That stupid and infentile american notion 'the good guy' caused so much damage. There are no good guys in Syria. All are both ugly and bad. 100 war lords fighting each other for control and several other states such as Russia, Iran and Turkey trying to take advantage of it and control their own puppet war lord.
Apparently the Kurds have their own war lords who would rather fight each other than work together. The conflict between (the two kurdish war lords)the Barazani war lord and the Talabani war lord already lost them the chance of declating a state. So, no, no good guys in Syria. Sorry.
Infighting =/= bad guy though. No Kurdish faction is trying to commit genocide, conquer otherers, oppress minorities, deny women equal rights, etc. Disagreements on who should be in charge is a different matter and the Syrian Kurds have no interest in a state, that's an Iraqi thing.
I said, the bad and the ugly. Here we have the ugly. Had they not been fighting between themselves they would have had a state by now. Imagine at the American independence war half the colonies would call in the British army to help them fend off the other half, USA would have never happen.
Any one can have an opinion - but is it informed ? Assad is not a good guy on a personal basis .. and as a leader. He does however happen to be the commander of the good side in this war. And that is a demonstrable fact.
It's about the war that has been going on between the Turks and the Kurds. Seems Turkey is ready to end it. That's not the US's business.
I agree there are no good guys in Syria. Which is why we should have not been there. It's a lose lose. Pretty much the same for most all the ME.
The Syrian Civil War started becuase Assad got mad at some teen taggers. How the **** is he the good guy?
Nothing in the ME is USA's business but it pokes its nose in everywhere....and is still doing it with its Military stationed in many Countries there. Its Navy is in the Straits of Hormuz (as is ours, 'cause you asked us to hold your hand.) Get out of the ME...period and stay out. Stop propping up the State of Israel and let the chips fall.
Withdraw from the other side of the planet and defend the homeland. No more foreign adventures, no more entangling alliances, no more perpetual war for economic stimulus. Bravo Trump. It's a small step, but unlike every President in the modern era he is stepping in the right direction for once.
Those things would be nice if they were practical. Everyone uses their military for economic and political influence when they can. And the troops did not come home, they likely just went to KSA to defend and help logistically against Yemen and Iran.
If a Wahhabi kingdom led by the House of Saud requires US troops to prop it up to defend itself against one group from one of the most impoverished countries on earth, namely the Houthis from Yemen, or even against Iran, then there must be something too rotten in the whole place to deserve anyone trying to prop it up further. Especially when you consider that the Saudi military budgets dwarfs that of every country in the region and is above the military budget of even Russia, with the 3rd largest military budget in the world after only the US and China.
CNN and its usual lias! Turkey did not shell US positions. And BTW, people like you are the real traitors, serve Chinese interests. Continue to share newspeak...
KSA is much like the Kurds, they need some outside help to remain stable and in control of their own territory. If we left they would have problems inside and out. Their budget is also useless if they do not have an effective fighting population, to much prosperity and outside defense and you have very little willing and dedicated soldiers. They actually use lots of mercs and proxies due to this. But back on topic, we did not send the troops home, they were relocated to other hot spots in the region.
If there was a genocide, then Kurds would commit genocide as they were accessaries. When Ottoman Empire decided to deport Armenians from country, Kurdish inhabitants attacked trains of deporting Armenians. Many Armenians were killed. Those crimes were left holding the bag to Turks since Ottomans were Turkish empire. Kurds live Eastern Part of Turkey where Armenians had been living and they had benefit with it. See ? Your theatre has been failed here.
There are a lot of prosperous countries, with high GDP per capita, than Saudi Arabia which nonetheless are able to put together a force from their own population and don't need mercenary forces to do their battles. That they need such forces actually says something else about Saudi Arabia.
You don't get small steps away from war very often and I am happy to praise them when they come along.
Its not as much about GDP as the distribution of it among the population per capita, which is positive no doubt, but give little intensive for most to join the military. These provide a higher standard of living than most social safety net programs. Just my opinion why you have more hardened military presences in the less oil rich middle eastern countries that dont have programs like KSA, Kuwait, UAE, and Qatar for example. Those countries use more mercs than finding well off people in their societies who want to die in war.
I dont think its as much the leaving that confuses people, its just the picking up out of the blue and walking away. We knew they would make a deal, we could have helped them facilitate that deal politically and then left. Turkey would not have crossed the border if we would have let Syria/Russia take our place first, which is happening in a much more chaotic way than it could have.
And I was talking about all sorts of countries with higher GDP per capita who don't need to do what Saudi Arabia does but which are able to raise their own forces. The reasons the Saudis can't raise an effective fighting force is because while there will be plenty of people willing to take their money, no one would be interested to die for the House of Saud. They don't stand for anything except corruption and taking unearned money for a bunch of undeserving group of 'princes' to waste all over the world.
That is one of the MSM propaganda narratives ... but do you have any clue beyond that narrative - what is really going on in Syria ?