Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was deeply critical of US arms airdrops into Kobani in comments today, particularly because at least one of the dropped parcels ended up in the hands of ISIS.
“I have difficulty understanding why Kobani is so strategic for them, because there are no civilians there, just around 2,000 fighters,” Erdogan added.
ISIS has been fighting Kurdish militias over Kobani and the surrounding area for over a month, with hundreds of villages falling to the ISIS offensive, but the town itself still contested.
Erdogan had opposed sending military aid to the Kurdish factions in Kobani in the first place, noting that the groups are listed as terrorist organizations in Turkey, where they’ve been fighting an on-again, off-again war for over 30 years.
Though the Kurdish factions are focused on fighting with ISIS right now, there is a palpable fear among Turkish leaders that the Western arms and funding being sent to the Kurdish militias will eventually be turned against them as well.
The Kurds are freedom fighters from start to finish and the ease with which Turkey gets away with calling them terrorists, this just goes to show how locked in mental darkness the Western world truely is.
Just as the knee-jerk reaction of the USG to immediately classify any unfavorable event as a "terrorist" attack/plan/group, the rest of the world has followed suit and also use the moniker "terrorist/ism" to define undesirables and direct public opinion whether their opposition to authority is justified or not.
This is the problem with allies, they naturally have their own interests, and do not desire simply to act in accordance with the whims of US politics. Especially Turkey, which borders on Syria and has had Kurdish insurrections for decades. After all, if things stuff up, the US can simply go home. The Syrian/Islamic State mess will remain on Turkey's border. Before the Syrian revolt, Turkey had reasonable relations with Assad. Now Assad is an enemy and a rabble of rebels are raising Cain on its southern border and driving huge numbers of refugees into the country to make a nuisance of themselves, with tiresome do-gooders trying to tell the Turks how to pamper them. It's not surprising that the Turks don't wish to commit themselves unless the US will eliminate Assad and allow them to place their own catspaws in charge of Syria. We can see a similar situation in Afghanistan, with Pakistan wanting to back their candidates among the Taliban as a post-US government.
Anything that causes division within NATO is a good thing. NATO was formed to contain the USSR. The USSR no longer exists. Why does NATO still exist?