Oh no, we chose Turkey? A Top 10 military power and long standing NATO ally over a rag tag group of totally not terrorists. What ever will we do?
Turkey has a history of committing genocide and trying to hide it. Turkey wasn't our staunchest ally in the war against Isis. We could have coordinated a withdrawal from Syrian that wouldn't have left our allies in the lurch, and still maintained our alliance with Turkey.
Seems a weak point when you consider the positive results. Really the Kurdish terrorists were never that important and they won't be. They were useful idiots. Plus that really only matters if you like terror cells.
They did matter to our military and saving the lives of the United States servicemen. That may not be important to you, but to many of us and other people that have family and loved ones serving in the military, it means a great deal. What doesn't matter is your oversimplification of the Kurds as terrorists. If people want to reduce ever group to an oversimplified negative label we could do that. The Turks are a murderous genocidal nation that is being run an increasingly authoritarian ruler who is against a free press. The United States is a nation that embraces racism with a long history of racism to boot. Those oversimplifications aren't relevant to what is happening in Syria. Neither is yours of the Kurds.
You are veering off topic with two other highly debatable statements. The YPG are not the heroes that you have been told by numerous propaganda pieces. They are just another wing of commie seperatists who do not even represent their entire people. They are militia and terrorists at that. It is not that complex. We do not need them and in war all is fair. I am sorry this age old concept is a hard truth to swallow. It may be because you are largely an emotional arguer.
I'd love to hear your opinion of Fethullah Gulen, dachuda86. Is he the satanic cult leading terrorist puppetmaster that Erdogan claims?
I see you are sticking with your oversimplification. The points I made about the U.S. and Turkey were also oversimplifications. The fact that you find them debatable is the whole point. Oversimplifications are always debatable just as yours about our allies are. You can say whatever you want about the strategy involved, but you can't argue that abandoning allies to a nation that has history of attempting genocide and trying to cover it up, and not admitting it doesn't bode well for America's future in gathering intel and allies in our future battles against terrorism. For the security of our nation, it is an incredibly stupid (not to mention immoral) thing to do.
what genocide are you referring to? Also what am I simplifying? Sometimes things do not need to be complicated. Complicating the kurdish terrorists is not needed and in my opinion is from deceptive propaganda. There is no need to try to hide reality with unneeded complexity when the answer is clear. I think you have become the victim of pro war (pro communist as well) propaganda. We are the ones who initially went against our allies the turks by arming Kurds. So if you want to speak about loyalty, we were in the wrong to help the kurdish terror groups carve territory, instead of fighting ourselves. Which is not justified in the first place. Obama tried to get us there and didn't feel ok with taking the heat of a Bush style full ground war and even let congress make the call, and they didn't approve it. So arming terrorist groups, is that more ethical? Drone striking their cities to rubble? That is just simplifying it I guess. Oh and I bet this doesn't in anyway create more terrorists in the future. It isn't like the Kurdish militia cross borders and use those skills and weapons we gave them on Turks. The east of Turkey is such a wonderful place these days. Go visit sometime.
Turkey has a history of attempting genocide and still denies it. They tried it against resident Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians.
You are referring to events that are from the Ottomon Empire which is not the Turkish Republic. There is a huge difference when comparing the country that rose out of the ashes of WW1, and following aftermath, to a medival remnant that lasted way longer than it should have. And yes a lot of people died. It was sad. Changes zero when it comes to who the better strategic ally is.
Note... senator graham was strongly opposed to troop withdrawal from Syria. Either trump outright lied to graham and the weakling senator believed him, or graham is lying (not unheard of) or trump's position is to say one thing and do another (yea, shocking, I know).
Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said that contrary to Trump’s claim, Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has not yet been defeated. “I don’t believe ISIS is defeated. I think ISIS is as much an idea as it is a number of ISIS fighters. There’s a lot of intelligence that says there are actually more ISIS fighters around the world now than there were a couple of years ago,” the four-star Retired Army Gen. sharply criticized President Donald Trump , calling him immoral and untruthful and taking aim at his foreign policy decisions. In an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” McChrystal told host Martha Raddatz of Trump, “I don’t think he tells the truth.” The general also responded affirmatively when asked whether he believes Trump is “immoral.” https://www.stripes.com/news/us/for...al-calls-trump-dishonest-and-immoral-1.562590
If you're waiting until organizations like Al-Qaeda/ISIS and the Taliban are "defeated" until you decide you can withdraw your troops from places like Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, you'll never be able to leave. Let's GTFO of these places already. That's going to be unpopular with military figures of course, but why should we listen to them? Warfare is there raison d'etre. They don't want to end the warfare unless there is a conclusive and decisive victory, which there will never be with Western powers fighting insurgents in these countries.
straw-man fallacy the bone of contention has been that the dotard lied and the abrupt manner which he announced the withdraw, w/o any communication w our strategic allies / partners
Uh, it's not a strawman, I'm addressing McChrystals comments about "defeating" ISIS, with the suggestion pulling out of Syria is a bad idea. I'm rebuking him and pointing out, McChrystal, along with most in the military, will criticize any move that would take away from the military. Conflict is their raison d'etre. The answer for military people is more money, more guns and more fighting. Politicians need not always listen to "military experts", they have their own agenda. I, for one, am tired of being the worlds policeman and spending billions/trillions of dollars in doing so. Obama/Trump/Clinton/Bush... I don't care who is President, I want them to drastically reduce the size of the military and our commitments all over the globe.
Strawman. The kurdish terrorists don't matter as much as people pretend. They are no longer useful and we must not lose Turkey to other powers. Obama damaged Turkish US relations heavily by supporting them.
