Our military adventure in Syrian is about to become FUBAR

A couple weeks ago I asked a couple simple questions:
Why, oh why, would we choose the YPG-dominated SDF, over our long time NATO ally?
Why are we militarily containing Turkey?
Make no mistake, we have set our military against Turkey, and that is huge.

Turkey thought about it for a week, and then formally objected.
When that didn't do anything, Turkey decided on direct military confrontation.

The US called on Turkey to not follow through on threats to attack US-backed forces in Syria Wednesday, an incursion the Pentagon warned could threaten US personnel and derail the fight against ISIS.
"Unilateral military action into northeast Syria by any party, particularly as US personnel may be present or in the vicinity, is of grave concern. We would find any such actions unacceptable," Commander Sean Robertson, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, told CNN.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that he will order a military operation against the Kurds in northern Syria within days. We have roughly 2,000 American troops in that same area.

Erdoğan also expressed disappointment that US-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria had not left the town of Manbij, as agreed in a US-Turkish deal brokered this year. “The Americans are not being honest; they are still not removing terrorists [from Manbij],” he said. “Therefore, we will do it.”

Manbij will be the first target, but Turkey is also targeting Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, which are hundreds of kilometers away.
Like their previous operations in Afrin and northern Aleppo, Turkey will be using jihadist allies that were previously fighting the Assad government.

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earthling1's picture

I know this is not breaking news to Erdogan. And longtime ally hardly describes the relationship.
Remember, it was the American missiles on the Turkish/Russian border that sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
With Russian bombers visiting Venezuela, this could be a little "gunboat diplomacy" to massage Erdogan's sense of loyalty.
Those are great questions though, gjohnsit.
We live in interesting times.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

They both are there illegally. They are both committing international war crimes by being there. Is this how far geopolitics has gone down the tube? There will be no solution to this quagmire because both the US and Turkey are capable of militarily escalating the situation beyond the capabilities of the Syrian government, even with Russia's help to Syria. That's why you have laws, so that there is a process bigger than brute force. Apparently we now live on a globally lawless planet. That suggests a military solution to everything.
I think that the next time Western leadership complains that other countries, the ones they don't like, are violating international laws, I might just puke. If you are the self-appointed leader of the world it just might be an enormous advantage to get the rest of the world to follow international law. So instead, we flaunt that law whenever it suits us.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

The Turks are our allies. This just brings in fresh proxy forces per the Israeli plan all along.
And fight ISIS? We created and control ISIS.

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It seems that regardless of motives and what all the players want to achieve, it looks like Syria will end up being like Viet Nam with increasing escalution of US "boots on the ground". I fully expect more and new false flags to justify more US troops in Syria.

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k9disc's picture

last year or so. He's maniacal; there are bogeymen all over in his public discourse. I've had my eye on him as a catalyst for global apocalypse for some time now.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

dervish's picture

and as a result, ineffective. In the bigger picture, if the Empire isn't capable of achieving its goals, its power erodes, and it's less capable of creating trouble. Let them posture and pose, they'll alienate every bit of their soft power eventually, and become unable to sustain the machine.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."