Turkey has begun attacking Syria

For people not familiar with the Kurds, they're a large, effectively stateless ethnic group that was arbitrarily split up after WWI and has been oppressed in both Iraq and Turkey ever since. The Kurds have always wanted independence in some form, but nobody is going to just give them a state. They exist as large percentages of the population of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. They make up between 18-25% of the population of Turkey, so when they threaten revolt, it's a pretty existential threat to the nation, hence Erdogan trying to wipe the Kurdish militia (and really, the entire ethnicity, including its language, dress, and even their name itself) off the map.

I hope the Kurds and other such groups remember this in the future. You can't count on the US as an ally.

"...nothing in return to the US."

Cui bono?

It's almost like Russia has some sort of influence over the President of the USA.

The Kurds in Syria are not allies, they are an enemy of an enemy acting as a temporary friend.

Against ISIS, the US and Russia cooperated as well, but this does not make them allies either who should rush to each other’s defense.

New York Times is deliberately avoiding mentioning the Kurds by name but that's the typical New York Times MO. The NYT's foreign policy position has always been low-key pro-imperialist. They'll never flat out explain that the US will never do anything to protect Rojava from Turkey because Turkey is a more valuable strategic ally.

Maybe in 5-10 years they'll leverage guilt of our inaction in Rojava to justify invading some other country.

First I've heard that Turkey is attacking with (or in coordination with) the Syrian Army.

>Why is this relevant on HN?

Aside from this being politically and potentially ethnically/religiously divisive...it is historical. You have Turkey invading Syria to use force against a militia funded/armed/trained by the US. In response the US President took to Twitter to essentially say go in and kill everyone, we have no interest...meanwhile another politician from the same party took to Twitter to tell Turkey not to go into Syria, because, well the US Congress hasn't authorize them to.

Its ridiculous and important, but goes to show while people are dying in armed conflict, for which we are in some ways responsible, our highest political leaders are taking to Twitter.

The guidelines are pretty clear: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This story probably won't be on the front page for long.

When oppressive regimes start trying to wipe out revolutionary factions of its largest ethnic minority, it's geopolitically interesting

I guess in the world of geopolitical hacking, this incoming genocide is a consequence.

So, run your virus checker, don't open emails from unexpected senders with weird attachments, and please, for the love of god, stop voting in russian spies for public office.

It will be flagged.

That rabbit hole leads to asking why NATO members are considered more moral and enlightened than other nations.

Turkey was invited to be a NATO member (and accepted) due to Cold War fear of the USSR, and historic conflicts with Russia. So NATO overlooked Turkey's shortcomings in the interest of realpolitik, and Turkey played nicer in the interest of NATO's reputation.

And we also forget the many refugees kept away from Europe by Erdogan. He'll sure use that as a negotiation tool...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/world/middleeast/turkey-s...

what genocide are you talking about?

Assuming you're American, imagine if Native Americans were to form a separatist organisation with 10,000s of civilian casualties (both kurdish and turkish) over decades. And then imagine if the people has interpreted your actions against this particular group as "genocide". How would you feel?

Good point. Frankly, NATO should have been disbanded along side the Warsaw-pact. That being said, the lack off outcry reminds me a lot of a certain period in european history... Appeasement, i.e. we pretend to be surprised about the genocide

The Intercept is incredible: https://theintercept.com

Associated Press appears to have live updates here: https://apnews.com/5bf8e9bfa25c45ef9d4dfcef352e26a3

We can't just blame Trump for this though. It goes all the way back to the House's vetoing Obama from reprisals against Assad for using chemical weapons in 2013, on the basis that Syria wasn't America's problem.

Trump simply supported that position in his campaign, and lo and behold, what happens a matter of weeks after the US has both a president and a House leadership that have said bombing Assad for using chemical weapons is not in the US's interests?

Assad uses chemical weapons, because why wouldn't he, and Trump ends up bombing him for it anyway. Meanwhile about a hundred civilians, including a hospital full of children, die.

Now I'm a UK citizen, so I sympathise. The US is in an unenviable position. Nobody in the US deserves to carry the can for any of this. Nevertheless, this is the world we live in and it's the job leading politicians sign up for. Moral, responsible leadership matters.

I'm a Reagan-Thatcher era lifelong conservative voter. I supported the second Gulf War, I still think it's up in the air whether that was the right thing to do. The status quo back then was also horrible and arguably breaking the deadlock with Saddam was worth attempting. But I've had it with modern US Republicanism. It's demonstrated very clearly it will knowingly sacrifice lives for electoral gain, and allow a situation to deteriorate in which the US and Western allies have already lost lives and are likely to lose them again.

This isn't the conservatism I grew up with.

It's not the American Republic, it's the Neocon Empire that is falling apart.

Pointlessly spending blood and treasure on endless overseas brushfires and internecine squabbles is something I would be very glad to see expunged from US foreign policy.

Why did this comment get downvoted? It's not falsifying the situation, or what's going to happen.