Rudaw with a very good game explanation of how the Syrian-Turkish border is being handled, Turkey’s plan(s?) for Kurdish withdrawal from and resettlement of the area with Syrian refugees, and possible extent of the operations both in terms of geography and demographic intervention.

Meanwhile, Assad’s government issuing something to the effect of, “Hey, I’m right fucking here. This is my fucking country, y’know,” response. Insists that any resettlement of Syrian refugees must be voluntary and coordinated through them.

I dunno what went down with their respective meetings with Russia, but even having to say that strikes me as a sign of serious weakness.

One way or another, it looks like the next phase will be negotiating how many refugees will be resettled and what will be the geographical extent and specific locations; the specifics of this will be relevant for determining how far into ethnic cleansing territory this process becomes.

The 10 ton elephant in the room is still the fact that Turkey has been and may still be supporting ISIS in the region. Europe’s made some noises about concerns that ISIS might rebound or who will fight ISIS without the US there, but most if not all of the more official types manage to studiously avoid stating: 1) that ISIS is there and it’s not a hypothetical return being discussed; and 2) the nature of their operations in the region.

Of course, such rudeness could open the Gates to Europe.

Seriously.

He’s suing European papers. This shit would be so stupid if it wasn’t so insidious, dangerous, and harmful.

Erdogan’s legal strategy appears to be a variant of the Chewbacca Defense.

AP: Turkey’s Erdogan moves to sue French Le Point magazine

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s state-run news agency says lawyers for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have filed a criminal complaint against French magazine Le Point journalists for allegedly insulting him.

. . .

In its cover page headline, Le Point called Erdogan “The Eradicator” in relation to Turkey’s military offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria. The front page also read: “ethnic cleansing, Erdogan’s method.”

. . .

In 2016, Erdogan sued a German comedian over a satirical poem, leading to diplomatic tensions with Germany and debate on freedom of speech.

Throwing “Erdogan suing a German comedian over a satirical poem” into the You Can’t Make This Shit Up dust bin.

[REDACTED COMMENTS: PLACEHOLDER]

I have worked hard to solve some of your problems. Don’t let the world down. You can make a great deal. General Mazloum is willing to negotiate with you, and he is willing to make concessions that they would never have made in the past. I am confidentially enclosing a copy of his letter to me, just received.

Reverend

This prompted me to pull the official version in his public remarks:

MilliGazette: Erdoğan’dan Trump açıklaması: Bana karşı samimi ve dürüst 

Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, ABD Başkanı Trump ile ilgili olarak “Benimle olan münasebetlerinde samimi. Bugüne kadar mümkün olduğunca dürüst davrandı” açıklamasında bulundu.

Google Translation Link

“Trump has been sincere in his dealings with me. He has been as honest as possible up to now. Of course I have nothing to share, but not. There is, for example, a cover letter from the terrorist who sent him the letter he sent me. it is not appropriate for a terrorist to make a letter in addition to his cover. I condemn this attitude. I have said something to Putin: I do not sit at a table with a terrorist, I will never accept what is at the head of any terrorist organization, as I have ever read, I know, that I have learned that there is war between states. So here “You don’t sit down and negotiate with the head of a terrorist organization, but you sit between states and negotiate.”

He didn’t just rebuff the proposal, he condemned it’s very attitude. Woof.

 

Humanitarian Crisis Concerns

Just so we can be clear about the kind of things he’s involving himself in that he’s so indignant about.

I mean, there was already a refugee crisis before this latest development in the conflict occurred.

Also, the International Red Cross Tweeted about Iraq today. Probably not a coincidence given the situation there; this is their first Tweet about Iraq and in over two weeks, at least.

Things are going to get worse before they get better.

 

 

So apparently Erdogan publicly called for the arrest and handover by the US of SDF commander Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi.

AXIOS: Turkey’s Erdogan calls on U.S. to hand over top Kurdish commander

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told state TV on Thursday that the U.S. should hand over Syrian Democratic Forces commander Mazloum Kobani Abdi, calling him a “wanted terrorist” with an Interpol red notice.

Why it matters: Abdi led the primarily Kurdish SDF in the U.S.-backed fight against ISIS, where more than 10,000 of his fighters were killed. Erdogan views the Kurds who fight with the SDF as an extension of the PKK, a terrorist organization that has sought to gain Kurdish autonomy inside Turkey for decades. On Thursday, President Trump tweeted that he had spoken with Abdi and that the Kurdish leader “appreciates what we have done,” despite criticism that the U.S. exit from northern Syria cleared the way for Turkey to attack the Kurds.

I dunno if that’s provocative, ballsy, or just a function of getting everything he asks for from Trump.

Erdogan is visiting the White House on November 13th.

Let’s see what happens.

That didn’t take long.

Provacative it is: He’s straight trolling… basically the rest of the West.

Reverend

Because we live in the future where everything gets put o social media, militias are now sensitive to public perceptions as to acceptable norms of looting and pillaging.

Man, I thought Americans hated politicians.

Reverend

Ouch. This one stings a bit…

HOBOCTN24 (N is backwards): Американцы уходили из Сирии, бросая личные жетоны, служебную документацию и флаг техасских повстанцев

Военкор «КП» Александр Коц передает с севера Сирии, где Турция проводит операцию «Источник мира» [фото, видео]

From an abandoned US base north of Manbij.

[They left identifying stuff too. Seems really weird, but I’ve never withdrawn from a combat zone, so I really don’t know.

The collection of books is amazing.

BrazilianSoxFan

I can just imagine a newspaper with that first picture on the first page with the headline “They took it”.

Isn’t this the kind of imagery that could bring criticism of the president form the right?

[REDACTED COMMENTS: PLACEHOLDER]

DISCUSSION: CAN WE TRUST STATE SPONSORED RUSSIAN MEDIA?

I hear you. But the legend of Dick Cat was confirmed after the act by a WSJ correspondent

Now, this other guy isn’t a blue check, but he appears to be a legit pro-opposition/Kurds guy from his online writing, and he has an interesting Twitter feed.

And he has another set of pics of the same stuff. Dunno where he got them, all exactly, but he’s got lots of stuff on the ground.

Will let everyone know if I find anything confirming or disconfirming.

Well, on any of the stuff I post, really. Unfortunately, thus far all the bad shit has been confirmed.

Although the Russians appear to be doing a pretty good job keeping fighting to a minimum. So that’s good, right?

 

 

 

 

I haven’t posted any of the oil articles because they’re all speculative but Business Insider and Yahoo!Finance and some others think it’s pretty stupid.

It’s worth listening to Trump talk about it for seconds though. It’s kinda… creepy.

Basically, it sounds like they finally found one thing to tell him about Syria that he understands.

barbed wire Bob

That‘s my take.  My guess is the Pentagon was loathe to abandon the Kurds but they couldn’t refuse a direct order from the CoC.  So  someone  came up with this rationale to maintain a military force in the area where ostensibly they are securing the oil fields but in reality they are maintaining a safe zone for the Kurds. IMO, whoever came up with this scheme to manipulate  Trump is brilliant and my hat is off to them.

Reverend

If you’re right, it’s about as good a place to put them to irritate Iran, too.

We’ll see. But a point in favor of your theory is that someone managed the plan to transfer Kobane to the Russians, so people are definitely thinking on their feet there.

I wonder what kind of logistical supply lines a bunch of tanks need that snake eaters or whomever we had there don’t…

barbed wire Bob

Thirty tanks suggests they are thinking about deploying a combined arms battalion or maybe a MEU, so figure around 1000 members. This is a WAG on my part. I’m not a soldier so take this fwiw and hopefully a professional such as [REDACTED] can chime in but I’m pretty sure the logistical tail required will be much larger than what the Special Forces needed.

For reference, this is the Wikipedia entry for a MEU .

dhappy42

Wait… what? I thought the whole idea was to bring the troops home. We pulled out a small special forces contingent and are now sending tanks?

 

 

 

 

 

This is going to get worse before it gets better, isn’t it?

And I’m not actually talking about Syria right now… but that’s pretty bad too.

The Dallas Morning News: Cornyn: Not a bad idea to get U.S. troops out of the way if Turkey planned to ‘ethnically cleanse the Kurds’

The Texas Republican isn’t happy about the abruptness of the U.S. withdrawal but defended Trump’s move, even if it left Kurdish allies unprotected.

By Todd J. Gillman

2:35 PM on Oct 23, 2019

WASHINGTON — Texas Sen. John Cornyn defended the president’s abrupt decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, arguing Wednesday that with Turkey intent on ethnic cleansing of the Kurds — longtime U.S. allies in the fight against the radical Islamic State — the move had merit.

“If Turkey was planning on coming into northern Syria and trying to ethnically cleanse the Kurds, and U.S. troops were caught in the middle, I am not completely convinced that it was a bad idea to get them out of harm’s way,” Cornyn said.

Also, these plans of ours for the situation are being crafted as all the troops with local knowledge and relationships leave.

Newsweek: EXCLUSIVE: U.S. HAS PLAN TO SEND TANKS AND TROOPS TO ‘SECURE’ SYRIA OIL FIELDS AMID WITHDRAWAL

By James LaPorta and  Tom O’Connor On 10/23/19 at 4:56 PM EDT

The United States has drawn up a plan to send troops and tanks to guard Syria’s eastern oil fields amid a withdrawal from the country’s north, Newsweek has learned.

A senior Pentagon official told NewsweekWednesday that the United States is seeking—pending White House approval—to deploy half of an Army armored brigade combat team battalion that includes as many as 30 Abrams tanks alongside personnel to eastern Syria, where lucrative oil fields are under the control of a mostly Kurdish force involved in the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). The Pentagon-backed militia, called the Syrian Democratic Forces and dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), will continue to be involved in securing these oil fields, the official said.

. . .

The president did, however, suggest Wednesday he would keep troops in the small southwestern garrison of Al-Tanf, as well as across crucial oil fields once seized by Syrian insurgents and, later ISIS, before being claimed by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

“We’ve secured the oil and, therefore, a small number of U.S. troops will remain in the area, where they have the oil,” Trump said at the White House. “And we’re going to be protecting it, and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.”

How overwrought is this narrative going to get? Do they have story tellers on the payroll to come up with the most comically evil, no matter how mundane, they can perpetrate.

It’s like evil bingo.

The Hill: Trump hotel cancels Christian aid group’s event to support the Kurds: report

VIDEO LINK

A prayer event for the Kurdish people that was scheduled for this week at President Trump’s hotel in D.C. was abruptly canceled, The Washington Post reported.

The event, dubbed “A Night of Prayer for the Kurds,” was planned by Frontier Alliance International (FAI), a nonprofit Christian organization that provides medical aid in the Middle East.

FAI’s administrator, Charlene Struebing, said hotel staff had expressed “security concerns.”

“They said they’ve gotten a lot of security concerns and they couldn’t accommodate enough security,” Struebing told the Post. “I think it’s more related to people protesting our event than it was anything we were doing.”

However, a D.C. police spokeswoman told the newspaper that it had not “received any information regarding potential security threats or concerns with this event.”

The group planned to hold the event after Trump’s recent decision to remove U.S. troops from the northeastern border of Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan followed Trump’s announcement by initiating a military offensive into Syria to fight the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group Erdoğan believes to be an enemy of Turkey.

PC Drunken Friar

Trump speaking now…All sanctions lifted, unless Turkey does something else. This is a wonderful deal. 3 days of outbursts is worth it for this peace. If Turkey doesn’t hold true to their promise we will cripple them. We will do it to them. We have the best economy in our history. 3 weeks ago, people said this couldn’t be done. Well, I did it. People are saying I did the impossible.

Reverend

I’m out of the house now; do you happen to remember what the “something else” is?

Like, this thing is not over; Assad and the SDF have not negotiated a political settlement and the Kurds are losing (their?) land. Also, Turkey is demanding that the YPG units be split out from the SDF units (the Kurds being conveniently most of their military) based on them being terrorists. Meanwhile Trump is making noise about giving the Kurds the Syrian oil fields.

If there hadn’t just been actual violence for the last two weeks, we’d be calling this a volatile situation. That the TA thinks this is resolution strikes me as a bit of madness.

Seriously? America is just going to assign oil fields to an unpopular minority dedicated to freedom in the middle of what used to be the territory of a Ba’athist regime in the Middle East?

Bold move, I’ll give’em that.

PC Drunken Friar

He basically said…they better not do anything else bad or we will hit them hard

The only other thing Turkey might want to do right now is deal with the Kurds within their own borders. It’s highly doubtful we would try to intervene there (Would Trump describe it as sibling rivalry? Let’em fight it out for awhile?)

So it sounds like, once again, he is having a fake negotiation. The last set of TA negotiations with Turkey have ended with Turkey negotiating back something the Trump has just given them for the appearance of a negotiated settlement that is actually a win for Turkey.

“Now that you’ve gotten everything you wanted, you better stop!!”

That might be a reason for Turkey to make another move, as they’ll likely assess this as more bluster from a position of weakness and lack of resolve.

It’s not really speculation when you just watched it happen twice in a row.