******************** 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.
*****************************************************************
The Kurdish PYD’s alliance with Russia against Free Aleppo: Evidence and
analysis of a disaster
Above: Aleppo Free Syrian Army statement calls on “the honorable Kurds”
in Efrin “to put pressure on those gangs to withdraw from those violated
towns.”
https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/
by Michael Karadjis
This piece deals with an aspect that many involved in the Syrian issue
have strong views on, and no doubt will make some very unhappy – the
issue of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its Peoples
Protection Units (YPG) and their role in the current Russian-led
Blitzkrieg against the Syrian rebels in Free Aleppo. As a long-time
supporter of the Kurdish struggle for justice and self-determination,
who formerly admired the PYD for the significant achievements it has
made in Rojava, I had no interest in reaching such conclusions, but
reality needs to be looked at in the face and analysed, not obscured by
ideology and myths.
I welcome comments and discussion, and if that includes a reasonable
amount of hate mail, that will indicate more about the haters than about
my attempt at honest, if forthright, discussion of this important issue.
All constructive criticism, even if harsh, will be seriously taken on
board.
This piece is much too long, as much of it documents what exactly has
been going on, and in particular which rebel groups are/were in control
of various parts of Aleppo province that are under attack from the
Russian-YPG alliance; both issues have been deliberately clouded by
those defending this catastrophic course. Therefore, I have produced it
more as a resource than an easy-reading essay.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Introduction
Once the Russian Reich began its all-out Blitzkrieg against the Syrian
revolutionary forces in Aleppo on behalf of the Assad regime – a
massacre that has involved massive displacement, with tens or hundreds
of thousands fleeing north towards Turkey, and the large-scale,
deliberate targeting of hospitals, schools and other basic civilian
infrastructure – a most unwelcome development occurred, that has led to
much heated debate among supporters of the Syrian revolution.
Namely, the Kurdish-based People’s Protection Units (YPG), based in the
Kurdish canton of Efrin on the western side of Aleppo province, launched
an all-out attack on the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other rebels in
Aleppo – ie, the very forces being bombed by the Russian imperialist
onslaught – attacking and conquering rebel-held, Arab-majority towns
throughout the region with the direct aid of Russian bombing.
Whatever the ups and downs in the relationship between the Syrian
revolution as a whole and the ‘Rojava revolution’ before this point (and
I believe both Syrian opposition and Kurdish leaderships can be faulted
on many points), the only possible conclusion at this point is that the
PYD/YPG has joined the counterrevolution on a massive scale, at its most
murderous moment, the biggest knife that could possibly be put through
any chances of Arab-Kurdish unity against the regime.
As many of the more progressive aspects of the Rojava revolution became
apparent during 2014, I was as supportive and impressed as countless
others were (though always holding back from the over-romanticisation of
the process); I was also strongly supportive of what appeared to be a
growing convergence between the YPG and the FSA during the defence of
Kurdish Kobani against genocidal ISIS siege in late 2014.
Subjectively, therefore, I had no reason to want to reach such
conclusions. However, for the Syrian revolution, the Russian imperialist
Armageddon in Aleppo is every bit as decisive as Kobani’s resistance to
the ISIS siege was for Rojava; yet, in contrast to the solidarity that
the FSA extended to Kobani, the PYD has become a direct participant in
the counterrevolutionary siege of Free Aleppo.
Of course, the YPG is a very small player in this act of mass homicide,
whose major practitioners are Russia, Assad and Iran. Devoting an
article to the role of the YPG does not suggest it bears the same level
of responsibility. But these reactionary states do what reactionary
states do; by contrast, when a supposedly revolutionary organisation
claiming to be running a quasi-state on a radical-democratic basis joins
the actions of imperialist invaders and the local fascist state,
thatdeserves analysis.
One final point: Turkey. For months now, the Turkish regime has been
waging its own war of terror against the Kurdish population in eastern
Turkey, a brutal counterinsurgency against the PKK. Hundreds of
civilians have been killed as the regime uses tanks, artillery and other
heavy weaponry to terrorise the population into submission. Turkey, for
its own reasons, is a main supporter of the anti-Assad rebellion in
Syria. The difference in scale, is of course, phenomenal; Erdogan’s
operation has been going on for months and has killed hundreds; Assad’s
has been going on 5 years and has killed nearly half a million. Anyone
with an ounce of human solidarity should have no trouble supporting the
popular uprisings, and opposing regime counterinsurgencies, in both
cases, regardless of issues of geopolitics or tactical alliances.
Opponents of oppression do not see this as a contradiction.
The excuse of the PYD/YPG, that it is fighting “Turkish-backed groups,”
is cynical in the extreme; if the YPG could employ US imperialism, which
has committed far more crimes on a world scale than the Turkish regime,
to help defend Kobani from ISIS, why is it wrong for the Syrian rebels
to get essential help from Turkey against this gigantic genocidal
assault? After all, if anyone has their backs to a wall, and thus forced
to get help from wherever they can, it is the Syrian rebels; by
contrast, ‘Rojava’ has been untouched by Assad and is permanently
protected by the US airforce. If Turkey were invading and bombing
Kurdish Efrin and Syrian rebels were acting as ground troops and
expelling the YPG from Kurdish areas, it should be vigorously condemned,
yet this is not happening; the exact opposite of that is happening.
Full:
https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-kurdish-pyds-alliance-with-russia-against-free-aleppo-evidence-and-analysis-of-a-disaster/
_________________________________________________________
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
