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Trump told Turkey's Erdogan in Dec. 14 call about Syria, 'it's all yours. We are done'

Mycroft said:
The Saudis don't have to "defend" the Kurds. They just have to "help" defend the Kurds. Just like the US is helping defend the Kurds by sending them truck loads of armament.
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The US has been supporting the Kurds with airstrikes, fire support from artillery, special forces and combat advisors. None of these things the Saudis can provide in meaningful detail.
 
joko104 said:
The Democratic Party - the party of war and death - is hysterical at the thought of us not being perpetually in war everywhere forever. Perpetual war. Perpetual Cold War. That is what the super rich want and that's who the Democratic Party works for.
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Go into our www.debatepolitics.com search engine, and you’ll find a very different song when Obama was president, and ISIS (that “JV Team) was flourishing. Like the quote at the bottom of this post.

ISIS is not flourishing, they’re been beyond decimated... reduced to 1% of territory from what they were under Obama. This was done quite rapidly too... under Trump.

pbrauer said:
I don't know how to stop it, however please consider that we lost about 3000 people on 911 and more than twice that amount fighting against it. The situation is worse, these people are suicidal and want more war so they can kill more of us. I'm not suggesting we stop fighting, I think there are probably better ways than the number boots on the ground approach.
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beerftw said:
saudi and uae will not protect the kurds, infact during the afrin offensive the only one who came to the kurds aid was the iran shia militias and assads forces, and they only came in what little each could spare for a side battle. It will most likely end up as a status quo kurds go back with assad and take the best deal they can get vs the option of fighting turkey.

However turkey may not have a pleasant run fighting the kurds, it took them quite a while just to take afrin, the kurds love to retreat and pull a pincer attack, and you have to wonder how many times they can get turkish forces with such maneuvers.
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But the Kurds are still at a disadvantage without armored fighting vehicles, air support, and heavy artilliary
 
beerftw said:
Stretched thin is a poor answer, because technichally they have no real military, they have some saudi officers, with the rest of it's ranks being mercenary forces. They have a piss poor command structure, their military lacks unity, and none of the mercenaries they send have any interest in fighting wars for saudi. Saudi arabia is the perfect example of why advanced military equipment and massive military budgets do not mean squat if the military is incapable of using those resources efficiently. You could send those guys a bunch of f-22 and f-35 fighter jets brand new modern abrahms tanks new mraps etc and they would still lose to goat herders.


I will put it this way, the abrahms holds the record for worst performing tank since ww2, 99% of that record is from saudi arabia in they war against yemen and iraq against isis, hinting that there was nothing wrong with the carburator but something very wrong with the operator.
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So the abrams has gained its reputation from performing well against opponents who were unprepared (Iraqi t-72s in desert storm and Iraqi freedom) and not against a battle tank of equal caliber?
 
Airyaman said:
Actually, it appears it really was.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/withdrawal-syria-region-181223131305616.html

Saudi Arabia also has strategic interests in the area. Over the past year, Riyadh exerted tremendous efforts to convince President Trump to maintain a substantial military presence in northeast Syria to counterbalance both Turkey and Iran. Last November, the Saudis committed $100m to convince the US to keep its troops in Syria. At one point, Riyadh even offered to send troops to patrol the area alongside the US and the YPG. Hence the US decision to leave the area likely caused major disappointment for the Saudis and encouraged them to play an even more hands-on role in the country's future.
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yawn...

I give you a straight up "news article" that did nothing but state facts, and you counter with an opinion piece (from al Jazeera, of all places) that talks about what "could" happen.

Let me know when you have some news, okay?

Moving on...
 
Jredbaron96 said:
The US has been supporting the Kurds with airstrikes, fire support from artillery, special forces and combat advisors. None of these things the Saudis can provide in meaningful detail.
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shrug...

If you say so.

I guess we'll see if you are correct.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
So the abrams has gained its reputation from performing well against opponents who were unprepared (Iraqi t-72s in desert storm and Iraqi freedom) and not against a battle tank of equal caliber?
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Not quite it, rather the abrahms got bad reputation from state militaries who were incompetent in using them. For example the tank strategies need to change when fighting insurgencies or dealing with ied attacks, saudi uses them like they were indestructable and does not alter strategies towards their threat, while america for example against ied's and anti tank missiles from insurgents modified their strategy on the fly to cope with the environment the tank was facing.

Iraq and saudi are poor at tank strategy, as well as strategy with aircraft armored vehicles military formations etc, my point was it was not their equipment but their own incompetence that caused such major losses.
 
beerftw said:
Not quite it, rather the abrahms got bad reputation from state militaries who were incompetent in using them. For example the tank strategies need to change when fighting insurgencies or dealing with ied attacks, saudi uses them like they were indestructable and does not alter strategies towards their threat, while america for example against ied's and anti tank missiles from insurgents modified their strategy on the fly to cope with the environment the tank was facing.

Iraq and saudi are poor at tank strategy, as well as strategy with aircraft armored vehicles military formations etc, my point was it was not their equipment but their own incompetence that caused such major losses.
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I heard that the Iraqi military, or the Republican guard portion of said military, borrowed tenants of soviet military doctrine and incorporated it into the formation of their doctrine.

Perhaps the Saudis did the same thing?
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
But the Kurds are still at a disadvantage without armored fighting vehicles, air support, and heavy artilliary
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They lacked all of that in the afrin offensive, and it took quite a while for turkey even having all of that to take control of afrin, and that was with the majority of kurds not going up there to fight and instead fighting isis. Case and point the kurds know how to fight, they will probably side with assad to regain the semi autonomy they had before the civil war, but if turkey tries to invade before that the slaughter will go both ways.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
I heard that the Iraqi military, or the Republican guard portion of said military, borrowed tenants of soviet military doctrine and incorporated it into the formation of their doctrine.

Perhaps the Saudis did the same thing?
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Iraq barely copied soviet doctrine, soviet doctrine covered mobilization of troops and tanks, using terrain to mask air defence systems, and many more things. In the gulf war iraq more often than not entrenched their tanks using them more like artillery, kept their air defense systems exposed and easy to find, and overall left themselves easy targets.

Another difference was even though soviets had no real nco corps, they had a command structure, while iraq and many other arab nations relied on orders from the top before they could even fire back, this was due to the arab worlds fear of a military uprising, so they left their militaries barely trained and their officers with nearly no authority to ensure they could not rise up and overthrow their leadership.
 
Mycroft said:
yawn...

I give you a straight up "news article" that did nothing but state facts, and you counter with an opinion piece (from al Jazeera, of all places) that talks about what "could" happen.

Let me know when you have some news, okay?

Moving on...
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Your "straight up" news article was from a time when the US troops were still there and not about to be pulled out. Things have changed quite a bit since then if you have not noticed.
 
beerftw said:
Iraq barely copied soviet doctrine, soviet doctrine covered mobilization of troops and tanks, using terrain to mask air defence systems, and many more things. In the gulf war iraq more often than not entrenched their tanks using them more like artillery, kept their air defense systems exposed and easy to find, and overall left themselves easy targets.

Another difference was even though soviets had no real nco corps, they had a command structure, while iraq and many other arab nations relied on orders from the top before they could even fire back, this was due to the arab worlds fear of a military uprising, so they left their militaries barely trained and their officers with nearly no authority to ensure they could not rise up and overthrow their leadership.
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So basically the individual soldiers of Arab armies have the potential to be effective military units, but they suffer from lack of command
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
I heard that the Iraqi military, or the Republican guard portion of said military, borrowed tenants of soviet military doctrine and incorporated it into the formation of their doctrine.

Perhaps the Saudis did the same thing?
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The Iraqis tried. But they never really did.

Most Arab armies are built for the purpose of serving their regime. They have virtually no NCOs of any worth, officers are appointed based on political loyalty and affiliation, and the average soldier is a urban poor conscript with little training.

The Republican Guard is the exception in that they are much more highly motivated, as the Iraqi Republican Guard demonstrated, but even so they were still annihilated.

The Saudis on the other hand take their inspiration from American influence, but they suffer from the same problems. Their performance in Yemen is proof of that.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
So basically the individual soldiers of Arab armies have the potential to be effective military units, but they suffer from lack of command
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That is correct, in the arab world the only military actually competent currently is the syrian army, and that is only after they were nearly over run and forced to change their structure due to a civil war, even before that war syria was much like the other armies, kept weak so they could not overthrow their govt.

The shia militias actually proved far more effective than arab armies due to their command structure and unity among troops. Turkey itself does not count as an arab nation nor does israel, but israel has the best military in the middle east, and is at a constant loss in the numbers game and instead has succeeded through military doctrine training and strategy. In the war with yemen, saudi forces vastly outnumbering the yemen army are still losing, the saudis armed with americas best, while the yemen houthis armed with antique soviet gear, reverse engineered soviet gear provided by iran, and whatever they can loot from battle. Despite being far less in numbers and often less armed than the worst third world nations, they are winning that war, the reason they win is because of command structure and unity, they can exploit the terrain while their enemies are saudi and uae mercenaries who are considered disposable and often attack with no strategy of even unit cohesion.
 
Mycroft said:
Admitting what?

But I did notice you don't dispute my contentions.

Moving on...
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Yep! That confirms it. You're an Alex Jones fan. No need for me to dispute such tin foil hat conspiracy theories.
 
Tigerace117 said:
Yeah, given that Nazi Germany was a deeply evil regime.....that’s not a good excuse bud.
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The implication of comparing Lindbergh's arguments with Trump's is that modern day Russia is Nazi Germany. That's crazy. Btw, if it weren't for all the sacrifices Russians made in the war, the Germans might not have been defeated, and we wouldn't be having this conversation.
 
Hopefully, Turkey's intervention in Syria will eventually result in President Erdogan's "retirement" from politics so that Turkey can finally return to democracy.
 
joko104 said:
The Democratic Party - the party of war and death - is hysterical at the thought of us not being perpetually in war everywhere forever. Perpetual war. Perpetual Cold War. That is what the super rich want and that's who the Democratic Party works for.
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So do their neocon AIPAC buddies across the aisle.
 
Tigerace117 said:
Yeah, given that Nazi Germany was a deeply evil regime.....that’s not a good excuse bud.
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The German consulate to China was trying to halt the genocide of Chinese by japan.
 
Tom Horn said:
The German consulate to China was trying to halt the genocide of Chinese by japan.
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The Germans actively committed genocide against a vast variety of different groups during their rampage and aided and abetted Japan's wars of aggression in a number of different ways.

Praising the Nazis or trying to keep people from fighting them is not a good thing.
 
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