Turkey’s Political Influence Felt as Washington Turns Its Back on Kurds Fighting ISIS
Kurdish militias have provided a rare bright spot in the battle against the Islamic State. But they’re being left high and dry as Turkey flexes its political muscle in Washington and applies its military might in the region.
Some of the most successful fighters against the Islamic State are being isolated and attacked by America’s new favorite ally in the region.
Kurdish militias are achieving the stated goals of the Obama administration — to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS — as well or better than any other fighting force. From Kobane to the recent liberation of Tel Abyad, Kurdish militias have won hard-fought victories against ISIS fighters in Syria, while preventing the advance of ISIS into northern Iraq.
What’s more, the Kurds in northern Syria have established a political order like few others in this region of the world. Known as Rojava, the Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria are governed through participatory decision-making forums that include councils made up of women, Christians, Yazidis and Muslims. David Graeber, a leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement, calls Rojava a “remarkable democratic experiment.”
But those gains are now in danger as Turkey, which has a long history of enmity towards ethnic Kurds and fears the potential for a Kurdish state to its immediate south, in northern Syria or Iraq, flexes its political muscle in Washington and applies its military might in the Middle East.
Behind the scenes, American lobbyists employed by Turkey started working to block U.S. military assistance to Kurdish fighters last year, lobbying disclosures show.
This past week, the Turkish government made two critical air bases available to U.S. forces, a long-sought concession that allows the U.S. military to launch anti-ISIS raids more quickly. And it began its own airstrikes against ISIS. But that move is increasingly being seen as something of a feint, with Turkey’s main focus being a new offensive against Kurdish militants.
Simultaneously with its announcement about U.S. access to the air bases, the Turkish government broke its truce with Kurdish militants. During the past week, the Turkish military began attacking Kurdish bases in Iraq and allegedly in Syria as well. The Turkish government says its campaign is simply a response to an attack by the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a separatist group, and has emphasized that it is also targeting ISIS.
On Friday, Turkey launched a series of mass arrests. Though some ISIS supporters were detained, the “vast majority” of arrests, according to the local press, were of leftists and Kurds. And on Tuesday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a crackdown on the People’s Democratic Party, a Kurdish-leftist political party that gained seats in parliament for the first time last month.
Turkey intends to use the increased airstrikes to create a “safe zone” for Sunni Arab militias, which as the New York Times noted, would come at the expense of Kurdish fighters.
Rather than condemn the attacks on the Kurds, the Obama administration praised Turkey’s government for making its air base available.
Turkey’s role as a coalition partner in the campaign against ISIS has been and remains the subject of some controversy. For years, foreign jihadi fighters trickled through Turkey’s porous border to join the ranks of ISIS. The Guardian reported on Saturday that a recent U.S.-led raid on an ISIS official responsible for selling black market oil to traders in Turkey revealed direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members
Vice President Joseph Biden remarked on this strange relationship with Turkey in a speech in October 2014. Turkey, Biden said, is “so determined to take down [Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government] and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad — except that the people who were being supplied were al Nusra and al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”
Biden quickly apologized, as good an example as any of the pressure to maintain long-standing U.S.-Turkey business and military relationships — and the intractable power of the Turkish lobby, which is among the biggest spenders on foreign lobbying in Washington and a major sponsor of congressional junkets.
Turkey employs an all-star lobbying team of former government officials, including former Democratic lawmakers Dick Gephardt and Al Wynn; former Republican Senator Tim Hutchinson; retired Central Intelligence Agency Director Porter Goss; and, until he was indicted in June and left the Dickstein Shapiro law firm, former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert. Others on the payroll include Brian Forni, a former Democratic aide, the law firm Greenberg Traurig, and Goldin Solutions, a media strategy firm.
A number of public relations firms and lawyers help sponsor junkets to American politicians and journalists to visit Turkey. Turkish Coalition of America, a Turkish interest group that helps to sponsor the trips, retained Brown, Lloyd and James, the lobby group that, in an ironic twist, previously represented Assad’s wife.
Recently, the Turkish lobby has worked to block military support to the Kurds working to defeat ISIS.
The battle has been over legislation that would allow President Obama to bypass the Iraqi government in Baghdad and directly provide Iraqi Kurds with the heavy weapons and armored vehicles needed to battle ISIS. In the House, Reps. Ed Royce, R-Calif., and Elliot Engel, D-N.Y., the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman and ranking member, introduced a bill last November, and then again in March, to provide the administration with the appropriate authority to arm the Kurds.
David Thompson, a former Capitol Hill staffer retained by the Turkish government, lobbied House Republican leaders on the Royce-Engel legislation in late 2014. The firm contacted aides to GOP leaders Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise regarding the bill, according to the statement filed by Thompson’s law firm, Dickstein Shapiro, with the Justice Department in January.
Turkish interests say they have legitimate concerns about the bill. “Supporting a militia for money and then unleashing them into the wild of terrorism we think is irresponsible,” said Gunay Evinch, a longtime attorney for the Turkish government and former president of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations.
“There are tidal wave kind of ripple effects that could be caused just by flooding a particular group within a broader group with heavy weapons and it could dwarf the ISIS problem or multiply it to many types of problems,” Evinch added. Evinch said that he was speaking only on behalf of the ATAA board of directors, not the Turkish government. He noted that he met with Turkish embassy officials, who said they had supplied information to congressional intelligence officials about the dangers of supplying Kurdish forces with weapons.
Human rights watchdogs point out that in some areas of Iraq, Kurdish forces have been linked with efforts to segregate Arab and Kurdish refugees.
Embassy officials and Thompson did not respond to multiple request for comment about the bill. The Turkish embassy later sent a fact-sheet claiming, “Though acting with different motivations, [ISIS] and the PKK share similar tactics and goals.”
President Erdogan has been clear about the threat posed by Kurdish militias. “I say to the international community that whatever price must be paid, we will never allow the establishment of a new state on our southern frontier in the north of Syria,” Erdogan said last month.
“Turkey has legitimate concerns about the international and American long-term policy towards Syria as well as in Iraq,” G. Lincoln McCurdy, the president of the Turkish Coalition of America, said in October. McCurdy, whose group organizes congressional junkets to Turkey and serves as the treasurer of a pro-Turkey political action committee, noted that he is working to improve Turkey’s image as a member of the anti-ISIS coalition, and stressed the need to highlight Turkey’s role as a major host country for refugees.
“We’re in a very strong position because of the PACs,” McCurdy explained to a gathering of Turkish American leaders and Turkish embassy officials in March. He pointed to the strong pro-Turkey sentiment of Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., a freshman lawmaker and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
At the event, Boyle took the stage, praising Turkey as “one of our best friends, if not the best friend, in the region.” He went on to chide his fellow lawmakers for introducing “nine anti-Turkish resolutions,” a reference to legislation to recognize the Armenian genocide and condemn Turkey’s efforts to restrict Internet freedom. “This is wrong and counterproductive and bad for U.S.-Turkish policy,” he declared. About a week after Boyle’s remarks, McCurdy’s Turkish Coalition PAC contributed $1,000 to Boyle’s reelection campaign.
When the Royce-Engel bill to arm Kurds against ISIS was reintroduced this year, most members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee signed on as co-sponsors. Boyle was not among them. Asked why he did not sign onto the legislation, Boyle’s spokesperson declined to comment.
Earlier this summer, the Senate rejected a similar bill to arm the Kurds fighting ISIS, with opponents citing White House concerns that such an effort would sow division within Iraq’s unity government.
It’s not the first time Washington has turned its back on the Kurds.
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush’s public suggestion that Iraqis “take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside” encouraged a Kurdish and Shiite uprising against the Baathist regime. But when the uprising occurred, the Bush administration provided no support and thousands of Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis were slaughtered by the Saddam regime.
Defending a NeoCon project doesn’t fit well @the_intercept
One has to put the question first: “why are Kurdish militias so keen to fight ISIS, while no country wants to send ground troops into the quagmire in Syria and Iraq?” ISIS didn’t fall on earth from nowhere. It was created and sponsored by U.S. & allies to accelerate a W. Bush epoch Neo-Con’s Greater Middle East Project. ISIS cleanses the area, and then Kurdish militias take it from ISIS. This is how it works. The aim is creating a greater but cheaper Israel.
The Middle East is a mess and will continue to be so until Islam, the religion of peace/hate is destroyed. Islam has no place in the 21st century.
The PKK and ISIS are both terrorist organizations which threaten Turkey’s security.
Therefore Turkey has the right to defend itself against them both. The Obama administration, whatever the wrongs of its past policies, is right to stand by Turkey as it defends itself.
people think if PKK is attacked no one will stand against ISIS. which is not the case at all. PKK isn’t the only group fighting them, and not the strongest either. A Turkish Major was recently shot next to his wife, and child. in the head. and people expect Turkey to sing kumbaya and hug the PKK Kurdish killers.
STRATEGY vs ISIS
So how do we fight ISIS? Militarily, obviously, but I’d also fight ISIS’s state-sponsors politically, economically and geo-strategically, with regime-change to prevent them sponsoring a replacement terror-army after we have shed our nations’ precious blood and spent our precious treasure crushing the so-called “Islamic State”.
STRATEGY TO DEFEAT “Islamic State” / ISIL / ISIS / Daesh
1) Overall strategy – the West needs to apply the Bush Doctrine to all state-sponsors of terrorism – Saudi Arabia & other Gulf monarchies, Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Iran and other dictator states – regime change them all.
2) Use stand off techniques more robustly – such as seizing control over state-sponsor-of-terrorism satellite-TV broadcasting (often supplied to Arab and North African state broadcasters by European satellite TV companies) and turning that propaganda weapon around and using it to promote democratic revolution through-out the region.
3) Impose the West as sole agents for all oil tanker export sales out of the Gulf. Seize all oil tankers exporting oil and sell the oil, depriving regimes of oil profits.
4) Now once you have an overall strategy in place, then you can look at specific military actions. Bombing prestige regime targets or threatening to if Al Baghdadi’s head is not on a spike within 48 hours.
5) Partition Iraq. Looks like it has to go three ways – Shia, Sunni & Kurds. If the 3 new states all want to join up together in an Iraq confederacy or union of some kind of their own free will, that’s fine too.
6) Establish Western military bases in Iraq for training up the local armies. Better if we can supply them by sea or air rather than by long land routes which can have supply routes attacked by road side bombs and ambushes.
______
A solution for SYRIA too
We should support the rights of Sunni-majority areas to establish a Sunni-majority state, partitioned from Iraq and / or Syria but modelled not after Saudi Arabia’s oppressive religious police Sunni state but rather as a secular, democratic state (approximated imperfectly by Turkey with its majority Sunni population), which could be part of a stable solution, acceptable to world powers.
However, to get there, we must first defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda and put irresistible pressure on Arab states to support a peace solution for Iraq and Syria, perhaps with Arab state regular armies invading Syria and Iraq to enforce a peace settlement along partition lines agreed at the United Nations with NATO acting as a military police force, directing Arab armies here and there.
Such a peace would be workable and stable, rather than as now with the Arab states’ proxy terrorists failing to enforce a non-agreed imposed terrorist state.
Let us not forget the equally important ground war.
ARM THE KURDS
We need to arm the Kurds, the Iraqi Kurdish army, the Peshmerga, and the Syrian Kurds militia, the YPG and the women’s protection units, the YPJ, defending their autonomous region of Rojava, in the north of Syria, alongside whom international volunteers, some from the United States, are fighting.
We need to arm all the Kurds, in Syria and Iraq, with heavy weapons, with better weapons, with the full range of equipment they need.
The other day, I read a report of a chemical attack on Kurdish fighters. So add gas-masks in their thousands to the Kurd’s equipment request list.
Congress has already budgeted for $350 million to fund the Kurds. That’ll make a huge difference for the better and I know the Kurds are so grateful for all they get.
Nevertheless more support for our friends fighting ISIL is going to be needed – I wish the US’s allies had given more – Germany has given more, other allies haven’t given as much as they might have.
I see a need for long-range wire-guided anti-tank missiles – such as the BGM-71 TOW, which, sadly, hasn’t been budgeted for. The anti-tank missiles which were given aren’t wire-guided and so the range is shorter but blowing up a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device from short range is extremely hazardous to say the least.
So the Kurds really like the longer-range wire-guided MILAN anti-tank missiles they get some of from the Germans. The US could supplement the Kurds supplies with hundreds of BGM-71 TOWs and they’d never be bothered by VBIEDs again!
I see the Kurds have a need for more M2 heavy machine guns – only 87 were budgeted for – because there is a world-war-1-style front line with the ISIS of 600 miles, the Kurds really need thousands of heavy machine guns!
The Kurds don’t have the heavy armour for mobile warfare so its often like trench warfare on the front lines and for that a great many heavy machine guns are essential.
The Kurdish militia in Syria, the YPG & women’s defense force, the YPJ, have been outstanding in the field versus the ISIS for the light arms they have. They’ve been helped a whole lot by the US air-strikes and I know they are so grateful for that air-support. The Syrian Kurdish fighters deserve our enthusiastic support with whatever equipment they can use.
They need sniper rifles, binoculars, night-sights, communication radios, unmanned aerial vehicles to watch enemy positions and movements and to direct mortar fire.
Even the Kurds AK47s are not up to modern standards for fighting on open terrain – fine for fighting in buildings and at close quarters – but the AK47 is not accurate at a distance so modern assault rifles with telescopic sights are needed.
Yes the US has generously budgeted to send just that sort of military aid, but we need to get it all out on the front lines as soon as possible and see what else is needed.
_______
BEWARE OF THE SAUDIS
ISIS are secret agents of the Saudi regime. Beware that these arrests –
The Hill – “Saudi Arabia thwarts ISIS attacks, arrests 400″ – July 18, 2015
– are a media stunt designed to deceive the US and allies.
These arrests are smoke and mirrors by the Saudi regime to lie and to deny the Saudi’s ownership of the ISIS terrorist organisation.
The Saudi military intelligence would have recruited, trained, armed and provided with safe houses these ISIS terrorists so it was no problem for them to arrest them as and when it was convenient so to do.
The US and western media are giggling like children in the audience of a Riyadh Punch-and-Judy show, staged for their benefit. Punch = ISIS, Judy = House of Saud.
The media have been fooled. Don’t you be fooled.
The Saudi regime is waging a war using secret agent terrorists against us. The Saudi regime is the enemy, but the ordinary Arabs are as much a victim of this evil regime as we are.
Wikipedia – State-sponsored terrorism – Saudi Arabia
“Saudi Arabia is said to be the world’s largest source of funds and promoter of Salafist jihadism, which forms the ideological basis of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, Taliban, ISIS and others. Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide, according to Hillary Clinton.
According to a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state, “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups.”
The violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is partly bankrolled by wealthy, conservative donors across the Arabian Sea whose governments do little to stop them. Three other Arab countries which are listed as sources of militant money are Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, all neighbors of Saudi Arabia. Taliban and their militant partners the Haqqani network earn “significant funds” through UAE-based businesses. Kuwait is described as a “source of funds and a key transit point” for al-Qaida and other militant groups.
The Pakistani militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks, used a Saudi-based front company to fund its activities in 2005. According to studies, most of suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudis.
15 of the 19 hijackers of the four airliners who were responsible for 9/11 originated from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon.
Osama bin Laden was a Saudi by birth. His family is a wealthy one intimately connected with the innermost circles of the Saudi royal family.”
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So that’s my plan but whom to trust to carry it through?
Well I don’t trust anyone with my plan except myself, so I volunteer to be appointed NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (or Deputy SACEUR) to carry my plan through to victory in short order.
For my political superior, I want to report to Condoleezza Rice. So please appoint Condi as NATO Secretary General (I don’t know if she will accept this office or similar but NATO governments could ask her).
Anyway we need Condi, that’s clear. So long as I report through Condi to the NATO North Atlantic Council, no problem.
Supreme Allied Condista
Your concept of “victory” and “we” both need some work…
… and proposing war crimes as a solution puts you in bad company, like your preferred choice as a superior.
TURKS
Well if I was leading NATO, Turkey would be getting some very forceful advice behind the scenes to quit treating the PKK the same as ISIS and encouragement to seek a cease-fire with the PKK and I’d be making that distinction clear publicly as I have already done.
Since NATO statements are only agreed unanimously then it is not surprising that Turkey would not agree to the following quoted statement for publication as “the view of NATO” but there is nothing to stop the NATO Secretary General making this statement in a personal leadership capacity, except for the fact that the Secretary General is not me, but someone else.
“Turkey has been quite wrong to try to paint ISIS and the PKK with the same brush, equally as “terrorists”, when the PKK have legitimate concerns about protecting Kurds from ISIS, although the PKK’s attack on Turkish police officers which broke the cease-fire was ill-advised and it is unsurprising that Turkey would label such attacks as “terrorists” and a unilateral ending of the cease-fire by the PKK. Ending the cease-fire was a bad move by the PKK because cease-fires are much easier to end than they are to resume.
So Turkey had a cease-fire with the PKK and rightly so but Turkey should never have had a cease-fire with ISIS, if indeed that’s what it had, it was quite wrong to have such a cease fire with ISIS.
Also, Turkey should be open minded about resuming a cease-fire with the PKK. Admittedly it takes two sides to make a cease-fire stick but at least a cease-fire should be possible with the PKK in the way it should not be possible with ISIS.
Otherwise, the suspicion will be that the Turkish state is being manipulated by those fascists who are not sincere about fighting ISIS but instead are using ISIS attacks as a pretext, conflating ISIS with anyone Kurdish or Turkish leftist, as a smokescreen for a far wider and undemocratic crackdown.”
KURDS
We are not doing the Kurds any favours by turning a blind eye to the PKK blunder providing Erdogan and the Turkish secret security fascists with the pretext for a crackdown they were likely trying to provoke – the July 22 killing by the PKK of 2 Turkish police officers (see “Syrian/Turkish relations: A timeline”).
Whatever the Kurds’ or PKK’s suspicions or personal convictions about Erdogan etc secretly sponsoring ISIS, it is not astute for the PKK to lash out at Turkish officers indiscriminately, because the case “Erdogan-backs-ISIS” has not been proven to NATO, to the US and allies or to the people of Turkey.
Least of all is that case made when Turkey provides the US with the use of airbases with which to attack ISIS.
Erdogan has played much too clever a game and has outwitted the PKK. They have fallen into his trap.
In future, Kurds should impress on the PKK the international political need to act with more political wisdom as prosecutors, proving their case of nefarious machinations of the secret security state of Turkey and its sponsorship of ISIS, while treating with respect those Turks, Americans, Europeans and others whom Erdogan’s secret plots have deceived.
Of course the US doesn’t like that, because ISIS is a USian proxy militia.
The Covert Origins of ISIS
The printed text is the transcription of the first video. The other videos are related to the content of the text.
As to The Covert Origins of ISIS I’d like to correct one point : The large majority of the attacks that the western cartel aircraft are supposedly making on “ISIS’ forces are targeting Syrian infrastructure and have had little or no effect on “ISIS”, and this is doubtlessly intentional. The western strategists haven’t yet reached the point where they want to throw their proxy militia under the bus, though that day will come eventually – ISIL is still needed as “boots on the ground” to engage Assad’s military.
Assad’s address to the nation of July 26th is worth listening
President Assad accuses West of supporting terrorists in Syria (Full Speech)
I find it strange that Erdogan calls for the creation of a Palestinian state while at the same time marginalizing and declaring war on the Kurds.
It seems that once again the US is funding both sides of the conflict… pouring aid into Turkey, Saudi Arabia… while granting Iran access to billions of dollars in frozen bank accounts so that they can continue to fund the Assad regime… war is a business and it seems business it booming.
This is such a great trivia question!
> [In a October 2014 speech, Joe Biden said [insert nation here/] is “so determined to take down [Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government] and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war,
(Don’t forget Tartus[1]! I suspect that Sunni-Shia conflict was not the *only* objective of the relevant “policymakers”–I’m betting revving up the Syrian civil war was also intended to smack Putin. Remember, we’re talking about the same great minds that gave us Iraq Wars 1 & 2 :-)
> what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad — except that the people who were being supplied were al Nusra and al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”
To what nation or group *should* Biden have referred? Israel? the Gulf states? NATO? Saudi Arabia? Turkey? the United States? all of the above ?-)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_naval_facility_in_Tartus
As a proud Kurdish American it’s difficult to describe the feeling of hopelessness I get in my gut every time I see my peoples blood sweat and tears be repaid so callously by world powers with so little effort needed by a country that stole half our lands and lets ISIS recruit in their capital. 35 million of us and we have less value than a $1,000 controbution.
what lands were stolen from you exactly?
It is well and truly past time for a UN conference on a Kurdish homeland. Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran that contain parts of a future “Kurdistan” well and truly deserve to loose that territory. I looks now like the Kurds are a better “ally” at the moment than Turkey and are doing the real fighting against ISIS, not making it worse like Turkey. If Turkey were not a Nato “ally” a Kurdish homeland would have happened a long time ago. With Sultan Erdogan in charge of Turkey now, I really don’t care what the Turks think anymore or if they are a precious, precious “ally”
I admit, late to the party. Is the historic riff between Turkey and the Kurdish ethnic or religious? What is the US stance on a Kurdish state besides how Turkey feels about it? What would be it’s politics and alliances, effect on regional stability and Israel? Why when support for our enemies traces to our “friends” they get a pass, ie Saudi and Turkey. Is it maybe politically more valuable than friendship to be stratagic partners.
Kurdish dreams become nightmares because players only love you when they’re playing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrZRURcb1cM
Dreams Lyrics
Now here you go again, you say
You want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down
It’s only right that you should
Play the way you feel it
But listen carefully to the sound
Of your loneliness
Like a heartbeat drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost, and what you had, and what you lost
Thunder only happens when it’s raining
Players only love you when they’re playing
Say women they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know, you’ll know
Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions
I keep my visions to myself, it’s only me
Who wants to wrap around your dreams and,
Have you any dreams you’d like to sell?
Dreams of loneliness,
Like a heartbeat, drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering, what you had,
And what you lost and what you had and what you lost
Thunder only happens when it’s raining
Players only love you when they’re playing
Say, women, they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know
Thunder only happens when it’s raining
Players only love you when they’re playing
Say, women, they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know
You’ll know, you will know, you’ll know
Songwriters: TROPEA, JOHN
At the end of each article you should concider a “tl;dr” for those of us who want to be informed but have little time to read each article. Also, for foreign readers such an abreviation of the article helps us a lot to see if we understood it all right. As not native speaker, newspapers are the hardest to read and understand because not only do journalists love to use fancy words, also usually a lot of actual cultural and political background is needed…
On subject, i am glad again that i am not the only one who thought it is strange that turkey attacks the kurds who are the most effective force to fight isis right now. Seems like turkey has more sympathy for the isis as they might admit…
It’s unfortunate for the Kurds, but right now ISIS is the best candidate to help destabilize the Middle East. This is a foreign policy objective, since it creates a need for a US military presence in this strategically important region.
The Kurds will feel they’ve been unfairly treated – and rightly so. Their claims for a national homeland are destabilizing in their own right. But they are far too progressive – they really don’t have an agenda to kill other groups of people, the way that ISIS does. Once they had their homeland, they’d probably just live peacefully within it.
So at the risk of blaming the victim, they’ve brought this upon themselves.
Syrian Kurds may reconcile with Assad
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/07/turkeys-war-on-kurds-realigns-kurds-with-the-syrian-government.html
Whatever happens, the Kurds are going to get shafted. The Brits drew the maps in the middle east in such a way, so that every country there always has a “minority” problem. And they drew these maps through Kurdistan. And Kurds are the minorities in every goddamn middle eastern country. Everybody hates them. I think I heard one Arab refer to the Kurds as “cockroaches.”
They’re well and truly fucked. There is no “arc of justice” for the Kurds. The world’s unluckiest people they are. At least the world is beginning to hear the bad luck of the Palestinians. But who’s ever heard of the Kurds?
“Comparisons are odious.” Cervantes
Ever heard of the Baluch, or the Arakanese, or, for that matter, the Uighurs, the Tuareg, the Basques…(long list actually)? The Kurds are the world’s unluckiest people only if the whole world is the Middle East. Otherwise, it’s kind of a toss up.
Well I stand corrected!
I’ve only heard of the Uighurs and the Basques. I’ve heard of Baluchistan, but never knew there was anything fishy going on there.
But I was writing in a moment of sadness.
Yes, lines in the sand were drawn with no regard to endogenous people. Now the lines in the sand are being redrawn with the blood of many peoples. I was doing area studies on the Middle East forty years ago in the old Sixth Special Forces Group. One could foresee much of the results as we progressed to the present of the one hundred years of bad external and internal policy. However, Turkey attacking the Kurd alone with ISIS so soon was a bit of a surprise. America’s lack of response and again betraying the Kurds is one more reason for why so few likes or trusts us. Our policies seem to have a dollar sign on them for only a few privileged Americas. No way to treat friends of citizens.
Well, to be fair to America, the Turks were going to pull this crap with or without the US. The US can take a stand or not. But it’s really the Turks who’re doing this shit. They’re solving their “minority” problem. I’m not sure the US is to blame for this one.
The entire area out there is one big confusion – just as it was intended to be. Friends are killing friends, enemies are killing friends as well as enemies, nobody really who to kill and who not to kill or even who will come and kill them. But kill they must as a routine habit. The net result is that all the Muslim folks out there are reducing their numbers, which is a very good thing to do as they have spent centuries in uncontrolled and polygamous reproduction that is threatening the very well-being of decent mankind. They had become unnecessarily very rich by selling oil at high prices. So now they are learning a good lesson in what to do to look after themselves. Sorry, I correct myself, they are still miles to go before they start learning any lesson, because of their greed and the machinations of the disguised Jews who rule the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
We can’t help ourselves. We are immoral opportunists who crap on other people whenever it suits us. The thought of “doing the right thing” has never occurred to us. No wonder we are globally reviled. To know us is to despise us.
Actually, w/resp to Turkey, it was Chinese flags that were shown burning in the streets in today’s paper. You need to get out more.
It is absolutely hilarious how people in the West insist to equate the whole of the Kurds with the Marxist PKK/YPG. It is like saying all Americans are Republican or all Brits are Tories. The liberal and conservative Kurds hate the guts of the PKK/YPG. In fact Barzani has been clashing with them for years. That is why Turkey has excellent relations with the Kurds in Northern Iraq, helping them selling their oil on the international market pissing off Baghdad and the ‘Seven Sisters’.
True. Here you go the west is trying to write/alter the facts make PKK a terrorist org as the victim. PKK is not all Kurds. Turkey wants to terminate these terrorists. There 25 million Kurds in turkey living as Turkish citizens. That is 1/3 of Turkey s population. Nobody is killing them. In fact PKK is harming themas well. People online should Stop spreading lies and hatred.
Yesterday, the EU had a golden opportunity to express displeasure with Turkey’s abandonment of negotiations with the PKK, in the form of making a statement at the NATO emergency meeting called by Turkey. Limited sanctions to retaliate against ISIL could have been approved, but instead it was fawning praise for the Turkish actions. Demonstrating once again that NATO is an American organization, and that our European allies are but lap dogs of US imperialism.
Moreover, there has been widespread skepticism across Europe about Turkey’s aspirations to join the EU. Their aggression could be curtailed with a simple threat to cut off negotiations. But no, that isn’t happening, despite Turkey’s behavior in ways proscribed by the EU Charter.
I don’t think Turkey still wants to join the EU. You cannot blame them. Look at what happened to Greece.
Cognitive dissonance?
Can’t see the forest for the trees?
Joe Biden criticizing Turkey for arming ISIS when that is also what the fake
USA was doing in Syria. Of course he apologized to Turkey, but he is
very unlikely to ever apologize to the people in the fake USA or Syria
or to the Kurds.
In November and again in March some congresscritters tried to give the
Obama administration a way around the Iraqi fake government to provide
weapons to the Kurds while
the senate schemers this summer stopped a similar bill because the
administration is supposedly opposed to the very same idea.
Beautiful, NOT.
There is one thing ALL of the macho dimwits involved believe in-
more weapons are needed.
I must formally apologize
to the trees of the world.
They don’t deserve to be compared to the toxic density of humans.
The condition of the Kurds is part of the festering wound that resulted from (principally) British partitioning of the Middle East at the end of World War I. Kurdistan is a region that overlaps the borders of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, and all four of those countries share a common fear of Kurdish ascendancy. Complicating the problem in Turkey is the fact that a Kurdish political party has momentarily placed the party of Erdogan in a position where they no longer have an absolute majority, which endangers Erdogan’s plans to make himself president for life.
We can blame Erdogan for exploiting our own foreign policy blunders to use an ISIL attack as justification for striking out at the Kurds, but it would be interesting to see what he would do if suddenly he did not have US air power and special forces working against ISIL. Would he continue to persecute the Kurds, or see them as the lesser of two evils? Unfortunately, we will never find out.
Erdogan is still branded as a traitor for extending political rights to Kurds by Nationalist Republicans in Turkey. Before Erdogan came to power, the Kurds were systematically oppressed by the military controlled establishment. HDP has discrediting itself by failing to condone terrorism and failing to call the PKK to disarm itself. BTW, the majority of Kurds in Turkey do not vote for the HDP. More Kurds live in Istanbul than Diyarbakir and they are just as sick of PKK as are Sunnis of ISIS.
Don’t forget Turkish domestic politics. Erdogan does not want a coalition government to be formed. If Erdogan can criminalize the Kurdish politicians who finally got into parliament, maybe he’ll be able to get back his outright majority when new elections are held in November. Provoking Kurdish resistance in Turkey is part of his plan to discredit the HDP.
Turks aren’t happy to see kurds gaining power in Turkey. Turks aren’t happy to see kurds in Syria are getting their lands back to their control. Turks are not happy to see kurds in Iraq are getting closer to full independence. Turkish aggression towards kurdish nation must be stopped.
The US and UK have totally lost their moral compasses. Now they are supporting a country moving toward an undemocratic dictatorship instead of the democratic friends of the US and UK. Have our leaders totally lost their senses or are they just weak people who are being used?
Ohh Please give us a break!!! the PKK/YPG are just as ruthless and oppressive as ISIS. They murder indiscriminately anyone who opposes their authority. And contrary to what has been published universally on all mainstream western media they do not represent all Kurds. Actually they are a minority. In fact, Mesud Barzani has condemned their recent assassinations as not helping the Kurdish cause in the region. I would have expected more from the Intercept in terms of analyzing the current events in the Middle East. The Western Media, including this author, suffer from a systematic misreading of events on the ground. Turkey has been confronting a mass exodus of refugees, over 2 million people crossing the border, welcoming not only Sunni Arabs or Turkmens but also thousands of Kurds and Christans from Syria. While the YPG is busy ethnically cleansing the areas in their control. Fighting thugs (ISIS) with thugs (PKK/YPG) is not sustainable. Turkey has been reaching out to the Kurds in northern Iraq and has made good progress. It is time to understand that you can not achieve peace by fighting terrorism with terrorism.
The truth hurts I know mate! The fact the matter is that you are totally mad to put pkk and isis in same category. Isis is ruthless terrorist organisation whereouse pkk are freedom fighters. You can call them what you like but truth is truth.
Yeah sure, PKK are freedom fighters. Kidnapping teenagers from their families to train them as militants, murder fellow Kurds who oppose their Marxist ideology, facilitate narco traffic for finance. The PKK/YPG does not represent the Kurds. Just like ISIS does not represent all Sunni Arabs. But over simplification of the events in the region is the common denominator.
Equating the PKK with ISIS doesn’t sound like oversimplification to you? Nobody’s saying they’re angels, but the fact is the Kurds among the most reviled and oppressed people in the region and have been for decades. The stronger the victimization, the harsher the response. Just like the ANC in SA or 26-7 movement in Cuba, when you’re dealing with extremely violent and oppressive forces, violent measures are often taken in return. These movements surely didn’t represent all of their constituents, and engaged at times in brutal violence, but that can’t be separated from the environments they lived in which bred these conditions. The PKK/YPG are secular resistance forces who resort to violence due to their continued oppression and subjugation. ISIS is an extremist religious group which seeks to return people to the middle ages through horrific violence and hatred. Not being able to make a distinction between the two is the epitome of “oversimplification”.
terrorism is terrorism, whether it is inspired by religion or secularism is totally irrelevant. Not being able condemn terrorism is being simple minded.
“terrorism is terrorism”
Wrong.
Read Greenwald’s article recently posted on the matter, or any of his posts on it. Terrorism is an arbitrary term applied selectively to those who threaten power establishments. By your metric, taking Glenn’s most recent article as an example, animal rights activists are the same as ISIS. Again, being unable to make simple distinctions or contextualizations is the ultimate example of being simple minded.
Killing innocent people is terrorism and that is what the PKK/YPG systematically do, full stop.
“Killing innocent people is terrorism”
Wrong again. To repeat, terrorism is an essentially meaningless term, which can be applied by, and to, anybody (and it certainly doesn’t encompass or apply to all violence committed against innocent people). A more adequate response would be “the PKK/YPG engage in violence against civilians, and this should be condemned”. I certainly wouldn’t argue with that. However, if you haven’t noticed, the situation in Syria is absolutely horrific, with no one exempt from committing terrible atrocities. There is no perfect solution here, only bad options. In that context, and returning to the original point, the PKK/YPG are indisputably, by any metric, a better option than ISIS.
Ah, the “full stop” argument. It always gets me.
Except that we don’t call some forms of terrorism by its name. If terrorism is designed to engender fear, what was “Shock and Awe” other than terrorism? No, the only currently-accepted definition of terrorism is “acts of savagery committed by people without their own air force.” If you’ve got an air force, you’re magically off the hook.
I assume than that you consider the US a terrorist organization? It has for years now practiced targeted assassinations of civilians across borders without respect to international and domestic law, and without regard for the deaths of hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children.
Oh wait, I forgot, the US is “justified.” It says a lot about a country that thinks it’s ok to kill a man and his entire family at dinner and call it a drone strike, but if you attack uniformed Marines at a military installation of a country that has declared itself “at war,” it’s “terrorism.”
The US is closer to the brutality of Deash than the Kurds are. But maybe that’s why Daesh got more US weapons than the Kurds ever have.
thank for this article
This is very disappointing. I sent a note to my Congressoional rep. The Kurds are the most capable of promoting a fair democracy.
omg.. the ignorance..
Below is a link to a related article in the Chinese press. You can damn well bet that the Kurd agreement with Turkey was more than China could offer but they were right there as a player and still are.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/934354.shtml
Well, let’s see…the Montagnard tribesmen of Vietnam, the Hungarian uprising of 1956…why would anyone help America and think Washington would keep its word?
The U.S. is doing a lot of cynical horse-trading this week, aren’t they? They get to use their own air base at Incirlik and the Turks get to settle accounts with the Kurds; the U.S. gets an agreement with Iran and the Israelis get Jonathan Pollard, with Saudi possibly getting Hamas as well.
http://www.juancole.com/2015/07/turning-saudi-arabia.html
Well, I think this time is not easy leaving Kurd alone, In ground there are many trump carts which Kurd can also play with. #TwitteKurds
The US helped create ISIS as part of the regime change effort in Syria.
Four hundred million in covert funding and arms deliveries before the policy became overt… and the anti-ISIS/al Qaida public claims have always been BS.
The “vetted” groups we are now funding are publicly claimed to be our enemy (and an ongoing justification for MIC funding and NSA spying destroying our constitutionally protected rights)… but we keep funding and arming them AND looking the other way while the Turks, Saudis and Persian Gulf state Sunni monarchs do as well. “Vetted” is a distinction without a difference.
Officially turning on the Kurds is really only a belated admission of what we’ve been doing for years.
The neolibcons with Obama’s “leadership” are supporting not only the new menace ISIS, but the very same people that attacked us on 9/11.
Not that long ago, both the left and tea partiers were very vocal about this betrayal, but for some reason the obviously BS public statements that clearly contradict our actual policies have silenced those voices.
This not even to mention the obvious point that ISIS is a direct outgrowth of AQI, which we brought to Iraq with the invention, strengthened through idiotic policies like de-Baathification (a majority of the ISIS top command are former Baathists), and THEN armed and funded through the supposed “moderate” Syrian rebels. They should stop chopping our heads off and thank us, we’re their biggest supporters.
with the *invasion
The Iraq invasion is commonly cited as a reason ISIS came to be, but our direct funding and arming is never mentioned in the media here (outside of one brief mention in the NYT a few years ago) because the covert regime change effort has never been acknowledged by our government.
Foreign media sources did report on it… but our media preferred the Syrian “civil war” official version that ignores the instigation of the conflict by foreign fighters, using foreign money, and getting foreign weapons deliveries. Our direct responsibility for the latest mess in the Middle East and the largest refugee crisis is apparently not something US citizens are supposed to know about. The political reasons are quite an example of bipartisan tongue biting and the media complicity an awful example of the violation of the ethics of the profession.
But, since you mentioned the invasion origins, don’t forget the Surge… where the US government handed out millions and millions to the Sunni former Baathists to buy some temporarily reduced violence… seed money for their new enterprise. Somehow, those cash payments never got as much attention in the media as the troop increases either.
You have to wonder about the propaganda and censorship on the other side too… as you say they should thank us as their biggest supporters… but it’s hard not to notice that all the Sunni Muslim kids being recruited to do the fighting and dying in this war apparently have no idea they are doing the bidding of America and AIPAC in addition to the corrupt Arab monarchs and Turkish politicians… because they publicly rail against all their supporters…
… which then makes you wonder about who exactly was involved in the decision making for the journalists and aid workers who’ve had their heads chopped off.
Talk about repeating the mistakes of the past…
The Pakistanis, one of our major supposed allies in the Afghanistan war, supported and provided a (covert) base for the Taliban to exert Pakistani “influence” in the region and see a favorable regime installed while we were actively working with them to fight the Taliban. Our refusal to confront the Paks directly led to the disaster in Afghanistan.
Here we are with ISIS, with all indications pointing to Turkey at the very least refusing to confront ISIS (if not outright supporting them) and seeing ISIS as a proxy force against the Shiite Syrian government, and rather than confront the Turks, we back them up while they actually degrade one of our few effective allies in the fight. Our support of these duplicitous states is, again, going to lead to a clusterf*** in the region, and avoid the actual problem while looking for a short-term solution that will, inevitably, lead to a long-term disaster.
“Our support of these duplicitous states…” As if ‘we’ could somehow be distinguished from ‘duplicitous.’
Turkey is no friend of the US, and should never have been admitted to NATO. Erdogan is an actual enemy. The only effective resistance to ISIS in the region, and the only more-or-less democratic and more-or-less western-friendly group there is the Kurds. We should be supporting their bid for an independent state carved out of northern Iraq (which itself should be split into three countries). And if that Kurdish state should eventually grow to encompass bits of western Syria, southern Turkey and eastern Iran, so much the better. With even minimal US support we could gain a reliable ally in the region, which is sorely lacking today.
Oops, a correction: that should have been eastern Syria and western Iran.
o yes, because it is in your power to carve out countries to your liking. go on thinking that way, ignorance is a bliss.
What’s the narrative here?
“If it weren’t for these lobbying bucks…”
A venal, bumbling hegemon. Helpless to the helpless, for all its vice.
I have a different narrative. It goes like this. “Why don’t you jerk me off and we’ll call it a massage. And you’ll pay me for the clean up.”
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/05/why-assad-is-losing-syria-islamists-saudi/
CIA’s been running arms and logistics through southern Turkey since at least 2012. That was reported in the NYT . So probably earlier than that. But yeah, those Turkish lobbyists sure are making things difficult. Riiiight.
And yes, this applies to Israel as well. AIPAC wouldn’t exist if the affinities of Empire weren’t the common denominator. But the “power of the lobby” narrative allows us to pretend hegemony isn’t the first mover of policy in the region. America is just a “well intentioned giant”, lobbied this way and that.
The invisible hand of empire.
https://twitter.com/DavidMizner/status/626155847454998528
“’We have received reports that the US planes visit the ISIL(-controlled) airports,’ Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi told reporters on the sidelines of military parades held in Tehran on Saturday morning to mark the Army Day. ‘The US shouldn’t supply weapons and money to ISIL and then apologizes and says that it has done a mistake. The Americans say that they want to confront the ISIL (but) we haven’t seen any practical measure but reconnaissance and surveillance operations,’ he added.”
http://bit.ly/1z9EmhT
This looks deeper than Washington lobbying. It looks like a very dirty deal cooked between Erdogan, Riyadh and, well??
Leave aside his fight with the Kurds, Erdogan looks increasingly pro-Isis. He is not looking to be President anymore. His sights are said to be on Caliphate actually. Yes, he did go to NATO, supposedly asking for support. My personal opinion: BS! I would call it testing NATO.
Once again the US govt is screwing the Kurd’s, I’m amazed they haven’t attacked the US forces when they had the chance. I’m always wondering why “we” won’t help the Kurd’s and it seems like the “good folks” pulling the strings are at “it” again. And I thought the Nam was bad, this is far worse, I’m having a hard time following all the crap going on in the middle east. There’s obviously a secret war, “we, the readers,” know nothing about. I think Washington doesn’t know either.
Sort of like 1991, when Bush 41 tossed the Kurds and the marsh Arabs to Saddam’s tender mercies. Anybody that places full trust in the U.S. is going to wind up exposed and alone when they’re no longer convenient.
Funny how a well executed ‘terrorist attack’ always seems to motivate a population and mobilize its military…
“Dozens dead after terror attack in Turkish border city”
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/20/world/turkey-suruc-explosion/index.html
But remember folks – It ain’t no conspiracy unless Mona (Glenn) says it is.
“This past week, the Turkish government made two critical air bases available to U.S. forces, a long-sought concession that allows the U.S. military to launch anti-ISIS raids more quickly. And it began its own airstrikes against ISIS.”
It’s just another amazing ‘coincidence’ folks, so no need to think about it…
“There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu suggested ISIS was responsible for the attack.
He urged the country to unite and said the government would not hesitate in taking action in response to the bombing.”
Well, ain’t that sumthin!
The CIA is still trying to help mass murdering ISIS overthrow the elected Syrian government.
I am ashamed for my country and would take this opportunity to publicly apologize to the Kurds. I remember how disappointed I was when the US (and especially Bush the elder) sucker punched the Kurds and threw them under the bus.
Now we’ve done it again. On the surface, it’s bad enough. It looks like we’ve traded turning a blind eye to the Turks waging a war against the Turks in return for the use of a couple of air bases. It also seems extremely counter-productive . . . at its best, air power is a support function. Wars are won and lost on the ground, and the Kurds have had the most success against ISIS of any group there. Instead of supporting the one group that is the most successful one of all those fighting ISIS, we have turned a blind eye to their plight and actually helped open another front on which they have to fight. Now they have to fight the Turks as well as ISIS . . . I guess I shouldn’t be, but I can still be amazed at the intellectual vacuum that exists in DC.
One correction is needed in the article. It is not “Kurdish militants” but “Kurdish self-defense militia (or forces)”. The Kurds in Syria are defending their homes.
Again and again the Kurds end up on the short end of history. It seems the US repeatedly betrays one of the few “Experiments in democracy” in the region. The Kurds seem to be destined to walk the “trail of tears.” We need to better balance our friendships so that one friend does not harm another. This lets all parties know our friendship has some value not just short term expedience.
Well said!
Well said, I agree. But it operates under the misimpression that America has “friends” or could be a friend to any nation, consistently. And there’s certainly a valid argument to be made it shouldn’t. The Kurds of all people should know that America isn’t their “friend”. America uses/has used the Kurds to further what America perceives to be in its “interests.”
“America” (and every other nation-state) have “interests.” Those “interests” are not based on friendship, human rights, or anything else. Those “interests” revolve around money and power, specifically whatever aggrandizes the most money and power to the U.S. from America’s perspective.
So the real question is why anyone would ever believe that America is their “friend”? More importantly, they should understand that if circumstances change America is fully prepared to abandon its nominal “friends” if certain American elites believe it is in the best “interests” of America to do so. About the only thing of substance that assures any sort of “friendly” behavior from America is legally binding treaties between nations that legally require America to engage in or refrain from engaging in some particular activity(ies).
If I was a nation or a people without a legally binding treaty with America to do or not do some particular thing I wouldn’t trust America’s “friendship” for one single solitary instant. I’d trust what I could enforce in international institutions that could hold America accountable to its legal treaty obligations. Short of that I wouldn’t trust America for f*ck all.
But since there are no such institutions that America will submit itself or its nationals to, at least not in any meaningful way, then the lesson should be never trust a nation that isn’t willing to be accountable to anything but its whims, “interests,” and its own judgment as to the moral propriety and legality of its own actions.
The Kurds relying in America for anything is a recipe for disaster for the Kurdish people wherever they are.
With the possible exception of Israel…
@ Avelna2001
I was going to include them as an exception except I’m still of the impression that as much as the tail (Israel) often appears to wag the dog (US), and it does particularly among big bipartisan segments of the bought and paid for US Congress, nevertheless at bottom I think the US permits this because it serves their “interests” in the region. Always has.
And I’ve been saying this for a long time in various comments sections under Glenn’s work, and we’ll see if it truly comes to pass, but the smartest diplomatic/economic move the US has made in 50 + years is to begin attempting to normalize relations with Iran and bring it into the neoliberal global fold (not that I’m for neoliberalist goals). But it is strategically smart on so many levels it would be hard to list them all. And that’s what really has Israel and the Saudis spooked. They see that their days are numbered as far as having the universal unequivocal backing of the US.
Iran is the most geographically and demographically stable nation in the region. It could also easily be the richest, and most long-term “Westernized” culturally, if trade and other economic relations with the West were normalized. And that’s what the nuclear weapons deal is really all about. If Iran is permitted to assume its rightful place in the region as hegemon with the West’s backing it will and should transform the ME. And that includes the Israel/Palestine problem, eventually. However, America (and the West generally) are never going to have any meaningful transformative influence in the region until it stops seeing Iran as its enemy, starts seeing it and its people as their most natural “cultural ally” in the region (if not military), and through trade lets Iran take its rightful place in the world economy as a first world nation. I think anybody who knows anything about military conflict knows that if America thinks Vietnam was a catastrophic mistake, attacking Iran would make that look like a minor party foul akin to spilling your drink on your date. Open military conflict with Iran could never be won short of employing nuclear weapons. And if I was a praying man, I’d pray nobody is ever dumb enough to do that because with China and Russia likely to protect their interests and align with Iran to one degree or another that might be game over for the entire globe. And I think everyone knows it.
Iranians are demographically young, well educated, fiercely nationalistic (not in a bad way and no different than America) and long-term going to change the political nature of their democratic theocracy. But that change happens more quickly and with stability only with political rapprochement and economic engagement with the West. And knowing quite a few American-Iranians that’s never going to happen with Iranians being perceived or treated by the West as some “lesser” people or nation.
We’ll see what happens but I really do think it could be the biggest game changer the world has seen in a very long time that doesn’t involve war.
And I would agree with all that, which is why I said “possible”. Unfortunately, there are still those who are trying their damndest to stop the rapprochement with Iran and I really hope they’re not successful.
@ Avelna2001
Me and you both. Me and you both. America, and the world, has much brighter future if America would stop thinking it can bully everyone and control everyone and everything to its advantage. It can’t. Sooner its leaders come to that inescapable conclusion the sooner some of the world’s problems can be address collaboratively and peacefully in a way that is mutually beneficial for all nations.
Walk the Trail of Tears? To where? Baluchistan? Arakan? It isn’t just us who end up in this situation, nor just us who seem to work on short term expedience.
Hm. Comments about the New Look have been turned off. Don’t remember that happening before. Guess the feedback was not the kind of feedback the designer wanted.
I don’t think that it is some special influence Turkey has that is leading the US to support these atrocities against the PKK. It is that the PKK, which had been under a durable truce for two years with Turkey – broken periodically only by Turkey, is socialist with a strong libertarian socialist wing which is right now building Catalonia-style autonomous peaceful anarchist communities in Rojava, NE Syria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojava). However, the US and its business interests have always been much more fearful of a socialist – even a peaceful one, then a savage violent Muslim. Consequently, expect NATO/Turkey to reserve their greatest savagery for the socialist Kurds, not the fanatical theocratic ISIL – who, after all, at least support “free enterprise” so they cant be all bad.
Lee,
Oh, sorry – somehow I had skipped your mention of Rojava in the 3rd paragraph!
@ Paul D
Well said.
This one sentence paragraph seems disjoint from the rest of your article. Is its point to show more anti-Kurd actions taken to sway public opinion or something? Because the concerns of HRW are actually legitimate, even if the Turks (I think more properly the AKP) are conducting a multiprong effort against the Kurds, which they are. Just because the actions of the Erdogan government are highly suspect doesn’t mean that HRW should refrain from pointing out human rights violations committed by any party whatsoever.
Sorry, forgot the other odd sentence I was going to ask about:
I know it’s fashionable to treat the category “women” as yet another identity category in American politics, but the truth is, a lot of Christians, Yazidis, and Muslims are women, and vice versa, so the category doesn’t really fit juxtaposed with three different categories of religion.
“Recently, the Kurdish lobby has worked to block military support to the Kurds working to defeat ISIS.”
Needs a correction.
Why is it surprising that when push came to shove the US would pick to support a NATO ally? Hell, in some sort of war between Turkey and an independent Kurdistan we would be legally obligated to take Turkey’s side. Obviously reality isn’t so tidy and the Kurds are the best anti-ISIS fighters on the ground right now which is why we dropped an ass ton of bombs to help break the siege of Kobane even though initially we didn’t see the battle as having any strategic value. That victory invigorated the Kurds and the Turkish Left to Erdogan’s detriment so there has been some give and take in our involvement in this periphery conflict.
It does indeed seem strange that in an article on Turkey’s efforts to lobby the U.S. on an issue of war, the only occurrence of the term NATO is as the center 4 letters of the word “Senator”. Somehow the domain subject matter doesn’t seem to have been fully digested.
Good report aside the few typo errors
(
Um, do you mean the Turkish lobby? Or anti-Kurdish lobby?)
The irony here is so thick as to be almost impossible to hack through. Words fail me.
That’s been fixed. Thanks for pointing it out!