Dresta
08-01-2015, 05:01 PM
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/once-again-the-kurds-are-betrayed/17243#.Vb0lghNViko
This US-led volte-face, in which the Kurds, so long used by the West as a bulwark against IS, have been blithely, callously cast to the Turkish wind, is typical of the blundering, moral and political incoherence of contemporary Western intervention. Once again, shallow posturing and clueless meddling combine to barbaric effect. Today’s allies are tomorrow’s enemies, and vice versa. Two years ago, Syrian president Bashar al Assad was bad guy numero uno, and the assorted army renegades and Islamists operating under the catch-all title of ‘the Syrian rebels’ were to be supported with arms and big statements. A year later, and Assad is himself fighting against the West’s current bad guy numero uno, IS, which, alongside assorted al-Qaeda franchises, were the principal recipients of Western anti-Assad largesse – as IS’s numerous US Humvees and rocket launchers testify.
The Kurdish case is even more pronounced. In late January, for instance, the People’s Protection Units and the Peshmerga from Iraqi Kurdistan helped defend the key north Syrian town of Kobane against IS. The siege lasted 134 days and resulted in the deaths of 459 Kurdish soldiers (plus 1,075 IS fighters). US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters at the time: ‘We congratulate [Kobane’s] brave defenders. We’ll continue to support [the YPG and the Kurdish Peshmerga] as we look to the coming weeks ahead. This is an important step in the first phase of a long-term campaign to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIS.’
Fast forward five months, and the US, far from supporting the YPG or the Peshmerga, is helping to bomb the Kurds in the back. Of course, the US is claiming that this is not the case. It claims it is working with Turkey to eliminate IS, and will now be able to launch air raids from the strategically convenient Incirlik airbase near the Syrian border. But in return for the use of the airbase, the US and NATO have given a tacit thumbs-up to the Turkish strikes against the PKK in northern Iraq, regardless of the fact that the PKK is affiliated with those very same Kurds the US and NATO have been supporting in Syria.’
The practical problem with America’s cosying-up to Turkey in return for a place to station fighter planes is that the Turkish state has hardly proved itself a bastion of anti-IS resistance. For too long, in fact, it seemed content to use IS against what it perceives to be the greater threat, its own Kurdish population and, especially, the PKK. Hence during the Battle of Kobane, Turkey stopped Turkish-Kurdish fighters crossing the border into Syria to help their comrades. Until IS bombed Suruc earlier this month, IS was treated as a useful enemy for Turkey. And perhaps it still is. As many critics have pointed out, the Turkish state can clamp down on Kurdish attempts to claw back greater autonomy in, if not outright independence from, Turkey under the pretext of a campaign against IS. Some have gone further still to argue that Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose own power base was weakened by his Justice and Development Party’s relatively poor performance in the recent Turkish elections, is trying to win back supporters on a wave of anti-terrorist and anti-Kurdish nationalism.
While this is speculation, one thing is certain: the West’s shallow, commitment-lite interventions show a stunning disregard for the political realities of the conflict. It is as if the Middle East is little more than a stage on which Western leaders strike poses that vary from one night to the next. But that doesn’t make the effects of Western action any less deleterious. It is continuing to screw up the region, encouraging and supporting the Kurds at the same time as it is selling their souls to the Turkish state in return for greater air power. And in doing so, an already brutalising region-wide conflict is made just that little bit nastier, and just that little bit more unpredictable. Just ask the Kurds.
And for what, some support from this tyrannical asshole?:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/29/erdogan-turkey-kurds-islamic-state/
An example of people who are truly oppressed (rather than the pseudo-oppression people on here are always whining about), and yet here the Obama administration is, happy to stab them in the back, while also cozying up to a supposed ally, who aided the growth of IS, well-known for its lying, and is openly tyrannical - nice!
This US-led volte-face, in which the Kurds, so long used by the West as a bulwark against IS, have been blithely, callously cast to the Turkish wind, is typical of the blundering, moral and political incoherence of contemporary Western intervention. Once again, shallow posturing and clueless meddling combine to barbaric effect. Today’s allies are tomorrow’s enemies, and vice versa. Two years ago, Syrian president Bashar al Assad was bad guy numero uno, and the assorted army renegades and Islamists operating under the catch-all title of ‘the Syrian rebels’ were to be supported with arms and big statements. A year later, and Assad is himself fighting against the West’s current bad guy numero uno, IS, which, alongside assorted al-Qaeda franchises, were the principal recipients of Western anti-Assad largesse – as IS’s numerous US Humvees and rocket launchers testify.
The Kurdish case is even more pronounced. In late January, for instance, the People’s Protection Units and the Peshmerga from Iraqi Kurdistan helped defend the key north Syrian town of Kobane against IS. The siege lasted 134 days and resulted in the deaths of 459 Kurdish soldiers (plus 1,075 IS fighters). US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters at the time: ‘We congratulate [Kobane’s] brave defenders. We’ll continue to support [the YPG and the Kurdish Peshmerga] as we look to the coming weeks ahead. This is an important step in the first phase of a long-term campaign to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIS.’
Fast forward five months, and the US, far from supporting the YPG or the Peshmerga, is helping to bomb the Kurds in the back. Of course, the US is claiming that this is not the case. It claims it is working with Turkey to eliminate IS, and will now be able to launch air raids from the strategically convenient Incirlik airbase near the Syrian border. But in return for the use of the airbase, the US and NATO have given a tacit thumbs-up to the Turkish strikes against the PKK in northern Iraq, regardless of the fact that the PKK is affiliated with those very same Kurds the US and NATO have been supporting in Syria.’
The practical problem with America’s cosying-up to Turkey in return for a place to station fighter planes is that the Turkish state has hardly proved itself a bastion of anti-IS resistance. For too long, in fact, it seemed content to use IS against what it perceives to be the greater threat, its own Kurdish population and, especially, the PKK. Hence during the Battle of Kobane, Turkey stopped Turkish-Kurdish fighters crossing the border into Syria to help their comrades. Until IS bombed Suruc earlier this month, IS was treated as a useful enemy for Turkey. And perhaps it still is. As many critics have pointed out, the Turkish state can clamp down on Kurdish attempts to claw back greater autonomy in, if not outright independence from, Turkey under the pretext of a campaign against IS. Some have gone further still to argue that Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose own power base was weakened by his Justice and Development Party’s relatively poor performance in the recent Turkish elections, is trying to win back supporters on a wave of anti-terrorist and anti-Kurdish nationalism.
While this is speculation, one thing is certain: the West’s shallow, commitment-lite interventions show a stunning disregard for the political realities of the conflict. It is as if the Middle East is little more than a stage on which Western leaders strike poses that vary from one night to the next. But that doesn’t make the effects of Western action any less deleterious. It is continuing to screw up the region, encouraging and supporting the Kurds at the same time as it is selling their souls to the Turkish state in return for greater air power. And in doing so, an already brutalising region-wide conflict is made just that little bit nastier, and just that little bit more unpredictable. Just ask the Kurds.
And for what, some support from this tyrannical asshole?:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/29/erdogan-turkey-kurds-islamic-state/
An example of people who are truly oppressed (rather than the pseudo-oppression people on here are always whining about), and yet here the Obama administration is, happy to stab them in the back, while also cozying up to a supposed ally, who aided the growth of IS, well-known for its lying, and is openly tyrannical - nice!