[JohnR]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

that didn’t take long. wow.

turkey is saying that the kurds who helped us defeat isis, are conspiring with kurdish terrorists within turkey. anyone have any idea if that’s true?

The Kurds they are fighting are the PKK, pretty much the Bad Guy Commies. Of course Turkey calls all the Kurds PKK which is pretty far from the truth. The Kurds have been ifghting Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran long before the first time someone shouted Allah Akbar.

SOME of them worked with us to kill ISIS, they were going to fight them anyway.

Originally Posted by Sea Dangles

Drama queen much?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

That started rising arguably since the Red Line in Syria and taking Crimea.

Pre-Trump. I could make a good case that it has been increasing pretty much since the end of the Cold War when WE blew it.

Originally Posted by Pete F.

When Trump is done history books will read: Prior to the Trump Administration the United States was the dominant world power.

China has reacted positively to Russia's call for a regional coalition to ensure security in the Persian Gulf as the United States and Iran have pursued their own rival agendas there.

Moscow first introduced "the concept of providing collective security in the Persian Gulf area" in July as tensions between Washington and Tehran neared an all-out crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin officially proposed Thursday that "a security and cooperation organization be created in the region almost from scratch." He suggested that "Russia, China, the U.S., the EU, India and other interested countries could join as observers."

Asked about this idea, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang declined to "offer a principled response before checking for more information" at a press conference Tuesday, but said Beijing was open to such considerations.

"China has been closely following the complex and sensitive situation in the Gulf region," Geng added. "Safeguarding peace and stability in the region is in the shared interests of the international community. China welcomes all proposals and diplomatic efforts conducive to deescalating the situation in the Gulf region. We would also like to stay in communication with all relevant parties."

Pete, this did not start in 2017. The SCO does back to 2001. Your credibility has been waning as of late.

Originally Posted by spence

People keep talking about the number of US troops, remember we have a major air base in Turkey providing air support to the Kurds fighting ISIS. Now Syria and Russia will be able to hammer whomever they want.

Just as long as we have pulled the nukes out. Right now the only real reason we should have any goodwill to Turkey is to keepo them somewhere between our sphere and Russia's. They are not our freinds.

Originally Posted by spence

I see nobody has any justification for why this is a good idea.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I don't like it. But we did say we were going to leave one day, and it is (mostly) the PKK. Don't confuse all Kurds with the PKK, a lot of that going on.