Saddle up for Syria? Or Op Deny Christmas '13

[Clark Griswold]

2 hours ago, brickhistory said:

In the end, what's in it for us?

Nothing but trouble unless you believe the US and other countries with the capabilities and means should honor and act on the concept of the responsibility to protect political theory then it is a duty we (and ideally others) will/should take up.  Not advocating just commenting.

I am not sure we do or anyone does individually but collectively I think there is a stronger cause to say we (collectively) should, not saying we (collectively as a sovereign nations) will but that the theory merits greater consideration then.

I read this article this past weekend:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/book-review-the-education-of-an-idealist-samantha-power/

and it seems relevant to this latest development.  

Interventionist and Realists again.  But at what cost and if it is worth it why can't they (interventionists) be honest about the costs if the cause be worthy?

Unless we and others who are capable and publicly call for a world order where certain national behaviors are not tolerated are willing to pay the cost, sacrifice and remain engaged for causes that do not directly defend our nations and interests then we should abstain from seeming to offer false hope.. 

[brickhistory]

8 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:

Nothing but trouble unless you believe the US and other countries with the capabilities and means should honor and act on the concept of the responsibility to protect political theory then it is a duty we (and ideally others) will/should take up.  Not advocating just commenting.

 

I do not ascribe to that concept.

What's in our national interest?  That's what's important to me.  If it matches that of others, great.  If not, no biggie.

Those "others" have been up under our skirts since WWII (in the West anyway).  They did so out their own national interests.

And so it will always go.

[waveshaper]

I'm not sure exactly what this will prevent? The Turkish AF has been conducting airstrikes on Kurdish targets in Northern Iraq for Decades/Northern Syria for a few years and IMHO, they don't give a rats ass about any "Combined Air Operations Center" coordination/approval/etc.

"US cuts Turkey’s access to north-east Syria airspace ahead of military campaign";

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20191008-us-cuts-turkeys-access-to-north-east-syria-airspace-ahead-of-military-campaign/

[jrizzell]

The Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting each other for 1500 years; toss the Kurds into the mix and it’s a huge religious shit sandwich. As Americans if we continue to interject ourselves into those fights, we’ll be there forever. We kicked a hornets nest with the poor way we handled the Iraq Invasion and aftermath. Personally I think we need to leave the entire region, but we’ve invested so much money I don’t know if the military leadership will accept anything besides indefinite occupation.

[Clark Griswold]

5 hours ago, brickhistory said:

I do not ascribe to that concept.

What's in our national interest?  That's what's important to me.  If it matches that of others, great.  If not, no biggie.

Those "others" have been up under our skirts since WWII (in the West anyway).  They did so out their own national interests.

And so it will always go.

I can't say that I do either but I won't dismiss it completely. 

IMO, It's a concept meant for the collective action of nations that can act and who feel compelled by their values to act.  Not the responsibility of just one nation no matter how powerful/wealthy compared to others and not without the consent of the governed who will be required to serve and sacrifice for others with no definite end in sight and no assurance of success. 

All of those caveats have not been met by those advocating for humanitarian intervention.  No honesty as to the cost, the time and risks. 

Powers and those who push for western nations, especially America, to act on the concept of the Responsibility to Protect along with those who push for what I would call Indefinite Engagement aren't honest about what it required to execute missions that act on these ideas and that dishonesty erodes trust in leadership, exhausts a military structured to mainly deter and win conventional conflicts and breeds a cynicism in the public that infects every other way we view our government.

Joe Kent wrote a good article on this at Breitbart:

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/10/07/kent-why-president-trump-should-follow-his-gut-on-foreign-policy/

From the article:

If the American people do want to go to war for human rights, then we need to reinstate the draft and double the size of the military. There are plenty of places in Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia that we would need to fight decades-long conflicts in to right the world’s wrongs.

That is probably a pretty good overview for what would be needed along with financially capable Allies being required to do the same and participating in these missions with no ROE restrictions, not holding breath for that.  Likely, whole conventional mission sets would need to be dropped to shift resources to grow other mission sets to handle this much demand for Occupation/Stabilization forces. 

I'm not for America alone to go out and fix the world but if the Western world just can't tolerate the mass tragedies then we have to be honest as to the cost, risks and requirements while explaining clearly to the people who will bear this cost as to why and what are they sacrificing for.

[dream big]

On 10/7/2019 at 8:04 PM, pawnman said:

I don't know what the answer is, but I know if we keep abandoning allies like this, we're going to have a hard time finding new ones when we need them.

America has spent countless money and blood on our “allies.”  Asking our allies to step up and fight their own battles once in a while is not abandoning them nor will we be alone all of a sudden.  Diplomacy and alliance is a critical instrument of foreign policy but it should never be the ultimate litmus test for policy. Further, If we keep wearing out our troops on proxy wars around the globe, they will never be ready and motivated when it matters.

[Bob Uecker]

The Kurds aren’t really all that reliable or great of a group to back. Kurds hate other Kurds more than Sunnis and Shias hate each other. Treatment of religious/ethnic minorities in the area (with exception to Yazidis) is not all that much better than it was under ISIS.

[Bigred]

Did Trump just troll the entire world with a tweet? I guess time will tell. 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/world/2019/10/9/20906227/trump-turkey-invades-syria-middle-east-tweet

[Prosuper]

Is Erdogan just doing this to distract the populace in Turkey on how badly he has led the country? Also would we have gone to war against Turkey a NATO ally even though a sucky one at that to save the Syrian Kurds? We do still need free passage through the Bosphorus straits so the Navy can get into the Black Sea. Will Russians fly close air support for Syrians fighting against Turkish forces and screw up their S-300 deal? How long can the Turks fly their KC-135's, F-4's and F-16's without U.S. logistics?

[pawnman]

8 minutes ago, Prosuper said:

Is Erdogan just doing this to distract the populace in Turkey on how badly he has led the country? Also would we have gone to war against Turkey a NATO ally even though a sucky one at that to save the Syrian Kurds? We do still need free passage through the Bosphorus straits so the Navy can get into the Black Sea. Will Russians fly close air support for Syrians fighting against Turkish forces and screw up their S-300 deal? How long can the Turks fly their KC-135's, F-4's and F-16's without U.S. logistics?

I don't think we need to go to war.  We just need to warn them that bad things will happen if they attack the Kurds.  Sanctions.  Kicked out of more military programs the way we kicked then out of the F-35.  Reduced foreign aid.  Reduced military spending at Incirlick.

We have options aside from shooting down their jets and strafing their tanks.

[BFM this]

19 hours ago, pawnman said:

We have options aside from shooting down their jets and strafing their tanks.

Ok, hear me out:

We spend a lot of $$$ turning boneyard Vipers into targets.

If Turkey is willing...

Im just sayin

 

 

[Majestik Møøse]

DIME model is still valid.

[tac airlifter]

On 10/7/2019 at 4:39 PM, Danger41 said:

I spent a lot of time with the Kurds over the last few years and I think we should support them in getting their own state. Drastic, for sure, but the Iraqi Army of ~20k abandoned Mosul to 200 guys and the Kurds basically saved the day (including Baghdad). The only reason they’re so screwed is a treaty from post WW1 that left them in the cold. I know it’s about 15 layers deep with all the regional players and such, but they actually seem willing to join the 21st century and fight for what’s theirs.

Drastic is an understatement.  

A Kurdish state in the current political climate is doomed to failure.  They would be landlocked and surrounded by Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq now united as enemies because forming Kurdistan would require taking land from those four.  Air bridge would be their only resupply, and that air bridge would require overflight from enemy countries with quality A2AD.  Not a defensible geographic position.  Complicating that picture, we are still NATO allies with Turkey.  When the PKK commits another attack inside Turkey they could activate article 5 and require our assistance in “defense” against Kurdistan.  It would be awkward.

I like the Kurds.  They gave somewhere around 10,000 lives in the fight against IS.  Turkey was complicit with IS.  They aren’t our friends.  That said, we’re still in an alliance with Turkey.  Right now we can provide covert assistance to the Pesh.  If we support statehood, would we provide overt assistance for the Kurds against our NATO ally, thereby degrading the Alliance to the advantage of Russia?  How would that play politically for POTUS?  It’s an untenable situation with no good answer.  I don’t want to abandon the Kurds but I also don’t want to fight a war against a NATO member for their independence.  Scratch that, I’m game for fighting Turkey.  But I’m finally mature enough to have SA on the reasons we won’t.

 

[Bob Uecker]

On 10/7/2019 at 3:39 PM, Danger41 said:

The only reason they’re so screwed is a treaty from post WW1 that left them in the cold.

They assisted the Turks in committing the Armenian and Assyrian genocide during WW1. Not trying to say they did not fight hard in the last few decades, but I also hate the rose tinted glasses that we wear when we talk about them.

[FLEA]

"states don't have friends, states only have interest." Was one of my favorite Queen Elizabeth quotes. It shows how fickle relationships with allies really are. 

[waveshaper]

46 minutes ago, Bob Uecker said:

They assisted the Turks in committing the Armenian and Assyrian genocide during WW1. Not trying to say they did not fight hard in the last few decades, but I also hate the rose tinted glasses that we wear when we talk about them.

The Kurds are actually finally getting their act together. Heck, in 2015 they actually set a record when they had more Pesh killed fighting ISIS then Kurdish women terminated via honor killing. Also, they're working on getting their FGM stats down but sadly they're still the top dog in the AO when it comes to permanently modifying vaginas.

" Honor Killings in Iraqi Kurdistan;  2008 the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) stated that honor killings are a serious concern in Iraq, particularly in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Free Women's Organization of Kurdistan (FWOK) released a statement on International Women's Day 2015 noting that 6,082 women were killed (victims of honor killings or enforced suicide – mostly self-immolation or hanging) during the past year in Iraqi Kurdistan, which is almost equal to the number of the Peshmerga martyred fighting Islamic State (IS)."

[Bob Uecker]

Thats great. That does not defeat the fact that the Kurds disarmed villages in Sinjar and Nineveh Plains in 2014, promised security, then high-tailed it out of town. The Christians in Nineveh Plains were lucky, and we all know what happened in Sinjar.

 

Ive heard horror stories from people that were able to get to US after that. The Kurds have oppressed  and used minorities in the area for their own gain. They are not a benevolent group in any sense.

[M2]

US Defense Secretary: I Can’t Put Forces Between Turks and Kurds

[DirkDiggler]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-aramco-attacks-exclusive/u-s-to-deploy-large-number-of-forces-to-saudi-arabia-idUSKBN1WQ21Z

At least our great ally Saudi Arabia, whose military prowess has been key to stopping ISIS, rapidly defeating the Houthis, and directly confronting Iranian aggression, will be well protected.....

[Blue]

Mattis was on Meet the Press this morning, talking about how much he disagrees with the Syria pull-out.  And AOC was all for pulling out of Syria, until she wasn't.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2019/10/09/classic-ocasiocortez-wanted-us-troops-out-of-syriauntil-trump-agreed-n2554471

What a bunch of nonsense.  I hope this is just the beginning of our draw-down in the Middle East.

[KState_Poke22]

On 10/9/2019 at 6:17 AM, dream big said:

America has spent countless money and blood on our “allies.”  Asking our allies to step up and fight their own battles once in a while is not abandoning them nor will we be alone all of a sudden.  Diplomacy and alliance is a critical instrument of foreign policy but it should never be the ultimate litmus test for policy. Further, If we keep wearing out our troops on proxy wars around the globe, they will never be ready and motivated when it matters.

I’d say the SDF have done a pretty damn good job of fighting their own battles the past few years. To the tune of thousands killed fighting ISIS. 
 

Oh btw, now that  US forces have pulled back and SDF have to focus on repelling the Turks, a bunch of ISIS prisoners are now free. Yay

Edited October 14, 2019 by KState_Poke22

[jice]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-troops-withdraw-from-another-syrian-town-as-turkish-forces-block-supply-lines/2019/10/13/aab5fab8-ec5a-11e9-a329-7378fbfa1b63_story.html

Cliffnote: SDF reaches a Russian brokered deal with the Syrian regime to resist the Turkish incursion...

Maybe we’ll get lucky and Turkey will shoot down a(nother) Fencer or three, Russia will retaliate directly, and Erdogan will have parlayed an attack on US allies into an Article 5 crisis. How did we even get here?

[raimius]

Well, the SDF's PR campaign has definitely started:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/13/kurds-assad-syria-russia-putin-turkey-genocide/?fbclid=IwAR2uZvM6YZieLFJAWJF7S5x0WvyB0NqnFKCIH3bMJR_NxLmkvsE2rwItJic

[gearhog]

34 minutes ago, raimius said:

Well, the SDF's PR campaign has definitely started:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/13/kurds-assad-syria-russia-putin-turkey-genocide/?fbclid=IwAR2uZvM6YZieLFJAWJF7S5x0WvyB0NqnFKCIH3bMJR_NxLmkvsE2rwItJic

He seems like a reasonable guy concerned about the welfare of people and families.

Perhaps he could start building the refugee camp for the 3.5 million Syrian refugees Turkey is about to move back into Syria.

Edited October 14, 2019 by torqued

[dream big]

16 hours ago, KState_Poke22 said:

I’d say the SDF have done a pretty damn good job of fighting their own battles the past few years. To the tune of thousands killed fighting ISIS. 
 

Oh btw, now that  US forces have pulled back and SDF have to focus on repelling the Turks, a bunch of ISIS prisoners are now free. Yay

Okay so when does it end? 19 years in Afghanistan and the Taliban are still killing our soldiers.  20 in Syria? 40?