Trump Makes a Good Move in Syria

[bshole]

`

• He has decided to shut down the covert CIA program to arm Syrian rebels. I could not agree more. America armed two different factions just to have them fight each other and also armed groups that become part of Al Qaeda.
  
  Sorry that the source is conservative but the liberal PoV appears to be that this is a move to appease Russia.
  
  

  The pinnacle of this failure came in Obama's last few hours in the White House in January. He ordered the bombing of a terror training camp that also hosted fighters from a CIA-"vetted" group embedded with al-Qaeda; that same group officially partnered with al-Qaeda a few days later.
  
  Another defining moment of the debacle came last year, when CIA-backed groups fought against other CIA-backed groups:

  
  
  https://pjmedia.com/homeland-securi...syrian-rebels-after-years-of-chronic-failure/
  
  Here is CNNs take:
  

  President Donald Trump has just given Russia what he might call a "beautiful" gift. According to the Washington Post, Trump has decided to dismantle a US program that was arming and training some of the rebels fighting the Syrian dictator, President Bashar al-Assad. When asked about the report, the White House and the CIA declined to comment.
  
  The decision grants Vladimir Putin one of his long-sought changes to US policy in the Middle East, and it does it in exchange -- as far as we can tell -- for nothing at all.

 

[Jhhnn]

Had Obama done the same thing we'd never have heard the end of "Cut and Run!" rhetoric.

 

[raildogg]

The Western world first creates the problem and then offers the solution to the problem.

 

[FIVR]

It's not like those rebels were much of a threat to Syrian Govt. anymore anyway. CIA was basically just arming al-Qaeda in Idlib and probably finally realized that all the $ they were paying for Jihadi salaries and weapons had to go somewhere else once Assad and the Russians boot them out of their current Emirate in northern Syria.


Right now HTS (Hyat Tahrir al-Sham, the successor to Jahbat al-Nusra aka al-Qaeda in Syria) is taking over the entirety of Idlib. They just received 13,000 new recruits from Ahrar al-Sham (probably inflated numbers... probably) after the disbandment of the latter. It's getting more and more crowded in that terrorist corner of Syria the US helped carve out.


Trump had little to do with any of this apart from his ease in being manipulated by Putin (which is what happened here, clearly). I do approve of these actions, but lets not pretend that Trump isn't allowing Dog Brain Mattis to take over large parts of eastern Syria with his Kurdish Zionist movement.

 

[Jhhnn]

It's not like those rebels were much of a threat to Syrian Govt. anymore anyway. CIA was basically just arming al-Qaeda in Idlib and probably finally realized that all the $ they were paying for Jihadi salaries and weapons had to go somewhere else once Assad and the Russians boot them out of their current Emirate in northern Syria.


Right now HTS (Hyat Tahrir al-Sham, the successor to Jahbat al-Nusra aka al-Qaeda in Syria) is taking over the entirety of Idlib. They just received 13,000 new recruits from Ahrar al-Sham (probably inflated numbers... probably) after the disbandment of the latter. It's getting more and more crowded in that terrorist corner of Syria the US helped carve out.


Trump had little to do with any of this apart from his ease in being manipulated by Putin (which is what happened here, clearly). I do approve of these actions, but lets not pretend that Trump isn't allowing Dog Brain Mattis to take over large parts of eastern Syria with his Kurdish Zionist movement.

Tell us more about the Kurdish Zionist plot.

Can't wait to hear it.

 

[raildogg]

Making the Middle East a safer place for Israel.

 

[FIVR]

Tell us more about the Kurdish Zionist plot.

Can't wait to hear it.

It is basically the equivalent to what the Jews wanted in Palestine, except the Kurds have a far more legitimate claim to a "kurdish state" that the Jews ever had a legitimate claim to Palestine. I am not personally opposed to Rojava or the Kurds, however they have chosen poorly in their allying themselves with a foreign power trying to destabilize Syria and they cannot be rewarded like the Jews were rewarded for destabilizing palestine. Sadly, for the kurds and the US, there will never be a true "Rojava".

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

 

[Jhhnn]

It is basically the equivalent to what the Jews wanted in Palestine, except the Kurds have a far more legitimate claim to a "kurdish state" that the Jews ever had a legitimate claim to Palestine. I am not personally opposed to Rojava or the Kurds, however they have chosen poorly in their allying themselves with a foreign power trying to destabilize Syria and they cannot be rewarded like the Jews were rewarded for destabilizing palestine. Sadly, for the kurds and the US, there will never be a true "Rojava".

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

Gawd. Both Iraqi & Syrian kurds have been subjected to expropriation & repression by their own govts for decades.

Allying themselves with the US has obviously paid off for Iraqi Kurds, as well.

 

[FIVR]

They are just the newest minority we can use as a shiv into Assad's side. They will be abandoned like the Iraqi kurds were before when they are no longer useful for whatever machinations washington is engaged in the middle east. They are quite an ineffective one though, seeing as they actually have better relations with the Assad govt. than the rebels and Jordan and Israel. Most likely they will be fine and will have a somewhat autonomous federalized state in northern syria for the foreseeable future.


Their real enemy is Turkey, who btw we are BFFs with. Or we claim we are anyway.

 

[Jhhnn]

They are just the newest minority we can use as a shiv into Assad's side. They will be abandoned like the Iraqi kurds were before when they are no longer useful for whatever machinations washington is engaged in the middle east. They are quite an ineffective one though, seeing as they actually have better relations with the Assad govt. than the rebels and Jordan and Israel. Most likely they will be fine and will have a somewhat autonomous federalized state in northern syria for the foreseeable future.


Their real enemy is Turkey, who btw we are BFFs with. Or we claim we are anyway.

We haven't abandoned the Iraqi Kurds at all-

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/05/iraq-kurdistan-us-peshmerga.html

 

[FIVR]

Not yet we haven't. We will when it is convenient (and we can get something for it).


Oh wait you meant iraqi kurds? Do you not recall what happened after the 91 gulf war? The kurds remember even if you don't. Which is why the peshmerga (iraqi kurds) don't actually ally and fight with US forces and don't want their own special US-protected state in Iraq. They know what the US will do when there is some advantage to betraying them. Syrian kurds haven't learned this yet.

 

[pmv]

Gawd. Both Iraqi & Syrian kurds have been subjected to expropriation & repression by their own govts for decades.

Allying themselves with the US has obviously paid off for Iraqi Kurds, as well.

Turkish Kurds haven't fared much better. The US has never been very keen on supporting them, to put it mildly. (OK, the PKK are essentially communists, but just as with the Vietnamese it's at heart about self-determination and the US once again aligned itself with the imperial power).

Apparently the most effective anti-ISIS fighters are the Syrian Kurds affiliated with the PKK, in the YPG. As far as I know they aren't supported by the US, but perhaps that has changed?

It's all realpolitik, and increasingly difficult to follow the twists and turns, with so many countries cynically pursuing their self-interest. At least the Kurds have a straightforward honest aspiration, they seem to be the only ones who do.

 

[Jhhnn]

Not yet we haven't. We will when it is convenient (and we can get something for it).


Oh wait you meant iraqi kurds? Do you not recall what happened after the 91 gulf war? The kurds remember even if you don't.

I remember. GHWB just showed up to put he Kuwaiti royal family back in power. It's also when independent Kurdistan was established with our help.