Posted on 10/12/2019 7:39:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
One of Bush 43’s huge policy failures was excluding Saddams senior military intelligence and security personnel from the post Saddam reunification plan,
Yeah the baathists were murderous scum but powerful experienced operatives from influential tribes in a region where clan and tribal loyalties prevail over outsiders
Locking these former officials out sent them into central Iraq to use their skills, power thuggery and influence to build resistance vs the “ occupiers” using extremism. Hence Al Qaeda which splintered over power issues. And ISIS was born,
Another consideration, is the conflict between Kurdish groups.
Some of our Kurdish allies in Iraq, the KDP Party (associated with the Barzani Tribe), headquartered in Erbil, get along with the Turks, but have serious conflicts with the Syrian Kurdish PYD Party (associated with the officially terrorist designated PKK Party), who have taken control of the Kurdish areas in Syria.
The Kurdish Party now controlling areas of Syria, are followers of Abdullah Öcalan (called Apo, or “Uncle” in English) - the same as the PKK. PKK conducted decades of terrorist attacks in Turkey, killing tens of thousands - far more than the IRA ever did in England. PKK has traditionally been a cult-like Marxist guerrilla movement, which has tried to re-brand itself in recent years, and gain International acceptability through its fight against ISIS (which had sought to eradicate the PKK Kurds).
After consolidating control in Syria, the PKK affiliated local PYD Party excluded other Kurdish Political Parties from participating in politics, and has gone about establishing a one-Party political system, with heavy indoctrination in the schools. Long term, that is a threat to Turkey.
> One of Bush 43’s huge policy failures was excluding Saddams senior military intelligence and security personnel from the post Saddam reunification plan <
Patton employed many lower-level Nazi functionaries to keep things running during the occupation of Germany right after WW II. Patton got some criticism for that, but he was right. The occupation went smoothly.
As you noted, Bush stupidly took the opposite approach. He shoved into the unemployment line Iraqis who were skilled, armed, and angry.
Some folks say Wilson was the worst president when it comes to foreign policy. I’d say Bush II deserves consideration for that top spot.
The Kurdish faction under attack is composed of Leftists aligned with terrorists. Their rule in their slice of Syria has been so harsh and ethnocentric that they alienated the local population and earned the distust of other ethnic groups. This is a common pattern in the region.
*** the bloody dictator in Damascus won, ***
So effing sick of propaganda. Like it or not, Assad is the legitimate head of the Secular Syrian Government.
And the poor Kurds? Funny they want their autonomous state in Syria’s lucrative oilfields. The US needs to leave Syria completely. Out of Deir Ezzor. Out of Al Tanf.
Hey you forgot Mittens in your Neocon list.
“Also Most Kurds are Sunni while the Iranians and much of the rest of Syria are Shiite.”’’’’’.
No. The Sunnis are the majority in Syria. The dictator in Syria is an Alawite Muslim, which is an offshoot of Shia Islam, though it is generally considered heretical to most Sunni and Shia Muslims.
Assad and his minority have clung to power over the Sunni majority in Syria by running a ruthless police state. It is no wonder that under those conditions so many Sunni in Syria became radicalized. That was the same, in reverse, in Iraq, where Saddam was a Sunni and the Shia were a 2/3 majority, and after so many decades under Saddam so many Shia became radicalized.
There was no three year agreement with the Kurds of Syria that they had to get their autonomous region in Iraq, the Kurds in Turkey (12 million under the thumb of Erdogan) and their villages in Syria all hooked up under one political banner. The author is blowing smoke on that.
100% of ALL the Kurds sought in Syria was to defeat the ISIS thugs who were taking over their lands in northern Syria, establish political control of what they could kick ISIS out of and eventually make an arrangement for autonomy with the government in Syria, whomever it would turn out to be.
ALL Kurds know that anything else will be a very long term process that it will be way off in the future before they could possibly realize it.
The author, with his lie about a “three year” timeline for Kurds is in fact slandering the Kurds.
He must be a Turkish sympathizer, seeking to defend the indefensible.
Trump’s crass comment that the Kurds were not with us on D-day demonstrates he does not know history very much. He needs to read up on the history of the Ottomans and Turkey since the Ottomans. Then he’d understand that Turkey under Erdogan is a ally in name only (NATO) and that privilege should be ripped from him.
“I put most of the blame for this mess on George W. Bush. ISIS operated out of western Iraq and eastern Syria. Saddam Hussain never, ever would have allowed that.....Bush did ISIS a big favor by getting rid of Saddam. “
That’s a bunch of B.S.
ISIS began as an Al Queda offshoot, in Iraq. They went through more than one name change during the civil war that followed the American victory over Saddam. They became one of the Sunni terrorist outfits, fighting the Shia militias and us. By the time the Petraeus surge had worked, the ISIS group had become an ineffective remnant, still marauding when they could but not considered a major threat any more.
Then a few things happened over a few years.
In Iraq, Obama and Maliki did not sign a SOFA agreement, and U.S. military presence was reduced to a remnant and not much involved in Iraqi security any longer.
Then, unconstrained by the U.S. any longer, Maliki began governing more as a Shia for the Shia and less as an Iraqi for all Iraqis. Sunni resentment against Maliki grew across all Iraq. Radicals among the Sunni, like ISIS, began to find more willing recruits among the Sunni in Iraq.
Then when Syria became destabilized, ISIS moved into the mess in Syria and getting converts from those opposed to Assad in the process. As Assad got tied down in the rest of Syria, ISIS grew in the north and east. Syria became a true military theater where ISIS could build an actual army, which it did. Eventually it became powerful enough to re-enter Iraq in force; which it did. In Iraq Maliki had made a political shambles of the Iraqi military and security in general. The western provinces became ripe for the picking by ISIS.
Bush did not create ISIS or send them to Syria.
What you can blame both Obama and Bush for is the creation (Bush) and the follow through (Obama) on the regime change agenda to get rid of Assad.
Obama then made it even worse. He only half-assed followed through, which left a bigger mess than if he had either cut it off at the head (the regime change agenda), or blasted Assad out of power very very early on, before the Islamist militias in Syria got built. ISIS would either way not have had a destabilized Syria to grow in.
> Bush did not create ISIS or send them to Syria. <
Agreed. My argument was not that Bush created ISIS, but that he inadvertently made it possible for ISIS to flourish.
Would there have even been an ISIS if Saddam were still in power?
(And by ‘ISIS’ there I mean a powerful quasi-state organization, and not some weak puppet group controlled by Saddam.)
Oh, and one more thing. I won’t let Obama off the hook either. He inherited a bad situation, then made it worse.
Trump’s comment was meant to differentiate the history and basis of our alliances with nations like Britain and France vs the much shallower roots of our “ alliance” with the Kurds as fighters vs ISIS, Kurds as pluralist democracy lovers is a bit of a...stretch ....as pointed out above.
The Kurds have been used by the US, They were the only dedicated fighters the CIA could recruit to head up the “ Syrian Democratic Force” which was intended to build a rebel army against Assad . Hence the Kurds squandered the trust of the true Syrian military and President ( yes, 3 times elected President) Assad.
Bashir Assad, like Michael Corleone, was not the intended heir of his father’s regime. He became the heir when his hothead brother Basel died in an “ auto accident”
I do not trust his intense vilification by the West as a “ brutal bloody dictator” by obama, kerry, clinton, McCain and the powers that decided under “ Arab Spring’’ to tear Syria apart and led to millions of deaths and refugees. Who has really killed more Syrians?
Kerry and Pelosi were meeting and kissy facing this guy in 2007 as a possible reformer, so what REALLY put them off him by 2011? Human rights...or global geopolitics, power and money? Assad was not cooperative? Too uppity? Too secular? Pissed off the Saudis? Pissed off Israel, with his Iranian alliances.
And McCain, because Syria is and has been for at least 4 decades, a Russian client state,
If Trump can meet a true genocidal heir and psycho like Kim Jung Un and accept him as a national leader, then why not Assad?
There are at most 15-2000 Kurds in the U.S., mostly recent immigrants and refugees. The Turkish-American community is about 500,000.
As for lobbying, the Kurds are an ant to Turkey’s elephant.
“Funny they want their autonomous state in Syria’s lucrative oilfields. “
Not funny, just natural. The Kurds have been there longer than Turks have been in Turkey.
“Trump’s comment was meant to differentiate the history and basis of our alliances with nations like Britain and France vs the much shallower roots of our “ alliance” with the Kurds as fighters vs ISIS”
Does not matter what he “intended”, it was crass.
The South Koreans were not with us on D-day either, so what does that mean.
How many Germans and French have fought ISIS with us??
When do Germany or France act like our ally today?? They don’t even carry the water for Ukriane today, we do.
*** As for lobbying, the Kurds are an ant to Turkey’s elephant. ***
Did you miss the blue & white flag of the powerful lobby that wishes to strengthen the Kurds?
Thank you for the elucidation.
We owe the Kurds protection from real genocide ( delivered in Iraq) and support for continued ops vs ISIS. But we dont owe them a chunk of Turkey Syria Iraq and Iran, and American lives, to establish an independent nation,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Agreed.
Perhaps Christians in Action will make sure the proper ordnance will be delivered in a timely fashion.
You say “ crass”
I say “ blunt”
What he meant does matter.
Realpolitik is not nice. It may hurt someone’s feelings. Prepare to clutch your pearls, Trump is not going to spend US lives and treasure in Syria on high sounding rhetoric about “ allies” and “ democracy’ that are really covering other agendas.
Kinda cool to see Trump redeploy 50 guys and put the democrats into pulling a 180 and going into the 2020 campaign shitten kittens over staying at war in the middle east,
Now...on to Ukraine and the eastern front,
“The Kurds have been used by the US, They were the only dedicated fighters the CIA could recruit to head up the “ Syrian Democratic Force” which was intended to build a rebel army against Assad.”
No. Did not happen. The groups led by the Kurds were not the that pretended to fight against Assad. The Kurds were not fighting Assad’s forces. They fought in their own lands the control of which had already been taken over by ISIS, wherever the Kurds alone did not still hold onto it. The groups led by the Kurds in northern Syria are composed of Kurds, ethnic Syrian Turks and ethnic Arabs. They are non-sectarian, whether Muslim, Assyrian Christian or other. Yes, at the end of the day, the Kurds want autonomy in a greater Syria just as the Kurds in Iraq have. There is nothing radical about that.
“Realpolitik is not nice. It may hurt someone’s feelings. Prepare to clutch your pearls, Trump is not going to spend US lives and treasure in Syria on high sounding rhetoric about “ allies” and “ democracy’ that are really covering other agendas.”
No. He’s going to send them to die for the Saudis.
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