Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Baffler]

Turkey claims it's army has invaded Syria, to create a 30 km buffer zone between Kurdish rebels and Turkey. They claim to have been able to progress without battle.
The US allied Kurds deny this, they say the Turkish army founght them, and was forced to retreat after intense battle.
The army invasion followed a series of Turkish airstrikes on Kurdish positions yesterday.

Well, US. Whatcha gonna do? Attack a NATO member, or let the Kurds die and be henceforth known to your allies as 'the traitorous pigdogs that can be trusted less than Satan"?

I don't see what responsibility the US has to help the Kurds get out of the fight with Turkey that they started, when we had been helping them defeat our mutual enemy the Islamic State and made no pretense (despite the wishful thinking of many) of allegiance beyond that. It doesn't actually even seem like they need much help. The reports I'm seeing are that they've mostly defeated the irregular Euphrates Shield forces and that Turkish regulars aren't willing to advance into the mountainous Kurd-controlled territory.

[martinuzz]

Kurdish forces have called all Kurds to mobilize in Afrin, to defend against the Turks. This includes all Kurdish forces that were still fighting the remainder of IS.

The US has critisized Turkey for destabilizing the region, and urged them to reconsider their operation.

[martinuzz]

In response to an 'unprovoked attack on the headquarters of Kurdish SDF forces', the US airforce has bombed Assad's forces, killing over a 100 soldiers.

It is as of yet unsure how their ally Russia is going to respond.

[Antioch]

In response to an 'unprovoked attack on the headquarters of Kurdish SDF forces', the US airforce has bombed Assad's forces, killing over a 100 soldiers.

It is as of yet unsure how their ally Russia is going to respond.

If they are punishing unprovoked attacks, when are they going to bomb the Turks?

[Strife26]

In response to an 'unprovoked attack on the headquarters of Kurdish SDF forces', the US airforce has bombed Assad's forces, killing over a 100 soldiers.

It is as of yet unsure how their ally Russia is going to respond.

If they are punishing unprovoked attacks, when are they going to bomb the Turks?

Next election season, most likely

[martinuzz]

An Israeli jet fighter was downed by Syrian forces. Both pilots survived.
The Israeli airfoce was attacking an Iranian military installation in Syria (and 11 other targets were attacked too), in response to an Iranian military drone entering Israeli airspace, when the plane was shot down.

Israel states that Iran is 'playing with fire', by infiltrating into Israeli territory.
Syria calls it an 'Israeli act of agression' that increases tensions between Israel and Syria.

Iran supports Assad in his fight to reconquer Syria, ans Israel is getting more and more nervous from the strenghtening Iranian prescence in Syria.
It's fears are that Iran's agenda isn't so much to support Assad, but rather to create a logistic corridor to Israel's sworn enemy Hezbollah, in Libanon.

The Syrian army says the Israeli airstrikes are 'an act of terror that can count on serious and heavy reprisal'.
According to Iran, the Israelian story about the drone entering their airspace is a lie, according to them it was operating in Syrian territory to support the fight against IS.

Meanwhile in Moscow, the Israelian ambassador has requested Russia's aid to keep Iran-supported shiite 'rebels' out of the de-escalation zone at the border between Syria and Israel.
Israel warns that it does not want to escalate the situation, but that it will not tolerate that Syria turns into an Iranian base.

tl;dr: Risk of more clusterfuck

[Sheb]

Mattis said the US has no firm evidence that Assad was behind the sarin attacks in Syria.

[Teneb]

There's not a lot of people who can do Sarin Gas attacks, so either he managed to clean up the evidence really well or someone else decided to be a complete and utter arsehole.

[Wolfhunter107]

Here's the actual AP piece on what Mattis said.

[Baffler]

There's not a lot of people who can do Sarin Gas attacks, so either he managed to clean up the evidence really well or someone else decided to be a complete and utter arsehole.

The Syrian rebels are known to have captured significant stockpiles of chemical weapons early in the war. The Syrian government had some too, at that stage, but the government's stockpiles were destroyed, and confirmed as destroyed by international observers from both power blocs. No effort was made to do the same to the chemical weapons that the rebels were known to be in possession of. They've been using them for periodic false flag attacks ever since, yet no matter how many times it happens, the media always uncritically accepts the claims made by rebel propagandists in the moment and only publishes corrections like those linked there weeks or months after the fact, if at all.

Edit: fixed second link.

[SaberToothTiger]

At this point I'm more inclined to believe that our beloved American overlords needed another liberation in the Middle East and needed a pretext. After all, chemical weapons are a classic for fabricating a good 'ole war.

[Sheb]

At this point I'm more inclined to believe that our beloved American overlords needed another liberation in the Middle East and needed a pretext. After all, chemical weapons are a classic for fabricating a good 'ole war.

Yeah, which is why as soon as they pinned it on the regime in Ghuta, they immediately invaded Syria and freed it.

[SaberToothTiger]

Iraq didn't have a nuclear superpower backing it. An outright invasion would do much more than raise eyebrows in both Russia and Iran considering both of those states have stakes in Syria.

[Sheb]

Iraq didn't have a nuclear superpower backing it. An outright invasion would do much more than raise eyebrows in both Russia and Iran considering both of those states have stakes in Syria.

So you think that the " beloved American overlords" made up a pretext to invade the Syria, and after that someone at the DoD realized that Russia was backing Syria so they had to call off the invasion at the last minute?

[Baffler]

No invasion was planned, but the Obama administration openly backed the rebellion against the government. When there were attacks (or "attacks") usually some immediate retaliation was carried out against government forces - typically an airstrike or series of airstrikes, but the Trump admin used missiles the one time it's been done since his election. Israel will usually also carry out strikes, but they cite Hezbollah's continued existence when they bomb Syrian army convoys or installations. My suspicion is that this kind of thing and the occasional """""accidental""""" strike against the SAA (or in Israel's case claiming stray shells hit uninhabited wilderness in Golan) plus weapons through Jordanian and Saudi proxies were the most help the Pentagon dared to give the opposition while still avoiding excessive escalation with Russia.