Tom Paine 1949
Diamond Member
- Mar 15, 2020
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Please! You show us a map of the situation today, but we are talking of a situation before the war in Syria was essentially won by Assad, with crucial support from Russia and Iran. You must know that Al-Qaeda - ISIL was not by any means the only Sunni fanatic group operating in wide and even densely populated parts of Syria. In fact, the U.S. still has troops there in the oil producing desert areas, controlling key roads between Iraq and Syria. They should be pulled out now!It was never "taken over", the fanatics of Al-Qaeda and ISIL were simply taking advantage of the situation and were rejected by all others (as well as being driven out of Iraq). Especially by the SDF, who would fight them as fanatically as they fought against Assad's forces. AQ in Syria were never anything other than opportunists that tried to exploit it for their own gain and were rejected by both sides.
That is why the Islamic State only holds about 1% of the territory in Syria, in a small area in central Syria. As far away from the Kurdish controlled regions as they can get as if given a choice the Kurds will actually attack them over the Assad forces.
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That is why the AQ-ISIL forces only hold a small area outside of Palmyra. They do not dare try to go into the areas held by any of the other groups because they all detest them passionately. The only nominal "Sunni forces" of consequence in the conflict is Tahrir al-Sham, based in NW Syria. And they are not anything even close to "fanatics", and have even ejected or killed any members who attempted to work with Al-Qaeda. But they are also one of the smallest groups fighting in the conflict, and their only ally of note is Turkey.
I honestly think in cases like this some people should use scorecards so they can keep all of the various groups separate. All too often I see people trying to lump multiple groups together, and that is always a failure.
Even Biden at the time admitted that some of the forces we were aiding were really Islamic nuts. The American CIA and the Pentagon were actually arming different Sunni groups that were killing each other, and it was widely reported in the Western press that — with the exception of the Kurds — the “democratic forces” we were aiding were often complete fakers who soon defected to the religious fanatic groups we opposed.
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