8 ms·

I'm still shocked at how thoroughly the United States betrayed the groups like YPG that we were working with months ago. Destroying fortifications on the Syria

by ipsin 7y ago

I'm still shocked at how thoroughly the United States betrayed the groups like YPG that we were working with months ago. Destroying fortifications on the Syrian border [1], providing intel to Turkey. There's an official denial of a "green light", but it's pretty clear that that's exactly what it was -- a surprise withdrawal and support ahead of Turkey's offensive. U.S. hardware, support, and consent. It might as well be U.S. troops slaughtering them now, but the U.S. press seems to be treating it as something that the U.S. was not deeply involved in, or something deeply shameful for the U.S. [1] https://twitter.com/sojtfoir/status/1175869891305451522 https://twitter.com/sojtfoir/status/1175869891305451522 [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/world/middleeast/turkey-attacks-syria.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/world/middleeast/turkey-a... ("Because of an American counterterrorism partnership with Turkey, Turkish aircraft were given access to a suite of American battlefield intelligence in northeast Syria.")

OzzyB 7y ago
I'm more shocked at comments like yours that get echoed and promoted without any context whatsoever, but then again "Anti-Turkishism" is a thing. What I'm shocked about is how a so called ally can side and arm a vowed terrorist group for years and expect there to be no fallout, but then "Pro-Kurdishism" is a thing. I do love however the narrative that the Kurds are this angelic force that helped us when no other would for no benefit at all. Why don't you and the west just come out and say you want Turkey broken up? It would save us a lot of time instead of being constantly gas lit.
- Angostura 7y ago
  > Why don't you and the west just come out and say you want Turkey broken up? Because a measure of self determination for the Kurds is not synonymous with I want turkey broken up’?
- TheArcane 7y ago
  > Why don't you and the west just come out and say you want Turkey broken up? Self-determination is fundamentally supported in the west, like Canada for Quebec.
- driverdan 7y ago
  These attacks are being made by Erdoğan and supported by Trump. Those facts alone are good reasons to question them.
  - yalph 7y ago
    Ya Obama can kill brown people. Its fiiine! I think its time for you to use your critical thinking abilities.
- y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
  First of all, not all Kurds = PKK (the terrorist organization you are referencing) and not all arms of the PKK commit acts of terrorism. Second, the atrocities committed by Turkey are on the same scale as terrorism, the difference is only in the semantics. Look at the human rights violations and civilian casualties committed by both the PKK and Turkey here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish%E2%80%93Turkish_conflict_(1978%E2%80%93present)#Casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish%E2%80%93Turkish_confli... There are families and civilians living in the regions being bombed by Turkey right now and they are defenseless because the Kurds dismantled their battle stations under the recent Turkey-US agreement. The Kurds have been massacred numerous times throughout recent history by Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. It would be naive to think a militant organization wouldn't form out of the atrocities committed onto them by these various nations as a means to protect themselves. Not to say this excuses acts of terrorism and corruption committed by the PKK, but a blanket bombing campaign is the worst possible answer.
  - yalph 7y ago
    Whatever happened to Kurds in the past in Iraq, Iran etc is not Turkeys problem. Put yourself in the situation. You have a terrorist group that is killing your citizens for 35 fucking years. You are hosting 5 million Syrian refugees in your country. What do you do? What would the US do? I know what is happening right now is not the ideal solution but it is very hard to blame Erdogan. Also, I can assure you that Kurds in Turkey is treated much much much better that African Americans and Native Americans in the US. So what does this say about the US?
  - mda 7y ago
    Is it a blanket bombing campaign though? Do you really believe Turkey is indiscriminately bombing civilians?
    - jacobush 7y ago
      Hell yes
      - mda 7y ago
- OldFatCactus 7y ago
  defending fascism is a bold move, my man
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Opposition to Erdogan's apparent desire to murder all those who oppose him =/= opposition to Turkey.
igammarays 7y ago
> There's an official denial of a "green light" Have you considered the possibility that a green light was, in fact, not given, and that Putin has simply outmanoeuvred America in this case? I think the evidence points towards Russian intel backing Turkey's latest operation. America completely failed to implement her interests in the region partly due the absolute mess of her internal politics, e.g. a still completely dysfunctional and understaffed State Department: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/state-department-empty-ambassador-to-australi/574831/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/state-d... Three pieces of evidence that Turkey is drifting towards the Russian sphere of influence: 1. The nonchalance with which Turkey exited the F-35 program preferring the purchase of Russian made S-400 air defence systems. 2. The recent agreement between Turkey and Russia to use the Russian MIR payment system and to settle sovereign debts in Liras/Rubles instead of US dollars. 3. This latest incursion into Syria, which serves no American interest, but clearly serves Putin by taking an American ally out of the equation (the Kurds). edit: perhaps Trump greenlit it, but America didn't.
- luxuryballs 7y ago
  I think the idea that US tax payers funding a military effort that isn’t involved in actually protecting the US should be considered here too, especially since we’ve probably endured more actual American deaths because of such activity. Spending money not protecting the people who are funding it is bad enough but putting the people funding it in more danger than they were before is really bad, that’s the opposite of what the military is for.
  - WaxProlix 7y ago
    And so you sell out and instantly betray your allies against ISIS the second they're not immediately useful anymore? Aside from the deeply troubling morality expressed there, you're setting yourself up to never have local allies in any future conflicts as we can all see just how well that's worked out in the past. The answer to "how do we not fund and die in foreign wars?" isn't "go to war in foreign countries over and over again and then abandon our allies as soon as our immediate objectives are apparently met", it's gotta be more like "stop picking fights in foreign countries".
spoiledtechie 7y ago
Its a CIVIL war that has been raging for the last 200 years. It won't stop anytime soon until there is diplomacy. Real diplomacy and HARD diplomacy is needed here. It can't be stopped unless people sit down and talk things out.
- megous 7y ago
  Since when CIVIL wars involve several remote superpowers and a bunch of local countries?
  - xxxtentachyon 7y ago
    Many times? During the US Civil War, Great Britain gave serious thought to intervening on behalf of the Confederacy on whom they depended for cotton supplies (India at the time was still experimenting with cotton horticulture), and gave tacit financial support throughout the war. Virtually all of the Latin American civil wars of the second half of the last century saw the US give material or military support to anti-communist forces.
  - abraae 7y ago
    Vietnam.
- pas 7y ago
  Why would Erdogan sit down with a minority when he has the resources to just totally oppress them?
- kyledrake 7y ago
  It's not a civil war, it's a genocide event against the kurds.
  - mda 7y ago
    Stick to facts please.
    - 7y ago
vonmoltke 7y ago
> [1] https://twitter.com/sojtfoir/status/1175869891305451522 https://twitter.com/sojtfoir/status/1175869891305451522 > [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/world/middleeast/turkey-a.. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/world/middleeast/turkey-a.... ("Because of an American counterterrorism partnership with Turkey, Turkish aircraft were given access to a suite of American battlefield intelligence in northeast Syria.") That is related to this: https://twitter.com/hashtag/securitymechanism?src=hashtag_click https://twitter.com/hashtag/securitymechanism?src=hashtag_cl... The agreement was supposed to protect the Kurdish groups from a Turkish offensive by de-escalating the areas that the US had deemed "safe", while providing an umbrella of US control. Trump then disgustingly yanked the umbrella away and let the Turks have at it.
scumbert 7y ago
The mental gymnastics in this thread, yeesh. "The U.S. should leave and stop interfering!" and "The U.S. should stay and help the Kurds!" are not simultaneously possible.
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  I'm confused. You seem to be describing two groups of people disagreeing. How is that mental gymnastics?
  - scumbert 7y ago
    No, the same people who argue one often argue the other
- chloerei 7y ago
  The United States should not intervene from the beginning, or stay to solve the problems caused by him.
navigatesol 7y ago
>a surprise withdrawal This may be a surprise to you, but this withdrawal was announced in December of 2018, and even by then it had been discussed for months: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/20/syria-kurds-trump-troop-withdrawal-isis-turkey https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/20/syria-kurds-tr... This is a Syrian civil war. Do you expect the military to take and hold territory on behalf of the Kurds? They were a partner of convenience because we happened to have a common enemy. Turkey is also an ally (like it or not), and has border issues of their own they'd like to handle.
- Fronzie 7y ago
  It was also a surprise for senior republicans, giving disapproving comments on president Trump. This is something they rarely have done before. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mcconnell-joins-other-republicans-in-rebuking-trumps-syria-withdrawal/2019/10/07/aef0d11e-e914-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mcconnell-joins-othe...
- monoideism 7y ago
  > Turkey is also an ally (like it or not) Turkey was an ally. I love Turks as people, spent significant time in Turkey. But it's clear that as a government, Erdogan has turned Turkey away from the West, from America, from democratic values, and decidedly toward Russia (and not just ideologically). Turkey's NATO membership is now just a vestigial momento of the cold war.
TheAlchemist 7y ago
It's exactly the sentiment now in Poland. We have some precedents in our own history, especially in the beginning of the WW II, and a lot of people are shaking their heads - we consider ourselves as important US allies but it's clearly interpreted as the sign that you can only count on yourself in this world.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > we consider ourselves as important US allies I remember hearing that on the news regularly since at least the invasion of Iraq, and I still don't understand why our politicians keep repeating it. It's bullshit. To the US, we barely register on the map.
- neetdeth 7y ago
  Poland and Turkey are both NATO allies. That should count for a bit more than being incidental pawns for CIA / State Dept. interventionism, no? In fact, the reputation of those latter arms of our government is so deep in the dumpster at this point that I cannot believe anyone who becomes entangled with them can claim naivety. This idea that the USA has a deep obligation to a handful of communist ethnic militias in the Middle East is an intel psyop, and you're falling for it.
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    The US arming and approving the actions of the oppressor for a genocide is very much a potential outcome here. It’s worth preventing that possibility.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
KON_Air 7y ago
I don't see how betrayal comes into play, that is the function Kurds chose as mercenaries in Middle East. They essentially play "Red Communist State" vs American brand of "Nationalist" Turkey/Syria.. etc. They did in Iraq and got themselves a semi-independent feudal state, this time Syria held on with Russia and they are getting nothing.

by ipsin 7y ago

OzzyB 7y ago

I'm more shocked at comments like yours that get echoed and promoted without any context whatsoever, but then again "Anti-Turkishism" is a thing. What I'm shocked about is how a so called ally can side and arm a vowed terrorist group for years and expect there to be no fallout, but then "Pro-Kurdishism" is a thing. I do love however the narrative that the Kurds are this angelic force that helped us when no other would for no benefit at all. Why don't you and the west just come out and say you want Turkey broken up? It would save us a lot of time instead of being constantly gas lit.

Angostura 7y ago
> Why don't you and the west just come out and say you want Turkey broken up? Because a measure of self determination for the Kurds is not synonymous with I want turkey broken up’?
TheArcane 7y ago
> Why don't you and the west just come out and say you want Turkey broken up? Self-determination is fundamentally supported in the west, like Canada for Quebec.
driverdan 7y ago
These attacks are being made by Erdoğan and supported by Trump. Those facts alone are good reasons to question them.
- yalph 7y ago
  Ya Obama can kill brown people. Its fiiine! I think its time for you to use your critical thinking abilities.
y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
First of all, not all Kurds = PKK (the terrorist organization you are referencing) and not all arms of the PKK commit acts of terrorism. Second, the atrocities committed by Turkey are on the same scale as terrorism, the difference is only in the semantics. Look at the human rights violations and civilian casualties committed by both the PKK and Turkey here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish%E2%80%93Turkish_conflict_(1978%E2%80%93present)#Casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish%E2%80%93Turkish_confli... There are families and civilians living in the regions being bombed by Turkey right now and they are defenseless because the Kurds dismantled their battle stations under the recent Turkey-US agreement. The Kurds have been massacred numerous times throughout recent history by Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. It would be naive to think a militant organization wouldn't form out of the atrocities committed onto them by these various nations as a means to protect themselves. Not to say this excuses acts of terrorism and corruption committed by the PKK, but a blanket bombing campaign is the worst possible answer.
- yalph 7y ago
  Whatever happened to Kurds in the past in Iraq, Iran etc is not Turkeys problem. Put yourself in the situation. You have a terrorist group that is killing your citizens for 35 fucking years. You are hosting 5 million Syrian refugees in your country. What do you do? What would the US do? I know what is happening right now is not the ideal solution but it is very hard to blame Erdogan. Also, I can assure you that Kurds in Turkey is treated much much much better that African Americans and Native Americans in the US. So what does this say about the US?
- mda 7y ago
  Is it a blanket bombing campaign though? Do you really believe Turkey is indiscriminately bombing civilians?
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Hell yes
    - mda 7y ago
OldFatCactus 7y ago
defending fascism is a bold move, my man
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
Opposition to Erdogan's apparent desire to murder all those who oppose him =/= opposition to Turkey.

igammarays 7y ago

> There's an official denial of a "green light" Have you considered the possibility that a green light was, in fact, not given, and that Putin has simply outmanoeuvred America in this case? I think the evidence points towards Russian intel backing Turkey's latest operation. America completely failed to implement her interests in the region partly due the absolute mess of her internal politics, e.g. a still completely dysfunctional and understaffed State Department: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/state-department-empty-ambassador-to-australi/574831/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/state-d... Three pieces of evidence that Turkey is drifting towards the Russian sphere of influence: 1. The nonchalance with which Turkey exited the F-35 program preferring the purchase of Russian made S-400 air defence systems. 2. The recent agreement between Turkey and Russia to use the Russian MIR payment system and to settle sovereign debts in Liras/Rubles instead of US dollars. 3. This latest incursion into Syria, which serves no American interest, but clearly serves Putin by taking an American ally out of the equation (the Kurds). edit: perhaps Trump greenlit it, but America didn't.

luxuryballs 7y ago
I think the idea that US tax payers funding a military effort that isn’t involved in actually protecting the US should be considered here too, especially since we’ve probably endured more actual American deaths because of such activity. Spending money not protecting the people who are funding it is bad enough but putting the people funding it in more danger than they were before is really bad, that’s the opposite of what the military is for.
- WaxProlix 7y ago
  And so you sell out and instantly betray your allies against ISIS the second they're not immediately useful anymore? Aside from the deeply troubling morality expressed there, you're setting yourself up to never have local allies in any future conflicts as we can all see just how well that's worked out in the past. The answer to "how do we not fund and die in foreign wars?" isn't "go to war in foreign countries over and over again and then abandon our allies as soon as our immediate objectives are apparently met", it's gotta be more like "stop picking fights in foreign countries".

spoiledtechie 7y ago

Its a CIVIL war that has been raging for the last 200 years. It won't stop anytime soon until there is diplomacy. Real diplomacy and HARD diplomacy is needed here. It can't be stopped unless people sit down and talk things out.

megous 7y ago
Since when CIVIL wars involve several remote superpowers and a bunch of local countries?
- xxxtentachyon 7y ago
  Many times? During the US Civil War, Great Britain gave serious thought to intervening on behalf of the Confederacy on whom they depended for cotton supplies (India at the time was still experimenting with cotton horticulture), and gave tacit financial support throughout the war. Virtually all of the Latin American civil wars of the second half of the last century saw the US give material or military support to anti-communist forces.
- abraae 7y ago
  Vietnam.
pas 7y ago
Why would Erdogan sit down with a minority when he has the resources to just totally oppress them?
kyledrake 7y ago
It's not a civil war, it's a genocide event against the kurds.
- mda 7y ago
  Stick to facts please.
  - 7y ago

vonmoltke 7y ago

> [1] https://twitter.com/sojtfoir/status/1175869891305451522 https://twitter.com/sojtfoir/status/1175869891305451522 > [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/world/middleeast/turkey-a.. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/world/middleeast/turkey-a.... ("Because of an American counterterrorism partnership with Turkey, Turkish aircraft were given access to a suite of American battlefield intelligence in northeast Syria.") That is related to this: https://twitter.com/hashtag/securitymechanism?src=hashtag_click https://twitter.com/hashtag/securitymechanism?src=hashtag_cl... The agreement was supposed to protect the Kurdish groups from a Turkish offensive by de-escalating the areas that the US had deemed "safe", while providing an umbrella of US control. Trump then disgustingly yanked the umbrella away and let the Turks have at it.

scumbert 7y ago

The mental gymnastics in this thread, yeesh. "The U.S. should leave and stop interfering!" and "The U.S. should stay and help the Kurds!" are not simultaneously possible.

throwaway5752 7y ago
I'm confused. You seem to be describing two groups of people disagreeing. How is that mental gymnastics?
- scumbert 7y ago
  No, the same people who argue one often argue the other
chloerei 7y ago
The United States should not intervene from the beginning, or stay to solve the problems caused by him.

navigatesol 7y ago

>a surprise withdrawal This may be a surprise to you, but this withdrawal was announced in December of 2018, and even by then it had been discussed for months: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/20/syria-kurds-trump-troop-withdrawal-isis-turkey https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/20/syria-kurds-tr... This is a Syrian civil war. Do you expect the military to take and hold territory on behalf of the Kurds? They were a partner of convenience because we happened to have a common enemy. Turkey is also an ally (like it or not), and has border issues of their own they'd like to handle.

Fronzie 7y ago
It was also a surprise for senior republicans, giving disapproving comments on president Trump. This is something they rarely have done before. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mcconnell-joins-other-republicans-in-rebuking-trumps-syria-withdrawal/2019/10/07/aef0d11e-e914-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mcconnell-joins-othe...
monoideism 7y ago
> Turkey is also an ally (like it or not) Turkey was an ally. I love Turks as people, spent significant time in Turkey. But it's clear that as a government, Erdogan has turned Turkey away from the West, from America, from democratic values, and decidedly toward Russia (and not just ideologically). Turkey's NATO membership is now just a vestigial momento of the cold war.

TheAlchemist 7y ago

It's exactly the sentiment now in Poland. We have some precedents in our own history, especially in the beginning of the WW II, and a lot of people are shaking their heads - we consider ourselves as important US allies but it's clearly interpreted as the sign that you can only count on yourself in this world.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
> we consider ourselves as important US allies I remember hearing that on the news regularly since at least the invasion of Iraq, and I still don't understand why our politicians keep repeating it. It's bullshit. To the US, we barely register on the map.
neetdeth 7y ago
Poland and Turkey are both NATO allies. That should count for a bit more than being incidental pawns for CIA / State Dept. interventionism, no? In fact, the reputation of those latter arms of our government is so deep in the dumpster at this point that I cannot believe anyone who becomes entangled with them can claim naivety. This idea that the USA has a deep obligation to a handful of communist ethnic militias in the Middle East is an intel psyop, and you're falling for it.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  The US arming and approving the actions of the oppressor for a genocide is very much a potential outcome here. It’s worth preventing that possibility.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

KON_Air 7y ago

I don't see how betrayal comes into play, that is the function Kurds chose as mercenaries in Middle East. They essentially play "Red Communist State" vs American brand of "Nationalist" Turkey/Syria.. etc. They did in Iraq and got themselves a semi-independent feudal state, this time Syria held on with Russia and they are getting nothing.