Turkish troops continue to mass at the Syrian border Friday, with artillery fire from their positions pounding Kurdish YPG forces in the Syrian Afrin District, and Turkish DM Nurettin Canikli saying this is the “de facto start” of a full-scale Syrian invasion of Kurdish territory.
Turkish officials have threatened this invasion off and on for months, and earlier this week said it was imminent. Canikli says now there is “no turning back” and that the invasion is in progress.
Turkey has long presented the Kurdish YPG as “terrorists,” and insisted they will not allow them to retain territory west of the Euphrates River. To this end, President Erdogan says Turkey will attack Afrin first, then Manbij.
Other Turkish officials, however, say they consider it unacceptable for the YPG to retain any territory near the Turkish border at all, which means nearly all of their territory is at risk from this ongoing operation.
Since Turkey has installed allied rebel groups into areas they’ve seized in Syria before, the risk of them taking YPG territory, about 25% of Syria, and doing the same thing has caught the attention of the Syrian government, which is threatening action to support the Kurds, including shooting down raiding Turkish warplanes. The US has also opposed the Turkish attack, though it’s not clear they intend to do anything about it.
“The US has also opposed the Turkish attack, though it’s not clear they intend to do anything about it.”
Here’s where the Kurds find out how faithful their American “allies” are. When the US was finally shamed into taking on isis, and needed ground forces, the Kurds were there for them. Now that the Kurds need US air power to protect them from the Turks,… well, we shall see.
I suppose that’s better than selling it on the street.
Allies? Since when?
Rather interesting how Turkey is employing 15,000 Free Syrian Army troops for this operation. Hence, the reason why Syria proper threatens to attack. Moving the Kurds west – and the FSA into Northwest Syria is part of the US plan for partition. Russia has agreed not to surveil the area, sacrifice it.
Syria will be carved up. The smaller Syria will be protected by Russia.
Hasn’t Russia already left Syria after defeating ISIS . Only Iran and the uninvited USA are still there to keep the peace so they say .
Yeah, like the U.S. withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Russia learns fast.
One of the top unspoken reasons why the US was leaving troops in Syria was to try and avoid this. They felt that so long as US troops were embedded with the Kurds that Turkey wouldn’t dare to attack them for fear of damaging relations with the US. However, it seems clear that Erdogan cares little about US opinion and that is most likely due to the fact that he believes we tried to take him out with a coup and are hiding some of the people who were involved.
Keep in mind that Erdogan’s war on Syria was not popular with most of the people in Turkey from the very beginning. They simply didn’t have a problem with Assad and had fairly good relations with Syria in general. They were talked into backing the “rebels” with various promises. One of the promises was that the Kurds wouldn’t come out stronger. I also wouldn’t be surprised if part of the plan was to carve off a piece of Syria for both Turkey and Israel. Erdogan risked his career and his life supporting this bloody mess and I’m sure he feels he is correct in taking what was promised. At the very least that promise was to keep the Kurks in check and he is going to do that with or without our support.
As for Assad and the Kurds, people should remember that this isn’t really Kurdish territory. In fact the Kurds in Syria are not native to the area at all, they were recent refugees and this doesn’t sit all that well with the people who did in fact live in this region for centuries. They don’t want the Kurds taking this land any more than they want Turkey to take it. So regardless of whether the US takes the Kurds side or Turkey’s side they will be siding against the people who actually belong there.
Kurds have existed in what is now called Syria since before the Crusades. They have every right to their autonomy. Both America and Turkey should f**k off and let Syria and Rojava hash this out.
A handful of kurds have lived in the area since before the crusades, but always in the minority never more than about 7% of the population. Would you suggest that a minority has the right to autonomy when the vast majority is against it and after many have been removed by this war by the Kurds with the help of the US? Using that logic it would be fair to say the Christians in Syria have a right to remove the population and take over while getting massive arms shipments from the US along with help from the US Air Force.
Now I agree that both the US and Turkey should get out and leave it alone. I never suggested otherwise, did I? But let’s not pretend that the Kurds would be in control of this area if not for the actions of the US and other actors in the area. Let’s also not pretend that this bunch of Kurds are simply innocent bystanders. I never get this type of thinking among the anti-war crowd, yet I constantly see it. It’s as if we are somehow supposed to elevate any group we have messed with into hero status simply because they have been on the losing end of our intervention in the past. The US can be absolutely wrong while simultaneously so can Kurds, yet that never seems to be what anti-war people admit.
Just think about these actions separately from the war. What if the US armed a small minority of people and used our air force to allow them to take over from the majority, would you really support that?
I get it, you feel sympathy for the Kurds, so do I to an extent, but honestly most of that sympathy is in fact misplaced and they have no right to rule over this large territory unless you believe that might makes right.
Yes the United States just might really support that I don’t know why now you think that we should be so wrong The United States bombed Yugoslavia so A minority could take over and create two new independent Muslim countries and remove the largest ethnic majority the Orthodox Christians . No body but Russia worried one bit about this .
True, not many people did care at least not in this country. However, this site was actually very much against it and did a great job covering it. As for the MSM they were Cheerleaders as usual.
“Would you suggest that a minority has the right to autonomy when the vast majority is against it”
Of course.
To the extent that ethnic groups are or can become “nations,” the Kurds are frustrated from doing so by the fact that Winston Churchill pulled out a cocktail napkin and drew borders for new states that split the territories they live in between “Syria,” “Turkey,” “Iran” and “Iraq,” thus making them in to four minorities in four states rather than the majority in one. There’s no particular reason that they should regard Churchill’s doodlings as permanent limiters.
So you think that an ethnic minority can set up it’s own state in which the majority must obey their dictates? I’d get it if they were not setting up a state to live in of their own, but either as an individual nation or an ethnic zone with autonomy the minority will be in charge of the majority and have a monopoly on the use of force against them.
Also its a false argument to say that because of Sykes Picot there are not functioning states supported by the majority of people who live in them. All state lines are artificial are they not? So just because these artificial lines were drawn up by England doesn’t make them any more or less real than any other artificial lines drawn. So that is completely a BS argument and always has been. The people who live there accept them today and in Syria in particular they were working just fine until we created this rebellion.
Furthermore, it’s a myth that all Kurds want to live under the rule of the Socialists Kurds with their wacky ideas. Many of them don’t want that at all, but the ones we have armed have the weapons and the fighting experience. Syria is a multi-ethnic nation that should not be divided along ethnic lines period. Have we not seen the problems that come with setting up ethnic states?
It’s comments like this that make you very hard to take seriously. You don’t believe we should enforce our own borders but you want a well armed minority to set up an ethnic state that will inevitability suppress the majority. Can you not see how incredibly contradictory those two stances are?
I think what gets me the most about anit-war people taking the side of the Kurds is that it’s always some knee jerk reaction that pre-supposes that it’s all about liberty and that somehow these Kurds are freedom fighters so they must be supported. That’s a whole lot of BS and it’s actually just parroting the line fed to us by the MSM. The noble Kurds fighting for their freedom is not what is happening in Syria at all. Not even close and they have already proven this many times over by committing crimes against various other ethnic groups that live in this territory that they want to take control of. If they do take control and set up their own state you can bet there will be more oppression of the majority if not a flat out pogrom of elimination.
Still I’m amazed that an anarchist would support setting up an ethnic state in the Middle East that has a history of and is willing and capable of committing atrocities against the majority who don’t want it. Is there some reason why you believe that an Ethnic State is a good thing in the first place? Is there something better about an ethnic state vs a multi-ethnic and multi-cultured state that already exists and is supported by the majority?
The YPG is an anarchist organization. They’re not even calling for a state but a stateless autonomous zone within Syria’s existing borders. Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned ideological leader of this movement has provided an alternative to sectarian nationalism with his philosophy of democratic confederalism, which could present a model for peace through out a hopelessly divided region.
America has purposely discredited this movement by pushing them beyond their traditional homeland and turning them into mercenaries. This could damn the Rojava Revolution but that doesn’t make it’s original goals of localism, autonomy, and direct democracy any less valid.
You need to lay off the Assad propaganda wagon. It’s only slightly less inaccurate than the MSM. A lot of your information on Kurdish history in Assad’s Syria is grossly inaccurate. Assad’s Syria may be secular and multi-ethnic but it’s also despotic and exceptionally cruel. Just because they’re the victims of American imperialism doesn’t make them benevolent. Talk about your knee-jerk reactions.
Read anything by Patrick Cockburn or Robert Fisk for a truly impartial view on the situation in Syria. They don’t pull punches when it comes to Assad or the Kurds. They’ve both done heinous things. Everyone does in war zones, which is why most anarchists are antiwar.
They hold elections, they hold territory, they have their own police, their own prisons and their own military. That’s a state and they are statists not Anarchist no matter what they try and label themselves as. I know that recently they have changed their rhetoric from overthrowing the Turkish government and creating their own state, to saying they are in favor of “democratic confederalism” and I also know that it’s not actually anarchism, in fact it’s highly authoritarian. I also know that they have already done a fair share of ethnic cleansing despite saying they are accepting of everyone.
Furthermore, do you know how lazy and insulting it is to say something like this, “You need to lay off the Assad propaganda wagon”? Why don’t you lay off of the Marxist claptrap comrade?
And no I didn’t say that Syria was any kind of paradise, but the Kurds were not treated any worse by Assad then any other group. They can’t claim to be the oppressed group in Syria, not by a long shot. Nor can they claim to be anything other than a radical minority attempting to force it’s ideology on a majority who doesn’t want it. And where do they get their support from? Oh, that would be the US right? And the US goals wouldn’t be to balkanize Syria would it?
So you are supporting a group who is taking territory from the people who actually live there with arms supplied to them by the US, with the intention of keeping this territory for themselves and their state. They have committed war crimes against those people as well.
“On 23 August 1962, the government conducted a special population census only for the province of Jazira, which was predominantly Kurdish. As a result, around 120,000 Kurds in Jazira (20% of Syrian Kurds) were stripped of their Syrian citizenship. The inhabitants who had Syrian identity cards were told to hand them over to the administration for renewal. However, many of those Kurds who submitted their cards received nothing in return. Many were arbitrarily categorized as ajanib (‘foreigners’), while others who did not participate in the census were categorised as maktumin (‘unregistered’), an even lower status than the ajanib; for all intents and purposes, these unregistered Kurds did not exist in the eyes of the state. They could not get jobs, become educated, own property, participate in politics, or even get married. In some cases, classifications varied even within Kurdish families: parents had citizenship but not their children, a child could be a citizen but not his or her brothers and sisters. Those Kurds who lost their citizenship were often dispossessed of their lands, which were given by the state to Arab and Assyrian settlers. A media campaign was launched against the Kurds with slogans such as Save Arabism in Jazira! and Fight the Kurdish Menace!.”
“Syrian policies in the 1970s led to Arabs resettling in majority Kurdish areas. In 1965, the Syrian government decided to create an Arab cordon (Hizam Arabi) in the Jazira region along the Turkish border. The cordon was 300 kilometers long and 10-15 kilometers wide, stretched from the Iraqi border in the east to Ras Al-Ain in the west. The implementation of the Arab cordon plan began in 1973 and Bedouin Arabs were brought in and resettled in Kurdish areas. The toponymy of the area such as village names were Arabized. According to the original plan, some 140,000 Kurds had to be deported to the southern desert near Al-Raad. Although Kurdish farmers were dispossessed of their lands, they refused to move and give up their houses. Among these Kurdish villagers, those who were designated as alien were not allowed to own property, to repair a crumbling house or to build a new one.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds_in_Syria
And do you know how they treat other refugees? Guess what, they treat them exactly the same. There is no citizenship for anyone who was not originally born in Syria period. Furthermore, Assad actually protected the kurds and essentially set them up with their own state. And guess what? In spite of the rule against any citizenship for people not born in Syria he actually carved out a limited exception for them. So in other words if you came from Palestine you had no rights, if you came from Turkey and were Kurdish you got limited rights. So thanks for reminding me that he actually did treat them better than other refugees.
Read it again, quick-draw. Citizens of Syria were stripped of their citizenship and removed from their land for being Kurdish. That’s called ethnic cleansing. They weren’t refugees until they were extra-judicially declared refugees.
The Assad regime made alliances with certain Kurdish groups in the past largely because they shared a common enemy in the revanchist Turks but the Assad’s routinely broke these alliances and welshed on their promises like every other state whose ever dealt with the Kurds which is precisely why they have turned to anarchism while accepting weapons from anyone who will supply them.
They were not citizens they were refugees who had been granted some dispensation, that was not granted to other refugees. You are simply making it up that they were not refugees, that’s complete nonsense. Were they born there? Nope, they were not born there at all.
And it’s a nice excuse that they take money and weapons from Assad and the US but the fact is that they have used these weapons to take territory not belonging to them. The leaders like the power and the profit from this support. They have purged their own ranks of anyone not sufficiently loyal to their great imprisoned leader. They have murdered dissidents from their movement in cold blood. They use child soldiers and they have actually ethnically cleansed villages, by killing them. That’s who you are supporting comrade.
“They were not citizens they were refugees who had been granted some dispensation, that was not granted to other refugees. You are simply making it up that they were not refugees, that’s complete nonsense. Were they born there? Nope, they were not born there at all.”
You wanna source that sh*t or should I just take your word for it because, clearly, you’re god.
Clearly I’m God, I thought I was an Assad Stooge comrade? And it’s your claim that they were born there, which your own Wiki (LOL) source doesn’t state. But again, who cares? I’m not an Assad fan I’m simply telling you that these so called Anarchists have no problem purging their own, they have murdered anyone who dissents, they have ethnically cleansed villages, they use child soldiers. They do in fact employ terrorist tactics against unarmed civilians routinely. They took territory that does not belong to them to expand what little area they had to a very large area now. And your claim is that Assad wasn’t nice enough to them so they should be able to kick out the people who live there or kill the people who live there if they won’t accept their form of government. They also have what is basically a cult of personality set up in regards to their dear leader. Oh and they do in fact state over and over that only true real Kurds are worth anything, they are very much still a race based organization despite their change in rhetoric, that hasn’t changed at all.
Honestly, Comrade if you want to support these authoritarian thugs you go right ahead and do it. But don’t try and pretend they are the good guys who are just being unjustly oppressed. That’s romantic nonsense not supported by their actual actions. They took this area using force and they are intent to keep it using force, purges, killing dissidents, etc. etc., in the same way they have done in the past. Their new branding as some kind of Anarchist/feminist utopia is all BS. They haven’t really changed anything other than their rhetoric, which you obviously buy into.
Yeah, that’s what I thought. Keep talking….
Well gee, that really put me in my place, comrade.
“So you think that an ethnic minority should set up it’s own state in which the majority must obey their dictates?”
I don’t think that anyone should ever set up a state anywhere. I’m an anarchist.
I’m just pointing out that the situation of the Kurds is not some organic law of nature. The states in which they are a minority were artificially created in the settlement of World War One and they got screwed into being minorities in four states instead of a majority in one. So your objection that they’re a minority in area X when they are actually a majority in the parts of areas W, X, Y and Z where they live doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Of course it makes sense to mention that they are a minority. Why? Because the only way they can take power is for the minority to force their will upon the majority, it’s not even possible to pretend it’s democratic, it would simply be might makes right. And this is why they have been using voter fraud and intimidation, when they are not engaged in actually cleansing villages. The Kurds we are talking about can’t even make a historic claim on this area, they are almost all recent refugees and the few who have been there for generations want to stay a part of Syria.
And you seem to think that there would be some exemption because they got screwed in the past? How on Earth does that mean that they are right to screw people over today? Two wrongs don’t magically make a right, it just makes a new group wrong.
Well, now that you put it that way, the people who call themselves “Americans” are only a minority in the world. How DARE they run their own affairs instead of just finding out what the majority wants and doing that instead? By having “their own country” they’re forcing their will on the majority!
There are areas of land in Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran where the majority is Kurdish. They’re not trying to rule the majorities in Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. They’re trying to set up their own thing in areas where they ARE the majorities, instead of letting Winston Churchill’s cocktail napkin drawing continue to force them to be minorities in those four countries.
Many places in this world where men with guns come and terrorize then cleans the indigenous people killing them and their children and making life as difficult as possible..
The US won’t do dick to defend the Kurds. They never have and they never will. On the bright side, this may be what it takes for Assad and Rojava to finally work together again which is the only way we’ll see peace in Syria. If the Turks are given free range in the region the results will be nothing short of genocidal. Just ask Armenia. This cannot stand.
Turkey thinks its in charge and fighting for its own future, and the Americans think the Kurds are fighting for them, and the Kurds think they are fighting for themselves.
Two maps to consider; Col. Peters ‘Blood Borders’ map which sees Kurdistan take half of Turkey, and ‘Greater Israel’, which envisions Syria and a good part of Iraq as part of its geography…
“The Israeli Dream”: The Criminal Roadmap Towards “Greater Israel”? Felicity Arbuthnot, Aug. 19 2014, GlobalResearch. ca.
Put them together and with Kurdistan part of the Promised Land one could see much of the ME pacified for Israel.
But first the pre-existing Arab and Turk governments have to collapse in a war or something.
“There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest
of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts … around the globe.
Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. (US armed forces will keep) the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.
“We have entered an age of constant conflict.” – Col. Ralph Peters, U.S. Army War College Quarterly, Summer 1997.
This looks like a real mess for the US, but is it?
Clearly the Kurds fought on the side of the US because they thought they would get a homeland or at least a buffer zone and that is incovenient for the US now. So what to do?
Well suppose the US just sits back and lets Turkey wipe out the Kurds. The US can simply claim “But Turkey is NATO! We couldn’t fight them!” and let it happen. Let Turkey occupy the area instead of the Kurds. The US will still have the buffer zone it wants. The Kurds are now expendable.