I used to work for an international organization in the U.S.; I had lots of friends of all nationalities there. Arabs, Thais, a Muslim from Myanmar, a not-so-young Jewish man whose father was rescued from Auschwitz on the very last day, a Kurd from Turkey. The whole bunch of them had similar stories: some jumped the ship New York harbor in the ‘40s; some had a name changed at Ellis Island.
They are now Americans and subject to mass communications there. They read the pro-PKK stories of the Washington Post newspaper penned by a journalist-cum-activist, whose very existence is against what the Justice and Development (AK Party) stands for, and edited by editors wronged by their Wilsonian Conscience of self-determination theory. You see: when one writer claims that Kurds are fighting to determine their own future in Syria, Turkey is trying to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdistan in Syria. Due to what media theorists call the “self-infatuation” syndrome, the hordes of mass media shoot at those their journalist brothers and sisters designate as the villain. The sheer momentum of peer-pressure results in the automatic acceptance of guilt of those who have been (a) trying to suppress Kurdish independence for decades and (b) killing our proxy warriors on the ground. This automation alleviates the burden of journalistic traditions, like balancing the opinions you publish, giving equal time and space to the other side and verifying the truth. If the New York Times calls the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and People’s Protection Units (YPG) Kurdish fighters, then the Washington Post characterizes them as such; if the Washington Post does that, then the New York Times can do it too.
But once in long while, some old journalist colleague of yours calls from the good old U.S. of A and asks you what is really happening. He feels that the very existence of that monologue about what Turkey is doing in Syria in general and in Afrin in particular is good enough to be suspicious of something that is not totally kosher!
One such friend did that and asked me what was my take on all this anti-Western coverage in Turkey and the anti-Turkey stories in U.S. papers. I responded on social media as follows:
Should the main reason of the U.S. presence be defeating Daesh, then it’d call on your NATO allies. Besides you’d have Turkey right there next door. But what you have in mind is to carve up a homeland for your Kurdish allies who you owe big since their help in the Gulf War. Why did you remember suddenly your debt to Kurds? Because you need the help of someone who is willing to be your boots on the ground, be your mercenaries who should profess non-Shia Islam but not terribly fanatic about it. It’s the Kurds, of course! They can create an entity in Syria that could provide a first tier of defense for Israel from Iran and Turkey. Turkey? Aren’t they our allies in NATO? Yes, but that was before Political Islam entrenched its grip over them. “Those Islamists” have cleansed the Turkish armed forces from the people who have been “our interlocutors” in NATO (as Gen. Votel said in the wake of the July 15 coup bid).The only problem is that you owe the Iraqi Kurds, not the Syrian Kurds. Well, if it comes to the exact identity, those you call “Syrian Kurds” are not Syrian either. They can hardly speak Arabic because they are from Turkey; they speak fluent Turkish and Turkey vernacular of Kurdish That is to say they cannot communicate with their Syrian brethren. Turkey keeps saying they are “their” terrorists; therefore, you cannot train and equip “their” terrorists.
But you are aware of this trope, thanks to Jeanne Kirkpatrick who famously said, “The Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters.”
The U.S. also needs new, secure lands for oil pipelines.
At this point of DM’ing, my former colleague jumps in saying: “Oh now I know! It is like it was in 1916. The oil policy! As they dismembered the Ottoman State…”I say, “Yes, my brother, but we too know the history; and learned from it.” As you know, if you take your lessons from history, it cannot repeat itself!
Source: Daily Sabah
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