I've
been writing about Syria and the Kurds for many years as I was fascinated by
these topics long before they became part of the nightly news cycle.
With that perspective I can honestly say that I've been more
or less dismissive with regard to the present commentary on the part of the
Establishment media and certainly the statements being made by the Right and
the Evangelical audience.
The Kurds have been betrayed by the US on multiple occasions
and while there was some protest in the wake of the Gulf War, for the most part
few have cared... except now the situation is in reference to Syria and the
presidency of Donald Trump.
The Kurds were betrayed by the United States in the 1970's,
again in the 1990's after the Gulf War, again in the early 2000's after the
Iraq invasion and today in Syria.
While there are subtle differences in terms of the Kurdish
factions, militias and interests, the betrayed groups are more or less the same
or at the very least overlap. There's also been a gross inconsistency on the
part of Washington's policy, a self-serving and ever mercenary strategy, guided
by no principle and embracing no ethic.
The Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) rebels in Turkish
Kurdistan were (and are) deemed to be Marxist Terrorists who were in opposition
to Kemalist Turkey, a member of NATO. The PKK took haven in Damascus until they
were forced out in 1998.
As allies of Assad, they were enemies of the Israelis and the
leader of the movement, Abdullah Öcalan was captured in Africa by a joint
CIA/MIT (Turkish Intelligence) operation in 1999. Not a few believe the Mossad
also played a part. He remains in a Turkish prison to this day.
And yet across the border in Iraq (and now in Syria) his
followers and PKK subsidiary groups are allies. In 1990's and early 2000's Iraq
they were suddenly indistinguishable from the Iraqi Kurd 'Peshmerga' and thus
were allies of the US anti-Saddam policy.
It's all a shell game and the people being fooled are the
Western public.
The People's Protection Units (or YPG) militias in Syria are
effectively a branch of the PKK. This is glossed over and downplayed by the
media but I laugh when I see footage of them. They're flying the PKK's Marxist
flag with Öcalan's face smiling down from it. To try and divorce them from the
PKK and its ideology is absurd.
Of course Turkey's near genocide of the Kurds in the 1980's
and 1990's was covered up by the Washington press corps. The only Western news
which sought to reveal it had to be found in Europe.
The Kurds have been a tool and one used and abused by
Washington for decades. I am continually amazed that they haven't turned their
guns on the United States or that they would even consider working with
Washington or the Israelis. And yet, their unenviable geography means that that
their policy is rooted in both cynicism and pragmatism. They know they're going
to be betrayed and yet they are compelled to keep trying, hoping each time the
combination will be different and indeed they are one of the few groups that
have truly benefitted from Bush's Middle East/Permanent Warfare strategy.
Trump for his part is a buffoon and as has been demonstrated
previously with regard to Syria he tends to make a move and then once rebuked
and corrected... walk it back. I once again raise the point as to who is really
in charge? The timing of his latest anti-Establishment blunder is interesting
as the Right is now starting to turn against him but I think in short order he
will reverse policy yet again.
The Turks will not stand for an independent Kurdish state on
their southern frontier. Coupled with the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq a viable
Kurdistan is starting to form. While the AKP at first reached out to Turkey's
Kurds on the basis of Islam as opposed to Kemalism's Turkic social order,
Erdogan reversed course. Once he realised NATO and Washington were maneuvering
for his removal which culminated in the 2016 attempted coup (and probably
assassination), he has moved away from Washington's orbit. He has on the one
hand moved toward Moscow but in terms of his Kurdish policy he's forging a
truly Turkish path in accord with the Neo-Ottomanism his party and movement
once advocated, a view in which Turkey asserts its own regional power and
interests and seeks to exploit the balance and polarity between East and West,
North and South. As I've argued for years, the pseudo-alliance with Moscow will
not last and given the war in Syria and the tensions between Ankara and
Damascus, the relationship is being put to the test.
Erdogan's invasion is of course obscene and yet as just
mentioned the Turks massacred tens of thousands of Kurds and ethnically
cleansed Eastern Anatolia in the 1980's and 1990's... and yet were provided
with media and diplomatic cover on the part of the West. The PKK were Marxists
after all as are the YPG units in Syria.
The difference has nothing to do with right or wrong or America's
fidelity to allies and its perception as being a faithful partner on the world
stage. This is all rot and the commentators who say such things are either
disingenuous or plain ignorant. The US regularly stabs its allies in the back
and has done so for decades. This about the present geopolitical struggle and
it's as much about the still active and expanded Neo-Conservative agenda (and its
failures) vis-à-vis Syria but more importantly, it's about Putin and Moscow.
Syria has proven to be a huge defeat and the US Establishment doesn't want to
give up the fight.
Russia is the spectre behind both the Trump impeachment and
the condemnations of his Syria policy.
As a consequence of the many twists and turns and the longevity
of the Syrian War, we're now hearing many absurd things being said from
multiple quarters. I listened to one Democratic Congressman who is pushing for
further Turkish sanctions, speaking of Ankara's facilitation of ISIS fighters
entering Syria. Now we're truly venturing through the looking glass. This
congressman is apparently or seemingly ignorant of this larger history of NATO
sponsored smuggling of Islamist fighters and weapons through Europe, eventually
reaching Syria through the Turkish border. Turkey gets the blame but they're
merely the last stop-off on the longer route. Perhaps the congressman really
doesn't know what's been happening? I do believe a lot of people in Congress
are outside the loop and yet they fall in line with the Establishment narrative
because in the end most of them are sycophants and ladder climbers... not
people of principle.
The truth is French, German and certainly American
intelligence agencies have been running these fighters and facilitating their
arrival in Syria. Additionally the US was (at least at one time) facilitating
the transfer of fighters and weapons from Libya into Syria. And some of these
elements certainly did join up with ISIS, to the point some have argued that
ISIS itself is a Western creation... a view I don't accept and believe
represents an oversimplification of the situation.
The congressman excoriated Turkey and accuses them of
treachery. In reality the bulk of the treachery and manipulation is on the part
of the United States. Turkey has been saddled with millions of refugees who
have destabilised their economy and yet Ankara has been forced to toe the NATO
line even while the US seeks to undermine them from every angle. It is for this
reason that Turkey has continued to move away from the US orbit, even daring to
purchase the S-400 missile system from Moscow. Turkey has been handed a mess as
a result of NATO's meddling in Syria and Erdogan has clearly indicated that
he's had enough and he will not endure public rebukes or further diplomatic
pressure for seeking the interests of his own country.
On one level Erdogan was happy to collaborate with his
dubious allies. It's no longer a question of ideological accord or even
alliance but of pragmatism and common interests. Turkey has wanted the Assad
regime gone for many decades and the Kurds played no small part in the
Ankara-Damascus dispute. I'm afraid the Kurds have been used by others as well
and during the Cold War they were supported by forces such as the Assad regime
in Syria that resented having NATO's frontier on their border, being sandwiched
between NATO, Israel and western allied nations such as Jordan.
During the Cold War, Ankara and Tel Aviv were often
collaborators and while the relationship has been damaged by the rise of the
AKP, the relationship lives on due to common interests, especially when it
comes to Syria. Both regimes want Assad gone and yet these issues are not
isolated as they're tied in with a larger spectrum of issues surrounding the
Caucasus, Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Has Turkey facilitated ISIS fighters? Yes. But so have
Washington, Berlin and Tel Aviv. The conflict has shifted and gone sideways
more than once. ISIS was tolerated when they were focused on Assad. When the
conflict drifted into Iraq and al-Baghdadi declared the caliphate, then things
went in a different direction. The US has seized large portions of Syria and there
are those in Washington that don't want to give it up. But at the same time the
US is trying to woo Turkey back into its orbit and if that means some Marxist
Kurd paramilitaries have to get beat up a bit, then that's what it costs. It's
a dog eat dog world.
The media coverage is sickening because the sympathy shown to
the Kurds is rejected when it comes to enemies of the US regime and the results
of its bombing campaigns. The playing up of Kurdish suffering is (I'm sorry to
say) part of the Anti-Trump campaign.
The Turkish invasion is of course an act of barbarism but the
whole Syria operation has been such an act as well... and the US is hardly off
the hook as they perhaps more than anyone else have poured fuel on the fire and
have done all they can to perpetuate the conflict. Russian involvement arrested
their plans, furthered the 'meat grinder' process of the war, and even
eventually played a part in rolling back US aspirations. Russia is blamed for this
but the consequences of a Sunni victory in Syria are dire and the 'meatgrinder'
was born not in Moscow but in the halls of Washington, in the Pentagon and in
Langley. The US has been behind this war from the very beginning with the
largely Neo-Con Clinton State Department playing the key role.
Assad, a sick and tyrannical ruler knows what a Sunni victory
will mean. His Alawite people are at risk of genocide as the US has not only
allied with Marxist Kurd paramilitaries but with Sunni extremists and elements
of al Qaeda. The many other minorities, the Druze and ethnic Christian
communities are also at great risk.
And this brings us to perhaps the greatest moment of
cynicism, the coverage on the part of the Western Christian media. They're
decrying Trump's withdrawal as a betrayal of the Christian communities in
Syria. Really? Well, it would seem we've forgotten our history. They're
thinking in terms of ISIS and its genocidal campaign against the Assyrians,
Yezidis and others. But of course the bulk of the Christians in Syria have
supported Assad from the beginning. The war itself which began in 2011 was a Sword
of Damocles hanging over the heads of the Christian community. They were in
terror of an Assad defeat and yet the West didn't listen as Assad was portrayed
as the pro-Moscow tyrant that had to be removed. Obama was blamed for the war and
rightly so but really this all harks back to Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq. That
was the seminal moment that started today's firestorm. The Evangelicals
supported the war with great fervour even though the warnings were given. The
Christian communities feared the 2011 Western fueled insurgency would lead to a
strengthening of Sunni extremism and indeed it produced ISIS. And yet today,
the truth is being turned on its head and manipulated to serve a larger
political agenda.
Bush, the Evangelical hero is really the man most responsible
for the near eradication of the ancient Orthodox communities through the
Northern Arab world and the Middle East in general. But at the moment, we have
blind Evangelical leaders who pander to the likes of Lindsey Graham and the
warmongers within the GOP. Like the good whores they are, they jump on the
radio and television and decry Trump's withdrawal as a betrayal, as a loss of
the mandate of heaven.
Because what we as Christians supposedly want is endless war
and the full subjugation of the Middle East. This reality serves the interests
of US imperialism and the heretical aspirations of Christian Zionism and its
Judaizing cultus.
Was Trump's decision prudent? I don't know and in some
respects don't care. It's all immoral. It's all obscene but the ethical cast of
the commentary is equally so and rooted in a deep, pervasive and manipulative
series of lies and historical revisions.
The Christian communities in Syria support Assad. They don't
support the US backed Kurds and the regime change operation. But they also
don't support Turkey, even though Turkey is generally speaking not hostile to
them. However Turkey is hostile to Assad, a regime the Christian communities
want to see retained.
With regard to the present invasion, Erdogan has effectively
abandoned the Assad overthrow. He's not going to risk battlefield confrontation
with Russia and Iran over Assad, especially given the fact that the war is
about to enter its ninth year. He is however going stop the formation of
Kurdistan on his southern border. His actions though immoral make sense. There
is no morality when it comes to war. Those that pretend so are trying to sell
you something. He will secure the frontier and either hold the territory or
withdraw. If he holds the territory the Christian communities are safe. If he
withdraws, the Assad regime can re-exert its influence and as long as the
Americans and Israelis leave the situation alone, there's no reason to look for
an ISIS resurgence. If they do reappear it's probably going to be in the growing
chaos of neighbouring Iraq. Either way, the argument that the Christian
communities are in danger as a result of the US withdrawal rings false.
And finally there's another great irony in all this. As
repeatedly mentioned the PKK/YPG paramilitaries are Marxists. This is in part
why you also see so many women fighters among them. This is an egalitarian
secular ideology very much in opposition to standard Islamic dictates and
ethics. These groups are 'Worker' militias which played a part in the
propaganda campaign waged against them during the Cold War. The PKK was known
to be very violent in their campaign against Ankara and it was cast as a
Leftist or Marxist insurgency and thus part of the West's greater conflict with
Communism.
Now they're portrayed as allies and heroes in the fight
against ISIS and Assad.
If the Colombian based FARC suddenly switched sides and took
up arms against the Maduro regime in Venezuela, would the US support them? Of
course they would and with great gusto. And yet because they've been opposed to
Right-wing American allied governments in Bogota they are regularly demonised
and yet ideologically they're not all that different from the PKK and YPG
militias in Kurdistan. Do you see the irony?
The Marxist card is trumpeted when it comes to the one
militia and ignored when it comes to the other. In reality Marxism is in both
cases functioning as a vehicle for frustrations and in some cases
anti-Imperialism. How 'Marxist' these groups really are can be debated and yet
you would think given the present Red Scare in the United States the Right
wouldn't want to openly advocate that US foreign policy allies itself with
Marxist militias. As is so often the case, the truth is stranger than fiction.
There are no ethics in war. I will continue to say it until
I'm blue in the face. Henry Kissinger is a scoundrel and yet his Realpolitik
was in the end a cynical reflection of reality and the inherent immorality of
political conflict. Those who pretend that ethics guide their struggles for
power are ultimately self-deceived. They will sell out friends, betray both
allies and ideology in the quest for power. They will 'flip' and ally with
enemies when convenient and they will lie, lie, lie.
The Syrian Conflict has displayed all these elements and
continues to do so. American Evangelical leaders are part of it, serving their
faction in order to score political points and keep in the game.
But consider the big picture.
If the US withdraws there's actually a hope that the now
almost nine year old war might end. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of
dead civilians, the losers will be the Kurds. Because the only solution to the
conflict is this....status quo ante
bellum. And if that's the case, then Rojava, the Kurdish autonomous enclave
will disappear.
Of course there's always revenge and retributions. In that
sense there's never really a return to status quo.
If the US withdraws, Turkey will eventually withdraw as well,
as well Russia and Iran. The war will end which is precisely what the US
Establishment doesn't want and so the Evangelical harlots continue to play the
role of cheerleader because in their sick, twisted and anti-Biblical ways of
thinking, war is something to champion and celebrate. Their real god is power
and they've hitched their wagon to the US Empire and woe be to any politician
who hesitates to perpetuate it. Even a would-be messiah can quickly be
transformed into an antichrist.
If the Assad regime returned to its pre-war status, it would
run a strong enough state in which ISIS would not rise again and never would
have in the first place. Its rise was not facilitated by Assad's laxity but by
the West and the instability it generated in neighbouring Iraq and by means of
direct support of the instability in the wake of the Arab Spring and the US
spin and manipulation of those events.
Again Trump is a buffoon, corrupt and evil and he will
probably walk back his Syria stance as he did before. He too is subject to
powerful forces which even now have placed him between the hammer and the
anvil. He needs domestic political allies and given the pressure he's under
they have a lot of leverage. The big question will be.... what will Erdogan do
when he suddenly is threatened by a course-reversed Washington? Will he
withdraw or thumb his nose at them? And if so, how will Trump and the US
Establishment respond?
They've been trying to oust Erdogan since 2002 and there are
many bruised egos in Washington that would like to finish that conflict and
settle some scores. It's no accident that the US harbours his domestic nemesis
in the person of Fethullah Gülen who still resides in Eastern Pennsylvania.
My fear is that Trump may 'wag the dog' and like Nixon,
Clinton and other embattled presidents he may use war and foreign policy as a
means of distraction. A defiant Turkey may prove an easy target and he'll
certainly have a lot of domestic support if he decides to move against Erdogan.
But it's a dangerous game and today's situation is far more volatile than a US
trying to withdraw from Vietnam in the early 1970's or a 1990's unipolar US
dropping bombs on sundry weak countries.
Trump's withdrawal of support for the Kurds and the Turkish
invasion will lead to deaths and already has. But a US withdrawal from Syria is
the only thing that might end the war. The society has to stabilise and because
no real 'settlement' is possible the quickest return to pre-war status is the
only hope. Otherwise as we've seen in other utterly destroyed societies... the
monsters arise. Syria has already been through one round of that. Let's hope
there isn't another.
As Christians we cannot support Donald Trump and yet neither
do we support his political rivals and enemies. What we can support is the
ending of war and even an unjust settlement that brings stability is preferable
to further bloodshed.
See also: