One of the most recurring stories you hear about in the news is Syria, and it always sounds like it’s nothing but terrorism and death, but this time its different. Syria has been in a civil war since 2011 and has gone from being a civilized state with some troubling problems to a lawless, barren wasteland of rubble, which in turn makes it a breeding ground for radical extremists. These radical extremists may be fighting for all sorts of different things: land, money, power, or to just take their country back. Syria just happens to be the biggest producer of crude oil in the eastern Mediterranean so  to the eyes of global powers like the US, Turkey, Russia and others, this failed state is the perfect opportunity to make money. But these countries can’t send their own troops in to fight this war or they would be invading just for money. Instead countries fund the extremist groups to take land for them so they can then deploy troops to “introduce freedom” while instead they are letting big oil companies like Shell and Exxon come in and buy the oil while American troops are there. Forces face no significant threat because no country would dare attack the US or Russia, so the only threat they face is the extremist groups that are funded by other countries doing the exact same thing they are doing. (according to the New York Times) So now, instead of a civil war, this has turned into a proxy war for oil. Now that we’ve got the background info on Syria and how some of the most powerful countries in the world are involved let’s get specific on turkey. There is the ethnic group called the Kurds that have lived in the region for hundreds of years; they are mostly located in northern Syria western Iraq and part of southern Turkey. The Kurds have wanted to have their own state for years and Turkey views this as a threat to the security of their borders. So because of this threat and because of the fear of terrorism from the south in Syria, Turkey has launched an offensive called Operation Peace Spring and has invaded Syria under the umbrella of deterring terrorism from entering Turkey. What’s actually happening is that Turkey is invading Syria to kick the Kurds out of their borders and is killing civilians as they push farther and further into Syria’s borders. (According to AmnestyInternational.org)  This operation happens 3 days after President Trump announced that he would be pulling all troops out of Syria indefinitely to stop fighting in “endless wars.” Now the world has another humanitarian crisis on its hands as confirmed reports of civilians being shelled and most inhabitants of northern Syria are partaking in a mass exodus to get out as quickly as possible as the invading Turkey pushes further into their own borders.