Islamist Turkey’s Betrayal

Kobane_3071699bThe struggle for Kobani, the Syrian Kurdish town on the border with Turkey where the Kurdish forces alone are battling the barbaric hordes of the Islamic State, aka ISIS, is reminiscent of the Polish uprising in Warsaw against the Nazis in August, 1944. While the Polish Home Army fought courageously against the might of the superior armed Nazis, the Soviet Union’s Red Army stood by across the River Vistula, which divides Warsaw, watching the merciless slaughter of Polish civilians and the destruction of the city.

The Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan, like the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin before him, showed no consideration for the lives of innocent Kurdish civilians already butchered by the sadists of the Islamic State mercenaries. For those still alive in Kobani, unless rescued by outside intervention or supplied with heavy arms and ammunition, will also die a gruesome death. Turkish tanks, in the meantime, are ensconced on the crest overlooking Kobani. They can help save the remaining Kurds should Erdogan give them the order to fire on the ISIS fighters. But, just as Stalin wanted the Nazis to decimate the Polish nationalist Home Army, Erdogan is wishing for ISIS to destroy the Syrian Kurds.

What is puzzling in all this is the role the U.S. is playing. In his September 10, 2014 speech, President Obama said that, “military advisors are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence, and equipment.” Hitherto, there has been no supply of equipment or training of the Kurds. In fact, the Obama administrations blind support for a unitary Iraqi state led by Shiite ruled Baghdad government is in contradiction with the realities on the ground. The Shiite-led Iraqi army folded in the face of the jihadi ISIS guerrilla offensive, and in the process, abandoning U.S. supplied heavy weapons including tanks, armored cars, Humvees, etc. The Kurdish Peshmergas alone hold the line against ISIS, and they are not getting the promised arms because the U.S. has long insisted that all sales of U.S. weapons must go through Iraq’s central government, despite Kurdish complaints that Baghdad had deprived them of promised military equipment and financial support.

Washington has not overruled Baghdad on issuing direct shipments of arms to the Kurds.  The Iraqi government has demanded that all shipments to the Kurds arrive first in Baghdad. Iraqi officials have regularly blocked or delayed these shipments to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil. Moreover, U.S. State Department regulations bar the KRG from purchasing U.S. made weapons without “end-user certificates” issued by Baghdad. According to the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, “Baghdad is bent on wielding this authority to prevent the KRG from developing antitank and antiaircraft arsenals.”

The Kurds in both Iraq and Syria are the only effective fighting force, boots on the ground, capable of stopping the ISIS hordes. In Iraq, the Peshmergas, the Kurdistan Regional Government defense forces are facing ISIS while armed with antiquated Russian Kalashnikovs (AK-47) and machine guns mounted on open Toyota pick-up trucks. Britain, France and Germany pledged to supply arms, but the KRG, while welcoming such support, has yet to receive them.

In Syria, the Kurdish defenders of Kobani are encircled on three sides with their backs pressed against the Turkish border, and the only supply line is through Turkey. Erdogan and his government however, have branded the defending Kurds as terrorists. Erdogan has argued that the Kurds of Kobani are no better than ISIS. The New York Times (October 12, 2014) quoted Erdogan as saying, “The P.K.K. and ISIS are the same for Turkey…It is wrong to view them differently. We need to deal with them jointly.”

The P.K.K. is indeed considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union, yet the P.K.K. has been in peace negotiations with Ankara, demanding not the destruction of Turkey (unlike Hamas’ aim of destroying Israel) but merely cultural rights. The P.K.K demands include use of the Kurdish language in educational institutions, reduction in the threshold for elections to parliament from 10% to 5%, greater decentralization, and the removal of all discriminatory provisions against Kurds from the constitution and other laws.

It is highly hypocritical for Erdogan to compare the P.K.K. to the fanatical Islamist group ISIS, when he has been one of the chief supporters of the Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas. And, if there is to be a fair comparison, it would be between ISIS and Hamas, both seeking to create an Islamic Caliphate, and the expulsion of non-Muslims from the region.

Kobani is being defended by the People’s Protection Units, or Y.P.G., an affiliate of the P.K.K. Erdogan’s concern is that the Syrian Kurds might try to establish an autonomous region on the border, which Turkey wants to prevent. Again, Erdogan’s transparent hypocrisy is clear to see. He actively supports Hamas and Palestinian independence but seeks to deny the same to the Kurds, the end result being that he will allow the Kurds of Kobani to perish while at the same time looking the other way while the ISIS jihadists use Turkey as a corridor for their recruited fighters to enter Syria and Iraq.

Erdogan’s Turkey is a member of NATO, yet in 2003 he refused Turkish airspace to U.S. and allied forces on the way to Iraq. The New York Times reported (October 7, 2014) Turkish President Erdogan said “Turkey would not get more deeply involved in the conflict with the Islamic State.” Erdogan conditioned Turkey’s possible involvement in fighting ISIS on the U.S. giving greater support to the rebels trying to oust Bashar Assad, the Syrian President. Turkey has, moreover, denied that it has signed an agreement authorizing the U.S. and the coalition forces to use its airbases for operations against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic told Reuters: “There is not an agreement; no decision has been taken with regard to using Incirlik air base.” He refuted U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice’s claim on NBC News ‘Meet The Press’ show on October 12 (2014) that Turkey had agreed to allow the use of the Incirlik airbase against IS.

The U.S. should react to the Turkish treachery by removing its airbase from Incirlik, Turkey to Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government. The U.S. should immediately provide the KRG with heavy weapons, including tanks, artillery, anti-armor rockets, and Humvees. The equipment should be sent directly to Erbil bypassing Baghdad. The State Department must change its regulations, and allow the KRG to become a certified “end-user,” instead of being at the mercy of Iranian controlled Baghdad.

The Wall Street Journal headline on October 15, 2014 reading “Turks Bomb Kurds, Not Islamic State” is most telling. It is in essence siding with the enemies of the U.S. and its NATO allies. Considering Turkey’s behavior as a NATO member, it is time to consider its leader – President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for what he really is – an anti-western pro-Jihadist dictator. If anything, in Kobani, Erdogan has shown the world his treacherous nature by betraying the Kurds with whom he has been negotiating peace.

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  • Texas Patriot

    The good news is that America is increasingly in the fight in Kobani, resupplying the Kurds with weapons, ammunition, and much needed supplies, and bombing ISIS. It is without a doubt Obama’s finest hour as President of the United States.

    • Michael Garfinkel

      WTF?

      Find a single military strategist who thinks the current effort is effective, let alone decisive.

      Can’t find one? That’s Ok, because there aren’t any.

      • Texas Patriot

        With enough airstrikes, we can defeat ISIS without American boots on the ground. The key is making sure that the Kurds are resupplied and reinforced, and that is now happening even if Turkey doesn’t like it.

        • Michael Garfinkel

          Ah! You propose yourself as a strategist sympathetic to your own point of view.

          I guess that settles the argument!

          Incidentally, the level of bombing by the USAF is at about 5% of the level of bombing in Kosovo.

          • Texas Patriot

            Absolutely.

          • Michael Garfinkel

            The present Obama policy is something along the lines of “If you like your Kurds, you can keep your Kurds.”

            So let’s get serious.

            The bombing to date, the air-drop of supplies, as well as the attack of the Apaches near the Baghdad airport have been very helpful. Unquestionably.

            However, to “degrade and destroy ISIL” will require a major effort of combined arms – an investment that this administration adamantly opposes.

            Remember when Geroge H.W. Bush said the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait “will not stand.”

            Bush was invoking a measure of American values and moral clarity – something that is as foreign to this White House as Kurmanji Kurdish.

          • Texas Patriot

            I disagree. America is now bankrupt as a result of the outmoded and hugely expensive conventional land wars that you are apparently proposing. The military victories of the future will be won by superior technology and superior firepower, and they will be far more effective, far less expensive, and far less destabilizing than the 19th Century tactics of boots on the ground.

          • Michael Garfinkel

            I see you’ve taken a page from John Kerry’s book, when he said that Russia’s occupation of Crimea was so nineteenth century.

            Incidentally, this country is broke, not from military spending, but from the misuse of trillions for social engineering. But that is a topic for another day.

            While I believe ISIL could be destroyed in an effort far less extensive than was the case in the Gulf War, it’s clear that we see things differently.

          • Texas Patriot

            No question about it.

          • Moa

            FALSE. America is bankrupt because it spends 4/5ths of Government receipts on social programs. Only 20% and declining of Government revenues are spent on defense – even though defense is THE reason for Government.

            You are living in a socialist country that is spending well beyond its means on programs a Marxist would admire – the problem is, the mythology has not caught up with reality in America – and the Statists and Collectivists don’t want to wake you up to reality.

            The problem with the US deficits has nothing to do with the US military (unlike the common Cultural Marxist meme which posits any defense spending is too much). The US Government has just received the largest tax receipts ever, but it is still not enough to feed the sucking maw that is Big Government and the dependency classes.

          • mtmla

            And the gobalist, marxist , lier in chief keeps bringing in more people to suck on the government nipples and live off the working class.The problem with socialism/communism is that eventually it runs out of other people’s money.

    • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

      I see no evidence of such resupplying, while the airstrikes alone are insufficient to degrade ISIS capabilities.

      • Texas Patriot

        I’m assuming you haven’t seen the news of the airdrop. Correct?

        • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

          Correct – I heard it on the radio some time after I wrote that. I sure hope Obama has done better with that than he has everything else he’s attempted.

    • Bamaguje

      Methinks it’s time the Kurds shop for reliable allies who will support them all the way. Russia, Israel, China… any takers?

      • Texas Patriot

        The entire civilized world including Russia and China have a vital interest in supporting the Kurds against ISIS in Kobani, and if the Turks don’t like it, that’s really just too bad.

      • Gee

        The Kurds are not exactly friendly toward Jews.

        • Michael Garfinkel

          Have you noticed? The Jews are not exactly friendly with the Jews.

        • Bamaguje

          They don’t have to be love birds… “the enemy of my enemy” alliance is sufficient. More so because Kurdistan is largely secular.
          In other words, Kurds aren’t hung up on the Islamist bigotry that drives hatred of Israel. So they might turn out to be useful allies in a region where Israel has no friends.
          I understand that in the past, Israel was once supportive of Kurdish nationhood.

        • Moa

          The Israelis and Kurds have been getting along just fine. Not perfect, but well enough.

    • crispykareem

      You’re kidding, right, or are you simply a shill? Read the news a little. The bombing has helped some, yes. However, Obama has shown VERY LITTLE initiative in helping the Kurds. Also, it’s THE KURDS taking the fight to ISIS! This victory belongs to the Peshmerga ALL THE WAY. They’re the ones risking their necks!

      • Texas Patriot

        Not kidding.

  • steelraptor from Saturn

    If you think about it, how is it a betrayal? I mean Turkey hates the Kurds and is increasingly Islamist, so naturally they are going to try and hurt the Kurds all they can, they are being consistent. There has been no u-turn, they are doing what they always do, support the Sunni jihadists against their traditional enemies. Can’t be said to be a betrayal.

    • Michael Garfinkel

      Fine. Then end the charade of NATO membership.

  • http://www.apollospeaks.com/ ApolloSpeaks

    UNLESS TURKEY IS DE-ISLAMIZED

    it must be DE-NATOIZED!!!

    http://www.apollospeaks.com

    • Pericles

      Think of it! If not for Islam the world would be experiencing peace and tranquility instead of war and upheaval.

      • http://www.apollospeaks.com/ ApolloSpeaks

        Tell me about it. if Moslems were to suddenly disappear from this earth ending forever the “religion of peace” the world would be a radically more peaceful and safer place.

  • USARetired

    Turkey has never been a legitimate ally of the U.S., Only pretended!

    • Bamaguje

      I think secular Turkey was a real ally, but not today’s Islamist regime.

  • Attila_the_hun

    Turkey like Iran, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon and Jordan is an artificial state where all are ruled either by minority sect/nationality or by majority who are slightly above 50% of the population.
    The slow transformation of The ME started with the first Gulf war when Bush I tried to please The Turks and The Saudis at Kurd’s expense. Since then history once more showed that appeasement does not prevents bloodshed instead encourages it. So far we saw Iraq being splitting semi peacefully Syria in full civil war. And soon will see the next domino falling in southeastern Turkey.
    Buckle your seats belt we are going through bumpy ride.

  • Pericles

    Erdogan is Saddam Hussein, less WMD, but plus Islamic Jihadism and Supremacy.

  • Pericles

    Imagine a world without Islam, without Islamofascism, without Islamophiles. How peaceful and tranquil it would be!

  • Tzipporah

    Turkey and the US have been showing its true intent for a long time. Look at the support Endrogen showed by supporting the use of Terror to break the Gaza blockade on Hamas May 31, 2010. Obama later pressured Netanyahu to apologize to Endrogen. Turkey continues to be more aggressive in its sponsorship of Terror. It is backing IS and wants to establish the caliphate and control the world.

  • SoCalMike

    Obama along with Kerry and the Star’s Department are traitors hellbent on betraying the US and the Free World while abandoning the oppressed and persecuted.