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US Betrayal of the Kurds

Self-determination apparently applies only to white Europeans or the influential. I'd take the Kurds as a good faith ally over today's Turkey, and what will/has become of Syria and Iraq. As non-Arabs they tend to be more moderate religiously than many other, mostly Arab, Sunnis. Sorely disappointed in a US about-face that legitimizes Erdogan's growing religious and authoritarian drift, ensconcing an increasingly undemocratic and pro fundamentalist cyst into NATO and potentially the EU.
 
Hlafordlaes said:
Self-determination apparently applies only to white Europeans or the influential. I'd take the Kurds as a good faith ally over today's Turkey, and what will/has become of Syria and Iraq. As non-Arabs they tend to be more moderate religiously than many other, mostly Arab, Sunnis. Sorely disappointed in a US about-face that legitimizes Erdogan's growing religious and authoritarian drift, ensconcing an increasingly undemocratic and pro fundamentalist cyst into NATO and potentially the EU.
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On an moral level I tend to agree with this, though the Kurds are hardly lily white. On a practical level, I am glad I am not the one having to make the hard decisions.
 
Arcade22 said:
I'll take this as an admission that you can't deny anything i wrote yet seem to want to attack it nonetheless.



And this is relevant how exactly? If anything the Kurds should be grateful for the fact that the US did anything to help them. The main motivation of said help has obviously not been out of purely humanitarian reasons but primarily because they were one of the few non-shia groups that were willing to focus upon fighting the Islamic state and not Syrian government.

Again, if the Kurds expected the US to be okay with and even assist them in carving out one or more independent states in the middle state against the wishes of Americas regional allies they have obviously been misinformed.
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Sweden always used to be neutral.
 
Henri McPhee said:
Sweden always used to be neutral.
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No, it didn't.

Sweden HAS been generally neutral since the Napoleonic Wars, but it has not always been neutral.

That being said, it is telling that when the neutral nation of Sweden selects its military equipment it is fully compatible with NATO vice the Russian/former Warsaw Pact standards.
 
Border Reiver said:
No, it didn't.

Sweden HAS been generally neutral since the Napoleonic Wars, but it has not always been neutral.

That being said, it is telling that when the neutral nation of Sweden selects its military equipment it is fully compatible with NATO vice the Russian/former Warsaw Pact standards.
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Sweden has had plenty of secret agreements with NATO so it sure as hell wasn't "neutral". It was just non-alligned.
 
Henri McPhee said:
Julian Assange is intimately involved with the Kurdish and Turkish problem, particularly as it affects Sweden and Denmark and America, with all his controversial Wikileaks disclosures. This has landed him in a legal tangle.

The matter is explained at this internet article:

www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Does...sh-Skeletons-in-His-Closet-20140929-0053.html
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No. Mr. Assange's arrest warrant was issued in 2010, long before these recent disclosures were received and concern allegations made by two ladies.
 
Border Reiver said:
Newsflash - great power uses minority group to further own ends, but doesn't support all minority group's goals.

Powerful states have been doing this since there have been powerful states. While it sucks for the less powerful group, it certainly isn't surprising.
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See also: Cao Dai, Karen, Khmer Kampuchea Krom, LULF, Montagnard, Nung etc. etc.

And the Sovs abandoned a bunch of indig groups they used in the proxy wars in Africa and Central/South America during the cold war, so there's plenty of blame to go around.
 
Based on my little knowledge of the situation I believe the Kurds should have their own country. They are different people with different desires than the people who rule them. The Turks, Iranians, Iraq's, whoever don't like them. The Kurds are Moslim but as far as I can tell they are secular Moslims and have no desire to screw with me. They should be allowed to run their own show.

I only know what I read about this but I'm in favor of an an dependent Kurdistan!
 
Hlafordlaes said:
Self-determination apparently applies only to white Europeans or the influential.
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Except for the glaringly obvious fact that it isn't whitey stopping Kurdistan's birth. We might not be helping - although what constitutes help in such a monstrous cluster-**** is in question - but this one is all down to their neighbours, as usual.
 
The Atheist said:
Except for the glaringly obvious fact that it isn't whitey stopping Kurdistan's birth. We might not be helping - although what constitutes help in such a monstrous cluster-**** is in question - but this one is all down to their neighbours, as usual.
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Well, this and much said before are generalities/truisms. I started this thread to talk about the current events. As mentioned, the US started to seriously help the Syrian Kurds at Kobane screaming and kicking after all world was demanding it in October 2014 after their "coalition against ISIS" had turned out to be less than impressive.

After the city of Kobane was saved, and the canton of Kobane liberated months later, the cooperation became serious on the ground with "advisers" sent by the US and two airstrips started to be build/expanded for USAF. Then, against the explicit will of the Turks, the Euphrates was crossed west and in an operation that took months and a considerable amount of civilian casualties/"collateral damage" Manbij was liberated.

Then the coup in Turkey happens, Turkish officials accuse the US of being behind it (while the high rank including Erdogan sticks to blaming Gülen, the preacher/cult leader in exile in Pennysylvania, and papers close to the leading party name the US officials allegedly involved on the planning level, like the ambassador and a just retired General).

Next you see Biden traveling to Ankara and telling the Kurds in no uncertain terms that the have to retreat back to east of the Euphrates (them being in coalition with US special forces on the ground and the USAF). Which has not really happened as of today while the Turkish proxy "moderate rebel" FSA forces have with the direct help of the Turkish army "liberated" the whole border strip between the border posts of Bab Al-Salama and Jarablus, with ISIS retreating without any serious fight, while they defended Manbij to almost the last man over months.

Today a video from Al-Bai, approx. in the middle between the two mentioned border posts, circulates which appears to show US special forces chased out of town under insults and threats and evocations of Mohammed by those Turkey proxies who are in official State Department lingo still "moderate rebels" with groups among them vetted by the CIA and supplied with TOWs and the other goodies.
 
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There is no moderate Syrian opposition. They are head choppers supported by Turkish Intelligence, who are very anti-American, and who regard Americans as infidels and crusaders who can be easily fooled, and conned out of money. It's about time Obama and Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and the British media worked this out for themselves before many more billions are wasted. These Jihadists are not freedom fighters. You can't smoke for a start. It's a lack of strategic ability and political foresight.
 
The video from Al-Rai made it all the way to the State Department press conference where Kirby the Clown was asked about it. He hasn't seen it, finds "the language reprehensible", and should we be allied with these people? Of course, we must, for the greater good of the fight against ISIS, ya know?

As I said, there was next to no fight between the invading Turks with their proxies and ISIS. ISIS just "disappeared" and there are witness reports of groups of them crossing over to Turkey, getting new uniforms or at least badges, and maybe a beard cut, and go back to the places they came from, "liberating" them from themselves. From the video, most of the freaks even managed to dodge the beard cut.

What happened though are some pretty ugly massacres of Kurdish civilians bombed in their villages bordering the new "safety zone".
 
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I just feel that international law applies to all this. As the trained lawyer Norman Birkett said in 1945 about justice at Nuremberg " the thing that sustains me is the knowledge that this trial can be a very great landmark in the history of International Law. There will be a precedent of the highest standing for all successive generations, and aggressor nations great and small will embark on war with the certain knowledge that if they fail they will be called to grim account."

What seems to happen in practice is that it's only people from Africa, or the former Yugoslavia, who ever get prosecuted for war crimes. Turkey's invasion of Syria is aggressive warfare under international law.

Personally, I don't like all this bombing of hospitals. I think the criticism of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban should be most severe for murdering polio vaccine doctors and medical workers. It's crazy.
 
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