What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.

Turkey invades Syria: Update- ISIS rebuilds (1 Viewer)

That’s one aspect. 

Another is a lot of innocent people, who we promised to protect, are going to die. 
I thought I heard this morning that Trump spoke with Erdogan and gave him the go ahead, but told him not to go too far.  Did I hear that correctly?

 
What's Turkey's intention? To annex Syrian territory? Something else?
To extinguish the ethnic Kurdish presence in the region, no?  Consequences be damned.

Whenever the consequences are to be damned I find that we all are those consequences.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
What's Turkey's intention? To annex Syrian territory? Something else?
Reading between the lines here, I think it's to keep a semi-autonomous home for the Kurds from developing.  Turkey has a fairly large population of Kurds who have long wanted their own homeland.  Turkey regards their armed forces as terrorists.  I don't think Turkey is planning on annexing Syrian land long term.  I wouldn't think that they would have moved in without at least a quiet assurance of non-intervention from Russia, even as Putin tells them to make sure they measure their actions.  I think Russia basically will view it as the Turks having to hold and police that land for now as opposed to them, as long as eventually Assad retains control.  There is also a plan for them to resettle Syrian refugees in that area.  Turkey does have a large number of refugees there, over 2.5 MM by one estimate I saw.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Disgusting. Since this guy took office, and his actions since, the US can no longer be considered the "good guy" anymore. 
So one accomplishment of the Trump Administration is that he has aligned our self perception with the more general world view.  That may help us in understanding others.  That was probably his intent.  Not wagging the dog as I initially suspected.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Here's a BBC article from February 2018 that lays out some of the recent history in the Turkey-Syria border area. I hadn't realized how much the Turkish government regarded Kurds as a threat.

Syria war: Why Turkey's battle for northern Syria matters

Just look at Turkey's controversial offensive in Syria's northern region of Afrin [back in Feb 2018 - db], intended to extend Turkey's existing buffer zone inside the country and to evict Kurdish fighters from a broad swathe of territory.

The Ankara government sees the fighters as allies of Kurdish separatists inside Turkey. Indeed, despite various shifts in Turkish policy towards the conflict in Syria, opposition to Kurdish autonomy has been constant and absolute.

The Turks will simply not tolerate what they see as the threat posed by an autonomous Kurdish zone on their southern frontier. And they are clearly willing to use significant force to remove it.

 
I thought I heard this morning that Trump spoke with Erdogan and gave him the go ahead, but told him not to go too far.  Did I hear that correctly?
No idea but I certainly would be interested in reading the transcript of those phone conversations. The FULL transcript. 

 
Could somebody explain this? Who released these 10,000 ISIS fighters? Why? This seems bad...

@tribelaw

If some of the 10,000 ISIS fighters are released by Turkey’s imminent attack on the Kurds as a predictable result of Trump’s insane pullout, our president will have given “aid and comfort” to an enemy with whom we are at war under the AUMF. Read Article III of the Constitution.

5:33 AM · Oct 9, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
Not released yet. But they’re being held by the Kurds, and the Kurds have warned that they can’t hold them if they have to defend themselves against invasion. 

 
Could somebody explain this? Who released these 10,000 ISIS fighters? Why? This seems bad...

@tribelaw

If some of the 10,000 ISIS fighters are released by Turkey’s imminent attack on the Kurds as a predictable result of Trump’s insane pullout, our president will have given “aid and comfort” to an enemy with whom we are at war under the AUMF. Read Article III of the Constitution.

5:33 AM · Oct 9, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
My - very rudimentary - understanding is the US left them in custody - to be taken care of by the Kurds and/or Turkey.

If they are released - it will technically be at the hands of the Kurds and/or Turkey - but realistically it the US pulling out that is to blame.

But, I don't think any ISIS fighters have been released - yet.

 
Could somebody explain this? Who released these 10,000 ISIS fighters? Why? This seems bad...

@tribelaw

If some of the 10,000 ISIS fighters are released by Turkey’s imminent attack on the Kurds as a predictable result of Trump’s insane pullout, our president will have given “aid and comfort” to an enemy with whom we are at war under the AUMF. Read Article III of the Constitution.

5:33 AM · Oct 9, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
So the Kurds have been holding the ISIS prisoners in Northern Syria for quite some time. With the US abandoning them and leaving them at the mercy of the Turkish military, the Kurds aren't going to stick around and certainly won't bring those prisoners with them. Hence, they will most likely go free.

Unconscionably stupid move on all fronts by this administration.

 
Could somebody explain this? Who released these 10,000 ISIS fighters? Why? This seems bad...

@tribelaw

If some of the 10,000 ISIS fighters are released by Turkey’s imminent attack on the Kurds as a predictable result of Trump’s insane pullout, our president will have given “aid and comfort” to an enemy with whom we are at war under the AUMF. Read Article III of the Constitution.

5:33 AM · Oct 9, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
The fighters are currently in prisons in Syria guarded by the Kurds. The Kurds have said that if Turkey invades, they will have to send the people guarding those prisoners to go fight the war, leaving them open for prisoners to be freed.

 
So the Kurds have been holding the ISIS prisoners in Northern Syria for quite some time. With the US abandoning them and leaving them at the mercy of the Turkish military, the Kurds aren't going to stick around and certainly won't bring those prisoners with them. Hence, they will most likely go free.

Unconscionably stupid move on all fronts by this administration.
I try to find humor in most anything - so I am imagining Trump watching this unfold in the situation room with Satellite cameras showing the ISIS prisoners fleeing the Kurdish prisons, and Trump yelling at the screen asking why the Kurds are letting them go free, while the Kurds fight for their lives... 

 
RE: Imprisoned ISIS fighters

What happens if Kurdish fighters, if under Turkish attack, decide to wipe out the ISIS captives in a desperate move to not have them freed... on their way out to fight invading Turks?  

 
Not just on Trumps’ hands.
Everyone who has enabled him is at fault. He’s been a ticking time bomb for his entire presidency and surrounded himself with under qualified yes men. This was bound to happen eventually. But hey we got those tax cuts, judges and liberal tears.

 
RE: Imprisoned ISIS fighters

What happens if Kurdish fighters, if under Turkish attack, decide to wipe out the ISIS captives in a desperate move to not have them freed... on their way out to fight invading Turks?  
Can i be frank? 

That would be cruel, savage, barbaric, against everything we believe...and better for us. 

 
He's letting our allies get slaughtered. 

Cool cool cool. 

Man how far are we going down this rathole?

 
Can i be frank? 

That would be cruel, savage, barbaric, against everything we believe...and better for us. 
I agree - until the last part.

It is decidedly not better for us - to uphold those values.  We win by doing the "right" thing.  We are not better when we condone the murder of prisoners.  It makes us a lesser nation - and that will cost us on many levels.

 
I agree - until the last part.

It is decidedly not better for us - to uphold those values.  We win by doing the "right" thing.  We are not better when we condone the murder of prisoners.  It makes us a lesser nation - and that will cost us on many levels.
I didn’t say we should condone it. I wrote that it would be better for us if those prisoners were dead. Sorry but there it is. 

 
RE: Imprisoned ISIS fighters

What happens if Kurdish fighters, if under Turkish attack, decide to wipe out the ISIS captives in a desperate move to not have them freed... on their way out to fight invading Turks?  
I thought about this- they take some guards from the prison, an uprising occurs, and the remaining guards mow the prisoners down. Seems like isis would have numbers though, and would eventually overtake them. 

 
I agree - until the last part.

It is decidedly not better for us - to uphold those values.  We win by doing the "right" thing.  We are not better when we condone the murder of prisoners.  It makes us a lesser nation - and that will cost us on many levels.
No one said we would or should condone it.  Whatever happens is going to happen.  It would be appalling but those types of acts tend to happen in war-torn regions where men are desperate for survival.  Freed ISIS fighters could be available to attack the Kurds as well.   

 
Well might as well pull any troops remaining in Iraq and all of the troops out Afghanistan while we are at it.   Let's really screw things up

 
 We are not better when we condone the murder of prisoners.  It makes us a lesser nation - and that will cost us on many levels.
Also regarding this: we haven’t condoned it in the past, but we have done it: at the Bulge, at Okinawa, in Korea, in Vietnam. Even in the American south during the Civil War. We have a long history of murdering prisoners. 

 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top