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Article: What did the Kurds ever do for the US?

Infinite Chaos

Infinite Chaos

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If Mr Trump is to be taken at his word, alliances - whether it be with the Kurds or even within Nato - are for him simply transactional business arrangements to be judged according to a short-term cost-benefit analysis: what is the US giving and what is it getting in return?
Link.
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  1. In 1972, partly armed by Washington and urged on by the then Shah of Iran, Iraqi Kurds defied the government in Baghdad
  2. US President George HW Bush called on the Kurds in Iraq to rise up against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
  3. the US sought to find elements on the ground who could mount a serious challenge to the fighters of IS. Washington's decision to support the Kurds with training and equipment reaped dividends. They proved both reliable and capable and the dismantling of the IS caliphate in Syria owes much to their efforts.

This is the third betrayal of the Kurds by the US, is this one the most serious though? How many more times would they return to the US cause?
 
Even though they're all Kurds, I read the Iraq Kurds are a separate faction and don't support the Syrian Kurds and don't want them flooding into Iraq as refugees. The Iraq Kurds even have economic ties with Turkey which is telling whose side they're on.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
  1. In 1972, partly armed by Washington and urged on by the then Shah of Iran, Iraqi Kurds defied the government in Baghdad
  2. US President George HW Bush called on the Kurds in Iraq to rise up against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
  3. the US sought to find elements on the ground who could mount a serious challenge to the fighters of IS. Washington's decision to support the Kurds with training and equipment reaped dividends. They proved both reliable and capable and the dismantling of the IS caliphate in Syria owes much to their efforts.

This is the third betrayal of the Kurds by the US, is this one the most serious though? How many more times would they return to the US cause?
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Well since you like the Kurds so much, why doesnt the UK send a few regiments over there?
 
The usual derailment by non-sequitur presented in the form of irrelevant blather.
 
More senile pouting due to loneliness it seems.
 
Moot said:
Even though they're all Kurds, I read the Iraq Kurds are a separate faction and don't support the Syrian Kurds and don't want them flooding into Iraq as refugees. The Iraq Kurds even have economic ties with Turkey which is telling whose side they're on.
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Well, Turkey certainly isn't on the side of the Iraqui Peshmerga (anymore).

Turkey initially supplied training to them (pursuing its own interests in the fight against IS) but withdrew any support in 2017 when the Peshmerga led an independence (from Baghdad) vote.

As to the relation between the Syrian and the Iraqi Kurds, Peshmerga stated in March this year that they would support Syrian YPG with material aid (finances, arms, medical help) in case the latter were attacked by Turkey.

But not with fighters.

We'll have to see what now becomes of that.

Incidentally that would be a repeat of the Kobane battle of 2015 where Peshmerga even supplied heavily armed fighters to relieve the city perilously beleaguered by IS.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
  1. In 1972, partly armed by Washington and urged on by the then Shah of Iran, Iraqi Kurds defied the government in Baghdad
  2. US President George HW Bush called on the Kurds in Iraq to rise up against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
  3. the US sought to find elements on the ground who could mount a serious challenge to the fighters of IS. Washington's decision to support the Kurds with training and equipment reaped dividends. They proved both reliable and capable and the dismantling of the IS caliphate in Syria owes much to their efforts.

This is the third betrayal of the Kurds by the US, is this one the most serious though? How many more times would they return to the US cause?
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The Kurds best self-identify with their motto "no friends but the mountains". Whether they're Iraqi, Syrian or Iranian.

IOW being betrayed by one-time allies is nothing new to them and has never prevented them from renewing alliances that previously went sour. In this they've always been practical but it's also the cause for general distrust in them in that region.

Everybody knows (and the Kurds don't make it a secret either) that their ultimate goal is to carve out an independent Kurdistan and everybody is united in refusing to let them have it. Ultimately by shafting them the minute they've outlived their usefulness in any current alliance and these goals are quite mutual (IOW work the other way around just as well).

In their long history the recent betrayal by the US is seen (by them) as just an episode.
 
the orange man:

" they did not fight with the US and its allies in World War Two"

now I really get afraid... we even fought against them! ;o)
 
german hick said:
the orange man:

" they did not fight with the US and its allies in World War Two"
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PoS said:
Well since you like the Kurds so much, why doesnt the UK send a few regiments over there?
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We've had plenty UK volunteers fighting alongside the Kurds. The thread discussion is about US betrayal - try and stay on topic please.
 
Chagos said:
T~ IOW being betrayed by one-time allies is nothing new to them ~
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In this case however, the US has called on the Kurds three times and now betrayed them three times. That's some record isn't it?
 
Infinite Chaos said:
~.......................... try and stay on topic please.
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asking for a friend;):

how's that supposed to be achieved?

Seriously though, least the term "volunteers"be misinterpreted as having gone of their own accord (akin to mercenary), they were regular British soldiers sent in accord with British policy.

But yeah, volunteers.
 
The Kurds in Syria say the Syrian government has agreed to send its army to the northern border to try to halt Turkey's offensive against them.
Syrian state media earlier reported that government forces had been deployed to the north. Link.
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Well, Turkey has succeeded in uniting the Kurds and Syrians into a coalition. Behind the Syrians will be the Russians... well done Trump.
 
Just another deflection in the era of trump cluster****s.
 
Moscow wanted to preserve the Kurdish trump card. In the 1960s, Moscow led international efforts at the United Nations charging Iraq with conducting a genocidal war against the Kurds. In 1970, Moscow mediated between Baghdad and the Kurds to sign a peace agreement that provided for the autonomy of Iraqi Kurds. After 1973 when the Kurds adopted an openly pro-Western stance due to growing ties between the Iraqi and Soviet governments, the Soviets supported Baghdad’s war against the Kurds, which generated demand for Soviet weapons. No matter which direction they leaned, the Kurds served as Moscow’s leverage in Baghdad.

During this period, the Soviet Union established close relations with Turkey’s Kurds as well. In the 1970s, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was established as a Marxist-Leninist and Kurdish nationalist organization. The works of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin became the “main, if not the only, ideological sources of the PKK’s assumptions, beliefs, and values.” After the extensive repression that followed the 1980 military coup in Turkey, many PKK members left the country for Syria, a close Soviet ally, where they received considerable support from the Hafez al-Assad regime. Moscow provided material support and training through their proxies but the political support to the PKK was public.

After the Cold War, Russia kept the Kurds as a trump card to exert pressure on Turkey. In an effort to close its widening foreign trade gap and fill the void left by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkey sought to cultivate closer ties to the new republics in Russia’s backyard. To restrain Turkey’s influence, Moscow played the Kurdish card.

Why is Turkey Silent on Russia’s Cooperation with the Syrian Kurds? - War on the Rocks
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Trump briefly supported Kurdish militias to dismantle ISIS strongholds in northern Syria. The Kurds have been manipulated by outside powers to wage a proxy war since the Cold War, when the Kurds were closely aligned with the Soviet Union. It is Moscow which owes much more to the Kurds than Washington does. The PLO and the PPK were Russia's regional puppets to restrain Israel and Turkey and these groups received considerable material support and training from Moscow.
 
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ThirdTerm said:
Trump briefly supported Kurdish militias to dismantle ISIS strongholds in northern Syria. The Kurds have been manipulated by outside powers to wage a proxy war since the Cold War, when the Kurds were closely aligned with the Soviet Union. It is Moscow which owes much more to the Kurds than Washington does. The PLO and the PPK were Russia's regional puppets to restrain Israel and Turkey and these groups received considerable material support and training from Moscow.
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whataboutism as it´s best

did you read the thread title? ;o)
 
ThirdTerm said:
Trump briefly supported Kurdish militias to dismantle ISIS strongholds in northern Syria. The Kurds have been manipulated by outside powers to wage a proxy war since the Cold War, when the Kurds were closely aligned with the Soviet Union. It is Moscow which owes much more to the Kurds than Washington does. The PLO and the PPK were Russia's regional puppets to restrain Israel and Turkey and these groups received considerable material support and training from Moscow.
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While Erdogan initially supported IS in annihilating Kurds.
 
ThirdTerm said:
Trump briefly supported Kurdish militias to dismantle ISIS strongholds in northern Syria. The Kurds have been manipulated by outside powers to wage a proxy war since the Cold War, when the Kurds were closely aligned with the Soviet Union. It is Moscow which owes much more to the Kurds than Washington does. The PLO and the PPK were Russia's regional puppets to restrain Israel and Turkey and these groups received considerable material support and training from Moscow.
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While I understand why the Democrats want to portray the Kurds as faultless allies of freedom, I've been surprised that Trump and his people don't want to fight that image by speaking of Kurdish terrorist activities. Today, while listening to Trump's cabinet meeting, I noticed that he was trying to portray himself as a master deal-maker, allowing the Turks to attack the Kurds not so that the former would get the chance to practice "ethnic cleansing," but so that the Kurds would come to the bargaining table and make concessions. Whether Trump will make a deal as wonderful as he claims he can will only be shown in the fullness of time. But now it occurs to me that he was tired of the Kurds hiding behind American skirts, while they MAY have been launching terrorist attacks against Turkey, but that he Trump did not say so because he's trying not to vilify the Kurds openly. If it's true that they've been using us to further terrorist activity, Trump's action may force them to curb those activities now that they've largely been driven from northeastern Syria.
 
Ouroboros said:
While I understand why the Democrats want to portray the Kurds as faultless allies of freedom, I've been surprised that Trump and his people don't want to fight that image by speaking of Kurdish terrorist activities. Today, while listening to Trump's cabinet meeting, I noticed that he was trying to portray himself as a master deal-maker, allowing the Turks to attack the Kurds not so that the former would get the chance to practice "ethnic cleansing," but so that the Kurds would come to the bargaining table and make concessions. Whether Trump will make a deal as wonderful as he claims he can will only be shown in the fullness of time. But now it occurs to me that he was tired of the Kurds hiding behind American skirts, while they MAY have been launching terrorist attacks against Turkey, but that he Trump did not say so because he's trying not to vilify the Kurds openly. If it's true that they've been using us to further terrorist activity, Trump's action may force them to curb those activities now that they've largely been driven from northeastern Syria.
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Trump, and you, are commingling the Kurdish PKK within Turkey (fighting for a secession of some far eastern districts) and the Syrian Kurds of Rojava (northern Syria).

The bottom line is Trump sold out the allied Syrian forces that have been fighting ISIS on our behalf for the past 5 years and suffering 11,000 dead in battle.
 
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