8 thoughts on “What’s happening on the Turkey/Syria border?”

  1. Very few U.S. news outlets maintained any interest after the end of October. You have to go all the way to sites like Arab News to find anything new about what’s going on. There are significant developments, but I’m afraid the entire subject is too arcane for American newsworthiness.

    https://www.arabnews.com/node/1618686/middle-east

    A long interview with Mazlum Kobane from January 23. Kobane is the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces. He’s got a lot on his plate, that’s for sure. It’s worth reading what he has to say. He has an extremely intricate and comprehensive understanding of the forces and interests at play.

    https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/01/syria-turkey-kobani-kurds-russia-us-sdf.html

    • Aside: I always find it much more illuminating, if possible, to read the thoughts of military commanders in complicated situations like the one in Syria. They have to know the real world and the situation before them a lot better than pundits do, because they have to fight! People live and die on the strength of their grasp of the situation. I learned more about the reality there with that one interview than I had in any of the U.S. news articles hitherto.

      So, if the average American wanted to, they could come up to speed on this subject with a couple of hours of careful reading and reflection. The information is out there. I think he summarizes it very well:

      “Kobane: We aren’t saying as Trump did that America will remain here for hundreds of years, or that they should remain to defend us against attacks from other forces. But the United States bears a responsibility toward us. We fought against IS together and we made many enemies because of our partnership with the United States. For example, before the Americans came we had good relations with Turkey. The United States has a responsibility now to help ensure a just political solution to the Syrian conflict, to help ensure that all the Syrian people, including the Kurds, are given their full rights in a new, democratic Syria, all enshrined in a democratic constitution.”

  2. My guess is our news won’t cover it because Trump made it clear he wasn’t going to do further sandbox nation building. Now the news is busy covering the Trump impeachment so we can get a president who knows how to build democratic nations on foundations of sand. A few thousand more American lives and a couple hundred trillion more should do it…

  3. Our media are not in the information business, they are in the advocacy business.

    The situation in Syria is a bit of conundrum as they don’t know what to say to appease their core audience. The progressives would love to slam the Trumpenfuhrer and the conservatives to praise him, but Trump has no principled position, and if you get it wrong you might get labelled as supporting a wrong cause and wrong people.

    So the media stays silent while our democracy dies in darkness.

  5. The Middle East will never know peace or democracy which is a fact and has been for 100’s of years. You need a strong local dictator to keep the status quo with as little outside interference as possible. Let them find their way to sort out their differences.

    Back to your question Philip. Just few weeks ago (not months) we assassinated Qasem Soleimani and the media and including some posters on this blog were so against it as a reckless act and claiming this will start WWIII. Whatever happened to those doomsayers?

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