Monday - August 17, 2015

Do I have to do Politics? Fine. Putin Wins.

US Pulls Patriot Missiles From Turkey

The U.S. military is pulling its Patriot missiles from Turkey this fall, the U.S. Embassy in Ankara announced Sunday.

The Patriot missiles “will be redeployed to the United States for critical modernization upgrades,” according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Turkey.  “This decision follows a U.S. review of global missile defense posture.”

“The U.S. and NATO commitments to the defense of Allies - including Turkey - are steadfast,” the statement said.

The U.S. military has deployed Patriot missiles along the Turkey-Syria border since 2013 along with a ground force of 300 U.S. Army soldiers to operate them, protecting Turkey from potential Syrian missiles.

The decision to pull the missiles has been “long planned” and is not a response to Turkey’s unannounced massive airstrike against a Kurdish separatist group in northern Iraq on July 24, a State Dept. official said. The strike endangered U.S. Special Forces on the ground training Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, angering U.S. military officials. The U.S. military was taken completely by surprise by the Turkish airstrike, which involved 26 jets, military sources told Fox News.

Patriot missiles have been upgraded in recent years to shoot down ballistic missiles, in addition to boasting an ability to bring down enemy aircraft. The U.S. military has deployed these missiles along Turkey’s border with Syria.

When a Kurdish journalist asked the Army’s outgoing top officer, Gen. Raymond Odierno, about the incident over northern Iraq at his final press conference Wednesday, Odierno replied: “We’ve had conversations about this to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

The Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, has been listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. It is influenced by Marxist ideology and has been responsible for recent attacks in Turkey, killing Turkish police and military personnel. A separate left-wing radical group was responsible for attacking the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul last week.

State Department and Pentagon officials have said in recent days that Turkey has a right to defend itself against the PKK.

Just hours after a deal last month allowing the U.S. to use Turkey’s air bases to launch sorties against ISIS, Turkey pulled a move that left American military leaders surprised and outraged, and raised questions about the two nations’ alliance in the war on the jihadist army.

With only 10 minutes notice to their American partners, Turkey launched a massive air strike of its own July 24 against a Kurdish militant group in the northern mountains of Iraq. The U.S. had barely enough warning to make sure its own forces were out of the way, according to a military source with knowledge of the tension Turkey’s attack caused in the Combined Air and Space Operations Center, the allied headquarters in the air war against ISIS.

“A Turkish officer came into the CAOC, and announced that the strike would begin in 10 minutes and he needed all allied jets flying above Iraq to move south of Mosul immediately,” said the military source, describing events that took place in the center, in a secret location in the Middle East. “We were outraged.”
...
“We had U.S. Special Forces not far from where the Turks were bombing, training Kurdish Peshmerga fighters,” the source said. “We had no idea who the Turkish fighters were, their call signs, what frequencies they were using, their altitude or what they were squawking
...
The Turkish government has been concerned that the U.S. fight against ISIS would embolden the Kurds, who now control most of Turkey’s 560-mile border with Syria except for a small 68-mile corridor between the Syrian border towns of Kobani and Azaz, west of the Euphrates River. Should the Kurds gain control of this section of the border they would have unfettered access from Iraq through Syria all the way to the Mediterranean.

A military source confirmed that Turkish tanks fired on YPG units to keep them from entering this 68-mile area, killing some YPG fighters allied with the PKK in northern Iraq. These fighters have helped the U.S. coalition secure gains against ISIS on the ground near Tal Abyad and Kobani and are the key to the coalition moving on the ISIS capital, Raqqa.

A senior defense official told Fox News that another reason the Turks want to keep Kurdish fighters outside of the 68-mile border is to prevent the Kurds from potentially selling their oil on the open market from ports along the Mediterranean.

Let’s see if I’ve got this right ...

Turkey “inadvertently” advancing ISIS cause, by America having a snit fit and removing Patriot Missiles from Turkey, because Turkey ran a major airstrike against the Kurds, who we were helping fight ISIS. Well, sort of helping. Our guys embedded with the Kurds got 10 minutes notice that the bombs were falling. (which means the jets were just about to begin their target run before the message was sent, as bombs take 3 minutes to fall from 50,000 feet up).

USA has been afraid to arm or fully side with this bunch - who are not really muslims - since Bush 1 in 1992. If Kurdistan became a “real” state, it would take a big chunk of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. and maybe some Lebanon or Syria. Oh no, can’t upset the apple cart. Better to urge them on and let Saddam poison gas them. Or urge them to fight ISIS with no weapons, and the instant they face that enemy to let the Turks blow them up from behind.  So fuck the Kurds, but to get even, we’ll take our missiles AWAY FROM OUR NATO ALLY to leave them vulnerable to Putin who is right the hell there on the other side of the little pond called the Black Sea.

Why? Because Turkey has become an islamic state. If not in name, then in majority reality. They never were much of an ally, and now they’re even less. So we lose because the Kurds lose, the Caliphate wins because of standard mulsim perfidy, and Putin wins the big one (now effectively stronger in Asia Minor [ie nuke threat can’t be stopped]) without even playing the game.

But hey, it gets EVEN BETTER!

Posted by Drew458     on 08/17/2015 at 05:46 PM   
Filed Under: • Iraq •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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