Solidarity Gathering for Kobane

by fred Wed Oct 15, 2014 19:20

Obama meets anti-ISIS “coalition” amid rising US-Turkish tensions
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/15/aafb-o15.html

It seems there are serious tensions building between the "allies" whose goals differ markedly

a fairly limited number of US air strikes have failed to stop the drive by ISIS fighters in Syria to take the predominantly Kurdish city of Kobani on the Turkish border, and as their cohorts in Iraq have taken virtually all of the predominantly Sunni province of Anbar, while threatening the suburbs and airport of Baghdad.

Washington could not disguise the fact that the glorified photo opportunity at Andrews Air Force Base had been upstaged in the days preceding it by the open and acrimonious disagreements between the Obama administration and a key regional ally, Turkey.

Erdogan drove home the depth of the disagreements on Monday, ordering Turkish warplanes to carry out air strikes, not against ISIS in Syria, but against the PKK, whose fighters, alongside Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish militias, have been the sole ground forces to effectively challenge the advance of ISIS in either country. In Iraq, they have operated in tacit coordination with US military “advisers,” despite being on a State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Turkey claimed that the air strikes in southeastern Turkey were in retaliation for PKK attacks on Turkish military bases, which was denied by the PKK itself. The attacks, the first in nearly two years of peace negotiations between the government and the PKK, follow a week of violent clashes across Turkey that left at least 35 people dead, as Turkish Kurds, who make up close to 20 percent of the population, took to the street to protest Ankara’s blockade of the besieged city of Kobani.

The Turkish press reported this week that Turkish forces have not only blocked Kurdish fighters, arms and ammunition from reaching Kobani, but have even refused entry to wounded Kurdish fighters from the city, leaving them to bleed to death on the border.

The latest air strikes threaten to upend the peace talks between Ankara and the PKK, reigniting a civil war that claimed some 40,000 lives over the course of three decades.

by T Sun Oct 12, 2014 23:11

Looks like the Turkish government is giving support to ISIS so that they can attack the Kurds and on the other side, the Turkish Army is effectively hemming them in so that they have nowhere to go.

From WSM:

The notion that the fall of Kobanê could be prevented by the intervention of the Turkish army is a smokescreen that covers the truth that they are already intervening - on the side of ISIS. The Turkish state's selective blockade of the border, which allows arms and volunteers to cross for ISIS, but strangles them for the YPG defenders of Kobanê is the decisive intervention that is giving ISIS the upper hand.

This fundamental truth has been put forward by some minority voices in the mainstream media. Chiefly those intrepid reporters on the ground trying to cover the story. Honourable mention should be made of the BBC's Paul Adams amongst others. But these marginalised voices have been drowned out by the official media line issuing from the central editorial offices downwards, that the Kurds of Kobanê and Turkish Kurdistan are protesting "against Turkey's inactivity" or "failure to intervene". This is the world turned upside down. And Orwellian newspeak where the exact opposite of the truth is reported as accepted fact. The banners the protesters are holding say "Turkey Stop Supporting ISIS".

The first casualty of war is the truth, so they say. If Kobanê falls it will not be due to a deficit of imperialist intervention, but a surfeit of it. The mainstream media's standing orders are clear, however. All international stories about impending massacre must be reframed as a call for more Western intervention. Even when - especially when - the origins of the threat are the result of previous imperialist machinations.

The official party line carried across all media that "ISIS is the main threat" covers over the reality that ISIS is the baby of America's "partners in the region", Saudia Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and the UAE....

by fred Sun Oct 12, 2014 03:39

more details on the cynical use of ISIS by Turkey to destroy the kurds

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/10/has-obama-change...yria/

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/10/as-isis-moves-to-slaughter-kurds-in-kobani-the-u-s-bombs-syrian-grain-silos/

The unfortunate and increasingly desperate Kurds in Kobane are caught between the USA russophobes, violent ISIS lunatics and Turkey and their desire to bolster their power in the region and control future pipelines and gas supplies to the EU. Sickening stuff.

by info Sun Oct 12, 2014 00:05

From the WSM

by fred Thu Oct 09, 2014 03:31

Patrick Cockburn writes on Turkish / US shafting of the Kurds defending Kobane. Situation is dire for them

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/08/the-siege-of-kobani/

by fred Wed Oct 08, 2014 12:04

I don't believe any of those driving ISIS are interested in a supposed 72 virgins in the afterlife, no, although many gullible conscripts in their rank and file are probably fed this kind of nonsense to encourage them to fight and die. The kurds taking on these lunatics are certainly very brave people, agreed. Sorry for preaching to the converted but maybe those reading aren't aware of how the US backstabbed the kurds previously. No harm to remind people.

by Bobby Wed Oct 08, 2014 08:54

I think you might be preaching to the converted, just a little bit.. And I don't think it's the wrong location; this isn't about you or the US, it's about the Kurds, and the reason people are gathering is not to protest against ISIS and their virgins (if you actually believe this is the motivation behind ISIS, you could believe anything), but to 'bear symbolic witness to the bravery of those who fight back in Kobane'.

Solidarity with the Kurdish resistance!

by fred Wed Oct 08, 2014 02:41

perhaps you should hold this vigil outside the US embassy in Ballsbridge?

After all, they and their allies in Qatar and Saudi arabia did so much to help arm train and fund ISIS / Al Qaeda / Al Nusra / moderate jihadists (what an oxymoron! ) in Syria (or whatever it is these lunatic US proxies are supposed to be called this week)

A bunch of religious nutjobs killing themselves and everyone else and creating chaos is just so much easier to manipulate than strong secular arab states with educated intelligent leaders who value this life and their own sovereignty and natural resources more than an alleged 72 virgins in the next one, and who won't play ball with corrupt financial institutions, one sided free trade agreements and western imperialist policies. Funny how it's the more secular states in the middle east that get toppled isn't it? Libya, Iran under mossadeq, Syria, Iraq under Saddam.

But I forgot, the US dropped a few weapons consignments and food parcels so they are friends of the kurds now aren't they?
How quickly we forget how bush exhorted the kurds to rise up and depose Saddam after the first gulf war then stood back doing nothing while Saddam defended his regime and gassed the subsequent kurdish uprising with US supplied chemical weapons.

With friends like that........