Looking over the global landscape, the areas most touched by US interventionist foreign policy are objectively in the worst, most desperate shape. The mainstream media will report that the current disaster in Syria came about because the people decided to stand up to a cruel dictator in the "Arab Spring" that swept through the greater Middle East in 2011, and that the dictator cracked down so hard it caused the violence to spin out of control. We know, of course, that is not the whole story. The US had been involved in fomenting unrest in Syria at least five years or more before violence broke out. A Wikileaks-released cable from 2006 shows how hard the US Embassy in Damascus was working to figure out a way to overthrow the government. Shortly after the partially manufactured protests devolved into violence, the CIA moved in and began arming (and importing) rebels to finish the deed. In five years the country has been destroyed, hundreds of thousands killed, millions left without homes. read on...
Turkey has long insisted they view the Kurdish YPG and ISIS as basically the same thing. Overnight incidents around the city of Afrin, however, show that when the two forces are in close proximity, the Turkish military is definitely going after the Kurds.
The Kurdish YPG forces were launching an offensive near Afrin against the ISIS fighters when a flurry of Turkish airstrikes were launched against them, described as the single biggest attack Turkey has launched against Kurds since their invasion back in August. Turkish officials estimated 200 Kurds killed. read on...
