this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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It looks like most outlets carrying this story are just re-reporting this one from SANA: https://sana.sy/en/?p=329527
And that seems a bit light on details. And the details it does have seem slanted, like painting the US presence as an occupation, a border crossing as an illegal settlement (I can't even find any other references to Mahmoudiya in Syria with a quick Google), and the photos just show pictures of random tanker trucks, nothing that would indicate location, direction, contents, or operator.
My sense is that the US is supporting a rebel faction in the Syrian civil war, and the ruling faction (Bashar al-Assad's) is trying to paint them as the bad guy, for something that may or may not be legitimate, and may or may not even be happening at all. There's not enough evidence here to draw any conclusions.
Explain to me how it is not. Do they have a UN mandate to be there? No? An invite from the sovereign government body of the land? Neither?
A territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. In this case, that area is under the control of the SDF.
Who funds and arms the SDF?
The US, for one. If this is supposed to be a gotcha, that makes it a puppet state at best, still not an occupation.
US literally has bases with US troops in Syria. It's an occupying force.
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what definition of occupation does not include the deployment of the US military, which proceeded to build a dozen military bases in a territory of another country, which has continuously made filings to the UN about this occupation?
The definition in the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907.
The US is supporting SDF, a primarily Kurdish group. This is no secret, they have been since 2015 against ISIL (you remember, the guys that were posting videos of beheading people on YouTube).
The Kurds have lived in this area for millennia. They have just as much right to the natural resources there as the Assad government, probably more.
Which is why the Navajo Nation controls land that would have otherwise contained the Hoover Dam, if it were not for the rights that the Navajo held to the natural resources there.
Oh, wait.
This is a good, nuanced interpretation of this, thanks for doing the leg work and summarizing it succinctly.