Jew World Order

nsnbc : Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum on Friday, General Raymond Thomas, commander of the United States special operations forces command, spoke frankly about a number of controversial issues pertaining the United States’ presence in Iraq and Syria. Among the “hot potatoes” Thomas touched upon were Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga’s need for training, the fact that U.S. special operations forces are “bumping into Iranians everywhere”, and the fact that Russia might ask U.S. troops to leave Syria once “we are done with ISIS”.

General Raymond Thomas said after Mosul, the next flashpoint in Iraq will be Kirkuk. He also stressed that the federal government of Iraq would never allow Kurds to take Kirkuk without a fight. He added:

“I keep a very close watch right now on Kirkuk, most (of) you know the Kurds picked a very awkward time to have a referendum on whether or not they should be independent. Kirkuk is absolutely part of their vision of greater Kurdistan. … “If you pick up a Kurdish tourist map, you can see it there. And its absolutely point of departure of government of Iraq. Whether,  it was Maliki before, or the current administration, I don’t think they going to say sure, take the Khurmala oil fields in Kirkuk and go your way. Its not going go peacefully. You think Iraq all places, we took Mosul, there is still lot of work to do. Hardest part how to finish.”

The U.S.’s special operations chief also expressed that he was “disappointed” with the Peshmerga. He noted that he spent 15 months in Mosul and that he knows the Kurds well. He commented:

“They talked a good game, it was a pretty army, (but) it didn’t fight very well when push came to shove. So we’ve had to bring them up to a level of competency that you would’ve have hoped was better beforehand but they are now contributing pretty actively.”

General Thomas also commented at the omnipresence of Iranians and that U.S. special forces were “bumping into them everywhere”. He said: “We bump into them [Iranians] everywhere. Humorously, I parked my plane one day right next to [Qassim] Soleimani’s plane in Erbil, we were kind of salivating what we could, should do at that moment of time, but we did nothing.”  Major General Qassem Soleimani, is the chief of the Iranian Guard Corps’ Quds Force. General Thomas added, respectfully:

“I consider him to be my peer competitor.  And he is everywhere. He will be in Manbij Syria one day and (…) he will be in Iraq further afield. So they have laid a sea corridor from Teheran through southern oil fields, through Baghdad, looking for access either through Anbar or through Nineveh, they join hands with Lebanese Hezbollah in Syria, and that transcends into Lebanon, so they got a de-facto crescent as it is now.”

General Thomas commented also on the evolution of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since their establishment in October 2015 as well as on the alliance 7 cooperation between the United States and Kurds in Syria.

He said that one of the most discussed and most misunderstood issues is the evolution of our counterpart in Syria, the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces. He added that he has dealt with them directly and that during the formative stage of the relationship. General Thomas added that they (the Syrian – Kurdish militants) formally called themselves the People’s Protection Units (YPG).  He added that the Turks claim that this equated to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) and that Turkey blames the United States for “dealing with their terrorist enemy”. He commented on the pragmatic issues involved, saying:

“So, we literally played back to them: ‘You have got to change your brand. What do you want to call yourselves besides the YPG?’ With about a day’s notice they declared that they are the Syrian Democratic Forces, I thought it was a stroke of brilliance to put democracy in there somewhere. But it gave them a little bit of credibility.”

However, he said, the US military was not able to give the Syrian Kurds a seat at the table at the Syrian peace negotiations. He said:

“I was luckily to have great partner, in Brett McGurk out there at the time, because they were asking for thing I couldn’t give to them. And it was literally an acknowledgement, that they were the demographic dominant force in northern Syria.  They wanted a seat at the table, whether it’s Geneva or Astana, wherever the talks are happening about the future Syria, and because they had been branded as the PKK they could never get to the table. So while we paired with them militarily, McGurk was able to keep them in the conversation and allowed them the necessary legitimacy to be good partners for us. So its was literally something, I dealt militarily, and the diplomat delivered an entrée, from a state stand point.”

In fact, attempts to include Syrian Kurds in the Geneva and Astana talks is one of the few initiatives both the United States and the Russian Federation have been working at for some time now, even though over Russian support for Syrian Kurds – including in State media – diminished significantly after Russia, Iran and Turkey joined forces to launch the Astana Talks and subsequent joint initiatives.

General Thomas added that the alliance between Kurds and the US coalition against ISIS developed in Kobani, after they tripped on them, and the Iraqi Kurds asked the US-led coalition to help the Kurds in Syria. He said:

“There was a town called Kobani, I had to find it on the map, I had no idea where Kobani was. But it was identified to us, as a town that was just about to be expunged by ISIS. They [ISIS] had massed thousands of troops on it. They wanted it symbolically it was up on the Turkish border. And other [Iraqi] Kurds introduced us to this problem, and asked if we could help them. … All we did early on we provided kinetic capabilities to them, and kept them from being wiped out, they were up the backdrop the Turkish border, they had no escape [vow] there. And I was able to walk the dirt in Kobani, seven months later, it was utter devastation. .. (…) [our] Kurdish allies lost 2000 there, they estimate ISIS lost about 6,000 to 10,000 there. There was a complete devastation of the town. But they were just happy that they survived the experience. And out of that seed corn, that’s when they start saying we have Kurdish cantons, and right away, going to be more representative than that.”

The general also commented on Syrian Kurds “magic”; that is, their success at convincing Arabs of joining a Kurdish-dominated initiative such as the Syrian Democratic Forces. Responding to a question Thomas said:

“Are there Arabs interested in joining your coalition here, and they would identify folks, and yes we go this canton and this town, and this thing rolled from just a couple thousand that we knew early on, to now 50,000 person force, when folks want a test: are those ghost numbers? My comeback is that’s the ghost force, that has just taken, half way through Raqqa, and has taken every march objective we had so far. … And the real unstated aspect of magic here, luckily, luckily, we lost only two service members throughout this whole thing, two half years, fighting this fight with our surrogates, they lost thousands, we lost only two service members, two is too many, but it’s a relief that we haven’t had kind of losses we had elsewhere, its their fight, they got to embrace it more than we do.”

Responding to another question about what the US is going to stay after ISIS is defeated Thomas answered, also touching on the fact that Russia may want the U.S. to leave once ISIS is defeated and he commented on “legal issues” as well, saying:

“I want to spin this in three different directions. So first part to your question, advantageous to us would be to stay there with them as long as there is a CT [counter-terrorism] threat to deal with. They have been our surrogate force maneuverable wise, while we are bringing every aspect, all tools of the trade we can, to great effect, so still until less we  stick a fork into ISIS and they are done, very advantageous. …..

General Thomas recognized that there is the “conundrum that we are operating in the sovereign country of Syria”. He added that “the Russians are stalwart and the back stoppers are the also uninvited Turks”. He stressed that the U.S. may only be “days away from Russians saying why are you still in Syria”. He added:

“I refer to lawyers in the crowd and others, in terms of international law, on the basis for us staying there other than out Counter terrorism writ. We went there for all the right reasons, but if the Russians play that card, we might want to stay, but have no ability to do it. They could play it out.”

General Thomas described the Kurdish problem, in part as a PKK branding challenge and that Kurds could help themselves. He noted that the fact that the Turks are reminding the U.S. every day that Washington cooperates with PKK terrorists could be understood as a “branding challenge”. Thomas gave an example for this “branding challenge”, remembering one episode, saying:

“The first time that Brett McGurk and I went to this very old, cold guildhall in Kobani, right on the Turk border, we went in there, a bunch of somber technocrats and military people, and whose beaming face is looking down on us from the front of the guildhall but (that of) Öcalan. .. We said, ‘hey, that’s got to go. You cannot hold on to Öcalan and have any chance of legitimacy in the construct we’re in.  So, you either something different, or. And something that has a legitimacy. ..”

General Thomas also commented on the predominant Kurdish form of governance. He said that “it isn’t perfect but at least it provides a model”, one that is at least nominally socialist where woman and men share power as equals. He noted that women are fighting and actively involved in all levels of leadership. Thomas added that he and McGurk had discussed that this was a model that was compatible with a future Syria.

CH/L – nsnbc 24.07.2017

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