Tags
betrayal of democracies, betrayal of democratic movements, Erdogan, Israel, Kurdish freedom, Kurdish People's Struggle, President Trump, Turkish dictatorship, Ukraine, Ukrainian Freedom Struggle, Western Wall comment
Look at it. Read about it. Weep. And then read the update . . . .
First, The Donald dissed Israel with the astonishing statement delivered by a diplomat that the Western Wall was a part of “the Israeli-occupied West Bank”.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-usa-diplomacy-idUSKCN18B2K2 – 5/16/2017
Similar: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/16/hr-mcmaster-trump-western-wall-238451 – 5/16/2017
Related: http://www.sixdaywar.org/content/ReunificationJerusalem.asp
Update on the Western Wall Remark – May 17, 2017
“This isn’t your territory. This is in the West Bank. It is a private visit by the president, and it’s not your business,” responded one US official, according to the Times of Israel.
Israel’s Channel 2 identified the official as David Berns, the political counselor at the US Consulate in Jerusalem, and said he was accompanied by economic adviser Jonathan Shrier, who also was involved in the row.
Source: http://www.pressreader.com/usa/new-york-post/20170517/281655370004552
BackChannels much appreciates the dogged primary journalism.
BackChannels also feels David Berns should have been briefed as to the significance and sovereign possession of the Western Wall. If he had been apprised of the history involved, then shame on him with little mercy for what he may be suffering through today.
Notes Aaron Klein writing for Breitbart and angling for another knock at the Obama Administration: “Berns is a career officer at the State Department who has been working at the U.S. Consulate since August 2015. In other words, he received his position there during the Obama administration. According to his LinkedIn profile, Berns served from January 2002 until present as a foreign service officer with the State Department.”
BackChannels News Pass-Along on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BackChannels/
Next, The Donald as good as told the Kurdish forces now fighting ISIS — an invention partially produced by old Baathist military officers and Assad’s own wishes to produce the image of “Assad v The Terrorists” — that they were “PKK” — an all but defunct communist movement born in the late 1970s — and he would cooperate with Turkey in their suppression.
If you’re informed, you know what just took place, especially if you have been fighting ISIS as part of the “YPG” (People’s Protection Units) or “YPJ” Women’s Protection Units).
One correspondent noted that in the joint appearance, “The Donald cited PKK @ 5:20, whereas Erdoğan cited YPG/PYD @ 11:50.”
True.
In essence, Erdogan appears to have just gotten President Donald J. Trump to not only endorse his dictatorship but the potential for the continuing suppression and potential cultural annihilation of the Kurds who in his benighted opinion should have no defenses at all.
Regarding BackChannels statement about the Kurdish People’s struggle for a unified state:
. . . Turkey pretends on the surface that they are willing to help Kurdish President Barzani in Iraq but behind the scenes, they are doing everything in order to prevent an independent Kurdistan: “They view the Kurdistan issue as a matter of survival for them. As the Kurds of Syria move closer to America and walk away from the PKK and the Marxists, the Turks are trying to paint them as Marxists, Iranian agents, Assad agents and terrorists. It is all in order to prevent the Kurds of Syria from getting access to the sea. That is the primary reason why Erdogan came to the US.”
Sherkoh Abbas speaking on behalf of the Kurdish People and as quoted in the following publication and URL:
Slinging mud stops working when one catches the spatter and gives it a good look.
By way of research a decade ago, BackChannels has come to view the PKK as a marginalized organization with its leader Abdullah Ocalan sitting in a Turkish jail. The conflation of the old PKK with the whole of Kurdish forces and their aspirations may misguide the public. BackChannels will try to obtain an up-to-date clarification involving the integration of Kurdish political movements across the several suzerains maintained by adverse hosting/subjugating states.
Millions of Christians in the United States and the Jewish People recognize political defamation and demonization — and readers worldwide should as well. That the same may be meted to the Kurds by Turkish President Erdogan bodes ill for the western democracies against the feudal absolutism embraced and promoted by Moscow-Tehran.
President Erdogan has turned Turkey into a now de facto dictatorship while the ruling powers in Moscow have resumed their promotion of disingenuous speech — actually . . . lying — and the distribution of “active measures” and related propaganda (just look up “alternative media” and “alternative news” and the garbage that fills the minds of those who patronize the biggest dump of Orwellian “untruth” that has ever been milled out of a basement — where it should have stayed.
Update – On American Cooperation with Turkey on the Defeating of Kurdish Aspirations for Independence – May 17, 2017
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Armored vehicles flying American flags, American soldiers posing for photos with Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militants and incessant reports on US-YPG relations have been the top news in Turkey in recent days, all suggesting that the United States was heading toward an alliance with the Kurds on the Syrian battlefield.
Turkish officials reacted sometimes harshly, sometimes more guardedly, to this alliance in the making. The US administration finally said the last word with statements from their officials that Washington had decided to give direct weapons assistance to the Kurds. Although American officials tried hard to explain that the weapons will be going to the Syrian Democratic Forces, everyone knows that the backbone of that force is the YPG. This radical decision by the Trump administration has naturally become a topic of international politics.
“Will arming of YPG help open Kurdish corridor in Syria?” Al Monitor, May 15, 2017
Perhaps “The Donald” at the podium was schmearing President Erdogan after all.
Yesterday, the day of initial publication for this post, BackChannels installed in the title the hedge, “Appearance of Betrayal”. With that, readers have perhaps entered a new era, not so much of “Fake News”, a term Trump’s Administration with autocratic tendencies has used to undermine faith in the mainstream media, but of high-level “Fake-Outs”.
Reference
Regarding ISIS
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/
http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/573/pdf
Regarding President Erdogan Caliphate-Bound Turkish Dictatorship
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/turkey
http://www.dw.com/en/turkey-worst-country-for-media-freedom-in-2016/a-36924382
https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/12/15/turkey-silencing-media
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fraderike-geerdink-/turkey-election-suppression-blood_b_8420156.html
Regarding the Kurdish People
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/what-about-our-human-rights-kurds-feel-force-turkeys-crackdown – 10/6/2016
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/03/20/turkey-crackdown-kurdish-opposition – 3/20/2017
Regarding Ukraine
2014: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/18/fact-sheet-us-support-ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine—Using artillery, tanks, and rockets, combined Russian-separatist forces attacked Ukrainian forces along the front lines in eastern Ukraine on Sunday and early Monday morning, highlighting, once again, that the February 2015 cease-fire has failed.
“This is barbarism,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Monday in response to the attacks, according to a tweet from his press secretary, Svyatoslav Tsegolko.
http://dailysignal.com/2017/01/30/this-is-barbarism-ukrainian-troops-on-high-alert-as-war-intensifies/ – 1/30/2017
WASHINGTON — President Trump cast doubt on whether Moscow is backing separatists engaged in the recent escalation of fighting in eastern Ukraine, appearing to side with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has long denied involvement in the conflict despite evidence to the contrary.
Mr. Trump said he did not take offense at the outbreak of a lethal bout of fighting in Ukraine that came within a day of a phone conversation he had with Mr. Putin, saying of the recent clashes, “we don’t really know exactly what that is.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/us/politics/ukraine-trump-putin-separatists-poroshenko.html – 2/6/2017
According to multiple accounts, the Trump campaign has successfully worked behind the scenes to make sure the new Republican platform would not pledge the lethal defensive weapons Ukraine has been pleading for from the United States. Trump’s forces have tabled a platform amendment that would call for maintaining or increasing sanctions against Russia, and have substituted “appropriate assistance” for “providing lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine’s military. Removing sanctions and blocking lethal military assistance to Ukraine are the two primary goals of Putin’s foreign policy. The Republican platform is handing those goals to Putin on a golden platter.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/07/18/trump-deferring-to-putin-deleted-gop-platforms-call-to-supply-ukraine-with-lethal-defensive-weapons/#1236d19a30ba – 7/18/2016 (election season maneuvering)
Related: http://politics.blog.mystatesman.com/2017/03/06/how-diana-denmans-singular-stand-for-ukraine-revealed-the-trump-campaigns-soft-spot-for-russia/ – 3/6/2017
https://www.unian.info/politics/1819686-us-military-assistance-to-ukraine-opening-up-portals.html – 3/13/2017
http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/economic/419801.html – 5/5/2017
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