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Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria. There are large numbers of Kurdish people also in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, but they don't have sovereign country.

I need to say that I sympathise with them because they were leading the fight against Isis. Even the USA allied with them in this fight.
But the situation changed now. Turkey is trying to take control of Syrian lend at the north border of Syria where Kurds live in city of Kobane and other cities. Americans are withdrawing from the region as Turkey is very important member of NATO and it's not clear who to support in this conflict.

My question is, why Turkey decided to make this "buffer zone" on the Turkey-Syria border and attacked the Kurds who have many sympathisers around the world. I think many people will start to boycott Turkey because clearly they are the aggressor in this conflict. This is the beginning of a civil war which could transform into a World War 3 if the US and Russia get involved. WW3 is not very likely as no-one can really afford it at the moment. However even in best case scenario, the Turkey-Kurds conflict will result in deaths of many civilians and even more refugees will flew to Europe which already can't cope with all of them coming from Syria and Africa.

this is a significant part of the answer. The Versailles treaty after the 1st World War was supposedly designed to stop precisely this problem from happening, but oops, they accidentally designed the treaty in a way that specifically kept the Kurdish problem stored up until a future date. It was not possible to redraw the map in such a way that all these intermingled ethnic groups could be completely segregated, but in the case of the Kurds, it would have been incredibly easy to recognise at least some kind of Kurdish sovereign territory, they likely chose not to in order to exploit the situation in future.

These were very smart people, (Churchill, Clemeceau, Wilson supposedly less so) they would have been aware of all this at the time. The significance of controlling the crude oil market was long since well known, and the Kurdish region was likely chosen as a geo-strategic pivot to keep the Middle East in the right amount of turmoil to let the gangsters continuously assert their authority; keep puppets in charge of regional powers, and use them to control the price of oil and to assure which currency oil is priced in.



The Turkish establishment (particularly those connected to oil and the military in Turkey) are probably orchestrating this whole sequence of events in concert with similarly powerful figures in the US and Russia. It's important to remember that as much as the big powers may attack each other publicly from time to time, their real enemy is the population of the countries fiefdoms they control. The US, Russia, Turkey, China, Japan, Brazil, the EU.... likely the majority of their public disagreements have more to do with using the tension to elicit tribal instincts in regular people than they have to do with any real disagreement. These so-called enemies have more in common with one another than they do with the serfs whose interests they pretend to represent.

Syrians. The shortest answer is Syrians. Since 2016 more than 4.5 million Syrians asked for asylum and came to Turkey. Now, it's been many years since that time but Syrians are still living in Southern Turkey and a a huge burden both economically and logistics. The Syrians are refusing to go back to their lands due to conflict. Therefore Turkey decided to create a buffer zone aka safe zone in Northern Syria so that Syrians can go back to their homes, if they refuse Turkey can just force them and no one will bat an eye, in the end they are going to their own country where it is safe.


Another thing is that it is mostly known that YPG (now renamed to SDF) are the Syrian part of a globally recognised terror organisation PKK. Turkey, using the opportunity Syrians provided are attacking SDF to eliminate SDF/PKK that have been pestering Turkey by killing civilians, teachers, police officers, soldiers in the Southern/Eastern Turkey.

Is it about oil? No. If you have checked the borders since the beginning of the whole ordeal, you will see that most of the oil derricks are located in the Southern Syria, far far away where Turkey wants to create as a buffer zone. Funny thing, most of the oil derricks are located in SDF's zone. Who were US allies and were provided arms, training, vehicles by the US. How do you think these "rebels" actually paid back US?

An hour or two ago there was an article on the New York Times regarding yesterday night's ABC news. Yesterday, for some reason ABC aired a footage from Kentucky Gun Range where they were shooting barrels full of gunpowder (from what I understood) as a kind of celebration and tradition for the gun range, obviously, bullets, heat and gunpowder does not really go well together so there were plenty of explosions (almost) creating mushrooms. ABC aired this footage with the label "Turkey is bombing Syrian towns" (and later changed it to "Slaughter in Syria) especially pointing out the huge mushroom clouds and how Turkey is destroying the civilian territory in Syria.

If you are wondering what the network has said regarding this:

"“We’ve taken down video that aired on ‘World News Tonight Sunday’ and ‘Good Morning America’ this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy,” the network said in a statement on Monday. “ABC News regrets the error.”

"A representative for ABC News declined to comment on how the mix-up had happened."

I ain't taking sides so I'm more concerned with Turkey going through the Syrian "border". We know the Kurds are in control of that area and that's why they were in negotiations with Turkey but wouldn't this amount to an actual declaration of war against Syria? From the few bits I've read online, it seems the Syrian army is stepping up and the Kurds has turned over some of the cities they control to the Syrian government.

As Carlton Banks above has noted, this could have never been a problem if the Kurds were given their homeland considering the area they inhabit would form a contiguous area if it was cut off from Syria and Turkey. Unfortunately at this point in time the hatred between all parties involved is enough to perpetuate the cycle, as seen by the post I quoted below.


I can bet they also talk to their kids about the Turks this way.


"Error".  ;D

Not sure how many sympathizers they have in other countries but some EU countries have already stopped selling them arms when this broke out.  I'm doubtful about the "buffer zone" excuse. The Kurds were already the buffer zone between the Turks and Syrians. They can punt Syrians back across the border even without that.

About that last part, I can see the front-line EU countries like Greece and Italy closing up, which would increase the internal friction within the EU. That's why Brussels want the UK to suffer from Brexit, they don't want the other members getting ideas.

erdogan things like a nationalist ICO, he needs to somehow distrust, or ban the competing kurdish ico, from the forum that is world sphere,
to maintain the value of the turkish token/coin.

world is mad wilderness and humans are wolfs to each other.
regards

Powerful perspective, Turkei is for the most part doing a clean up operation now as "advised" by his big brothers, the corrupt and totally incompetent Erdogan regime continues to embarrass itself in the eyes of the international arena all the while shamelessly lying non stop to its under-educated constituency and painting the debacle as a `victory`...

The Syrian offensive means very little for the Turkish nation, no serious military theorist would suggest that a land can be kept free of terrorist activity for long unless the attackers occupy it (and in this case annex it), which the currently bankrupt Turkish state is unable to carry out.

On the other hand, a historical opportunity has been missed in Northern Iraq, where Turkish Army could have easily taken oil rich Musul and Kerkuk (which has majority Turkmen population historically, most of whom are now displaced, a very well known fact shunned completely by the international media by the way) and put the Turkish Republic back on the map as a major power in the world, but the treacherous and tribal minded government could not even dream of defying their secret handlers from the US back in the day...

How were the Kurdish regions "pacified" and incorporated into modern Turkey? I don't need to go there, I live in a country with separatists. We say they bomb us, they say we bomb them. I'd say they did horrible things but I'm not naive and accept the possibility they've suffered as much as us too (considering their region sucks compared to mine, not to mention they're killing each other too).

This turmoil with the Kurds ain't ending anytime soon. You can commit genocide on a people but you can't kill an idea. Unlikely but hopefully a larger crisis can be averted.

This reminds me of the Sahrawi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Sahara_conflict), except those guys did have a proper territory, but Morocco simply annexed it and pushed all of them to neighbor Argelia, Western Sahara, so they now all live in tents in the desert. There is no oil or anything of interest, no one cares. Why would Turkey be "bad", while Morocco is "nice"?

The Kurds claim what is essentially half the territory of Turkey, what did you expect? Hey, Mexico wants their lands back, you know, California, Texas, etc. What gives?

Sounds to me like good old fashioned human history (I have more guns, leave or die). Oh and don't get me started with Palestine...

Hypocrisy.

There were no potential World War III. USA is going out of Syria. Turkey attacking the Kurds were approved and plan by Russian, Iran and Syria to forced the Kurds to leave their false dream of having their own country and to rejoin Syria. Syrians and Russia cannot attack the Kurds because USA would defend them but Turkey can. Because they are part of NATO and Turkey hold a very strategic area and USA can't just ditched them.

After fighting along side with them for years with US and Turkey they are not seeing Kurds as theat to them?  When it comes to preserving country men everything worse than murder is going to be justified. Those Kurds butchered everyday and they can't even let them passby their area to seek asylum somewhere since they badly need it. Is it JUST to leave them butchered by the ISIS?

I'd not just blame the syrians. Kurds just doesn't live only in Syria. There's a significant population in the Turkey and Iraq.
PKK is the one vying for independence and YPG/SDF is a name used by different groups that also includes the ones affiliated to PKK.
With the war with ISS, YPG with the support of US army got a significant hold in the Syrian territory. US knew they were helping PKK while helping YPG. So, they withdrew the moment they got to open up for Turkey assault. It's all planned. No WW3 is happening here.

I actually had a similar answer somewhere in the other thread. All in all, I had written that most of the Syrians and Kurds are innocent. YPG, US, Turkey, Russia, Syrian regime are all into something and they know what each other are doing. Keeping up with the news, as soon as "something" gets announced one of these parties acknowledge it immediately, such as, when a temporary ceasefire was determined, YPG immediately accepted it and was already pulling back by the time it was declared. Of course, there are some extremists in both Syrian and Kurds (such as PKK and other Syrian terrorist groups) but I believe that it's all connected and the only ones getting hurt are innocent civilians who are inadvertently involved in this situation.

@gyzer I’ll agree there’s no World War III happening, as this was a planned operation which had the consent of US and other countries mentioned by you. I really feel bad for the Kurds as they had helped US prision ISIS terrorists, and now they’re being butchered for political gains. @target there’s nothing that can be done to save the Kurds, unless Trump suddenly decides to intervene and stop this madness.

there is very likely alot of truth to this

the high ranking military officers in these situations could be engaging in some pretty disgusting corrupt deals between each other. The fact is that genuine all-out war is almost as dangerous to the commanding officers as it is to the ground troops.

Why would the commanders on either side willingly take such risks to their own lives, over a few miles of desert? It would be rather convenient to them to orchestrate some fighting against each other, and to do so in a way that ensures civilians are exposed to the fighting and traumatized. Then, their politicians have got some really compliant and faithful sheep as citizens for a few decades, or if not, some angry kids that willingly offer themselves up as soldiers to continue the fight. As long as the commanders plan the fighting in a way that never moves the battle fronts around in an unpredictable way, their own lives are at minimal risk, and their politician friends will reward them for keeping the racket going ::)

but it would be a real high-wire act nonetheless; you can imagine it's very easy to screw the other side over by making big advances that were not agreed to! And when your opposing commander contacts you saying "WTF?!", just say "well, we've gotta make it look real, keep the soldiers believing, right?"

"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" would apply on most conflict and likely would ring true as long as there are humans. Whether the Kurds would survive or not would not depend on them, but on the larger powers playing.

It also makes the entire fabric of international relations, NATO, UN, "Alliances" look like a complete joke when the long term "strategic partner" of the Turkish Republic - USA aggressively and arrogantly arms, funds and trains the direct enemies of the Turkish nation, and the Turkish government is so pathetic and incompetent that it cannot even dare to enact the slightest reprimand against the USA...

Can there be a greater insult and betrayal against a nation, when your so called "ally" is arming an organization that is considered sworn terrorists and public enemy # 1 by the Turkish nation.

The failing Turkish administration makes the country look like a banana republic now, and since most people dislike Muslim Turks, the entire world seems to be watching these events unfold with sadistic glee (or alternatively with feigned outrage against the Turkish Republic, who are conveniently "wrong and evil" by default even when they are routinely getting the shortest end of the stick in international affairs)...

since USA abandon on Turkey Syria solution, after Pence visit to Ankara, and ceasefire that was agreed, but cannot be seen on the field, this seems to be one of the steps toward the end of the world that we know it, where USA is dealing with world crisis and play a global judge

Erdogan is heading to Sochi to meet Putin and solve Russia and Syria support for Kurds, and they will probably find solution there, without USA influence, and i cannot remember many events and crisis as this one, that is solved without USA influence, it is a change, will see what direction the world is going to go now, cannot wait for news on Tuesday, how the meeting is going to turn out

Very important to note that after WW1 the Kurds were promised their own land, but then this was taken from them. They were then split up among 4 ME countries: Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. Here's the quote from the WP:

There is a potential for a war but not a world war, since Erdogan doesn't like Assad, who is supported by Russia. Turkey shot down a Russian jet that was flying over Syria so the situation isn't good and in case of a conflict I doubt the USA would intervene and help Turkey, especially after what Trump said about destroying the economy of Turkey. If Turkey was in the EU it would be a different thing but Turkey is alone in this and it doesn't stand a chance against Russia if it comes to that.

It all felt like a play to give Russia control of Syria and to get most of US assets out of there. The situation there is extremely complex considering all the terrorists that are/were in the prisons controlled by the kurds. Im guessing the Kurds will be removed from the neighbouring areas of Turkey and forced further inland into Syria. Terrorism in the area will increase but Russia will most likely get control over the oil in the region as a result of US reduced forces there. And no, potential for a large conflict is slim.

I was impressed by Trump's speech today on Syria (https://www.c-span.org/video/?465658-1/president-trump-lifts-sanctions-turkey-agrees-permanent-ceasefire-syria). He sounded very anti-war: about as anti-war as someone like Tulsi Gabbard or Rand Paul, even. Of course, in reality he's sending troops from Syria to Saudi Arabia -- not anything close to "ending the endless wars" as he claims --, but at least the rhetoric is refreshing.

That's Trumps thing, keep up the rhetoric with his voters and then do a completely different thing when his advisors (who are pro-war) to do so. It's a sad fact, but its true.

Hopefully at one point he'll be able to overpower his advisers and do what he wants to do. I do truly think that Trump is antiwar -- but continues to be swayed to do different things.

Yeah, he ran on the whole "anti-war" rhetoric. And in all honesty he has been at least decent at keeping out of conflicts. The real interesting spectacle is the anti-war left becoming increasingly pro-war/conflict. Especially the old establishment Dems who are trying to cling onto power.
As for the move from Syria to SA, it was kind of expected that they would not be going back to the states just yet. That region is way too important financially to loose influence there.

I think you're being played.

Be honest, Trump's been displaying plenty of belligerent personality traits, he's just not been given an opportunity to put them into action. If the US military were attacked, are you saying you would be even in the least bit surprised if the Trump administration reacted with overwhelming push-back? And guess what: the democrats would suddenly go all dovish again.


It's a con, and you've both fallen for it. They take turns to pretend to be anti-war, with the convenient excuse of partisanship to disguise the fact that they are literally performing a confidence trick: you actually believe that because Trump (or Clinton/Bush/Obama/Paul/Gabbard) said something that sounded like an ideal anti-war position, that that somehow absolves them when they do the opposite with a little window dressing at a future point? You're serious? You know what anti-war really looks like? It doesn't look like soldiers or military hardware, or massive assaults in countries in which you haven't even declared war (presumably peace is still officially declared all across the Middle East and Eurasia, sure feels like that to live there? Orwell is doing the fucking Charleston in his grave right now)

Every time, the left builds the public up, then the right knocks them down. Then they switch roles ::)

And despite the whole dove/hawk flip-flopping charade unfolding at a faster cadence than in the past, you haven't cottoned on? Dems and reps alternate their pro/anti war stance like the split personalities of the same capricious psychopath, probably because they are the same capricious psychopath. How fast do they have to completely invert their respective stances before you notice that they've blurred into one single entity? Presumably when they notice you've noticed, you'll believe them when they then tell you (more bs): "but it's not what it looks like! this will be the war that ends all wars! wars are anti-war like that!!"

Here's what would make you really anti-war: a real war, in your actual backyard.