Tag Archives: Kurds

Trump Talks To Putin. But How? by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on October 16, 2019 | Leave a comment

The predictions of genocide have flown fast and furious since Trump announced the US withdrawal from Syria, but perhaps he’s cooked something up with Putin to prevent that grisly outcome. From Raúl Ilargi Meijer at theautomaticearth.com:

If you ask me, this is brilliant, but I know you’re not asking me. Still, what I’m reading today is genius. That is, Donald Trump and his people have found a way to communicate with Vladimir Putin and his people while the entire crew that’s listening in to his talks with foreign leaders were doing something else, whatever that may be.

The overall impression of Trump’s order to redeploy an entire 50 US soldiers within Syria is that he opened the floodgates to mayhem and genocide, but perhaps that picture is not entirely accurate. Perhaps Trump did not act on some whiff of the moment instinct. Perhaps he’s not as shallow and stupid as the press makes him out to be. I know, big challenge and all, but let’s look at what actually happened.

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Pulling US troops out of Syria will prove to be the right decision, by John R. Bradley

Posted on October 16, 2019 | 1 comment

Insisting that everything must be “perfect” before the US starts a troop withdrawal means there will never be a troop withdrawal. From John R. Bradley at spectator.us:

turkey syria kurds
Turkish troops with American-made M60 tanks and Turkey-backed Syrian fighters gather near the village of Qirata

Whenever neoconservatives and liberals chant in unison about American policy in the Middle East — as when they championed the Iraq invasion, for example, or the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, or the thwarted attempt to topple the Assad regime in Syria — it means we are being told a pack of lies. Par for the course is the hysterical response to President Donald Trump’s ‘betrayal’ of the Kurds in the wake of Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria.

Turkey’s goal was to repatriate at least two million of 3.6 million Syrian refugees inside Turkey in a border zone controlled, until the invasion began, by the US-allied, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Ankara considers that group to be an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which is also active in the region, has committed countless atrocities inside Turkey and is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and America.

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Kurds face stark options after US pullback, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on October 16, 2019 | 1 comment

The Kurds have little choice but to deal with the Syrian government and support Russian mediation in northern Syria. From Pepe Escobar at asiatimes.com:

Kurds face stark options after US pullback

Syrian Arabs and Kurdish civilians arrive to Hassakeh city after fleeing bombardment on Syria’s northeastern towns along the Turkish border on October 10, 2019 amid fears of a new humanitarian crisis. Photo: AFP / Delil Souleiman
Forget an independent Kurdistan: They may have to do a deal with Damascus on sharing their area with Sunni Arab refugees
In the annals of bombastic Trump tweets, this one is simply astonishing: here we have a President of the United States, on the record, unmasking the whole $8-trillion intervention in the Middle East as an endless war based on a “false premise.” No wonder the Pentagon is not amused.
Trump’s tweet bisects the surreal geopolitical spectacle of Turkey attacking a 120-kilometer-long stretch of Syrian territory east of the Euphrates to essentially expel Syrian Kurds. Even after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cleared with Trump the terms of the Orwellian-named “Operation Peace Spring,” Ankara may now face the risk of US economic sanctions.

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Do or Daesh, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on October 14, 2019 | Leave a comment

Here is a view of the Turkey-Syria-Kurd situation 180 degrees opposite Ron Paul’s:

An article from long term Automatic Earth contributor Alexander Aston, who feels very strongly about the topic.

Personally, I have many more questions left. It’s easy to say Trump abandoned the Kurds, and everybody says just that, but because they all do I ask myself if that is really what happened. It’s an ugly situation alright, but would it have been prefereable if US soldiers had stayed in Syria indefinitely?

I’m looking at France, UK, Germany, Holland, refusing to repatriate ‘their’ ISIS citizens, leaving the US -and the Kurds- to take care of them, of the conundrum, and of the consequences. There’s no question that leaving it up to Erdogan is a bad idea, but Putin has already taken over command.

Everyone but Capitol Hill agrees it’s a good idea to get the US out of Endless Wars, but they haven’t been doing anything about it for many years. And when Trump does, there are no intricate discussions, there’s only black or white and then there’s Orange Man Bad.

Should Trump have gone the Obama route and bombed the heebeejeebees out of the country? you know, rather than let Turkey do it, knowing full well that Putin would stop it anyway?

But this is Alexander’s piece, not mine, and I love him.

Alexander Aston:

“If we do not do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable.”
– Murray Bookchin

 

Like the best of his generation, my American grandfather was a die-hard antifascist. He was shot down twice over Europe and spent the last nine months as a prisoner of war. The old man was highly decorated, earning a distinguished flying cross with three oak leaf clusters, four air medals, a silver star and a purple heart. However, the only memento of the war he ever showed me as a child was the tin mug that he ate from while in prison camp.

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Washington is Wrong Once Again – Kurds Join Assad to Defend Syria, by Ron Paul

Posted on October 14, 2019 | 1 comment

The Kurd “slaughter” everyone has warned of probably won’t happen as the Kurds throw in their lot with the Syrian government. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

When President Trump Tweeted last week that “it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous endless wars,” adding that the US would be withdrawing from Syria, Washington went into a panic. Suddenly Republicans, Democrats, the media, the think tanks, and the war industry all discovered and quickly became experts on “the Kurds,” who we were told were an “ally” being sent to their slaughter by an ignorant President Trump.

But it was all just another bipartisan ploy to keep the “forever war” gravy train rolling through the Beltway.

Interventionists will do anything to prevent US troops from ever coming home, and their favorite tactic is promoting “mission creep.” As President Trump Tweeted, we were told in 2014 by President Obama that the US military would go into Syria for just 30 days to save the Yazidi minority that they claimed were threatened. Then that mission crept into “we must fight ISIS” and so the US military continued to illegally occupy and bomb Syria for five more years.

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More ‘Stupid War’ in Syria, by Eric S. Margolis

Posted on October 12, 2019 | 1 comment

Will Trump finally get the US out of Syria? From Eric Margolis at lewrockwell.com:

More war in wretched Syria.  Half the population are now refugees; entire cities lie shattered by bombing; bands of crazed gunmen run rampant; US, French, Israeli and Russian warplanes bomb widely.

Now, adding to the chaos, President Donald Trump has finally given Turkey, NATO’s second military power, the green light to invade parts of northeastern Syria after he apparently ordered a token force of US troops there to withdraw.

This, of course, puts the Turks in a growing confrontation with the region’s Kurds, who have occupied large swaths of the area during Syria’s civil war.  The Kurdish militia, known as YPG (confusingly part of the so-called Free Syrian Army), is armed, lavishly financed and directed by the CIA and Pentagon.

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Bravo Donald! A War Washington Might Finally Leave, by David Stockman

Posted on October 11, 2019 | Leave a comment

President Trump may have finally done something right in the Middle East. From David Stockman at antiwar.com:

Just when you think the Donald has lost his marbles completely, he pulls a rabbit of rationality out of the hat of Imperial Washington’s Forever Wars madness.

We are referring, of course, to his sensible decision to decline the opportunity to put American soldiers in harms’ way in an impending showdown between Turks and Kurds on the northern border of Syria. To our recollection, that particular tribal enmity has been going on for centuries and needs no help from Washington to fester on for years to come.

But already he is being monkey-hammered by the bipartisan War Party because by standing down and removing US forces from the contested towns along the border Trump is basically sounding the death knell for the neocons’ failed, bloody, illegal and demented regime change project in Syria.

Now – and very soon – the Kurds will have to make a deal with Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies to counter Turkey’s incursion, including the creation of a “safe zone” along the Turkish border that would be off-limits to armed Kurdish forces.

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The United States of Betrayal, by Danny Sjursen

Posted on October 8, 2019 | 2 comments

Sometimes you’re better off being the US’s enemy than its friend. Just ask the Kurds. From Danny Sjursen at antiwar.com:

While Trump’s apparent decision to pull the U.S. military out of Syria is welcome, full context and the plight of the doomed Kurds reminds us of the tragedy of American interventionism.

First, the (mostly) good news: President Trump appears poised, finally, to endthe US military mission in Northeast Syria. The move would constitute the first actual follow-through on the promises of candidate Trump to avoid “stupid” and terminate “endless” Mideast wars. That’s no small thing. Furthermore, while the outcome in Syria is likely to be messy, if not tragic, I’ve long argued for an end to America’s ill-advised, all risk no reward, quagmire in Syria. With Assad – thanks to ample backing from Iran and Russia – victorious in the long civil war, the US military tenuously ensconced in Northeast Syria without true congressional authorization, and Washington’s mission more muddled than ever, it’s become increasingly unclear what some 1,000 troops can reasonably hope to accomplish in the war-torn country.

Nevertheless, the way the mission appears to be ending promises great (if ultimately unavoidable) human suffering, especially for Syria’s Kurdish minority. Specifically, Trump has sold out his Kurdish partners, the main ground force that defeated the territorial Islamic State from 2014-19, suffering some 11,000 battle deaths in the process. It’s not just that the US military is leaving, but Washington has veritably green-lighted an impending Turkish Army and Air Force invasion of Northeast Syria. The result will be war – since the courageous Kurds are unlikely to back down – slaughter, potential ethnic cleansing, and perhaps even the resurgence of ISIS during the inevitable tumult.

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Why Will the US Leave Syria Soon? The Kurds are Waking Up. By Elijah J. Magnier

Posted on July 31, 2018 | Leave a comment

The US is losing its last excuse to stay in Syria—the Kurds. From Elijah J. Magnier at ahtribune.com:

The Syrian army is conducting its southern campaign with the pacification of the last two percent of the Qunietra province that remains under the control of the “Islamic State” (ISIS) terrorist group. That will free tens of thousands of troops of the Syrian army and its allies from the burden of fighting in the south of the country and will mark a turning point in the seven years of war imposed on the Levant. The whole of Syria will be liberated from the territorial control of militias and jihadists. What remains of occupied Syria is under the control of two countries: territories held by the US and Turkey in the north. However, these occupations do not seem tenable, particularly now that the Kurds, in control of 23% of Syria, have decided to respond positively to the Syrian President’s call to engage in dialogue or face war. The US cannot stay for much longer in Syria; it will find a face-saving way to leave very soon.

The US presence in Syria had several aims:

  • To divide Syria and establish a Kurdish state in the north under the name of Rojava, under the US military “protection”, like Iraqi Kurdistan during Saddam Hussein era. The US was not against a Kurdish state to include Syria and Iraq. However, Iraqi Kurdistan, under Masood Barzani, dashed its hopes of independence when he refused to follow US advice to postpone a move to break away for 18 months. Barzani’s premature decision to separate from Iraq was confronted with a strong reaction from Baghdad troops who took control of Kurdistan’s borders and resources.
  • Leave the rest of Syria in an endless bloody war between Salafi-Takfiri jihadists and other groups. This war was meant to advance the cause of ISIS, whose enemies were not the distance US (notwithstanding the proximity of US troops) but closer to hand (ISIS set his objective to fight and eliminate the “nearer enemy” — mainly Shia, secular and Sunni who disagree with its “state” versus al-Qaeda traditional goal of prioritising the “far enemy” although this objective was not prioritised in the Levant): Lebanon, Jordan, and the rest of the Middle East. ISIS advances would have been detrimental to the “Axis of Resistance” (Iran, Syria, Hezbollah) or at least would have interrupted the flow of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon (from Iran through Syria). Hezbollah would have been cornered into the south of Lebanon, a Shia enclave surrounded by Israel on one side and a hostile government to the north with Takfiri ruling in the other parts of the country.

To continue reading: Why Will the US Leave Syria Soon? The Kurds are Waking Up.

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US-Backed Kurds Agree To “Unconditional Talks” With Syrian Government After Pentagon-Turkey Deal, by Tyler Durden

Posted on June 12, 2018 | Leave a comment

Is peace breaking out everywhere, even Syria? From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

We’ve long predicted that the US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces currently holding a vast chunk of land in Syria’s northeast with the help of American coalition air power will naturally drift toward striking a deal with Assad, as the two sides have throughout the war exercised some degree of quiet cooperation against ISIS, foreign jihadists, and Turkish expansionism.

In a huge weekend development which has gone largely unnoticed by mainstream media, the political wing of the US-trained and supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced it is open to entering into unprecedented direct negotiations with the Assad government over the future of the country.

The Syrian Democratic Council, or SDC, is the political arm of the powerful alliance of mostly Kurdish and Arab fighters that make up the SDF, and on Sunday declared willingness to enter into “unconditional talks” with the Syrian government. 

The London based international Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reports the following:

In a statement on Sunday, the SDC said it was committed to resolving Syria’s deadly conflict through dialogue, and would not “hesitate to agree to unconditional talks”.

“It is positive to see comments about a summit for Syrians, to pave the way to start a new page,” it said.

Leading SDC member Hekmat Habib told AFP that both the council and the SDF “are serious about opening the door to dialogue” with the regime.

“With the SDF’s control of 30 percent of Syria, and the regime’s control of swathes of the country, these are the only two forces who can sit at the negotiating table and formulate a solution to the Syrian crisis,” he said.

As Syria analyst Joshua Landis confirms, the surprise SDC announcement comes just days after a controversial deal reached between Turkey and the US for the withdrawal of Syrian Kurdish forces from Manbij.

To continue reading: US-Backed Kurds Agree To “Unconditional Talks” With Syrian Government After Pentagon-Turkey Deal

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