Cyprus-Forum.com

[Paphitis]

Erdoğan and his AKP regime are Islamists; their main goal is the forcible Islamisation of the secular Republic of Turkey. The difference from DAESH is one of tactics and speed. DAESH force people to return to the Middle Ages overnight, the AKP are prepared to do it step by step over 50 years. However, since they have the same ultimate goal, AKP supports DAESH, but at the same time, its place within the Western alliance means that the Turkish regime has to give lip service to being in the anti-DAESH alliance. There is a wider Turkish-Qatari-Saudi plan to see Islamist regimes installed in Syria and Iraq to act as a bulwark against Iranian influence in the region - secular, socialist Rojava stands in the way of this plan. For both of the above reasons, Erdoğan and his AKP regime are happy to sit back and watch genocide take place on their own doorstep.

What I do not understand uis why aren't the Kemalists planning a Coup? I would have thought that a Coup attempt would have occured by now.

[Tim Drayton]

While Erdoğan and his regime stand by and watch as genocide beckons on their borders and they unleash armed goons to fire live ammunition into anti-genocide protests in their own country, not everyone in Turkey in Turkey is standing idly by. It is reported that 29-year-old Bosphorous University student Suphi Nejat Ağırnaslı died on 7 October while fighting in the ranks of the YPG to defend Kobane from genocide.

The young man’s father, Hikmet Cur, commented, “I have lost my son, my comrade, Nejat in Kobane. With other glittering lives ahead of him, he chose revolutionary solidarity. He kept his word. He did not let me down. He gave me the gift of being part of me. All pain is great. There will not be another like him. I bow down before him with respect.”

http://www.birgun.net/news/view/bogazic ... tirdi/7104

[Jerry]

In a battle between the Iraqi military and DAESH in Iraq's Anbar province, 115 DAESH vermin were killed.
A group called the Raqqa Revolutionaries has joined in the defence of Kobane, and killed a further 25 of the vermin there, thus helping to hold them back from entering the town and committing genocide.

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/duny ... ruldu.html

I take it that the use of the word vermin is yours Tim rather than Cumhuriyet's.

The US is keeping Turkey in NATO for one reason only, its location. Surely at some stage, because of Islamification and its uncooperative attitude, it will see that country as a lost cause, kick it out of the alliance and give up Incirlik. Your thoughts?

[Tim Drayton]

Erdoğan and his AKP regime are Islamists; their main goal is the forcible Islamisation of the secular Republic of Turkey. The difference from DAESH is one of tactics and speed. DAESH force people to return to the Middle Ages overnight, the AKP are prepared to do it step by step over 50 years. However, since they have the same ultimate goal, AKP supports DAESH, but at the same time, its place within the Western alliance means that the Turkish regime has to give lip service to being in the anti-DAESH alliance. There is a wider Turkish-Qatari-Saudi plan to see Islamist regimes installed in Syria and Iraq to act as a bulwark against Iranian influence in the region - secular, socialist Rojava stands in the way of this plan. For both of the above reasons, Erdoğan and his AKP regime are happy to sit back and watch genocide take place on their own doorstep.

What I do not understand uis why aren't the Kemalists planning a Coup? I would have thought that a Coup attempt would have occured by now.

I don't think that coups are on the agenda any more, after the defeat of Ergenekon, and I think it is true to say that coups in Turkey only ever succeeded when America wanted them to. I am sure Western intelligence is well aware of the above - in fact, there was a scandal not long ago when it emerged that German intelligence had started to "listen" to Turkey again, the Germans justifying this on the grounds that Turkey was an unreliable ally in Syria. Joe Biden let the cat out of the bag a week or so ago when he said in a lecture that Erdoğan was partly to blame for the emergence of DAESH, but had to apologise later in the day. I am sure they could arrange for Erdoğan to have an "accident" if they really wanted him out of the way. The fact that this doesn't happen shows that his usefulness to them still outweighs the disadvantages. And that is if we assume that the US is really committed to the defence of Kobani in progressive, secular Rojova.

[Tim Drayton]

In a battle between the Iraqi military and DAESH in Iraq's Anbar province, 115 DAESH vermin were killed.
A group called the Raqqa Revolutionaries has joined in the defence of Kobane, and killed a further 25 of the vermin there, thus helping to hold them back from entering the town and committing genocide.

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/duny ... ruldu.html

I take it that the use of the word vermin is yours Tim rather than Cumhuriyet's.

The US is keeping Turkey in NATO for one reason only, its location. Surely at some stage, because of Islamification and its uncooperative attitude, it will see that country as a lost cause, kick it out of the alliance and give up Incirlik. Your thoughts?

I have no compunction whatsoever about calling members of this genocidal band 'vermin' (yes, my words), in fact my apologies to rats, bedbugs, lice, ticks, cockroaches etc. for suggesting that they have anything to do with DAESH.

As to the second question, well, I don't consider Erdoğan and his bunch of crooks to be synonymous with Turkey in the first place, so I approach this from within a very different paradigm.

[Tim Drayton]

One interpretation of what Rojava is about.

Rojava borders much of southern Turkey and all of North Kurdistan. The revolution has created three self-managed cantons which have federated and which have the legal right to federate with other regions. Each canton has governing councils and assemblies. A Social Agreement unites the cantons into a federal system and provides that “The development of production and the aim of economic activity are to meet human needs and establish an honorable life…The ownership of the national means of production shall be established; the rights of citizens, workers and the environment shall be protected; and national sovereignty consolidated.” The leading party in Rojava is the Democratic Union Party, a PKK ally. About four million people live in Rojava, with three languages and seven national groups recognized.

Rojava is taking an independent path as the civil war in Syria continues. Rojava got an early boost when Bashar al-Assad signaled that government forces would not attack the region. The primary enemies of the revolution are the Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria. The Turkish government has backed Islamist forces against Rojava and fighting is bloody and costly. The revolution has sometimes cooperated with the Free Syrian Army in its own defense but also acted to protect the Kurdish community in Aleppo. The cantons have the People’s Defense Forces and the Women’s Defense Units to defend them. Women have two combat battalions and a military training institute.

The leadership of the KRG has sought to isolate the revolution by building fences and digging trenches at its borders, by siding with Erdogan in Turkey and by working for a centralized Kurdish state under their leadership. Refugees flee to Rojava while people from there also seek to flee the fighting, creating a chaotic situation and a burden on the revolution. The KRG’s stance is inhumane.

The revolution has developed an extraordinary system of advancing women and young people through autonomous organizations. The Union of Free Women has led in these efforts. The People’s Council and the Union in one of the canton’s recently hosted a 22-day training academy entitled “Towards building a democratic assemblies vanguard of women." This was the 15th such academy held in Rojava. In developing an economic plan for Rojava people have often adopted cooperative models and have created an officially recognized microeconomy to enable women’s economic advancement. Rojava also recently hosted a conference on democratizing Islam. Special efforts at bringing the Arab minority into the revolution have met with mixed success.

KRG = The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq

http://oregonsocialistrenewal.blogspot. ... mment-form

[Tim Drayton]

Interesting analysis from last Tuesday’s Guardian, although Mark Twain’s comment, ‘The report of my death was an exaggeration’ comes to mind when I keep hearing that Kobane is on the verge of falling. Despite all the odds, this plucky town is still fighting.

Why did the US help the Kurds in Iraq but leave Isis to massacre them in Syria?

Observing fighters for the Islamic State (Isis) march closer and closer toward the key Syrian town of Kobani over the past week has felt like watching a bitterly suspenseful action movie unfold. Unlike other central Syrian towns that have been pounded to the ground mostly out of sight, Kobani’s looming collapse sits in full view of anyone paying attention – journalists, refugees and Turkish military tanks planted over the border, just a couple of miles away. That very border, carelessly drawn a century ago, now determines life or death for the thousands of people on either side. Every day, Isis marches closer to the heart of Kobani, and every day, Kurds across the region grow more exasperated that everyone seems to know what scene comes next – “a terrible slaughter”, with “5,000 dead within 24 or 36 hours”.

With Kobani in hand, Isis will control a strategic stretch of territory linking its self-proclaimed capital in Raqqa to its positions in Aleppo along the border with Turkey, a Nato country. And yet no one seems to be lifting a finger to stop it.

A tweet last week suggested a flashback to another scene from a summer blockbuster, on a desperate Iraqi mountain top: “The Kurds of Kobani should urgently convert to Yazidism. Maybe then they’ll get some help.” The remark was facetious, but it got to the question that weighs heavy on many Syrian Kurds today. Why did the United States rush to protect Kurds in Iraq – when Isis fighters started advancing toward Irbil and embarking on a genocidal rampage against the Kurdish-speaking religious minority Yazidis – but do little to save Syrian Kurds in Kobani from the same threat?

The divergent US policy toward Kurds in Iraq and Syria is reflective of Washington’s general mistaken tendency to presume distinctions between the two countries that do not actually exist. According to US officials quoted this week in the Wall Street Journal, for instance, US airstrikes in Iraq are designed to help Iraqi forces beat back Isis, whereas in Syria, “We’re not trying to take ground away from them. We’re trying to take capability away from them.” A policy that decisively targets Isis in Iraq but half-heartedly in Syria is doomed to fail. It will, at best, only briefly postpone the immediate threat Isis poses to American interests in the region. And the new air strikes aren’t even really working.

A key difference between the new US war strategy in Kurdish-majority parts of the region was Washington’s decision to bolster its Kurdish partners on the ground in Iraq but not in Syria. In Iraq, the US not only carried out air strikes but also armed the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga and sent military “advisors”. As a result, the peshmerga were able to provide ground intelligence to guide US air strikes, and, in conjunction with Kurdish fighters from Turkey and Syria, they followed up on the ground to retake important territories lost to Isis.

In Syria, the US has been more hesitant to develop such a bold Kurdish partnership. At first glance, the Kurdish fighting force in Syria – the People’s Defence Units (YPG), linked to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which the US designates as a terrorist group due to its decades-long war with Turkey – is a less natural partner than the widely recognized Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. Yet it was YPG and PKK forces that provided the decisive support on the ground to the Iraqi Kurds, allowing KRG peshmerga to regain territory lost to Isis in Iraq. The US in great part owes the limited success of its airstrikes in north Iraq to the PKK and YPG.

The lesson the US should learn from its experience in north Iraq is that you can’t win a war in the air alone. Iraq showed that air strikes against Isis can work – but only when combined with efforts to arm and advise a reliable local force capable of following up to actually retake and hold territory on the ground. The YPG is that force in Syria, and any air strikes without the kind of support sent to the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga will be futile. US collaboration with the YPG will be tricky, as tensions between the PKK and Turkey, a US ally, have recently intensified. The PKK, angered by what it perceives to be Turkey’s efforts to back Isis, threatened to end a fledgling peace process if Isis takes Kobani (also known as Ayn al-Arab). The existing peace process is not only Turkey’s best chance at peace, but also the Obama administration’s best cover for collaboration with the YPG. The US should urgently act to save both Kobani and the peace process, by offering extensive support to the YPG in Syria on the condition that the PKK reaffirms its commitment to the peace process with Turkey.

The repercussions of the fall of Kobani – and it is falling – will be felt far beyond Syrian borders. The genocidal group will have free rein to carry out a staggering massacre within walking distance of Turkish military positions. Kurds across the region will lose faith in Turkey and the Western powers that desperately need them to step in.

It was an avoidable tragedy: Kurds in both countries represent the only secular local forces backed by strong community support with the capability and willingness to take on Isis. Strikes that successfully prevent Isis from gaining more territory in Iraq combined with strikes that do not do the same in Syria will not incapacitate the group. That bifurcated strategy will only push the curse of Isis curse further into Syria – and onto the Syrian people, one nightmare scene at a time.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ria-kobani

[Paphitis]

Erdoğan and his AKP regime are Islamists; their main goal is the forcible Islamisation of the secular Republic of Turkey. The difference from DAESH is one of tactics and speed. DAESH force people to return to the Middle Ages overnight, the AKP are prepared to do it step by step over 50 years. However, since they have the same ultimate goal, AKP supports DAESH, but at the same time, its place within the Western alliance means that the Turkish regime has to give lip service to being in the anti-DAESH alliance. There is a wider Turkish-Qatari-Saudi plan to see Islamist regimes installed in Syria and Iraq to act as a bulwark against Iranian influence in the region - secular, socialist Rojava stands in the way of this plan. For both of the above reasons, Erdoğan and his AKP regime are happy to sit back and watch genocide take place on their own doorstep.

What I do not understand uis why aren't the Kemalists planning a Coup? I would have thought that a Coup attempt would have occured by now.

I don't think that coups are on the agenda any more, after the defeat of Ergenekon, and I think it is true to say that coups in Turkey only ever succeeded when America wanted them to. I am sure Western intelligence is well aware of the above - in fact, there was a scandal not long ago when it emerged that German intelligence had started to "listen" to Turkey again, the Germans justifying this on the grounds that Turkey was an unreliable ally in Syria. Joe Biden let the cat out of the bag a week or so ago when he said in a lecture that Erdoğan was partly to blame for the emergence of DAESH, but had to apologise later in the day. I am sure they could arrange for Erdoğan to have an "accident" if they really wanted him out of the way. The fact that this doesn't happen shows that his usefulness to them still outweighs the disadvantages. And that is if we assume that the US is really committed to the defence of Kobani in progressive, secular Rojova.

When I was in North Anerica recently I was curious to see the skewed reporting that is so famous on Fox News. They had a Republican Neoconservative you was very blunt about his criticism of Turkey. He too blamed Turkey for the emergence of DAESH and even went as far as saying that Turkey practically funded them. Joe Biden is a slave to his boss and the Democrats. The Republicans are calling the spade a spade for the moment.

[Tim Drayton]

Erdoğan and his AKP regime are Islamists; their main goal is the forcible Islamisation of the secular Republic of Turkey. The difference from DAESH is one of tactics and speed. DAESH force people to return to the Middle Ages overnight, the AKP are prepared to do it step by step over 50 years. However, since they have the same ultimate goal, AKP supports DAESH, but at the same time, its place within the Western alliance means that the Turkish regime has to give lip service to being in the anti-DAESH alliance. There is a wider Turkish-Qatari-Saudi plan to see Islamist regimes installed in Syria and Iraq to act as a bulwark against Iranian influence in the region - secular, socialist Rojava stands in the way of this plan. For both of the above reasons, Erdoğan and his AKP regime are happy to sit back and watch genocide take place on their own doorstep.

What I do not understand uis why aren't the Kemalists planning a Coup? I would have thought that a Coup attempt would have occured by now.

I don't think that coups are on the agenda any more, after the defeat of Ergenekon, and I think it is true to say that coups in Turkey only ever succeeded when America wanted them to. I am sure Western intelligence is well aware of the above - in fact, there was a scandal not long ago when it emerged that German intelligence had started to "listen" to Turkey again, the Germans justifying this on the grounds that Turkey was an unreliable ally in Syria. Joe Biden let the cat out of the bag a week or so ago when he said in a lecture that Erdoğan was partly to blame for the emergence of DAESH, but had to apologise later in the day. I am sure they could arrange for Erdoğan to have an "accident" if they really wanted him out of the way. The fact that this doesn't happen shows that his usefulness to them still outweighs the disadvantages. And that is if we assume that the US is really committed to the defence of Kobani in progressive, secular Rojova.

When I was in North Anerica recently I was curious to see the skewed reporting that is so famous on Fox News. They had a Republican Neoconservative you was very blunt about his criticism of Turkey. He too blamed Turkey for the emergence of DAESH and even went as far as saying that Turkey practically funded them. Joe Biden is a slave to his boss and the Democrats. The Republicans are calling the spade a spade for the moment.

The stop press news is that Denmark is threatening to freeze relations with Turkey because the regime there has released an Islamist maniac who attempted to assassinate the prime-minister of Denmark and whose extradition was requested by the latter country. For all we know, he has already fled to Syria and is beheading people.

[Tim Drayton]

[...]

As to the second question, well, I don't consider Erdoğan and his bunch of crooks to be synonymous with Turkey in the first place, so I approach this from within a very different paradigm.

As an exhibit in support of the above claim, I submit the following:



This joint declaration was issued by the student societies of Marmara University on the occasion of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s participation at the ceremony to mark the opening of the academic year at the university. Students were barred from entering the university premises at the time.

The text reads “UNWELCOME TO OUR UNIVERSITY, TAYYİP!
Dictator, you were right not to admit us to the school, to fear us, because we will hold you to account for our slaughtered brothers in June, for our workers killed in workplace murder in Soma and for our peoples who have undergone slaughter in the Middle East. Because we will tear off and discard the garb of reaction that the attempt is made to cloak youth in. Even if we were prevented from entering the school today, the time draws nigh when we will hold you to account for the murderers and the reaction they foster. Because throughout history, people have never bowed their heads to dictators, barbarians and gangs, nor will they ever do so. We, the students of Marmara University, do not want the apology for a dictator Tayyip Erdoğan at our school.”