News Dump Wednesday: Turkey Invades Syria Edition

So this happened

Turkey mounted its largest military effort yet in the Syrian conflict on Wednesday, sending tanks, warplanes and special operations forces over the border in a United States-backed drive to capture an Islamic State stronghold in Syria.
The joint offensive on the city of Jarabulus, one of the last border strongholds of the Islamic State, began hours before Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, the Turkish capital. The timing seemed aimed at easing tensions between the two countries raised by the failed coup in Turkey last month.
The operation, clearing the way for a force of about 500 Syrian rebels to take the border town, represented a significant escalation of Turkey’s role in the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL. But it also seemed as much about containing the territorial ambitions of Syrian Kurdish militias, which Turkey sees as its primary enemy in the conflict and which were poised to move against Jarabulus.
Mr. Biden addressed those concerns at a news conference after his meeting with Mr. Erdogan, saying the Syrian Kurds, an American ally in the fight against the Islamic State militants, would have to withdraw to the eastern side of the Euphrates River.
“We have made it clear to Kurdish forces that they must move back across the river,” he said. “They cannot and will not get American support if they do not keep that commitment. Period.”

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Not everyone is pleased

Syria condemned Wednesday's Turkish incursion into an Islamic State group-held border area as a "flagrant violation" of its sovereignty as Kurdish authorities said the action amounted to a "declaration of war".
The foreign ministry in Damascus said it "condemns the crossing of the Turkey-Syria border by Turkish tanks and armoured vehicles towards the Jarabulus area with air cover from the US-led coalition and considers it a flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty".
The Syrian opposition in exile, however, welcomed the intervention....
"Syria demands the end of this aggression," the foreign ministry said.
"Any party conducting a battle against terrorism on Syrian soil must do so in coordination with the Syrian government and the Syrian army who have been fighting this war for five years.
"Chasing out IS and replacing them with terrorist groups backed by Turkey is not fighting terrorism."

The same

Some 1,500 Turkish-backed Syrian rebels have also gathered in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, poised for an offensive to drive IS out of Jarablus.
Turkey has also shelled Syrian Kurdish forces nearby, apparently to deter them from taking Jarablus themselves.

U.S. backs Turkey against Kurds

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called on Syrian Kurdish militants to retreat east of the Euphrates river, a demand that is likely to ease mounting tensions with Turkey -- a key ally in the war against Islamic State.
Standing next to Prime Minister Binali Yildirim in the Turkish capital of Ankara, Biden said on Wednesday that U.S. aid for the Kurdish militant group YPG would be stopped if it didn’t comply. Syrian Kurds have been seeking to link enclaves they control along the frontier with Turkey, which Ankara fears will embolden Turkey’s own restive Kurds.
“We’ve made it absolutely clear" to the YPG that “they must move back across the river,” Biden said. "They cannot — will not — under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment.”

Kurds essentially take over Hasakah

Kurdish militias took a major step toward full control of a northeast Syrian province on Tuesday, signing a cease-fire with the government that gave them all but a few blocks of the provincial capital.
The cease-fire, reached after days of deadly fighting with government forces in the province of Hasaka, brings the province closer to becoming the third to slip from the grasp of President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s five-year-old war.

It's not a no-fly zone, really

Reporters pushed press secretary Peter Cook to explain the distinction.
"Our warning to the Syrians is the same that we've had for some time, that we're going to defend our forces and they would be advised not to fly in areas where our forces have been operating," Cook said.
"It's not a 'no fly zone,'" he added. Later, he said, "You can label it what you want."

What's 700,000 assault rifles between friends?

In all, Overton found, the Pentagon provided more than 1.45 million firearms to various security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, including more than 978,000 assault rifles, 266,000 pistols and almost 112,000 machine guns. ...
As an illustration of how haphazard the supervision of this arms distribution often was, last week, five months after being asked by The New York Times for its own tally of small arms issued to partner forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon said it has records for fewer than half the number of firearms in the researchers’ count — about 700,000 in all. This is an amount, Overton noted, that “only accounts for 48 percent of the total small arms supplied by the U.S. government that can be found in open-source government reports.”

A huge war crime by our allies

More than 700 Sunni men and boys are still missing more than two months after the Islamic State stronghold fell. The abuses occurred despite U.S. efforts to restrict the militias' role in the operation, including threatening to withdraw American air support, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
The U.S. efforts had little effect. Shi’ite militias did not pull back from Falluja, participated in looting there and now vow to defy any American effort to limit their role in coming operations against Islamic State.
All told, militia fighters killed at least 66 Sunni males and abused at least 1,500 others fleeing the Falluja area, according to interviews with more than 20 survivors, tribal leaders, Iraqi politicians and Western diplomats.
They said men were shot, beaten with rubber hoses and in several cases beheaded. Their accounts were supported by a Reuters review of an investigation by local Iraqi authorities and video testimony and photographs of survivors taken immediately after their release.
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but Obama is making Bush's foreign policy almost look intelligent. It was evil, but at least it made sense.

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We are backing Turkey in this offensive.
Meanwhile we are also backing the Syrian Kurds against Assad, Iraqi Shias, and Russia.

What's not to love?

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riverlover's picture

Are we with the Kurds, or is that too hard?

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

edg's picture

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

The Kurds are fighting them too.

It would really behoove Assad to have come to terms with them earlier, I'd think. Better to have them on his side.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I don't think anybody should side with the Islamic State. Wahabbists exploiting the pain of people who have been battered by our military for too long. Seem to enjoy blowing up history as much as blowing up living people.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

jwa13's picture

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When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

11 dimensional chess he's playing. It keeps you guessing as to who the pawns are.

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native

lotlizard's picture

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Alex Ocana's picture

It disappeared with very little commentary. I have reposted the video for those who missed it.

Ponerology. Definition. a branch of theology dealing with the doctrine of evil. "Political Ponerology is a study of the founders and supporters of oppressive political regimes."

Pathocracy. Definition: A system of government created by a small pathological minority that takes control over a society of normal people. A totalitarian form of government in which absolute political power is held by a psychopathic elite, and their effect on the people is such that the entire society is ruled and motivated by purely pathological values.

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From the Light House.

lotlizard's picture

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jwa13's picture

look in the mirror.

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When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

I voted for the guy twice. & am now about to get mowed down by his Queen.

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native

Very comprehensive essay about more regime change propaganda.

At the moment there is almost no debate on the issue of perpetual war in the Middle East. Instead, the media is filled with propaganda using a boy’s photo to promote more war. The Green Party could play a hugely important role exposing the danger and duplicity of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They could play a key role in blocking the Clintonite march to a new war.

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"In his article ““The media are misleading the public on Syria” author Stephen Kinzer recently wrote, “Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why.”

And this current horse pucky comes only a few years after the last "most shameful episode in the history of the American press". Actually, a better word for it would be shameless.

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native

riverlover's picture

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

kabul.jpg

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Citizen Of Earth's picture

is Still A Quagmire -- a lot worse than when we arrived IMO. Another 15 and it will really be fixed. So glad the smartest guys in the country are leading this war.

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Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

and the brightest... Dennis Ross for example. A real Wunderkind, that guy is.

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native

al-Qaeda takes Syrian town with U.S. airstrikes

Turkish tanks and hundreds of opposition fighters thrust deep inside Syrian territory on Wednesday in a lightning operation that within hours pushed Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) fighters out of a key Syrian border town.
The air and ground offensive - the most ambitious launched by Ankara in the Syria conflict - made rapid progress towards Jarablus throughout the day, as rebel fighters captured ISIL-held villages surrounding the strategic border town.
"Jarablus can now be considered fully liberated," Ahmed Othman, a commander in the Free Syrian Army, told Al Jazeera from the scene, while another rebel spokesman said ISIL fighters had fled towards Al-Bab to the southwest....
A dozen Turkish tanks then rolled into Syria in support of Syrian opposition fighters who had also crossed, with as many as 5,000 rebel fighters - including groups like the Turkmen Sultan Murat Brigade, Sukur al-Jebel, Sham Front and Feylek al-Sham.

EU backs Turkey invading Syria

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that Syria has now been blessed with more good jihadis, as opposed to the bad jihadis that were Erdogan's previous partners. While Biden cuts the rug out from under the Kurds, who were his previous partners. Kind of a double-double-cross as it were.

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native

isis-syrian-rebels-obama-cia-640x390.jpg

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Granma's picture

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Denied

Opponents of Libya's U.N.-backed unity government dealt the beleaguered body a blow on Monday by voting to reject it in a rare session of the eastern-based parliament, though the government's supporters dismissed the move as unconstitutional....
The vote was the first since January, when the parliament rejected an initial list of ministers put forward by the GNA's leadership, or Presidential Council, which is meant to represent all sides of Libya's fractured politics.

Also in eastern Libya

Libyan Army Chief and long-time CIA asset Gen. Khalifa Hifter attempted a military coup back in 2014. It didn’t exactly take, but his ambition to see his military in control of Libyan politics has not changed, with new reports that he and his top generals are expelling elected officials in multiple cities, replacing them with military loyalists.
Hifter’s Army is loyal to the Tobruk parliament, at least nominally
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sdf.PNG
ypg.PNG

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Citizen Of Earth's picture

Hurry, send more weapons to fix this mess.

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Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

as long as they fight whom we want to fight. And then go back home when we tell them to stop fighting.

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native

The YPG assault on Manbij took months. America dropped hundreds of bombs in support of the offensive.
YPG lost hundreds of soldiers in the offensive.

Now Biden is saying, "We told them not to go to Manbij."

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Damnit Janet's picture

how much death and destruction we Americans can ignore or look away from...

Errmigawd, Pokeman Go is on the news!!! Alert! Alert! Kim Kardashian has a mad at T-Swizzle. Breaking News! Jan from the Brady Bunch sold her beach bungalow.

Bread and Circuses. We Americans will reap what we have sown and have ignored.

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

Citizen Of Earth's picture

run by sociopaths. And there is no public uprising against it. As the US crumbles in every respect -- Karma for Immoral Apathy.

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Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

Tennessee

Tennessee's insurance regulator proclaimed the state's Obamacare exchange "very near collapse" Tuesday, after signing off on hefty premium hikes in an extraordinary bid to keep the program afloat.

the trend

Avg. Indy Mkt Rate Hikes: 24.3% Requested (all states); 27.1% Requested (8 states); 25.6% APPROVED (8 states)
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Alex Ocana's picture

Jarablus -- Taken without any opposition and being said that disbanded Daesh fighters have joined the Turks and the USA Syrian Jihadi Rebels to concentrate on ridding the Turkey/Syrian border of "terrorists", by which Erdogan means Kurds.

The real caliphate is Turkey, not IS. Turkey's goal is set up a puppet theocratic state in Syria and then annex it to try and reform the Ottoman Empire, that is to say the caliphate.

"Turkey is the ‘mother of the world’ and Erdogan is the ‘awaited Mahdi'”.

In Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi (Arabic: مهدي‎‎, ISO 233: mahdī "guided one") is the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will rule for five, seven, nine, or nineteen years (according to differing interpretations) before the Day of Judgment (yawm al-qiyamah / literally, the Day of Resurrection) and will rid the world of ...

Out of all these madmen the only ones I trust are the secular, socialist Kurds.

Here is a Kurdish poster from International Women's Day.

femalewarriorpaintedfinalweb.jpg

And another concerning the Yezidi people they have been protecting.

yezidi-plight-final.jpg
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From the Light House.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Alex Ocana's picture

I know the psychopaths running most of the world and the looney end timers could give a shit, here is just one of the beautiful people who they slaughter.

kurdistan child.jpg

I am sickened at these deranged power-hungry maniacs destroying everyone and everything with their pathological vainglorious brutality.

Not with my support.

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From the Light House.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

welcomed the intervention."

Syrian opposition in exile? Who's that when it's at home?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver