The media should really start writing some histories of the Armenian Genocide.
I’m sure the people of Turkey will enjoy having to deny being a bunch of sociopathic murderbots at the same time as their army is going around murdering people for no particular reason.
If they are writing the histories then they will be writing the histories of the Ottoman empire and since most of the worst massacres were executed by the Kurdish tribal units of the Ottomans it is not a very useful or a very helpful narrative.
I’m sorry, it’s getting late on a Sunday and my brain is clearly tired, but I have no idea why this is relevant. Can you elaborate a bit?
With the Orange Butt Boil in the Oval Office, Putin will not have to pay that much money out. He’ll just give the Mango Mussolini his marching orders.
Mattis without a question.
It was a response to post #81.
It’s factual and a decent warning to be careful in using horrific historic events to smear a country’s people to make them look worse than their adversaries. It’s better to focus on Erdogan as a horrible human being, weaken him politically by playing up and inducing economic problems, and remind Americans, a group of people who should be feeling incredible shame right now, what the Kurdish people have done for us in the series of horrific mistakes America has made in the Middle East since 2003. They deserve far better treatment than this.
It’s bizarre to me to read so many people saying some variation of “I don’t care how many children get gassed over there” (barely paraphrasing)
I mean, I applaud the honesty I guess, but it’s pretty sickening to hear. I may fall foul of forum rules but I’ll risk it: people holding views like that represent the worst of humanity.
In terms of the main thrust of the OP, I think the situation in Syria is very complex and there is no obvious right thing to do. The half hearted assistance at this stage was probably the best policy at least being some check on Turkish aggression and still giving training and support to forces fighting Isis (not, as some are suggesting, occupying a leadership role).
So no, to me this is not Trump getting something right for a change.
The person was posting about the atrocities against the Armenians committed by the Ottoman state as a kind of attack on the modern Turkish national state, in a situation where part of the attack is about the american allies, the Kurds (the whole reason the Turkish republic cares about the situation and the American actions in the Syria).
However, these atrocities were committed under the Ottoman empire, pre Turkish republic, under the Ottoman triumvers, the three Pashas who essentially took over the state in a coup d’état in 1913, and they were not even all ethnic Turks (not unusual for the elite of the Ottomans). The worst of the mass public killings atrocities during the end of the were in the far East of the (where there was the fear - and a reality to it - of the collaboration with the Russian empire as the WWI went on by some segments of the Armenians). The leading actors of mass killings in the east were in fact the Kurdish Ottoman militias…
So as a point to attack Erdogan about it is around a Kurdish related issue… not very based in the history - it is like attacking a modern Russian state action by smearing them with a Tsariste atrocity.
Yes.
Erdogan can be criticized on his own actions, it is not a good idea to use half information
I have to say, I’m not very open to the argument that (barely paraphrasing) “If you disagree with me, you’re okay with children getting gassed over there.”
The guiding principle here is the Powell Doctrine: Don’t send troops solely for humanitarian purposes. A lot of children are getting gassed in a lot of places and we only have X number of troops to go around, and anyway, peacekeeping and nation building aren’t something they are famously good at doing.
Well, there’s no peacekeeping or nation building going on in Syria so that’s not a problem.
When is the next fake chemical weapons attack going to happen to justify staying in Syria?
Asking for a hypocritical liberal and a Neo Con.
Oh, thought you were asking for a theoretical Russian troll or Putin apologist.
Well, at least those in this thread who think Trump is doing the right thing are in good company. You have Assad, Putin, Ali Khamenei and Erdogan on your side. Must be right. You don’t need the likes of the UK, France or German (let alone Israel) on your side and dismayed at your call when you have such stalwarts as those 4 on your side, so Trump must be onto something here…
I don’t think the Kurdish people have many friends better than America. Yes, we could always do more, but in the last few decades we have used our military forces to fight Saddam’s forces and ISIS directly in defense of Kurds, as well as indirectly as a shield from Syrian and Turkish aggression. We’ve provided them aid and arms, as well as training. Most of the (admittedly-limited) independence the Kurds do have has been established with the support and protection of the United States.
We’ve used the Kurds to forward our own interests, that’s all. We have never formally supported their independence despite regular hints and suggestions that we could *possibly **maybe *do so…at some point in the future. We support them as long as they’re useful, and then it’s back to status quo ante.
The sad part of that is that you’re right–we’re the best friends the Kurds have, God save them.
May god save us from such ‘friends.’ and the naivete of the americans naively looking at other places with history
Wait, who’s the ‘us’ here?
Yeah, my opening sentence was meant more as an acknowledgement of what a shitty situation it is to be Kurdish than any sort of a ringing endorsement of American friendship, but if what we’re supposed to feel is “shame” for the way we’ve treated them, I can scarcely imagine what the rest of the world is supposed to feel.
:shrug: If I’ve treated someone poorly, it makes no difference to me if someone else has treated that person worse.
I agree with the OP completely. “Well, if we leave, then–” - well, that’s going to happen, anyway. We can’t stay forever. No reason we should have been there in the first place. Even if it was just, simply having the name “United States” will bring blowback.
I remember all the experts who shouted about Iraq (or the Gulf of Tonkin lie; Vietnam)… If the generals have no war, where will they and their inferiors get their paycheck? I’m all for removing every troop.
Let’s see if Trump follows through, and hope that Blackwater isn’t hired in a month.
Good grief. It’s distressing the amount of ignorance on this seemingly simple topic. Saying we had no reason to be there then comparing the relative handful of troops in Syria with Vietnam or even Iraq (not to mention the vastly different role we have in Syria verse Vietnam or Iraq, even if we are talking about the early phase of Vietnam when we still had ‘advisers’ in country) and then topping the whole thing with the Blackwater cherry (itself an unbelievably ignorant statement that shows you don’t even understand what their actual role was or is in Iraq by saying we’d send them…or COULD send them…into Syria or what we are even doing in Syria).
Well, you are in good company. There are the dopers in this thread who just don’t care, and then there is Trump on your side and probably knowing about your same level of information about Syria, then there are such stellar folks as Putin, Assad and the rest.