Afrin is the new Kobane, let us all defend it however we can

North Syria Federation
(credit: Editor abcdef, Wikimedia)
In yellow Afrin Region (canton)

Let's begin stating the obvious (but not so-obvious to many apparently):

1. Turkey has a fascist regime led by Hitler-loving and Islamo-Fascist extremist Tayyip Erdogan.

2. Russia and the USA are both capitalist (and thus imperialist) states: there is no monopolar imperialism, imperialism is by (Lenin's) definition the struggle of the various capitalist powers to control the world's resources and attempt to exert quasi-imperial or at least some relative hegemony over the rest. 

3. The SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces, organized around the Kurdish YPG/YPJ core) and the legitimate government of Syria (Baath, Assad) get along even if they clearly have different political projects: the former internationalist and Kurdish-centered, radically democratic and decidedly communist, the latter Arab nationalist (pan-Arabist), not so democratic (in spite of the reforms) and not so socialist (rather state-directed national capitalism). In spite of skirmishes and diverging international alliances this has been the case since the beginning, when the YPG coalesced as a Kurdish self-defense force.

Also maybe not-so-obvious to some may be the fact that Turkey has a huge army but that it is made up mainly of recruits, many of whom hate Erdogan (even by rigging the elections the Turkish neo-sultan only managed to get a narrow majority in parliament and needs the backing of the secular-fascists to stay in power). We have already seen in Ukraine how these conscription armies are very inefficient against motivated popular militias, notably when their commander regime is illegitimate and the war they are waging is as well. 

It is also important to underline that Syria has allowed massive YPG-SDF reinforcements to arrive to Afrin. And that Turkey is working with Islamist militias (roughly Al Qaeda and DAESH, just recently renamed again for PR reasons) just the same they used them as death squads in the brutal repression of the Bakur (North Kurdistan) uprising in 2014-15.

Both the USA and Russia court Turkey. The former want it to return to its former status of reliable ally (vassal) and thus are not taking active action in Afrin, where they are not present, but still signalling they won't retreat from Manbij or other lands of the Northern Syria Federation where they hold some military presence. The latter have snubbed their Syrian ally in regard to air protection of the canton of Afrin, as determined by truce agreements, because they clearly want Turkey to become yet another ally in the region, along with Iran (also anti-Kurdish) and Syria. The powers do not care about Afrin at all: they are interested mainly in the Bosporus Straits, which are Turkey's main asset, and secondarily in projection in the Fertile Crescent.

What's actually going on? 

As far as I can tell there has been heavy bombardment by Turkey of civilian towns, using chemical weapons in at least some cases, and even the destruction of a landmark historical ruin (a signature of Islamo-fascism) but on land Turkey and their allies have made only very limited gains. 

As of today Turkey has only occupied a hill on the border, hailed as a "great victory" by their propaganda machinery, of course. The initial attempts to take over the southeastern extension of the canton north of Aleppo failed, with many more casualties in the Islamo-Turkish camp than in the Kurdish Communist one.

However, let's face it, it's a David versus Goliath scenario in which, in spite of their bravery, the Kurds and allies (including as far as I know some internationalist units) have it very difficult. The same was true in Kobane and they prevailed though... on their own forces alone. 

I would expect that, as soon as the Spring arrives, the Kurdish forces north of the railroad (the official Syro-Turkish border is the old Baghdad railroad in most of its length) will initiate some sort of offensive, forcing the Turkish army to spread wide, but right now it is massively concentrated around the small territory of Afrin, the Mountain of Kurds.

  
Popular forces can win against all odds

But we have seen it before in Donbass and in Kobane: a motivated militia can certainly defeat a poorly motivated conscription army, never mind fascist mercenaries. Why do I "dare" to compare Donbass and Afrin: aren't ones in the side of Russia and the others in the side of the USA? The answer is "no": neither Russia nor the USA care much about their popular "allies", they

fear them in fact, precisely because they are democratic and popular, and only offer them very limited and conditional support at best. They are just forced to cooperate with them because of geostrategical reasons but always with the sight elsewhere: Kiev, the Bosporus, Latakia, etc. Who backs them is not important, what matters is that they are democratic and popular forces.

And I must say that it is most interesting that these great powers are being forced by circumstances, by the inefficiency of other more fascist or authoritarian approaches, to rely on these grassroots militias to some extent. It evidences that Lenin was right when he characterized Imperialism as a clash of oligarchic mafias on which we revolutionaries should not be too interested but rather on the possibility of making some revolutions in the cracks generated by this inter-imperialist struggle.These cracks are every day larger and democratic socialism is arising in them, not without difficulty but with perseverance and admirable toughness. 

And that's why we must help as much as we can to defend Afrin and denounce the Turco-Islamist criminal aggression: because it's not just the people of Afrin and the many thousands of refugees installed there, it's not just the right to self rule of the Kurdish and all other peoples, it is global revolution what is being fought there. Afrin is the linchpin of our hope for a better world, we can't just watch or ignore it.

Hariri's kidnapping is just part of a major coup in Saudi Arabia

This intereview with Lebanese journalist Marwa Osman at The Corbett Report is most interesting:

The most luxurious hotel in Riyadh is now a prison for all the princes in the realm. Furthermore at least one key prince, Fahed bin Abdullah was killed by gunfire. Incidentally this man was best friend since childhood of kidnapped Lebanese PM Hariri and his business partner.

Israel and Washington behind the scenes

In min. 14:55 she says: "He [Mohamed bin Salman] sees Hizbollah as a threat to himself. I don't know why, because Hizbollah is a threat to Israel not to him".

To understand that one has to take in account the revelations that Prince Khalid bin Farhan al-Saud made in June to the Middle East Monitor: Mohamed has made a deal with Trump by which the USA backs his bid for total power, including speedy ascension to the throne (his father, the nominal king, has Alzheimer). in exchange for Saudi blessing and financing for the Final Solution against Gaza Strip, a territory that Israel now covets for their version of the Suez Canal. 

I discussed this and the sudden hostility against Qatar here.

Very weird: Saudi Arabia kidnaps Lebanese Prime Minister and forces his resignation

The weirdest of all things is that Saad Hariri is widely considered as very close to Saudi Arabia.

In spite of that affinity, the Lebanese PM is effectively kidnapped in Riyadh and had to record a resignation, written in the Saudi dialect of Arabic, which was broadcast by the Saudi TV channel Al Arabiya. The statement also included a total rejection of Hezbollah, something very Saudi but very much non-Lebanese.

Watch this interview (TRN) for further details:

Saudi strongman and heir to the throne, Mohamed bin Salman, has been doing all kind of weird things as of late: kidnapping many of his own relatives, what seems intended to quell all possible opposition to his takeover, backed by the USA in exchange for very cruel favors to Israel (they are planning the "final solution" to the Palestinian "problem").

This seems like yet another move intended to consolidate Mohamed's power by paying the horrible price of genocide and treason to Israel and its US colonial motherland. It's wacko but it fits. 

Surely the USA already has orchestrated the replacement and is one that will serve the interests of Zionism.

Behind Qatar's crisis: Israel's plan to annex Gaza and expel all its inhabitants

I have been as puzzled as anyone about what on Earth was going on behind the sudden blockade and blackmail by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and a couple of lesser players (UAE and Bahrain) against Qatar. But today suddenly the puzzle begins to take shape with the addition of two new pieces:

1. Egypt's Parliament voted to cede two strategic islands to Saudi Arabia. The islands of Tiran and Sanafir are located at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba, making that strait Egyptian territorial waters. This cession was done against Egyptian national interest and historical pride and without Saudi Arabia having ever staked any claim on those islands. Actually the cession is not about Egypt nor Saudi Arabia but about Israel, because by giving away those strategic islands, the Zionist Colony gains free access to the Red Sea via what will suddenly become international (and not anymore Egyptian) waters. 

Tiran and Sanafir islands (source: The Real News)

2. Prince Khalid Bin Farhan al-Saud, who lives outside the rigors of the Saudi courtly plots in Germany, has revealed that the conditions imposed by the USA to the current Crown Prince (heir) and effective strongman of Saudi Arabia, Mohamed Bin Salman, in order to allow his raise to the throne before his (demented) father's death are that Saudi Arabia accepts the genocide in Gaza and finances the resettlement of Palestinians in Sinai, and also the internationalization of the waters of the Gulf of Aqaba.

From the Middle East Monitor:

The alleged conditions include “absolute obedience to the US and Israel and carrying out whatever they ask him to do.” Three other conditions, claimed Khalid, are stated in return for helping Bin Salman take the throne before the death of his father: “Working to settle all Gaza residents in north Sinai as an alternative homeland and Saudi Arabia along with the UAE will afford the needed funds; getting rid of Hamas and whoever supports it; and getting Sanafir Island from Egypt.”

Bin Farhan said that the last condition would make the Gulf of Aqaba international waters instead of Egyptian territorial waters, which would facilitate Israeli shipping to and from the port of Eilat. It would also help Israel to carry out a project planned to operate in parallel to the Suez Canal. A retainer of around $500 million is also involved, he claimed.

Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and Gulf of Aqaba (credit: Graphic Lab (ru))

For the last many years Gaza has been ruled by Hamas, originally a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, against whose elected government arose the current military strongman and President of Egypt. Both moderate islamist organizations are the main pretext for the Saudi-Egyptian aggression against Qatar. 

It is worth reminding that Turkey, whose autocratic President Erdogan seems to have been falling apart with the USA and even flirting with Russia and Iran, has rushed to protect Qatar from any possible Saudi invasion and can be perceived as a historical mild ally of the Muslim Brotherhood and even Hamas (remember the Mavi Marmara). However Turkey remains part of NATO and provides a key air base (Inçirlik, near the Syrian border) to the USA and its European vassals ("allies").

It would seem that when Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed his happiness about Trump's election, he knew well what was going on behind the obvious political and geostrategical clumsiness of the White House's buffoon (so-called "President"). Only someone of the low stock as Trump would allow for such a blatant a genocide to take place before our noses.

The plan is quite apparently already ongoing, the cession of the islands is a clear sign, so we should expect that in few weeks, months at most, the plan to invade Gaza and expel all its inhabitants, more than one million people, most of them refugees from what is now Israel, will begin.

Let's not be mere spectators, let us make everything possible to prevent this new genocide.

Nationalism. How to overcome it?

Often people talk about nationalism with generalizing negativeness. For many people: one word equals one simple meaning, or at least that's how they use it. However the simple meaning attempted to convey is as subjective as the speaker. Let's try to clarify.

Since the 1930s and 40s, the word nationalism has become negatively loaded in English, while its synonym patriotism is instead preferred, as it conveys more positive connotations. This seems to come from the use in English journalism of the word "nationalist" to refer to fascists, notably Franco's, when actually he and his followers hated that word, which they associated with Basque and Catalan independentism, calling themselves nacionales, that is: nationals, without the "-ism". In Spanish it is the other way around: it is the word patriotism and its root patria (fatherland), which is loaded with negative connotations, precisely because Franco and his mind-slaves used and abused it, while nationalism has for many positive connotations, precisely because democrats and socialists used it with preference. It's all very capriciously loaded on 20th century historical accidents.

The Basque language case is different: Spanish borrowings follow the Spanish cultural rule but Basque lacked originally for any word for nation, let alone fatherland, different than herri (people or country). So back in the late 19th century, when the Arana brothers reinvented Basque Nationalism in terms that have gone mainstream, they also invented many neologisms of their own, quite arbitrary, thought, one of them being aberri (fatherland, from Sumerian and/or Semitic aba = father, in funny amateurish linguistic exercise¹). The derived word abertzale, now fully consolidated, would then translate as patriot but, as this term is seen as negative in the Iberian Peninsula, it is translated as nationalist instead This may sound odd for native English speakers but that's how the subjectivity of meanings go, depending on cultural specifics. Specifics that have a very shallow history in any case.

In addition to that fatherland and patriot have clear patriarchal connotations (they directly appeal to the father and the father's line), while nation and nationalist do not (they appeal to the place and community of birth instead: natio = birth). This may also weight for some in their choice of words and one can well argue that they are indeed more neutral etymologically speaking.

All these arbitrary, subjective and slippery concepts associated with words are not useful for the analysis I intend to make here. I will therefore consider patriotism and nationalism as the synonyms they actually are, and just use nation and nationalism, avoiding hence the patriarchal load of the word patriot.

Two types of nations and two types of nationalism

What is a nation? For many it has become synonym of an established state. However that's not the original meaning and is only a forced recycling imposed by those so-called nation-states in concert, particularly those who fear their own minority nations' rightful claims to sovereignty, to self-rule.

As I said before, nation comes from a Latin word natio, meaning birth. Traditionally and often also in modern speech it refers to a distinctive ethnic community (Greek: ἔθνος = nation). As nation and state were often dissociated in ancient times, at no time this concept meant state (Lat. res publica = public thing, the word state does come from Lat. status but with a modern evolution in meaning) nor polity (Greek: πόλις = city). Only with the invention of modern nationalism, which is the idea that state and nation should be the same, either by giving a state to each existing nation or by forcing all people in each state to be assimilated into the core nation (or sometimes even exterminated or expelled, i.e. various forms of genocide). 

We see in the very definition of nationalism that it has two contradictory implications. In fact this means that there are two types of nationalism: defensive nationalism, that of stateless nations striving for self-rule, possibly in the form of a new nation-state, and aggressive nationalism, that of states and its core nations, trying to absorb everybody in their boundaries into the core nation or even expel/mass-murder them. 

I will argue here that the categories are therefore:

1. People-nationalism: a nation is formed naturally (historically, ethnogenetically) and it deserves its own self-rule, sovereignty, independence and possibly state. 
2. Imperial-nationalism: a nation is only those that control a state and everybody who falls out of the line must be punished. This one has two variants:
1. Roman style: the outlier nations must be assimilated.
2. Racist style: the outlier nations must be exterminated and/or expelled.

Imperial nationalism is intrinsically genocidal, either in the "soft" cultural way or in the "hard" murderous one. To some extent every single established nation-state falls into this category. It may be latent but it is there and sooner than later it will become a problem. Even nations that have not yet achieved independence and that are therefore victims of others' imperial-nationalism face this reactionary risk if they ever manage to succeed in their legitimate fight for freedom. 

Of course people-nationalism is invariably legitimate, as long as the people-nation historically holds a territory. By this I mean that, for example, it does not apply to Israel, which is an artificial colony on other people's territory, i.e. falls into a sui-generis variant of imperial-nationalism of the racist and genocidal type, the worst type of all. 

But it can perfectly happen and does happen that a successful people-nationalism turns petty imperial-nationalism once statehood is achieved. For example the very legitimate Norwegian or Finnish nationalism, turns out as problematically genocidal, at the very least in the cultural way, towards the Sámi nation; the very legitimate Dutch or Portuguese nationalism turned out imperialist against African, American and Asian nations. 

I guess that's why many people dislikes the very concept of nationalism. However this stand is utterly naive and, almost invariably, turns out as accomplice of imperial-nationalism. 

The naivety of anti-nationalism

Anti-nationalism cannot exist. It can be, I guess, subjectively imagined but it is an error of concept. Nations do exist naturally (historically) and often come into conflict with other nations. You cannot just erase them, just like you cannot erase history, customs, languages, etc. Doing so could only be done by assimilation, always unfair for the new arrivals, into a larger nation. 

For example we may imagine a single unified Humankind that only speaks English and holds not anymore any customs, even the calendar may be redesigned to be religion-neutral, proclaiming next year as "year one" of Human Unification. However this would indistinct from an overwhelming success of English imperial-nationalism. Same thing, mutatis mutandi, if the chosen language is Chinese, Arabic or Spanish. One can be passionately humanist but one cannot be naive. It is almost impossible that an artificial language like Esperanto could succeed but, even in such case, it would still be loaded (Esperanto is heavily Latin and other Indoeuropean-based, not neutral at all). 

Anti-nationalism is therefore, as such, heavily utopian in concept and camouflaged imperial-nationalism in practice. In fact most anti-nationalists I know are just Spanish-nationalists with a very poor pretext and/or a most worrisome confusion. 

Democratic Confederalism as only real solution

The concept of Democratic Confederalism is a quite new one by that name, one proposed very creatively and wisely by Kurdish nationalists aiming to overcome this profound problematic. How? Going beyond the concept and praxis of the state, proclaiming in theory and practice the states obsolete and illegitimate: only the self-given democratic institutions of each community have real legitimacy but none of them is legitimate to interfere into the internal affairs of any other democratically self-ruled community. Common affairs will be taken care of via freely established confederate institutions.

The concept by that name may be new but we do have a historical model for something very similar to such solution in Switzerland. A model that, in general terms, has withstood the test of time, with a record longevity of almost 800 years, something that no other democratic polity can claim. It is a system that is not only based on very radical decentralization, even in its current more centralist form, not just for the cantons (states) but also for the municipalities, but also on a democracy that is far more real than that of any other state I know: with referendums being a regular way of establishing or challenging laws, something that in nearly every other democratic (?) country is rejected as chaos and anarchy, populism and what not! 

Switzerland is not a nation-state but a multi-national federation, exactly what we need at larger scale, world-wide even. 

Of course our Kurdish comrades go a step or two further but the basic idea is the same one. This is the only way out of the nationalist quagmire: one that respects, on democratic and confederal basis, the differences as something that makes us better, not that attempts to suppress everything and everyone that is different and wants to remain so. 

The issue is not being not-nationalist or anti-nationalist, that's just a stupid ill-thought or outright hypocritical stand, the issue is going beyond the state. The problem is not in the nation but in the state, whose greater or lesser lack of democracy is nothing but tyranny.

____________

¹ It was then en vogue for every other language to claim relatedness to Sumerian and Basque was no exception. There are two basic words in Basque vocabulary that have an ab(a)- root: one is apaiz (priest), which clearly evolves from romance for abbot, having in turn a recent Semitic (Hebrew) root aba=father; the other is "abere" (domestic animal or livestock) much older and quite possibly related to Sumerian "ab", meaning cow, as well as some other words scattered in West Asian vocabulary. In this case it's probably a very old Neolithic term and has nothing to do with the idea of "father" or "parent".

Wahabi style massacres by Turkish Army in Kurdistan

Burned alive, beheaded... Sounds familiar? Sounds to DAESH. And that is exactly what "our NATO friend" Turkey is doing against its own (forced) citizens in Kurdistan:

→ ‘Burned to death, beheaded’: Cizre Kurds accuse Erdogan’s forces of civilian massacre (RT EXCLUSIVE)

Between 45 and 50 people were burned alive in one of the buildings, according to a local woman speaking to Whiteman. What is worse, many of the victims appear to have been cold-bloodedly beheaded by the Turkish troops, she said.

It's not just Cizîr‎ (Cizre in Turkish) but everywhere, also in the Northern capital Amed (Diyarbakır in Turkish), with a population of almost a million people:

→ Chilling revelations: Diyarbakır, city of the dead and missing (RT EXCLUSIVE)

Is this a new Armenian Genocide? A Kurdish Genocide in the making? Quite possibly, let's not forget that Erdogan has openly expressed his admiration of Hitler. 

“The objective of the Erdogan government is to completely have a genocidal campaign against the Kurds, because that’s what’s now occurring,” said Gregory Copley, editor of the journal Defense and Foreign Affairs. “This is now genocide, because the Turkish government has denied that there is any major military operation underway there.”

Erdogan and his growingly totalitarian Islamist regime are a terrorist force that is causing utmost grief in the territories of Syria, Iraq and Turkey itself, either via his puppet militias (Al Nusra, DAESH, etc.) or directly with the Turkish Army. He must be removed and made to pay for his crimes.

Curfew imposed on Northern Kurdistan capital of Diyarbakir

Several districts of the effective capital of Northern Kurdistan, Diyarbakir (known as Amed to Kurds), have been put under total curfew by the occupant power, Turkey. People has been forced to leave the area, while those who remain can't go out even to recover the bodies of their dead children.

The situation of North Kurdistan is everyday more similar to that of Palestine: discrimination and genocide under massive military occupation.

Turkey: hands off Kurdistan now!

In related news, several Basque, Valencian and Castilian internationalists, as well as Kurdish exile, were arrested yesterday by Spanish police under the accusation of trying to join Kurdish forces fighting for democracy and socialism. Spain, as usual, joins forces with Turkey and the Islamists against the will of the peoples.

Update (Jan 30): Grand Inquisitor¹ Eloy Velasco has declared the small party Refundación Comunista (Communist Refoundation) illegal for the next year for allegedly aiding the PKK, forcibly closing their sees in Madrid and Valencia. Most of the arrested have been set free but two, including the Kurdish one, have been sent to prison, a bail of 10,000 and 6000 euros respectively are demanded.

¹ Naturally I mean judge of the political tribunal Audiencia Nacional, infamous for all kind of political persecutions and also for aiding the impunity of politicians.

Cizre: the new Kobane

Solidarity demo in Paris on Thursday

Dozens have been killed by the Turkish armed forces in the Kurdish town of Cizre, which is being cruelly besieged with the silent complicity of the Western media.

Much like when the Zionist forces march onto Gaza Strip, Turkish police just shoots down everyone who attempts to go out, people are dying for lack of access to medical care and the dead cannot be buried even. 

The victims: "Turkish citizens" (on paper only), their murderer: the Turkish state. 

The town has been gripped by persistent fight between the YDG-H (young organization akin to the Kurdistan Workers' Party) and the Turkish armed forces who try in vain and criminally to retake control of a town that just does not want them. 

According to Ankara some 30 people had died, many of them children. The situation is becoming extreme for the 100,000 inhabitants, as food and water are becoming scarce quickly. 

Telephone communications have been cut, as well as electricity and water supply, at least three European journalists attempting to report have been expelled from Turkey. 

Kristallnacht

The conflict between the Kurdish nation and the Turkish state, under Fascist-Islamist control, advanced yet another step to the worst possible scenario as pro-Erdogan militants attacked, crying "God is Great!" more than 300 sees of the multi-ethnic People's Democratic Party (HDP) on the night of September 8th to 9th, in what has been called the Night of Broken Glass of Turkey, and surely implies the end of even a semblance of democracy in the bicontinental state. The fascist attack did not just took against the HDP offices, some of which were burned to the ground without Western media reporting at all, but has also attacked historical secularist media like the popular newspaper Hürriyet (Freedom), whose central Ankara offices were totally destroyed. 

The situation of growing and widespread war in all Kurdistan and extremist violence backed by the state in Turkey proper makes impossible that the upcoming elections can be considered fair at all. In fact, it is very clear that Erdogan wants to use the violence to secure a comfortable majority for his fascist party and that way reform the constitution in order to grant himself even greater power and destroy the safeguards for secularism, turning Turkey into a Saudi Arabia of sorts... without the oil.

Source: Diagonal[es].

Did Israel nuke Yemen?

An Israeli F-16, painted as Saudi, has quite apparently bombed the Yemeni capital with a nuclear bomb.

The brutal amount of energy released, the fungus-shaped explosion and the white pixelization of the film caused by radiation release is pretty much unmistakable.

It was not (not directly) Saudi Arabia because the Islamist state does not have F-16 airplanes nor, for all we know, nuclear weapons. So it was Israel or the USA (most opinions think that Israel). 

There's not much more to say other than it is dramatically necessary to stop the terrorist state of Israel and its allies: USA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Islamic State. It is very late already but better late than never.

Gaza Open Port: new Freedom Flotilla to challenge the genocidal siege

A new Freedom Flotilla aims to open the waters of Gaza and challenge the genocidal siege imposed by Zionists and its reactionary Arab allies (Egypt particularly). The first President of Tunisia after the 2011 Revolution, Moncef Marzouki, has announced he will be there. He's obviously not the only one, artists of international renown such as Manu Chao or Xabier Muguruza are also supporting the initiative. 

The list of members of the 2015 Freedom Flotilla is:

Canadian Boat to Gaza – Canadá
European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza
Freedom Flotilla Italy
Gaza’s Ark
IHH – Turquía
International Committee for Breaking the Siege on Gaza (ICBSG)
Rumbo a Gaza – Spain
Ship to Gaza Greece
Ship to Gaza Norway
Ship to Gaza Sweden

Other collaborators:

 

Lifeline to Gaza – Jordan
Miles of Smiles
Palestine Solidatiry Alliance – South Africa

As the Fascists enter Kobane, Kurds protest in Western Europe

Kurdish protest at La Hague

The Fascist Islamist genocidal threat is reaching the streets of the besieged town of Kobane in Western Kurdistan (formally part of the Syrian state). The city is being attacked from the South by the Nazil-like forces of the Western-organized Islamic State and cut from its only possible support via the North by the Turkish Army and Police, which do not allow Kurds to cross the artificial border line on the railroad to join the fight. 

As reaction, Kurdish emigrants in Western Europe have been holding major rallies in London and La Hague, among other places. In London they occupied the largest subway station, Oxford Circus, while in La Hague they took the gates of of the Dutch Parliament. They demand decided action against the Islamic State and in support of Kurdistan. 

Meanwhile in Kobane the self-defenses have declared the town military zone and asked all civilians to leave, as it is well known that the Islamic State holds a genocidal policy against all those they consider their enemies. By the moment it seems that the presence of Fascists in the streets of Kobane is limited to a few outskirts buildings but the situation is dire in any case, with US air attacks (secretly approved by Damascus) shown to be nearly useless. 

In this sense Kurdish forces demand mainly one thing: good weapons that can be used against the Fascists, whose equipment is excellent thanks to Western support and the takeover of large hoards from the Iraqi Army. As we have seen in Ukraine, this kind of technical advantage may not be enough against a decided popular resistance fighting for their lives, but, while the Ukrainian Christian-Fascists have only a very weak grasp on the populace and totally plays the Western Imperial game as subordinates, the Arab Islamo-Fascists seem to have a much better organization, capable to defy established stats like Syria and Iraq and co-opt large chunks of the Sunni Arab population, including expert soldiers, while their game is blurrier: with vague pretenses of establishing a supposedly anti-Western empire but clearly historical and present day support by Western Imperialist forces. 

The most obvious one is Turkey. While Saudi Arabia, the USA and even Israel now pretend to be against the Islamic State, taking some formal and even military actions against it. Turkey is clearly playing in favor of their Arab Fascist allies by blocking any possibility of support from Northern Kurdistan (under Turkish occupation). 

Naturally the USA is playing with two decks here: the IS is designed to be an excuse for the Empire to intervene in Syria and Iraq, weakening the influence of Iran, Russia and China in the area. By the moment the USA has conducted some air strikes, which seem to have no or very limited impact in the developments on the ground. The situation is in nearly all aspects a repetition of the Islamist uprising in Mali, which served the USA to gain some drone bases in the region and for France to return to its traditional role of post-colonial "protector" of the African regimes.

However West Asia is by all means much more geostrategical and volatile than West Africa. And the perilous game that the Western agents are playing there will have no doubt much greater consequences for all, including Europe. 

Biden speaks out

US Vice-President Joe Biden has been saying a few truths as of late, even if he had to apologize for them and some imperialist press paint him as prone to the foot-in-mouth disease. The reality is that he's saying, very mildly, what needs to be said. 

First of all, he accused Erdogan's Islamist Turkey of supporting the IS by allowing many of its members to enter Syria, what is true. Erdogan claimed to Heaven and Hell for his innocence and said that those fanatics crossed the border as unarmed tourists.

He also claimed that, as it is true that they kept the border way too open in the past, now they are keeping it tightly closed. What translated to plain English means: yes, we did allow the Fascist Islamists to enter Syria and provided all kind of help to them and now we won't allow the Kurdish militias to help the defense of Kobane. 

A full confession in diplomatic slang. Still Biden had to apologize, what underlines the actual role that the USA and its allies in the region are playing regarding the IS: covert support and a mere pretense of indignation, mostly oriented to gain imperialist control.

Another interesting remark by Vice-President Biden was that the USA has embarrassed its European allies by forcing sanctions against Russia that mostly harm the EU.

Kurdistan as bastion of Humanism and Progress in West Asia

Kurdistan and the Kurdish People stand today as the main bastion of resistance against Islamism and Imperialism. But they are more than that: in the course of their struggle for self-determination, they have developed strong progressive and socialist ideals, even recently trying to overcome the burden of bourgeois nation-state cages by appealing to confederate democratic self-rule of the peoples and communities of the region. 

It is not needed to mention that, among Kurds, and in spite of the deeply rooted historical burden of Muslim Patriarchy, women enjoy increasingly equal status, largely thanks to their own commitment in the guerrillas and militias that defend their country against their oppressors. Socialist ideals stand high among Kurds and definitely they hold better than anyone else the banner of Humanism in West Asia, being nearly impossible to defeat thanks to their numbers (the largest stateless nation on Earth) and the mountains that shelter them. 

In this sense I can't but issue again another appeal for almost unconditional support for the Kurdish cause, because it is not different in essence to the cause of Humankind. 

Long Live the Kurdish People!

Long Live Free Kurdistan!

Fundamentalist pincer against Kurdish civilians

The Western-armed "Islamic State" has attacked the Kurdish town of Kobanê (also known as Ayn al-Arab), causing the flight of some 70,000 civilians to Northern Kurdistan, under Turkish occupation. The Islamist government of Ankara, known to be the most unconditional supporter of Ibrahim's "Caliphate", has closed the artificial colonial border, which runs along the Istanbul-Baghdad railroad through this part of Kurdistan. 

Thousands of Northern Kurds have been pushing towards the barbed-wire occupation line with the intent of helping the refugees or even joining the struggle against the Islamists. As the Turkish occupation forces wouldn't let them move freely, clashes began near the checkpoint.

A large number of civilians remain trapped south of the occupation line (→ video) without food nor water after being forced to run for their lives as the Islamist forces advanced around Kobanê destroying everything.

As happens with the Yezidi refugees taken under the protection of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Turkish state is not at all willing to help them even passively, regardless of the fact that the PKK and Ankara have been in a stable truce for a whole year now. The attitude of Ankara has been all the time to support the Islamic State and favor their war crimes. Thousands of Ibrahim's fanatic followers are Turkish, the Turkish Army has trained Islamic State's thugs in NATO's most important airbase in the region: Incirlik (what implies also US participation and blessing) and, while closing the occupation line to Kurds, has allowed the border to remain open for the Islamist terrorists. 

Much as in Ukraine or Palestine: NATO, the US Empire and its many puppets, means fascist dictatorship and terror for the civilians everywhere, whose lives become incidental to the power-mongering of the imperialist forces and totally expendable. Kurdistan is no exception and, especially considering that the Kurdish forces have one of the most advanced socio-political analysis in our West Eurasian region, they deserve all the solidarity we can muster: because they are the only good guys and girls in all the region, the only ones who seem to have clear priorities of equality, freedom and respect and not some fanatic fascist agenda that only serves the oligarchs of the World at the expense of the people.  

The Humanist ideals in West Asia are spelled "Kurdistan", let's give them all our support, let's smash those fascists!

Gaza devastation seen from the air

This short video shows how the neighborhood of Shujaiya was flattened by Zionist genocidal hatred:

(via The Electronic Intifada)

The images were taken with a quadrocopter drone.

Almost even worse than the devastation is the impunity of Zionist hate-speech online. Just go to the corresponding YouTube page and read the many anti-semitic (anti-Arab) murderous comments...

Holocaust survivors condemn Gaza genocide and denounce growing Nazification of "Israel"

247 Jewish survivors of Nazi death camps have already signed the following letter condemning the Gaza genocide: 

Jewish survivors and descendents of survivors of Nazi genocide unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza

As Jewish survivors and descendents of survivors of the Nazi genocide we unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and colonization of historic Palestine. We further condemn the United States for providing Israel with the funding to carry out the attack, and Western states more generally for using their diplomatic muscle to protect Israel from condemnation. Genocide begins with the silence of the world.

We are alarmed by the extreme, racist dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli society, which has reached a fever-pitch. In Israel, politicians and pundits in The Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post have called openly for genocide of Palestinians and right-wing Israelis are adopting Neo-Nazi insignia.

Furthermore, we are disgusted and outraged by Elie Wiesel’s abuse of our history in these pages to promote blatant falsehoods used to justify the unjustifiable: Israel’s wholesale effort to destroy Gaza and the murder of nearly 2,000 Palestinians, including many hundreds of children. Nothing can justify bombing UN shelters, homes, hospitals and universities. Nothing can justify depriving people of electricity and water.

We must raise our collective voices and use our collective power to bring about an end to all forms of racism, including the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people. We call for an immediate end to the siege against and blockade of Gaza. We call for the full economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel. “Never again” must mean NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE!

Source and further information: International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.

Sad on geopolitics

I've been rather down this last month and not really feeling stimulated to work and contribute. Partly is just tiredness from all the real life pressures, which take a toll, but a lot is caused by the ongoing Imperial murderous aggressions in Gaza, Ukraine and Syria/Iraq. 

And related to that the very depressing knowledge of being trapped under the boot of an Empire that I just can't but hate, because of the multi-layered oppressions that it inflicts on us: exploitation, double occupation (as Empire and as local state), rapid collapse of freedom of speech, growing tolerance for fascist brutality, very much worrying persistence of cultural stupidity (pop, techno and such - how annoying!), very limited hope of revolutionary change in a time that it is more needed than ever before (the very survival of the species is at the stake), etc. 

Gaza genocide is a very clear instance of what is going on: raw European colonial brutality without any sort of meaningful opposition. Not at all different from other recent genocides, such as the Herero genocide, the Armenian genocide or the Jewish and Roma Holocaust. It is happening right on our faces and, while many good hearted people are doing what they can (or what they think they can) to denounce it, the political and media impunity for the Zionazis is outraging, evidencing the Fascist nature of the Imperial Authority we live under. 

Another equally horrible instance of the ongoing Imperial madness is the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. It is clearly worse than Chernobyl but instead of applying the virtues of democracy, criticizing the authorities for their failures and hypocrisy, the whole trend has been to hide the problem. Reality is stubborn and will make us pay for that attitude of denial but so far they have managed to get away with it and that is even more worrisome, because they will keep doing it for as long as they can, reinforcing the fascist mechanisms of thought control via mass media controlled by very few hands.

And then we have the Fascist putsch in Ukraine, with genocide against the resisters in the East; the equally Fascist and terrorist balcanization of West Asia by the "Caliphate" of Imperial financing and at the service of the Empire, particularly the Zionists; the most worrisome advance of the Far Right in France, Britain, Denmark, Hungary, etc. 

It's a really bad, very bad historical moment. Even the opposition to the Empire is quite pathetic. Sure: the BRICS have been falling together, largely under Imperial pressure, and began doing some joint stuff that may counter the US imperialism a bit. But they are all horrible bourgeois regimes with absolutely no socialist program, let alone an ecologist one, that can serve to attract the sympathies of the Global People and promote a hopeful Humankind.

And I'm not just talking of the hope of abolishing exploitation and alienation but the most critical hope of survival of the Human species, which right now seems doomed to extinction by mindless suicide. 

Of all the governments on Earth, only a few Latin American ones, seem coherent enough to inspire some hope. None of them is a real power, none of them has nuclear weapons and none of them is a member of the BRICS, although they may sympathize with them because of a common foe: the US Empire. 

As children die massacred with absolute impunity by the minions of the Empire in Gaza, Iraq and Ukraine, what can we do? The feeling of powerlessness is overwhelming and, sincerely, depressing.

US Empire (blue, purple) and rivals (red, pink) - click to expand

If Palestinians were seen as human beings and other readings on Zionist inhumanity

From Global Research:


If Palestinians were human beings

If Palestinians were human beings, Israeli leaders and public figures would not publicly fantasize for years about their mass extermination and concentration camps, or to extinguish them en masse by having Gaza grazed, painted red, turned into rubble and flattened, reformatted and wiped clean, and sent back to the Middle Ages.

If Palestinians were human beings in the eyes of Israel and global powers, their killers in the IDF would be held accountable under international law.

Israel gives Jews a bad name

Seven "Deadly Lies"  about Gaza

The "Israeli Dream": the criminal roadmap towards a Greater Israel

Warplane delivery makes Italy complicit in Israeli crimes

From the Electronic Intifada (author Stephanie Westbrook):

Italy has offered more concrete support for Israel’s latest attack on Gaza than perhaps any other European Union country. As the massacres began earlier this month, two Italian-made M-346 jet trainer aircraft were delivered to Hatzerim, an Israeli Air Force base in the Naqab (Negev).

These warplanes — the most “advanced” of their type, according to their manufacturers — will be used to train pilots for similar operations to the one now being carried out against Gaza’s 1.8 million people.

The Rome authorities cannot seriously claim that the timing of the 9 July delivery — two days after the assault on Gaza began — is a pure coincidence. Israel has undertaken offensives against Gaza and Lebanon, and committed countless human rights violations over the past decade. And yet Italy has deepened its military cooperation with Israel.

... continue reading at EI.

Nonviolent anarchists arrested when attempting to prevent Gaza genocide

21 members of Anarchists Against the Wall were arrested after blockading the entrance to a military airbase of the Zionist Genocidal Colony. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Police repression of solidarity with Palestine in Paris - 50,000 march in London for Gaza

As I mentioned before the fascistoid Government of Manuel Valls tried to forbid a demonstration of solidarity with Gaza in Paris. In the last minute the courts reversed the Government's decision and authorized it but by then only the New Anticapitalist Party was standing for the march, legal or not. 

For two hours the demonstration, which gathered several thousands, marched through Paris chanting "we all are Palestinians", "no to Gaza blockade", "Israel assassin, Hollande accomplice", etc.

However at 16:20 police attacked the march, apparently unprovoked, triggering a street battle around the North Rail Station of the city. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].


50,000 march in London

In England instead everything was more peaceful and some 50,000 people (up to 100,000, according to some sources) marched through the streets of London in support of the victims of Zionist murderous madness. 

Some few hundreds fascists rallied in support of Genocide in a separate location.

Source: Jews sans frontieres.

Zionists invade Gaza Ghetto by land

It is unclear which are their goals but this is the first such land intervention by the Zionist Colony in the Gaza Strip since they evacuated it in 2005.

It is however apparent that the Zionist State is probably behind the offshore gas wealth of Gaza, already controlled de facto by the Zionists but legally disputed by the UN-recognized Palestine State, and it may well also attempt a throughout genocide in the massive open air prison, forcing the exit of most of its 1.7 million denizens (mostly refugees from other parts of Palestine, now annexed to "Israel") to Egypt or even kill them on the spot with chemical weapons, which are known to have been used already in the few hours that the attack has lasted. 

The Zionist campaign seems dead set into occupying all Gaza and has absolutely no qualms about murdering civilians, including children and the infirm.

My understanding is that they want to implement a massive genocide in all the residual Palestine and that this Gaza "campaign" is just the beginning. The very convenient presence of the so-called Islamic State in neighboring areas and the firm pro-Imperial grip of the Military Junta in Egypt make it impossible that anyone seriously challenges the Zionist genocidal campaign so they are quite probably attempting to kill or expel all Palestinians still living in their homeland in a new edition of the 1948 Nakba.

If the Zionist State succeeds in Gaza, next will be the West Bank and Galilee, where the Native Palestinian population is still dominant. Dissident "Israelis" are also being targeted by Jewish Superiority Nazi mobs, which have been unleashed through much of the suffering country of Palestine.

Meanwhile the Zionist allies in Europe and North America just look elsewhere and pretend this is just a "war" with a particularly uncomfortable high civilian death toll.

Sources: RT, AJ.