John Chuckman
COMMENT ON A STRIKING REMINDER OF THE GLORIOUS REALITIES OF AMERICA’S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Information reported from northeastern Syria starkly displays the utter cynicism and cruelty of America’s position there.
The commander of [American partner] Syrian Kurdish forces in the area has apparently angrily told the United States, “You are not willing to protect [my] people, but you do not want another force to come and protect us. You have sold us. This is immoral.”
“I need to know if you are capable of protecting my people, of stopping these [Turkish] bombs falling on us or not. I need to know, because if you’re not, I need to make a deal with Russia and [Syria] now and invite their planes to protect this region.”
The Turkish invasion has already killed many hundreds of Syrian Kurds. The Kurds are fighting the invading Turks, but the Kurds are comparatively lightly armed, and Turkey is coming on with fighter planes, tanks, and heavy artillery.
Several vicious incidents are reported of Turkish irregular groups shooting unarmed Kurds, prisoners and a well-known woman politician.
American forces sit back watching while the very people they have been working with, the Syrian Kurds, are bombed and shot by an American ally, Turkey, in an effort to make Turkey happy.
Turkey is being allowed to do just enough killing of Syrian Kurds to reassure itself about its own border security, because, after all, Turkey is a key ally in NATO and one with whom there have been some recent unpleasant disagreements, but don't let the Syrian Kurds turn to the government of Syria and its Russian ally to fight against invasion from Turkey.
After all, America’s plan for hiving off this chunk of someone else’s country - to weaken Syria for Israel’s benefit, the main purpose of the long ugly proxy war killing half a million in Syria - are being changed only to the extent that a big slice of northeastern Syria will become effectively part of Turkey.
The various public threats the United States has been making against Turkey and sanctions it is calling for are intended only to limit the depth of Turkey’s invasion, not to stop it. They serve also as a public relations exercise so as to not seem to be doing what you are in fact doing.
Trump gets to make noise for the hometown election crowd about withdrawing some American forces while in fact doing virtually nothing, moving a few troops around in order to let Turkey come in and do some killing.
The Syrian Kurds, with whom the United States has been working illegally inside Syria, and whom it refers to as an “ally,” are left to absorb a Turkish invasion of their homes while being told not to seek help elsewhere.
Although it is hard to have too much sympathy for the Syrian Kurds because they have in fact betrayed what was their own country, Syria, by working with America to help break it up.
Such are the glorious realities of America’s fight for freedom in the Middle East.
NOTE:
I tend to doubt Trump will have much political success here because his belly-over-the-belt political base, the ones who wear red MAGA hats on shopping trips to Walmart, the border-wall crowd, are not the same people who supported him to get out of the Middle East wars.
He still has done nothing real about America’s vicious, cynical wars.
LATE DEVELOPMENT:
Later, the same day I wrote this piece, we have from Aljazeera:
"Syrian government troops will deploy along the border with Turkey to help Kurdish fighters fend off Ankara's military offensive in northern Syria, the Kurdish-led administration in the region has announced."
"The move, announced on Sunday, represents a major shift in alliance for Syria's Kurds and came hours after the United States said it was withdrawing its troops from the area to avoid getting caught in the middle of the fast-escalating conflict."
