The Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq has called the Turkish military operation against Kurds on the border in with Turkey genocide. Meanwhile, a growing number of world states are viewing Turkey as a rogue state, a NATO member growing more militant each day. The looming question is, “How far will NATO and the European contingent allow Erdogan’s government to go before reining him in?”
Kurds in a Gaza-like Prison
Using fear as a weapon, the current Turkey regime has leveled an inhumane campaign against Kurds in southeast Turkey since 2015. With the excuse militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) had run amok in the region, Turkish forces impose curfews and randomly kill innocent civilians in this region, all in the name of combating supposed insurgents. The facts speak for themselves however, what Erdogan’s government is doing to Kurds is a copycat Gaza operation. If I did not know better, I’d say the Turks are operating from an Tel Aviv genocide playbook. The Turkish General Staff claims some 1,000 plus Kurdish militants have been killed in operations in the region, but only dead civilians clog the cemeteries there now.
Historically, the PKK has been fighting for independence in this region since 1984, seeking cultural and political self determination for Kurds in Turkey and northern Iraq. Several truces have taken place in between Ankara and the PKK leadership, but all have failed so far. A recent joint declaration by the PKK and nice other organizations has called for the overthrow of Erdogan’s government, and capitalism in general. Thus, NATO and the EU now consider the group terrorists, even though the United Nations does not. So given the “alignments” indicated, and the dying civilians all around, one has to wonder if NATO and key EU nations are not advocating the Turkish methods.
The Turkish Mob
As is the case in every critical foreign relations mess we face today, finger pointing and misdirect are the propaganda weapons of the factions and vested interests. For years now the United States and her allies have labeled the PKK terrorists or worse. In 2009 Barack Obama’s administration tagged the head of the organization, Murat Karayılan, and high-ranking members Ali Riza Altun and Zübeyir Aydar as drug traffickers. Meanwhile, incidents like the now famous Susurluk scandal have revealed Ankara’s role in the proliferation of drugs in the region, and worldwide. This affair essentially showed that Turkey was trying to eradicate the PKK, not in order to stop drug trade, but instead to take over their operations. In mafia-like fashion, key officials in the Turkish hierarchy vied for the dirty drug money guerillas depended on for weapons and food.
In the end Turkish officials were assassinated, Iranian spies provided the “cloak and dagger” element and the region appeared for all intents and purposes, like a Turkish version of a Chicago gangland of the 1930’s. But Turkey’s gangs raked in even more than Al Capone’s denizens did. Gambling, drugs, and money laundering by Turkish mobsters accounted for nearly $4 billion US by 1996. And for those investigating these misdeeds, suspicious car accidents became a fad.
The Enemy of My Friend
Since 2014 the PKK has taken up arms against ISIL. In fact, the guerilla forces forces helped “tens of thousands of Yazidis escape an encircled Mount Sinjar, when IS threatened them with virtually assure extinction. While the US coalition was flying “pretend” air missions overhead, Kurds on the ground were killing the world’s greatest jihad enemy by the hundreds. And all the while the PKK leadership was begging Ankara to join in to destroy ISIL. As we know now, their efforts fell on deaf ears for a reason. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and by proxy the US and others were in fact helping ISIL to destabilize Assad. This is irrefutable, but now a NATO member is performing genocide right before our eyes.
Back home in America the people are fed a mishmash of fragmented information. The same holds true in London, Brussels, and the European capitals too. ISIL slays dozens in Paris, and the world pains Eiffel Towers on their Facebook profiles in sympathy, when in reality France plays a crucial role in this human travesty of justice. Germany and the other EU players are in this, thick as thieves. It’s a mess of biblical proportions, the under the table deals wreaking of innocent blood, lies, deceit, and payoffs of one kind or other. The energy giants are the harbingers, their agents complicit in a corrupted system that smashes freedom lovers and fighters, while aiding and abetting hired killers for gold. The PKK canvasses the deserts of northern Iraq and eastern Syria slaying ISIL terrorists, and Turkey’s air forces strafe and bomb the PKK and Kurdish civilians. And the US condones a NATO friend killing a Turkish enemy, all the while empowering ISIL. Remember those hundreds of oil trucks Russia’s air forces destroyed? No such black market oil caravans were EVER mentioned by US Central Command, not until Putin televised their destruction.
The White House of Barack Obama has been a world and an American catastrophe. Freedom fighters have become terrorists, and terrorists freedom fighters throughout this dark regime. Since winning the Nobel Peace Prize, this president has presided over more death, killing, and chaos policy than any leader since LBJ during the Vietnam era. More governments have either toppled or are teetering in our world, than at any time since World War II. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden made a statement back in January that calling the PKK “a terrorist group plain and simple,” saying “what they continue to do is absolutely outrageous.” You’ll remember Biden’s statements before the Raja in Kiev, Ukraine. Citing the words of the legendary Thomas Paine, this psychopath and corporate lackey who helped usher Nazis into the Ukraine, compared the lie of Maidan square to the American Revolution just last December. Meanwhile his son Hunter had already taken up his position with the energy mafia there in war torn Ukraine. Yes, the enemy of the world energy mafia, is the enemy of anyone in the circle of Washington power now.
Kurds Thrown Under the Obama Bus
Naturally the news and “evidence” from Reuters today Turkish jets bombed Kurds over an alleged PKK bombing, it sides with the NATO imperative. A police source is enough for Reuters to offer Americans the right “headline” for Erdogan. Make no mistake, this is what is going on in our world. Turkish militants, PKK militants, Kurdish militants – killed, killed, killed, killed – Yahoo and Google News parrot this for the last several weeks now. Characteristically, the Reuters news contains nothing about the PKK or YPG denying responsibility for the recent bombings in Ankara.
Amid all this chaos, the US has just authorized the sale of nearly $1 billion dollars worth of so-called “smart bombs” to Turkey, so the killing can be more precise. This is America’s solution to collateral damage, helping General Dynamics make millions, while assisting rogue NATO states in eradicating the mob enemies. So the Kurds, the enemies of America’s enemies, are terrorists by Washington definition. But just last week the Obama administration still could not decide to formally declare the Islamic State atrocities against Christians and other religious groups as “genocide”! You read that correctly. Secretary of State, John Kerry has a deadline to report to the US Congress on whether or not ISIL butchering Kurds Yezidis and other groups can be called “genocide”. In a tangle of legal mumbojumbo, Washington lawmakers and the Obama leadership seem more concerned with protecting ISIL terrorists from world tribunals, than with eradicating their terror from the face of the Earth. So there you have it in a nut shell, the Kurds now thrown under the Obama bus in the name of cover-ups. James Carden of The Nation spells it out for us. The Kurdish national motto, “The Kurds Have No Friends,” shows us the Kurdish people as disposable pawns, just like Ukrainians, Georgians, and Libyans too. Erdogan’s genocide is the bugle call, a free Kurdistan ideal has been abandoned.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
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