All the News that's fit to print?

Or "The US media is as liberal as the large corporations that own them."

Part of propaganda is to stir up the emotions.

And no country does it better than the good old USA!

Unfortunately, my reaction when I saw all the gushing on about the Kurds was to think: "When the fuck has the US ever really cared about the Kurds?"

That wasn't the response that the US Media was hoping to elicit from me. I was supposed to be upset about what was going on in Syria.

Well, in another way than it is a mistake that has come back to bite the US in the ass.

Trump talks about fake news, which the US Main Stream Media likes to pretend it isn't. But there is a definite bias there.

FAIR.org has a fantastic piece on how most of the reporting on the situation in Syria misrepresents the facts.

You might want to compare NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's comments to Erdogan to Trump's letter.

Not sure what to say about Trump's handling of the situation, but I will say he is the perfect distraction for what is really going on right now. It's really easy to blame Trump for a situation which should never been allowed to have happen.

What's the alternative?

I hear a lot of people criticising Trump for the Syria thing, but I don't see any alternative solutions being offered. The problem is that this was a time bomb where the US was acting with NATO ally Turkey in Syria.

The Kurds were good for being proxy troops for the US, but they were a problematic ally. First off, the Turks (and US) lists them as being terrorists. Secondly, the Kurds' loyalty was to themselves and their goal of a nation. That was a goal that the US could never honestly promise. And while the Kurds will happily fight anyone: they won't do it for someone else unless the someone else is going to protect them.

That leads to problem one: the Kurds will shift loyalties to who ever will protect them. They were fighting with Assad early in the conflict. The US lured them away, but the Kurds made it clear that they would switch back to Assad if the US stopped protecting them. The problem is that the military isn't the body that makes the decision: the politicians are. The military isn't supposed to question: it's supposed to obey.

And the military can't make too many friends in a place where there are rapidly changing allegiances such as the Syrian Civil War. Learn a lesson from the Kurds, your loyalty is to yourself first.

The Kurds were an American ally against ISIS, not Turkey. The United States made no commitment to protect the Kurds against the Turkish army, much less assist them in maintaining a degree of independence in northern Syria that I know about. The United States was entitled to pursue its own interests in the region without some form of formal agreement. Neither Trump nor Obama defined those interests in a way that would justify a deepening military engagement in Syria. 

Leaving the few soldiers in the Kurdish zone endangers American lives. The Generals who felt strongly could have disobeyed orders if they felt such a strong tie to the Kurds, but then the blame would fall on them for endangering their troops in a Turkish invasion.

Next problem: the NATO Treaty.  The Treaty is a formal agreement, unlike whatever was between the US and Kurds. The existence of a Treaty ruled out a military response of any sort. A no-fly zone would be a no-no. Nothing says betrayal like shooting down an Ally's airplane.

On the other hand, Congress could declare war on Turkey if they feel as strongly as they purport to, but they won't.

The only real options are economic or diplomatic. The only real difference between what I would have done and what Trump did would have been to get international action to prevent the Turkish invasion. I also would have begun working on an exit strategy earlier. The Turkish invasion of Syria was not something which was in any way a surprise, yet no one did anything to prevent the problem.

The big problem is that there is a lot of bluster here. Congress is blustering. The Generals are blustering. The Turks are blustering. Trump is Blustering.

It's easy to play the blame game, but this was a disaster waiting to happen.  Too many people failed to act to prevent the problem.

At this point, the US should take a deep breath and look at how it got into yet another mess.

See also:

• Trump’s Ending of Wars Could Derail the Democrats

If Barack Obama made a really stupid decision about US troop deployment: wouldn't we hear about it?

Something that Senator Lindsay Graham would describe as “the dumbest idea in the world.”

What I am describing is something that would put the US into conflict with a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member.

Something which should have had congressional approval before being implemented. Something along the lines of funding an organisation which the US State Department lists as being a terrorist organisation.

Yet, that is exactly the situation that happened in Syria. After all the person who was president when the American-led intervention in the Syrian Civil War was Barack Obama.

There are a lot of things which stink to me about the US coverage of this event. The main one is the sudden sympathy for the Kurds.

But even more bothering is that Donald Trump is being blamed for something which sits squarely on Barack Obama's shoulders.

Yet even people who would have attacked Barack Obama are criticising Trump for this situation.

Trump was right? or who really committed treason?

Treason is the only crime defined in the US Constitution (Article III, Section iii):

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

Prosecutions under this section are rare since it requires the act to take place during war time.

I'm no fan of Donald Trump.

On the other hand, whose administration decided to arm a group on the US State Department's list of Terrorist organisations. An action that would eventually lead to conflict with a NATO treaty ally?

Of course, you can't just blame Obama since congress knew, but did nothing about it. In a previously posted video, Lindsay Graham asks about the Kurds being listed as terrorists. Sen. Graham was among the harshest critics of Trump’s decision this week. Graham was once sympathetic to Turkish concerns and called the partnership with the Syrian Kurds “the dumbest idea in the world” in an April 2016 Senate hearing, given the PKK connection (clip mentioned above).

The question is who in the US was in charge on September 22, 2014 when the US began its involvement in Syria!

See also:

• The US played down Turkey’s concerns about Syrian Kurdish forces. That couldn’t last.

Syria, Trump Derangement Syndrome, and the Media

I have to admit to being baffled by the current reaction to Trump's decision to remove 50-250 soldiers from the Kurdish held area of Syria. Probably because I am somewhat aware of the situation, which means I see this as nothing new.

I'm no fan of Donald Trump, but the way the current Turkish invasion has been portrayed seriously makes me question the bias of US media. There has been absolutely NO discussion of some serious background points that put an entirely different spin to this story.

Part of me wanted to subtitle this "I love it when Barack Obama gets us involved in pointless military exercises." US involvement in the Syrian Civil War began back on 22 September 2014 during the Obama administration.

YPJ girl soldiers: shouldn't they be in school?

It seems that the Trump detractors have been too willing to think that the "abandonment" of the Kurd was somehow "sudden" when anyone familiar with this will tell you that it is amazing it hasn't happened yet. The Kurds in Syria are tied to the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan). This group is considered a terrorist group by the United States, European Union, and NATO: to name a few. The YPG/YPJ's use of child soldiers should be embarrassing as fuck to people who are trying to make Syria's Kurds somehow "allies" of the west. The Kurds are no saints, but you wouldn't guess that from the current attention they are getting lately.

Andrew McCarthy gets to the crux of the matter:

The Kurds have been our allies against ISIS, but it is not for us that they have fought. They fight ISIS for themselves, with our help. They are seeking an autonomous zone and, ultimately, statehood. The editorial fails to note that the Kurds we have backed, led by the YPG (People’s Protection Units), are the Syrian branch of the PKK (the Kurdistan Worker’s Party) in Turkey. The PKK is a militant separatist organization with Marxist-Leninist roots. Although such informed observers as Michael Rubin contend that the PKK has “evolved,” it remains a formally designated foreign terrorist organization under U.S. law. While our government materially supports the PKK’s confederates, ordinary Americans have been prosecuted for materially supporting the PKK.

The fact is that:

"The Kurdish militias weren’t Washington’s first choice. U.S. attempts to train secular, anti-Assad, Syrian Arab forces to fight on its behalf cost hundreds of millions of dollars but produced just 5-50 fighters. The U.S. was forced to change tack and support Syrian Kurdish militias. The largest and most powerful of these were the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which were later called the “Syrian Democratic Forces” in the hopes of easing Turkish hostility and endearing the new fighting force to the predominantly Arab territories it began to conquer with U.S. air support."

What bothers me most about all this is the sudden concern for the Kurds, a group which has been fucked over for some time in the geopolitical struggles of this region. The Kurds say that they "have no friends, but the mountains." On the other hand, all the anti-Trump forces have developed a deep love for  these "strong allies of the US."

Another thing which is conspicuous in all this is the fact that Turkey and The Kurds have had an armed conflict going on since at least 1978. There have been two other Turkish "invasions" of Syria (2016 and 2018) prior to the latest. A Northern Syria Buffer Zone was created by agreement between Turkey, The Kurds, and the US. Turkey felt the Kurds were in breach of that agreement, which is the reason for the current mess.

An even more important point which is missing is that Turkey is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, as is the United States.  NATO, as a treaty adopted by the United States is part of US law (US Constitution Article VI, ii)! The Turks as co-signators of the treaty are our allies, not the Kurds.

As far as I know there is no formal agreement between the US and Kurds making them "allies" of any sort. In fact, the Kurds have fought with the Assad Regime and their Russian Allies during the Northern Aleppo offensive of 2016. The Kurds will fight with whoever promises to protect them at the moment. They aren't strong allies of anybody but themselves.

The Kurds can fuck back in the same manner as they have been fucked with in the political events of the region which makes it amusing when people try to make them out as "strong allies".  Anyone who says that appears to be ignorant about the Kurdish people. The Kurds will find that all this concern will vanish like writing in the sand after the next news cycle.

Scott Ritter, the man who was "the loudest and most credible skeptic of the Bush administration’s contention that Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction" writes:

That Turkey, an American NATO ally, is waging war against the SDF (which the Turks label as YPG/PKK—more on that later), while at the same time targeting ISIS, the archenemy of the all these Kurdish groups, underscores the complexity of the regional politics at play in northern Syria today. Deciphering this alphabet soup goes a long way towards explaining why the Turkish actions are justified and why President Trump will ultimately be vindicated for pulling the troops out.  

The reality of the situation is as Scott puts it:

The American embrace of the SDF was always a temporary solution to the problem of ISIS. The United States never has supported a greater Kurdish nation. And while there’s been much lip service to the idea of using the SDF as a vehicle to destabilize the government of Bashar al-Assad, regime change has never been seriously pursued by the United States in Syria.

The most important point is raised by Andrew McCarthy:

 Our intervention in Syria has never been authorized by Congress. Those of us who opposed intervention maintained that congressional authorization was necessary because there was no imminent threat to our nation. Contrary to the editorial’s suggestion, having U.S. forces “deter further genocidal bloodshed in northern Syria” is not a mission for which Americans support committing our men and women in uniform. Such bloodlettings are the Muslim Middle East’s default condition, so the missions would never end.

A congressional debate should have been mandatory before we jumped into a multi-layered war, featuring anti-American actors and shifting loyalties on both sides. In fact, so complex is the situation that President Obama’s initial goal was to oust Syria’s Assad regime; only later came the pivot to fighting terrorists, which helped Assad. That is Syria: Opposing one set of America’s enemies only empowers another. More clear than what intervention would accomplish was the likelihood of becoming enmeshed, inadvertently or otherwise, in vicious conflicts of which we wanted no part — such as the notorious and longstanding conflict between Turks and Kurds.

There are a lot of different players in the Syrian Civil War. It was a dangerous game for the US to have entered. Although, it wasn't really just the US that was involved here: Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve comprised soldiers from at least Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. There were more troops on the ground than the 50-250 US soldiers.

I find the media's story troubling because I see narrative in the US media which is highly partisan and interventionist. I see a concern which is based not on reality, but on a media image which couldn't be further from the fact.

But it sure is convenient for making Trump look bad.

See also:

• In supporting the Kurds in Syria, US has been playing fast and loose with the law
• A decade of policymaking failures is to blame for new Syria crisis
• The US has backed 21 of the 28 'crazy' militias leading Turkey's brutal invasion of northern Syria | The Grayzone
• Trump’s Betrayal of the Kurds Is Terrible, But the Answer Is Not Endless War 
• Why the Syria's Kurdish Militia Can't Do What Washington Wants 
• The U.S. played down Turkey’s concerns about Syrian Kurdish forces. That couldn’t last. 
•  A French Officer Speaks the Truth about the War in Syria
• Khury Petersen-Smith on Turkey & the Kurds
• State Department Maintains Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) Designation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) 
• Explained: Why Turkey wants a military assault on Syrian Kurds
• Syrian Kurds say YPG no different than Daesh
• Why the Syrian Kurds Aren’t Necessarily Our Friends
• The Only Thing That Can Save the Kurds Is Themselves
• Eight Times the U.S. has Betrayed the Kurds
• Turkey and the Kurds: It’s More Complicated Than You Think  
• The War for Post-U.S. Syria Has Begun
• Trump says he’s ending the US role in Syria. That’s not true. 
• Trump is right to take troops out of Syria. Now they must leave Iraq and Afghanistan 
• What is the Situation in North-eastern Syria?
•  Who will rule the north?The Kurds are creating a state of their own in northern Syria
• The Kurds Once Again Face American Abandonment
• Dispatch: Anger on Turkish border as conflict reveals contradiction at the heart of Western Syria policy
• VOA: Coalition says 'Good Progress' in North Syria Buffer Zone
•  US withdrawal in Syria is only a small number of special operators, says Trump administration
• Wikipedia: Northern Syria Buffer Zone 
• Wikipedia: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)
• In Pictures: Turkey's military operation in northeast Syria

Beware involvement in the current crisis in Syria

I think this is more embarrassing for Trump's detractors than Trump. TDS is a dangerous thing!

More on the Kurds

Not sure how accurate this is, but it definitely changes the debate if true.

But it does demonstrate that Trump Derangement Syndrome has infected the debate!

How can so-called progressives not support a withdrawal from this territory if the Kurds used child soldiers?

Trump Derangement Syndrome is REAL!

OK, I'm going to preface this by saying I'm no fan of Donald Trump.

On the other hand, you may know people who start frothing at the mouth at the mere mention of the "Cheeto" if they are left of centre.

There is a right wing manifestation as well which thrives on making the aforementioned people cringe. The ones on the right will support Trump because it makes the left leaners act in the manner depicted.

For the Left, Trump can do nothing right and is up to no good. It is their hope he will somehow be impeached, which isn't very likely.

Ted Rall hit the nail on the head with his definition:

“Trump Derangement Syndrome” is when you have so much anger and rage at President Trump that you are willing to do anything, no matter how stupid or reckless or dangerous, to try to get him out of office by hook or by crook. Lately I’ve been hearing Democrats say that they’re hoping that the economy head south, as if they didn’t live in the economy themselves. Others want him to attack Iran so that people angry at the war don’t vote for him for reelection. This is crazy talk

The recent incident with Turkey announcing it would be making bombing raids in Syria to push back the Kurds demonstrates how this all works.

I would put that most people who were upset by this know next to nothing about the Kurds: a stateless people who mostly live in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. They also don't know that Turkey has been participating in airstrikes against ISIL alongside the U.S.-led coalition, but also actively supporting the Syrian opposition and occupying large swaths of northwestern Syria while engaging in significant ground combat with ISIL, the SDF, and the Syrian government since August 2016.

SDF if you didn't know is The Syrian Democratic Forces which is composed primarily of Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian/Syriac militias, as well as some smaller Armenian, Turkmen and Chechen forces.

Since most people don't know about the situation here is a brief run down of it:

The Kurds are an ethnic group of about 40 million people centered at the intersection of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. Many naturally want their own state. The four countries in which they live naturally do not want that to happen.

On the one hand, the Kurds are a perfect tool for U.S. foreign policy. We can arm the Kurds in whichever of these countries is currently our enemy, whether to make trouble for that country’s government or to accomplish various other objectives. On the other hand, we don’t want the Kurds we’re utilizing to ever get too powerful. If that happened, the other Kurds — i.e., the ones living just across the border in whichever of these countries are currently our allies — might get ideas about freedom and independence.

It seems that this is another instance of the Kurds being used for political gain. In this case, an attempt at internal US political gain by putting Trump into a no win situation.

Ahval, a trilingual independent online news site on Turkey, reported on 1 October that:

"U.S. and Turkish officials last month (September) agreed to work together to create a buffer zone free of fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara views as an existential threat due to its presumed links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK is an armed group that has been at war in Turkey for over three decades and has been designated as a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the EU and the United States."
"However, Ankara has been critical of the lack of progress made with the envisaged zone, threatening to put its own operation plan into effect if Turkish troops do not control a “safe zone” within a few weeks.
Turkey will also continue with operations in northern Iraq “until all terrorists are eliminated from the area,’’ the council said.
Turkey on Aug. 23, launched Operation Claw-3 in northern Iraq targeting PKK militants.
Monday’s statement by the council also said that Turkey would continue its activities in the eastern Mediterranean."

Al-Jazeera also contradicted the narrative seen in the Western Press about Trump giving a green light to this. Let's toss in that this was not a total withdrawal of US troops from Syria:

In a statement, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said, "The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial "Caliphate," will no longer be in the immediate area."

The New York Times reported Monday that about 100 to 150 American forces would withdraw from northern Syria but not completely from the country. Newsweek confirmed the Times reporting but the National Security Council official said the number was closer to 230 service members, among them U.S. Special Forces and reconnaissance units.

While Trump's action caused a stir,  it may end up actually creating peace in this part of the world: which is why this is a prime example of Trump Derangement Syndrome. People are upset that Trump could possibly bring peace to the Middle East.

Sure, he may have blundered his way into it, but he would have done brought peace to the Middle East.

Which people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome would hate. Yes they would hate peace if Trump managed to achieve it!

Anyway, this story appears to have lived its short life cycle especially if it is yet another tactic that backfires on Trump's detractors. The bottom line is that this is a prime example of Trump Derangement Syndrome because people started reacting without all the facts. It seemed that emotion triumphed over reason in this instance.

See also:

• Syrian Kurds say YPG no different than Daesh
• Trump says he’s ending the US role in Syria. That’s not true.