JohnBeige posted:

They had a working military relationship somewhat recently, but I havent really been keeping up with the situation

saa and ypg have fought alongside each other before, i've read there's quite a lot of (cautious) mutual respect there. idk why they didn't pursue the negotiations earlier this year, yeah the government's terms were harsh but that's negotiation isn't it, give them a counter-offer ffs. it seemed like the YPG knew, at one point, not to trust the US, but this year has shown how badly they've miscalculated.

Ongoing negotiations between the Syrian Government and the Syrian Democratic Forces in Qamishlo. Information so far indicates that the oil fields will be handed over to the government and troops of the SAA will be transferred to the Syrian-Turkish borderhttps://t.co/49Hh6egCy8 pic.twitter.com/Jxo0xhhpIS

— Syrian Civil War Map (@CivilWarMap) December 20, 2018

elias posted:

ya id hope people on this forum would be less smug about the imminent genocide of the kurds

In all sincerity, I'm pretty sure this is actually their best hope to not be genocided since the whole mess of shit started. The Kurds were always 100% definitely unquestionably going to be sold by the US to Turkey. How many times have we betrayed them to everyone else in the region who isn't even a NATO member? The way this is happening at least gives them a chance to get over their own propaganda and surrender to Damascus just like every other raggedy militia in Syria has done in the past year when they were forced to wake up and realize america wasn't going to ride in and win the war just for them.

Trump's wholesale betrayal BEFORE the Turkish army crosses the border gives them the chance to join their peers from Douma, Ghouta, or Daraa in signing whatever reconciliation agreement the very nice man from Russia puts in front of them. They don't want to because they believe their own and the americans' bullshit about how special they ever were, and they thought that sitting on their ass pretending to fight ISIS for a few more months would buy them more heavy weapons and a US backed seat at an eventual bargaining table where they could hold the entire country's natural resources hostage. They very clearly had no fallback plan, and throughout the ordeal have generally demonstrated the strategic forward thinking abilities of a decorative koi.

Did anyone really maintain the illusion that the USA (let alone everyone with any legal say in the matter) would enthusiastically let them continue to suppress every other minority in the occupied territory and build a hostile ethnostate with all of Syria's stolen water, oil and olive fields right next to and over the objections of a NATO member who hates them? The only possible outcome was that the USA lets Erdogan go ham the day their use ended and bombs the shit out of any Resistance Axis member who crosses the Euphrates to help, if any were left to care at that point. Once the Saudis fucked up by being too stupid or lazy to stage a car accident or robbery or overdose like civilized spooks, handing Erdogan such a massive treasure of diplomatic leverage, the SDF's fate was obviously sealed and the message was given loud and clear by both Turkish and US authorities that the end was very imminent.

No one here wants the Kurdish people to be wiped out but the (formerly) US backed SDF/YPG project is a war crime, and if they end it, it goes a long way to ending the war, and letting the Syrians and Russians have a chance to prevent a genocide by occupying the border and slamming up a no-fly-zone backed by Russian S-400s and stealth fighters (all of them btw just itching to splatter some TuAF in case you forgot), and alleviate the real material suffering inflicted on millions of Syrians by the SDF's campaign of natural resource theft and american airstrikes.

cars posted:

all of em!!!!!

all I've found are two claims by amnesty and the UN that have since been retracted, a few shopped images on red kahina's twitter, and some hysterical horse shit from turkey and saudi affiliated sources with obvious agendas and zero evidence. people from minority groups who lived under the YPG seem to think quite highly of them. there was that whole helping the yazidis thing, too.
I'm not denying civilians have probably been killed during their engagements but this is a war, that's pretty much the norm.
tbf they did seem to have a strategy for dealing with an eventual american retreat but they clearly lost the plot, got over confident in their own position, and not accepting the syrian government's terms at the start of this year is the proof. not denying they've fucked themselves good and proper.
edit: just to be clear, imperialism is bad and i appreciate many of the points MarxUltra makes upthread. generally i don't talk about the YPG too much because quite often I'm not even entirely sure what my actual opinion of them is. it's vexing.

Edited by ghostpinballer (Dec. 21, 2018 00:53:23)

ghostpinballer posted:

honest question, which minorities have they been suppressing? i remember the UN accused them of ethnic cleansing a while ago and then retracted when it came out they'd evacuated some villages, then helped the residents to return after a fight with ISIS. I've had a look around and can't find anything.
edit: i mean, I'm not about to die on this hill so if what you say is true then ofc it's bad.

I think that may have been more in Afrin actually, it was a while ago. And it wasnt ethnic cleansing or anything close to the scale the turks jihadi rabble did but still acting like settlers.

swampman posted:

I kind of enjoy the conceit that because the president said something, that's what's going to happen

Petrol posted:

I mean, never forget the career path of dead president goegre h w bush

especially his most popular moment, when it seemed to most people in the press that his re-election was guaranteed

cars posted:

Petrol posted:

I mean, never forget the career path of dead president goegre h w bush

especially his most popular moment, when it seemed to most people in the press that his re-election was guaranteed

i was referring to the fact that he was the big CIA man before parachuting into the white house but yeah, that too

A sr military official told me US special forces troops distraught, upset, morally disturbed by having to tell their kurdish allies in Syria that, because of orders, their promises of defense won’t be kept.

— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) December 21, 2018