JohnT:
Trump, in defending Turkey’s actions against the Kurds, uses the phrase “ultimate solution”.
“Just spoke to President @RTErdogan of Turkey. He told me there was minor sniper and mortar fire that was quickly eliminated. He very much wants the ceasefire, or pause, to work. Likewise, the Kurds want it, and the ultimate solution, to happen. Too bad there wasn’t…”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1185219641972539392?s=19
Nothing to see here, guys!
The fat orange idiot’s entire vocabulary is made of superlatives and catch phrases he’s heard somewhere. There are only so many word and phrase combinations he can compose given those limits. But there are 280 characters to fill, so he must use every resource at his disposal.
JohnT
October 18, 2019, 5:02pm
462
JohnT:
Trump, in defending Turkey’s actions against the Kurds, uses the phrase “ultimate solution”.
“Just spoke to President @RTErdogan of Turkey. He told me there was minor sniper and mortar fire that was quickly eliminated. He very much wants the ceasefire, or pause, to work. Likewise, the Kurds want it, and the ultimate solution, to happen. Too bad there wasn’t…”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1185219641972539392?s=19
Nothing to see here, guys!
It’s like he was given a Genocide Thesaurus.
Stephen Miller keeps stealing it to jack off to it.
Dustin Volz , Wall Street Journal :
“We are sheep to the slaughter.”
Thousands of Kurdish families dash from Turkish-backed forces spilling into Syria. Once U.S. allies, they are now abandoned.
And winter’s coming.
With NATO allies like Turkey…
Does NATO need to come to Turkey’s aid if it claims the "Syrians’ are attacking it?
Gorsnak
October 18, 2019, 8:38pm
468
It looks to me as if the text of the treaty doesn’t oblige NATO to respond unless Turkey is attacked on its own turf. And politically, I’m not sure the rest of NATO would do anything even if Syria did launch a counter-invasion. They could just say, “You started this without consulting us. NATO doesn’t exist as cover to hide behind if you’re going to go around starting fights you can’t finish.”
Article 5
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security .
***For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey*** or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.
In addition to what Gorsnak mentioned, Article 5 requires that NATO allies “assist the Party … by taking forthwith … such action as it deems necessary…”. NATO allies are free to decide that their assistance should take non-military forms. “we’ll send an official tweet, asking the Syrians to stop invading” or something like that.
:eek: Trump said this? He actually thinks it’s appropriate? Congress needs to arrange a middle East trip for Trump. Let him see first hand the body bags and bloated corpses that he’s directly responsible for facilitating. Woman, children multilated & some dying. Trump thinks of it as a schoolyard fight? Is he completely insane?
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/17/politics/trump-turks-kurds-fight/index.html
“Sometimes you have to let them fight. It’s like two kids in a lot, you got to let them fight and then you pull them apart.”
Trump was praising the deal reached earlier in the day between Vice President Mike Pence and Erdogan during negotiations in the Turkish capital of Ankara. The deal appears to secure for Turkey most of its military objectives, forcing America’s onetime allies in the fight against ISIS – Kurdish forces – to cede a vast swath of territory
Trump and members of Congress need to see this first hand or at least see professional video of what’s happening. See the aid camps and hospital wards.
The US did this and we all have to own it.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/10/17/politics/trump-turks-kurds-fight/index.html
On a behind, another body lay zipped into a large blue bag – a young woman this time, also dressed in green and wearing the patches of Kurdish forces. The medical worker straightened her head and gently swept the dead woman’s hair from her face. “We have five martyrs now,” she said, pointing across the makeshift morgue. “Three military and two civilians. The fighters were trying to rescue the others.”
The war between Kurdish forces and Turkey was well into its third day, the bloodiest yet, and ambulances, both real and makeshift, were arriving regularly. As they pulled up, locals and medics gathered around ready to tend to each new body and tell the story of how they had died. “He was a civilian,” one man said as he uncovered a young boy’s face. “Most of them are,” claimed another. “This is a war against the Kurdish people
Link correction
The Guardian’s coverage of the Turkish invasion is the best that I’ve found.
Interesting Foreign Policy article from 2016: Turkey’s New Maps Are Reclaiming the Ottoman Empire [Monthly free article limit].
Here are some excerpts with particular resonance for the current time. To save you looking it up, irredentism means “a policy of advocating the restoration to a country of any territory formerly belonging to it.”
In the past few weeks, a conflict between Ankara and Baghdad over Turkey’s role in the liberation of Mosul has precipitated an alarming burst of Turkish irredentism. On two separate occasions, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the Treaty of Lausanne, which created the borders of modern Turkey, for leaving the country too small. He spoke of the country’s interest in the fate of Turkish minorities living beyond these borders, as well as its historic claims to the Iraqi city of Mosul, near which Turkey has a small military base. And, alongside news of Turkish jets bombing Kurdish forces in Syria and engaging in mock dogfights with Greek planes over the Aegean Sea, Turkey’s pro-government media have shown a newfound interest in a series of imprecise, even crudely drawn, maps of Turkey with new and improved borders.
Redacted - ninja’ed by one minute :).
Kobal2
October 20, 2019, 11:29pm
476
Yeah, but it’s like kids on the playground, sometimes you gotta let them annex half the Middle East and resume the siege of Vienna (rudely interrupted by foreign interventionism the first time around, presumably funded by George Soros)
Kobal2
October 20, 2019, 11:32pm
477
BTW, as a European of fighting age (am still, too ! shut up !) I can’t hide my enthusiasm about Some Damn Fool Thing happening in the Balkans once more, as it had been far too long since last we’d re-booted this great classic.
Trump’s DC hotel has cancelled the booking for an event held by a non-profit organization. The event was called, “A Night of Prayer for the Kurds.”
What. The. Fuck.
AP : US troops from Syria to leave Iraq in 4 weeks
Iraq’s defense minister has said after meeting U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper that American forces withdrawing from Syria to Iraq will leave the country within four weeks.
Iraq’s military said Tuesday that American troops leaving northeastern Syria don’t have permission to stay in Iraq in a statement that appeared to contradict Esper, who has said that all U.S. troops leaving Syria would continue to conduct operations against the Islamic State group from Iraq to prevent its resurgence in the region.
Haaretz
Turkey will clear northeast Syria of Kurdish YPG militia if Russia does not fulfil its obligations under an accord that helped end a Turkish offensive in the region, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.
Sarah Dadouch , Washington Post :
Erodgan, talking about northeast Syria with TRT yesterday, said: “The most suitable for this area are Arabs. These areas are not suitable for the lifestyle of Kurds.”
Asked, in what way? “Because these are virtually desert regions.”