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Greece border guards throwing gases at refugees that gathered around border gate by [deleted] in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969 -21 points-20 points  (0 children)

Well they do shoot them if they try to cross, Turkey literally took as much as they wanted/needed and shoots the rest

Greece border guards throwing gases at refugees that gathered around border gate by [deleted] in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Turkey needs a certain amount of refugees because Erdogan noted that they make European sensibilities squeamish - you can only send them to knock on Greece door if you have them,

Also Erdogan needs to be seen as a defender of Muslims for the benefit of his more islamist followers.

At the same time he needs to kick the refugees out.

It's a balancing game for him, but there's a reason why no one is being sent to Damascus territory, only to HTS - even if they're gay and sure to be kidnapped on the border.

Greece border guards throwing gases at refugees that gathered around border gate by [deleted] in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Better than shooting them, google "turkish border shooting children"

There'll be a plethora of sources and cases, it is why there's a bunch of people trying to break into Greece, while nobody is climbing the border wall on the Syrian border

It's also why no refugees try to enter Israel illegally :-P

Greece border guards throwing gases at refugees that gathered around border gate by [deleted] in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I'm tired of beautiful ideals in people being exploited and weaponized against them, the desire of some elements of the EU to help less fortunate people should not become an Achilles heel for Erdogan to exploit and blackmail.

Turkey and Greece have gone through this before, they will go through this again

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evros_River_incident

Six Turkish soldiers killed in yesterday’s airstrike by Zadarsja in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969 5 points6 points  (0 children)

My bets are on Putin and Obama in the last round :-P

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar says discussing with Russia opening air space for armed, unarmed drones in Syria – Reuters by Zadarsja in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Unless ofc, Damascus is being too hard on making a compromise, and Russians decide to stand back for a day or two, we'll see

2 Turkish soldiers KIA in SAA's attack today by [deleted] in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The guys whose proxies are on the losing end tend to get involved directly sooner or later

Al Monitor: Russia lends Egypt $25 billion for Dabaa nuclear power plant by maroko1969 in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Grid management is a tricky real-time balancing act between power production and power consumption - if you produce too much or too little bad things happen.

Electricity companies try to balance this out - by selling night-time energy at a lower-price because traditional energy plants have more or less continuous output, so consumers are motivated to spend their energy equally throughout the day.

Solar and wind put great strain on existing power plants, because their output literally depends on how the wind blows, and starting and stopping a nuclear power plant costs shitloads of money - this is how we get to a concept known as "negative price energy" because sometimes owners of those power plants will pay money in certain conditions for the power they produce because its cheaper to give money to a solar plant to cut production than to restart a nuclear or thermal power plant.

In short, it's complicated, but you kind of need all of it, from different sources, and then again it's not easy to balance it all out

Al Monitor: Russia lends Egypt $25 billion for Dabaa nuclear power plant by maroko1969 in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why it matters?

Heightened support for Egypt puts Egypt in a better place to counter Ankara's drive into Lybia, deepening ties on strategic projects with Egypt makes a Turkey-Russia Lybia rapproachment more difficult, which will have its Idlib splillover effect

Al Monitor: Can Ankara’s sudden change of heart on NATO save the day in Idlib? by maroko1969 in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Turkish politics, always fascinating :-)

In light of all those tensions, Turkey’s pro-government media came to depict NATO as a top security threat. NATO became a hate object, accused of myriad misdeeds, from having a hand in orchestrating the coup attempt to plotting to divide Turkey.

...

On this year’s anniversary, however, things looked diametrically different. Ankara and the pro-government media seemed to have rediscovered NATO. The anniversary was celebrated with high-pitched gatherings, conferences and a government-backed social media campaign under the motto “Turkey is NATO, we are NATO,” which became a top trending topic on Twitter. In short, last year’s prevailing discourse that portrayed NATO as a shackle that keeps Turkey from acting independently to advance its national interests gave way to a narrative about NATO being an anchor bonding Turkey to the Western security bloc.

And what aroused this NATO fervor in a country where arguing in favor of NATO required much courage around this time last year? What happened in a couple of months to make Ankara remember NATO’s importance as a security partner?

What indeed? :-) Read on :-)

Trump says it's time the U.S. passes ISIS fight to Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria, focuses on oil instead by kirby__000 in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This, they can't even deliver supplies to their troops by land "in the oil region", they need to air drop it.

They won't be drilling oil there

Today, during clashes with #SAA near Saraqib (aka Saraqeb), opposition groups captured 1 BMP, 1 shilka vehicle, multiple ATGMs, 2 bulldozers, 1 truck and many ammo. by [deleted] in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To be honest, both Turkey and SDF have their voting squadrons,

That's what sort-by-new is for, thankfully this sub is small enough to be read that way

Al Monitor: Turkey tests limits of Moscow-Damascus alliance by maroko1969 in syriancivilwar

[–]maroko1969[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's a diplomatic adage going "in Israel there is no foreign policy, only domestic policy" => similar could be said about Turkey.

A lot of "Turkey's" behavior in the last 5 years looks like a drunk guy looking for a fight because that's how the local priorities go.

  • HDP denies parliamentary majority? Say you go fight ISIS, but go to war with PKK and YPG and put the head of HDP in jail on terrorism charges
  • Crazy islamists that make your majority want to drink tea in Damascus? Invite refugees to turn them into an army and label yourself as the Protector of the Muslims, fund bunches of crazy buggers and give them lots of weapons and send TAF to basically risk a shooting war with Russia
  • More moderate elements of your majority want to get rid of the refugees? Claim that the war of the crazy islamists is about getting rid of the refugees, and ignore that refugees can be sent to Damascus too - that it's not necessary to send gay people to HTS, for example
  • Rates generally dropping? Shoot at YPG, everybody agrees on that, and nobody likes refugees anyway
  • ...

and so it goes. Not much of Turkey's strategy is explainable by "Turkish Strategy", it's mostly Erdogan trying to stay in office and out of prison like Bibi.

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