by Melissa Hemingway and Micheal John, Editor
Here’s why.
Recep Erdogan, president of Turkey told USA President Trump last week about Syria that his country would enter Syria and fight against ISIS, say FPM.news sources within the Turkish government and close to Mr. Erdogan.
An agreement that the USA pulls out its troops so that Turkey can take America’s place, Russia publicly and respectfully applauds America’s departure from Syria and is deferring to Ankara with a condition. Erdogan feels like he won a lottery. But Trump left Putin to handle the obvious problem. What’s next for the Kurds?
Russia is pressuring Turkey on a fine point: Damascus must replace all the USA troops with Syrian Army soldiers, especially in the case of those in regions parallel and close to the Turkish border. Turkey then has no reason to interfere with Syria’s integrity. Syria is not a pie to be sliced up.
Russia must win that concession and stop Turkey from invading Rojava because on this thing, Mr. Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are dead right: Syria must remain intact or the wars will never end.
Starting a war between the Kurds and Turkey could embroil British, French, Iraqi, Kurdish and Iranian Kurdish forces against Turkey says a Peshmerga fighter who cannot speak for the group’s leadership hence wants anonymity. “It will be such a mess for Turkey that Erdogan might face a real uprising and completely lose power”, she speculated.
Syria can reconstitute if Iran voluntarily leaves. That’s a big “if”.
Men who have shown wisdom in directing events in Syria? President Donald Trump speaks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office, Wednesday, May 10, 2017, at the White House in Washington, D.C – Photo Credit: The White House
More of why Trump’s move from Syria is brilliant.
The United States is far more than 2,000 strength in Syria. That number is more like 5,000 or more. Source: The RINJ Foundation has been in Aleppo and Raqqa Syria off and on since 2011. Expanding considerably in 2013 there then came a 70% exodus to Gaziantep in the west and Mosul, the training center in Iraq. Nurses constantly on the move and embedded with other NGOs plus UNHRC in a mobile configuration say that the American presence along with British, French and Jordanians (plus plus) began in 2013 to 2014. Counting the pockets that have been seen yields a much higher number than 2,000. What these people have been seen doing will remain their business on the basis of a claim of medical privilege.
Until the time comes to count bunks in the ship to go home, the numbers of American troops in Syria seems irrelevant. The 15-16,000 airstrikes are what has made a difference, both good and bad. The troops on the ground have only made a richly positive difference based on all accounts including countless locals’ testimonies from East to West Syria.
Iran has 100,000 troops in Syria including the Lebanese Hezbollah. It has threatened the US and offered to the Syrian side to do the dirty work and give the isolated pockets of American troops the ouster. Nothing Iran has done in Syria has a color of right.
Russia warned the USA of the Iranians’ restlessness and Turkey also politely urged US departure because it is an ally. But it was Iran that threatened to attack anyone who looked American in Syria.
Syria is building strength but still too weak to sustain a fight started by attacking the Americans in Syria. Because of prepositioned US military assets Damascus military assets would be destined for ruin in the time it takes for Trump’s pen to drop to his desk after signing the order.
Turkey has a problem with the uprising Kurds in Turkey whom the Northern Syrian Kurds YPG (Rojavans) have mistakenly aligned themselves with. The PKK in Turkey are unmistakably identified as criminals by Europe and the United States among others.
Many Kurdish people across the Middle East live in a style of warring tribalism (to a modern extreme).
Many Kurdish people have assimilated with other people in many parts of the world and live satisfying, productive lives in successful environments they created for themselves. None have achieved that by disgruntlement and bearing arms against government and by slaughtering civilians. With such conduct the PKK in Turkey have an indelible label that destroyed their cause.
One of the saddest parts of the Syrian war is seeing what has happened to the industrious Kurdish people of Syria who had peaceably maintained a self-governed region the world was proud to see.
Tough decisions would need to be taken by America if it stayed in Syria. The Rojavans were 100% instrumental in ousting the Islamic State’s real estate holdings. Not America in Syria but American-backed YPG/YPJ ousted ISIS. The Rojavans used their own skills and had some help from American and British-supplied armaments–an history-making collaboration say medical observers and participants alike.
If America has a conscience at all it will some time down the road assist the world’s Civil Society in rebuilding Rojava’s infrastructure as an integral part of Syria, governed internally by its own people. – Sharon Santiago
Trump preserved a decisive-war option against Iran
Trump had choices. Leave Syria, risk massacre with a status quo decision, or send in 400 to 500 thousand troops into Syria and Iraq. (America may need to do that anyway but this could defer or in the best case avoid that happening.)
Fighting a war in Syria against Russia and Syria would strain the USA’s military might for no gain whatsoever and in the meantime Iran would take Israel apart before the USA could stop that happening.
Iran’s lunatic-fringe government is the problem in the Middle East, not the Iran population, not Syria, not ISIS, not Turkey and certainly not Russia.
Some Worrisome Facts about Syria
- Allies worry about Donald Trump’s pulling the United States out of Syria after Recep Erdogan told him that Turkish troops will invade Northern Syria. Be it idiocy or genius doesn’t matter. It must be dealt with.
- During a Christmas visit to US armed service members at al-Asad Air Base Trump said he had told Generals “We have knocked them out. We have knocked them silly,” referring to the Islamic State.
- Trump has already said that US officials will in the days ahead travel to Turkey and meet with Turkish counterparts to arrange for a withdrawal transition.
- Turkey’s Recep Erdogan promised to Trump to quash the remainder of the Islamic State in Syria which is somewhat of a hollow promise given that Turkey has not achieved this result until now despite its army being among the largest in the world and bordering the problem. That is not to put down Turkey but to say this is a daunting task. The US has said that it will continue to provide logistical and transitional data support but will also be more generously available if needed.
- Sometimes pure genius happens in short bursts. So do major wars. Trump and Erdogan spoke in a telephone call a week ago and a spontaneous decision was reached. The US example should be followed by all other countries including Turkey. Syria must be kept intact and must not be pushed into failure.
- Estimates from the SDF suggest there may be as many as 25 to 30,000 ISIS adherents between the two countries, Syria and Iraq. Many are seasoned guerilla fighters whom the US special forces were blocking from exiting the region through back doors into Jordan where both ISIS and sympathetic groups keep the border and some safe houses open for their passage. The US had set up a choke point that almost completely oversaw three borders: Syria-Iraq, Jordan-Iraq and Jordan-Syria. See: ISIS in Syria and Iraq is less visible but not gone.
- US Secretary of Defense J. Mattis stabbed the US President in the back with a cutthroat resignation letter and then hit the silk. In his entire career he has only been good for one thing: killing (mostly civilians) which should have excluded him from executive appointments. Trump told Mattis no more killing in Syria and the mad dog began tearing the sofa apart with its teeth. That’s about how it went according to his letter.
- The Kurds are calling the US a collective traitor for leaving. The PKK has no say. They have been slaughtering civilians in Turkey with military grade weapons for three decades. The Erdogan government doesn’t think it acceptable for the population to overtly brandish weapons in a democratic, modern society, storming the walls of governance for the purpose of achieving some form of political status.
- The Rojava Kurdish YPG have leaned to the PKK (military wing of the armed Kurdish Workers Party) at their peril. They should still be able to reconstitute their self-governed region within the Syrian state. Mr. Erdogan would need to stifle his desire to push the border southwards. Syria’s borders must remain unchanged.
- The Syrian Kurds in their quasi-autonomous region of Syria always had a need for infrastructure building and should make that a next priority for Rojava. The RINJ Foundation has been working for years with elements of the YPG to launch a public health care system infrastructure across Rojava. According to Sharon Santiago of RINJ the plan evolved from one using dozens of mobile units built in Turkey and morphed into thirty brick and mortar installations supported by community medical mobiles, after receiving a proposal from a Chinese infrastructure developer. The plan requires cessation of hostilities and approval by governing parties. Public health is an important aspect examined by refugees contemplating their return to their homes.
- Tehran thinking it could claim a stake hold in Syria by having 100,000 troops in Syria including the 10,000 Lebanese Hezbollah has alarmed the world. Iran’s purpose behind this is to improve its position to achieve the goal of destroying Israel. It has no good wishes for the wellbeing of Syrian civilians and will fight a war against Israel from Syria thus sparing its own population and military assets much as the USA and Russia have done.
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Feminine Perspective Analysis of the Syrian Crisis Status Now
ISIS is like Hell’s Angels. They are an outlaw criminal gang. They exist of their own free will and that will continue for as long as they have that will. It’s a case for racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations (RICO) law. Here’s a new job for the International Criminal Court. Just look at how the United States Department of Justice handles racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations. That’s all that ISIS is. The Islamic State could claim to be an Aliens-from-space-worshiping group and it would look just the same, a human trafficking, violent, racketeering-influenced, corrupt organization–losers in other words.|
The RINJ Foundation in early 2016 urged the UN Security Council to use this logic and crime theory to enable member states by whatever lawful means to perform the capture, arrest and prosecution of any person identifying as a member of the group calling itself the Islamic State, anywhere they may be in the world (over 18 countries then infected) for the following crimes against humanity in early 2016 starting from 1 January that year to 18 May :
| Significant Crimes Against Humanity By The Islamic State in Mosul 2016 |
| Details |
| Jan 1 to May 24 |
Unofficial Rape and Murder |
|
Thousands |
Daily rape of children and dozens or more women often brutalizing or murdering them and also causing in total more than a thousand deaths by gynecologic hemorrhage in children; failure to survive, and even child obstetrical hemorrhage. |
| Feb 8 |
Execution |
300 |
0 |
Islamic State have executed over 300 police and army personal, as well as civil activists by firing squad in Mosul. |
| April 20 |
Falling |
5 |
0 |
Islamic State executed two of its elements and three civilians by throwing them from the top of a high building in the area of Bab al-Tub in central Mosul |
| April 21 |
Shooting |
250+ |
Unknown |
At least 250 Iraqi woman were executed by Islamic State fighters because they refused to become sex slaves. |
| April 26 |
Drowning |
7 |
0 |
Islamic State members executed seven civilians by drowning them inside metal cages in al-Faysaliya area in central Mosul |
| May 2 |
Shooting |
17 |
0 |
Islamic State has executed 17 people in the city of Mosul, for refusing to fight the Iraqi security forces. |
| May 5 |
Shooting |
25 |
0 |
Islamic State executed 25 of its fighters, including four leaders, after fleeing from the battlefield. |
| May 11 |
Shooting |
5 |
Unknown |
Islamic State selects five young civilians to take their handguns and shoot five Iraqi soldiers in the head. |
| May 13 |
Shooting |
5 |
Unknown |
ISIL executed five by firing squad on charges of spying and cooperating with the security forces. |
| May 13 |
Burning |
1 |
1 |
The Fighters purportedly set the house of a Christian on fire after the resident refused to them Jaziya. |
| May 16 |
Stoning |
21 |
Unknown |
The so-called al-Hisba elements arrested a woman and 20 youths on charges of having illegal relations, and put them on the main road in Tahrir neighborhood in front of al-Zahra mosque in eastern Mosul. The elements of al-Hisba began stoning the woman and the youths for almost an hour till death. |
| May 18 |
Chemical execution |
25 |
Unknown |
ISIS terrorist members executed 25 persons in Mosul on charges of spying and collaborating with Iraqi security forces, ISIS put the citizens in a large tub containing nitric acid inside one of its headquarters. ISIS members tied each person with a rope and lowered him in the tub, which contains nitric acid, till the victims organs dissolve. |
Countless men left failed lives to come to the Middle East and fight in Syria in a ‘holy war’ to defeat the Syrian seat of government, a slaughterhouse run by the 45-year Assad regime. This media-driven passion to free the Syrian people inspired more than 32,000 foreign fighters from 81 different countries to join the conflict. Syria is a nightmare come true, and Russia is working hard to solve that problem for the world’s benefit. AT least someone sees that: Donald Trump.
The vast majority of men who came to Syria to fight Assad or fight with the Islamic State (ISIS) or any group are:
- driven by fanatical beliefs in leaders like despots Bashar al-Assad, Ali Khamenei, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and etc.;
- personality-disordered men seeking any form of approval, motivated by the fear of failure;
- pushed forward by a consuming rage & hatred instilled in their weak fanatical minds by months of horror they have seen; and
- or very unbalanced and brainwashed mercenaries.
Part of the brainwashing process the foreign and indigenous Islamic fighters endure includes a radicalized hatred for persons of other faiths like Christians and Jews. This has led these persons, under the direct orders of their leadership to commit heinous crimes against humanity, including genocide, crimes of aggression and mass rape of civilian women and children.
Syrian Army troops under Bashar al-Assad are no different than the various militias. They are the same types of people as those just referenced who endure relentless brainwashing and poundings with motivational hatred speeches and creeds.
That Vladimir Putin holds his nose and helps prop up the apparent war criminal Bashar al-Assad is a statement about Mr. Putin’s willingness to at all costs prevent the Syrian state’s collapse. Those two statements make plenty of sense based on how events have unfolded.
On 30 September 2015, Russia began a military intervention in the Syrian Civil War in support of Bashar al-Assad’s government, consisting of air strikes against terrorist and militant groups that oppose the government. Here are the two men who have steadily backed Syria while seeking a peaceful solution where possible. Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov photographed at award ceremony. Moscow, Kremlin. 21 May 2015. Photo Credit: Kremlin Presidential Press and Information Office
Putin seeks the incontestable solution for Syria, to return the country to its same condition and then solve its governance issues the correct way without violence as should have been done in 2011.
Bashar al-Assad must be willing to form a transition government and upon election of future governance, surrender to the Hague for trial on numerous crimes against humanity. Exile or a lynch mob are his likely other choices.
Russian Generals and the brilliant Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov have thus far done a superlative job of work in Syria insofar as reining in the loose cannon, Bashar al-Assad.
These of Vladimir Putin’s subs to Syria are likely owed the world’s gratitude for on many occasions they have prevented enormous losses of civilian lives as witnessed by many of FPM.news‘s medical worker friends.
Moving forward, Bashar al-Assad must work to keep Syria intact and upon reaching a peace, and while reaching that point, plan for reconstituting the Syrian government for the people of Syria with him as past-president. He can then take his bows in exile. In the alternative, somebody will get him and he will never hurt another woman or child as he began to do in 2011 and before.
Iran needs to pack its bags and leave Syria. It is allowed in Syria only because it has the blessing of the criminal and rogue Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile in its perpetual plan to destroy Israel, Iran is conducting activities exclusively for that purpose and compelling Israel’s intervention into Syria.
Israel has every right to attack the Iranian activities threatening its borders from Syria but it must continue to do so without bringing harm to the Syrian civilians (or non-combatant Russian airplanes. See: Condolences to children and families of IL20 Crew) which the Charlatans in Tehran are using as shields in Syria.
The RINJ Foundation is a global women’s rights group. FPM.news is a politically unbiased publication but has a mission like all humans should, to help RINJ fight for the safety of women and children. Americans call us “Liberals” which they say are collectively healers, teachers, seekers, givers, and protectors of all things. But we have protected ourselves while working in war zones in many places.
That required raising a ‘fist‘.
That fist is now raised to both Riyadh and Tehran. Thousands of activist women are signing up to raise theirs. Both governments are acting like neanderthal male-monkeys in the zoo after being given unlimited access to guns and unlimited ammunition. The slaughter of women and children in Yemen was enough to say, “end these violent backward regimes”, but there is even more.
Consequently these are countries that will in time be governed by democratically elected women–at least 50%. That’s not just a threat, but a promise and a threat.
In the past four years, RINJ has shared with the CIA, the FBI, DIA, French Intel, British Intel, Israelis and Jordanians what it has seen and heard from behind innocent N4 surgical masks. The summation of this information says that ISIS is not the threat in the Middle East people say it is, but Iranian imperialism is the morbid menace to every single child and their families around the world. No matter how unfairly it feels it has been mistreated, Iran never had the right to earn the global scorn with its outrageous misdemeanours and its worse malfeasance leading to human suffering.
Trump’s pullout from the JCPOA created a certain warpath. Perhaps if the USA had paid attention to the ominous and growing threat of Iran, instead of making it a de facto ally against ISIS it never would have defaulted on the JCPOA nor would it have defaulted on its agreement with allies to stay the course in Syria.
Now that Trump acknowledges certain war with Iran, and Iran has moved into desperation mode getting ready in Syria to kill Israel, pulling out of Syria is a stroke of genius.
Regardless of the Sunni vs Shia beliefs of so-called students of the Middle East, much of ISIS’ hires plus Hezbollah and other radicalized groups have together morphed into quasi militias of Iran or gone back to Iran to help organize same by soliciting their contacts among joiners of various spots and stripes.
From inside the medical directorate in Aleppo, Raqqa, Mosul, Tal Afar etc., RINJ Foundation medical workers observed that ISIS was never about religion. It’s Cabinet only coaxed along pious elders and religious police as a ruse and allowed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his family to appear in control.
It’s like Hell’s Angels and motorcycles. Why in hell would a motorcycle be a necessary tool for racketeering, drug-selling and human trafficking? Facade. Ask the same question substituting the word motorcycle with Islam. It’s a sham.
ISIS was controlled by a cabinet of men, some based in Saudi Arabia, some even based in Iran, who formed a patriarch that pursued power and control. It killed or evicted obvious spiritually-motivated dissidents to itself and exploited the weak for profit, like the Catholics and the Yezidis respectively. But when the going got rough, many persons it hired with oil money, after the USA dried up the money pits, accepted invitations and deals to join pro-Iranian militias. Money is power. That’s what these rapists all had in common as motivation. It wasn’t some fantacised deity that refuses to reveal itself and insists on blind faith. It is money and power, nothing more.
Some of the RINJ people in Syria now report recognizing former Moslawis who were once with ISIS now sporting Iranian militia flashes while escorting an injured friend into the urgent care of a hospital.
Oddly, only the DIA and the Israelis got it. Should we wonder that Trump or someone close to him gets it? Trump is accused of being a con man, a traitor and a criminal. How does that make him different from most of the leaders we are discussing. You can’t con a conman. Erdogan was surprised, we are told, by Trump’s sudden commitment to leave Syria. Erdogan tried to con Trump and the US President aced the dialogue and set a narrative. It works.
Who knows for sure? We believe Trump is on the right track. America can’t be risking a dragged out growing engagement in Syria when it needs to prepare for an all out war with Iran. That war, unless suddenly Iran’s leadership gets a fleeting glimpse of the obvious and vacates Iran, or if Menachem Begin or Yoni Netanyahu’s skills reincarnate themselves in a new superhero who can take out the misogynistic sick-brain killers running Iran, that war is unavoidable.