What's the deal with Turkey and the Kurds?

[bittersalt123]

Anyone who knows what's actually going on... Is Turkey justified in attacking the kurds or is Turkey just being the aggressors here?

[Jam]

I think marching your army across an international border without permission is pretty aggressive.

[bittersalt123]

I think marching your army across an international border without permission is pretty aggressive.

I'm not defending the United States lol... Trump started this whole mess and I'm just wondering if what Turkey is doing is right or if it's wrong what they're doing.

[Cometk]

@bittersalt123 it's an ethnic cleansing

[bittersalt123]

@bittersalt123 it's an ethnic cleansing

okay gotcha. That's pretty bad wow

[wardyb1]

This will give you a big run down on what is happening now and why https://www.vox.com/world/2019/10/16/20 ... -questions

In the end it all comes back to the British having no clue on how to divide the Ottomans and the Middle East post WW1.

[Dolan]

1. Turkey is a country with settled and well-defined borders.
2. Kurds are an ethnic group that is spread all over the Middle East, among 5 countries.
3. They're not the only big ethnic group in the world without a country, there are tens or even hundreds of them.
4. Some of the parties that represent Kurds (like the PKK) are considered terrorist organisations, because they set up terror attacks in Turkey for many years, which resulted in lots of Turks being killed in bomb attacks.
5. Their organisations are basically separatist, they demand a chunk of Turkey's territory to set up their own country.
6. If you agree with them, you encourage tens or hundreds of other ethnic groups to demand their own territory, by splitting multiple countries across the world.
7. Yeah, it's complicated and there's no Snow White in this story. Only villains on both sides. And, ofc, as usual, non-combatant population occasionally falls victim to their terror attacks.

[fightinfrenchman]

Only villains on both sides.

Let's not go that far - there's no evidence that either side has bumped any old threads.

[Mr_Bramboy]

The Kurds did not help us at Normandy. They could have been expecting this for a long time.

[HeadKilla]

Innocent people are being pulled from their cars in traffic and executed on the side of the road. There are mass grave's stretching down the highway's where blockades have been setup and literally every Kurd has been executed and left to rot on the spot. Even leaders of peaceful political parties are being slaughtered in this chaos. I don't think some of you understand. Imagine you are driving to work and you are caught up in a traffic jam. You notice the number of abandoned vehicles pulled off the road is unusual just as the smell of death meets your nose. Not too much later you realize its not a traffic jam but a military blockade. A group of young boys with machine guns and machete's knocks on your window and asks who you are and for proof. You pass their test and are told to move along. As you continue your commute to work, you see in the rear-view mirror a woman and her children being dragged from their car and executed on the spot. Now you go about your day at work, grappling with being thankful you are alive while a family was murdered for going about theirs.

[Cometk]

Supports the Turkish invasion:

Taliban
ISIS
al-Nusra Front HTS
Hamas
Qatar
Pakistan
The United States of America

[Riotcoke]

Im actually really surprised the incredibly nationalistic Turks on esoc haven't come and defended their homeland on this thread yet .

[HeadKilla]

[Dolan]

@Cometk Meh, I don't think the USA "supports Turkish invasion", it's more like "yeah, whatever, we don't want to get involved much anymore".

[Cometk]

this is like the invasion of kuwait + the fall of saigon in one fell swoop lol. american foreign policy tossed into the dumpster

[Cometk]

1) Erdogan gains Syrian Kurdish lands he's wanted for years
2) Kurds forced to disarm and vacate
3) Russia gains influence
4) ISIS does what it wants
5) Trump makes good on his campaign promise to remove American troops from the region - except they've just been relocated, to Saudi Arabia.

The Art of the Deal!!

[Cometk]

Kurds were the wardens of ISIS.  They helped liberate ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in 2017.  With them out of the way, look forward to an undoing of the years of counter-insurgency work in the region. Disgusting

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[Dolan]

Kurds were the wardens of ISIS.  They helped liberate ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in 2017.  With them out of the way, look forward to an undoing of the years of counter-insurgency work in the region. Disgusting

Well then maybe Kurds shouldn't have organised terror attacks in Turkey and killed so many people there, if they are such great guys.

Action begets reaction.

[n0el]

Not all Kurds are terrorists, that's just lazy

[Cometk]

Kurds were the wardens of ISIS.  They helped liberate ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in 2017.  With them out of the way, look forward to an undoing of the years of counter-insurgency work in the region. Disgusting

Well then maybe Kurds shouldn't have organised terror attacks in Turkey and killed so many people there, if they are such great guys.

Action begets reaction.

PKK aren't angels. But hopefully you can understand why playing turncoat to the people who previously assisted you in your "War on Terror" and allowing them to be slaughtered by a rogue state is fucking terrible optics.

[Dolan]

@n0el
Welp, if not all Kurds are terrorists or PKK supporters, does that mean Turkey should not do anything about the terror attacks they organise in the border area?
I mean it's not like Turkey needs more territory, that's not why they're doing this. That territory will eventually be managed by Syria, once it regains its administrative function back.

[Dolan]

Kurds were the wardens of ISIS.  They helped liberate ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in 2017.  With them out of the way, look forward to an undoing of the years of counter-insurgency work in the region. Disgusting

Well then maybe Kurds shouldn't have organised terror attacks in Turkey and killed so many people there, if they are such great guys.

Action begets reaction.

PKK aren't angels. But hopefully you can understand why playing turncoat to the people who previously assisted you in your "War on Terror" and allowing them to be slaughtered by a rogue state is fucking terrible optics.

They assisted because it was in their interest to do so, they were temporary, situational allies. It was convenient for them to fight alongside any forces that were fighting against those trying to annex the territory in which they lived. And that fight is over, ISIS is gone, at least their territorial claim is gone. So now the current US administration thinks they don't have anything to gain anymore from this temporary alliance, so they're pulling out. There was no treaty and no perpetual obligations on any side.

What happened in that area before the US sent troops there? Were they even able to live without getting slaughtered? How did they manage to do that?

[Cometk]

Meanwhile, trust in American forces for local counter-insurgency is completed disintegrated and ISIS POW's are freed in the chaos of the Turkish invasion.

[Dolan]

Yeah, that might be one consequence.
But the current US administration probably doesn't have any future plans to get involved in any other external conflicts that don't concern US security directly. So they are probably thinking this is of no consequence to any of their future policies.