Brendan O'Neill, The Telegraph: The West is betraying the Kurds and allowing them to be massacred
Stabs in the back don’t get much nastier than this.
For the past year, Western leaders have feted the Kurds of Northern Iraq, praising them as one of the few forces gutsy enough to face down the death cult of Isil.
Now, those leaders turn a blind eye, or even worse give an active nod, to attacks on Northern Iraqi Kurds by the Turkish air force.
Heroes one minute; fair game for massacre the next. In the long list of Western betrayals of former allies overseas, this one feels especially grotesque.
Last Friday, following months of negotiation with Washington, Turkey launched its first-ever air strikes against Isil in Syria.
A few hours later it started dropping bombs in Northern Iraq — not on Isil, but on the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, with which Turkey has been locked in bitter conflict since 1984.
WNU Editor: Brendan O'Neil's analysis is correct .... to say that there is a moral equivalence between a barbaric group that seems to have been teleported form the Middle Ages and a Marxist guerrilla outfit that wants to create a Kurdish homeland on Iraqi, Turkish and Syrian territory is a stretch .... but such is the state of affairs for how the Kurds are now being branded. Not surprising .... the Kurds that the West continues to support (YPG, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units in Syria) .... are also now being bombed by the Turkish air force .... and they are the one military force that has been the most effective against the Islamic State. But what makes this betrayal even worse is that Turkey has been a worthless ally in NATO since the war against the Islamic State started, more so as close links between Turkey and the Islamic state continue to be uncovered .... Official: Links Between ISIS and Turkey ‘Undeniable’ (PJ Media). Bottom line .... when the Kurds won a number of seats in the Turkish parliamentary elections last month .... thereby hampering and stopping Turkish President Erdogan's agenda, people started to speculate on what will the Turkish President do next .... now we know the answer to that question.
More Commentary On The Betrayal Of The Kurds
Has the U.S. Just Sold Out the Kurds? -- Dan De Luce, Foreign Policy
Turkey-Kurdish conflict: Every regional power has betrayed the Kurds so Turkish bombing is no surprise -- Robert Fisk, The Independent
'Kurds Have No Friends But The Mountains' Trends On Social Media -- Vocativ
Some Kurds angered at Turkish attacks on PKK, accuse US of betrayal -- Rudaw
Is Turkey Really Fighting ISIL? -- Neil Quilliam and Jonathan Friedman, On Islam
4 comments:
Failing the Kurds brings back memories of 1968 Czechoslovakia and Alexander Dubcek. I am a Canadian and was 23 in 1968 and followed the news on TV. In 1995 I was at a staff Christmas party for my wife's department and met one of my wife's co-workers who was about 20/21. The young lady was born in Czechoslovakia. When she mentioned her country of birth I couldn't think of anything about that country and just said ah yes Alexander Dubcek.
She wasn't born at the time of that Spring Uprising but she burst into tears that someone outside of her home country would remember his name and the circumstances. She then talked for an hour non stop about it as if she had been there alive at the time.
https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/45699
The surprising headline would have been "U.S. Does not Betray Kurds."
You got me there Anon :)
Anonymous,
Agreed. The US has generally not dealt well with the Kurds. What I do find interesting is the US media has generally not cared much about the Kurds with the exception of a few "conservative" news sources. Why do they care now?
Perhaps they are concerned that US/Turkish cooperation may actually lead to the defeat of ISIS or lead to a significant setback for ISIS. They don't want this to happen. As such, they are trying to undermine the deal.
With that said there seems no way to ensure that Turkey honors its part of the deal to help with ISIS. As such, a group that has generally dealt kindly towards us is further harmed without any interference from us, not that we could stop Turkey, but opposition from us might make them think twice before bombing the Kurds.
Furthermore standing by while the Kurds may be slaughtered seems immoral and is an incredibly steep price to pay especially given there is no way to ensure Turkey follows through on any deal to actually confront ISIS. I emphatically do not agree with this decision by the US government.
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