After weeks of Turkey pushing for the US and other NATO members to ditch support for the Syrian Kurdish YPG, Britain seems to be heading in that direction, claiming they are “uneasy” with the YPG gaining territory in offensives backed by Russian air support.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond claimed there was “disturbing evidence” of the Kurds coordinating with Russia and the Syrian government. Despite treating this as “new” evidence, the YPG’s cooperation with both has been well documented.
Since Russia began its airstrikes in Syria, it has been supporting the YPG, primarily on western fronts where Turkish opposition has kept the US from backing them. Likewise, the YPG has allowed the Syrian military to deploy troops to Hasakeh, their de facto capital, to help defend it from previous ISIS pushes.
Turkey was opposing the YPG before all of this, and has only added to its opposition as the YPG gains territory. The US has so far tried to ignore this, but as Turkey gets more shrill about the matter, it seems like they’re getting at least some NATO backing for abandoning the Kurds as too “pro-Russia.”
Oh, sure. But Turkey coordinating with IS is not disturbing. Or the US coordinating with IS is not disturbing.
..or the Saudis providing funds, fighters, weapons and start-up assistance isn’t disturbing?….
Kurds pushing back AQ and IS is somehow “disturbing”?????
What kind of corrupt bizarro-world are we living in?????
The Kurdish YPG isn’t good. The Kurdish YPG commits ethnic cleansing against Sunni Arabs. The YPG displaced Sunni Arabs and burned down entire villages. The YPG has threatened to order coalition airstrikes against Arab houses if the Arabs don’t leave. Over 10,000 Arabs have fled their homes in response of YPG advances. They commit Israeli tactics in displacing Arabs.
http://news.antiwar.com/2015/06/01/reports-kurdish-troops-burn-arab-villages-in-northern-syria/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Protection_Units#War_crimes_allegat
The Kurdish YPG isn’t good. The Kurdish YPG commits ethnic cleansing against Sunni Arabs. The YPG displaced Sunni Arabs and burned down entire villages. The YPG has threatened to order coalition airstrikes against Arab houses if the Arabs don’t leave. Over 10,000 Arabs have fled their homes in response of YPG advances.
http://news.antiwar.com/2015/06/01/reports-kurdish-troops-burn-arab-villages-in-northern-syria/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Protection_Units#War_crimes_allegat
So yes the YPG is displacing Arabs and is creating refugees.
Turkey has promised to the EU to take in more refugees and block more refugees from entering Europe. However, recently Turkey cautioned that they soon cannot afford to take in more refugees.
Turkey is protecting the Sunni Arabs from becoming refugees.
Here’s a quote:
The Kurds commit ethnic cleansing, displaces Sunni Arabs and creates Arab refugees. Turkey promised to the EU to not let more refugees into Europe, and keep the refugees in Turkey despite its claim that Turkey does not have enough room for more refugees. The YPG’s forced displacement of Arabs might increase unnecessarily refugees.
And if Russia and Syria further “advances” into capturing more rebel-occupied cities, then even more refugees are inevitable. This is because those “liberated” cities are being destroyed by heavy bombardment. “Victory” and “liberation” only means that people will be inevitably displaced, creating more refugees that Turkey has to handle.
The U.S. should stop funding, arming and training the Kurds. Erdogan was right in saying that the U.S. should not fund and arm the Kurds. If the U.S. keeps supporting the Kurds then Kurdistan will become an apartheid state like Israel. Israel commits discrimination against Arabs; Kurdistan too may commit discrimination against Arabs.
Russia should not defend the Kurds. Russia should adopt a noninterventionist foreign policy when it comes to this Turkey-Kurdishtan conflict. Any intervention will risk WW3. (An indespensible complementary step is for the U.S. to stop funding, arming and training the Kurds.)
Russia should also not defend the Assad government. Assad is a brutal dictator. Syrian Kurds are denied many basic rights under Assad; their language is banned. The Assad government attacked two prominent members of the secular Kurdish Future Movement Party; assassinating one and beating up one. Assad shot peaceful Kurdish protesters.
The Assad government detains allegedly those who oppose the regime or people are insufficiently loyal to it and some of them are tortured, raped and killed. Relatives of the dead detainees have identified them as everything from civilian activists, to journalists, to bloggers who criticize Assad. A 14-year old boy was imprisoned, tortured and killed because authorities found an anti-Assad song on his cell phone. A woman was tortured and beaten up because authorities caught her possessing a voice recorder. There are 50,000 detainees at any one time and thousands have been killed since 2011. The Assad army have committed war crimes; they have executed up to 450 captured soldiers and civilians in the Bayda and Baniyas massacres.
Assad’s barrel bombs created casualties, 99% of the casualties are civilians and only 1% are combatants. That’s the civilian/combatant fatality ratio for barrel bombs. (Of course the civilian/combatant fatality ratio different for other forms of combat. That’s why some other statistics still show that most of the people killed are combatants instead of civilians.)
Assad/Russia might be bombing the peaceful opposition, calling them “terrorists”, no wonder why his barrel bombs casualties are 99% civilians.
Assad might like the Islamic State more than the peaceful opposition because this might create an impression that all of his opposition are “jihadists”, giving him an excuse to bomb his peaceful opposition as well. Assad had previously funded the Iraqi insurgency (a precursor to the Islamic State) against the U.S. occupation.
The Assad government is at least as brutal as the Islamic State. So letting Assad take over isn’t the best solution. The best way to defeat the Islamic State is to do nothing. Let ISIS collapse by itself.
Besides, the Islamic State is not like Nazi Germany. Many of the allegations of genocide against Christians, Shiites and Yazidis are untrue or exaggerated. There is no clear evidence that there was a “Sinjar massacre” by the Islamic State.
Bombing the Islamic State would only help its recruitment of fighters. When the U.S. begin bombing the Islamic State in 2014, the number of fighters doubled. Bombs also cause vast civilian casualties. Women and children will be killed; attempting to save them will using military intervention will only result in the same people being killed. Many are proven to be killed by air strikes. Additionally, according to leaked U.S. government documents, 90% drone strikes hit the unintended targets.
The brutality of the Iraqi government is also a cause of the Islamic State. The Iraqi government is corrupt and brutal. ISIS is a resistance group against the Iraqi government and Iran-backed Shiite militias. The Iraqi government shoots peaceful protesters, shells and bombs residential areas. The Iraqi government detains Sunni Arabs. Its prisons have 30,000 to 50,000 detainees and 20% of those are killed by torture. The Iraqi government has lost its legitimacy to hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs; hundreds of thousands protest against the Iraqi government each week.
A lot of Sunni Arabs tolerate the Islamic State more than the Iraqi
government in Baghdad. They are willing to passively accept the Islamic State and even ally with them to fight the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government is so brutal that the secular former Ba’ath party members and Sunni Arab tribesman would ally with the Islamic State rather than the Iraqi government. There is speculation that the secular factions of the Islamic State is using the Mujahideen fighters in ISIS to first conquer territory, and its long-term goal is to instigate a coup d’etat against the Islamic State turning it into a secular neo-Ba’athist organization. Just like how Saddam Hussein came into power through a coup d’etat.
So it’s also essential to stop funding the official Iraqi government. In this way it could compromise and grant more rights to Sunni Arabs. Sunni Iraqis have already cautioned that there will inevitably be resistance groups (like the Islamic State) unless the official Iraqi government is fixed.
Look what the cat has dragged in….
Kenny, with links
I almost miss MIkey…
The Kurds are the worst because they create ISIS sunni Arab refugees .ISIS does create refugees they convert or behead the Kurds Presto no refugee problem
Tough ****, Britain.
They should all come out of the shadows soon! Aug 5, 2015 British Special Forces “Dressing Up” As ISIS…What Could Go Wrong?
The “elite” British SAS special forces are dispatching over 120 troops to Syria to dress up as ISIS fighters and attack Syrian targets. In today’s Thought For The Day, James looks back at a couple of the lowlights of the bumbling SAS forces and examines the 2005 incident where the SAS was caught in Basra dressing up as Arabs and shooting Iraqis in order to fuel ethnic tensions in the country.
https://youtu.be/rRH3SJHSuc4
one of these decades it will dawn upon the british ruling class their actual standing in the world.