Thomas Riggins
Well here is the story: "The local civil government is modeled on principles of the Kurdish separatist leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned in Turkey: enforced equality for women in civil and military life, moderate socialism, and radical environmentalism." Abdullah Ocalan is the Kurdish Bernie Sanders. He is also the leader of the PKK and his picture hangs on the local Kurdish commander's office wall where the American generals can see it even when they say they don't see any PKK influence in Manbij. Years ago Turkey got the US to go along with them in declaring the PKK as "terrorists." Then came the Syrian civil war and the US is fighting ISIS and the PKK, under different initials, is our ally (doing most of the work). The PKK turns out to be progressive and democratic (for the area), while Turkey, our NATO ally, is on the road to fascism and dictatorship and is allied with jihadist Al Queda clones and is de facto helping ISIS which it prefers to the PKK. The PKK only exists due to the intolerable persecution and denial of human rights to the Kurdish minority in Turkey. The US, which in normal times would prefer dictatorial Turkey, is backing the democratic Kurds fighting ISIS while it figures out what to do about Putin since he is upsetting the US's real aims -- getting rid of Assad and supporting Isreal's anti Iranian foreign policy. Stay tuned,
Well here is the story: "The local civil government is modeled on principles of the Kurdish separatist leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned in Turkey: enforced equality for women in civil and military life, moderate socialism, and radical environmentalism." Abdullah Ocalan is the Kurdish Bernie Sanders. He is also the leader of the PKK and his picture hangs on the local Kurdish commander's office wall where the American generals can see it even when they say they don't see any PKK influence in Manbij. Years ago Turkey got the US to go along with them in declaring the PKK as "terrorists." Then came the Syrian civil war and the US is fighting ISIS and the PKK, under different initials, is our ally (doing most of the work). The PKK turns out to be progressive and democratic (for the area), while Turkey, our NATO ally, is on the road to fascism and dictatorship and is allied with jihadist Al Queda clones and is de facto helping ISIS which it prefers to the PKK. The PKK only exists due to the intolerable persecution and denial of human rights to the Kurdish minority in Turkey. The US, which in normal times would prefer dictatorial Turkey, is backing the democratic Kurds fighting ISIS while it figures out what to do about Putin since he is upsetting the US's real aims -- getting rid of Assad and supporting Isreal's anti Iranian foreign policy. Stay tuned,
1 comment:
The Kurds are the only faction in the Syria-Iraq struggle for whom I have any sympathy. They believe in religious freedom, and offer refuge to people of ethnicities and religions not their own. They believe in equality for women and radical democracy. Their leader, Abdullah Ocalan, is strongly influenced by the anarchist philosopher Murray Bookchin.
But to support independence for the Kurds means conflict with the governments of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. I don't think this is in the cards. I don't have a good answer to this.
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