US Considers Directly Arming Syrian Rebels

[paulbot24]

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to HOLLYWOOD again."

[paulbot24]

There sure is a lot of speculation, allegation, and unconfirmed possible "information" from our media, as usual.

[paulbot24]

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[Pauls' Revere]

That link is also talking about the oil in the Kurdistan Region (formerly northern Iraq). I will add it to the thread about the brewing war between Kurdistan and Iraq.

Edit: Found the reference to Syria:

I was thinking that the Syrian Civil War might be an opportunity for the Kurds to move into Northern/Eastern Syria.

Wiki has some ancient maps of Kurdistan, so I suppose it depends on which region and timeline to consider where Kurdistan is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan

Are the Kurds the next struggle for statehood like Palestine?

[Brian4Liberty]

I was thinking that the Syrian Civil War might be an opportunity for the Kurds to move into Northern/Eastern Syria.

Wiki has some ancient maps of Kurdistan, so I suppose it depends on which region and timeline to consider where Kurdistan is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan

Are the Kurds the next struggle for statehood like Palestine?

Kurds have been in that struggle for a long time. Some Kurds have lived in a semi-autonomous Kurdistan in Northern Iraq since the first Iraq war. There is a good chance that there will be a civil war in Iraq pitting Kurdistan against what remains of Iraq, for control of the oil areas in the middle.

[itshappening]

If Assad had any sense he would go to Russia with his wife and cronies and a few billion in loot and claim asylum. He could then resume his career as an eye doctor and get on with his life and his wife can continue her life shopping in expensive malls.

The writing is on the wall now and the U.S is going to arm the rebels directly or indirectly and provide aerial bombardment just like they did in Libya.

If Assad stays then he risks his head being carried through the streets by these savages that the U.S are about to arm. Look what staying around did for Saddam and Gaddaffi. He should get out now if he has any sense rather than go down with his regime.

[Pauls' Revere]

Kurds have been in that struggle for a long time. Some Kurds have lived in a semi-autonomous Kurdistan in Northern Iraq since the first Iraq war. There is a good chance that there will be a civil war in Iraq pitting Kurdistan against what remains of Iraq, for control of the oil areas in the middle.

since the US is considering arming the Syrian Rebels directly, how many of the rebels are Kurdish? Would this armement backfire and the Kurds then use these weapons at a later date to secure Northern iraq? I don't think they have the umph to take on Turkey but my gut has a weird feeling regarding the Kurds and Kurdisistan. It's to quiet. I mean, it would be another proxy war with Iran since the Kurdisitan Region also covers parts of Northern iran where they have reactors. Just my two bits.

[Brian4Liberty]

since the US is considering arming the Syrian Rebels directly, how many of the rebels are Kurdish? Would this armement backfire and the Kurds then use these weapons at a later date to secure Northern iraq? I don't think they have the umph to take on Turkey but my gut has a weird feeling regarding the Kurds and Kurdisistan. It's to quiet. I mean, it would be another proxy war with Iran since the Kurdisitan Region also covers parts of Northern iran where they have reactors. Just my two bits.

The Kurdish areas would be considered a third party at this point in Syria. They have tried to keep the fighting out of their areas. The west has installed a Kurdish leader of Syria in the past, so they are certainly players in this deconstructed Syria.

...
The fear — already materializing in these hills — is that Syria’s ethnic groups will take up arms against one another in a bloody, post-Assad contest for power.

The Kurdish militias in northern Syria had hoped to stay out of the civil war raging in Syria. They were focused on preparing to secure an autonomous enclave for themselves within Syria should the rebels succeed in toppling the government. But slowly, inexorably, they have been dragged into the fighting and now have one goal in mind, their autonomy, which also means the Balkanization of the state.

“We want to have a Kurdish nation,” said Divly Fadal Ali, 18, who fled the fighting and was recently staying in a local community center here for Kurdish refugees. “We want our own schools, our own hospitals. We want the government to admit our existence. We want recognition of our Kurdish identity.”

These skirmishes between Kurds and Arabs take on a darker meaning for Syria as the rebels appear each day to gain momentum and the government appears less and less able to restore control. The rebels have taken over military bases, laid siege to Damascus and forced the airport to close.

But the rebels are largely Sunni Arabs, and the most effective among them are extremists aligned with Al Qaeda, a prospect that worries not only the West, but the Christians, Shiites, Druze — and Kurds — of Syria.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/wo...rds-clash.html

Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria and make up nine percent of the country's population.[2] Syrian Kurds have faced routine discrimination and harassment by the government.[3][4]

"Syrian Kurdistan" (Kurdish: Kurdistana Sûriyê) is an unofficial name used by some to describe the Kurdish inhabited regions of northern and northeastern Syria.[5] The northeastern Kurdish inhabited region covers the greater part of Hasakah Governorate. The main cities in this region are Qamishli and Hasakah. Another region with significant Kurdish population is Kobanê (Ayn al-Arab) in the northern part of Syria near the town of Jarabulus and also the city of Afrin and its surroundings along the Turkish border.

Many Kurds seek political autonomy for the Kurdish inhabited areas of Syria, similar to Iraqi Kurdistan in Iraq, or outright independence as part of Kurdistan. The name "Western Kurdistan" (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê) is also used by Kurds to name the Syrian Kurdish inhabited areas in relation to Kurdistan.[6][7][8] Since the Syrian civil war, Syrian government forces have abandoned many Kurdish-populated areas, leaving the Kurds to fill the power vacuum and govern these areas autonomously.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds_in_Syria

[juleswin]

If Assad had any sense he would go to Russia with his wife and cronies and a few billion in loot and claim asylum. He could then resume his career as an eye doctor and get on with his life and his wife can continue her life shopping in expensive malls.

The writing is on the wall now and the U.S is going to arm the rebels directly or indirectly and provide aerial bombardment just like they did in Libya.

If Assad stays then he risks his head being carried through the streets by these savages that the U.S are about to arm. Look what staying around did for Saddam and Gaddaffi. He should get out now if he has any sense rather than go down with his regime.

That will be the worst thing for him to do. If he cuts tail and runs, it will only confirm the western propaganda that he is a mad man who only cares for his welfare and just make it that much easier for the west to tell sell their propaganda about the next dictator they choose to depose. The Syria people need a unifying leader that they an all rally behind and right now, that leader is Assad.

He needs to continue this fight and stand to the western bullies and their thugs and try to do all he can to take as many of them down with him. This is the right thing to do. Because if he runs now, the Alawites he is going to leave behind will be slaughtered by the rebels and that not can drive a moral man crazy

[Pauls' Revere]

Wait...Now the US is designating them as terrorist?

So, we don't like Assad or the rebels?

http://news.yahoo.com/us-designates-...ZQ8HEA1QPQtDMD

The speed with which the US government moved to designate a fairly new group that has never attacked US interests and is engaged in fighting a regime that successive administrations have demonized is evidence of the strange bedfellows and overlapping agendas that make the Syrian civil war so explosive.

The State Department says Jabhat al-Nusra (or the "Nusra Front") is essentially a wing of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the jihadi group that flourished in Anbar Province after the US invaded to topple the Baathist regime of secular dictator Saddam Hussein. During the Iraq war, Sunni Arab tribesmen living along the Euphrates in eastern Syria flocked to fight with the friends and relatives in the towns along the Euphrates river in Anbar Province.