So in your opinion Terry what is the real reason for Turkey invading the Kurdish held region, strategically connecting the dots to achieve a certain outcome ?
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Sectarian vs. secular government; not a civil war
The conflict in Syria has never been civil war erupting from peaceful protest.
(So-called Arab Spring)
Syrian rebels and a great many foreigners want to overthrow the legitimate government (Syria’s secular, inclusive and tolerant society) to establish strict Islamic government and society.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and the U.S. have been backing those extremists to establish themselves in the Middle East and control its energy resources.
In September, the U.S. and Russia formed an agreement with fighters calling themselves “moderate rebels” in Syria who volunteered to separate themselves from Al Qaeda (the organization formerly led by Osama bin Laden, said to have brought down the Twin Towers in New York).
The U.S. and Russia would then cooperate with those (we play nice now) former Al Qaeda in order to jointly attack the Nusra Front and ISIS.
These fairy-tale “moderate terrorists” lost no time RE-JOINING Al Qaeda.
The group these moderates rejoined (Nour al-Din al-Zinki) posted a video of themselves beheading a 12-year old boy. (Good thing they’re only moderate.)
Most Syrians have chosen to remain in Syria under the protection of their government and Army. Mindful as they are and fearful of such “moderate” groups aligned with the U.S.
Journalists on the ground are eyewitness to the fact “Government [has] maintained control of the great majority of the populated areas and most of the displaced population sought refuge in those government controlled cities ...schools, health centres, sports facilities were functioning. While life was hardly normal, everyday life did carry on. People were surviving, and resisting. This reality was hardly visible in the western media, which has persistently spread lies about the character of the conflict.”
“Fact check two: almost all the atrocities blamed on the Syrian Army have been committed by western-backed Islamists, as part of their strategy to attract more foreign military backing. Their claims are repeated by the western media, fed by partisan Islamist sources and amplified by embedded ‘watchdogs’, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.”
__reported by Tim Anderson (in The Dirty War on Syria__
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From Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, ‘Why the Arabs don’t want us in Syria’
March 1, 2016In part because my father was murdered by an Arab, I’ve made an effort to understand the impact of U.S. policy in the Mideast and particularly the factors that sometimes motivate bloodthirsty responses from the Islamic world against our country.
… During the 1950s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers — CIA Director Allen Dulles and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles — rebuffed Soviet treaty proposals to leave the Middle East a neutral zone in the Cold War and let Arabs rule Arabia. Instead, they mounted a clandestine war against Arab nationalism … particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions …
The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 …Syrian patriots had declared war on the Nazis, expelled their Vichy French colonial rulers and crafted a fragile secularist democracy based on the American model. But in March 1949, Syria’s democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Quwatli, hesitated to approve the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, an American project … [I]n retaliation … the CIA engineered a coup replacing al-Quwatli with the CIA’s handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za'im …
…The Syrian people again tried democracy in 1955, re-electing al-Quwatli and his National Party. Al-Quwatli was still a Cold War neutralist, but stung by American involvement in his ouster, he now leaned toward the Soviet camp. That posture caused CIA Director Dulles to send his two coup wizards, Kim Roosevelt and Rocky Stone, to Damascus …
But … CIA money failed to corrupt the Syrian military officers. The soldiers reported the CIA’s bribery attempts to the Ba’athist regime. In response, the Syrian army invaded the American Embassy, taking Stone prisoner. After harsh interrogation, Stone made a televised confession of his roles in the Iranian coup and the CIA’s aborted attempt to overthrow Syria’s legitimate government. The Eisenhower White House hollowly dismissed Stone’s confession as “fabrications” and “slanders,” a denial swallowed whole by the American press, led by the New York Times and believed by the American people …
Of course, the Russians, who sell 70 percent of their gas exports to Europe, viewed the Qatar/Turkey pipeline as an existential threat … In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline to run through Syria “to protect the interests of our Russian ally.”
… Soon after [that] … the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria. It is important to note that this was well before the Arab Spring-engendered uprising against Assad.
Bashar Assad’s family is Alawite, a Muslim sect widely perceived as aligned with the Shiite camp. … Before the war started, according to [journalist Seymour] Hersh, Assad was moving to liberalize the country … Assad’s regime was deliberately secular and Syria was impressively diverse. The Syrian government and military, for example, were 80 percent Sunni. Assad maintained peace among his diverse peoples by a strong, disciplined army loyal to the Assad family, an allegiance secured by a nationally esteemed and highly paid officer corps, a coldly efficient intelligence apparatus and a penchant for brutality that, prior to the war, was rather moderate compared to those of other Mideast leaders, including our current allies. According to Hersh, “He certainly wasn’t beheading people every Wednesday like the Saudis do in Mecca.”
… By the spring of 2011, there were small, peaceful demonstrations in Damascus against repression by Assad’s regime. … However, WikiLeaks cables indicate that the CIA was already on the ground in Syria …
The idea of fomenting a Sunni-Shiite civil war to weaken the Syrian and Iranian regimes [and thus] to maintain control of the region’s petrochemical supplies was not a novel notion. … A damning 2008 Pentagon-funded Rand report … recommended using “covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare” to enforce a “divide and rule” strategy …
… Two years before ISIL throat cutters stepped on the world stage, a seven-page August 12, 2012, study by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, obtained by the right-wing group Judicial Watch, warned that … “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood and AQI ([Al-Qaeda Iraq,] now ISIS), are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.”
Using U.S. and Gulf state funding, these groups had turned the peaceful protests against Bashar Assad toward “a clear sectarian (Shiite vs. Sunni) direction.” …
Not coincidentally, the regions of Syria occupied by the Islamic State exactly encompass the proposed route of the Qatari pipeline. (Emphasis added.)
… Beginning in 2011, our allies funded the invasion by AQI [Al-Qaeda in Iraq] fighters into Syria. In April 2013, having entered Syria, AQI changed its name to ISIL. According to Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker, “ISIS is run by a council of former Iraqi generals … Many are members of Saddam Hussein’s secular Ba’ath Party who converted to radical Islam in American prisons.” …
But then, in 2014, our Sunni proxies horrified the American people by severing heads and driving a million refugees toward Europe …
