"It’s stuff like this the makes me miss President Trump’s style. He would have been calling for the people of Cuba to rise up and overthrow Díaz-Canel. There’s really no gray area here. Cuba, for 62 years, has been run by communist thugs, who worked for a doctor who enjoyed murder, the oppressive maniac Ché Guevara."
After the tweet, Trump would have forgotten all about it, having moved onto his next troll, leaving the people of Cuba to wonder whether Washington actually had their back or whether it was more empty words from a man who abandoned our Kurdish allies in the Middle East, didn't see an international organization that could do Cubans some good to disparage under the empty slogan of "America First", and started the ball rolling on returning Afghanistan back to the medieval regime who regard women little more than chattel. "But he fights!"
Cubans are better off on knowing *exactly* where Americans stand on their struggle - and can plan accordingly without having to discover the hard way that Americans really don't care about their welfare or who is calling the shots in their nation. It's extremely unfortunate and the Cubans could use some enlightened Monroe Doctrine here, but regime change is not in the cards.
I think I originally directed my reply to the wrong party.
I know bashing Trump is the favored narrative on this site but do you know if Trump's actions ever caused serious damage to the Kurds? If it did, it hasn't made much news. I personally see the Kurds as better allies than Turkey because of Erdogan but it hasn't always been that way. Many Korean War veterans are only five or six years older than me and I remember a couple of them praising how fiercely the Turks defended their positions and attacked the enemy.
"On Trump’s orders, the small group of U.S. Special Forces that had served as a buffer between the U.S.-aligned Kurdish militia and the Turkish army left their posts last year, clearing the way for a Turkish invasion. That impetuous decision forced Kurdish troops, which had done most of the fighting to destroy Islamic State’s caliphate, to align with Damascus in Syria’s civil war, and by extension Russia and Iran."
"Another consequence is that the majority Kurdish population that lived in Syria’s border region with Turkey has been in the crosshairs of Turkey’s military and allied Islamist militias. A report released this week from the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria paints an ugly picture."
"The report singles out that Islamist militia, known (ironically) as the “Syrian National Army,” for actions that likely amount to war crimes. Three of its brigades “repeatedly perpetrated the war crime of pillage in both the Afrin and Ra’s al-Ayn regions,” it says. The militias have also been credibly accused of the torture and rape of detainees."
"Making things worse, the report also notes 'allegations that Turkish forces were aware of incidents of looting and appropriation of civilian property and that they were present in detention facilities run by the Syrian National Army where the ill-treatment of detainees was rampant, including during interrogation sessions when torture took place.'"
"The allegation that Ankara tacitly allowed its allies to perpetrate war crimes is credible because the Turkish military is the occupying force in the territory Kurdish fighters fled last October. What’s more, the report also says prisoners detained by the Syrian National Army have been transferred to Turkey to face trial."[1]
--
"Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin signed a 10-point agreement in Sochi on October 22, 2019, ratifying Turkey’s presence in northeast Syria and forcing the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the PYD’s armed forces, to withdraw from Turkish-held territory. Since then, Turkey has been accused of driving out the Kurdish population and replacing them with 2 million Sunni Arabs who had fled from elsewhere in Syria to Turkey. “Erdoğan wants to change the ethnic makeup of the territory his army controls,” according to Abdel Karim Omar, foreign minister in the Federation’s autonomous government. 'Before Turkey invaded in 2018, 85 percent of Afrin’s population was Kurdish. Now it’s 20 percent.'"
...
"Abdi told us that, for now, “Moscow is working on a solution between the Kurds and the Syrian regime.” But he and other prominent Kurds know Russia and Turkey made a bargain over Rojava that benefited the Syrian government. 'Initially, Russia ‘gave’ Afrin to Turkey in exchange for Homs, Ghouta, and a small part of Idlib for the Syrian regime. Then it ‘ceded’ Ras al-Ayn and Tell Abyad to Turkey in exchange for another bit of Idlib.' The Kurds could be the biggest losers in these trades."[2]
--
It sounds like the Kurds are hanging on by their fingernails to maintain their lands and culture, against hostile actors all around them. Turkey seems intent on displacing them with other refugees, and the Assad regime is using their plight to re-establish control over the parts of Syria where they had been autonomously governing themselves. I imagine that just about any Kurd - if forced to choose between what they have now, and what they had when the US was in the neighborhood - would have chosen what they had prior to the withdrawal to what they have now. Before, they were a player exercising some influence - now, they're just pawns in others' games, despite the instrumental roles they played in assisting US forces in Iraq and in the fight against ISIS.
"It’s stuff like this the makes me miss President Trump’s style. He would have been calling for the people of Cuba to rise up and overthrow Díaz-Canel. There’s really no gray area here. Cuba, for 62 years, has been run by communist thugs, who worked for a doctor who enjoyed murder, the oppressive maniac Ché Guevara."
After the tweet, Trump would have forgotten all about it, having moved onto his next troll, leaving the people of Cuba to wonder whether Washington actually had their back or whether it was more empty words from a man who abandoned our Kurdish allies in the Middle East, didn't see an international organization that could do Cubans some good to disparage under the empty slogan of "America First", and started the ball rolling on returning Afghanistan back to the medieval regime who regard women little more than chattel. "But he fights!"
Cubans are better off on knowing *exactly* where Americans stand on their struggle - and can plan accordingly without having to discover the hard way that Americans really don't care about their welfare or who is calling the shots in their nation. It's extremely unfortunate and the Cubans could use some enlightened Monroe Doctrine here, but regime change is not in the cards.
I think I originally directed my reply to the wrong party.
I know bashing Trump is the favored narrative on this site but do you know if Trump's actions ever caused serious damage to the Kurds? If it did, it hasn't made much news. I personally see the Kurds as better allies than Turkey because of Erdogan but it hasn't always been that way. Many Korean War veterans are only five or six years older than me and I remember a couple of them praising how fiercely the Turks defended their positions and attacked the enemy.
"On Trump’s orders, the small group of U.S. Special Forces that had served as a buffer between the U.S.-aligned Kurdish militia and the Turkish army left their posts last year, clearing the way for a Turkish invasion. That impetuous decision forced Kurdish troops, which had done most of the fighting to destroy Islamic State’s caliphate, to align with Damascus in Syria’s civil war, and by extension Russia and Iran."
"Another consequence is that the majority Kurdish population that lived in Syria’s border region with Turkey has been in the crosshairs of Turkey’s military and allied Islamist militias. A report released this week from the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria paints an ugly picture."
"The report singles out that Islamist militia, known (ironically) as the “Syrian National Army,” for actions that likely amount to war crimes. Three of its brigades “repeatedly perpetrated the war crime of pillage in both the Afrin and Ra’s al-Ayn regions,” it says. The militias have also been credibly accused of the torture and rape of detainees."
"Making things worse, the report also notes 'allegations that Turkish forces were aware of incidents of looting and appropriation of civilian property and that they were present in detention facilities run by the Syrian National Army where the ill-treatment of detainees was rampant, including during interrogation sessions when torture took place.'"
"The allegation that Ankara tacitly allowed its allies to perpetrate war crimes is credible because the Turkish military is the occupying force in the territory Kurdish fighters fled last October. What’s more, the report also says prisoners detained by the Syrian National Army have been transferred to Turkey to face trial."[1]
--
"Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin signed a 10-point agreement in Sochi on October 22, 2019, ratifying Turkey’s presence in northeast Syria and forcing the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the PYD’s armed forces, to withdraw from Turkish-held territory. Since then, Turkey has been accused of driving out the Kurdish population and replacing them with 2 million Sunni Arabs who had fled from elsewhere in Syria to Turkey. “Erdoğan wants to change the ethnic makeup of the territory his army controls,” according to Abdel Karim Omar, foreign minister in the Federation’s autonomous government. 'Before Turkey invaded in 2018, 85 percent of Afrin’s population was Kurdish. Now it’s 20 percent.'"
...
"Abdi told us that, for now, “Moscow is working on a solution between the Kurds and the Syrian regime.” But he and other prominent Kurds know Russia and Turkey made a bargain over Rojava that benefited the Syrian government. 'Initially, Russia ‘gave’ Afrin to Turkey in exchange for Homs, Ghouta, and a small part of Idlib for the Syrian regime. Then it ‘ceded’ Ras al-Ayn and Tell Abyad to Turkey in exchange for another bit of Idlib.' The Kurds could be the biggest losers in these trades."[2]
--
It sounds like the Kurds are hanging on by their fingernails to maintain their lands and culture, against hostile actors all around them. Turkey seems intent on displacing them with other refugees, and the Assad regime is using their plight to re-establish control over the parts of Syria where they had been autonomously governing themselves. I imagine that just about any Kurd - if forced to choose between what they have now, and what they had when the US was in the neighborhood - would have chosen what they had prior to the withdrawal to what they have now. Before, they were a player exercising some influence - now, they're just pawns in others' games, despite the instrumental roles they played in assisting US forces in Iraq and in the fight against ISIS.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-09-17/kurds-have-paid-dearly-for-trump-s-reckless-withdrawal-from-syria
[2] https://www.thenation.com/article/world/rojava-kurds-syria/
Biden's statement:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E6GmEeaWEAI6S-c?format=jpg&name=900x900
Good.