******************** 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. *****************************************************************
On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 7:22 PM, Chris Slee via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > To put this in context, since 2012 there has been a 3-way conflict in > Aleppo between the Assad regime, Turkish backed rebel groups and the > YPG/YPJ - the latter being based in the predominantly Kurdish district of > Sheikh Maqsoud. There is a long history of attacks by reactionary rebel > groups on Sheikh Maqsoud. According to the Kurdish Question website, such > attacks began in 2012 and have continued intermittently since then: > http://kurdishquestion.com/article/3132-138-civilians- > killed-912-wounded-in-sheikh-maqsoud-attacks > > Amnesty International has condemned the rebel attacks on Sheikh Maqsoud: > https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/syria- > armed-opposition-groups-committing-war-crimes-in-aleppo-city/ > > I am not familiar with all the details of the battle for Aleppo. But if > the YPG's efforts to break the siege of Sheikh Maqsoud had the side effect > of helping the Assad regime defeat the rebels in eastern Aleppo, a large > part of the responsibility lies with reactionary elements of the rebel > movement. > > Chris Slee > The Amnesty report, citing evidence of a starvation siege-like operation by rebel groups against Sheikh Maqsod and indiscriminate rocket attacks on civilians including use of chorine gas, is strong evidence of the defensive nature of the YPG/J and allies operations in Aleppo. Of course we need to be critical of all the claims about abuses in Syria, but this report, unlike the previous Amnesty report claiming "ethnic cleansing" by the YPG uncritically cited by Michael among others, uses eyewitness accounts and video evidence more than satellite photos and has not been rejected by an investigation team from the SNC and by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. There seems to be a pattern among those supportive of the Syrian rebels who have become cool towards or never warmed to the PYD-led movement, to justify rebel opposition to this movement by grasping at any evidence, however dubious, of its nefarious, chauvinist, sectarian, pro-Assad and/or Stalinist nature. There have been the claims circulating for a couple of years, made by Assad and various cronies, that they had been arming the YPG/J, and had "documents" to "prove" it. These claims as reported in the crony Syrian regime media were happily taken up by the crony Turkish regime media http://aa.com.tr/en/todays-headlines/syrias-assad-admits-sending-weapons-to-pyd/487871 and were repeated on this list, by Louis if I recall correctly, and no doubt elsewhere, as "proof" of Assad arming the PYD-led movement. Somehow the "documents" have never surfaced. I guess running a dictatorship at war is a busy job and Assad and colleagues might just keep forgetting to click the "attach" icon on their media release emails, but perhaps we should entertain the possibility that Assad is capable of lying to suit his ends and the state media of the increasingly militarist and authoritarian Turkish state is capable of spreading fake news? Then there was the smudgy photos and brief smudgy videos on Assadist and Russian sites claiming to show YPG and regime flags together in the battle for Aleppo. Possibly these are legitimate; possibly they're the result of a few minutes work with Photoshop and After Effects. The fact that in this key example https://southfront.org/syrian-army-kurdish-ypg-wave-flags-alongside-each-other-in-aleppo-city-continue-joint-actions-photo/ the image of flags together is long shot and smudgily ow res, while there's also a number of hi-res close-ups of SAA troops, *alone*, suggests the latter possibility is the correct one. The dubious nature of all this didn't stop Assadists and pro-rebels alike spreading this "news" across social media, in a number of cases I saw without apparently bothering to even look at the "evidence". Then there are the claims that the deal is in and there's a secret pay-off for autonomy in Rojava in return for services rendered. If the PYD leadership was in fact anything like the billionaire gangsters running the Kurdish statelet in northern Iraq this would be credible, and probably not at all hard for the PYD to arrange. This narrative was recetly retold by Joseph Daher https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/eastern-aleppo-syria-assad-war-russia-us-ypg-fsa/ with the totally illogical claim that the dropping of the Kurdish word Rojava from the Domocratic Federation of Northern Syria was some kind of proof of this deal. Of course what's happened since flatly contradicts the narrative. The regime has continued to reject any idea of autonomy or of changing the institutionally Arab-chauvinist nature of the state, and the PYD-led movement has doubled down on its hostility to the regime, and its insistence its fighting for a democratic, non-sectarian, federal but united Syria, and that it has has no illusions in imperialist or sub-imperialist forces being anything more than temporary, partial and ultimately unreliable allies. As Syrian Democratic Council chair Ehmed put it on March 1: "With the invasion, Turkey started to build outposts. These outposts and the invasion are a danger for Syria as a whole. These outposts are built while the Regime and Iran watch, with the approval of Russia... they want to divvy up Syria. What the regime has now will stay with the regime. The areas Turkey invaded will stay with Turkey. This policy of allocation will pave the way for the fragmentation of Syria. These people are trying to push Syria to fragmentation. That is not an acceptable situation. We as the Syrian Democratic Council will stand against this. We will try to raise awareness on this danger and we will try to organize them. We will strive to keep the unity of Syria. We are fighting and we will fight for a democratic Syria, not a fragmented Syria with each country claiming a part of it. If the Regime is involved in these negotiations, that is not right, and we don’t accept that. If Russia is involved, it’s not right and we don’t accept that. If the US and Turkey are involved, that is not right and we don’t accept that.” http://www.kurdishinfo.com/msd-co-chair-ehmed-true-opposition-syria Then there was the ridiculous and lurid Nation article by Roy Gutman https://www.thenation.com/article/have-the-syrian-kurds-committed-war-crimes/. Michael endorsed this, albeit with mild criticisms of some of its more absurd claims, such as that the battle for Kobane was fake news, and that the violent seizure of power by Kurdish forces in Rogava in 2012, taking advantage of a crisis precipitated by a rebel bombing in Damascus that took out key regime figures, was all part of a regime operation masterminded since 2011 by a fiendish Iranian operative. Michael might have also mentioned the bizarre extended story of the burning of a cow, or the complete failure to support the claim that satellite photos show large scale destruction of property in largely Arab villages occurred when no fighting took place (the one example given shows the opposite). Gutman also falsified a number of quotes, as at least two quotees complained about. The "War Nerd" John Dolan details these and the article's other lies and distortions and Gutman's mercenary neocon agenda here http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-a-response-to-neocon-hit-man-roy-gutman/, along with some interesting reflections on irregular war and the use of sensationalist headlines in social media. I don't agree with Dolan's apparent evil-but-lesser-evil view of Assad (I haven't read much of him so I'm not clear). But he does nail Gutman and the view that the view that the utter incompatibility of the aims of the Assad regime of the PYD-led movement, quite conscious on both sides, means there's no possibility for anything but the most immediate, partial, tactical agreements, that frequently break down in fighting. "Actually, Assad’s 'Regime' hates the YPG/J. Assad’s defenders on social media never fail to sneer at the YPG/J’s good reputation, and call people like me 'Rojava-heads' while vowing to reconquer every inch of Syria. That vow is addressed to Syria’s Kurds, and is an existential threat (as they say) to Rojava. Any collusion between Assad and the YPG/J was a classic alliance of convenience, as local observers have always realized". One thing that's annoyed me about discussion of Syrian including on this list is the immediate rejection of any information that comes from a source viewed as suspect. But when a whole range of forces have strong interests in distorting the nature of the PYD-led movements contradictory but ultimately hostile relations with with the regime - the regime itself, the Turkish state, the Russian state, the Iranian state, the Gulf states, much of the rebels, all from their different points of view have interests in this, and most of them have also in spreading tales of abuses as well - we shouldn't be surprised when dubious stories get repeatedly circulated, and we should be a bit more critical before accepting them. _________________________________________________________ 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
