Five years after the start of Syria’s uprising, the Turkish military directly entered the fray last week, sending troops to occupy the northern Syrian town of Jarablus, previously held by the militant group the Islamic State. Turkey’s intervention represents a significant escalation of the conflict, as well as a sign that the country is likely to take a more aggressive approach to foreign policy following July’s failed military coup and subsequent purge.
But Turkey’s intervention is also an indication that the U.S. strategy of empowering Kurdish groups to fight the Islamic State in Syria has helped trigger an entirely new conflict, this time between U.S.-backed militias and a NATO ally.
Turkey launched its recent incursion both to take territory from the Islamic State and also to halt gains by the Syrian Democratic Forces and People’s Protection Units, Kurdish-led groups backed by the United States. The government in Ankara fears these groups will set up an autonomous Kurdish zone on its border, emboldening separatists within Turkey.
While many predicted Turkey’s government would become more inward looking following the failed coup, it seems as though the opposite may be the case. In a statement last week, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the country would be “more active in the Syria issue in the coming six months.”
Turkish-aligned rebel factions recently won a major battle to break a Syrian government siege in the northern hub of Aleppo, a region with historical ties to Turkey. With Turkish forces now directly operating on Syrian soil, it seems the conflict is entering a dangerous new phase of regional involvement.
Opposition fighters from Ahrar al-Sham drink coffee inside a tent on Dec. 28, 2014, north of the Syrian city of Aleppo, as pro-government forces and rebels fight for control of the main supply route from Turkey.
Photo: Ahmed Deeb/AFP/Getty Images
This July, the Syrian army and its allies succeeded in cutting off the last supply road into rebel-held east Aleppo, placing part of the city under siege and stoking fears for the fate of 300,000 civilians still living there. Airstrikes on residential areas and the reported targeting of medical facilities by Syrian and Russian aircraft increased the misery of a city already suffering under years of war and deprivation. The Turkish government denounced the siege, seeing it as an attempt by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to wipe out one of the few remaining opposition strongholds in the country.
But in early August, a coalition of Syrian rebels and Islamist groups in Aleppo, many of which are supported by Turkey, commenced a last-ditch operation aimed at breaking the siege. By August 8, it seemed that the rebels had struck an improbable victory, announcing that government forces had been driven out of the Al-Ramouseh district, effectively lifting the siege.
Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamist rebel group, was one of the major factions involved in the operation. Speaking to The Intercept after the battle, Abu Yusuf al-Muhajir, a spokesperson for the group, said that “the battles in Aleppo will not stop until we put an end to the regime’s existence,” adding that “the high-level coordination” among the separate rebel groups taking part in the offensive had helped tilt the balance.
Abu Yusuf also asserted that the international community did not care about the victims of government attacks in Aleppo. “Were they not Sunnis, the international community would have reacted differently,” he said, also claiming that the opposition groups fighting Assad had been unfairly conflated with global terrorist organizations.
The coalition to break the siege did include Jabhat Fath al-Sham, al Qaeda’s former affiliate in Syria, which claims to have broken with al Qaeda last month. Mostafa Mahamed, a representative for the rebranded group, said it played an “integral role” in breaking the siege. Regarding relations between rebel factions and Turkey, Mahamed said that “there was no collaboration with or assistance from any neighboring country” in the Aleppo offensive.
While rebel groups have said they have no plans to besiege government-held west Aleppo, analysts believe that a battle for control of the entire city could be forthcoming.
“A genuine battle for Aleppo city is certainly something [rebel groups] have talked about behind the scenes, but in the context of a multi-phased strategy, which is, in fact, already underway,” says Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of The Syrian Jihad. “Breaking the siege and isolating western Aleppo was the first step, but we shouldn’t be surprised if we see more of a push made elsewhere in the south of the city in the coming weeks.”
Aleppo, in addition to being pre-war Syria’s largest city and economic hub, is also, along with its countryside, arguably the most vital strategic prize remaining in the conflict. “Aleppo’s northern countryside is of critical value to Turkey, given the impending possibility of a de facto Kurdish federation emerging there,” says Lister, adding that control of the city has “immense emotive value” for both Turkey and the Syrian opposition.
There is also a deeper historical dynamic at play in the conflict. For hundreds of years, Aleppo was a territory of the Ottoman Empire, ruled from Istanbul. Following World War I and the Turkish War of Independence, the city of Aleppo was cut off from Turkish control and placed into the newly created entity of Syria, while many of its surrounding territories ended up across the border in Turkey. For Turkish nationalists, the Assad government’s assault against Aleppo seems almost like an attack on their own country.
“Aleppo has historical ties with Turkey. Turkey will not watch Aleppo fall to a side it does not prefer, because whoever takes Aleppo will have the best chance to win the whole country,” says Mete Sohtaoglu, a Turkey-based researcher on militant groups and contemporary Middle East politics. “Turkey’s purpose in intervening directly in the conflict is to introduce groups it supports as more vital actors in Syria’s politics.”
Turkish soldiers stand on tanks in the southern region of Gaziantep on Aug. 25, 2016, as they prepare for a military operation into Syria.
Photo: Defne Karadeniz/Getty Images
While the Turkish intervention into Syria has been justified on the basis of taking territory from the Islamic State and bolstering Turkey’s own preferred rebel groups, leaders of the main Kurdish-dominated forces have said they are, in reality, the primary target of the offensive.
These groups have received U.S. backing and have made major gains against ISIS, most recently driving them out of the city of Manbij.
The Turkish government has long feared that Kurdish forces in Syria will carve out their own autonomous zone along the country’s border. Kurdish separatists within Turkey have been at war with the central government following a breakdown of peace negotiations in 2015.
Kurdish groups already control several self-governing cantons across northern Syria, which Kurdish-led forces are seeking to unite into one territory.
“The Kurdish factions see these actions by Turkey as an intervention to prevent them from uniting their cantons,” says Wladimir van Wilgenburg, a Middle East analyst with the Jamestown Institute and reporter on developments in Kurdish-held territory in Syria. “ISIS has controlled large parts of the Syrian-Turkish border and Turkey did nothing. It was only when the Kurdish-led forces threatened to unite their administrations that Turkey intervened.”
There are indications that the major parties in the conflict could be quietly reaching an agreement to halt Kurdish gains even as Aleppo remains in the balance. Turkey’s intervention into Syria has taken territory away from the Islamic State, but the Turkish military has already come into direct conflict with the Kurdish-led forces in the country, leading to casualties on both sides. The United States has also cautioned the Kurds to stay east of the Euphrates River, a clear warning against attempting to unite Kurdish territories in Syria.
“The Turkish operation was actually planned to begin about a year ago,” claims Sohtaoglu, the Turkey-based researcher, who says its implementation now reflects an understanding among Turkey, Russia, the United States, and perhaps even the Assad government.
In recent weeks, Turkish leaders have held high-profile meetings with officials from Russia and Iran — key allies of the Syrian government. In his statement last week, Prime Minister Yildirim said that Turkey would “not allow Syria to be divided on any ethnic base,” making an unsubtle reference to Kurdish separatists. Turkey’s incursion into Syria has been meekly protested by the Syrian government, which long ago ceded control over much of its northern border.
Turkey’s military intervention and the gains made by allied rebels in Aleppo suggest an increasingly forceful Turkish role in Syria’s civil war. The intervention places the U.S. in an awkward position, however, as it is now backing multiple hostile sides in an increasingly convoluted conflict.
“The Turkish intervention is a game changer in northern Syria, similar to the Russian intervention last year,” says Hassan Hassan, a senior fellow at the D.C.-based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. “The rebels are more confident in Turkish help now and they’ll likely become more forceful in the way they fight on other fronts.”
Hassan says that newly emboldened rebel forces backed by Turkey will likely demand a leading role in taking back major cities from the Islamic State, which could “complicate the situation for the U.S., but it should not,” he says.
“Washington wanted the opposition to become more involved in the fight against ISIS, and this is happening.”
Top photo: Turkish troops head to the Syrian border, in Karkamis, Turkey, Aug. 27, 2016.
Hmm….my how a 3 letter word ( OIL ) and its tentacles never finds the right place in an article……..
Allow me please to implore you two authors, MH + MH, to spend a half hour or so checking out on YouTube the item: “Syria Invasion Watch — Sibel Edmonds on Turkey, False Flags, and the Timeline to War”, posted all of a year ago on August 13, 2015. There you will learn how, in discussion with James Corbett, Edmonds predicted and laid out a year ago pretty much precisely all of what has unfolded in Syria ever since, from the intervention of the Russians, right through to the current double-cross of the Kurds by the US under pressure of upholding its long-term ally Turkey’s interests. Really guys, this should serve for you both as a splendid 101 on all-things-going-down @ Syria, whereafter perhaps some real understanding of the situation and its covert dynamics — and this beyond the transient news of the moment — might be attained.
Yet more enlightenment, albeit just a bit late in the day, on the whole Syria / US / Russia / Turkey / Kurds matter from Alexander Mercouris (UK), Dmitri Babich (RU), & Mark Sleboda (a US Vet.) on today’s (09/05) 3 x week foreign affairs “Cross Talk” discussion & debate w/- Peter Lavelle (US) @ rt.com (begin @ 13.50 mins. thro 21.11). Indispensable, methinks.
09/04/2016 — Edmonds, Corbett & Skouras @ Newsbud on YouTube:-
“Biden’s Turkey Visit:
Multipolar Backroom Deals, the Gulen Card & President Erdogan at Crossroads”
Seeing you guys beat around the bush made realize someone else would have to spell it out:
Ahrar al-Sham = Al Nusra = Al Quaeda = ISIL. Of course their respective leaders wouldn’t tell you.
I’ll stick to Fisk and Cockburn.
This article certain!y puts forth the neo-ottoman, Ikhwan-salafi point of view. It seems rather odd that a lefty website would spread disinformation on behalf of the farthest right ideology in the Middle East.
The historical inaccuracy that is here presented unquestioningly is quite annoying. For example, the idea that Turkey has a special historical right to the city of Aleppo because it was part of the Ottoman Empire is ridiculous. Bulgaria was part of the Ottoman Empire; does that give Erdogan the Magnificent the right to invade Sofia..or Mosul or Jerusalem or Cairo or any other place that was part of the vast Ottoman Empire?
Aleppo was anArabic speaking city for hundreds of years before the Ottomans,maybe even since before Islam. Under the borders described in the Damascus Protocol of 1915 not only Aleppo, but Alexandretta, the entire Orontes basin and the upper Euphrates basin wer to belong to the Arab nation after the defeat of the Ottomans. All of that territory was liberated in 1918 by the Arab Revolt and allies,but in the late 1930s the French – who had betrayed the allied promises to the Arabs of independence and unity, and had thus known no peace for its colonial occupation of Syria – gave Alexandretta and the Euphrates to Turkey as a way of punishing their rebellious Syrian subjects and currying favor with the still large and powerful Turkey. If there were any true justice in our 21st century, Turkey would be punished for its crimes against Syria by having its southern border trimmed back to the Damascus Protocol lines.
Yeah, great, thanks. But try telling that to former Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu, whose neo-Ottoman fantasy would seem to have taken Aleppo, not so very far south of the Turkish/Syrian border, as its very center of gravity, if not Damascus itself. The academic Davutoglu’s doctoral dissertation can fairly be said to have taken as axiomatic Karl Haushofer’s doctrine of Lebensraum, so favored & even embraced by the nazis. I was tempted to suppose (optimistically) that, with Davutoglu’s resignation, aka ‘having been let go’ by the-AKP-powers-that-be, his grandiose notion had died a spontaneous & natural death @ Ankara. But, in light of recent events, I am open to persuasion otherwise.
War is peace, right? Oh, and can ya get me the phone number for the local Ministry Of Truth, please? Or is there just one office for said source of all information?
What’s actually at root in all this needs, it seems to me, a little focus plus a little quasi-historical elaboration. Long ago — and for so very long — so many jews gladly embraced a fantasy of themselves as god’s ‘chosen few’. This ethnic vanity was then shamelessly hijacked by the nazis who, pathetically enough, exploited it to inflate the narcissism of the post-WWI down-trodden German people as being, in fact, a bunch of pure-blooded Aryans, predestined to create and enshrine, in the wake of the Holy Roman empire, a ‘Third Reich’. And this paradigm has in recent years been seized upon and rehabilitated by the USA, notwithstanding its racial heterogeneity, to present itself to the world — and by HRC and Obama in a pretty flagrantly neo-nazi way, at that — as a nothing-short-of “exceptional” nation and people. But Turkey, too, has its own history, and its own species of historically-engendered narcissism (as, no doubt, do many other nations).
Within the Ottoman empire, and perhaps most especially within Anatolia, Turks and Greeks and Armenians and Jews and Circassians and Kurds and gypsies had their own place & role in the society irrespective of religious confession — their socio-economic, and very functional cohesion vis-a-vis everyone else, i.e. all the Others, all came down, in the end, to their payment of taxes in exchange for Ottoman military protection.
Immediately following the dissolution of the Ottoman empire in consequence of its historically-disposed alliance during WWI with the Germans, the English, the French, the Greeks, and even to some extent the Italians advocated a divvying-up of Anatolia without any due consideration, as in governmental power, being awarded to the by then long indigenous Turkoman people. Whereupon the Ottoman General Mustafa Kemal suddenly and pretty unexpectedly emerged, fought off and routed the European imperialists, created the foundations of today’s Turkish Republic, reincarnated himself as Ataturk (i.e. literally, the father and grand-father etc. of the nation), and thereby instilled in his people a sense of ethnic pride (mind, also with the injunction that they should all henceforth look west rather than east, and create for themselves a resolutely secular rather than islamist-flakey nation).
This came at some cost, however. Ataturk was unsuccessful in persuading the western powers to allow the new nation to encompass and assimilate oil-rich Mosul (now @ Iraq) plus the ancient commercial hub Aleppo (now @ Syria) but, understandably, was ready to settle for less in securing for his people all of Anatolia (plus a chunk of Thrace in the west and a bit of the Caucusus to the east). And that was altogether, in itself, quite an extraordinary achievement, given the geopolitical imperialist dynamics of that epoch.
But then overnight the Turks, almost all of them peasants and the like, found themselves obliged to read and write and to found and create a modern state, and to date, thanks in large part to its continued intercourse with high-tech Germany, they have done an amazing job in accomplishing just that. Still, though, viz-a-vis Europe and America, the Turks tend to harbor something of an inferiority complex, as though the western world still chooses to regard them as a load of ignorant peasants and what-have-you.
Today’s Turkey, whose populace consists of anywhere between 15% and 25% Kurds, can be characterized in broad stroke roughly as follows:- Some 10% vote MHP, an ultra-nationalist (as in Turkish supremacist) party, some of whom are secularists but others of whom are fundamentalist Islamists, but all of whom enjoy & celebrate their moniker: ‘grey wolves’. Then with some 49% there’s the ruling AKP party, the hard core of whom are fundamentalist Islamist provincials, who right now of course are the ruling party, a significant albeit not majority proportion of whom tend to tilt toward the MHP party. Coming in at around 29% is the CHP party, who can justly be designated the legatees of Ataturk’s secularist agenda. Which leaves the other 12% to the HDP — a predominantly Kurdish party which, however, has consolidated by incorporating communists, LGBT advocates, plus other odds & sods.
Of course, right now, the balance of power in Turkey significantly favors the ultra-nationalists and fundamentalist Islamists, so many of whom tend to be racist Turkomans as though, en masse, in compensation for their historically-induced inferiority complex, and even as if in a wretched imitation of the jews, the nazis, and the yankees. Thus, for them, it is simply axiomatic and non-negotiable that the Turkomans are in fact a chosen and exceptional, pure-blooded people (!!!), whose duty and destiny it is to reunite with all those poor Turkoman souls left washed up almost a century ago just south of the European-instated borders with Syria and Iraq (also, come to that, with all those in Crimea, Southern Russia, Azerbaijan, and Central Asia — all the way to Xinxiang inside China).
Really, all I wanted and meant to point out is that, at bottom here, we have yet again an ethnic vanity (and an utterly spurious one, at that, inasmuch as, in truth, as per DNA research, maybe only as many as 10% of Turks are pure Turkomans); and, inextricably coupled up with that, an ‘exceptionalist’ Weltanchauung in Turkey that is potentially as noxious and as dangerous for the Turkish nation as it is for all of America in espousing its own species of exceptionalism. Writing all this has cost me dear seeing as I have yet to eat my kahvalti, so I shall abruptly leave off here before perhaps I find myself in bad trouble.
P.S. I regret that I failed to smuggle into what I wrote, as indeed I had meant to do, the assertion that modern Turkey’s contempt for and oppression of the Kurds, and most especially all those who find themselves within its borders to the south-east, is actually grounded in a mode of racist arrogance (and ‘exceptionalism’) that might justly be characterized as a projection and yet an inversion of the way in which they suppose themselves (with more or less justice) to be regarded and to have been smugly regarded historically by the western nations as a-bit-less-than-entirely-human. Thus, the Kurds are the scapegoat of Turkey — notwithstanding their substantial representation (viz., anywhere between 10% and 25%) in the populace as a whole — which in part goes to explain the current persecution of those living immediately to the south of the border with Syria (plus, of course, those long dwelling in the south-east of Turkey) and, moreover, renders truly real & ominous the prospect of a civil war in the Turkish nation once-upon-a-time in the event that things were now to go from bad to worse. It’d be like as if white supremacists in the US despised, collectively, all the nation’s Native American, Afro-American, Latino, and Puerto Rico citizens, and sought to crush them all systematically as though their lives had no more value than those of cockroaches. Won’t the US State Department take a stand by asserting formally that #KurdishLivesMatter as much as do #AmericanLivesMatter? Or would that threaten to subvert that indigenously farmed trance-state, cultivated thanks to any number of performance-enhancing fertilizers, known to the world as ‘American exceptionalism’?
An annoyance for the Pentagon and the State Department is that the Kurdish groups in northern Syria have earned a substantial and appreciative base of support in the US and EU among ordinary citizens. The Kurds have done so with their wit, their courage and good common sense. They have done so by being the only group to make a sustained effort to battle the barbarians … and by being successful with limited means.
With unlimited means the US fails over and over.
The establishment has no choice but to take support for the Kurds seriously. It is well known there are American and Western volunteers fighting and dying in Syria and Iraq alongside the YPG and YPJ. After the Vice President’s trip to Ankara there are loud objections being voiced over the Pentagon’s stabbing Kurdish forces in the back. Politics are happening in real time and it is in the Turks’ interest to pay attention.
Washington can only ignore genuine American support for the Kurds at its political peril … unpleasant though it might be, the same support does not extend to the Turks who are seen as hysterical, bigoted, fascistic and in bed with Islamic State. The lesson of Vietnam is wars are won and lost, not on the overseas battlefield but on the home front. If push comes to shove the American people will stand with the Kurds and pee on the rest, this includes the precious ‘rebel’ FSA.
The Turks should understand something else: they depend entirely on Western credit; dollars and euros, they depend on EU trade, they gain far more from Nato membership than the other members gain from Turkey. The country is broke, it cannot afford a major war nor can Erdogan afford a defeat. Up to now the Kurds have gone out of there way to absorb blows from the Turks without responding. That restraint will not endure forever.
The writers have us all at an disadvantage. What exactly is the US strategy for fighting ISIS given American backed groups are fighting each other? This article is just a bunch of stuff neither here nor there without understanding the US strategy. Is the US fighting ISIS in Aleppo? Are they in the city? Come on don’t hold back, give us the skinny on the US strategy.
U.S. strategy in the Middle East is to create as much chaos as possible to prevent the formation of a regime able to threaten or cause harm to Israel.
Evidence?
In 2002, Michael Ledeen wrote: “One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today”.
Almost fifteen years later, does the goal remain the same? Chaos generally tends to coalesce into some type of order. This is good if the new order is favorable. The Neocons originally hoped to reshape what emerged into a new sphere of American influence. But what has emerged is even more inimical to American interests than the previous regimes. So America is stuck with the need to perpetuate chaos in the Middle East indefinitely, like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill, even though it ultimately serves no useful purpose.
Chaos is not a strategy, simply a waiting game while you hope for a strategy to come along.
This is not about any “war on ISIS, “although they’ll be an occasional target.
There wasn’t even a battle for Jarablus. ANF News reportied that “local residents, said there was little fighting. Instead, ISIS forces turned the city over to the Turkey-supported irregulars and calmly withdrew, many traveling into Turkey. Several reports said that in crossing into Turkey, ISIS cadre donned the uniform of the Syrian Free Army.”
Gee, one might be excused for thinking that ISIS is a pawn that the Americans and Turks can move around the board at will.
It’s about the war on Syria—and for Turkey, the war on the Kurds above all. It certainly is not about saving any part of the world for democracy and human rights. As The Independent reports: the Syrian rebels installed in Jarablus by American planes and Turkish tanks “include the Islamist…fighters [who] decapitated a child on video in Aleppo last month.” ISIS militants give their seats in Jarablus to the “moderate” headchoppers, and move on to fight elsewhere. Jihadi musical chairs. With Turkey and the U.S. playing the tune.
The harsh note you hear is the discordance between the Turkish and American arrangements of this score. Both want to abolish the Baathist regime in Syria, and demolish the secular Syrian state. The U.S.—for various reasons, including its commitment to the Zionist program for the region—has been laser-focussed on that outcome, and has long considered the break-up of Syria into three parts—Sunni, Alawite/Shia, and Kurd—an acceptable path (“Plan B”) to that outcome. But if America may find it useful to instrumentalize Kurdish nationalism against state structures in Iraq, Syria, and Iran (to come), Turkey, which has ruthlessly suppressed any hint of ethnic autonomy, takes that as a threat to its national integrity, and Turkey must be re-assured.
This military adventure also reveals, again, the utter incoherence—in terms of the ostensible goals of fighting ISIS, regional stability, or even rational American self-interest—of the savage multi-proxy war the U.S. has been directing in Syria. As the NYT reports, the American-supported Turkish campaign “pits two American-backed Syrian forces against each other”: jihadi groups—backed by the CIA, “allied intelligence agencies,” and now the Turkish army and the U.S. Air Force, against Kurdish militias—backed by the Pentagon and American troops—that have been the “most reliable partner on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State.” As one rebel leader expressed his confusion: “We weren’t planning to open a front with them [the Kurds]…I don’t know who is bombing whom.” The Vice-President proclaims his full support of the Turkish campaign one day, and the next day a Pentagon spokesman “want]s] to make clear” that the inevitable “clashes,” which are the whole point of the campaign, are “unacceptable.” Within a week, the U.S. supported and attacked the same group.
The frenemy of my frenemy is my frenemy, seems to be the operating principle of American policy in Syria.
What’s the upshot of the Turkish invasion? It’s bad news for everyone. It won’t end well for the Kurds; for Syria, for Russia, for America (considered in terms of its people’s interests), for the world—or even for Erdogan.
See: http://www.thepolemicist.net/2016/08/turkey-invades-syria-america-spins.html
outside american media, american hellary-obama weaponising is huge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt2dNWXgJyc
The threat of Isis in Syria is the veil behind which the flow gas from the South Pars field to Europe will ultimately be decided. Currently, the EUs dependence on Russian gas varies from state to state as each has made its own contractual arrangements with Russia to meet its long term energy needs. The persistent threat of political disruption in the flow of natural gas to the EUs nation states has necessitated a comprehensive energy policy wherein the EU is determined to curb its dependence on Russian gas. To this end the European Energy Union devised a strategy in 2015 to coordinate the transformation of European energy supply. A fully integrated European energy market is seen as the key to achieving a sustainable level of energy independence for all of its member states. Russia currently supplies roughly 17% of the EUs gas needs.
With the prospect of EUs transition away from Russian dependence on natural gas, the importance of the South Pars gas field comes sharply into focus. Control of the South Pars gas field is shared between Iran and Qatar as it overlaps the common border between them. Thus any future pipeline that carries gas from that huge reserve of natural gas to Europe directly impacts the competing interests of the two nations. In keeping with these competing interests, two pipelines have been recently proposed that require a land route across Syria as it is positioned directly between the EU and the South Pars field. The first pipeline would pass through Iran, Iraq, Syria, the southern Lebanon territories and also through the Mediterranean basin, with a refinery and infrastructure to be built in Damascus. The second proposal, the Qatar-Turkey pipeline, would “run from the Iranian-Qatari South Pars / North Dome Gas-Condensate field towards Turkey, where it could connect with the Nabucco pipeline to supply European customers as well as Turkey.” Wikipedia reports:
The Nabucco pipeline was intended to be an European Union and the United States collaborative effort of strategic importance. The project’s main objective was reduce the EUs dependence on natural gas originating from Russia by developing pipeline infrastructure that would allow the European Union to better connect to the natural gas sources in the Caspian Sea and the Middle East regions.
It is in regard to the foregoing that we can begin to understand that which motivates each of the major players in the Syrian conflict and the competing strategic alliances that are intended to serve their respective common interests. Thus you have the Russian/Iran/Syrian alliance lending its direct support to the Syrian government while Saudi Arabia/US/EU/Jordan/Qatar/Turkey supporting Syrian opposition.
Thanks so much, Karl, for talking so much sense (albeit that the facts on the ground have by now for so long been known and plain obvious). Good sense is something in very short supply and is hence very badly needed when it comes to matters outside of the ken of 99.99% of Americans, who are so unashamedly insular and so functionally solipsistic as to pose, by now, a real threat to the rest of the world.
Thanks for the kind feedback toidiY sselesU, it makes the effort worthwhile
I rather take exception to that word “kind” — for me it was no more than a matter of credit where credit is properly due, and not a matter of any kind of generosity. Do please continue to share your detailed knowledge and rigorous understanding in comments here @ The Intercept when occasion arises as, so it seems to me, this news-organ badly needs folks like you (and me) who are far better informed & prudent in several specialist areas than are several of the journos employed as foreign correspondents of a sort. And my remark here goes especially of course to matters & issues overseas, given that all too perilous functional solipsism so endemic & epidemic within the US that I referred to (above).
Nice post. This was discussed back in 2012, too:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/201285133440424621.html
Notably, Syria had been largely ignored by the U.S. before this event – indeed, as with Libya’s Gaddafi, Assad had decent relations with the U.S. government – even to the point of torturing terror war detainees on behalf of the CIA:
This is also associated with the ongoing Sunni-Shia divide across the Islamic world, which isn’t just about religion but also about power and wealth and who will control it. Nevertheless, this could be diplomatically settled, if the U.S. hadn’t been so eager to intervene and use Saudi Wahhabi radicals as their proxy force to ensure the oil profits were banked in Wall Street.
“Syria had been largely ignored by the U.S. before this event”
Found this historical narrative on Syria stemming back to Bolton’s speech in which the Bush Administration names them as part of the Axis Of Evil. It’s worth a read. Let me know what you think.
I think the US has been wanting to bring down Syria for years and couldn’t find a justification for it until they (the USG) created one.
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/07/20/the-us-hand-in-the-syrian-mess/
Interesting link – especially about the perceived role of the Kurds – very informative.
Yes, understanding that the spread of Saudi Wahhabism is seen as a key regional precursor to the economic transformation of the Muslim world by Wall Street is essential to understanding how the post 911 Global War on Terror is its complimentary reagent.
This article is a fiction. The United States funded, armed and trained radical jihadists for the purpose of overthrowing and destroying Syria. When one of these groups, “ISIS”, went off the reservation and into Iraq, only then did they become the bad guy.
The US is not interested in ‘major gains’ against ISIS as long as ISIS is attacking Syria. At most they will be confronted in Iraq or if they attack the USA jihadist puppets. The US does want ‘major gains’ in their war to topple Assad and control Syria.
this is interesting
what the rest of the world is assessing about US-ISRAEL joint venture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt2dNWXgJyc
of course none of this is being diseminated by wallstreet media/msm
Arabs are killing Arabs.
Muslims are killing Muslims.
So of course they blame the Jews. Tradition!
The last I heard, the U.S. has troops or “advisors” embedded with the Kurds. This led them to declare a de facto no-fly zone to keep Syrian forces from bombing the Kurds / moderate rebels.
Meanwhile, Iraq continues to bleed.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2016/08/31/4245-killed-iraq-august/
Sep 1, 2016 Putin on the destruction of the Middle East – Must watch!
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was a neo-conservative think tank that operated between 1997 and 2006. It openly advocated for the total global military domination by the United States. PNAC members held the highest-level positions in the George W. Bush administration, including Robert Kagan (husband of Victoria Nuland) , Dick Cheney, Ronald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and others.
https://youtu.be/jy5F5nDuXYY
From the video description:
Robert Kagan and Paul Wolfowitz have come out in support of Hillary Clinton; Cheney protege Michele Flournoy is the most likely Defense Secretary under Clinton; and Victoria Nuland, who played a key role in orchestrating the coup in Ukraine that led to a neo-Nazi-tinged government, is her most likely Secretary of State. This is just PNAC 2.0, and it’s 100% behind Hillary Clinton.
What they want is more of the same idiotic military interventions seen in Libya, and Hillary Clinton, who I think comes off as a female version of Donald Rumsfeld on foreign policy issues – i.e. confident she’s got it all figured out, surrounded by yes-men (or yes-women) who cheer her on and tell her she’s a genius, resulting in debacles like Libya, Syria, Honduras and Haiti.
As Putin notes in the video, this is what happens when you recklessly intervene in other countries; you create chaos and lawlessness and competely lose control of the situation. Now, U.S. State Department people (like Condi Rice) have called this process “the birth pangs of a new Middle East”, hilariously enough – but what did they give birth to? Under GW Bush, it was Al Qaeda in Iraq; under Obama it was ISIS in Syria (and now in Libya) – it’s just one disaster after another.
Not only is this stupid, it is incredibly expensive at a time when the U.S. domestic economy’s critical infrastructure is in need of massive reconstruction and modernization, which can’t be financed because all the tax money is being poured down the gullet of the military-industrial complex.
I guess all we can hope for is that if Hillary Clinton is (s)elected as President, as seems increasingly likely, she’ll be immediately indicted over the fraudulent pay-to-pay deals of the Clinton Foundation, similiar to Nixon after 1972, and thus all will be prevented from implementing the PNAC global militarism strategy that she’s sitting on right now.
Don’t forget Madeleine Albright was an original PNAC member.
At this point, it’s safe to say that Obama and his entire crew have fully paid their dues for membership as well… which you mentioned or alluded to… but which still needs to be pointed out plainly for many in denial.
It also suggests that the Iran nuclear deal is simply a tool to buy some time for action against them, and the built in constraints are triggers that will be used to justify war when we have finished with the other countries on the list.
Democratic voters supporting Hillary despite her embrace of the neocons and their neoliberal collaborators is beyond troubling.
At least Obama tried to pretend and mislead voters… so the denial by his supporters despite the facts on the ground remains in some ways understandable.
Hillary sees no need for that, and yet voters aren’t opening their eyes.
The “fool me once” bit doesn’t apply.
It’s not ignorance.
They are willingly embracing the warmongering ideology that has been a disaster for our country.
And, given what we know of how the establishment operates… Repubs supposedly obstructing Obama at every turn, yet “somehow” the regime change and corporatist agendas proceed at full speed… I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for an indictment of Hillary.
I suspect there will be just enough political theatre to convince her “progressive” supporters that, like with Obama, it’s not her fault good policies “can’t” be enacted.
The big decision that the Intercept has to make is, will it promote jihadi groups or not? Certainly Assad is a bloody dictator, but he will look good if the jihadi’s take command – as what happened in Libya or Iraq. This is the U.S. government plan when Clinton gets in. Assad’s is an ostensbily secular regime, and the legal government of Syria. But most of all, the main heroes in this nightmare are the secular, leftist, nationalist, women-promoting PKK and their allies in Kurdistan. The U.S. will back whatever horse, and they just changed horses. Your positive coverage of Syrian jihadi rebels – actually violently anti-working class, anti-women religous fundamentalists – is odd, and on the right in coverage from most sites.
will it promote jihadi groups or not?
Have you got brain damage?
just asking.
“Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamist rebel group, was one of the major factions involved in the operation. Speaking to The Intercept…”
and
“The coalition to break the siege did include Jabhat Fath al-Sham, al Qaeda’s former affiliate in Syria, which claims to have broken with al Qaeda last month. Mostafa Mahamed, a representative for the rebranded group, said…”
and
“There is also a deeper historical dynamic at play in the conflict. For hundreds of years, Aleppo was a territory of the Ottoman Empire, ruled from Istanbul.”
and
“Hassan says that newly emboldened rebel forces backed by Turkey will likely demand a leading role in taking back major cities from the Islamic State…”
The jihadi rebel types are being quoted and their narrative spelled out without question. This may not be supportive but it’s only telling their perspective.
For example, do you really believe Turkey cares more about ISIS than the Kurds? The reporter of this article didn’t question that a bit?
So is it you who has brain damage or did you just feel like insulting somebody for daring to state an opinion other than yours?
The Intercept has been highly reluctant to examine the crisis in Syria objectively, tending towards a “blame it all on Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003″ narrative – which is only half the story. The Intercept’s reporting neglects the fact that, under Obama and in coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Sunni radical groups were financed and armed, first in western Iraq (beginning in early 2011), then in eastern Syria (beginning around Feb 2012). An extensive historical analysis is here, see selected quotes below:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n14/hugh-roberts/the-hijackers
It is perhaps understandable that the Gulf Arab monarchies would do this; there is this internal Sunni-Shia divide in the Islamic world – but external actors cannot settle this problem:
What happened was, the U.S. and its allies (Britain, France, Israel) thought they could play kingmaker and use the Sunni radicals as their proxy army to overthrow Assad – and this has a lot to do with control of Middle East resources like oil, and oil pipeline transit routes.
One of the things you see in the Clinton emails at this time is a push to get NATO and Turkey involved. From Feb 7, 2012, from Anne-Marie Slaughter to Hillary Clinton:
This kind of thinking also dovetails with the 2012 DIA document on the rise of Islamic radical groups in Syria:
This doesn’t mean the U.S. wanted something like ISIS to emerge (the Trump narrative) or that the intelligence report was never seen by anyone important (the Clinton narrative) – the truth is probably this:
Now, as to why The Intercept has refused to cover all this, and is instead going with a Guardian / New York Times / Washington Post / US State Department spin, I don’t know. Perhaps the authors and editors would care to explain this, or perhaps not, but the coverage of the Syrian conflict seen here is not objective journalism, IMO. Of course, what the Guardian would do in this situation is to either ban comments on such stories entirely, or implement a heavy-handed moderation policy to remove offending comments like this one. Time will tell.
I do notice, however, that The Intercept unlike The Guardian appears to use the robots.txt option provided by Google to prevent Google’s web crawler from archiving the comments section where a Google search could turn up comments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_exclusion_standard
Was that a deliberate choice by Intercept IT/editorial staff, or was that Google’s decision?
https://theintercept.com/2014/09/28/u-s-officials-invented-terror-group-justify-bombing-syria/
I found this article Glenn did about the first US bombing in Syria. It’s definitely worth a re-read.
war makers make war. fighters fight. war makers don’t die. fighters do. war makers live to make more war. more fighters die. war makers are cowards. fighters are brave.
how many heads-of-state would make war if they had to fight?
how many generals would accept assignments to make war if they had to fight?
henry kissenger: ‘ soldiers are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in global affairs.’
anybody want to die for henry kissenger?
anybody want to die for barak obama?
anybody want to die for boeing, ratheon, lockheed-martin, g.e. etc.?
the rich make war; the poor fight.
the rich live and get richer; the poor die and the poor die.
and hillary clinton is a wallstreet zombie
Yankee come home.
The world wishes it.(except zion)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHOYD5RbqsM
This follow up article to the interview with al Qaida’s spokes-goon is laughable.
Turkish support for the terrorist “rebels” is plainly admitted while the al Qaida goon keeps denying any assistance… and the disconnect from reality doesn’t even merit a mention by the “journalists”… lest the brilliance of the prior interview be exposed as pathetic softball stenography.
Meanwhile, the overt invasion of Syria by Turkey merits no mention as a violation of law or sovereignty and the article even goes so far as to imply that Syria’s government agreed to it… apparently because they didn’t condemn it loudly enough.
The cheerleading for the terrorist “rebels” who broke the siege of Aleppo, and the misty-eyed longing for the seizure of the rest of Aleppo and territories further south… i.e. more death and destruction and innocent Syrians subjected to rule by fanatical nutjobs in pursuit of the illegal regime change war backed by the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni wanna-be conquerors… is not remotely journalism worthy of an outlet supposedly founded to challenge the establishment.
It is hand in glove propaganda for the establishment.
Aren’t there any at TI that are willing to raise their voices in objection to this nonsense?
I mean staff, not the many in the comment section who actually value fact.
oh it’s all very interesting but that’s about it. On the world statge, this is only a game of chess for territory. This can go on for decades without any serios consequence to the shape of the planet. It’s the pawns of zions that want to make these situations pivotal – pawns like queen hellary whose only interest are gettiing elected to she can please her wallstreet master lloyd blankynotsofine and her zion master nuttyahu.
Of course it’s very sad for the people who live there but hellary, who started this disaster by providing weapons to protesters, promises to get more Americans killed in her new war – and women too – she wants to draft them.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/hillary-clinton-women-draft-register-224390
she’s the monsters’ mother
They probably get paid per story. They likely would rather submit something that sucks than nothing.
As a journalist for a small town paper who has been guilty of turning in too much in hopes of getting paid more, I don’t blame them for the technique. All broke journalists matter.
Utter bullshit is not an explanation… though I believe it about you.
I turn in too much sometimes but it’s not bullshit! I’m quite proud of my work.
Also, utter bullshit can be an explanation. It’s not a good one but…
What would our great leaders do without the ignorant male blockheads that are willing to fight and die for their great leaders causes?
If ever our human race were to get rid of these macho dunderheads, the world would be at perpetual peace…
interesting observation
war offices attract war willings
our great leaders are macho male blockheads who lead these willing macho dunderheads with their ak47/m16 penis machines which you can now carry openly in america to bolster your ignorant male blockhead attitude that encourages you to think with your penis to inflate your weak ego. take the penis guns away from ignorant male block heads or at least have them put them back in their pants then quit selling these penis machines of war to other super male dominated counties and we will have perpetual world peace. do you think HRC will do this? i think …probably not? but Trump being a super male blockhead will probably pull out the atomic penis bomb.
Some women love penis bombs but not these two.
It is a choice between only two:
1. Trump is a pragmatic negotiator willing to accept Putin as an equal;
2. Hillary is a proven brutal calculating warmonger willing to clear Muslims out the Middle East for the ‘security’ of her Zionist brethren.
You can throw away your vote on Jill or Gary, but I’ll use my vote to keep that crazy bitch Hillary out of the Presideential office.
Nothing has changed on the ground in Syria. Turkey joined the coalition against ISIS but has always used it as a smokescreen to attack the Kurds in northern Syria. The only difference is they’re less inclined to maintain this pretense, since Erdogan is a little miffed with the NSA for not giving him warning of the attempted coup. From his point of view, the NSA is part of the coalition trying to overthrow him. The NSA protests that it was simply too busy viewing nude photos that it had hacked off the internet. The truth is probably somewhere in between.
Virtually every country in the world has backed a different armed faction in Syria. This, however, still leaves a lot of factions without a backer. The US has taken up this challenge by arming a number of opposing factions, however many other countries are shirking their responsibilities and refuse to arm even one. Unless all the factions can be fully armed, the wrong one may end up on top. So this is a test of concerted international action to help solve world problems. Hopefully, the World passes the test.
Nothing has changed on the ground in Syria … it gets worse every day!
Anarchy reigns. .. ‘swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night! What rough beast slouches towards Jerusalem’?
Amen. .. I don’t think ‘Clinton’s Global Initiative’ is working.
Clinton’s Global Initiative is doing wonders for the share prices of the defense contractors who invested in her, however.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/12/investing/defense-stocks-trump-clinton/
By now, it should be obvious that the true goals of the CGI are not in line with its public image, any more than the true goals of Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq had anything to do with eliminating WMD programs or “a plan to bring democracy to the Middle East.”
Benito, has anybody yet bothered to advise you, you’re all over the news today?
http://www.rt.com/viral/357884-mussolini-fascist-message-revealed/
You wanted to be remembered, and you’ve sure not been forgotten.
The US. creates more problems then she pretends to solve….!!
We are merely spending $4 billion a year and have a 1 to 15,000 U.S. to ISIS kill ratio.
“We’ve got good momentum going. We are really into the heart of the caliphate.” — Gen. Joseph Votel.
Yes, but the slow pace “has yielded the Islamic State time to export their message, garner followers, and spread their message. A comprehensive strategy to rapidly decompose the Islamic State is still lacking.” — Gen. David Deptula
Good to know the Intercept is so open minded they can understand the legitimacy of the ex-al Qaeda perspective.
The USA threw the Kurds under the bus! The Russians are using Turkey like a junk yard dog. The coup failed, because the USA is inept. Turkey should never be in NATO.
The Kurds, having been shiite-on by the USA, need to sell themselves as mercenaries. No one else is looking out for their interests.
This particular war cannot be blamed on the US.
Perpetual war and chaos are not strategies. It is the consequence Neocon treason and a lack of national strategy, which has done far more harm to America then having alternatively done nothing at all.
Reports are coming in that Turkey made a deal with Daesh to take this border town Jarablus, and Daesh fighters just changed clothes into the ‘Free Syrian Army.” (Counterpunch – Omar Kassem) This does not seem far-fetched, as Turkey has been aiding Daesh for years, re oil, weapons and fighters allowed to pass through the border. Now it could be drawn into a direct military war with Assad, with the U.S. helping. I’m sure that is the Clinton plan.
Correction: Turkey didn’t “occupy” Jarabulus. Turkey supported Free Syrian Army units who led the attach on Daesh in Jarabulus and the Kurdish militias who are usurping Arab (& Turkmen) lands under the pretext of fighting Daesh or what you call ISIS.
This article is about as factual as a Trump speech, but because so many articles by American media echoing the positions of their faction of the Party Of War are similarly almost fact free, it doesn’t trigger the sort of derisive dismissal it deserves. The reality is that after the US (directly and indirectly) sponsorship of religious extremists attempting to overthrow the (multiethnic, multireligious, popularly supported – as in elected – coalition) Assad regime failed (and rather embarrassingly so, as their pet extremists slipped their leashes and went for the easy pickings in Iraq, with its corrupt, US backed regime) the US switched (for the most part. It still offers some support to the religious extremists, though such support has to be carefully stage managed given how the arms supplied to the ‘moderate’ religious extremists who profess to not be aligned with the ‘immoderate’ religious extremists who are active in Iraq and Syria somehow become a shared resource for both the ‘moderate’ and ‘immoderate’ terrorists) to sponsoring ethnic extremists in Syria, despite these ethnic extremists history of staging terrorist attacks on (NATO member) Turkey.
It shows how obsessed with crushing ‘enemy regimes’ (which are more democratic, and less militaristic, than the regimes the US allies itself with in the ME) the US Party Of War is that it was/is willing to fire on (by proxy, so far) a NATO member in its effort to overthrow the Syrian government. Add in the (exremist) faction within Turkey that took the American willingness to fire on the elected Turkish government as a signal that it would support (yet again) the overthrow of a civilian, elected Turkish government (and the significant signal to said government that it would be just as happy with a dictatorship that the failure of the American intelligence agencies and the American government to alert the elected Turkish government to the coup attempt) and the Turkish move to suppress the ethnic extremists despite their American support (which includes American boots on the ground as well as cash, weapons, and air support) takes on an entirely different complexion than the one the article tries to paint.
I’m chuckling a bit, because I’m imagining Will Farrel’s Harry Caray asking “If you were a hot dog would you eat yourself? I know I would. I’d smother myself…” used by Uncle Sam character w/ Harry’s voice say:
“If you were an oppressive regime would you crush yourself? I know I would. I’d…”
Uncle Sam just loves hot dogs and war,… sigh shrug.
Personally, I think it’s high time that Manbij is handed back to Atargatis, to serve as a mecca for transsexuals from all over Syria.
A feminist will get elected in fair democratic elections! We will help Syria be a beacon of freedom, tolerance and lover of McDonald’s french fries, God willing.
The US gov is a pool of geniuses. Financing wars – ie taking money from US citizens then handing it to murderers and thieves who use the money to buy weapons from criminal organisations like Hellary Clinton Global War Initiative is every extortion and racketeering mobster’s wet dream. But Hellary doesnt have wet dreams, her proxies do. Instead, Hellary operates more like MA BARKER. Genius. Consider this genius…
This was an operation to parse the Ottoman empire back in the day.The ISIS of the day. A genius move because the Ottoman empire got to be like wallstreet – too big to jail. Understanding the need to deal with too big to jail, the geniuses in the US gov, instead of throwing the Blankfeins in prison where they belong for having exercised their ottoman ways on the population of the US, sells weapons to anyone and everyone under the theory that people killing each other off will never result in any sort of “too big to” scenario. Genius.
Of course there is a flip side to this thinking of being everyone’s friend. At some point down the road, you also become everyone’s enemy. Genius.
Sorry to have to clue you in in this, but the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire after World War 1 was not a thing of US doing, it was the British (mostly) and the French. Do a search on “Sykes-Picot Agreement” and I am sure you will find all the detail you need about how the British in particular were interested in carving up the Middle East to bolster their empire and control the flow of oil. France of course was an empire too, and on the winning side, so they had to be included in the mix. So they were, given Syria and Lebanon.
It is said that Wilson opposed much of the nonsense that was done at the end of that War, but lacked the strength and backing to prevent our pals from laying the groundwork both for World War 2 and the present state of the Middle East. Later generations of US politicians have remained clueless as to what had happened, and the truth on the ground in the region, as exemplified so wonderfully by GW Bush’s delight in the British participation in our war of aggression against Iraq. Idiot that he is, he did not understand that the specter of British involvement brings horror and disgust to the minds of anyone in the region, with the possible exceptions of the Saudis and Israelis.
Dont be sorry, Thanks for the drilling. I was a bit loose with my context. Later generations of US politicians have remained clueless as to what had happened, . The lack of proper influence by the US is genius, doing something or allowing it to take place. The ones who should know have simply decided alliances on fraudulent relationships and values. Sure, the Brits messed up a whole lot of stuff. Meanwhile, here’s another gem that fits in with the clueless political lawyers who care more about laws for power than history.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/state-dept-offers-3mln-reward-isis-leader-trained-american-military-contracter/219968/
Ah, yes, Baton Rouge. And I like your use of the word genius; it’s a Benito Mussolini stroke.
There will be one inescapable end to this mess, at least regarding the Kurds–America will use them until no longer needed and then America will throw them under the proverbial bus and stand back and watch while the Kurds get supremely fucked. Just like they always do.
Poor Kurds. They should have their own nation in the region. But the “great powers” could care less about their needs or how loyal they’ve been in assisting the major Western players in beating back whichever Arab despot or disfavored faction is currently being backed by same (meaning US, Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni gulf monarchies) and serving some generalized Western imperial interest in the region.
Like I said, poor Kurds, we’ve all seen how this plays out in the end. They get fucked by America. Don’t know why the poor Kurds would ever trust us or do our bidding in any way. They are poor marionettes in the Western foreign policy maelstrom. They are like Charlie Brown to our Lucy always pulling the football away just when he’s about to kick it. You think they’d learn not to trust Lucy at least when it comes to holding the football.
Thomas Morton of Vice News did an interesting video piece on the Kurds (female fighters) — he reported that they (the Kurd fighters) do just as everyone else does… which is court various suitors to help them in their fighting.
It seems strange: every group tyring to leverage or use others as pawns in a chess match. The pawns attempting to use the kings and queens as pawns..
The Vice peice tried to drill down to who was actually helping the Kurds.
aint that the truth
My advice to The Charlie Browns of the world. The ball moves. Lucy doesn’t. Kick Lucy.
I’ll go to my room now.
The Turks are opening a supply line to ISIS. They already resupplied their proxies in Aleppo. And there seems to be no other option than a Turkish occupation of the Kurdish areas of Syria to prevent a Kurdish state.
The only bright spot to all of this is that the situation has become so spectacularly complex, a war with at least five sides, that even the neocons will have a hard time arguing for US intervention.
senate: “Hellary, you have been arming terrorist groups have you not?”
Hellary: “no. those groups are our allies”.
senate: “well our so called allies are fighting groups who are not terrorists whom you are also arming are you not!?”
Hellary: “wellllllllllllllll… (in typical GB fashion) the groups the so-called terrorists are fighting were our friends but arent any longer.”
senate: “wait a minute. Any longer? so the terrorists are our friends or our allies are terrorists?”
Hellary: “it all depends. basically the group that buys the most weapons are our best allies.”
senate: “until they become terrorists and then what?”
Hellary: “and then we have to finance their oppostition.”
senate: “so in reality you are financing all kinds of terrorists”.
Hellary: “welllllllllllllllllll…. it depends on what you mean by terrorists”
senate: “sounds more like you’r playing both sides of the fence here.”
Hellary: “welllllllllllllll…. what difference does it make? terrorist one day ally the next. There are a whole lot of fences out there.”
Ad paragraph 4, featuring the false prediction by many that Turkey would become more introvert following the recent abortive coup:- What’s missing in all this reportage at second-hand, based it would seem entirely on other news sources, is a major component part, and an endogenous one at that, of Turkey’s motivation in now launching such an assault on Syria.
It was widely held by many pundits right after the coup and the massive purge that has ensued within the military during the weeks since, and especially amidst its higher ranks, that it would take all of decade for the Turkish armed forces to recover their strength. And, according to a certain testosterstoned mind-set prevalent in the Middle East (and no doubt plenty places elsewhere, too), to ever show weakness is fatal — hence, then, Turkey’s incursion into Syria is meant to be, at least in part, essentially a show of strength both to the world and, critically, to the nation’s domestic audience following the recent coup attempt.
As the Chief of General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, General Hulusi Akar, was quoted saying just the other day (Hurriyet, August 30): “The fact that the army is carrying out operation Euphrates — which is essential for the peace and security of our nation, the people in neighboring countries, and our borders — while [Naval Forces] are defending the seas and the [Air Force] put the signature of the republic in the air [i.e., on Monday, 08/30, Turkey’s annual Victory Day celebration], just days after this abominable [coup] attempt shows that the TSK [= Turkish Armed Forces] has lost none of its power. It will become stronger as the [Gulenist] traitors within it are removed.”
Meanwhile, we shall just have to see if Turkey’s intervention in Syria at the Kurds’ expense will result in any kinda irreparable rift with the US — and, perhaps more importantly right now in terms of the geopolitics of the region, with Russia.
Today’s episode of Peter Lavelle’s 3 x weekly foreign policy discussion & debate offers a superb discussion of all this. Go to rt.com, click on Shows at the top, then seek & click on “Cross Talk”, and meanwhile pour for yourself a stiff glass of whiskey.
sounds like fun
The foreign policy of the US is clear: do everything possible to generate more profits for arms manufacturers.
George H.W. Bush said “we will prevail”
– – – – George W. Bush said “we will prevail”
– – – – – – – – President Barrack Obama has said “we will prevail”
Gee, none of them can figure out why we are losing??
I think a better headline would be
“U.S. Strategy To Overthrow Assad Has Set Off A New Conflict In Syria, Causing Refugees to Flood Europe.”
1) The renaming of Al-Qaeda, the primary focus of Saudi support in Syria, as AL-SHAM, is primarily about allowing western media to stop writing articles about Al-Qaeda, the “moderate opposition”, and instead use Al-Sham. This is a transparent propaganda attempt. This group is ideologically aligned with ISIS, Al-Nusra – they just appear to be more willing to take orders from the Saudis and their Israeli and American allies are than ISIS is. They are just as bloodthirsty, even if this goes unreported here:
Source:US Downplays a New Syrian Massacre, ConsortiumNews,May 20, 2016
Did Al-Sham’s spokesperson have anything to say to The Intercept about that massacre? Was he asked about it? If not, why not?
2) This article doesn’t mention HASAKEH – the town were recently Kurds launched an assault on Syrian government forces, apparently with the encouragement of U.S. military advisors. When the Syrian government responded by bombing the Kurds (who were trying to take over the whole town), the U.S. forces protested and sent planes of their own. Given that Syrian airforce is supported by the Russians, this is highly reckless behavior. Here’s a good aggregation of reports about this event:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/08/hasakah-are-us-troops-advising-kurds-to-attack-the-syrian-army-.html
I think this should have been included in this article, even if it raises questions about “the U.S. strategy of empowering Kurdish groups to fight the Islamic State in Syria,” and points to an ongoing U.S. effort to overthrow Assad.
Rather glaring omissions, I’d say. This article reads more like something the NYTimes or WaPo would put out; generally promotes U.S. State Department talking points, and avoids mention of facts which conflict with that narrative.
ahhhhh. Amplifying the fight scam. This will drive arms sales. Certainly ammunition sales will be up. Focusing on involving civilians is a key factor in that – just as the NRA attempts to involve US citizens in their arms game. All the arms sellers think alike and card not who shoots who as long as the sales keepa comin.
This article’s headline is already bad enough. Yours is just patently false.
To be fair to the Kurds, they have the cleanest hands of anyone in Syria. That said, given the US’s rigid loyalty to “territorial integrity”, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll do much more to back the Kurds.