Syria- Is it time we re-assessed who we support?

Member 581642

However luckily we do follow the Geneva convention and should whoever we are in combat with.

Member 581642

I suspect that at a grass root level the Turks don't despise us , not sure who "us" is though .

Certainly the few Turkish people I know or have spoken to there seem no evidence of a grass root despising of me

IronGiant

Football fans are not really the moral compass for a whole nation.  If people judged us on our football fans

Besides, it has been reported that they were not booing, but chanting:

"Let it be clear: In Turkey (especially at football matches) a one minute silence is always used to chant for those who died in terrorist attacks. And what they are chanting is this ‘Şehitler ölmez, vatan bölünmez’. Translation: ‘Martyrs, they do not die (they are immortal), homeland (land, our land) is indivisible.’

And also, they booed the terrorist, not the victims. Any victims of terrorism are accepted as martyrs in Turkish culture. There is no disrespect to them, there has not been, there will not be. "  

When there was a minutes silence in a Turkey v Iceland match after the 100  people died in a terrorist attack in Turkey they "booed" as well.

Fred Quimby

Might be wrong, but did not the Turkish PM make a public apology regarding the booing

Enki

Brilliantness of another "great idea", they have history these two countries which predates modern rascists and the atmosphere would be pretty vile.

Member 581642

I believe he apologised for the booing during the playing of the Greek national anthem

Fred Quimby

So easy to make a mistake.

tapzilla2k

Putin is unpredictable, so we shouldn't rule out him deciding to use Nuclear weapons. If he did, it would be because his powerbase is threatened in Russia. I do think Russia will start to use Thermobaric weapons sooner rather than later.

That's all true. But the other choice is carrying out airstrikes that don't really do much and then giving up. War is risky and brutal and the human cost is terrible on all sides. But we are facing an enemy whose ideology is once you strip out the religion akin to fascism.  

I expect the current stalemate to continue until the US elects it's next President. Though events may over take that time table.

johntheexpat

The trouble with discussing this at the moment is that there are so many different angles that deserve a look and only a limited number of threads.
Anyway, I think this should sit here.

Islamic State: Merkel vows Germany will do more to fight extremists - BBC News

"Germany had earlier announced it was deploying 650 troops to Mali, a move that Mrs Merkel said was designed to provide relief to the 1,500 French soldiers already stationed there.

Germany is also providing weapons and training for Kurdish forces fighting IS in Iraq. "

Interesting that Germany has finally declared its intent to kick ass.  Probably a good decision to help France in Mali, rather than have even more states getting involved in the Syria bunfight.  The situation in Africa is way more serious, on a global scale, that the middle East.  It may not affect the West yet, but if daesh do take a pasting in Syria/Iraq then no doubt the mantle of Global Jihad will pass to the Central African Nutjobs. (And I read somewhere that boko haram killed more people last year than daesh, so it is serious, even if hardly reported).

As for supplying weapons to the Kurds.  Hmm, they not surprisingly don't boast about that on the global stage, given Germany's uneasy history with Turkey.

So amongst all the other confusions, Turkey hates the Kurds, supports daesh apparently (by not fighting them, supplying weapons apparently and allowing a black market for daesh oil), yet is in NATO.  Germany is supporting the Kurds, fighting daesh and in NATO.  The Kurds are fighting daesh, fighting the Turks, not sure where they stand with Assad in Syria though.  The Russians aren't fighting NATO, are supporting Assad, are bombing Assads enemies, including the Turkmen, who are strongly supported by Turkey, are also bombing daesh and hopefully not going to attack Turkey, other than economically (which will hurt, all those Russian tourists to charm el sheik are no longer going to visit Turkey instead).

No doubt daesh are at this very moment thinking of ways to hurt Turkey, make it look like a Russian reprisal and kick off God knows what.

A bit complicated, and getting worse all the time.

robel

"The Saudi site quoted the source as saying that Israel estimates Hezbollah is storing advanced Russian anti-tank missiles that are capable of piercing the defense of the Merkava Mark IV, Israel's most advanced tank."

Report: IAF hit advanced Russian missiles outside Damascus