OK, so there’s been a new theoretical breakthroughs in the development of the neo-rock school of thought in foreign policy and international relations.

This is actually very interesting. People on the ground are savvy to things, we just don’t know what until later.

I don’t know what this means, but it might be some interesting progress.

“Fine, you take’em. And make no mistake, there’s a lot more where that came from.”

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey on Monday deported citizens of the United States and Denmark who fought for the Islamic State and made plans to expel other foreign nationals as the government began a new push to send back captured foreign fighters to their home countries, a Turkish official said.

The move comes just over a week after the Turkish interior minister said Turkey was not a “hotel” for ISIS fighters and criticized Western nations for their reluctance to take back citizens who had joined the ranks of the extremist militant group as it sought to establish a “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria.

The US did not immediately comment on Ankara’s announcement. A Greek official who spoke on condition of anonymity pending a public announcement said Turkey deported the US citizen to Greece, which rejected him, leaving him in a heavily militarized no man’s land between the two borders. It was unclear why he was deported to Greece.

RUDAW: Turkey starts returning ISIS fighters, deports US, Danish nationals

The US has not yet publicly commented on this announcement.

I’m assuming it’s actually the UN protected buffer zone on Cyprus, both relic of Turkish invasion and subject of new tensions with its neighbors.

The Guardian: Alleged US Isis member ‘marooned between Turkish and Greek borders’

It was not clear whether the Turkish detention had come before or after the apparent attempt to expel the suspect via Greece.

The spokeswoman gave no further details but the timing of the statement issued in the early afternoon in Washington suggested that after expulsion to Greece failed the man had been taken into Turkish custody.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is due to visit Washington on Wednesday when he is expected to discuss the fate of foreign fighters caught in Isis ranks.

On Monday Turkey said it had begun deporting foreign members of Isis held in custody, in a policy that risks diplomatic fallout with its European allies.

Vice News: Greece and Turkey Are Playing Dangerous War Games on the Aegean Sea

The latest source of tension between the NATO allies is Turkey’s dispatch of drill ships, escorted by warships, into Cypriot waters.

Greece is treaty-bound to defend Cyprus’s territorial integrity, and Turkish encroachment on the island republic’s territory is a source of growing anxiety for Athens.

Though only Cyprus’s Greek-led government is internationally recognized, Turkey has occupied the northern half of the island for 45 years, and claims the right to drill for oil in Cyprus’s waters, a stance that has led to condemnation from both the EU and the U.S.

“We want peace in the region. We do not wish any kind of conflict. But at the same time, in order to maintain the status quo as it is, we are taking a very confident and resolute position against Turkish behavior,” Panagiotopoulos told VICE News. “There is no other way I’m afraid.”

Tasked with dampening the growing tensions within the NATO alliance and managing Turkey’s recent rapprochement with Russia, American diplomats in the region find themselves overseeing a delicate balancing act.

But Erdoğan’s not making it easy. His recent purchase of advanced Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles saw Turkey expelled from the F-35 fighter jet program. Erdoğan, however, appears unfazed by NATO’s disciplinary actions and has expressed interest in purchasing the alternative Russian SU-57 jet. He’s also continued his threats to invade Northeast Syria, where U.S. troops are stationed alongside fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Within this context, the growing defense relationship between the United States and Greece, manifest in the donation of equipment, enhanced training, and increasing use of strategically attractive facilities like the combined air and naval base at Souda Bay in Crete, can be interpreted as a potential fallback option in case America’s relationship with Turkey is damaged beyond repair.

Greek City Times: Greece, Cyprus and Egypt condemn Turkey’s actions

Fighting continues, but morale appears high, on the Rojava side anyway.

Partial clarification of the US presence in the Manbij/Kobanî. Sorta.

SDF saying that the Serrin base is consistent with the US withdrawal. Which makes one want to ask what that convoy headed west was all about? To convey the remaining troops back? That remains unclear.

The news has been seized upon by SDF types as good.

One thing is clear, and maybe it’s an issue of terminology that doesn’t come across when military types talk to journalists, but we had an ass load more “bases” over there than the media had initially reported.

TFSA Moving on Kobani

Reports that a few hours ago, TFSA began moving on Kobani.

Since we don’t know what the US is doing, this thread lays out the viewpoint from Assad’s SAA.

@leithfadel

I got a lot more details from the army regarding the battle for Kabani.

Regarding the lack of progress, they say it is due to a couple of reasons:

1) Last hills south of Kabani are in a wide open area. Syrian troops attempting to cross are quickly gunned down by machine guns

2) Heavy armory is useless in this area because of the terrain. Soldiers find themselves at the mercy of enemy gunfire and missile strikes when they approach the town.

3) HTS and TIP have a large force there and a complex network of tunnels and bunkers

4) Syrian Army says jihadist factions in northeast Latakia are the toughest forces they have come across. Many of the jihadist fighters have a wealth of experience in mountain warfare, especially the combatants from the Caucasus.

Fake News Attack (Russian?)

It appears that as I post, a social media Fake News style campaign may be underway. Suspicious constellations of identical Tweets.

These are actually really dumb. You can watch them unfold on Twitter in real time; it’s not like they’re skulking around in the shadows of the interwebs or something.

Two types (at least):

US has withdrawn from Kobane

SDF are lying about their own FakeNews campaigns because YPG are commies

This attack consists of claims that it is the YPG who are engaging in FakeNews attacks. Cute. They had two versions of an article with a red X and a green circle or something and it’s crap. Like, obviously crap. And they’re everywhere.

<THESE TWO WERE DELETED, BUT I HAVE SCREEN SHOTS OF THE ACTUAL ACCOUNTS>

The careful reader will note the participation of Russian media outlet

Edit: Man, searching for Kobane on Twitter is a wasteland of that Fake News report. It’s multiplying like a virus. My feed sucks right now.

It crowds out real information not just because it’s wrong, but it takes up so much fucking space.

Who actually believes this shit? I’ve always been focused on the idea that the content of Fake News being stupid, but the delivery mechanism is absurd.

Imagine coming into an online forum of any kind, noticing that 60% of the posts were identical, and concluding that that post must be superduper true!!

Finally: Brief note on the ppl of Kobane

A friend of mine suggested that maybe the Bradleys are bait. Maybe he’s right. Maybe bait is a good way of putting it.

If it is bait, there’s likely people to take it—second explosion in Qamishli confirmed:

This is the first something like this I’ve seen from this side.

I mean… Batman? Shits getting real.

Update:

Apparently the first one was near a church, and there have been a bunch of church bombings in and around Qamishli recently and they’ve just been swamped by war coverage.

It’s also being reported that the priest killed was traveling to inspect a church being restored, presumably by Islamist radicals (but I want to double check).

RIC is turning it up a notch:

I don’t think that church was hit today. There have been enough in the last year that I’m not sure I can figure out when that happened though.

But, as always, the people of northeast Syria remain, we… There is just a lot of buzz around Kobane right now.

Fucking, again…

But they are resilient. They’re used to this.

Dan Chipowski

St. Peter was pretty handy with the steel, if you know what I mean.

Morning Run Down: East to West

Qamishli: “Car” Bomb

Edit: Reports that it was actually two motorcycles, and then there was a second explosion nearby.

Tall Tamer: More Heavy Fighting.

Ayn Issa: TFSA Advancing

Deiz ez-Zur: ISIS Kills Armenian Catholic Priest

Have I mentioned I love the Operation Inherent Resolve Twitter accounts?

Like, remember the other day when the Petagon said a big part of their strategy is “everyone knows where we are”?

Well, where are we and what are we doing?

Oh. We’re fighting terror, with the best tools available. SpecOps are cooler than people realize.

So I wanted to make a post about the White Helmets. There are good reasons that make sense for why they’re not getting the press that the Free Burma Rangers are getting.

But that doesn’t make it fair. Meet the White Helmets:

The easiest way to explain why they are so amazing is to explain why they are not as famous right now in the coverage of this conflict.

tl;dr: They don’t have the epic heroic narrative that the FBR have, they are just grinders. I mean, just compare the names and insignia of the two groups: Which one is working class hero and which one is action hero?

The Free Burma Rangers:

The Free Burma Rangers are led by David Eubank, a straight white cis devout Christian ex-Special Forces family man who drives into combat zones, shouts Cover Me! as he runs through kill-zones to pull women and children out of rubble and then afterwards turns to the camera and tells Donald Trump that he loves him, he’s praying for him, and we could sure use your help.*

This is fantasy stuff. He’s Frank Dux with a stethoscope.

Moreover, the FBR are operating in the northeast where the conflict has much more of a graspable “sides” aspect. For whatever reason, one side is shelling civilians and striking the ambulances that our heroes are using to try to save people. This is a very easy moral narrative to get.

And for these reasons, among others, FBR have been getting a lot of press. In that vein, Eubanks is sometimes a bit theatrical, but that is also crucial to his mission, as he wants to get the message out of the war crimes and, probably more importantly to him, the humanitarian crisis on the ground; the videos and the story are essential to that effort.

A couple of days ago, one of the FBR, Zau Seng, was killed by Turkish forces’ shelling; FBR Tweeted out the video of the local  ceremonies honoring him.

Deep blue hero shit.

Nobody fantasizes about being a White Helmet.

The White Helmets:

Their story begins and ends with: Their conflict sucks. The moral story sucks too, or, at least, isn’t as epic. This is because the war in western Syria doesn’t have clear boundaries whereby aid workers move in and then escape. In Idlib, where the White Helmets operate, their stuck in the middle of relentless grinding desperation at all times.

At first, there were all sorts of rebel groups, many really punk rock and with liberal democratic aims, while others sought an Islamic ethnic state. And all sorts of variations on each theme. Which is also what brought al Qaeda, ISIS, and so forth. It is now widely understood that the SNA—the Syrian rebel umbrella group—has become “laced with jihadism”; heck, until recently their men kept posting pics and videos about it.

So the conflict is Assad’s Syrian quasi-Islamic post-Stalinist Arab regime pitted against Syrian jihadis. Though many on the ground fighting against Assad firmly believe in the righteousness of that cause, in and of itself, as a story, that’s not great.

It’s both more savage and does not have the same heroic narrative; indeed, there is no discernible morally preferable “side” to the conflict. This conflict, growing out of 2011’s Arab Spring, is Syria against Syrian rebels; Syrian against Syrian. It’s a mess on the ground.

That it’s closer to Damascus with heavier concentrations of armor and artillery, plus the Syrian Arab Army and Russia bombing them to in some cases the actual Stone Age just makes it more brutal.

And that’s what the White Helmets operate in. All the videos of them are them running around in crisis where everybody is getting wrecked and doing the best they can, trying to save as many lives as they can.

Translation (Google): Two children were killed and 7 civilians were injured, including a member of the Civil Defense and his family, on Thursday, as a result of an airstrike of al-Assad’s warplanes that targeted the houses of civilians in Meshmshan town of western Idlib countryside. ⁧#الخوذ_البيضاء

Translation (Google): A civil defense volunteer rescues his mother … and retrieves the bodies of two children from his relatives after the destruction of their home by al-Assad’s aviation in the town of Mashmshan in the western countryside of Idlib this afternoon. There is no more pain ….. ⁧#الخوذ_البيضاء⁩

They’re fucking incredible.

*It might be noteworthy that at the end of his most recent video where he recounted the death of his friend and fellow FBR, Eubank did not address Trump. He looked rather furious.

What’s it take to piss a guy like that off?

So, let’s check in on what people want out of this war.

Time: President Trump to Confront Turkey’s Erdogan About Buying Russian Air Defense System: National Security Adviser

Interesting opening posture. But I’m pretty sure that’s not it.

<Background Chatter, Jokes About the Road to Damascus, and if it could be “a” road to Damascus, depending on how articles work in Greek.>

Someone has told me that Greel has articles. But someone else has told me it only has one article Ah. There you go—my theory of ambiguity-a road to Damascus-is no good. Ulness it is. I don’t know the Greek article. Or the rest of Greek, for that matter.

But, on the other hand, I’m not the one who would be on the road to Damascus.

euronews: Kurdistan is the new Israel, says Iran

So, yeah, I could talk about the apocalypse all day, but it’s kinda a digression from what’s really happening on the ground.

Lest we forget, this thread lays it out nicely.

David Graeber

@davidgraeber

To make clear what’s happening in N. Syria: men who believe women belong in the kitchen are killing, torturing, & blowing apart women who are trying to create a women’s revolution in the Middle East. The US, and now even the UN are actively helping them do so. #riseupforrojava 1/

this is important. People don’t understand what Rojava is. It’s a project largely created by & largely maintained by women. An attempt to begin to undo patriarchy in the very lands where it originated in its most pernicious forms. It is being attacked IN THE NAME OF PATRIARCHY 2/

all of this is explicit. Erdogan did not just declare in advance he intends to commit war crimes – to be greeted with the support, passive or active, of the world community – he declared he was acting to put women who rose up against patriarchy back in their place 3/

he claims Rojava are “terrorists” because they support the philosophy of Abdullah Ocalan, but in fact, that philosophy largely consists of a commitment to prioritise women’s liberation since patriarchy is the foundation for all other forms of injustice 4/

in other words, Erdogan & by extension now all NATO powers want us to accept that the women’s revolution in Rojava is a form of terrorism not despite but BECAUSE of its commitment to women’s emancipation & empowerment. (Not because of any acts of terror, as these don’t exist.) 5/

(all the actual acts of terror, from the bombing of hospitals to the use of white phosphorus & napalm on children in an explicit attempt to terrorise the civilian population to flee & be ethnically cleansed, are being done by the Turkish/NATO side.) 6/

I want to emphasise this is explicit. It’s not some conspiracy theory. Erdogan says “I want to ethnically cleanse this territory.” Then he meets w the UN sec’y general who says “I’ll help”. Erdogan says “I want to put women back in their place.” Merkel gives him weapons. 7/

sure the German gov’t & US congress make superficial noises, they kind of have to, & the US army is furious because no one will want to ally w them, but they’re still providing the air cover & weapons for the forces of patriarchy who’re saying “let us kill these uppity women” 8/

Yeah, I suppose that’s too obvious. Gotta be more complicated than that.

Though I suppose that would look a lot like the end of the world to some people.

Did we ever resolve what the Bradleys were about?

Someone has suggested to me they could be bait. I like it… but…

One major caveat: They haven’t been given a good answer to why they are there besides the commander wanted them. Literally.*

They were flown up from Kuwait, so the fact that they’re available may be begging question.

Like, Bradleys are not optimal for running that route back and forth and air support can easily be flown in for such a mission and would be called in at any signs of trouble anyway. The press really pushed hard on the Bradley role at the press conference.

So I guess it makes sense to ask why—and where—they will want to pack more punch? Someone else has suggested that most IED in northern Syria are vehicle borne so armor up top might be better thn what the MRAPs bring.

As for bait, the officially stated policy the other night rested upon three major articulations, which were repeated, all of which strike me as theoretically sound. 😉

• Everyone knows where we are.
• Everyone knows what we can do.
• We possess the right of self-defense.

Woof.

*Technically, Rear Adm. Byrne also said that Bradleys were really good. I don’t know if that is really useful information though. But you know how it is, interest in being thorough and all.

[QUOTE=”Darnell’s Son, post: 3628182, member: 64512″]

Could it be that the Bradleys can withstand rock attacks better than other armored vehicles?

“Talking Points”?

Rojava Information Center has an interesting set of Tweets today. Given Erdogan’s meeting at the White House on Wednesday, I figured I’d see what they decided to Tweet out today, and I thought it was interesting enough to share.

A note on the RIC.

The RIC is, in my opinion, both partisan and reliable. Ultimately, it appears that they’ve decided that the facts on the ground are such that the most valuable thing they can invest in is credibility.

They are restrained in controversial or unclear stories that others sometimes try to push, and they do research and fact checking; their stuff checks out after the fact almost all of the time. Over the course of the last month, they’ve become a source for NGOs and media outlets including NYT, CNN, European stuff, etc. They do not have a blue check mark, but neither do a lot of people I would have thought would, or so I have discovered. Like, this guy doesn’t have a blue check:

I guess Twitter really  is kinda fucked.

So yeah, reliable. But they are also partisan, and I think there is a sort of symbiotic relationship in their reporting and specifically what they emphasize. They want to influence world opinion, but also react to it and feed the world the information they feels it needs based on what people might be thinking about, and what will resonate.

If you’ve been following the thread, you’ll know that I’ve brought up the issue of responsive messaging on the part of Rojava before.

Here’s their 9 Tweets in the last 24 hours.

Rights Violations and Turkification

Greek CNN: Syria: The occupation of the occupied territories has begun (Google Translation)

Fighting ISIS

Ambulance Targeting

The Guardian Picked up this one as well:

Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP)

Military Drones

Attacks on Water Supply

US Forces to Deploy “Alongside SDF”

Think about the Berlin Wall

Yo…

So, I’m not a big military historian guy—I’m a guy with a smart phone: I feel like I should emphasize that periodically.

Upthread, it was noted that Trump has put up the money for the gambling license himself. I offer that if it were a game of poker, we just gave up a good hand for no reason.

Despite having folded, the US didn’t leave the table. And despite the hand continuing, in full view of everyone, the US has dealt itself a new hand.

Which implicitly kinda calls into question who the real dealer is, eh?

The US is now all over the place on the map. Literally. And despite all the confusion on the part of observers, their reported positions are highly strategic.

The Territory:

Manbi/Kobani: 

Despite Russian presence inside and SAA to the south, SNA forces are advancing from both sides: SNA are advancing from the west, northeast of Idlib; TFSA are trying to expand west from Tal Abiad.

The US just parked itself a bit off center to the south middle of that, apparently around Sarrin.

Ayn Issa:

Fair amount of territorial equilibrium, though recent reports of SNA pushing back some YPJ. There’s heavy drone use, shelling, Russia & SAA forces are here in force in addition to the SDF and increasing SNA/TFSA presence.

Tal Timr:

See previous post.

There’s SAA armor there too.

Qamishli:

The US and everyone major player (Russia, Syria, SDF, Turkish border) is there. But not the SNA militias. Or if they are, they know enough to keep their heads down.

And nobody actually knows where we put all the troops in the convoy. Well, nobody but US. And then there was this:

What does this mean?

How should I know?

But we did pay for the gambling license after all. Maybe we’ve decided that means we should own a piece of the casino?

I’m no Rommel, but:

We have radically more leverage for this week’s talks with Erdogan than we had mere days ago.

With the additional caveat that I really don’t know anything but what my phone tells me—and this is probably a conversation better suited for a “political” thread—but, while I don’t yet know much about Mark Esper—though I think that may need to change—it might be close to a time when we would maybe want to consider starting to think about Michael Pompeo?