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Breaking: Turkey fires on US troops

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by justtxyank, Oct 11, 2019.

  1. dachuda86

    dachuda86 Member

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    These initial reports should be questioned in all cases. Especially accusations of heads getting cut off. Sounds like lies or the actions of a minority of milita members allied with Turkey (the murder and rape for example was militia I read). Turkish troops are modern soldiers with modern weaponry. They don't have standard issue machetes and sabers and go around cutting heads off. I would definitely get more facts on that if I were you. Also the DoD are probably pissed because they like their war, and it must suck to see your loss. That war was a losing effort though and helping nation build a hostile ethnostate on our allies border! Are you kidding? Well, common that's just a ridiculous plan. Spending more time in Syria when we never should have gone? That's riduculous. I hope that neocon cries, and all his little neocon buddies cry as well.
     
  2. dachuda86

    dachuda86 Member

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    LINK.

    That's utter BS. Some militia tied to the Turkish troops had that execution incident, but I have yet to see any evidence of mass executions from the Turkish troops to the kurds. Though I guess you could consider the Turks' modern military going against the kurds and execution of sorts lol.
     
  3. Amiga

    Amiga I get vaunted sacred revelations from social media
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    Article is written by James L. Gelvi, professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of California, Los Angeles.

    I read what you wrote. I didn't believe it, but considered maybe there is some truth to it (less so now with the barely comprehensible outburst). I haven't find anything much that align to the extend of your claims, but I did learn a few things and I chooses to share some - it's for everyone who come here to read, if they chooses to. The article points out the downside - link to terrorists and the revenge against entire villages with a link to the report (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/n...lys-razing-of-villages-amounts-to-war-crimes/).

    As @justtxyank said, provide links to your claims.
     
  4. Amiga

    Amiga I get vaunted sacred revelations from social media
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    Some of the Most Noble People I’d Ever Met

    On Dec. 20, 2018, the day after U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly announced via Twitter that the United States would withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria, a group of U.S. soldiers set out on a routine patrol through Manbij, a Kurdish-held town in northern Syria.

    A member of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) approached the American troops, according to a U.S. Army officer on patrol that day, who spoke to Foreign Policy on the condition of anonymity. The man broke down in tears, thanking the U.S. service members for their support.


    “He took off his unit patch and gave it to me. It was the most emotional moment I’ve ever experienced,” said the officer, who fought alongside the SDF in the yearslong battle to defeat the Islamic State and is one of many retired and current service members who say they are devastated by Trump’s latest decision to withdraw troops from the border, paving the way for Turkey to launch a major attack on northeastern Syria.

    Seeing the group’s reaction to Trump’s tweet on the front lines in Manbij “was when I truly found out that the SDF were probably some of the most noble people I’d ever met.”

    In the end, Trump partially reversed his pledge, drawing down U.S. presence in Syria by roughly half in the months since the tweet. But nearly one year later, the United States has once again disappointed its Syrian allies. The SDF, the militia largely responsible for liberating Syria from the Islamic State, is now under a brutal assault by Turkish forces, after Trump appeared to give the green light for Ankara to move into northeastern Syria. The total number of fighters and civilians killed in the operation so far was not clear as of Wednesday night, but a conflict monitoring group said more than 60,000 civilians had been displaced.

    Current and retired U.S. military officers interviewed by Foreign Policy about their direct experience with the SDF, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive operations, described a group of passionate, fearless fighters, both male and female, who share American values and remain loyal partners even after repeated disappointments. The people interviewed held up the Kurdish fighters as a model of a successful partnership in a tumultuous region, with one retired military officer saying the group was one of the few indigenous units the United States has worked with since 9/11 that have earned its trust.

    “Both their competence in battle and their commitment to the mission have been proven over and over,” the retired officer said.

    All the people interviewed unanimously said they were devastated by the news that the United States is standing aside to let the Turks massacre the Kurdish troops, and more than one expressed a deep sense of shame.

    “I feel physically ill with worry and concern and deeply ashamed that my own country would permit this fate to befall our close allies who did all our fighting for us, when we had the power to prevent it,” said a U.S. Marine who served in Syria in 2017-2018.

    Ankara considers the SDF an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey. Both the United States and Turkey have labeled the PKK a terrorist group. But the retired and current U.S. military officers who spoke with Foreign Policy pushed back on Turkey’s characterization of the SDF as a terrorist threat.

    “It is unacceptable to turn our back on them to a tyrant like [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, who views all Kurds as terrorists,” the retired officer said. “There will be a whole generation of U.S. military that will never forget this betrayal nor stop apologizing for it.”

    The Army officer who patrolled Manbij described growing close to SDF forces during their time together in Syria, sharing living space and conducting joint patrols. After Trump’s December 2018 tweet, SDF forces were “obviously frustrated” but “insanely understanding” of the U.S. military’s position, the officer said.

    During the turbulent weeks after the tweet, American and SDF soldiers stood side by side in Manbij. U.S. troops kept hearing that an order to fully withdraw from Syria was imminent, but week after week commanders said the order had not yet come down, the officer said. Twice during that time period, Turkish proxy forces—which the officer described as a ragtag group of “Islamic gangs”—threatened to cross the border, the officer said.

    U.S. and SDF forces experienced a devastating loss on Jan. 16, when a suicide bomber targeted a busy market street in Manbij known to be frequented by U.S. soldiers. The attack killed 19 people, including 15 SDF fighters and four Americans.

    “Immediately, the SDF was there. They were helping us in the street even though all this [tension] had happened,” the officer said.

    A second Army officer who has worked with many partners since 2001 and spent time on the ground in Syria said the SDF stood out. In the four years since the group was created out of People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia and other regional groups, including Arabs, the SDF has built up an inclusive force of more than 100,000 members, the officer said. It has also established a network of local councils to govern the regions liberated from the Islamic State, building governments that “reflect the populace around them.”

    The Kurds provide an “organizational skill that I have never seen before in the Middle East,” the officer said.

    The SDF and its political arm, the Syrian Democratic Council, believe in equal rights for women, freedom of speech and religion, and local governance, the officer noted. The group also values education and has a judicial system that is “fair and transparent.”

    “This was the first opportunity I have seen to actually achieve our end-state objectives because we had a partner that very closely shares our American values,” the officer said, noting that with the Oct. 6 announcement: “We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”

    The officer noted the challenges the U.S. military has had in building the Afghan security forces, particularly the high number of “green on blue” attacks that have killed many U.S. service members. By contrast, “I can count on less than two hands” the number of coalition forces who have been killed in Syria over a five-year campaign.

    The fighters themselves are “absolutely fearless,” the officer added, describing a force equipped with light machine guns and AK-47 assault rifles—and no body armor. They are “incredibly fair in their heart. … They would rather take casualties themselves than harm a civilian.”

    After leaving Syria this year, the first Army officer described holding out hope that the United States would not fully abandon the SDF. But now that hope has been dashed. Hearing the Oct. 6 news that Trump had announced U.S. troops would withdraw from the border, allowing Turkey to move in, the officer said: “I was absolutely crushed.”

    The second Army officer reacted with “disbelief” to the White House’s Oct. 6 statement.

    “As Turkey attacked, I couldn’t help but feel ashamed, number one, to have been part of it and, number two, that we, America, I believe are violating our values,” the officer said. “America in my mind is still the shining beacon on the hill, but we are not living up to that right now.”

    As for the SDF forces the first Army officer got to know in Manbij: “I haven’t been able to get a hold of any of them.”






     
  5. dachuda86

    dachuda86 Member

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    I'm not your mom. If you can't handle truth then don't attack the messenger. You're welcome to stay ignorant but I've told you what I know. This all may be a little beyond your understanding of the world. For that, I can't help. I've given you and others a glimpse, but the research and journey is your own. Seek beyond the Kurdish propaganda. I am not completely anti-kurd. I hope they can find peace one day, but their terror movements are unacceptable. Their actions have demonstrated what they are and I don't need to link it. Just use your damn brain and stay on top of the story and go further back than a weeks worth of soley western media outlets.
     
  6. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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  7. FranchiseBlade

    FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
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    Please. You shouldn't talk about other people not being able to handle the truth.
     
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  8. AleksandarN

    AleksandarN Member

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    Like I said before their home for some of the Kurds is northern Syria it has been for centuries. They have been suppressed ever since
     
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  9. London'sBurning

    London'sBurning Contributing Member

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    Still think dachuda is just a Bobby alt or dandodoritk . He plays devil's advocate just like Bobby to the point where I question whether he really believes what he types. Links from experts are provided, quotes from both major political parties and all dachuda can do is say, "Open your eyes sheeple. I'm not going to nor do I need to provide evidence that what I'm saying is true. Take ME at face value that I know more than the myriad of sources you linked. I'm not your mother, but I will lecture on the internet like I am, because this is how I troll. The journey to troll martyrdom is a long and tumultuous one, but falling on the sword of anything in defense of Trump is THE sacrifice I'm willing to make." - dachuda the anonymous pariah.
     
  10. AleksandarN

    AleksandarN Member

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    Yet you link to a website that is run but the Turkish regime and you have the audacity to call out people believing in propaganda.
     
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  11. malakas

    malakas Member

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    The Turks were enslaving the whole eastern mediterranean for 500 years.

    Are the Serbians ethnostates?
    Are the Bulgarians ethnostates?
    Are the Albanians ethnostates?
    Are the Croatians ethnostates?
    Are the Romanians ethnostates?
    Are the Moldovans ethnostates?
    Are the Greeks ethnostates?
    Are the Cypriots ethnostates?
    Are the Egyptians ethnostates?
    Are the Georgians ethnostates?
    Are the Armenians ethnostates?
    Are the Lebanese ethnostates?
    Are the Syrians ethnostates?
    Are the Iraqis ethnostates?

    Only if yes to all of this, the Kurds are "trash" who don't know their place.

    Btw the Americans also don't know their place. Why did they rebel against their british masters?
     
  12. BigDog63

    BigDog63 Member

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    Hmmmm, bias much?
     
  13. BigDog63

    BigDog63 Member

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    My ex wife was Turkish. She was a victim of one of the Kurdish terror attacks...killed everyone in the bus she was in but her. But she also says that some of the 'terror attacks' were actually staged by Turkey in order to create dissent against the Kurds....ie, they killed their own citizens for 'the cause'. Not sure if that is true or not, but she would know better than I...and she had no reason to take that position if it weren't true (ie, she's not Kurdish, but Turkish).

    I would just say that we fair poorly when we get involved in issues that have been around since before we were a country... or even before we settled here. There are conflicts, especially in that area (and I would count the Slavik area in that) that have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years of conflict. We have no frame of reference, or really any notion of what to do, in those situations.

    I also think the news is doing a horrible job of talking about the one issue that I think drove Trump's decision. Turkey is harboring MILLIONS of refugees from the war in Syria. That was a huge factor in this...Erdogan threatened to stop harboring them.

    Knowing that...does anyone's position on this change? Or at least see that there is a whole 'nother side to it?

    It also definitely sounded like Turkey was going to go in whether we left or not. Should we have left our troops in harm's way then? *maybe* leaving them there would have prevented the invasion, but then you're back to the issue above.

    These things are almost always a lot more complicated than people think....
     
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  14. dachuda86

    dachuda86 Member

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    Soooo... You support ethnic cleansing from people who mutilate women, force women to fight because guess what, they actually consider them property, and force kids to fight. They also have been destroying villages and homes, and killing people who don't like it. They are not letting others come home. Ethnostates are bad. Especially when they are a forced product. You have ethnic cleansing taking place because of them. You cannot blame Turks for wanting to resettle a huge population. Dude, the 3.6 million is the official number, but it doesn't include the people living off the radar and their babies. There are too many people there and they need their homes. Turkey is in the right because they are dealing with this and trying to get rid of a terror state because the YPG is just the PKK with a new name for the sake of international optics. You're really not up on this and I would recommend you just keep your mouth shut like a good boy, and read more for the time being.
     
  15. dachuda86

    dachuda86 Member

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    I still think you're one of the laziest people on this forum if you can't google what you question for yourself. Whatever you have an issue with about my post, do your own homework or be specific about what you are so perplexed about. I'll do my best to explain it when I'm not busy and have some time. Message me and I will seriously try to educate you on this issue. Consider that an invite. I will seriously try to help you understand why this issue isn't Muh kurds good and Muh turks bad in such an elementary manner. That goes for anyone else b****ing about "sources" when all I've said are widely known facts that people who have followed this are up on. I can't help ya'll see some stories and act like experts when you haven't followed it nearly as closely as I have. What is so hard to understand about the story? That war sucks and people do awful things? Welcome to the program. The Turks are no angels and their milita certainly arean't. Neither are the Kurds though and they've done some screwed up stuff that's coming home to roost. If yall want a complex discussion, then I'll have one, but just boiling it down to MUH KURDS ARE ALLIES DERP is simply the dumbest crap I've ever seen and ignorant of the host of deeper ties and issues going on in the region.
     
    #95 dachuda86, Oct 14, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2019
  16. dachuda86

    dachuda86 Member

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    They are kicking out others who live there and not just defending. They are carving an ethnostate with ethnic cleansing. This is far beyond it and they are a band of terrorists who changed their names from PKK to YPG in order to further their separatist cause because getting territory with oil is key to funding their future endeavors to create a complete Kurdistan. You need to take into account their ambitions. These are not innocent groups of soldiers we helped.
     
  17. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    Well I do wonder about this. I do think Obama arming Syrians and implicating us in a proxy war against Assad was a mistake. And after Trump essentially surrendered the theatre to Russia, I'm not sure where you can go with an alliance with Kurdistan. However, betraying them to the Turks seems like the one path most to be avoided. Why anyone would trust us as a partner in a dangerous endeavor is beyond my comprehension. And, we'll might now have a new crop of aggrieved Muslims looking for revenge, just like when we turned our back on Afghanistan.
     
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  18. malakas

    malakas Member

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    Absolutely. Americans can't understand what ethnic hatred and tribal division means.
    They only can see things as matter of races and as long as you live in the same country you are all the same nation...
    but in the old Worl we see people no matter their colour based on their nation and people who speak the same language and have the same religion and live in the same place can hate each other with a passion.

    That's why the EU no matter their flaws has done an amazing job to secure peace and bring european nations together as friends.

    Problems like this aren't only in Turkey, they are all over the continent.

    For example one from the anglo world:

    Why do you think that now all of the British Isles speak english? Because until the 60s the Welsh had to wear a log around their neck in the school if the dared to speak their own language, got bullied , prosecuted , and discriminated. The government officially stated that Welsh makes people lazy and has to be eradicated.
    People were thrown in prison until very recently for daring to write the sign of their village in Welsh. It almost got exterminated completely and had to brought back from the dead ,in the last decade, like Hebrew.

    Now I am very sorry for what happened to your ex-wife. But also what she says is true. Turkey has been prosecuting the Kurds for decades and been using tactics like that to find an excuse to kill. They are also not allowed to speak their own language in schools and universities.

    The problem of Turkey as I said in my previous post is that while Turks have 2-4 babies the Kurds procreate like rabbits and a typical family has 5-7 children. Erdogan has been trying to promote turks to have more children but it doesn't work. And now with the Syrians the problem is much worse. Because they also have much more children than Turks.
    If this continues in the next 20 years, the turks will be the minority in their own country. I read an article about that actually don't think I make this up.
     
  19. malakas

    malakas Member

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    I am not a boy let along a good one, so I will keep my mouth open.
    Especially since I can potentially be much more affected by this than you ever will. You sit in your couch in the other side of the atlantic and think you know what happens and who is wrong and right.

    Calling people who have been suppressed for centuries trash and terrorists..exacty like the sultan! :rolleyes:
    The Kurds were used by Ataturk and promised equal rights and then as reward suppressed and killed.
    No matter what the sultan may wish, Turkey is a multinational and multireligion country.

    A Kurd is not a Turk and they will never be.

    This problem didn't start now when you only just started paying attention.:rolleyes: The problem didn't start with the Syrians refugees either.
    It is an inherent problem of Turkey and even if the war in Syria didn't occur something would have happened.

    I have absolutely no love lost with the Kurds. In fact I don't like them at all because they almost killed my grandpa.
    But they exist and they are there and have been there for long.
    And it's not for you to call them trash.

    They are a nation without a country and under methodical prosecution that aims to their "integration" and extermination.

    It's the fault of their ancestors that decided to believe the lies and empty promises and become the soldiers and tools of the Ottomans instead of fighting against them like the rest of the nations seeking freedom. But what is done is done.
    Now their children decided to fight for self determination.
     
  20. FranchiseBlade

    FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
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    Do you know what the Kurds didn't do that the Turks did do? Intentionally fire artillery at American troops. Attacking our troops is reason enough to oppose them. The thing is there are a dozen other reasons as well.
     

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