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Reverend
For anyone still wondering if we live in a simulation:
Smoke plumes of tire fires billow in the background to decrease visibility for Turkish warplanes on the outskirts of the Syrian town of Tal Tamr near the border with Turkey. PHOTO: DELIL SOULEIMAN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
That’s right: It’s an actual tire fire.
dhappy42
Yes, nothing says “winning” like having to call in an airstrikes to destroy a military base to prevent it from falling into the hands of… a NATO ally.
Reverend
Minor correction: The article says Turkish backed forces, not Turkish forces. It’s a subtle but important distinction.
But one of the distinctions is that the units might basically be ISIS. Which is pretty fucked.
But yeah, the broader picture you paint is painfully on point.
Reverend
Also, for an indication of the current state of American influence, it’s worth noting that the reason that our forces were in Kobani was because that was the city Erdogan had promised Trump not to attack.
And then we promptly had to withdraw under cover of air power and then nuke it from orbit blow up the base.
Foreign Policy: Turkey Advances on Kobani in Latest Broken Promise
Erdogan told Trump he would not attack the symbolically important Kurdish-held town in northern Syria.
Turkish-backed forces advanced on the Kurdish-held border town of Kobani on Wednesday, despite Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s commitment to U.S. President Donald Trump that he would not attack the location.
As the situation in northern Syria dissolves into chaos, Turkey’s move into Kobani reflects just the latest broken promise Turkish officials have made to their U.S. counterparts in recent weeks. Kobani is a symbolically significant city that the Kurdish-led fighters recaptured from the Islamic State in 2015, in one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the campaign against the militant group.
“Erdogan told Trump he would not go to Kobani. He immediately broke all his promises on the size and scope of the operation,” a senior U.S. administration official told Foreign Policy. “I think they played us the whole time.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said late Tuesday on Twitter that any Turkish attack on Kobani would be a major escalation. “I am certain Congress and the Administration will hold Erdogan personally responsible for any atrocities committed in and around Kobani,” he added.
Just one week after Ankara began its bloody campaign into Kurdish-held territory in northern Syria, Turkish-backed forces have advanced far past the established boundaries of the so-called safe zone Erdogan proposed months ago, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters.
dhappy42
Simulation or not, that is an awesome photograph.
Gunfighter 09
from WaPo:
NEW DETAIL per three sources: Trump said several times in mtg he wasn’t concerned about terrorists 7,000 miles away. After Pelosi & Hoyer left, @RepLizCheney spoke up to remind Trump that the terrorists responsible for 9/11 “came from 7,000 miles away” themselves.
Reverend
That’s amazing. If we weren’t in a simulation, I mean.
Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know where the Appaches that reportedly participated in the show of force at Kobani came from, do you? I can’t find anything about it and I can’t figure out where they would have been based.
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DIGRESSION ON ACCIDENTALLY SEEING VIDEOS OF THE CONFLICT WITH DECAPITATED HEADS
Reverend
Twitter really needs to rethink its autoplay feature.
Gunfighter 09
I was under the impression there were no conventional rotary wing attack assets in Syria. I am also out of the loop, so who knows.
If my going in position was correct it is possible that SOF attack aircraft (DAP configured H-60s) were mistaken for Apaches or that Apaches were moved up from Al Assad in western Iraq or even from Kuwait to cover the withdrawal. Either one could be true. It’s sounds like a giant uncertain mess where rotary wing Close Air Support would be something the ground commanders would really want, so I’m not shocked.
Reverend
Interesting. Thank you.
I wonder when the call for air support, whatever showed up, went out.
Marciano490
Why weren’t the ISIS prisoners transferred to Gitmo or military prisons in Israel or Europe?
Reverend
There’s a fuckton of them. Like, they had ISIS supporting families and shit. Tens of thousands of people.
Even if there were not said fuckton, nobody fucking wants them.
Average Reds
We’ve been unable to close Gitmo (because no one will take the prisoners) despite that being a primary objective since Obama’s inauguration. Given that experience, the obvious answer to your question is we didn’t want to be responsible for them.
Marciano490
If Trump were really smart, he’d have stowed them all in one of his hotels and had the government pay lodgings.
dhappy42
It was a snap decision. Trump didn’t even have a plan in place to get our soldiers out.
Reverend
The location of some of the fiercest fighting going on right now is a place called Ras al-Ayd. It’s currently held by Kurds, though Turkish and Turkish backed forces are taking villages around it.
As it happens, that was the location of one of the main extermination camps or whatever we call them from the Armenian genocide.
So there’s got to be some kind of business synergy here to be had.
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DIGRESSION: DABIQ
Rojava to Rock 