The Kurds

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Re: The Kurds

Postby Krashlia » Wed Oct 16, 2019 1:33 am

Its wrong before its a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Not the otherway around.
But your hearts in the right place there, so thats just a nitpick.

"the Geneva Conventions."
They're not protected because they violated it all the way til today. And since they're in prison and from a rogue group that we don't have any diplomatic channel with (nor care to do so), how or with who will we negotiate the terms of their release?
Do we intend to keep them imprisoned forever without a trial?

The elimination of people who did nothing but torment their neighbors, fail their mission, and brought infamy on themselves will radicalize others?
Just how many people in that area sympathize with ISIS?
And after about some thousands of people are gone, where or from who will they get those numbers back from in a short period of time?
And, after Russia decides to take control, or should Turkey colonize the area instead, and violently suppress all dissent (these people will be successful because they also don't care about human rights, so will not care how much force they use), how will they overcome in order to recruit and fight anyways?

"And it was Syria who lost control of their own country to ISIS in the first place."

Well, thats a shame. Seems like someone is going to have to do something about that.
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Re: The Kurds

Postby cmsellers » Thu Oct 17, 2019 10:53 pm

Y'all remember when I said ISIS prisoners being released is exactly what Gollum, who has barely concealed his admiration for ISIS in the past, wants?

Well, Turkish-backed Syrian militias are apparently simply opening the prisons where ISIS militants were held and letting them walk free. Gollum, meanwhile, is insisting that the Kurds are letting ISIS prisoners free to get the US back on their side, because the Big Lie is a much-beloved tool of dictators everywhere.
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Re: The Kurds

Postby Krashlia » Fri Oct 18, 2019 5:41 am

cmsellers wrote:Y'all remember when I said ISIS prisoners being released is exactly what Gollum, who has barely concealed his admiration for ISIS in the past, wants?

Well, Turkish-backed Syrian militias are apparently simply opening the prisons where ISIS militants were held and letting them walk free.


Why was killing these guys before leaving a bad idea again?

Its not the moral idea, I know.
But what about it, in this absolutely sideways situation, wouldn't have proved effective in getting what we wanted out of it: Suppression?

Seriously, why wait till they're free again (and a danger to everyone else), just to hand them death they were aiming for anyways?
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Re: The Kurds

Postby cmsellers » Fri Oct 18, 2019 6:10 am

I have a better idea. Next time Erdogan visits America, someone in the Secret Service should kill him. For the cost of two lives—his and the noble fool who kills him—countless more will be saved.
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Re: The Kurds

Postby Krashlia » Fri Oct 18, 2019 6:17 am

And then lose 68 tactical nukes in Turkey.

But I have a humane and pragmatic alternative to my and your suggestion:
Give them cows. Pry away the males with an infinite ability to pay marriage dowries.
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Re: The Kurds

Postby Absentia » Fri Oct 18, 2019 6:30 am

cmsellers wrote:I have a better idea. Next time Erdogan visits America, someone in the Secret Service should kill him. For the cost of two lives—his and the noble fool who kills him—countless more will be saved.


I used to think that the talk about TCS getting us all on government watch lists was a joke, but now I'm not so sure.
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Re: The Kurds

Postby Krashlia » Fri Oct 18, 2019 6:42 am

Absentia wrote:
cmsellers wrote:I have a better idea. Next time Erdogan visits America, someone in the Secret Service should kill him. For the cost of two lives—his and the noble fool who kills him—countless more will be saved.


I used to think that the talk about TCS getting us all on government watch lists was a joke, but now I'm not so sure.


We require a blood sacrifice to keep this site going.
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Re: The Kurds

Postby cmsellers » Fri Oct 18, 2019 7:25 am

@Absentia: And this is why I post on TCS using a VPN and a stolen identity.

On a more serious note, this is from a Politico article about Trump's rally in Dallas:

It was good to let Turkey attack the Kurds, longtime U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS, Trump said, because “sometimes you have to let them fight like two kids. Then you pull them apart.”

First of all, you shouldn't just let two kids fight. Second of all, two kids fighting rarely results in thousands of deaths and the escape of hundreds of terrorists. And thirdly, Trump once again establishes a moral equivalence where there is none, which given he'd previously compared the Kurds unfavorably to ISIS, is sadly not even new with this fucking story.

Also, it sounds like Trump's letter to Gollum may actually have goaded Gollum him attacking sooner and more aggressively than he would have otherwise. But Trump's supporters are holding it up as proof that "hey, at least he didn't offer 'a green light' for Gollum to attack."

This story, the human toll is horrific and yet I find myself looking at all the bullshit coming from the supporters of the brothers in autocracy and just thinking "I can't even, I just can't."
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Re: The Kurds

Postby cmsellers » Fri Oct 18, 2019 3:14 pm

And the bad news keeps coming.

Unsurprisingly, Gollum has already violated the "ceasefire" Trump negotiated to give the Kurds time to surrender.

More worrying, Romney suggested (archive) that Gollum may have told Trump "fuck you man, embedded US forces or not, I'm invading," and Trump pulled out US forces in response to that. Chuck Schumer has said that the Trump administration had confirmed it.

"I didn't give Turkey the green light, I just ran away because Turkey was going to invade anyways" is a terrible defense. It's kind of like saying "that cache of illegal weapons isn't mine, I was holding them for a friend who's off fighting for ISIS."

But what makes it worse is that, depending on the timeline, it's possible that that letter I just mentioned, which really pissed off Gollum? That may have been what prompted him to call Trump's bluff.

Once again, just fucking wow.
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Re: The Kurds

Postby Absentia » Fri Oct 18, 2019 6:15 pm

Not only did they violate the ceasefire, they're apparently using white phosphorus incendiary weapons against Kurdish civilians. (Warning: Link has a victim photo.)

If you're not familiar with white phosphorus, it's known for its ability to stick to human skin like glue and cause excruciating burns with a side of toxic exposure. And it's being dropped on people we promised to protect.

I didn't have a high opinion of Mr. Trump beforehand, but I am fucking livid right now.
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Re: The Kurds

Postby cmsellers » Sun Oct 20, 2019 3:41 am

Wikipedia has this map documenting international reactions.

Image

I always find these maps interesting. When the US acts alone, support always comes from Israel and at least some of the CFA states (tiny island nations in the Pacific, most commonly Palau), and sometimes from right-wing governments in Europe and the English speaking world (under W, it was usually the Czech Republic and Canada).

When Russia acts alone, its support usually comes from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua (three anti-American left-wing autocracies in Latin America), sometimes from Ecuador and Bolivia (two anti-American left-wing democracies in Latin America), and sometimes from Belarus (whose dictator is dependent on Putin and has come to increasingly resent it and fear Russian annexation), and sometimes from a few tiny island nations Russia bribed.

When Turkey acts alone, well, the map I linked above is telling, but actually a little bit misleading. None of the Central Asian countries have explicitly supported Turkey, but a meeting of the Turkic Council passed a resolution saying "yeah, all of us are totally behind Erdogan." Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan are members of the Turkic Council, while Turkmenistan is an observer. I find it more telling that none of these states have actually individually expressed support for Turkey. They seem to basically have gone along with him when it was socially awkward not to, but aren't terribly fond of the project.

Meanwhile, Hungary, the most autocratic member of the EU, has vetoed EU-wide sanctions on Turkey and expressed support for Turkey, but also paid lip service to EU condemnations; I think coding Hungary as pro-Turkey would be more accurate than coding it as neutral. On the other hand, Hungary's behavior here seems to be motivated more by a desire to annoy the EU than a desire to support Gollum.

Three countries have unequivocally supported Turkey: Azerbaijan, Qatar, and Pakistan. Azerbaijan and Turkey have a weird, incestuous, codependent relationship. It's sort of like the US and Canada, only more so, because they're both united by their passionate hatred of the Armenians. Qatar's foreign policy has always been idiosyncratic and has become more so since friendship ended with Saudi Arabia, Iran is Qatar's new best friend. Turkey supported Qatar in that, and Qatar may be repaying the favor. Pakistan, at least based on what I read on Reddit, likes Gollum far more than any other country, including Turkey, apparently because Pakistanis have become convinced he's going to reestablish the caliphate.

Also notably, the president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus expressed opposition to the Turkish operation. He was roundly criticized by a lot of other politicians, but a lot of the statements are along the line of "we have the obligation to support Turkey no matter what." So it's not clear to me to what degree this is genuine support for Turkey, and to what degree it's opposition politicians saying "Dude, Turkey is the only country that acknowledges our independence and the only country that doesn't take part in the UN embargo against us! Don't make the volatile dictator who runs Turkey angry!"
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Re: The Kurds

Postby cmsellers » Wed Oct 23, 2019 5:20 pm

I can't find a good non-paywalled article on this (plenty of non-paywalled articled, but they're leaving out key details), but Turkey and Russia have reached a deal for Syria's Kurds which manages both to be awful for them, and still better than Trump's deal.

Under the agreement, Kurdish forces will withdraw from a 30-km strip along the entire border, including Manjib (a sore point for Gollum), but not including the Kurdish capital at Qamishlo, and Russian and Turkish forces will jointly patrol a 10 km strip just inside the border, while Russia will guarantee the autonomy of the Kurds against further Turkish incursions and the Syrian government and, in theory prevent genocide against the Kurds.

One Kurdish official has called it a "least worst option," which sounds about right.
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Re: The Kurds

Postby cmsellers » Sat Oct 26, 2019 4:00 am

So, Congress has invited the leader of the SDF to the US to testify, and Gollum has demanded that the US extradite him if he comes, saying it will be a violation of our extradition treaty if we don't.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, has suggested that the best possible situation for everybody is if the Kurds pack up, leave their homes on the Turkish border, and "move to the oil region." I was going to post the Picard facepalm, but this whole situation feels too tragic for that. I am genuinely at a loss for words to describe how fucked up this all is.
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Re: The Kurds

Postby Pedgerow » Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:22 pm

I wonder what there could be about the oil region that makes US soldiers less likely to abandon people there? I mean, why on Earth would US soldiers not also just pull out of the oil region as well? What could there possibly be to gain for foreign interests in the Middle East to only focus on this "oil region"? It just doesn't make any sense at all, unless...oh, wait. But no; it couldn't be that.
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Re: The Kurds

Postby Absentia » Sun Oct 27, 2019 12:28 am

Apparently, the Pentagon was able to convince Trump to forego a full withdrawal from Syria by pointing out that this would mean abandoning the oilfields. They want to stay and keep suppressing ISIS, but the only way to get Donnie on board is to frame it in terms of oil.
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