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Syria – Tillerson Announces Occupation Goals – Erdogan Makes Empty Threats
For a few days now Turkey has threatened to invade Afrin (Efrin), a Kurdish held canton in the north-west of Syria.
Afrin (topographic) bigger
yellow – Kurdish control, grey – Turks, red – Syrian government, green – al-Qaeda
The threat is not serious:
- Afrin is mostly mountainous.
- Pictures from Turkey showed (scroll down) the unloading of some tanks near to Afrin but within Turkey. These were old M-60 tanks. They have been slightly upgraded by Israel but can be knocked out by modern Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG) and certainly by Anti Tank Guided Missiles. (ATMG). These tanks would get slaughtered should they enter the tricky Afrin terrain.
- There are several tens of thousands of Kurdish fighters in Afrin. They are well armed.
- Afrin is under formal protection of Russian and Syrian forces.
- The real danger to Turkey is not Afrin but the much larger Kurdish protectorate the U.S. publicly announced in north-east Syria.
The Turkish threats and its artillery noise have led to counter noise from Syria and more silent advice from Russia. The Syrian government wants to show that it is the protector of all Syrian citizens be they ethnic Arabs or Kurds. Russia is proud of its role as the grown up who is calming down all sides.
The two real issues the wannabe-Sultan Erdogan has are:
- the upcoming meeting of Syrian opposition and government parties in Sochi and
- the U.S. backing of the PKK/YPG terrorists in north-east Syria.
Russia wanted to invite several Kurdish parties, including the YPG, to the big meeting in Sochi. Turkey rejects any official inclusions of Kurds as a distinct constituency. Russia will fudge the issue by inviting certain personalities of Kurdish ethnic who will take part in their 'private capacities'.
The second issue only came up again because of military bombast at CentCom and some uncoordinated and unsound U.S. policy:
On Sunday, the U.S.-led military coalition battling Islamic State issued a statement trumpeting the creation of the 30,000-strong “Border Security Force.” But the announcement, which triggered Turkish denunciations, caught officials in Washington off guard. On Wednesday, U.S. officials said the coalition’s declaration was misguided—and the Pentagon issued a statement trying to calm Turkish fears.
“This is not a new ‘army’ or conventional ‘border guard’ force,” the Pentagon statement said.
This was not the first time the Central Command in the Middle East acted in a overtly hawkish and bombastic way without considering the wider strategic impact. Turkey is a NATO member and to announce the installation of a terrorist force to guard a NATO border from the outside is just nuts. For years now the Pentagon has given way too much leash to CentCom and needs to tighten control over it.
The "border guard" force has now been renamed an internal security force which will also make sure that none of the ISIS fighters in the area, which Washington diligently keeps alive in the Syrian east, will escape across the border to evade their next assignments.
Yesterday Secretary of State Tillerson announced the official "new" U.S. position on Syria. It is essentially a recap of the position the Obama administration had long held and does not make any more sense:
Speaking in a major Syria-policy address hosted at Stanford University by the Hoover Institution, Tillerson listed vanquishing al-Qaeda, ousting Iran and securing a peace settlement that excludes President Bashar al-Assad as among the goals of a continued presence in Syria of about 2,000 American troops currently deployed in a Kurdish-controlled corner of northeastern Syria.
(The real number of U.S. troops in Syria is around 5,000 soldiers plus an equal number of 'contractors'.)
Other listeners detected even wider ambitions :
The United States has five key goals in Syria, Mr. Tillerson said. They are: ensuring that the Islamic State and Al Qaeda never re-emerge; supporting the United Nations-led political process; diminishing Iran’s influence; making sure the country is free of weapons of mass destruction; and helping refugees to return after years of civil war.
These goals are mutually exclusive. Nothing will happen in the UN process in Geneva as long as anyone insists in removing the Syrian President Assad. Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria are a consequence of U.S. action and (covered) presence in the country. Iran currently has little presence and limited influence in Syria. It would only increase again should the U.S. try to militarily attack the Syrian government. Refugees will not return as long as the U.S. threatens to again widen the war.
I have yet to read one analyst who believes that the U.S. administration can achieve any of the wishes it announced. It is a hapless policy of "doing something" which will fail when resistance on the ground will ramp up and the political costs of the occupation will become apparent. The YPG Kurds in the north-east, who agreed to their occupation, will be the ones who will have to to bear the wrath. All other parties involved in Syria will hold them responsible.
For now the new announcement and its botched presentation only helped Erdogan to again play to his crowd. None of this will be of much consequence.
@”b”, 40,( although I have not commented at all at this thread, since I have nothing to say so far, I answer you here since it is here where you called me the attention ):
I do want discussions on this blog but
*not just between two people,
Ok, if you refer to the old thread about Snowden, you are right, precisely I was wondering i for how long we would be allowed to talk there, although finally, since we are talking there already for weeks, I thought you did not mind, since a totally harmless activity after all, and besides, being this a bar…. At bars people happen to meet and sometimes even like each other and…well….who knows…?
For the rest, I rarely engage in discussions, if not because of lack of time, since during the week I have not time to post at all, and it is only at weekends when I am able to dedicate time for this task. If I engaged with FB for about three or four comments, it was for to debunk his claim about the drone-attack on Russian bases being susceptible of being made up by illiterate jihadists. There were some others who engaged with him for “thousands of lines” about issues “miles far away of the general content of this blog”, not related to any of the topic on fire here this week, like that discussion, as long as Matusalen´s life, over thermophysics and climate, where some other commenters engaged with FB, but then you are not naming any of them…..
*not with hundreds of lines of excerpts copied from papers that are a click away
Related to this, if it is me, and you refer to my post including excerpts of two articles by Thierry Meyssan about the drone attacks, it has been the first time I have made it ( “Matas un perro un día y te llaman Mataperros”…. ) for the simple reason of trying to prove my point about the drones. The negative reaction of preciselly FB to this author, confirmed me, that it was needed so that the main points of the article ( almost all of it, since there is no usually any waste on Meyssan´s articles ) get to be considered, otherwise, some people with the same prejudices than FB would have lost Meyssan´s points.
For the rest, when I include more or less long excerpts ( never “thousands of lines”, in the best case a dozen or so ), it is from articles written in Spanish, which, you most probably do not read and which, for the usual laziness in the net world, I venture almost nobody is going to take the trouble to translate with a translator, and so, I take that trouble for you, so that you get better informed. You´re welcome.
about issues that are miles away from the general content of this blog.
Again, it is not me who generally makes comments off topic, but yes I like sometimes introducing some hint of humour or cultural interest, or proved some interesring films or photos of places I have visited, besides of my impressions on that places/peoples and so on, if not for to relax a bit from the general and tense mood of war here. I thought this could be welcomed in a “bar”, but this seems an “strange bar” indeed…. where everybody is always, 24/7, “to the issue”…. and there is no place for relaxing a bit or intimating a bit with some parishioner that fall ourselves a little better than others…..
So, what to say, if you would have named some others here who engaged ( these yes, for “thousands of lines” and comments ) here during all the weekend, and continued during the week ( when I was absent, except for one or two comments I felt in the obligation to make, in the “Solzhenytizer´s trolling”, although never engaging any of the trolls whom I know very well from other “alt-media” ), I would be considering your calling of attention fair, but you are singling only me and FB out from a “troupe” here whose commentaries towards others, including me, are usually cinically provoking, they usually start the fire, but they rarelly are called the attention, and then you have that they are not preciselly great contributors with to this blog….. except for the “yes bwana, you are the best” kind of “cult of personality” other supposed “alt-media” suffer of as well. About this issue, I read the other day one commenter calling “james” a “bar patron”, and I was wondering what the meaning of this could be…although I had not meuther the time nor the mood to ask at that time…Anyway, I was already aware of “james” having a especial status here for the few new information he adds….Thus, I am getting scammed….Then it´s “Toivos”, a clear provokator who only appears as kida “attack-dog”…..
Related to this, I insist in the astonishing lack of humor on this pretended “bar”. I am starting feeling that this blog does not differ so much from others, in the sense that you , eventhough not deleting all, get, clearly, very, say “dissapointed”, with dissent, there is a “troupe” of people policing the comments section so that nobody ( except “the protegees” ) deviates from the line you mark, and certain people is singled out and attacked so that getting them discouraged from continuing posting….. Strange bar indeed…..You seem more like if you were at work, men, here…..Bars are for relaxing a bit…. after work…..at least in Spain, for not to mention the Basque Country, where we have the higuest number of bars for square meter in the world…I would venture…..
Thus, I am quite lost by what you mean with that of “my style”, since, as you will have probably tested already, it is very varied, and change, depending of the day, what I have read over there and even with my mood, since I am an average citizen with a lot of factors afecting me, like every other average peer. It´s only professionals of broadcasting who mantain always the same mood, and never deviates from the line/goal, and so on…..
Anyway, have you considered publishing a list of basic norms of use of this “bar”, including the topics you hate seeing commented here or are banned from discussion, the preferred formats for comments ( if it is the usual one line format with no more than praising you, I fear I am almost getting the way to the door …), and so on, so that some of us, more or less newies here, or without “membership card”, get out something clear about this site and what is allowed and what is not?
Btw, I was invited/advised to come here by a commenter at Fort Russ, where I was usually posting before, called “neutrinox”, alleging less censure and wider range of oppinions, including that from the left, which, I must say, I found quite deceptive, since lefties here or are not really lefties, or do not dare to participate, or are really working people like me who have not so much spare time to do it….
Thanks for your attention…Have a good day at work….and, in case yo udecide to ban me after this…..Try to smile more….man…
Some Basque folklore for you all, included “the clique”, since here we are celebrating “San Sebastian ( Donsotia ) city´s day:
IZADA DE LA BANDERA TAMBORRADA 2017 DONOSTIA – SAN SEBASTIÁN
Posted by: elsi | Jan 19 2018 21:03 utc | 73
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