Turkey ramps up to attack the Syrian Kurds
The Battle of Mosul should end in the next day or two.
The Battle of Raqqa is proceeding according to expectations.
However, it's becoming increasingly clear that the post-ISIS era will be defined by a Turkish war against the Syrian Kurds.
The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday that Turkish military deployments near Kurdish-held areas of northwestern Syria amounted to a "declaration of war" which could trigger clashes within days.
Turkey has been shelling and bombing the Kurdish region of Syria, but that happens so often that it doesn't really mean much.
What does mean something is Turkey's jihadist allies.
Syrian rebels said on Friday they were preparing to join the Turkish military in a major new offensive against Kurdish forces in northwestern Syria, raising the prospect of yet another front in an increasingly complex conflict.
The goal of the battle would be to regain a string of Arab villages in Syria near the Turkish border that were seized last year by Kurdish-led militia fighters, the rebels told Reuters.
"There is a coming extensive joint operation we are preparing with the Turkish army to expel these extremist separatist militias (Kurdish YPG) from our land," Mustafa Sejari, a senior official in the Western and Turkish-backed rebel group Liwa al-Mutasem, said.
Turkey is seeking to contain the Kurdish YPG group in Syria, viewing the force as an extension of Kurdish separatists fighting inside its borders.
Turkey has been pouring tanks, artillery and troops into the Syrian town of Azaz, the last town before the border with Turkey, its Syrian rebel allies say. It marks the biggest deployment of Turkish troops into Syria since Ankara launched a major incursion into northern Syria last year.
This strategy seems more than likely.
The flashpoint in this case is the small city of Tal Rifaat that the Kurds took from al-Qaeda-liked fighters more than a year ago. Tal Rifaat has the same symbolic significance as Manbij, however Tal Rifaat is part of the Afrin canton, and thus cut off from American troops and the heavy weaponry we've been giving the Syrian Kurds.
Thus Tal Rifaat is a "soft target" for Erdogan. He can "do something" about the Kurds without directly confronting America or Russia.
While U.S. troops, embedded with Syrian Kurd forces, are nowhere near Tal Rifaat, it seems unlikely that the fighting would not spread.
Turkish President Erdogan seems to suggest this.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday inferred the United States would "pay a price" for supporting the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) currently fighting the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria.
Not only would this sidetrack the Battle of Raqqa, it would also handicap our attempts to overthrow Assad in Syria. It seems likely that our forces would get killed by our NATO ally.
Comments
Welcome to the Middle Fucking East!
Welcome to the Middle Fucking East!
We really do need to get the hell out of that whole cesspool....
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
The only reason it is now a cesspool is due to the US
and its allies. Creating cesspits is SOP for the US and the 900 pound gorilla in the region when they can't get the regime change they desire.
the Middle East cesspool
False. The joint's been a cesspool for many centuries longer than there has been a United States of America to be allied with. In fact, there has never been a tine where it wasn't one. The tales of peace and prosperity under Turkish, Arab, Roman, or Greek rule are nostalgia and only that. In fact, Arab chafing under the Turkish yoke is what got the British in there to begin with; and we Americans inherited the cesspool from them.
Please do not get me wrong here. We (and our British forebears from whom we inherited this mess) are now in the same damn pit that every former "master nation" has been in there. Failing to learn from our forebears, the Anglo-Americans decided that we would succeed where the Turks, Romans, Crusaders, Greeks, Israelites, Arabs, Hittites, Babylonians, Persians, and Egyptians failed before us. And the result of that stupidity is what we see there today.
We need to get and stay the fuck out of there. And make sure that all other outsiders do the same.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
For periods of hundreds of years the ME managed
periods of peaceful coexistence between different religions and cultures. Historically, Europe was much more violent.
The greatest strife in the ME has occurred since the 1919 Paris Peace Conference arbitrarily cut up the area into individual nations. Different religions and ethnicities had lived in relative harmony for centuries. The worst atrocities began with US interference post WWII mainly due to oil interests and counter Soviet Union activities.
It seems undeniable to me
that America's military interventions and covert activities have made the MENA region immeasurably worse-off than it would otherwise have been.
native
NOT disputed!
NOT disputed!
My point is that others before us made the same mistakes in that region and got much the same results. We could and should have learned from their mistakes, but instead insisted on repeating them and then doubling down on them.
We need to get the fuck out of there -- not just the US, but everyone of European origin or culture as well.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
The Brits never screwed with Iraq as much as the Yanks have
In less than two decades US intervention has killed in excess of 500,000 Iraqis and caused the displacement of 4 million people. Hundreds of towns have been destroyed. Ethnic and sectarian groups, who have lived together for hundreds of years have been ripped asunder.
The last time something similar happened was in 1401 when the Mongol, Tamerlane, sacked Baghdad and killed thousands of Iraqis and devastated hundreds of towns.
Tamerlane
And we still refuse to learn.....
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I think "we" have learned.
We've learned how to destroy countries if we cannot change or replace their governments by other means.
I've noticed the one commonality of the majority of the countries that the US has destroyed in the last century have all had extensive socialist policies such as free healthcare and education, while using their natural resources to finance it. Another is they had their own central banks.
Yep. And they nationalized their public utilities
…and their vital natural resources, sharing the wealth with the people instead of handing them over to wealthy corporations to exploit on behalf of their shareholders. Capitalism would flourish. Wealth would expand endlessly. Democracy would be eaten alive, and the powerful would rule the world.
It sounded like a good plan…..
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Mistakes would indicate they went there to do something
but miscalculated or were wrong in their assumptions and planning in some way. That's not the case, these weren't mistakes, they were premeditated aggressive assaults on other nations, governments and people for greed and power.
There is no learning about it other than in how to bomb and kill better. They think killing people is worth their goals, remember Madeleine Albright's statement about the half million Iraqi children.
learning
False. There's also the available lesson of "don't fight wars of conquest, they're never worth it". You know, the lesson the Macedonians, Romans (!), Mongols, Spanish, French, British (!!), etc. had to learn the hard way. In every case, empire cost the mother country far more than it ever was worth. In the Roman case, it destroyed the mother nation outright; and in the Macedonian case, it turned the superpower of its age into a third-rate backwater. (Orderly pre-arranged succession, rather than "to the strongest", would have saved Macedonia's bacon!)
When I bemoan our failure to learn, that's the lesson I'm talking about!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I see your point but I'm sure they all think they're immune
from such failure. Such is the human being.
It's not just the US,
the real turd in that punchbowl is Israel.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
turd
And that turd stinks as badly for us as it does for the Muslims, as no US Federal elected official can get elected without Israel's say so.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@thanatokephaloides
So, why can't Russia hack Israel in order to control US elections, since foreign-state election control is provably OK with these guys? s/
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Shhhhhhh! Don't say that!
If you criticize Israel, Haim and the others will get very, very mad, and punish us.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
@dervish
Aren't they doing so anyway, in the race to destroy democracy and life on the planet? Lol, considering the projected end result in the very near future, I'd say that there's effectively nothing left to lose but freedom to criticize anyway...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
A Trump-Putin agreement on Syria
is this a bad thing?
Rhetorical question:
Did this agreement involve anyone purporting to represent the Syrian government or the rebels (or freedom fighters, depending upon your POV).
@gjohnsit There was another article
There was another article recently that suggested the ceasefire was cover for the US to shore up its losing jihadist allies. Basically seeing the historical pattern that whenever our desired "rebels" are losing, the US tries to negotiate a ceasefire.
I thought Tillerson had already decided to let Russia
decide what to do with Assad. Has that changed? This was a story from earlier this week.
Are the Syrian rebels who are going to be fighting with Turkey the same Syrian rebels who are Al Qaida that our country has been backing?
Is there a bingo card available to keep track of which group is which?
And the Kurds don't have access to jets like Turkey does, right? Who does our government want to come out on top?
The last time there was a cease, wasn't it the pentagon or the CIA that went behind Obama's back and bombed the Syrian forces that had finally retaken the airport from ISIS?
It's so confusing.
As to the democrats finding any fault with Trump, when Tillerson announced the deal with Russia, there was a diary on ToP that was against it because everything Russia does is bad because they tie it to the Russian interference with the election and that Trump is Putin's BFF.
This diarist got most of the details wrong about what really happened with Ukraine and Crimea. The homophobic attitude from people is disgusting.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
@snoopydawg
I keep getting mixed among all of the claims made; was '... the Russian interference with the election ...' from newscasters running accurate news on a news station, from Russian hacking of the judge who ordered Hillary's emails released, from Russian hacking of the Electoral College or all of the above and others?
Any anonymous Top Secret evidence of Russian hacking of traffic lights during the General election surface yet? Perhaps Russian hacking of Bill Clinton, forcing him to disgust people all over the world by illegally blocking voters in Bernie areas during the Dem Nomination, to campaign for Hillary right by the polls and doubtless turn off voters throughout America?
There are so many Russian hacking claims, not to mention all of the other perps who lost poor hapless Hillary Her Turn for the second time that surely Russians must have been involved during her run against Obama... were American voters Russian, too? They were one group of everyone at fault for this failure of Her Royal Coronation. (And thank FSM! The Mad Bomber would have radioactively crisped us all by now, probably during that offshore shipboard fireworks display Her had planned, for the win!)
Edit: I have not had the stomach - or the HazMat suit - to go back to TOP myself, but I do hope you had all your shots prior to each visit? You are one of those here who are desperately needed and must not be placed at risk!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
lol. It is amazing isn't it how much Russia has done
to this country. From hacking the DNC emails, the Vermont electrical grid, and having thousands of bots that posted on various websites.
Not one shred of evidence has been shown to anyone. This is bad enough, but now Russia attempted to hack our nuclear sites. Every morning when I look at the internet news, Russia is accused of doing something else.
Articles about how Russia interfered with the election start out by saying that, but inside the article are words such as atempted, is believed to have..., an anonymous source has said
and then it makes this huge leap that concludes that indeed, Russia interfered with the election, changed votes and somehow got people to push the button on voting machines and vote for Trump.
Now the propaganda has gone in another direction and states that Russia is hacking everything from nuclear power to changing people's Girl Scout cookie orders. Instead of getting a box of thin mints, people are getting the chewy cookies.
I still have friends over at ToP that I message with, and that's when I read those types of diaries.
The front page focused on Trump and the republicans during the primaries and are now mostly focusing on the things that Trump is doing.
Occasionally there will be diaries that aren't about Trump, but it's very rare. Besides, I enjoy reading how groupies think and feed off of each other. The Russian propaganda are the funniest.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
There's diary up right now at GOS
that's talking about how Russia is hacking our utilities. It's shameless, as if they have no memory of the Vermont hoax. They truly must believe that we're stupid.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
@dervish
OMG - Russia increased the utility rates!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@snoopydawg
It's hilarious - except for the fact that they project what they do onto others - and we already know that they've hacked into nuclear and other systems of other countries.
Gee, let's virus this nuclear medical, power or whatever set-up and make it blow up or something - what could go wrong?
Psychopaths have no problem killing mass quantities of innocent people...
Russia will, of course, be well prepared for such attempts as this, and I expect others will be as well, thank goodness.
Never thought I'd be grateful for the existence of an authoritarian leader anywhere - but it seems that Putin is the real 'lesser evil' in this situation, and probably labelled as such because he does such as cutting back on military spending to ensure that his people's pensions will be paid out to them.
And, yes, I do hope to piss off any propagandists reading this sort of thing; they should know how good they make look Putin and others targeted for corporate enrichment at the expense of their people, to whom they provide essential public services which the US PTB wish to eradicate the very concept of.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Speaking of Hillary's excuses for losing the election
have you seen this video? I find it hilarious.
Someone posted this in a comment on a different site.
Just as no one has talked about what the Wikileaks emails contained, no one asks why Obama didn't protect our voting process.
One other thing no one talks about is how Israel has interfered with our elections for decades. Or that Haim Saben threatened to withhold funding from the DNC if Ellison had been elected to the DNC.
Plus I have seen comments from ToP saying that Obama helped get France's president elected.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
@snoopydawg
Thanks! I had seen it, but it's worth re-watching.
Lol, they call these guys suppressing discussion of documented facts/pumping out ludicrous propaganda political hacks, don't they? Russia must have hacked them all!
I shouldn't laugh, though, because crazy is not funny and these guys are so far out to lunch that their brains evidently starved to death en route.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
In a situation that calls out for
multilateral diplomacy, as this one clearly does, the USA is being led by a man who can't even spell diplomacy, let alone conduct it. A Turkey-vs-Kurds war is something to be avoided if at all possible.
native
I believe Obama could spell diplomacy.
Unfortunately, he conducted it out of both sides of his mouth.
@CB
And one side of that mouth was, unfortunately, not only on the other side but a great deal lower down... it's always about either gas or oil, isn't it?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Obama diplomacy
Think the other end of the alimentary canal.....
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I'm just saying that a possibility
for effective diplomacy clearly does exist in this situation. If only the USG were willing to take advantage of it, by using its influence to broker a deal among the various players, a potentially devastating war might be avoided. This has nothing to do with what Obama might or might not have done.
native