IN THE FIGHT AGAINST ISIS THE KURDS, ALLIES OF THE UNITED STATES, LOST 11,000 OF THEIR SOLDIERS IN SYRIA. THERE WERE 6 AMERICAN FATALITIES.
Despite Pentagon and US Intelligence disapproval, the President of the United States ordered the withdrawal of US military troops stationed on the Syrian-Turkey border, effectively abandoning their former allies. President Trump warned Turkey not to invade the region being held by the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces. Turkey attacked the SDF within 24 hours of US military withdrawal from the region.
“I said to my Generals why should we be fighting for Syria and Assad, to protect the land of our enemy? Anyone who wants to assist Syria in protecting the Kurds is good with me, whether it is Russia, China or Napoleon Bonaparte… ‘the Kurds will now have to figure the situation out”.
‘I HOPE THEY ALL DO GREAT, WE ARE 7,000 MILES AWAY’
TRUMPS ‘FORTRESS AMERICA’ IS AN ILLUSION EVERYONE ELSE RECOGNISES – Abandoned by their US allies the Kurdish forces have now struck a deal with President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government, which is supported by Russia, to fight againstTurkey. There is evidence that the Kurdish forces are no longer able to guard the 70,000 ISIS prisoners and their families who have been seen fleeing their former detention camps. It is anticipated that they will regroup to reconstitute ISIS forces.
TURKEY HOSTS 3.58 MILLION SYRIAN REFUGEES, THE WORLD’S LARGEST REFUGEE POPULATION. Prime Minister Erdogan is intent on establishing a “safe zone” in northern Syria. This would have the dual purpose of repatriating as many as 3 million Syrian refugees from Turkey while providing a buffer zone to stop Kurdish militants from approaching the southern border of Turkey.
SO WHO ARE THE KURDS?
“The land of Karda” is mentioned on a Sumerian clay tablet dated to the 3rd millennium B.C. The Kurdish region of Iran has been a part of the Persian Empire since ancient times. Kurds are an Iranian ethnic group native to a mountainous region of Western Asia known as Kurdistan, which spans south eastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in West Asia after the Arabs, Persians, and Turks. Numerically, the Kurds are estimated to number between 30 and 45 million with an estimated 2 million dispersed Kurdish refugees. Most Kurds are either bilingual or multilingual, those in diaspora communities often speak three or more languages.They speak their native Kurdish and the language of their respective nation of origin, such as Arabic, Persian, and Turkish as a second language. Kurds practice diverse religious beliefs, the majority following Islam, other faiths include Zoroastrianism,Yarsanism, Yazidism, and Christianity.
Kurds were well integrated in the Iranian political life of various governments, the Kurdish community also thrived over the centuries as a generally peaceful and well-integrated part of Turkish society. Hostilities erupted in the 20th century with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of a new secular Turkish State, resulting in the loss of the western portion of Kurdistan. In the summer of 1917, up to 700,000 Kurds were forcibly deported by the Turks from their ancestral lands and dispersed in small pockets of exiled communities, almost half of them perished.
At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, as the victorious allies reshaped the post war Middle East, Tehran demanded restoration of all lost territories including Turkish Kurdistan. The demands were rejected by the Western powers. In 1920 the Allies made provision for a Kurdish state in the Treaty of Sevres. Three years later the Republic of Turkey was declared and the Treaty of Lausanne set the boundaries of modern Turkey, no provision was made for the promised Kurdish State, leaving Kurds with minority status in their respective countries. The Kurds have been fighting for their homeland ever since.The area has since been divided by modern Turkey, Syria and Iraq, fuelling nationalism, rebellions and conflict in those regions.
ELIMINATING CULTURAL IDENTITY
Several large scale Kurdish revolts in 1925, 1930 and 1938 were suppressed by the Turkish government. Following a military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life. There is ongoing discrimination today against Kurdish society. The words “Kurds”, “Kurdistan”, or “Kurdish” were officially banned by the Turkish government. Many people who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned.The Kurds are still not allowed a primary education in their mother tongue and they don’t have a right to self-determination, even though Turkey has signed the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The PKK, Kurdistan Workers’ Party is a Kurdish militant organization which has waged an armed struggle against the Turkish state for cultural and political rights and self-determination for the Kurds. Turkey’s military allies the US, the EU, and NATO label the PKK as a terrorist organization while the UN, Switzerland , Russia China and India have refused to add the PKK to their terrorist list with some offering support.
As world leaders and American Senators unite in condemnation of the withdrawal, the military confrontation escalates, Donald Trumps predictable solution ‘in his great and unmatched wisdom’ is to threaten to destroy the economy of Turkey. Meanwhile the world awaits the pending Impeachment of the ‘Godfather’ who is America’s President .
See also:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War#Overall_deaths