Good point, but still not a reason for us to get involved. I’m not saying you are implying we should, but it could be read that way by others.
Funny, my reading of the news in Syria would force me to rewrite the last sentence as: “So - do you want civil war with 5% of the population in other countries, a death toll at roughly 35,000/year (a large percentage of which are the result of human rights abuses), and a known hostile organization constantly gaining power as the conflict continues or do you want freedom, a government supported by the vast majority of the population, and a relatively friendly group taking power?” Given the proportions of the groups involved in Syria’s FSA, I really do not think a group like al-Nusra Front will be the one in charge at the end.
The only thing working against the FSA is air superiority and heavier weapons. I am pretty sure our air force or the combined air forces of several regional countries could pummel the Syrian air force, its armor and supply lines with very few casualties taken by anyone other than the FSA. The FSA has had quite a bit of success without this equipment and things would change dramatically with it.
Just to the north of Syria is Turkey with one of the largest military forces in the world (2nd largest army of NATO), and to the south is Saudi Arabia which has spent an ungodly amount of money on all kinds of expensive military hardware. If it was felt that a foreign military invasion would improve matters the job should be left to nations of the region.
What, you mean, them dune-coon sand-nigger wogs can take care of their own inconvenient regional dictators? Without Western help? They can work together?!
That . . . might set a dangerous precedent . . .
Of course, any military intervention Turkey considers will be weighed against its potential effects with respect to the autonomy-demands of the Syrian Kurds . . . because they don’t want the Turkish Kurds getting even more ideas . . .
Why are you so concerned with the Christians in particular?
Anyway, when was the last time any MENA nation ethnic-cleansed Christians anyway? WWI? (I don’t count Lebanon – the Maronites took it on the ear sometimes, but no faction was ever strong enough for long enough to do much E-C.)
A better reason to minimize involvement is the peace efforts progressing with the PKK.
Yes, that’s what I mean. Of course in the case of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, etc. – the latter have been busy with its own vicious dissident crackdown – it would be one set of sand-nigger dictators against another set of dictators. And it’s far from obvious that the Saudi dictators are to be preferred. So I’d rather prefer if the Turks went at it on their own – if it wouldn’t insult Arab pride too much. They should be more than enough to match the job. They can field an army larger than any the USA would ever consider sending to the job.
For that matter, the USA might want to reconsider its relations with Bahrain before putting its snout in the matter of Syria. I’m sure it’d not oppose an Iranian military intervention in Bahrain.
Another matter is the issue of Russia which actually have a real tangible interest in the Syrian matter, since they have tens of thousands of nationals living there. So it might be a good idea to listen more to what it has to say, rather than some far off powers which have only strategic interests.
If you say so.
And how does that make them different from the USA? The USA is exactly in the same way as Turkey constrained by Kurdish aspirations of independence because of its alliance with Turkey. But as I said before, I consider the Kurdish cause may be one of the few worthy of support in the whole mess, but it is not going to happened on account of Turkey.
I’m not. But unlike the Alawites which have Iran and Iraq to defend their cause, there appears to be nobody willing to stand up for the quickly vanishing Christian communities of the Middle East. But if I was an Alawite in Syria I’d also be very concerned about various rebel groups. Already in Saudi Arabia, and probably many other nations as well, the war has been known as the war on Shia. They’re not recruiting to fight for democracy or human rights or any such thing. They’re recruit to go murder the Shia Muslims.
About two million Christian were driven out of from Iraq after the war. Ironically many found refuge in Syria. Egypt is currently in the process of making life so unpleasant for its Christians that they too are fleeing in great numbers. Syria was one of the only MENA country where such minorities were accepted.
Frankly, I don’t see why the Kurds don’t deserve their own country.
The problem is, they’d have to make it out of territory now held by four other countries. Countries are reluctant to give up territory, generally speaking.
They have at least 4 countries, why do they need more?
That’s enough with the racial slurs. Used for effect or not, they don’t contribute anything to the discussion.
Yes, and the Jews have about eight or nine countries of their own.:rolleyes:
Why shouldn’t he be?
I’m not one, but they’ve been historically a heavily persecuted group in the Middle East.
I thought you believed that Palestinians had been “ethnic-cleansed” from Israel in 1948?
Was I wrong?
Anyway, anyone with an even cursory knowledge of the Middle East knows that Christians have been flooding out of many Middle Eastern countries in droves for decades due to persecution at the hands of both Muslims and Jews.
Christians used to be about 6% of the population of Iraq but millions have been forced out during the war at a vastly greater rate than Palestinians fleeing during Israel’s war of independence.
As for Israel/Palestine, the situation has been so bad that more Palestinian Christians live in Chile than in historic Palestine and unless something dramatically changes within 30 years most of those old Christian churches will be giant open air museums.
Just because I do not believe in forming nation states based on ethnic boundaries does not really call for an eyeroll. It’s more important they live in free societies. A vast majority of the world’s Jews live in wonderfully free societies and I hope that for any ethnic group, including the Kurds. When you live in a free society it is your own.
What’s eyeroll-worthy is the silly belief that an ethnic group can only find freedom from authoritarianism and persecution by forming a state of like ethnic groups. How utterly unaware of the world one must be to adopt such a silly belief.
Considering that only one of the four states with a significant number of Kurds in them is remotely free your comment is asinine. Especially since the one free state of the bunch, Turkey, is an ethnic-based state which explicitly discriminates against them.
Of course I didn’t roll my eyes at your opposition to ethnic based states.
As anyone who looks at my post will recognize, I rolled my eyes at your moronic suggestion that the Kurds “had” four states.
I’m also a little unclear how they “have” any of those four states.
Turkey, the freest explicitly discriminates against non-Turks, Syria and Iraq explicitly declare themselves to be “Arab” states and discriminates against non-Arabs.
Of the four, the only one remotely committed to the idea of being a multi-ethnic state is Iran and the Kurds have always been seen as untrustworthy foreigners there.
I’d actually rather be an Armenian in Iran than a Kurd.
Yeah, I’d think the circumstances of the Kurds constitute one of the better arguments that sometimes you really do need ethnic-homeland states to secure human rights.
Yeah Iraqi Kurdistan is a real hellhole (…oooh oooh let me whip out my eyeroll: :rolleyes:). I’m sure they’re not enjoying any freedom there(…oh fuck more chances to be snarky: :rolleyes:). With its higher standard of living, security, and excellent relations with Turkey it sounds so awful.
Hopefully the new Turkish constitution will recognize ethnic minorities, but even leading up to that, there have been significant improvements to Kurdish human rights in Turkey.
In Syria the Kurds are defending their own territory quite well and if Assad is toppled they may find themselves in a better situation.
So I guess I can fully agree on Iranian Kurds but mostly because I haven’t bothered to check any of your ‘facts’.
You have a state inasmuch as you can express your political will through the government. Whether an ethnic state or multi-ethnic state, it comes down to having the ability to express your political will while the state guarantees your freedoms in law and bases these laws on your humanity and no other conditions. No more, no less. It doesn’t matter if everyone is the same ethnicity as yourself. Ethnic similarity is not a precondition for freedom, and it does not guarantee the state you live will provide a structure where you are free of authoritarianism and persecution.
For example - pretty much all the worst stories of female mistreatment emanate from the Kurdish SE of Turkey. I don’t really believe Kurdish women would have the same freedoms in a country carved out of SE Turkey than they do in Turkey now. Given the rural mindset and ignorance in that part of the country, they would likely find themselves greater 2nd class citizens than they do now.
One of the things you can say about the last 100 years in Kurdistan is that there have been many periods of Kurdish infighting throughout the region. We see it even in Syria today and it was present in Iraq less than 20 years ago.
Kurds are not a homogeneous group. They consist of many different tribal and political entities and are separated by many borders. It is human nature to identify along these lines and these demographic characteristics mean very different histories. There is very little similarity between the plight of the Kurds in Turkey versus Syria, Iraq or Iran, and you can see its effects in the fairly limited way in which Kurdish rebel groups in Syria, Turkey, and Iran have intermixed. I think only very recently has there been any formation of an umbrella organization for these groups.
A Kurdish ethnic state is explicitly not a guarantee of greater freedom for these people. It can quite possibly mean the subjugation of one subgroup under another, and is quite likely to mean greater subjugation of one gender under another.
Only a democratic form of government that respects the rights of individuals is any guarantee at all of the kind of freedom most people, including Kurds, aspire to. Their lot is improving in Turkey and shows exceptional improvement in Iraq. It may get better for them in Syria and I don’t know a damn thing about Kurdish life in Iran.
Yeah. Cite? Especially for Iran whose economy is in a tailspin sending tens of billions of dollers.
Maybe not tens, but it was reported in October of last year that Iran has spent ten: ynetnews in regurgitating a report from an article I cannot find. This older Huffington post article mentions billions. A recent reuters article mentions a billion in aid. This Wikipedia article says at least 9 billion.
It may in fact be tens given the other types of aid Iran provides such as military training and weapons.