Turkey and Syria on edge of war
Submitted by gjohnsit on Thu, 11/24/2016 - 4:17pm
I'll have to make this one fast.
Last week I warned about this approaching danger.
Today it all started to blow up.
Three Turkish soldiers were killed on Thursday by Syrian government forces for the first time while fighting inside Syria since the civil war there began, the Turkish military announced.
The Turkish troops were advancing toward Al Bab, a city in the north held by the Islamic State, close to the border with Turkey, the military said.
Naturally, Turkey wasn't happy.
Turkish F-16 warplanes were put on emergency standby Thursday after Ankara accused the Syrian government of having carried out an airstrike on Turkish troops operating in northern Syria that left three soldiers dead and 10 others wounded, one critically.
Western diplomats expressed concern the airstrike overnight Wednesday by a Syrian air force L-39 Albatros light-attack warplane marks a highly dangerous turn of events in the five-year-long Syria conflict and risks bringing Syria and Turkey into a major clash.
Meanwhile, Turkey is already at war with the Kurds.
Syrian rebels backed by Turkey who are trying to drive Islamic State from the city of al Bab said on Monday they clashed with U.S.-backed Kurdish forces as both groups seek to dislodge the militants to expand their own territory.
And Turkey wants to arrest our Kurdish allies.
Turkey has issued arrest warrants for 48 Kurdish fighters, including the leader of a US-backed Syrian Kurdish group that is a key military force against ISIL.
Yes, it's a mess.
Comments
Erdogan is not happy that the USA & NATO were seen to have
backed the coup against him. He has responded by going full Islamic dictator. If he attacks the Russians, it's my opinion that they will strike back. That will put a NATO member, albeit with a government NATO wishes didn't exist, under attack by a non-NATO country.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
He is all Islam, all the time.
My total exposure to Turkey is 11 hours in the Istanbul airport, where every newspaper showed he and his wife involved in a Muslim observance. The papers said nothing about his governance or policies. He was portrayed as the religious leader.
The other 8 hours was an excursion to Ephesus that was by choice guided by a historian and was secular, and a visit to a carpet factory, also secular. I truly wonder just how popular he is. The military backing him actually surprised me, post-coup attempt.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
This is so crazy.
And so dangerous.
Enjoy your holiday. Give us your analysis as time permits.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
CF
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Charlie foxtrot
is Right.
Can we get the fuck out of there before it's too late?!?
Or is it?
Damn, I was hoping we could make it out of there before this shit blew up. Guess not.
Not looking good, folks.
peace
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
Had Assad issued visas to these Turkish troops
…to enter the sovereign nation of Syria?
I think that may be the problem right there, and would stamp this as a "local skirmish."
Any foreigner in Syria without an invitation should be immediately deported.
I certainly don't see how this has anything to do with Russia, the US, or NATO. I imagine they all went home for the holidays, anyway, where they should stay.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Yes, exactly. Turkish troops are in Syria, trying to take over
a Syrian town. Syrian forces defended themselves against the Turkish invaders...as is well within their rights to protect their citizens.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
Doesn't the proposed pipeline route explain Turkish movements?
They're determined to open that corridor.
Can you imagine the duplicitous games being played by U. S. policy right now? Pushing the Turks on. Telling the Kurds we're behind them and trying to shut the Turks down. Telling the Iraqis to keep the Turks out of Mosul.
Sowing wind everywhere. Very concerning.
I am sure you are right.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
I'm told
that saying that Obama's Syrian policy is duplicitous or that it doesn't make sense is just Russian propaganda.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
They want to build a gas pipeline in a war zone??
The idea that anyone would take control of some "corridor" and build a pipeline while several air forces and irregulars are blowing up everything in sight is truly jaw dropping. The distances here are just too small to control some area in perpetuity. Unless there is a long term solution to Syria, a gas pipeline is simply a big thing that you can make go boom.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
A quick visit to Wikipedia tells me
that Syria has a total area of 71,479 sq mi, comparable to Missouri at 69,704 sq mi.
Syria has a population (2014) of 17 million, a bit less than New York state (2015) with 19.8 million.
You've got the US, Syria, ISIS, Russia, Kurds, Turkey shooting at each other in a country with a population density of 306 per sq mi. Lots of opportunities for mistakes to be made.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
Updates
Turkey vows revenge
This is American hypocrisy at its finest.
Not one American soldier is fighting to keep me safe from ISIL, nor are they fighting to protect my freedoms.
There is no reason for our troops to be fighting in any country overseas, especially in the Middle East.
The troops overseas can't do anything to protect me from a lone ISIL person from coming to my state or this country and committing an act of terrorism.
In fact it's our government's actions in the last century plus which has killed over a billion innocent people that has but me in danger.
Maybe if this country hadn't been killing people so that companies can take other country's resources then people wouldn't want to take revenge on me because of my government's actions. Maybe.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Thank you gjohnsit
Particularly for avoiding any Turkey-Thanksgiving puns.
German troops are stationed at the NATO military base Incirlik
Subject to Erdogan’s whims, those German troops are going to end up being, in effect, hostages.
It has already happened once.
When the Bundestag, Germany’s lower legislative house, passed a resolution marking Turkey’s act of genocide against the Armenians, Erdogan suspended the regular visits that German government representatives had been making to check on the troops in Incirlik.
Erdogan only allowed visits to resume after Merkel’s coalition government of conservatives and Social Democrats issued a statement emphasizing that the Armenian genocide resolution was “non-binding,” i.e. meaningless.
The MSM in the West have blood on their hands
They continue to be cheerleaders for duplicitous military disasters in the middle East. This means you, New York Times and you, Washington Post. The West, mainly the US and their lapdogs in Europe, have screwed up too many countries with hideous consequences. What game are we playing? We create the armed opposition and destroy any semblance of law and order. Then we pour tons of arms into combat zones, like Hillary Clinton's arms ratline from Benghazi through Turkey and into Syria. The only difference with Syria is that Russia stepped in. If not, Syria would have fallen a year ago and would be total chaos with some remnant government of our choosing, ISIS and various Al Qaeda affiliates, Turkey and the Kurds dividing up Syria. Its not surprising that Turkey, Syria and the Kurds are shooting at each other while various members of "The Coalition" (of death) are dropping bombs on Syria. Where's the sanity and why do our news organizations not report the facts on the ground? This is going to blow up unless the US and Russia get together to restore sanity and tell other players what they cannot do. In order for this to happen, the people of the US have to be in support of a sane policy and therefore need to have the facts, not the bullshit that the media have reported so far to kiss-ass to one or another administration. I am amazed at the crap that I hear from some of my liberal friends. The propaganda has worked, congratulations, but the results may be staggeringly bad.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
The MSM coverage of Syria
is the actual "fake news" out there.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
The MSM coverage of Syria
is the actual "fake news" out there.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Brilliant statement.
Thank you so much for saying all of this.
I wonder, though, whether there was ever any real desire to remove Assad. They have what they want: endless carnage, endless terror by all sides, and therefore endless arms shipments, endless smuggling of oil, endless threat, endless atrocities by Assad necessitating endless response. What more could you want? I agree they want chaos and ISIS and Al Qaeda to control the region, but Assad gives both sides, all sides, a reason for the rampage.
They want the genocidal extermination of all Shiites
…in the ME up to Iran's border. THe US works for the Sunnis. The beneficiaries are Qatar (Sunni — pipeline oil sales), Saudi Arabia (Sunni — religious supremacy), Turkey (Sunni — geopolitical hub advantage), and Israel (Regional and local Empire supremacy), The would all divide the spoils of Syria, turning its state-owned oil over to multinational corporations and exploiting its strategic location, forcing Sunni-only commerce and commodity influence. The American People are paying for the entire thing thanks to the Federal Neocons.
On behalf of the Parties listed above, the Sunni terror warriors of ISIS, have done most of the heavy lifting in the Shiite genocide and dislocation. Genocide is always simple to see, to know, and to understand. When the viewers are not deliberately blinded.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I agree. And the reason
they want the elimination of the governments of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Yemen, and Libya is that they have been too democratic. They have allowed women to vote, which adds to the trend toward education, healthcare, and prosperity for more people. In other words, they have been trending in the wrong direction, away from the psychopathic backwardness of governments controlled by Big Oil and toward democracy, which is not allowed under fascism.