I'm down 20% since Trump was elected. Not saying we are wrong, necessarily.
But its good to check these theories against reality whenever possible.
Perhaps, the to-capacity usage of black/smuggling routes by various powers (US, NK, Saudi) - would increase business to legal transportation routes? Because the price of being illegal might be driven too high. Thus shipping might actually be doing well... I dunno.
(Note that it should really be: military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex, since that is a more accurate description of the conglomerates currently destroying the planet..)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/26/world/us-secretly-gave-aid...
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/15/world/new-reports-say-1980...
https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/11/the-october-surprise...
Though the Kurds are almost everything the US could want in a mideast ally - moderate, self-sustaining and stable, demonstrably capable - we will probably never embrace them fully due to our relationship with Turkey.
Some backstory:
Turkey lists the PKK as a terrorist organization, as Ankara and PKK have been fighting a separatist conflict for decades. Though the PKK has never targeted Americans, the US still lists the PKK as a terror org to placate Ankara.
The US has invested in Turkey as a strategic regional ally since the Cold War. Geographically Turkey was a key bulwark against Soviet power, and indeed we housed nuclear missiles within Turkish territory for many years. Even after the USSR collapsed, Turkey's regional value to the United States has grown. Incirlik is one of the largest air bases in the world, and remains a key logistical point for our military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Turkey was also important to the US ideologically because they were a stable, moderate, secular Muslim state, e.g. the kind of country we wanted to serve as a template for the rest of the Middle East. Thanks to Erdogan, this value has decreased sharply thanks to his moves to consolidate autocratic power at the expense of the still largely secular and moderate Turkish populace.
(Tried to keep the value judgements out of that, sorry if I offended someone by summarizing too generally).
A terrorist is a terrorist only when Americans are targeted?
But if you don't kill Americans... well, then the US can label you separatists or independents or some other creative euphemism. If you're useful to them.
Cynical take, and I certainly don't agree with it myself, but nonetheless that's how it works.
So again, can you substantiate your claim that modern PKK is a terrorist organization?
If that doesn't make them a terrorist organization... well, I don't know what to tell you.
If that doesn't make them a terrorist organization... well, I don't know what to tell you.
It's a war.
[citation needed]
Turkey is definitely not blameless in this conflict, but I want to see some reliable sources for the outrageous claims you just made.
https://www.voanews.com/a/un-accuses-turkey-massive-destruct...
http://www.dw.com/en/unprecedented-destruction-of-kurdish-ci...
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/feb/09/destruction-s...
On the executions: References 56, 57, 58, 59: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish%E2%80%93Turkish_confli...
There's way more, these are just the top google search results on each of these claims.
Rebel groups have pretty fluid membership. I see some joining one group and going to ISIS. That's how ISIS ended up with a lot of US weapons in their hands.
Now they are in debt to the WMF, are a totally non-stable state ravaged with crime and their slowly progressively moving government has reverted decades in terms of democracy and human rights. It's a mini-Iraq with less than 1/8 of the news coverage.
Oh definitely, Assad is liberal and secular, to the point where he operates countless secret torture prisons and has forcibly disappeared tens of thousands of his citizens. Use the term "lesser of evils" if you must. But relatively liberal? Absolutely not.
Even when compared to similar Middle Eastern autocrats, Assad is simply on a whole other level in my opinion. One might argue it's because of the war, but I really don't see why war crimes and torture prisons are required to "win" the civil war.
On the contrary, his people will never forget. Good luck building a stable and successful country with so much blood on your hands.
There are a few other good sources. I'll try to find them.
We're talking about the al-Assad ruling family? The same family whose literal policy is to raze towns that shelter any opposition, and are currently literally gassing their own citizens?
The US have never managed to secure any positive relationship with any secular/moderate Arab movement due to an mixture of commiphobia and incompetent arrogance within the western diplomatic establishment. Where as there is an relatively close relationship between most of the sponsors of radical Islamic terror and the US establishment through the gulf royals and their investment into the failing businesses of western dynasties and retired generals/admirals.
So the result of tolerating/establishing a moderate semi-secular government in an Arab state, tend to benefit Iran/Russia as we saw with post Saddam Iraq where the new government was forced to buy Russian planes and ask for Iranian support as the US kept stalling their attempts to buy American(mostly due to infighting between us suppliers) until half of Iraq had fallen to ISIS.