"The West is betraying the Kurds and allowing them ..." Topic

…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…

Full article here
link

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 from 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. 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.

Amicalement
Armand

I fail to see how this is a betrayal of the Kurds by the "West". Look at the dates: "locked in bitter conflict since 1984". Mostly they just "snipe" at each other. But if Turkey has started to bomb one enemy, there is no reason to expect them to not bomb others….

The PKK has been designated a terror organization by the US for quite a long time and trying to filter out which Kurdish armed groups are NOT linked to the rest is basically impossible.

Given the reasonably close ties between the various Kurdish militant organization, the chances of anyone authorizing any aid, against the wishes of an ostensible NATO ally and later being hung up on supporting terrorism/communists when an election campaign goes on is essentially zero point zero percent with a zero percent margin of error.

And unfortunately, the Turks have a lot more guns.

The Turks also remember very well how much carnage Kurdish car bombs (they seem to like attacks on beach resort vacationers) and other terrorist attacks have done to them. It is allot easier for us to overlook such things. It wasn't our kids getting peppered with shrapnel. The deal is the US gets bases closer to the action in exchange for Turkey looking out for it's own best interests. A strong Kurdistan is about as far as you can get from Turkey's best interests.

In Turkish eyes there are no Kurds, just recalcitrant "Mountain Turks". This is an old enmity and the West would be well advised to stay as far away from it as possible.
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Sadly, this is just one more stab in a long tradition of the US stabbing the Kurds in the bsack…and anyone else for that matter, when it suits our purpose.

Feeding the Kurds to the Turks in exchange for Incirlik air base will turn out to be another very bad trade. The Turks can close down Incirlik any time they please. We will never get the Kurds back as effective, reliable allies. We are running out of effective, reliable allies.

The Kurds will turn to Iran for support against Daesh and Turkey. It's happening right now, according to reports I hear. The Iranians will be cautious about arming the Kurds, since the Kurds have territorial claims on Iran, too, but they will support the Kurds against their mutual enemies. In the end the Mullahs will add another Kurdish province or two to their neo-Persian empire.

I think over the next 5 to 10 years, Turkey and Iran will divide al-Shams between them, as in times past. If that happens, what friends and what influence will the United States have in that region? Whose clients will the Gulf states and Egypt be?

The Turks also remember very well how much carnage Kurdish car bombs (they seem to like attacks on beach resort vacationers) and other terrorist attacks have done to them. It is allot easier for us to overlook such things.
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its somethinng that Brits of a certain age also remember in regard to Irish Americans and their support (or some of them) for the murderers of PIRA (and from recent reading of AOH websites they are still supporting dissident Republicans and their fellow travellers)

Agree with zippyfusenet!

Amicalement
Armand