Assad regime fades in Northeast Syria; Kurdish art and music flourishes

A Turkish Kurd plays the sitar as smoke rises from the Syrian town of Kobani, as seen from the Mursitpinar crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border in Sanliurfa province, Oct. 26, 2014.  (photo by REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach)

From Al Monitor:

KURDISH ART, MUSIC FLOURISHES AS (ASAAD) REGIME FADES FROM NORTHEAST SYRIA

Syrian Kurds , Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Saudi Arabia, the United States, the Russian Federation

Look at Syria.  Cntrast and compare Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Nixonian Trump; Obama at home and Obama in the Middle East; King Salman and Obama-in the-Middle-East and Erdoğan;  Nixonian Trump with anyone.  Shudder for the fate of the World.

Check out Kurdish YPG forces combatting Islamists in Syria's Aleppo - ARA News. 

The Amnesty International report referenced in the article is Syria: Abductions, torture and summary killings at the hands of armed groups | Amnesty International. 

Further evidence of United States’ shameful support of Saudi Arabia.

How to love Obama at home and tolerate his Middle East policies?  How hopelessly inadequate are all Republican proscriptions for "how to defeat ISIS.  

I hope there are factors Obama cannot reveal about the Middle East to me and you for policy reasons.  And how are citizens to make reasonable decisions if that be the case?

Keep whatever hope remains alive.

From Residents of Aleppo: Syria cease-fire dead

هم‌زمان با گفت‌وگوهای قدرت‎های جهان دربارۀ ادامۀ آتش‌بس در سوریه، باشنده‎گان شهر حلب این کشور ادعا می‌کنند که آتش‌بس در این کشور مرده‌است و شهر آنان تنها می‌توانید ناباوری حیرت‌زده را بیان کند.

ابومحمد، باشندۀ حلب گفت: «من نمی‌دانم که آنان از کدام آتش‌بس سخن می‌زنند؟ این‌جا آتش‌بس وجود ندارد.»

At the same time about the continuation of the cease-fire talks with world powers in Syria, Aleppo, the country's residents claim that the ceasefire in the country is dead and their city can only express disbelief, stunned.

Abu Mohammad, a resident of Aleppo said: "I do not know of any cease-fire they speak? Here there is no cease-fire. "

A 40 year old male shopkeeper said, "do not stop firing rockets and that is like World Wa

From google images:

Syrian Aleppo before the war

If you live in the the United States or in the Russian Federation, consider how the two nations may learn how to trust each other enough to stop the slaughter is Syria.

An irrelevant post script: Write to Secretary Kerry urging him to deny extradition of Muhammed Fethullah Gülen g]to Turkey.

Per Wikipedia:

 Gülen teaches a Hanafi version of Islam, deriving from Sunni Muslim scholar Said Nursî's teachings. Gülen has stated that he believes in science, interfaith dialogue among the People of the Book, and multi-party democracy.^[12] He has initiated such dialogue with the Vatican^[13]and some Jewish organizations.^[14]

Gülen is actively involved in the societal debate concerning the future of the Turkish state, and Islam in the modern world. He has been described in the English-language media as an imam "who promotes a tolerant Islam which emphasises altruism, hard work and education" and as "one of the world's most important Muslim figures."^[15][12]

Ask Kerry to deny Turkeys request to extradite Muhammed Fethullah Gülen

Today I asked Secretary Kerry to deny Turkey’s extradition request for Muhammed Fethullah Gülen on grounds including that Gülen cannot receive a fair atrial in Turkey.  See, e.g., the Times article, Turkey Widens Purge as Crackdown Continues.

The article contains thisastonishing paragraph:

In Brussels on Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, urged Turkey — a member of NATO and a candidate for membership in the European Union — to show restraint. 

“Obviously, NATO also has a requirement with respect to democracy, and NATO will indeed measure very carefully what is happening,” Mr. Kerry said.

Turkey is no longer a democracy.  Turkish Kurds deserve independence from Erdoğan’s dictatorship, and Syrian Kurds deserve protection from his bombardments.

Send a request to Kerry to deny the extradition here: The Office of Public Engagement.  Please do.

The government crackdown on anyone it dislikes, in current google images, reminds one of Ferguson:

Does thee US really want a Nixonian Trump, mirrored in a Trampish Erdoğan?  I do not!

Push with all your might for freedom for all human animals, believing all creatures will bnefit

From friend Rik this Saturday morning: 

On Jul 8, 2016, at 12:09 PM, rikisensee <rikisensee@yahoo.com> wrote:escape to Ireland?
Looking To Escape A President Trump? This Irish Island Welcomes You

				Looking To Escape A President Trump? This Irish Island ... "By all means you’re welcome here if we can find space for you."
				View on www.huffingtonpost.com	Preview by Yahoo

My irreverent response:

Naw..  Don't flee to Ireland.

• Fight ‘in in the trenches, 

• fright ‘im in the streets, 

• fight ‘im in the churches, 

• fight ’im in the brothels, 

•  if computer is your best weapon, fight 'im with that -- better'n nothin.

• fight ‘im wherever he may show his face or the face of his goons and dupes.

Count the number of places on this weary planet that have pockets of folks who fight Trump or ones such as he and more horrible by far  than he: 

Kurds, loving freedom most of all, 

surrounded by the Islamic State and other Wahhabi 

who would enslave hem, torture and kill them, 

use their cunts and dicks for their own pleasure, 

treat them as we treated our slaves for 400 years; 

Uighurs who once had an Empire of heir own, 

now at the mercy of the merciless Han

 who,

 learning from the West, 

use “justice” and the “legal process”  

to inflict horror previously unimagined; 

Tibetans similarly fixed; 

Bolivian coca growers, uneducated and loving freedom,  precariously free 

   

opposed by wealthy low-landers 

who have the support of  Uncle Sam and his CIA 

and who still maintain their revolution; 

13,000 Bernieites, yearning for 

One who will in fact and not in fiction 

lead a revolution

and sure such a leader will emerge 

soon; 

lost souls in South Sudan who have nothing 

not even food 

but have a football stadium 

and who 

against all odds 

field a team each year to keep hope alive . . .

                       South Sudan Football Stadium

Naw.  Stand and fight.  Hil will be a good-enough place-holder until a leader emerges and 

the Whole World is freed of  

despicable cloying greed, 

erroneously worshiped by too many

as the only hope of salvation. 

In the meantime, here’s to the Irish, who have no use for us Scots anyway (clink!) 

President Erdoğan needs to side with the Syrian Kurds, and so does the rest of the World

The Observer a Sunday newspaper editorially similar to the Guardian published a worthy article, posted below. Emphasis adde in blue.

This article understates Erdoğan's opposition to Syrian Kurdistan ;  his forces shell Rojava repeatedly.

Here is Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) as it is today:

Northern Syria offensive (2015) - Rojava - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plans are to extend it eastward to the Sea and westward to join Iraqi Kurdistan.

To understand why the success of Kurds in creating a free  Syrian Kurdistan, see, e.g.,  A Dream of Secular Utopia in ISIS’ Backyard - The New York Times

The Kurdish Women Warriors are the most successful of all groups fighting the Islamic State.  Here are some images:

To see how remarkable the Syrian Kurds experiment in direct democracy is (non-sectarian, multi-ethnic, feminist, democratic, in  a sea of  radical Islamic bigotry), see The Financial Times article:   Power to the people: a Syrian experiment in democracy - FT.com

The Observer view on Turkey’s fight against terrorism

Observer editorial

President Erdoğan needs to decide which is the bigger threat to his country

 Turkish special force police officers stand guard at Ataturk airport. Photograph: Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images

Saturday 2 July 2016 19.07 EDT

Turkey has suffered more than its share of terrorist attacks in the past year, yet its plight has received relatively little attention when compared to the intense international response to recent, similar incidents in France and Belgium. This apparent double standard has not gone unnoticed in Istanbul, where three suicide bombers attacked the airport last week, killing more than 40 people.

The modus operandi of the attack was immediately likened to that employed at Brussels airport in March, when 32 people and three bombers died. Both outrages have been blamed on Islamic State jihadists, who have now added Turkish cities and civilians to their targets. One reason is that Ankara is a key member of the US-led anti-Isis coalition. It allows fellow Nato countries and Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia to use its bases for air strikes.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s neo-Islamist president, was quick to claim, not for the first time, that the world has failed to recognise his country’s sacrifices in Syria’s five-year-old civil war. Turkey was on the front line, but it was everyone’s battle, he said. “The bombs that went off today could have gone off in any city in the world, in any airport. I want everyone to understand that, to the terrorists, there is no difference between Istanbul and London, Ankara and Berlin, Izmir and Chicago.”

There is no arguing with that. Since sweeping to prominence in 2014, Isis has repeatedly struck at so-called “infidels”. Yet Erdoğan’s repeated calls for stronger international efforts to combat terrorism would carry more weight if he were less of a problematic partner. For centuries, Turkey has been regarded as a key strategic ally. But it is not entirely clear whose side Erdoğan is on.

Mostly when Erdoğan talks about terrorism, he is talking about the Kurds, not Isis. Not long ago there were hopes he would settle with the Workers’ party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency. But after losing his parliamentary majority last year, largely due to the success of a moderate, pro-Kurdish party, Erdoğan tore up a hard-won ceasefire with the PKK and propelled state security forces into a scorched earth campaign. The predictable result? More terror attacks.

Erdoğan has also opposed, or at least not supported, campaigns by US-backed Iraqi and Syrian Kurds to rid their regions of Isis fighters. He has been accused, meanwhile, of turning a blind eye to the connivance of Turkish spooks and middleman in Isis oil sales, recruitment and arms smuggling. Erdoğan fell out with Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, in 2011, when the latter rebuffed Turkish attempts at mediation. But Erdoğan apparently prefers the survival of Assad and Isis to Kurdish self-governance in northern Syria.

If Erdoğan showed more respect for democracy and did not try to bar opposition MPs from parliament; if he were not trying to railroad through constitutional changes that will greatly enhance his already considerable powers; if he did not make misogynistic pronouncements that a good Muslim woman’s place is in the home having babies; and if he were not engaged in perhaps the most illiberal crackdown on free speech, independent journalism and academic freedom in modern Turkey’s history, Erdoğan’s appeals for western solidarity in his hour of need might receive a more active response.

But as matters stand, all these considerations, coming on top of Erdoğan’s self-defeating vendetta with the Kurds and his cynical wrangling with the EU over Syrian refugees, mean Turkey’s western allies are more likely to keep their distance than to line up along side him. That is a pity. Turkey deserves our friendship and support. And it deserves better leadership. Last week’s rapprochement with the leaders of Russia and Israel led some to suggest Erdoğan is belatedly adopting a more conciliatory approach. That would be very welcome. Defeating terror requires a united front.

And see, also, Al Monitor,  Erdoğan’s latest wake-up call on Islamic State, urging, among other things, US-Russian coordination in air attacks on Salafi Jihadists aligned with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, protected by Turkey.