The betrayal of the Kurds

Telegraph:

Stabs in the back don’t get much nastier than this.

For the past year, Western leaders have feted the Kurds of Northern Iraq,praising them as one of the few forces gutsy enough to face down the death cult of Isil.

Now, those leaders turn a blind eye, or even worse give an active nod, toattacks on Northern Iraqi Kurds by the Turkish air force.

Heroes one minute; fair game for massacre the next. In the long list of Western betrayals of former allies overseas, this one feels especially grotesque.

Last Friday, following months of negotiation with Washington, Turkey launched its first-ever air strikes against Isil in Syria.

A few hours later it started dropping bombs in Northern Iraq — not on Isil, but on the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, with which Turkey has been locked in bitter conflict since 1984.

Turkey, and Washington, consider the PKK a terrorist outfit. Confirming Turkey’s Kurd-targeting attacks inside Iraq, the office of the Turkish PM said: “Strikes were carried out on targets of the Daesh [Isil] terror group in Syria and the PKK terror group in Northern Iraq.”

This might sound like a causal official announcement. But it’s actually a morally loaded, and morally warped, statement.

For the conflation of Isil with the PKK — with both depicted as "terror groups” Turkey wants to demolish — suggests there’s a moral equivalence between them; between a barbaric group that seems to have been teleported form the Middle Ages and a Marxist guerrilla outfit that wants to create a Kurdish homeland on Iraqi, Turkish and Syrian territory.

Yet whatever you think of the PKK — whether you agree with Western capitals that brand it terroristic or with Kurds who think it’s a legit army —there’s simply no comparison between these Left-wing militants and the Islamic forces currently plundering, statue-smashing and beheading their way through Syria and Iraq.

Some Western observers say Turkey is only pounding PKK positions, rather than indiscriminately targeting all Kurdish groups in Northern Iraq, and that’s why Western leaders aren’t too worried.

But it’s way more complicated than that. The PKK has close links with the YPG, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units in Syria, who have been among the bravest battlers against Isil.
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This is one of the most shameful betrayals in American history.  It is also inexplicable.  The Turks have been the most worthless ally in NATO in the war with ISIL while the Kurds have borne the brunt of the fighting with ISIL and turkey acted as a conduit for supplies and fighters.

It looks like a sellout on a grand scale while Obama is on an African vacation.

Meanwhile the special forces raid on the ISIL "chief financial officer" produced direct evidence of Turkish involvement in supplying ISIL and buying its black market oil.

If there is anyone who deserves US support in the war with ISIL it is the Kurds.  They have been teh only effective fighting force on the ground.