If we care so much about the Syrian Kurds, how come no one mentions Afrin?

The House voted overwhelmingly to condemn Trump's abandonment of the Syrian Kurds.

The House vote was 354-60 with every Democrat and more than two-thirds of the Republicans supporting the measure...
"We told them: 'Trust us. We have your back'," McCaul said on the House floor minutes before the vote. "And what is happening now? The Kurds are being slaughtered as I speak in northern Syria."
...
The resolution, supported by Republicans and Democrats in both chambers of Congress, calls for Turkey to end its assault in northern Syria against the Kurds, voices opposition to end "United States efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria" and calls on the U.S. to both protect the Kurds and support the communities now being affected due to the assault.

Everyone cares about the Kurds. Yes-siree.
Mayor Buttigieg went a step further in the debate last night by putting it in a moral imperative context.

Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country has done. We saw the spectacle, the horrifying sight of a woman with the lifeless body of her child in her arms asking, what the hell happened to American leadership?

And when I was deployed, I knew one of the things keeping me safe was the fact that the flag on my shoulder represented a country known to keep its word. And our allies knew it and our enemies knew it.

Good f*cking grief. Can anyone swallow this meaningless political drivel, much less believe it?
As a matter of fact, the Democratic establishment seems to think this was a home run.
Am I missing something?

So everyone agrees that this is unprecedented, and that America can't abandon the Syrian Kurds.
If Trump ever decided to abandon the Syrian Kurds, surely Mayor Pete and the rest of the Democratic Party would say something, amirite? It's a moral imperative.

afrin.PNG

Except that we've already been down this road. About a year and a half ago Turkey invaded the Kurdish-majority, northern Syrian province of Afrin.

The estimated population of Afrin in November of 2017, according to the United Nations, was 323,000 people. As of March 18th, 2018, the day on which Turkish forces reached the center of Afrin City, an estimated 100,000 people remained there — suggesting that at that time, over 200,000 people had already been displaced. By January of 2019, one year after the operation began, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that over 300,000 people had been displaced from Afrin.

The Kurdish civilians who remained, along with other minority populations like Yezidis, were singled out for looting, enforced disappearances, and other violations by occupying Turkish and FSA forces. The United Nations reported that “patterns of house appropriations” took place against Kurdish civilians. Rebel fighters threatened to behead Kurdish ‘infidels’ in widely circulated videos. One militia that participated in the operation said that all Kurdish males in Afrin between the ages of 15 and 50 should be “displaced and persecuted”.

Same guys invading. Same allies being ethnically cleansed.
Same outrage by the Democratic Party? Nope.

I've been doing searches for nearly an hour and I can't find a single statement, much less a statement of outrage, by the Democrats over what Turkey did in Afrin.
The MSM was no better.
The Associated Press reported that Turkey had bombed Afrin to target ISIS, despite the fact that there was no ISIS in Afrin.
In another example, the New York Times slandered a female Kurdish fighter that refused to be captured. They said that “an American ally, the Kurds in northern Syria, carried out a suicide attack against the Turkish military in Afrin. It puts the U.S. in the awkward position of allying with suicide bombers.”
These are the same people that the NY Times is now shedding crocodile tears over.

So what's the difference between Afrin and now?
The only difference are the American troops.
The MSM and politicians don't give a fffuuuuuuck about the Kurds. All they care about is that the troops never leave.
The suffering and dying of the Kurds is just justification for an agenda.

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

wendy davis's picture

because: Trump.

up
0 users have voted.

n/t

up
0 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp @on the cusp Did Afrin have any oil? I know the Kurds do.

I was looking for a map of oil fields in Syria, and ran across this statement: "Increasinly (sic) the question now becomes what to do with the several Syrian oil and gas fields in the south of the Kurd territory, and to which US forces have been repositioned". (emphasis added)

Maybe all the tearing of garments is aimed at stopping the Turkish invasion short of the oil fields.

up
0 users have voted.

Here are few snippets to show that A: President Obama didn't really buy into the whole Syria thing, but the Saudis pushed him. B: Hillary Clinton didn't have a clue, but loved war. C:Democratic love child John BOMB BOMB BOMB Iran McCain really wanted the CIA to destroy Syria and hated that someone would dare stop a non-transparent, answer to no one, billion dollar funded organization operating in another country.

------

The expanded program would “send a clear message to the Assad regime that there is no military solution to the struggle,” according to a memo this month to the White House from the opposition. Assad now “has no incentive to talk,” the memo argued, because he thinks he is winning.
The rationale, bluntly stated, is that to reach an eventual diplomatic settlement in Syria, it is necessary now to escalate the conflict militarily. This has been a hard pill for Obama to swallow, but prodded by the Saudis, he may have reached that point.

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/04/02/ignatius-...

-------

At a White House news conference, Obama frequently assailed Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he accused of acting out of a position of weakness to defend a crumbling, authoritarian ally.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-airstrikes/obama...

--------

“I worry too much that Secretary Clinton is too much into regime change, and a little bit too aggressive without knowing what the unintended consequences might be…. You’ve got to think about what happens the day after.” Clinton didn’t really have a response.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/hillary-clintons-baffling-f...

--------

Washington (CNN)Sen. John McCain said Thursday that he has confirmed that some of Russian airstrikes in Syria were aimed not at ISIS, but instead at CIA-backed fighters taking on the Assad regime.
"Their initial strikes were against the individuals and the groups that have been funded and trained by our CIA, in a credible flaunting of any kind of cooperation or effort to conceal what (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's priority is -- and that is, of course, to prop up (Syrian President) Bashar Assad," McCain, R-Arizona, told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day."

https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/01/politics/john-mccain-cia-russia-airstrike...

The Democratic establishment can suck an egg when it comes to Syria. They were wrong from day one. They continue to not have a clue.

up
0 users have voted.
The Liberal Moonbat's picture

As expected, all I got was stuff about the nasal spray. I imagine that doesn't help.

up
0 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

As soon as an opening appeared, Syria is now all on Trump. Afrin? Good product.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@MrWebster

their despicable Republican counterparts. At least the Republicans don't try to use the language of compassion to justify illegal invasions and mass murder.

up
0 users have voted.

"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

Now backed by the Assad government, the Kurds are fighting back

Four current and former U.S. officials who have worked closely with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) confirmed that the group built a defensive network of tunnels beneath key towns throughout northeast Syria as a contingency against a Turkish invasion. Now, with U.S. troops evacuating and no U.S. air support, the Kurdish fighters are successfully using the tunnels to defend the border towns.

The Kurdish fighters “are famous for developing innovative ways to fight a more advanced army,” said a senior U.S. administration official, adding that “the Turks have been surprised by their effectiveness.”

In the last 24 hours, the SDF has recaptured much of the border town of Ras al-Ain and pushed Turkish proxy forces from the strategic M4 highway, which runs through northern Syria and Iraq, according to a source with the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the SDF’s political arm. During the battle for Ras al-Ain, the SDF killed 103 fighters with the Free Syrian Army, a decentralized band of Syrian rebels with links to violent extremist groups, the source said.

Gen. Mazloum Abdi, the SDF’s commander in chief, was seen in Ras al-Ain last night after it was recaptured, the SDC source said.

The Syrian observatory for Human Rights also reported that the SDF managed to recover the area after heavy fighting.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gjohnsit

Is it possible that D.C.'s virtuous victims will refuse to be victims? What will we do then?

up
0 users have voted.

"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

This is the first time soldiers felt ashamed of something their country has done?

Did they not feel ashamed when we retreated from Tora Bora to go chase oil riches in a country where nobody had done us harm?

Did they not feel ashamed when we killed roughly a million people in that war--and its spin-off conflicts?

How about when we committed genocide upon Yemen, for no reason other than that our oil-rich buddies wanted us to?

Did they not feel ashamed when they learned about a twelve-year-old being put into Guantanamo Bay?

How about when they learned that we lock people into coffins filled with insects?

Don't fucking talk to me about a moral imperative, Buttigieg. You're not qualified.

up
0 users have voted.

"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

Bisbonian's picture

...a large, flying gas station... from a base in Incirlik, Turkey, out around the east end of Syria, and south into northern Iraq. The purpose was embodied in the name of the operation, PROVIDE COMFORT. I was supplying gas for various fighter-bombers (supposedly*) keeping Saddam from attacking the Kurds in that part of Iraq. Every few days, I would refuel Turkish fighters, armed with bombs, and figured they were either supporting the same thing (naive ignorance on my part), or doing training missions (I had recently spent five months training the Egyptian Air Force to do aerial refueling).

One day, after topping off the US planes in Iraq, we had some time to kill before coming back to refuel them again, and decided to head up into Turkey, where there was less shooting going on. Cruising up a valley, we noticed little orange flashes along the ridgeline to our right. "What is th...THEY'RE SHOOTING AT US!" I immediately banked left and climbed out of range. After fueling our fighters once again, I headed for the base, with some questions.

"Why are Turks shooting at me?"

"Well, actually, they are Kurds, not Turks."

"Okay, why are Kurds shooting at me? I thought we were protecting the Kurds."

"Well, we are protecting the Kurds in Northern Iraq, but as a part of our agreement with Turkey, they allow us to use their airbase if we also gas up their aircraft bombing the Kurds in Turkey."

"I don't feel comfortable with that agreement."

"Well, there is nothing I can do about it."

But, in fact, I was never given that assignment again, and several months later, I left the Air Force.

*Turns out, we were pretty much ignoring the Iraqi Kurds, and just taking the opportunity to bomb Iraq for a while longer than was officially recognized. After further research, I saw that we had been alternately using and abandoning the Kurds since toward the end of WWII.

up
0 users have voted.

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Bisbonian

I ignore pleading for the Kurds.

Just as I ignored pleading "just think of the women" in Afghanistan.

I just can't sell my moral compass that cheap. Slaughter is slaughter.

Your's was a risky learning experience.

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato