https://mobile.twitter.com/brett_mcgurk/status/1181085818493927425
https://mobile.twitter.com/brett_mcgurk/status/1181085828325376000
https://mobile.twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/1181283542392872961
https://mobile.twitter.com/atrupar/status/1181310151254532098
Local media reporting that Turkey has already started attacking.
https://twitter.com/biannagolodryga/status/1181292220630147083
Objection: The Democratic Federation of Northern Syria or Rojava is multi-ethnic and has an Arab co-President. The refusal to call them anything but Kurds is, I believe by some sources, intentionally misleading propaganda.
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Turkey’s presence in NATO has always puzzled me. I should read up on it I suppose. They’re basically still Ottomans only they wear suits now right? I guess they have hatred of the Saudis going for them but I can’t think of anything else redeeming and assume everything in Midnight Express is reality until proven otherwise.
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Suggested title change?
Rojava ethnic cleansing?
Turkey joined NATO in the '50s because it was anti-Communist. The West wanted to encircle the Soviet Union. It’s not that complicated.
I mean I get why they would want to be in NATO with an aggressive USSR pressing Uncomfortably against their eastern borders. I just don’t get why the West would want the non-Ottoman version of them. I suppose it was “the enemy of my enemy” as you suggest but hoo boy what an “ally”
Is it only Rojava under threat?
Pretty much, whilst there’s debate as to whether this helps or hinders Assad, Russia, Iran and so on, I don’t think anyone thinks Turkey will invade anywhere other than Rojava or engage any other forces. It continues to bomb the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan, but it sees that as the same fight.
Turkey’s goal I think is more like “regime” change than ethnic cleansing. I don’t think they want to drive Kurds out of Northern Syria and they may well be fine with a Kurdish government, ethnic based, and led by something like the KRG (the Kurdish government in Iraq) which has fought with Rojava and explicitly does not support the PKK (Kurdish group in Turkey). So, I don’t think “ethnic cleansing” is right either.
Yeah. I don’t think Turkey wants to go into parts of Syria controlled by Assad and they have supported the other groups in Northern Syria like the jihadist group Al-Nusra or Al Queda and The Army of Conquest (yeah, they’re the baddies).
Turkish forces carried out attacks against Kurdish forces and the anti-Assad Syrian Democratic Forces militia in Syria and Iraq near the Turkish border on Monday evening.
Turkish forces attacked SDF positions in the city of al-Malikiyah in the Hasakah area in northern Syria, according to Syrian state news agency SANA
Ethnic cleansing is a fairly strong euphemism, so I’m not going to fight for its usage, but there’s been widespread reports about the suppression of the Kurdish language and culture in Afrin. Thousands of people were forced out by the conflict. Also, here’s a tweet from a special advisor to Erdogan.
https://twitter.com/ikalin1/status/1181125127150288901
I don’t know what else he can mean by ‘time to correct it’ than that they intend to expel people of the wrong ethnicity.
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This is basic geopolitics. Turkey controls the Turkish Straights. Turkey on the side of NATO prevented the Soviets from having unlimited ability to move naval vessels from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
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Anyways, maybe some Democrat should try to cause even more chaos for Trump’s foreign policy by openly supporting the establishment of an independent Kurdistan.
Can’t get enough of trump claiming the military was out of ammunition.
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They allowed us to put nuclear missiles in their country, a few hundred miles from the USSR. (well, that was like 9 years later - and part of the Cuban Missile Crisis)