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I've not got time to take up everything in this long article in detail but considering: * The uncritical relaying of a truther-like conspiracy theory peddled by a former regime judge that the ISIS assault on Kobane was fake news; * The uncritical relaying of a conspiracy theory peddled by a regime security operative, albeit in more creative detail than other versions of the theory, that self-government in Rojava was a cosy arrangement secretly worked out in early 2011. This theory and those of close PYD-regime collaboration is widespread in different versions among both Assadists and among those supportive of the Syrian rebels, including in the latter case otherwise relatively sensible people like Joseph Daher in his recent Jacobin article. But such theories ignore the fact that self-government clearly dates from the violent seizure of power by Kurdish forces in July 2012, taking advantage of the crisis precipitated by the Damascus bombing of a number of regime figures, and that subsequent administrative arrangements are post-hoc adaptations to the politico-military balance of forces that can and do break down regularly due to the incompatibility of the aims of each side, as discussed for example in the report on this academic discussion on the Rojava experience available at http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2016/08/26/rojava-at-4-examining-the-experiment-in-western-kurdistan/. BTW I think such arrangement haven't been unknown in rebel-held areas, judging by a description in Jonathan Littell's Syrian notebooks of a pharmacy in rebel-held Homs still receiving Health Ministry subsidised medicine (I'm sure most health and other arrangements between the centre and regions have collapsed or been denied in rebel held areas); also BTW Daher's conspiracy theory of recent close collaboration that would lead to a pay-off to the PYD-led movement was rather contradicted by the recent complete rejection of any federalism by the regime (Daher was particularly silly in seeing the dropping of the Kurdish word Rojava from the name of the Northern Syrian Federation as proof of his theory, nonsensical given that it was part of a stronger declaration of independence from the regime and of a democratic alternative for all of Syria); * The uncritical relaying of the views of the increasingly military-authoritarian Turkish state and the billionaire ganster-run northern Iraq quasi-state that they're innocent injured parties who've just had to form a tight blockage around Rojava because the regime there is so very bad; * Regarding "ethnic cleansing" claims, the heavy use of satellite photos which haven't been shown to prove anything except that buildings are destroyed in war; the article claims that there's "lots and lots" of example where the destruction post-dated fighting, but in the example it gives, the dates between the photos includes periods of fighting; it should be noted more often that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rejected these claims in 2015 http://www.voanews.com/a/suspicion-grows-between-syrian-rebels-and-kurds/2852276.html as did a team from the Syrian National Coalition http://aranews.net/2015/06/kurds-liberated-tel-abyad-no-displacement-against-arabs-syrian-opposition-figure/, and that a Human Rights Watch report had some negative things to say about the Rojava regime in 2014 which may or may not have some validity but didn't mention ethnic cleansing https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/06/18/syria-abuses-kurdish-run-enclaves; * On ethnic cleansing and other issues, the author claims PYD figures just brushed him off; he doesn't mention the PYD's detailed rebuttal of the Amnesty International report on this, which surely he was referred to and which he should have studied and cited in any case (I reckon from the way he discusses the satellite photo issue probably saw it but dubiously declines to cite it); * The highly dubious assumptions about the motivations and views of Kurdish and other refugees from the region; people of varied views flee war, as shown by the somewhat surprising result in the often cited survey of Syrian refugees that 40% supported the Assad regime https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria/2016-09-14/what-syrians-want; the claim that the main reason people are fleeing Rojava is conscription and opposition to the system there is completely undercut by the eye-witness reports of masses of people returning when fighting eases http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/tens-thousands-return-home-destroyed-kobane-497530897 . Considering that, while I wouldn't discount authoritarian tendencies or abuses by the PYD movement, if there's credible evidence of such, but I'd say this report is only damning of the journalist's lack of balance, objectivity and knowledge of the issues. By the rather sensationalist style and dubious and unbalanced use of evidence I'd say he was determined to justify his grant by finding a sensational story that bravely contradicted received wisdom, so that's what he found. On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 9:02 PM, Michael Karadjis via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > This report sounds pretty damning. Not sure how much I trust all the > allegations of PYD-Iran collaboration, or especially of PYD-ISIS > collaboration; and the claim that thousands of Kurds take refuge in Turkey > to evade YPG conscription, rather than to avoid war, seems far-fetched (and > in any case, not backed up in this article at least); but the large-scale > abuses seem fairly well-documented. > > Have the Syrian Kurds Committed War Crimes? > This special report, which also exposes their collusion with the Assad > regime, undermines their claim to be leading a democratic, open society. > By Roy Gutman > https://www.thenation.com/article/have-the-syrian-kurds-comm > itted-war-crimes/ > Yesterday 3:39 pm > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
