Here’s a perfect example of how convoluted our Middle East policy is: our Turkish NATO allies attacked our Kurdish anti-ISIS ground forces in Iraq and Syria this week, killing as many as 70 fighters. The Kurdish YPG fighters make up the bulk of the US-backed “Syrian Democratic Forces” who are leading the US fight against ISIS in eastern Syria. How will the Kurds respond to the fact that their chief sponsor’s close ally keeps killing them? And how does the US expect the Kurds to take over Raqqa once it’s “liberated” when the Turks keep killing them? And how will the Turks respond to the US at least tacitly pushing the Kurds toward de facto statehood? And…what is our Syria policy? Tune in to today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
Not so hard, we just declare that we are allies with the Kurds or the Turks on this side of whatever line and enemies of them if they are on the other side.
Turkey is really dangerous
According to my mostly retired military family and friends pointed this out to me, the NATO country of Turkey often had joint operations with the Soviets (it goes back a way) Iran and Iraq against the Kurds. That Abraham was probably a Kurd and every empire in the region has a large hatred for them. A couple of stories, my sister the ex-Air Farts sergeant, and her husband, while Clinton was still president, their Air National Guard unit was on TDY in Turkey, enforcing the Northern No-Fly Zone (Kurdistan) and one of their pilots blew up a flock of sheep. They were giggling and laughing about it, but they’ve come to notice a couple of things since then. The joke was the pilot was feeling rather sheepish because he had a baaaa’d day. But the Kurds were supposedly protected by the Northern NFZ. The charges against Saddam were massacres against the Kurds. (With the NATO bit edited out). Domestic Sheep are always in the company of humans. In Kurdistan sheep are an economic powerhouse.IF the pilot who couldn’t tell the difference between humans and sheep in the first place was right that there weren’t any human casualties the shepherds and their family were economically wiped out. That’s a lifetime business that’s passed down for generations.
Then in subsequent raids BY TURKEY where these protectors stood aside and let the Turks invade Iraq to kill Kurds. AFTER the supposed victory and way into the Nation Building phase.
America’s interests are best served by leaving though.
We gain: …? Angry refugees.
We lose: money, troops, blowback (terrorism).
Actually “we”, if we is the US govt., are usually on more than one side at the same time.