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turkey/syria/kurdistan dustup or heavy action

Hagbard Celine

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Captainant

Captainant 27772

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An update on the whole "turkey has a bunch of our nukes in their country" thread:

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An estimated 50 US nuclear bombs are effectively being held hostage in Turkey as Washington attempts to find a diplomatic way of responding to the country’s invasion of Syria, officials are reported to have warned.

...

However, the rapid pace of withdrawal and the tumultuous decline of relations between the two countries has left administration officials scrambling to find a plan for the nuclear weapons stored under American control at the shared Incirlik Air Base in south east Turkey, reports said.

Officials from the State Department and Energy Department, which manages Washington's nuclear arsenal, met at the weekend to consider how they might retrieve an estimated fifty tactical nuclear weapons held at the site, according to The New York Times.

Definitely don't see that going pear shaped in any way whatsoever...

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Bevo

Bevo 13601

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The Origins of New US-Turkish Relations

October 14, 2019

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For several years, there has been a significant shift underway in U.S. strategy toward the Middle East, where Washington has consistently sought to avoid combat. The United States is now compelled to seek accommodation with Turkey, a regional power in its own right, based on terms that are geopolitically necessary for both. Their relationship has been turbulent, and while it may continue to be so for a while, it will decline. Their accommodation has nothing to do with mutual affection but rather with mutual necessity. The Turkish incursion into Syria and the U.S. response are part of this adjustment, one that has global origins and regional consequences.

Similarly, the U.S. decision to step aside as Turkey undertook an incursion in northeastern Syria has a geopolitical and strategic origin. The strategic origin is a clash between elements of the Defense Department and the president. The defense community has been shaped by a war that has been underway since 2001. During what is called the Long War, the U.S. has created an alliance structure of various national and subnational groups. Yet the region is still on uneven footing. The Iranians have extended a sphere of influence westward. Iraq is in chaos. The Yemeni civil war still rages, and the original Syrian war has ended, in a very Middle Eastern fashion, indecisively.

A generation of military and defense thinkers have matured fighting wars in the Middle East. The Long War has been their career. Several generations spent their careers expecting Soviet tanks to surge into the Fulda Gap. Cold Warriors believed a world without the Cold War was unthinkable. The same can be said for those shaped by Middle Eastern wars. For the Cold War generation, the NATO alliance was the foundation of their thinking. So too for the Sandbox generation, those whose careers were spent rotating into Iraq or Afghanistan or some other place, the alliances formed and the enemies fought seemed eternal. The idea that the world had moved on, and that Fulda and NATO were less important, was emotionally inconceivable. Any shift in focus and alliance structure was seen as a betrayal.

After the Cold War ended, George H.W. Bush made the decision to stand down the 24-hour B-52 air deployments in the north that were waiting for a Soviet attack. The reality had changed, and Bush made the decision a year after the Eastern European collapse began. He made it early on Sept. 21, 1991, after the Wall came down but before the Soviet Union collapsed. It was a controversial decision. I knew some serious people who thought that we should be open to the possibility that the collapse in Eastern Europe was merely a cover for a Soviet attack and were extremely agitated over the B-52 stand-down.

It is difficult to accept that an era has passed into history. Those who were shaped by that era, cling, through a combination of alarm and nostalgia, to the things that reverberate through their minds. Some (though not Europeans) spoke of a betrayal of Europe, and others deeply regretted that the weapons they had worked so hard to perfect and the strategy and tactics that had emerged over decades would never be tried.

The same has happened in different ways in the Middle East. The almost 20-year deployment has forged patterns of behavior, expectations and obligations not only among individuals but more institutionally throughout the armed forces. But the mission has changed. For now, the Islamic State is vastly diminished, as is al-Qaida. The Sunni rising in Iraq has ended, and even the Syrian civil war is not what it once was. A war against Iran has not begun, may not happen at all, and would not resemble the wars that have been fought in the region hitherto.

This inevitably generates a strategic re-evaluation, which begins by accepting that the prior era is gone. It was wrenching to shift from World War II to the Cold War and from the Cold War to a world that many believed had transcended war, and then to discover that war was suspended and has now resumed. War and strategy pretend to be coolly disengaged, but they are passionate undertakings that don’t readily take to fundamental change. But after the 18 years of war, two things have become clear. The first is that the modest objective of disrupting terrorism has been achieved, and the second is that the ultimate goal of creating something approaching liberal democracies was never really possible.

Consistency

The world has changed greatly since 2001. China has emerged as a major power, and Russia has become more active. Iran, not Sunni jihadists, has become the main challenge in the Middle East and the structure of alliances needed to deal with this has changed radically since Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. In addition, the alliances have changed in terms of capability. The massive deployments in the Middle East have ended, but some troops remain there, and to a section of the American military, the jihadist war remains at the center of their thinking. To them, the alliances created over the past 18 years remain as critical as Belgium’s air force had been during the Cold War.

There is another, increasingly powerful faction in the United States that sees the Middle East as a secondary interest. In many instances, they include Iran in this. This faction sees China or Russia (or both) as the fundamental challenger to the U.S. Its members see the Middle East as a pointless diversion and a drain of American resources.

For them, bringing the conflict to a conclusion was critical. Those who made their careers in this war and in its alliances were appalled. The view of President Donald Trump has been consistent. In general, he thought that the use of military force anywhere must be the exception rather than the rule. He declined to begin combat in North Korea. He did not attack Iran after it shot down an American drone or after it seized oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. After the attack on the Saudi oil facility, he increased Saudi air defenses but refused offensive actions against the Iranians.

Given the shift in American strategy, three missions emerge. The first is the containment of China. The second is the containment of Russia. The third is the containment of Iran. In the case of China, the alliance structure required by the United States is primarily the archipelago stretching from Japan to Indonesia and Singapore – and including South Korea. In dealing with Russia, there are two interests. One is the North European Plain; the other is the Black Sea. Poland is the American ally in the north, Romania in the south. But the inclusion of Turkey in this framework would strengthen the anti-Russia framework. In addition, it would provide a significant counter to Iranian expansion.

Turkey’s importance is clear. It is courted by both Russia and Iran. Turkey is not the country it was a decade ago. Its economy surged and then went into crisis. It has passed through an attempted coup, and internal stress has been massive. But such crises are common in emerging powers. The U.S. had a civil war in the 1860s but by 1900 was producing half of the manufactured goods in the world while boasting a navy second only to the British. Internal crises do not necessarily mean national decline. They can mean strategic emergence.

Turkey’s alignment with Iran and Russia is always tense. Iran and Russia have at various times waged war with Turkey and have consistently seen Iraq as a threat. For the moment, both have other interests and Turkey is prepared to work with them. But Turkey is well aware of history. It is also aware that the U.S. guaranteed Turkish sovereignty in the face of Soviet threats in the Cold War, and that the U.S., unlike Russia and Iran, has no territorial ambitions or needs in Turkey. Already allied through NATO and historical bilateral ties, a relationship with Turkey is in the American interest because it creates a structure that threatens Iran’s line to the Mediterranean and compliments the Romanian-U.S. Black Sea alliance. The U.S. and Turkey are also hostile to the Syrian government. For Turkey, in the long term, Russia and Iran are unpredictable, and they can threaten Turkey when they work together. The American interest in an independent Turkey that blocks Russia and Iran coincides with long-term Turkish interests.

Enter the Kurds

This is where the Kurds come into the equation. Eastern Turkey is Kurdish, and maintaining stability there is a geopolitical imperative for Ankara. Elements of Turkey’s Kurds, grouped around the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, have carried out militant attacks. Therefore it is in Turkey’s interest to clear its immediate frontiers from a Kurdish threat. The United States has no overriding interest in doing so and, indeed, has worked together with the Kurds in Iraq and Syria. But for the Turks, having Kurds on their border is an unpredictable threat. American dependency on the Kurds declines as U.S. involvement in the Middle East declines. Turkey becomes much more important to the United States in relation to Iran than the Kurds.

Trump clearly feels that the wars in the Middle East must be wound down and that a relationship with Turkey is critical. The faction that is still focused on the Middle East sees this as a fundamental betrayal of the Kurds. Foreign policy is a ruthless and unsentimental process. The Kurds want to establish a Kurdish nation. The U.S. can’t and doesn’t back that. On occasion, the U.S. will join in a mutually advantageous alliance with the Kurds to achieve certain common goals. But feelings aside, the U.S. has geopolitical interests that sometimes include the Kurds and sometimes don’t – and the same can be said of the Kurds.

At the moment, the issue is not al-Qaida but China and Russia, and Turkey is critical to the U.S. for Russia. The U.S. is critical for Turkey as well, but it cannot simply fall into American arms. It has grown too powerful in the region for that, and it has time to do it right. So Trump’s actions on the Syrian border will result in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington and, in due course, a realignment in the region between the global power and the regional power.

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Homercles

Homercles 10206

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Those B61 bombs are in deep-set concrete bunkers that are hard to get to even if they had access to the base.  I don’t know if they have the latest PAL version that automatically fries itself if you enter the wrong code multiple times, but they definitely have the command disable function that makes it utterly useless if a USAF technician pulls that handle.  I believe they’re 12-digit codes now so good luck guessing it correctly.  
 

Hopefully worst case is they have to disable them, leaving the core intact but with the critical electronics ruined essentially making it useless as a full on nuclear device, and ‘only’ use the plutonium for a dirty bomb.  Conceivably you could replace the thermal battery and special wiring/kryton switches, but absolutely perfect timing of ignition sequence (via the now ruined electronics) is still necessary to get it to detonate properly to full yield.  Outside of a Sum of All Fears-style situation, I don’t see the Turks ever being able to use them properly.  
 

Overall though I hope we just the specially-certified airlift team to get them out of there altogether.  It’d be a major strategic blow to our position in Turkey and a significant sign of retreat from the ME, the base would have to re-certify as well if things ever improved but the writing seems to be on the wall to me that things are just too unstable to leave them there.  

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Captainant

Captainant 27772

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Posted
3 hours ago, Homercles said:

Those B61 bombs are in deep-set concrete bunkers that are hard to get to even if they had access to the base.  I don’t know if they have the latest PAL version that automatically fries itself if you enter the wrong code multiple times, but they definitely have the command disable function that makes it utterly useless if a USAF technician pulls that handle.  I believe they’re 12-digit codes now so good luck guessing it correctly.  
 

Hopefully worst case is they have to disable them, leaving the core intact but with the critical electronics ruined essentially making it useless as a full on nuclear device, and ‘only’ use the plutonium for a dirty bomb.  Conceivably you could replace the thermal battery and special wiring/kryton switches, but absolutely perfect timing of ignition sequence (via the now ruined electronics) is still necessary to get it to detonate properly to full yield.  Outside of a Sum of All Fears-style situation, I don’t see the Turks ever being able to use them properly.  
 

Overall though I hope we just the specially-certified airlift team to get them out of there altogether.  It’d be a major strategic blow to our position in Turkey and a significant sign of retreat from the ME, the base would have to re-certify as well if things ever improved but the writing seems to be on the wall to me that things are just too unstable to leave them there.  

Gee, sure sounds like even a modicum of necessary planning sure would help to address the uncomfortable uncertainty of fifty critical masses of weapons-grade fissile material. No idea why we'd want to have tight handle on that sort of stuff in the middle of a warzone in the middle east.

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Homercles

Homercles 10206

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Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Gee, sure sounds like even a modicum of necessary planning sure would help to address the uncomfortable uncertainty of fifty critical masses of weapons-grade fissile material. No idea why we'd want to have tight handle on that sort of stuff in the middle of a warzone in the middle east.

I’m with you and surprised they’re talking it only now...my expectation was it’d have been fully planned, with multiple contingencies, decades ago when they were put there..or at least done during the failed/fake coup.  Of course with this clown show it’s par for the course.  
 

Basically saying even in the worst case scenario those bombs aren’t useful as full on nuclear weapons very easily, if at all, to most hostile actors.  Best case would be to quietly get them out of there, replace them with dummy trainers, and make a public statement afterwards that they’re considering their options...that’s my hope anyways if I were DOE but with dancing with the stars in charge who knows.  
 

How they’re stored

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Edited by Homercles
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Captainant

Captainant 27772

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Homercles said:

I’m with you and surprised they’re talking it only now...my expectation was it’d have been fully planned, with multiple contingencies, decades ago when they were put there..or at least done during the failed/fake coup.  Of course with this clown show it’s par for the course.  
 

Basically saying even in the worst case scenario those bombs aren’t useful as full on nuclear weapons very easily, if at all, to most hostile actors.  Best case would be to quietly get them out of there, replace them with dummy trainers, and make a public statement afterwards that they’re considering their options...that’s my hope anyways if I were DOE but with dancing with the stars in charge who knows.  
 

How they’re stored

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Hey, not like we left in such a hurry, DoD had to bomb its own base in Syria to "reduce usefulness" or anything, right?

Sure makes Pence and Pompeo going to grovel to ergodan today seem like way more than a measly fig leaf, right?

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High Plains Drifter

High Plains Drifter 11052

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Posted
3 hours ago, Homercles said:

Those B61 bombs are in deep-set concrete bunkers that are hard to get to even if they had access to the base.  I don’t know if they have the latest PAL version that automatically fries itself if you enter the wrong code multiple times, but they definitely have the command disable function that makes it utterly useless if a USAF technician pulls that handle.  I believe they’re 12-digit codes now so good luck guessing it correctly.  
 

Hopefully worst case is they have to disable them, leaving the core intact but with the critical electronics ruined essentially making it useless as a full on nuclear device, and ‘only’ use the plutonium for a dirty bomb.  Conceivably you could replace the thermal battery and special wiring/kryton switches, but absolutely perfect timing of ignition sequence (via the now ruined electronics) is still necessary to get it to detonate properly to full yield.  Outside of a Sum of All Fears-style situation, I don’t see the Turks ever being able to use them properly.  
 

Overall though I hope we just the specially-certified airlift team to get them out of there altogether.  It’d be a major strategic blow to our position in Turkey and a significant sign of retreat from the ME, the base would have to re-certify as well if things ever improved but the writing seems to be on the wall to me that things are just too unstable to leave them there.  

 

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Thetexashammer

Thetexashammer 1062

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1 hour ago, SquishMitten said:

Maybe I missed it, but can somebody explain how we aren’t able to remove items from our own airbase? Isn’t it American soil by international law? We worried they’re gonna shoot our planes down in transit? Because that seems like a good way to force us to use em or lose em.

Scary headlines generate clicks.

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InkaUtexas

InkaUtexas 26109

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Posted
2 hours ago, SquishMitten said:

Maybe I missed it, but can somebody explain how we aren’t able to remove items from our own airbase? Isn’t it American soil by international law? We worried they’re gonna shoot our planes down in transit? Because that seems like a good way to force us to use em or lose em.

It is a Turkish base we are allowed to utilize. 

Quote

The Turkish General Staff and the U.S. Air Force signed a joint-use agreement for the new Air Base in December 1954. On 21 February 1955, the Air Base was officially named Adana Air Base, with the 7216th Air Base Squadron as the host unit. This Air Base was renamed the "Incirlik Air Base" on 28 February 1958.

 

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Homercles

Homercles 10206

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Posted
2 hours ago, SquishMitten said:

Maybe I missed it, but can somebody explain how we aren’t able to remove items from our own airbase? Isn’t it American soil by international law? We worried they’re gonna shoot our planes down in transit? Because that seems like a good way to force us to use em or lose em.

It certainly wasn’t a full on base but probably some forward outpost and they didn’t have time to remove the heavy equipment that got brought there by blackhawks, chinooks, C130s or other means.  You don’t want that stuff just being left there for whatever swinging dick that comes along, particularly things like towed artillery or ammo stores...so they likely flew out the important people and leveled the rest with some F15Es from Incirlik.  
 

Incirlik is a full on airbase, capable of supporting everything from regional interests like Operation Provide Comfort or the Iraqi No Fly Zone, to full on war like the Gulf Wars.  There was a full complement of tankers, AWACS, airlift, air superiority and fighter bombers when I was there.  Protected hangers, tank farms, ammo facilities, a massive flight line, golf course, base housing, BX, commissary, and even a small terminal for folks rotating through.  If it comes down to leveling that place we are in a world of shit.  

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SquishMitten

SquishMitten 10435

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13 hours ago, Homercles said:

It certainly wasn’t a full on base but probably some forward outpost and they didn’t have time to remove the heavy equipment that got brought there by blackhawks, chinooks, C130s or other means.  You don’t want that stuff just being left there for whatever swinging dick that comes along, particularly things like towed artillery or ammo stores...so they likely flew out the important people and leveled the rest with some F15Es from Incirlik.  
 

Incirlik is a full on airbase, capable of supporting everything from regional interests like Operation Provide Comfort or the Iraqi No Fly Zone, to full on war like the Gulf Wars.  There was a full complement of tankers, AWACS, airlift, air superiority and fighter bombers when I was there.  Protected hangers, tank farms, ammo facilities, a massive flight line, golf course, base housing, BX, commissary, and even a small terminal for folks rotating through.  If it comes down to leveling that place we are in a world of shit.  

I was asking about Incirlik. Why are we unable to remove our nukes from there?

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Bevo

Bevo 13601

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Posted
15 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

I was asking about Incirlik. Why are we unable to remove our nukes from there?

Of course, we could remove the nuclear weapons if we needed. However, we are in a world of hurt if we need to abandon that base. In the meantime, we are trying to improve ties to Turkey as it acts as an impediment to Chinese and Russian regional hegemony.

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23485

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Posted
16 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

I was asking about Incirlik. Why are we unable to remove our nukes from there?

I think that the issue would more likely be the symbolism associated with removing our nukes from the base rather than the logistics.  Fifty b61s could be loaded on pallets and flown out on a C130. 

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TXSG8R

TXSG8R 3362

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13 hours ago, Homercles said:

It certainly wasn’t a full on base but probably some forward outpost and they didn’t have time to remove the heavy equipment that got brought there by blackhawks, chinooks, C130s or other means.  You don’t want that stuff just being left there for whatever swinging dick that comes along, particularly things like towed artillery or ammo stores...so they likely flew out the important people and leveled the rest with some F15Es from Incirlik.  
 

Incirlik is a full on airbase, capable of supporting everything from regional interests like Operation Provide Comfort or the Iraqi No Fly Zone, to full on war like the Gulf Wars.  There was a full complement of tankers, AWACS, airlift, air superiority and fighter bombers when I was there.  Protected hangers, tank farms, ammo facilities, a massive flight line, golf course, base housing, BX, commissary, and even a small terminal for folks rotating through.  If it comes down to leveling that place we are in a world of shit.  

My uncle was there in the late 80s, we visited him while I was in middle school.  Ive lived in and around military bases all my life and that place was bizarre.  There was a curfew at dark, you weren't allowed outside.  They had cobras patrolling the sky and my uncle said they had the green light to fire on anyone moving around the base.  Everything involving the nukes was done through pairs.  He was assigned to team A, he couldnt unlock a door without a guy from team B using his key across a space that couldnt be done with one person.  He also showed us some cool security stuff they did with their badging.  Hidden codes in the background of their photo that seemed benign.  How a stamp on the badge was deliberately uneven, there was a pattern in that too.  Nowadays it would be pretty easy to photoshop, but back then it was pretty high-tech stuff.  

 

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Homercles

Homercles 10206

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Posted
4 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

My uncle was there in the late 80s, we visited him while I was in middle school.  Ive lived in and around military bases all my life and that place was bizarre.  There was a curfew at dark, you weren't allowed outside.  They had cobras patrolling the sky and my uncle said they had the green light to fire on anyone moving around the base.  Everything involving the nukes was done through pairs.  He was assigned to team A, he couldnt unlock a door without a guy from team B using his key across a space that couldnt be done with one person.  He also showed us some cool security stuff they did with their badging.  Hidden codes in the background of their photo that seemed benign.  How a stamp on the badge was deliberately uneven, there was a pattern in that too.  Nowadays it would be pretty easy to photoshop, but back then it was pretty high-tech stuff.  

 

When we lived there in the mid-90s it was incredibly benign, which makes me sad for what it’s become.  We lived off base for a year, woke up our first morning with a cow tied to the bumper of our minivan.  Only trouble I recall was the guy in the apartment above ours smoking pot and a group of kids on base getting busted for the same...both were gone within a week.  
 

I’d ride my bike from our apartment onto the base, watch everything from Turkish F4s to the NAOC doomsday plane flying around, go into ‘the alley’ (group of shops and restaurants along a road leading to the Adana highway) to eat or buy stuff or even buy alcohol/porn at 16, talk to the old man sitting on a stoop that just wanted to practice English, took field trips around the country, did my Order of the Arrow near a beach on the Med that served as an oil pipeline hub...hell I even took an overnight bus trip, solo, to Istanbul so I could fly to Germany for a baseball tournament.  The people were reserved but friendly, and outside the 5x daily call to prayer it was quiet and peaceful.  
 

Just sad how quickly it eroded.  The PKK shot up a bus just before we arrived but they were ‘careful’ to avoid Americans.  Used to be a place I wanted to visit again.  

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TXSG8R

TXSG8R 3362

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Posted
1 minute ago, Homercles said:

When we lived there in the mid-90s it was incredibly benign, which makes me sad for what it’s become.  We lived off base for a year, woke up our first morning with a cow tied to the bumper of our minivan.  Only trouble I recall was the guy in the apartment above ours smoking pot and a group of kids on base getting busted for the same...both were gone within a week.  
 

I’d ride my bike from our apartment onto the base, watch everything from Turkish F4s to the NAOC doomsday plane flying around, go into ‘the alley’ (group of shops and restaurants along a road leading to the Adana highway) to eat or buy stuff or even buy alcohol/porn at 16, talk to the old man sitting on a stoop that just wanted to practice English, took field trips around the country, did my Order of the Arrow near a beach on the Med that served as an oil pipeline hub...hell I even took an overnight bus trip, solo, to Istanbul so I could fly to Germany for a baseball tournament.  The people were reserved but friendly, and outside the 5x daily call to prayer it was quiet and peaceful.  
 

Just sad how quickly it eroded.  The PKK shot up a bus just before we arrived but they were ‘careful’ to avoid Americans.  Used to be a place I wanted to visit again.  

Yea, as a vacation its one of the tops in my lifetime.  We spent a few days on the med with a castle that's out in the water.  Went to that heaven and hell cave, no way my old ass could do those steps now.  My uncle didn't want us to do anything in the immediate area around the base, said it was dicey.  We had like 5 course meals for 2 or 3 bucks a person in Adana.  Got to eat that crazy turkish ice cream out of some big ass kettle out on the street. 

My uncle married a Turkish woman from Ankara, absolutely beautiful (no pics).  After he died in 91 she moved back there to raise their son. Like you, I've always wanted to go back, but between her correspondence and the travel briefings I see about the area, I know there no chance in hell of that happening.  

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105337

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Posted
Yea, as a vacation its one of the tops in my lifetime.  We spent a few days on the med with a castle that's out in the water.  Went to that heaven and hell cave, no way my old ass could do those steps now.  My uncle didn't want us to do anything in the immediate area around the base, said it was dicey.  We had like 5 course meals for 2 or 3 bucks a person in Adana.  Got to eat that crazy turkish ice cream out of some big ass kettle out on the street. 

My uncle married a Turkish woman from Ankara, absolutely beautiful (no pics).  After he died in 91 she moved back there to raise their son. Like you, I've always wanted to go back, but between her correspondence and the travel briefings I see about the area, I know there no chance in hell of that happening.  

Yeah, the change there has sucked. My wife did a short semester of study there in seminary maybe 7-8 years ago. She loved it. It wasn’t wise for them to travel too far into the rural East, as it got dicier and more conservative Muslim, but western Turkey was incredible.

Hell, just 4 years ago, my daughter was accepted into the NSLIY summer language story program (students spend a summer in language study in-residence with a local family, sponsored by the State Department) for Turkish.....right around the time Erdogan started going batshit, so they cancelled the program. They haven’t had it in Turkey since. Missed opportunity, due to a shithead.

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Shady Ray

Shady Ray 1633

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Posted (edited)

Regardless of one's position on this conflict, is it not an indictment on the seriousness of the U.S. media when it comes to reporting on this conflict that this "moderate rebel" Salim Idriss, who solicited and received funds and (serious) arms (i.e., TOWs) directly from the United States until at least 2017, is now the Minister of Defense of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army, which is the umbrella org covering the Turkish-controlled proxy militias that are carrying out all the atrocities against the Kurds on behalf of Erdogan.

 

Situations certainly change during war, and that is certainly true between the time he was posing with McCain/soliciting arms next to the leader of the centre-Left parliamentary group in the EU and carrying out war crimes against the Kurds, but Americans should not have to read po-dunk alt-media sites or German or French language papers to learn that this jihadi group is being led by a former recipient of our largesse. It is newsworthy. 

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Quote

 

"In 2019 Idris was appointed to the post of Minister of Defence of the Syrian Interim Government and was thus appointed as commander-in-chief of the Syrian National Army. As such, he led the SNA into the invasion of Rojava, alongside the Turkish Army."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salim_Idris

 

 

Edited by Shady Ray
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