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Turkey is moving armor and troops south to Syria’s border enclave of Afrin, occupied by Kurds, to drive them out, and then drive the Syrian Kurds out of Manbij further south as well.
Says President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “We will destroy all terror nests, one by one, in Syria, starting from Afrin and Manbij.”
For Erdogan, the Kurdish YPG, the major U.S. ally in Syria, is an arm of the Kurdish PKK in Turkey, which we and the Turks have designated as a terrorist organization.
While the Kurds were our most effective allies against ISIS in Syria, Turkey views them as a mortal peril and intends to deal with that threat.
If Erdogan is serious, a clash with the U.S. is coming, as our Kurdish allies occupy most of Syria’s border with Turkey.
Moreover, the U.S. has announced plans to create a 30,000-man Border Security Force of Kurds and Arabs to keep ISIS out of Syria.
Erdogan has branded this BSF a “terror army,” and President Bashar Assad of Syria has called BSF members “traitors.”
This U.S. plan to create a BSF inside Syria, Damascus declared, “represents a blatant attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity and unity of Syria, and a flagrant violation of international law.”
Does not the Syrian government have a point?
Now that ISIS has been driven out of Raqqa and Syria, by what authority do U.S. forces remain to arm troops to keep the Damascus government from reimposing its authority on its own territory?
Secretary of State Tillerson gave Syria the news Wednesday.
The U.S. troop commitment to Syria, he said, is now open-ended.
Our goals: Guarantee al-Qaida and ISIS do not return and set up sanctuary; cope with rising Iranian influence in Damascus; and pursue the removal of Bashar Assad’s ruthless regime.
But who authorized this strategic commitment, of indefinite duration, in Syria, when near two decades in Afghanistan have failed to secure that nation against the return of al-Qaida and ISIS?
Again and again, the American people have said they do not want to be dragged into Syria’s civil war. Donald Trump won the presidency on a promise of no more unnecessary wars.
Have the American people been had again?
Will they support a clash with NATO ally Turkey, to keep armed Kurds on Turkey’s border, when the Turks regard them as terrorists?
Are we prepared for a shooting war with a Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Shiite militias from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to hold onto a fourth of Syria’s territory in alliance with Kurds?
The U.S. coalition in Syria said this week the BSF will be built up “over the next several years” and “be stationed along the borders … to include portions of the Euphrates river valley and international borders to the east and north.”
Remarkable: A U.S.-created border army is going to occupy and control long stretches of Syria’s borders with Turkey and Iraq, over Syria’s objections. And the U.S. military will stand behind the BSF.
Are the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria really up to that task, should the Turks decide to cleanse the Syrian border of Kurds, or should the Syrian regime decide to take back territory occupied by the Kurds?
Who sanctioned this commitment to a new army, which, if Syria and its Russian and Iranian allies, and the Turks, do not all back down, risks a major U.S. war with no allies but the Kurds?
As for Syria’s Kurds casting their lot with the Americans, one wonders: Did they not observe what happened when their Iraqi cousins, after helping us drive ISIS out of Mosul, were themselves driven out of Kirkuk by the Iraqi army, as their U.S. allies watched?
In the six-year Syrian civil war, which may be about to enter a new phase, America faces a familiar situation.
While our “allies” and adversaries have vital interests there, we do not. The Assads have been in power for the lifetime of most Americans. And we Americans have never shown a desire to fight there.
Assad has a vital interest: preservation of his family regime and the reunification of his country. The Turks have a vital interest in keeping armed Kurds out of their border regions adjacent to their own Kurdish minority, which seeks greater independence.
The Israelis and Saudi royals want the U.S. to keep Iran from securing a land bridge from Tehran to Damascus to Lebanon.
The U.S. War Party wants us to smash Iran and remain in the Middle East forever to assure the hegemony of its favorites.
Have the generals taking us into Syria told the president how and when, if ever, they plan to get us out?
« Ce monde est dérisoire, mais il a mis fin à la possibilité de dire à quel point il est dérisoire ; du moins s’y efforce-t-il, et de bons apôtres se demandent aujourd’hui si l’humour n’a pas tout simplement fait son temps, si on a encore besoin de lui, etc. Ce qui n’est d’ailleurs pas si bête, car le rire, le rire en tant qu’art, n’a en Europe que quelques siècles d’existence derrière lui (il commence avec Rabelais), et il est fort possible que le conformisme tout à fait neuf mais d’une puissance inégalée qui lui mène la guerre (tout en semblant le favoriser sous les diverses formes bidons du fun, du déjanté, etc.) ait en fin de compte raison de lui. En attendant, mon objet étant les civilisations occidentales, et particulièrement la française, qui me semble exemplaire par son marasme extrême, par les contradictions qui l’écrasent, et en même temps par cette bonne volonté qu’elle manifeste, cette bonne volonté typiquement et globalement provinciale de s’enfoncer encore plus vite et plus irrémédiablement que les autres dans le suicide moderne, je crois que le rire peut lui apporter un éclairage fracassant. »
« Festivus festivus, qui vient après Homo festivus comme Sapiens sapiens succède à Homo sapiens, est l’individu qui festive qu’il festive : c’est le moderne de la nouvelle génération, dont la métamorphose est presque totalement achevée, qui a presque tout oublié du passé (de toute façon criminel à ses yeux) de l’humanité, qui est déjà pour ainsi dire génétiquement modifié sans même besoin de faire appel à des bricolages techniques comme on nous en promet, qui est tellement poli, épuré jusqu’à l’os, qu’il en est translucide, déjà clone de lui-même sans avoir besoin de clonage, nettoyé sous toutes les coutures, débarrassé de toute extériorité comme de toute transcendance, jumeau de lui-même jusque dans son nom. »
« Dans le nouveau monde, on ne retrouve plus trace du Mal qu’à travers l’interminable procès qui lui est intenté, à la fois en tant que Mal historique (le passé est un chapelet de crimes qu’il convient de ré-instruire sans cesse pour se faire mousser sans risque) et en tant que Mal actuel postiche. »
« …pour en revenir à cette solitude sexuelle d’Homo festivus, qui contient tous les autres traits que vous énumérez, elle ne peut être comprise que comme l’aboutissement de la prétendue libération sexuelle d’il y a trente ans, laquelle n’a servi qu’à faire monter en puissance le pouvoir féminin et à révéler ce que personne au fond n’ignorait (notamment grâce aux romans du passé), à savoir que les femmes ne voulaient pas du sexuel, n’en avaient jamais voulu, mais qu’elles en voulaient dès lors que le sexuel devenait objet d’exhibition, donc de social, donc d’anti-sexuel. »
Era il 5 giugno del 1894 quando un bimbo dagli occhi curiosi e le mani sempre pronte ad afferrare ciò che incontrava sul suo cammino nasceva in un confortevole appartamento di Macerata. Oggi la targa che ricorda la sua persona si trova in corso Cavour ed è facilmente visibile, tuttavia sono in molti ad avere ricordi di un adolescente di via Crispi originale, poco avvezzo a far amicizia, sempre immerso in letture e passeggiate tra le rovine storiche, che aveva attirato l'attenzione su di sé poiché spesso, durante il freddo inverno dell'entroterra marchigiano, usciva in balcone a dorso nudo e si cimentava in difficilissimi esercizi di yoga. Nessuno poteva immaginare che la città di Macerata sarebbe arrivata in un futuro non troppo lontano a dedicargli persino una via e una sede didattica a 
Giuseppe strinse la cinghia che teneva incollati tra loro gli antichi libri e sorrise compiaciuto. Era giunto il momento di lasciare Lhasa dopo che, non molto tempo prima, era davvero riuscito a farsi ammettere – unico uomo di tutta la spedizione – sfruttando una motivazione assai semplice: era buddista. Lo era diventato, in effetti, durante la precedente visita al Tibet nel 1935 grazie all'iniziazione dell'abate di Sakya Ngawang Thutob Wangdrag. Lo raccontò lui stesso nel libro Santi e briganti nel Tibet ignoto, esplicitando anche la convinzione di essere stato un tibetano e di essersi reincarnato nei panni di un esploratore per dare voce e lustro alla cultura di un popolo in continuo pericolo, ancora troppo ignoto al resto dell'umanità. Ed era proprio per questo motivo che Tucci, in quella soleggiata giornata dall'aria frizzantina proveniente dalle vette che si estendevano intorno a lui in lontananza, non aveva nessuna intenzione di restituire l'opera costituita da ben 108 volumi preziosi e di inestimabile valore che il Dalai Lama 
Sebbene Giuseppe Tucci sia oggi considerato unanimamente il più importante tibetologo del mondo e un esploratore, orientalista, professore e storico delle religioni di livello internazionale – contando le numerose università straniere e italiane in cui insegnò, o le prestigiose onorificenze ricevute – la sua figura resta tuttora avvolta nel mistero e nella discrezione. Acclamato nonché profondamente stimato all'estero, Tucci seppe sfruttare anche nel suo paese i legami politici e istituzionali che la sua immensa cultura gli aveva procurato; tuttavia, mai si piegò ai lustri del successo, ai salotti letterari e alla sete di visibilità, restando così un personaggio ben poco noto se si pensa all'estremo carisma che seppe emanare in vita, ma soprattutto alle incredibili missioni che svolse, degne di un'incomparabile genialità.