October 16, 2019

Why We Should Stay Out of Syria

Timothy Birdnow

Robert Romano explains why we should stay out of Syria.

From the article:

The current operation by the Turks does mark an escalation, but it is also nothing new.

Within a week, Turkey has moved ahead with its invasion of Syria and fired nearby U.S. positions in Syria, highlighting the danger. The U.S. has since announced that almost all forces are completely withdrawing from that country.

On Oct. 14, Trump asked on Twitter very pointedly, "Do people really think we should go to war with NATO Member Turkey?”

That is actually a great question, and underscores President Trump’s relatively cautious approach to the Syrian conflict. Turkey has been a part of NATO since 1952.

When Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974, the U.S. arguably faced a far worse situation because it was two NATO allies, Greece and Turkey, in a conflict and even then the U.S. sided with Turkey. By comparison, this situation doesn’t come close.

Legally, whose side are we on? The NATO treaty says Turkey. We don’t have any treaty with the Kurds — their assistance in the Iraq war and later against Islamic State notwithstanding — and we certainly don’t have one to defend Syria from invasion by Turkey or anybody else. Nor does the U.S. officially recognize the independence of Kurdistan.

Now none of that absolves Turkey from its responsibilities under the United Nations Charter including obligations to maintain international peace and stability and to not invade other countries. But we’d have a hard argument to make, since Article I declarations of war and authorizations to use military force have not been used since 2001 and 2002, when authorizations to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq were adopted.

[...]

Turkey said they were going in and Trump was left to either leave U.S. troops in harm’s way or to deconflict and move them out of the way. He opted for the latter and has since threatened sanctions if Turkey does not limit its operations.

Read the whole article!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:37 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 340 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Very good. The clowns in the Democrat Party are merely using this as just yet another stick to beat the President with, ignoring the fact that the situation "over there" would be a no-win for us in any case. Turkey, Syria, and the various flavors of Kurds are a fractious bunch of characters at best, and the more we can stay away from them, the better. It's a great pity we ever let Turkey into NATO in the first place -- can any of you tell me which of our presidents thought that was a good idea?
A problem the U.S. has always had in its foreign relations is that we (I mean our "professional" politicians and diplomats) tend to thing that other nations tend to think like we do, even if they speak different languages and have different color skin. This has gotten us into problems for many, many years, and it's something we really ought to stop doing. Perhaps Mr. Trump is smarter than the rest of our leaders in this respect, and is being criticized for it.

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at October 16, 2019 08:35 PM (w+lqe)

2 You're right, Dana; we never should have let Turkey into NATO. They have nothing in common with the rest of the alliance.

You're right about the rest, too. Sadly, too many people in government and elsewhere actually DO think we're all the same and people elsewhere are Americans with funny accents. Even conservatives fail in this frequently. I remember Shawn Hannity talking about the "fundamental human longing for freedom"; he thought if we just toppled some dictators in the Middle East it would become another version of the U.S. I love Hannity, but he - and many other conservatives - was dead wrong. People are very different, and what we value others do not.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at October 17, 2019 06:33 AM (oLbE+)

3 IIRC, the great Henry Kissinger was one of the few who looked at the world and saw it the way it actually was, not the way he (and we) wished it to be, and for that reason he was roundly vilified by "the man in the street." I believe this is what "Realpolitik" was all about.

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at October 17, 2019 09:40 AM (acFAQ)

4 "Reality is that thing which, when you stop believing in it, won't go away" Phillip K. Dick

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at October 17, 2019 09:44 AM (oLbE+)

5 Heh! A good line indeed! Adults understand this.

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at October 17, 2019 02:34 PM (Y3Hhs)

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