Tyrants lose their rights to sovereignty as soon as the commit genocide on their own citizens. In this case, Kurds are dealing with an existential threat from Putin, Assad and Erdogan. That tends to radicalize people. We've seen that post-war boundaries imposed by the colonial powers that failed to recognize ethnic identities have produced the most violent conflicts of the modern era. The road to peace is proving to be providing as much self-determination as possible i.e. Bosnia, Kosovo etc. and might even apply to the ethnically Russian parts of Ukraine (Your people Dachuda)
There is much to disagree with, WRT Mr. Crenshaw's analysis: 1) One of Bid Laden's key complaints was that US troops were in Saudi. (never mind the fact that the Saudi govt invited us there) So, presence of US troops may stabilize but it may also de-stabilize. (I certainly don't agree with OBL, just saying that Crenshaw's reasoning is flawed) 2) "We go there so they don't come here" -- under this precept, US troops will be going everywhere, with significant dollar and human cost. My position would be: if someone attacks us, we let them have it. But this preemptive military strike mentality needs to go away -- it gets us bogged down in civil wars.
Ultimately, there is only one border, the thin atmosphere between life on Earth and the the endless desolation of Space.
I always found this analysis to be flawed. "Saddam gassed his own people.....Assad gassed his own people." They obviously don't consider them to be "their own people"; and the underlying flaw in such analysis is thinking that Iraq or Syria are nation states like our own. They aren't.
They live within the borders, where are they supposed to go? Recognition and compromise are the paths to peace. What makes Tyrants tyrants is their unwillingness to do that; a path that inevitably leads to genocidal violence. The relative righteousness of a people's claim to self-determination is a debatable subject however. In a valueless discussion it could be said that Lincoln was a tyrant over Southern self determination until you agree that slavery was an indefensible position.
This has been known for decades has the orange one stated today US military is not the world police so instead of trying to build a wall get the UN to do there job and we won't need a wall there would be more jobs here at home for former military member as border agents,police and firefighters if those were the jobs they wanted.
Well said, Dubious. The Erdogan regime seems bent on suppressing Turkey's media to prevent any criticism of the man, the judiciary to prevent any legal check on Erdogan and his party, the universities to prevent the exercise of free speech on their campuses and demonstrations against his brutal government, and on and on. Thousands from all corners of Turkish society are in jail for exercising the rights we take for granted here and that trump has whined about repeatedly. Many journalists have been beaten as well as jailed. It's outrageous. The Kurdish forces in Syria provided the backbone of the assault on ISIS. We have had less than half the number of troops in Syria supporting them and others in the fight against the medieval group, "the Islamic State," as were sent to our peaceful border with our neighbor, Mexico, to "stop the caravan." Less than half. For the cost of supporting what amounts to a reinforced battalion of US troops on the ground in Syria, we prevented Assad, the Russians, and ISIS from slaughtering thousands of civilians, with the United States maintaining a semblance of stability and protection for tens of thousands of refugees with that small number of troops that trump, in his ignorance, is now suddenly pulling out. A surprise to our allies in the region, including the Iraqi government and the Gulf States, and NATO. Announced with a "tweet" as our head diplomat in the region was in a meeting assuring them all that we weren't planning on leaving in the near future. He was shocked at finding out with that absurd "tweet" and has now resigned, following General Mattis, who was doing a terrific job as Secretary of Defense, considering that he was working for the juvenile in the White House. But hey, trump is doing a spectacular job according to his ardent supporters here.
Not sure the Lincoln example is analogous. Lincoln considered the southerners to be fellow Americans (albeit misguided), and did not want war; I'm not sure Saddam or Assad feel the same towards the others within their borders.
To make up for his lack of coherent thoughts, he calls people racists and makes super cringey comments like “orange man bad” and “NPC.”
