Posted on 10/13/2019 8:30:10 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Most members of America’s foreign-policy establishment see Turkey as an ungrateful ally, perhaps even a Trojan horse inside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s walls. On Capitol Hill and in many Washington think tanks, a call for concessions to Tehran will get a more sympathetic hearing than a call to compromise with Ankara, a treaty ally for 67 years. Turkey’s determination to secure its southern border against the YPG is a wanton impulse, in the prevailing view. But the YPG has substantial ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK, as then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified before Congress in April 2016. Classified by the State Department as a terrorist organization, the PKK has been waging armed struggle against Turkey since 1984 at a cost of tens of thousands of lives, according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, a respected source on armed conflict.
Doran and Reynolds ask why the United States is losing Turkey and provide three grievances that stand out. The third bears directly on current events:
The third misdeed is the most consequential: the Obama administration’s decision in 2016 to arm and train YPG members and directly embed American special forces with them. Rather than work with Turkey, the U.S. chose to support the Syrian wing of the PKK, which the Turkish public holds responsible for decades of warfare and tens of thousands of deaths. The PKK represents a grave threat to the Turkish Republic, and Turks across the political spectrum loathe it. To dismiss Ankara’s objections to America’s arming of the YPG as mere anti-Kurdish bigotry is ignorant, akin to labeling the fight against al Qaeda as Islamophobia.
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
The Middle East is a whole bunch of little groups who all have grievances against other little groups. None of the groups are honest. None of the groups are rational. You cannot pick a winner. Any attempt will fail and have repercussions that cause problems for you later.
Get out. It’s the only solution.
An article written by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
How can even the basest idiot expect to be taken seriously if they write about Western conflict with Turkey as a recent development?
After all these years the defenders of our alliance with the angry hornet of NATO can only keep trying to change the subject when confronted with Cyprus.
Subject not changed. If you want to back them on something else then you will have to see to it that they make Cyprus right first as a prerequisite. Failure to do that means that whomever you are, you need to be confronted on why you back Turkey in Cyprus.
If you attempt to dismiss this requirement, you still need to be held to it and you also need to be challenged on your basic integrity and the people around you should consider whether the things you say should be trusted at all.
Excellent summary of the ME.
Let NATO take the lead.
SDF official in Kobani says we have done an agreement with the Syrian governement to enter the city in the next few hours.
SAA is entering Manbij. Finally the SDF has come to it’s senses..
Adam Schiff on Face The Nation this morning smeared the Commander in Chief so viciously, almost criminally. Adam Schiff is crazy, he condemned America in his vile remarks.
YPG, PKK, SDF, SAA. Does anyone have a Glossary? Does anyone know who the good guys and bad guys are? Does anyone care anymore?
*** President Trump’s decision to leave the battlefield after some 20 years is spot on, ***
Leave the battlefield of the ME? Trump is sending thousands of our troops to Saudi Barbaria.
*** YPG, PKK, SDF, SAA. Does anyone have a Glossary? Does anyone know who the good guys and bad guys are? ***
Yes, some of us have actually followed this very closely.
I believe I can put it more simply:
"Turk" {{SPIT}}
It’s interesting how none of these articles ever mention the fact that Islam is at the heart of the source of all of these problems
This is simply one Islamic sac versus another Islamic sacked fighting with each other it’s been going on since the evil bastard scum terrorist Mohammed walked this earth
We have troops in Syria that are stuck between Russian/Syrian murderous scum and Turkish murderous scum.
Yes. Syria was the SDF’s only possible ally. Hope they work well together...
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