Conquer Club

After leaving troops positioned between Turkey and the Kurds to act as a buffer against Turkish aggression, and pledging full support for the safety of the Kurds, the US has now overnight announced that it has changed its mind and now plans to abandon the Kurds, move its troops aside and let Turkey slaughter them all:

US troops have begun withdrawing from positions in northern Syria, paving the way for a Turkish operation against Kurdish fighters in the border area.

Kurdish-led forces have until now been a key US ally in Syria, where they helped defeat the Islamic State group, but Turkey regards them as terrorists.

The main Kurdish-led group called the surprise US move a "stab in the back".

The UN humanitarian chief in Syria, Panos Moumtzis, says aid workers are "preparing for the worst" if fighting breaks out in north-eastern Syria.

"From experience, this could result in a displacement of people, we want to make sure that we are ready," he told reporters.

A deal made with the US continues to prove itself of roughly equivalent or lower value to the paper it is written on!

BBC analysis of these recent events:

This decision risks a recasting of alliances in Syria. The Kurds may be forced to seek an accommodation with the Syrian government. The potential chaos could facilitate a resurgence of IS. Indeed, the US pullback of its forces from the border area may herald the full withdrawal of troops from Syria that Mr Trump has long wanted.

It marks a betrayal of Washington's Kurdish allies, a betrayal that many other countries in the region will note with alarm.

Both the Saudis and the Israelis are coming to realise that Mr Trump's robust rhetoric is rarely matched by actions.

Last month the Syria Study Group, a bipartisan body commissioned by Congress, stated in its final report that the US still has significant security interests in Syria and retains some policy levers with which to influence events there. But that is clearly not Present Trump's view.

• Total betrayal of a supposed ally - check
• Saudi Arabia and Israel drifting away from US - check
• Imminent chaos and conflict due to US actions - check
• Potential resurgence of IS due to US actions - check

That's bingo!

Who didn't see this coming?

you mean to tell me that if Americans are not there Middle Easterners would just slaughter each other.. ?

what about Nato.?
what about China?
where's Europe?

no one else is willing to defend these people?
it's the United States Job to protect people from being Genocided by a Muslim Country on the other side of the planet ?

the world screams how awful the United States is.. how we colonize countries.. how we invade regions. how we oppress cultures.
until they need us to defend them.
then the United States is the great Savior. the defender of the weak, the brick wall that prevents countries from being invaded..

so.. you all do support Border Walls . A Border Wall made of American Troops to prevent foreigners from entering a country ..

… isn't that just simply Ironic..

NomadPatriot wrote:no one else is willing to defend these people?

You mean, the people the US funded and cheerled into power for the last eight years?

Dukasaur wrote:Who didn't see this coming?

Apparently not the Kurds who thought it was a good idea to accept American support.

This complete surprise move - described as a 'stab in the back' by the Kurds and slammed by everyone from Lindsey Graham and Nikki Haley to senior officials at the Pentagon and State Department - supposedly came shortly after the Turkish president spoke to Trump over the phone. Is the Turkish president a powerful sweet talker capable even of charming one of the world's most powerful governments into abandoning their key allies at the drop of a hat, or is this just the latest example of how American policy is decided by whomever was the last person to speak to Trump?

Option B is sounding like the most likely. Anyone who wants any help from America ever again had better ensure they have an up to date number for Trump in their contacts list - and that they wait until at least 9pm to call him!

mrswdk wrote:This complete surprise move - described as a 'stab in the back' by the Kurds and slammed by everyone from Lindsey Graham and Nikki Haley to senior officials at the Pentagon and State Department

Swamp-draining decision - I support

We elevated Trump to the presidency to disentangle us from foreign engagements; our Army should not be sacrificed as a speed bump to slow down the Turkish military. Move them out of the way. In fact, move them back to Fort Bragg, California - as far out of the way as they can be.

In any case, the Kurds are about as useless as the Irish - they constantly complain and are the perpetual sticking point that prevents resolution of issues. You can only moan and complain about your sad lot in life for so many centuries before you start to get boring. GO GO TURKEY! GO GO PSNI!

Go Turkish military! Democratic NATO ally!

TODAY RAQQA. TOMORROW VIENNA.

mrswdk wrote:Anyone who wants any help from America ever again had better ensure they have an up to date number for Trump in their contacts list - and that they wait until at least 9pm to call him!

Well there you go. We barely had to wait 30 minutes before the Mrs WDK prophecy machine turned up another bull's eye!

Last thing on Sunday night: following speeches where he repeatedly declared he wanted to attack the Kurds, Erdogan calls Trump asking him to move troops away from the Kurdish border
Monday morning: Trump pulls troops off the border and says the US is fed up interfering in the Middle East's conflicts
Monday lunchtime: outcry from the Republican party, Kurds and American civil service who take it in turns to tell Trump off
Monday afternoon: Trump threatens Erdogan, demands that Turkey stays away from the Kurds and the state department announces that troops are staying put

So now the question is, who is going to call Trump tonight and what policy are they going to tell him to enact??? We are all on tenterhooks!!!!

That incredible backpedal from the Out-of-Controller in Chief in full:

His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Donald John Trump, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the American Empire on Earth in General and the United States in Particular wrote:As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over the captured ISIS fighters and families.

...and whose economy has he ruined before?

mrswdk wrote:That incredible backpedal from the Out-of-Controller in Chief in full:

His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Donald John Trump, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the American Empire on Earth in General and the United States in Particular wrote:As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over the captured ISIS fighters and families.

If you keep up with this insolence we're going to send a middle-aged housewife from Oklahoma City to start driving up and down your street in a Land Rover.

this is a new one. honestly..
I have never seen Mrswdk want the United States to place an army in a foreign country so much...

it's almost like Trump is getting you & the rest of the planet to want him to put armies in foreign countries.... or else scold & ridicule him if he doesn't..

nice 4-D chess move Mr. Trump..
very nice indeed..

NomadPatriot wrote:this is a new one. honestly..
I have never seen Mrswdk want the United States to place an army in a foreign country so much...

it's almost like Trump is getting you & the rest of the planet to want him to put armies in foreign countries.... or else scold & ridicule him if he doesn't..

nice 4-D chess move Mr. Trump..
very nice indeed..

We should stand by our allies. The Kurds are our allies, at least until we sell them out every 20 years or so. This isn't, like, a partisan thing. You want allies to think you'll back them up, not get them genocided once they've not been useful.

spurgistan wrote:

NomadPatriot wrote:this is a new one. honestly..
I have never seen Mrswdk want the United States to place an army in a foreign country so much...

it's almost like Trump is getting you & the rest of the planet to want him to put armies in foreign countries.... or else scold & ridicule him if he doesn't..

nice 4-D chess move Mr. Trump..
very nice indeed..

We should stand by our allies. The Kurds are our allies, at least until we sell them out every 20 years or so. This isn't, like, a partisan thing. You want allies to think you'll back them up, not get them genocided once they've not been useful.

Don't be such a Doe Caught in the Headlights.

Everyone knows what they get when they join an alliance with the U.S. A few years of good times, non-stop parties, all the guns, crack, and whores you want - then, out of nowhere, a 5,000 pound gravity bomb on your head.

- Allies with France in 1783, Went to War with France in 1798
- Allies with the UK in 1898 in Samoa, Switched to the German Side in 1899
- Sold guns to Hussein in 1989, sold the rope to tie his noose 15 years later
- Promised Libya we wouldn't attack if they gave up nukes in 2003, bombed them into oblivion in 2011
The list goes on

Unless the Kurds were total morons they knew what they were signing up for. The U.S. isn't a freakin charity. You produce meat for us or you become the meal. It's just business, nothing personal.

Samoa? Really? My brief googling of that standoff yields that it appears to have been won by a cyclone. Odd bit of history, that. I think we have worse skeletons in our closet than that one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_crisis

Any idea what Saddam might have done between 1989 and 2003 in order to change our view of the stability of the Iraqi-American alliance?

you forgot Panama.

spurgistan wrote:Samoa? Really? My brief googling of that standoff yields that it appears to have been won by a cyclone. Odd bit of history, that. I think we have worse skeletons in our closet than that one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_crisis

That was the first Samoan Civil War.

During the Second Samoan Civil War the gang (UK, USA, Germany) got back together. The UK and USA allied themselves against Germany. Rudyard Kipling was a war correspondent for the lying press and wrote a bunch of Snowflake stories for some London newspaper about how the US and UK were finally reuniting into a great Angolophone military bloc.

Secretly, however, the USA and Germany were negotiating a peace treaty behind the UK's back.

At the last minute the USA switched sides, and Germany and the USA agreed to split Samoa into American Samoa and German Samoa and expel the UK. The USA needed Samoa for coaling operations to keep the new Asiatic colonies - Philippines, Palau, and so forth - supplied. And Germany needed it for the prestige of beating the UK. Then Germany lost German Samoa during WWI to New Zealand or someone.

saxitoxin wrote:Everyone knows what they get when they join an alliance with the U.S.

You can say that again! The diplomatic equivalent of a one night stand.

mrswdk wrote:

saxitoxin wrote:Everyone knows what they get when they join an alliance with the U.S.

You can say that again! The diplomatic equivalent of a one night stand.

a one-night stand with Jack the Ripper

saxitoxin wrote:

mrswdk wrote:

saxitoxin wrote:Everyone knows what they get when they join an alliance with the U.S.

You can say that again! The diplomatic equivalent of a one night stand.

a one-night stand with Jack the Ripper

You can say that again! The diplomatic equivalent of a one night stand with Jack the Ripper.

Israel, shaken by US refusal to aid its allies in the region, is now concluding that it has no real friend or support in the US and will now have to go its own way. Hooray for Middle Eastern independence!

"The mortal blow that the Iranians dealt to the Saudi oil production facilities by means of cruise missiles that were fired from Iran, an attack that was not met in any way with a response from the Trump administration, evinces the utter collapse of the security doctrine that has been advanced by Netanyahu, who based all of his decisions on 'the friendliest president [to Israel] to ever reside in the White House'," wrote Shimon Shiffer in Yedhioth Ahronoth.

The alarm has been compounded by Mr Trump's decision to pull US troops out of north-eastern Syria to clear the way for a Turkish military operation, apparently abandoning America's long-time Kurdish allies.

Again, that has raised concerns here about how far he is prepared to go to protect other allies: "Trump has become unreliable for Israel," concludes Mr Shiffer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-49973217

And today Turkey has of course ignored Trump's tweet threat (thweet?) and invaded Kurdish territory:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-49983357

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican senator and Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, responds to Jack the Ripper's betrayal of the Kurds by accusing him of lying and giving a big helping hand to ISIS:

Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump loyalist on most issues, told Fox News the move represented “a big win for Iran and Assad [and] a big win for Isis”.

He vowed that Congress would pass a resolution reversing the decision. “Isis is not defeated. This is the biggest lie being told by this administration,” Graham said.

He was joined in issuing condemnations by a distinguished national security adviser who served under Bush, Obama and Trump and who was most recently tasked with defeating ISIS:

Brett McGurk, a former US special envoy for the fight against Isis, said the White House statement demonstrated “a complete lack of understanding of anything happening on the ground”.

McGurk pointed out that the US was not holding any Isis detainees. They are being held by the SDF, “which Trump just served up to Turkey”.

“Turkey has neither the intent, desire, nor capacity to manage 60,000 detainees, which State and [Pentagon inspectors general] warn is the nucleus for a resurgent Isis. Believing otherwise is a reckless gamble with our national security,” McGurk said on Twitter.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... ish-allies

mrswdk wrote:
Israel, shaken by US refusal to aid its allies in the region, is now concluding that it has no real friend or support in the US and will now have to go its own way.

I couldn't be happier!