Mutual Admirers: Presidents Trump and Erdogan
"It is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home."
"WE WILL FIGHT WHERE IT IS TO OUR BENEFIT, AND ONLY FIGHT TO WIN."
"Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to figure the situation out."
U.S. President Donald J.Trump
"A precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria would only benefit Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime."
"And it would increase the risk that ISIS and other terrorist groups recoup."
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican Senate leader
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| Turkish army soldiers drive towards the border with Syria near Akcakale in Sanliurfa province on October 8, 2019. Photograph: Bülent Kılıç/AFP via Getty Images |
The goal of the People's Protection Units is precisely that; to keep Kurds safe from harm, and in particular harm generated through the malice of Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan for whom the only good Kurd is a dead Kurd. He would happily wipe out the entire presence of Kurds from the map of the Middle East if he could, but he can't be accused of a lack of effort in that regard; his hatred drives him forward, in an effort to attempt any measure he can to diminish outside protection of Kurdish territorial integrity.
The "safe zone" that Erdogan envisages is to become the newly-settled home of over a million Sunni Syrian refugees whom Erdogan has thus far been unable to convince it's time to return to their former homes within Syria where the Alawite Syrian regime waits to once again 'punish' them with air attacks, barrel bombs and chemical weapons as pay-back for demanding equal treatment as citizens of Syria to that granted to Shiites loyal to the Baathist Assad regime.
The forced removal of Syrian refugees from Turkey is meant to reduce the backlash byTurks against their regime in the presence of haven-seekers of their own faith. The buffer zone he envisages by placing Syrian Arabs between the north-east Syrian Kurds and those of south-east Turkey will ostensibly enable Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party to sleep better at night. The very suggestion that Kurds be granted ownership of their heritage geography represents a nightmare for Turkey.
The planned forcing of Kurds in Syria away from their current towns and villages to make way for incoming Syrians, or to remain and live alongside one another not in a spirit of community, since each is different from the other in a multitude of important ways, but in a spirit of mutual resentment that will build incrementally toward civil conflict is of no concern to Erdogan, much less that the area will be able to absorb that many refugees to begin with. Erdogan promises the Syrians farmland, not his to give since it is Kurds' farmland.
The situation whereby prisoners of ISIL held by the SDF who will now be forced to disengage as guards of the ISIL incarcerates for the greater interests of protecting the Kurdish population against a military invasion by assembled Turkish armoured vehicles and well-armed adversaries means that no one should sleep well at night. And as determined as the Syrian Defence Forces can be to protect their own and defend their territory they have neither manpower equal in number or defensive military equipment to match that of Turkey.
Turkish air strikes could in one fell swoop, exact intolerable damage to the Kurdish capacity to protect themselves. Kurds know what they can expect from the West which uses them when it is to their advantage, and abandons them once that advantage has been achieved. When Iraqi Kurds attempted to declare independence in 2017, there was no reaction from the West when Iraqi forces -- who had fled ISIS, and whom the Kurdish militias had vanquished -- marched in to crush Kurdish independence.
"People are wondering if the campaign is being used to cover up the economic distress and declining Justice and Development party [Erdogan’s ruling AKP] votes."
"One worries Turkey could stumble into a situation here where – rather than just establish a safe zone – a war could escalate very quickly."
Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, senior policy fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations
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| Members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) near the Islamic’s State’s last holdout of Baghouz in northern Syria. Photograph: Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images |
Labels: Invasion, Kurdish SDF, Kurds, Refugees, Syria, Turkey, United States
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, October 09, 2019
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