Civil War in Syria

[Omega21]

Disgusting.

The invading Turks need to be thrown back to where they belong and contained in their own territory.

Trump is throwing the Kurds under the bus.

Does not really matter, Putin and Assad will team up with them, and this has probably helped solve the Kurd situation faster.

They will probably get some kind of autonomy and fight together against Turkey.

[NOVA Green]

The Kurds are once again betrayed, as has so long been their fate since the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 where the victorious French and English Empires carved up the remains of the Ottoman Empire for their own Colonial gains.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Sevres

The Kurds were promised an Independent Nation free of oppression and persecution from various hostile powers that was never delivered.

It is almost 100 Years since the promise was delivered, and yet still various Governments have treated the Kurds like "pawns in their game", like Chess Pieces on a board, but yet still continuously even the Greatest Military, Economic, and Political powers in the World have betrayed them over and over again.

Roughly 20% of the Turkish population is Kurdish, heavily concentrated in SE Turkey as well as large Kurdish diaspora populations within the largest cities within Turkey in various neighborhoods, including an estimated 3 Million Kurds within Istanbul alone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds_in_Turkey

https://www.institutkurde.org/en/info/the-kurdish-population-1232551004

We also need to look at the historical reality of Turkish Fascism, even before the Fall of the Ottoman Empire when it comes to Racist "Ethnic Cleansing" actions against Armenians, Kurds, and other Minority populations alike.

Although SE Turkey is the largest concentration of Kurds, just like the Irish there is also a vast Kurdish diaspora in many other countries throughout the world, most significantly concentrated within Germany as a result of "Worker Immigration Recruitment" to provide labor into the factories, after the massive loss of German Male Factory Workers as a direct result of NAZI policies.

Zum Beispel, Als ich Mitte der neunziger Jahre in Deutschland lebte, hatte ich viele kurdische Freunde aus der Türkei, dem Irak und dem Iran, die vor Gewalt und Unterdrückung in ihren Heimatländern geflohen waren.

I met former Peshmerga from '73 when the US betrayed the Kurds, Iranian Kurds, Turkish Kurds, and actually most of them still believed that America might be their final hope against oppression from hostile Governments....

Sadly, once again the US has showed it's true face and once again appears like yet another Colonial Power that has no interest in protecting their friends and sacrificing entire communities as part of yet another "Great Game"....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2VPAJmz8qA

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Shameful.

[John Dule]

So what happens if Erdogan sticks to his word and floods Europe with 3.6 million Syrian refugees? Will diversity still be our strength? Will refugees still be #welcome? What awesome new levels of multiculturalism and vibrancy do we expect them to bring with them?

[NOVA Green]

So what happens if Erdogan sticks to his word and floods Europe with 3.6 million Syrian refugees? Will diversity still be our strength? Will refugees still be #welcome? What awesome new levels of multiculturalism and vibrancy do we expect them to bring with them?

Not sure whether your Question is really in good faith, but he will not because Turkey is dependent, especially now during the Recession, on Europe for Trade and Investment. The Refugee thing is the only Card he has, he knows that once he plays it the EU will end financial assistance and sanction Turkey into Oblivion under Human Rights pretence. Erdogan has been threatening this for the upteenth time since the EU-Turkey migration agreement was signed, including during far worse times in EU-TR relations, for instance during the 2017 diplomatic crisis, and has never done it.

Anyway wants the Syrian Refugees to be settled in the Safe Zone, so that he has a pro-turkish Sunni-inhabited corridor on his border instead of a Kurdish one.

In the extremely unlikely Scenario that he does send the all the refugees to europe? Greece gets kicked out of Schengen and they get screwed. There is no Politician in Europe willing to repeat 2015 and they know what the political consequences would be of that.

The real problem for Europe is the Isis fighters escaping during the Chaos and sneaking back here. But many of them have actually returned already.

We need to immediately isolate Turkey and cut them out of NATO and all economic alliances with the EU.

Turkey was first admitted into NATO as part of "Cold War" era Alliance. For much of that history Turkey was dominated by Military dictatorships that used oppression and torture against any opposition from not only their own large Ethnic Minority population, but also against Left-Wing Movements from the '60s > late '80s.

The Fascist Death Squads in Turkey were known as the "Grey Wolves" that were heavily associated with State Security services that murdered thousands of political dissidents within a few short decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_(organization)

Since the Erdogen regime completely consolidated rule over the Military, Judiciary, Political, and Economic sphere, Turkey has essentially become an extremely repressive State that will use any and all power to crush any opposition under their heels.

It is disgusting that Liberal Democratic nations still support Turkey....

Sure there are politics involving Natural Gas pipelines through Armenia and Azerbaijan, where tons of crooked folks are on the take on all sides where Mother Russia has major economic investments to protect their old empire....

Cut Turkey loose today.... we don't need a Fascist ally in NATO.

They might go crying to the Russians, but "sorry", Americans need to represent a true ideal of Freedom and Democracy and not some fake narrative that we sell to our own people while we support oppressive regimes overseas.

Not every single action in the World simply hangs around what media pundits and politicians in DC say.

Die Türkei aus der NATO....

If America doesn't do it, Germany needs to take immediate action to cut off all economic, political, and military collaboration with the current Turkish regime.

deutsche bomb und deutsches geld morden mit in aller welt

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

This is the last straw for me to see modern day Turkey as even worse than Israel in my eyes.

[Strudelcutie4427]

This is the last straw for me to see modern day Turkey as even worse than Israel in my eyes.

That’s been evident for a while now...
Israel... Democracy
Turkey... Erdoganocracy

[dead0man]

it's crazy that this thing has managed to get even more convoluted.

[The Free North]

it's crazy that this thing has managed to get even more convoluted.

Indeed.

The entire thing is unfortunate on a number of levels. Obviously Turkish policy in general has veered too far from secular, liberal governance and their Kurdish policy has been atrocious for years. That being said, the state essentially views the PKK as terrorists and there was no way Erdogan was going to leave an armed and autonomous Syrian Kurdish population alone for too long.

The ideal solution is a Kurdish nation-state, but thats not going to happen of course so we're left with either Turkish sponsored Kurdish suppression or Assad sponsored Kurdish suppression. I wonder if there would be any hope of a post war Assad government achieving some sort of detente with the Kurds. But i'm not sure what the basis of that might be? Perhaps anti-Turkish pressure from Russia?

[Mr. Illini]

So what happens if Erdogan sticks to his word and floods Europe with 3.6 million Syrian refugees? Will diversity still be our strength? Will refugees still be #welcome? What awesome new levels of multiculturalism and vibrancy do we expect them to bring with them?

Syrian refugees create crimes at a lesser rate than native Europeans do

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Are the neocons still backing those "moderate" "Free Syria" rebels while they massacre Kurds for the Turkish government?

[BP🌹]

either Turkish sponsored Kurdish suppression or Assad sponsored Kurdish suppression

False equivalence.

[NOVA Green]

I was totally stoked when I saw the news This Evening after coming from from a long shift:


Key item to note is this:

"The European Council is calling on all member states to "immediately halt arms exports" to Turkey — a step that France and Germany have already taken — and will meet later this week to coordinate a further response."

Germany has long been the major supplier of "Non-Lethal" Military hardware sales to Turkey, which have included significant sales of major "crowd-control" technologies to the Turkish Military Dictatorships in the '80s,

Many of these same "non-lethal methods were used with conjunction of regular Turkish Military Formations, "local militias", as well as the burning of over 4,000 Kurdish Villages in the late '80s/early '90s.

Europe will no longer send weapons of ANY TYPE to the Turkish Supremacist regime, regardless of whatever the Americans do....

Turkey should be immediately evicted from NATO as part of an Emergency action....

Time is short.....

https://www.axios.com/european-union-condemns-turkey-military-assault-syria-ab0614c7-5508-4680-b17f-b218df2272b5.html

So what happens if Erdogan sticks to his word and floods Europe with 3.6 million Syrian refugees? Will diversity still be our strength? Will refugees still be #welcome? What awesome new levels of multiculturalism and vibrancy do we expect them to bring with them?

Not sure whether your Question is really in good faith, but he will not because Turkey is dependent, especially now during the Recession, on Europe for Trade and Investment. The Refugee thing is the only Card he has, he knows that once he plays it the EU will end financial assistance and sanction Turkey into Oblivion under Human Rights pretence. Erdogan has been threatening this for the upteenth time since the EU-Turkey migration agreement was signed, including during far worse times in EU-TR relations, for instance during the 2017 diplomatic crisis, and has never done it.

Anyway wants the Syrian Refugees to be settled in the Safe Zone, so that he has a pro-turkish Sunni-inhabited corridor on his border instead of a Kurdish one.

In the extremely unlikely Scenario that he does send the all the refugees to europe? Greece gets kicked out of Schengen and they get screwed. There is no Politician in Europe willing to repeat 2015 and they know what the political consequences would be of that.

The real problem for Europe is the Isis fighters escaping during the Chaos and sneaking back here. But many of them have actually returned already.

We need to immediately isolate Turkey and cut them out of NATO and all economic alliances with the EU.

Turkey was first admitted into NATO as part of "Cold War" era Alliance. For much of that history Turkey was dominated by Military dictatorships that used oppression and torture against any opposition from not only their own large Ethnic Minority population, but also against Left-Wing Movements from the '60s > late '80s.

The Fascist Death Squads in Turkey were known as the "Grey Wolves" that were heavily associated with State Security services that murdered thousands of political dissidents within a few short decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_(organization)

Since the Erdogen regime completely consolidated rule over the Military, Judiciary, Political, and Economic sphere, Turkey has essentially become an extremely repressive State that will use any and all power to crush any opposition under their heels.

It is disgusting that Liberal Democratic nations still support Turkey....

Sure there are politics involving Natural Gas pipelines through Armenia and Azerbaijan, where tons of crooked folks are on the take on all sides where Mother Russia has major economic investments to protect their old empire....

Cut Turkey loose today.... we don't need a Fascist ally in NATO.

They might go crying to the Russians, but "sorry", Americans need to represent a true ideal of Freedom and Democracy and not some fake narrative that we sell to our own people while we support oppressive regimes overseas.

Not every single action in the World simply hangs around what media pundits and politicians in DC say.

Die Türkei aus der NATO....

If America doesn't do it, Germany needs to take immediate action to cut off all economic, political, and military collaboration with the current Turkish regime.

deutsche bomb und deutsches geld morden mit in aller welt

[The Free North]

Russia is already putting their foot down and Syrian forces have crossed the Euphrates in some spots per twitter. I would imagine the Turkish offensive goes as far as the Russians are willing to allow at this point given that Assad's forces are already pushing north.   

Russia has said it will not allow clashes between Turkish and Syrian forces, as Turkey's military offensive in northern Syria continues.

"This would simply be unacceptable... and therefore we will not allow it, of course," said Moscow's special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev.

The withdrawal of US troops from the region, announced last week, gave Turkey a "green light", critics say.

Russia is a key military ally of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Mr Lavrentyev, during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, described Turkey's offensive as "unacceptable".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50058859?ocid=socialflow_twitter

[NOVA Green]

This is quite meaningless tbh. It was only a non-binding statement of the European Council and Countries such as the UK (which is the 2nd largest Arms exporter in the world behind the US) have said that they would not abide by it and continue to sell Turkey weapons.

Even the German Arms sales ban is rather symbolic, as it only prohibits the sale of new weapons, but weapons contracts made before the decision was reached will continue to be delivered to Turkey.

The EU was also unable to agree on Economic Sanctions as France wanted and as the US has now done, so Turkish goods will continue to have preferencial access to the EU market through the EU-TR customs union and the EU will continue to pay billions of our Taxpayer money to Turkey Thanks EU, very cool!

The EU shows once again that when it comes to foreign policy it is powerless.

I agree with you *at this current time* regarding European Political Governments and the entire "Project" of the EU, which although it incorporated free movement of labor, combined with free movement of Capital, was fundamentally a Neo-Liberal economic project, despite all of the progressive elements such as environmental policy, anti-discrimination policies, etc....

My fundamental thought is that while Europe dithers and cowers behind the skirts of the "EU Project", there will shortly be large and massive Non-Violent street Demonstrations throughout Western Europe.

I lived in Germany a few times between '94 and '96 in both East and West Germany, and have spent a significant amount of time in other European Nations....

The European Turkish Kurdish Population (With honorable mention to the Iraqi, Syrian, and Iranian Kurdish diaspora) are well organized and well connected with a variety of the broader European Left and Greens, considering many of the initial Turkish Kurds that fled to Europe did so under the Turkish Military Dictatorship of the '80s fleeing for a new safe place, waiting for the end of Ethno-Turkish Martial Law, political suppression, and even torture....

When I lived in Germany, I participated in Newroz events, and occasionally Demonstrations....

This was because of the ban on the Kurdish Language, Clothing, Music, and any threatening cultural styles was banned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newroz_as_celebrated_by_Kurds

The very flag of Kurdistan represents the flag of a "New Day" or a "New Year" or Newroz against all of the horrors and brutalities of the past.

I met in a Kurdish Cultural Center somewhere in Western Germany in '95/'96 a Peshmerga Veteran of the War against Baathist "Arab Socialism in Iraq who fought with Barzani in the War for Freedom in '73.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Iraqi%E2%80%93Kurdish_War

Because there are essentially Four different Kurdish languages and multiple dialects, I needed a fluent Turkish-Kurdish translator that understood Iraqi-Kurdish language, but most importantly was fluent in German (Which I am relatively proficient in), but also knew some English.

We have yet to see the massive street demonstrations from Kurdish populations in the Metropolitan Centers of Western Europe, but they will likely happen sooner rather than later, depending upon if the EU delivers or obstructs the current Ethnic-Cleansing being committed by the Turkish Military and their allied Militias.

We just saw a first wave this past weekend in Paris and Köln....

Meanwhile, we see Demonstrations beginning within Israel....

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israelis-europeans-take-to-streets-to-protest-turkish-assault-on-kurds/

Kurdish Music and Kurdish culture will survive.... anybody interested in a fascinating academic article on Kurdish Musical History and Recorded Music of the Kurdish Nation should check this out and listen to the Kurdish people's songs over the past 100 Years....

http://hejmec.eu/journal/index.php/HeJMEC/article/viewFile/41/40

To close here is a Kurdish Music Video from 2017....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCG9uJCESrY


Regardless of Domestic American and European Politics, it is patently clear that once again Fascism is marching Europe, and once again the Kurds have been betrayed by America, just as they were back in the early '70s, and the early '90s.

[Woody]

Civilians returning to Tel Abyad after Turkish-backed militants liberated it from SDF.

[Crumpets]

Last time we did this sort of strike, it was on the former deputy leader of al Qaeda Abu Khayr al Masri. I'm curious who this one might be.

https://twitter.com/Elizrael/status/1201888971279814656?s=20

[dead0man]

A modified version of the well-known Hellfire missile, the weapon carries an inert warhead. Instead of exploding, it is designed to plunge more than 100 pounds of metal through the tops of cars and buildings to kill its target without harming individuals and property close by.

To the targeted person, it is as if a speeding anvil fell from the sky, the officials said. But this variant of the Hellfire missile, designated as the R9X, also comes equipped with a different kind of payload: a halo of six long blades that are stowed inside and then deploy through the skin of the missile seconds before impact, shredding anything in its tracks.

cool

[Tender Branson]

The Syrian Army + Russia has launched a big attack with large land gains in Idlib:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-security-idlib/russian-backed-forces-gain-ground-in-rebel-held-northwest-syria-idUSKBN1YQ0DB

100.000 civilians are heading to Turkey (or elsewhere).

[Tender Branson]

Big gains were made by the Assad Army recently in Idlib:

Marat al numan (50.000 people) was taken from the so-called „rebels“.

[Tender Branson]

The Assad Army is advancing on the city of Idlib.

They are just 5 km away from the city, have taken the whole highway from Damascus to Aleppo and are also making big land gains in the Idlib and Aleppo countryside.

Meanwhile, the Turks are sending in tanks and stuff, but hopefully they get crushed by the Assad Army and thrown back to Turkey, where they belong.

[dead0man]

The Turks have shot down two Syrian choppers in the last week.

[Tender Branson]

The Assad Army has taken virtually all of Aleppo's western suburbs and countryside today:



Endgame !

[Tender Branson]

Evolution of the frontlines in Idlib + Aleppo countryside over the past 3 weeks:

[Lord Halifax]

Assads army is advancing, 500000 Syrians are fleeing from him, Erdogan has 3.5 Million already and is desperately trying to push them out, the Arrivals on the Greek Islands are surging... And Tender, the Soros-funded, Islam-Loving, Kalergi plan supporting Globalist shill, is cheering it on

Its almost like the anti-immigration crowd cant put 1 and 1 together...

The only realistic way to end the Syrian civil war is for Assad to win and the only way to get the Syrian refugees to go back is to end the war, so while it creates more refugees here and now it will decrease the Syrian refugee problem going forward. A lot of the Syrians in Turkey and the other neighboring states will be forced home once the fighting is over.