“The Syrian Kurds Need More Than Weapons—They Need Political Support”

In the last presidential deba…cle, Hillary Clinton mentioned her plan to provide Kurds in Syria with small arms, as the Obama administration has discussed in recent weeks. This article by Patrick Lewis thoughtfully considers this policy:

The Obama administration is considering a plan to further arm the Kurds—whom many in Washington call “our most effective partner on the ground” in Syria—in order to incentivize Kurdish participation in an upcoming offensive against ISIS in Raqqa. Two weeks ago, the Chicago Tribune published an editorial endorsing this plan—the headline proclaimed this as “Step One” for “Fixing Syria.” And in presidential debates, including last night’s, Hillary Clinton has advocated a similar plan.

Expelling ISIS from Raqqa, the largest Syrian city under the group’s control and its self-declared capital, has been a primary U.S. military objective in Syria since the beginning of its intervention in 2014. Raqqa now carries (in the minds of U.S. political and military leaders, at least) great symbolic importance in the war on ISIS. So it’s no surprise when the Tribune declares that the many complications and dangers of sending even more arms to the Kurds can be brushed aside: “What’s important now is the ouster of the Islamic State from Raqqa.”

But in calling for more shipments of weapons to Syria without any semblance of a plan for a political solution to the 5-year conflict—nor the even longer conflict between Turkey and the Kurds—the Tribune is reinforcing the worst aspects of U.S. policy in the region. This policy remains overly focused on achieving short-term military victories at the expense of longer-term political settlements, without which a lasting peace is impossible. What’s more, this policy will almost certainly fail to achieve even the limited goals it has set out for itself, namely the capture of Raqqa.

What’s needed is dialogue around Kurdish demands for a federal system in Syria (with local autonomy for Kurds and other minorities); without this, simply delivering weapons will privilege a military solution over a diplomatic one. It will likely strengthen the most militant and hardline factions among the Kurdish leadership while continuing to sideline many of the political and civil society leaders most responsible for the ongoing experiments in radical participatory democracy that have inspired admiration from Western Leftists and liberals alike.

Aldar Xelil, a member of the executive committee of TEV-DEM (an umbrella organization coordinating civil society groups in Rojava), made a similar point in a recent interview. When asked about Clinton’s pledge during the debates to arm America’s Arab and Kurdish allies in Syria, Xelil responded, “Of course it is important to give support to Kurdish forces. However, this support cannot be limited to military aid. Any support that will be forthcoming must be provided in all areas; that is to say it must be political, diplomatic, economic and social support as well.”

Xelil cites the consistent exclusion of the PYD—the dominant Kurdish party in Rojava—from the Geneva peace talks on Syria as one area in particular where the U.S. has failed its declared partner. An increasingly common perception in Rojava is that America has repeatedly blocked the PYD’s participation in these talks out of deference to its NATO ally Turkey. (The PYD is a close ally of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state in the country’s Kurdish-majority Southeast.)

In late August, the U.S. gave its support to Turkey’s cross-border incursion into Syria, to go after ISIS as far south as Jarabulus. However, it is widely acknowledged (including by Turkish President Erdogan himself) that the Kurds and their autonomous cantons in Rojava were also a primary target. Thus it was hardly a surprise to anyone that within days of Turkey’s intervention, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were fighting with Turkish soldiers south of Jarabulus.

The Tribune argues that Turkey can be consoled by a U.S. pledge that “the Kurds wouldn’t be getting heavy artillery, just small arms and ammunition.” This is entirely nonsense, and as insulting to the intelligence of the Syrian Kurds themselves as it is to Turkey. More weapons without diplomacy in Northern Syria risks further inflaming tensions in both the Syrian conflict and Turkey, where the government has been waging a new “dirty war” on its own Kurdish population. Tens of thousands have been displaced and entire neighborhoods left in ruins while the American government has remained largely silent.

The renewed fighting in Turkey came after a multiyear peace process between Turkey and the PKK fell apart last summer, in large part due to tensions over Kurdish gains in Syria. This is partly the fault of the United States, which failed to see how its policy of military support for the SDF was destabilizing the peace process in Turkey.

Not only would Turkey be unhappy if the Kurds received more U.S. weaponry, but there’s no evidence the Kurds want to take the deal either. As long as the United States is unwilling to push Turkey toward a comprehensive settlement with Kurdish parties in both Turkey and Syria, it is entirely unreasonable to expect the Kurds to send their fighters into Raqqa (where hundreds could be killed) solely in exchange for “small arms and ammunition.”

In fact, at the end of August, Asya Abdullah, the co-President of PYD, announced that there would be no Kurdish-led operation against Raqqa as long as Turkey’s incursion into Syria continued.

Likewise, just last month, Polat Can, the official representative for the YPG (the dominant group within the SDF) in President Obama’s “Global Coalition to Counter ISIL,” explicitly ruled out the group’s participation in such an operation as long as the U.S. and its Western allies continued to deny recognition to the Kurd’s political project in Rojava. “We are not some paramilitary group,” he told Washington-based journalist Mutlu Civiroglu. “We cannot say to our people let us go and fight, sacrifice so many of [our] young men and women [and] then not have the right to speak. Our people will not accept this and no one would accept this.”

…

Regardless of its real intentions, America’s double-game in Syria isn’t fooling anyone. It cannot continue to back two warring parties through a myopic focus on its war on ISIS. If it cannot find a political solution to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict—a conflict it has ignored for decades—further military successes against ISIS will become virtually impossible.

Absent a serious diplomatic effort to bring Turkey and the PKK back to the negotiating table and real steps toward some form of recognition for the Kurds’ political project in Rojava, the crisis in northern Syria will only deepen further, opening the door to an even wider regional conflagration. The United State[s] must not pour more gasoline on the fire.

“Our NATO ally is bent on destroying the Kurds of Rojava, the Syrian force with the most democratic, pluralistic, and feminist vision.”

This is an outstanding article by Meredith Tax in The Nation: “Turkey Is Supporting the Syrian Jihadis Washington Says It Wants to Fight.” I’ve excerpted enough to convey the general argument, but I recommend reading the entire article to see the evidence Tax presents. As I suggested a year ago, what happens in the area around Jarabulus will play a large role in determining the fate of the world.

What political choices can the United States make in the Middle East? Turkey’s recent invasion of Syria and subsequent attacks on Rojava—the three autonomous cantons set up by Syrian Kurds—raise this question, but so far the answer has been framed only in terms of military alliances and realpolitik. But as many have said, the appeal of ISIS and Al Qaeda has to be countered ideologically, not just militarily. This cannot happen without a compelling alternative model. Rojava, with its vision of egalitarian democratic inclusivity, is trying to establish a new paradigm for the Middle East—but so far Washington has seen the Syrian Kurds only in military terms and is short-changing future possibilities because of a misplaced deference to zero-sum ethnic rivalries and the so-called “moderate Islamism” of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

On August 24, Turkey invaded Jarabulus, a Syrian border town held by ISIS, with great fanfare: several hundred Turkish soldiers, twenty tanks, and 1,500 Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters from Islamist militias. In reality, the whole battle was a fake. ISIS had quietly left town several days before, and the difference between this and their usual behavior convinced some observers, particularly the Kurds, that their exit was coordinated with Ankara.

While the mainstream media saw that Erdogan’s real purpose was to go after the Kurds, and noted that it is problematic for the United States to be allied with two parties that are fighting each other, US coverage of Syria has overwhelmingly focused on either the war or state politics. It has thus failed to look hard at the Erdogan government’s support of jihadis, or to ask what they have in common—whether or not Turkey is a NATO member.

A lot of the mainstream media covered “Operation Euphrates Shield” as if Turkey were actually fighting ISIS. Echoing Turkish press releases, CNN said, “Turkey sends tanks into Syria against ISIS; rebels reportedly capture town.” The made-for-TV battle had been scripted down to camera angles (pool reporters were confined to one hill): bombs dropping, puffs of smoke in the distance, even footage of scouts peering into living rooms, searching for the enemy. Few seemed to notice that not a shot was fired. Operation Euphrates Shield was thus a startling contrast to earlier battles fought by the Kurdish and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Kobane and Manbij, where combat went house to house, deadly and prolonged, and hundreds of lives were lost to ISIS snipers, booby traps, mines, incendiary bombs, and suicide attacks.

The BBC did say that the Turkish invaders met “little resistance,” but it was left to the Voice of America News to express surprise that ISIS had “essentially conceded one of its last strategic border towns,” quoting former intelligence officer Michael Pregent to the effect that the Turkish takeover had been too easy and would end up benefiting ISIS: “What Turkey has done is give ISIS the space to regroup. They basically halted the Kurdish forces from destroying ISIS.”

Meanwhile, from positions nearby, furious members of the Jarabulus Military Council of the SDF, who had wanted to capture Jarabulus themselves but had been put off by the United States, watched the charade….

While it is not possible to prove that Turkey let ISIS fighters slip back into Jarabulus in FSA uniforms, Turkey supports so many salafi-jihadi militias that ISIS members would not have stood out….

…

In fact, Erdogan’s support of salafi-jihadi groups is an open secret despite extreme government censorship….

…

Turkey’s relationship with ISIS has also been scrutinized, though little of the research has been picked up by the US media….

…

On June 29, Eren Erdem of the CHP made a speech in the Turkish Parliament detailing evidence contained in 400 pages of documents about the government’s dealings with ISIS. He said ISIS had sleeper cells in fourteen Turkish towns and that the man behind the 2015 Ankara bombing was known to MIT, which had tapped his phones and watched as he facilitated the entrance of nearly 2,000 jihadis into Syria without arresting him even once.

Two months after Erdem’s speech, Turkey marched into Jarabulus to replace ISIS with FSA jihadis, who immediately began to attack the Syrian Kurds. The Turkish government has already been at war with the Kurds in its own southeast since last year, killing civilians and leveling towns on such a scale that a war crimes lawsuit has been filed in Germany. Why would they want to open a second front in Syria?

Because the Syrian Kurds were making too much progress.

On August 13, two weeks before the Turkish invasion, the SDF finally drove ISIS out of Manbij after a ferocious battle that lasted months. Residents of Manbij, mostly women and children, were ecstatic at being freed from ISIS, and soon pictures spread over the Internet of women burning their burqas and men cutting off their beards. The Rojava women’s liberation movement’s umbrella organization, Kongreya Star, collected stories of ISIS mistreatment and rushed to publish a report* calling for support from world feminists.

This was not the kind of liberation that Turkey and the FSA had in mind.

So on August 24, Turkey invaded Syria with its favorite FSA factions. The same day, at a joint press conference, Joe Biden ordered the Kurds to retreat from Manbij and stay out of Jarabulus or lose American military aid. No wonder they feel betrayed.

…

Under American pressure, the YPG-YPJ moved east of the Euphrates River just as Biden had told them to. General Votel said on August 30, “They have lived up to their commitment to us,” though that doesn’t mean the Kurds were happy about it. The YPG issued a statement saying that, having completed their mission of liberating Manbij, they had withdrawn their troops, leaving the city in the hands of the Manbij Military Council, which is largely Arab. This fact was confirmed by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. Nevertheless, Erdogan continued to claim that the Kurds still held Manbij. With this excuse, Turkish-supported FSA forces attacked villages south of Jarabulus and, on August 31, Turkey began bombing YPG-YPJ headquarters in Afrin.


While many Western commentators see the conflict in ethnic or religious terms—Arab versus Kurd, Sunni versus secularist—clearly Erdogan sees no significant difference between the Rojava Kurds and any Arabs who support their paradigm of autonomy, pluralism, and feminism. Both are a threat to his dreams of regional Islamist hegemony. For this reason if no other, the Rojava revolution deserves the attention of anyone in the region looking for a way to move past wars, ethnic cleansing campaigns, theocracies, and dictatorships.

The Rojava revolution began in 2011, during the Syrian uprising, when 5,000 members of the People’s Democratic Union (PYD), a Syrian Kurdish party allied with Turkey’s banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), came home. They quickly consolidated a liberated area on the Syria-Turkey border consisting of three cantons: Cizire, Kobane, and Afrin. There they set up local councils and began to put into practice the feminist, democratic, and pluralist ideas advanced by jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Founded in the 1970s as a classic Marxist national liberation movement with a strategy of people’s war, since the 1990s the PKK has transformed itself into a leading component of a Kurdish liberation movement able to combine self-defense with civil resistance, parliamentary work, and community organizing. It has also renounced its earlier goal of a separate Kurdish state, saying that it prefers regional autonomy in a democratic system. Its vision of social revolution is a powerfully democratic and pluralistic one in which women play a leading role, as they do in the Kurdish militias—every organization in Rojava must be at least 40 percent women, and all administration is led by co-chairs, one male and one female.

…

By [2015], the Pentagon had decided the Kurds were their only hope of a reliable ally in Syria, and decided to enlist them in building a new army to fight ISIS: the Syrian Democratic Forces, which united the YPG-YPJ with Arab militias, principally the “Euphrates Volcano,” made up of fighters who had escaped Raqqa after it was seized by ISIS. When the SDF liberated Tal Abyad in June 2015, it became possible to connect the two eastern Kurdish cantons of Kobane and Cizire, but the smallest canton, Afrin, far to the west, is still cut off by a strip of land controlled by ISIS—a strip containing both Manbij and Jarabulus. And Afrin is now under attack not only by ISIS but also by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra) and Turkey.

In addition, since the battle of Kobane, all three cantons have been starved of food, medical supplies, and building materials by a Turkish embargo on one border and an Iraqi Kurdish embargo by Massoud Barzani’s forces—which are Turkey’s allies and economic dependents—on the other. They have also been under constant attack by ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, and other Islamist militias. And Turkey is now trying to build a wall to isolate them further.

Very little about any of this has appeared in US mainstream media. One reason is the complexity and unfamiliarity of the story and the difficulty of access in a war zone—particularly since the Iraqi Kurds won’t let freelance reporters through their border checkpoint into Syria. A larger problem is that most commentators see the story through the lens of great-power politics and do not focus on changes happening on the ground in Rojava—particularly changes in ethnic relations and the position of women—and what these could mean for the region.

The United States is now being pressed by Turkey to disavow its alliance with the Kurds, but as General Votel said in an August 30 press conference, Kurdish fighters are too valuable. They are the only ground troops who have been able to defeat ISIS. But even if the Pentagon is committed to a military alliance with the Syrian Kurds, military support is not enough. Rojava is caring for hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees despite an embargo that prevents food and supplies from coming in. Its people deserve political, economic, and humanitarian support.

Military supporters of the Syrian Kurds should ask themselves, How much of their success is due to the fact that they do not lock women up or push them to the back? Rojava and PKK women not only have their own militias, some even lead units that include men. Since ISIS enslaves women, these units are highly motivated.

In the long term, wouldn’t it make sense for the United States, for once, to help a project that is actually progressive and democratic? Turkey is supporting the jihadis Washington says it wants to fight. So why should Washington keep bowing to Turkey’s hatred and fear of the Kurds? A strong and united Rojava could not only help defeat ISIS but could become an experimental model of pluralistic, democratic, and feminist policies for the entire Middle East.

That’s just what Turkey is afraid of.

* I haven’t included the numerous links in Tax’s article here, but this is the link to the report she describes.

PKK statement on Turkey coup attempt

From Kurdish Daily News:

BEHDINAN (ANF) – KCK Executive Council Co-Presidency released a statement about the coup attempt in Turkey.

The statement said; “There has been a coup attempt by persons whose identity and purpose is yet not clear. It grabs attention that this attempt comes at a time when Tayyip Erdoğan will reportedly assign generals close to himself during the military council meeting set to take place soon. The fact that this coup attempt has been made in a process that witnesses discussions on the fascist AKP government’s foreign policy, is another dimension of this coup.”

COUP ATTEMPT IS PROOF OF LACK OF DEMOCRACY

The statement by KCK reads; “No matter within which internal and external political factors and focuses, and for what reasons a power struggle is waged, this case is not a matter of defending or not defending democracy. On the contrary, this situation is the proof of lack of democracy in Turkey. Such power struggles and attempts to seize the power once possible, are witnessed in undemocratic countries where an authoritarian power makes coup attempts to overthrow another authoritarian power when conditions are appropriate. This is what has happened in Turkey.

A COUP HAD BEEN STAGED ON JUNE 7 ELECTIONS

One year ago, Tayyip Erdoğan and the Palace Gladio staged a coup on the June 7 election results by taking along the MHP, all the fascists, the nationalist military powers figured as Ergenekon and a part of the army. This was a palace coup against the democratic will revealed by the people. The AKP fascism made an alliance with all fascist powers and a part of the army including the Chief of Defence in order to suppress the Kurdish Freedom Movement and democracy powers. The AKP fascism drove the army into Kurdish cities and towns, made them burn the cities to the ground and massacre hundreds of civilians. Furthermore, it enacted laws to disallow the trial of the military for the crimes they have committed.

COUP ATTEMPT OF A MILITARY FACTION AGAINST ANOTHER MILITARY FACTION

There already existed a military tutelage before the coup attempt made yesterday; which makes the current case an attempt of coup by a military faction against the existing military faction. This is the reason why those wanting the army to stage a coup so far have accepted the existing military tutelage and taken sides with Tayyip Erdoğan.

The fact that MHP and chauvinistic nationalist circles took sides with the Palace Gladio and its fascist allies reveals quite clearly that this is not an incident of struggle between those siding with democracy and those standing against it.

PORTRAYING ERDOĞAN AS DEMOCRATIC AFTER THE COUP ATTEMPT IS A DANGEROUS APPROACH

Portraying Tayyip Erdoğan and the fascist AKP dictator as if they were democratic after this coup attempt is an approach even more dangerous than the coup attempt itself. Portraying the fight for power among authoritarian, despotic and anti-democratic forces as a fight between the supporters and enemies of democracy would only serve to legitimize the existing fascist and despotic government.

DEMOCRACY FORCES DO NOT SIDE WITH EITHER CAMP

Turkey does not have a civilian group in power, or a struggle of democracy forces against coup plotters. The current fight is on who should lead the current political system, which is the enemy of democracy and Kurdish people. Therefore, democracy forces do not side with either camp during these clashes.

IF THERE IS A COUP AGAINST DEMOCRACY, IT IS THE ONE CARRIED OUT BY THE FASCIST AKP

If there is a coup against democracy, it is the one carried out by the fascist AKP government. Political power’s control over the judiciary, the implementation of fascist laws and policies through a parliamentarian majority, the removal of parliamentarians’ immunities, the arrest of co-mayors, the removal of co-mayors from their positions, and the imprisonment of thousands of politicians from the HDP and DBP constitute more of an actual coup. Kurdish people are under unprecedented genocidal, fascist, and colonialist attacks in Kurdistan.

AKP GOVERNMENT DRAGS TURKEY INTO SUCH CLASHES

What has brought Turkey to this stage is the AKP government, which has transformed into a government of war against Kurdish people and the forces of democracy. With its monistic, hegemonic and anti-democratic character, it has kept Turkey in chaos and conflict. With its war against Kurdish people and the forces of democracy, it has kept Turkey in a state of civil war. The latest coup attempt shows that Turkey needs to get rid of the fascist AKP government and have a democratic government. The recent developments make it urgent for Turkey to democratize and get rid of its monist, hegemonic and fascist government.

Within this framework, forces of democracy should stand up against the legitimization of the fascist AKP government’s policies under the disguise of democracy, and create a democratic alliance that would democratize Turkey. This coup attempt makes it necessary for us to not slow down the struggle against AKP fascism but to enhance it so that chaos and clashes in Turkey come to an end and a new and democratic Turkey emerges.

This article is also worth reading.

Don’t put me on!

Recently, I posted about the 1974 film Hearts and Minds and the racism it documented. I pointed specifically to a quote from a participant in a US Revolutionary War reenactment responding to the startling suggestion that Vietnamese people might comparably be fighting for freedom and against colonial oppression: “Are you kidding? Oriental politics? Don’t put me on!”

It’s too perfect. The setting: A typical reaction piece penned by the US State Depa…uh, Liz Sly at WaPo, about the unilateral, unpopular, tension-deepening, unilateral, fear-raising, complicating, defiant, unilateral, triggering, destabilizing, unilateral, rejected, divisive self-proclamation of a Rojava-Northern Syria Democratic Federation. It includes the requisite guidance from the Obama administration, great ally to Kurdish democrats: “‘We’ve been very clear that we won’t recognize any kind of autonomous or self-rule, semiautonomous zones in Syria’, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said this week.” (Naturally. Semi-autonomous self-rule? We can’t have that!)

Someone in the comments actually dared to compare the possibilities for a Syrian democratic federation to Canada’s, eliciting this beauty:

Comparing Canadiens to Middle Easterners is like ... well, there is no comparison.

The more things change,…

Quote of the day – To the Syrian, regional, and global public

I hope to post more about the Rojava-Northern Syria Democratic Federal System (and various appalling reactions thereto) soon, but in the meantime I wanted to share the Constituent Assembly’s declaration:

To the Syrian, regional, and global public.

In response to the appeal made by the General Coordination of Democratic Self-Administration Areas (Cizîrê, Kobanê and Efrîn), all components of the political forces, parties, and social actors in the cantons of Rojava and the areas liberated from terrorist forces held a meeting resulting in a comprehensive political vision for a Syrian resolution and an agreement on the management system for Rojava/Northern Syria. This can serve as a model for the rest of Syria, providing a solution for the Syrian crisis. We, the representatives of these areas, met on 16th and 17th March 2016.

We commemorate with respect the martyrs of our people, who wrote with their blood the heroic resistance that has brought our people to the milestone they are at today.

This aforementioned meeting resulted in the following decisions.

1. The democratic federal system encapsulates all social components and guarantees that a future Syria will be for all Syrians.

2. All work will be towards establishing a democratic federal system for Rojava/Northern Syria.

3. Co-presidents and a 31-person Organising Council were elected.

4. The Organising Council was assigned to prepare a social contract and a comprehensive political and legal vision for this system within a period not exceeding six months.

5. All assembly committees and documents will adhere to UN resolutions on human rights and societal democratic systems. Furthermore, all attendees of the meeting see themselves as part of the new system being constructed and are aware of the deep ties it has with the people of Syria; they predicate their participation on the fraternity of peoples and peace.

6. Women’s freedom is the essence of the federal democratic system. Women have the right to equal participation and in decision-related responsibilities in relation to female issues. Women will be represented as equals in all spheres of life, including all social and political spheres.

7. The peoples and communities living in the federal system in Rojava/Northern Syria can develop their political, economic, social, cultural, and democratic relations with whom they see fit, or share their beliefs and culture with the people and communities on a regional and international level, provided that this relationship does not interfere with the objectives and interests of the federal democratic system.

8. The peoples of regions liberated by the democratic forces from terrorist organisations will have the right to become a part of the federal democratic system of Rojava-Northern Syria, if they so choose.

9. The goal of the Rojava/Northern Syria democratic federal system on the regional level is to achieve democratic union between all the peoples of the Middle East in the political, economic, cultural and social spheres and transcend national state borders to create a secure, peaceful and fraternal life for all.

10. The creation of a federal and democratic system shall take place within a sovereign Syria.

To all people in Syria, Kurdistan and Rojava and all groups and social classes.

We are going through a historical phase and critical circumstances. Today, Syria is experiencing the worst tragedy in its history. Millions have been displaced and hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, not to mention the immense damage that the infrastructure of Syria has suffered.

In spite of this, a democratic experience has been created and defended in Rojava with the blood of martyrs. Great gains have been achieved in this period. This is a real opportunity to build a federal democratic system. We are sure and confident that this will be a model for a solution to the Syrian crisis.

In the framework of the decisions we have taken, we are calling foremostly on women who represent a new and free life, as well as young people, communities, workers and all other social sectors to join in the construction of a democratic federal system. We are also calling on all progressive humanity and democratic forces to support our efforts.

Long live our people's determination, their coexistence, and their unity.

“American Leftists Need to Pay More Attention to Rojava”

And now it’s spread to Slate.

“A Dream of Secular Utopia in ISIS’ Backyard”

Will wonders never cease? A long article about Rojava in the New York Times Magazine.

Quote of the day – “what we call the moderate opposition”

Speaking of McFaul, he’s been one of the mouthpieces MSNBC has been turning to today for expertise on the downing of the Russian fighter. He’s repeated the same line (or they’ve repeated the video of him using the line – I haven’t been paying close attention) that the Russian government has been targeting not ISIS but “what we call the moderate opposition, what they call terrorists enabled by Turkey.” None of the MSNBC journalists have seen fit to inquire about the reality – well, are they a moderate opposition or terrorists? – or about the strange use of “what we call.”

It sounds like a plain giveaway. If McFaul and those whose bidding he’s doing truly believed that these forces constituted a moderate opposition, he would simply refer to them as that. It seems evident that he doesn’t regard them as moderates (naturally, he’s not even asked what “moderate” means concretely in this context). Note that he doesn’t name the specific groups he’s talking about. Who, specifically, are these alleged moderates? What’s their moderate vision for Syria? What’s their relationship with ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham? Even if “moderates” opposed to the Islamists exist on the ground, how would they become a powerful political force? (I’ve just found a Twitter thread or whatever where these questions were put to McFaul in early October. I guess their only result was the change of wording from “the moderate opposition” to “what we call the moderate opposition.”)

The people of Rojava are open with the media and happy to describe their radically democratic, feminist, ecological movement.* But the US government and its media representatives aren’t publicizing that. They prefer to propagandize about this moderate ghost army that will lead Syria to peace and democracy.

* The article at that link, incidentally, was originally published by teleSUR. Venezuela is yet another country in which the US government’s and media’s hostility to democracy and to anyone who resists their imperialism is on full display. (I wonder what will happen to global oil prices after the legislative elections there on December 6th…)

So now they’ve shot down a Russian jet

Several days ago, Patrick Cockburn reported in the Independent, in a story which received virtually no attention elsewhere, that the US government would be allying with the Turkish government to take the stretch along the Syria-Turkey border controlled by ISIS: “‘Seventy five per cent of Syria’s northern border has so far been shut down [preventing Isis’s access to Turkey]’, said US Secretary of State John Kerry. ‘And we are entering an operation with the Turks to shut off the remaining 98km’.” (Who exactly would control this stretch on the ground, I wonder.) They weren’t interested in acknowledging previously stated Kurdish plans to take this area or the Turkish government’s attacks on those Kurds.

David Graeber provided context in an important article in the Guardian a few days ago:

In the wake of the murderous attacks in Paris, we can expect western heads of state to do what they always do in such circumstances: declare total and unremitting war on those who brought it about. They don’t actually mean it. They’ve had the means to uproot and destroy Islamic State within their hands for over a year now. They’ve simply refused to make use of it. In fact, as the world watched leaders making statements of implacable resolve at the G20 summit in Antalaya, these same leaders are hobnobbing with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a man whose tacit political, economic, and even military support contributed to Isis’s ability to perpetrate the atrocities in Paris, not to mention an endless stream of atrocities inside the Middle East.

How could Isis be eliminated? In the region, everyone knows. All it would really take would be to unleash the largely Kurdish forces of the YPG (Democratic Union party) in Syria, and PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ party) guer[r]illas in Iraq and Turkey. These are, currently, the main forces actually fighting Isis on the ground. They have proved extraordinarily militarily effective and oppose every aspect of Isis’s reactionary ideology.

But instead, YPG-controlled territory in Syria finds itself placed under a total embargo by Turkey, and PKK forces are under continual bombardment by the Turkish air force. Not only has Erdoğan done almost everything he can to cripple the forces actually fighting Isis; there is considerable evidence that his government has been at least tacitly aiding Isis itself.

…And then there are Erdoğan’s actual, stated positions. Back in August, the YPG, fresh from their victories in Kobani and Gire Spi, were poised to seize Jarablus, the last Isis-held town on the Turkish border that the terror organisation had been using to resupply its capital in Raqqa with weapons, materials, and recruits – Isis supply lines pass directly through Turkey.

Commentators predicted that with Jarablus gone, Raqqa would soon follow. Erdoğan reacted by declaring Jarablus a “red line”: if the Kurds attacked, his forces would intervene militarily – against the YPG. So Jarablus remains in terrorist hands to this day, under de facto Turkish military protection…. [links removed]

As I said last week, these actions and alliances would seem perfectly mad to anyone thinking the US government was genuinely determined to defeat ISIS and promote democracy and human rights. And now Obama is on television suggesting that the Russian government is at fault for supposedly focusing not on ISIS but on the moderate, democratic elements of the FSA (do they think the constant references to these mythical elements will somehow conjure them into existence?). Real democratic forces capable of taking on ISIS militarily are being marginalized and sacrificed in order to cooperate with an authoritarian government murderously hostile to them and long complicit with Islamists. And they’re still obsessed with overthrowing Assad. The fateful alliance with Erdoğan (not to mention Saudi Arabia, Israel,…) will continue; the Kurds will continue to be betrayed and abandoned.

We can of course expect the corporate media, with that dupe Richard Engel in the lead, to dutifully repeat their claims. (Last month, Rachel Maddow, evidently surprised and displeased that Tulsi Gabbard didn’t read from the government script,



the next week invited Michael McFaul,



who didn’t disappoint.)

Quote of the day - “If the Western powers leave the Kurds alone to face Turkey,…”

“If the Western powers leave the Kurds alone to face Turkey, they will only be infusing new blood into IS. Attacks by anti-Kurdish forces will leave the Middle East facing a bloody destiny.

But what we have learned from the Paris massacre is that the West will not be immune to such a bloody destiny.”

- Irfan Aktan, “Paris attacks spoil AKP’s G-20 game plan”

Katyusha

Many killed and wounded in bombings of peace march in Ankara

A deadly attack on a leftwing, Kurdish rally for peace and justice.

Jarabulus

Kurdish forces hope by the end of the year to take Jarabulus, cutting off ISIS’ only remaining border crossing with Turkey and uniting Rojava. They seem appropriately wary of the US government.

Medicines and medical equipment needed in Rojava

This site has links to the Kurdish Red Crescent’s updated lists of medical supplies urgently needed in Rojava. (The site is in Spanish, but the linked documents are in English.)

They provide an address for those who can contribute in some way:

solidaritywithrojava[at]gmail[dot]com

A bunch of damn Reds!

The best propaganda is free and unintended. That’s the case with this article from February about some USian and British guys who volunteered to fight ISIS with the Kurdish YPG only to discover…a revolution.

According to foreign fighters quoted by AFP, an exodus is currently underway of US and other Western volunteers from the YPG due their left-wing stance, with one US army veteran – referred to as ‘Scott’ – claiming he decided not to join after finding out they were a ‘bunch of damn Reds’.*

Evidently, several of these guys are now fighting their Christian holy war with the Ronald Reagan Brigade.**

As the article notes, others have chosen to work and fight with the YPG because of their politics. A moving statement from a British volunteer was posted just this week:

…In Kurdistan, particularly that part that is currently in Syria, there is a left side.

In ‘the most dangerous place in the world’, they are doing what the left should do — providing a safe haven for all ethnicities and religions while championing none, through radical direct democracy.

They are combating the worst misogyny in the world with some of the most advanced gender policies on the planet. For each formal leadership position in the Kurdish state there must be one man and one woman.

Images of the Women’s Defence Units, fighting not only with Kalashnikovs but their hair uncovered, have captivated the world.

They are proclaiming a revolution against capitalism and defending it against Isis, the West’s latest creation to ensure regional instability, thereby facilitating further foreign intervention at such time as it should become advantageous.

There is a left side, there is always a left side, and if someone else succeeds in breaking forward where you have not, and calls for you to join them, you must join them. So I will….

* Technically, they’re damn Red-and-Blacks.

** Note: not the actual name of the Christian unit.

Sevil Rojbin Çetin

“State prosecutors have charged her with ‘breaking the unity of the state’ and are pushing for life in prison.”

Quotes of the day - policies of violence, denial, and annihilation

“The hunger strike started by us as PKK and PAJK prisoners on August 15 has entered its 26th day. We salute the resistance of our people and all those resisting bravely for the building of self-rule in neighborhoods, towns and districts. We would like to state that we will enhance our resistance further as long as the AKP government’s policies of denial and annihilation against the Kurdish Freedom Movement and the Kurdish people continue.”

- from statement by Deniz Kaya on behalf of PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party) and PAJK (Kurdistan Women's Liberation Party, Partiya Azadiya Jin a Kurdistan) prisoners

“We now need the support of the international public more than ever in order to achieve the realization of a lasting peace in the Middle East, Turkey and Kurdistan.”

- from statement by the Foreign Affairs Commission of the HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) calling for “urgent international action against the policies of violence that have escalated after the general elections of June 7 led by the AKP provisional government”

Needless to say, they’re not serious.

“If the US was serious about fighting IS, it would not only have been providing full support – both in deed and in word – to the YPG and YPJ and its sister organization, the PKK, but it would also confront Turkey on the mountains of evidence that they have in fact been supporting IS. It would demand that the borders with the Kurdish regions in Syria would be opened, and that the bombing campaign against PKK positions as well as the terror campaign against Kurdish civilians be seized [sic] immediately. Most importantly, it would take the PKK of[f] the terror list.

Unfortunately, the US’ actions have shown that it is interested in no such thing.

Rather than defeating IS, its objective is the preservation and expansion of its influence in the region. For this, Turkey is a much more valuable partner than either the YPG and YPJ or the PKK. Action speaks louder than words, and in choosing its allies the US has shown clearly where its priorities really lie: power over democracy, influence over honesty and war over peace.”

- Joris Leverink, “US deal with Turkey shows its disregard of Kurds”

Like others, I’m struck by the similarities with the Spanish Civil War and Revolution in the 1930s.

(Another good piece from ROAR.)

Needless to say, they’re not sincere.

“If Australia was sincere about fighting ISIS, it would end the criminalisation of the PKK and other laws that have frustrated attempts at practical solidarity with the democratic resistance to ISIS. The embargo preventing the YPG/J or PKK obtaining heavy weapons would be lifted and Turkish state support for ISIS would be exposed and opposed.”

- Tony Iltis, “The real reason Tony Abbott wants to bomb Syria”

Quote of the day – the hope that these humane values will triumph

“The Kurdish people of Kobane have shown tremendous courage and resilience in their resistance to the ISIS onslaught. The determination of the men and women to fight to defend the territory where they have established democratic self-rule has inspired people across the world.

The Kurds in Kobane are defending the values of democracy, inclusiveness, respect for difference and gender equality, against a ruthlessly intolerant force that offers only an orgy of bloodletting, carnage, public executions, vile abuse of women and even the repudiation of the right to education, learning and independent thought. The Kurdish resistance, and in particular the brave men and women fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ), represent the hope that these humane values will triumph over a tyranny that would take humanity back to the dark ages. As such, the Kurds have received widespread respect.

In stark contrast, Turkey has been exposed for its duplicity and total unreliability as an ally in the coalition against the ISIS threat. Turkey’s leaders from President Erdogan downwards have preferred to bomb Kurdish camps, as they did on 14 October, rather than take swift and effective action against the murderous jihadists….”

- “The Resistance of Kobane Will Triumph Over Tyranny,” Peace in Kurdistan Campaign Statement, October 16, 2014, quoted in A Small Key Can Open a Large Door: The Rojava Revolution (2015)

(The ever-deceitful US State Department presents things differently.)