Syria in 2017 (January-April)

[Azor]

Yes, the Kurds are disunited. So too are the “Arabs” or Arabized Levantines.

…the PKK is scoring big points in the West by emphasising its secular side, which Turks actually have as well (which is a much-ignored fact).

On the contrary, Turkey’s secular traditions are why it was regarded curiously as a “model Muslim democracy” following the end of military rule and its dalliance with the European Union. Quietly the West is looking for a replacement, and perhaps Tunisia will qualify after a few more years.

But, 20 years later Turkish democratically-elected Islamist government is 'not OK' when it fights the PKK - while this is still supported by Moscow and Damascus...

Well, Ankara has been fighting the PKK and PYD at the expense of the campaign against Daesh, which in Syria is reliant upon the YPG. Ideally, the West wants both Turkey and the PYD to focus on Daesh and the PKK to stand down.

Not exactly. Firstly, the Armenian genocide was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenian Christians. The same government was removed by Ataturk a few years later.

Interesting. Turkey is transformed from an empire into a republic and the Turkish nation and state are absolved of collective responsibility. That’s a neat trick. Someone should have told the Germans and Japanese. This sort of cognitive dissonance is more associated with Russians when confronted with the crimes committed by the Soviet Union. Nor was the genocide in the Congo Free State a Belgian crime, as Leopold II ruled it as a personal fiefdom…

Just for example, some say the Czarist Russia murdered more Jews in pogroms of the 19th Century, than Nazis did during the Holocaust (and, BTW, the Holocaust became 'possible' because so many Jews fled from Russia to Europe, due to pogroms).

Who says that? That’s a ridiculous assertion.

Most Jews had actually fled east and into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which sheltered them from oppression to the west as well as the wars of religion following the Reformation. The worst Jewish suffering in Europe prior to the Shoah was at the hands of Ukrainian Cossacks in the 17th Century, which was insignificant compared to what the Germans would mete out in the 20th.

How many native Indians were murdered in genocide and ethnic cleansing by colonists in what later became the USA remains unknown and happily avoided topic until today.

There was cleansing but not genocide. The aboriginals cleansed European settlers, the Europeans cleansed them, and the aboriginals cleansed one another. After 1789, it was primarily a one-sided affair. The estimates used for aboriginal excess deaths at the hands of the British, French, Americans and Canadians always include victims of the Spanish in contemporary Mexico and Central America, where aboriginal populations in North America were mostly concentrated.

Not to mention what various European colonial powers were doing to native people of Africa, Asia etc. over the last six centuries...Similarly, nobody can say how many Arabs were killed by Jews and various of their Western allies since the Westerners helped Jews impose their rule over the Palestinians.

Any other topics we can cover before we return to Turkey? I thought your soft spot was for Sunni Arabs, but now Turks are included. No discussion of South Asians or Africans, however.

On the contrary, the death toll of Arab and Palestinian civilians at Jewish and Israeli hands is fairly well-known. Most of the casualties inflicted by the Israelis were combatants.

…singling Turkey out makes very little sense in the World full of such stories...

The point is that the Turks – not unlike the Russians – have difficulty with their history and collective responsibility, and that the lack of reconstruction, truth and reconciliation or merely free and open debate, informs the actions of the Turkish state today.

...which is actually little surprising considering precisely those who act as if they would be in a position to teach everybody else how to deal with such history, have a history based on ethnic cleansing and mass murder

Such as who?

If you are referring to me personally, I would tell that you that I do not question your knowledge of various MENA air forces and air defense systems, and when it comes to dealing with “such history”, you should be aware that it is my sandbox.

Wrong. The experience from what happened in northern Iraq is a brilliant illustration for the fact that Turkey is very much ready to accept Kurdish-ruled areas - if these do not support the PKK.

I don’t agree. Such good relations didn’t occur in an altruistic vacuum.

Neither wanted the West to have to choose sides, and it served both sides’ purposes. The PKK exists because Turkey does not want Kurdish self-determination in Turkey, and that includes by way of regional autonomy. It was not difficult to accept a KRG in Iraq that did not involve the Turkish state losing any control, and that was a rival to the PKK. Turkey would have had to confront the both the U.S. and Europe in order to snuff out the KRG, and the KRG would have been utterly foolish to attempt to liberate Turkish Kurds.

Speaking of Turkish Kurds, when the AKP began losing ground in the polls prior to the June 2015 election, “Daesh” conveniently bombed a HDP rally just days before.

And overall, I simply do not understand why everybody's interests are OK, just Turkish interests are…'not OK'

I never claimed that Turkey’s interests were “not OK” and that the PKK’s are. I understand Kurdish separatism in Turkey and I understand the perceived need for war with Turkey. That does not mean that I support a separate Kurdish state as opposed to regional autonomy, or that I support the PKK.

Turkey has done some good, such as supporting millions of Syrian refugees and the Free Syrian Army. It has also acted immorally, by allowing Daesh recruits to flow through to Syria, by using Syrian refugees to extort Europe, by obstructing anti-Daesh operations, and by doing nothing as Daesh attacked Kurdish villages and towns along its border, such as Kobane. Erdogan has acted in part as a defender of Sunnis facing Shia oppression in Iraq and Syria, when other Sunni leaders were doing little or nothing, but he also harbors his own imperial ambitions.

You think that's absurd? I doubt you know why.

You seem to be attempting to get a rise out of me by changing topics to other hemispheres. Perhaps you are barking up the wrong tree. You do recall what happens when you assume, no? It all revolves around the “u”.

The United Front/Northern Coalition was no terrorist organization, but a movement widely supported by the local population; Taliban were a Pakistani creation financed by the Saudis; and - as 'thanks' for creating all the brawl in Afghanistan, I guess - Pakistan was then declared a 'most important non-NATO ally' by the USA... Get serious, please.

I said “Kurds” not “PKK”.

As for Pakistan, it was a case of keeping one’s adversaries close, particularly if one needed to ensure that that adversary’s nuclear weapons were secure.

…why is the USA then not supporting the Free Syrian Army...?

Because the FSA’s priority would be to defeat pro-Assad forces, involve the U.S. in regime change – albeit the Syrian state has long since collapsed – and possibly burden the U.S. with occupation and reconstruction, while Daesh is still in the field. If Iran were not Assad’s primary backer, the U.S. could orchestrate a palace coup d’état for an Alawi leader content with an Alawi rump state. If the U.S. turns on the arms spigot to the FSA, Iran will simply intervene with regular forces. Remember Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn rule…