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© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019.Kurdish-led forces say they have pulled out of Syria border town
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Tuvan Gumrukcu BEIRUT/ANKARA©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
37 Comments
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CrazyJoe
Trump is a fool but Erdogan is the villain. Let’s not forget who the true source of evil is here. Erdogan and the AKP/MHP, their Islamist / ISIS allies and all who support their ethnic cleansing and fascistic racist policies both inside and outside Turkey. These are truly dangerous people who absent opposition will only grow worse. Be glad you are not within their reach for they lack decency or scruples.
SimondB
The Kurds had to "pull out" because they were "sold out" by Trump.
Sh1mon M4sada
Who cares what they are called, peace is within grasp, let's hope tgrre's a way out of this even if USA has lost a bit of influence or trust in this region.
Turkey on the other hand can't be trusted. Putin is the outright winner here, but he has spent a lot to get there, including a fighter shot down by Turkey LOL. A bit of a poetic justice tgat tge Russian has been dissing sidewinders as crap when it downed a Russkian fighter. LOL again.
stormcrow
"This is not a strategic success, but, as Sen. McConnel said, 'a grave strategic mistake' . . . and it is (an act of betrayal)."
Gen. David Petraeus (Ret.),
Former CIA Director
Chip Star
Same place you do.
nandakandamanda
BB, you keep repeating stuff that is simply wrong.
Strangerland
Dear Leader of course. And therefore, his Trumpets as well.
starpunk
Oceana is not and never was at war with Eurasia, Oceana is and always was at war with Eastasia! That's right, that's right now! Don't let those (ahem) Democrat/liberal (Goldstein's agents) fool you good Trumpets.
Sh1mon M4sada
The Kurds are no more commie than Singapore is, LKY dabbled with communism too, and his dynasty is still run like a communist dynastic one party state. I would even say the Kurds are just bobbing up and down in a sea of ideologies looking for support where ever they can.
Sh1mon M4sada
I would argue that Trump sold out the Kurds and USA.
Syria and its neighbours were considered strategic enough for USA (and the world to enter), all of a sudden Putin gets his wishes in one go. I'd be more interested in what Putin has on Trump than the roles of the Kurds in this conflict. Yes it's good to have a bit of humanity in a discussion, but it's also good to not be myopic about it too.
stormcrow
But Burning Bush if ISIS is on the loose again, who are we going to turn to to get the job done the next time around? This thing is far from over, regardless of what the Dotard-in-Chief proclaims or tweets about it being a victory. Do you honestly believe Trump when he claims this was a victory and that the Kurdish groups U.S. soldiers fought side by side with are worse than ISIS? Trump really needs to find put some people in place around him who know what they're doing and to let them manage this, but it's too late regarding this particular fiasco. The damage has been done.
Besides, the U.S. wasn't in NE Syria because it loved being and fighting there, but because it was in the interests of America's own national security and the threat posed by ISIS. Look! It's ALIVE AGAIN!
lostrune2
The Kurds went above and beyond. They not only freed their own lands from ISIS, but they went after ISIS beyond Kurd lands. They could've stopped after their lands were freed, but they kept on fighting (partly because the US wanted them to keep going after ISIS) and suffering casualties but still took the fight all the way to the ISIS capital Raqqa.
Not before the ISIS crisis, when the Assad government was pushed to the corner and needed all the help they can get against ISIS. The Assad government was not always friendly to the Kurds. Heck, Assad's grandfather even denied Syrian citizenship to the Syrian Kurds, so the Kurds couldn't even participate into Syrian society.
How about the Syrian government.
Actually, the Syrian forces were initially losing to ISIS. One of the big early setbacks was when the Syrian forces lost their main airbase in central Syria to ISIS. That meant they can no longer control the air, allowing ISIS to move freely, expand, and proliferate in all directions.
Chip Star
It was very generous of Donny to broker a ceasefire after having tossed the Kurds under Turkish tanks.
commanteer
Says who?
smithinjapan
The blood is on Trump and his supporters' hands. Now they are bragging about a "ceasefire" deal on an incursion the single-handedly approved after Trump's called with Erdogan, whom Trump buckled and bent over for. Erdogan and Russia got everything they want. The US, of whom the majority was against Trump's actions, are once again now forced to support genocide and will have to deal with terrorism as the ISIS soldiers Turkey frees will plot to hurt them.
Great job, guys!
stormcrow
@Burning Bush
I'm not sure where you're from, but if ISIS were to launch an attack against your home country or city, you'd probably be one of the first ones saying, "Yeah, let's go over to Syria and kick ISIS's ass!"
Only this time you'll be doing it alone because the groups you've betrayed will no longer fight and die for you. Your army will be doing all of the heavy lifting alone and the body count will be much higher than it was this time.
In other words, it's best not to burn your bridges because you might need to cross over them again in the future. Do you follow?
stormcrow
But WilliB, the Kurds had been living in that area that Turkey is now cleansing for many, many years. True, relations have been rocky between the Turks and the Kurds, but certainly you're not in support of what Trump called The Ultimate Solution? It sounds like something straight out of the mouth of another infamous dictator who ran amok several decades ago. Of course you might say the scale of this operation is much smaller so it's OK, but it's not OK to many of us who support human rights. Trump doesn't appear to give a damn about human rights.
lostrune2
Actually, what's most ironic about this current situation is that Northeast Syria was one of the few stable fronts the US has had in their global fights. Relative to their fronts in Afghanistan, Somalia, Nigeria, and western Africa, et. al., their Northeast Syrian front was quite stable. Hardly anything happens to their US forces there --and there's only a need for a small contingent, just in the hundreds to a thousand-- while the local Kurds are the willing and competent fighters who are keeping the peace in their stead.
And now, the US action trigger has blown up that stability skyhigh back into chaos. Yet those US forces aren't even coming home --they're not even leaving the Middle East-- just moving from Syria to Saudi Arabia. So what did they even trade that stability for?
If they were to leave anyway, the US should had negotiated the terms with all the sides before leaving it up to chaos, when the US still had the position of power in the negotiation table. But now instead, they're trying to negotiate while running to catch up to a runaway table. It's like they're always late. And now, they're planning to bring some of their forces back again to Syria. So why they didn't think of doing all this before plunging the stable front into chaos...............
Chip Star
*nobody
WilliB
Classic propaganda writing. Obamas "vetted rebels" are called "Syrian Democratic Forces", and the pro-Turkish rebels are called, well, rebels.
The fact that the only legitimate force in Syria is the Syrian armee, plus the Russian military who is there upon invitation by the Syrian government, is nowhere to be found.
Food for the echo-chamber...
Joe Blow
The BBC does:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20971100
Dango bong
It is not the US responsibility. If you want to be in Syria have your country send troops there.
Blacklabel
ABC news had reporters on the ground.
Reporters who then went to YouTube and took a video from a Kentucky gun range because nothing was going on in Syria to support the narrative.
Kestrel
ABC - fake news - no one can deny it.
Serrano
It was very generous of Donny to broker a ceasefire after having tossed the Kurds under Turkish tanks.
Trump did not toss anyone under any Turkish tanks, and it was the right decision to remove the U.S. troops from the areas they were going to be shot at.
Amazing how there weren't any U.S. troops in Syria until Obama came along and decided to try to destabilze Assad which was an abysmal failure and contributed greatly to the awful situation there now.
WilliB
"We", aka the American meddlers did not do "the job". The Syrian armee, the Russians, and yes Kurdish groups did. But the Kurds did not fight for Hillary Clinton, they fought for their own survival. Which was threatened by ISIS, and not by Turkey or Syria. Did everybody forget that 15% of Turkeys population is actually Kurdish? That the Kurds have an agreement with the Syrian government about limited self-government? What neither Turkey nor Syria can accept is a unilaterally declared new Kurdish state, run by radicals.
I don´t know what I find more surprising.... the straight out lies by the mainstream media, or that people who obviously never followed the history of the region take the media lies and repeat them literally.
WilliB
Shimon masada:
So "argue" now means "parrot CNN"?
WilliB
Chipstar:
Err.... really? So where do you get your talking points from?
Joe Blow
The Kurds are communists, no?
Glad we're not helping them anymore.