Why is Turkey attacking the Kurds?

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brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
29,452
29,865
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As a Turkish member of the board let me explain.

0. Kurds did not have their independent state for millenia. As World War I ended, the British gave some of the affluent Kurdish Tribes "An independent homeland" promise to stop Turkish independence war and later stop Turkey to control the oil regions in Mousul and Kerkuk.
1. Kurds are one of the founding groups of the Modern Turkish Republic
2. The Turkish State was founded on being a melting pot of Turkish ethnicity .. Up until 1990'ies. This was no fair treatment for Kurds, they were not discriminated per person basis but their language was not official (No discrimination means, we had Presidents, Prime Ministers, Ministers of Kurdish decent, but they spoke Turkish in all official means)
3. After the coup of 1980, the Junta treated the Kurds very badly and this was the last drop in the bucket and PKK was born
4. PKK killed nearly 30.000 civilians in 35 years, they lost the same amount so this became a vendetta for both sides.
5. PKKwas a Marxist - Leninist structure so was supported by USSR,found itself in official terror list
6. After the end of the cold war, old plans to shape the Middle East were dusted off.
7. A new ally state to watch over USA - Israel interest was chosen to be the future Kurdistan. This would be an handy proxy and carve out land from 4 nations, Turkey - Iran - Iraq and Syria, destabilize the region further and that means profit
8. The Iraq war made it possible to execute the plan for Iraq
9. Syria civil war was encouraged and ISIS was supported covertly by USA to destabilize the region, fend off the local Arab/Turkoman population, fight the "out of nowhere" ISIS and make the Kurds "The hero of the region"
10. Marxist Leninist roots keep PKK/YPG secular, so they are percieved as a low risk for "yet another Islamist entity"
11. As Syrian state collapsed, YPG controlled almost 1/3 of Syria, although they have %10 of the population.
12. The next move would be to annex N.Iraq and N.Syria and create the Kurdistan
13. Two moves later Iran & Turkey

Meanwhile .. Kurds in Turkey have their Kurdish broadcasts, parties, education. We have 4.5 million Syrians (for 5 years now) and almost 1 Million Kurds (since Iraq war) as refugees inside our borders. (They are settled, working etc.)

Turkey aims to control a 30 km deep area on the border and rebuild cities to relocate the refugees in this protected area.

The operation is not against the civilians.

I will write again to this topic after 1 month. I don't like flame wars, we will discuss what happened.

That’s a lot of propaganda buried in there.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
17,166
16,310
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1. The Kurds in turkey have been treated horribly by the Turks for generations. Forbidden to use their language, discrimination etc.
2. Kurds in Turkey had low level insurgency/separatist movement due to 1.
3. Before the current dictator wannabe came to power #2 and #1 were on a path to winding down and improving.
4. Current Turkish leader killed the peace process and used the Kurds as a domestic political punching bag.
5. Armed Kurds next door not under the thumb of the Syrian regime scares the shit out of wannabe dictator who wants unarmed domestic political punching bag.
6. Trump gives turkey green light to attack by pulling out US troops that were embedded with the Syrian Kurds.
7. Here we are. Our allies are being attacked after Trump pulled troops and thinks bigly sounding tweets will salvage the situation.
Don't forget that, specifically, these Kurds were our brothers in arms, fighting and dying alongside our troops (albiet in much greater numbers) for the fight to rid us of the attempted ISIS caliphate, and secure Syria such that it could return to some kind of normalcy, potentially with Kurds at the head, leading the formation of a new government there. Which of course, Erdogan couldn't stand the thought of since he's a dick tater too.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
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It is the Middle East. The simple answer is tribalism.

You could have stopped there. If it needed any further elaboration you could just say one tribal group of middle easterners hates another group and thinks it would be easier for the 2nd group to be dead than co-exist with them and the feeling is basically mutual.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
17,166
16,310
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The operation is not against the civilians.
You sure about that?
 

Paratus

Lifer
Jun 4, 2004
17,522
15,567
146
One issue missing so far is after Syrian Kurds did much of the heavy lifting defeating ISIS they also with some help from us are detaining several 10,000s of former ISIS combatants.

With us withdrawing and Turkey moving in a significant risk is the Kurds will be unable or unwilling to continue detaining them.
 

DarthKyrie

Golden Member
Jul 11, 2016
1,617
1,395
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One issue missing so far is after Syrian Kurds did much of the heavy lifting defeating ISIS they also with some help from us are detaining several 10,000s of former ISIS combatants.

With us withdrawing and Turkey moving in a significant risk is the Kurds will be unable or unwilling to continue detaining them.

I guess most guards have fled their posts to join in the fight against the Turks or have been fleeing towards American bases looking for protection. I say they should free them and give them arms and tell them that the Turks are coming to slaughter them.
 

dawp

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
11,347
2,710
136
One issue missing so far is after Syrian Kurds did much of the heavy lifting defeating ISIS they also with some help from us are detaining several 10,000s of former ISIS combatants.

With us withdrawing and Turkey moving in a significant risk is the Kurds will be unable or unwilling to continue detaining them.
what was odd was trumps bragging about 2 british detainees that we took possession of but did not state how many there actually were that we are holding.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,695
31,043
146
Most important is to go back to Desert Shield days with Bush #1. As the Kurds gained power, influence and arms they became a greater threat to the stability of the region.
Pay little attention to the Trump Delusion Victims, their whole little world revolves around Donald J. Trump like teen girls with a Tiger beat magazine.

None of this is an accurate reflection of real history, or the current reality on the ground.
 
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Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
21,984
6,298
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Somewhere in there Hussain nerve gassed a bunch of Kurds as well.
It seems like most of the middle East is founded on the principals of hate, distrust, and first strikes.
 
Feb 4, 2009
35,862
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So is Jared’s Middle East Peace plan working as expected?
The plan the President said when elected should take weeks or maybe months?
 

DarthKyrie

Golden Member
Jul 11, 2016
1,617
1,395
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Yeah didn’t Saint Reagan start supporting the Kurds in the Iran thing from the 80s?

That is when the United States started supporting the Kurds. Before that the U.S supported the crushing of the Kurdish rebels in Iran by the Shah and his Secret Police. Before turning our back on Saddam we supported his crushing of the Kurds as well as the King of Iraq doing the same before him. The United States has a long history of fucking over the Kurds and Assyrians while at the same time welcoming them with open arms here at home.

The League of Nations was all Wilson's idea and would most likely have worked if we had been an actual part of it. The United States shares as much blame as France and the UK with the current situation in the Middle East, we could have forced the changing of the borders in the former Ottoman Empire more to reflect the actual situation on the ground but we didn't do that. The Senate refused to ratify any of Wilson's Treaties dealing with the aftermath of WWI for some strange reason.

There was a Treaty that was worked out between the US, the newly formed USSR and the Turks where the USSR would have received almost half of Turkish Armenia (which includes parts of Turkish Kurdistan) as well as all the Armenians and Kurds that wanted to go.

The Kurds and Assyrians should have received all of Kurdistan, Iran would have received the Shia portion of what is Iraq as compensation and Turkey would have gotten the Turkish part of Syria (which is about a 1/5 of Syria). The rest of Iraq and Syria should have been merged into Jordan with the rest of the Sunni's.
 

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
29,452
29,865
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That is when the United States started supporting the Kurds. Before that the U.S supported the crushing of the Kurdish rebels in Iran by the Shah and his Secret Police. Before turning our back on Saddam we supported his crushing of the Kurds as well as the King of Iraq doing the same before him. The United States has a long history of fucking over the Kurds and Assyrians while at the same time welcoming them with open arms here at home.

The League of Nations was all Wilson's idea and would most likely have worked if we had been an actual part of it. The United States shares as much blame as France and the UK with the current situation in the Middle East, we could have forced the changing of the borders in the former Ottoman Empire more to reflect the actual situation on the ground but we didn't do that. The Senate refused to ratify any of Wilson's Treaties dealing with the aftermath of WWI for some strange reason.

There was a Treaty that was worked out between the US, the newly formed USSR and the Turks where the USSR would have received almost half of Turkish Armenia (which includes parts of Turkish Kurdistan) as well as all the Armenians and Kurds that wanted to go.

The Kurds and Assyrians should have received all of Kurdistan, Iran would have received the Shia portion of what is Iraq as compensation and Turkey would have gotten the Turkish part of Syria (which is about a 1/5 of Syria). The rest of Iraq and Syria should have been merged into Jordan with the rest of the Sunni's.

Very accurate description of the sources of conflict in the region. It’s easy to blame it on “tribalism” and basically portray them as ignorant but the reality is the western powers chopped up people’s and religious group’s randomly.
 

Perknose

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
Forum Director
Oct 9, 1999
46,791
10,428
147
Thread locked because of OP:

"Somebody fill me in on this, what is the background between Turkey, the Kurds, ISIS, and the US. I know when we pulled out a Turkey started attacking the Kurds which was apparently planned? What do they have against them, is it a religious thing or territorial dispute?"

If this is not deliberate trolling, it does have the effect of being an absolute troll. Witness the responses this troll has engendered.

IF you really know NOTHING AT ALL about the basics and history of this situation, which, again, is hard to believe but may be true, then you must do what any other adult would do, and inform yourself via the internet, the library, and/or the TV and radio news and commentary before posting here on this DISCUSSION board.

Perknose
Forum Director
 
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