Slaughtering our Kurdish allies

[demi-conservative]

Just wonderful...

Warning shots, did anyone die?

[demi-conservative]

Turkish-led forces film themselves executing a Kurdish captive in Syria

1 terrorist dead, more to go.

[oxmixmudd]

1 terrorist dead, more to go.

Wow. But I guess that was your goal, to say something that shocks some people on this website?

If I was you, I'd think a little more about what God thinks of such a comment. Because ultimately, He is who you'll answer to for that kind of public comment.

[seer]

I think we all have a tendency for selective outrage to some extent. Maybe even (gasp!) Trump supporters. I recall the Tea Partyers so enraged about Obama's deficit spending who are all strangely silent now...And how they were so enraged about how he had the temerity to enact Obamacare, this policy that was hatched in that radical left wing think thank, the Heritage Foundation! I recall during Clinton's impeachment all of the self-appointed Guardians of Public Morality like Bill Bennett and Dennis Prager endlessly wagging their fingers in our faces and lecturing us about how "character matters" in a President, and Lindsey Graham speaking on the House Floor about how you didn't have to be guilty of a crime to be impeached. and how impeachment was about morally "cleansing the office" and how Mike Pence made the same argument on his radio show at the time, and how all these voices are strangely silent now... So selective outrage is not restricted to just one side, seer.

Right, and I thought the Clinton impeachment was a bad move, even though there were actual crimes involved.

[seer]

1 terrorist dead, more to go.

Demi, Turkey is no friend of the US, and never was. Unlike the Kurds who were our friends and allies - you are on the wrong side here brother... Let me tell you, I have a number of friends who are big Trump supporters they are quite upset with what he did...

[Juvenal]

Demi, Turkey is no friend of the US, and never was. Unlike the Kurds who were our friends and allies - you are on the wrong side here brother... Let me tell you, I have a number of friends who are big Trump supporters they are quite upset with what he did...

Semper fi.

This isn't about politics. This is about duty, honor, and country. People come and go from the oval, and sometimes the troops love 'em, and sometimes they hate 'em ... hell, I was in under Carter. 'Nuff said? Orders to stand down and watch allies get slaughtered dishonors us. I'm angry, too, but I can't imagine what it must feel like for these guys.

Pullback Leaves Green Berets Feeling ‘Ashamed,’ and Kurdish Allies Describing ‘Betrayal’

By Eric Schmitt, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Ben Hubbard and Helene Cooper
Published Oct. 13, 2019
Updated Oct. 14, 2019, 7:44 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — American commandos were working alongside Kurdish forces at an outpost in eastern Syria last year when they were attacked by columns of Syrian government tanks and hundreds of troops, including Russian mercenaries. In the next hours, the Americans threw the Pentagon’s arsenal at them, including B-52 strategic bombers. The attack was stopped.

That operation, in the middle of the American-led campaign against the Islamic State in Syria, showed the extent to which the United States military was willing to protect the Syrian Kurds, its main ally on the ground.

But now, with the White House revoking protection for these Kurdish fighters, some of the Special Forces officers who battled alongside the Kurds say they feel deep remorse at orders to abandon their allies.

[Follow our live updates: Assad’s army moves into a strategic border town.]

“They trusted us and we broke that trust,” one Army officer who has worked alongside the Kurds in northern Syria said last week in a telephone interview. “It’s a stain on the American conscience.”

“I’m ashamed,” said another officer who had also served in northern Syria. Both officers spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals from their chains of command.

And the response from the Kurds themselves was just as stark. “The worst thing in military logic and comrades in the trench is betrayal,” said Shervan Darwish, an official allied with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

[Juvenal]

U.S. forces say Turkey was deliberately ‘bracketing’ American troops with artillery fire in Syria

By Dan Lamothe
October 12 at 6:07 PM

[...]

Brett McGurk, a former special envoy for both the Obama and Trump administrations in the campaign against the Islamic State, raised concerns about the incident Friday, saying on Twitter that the United States had declared the position to Turkey.

“This was not a mistake,” he said.

Syria Live Updates

Scroll to: U.S. says Turkish strike near American post was a mistake.

Turkish troops shelled within 550 yards of an American observation post in northern Syria late Friday while United States troops were in the area, according to a military situation report obtained by The New York Times.

Since 2016, the United States has maintained several camps in northern Syria, including a post near the town of Kobani, as part of an international alliance fighting the Islamic State.

The military report undermines both American and Turkish narratives about the shelling, which was first reported on Friday by Newsweek. In American news reports over the weekend, unidentified officials variously claimed that the Turkish shelling was probably deliberate, that it was intense and that it had hit areas on both sides of the American post. In an official statement, the Pentagon said only that Turkish forces had shelled within a few hundred meters of American troops.

In response, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said that the strike was an accident and that its forces had fired on Kurdish troops around 1,000 yards from the American outpost. But the military situation report contests both the anonymous American briefings and the Turkish account.

A map shows two Turkish artillery strikes two miles west of the American outpost and one strike landing roughly 300 to 500 yards southwest of the post, closer than the Turks acknowledged, but less intense than some United States officials have claimed.

The military report said that the shelling near the American post was probably an accident, and added that further misfires by Turkish forces could not be ruled out.

[Juvenal]

Related, but not contemporary ... strikes were on May 5-6, 2019.


VISUAL INVESTIGATIONS
Russia Bombed Four Syrian Hospitals. We Have Proof.

By EVAN HILL, CHRISTIAAN TRIEBERT, MALACHY BROWNE, DMITRIY KHAVIN, DREW JORDAN and WHITNEY HURST | Oct. 13, 2019 | 7:58

Related reporting:

12 Hours. 4 Syrian Hospitals Bombed. One Culprit: Russia.

How Times Reporters Proved Russia Bombed Syrian Hospitals

[JimL]

1 terrorist dead, more to go.

[JimL]

Demi, Turkey is no friend of the US, and never was. Unlike the Kurds who were our friends and allies - you are on the wrong side here brother... Let me tell you, I have a number of friends who are big Trump supporters they are quite upset with what he did...

You're problem is in mistaking Demi for a brother. Yeah, he's a Trump supporter, but from a different perspective than yours.

[seer]

You're problem is in mistaking Demi for a brother. Yeah, he's a Trump supporter, but from a different perspective than yours.

Why wouldn't I consider him a brother in Christ...

[Zymologist]

You're problem is in mistaking Demi for a brother. Yeah, he's a Trump supporter, but from a different perspective than yours.

Christians commonly refer to each other as brother and sister, irrespective of politics.

[JimL]

Why wouldn't I consider him a brother in Christ...

A true christian wouldn't celebrate the execution/murder of a handcuffed Kurdish POW. Demi is an all around fraud (remember the fake accent) disseminating divisive propaganda.

[Esther]

For context, let's recount some of the more important tangled relationships in Syria:

The US is allied with Turkey. Turkey is fighting the PKK. The US considers PKK a terrorist group but will work together with it against their common enemy ISIS. Turkey is also fighting ISIS, but hates the PKK and is upset that the US supports it. The US is also considers Assad a dictator and wants to oust him, and has attacked Assad territory, but Assad is backed by Russia. Also, Assad and Russia are against ISIS, so the US coordinates with Russia against the common enemy ISIS to avoid crossfire and WW3. Meanwhile Assad is also against Turkey, so he is tolerates the PKK. Meanwhile Assad is fighting US-backed rebels, who are also fighting the ISIS because everyone is against ISIS.

----

In short, having a common enemy doesn't make you allies, especially in the Middle East.

This is a very good and concise summary I think.

[Esther]

Kavanaugh literally spoke of his love for beer in a job interview — a job interview to serve as a judge. That's a whole lotta nope from me. His youthful, drunken, misdemeanor-level sexual antics were troubling, but something he made a real effort to atone for in his later career. Still, his awkward, blustering, dishonest denials, and clear threat of retaliation should have been disqualifying.

Agree.