Now ‘Northwest Syria'... and a new ‘Syria Strategy' Turkey alerted and advised the US before its Syria operation, Secretary of Defence James Mattis told reporters on Sunday 21 January, on board his plane during a trip to Asia. “Turkey was candid,” Mattis said, according to Reuters. “They warned us before they launched the aircraft they were going to do it, in consultation with us,” he continued. “And we are working now on the way ahead. We'll work this out.” That same day, a statement by State Department noted: “We continue to be supportive of addressing the legitimate security concerns of Turkey as a NATO ally and critical partner in the effort to defeat ISIS. However, we urge Turkey to exercise restraint and ensure that its military operations remain limited in scope and duration and scrupulous to avoid civilian casualties.” The statement did not mention the words “Kurds” or “Afrin” as the targets of the Turkish strikes.
This new and escalated situation was created a few days after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a speech last Wednesday, 17 January, at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, said that “The United States will maintain a military presence in Syria focused on ensuring ISIS cannot re-emerge.” In a briefing via teleconference, a senior State Department official told reporters, “The US military presence in Syria will be conditions-based, not calendar-based. It will combat ISIS, it will prevent the resurgence of ISIS – that's what we call enduring defeat – it will facilitate stabilisation and it will try to make easier the challenges before the UN in Geneva in supporting a political process. We do not want a vacuum to exist from which ISIS or other radical groups will reemerge. That's the purpose of why we're there. And it's very different from using terms like ‘open-ended presence' or ‘forever war,' very popular slogans, but that's not what we're talking about here.”
And in answering questions about the political process and the future of Syria and President Bashar Al-Assad, the US official said: “... our goal of supporting the United Nations effort to see the initiation of a credible political process in Syria. Now, that's a process that we believe at its end – and it's a long-term affair, not short-term – should produce a free and fair election under UN auspices, which we don't believe Assad can win.” The official added: “From a policy standpoint, we don't think he should be there at the end of the game. We don't think he merits in terms of his and his regime's behaviours staying in power.” Tillerson's speech – which was described as the US's New Syria strategy, indeed is going to be discussed, analysed, reviewed and no doubt criticised, as many of its aspects need to be more clear and more specific and realistic. In an editorial titled “Syria is now Mr Trump's war,” The New York Times wrote: “As of last month, there were about 2,000 American troops in Syria — up from 500 a year ago — a mix of engineering units and Special Operations units that fight and train with local militias in the battle against the Islamic State. Now that we know they will be there indefinitely, who can say the number won't go higher and the mission won't creep more?” The piece continued, “Syria is a complex problem. But this plan seems poorly conceived, too dependent on military action and fuelled by wishful thinking.” Many wonder if this one, too, will be unending war! Facing again Facebook, Twitter and YouTube The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, chaired by Senator John Thune (R-S.D.), held a hearing titled “Terrorism and Social Media: #IsBigTechDoingEnough?” on Wednesday 17 January to examine the steps social media platforms have taken and are taking to combat the spread of extremist propaganda over the Internet. Representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter testified before the Senate Committee. “Since June, YouTube has removed over 160,000 violent extremist videos and has terminated approximately 30,000 channels for violation of our policies against terrorist content,” said Juniper Downs, YouTube's Global Head of Public Policy and Government Relations. “We achieved these results through tougher policies, enhanced enforcement by machines and people, and collaboration with outside experts.” As is widely known, YouTube operates as one of Google's subsidiaries. Downs also described how YouTube uses “a mix of technology and humans to remove violent content immediately.” In addition to using algorithms — which catch 98 per cent of extremist content — YouTube's parent company Google also has about 10,000 people monitoring content on the site daily.
Twitter's head of public policy and philanthropy Carlos Monje said that, although there is no “magic algorithm” for identifying terrorist content, the tech giant was able to use its algorithms to suspend 1.1 million terrorist accounts since 2015 and nearly a half million more in 2017. It was also reported that a recent study from New York University's Stern Center for Business and Human Rights estimated that the Islamic terrorist group ISIS generated 200,000 social media messages every day. Facebook's head of product policy and counterterrorism, Monika Bickert, said that Facebook intends to double the number of people working on safety and security from 10,000 to 20,000 by the end of this year.
