubtful whether Canada has the military strength to fight Turkey.

    Exactly.
     
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  19. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Didn't I say? Yes, I did. Did you read the link? Probably not.
    Simple: Tell Erdogan: "No money until you pull your forces back... " (... and scratch up some dirt on the Bidens.)
    That's just about impossible.
    OTH, how much power does it take to throw bombs on countries with negligible defenses?
    Or to tell a financially dependent ally: No; we wouldn't like that action.
     
  20. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Putin wouldn't like that very much - so it will never happen.
     
  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That's something the US should have thought over before it invaded Iraq. It's too late now. Now we have no good options - Trump chooses betrayal of our ally over limited war, and that is a choice of reduced war - less war, if Trump follows through for once, could be the right choice. But it is a betrayal of an ally to the risk of a bad fate, and the best we can hope for in that regard is that 1) Turkey will show restraint and not make the US betrayal look too bad and 2) Trump didn't do that because Putin or Erdogan muscled or bribed him.

    Neither of those is likely.
     
  22. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    So what? They sacrificed some 10,000 people to fight ISIS.
     
  23. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    11,000 soldiers out of 81,000 according to the Kurd commander.
    14% military casualties is a heavy price to pay, but worth it to protect the @2,000,000 Kurds living in Syria.

    It seems that the Kurds have better weapons now. Maybe the 14% casualties is a thing of the past?
     

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