Majorityrights News > Category: Military Matters

Anna died fighting for left nationalism as it is the natural form of ethnonationalism - representing the full class of a nation’s people; including women as represented by the YPJ division in which she fought. The YPJ/G share our fight for ethnonational sovereignty against imperial supremacism and exploitation.

Guardian, “British woman killed fighting Turkish forces in Afrin”, 19 Mar 2018:

Anna Campbell believed to be the first British woman to die alongside Kurdish forces in Syria

British woman fighting alongside Kurdish forces in Afrin, northern Syria, has been killed, Kurdish commanders said

Anna Campbell, from Lewes, East Sussex, was volunteering with the US-backed Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) – the all-female affiliate army of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – in the besieged city of Afrin when the convoy she was travelling in was struck by a Turkish missile on 16 March.

Sources say the 26-year-old initially travelled to Syria to join the Kurdish struggle against Islamic State, but begged her Kurdish commanders to send her to the Afrin front after Turkey launched a ground and air offensive to oust Kurdish forces from its borderlands in January.

“They refused at first, but she was adamant, and even dyed her blonde hair black so as to appear less conspicuous as a westerner,” a YPJ source told the Guardian.

“Finally they gave in and let her go.”

She is not only the first British woman killed fighting alongside Kurdish forces in Syria, but also the first Briton to die there since Turkey launched its incursion into Kurdish-held territory on 20 January.

In a statement to the Guardian on Sunday, YPJ commander and spokesperson Nesrin Abdullah said: “[Campbell’s] martyrdom is a great loss to us because with her international soul, her revolutionary spirit, which demonstrated the power of women, she expressed her will in all her actions … On behalf of the Women’s Defence Units YPJ, we express our deepest condolences to [her] family and we promise to follow the path she took up. We will represent her in the entirety of our struggles.”

Her father, Dirk Campbell, described her as a “beautiful and loving daughter” who “would go to any lengths to create the world that she believed in”.

“Anna was very idealistic, very serious, very wholehearted and wanted to create a better world. She wasn’t fighting when she died, she was engaged in a defensive action against the Turkish incursion.”

• Syria’s new exiles: Kurds flee Afrin after Turkish assault

In recent months Turkey has shifted its focus from fighting Isis in Syria to preventing the YPG from establishing a foothold along its border, arguing that the YPG is linked to its own insurgent group, the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK). The US, EU and Britain, however, do not consider the YPG a terrorist group, which it has supported in its fight against Isis since 2014.

Dirk Campbell said his daughter had dedicated her life to the fight against “unjust power and privilege”.

He said she was a committed human rights and environmental campaigner who would “put herself on the line for what she believed in”.

“It seems a small thing, but I remember when she was 11, she protected a bumblebee from being tormented by other kids at school,” he recalled. “She did it with such strength of will that they ridiculed her. But she didn’t care. She was absolutely single-minded when it came to what she believed in, and she believed what Turkey is doing is wrong.”

He said his daughter’s passion for campaigning was inspired by her mother, Adrienne, who was well-known on the south of England’s activism scene and died of breast cancer five years ago. “Anna was a credit to her mum, my wife, and was carrying on a lot of the kind of work that she was doing,” he added.

Campbell told her father of her plans to travel to northern Syria last May after she heard about the grassroots feminist and socialist revolution that has swept Rojava (the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Syria and heartland of the YPG/J) and inspired the Kurds’ fight against Isis.

“I didn’t try to stop her,” Mr Campbell said. “Because I knew, once she had decided to do something, she was unstoppable. That’s why she went to Rojava: to help build a world of equality and democracy where everyone has a right to representation. When she told me she was going I joked: ‘It’s been nice knowing you.’ I just knew it might be the last time I’d see her.”

Upon arrival in Rojava, Campbell completed the YPJ’s mandatory month-long military training course, in which new recruits learn basic Kurdish, weaponry and battlefield tactics on top of a crash course in the egalitarian and feminist ideology of the YPG/J, and was assigned to an infantry division, comprising a mix of Kurdish and international fighters. There she was given the nom-de-guerre Helîn Qerecox and sent to the front.

YPJ sources said she spent her first months in the country fighting in Deir ez-Zor, Isis’s last major stronghold and scene of the jihadist group’s bitter last stand. But with Isis now on the brink of defeat, foreign fighters within Kurdish ranks have faced a choice: return home or remain in Syria to help the YPG repel Turkey’s attack.

“After the initial attacks on Afrin, comrade Helîn insisted on joining the operation to defend Afrin,” said Abdullah. “Before leaving, she had already received her military training, and, although we wanted to protect her and did not agree with her decision … she incessantly insisted on her wish to leave for Afrin. She even gave us a condition: ‘Either I will go home and abandon the life as a revolutionary or you send me to Afrin. But I would never leave the revolution, so I will go to Afrin’.”

She added: “For us, as the YPJ, comrade Helîn will always be a symbol as a pioneering internationalist woman. We will live up to her hope and beliefs. We will forever pursue her aim to struggle for women, for oppressed communities.”

Mark Campbell, activist and co-chair of the Kurdistan Solidarity Campaign, added: “Anna, by all accounts, was taken deep into the heart of the Kurdish people as she stood side by side with them in their darkest hour. Our thoughts and condolences are with Anna’s family and friends as this time.”

Campbell is believed to be the eighth British citizen killed while serving with Kurdish forces in Syria.

Gary Cohn invited to leave and be replaced by dumber paleocon.

Unite the Right to Wedge-out Paleo-Cohn

Unite the Right Charlottesville was a successful neo-con, neo-liberal operation forcing a wedge against Gary Cohn’s clever paleoconservative positioning - Trump’s tariffs on Asian raw materials was the last straw.

While I have been able to see a trap for White Nationalism in forced identity with the right generally, I could also see clearly and specifically that “Unite the Right” was a trap maneuvered by YKW and neoliberal lackey’s to force vocal and visible stigmatic association.

It was unbelievable to me that “Alt-Righters” would agree to participate in such a tactlessly forecast high profile event with some of the more traditional stigmatic right wing groupings, and thereby undo a few of the things that the Alt-Right actually had going for it - to distance itself from association with historical stigma and to be only loosely affiliated, un-united enough so as to be too hard to pin down - thus, not allowing the enemies of White Nationalism to easily categorize them negatively in association with anti-social positions; to allow populist audiences to dismiss them offhand in one fall swoop with a singular negative category - and beyond casual dismissal as non-serious, to frighten populist audiences into outright opposition for observable potential in nefarious, unaccountable religious, scientistic and neo-Nazi association and intent.

However, Kumiko has penetrated this to a more perspicuous theoretical overview.

Behind “Unite The Right” and its confrontation by “Anti-Fa” was an orchestrated wedge issue, encouragement of Trump to take a neutral stance toward “the Nazis” and “The Alt-Left, who were ‘to blame, too’, blame and good people on all sides.”

Kudlow was born and raised in New Jersey, the son of Ruth (née Grodnick) and Irving Howard Kudlow. His family is Jewish. He once served as chief economist at the investment firm Bear Sterns before he was fired in 1995 when he entered rehab to treat a hundred thousand dollar a month cocaine habit. Kudlow has repeatedly failed to forecast economic trends. In December of 2007 as the sub prime mortgage market began to unravel, leading to the deepest recession since the 30’s, Kudlow wrote, there’s no recession coming, the ‘pessimistas” were wrong… it’s not going to happen. The Bush boom is alive and well. It’s finishing up it’s sixth consecutive year with more to come.

Neocons and their Neo Liberal corporatist sellout allies would have been opposed to Gary Cohn and any efforts to hold their businesses in The U.S. against their profits, and to prevent a more thorough YKW and corporatist, feudalist exploitation of Asia; as opposed to sovereign industrial development by Asian corporations in Asia.

Trump’s conciliatory stance toward “Nazis” was encouraged by Mnuchin to drive a wedge against Cohn, who’d find that intolerable; with that be driven off by the internationalist left, recognizing a paleocon U.S. protectionist all too competent to run a neo feudalist operation against Asian labor.

Cohn hung-on in the Trump administration in hopes of being appointed Federal Reserve Chairman. That didn’t happen and the final nail in the coffin of his strategy happened when Trump proposed tariffs on raw materials of steel and iron from Asia - if you’re looking to exploit Asian labor as a feudalist, you don’t want to force them to grapple into lateral transmission (sovereignty), forcing them to develop industry and capacity to machinate their own raw materials.

Cohn was “too competent” in his capacity to run a feudalist international operation; and had to make way for a less competent and more compliant paleocon bracket, viz. Larry Kudlow - having cut his teeth under President Reagan, a protege of Frank Meyer’s paleocon movement.

”Tillerson’s Sacking Will Shock America and the World - but Delight Israel.” ...“Mike Pompeo’s impending move to secretary of state is sure to result in a much more hawkish and confrontational U.S. policy towards Iran.”

To complete the Zionist, neo-fuedalist enterprise, Trump also needed to get Tillerson’s obstruction out of the way, defensive as Tillerson was of the Iran deal (which liberalizes Iran as opposed to yielding to Islamic reactionary/ Abrahamic comprador control); he had to make way for the administration’s more ardent Zionist imperialist agenda - to undo the Iran deal is far more ably pursued with anti-Iranian hawk, Pompeo.

Finally toward that end, look to the possibility of the partly Jewish John Bolton to be placed in charge of the National Security Council - a historically instrumental position for those looking to initiate wars from The U.S. platform. Bolton is notoriously war mongering toward Iran and he is among the few people to be interviewed and seriously considered by Trump to a position to wield decisions over the matter.

Zsolt Bayer

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BBC, “White working class girls traded for sex, says MP”, 13 Mar 2018:

Vulnerable white working class girls are being traded for sex in a “routine way”, an MP has told ministers.

Conservative politician Lucy Allan addressed fellow politicians in the wake of reports claiming up to 1,000 children could have been targeted in her Telford constituency.

Ms Allan said the cases would not have happened had the victims been from different backgrounds.

Calls are growing for a fresh inquiry into sex abuse in the Shropshire town.

BBC knew about Telford 8 years before it was reported.

Telford “Grooming Gang.” How many more are there?

2017 Documentary on Telford:

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Military personnel wearing protective suits remove a police car and other vehicles from a public car park as they continue investigations into the poisoning of Sergei Skripal on March 11, 2018 in Salisbury, England.

Independent, “Russian spy attack: Hundreds in Salisbury could be poisoned for years to come with ‘no cure’, says nerve agent developer.

“Even a very small dose - once your exposed that’s it. No cure.”

Vil Mirzayanov, a chemical weapons scientists who developed the Novichok nerve agent has warned that hundreds of people could be at risk for years following the attack in Salisbury.

Vil Mirzayanov, who fled to the US two decades ago, claimed Sergei Skripal and his daughter would not recover from the poisoning.

“There is no cure,” he told Sky News from his home in New Jersey. “There are antidotes but…they will be invalid for whole life.”

Dr Mirzayanov said Novichok was so powerful that extremely small doses could remain a danger to public health for years, listing possible symptoms including headaches and loss of coordination.

Vil Mirzayonov speaking from his home in New Jersey.

“It’s very bad because even the very small doses, very small, still they are very effective and then there will be consequences for years probably,” he added.

The former Soviet Union scientist said public health advice, including washing clothes and sealing belongings was “not enough” and confirmed that hundreds of people could be at risk.

Asked whether he felt guilty for his part in developing Novichok, he added: “I participated in this criminal enterprise, because of that I’m probably the most fiery enemy of these chemical weapons.

“It’s a weapon of mass murder.”

CNBC, “Nerve agent attack on Russian ex-spy looks like ‘state-sponsored attempted murder,’ British official says” 12 Mar 2018:

The nerve agent attack on the former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter looks like “state-sponsored attempted murder,” according to the chairman of the U.K.‘s Foreign Affairs Committee. Prime Minister Theresa May could announce on Monday that Downing Street believes that Moscow was behind the poisoning, according to British media.

Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, are hospitalized in critical condition.

The nerve agent attack on the former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter looks like “state-sponsored attempted murder,” according to the chairman of the U.K.‘s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Tom Tugendhat told BBC Radio 4 on Monday that he expected Russia to be blamed for the March 4 attack on the ex-spy and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England.

He said it was a “bit early to be absolutely certain of that” but added that the Russian government was “certainly behaving aggressively towards people in the U.K.”

“We’re expecting the prime minister to make an announcement soon and, frankly, I would be surprised if she did not point the finger at the Kremlin,” Tugendhat told the BBC.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May will chair National Security Council meeting, which includes senior ministers and intelligence chiefs, on Monday. She is expected to make a statement at 1630 London time and could announce that Downing Street believes that Moscow was behind the poisoning, according to British media.

The government could also announce any retaliatory measures, such as expelling Russian diplomats or more sanctions on Russian individuals and entities. Last week, U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called Russia a “malign and disruptive force.”

The nerve agent used has not been named but can usually only be produced in specialist government laboratories.  Skripal’s links to Russia’s security services, and subsequent work as a double agent for the UK, put Moscow firmly in the spotlight for being behind the attack, though Russia has denied any involvement.

Ahead of any possible comments from the British government, the Kremlin’s government spokesman said he had not heard of any allegations from U.K. lawmakers directed at Russia, Reuters reported. He also said that Skripal worked for British intelligence and the attack happened in Britain meaning “it was not a matter for the Russian government.”

Monday’s National Security Council meeting comes as specialist counter-terrorism police continue to search for the source of the nerve agent that was used to attack Skripal and his daughter. They were found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury, a small town in the rural county of Wiltshire in England. Both are in a critical condition in hospital. A policeman who attended to the pair was also hospitalized, although his condition is now stable.

Traces of the nerve agent used were found at a pub and restaurant where the Skripals had been on the day they were taken ill.

Hundreds of people who were also in those locations on March 4 and 5 have been told to wash their clothes and any personal items, in case they had come into contact with the nerve agent.

Giorgia Meloni’s “Brothers Of Italy”, Matteo Salvini’s “Lega” (dropping the “Nord” to be more comprehensive of all Italy) and Raffaele Fitto, “Us with Italy”, join with Berlisconi’s backing.

Express, “Italian election: ‘Immigration out of control!’ Lega backs Berlusconi in crucial vote”, 2 March 2018:

The 81-year-old Silvio Berlusconi is the founder of liberal Forza Italia (Go Italy) party and the leader of a coalition composed of Matteo Salvini’s Lega and Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers Of Italy parties.

The former prime minister has fought through sex scandals, corruption allegations and a tax fraud conviction to stage a political comeback.

The latest projections show his coalition is leading with 36 per cent of the vote, bringing Mr Berlusconi closer to win his seventh electoral campaign.

The Italian election will be held on March 4.

Attilo Fontana, a key member of Italy’s Lega, has joined forces with former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to call for an immigration clampdown days before citizens go to the polls, it emerged on BBC Newsnight.

He stated: “People here are worried about the current immigration situation. It’s currently not under control and it’s creating social tension.”

In an attempt to sway voters on election day, Mr Fontana emphasised that immigration is “not under control” as he issued promises to get rid of immigrants.

A month ago, Pamela Mastropietro‘s dismembered body was found in a suitcase left on the side of a road by her Nigerian murderer; nevertheless, what the YKW/liberal media displayed indignation over was not that, but the response of Italian nationalists. The YKW/liberal media care about the feelings of those invading, e.g., another Nigerian, Cecile Kyenge - an interloper into Italian political office, who has no business what-so-ever being there; but they’ve empowered her to levy charges of “racism” against the Italian public and politicians - causing one to be fined €50,000; with that, to lose his house for having made a common sense remark that Africans are not Italians.

“It’s clearly unthinkable we could send hundreds of thousands back home instantly.

He stated: “If they come back, we’re waiting for them.

“We check hundreds of people every day and we’ve got plenty of ways of keeping them under surveillance.

“We have new technology and CCTV cameras which allows us to monitor entrances and exits in the city.”

Meanwhile, former Italian integration minister and current member of the ruling Democratic Party (PD), Cecile Kyenge, declared that she is a “victim” of the campaign by both Berlusconi and Fontana.

Kyenge declared herself a ‘victim’ of the campaign by both Berlusconi and Fontana.

She accused both of them for “investing in racism” as she cried out for a change in rhetoric ahead of the vote.

Ms Kyenge told BBC Newsnight: “I’m a victim of the campaign from this political party, they are working and investing in fewer people and I think that today, our country must take measures and sanctions to all political leaders and political parties who are investing in racism.”

Related story: “President of Jewish Community of Rome: the White race doesn’t exist, to say it does is ‘ignorant.”

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Donald Trump is flanked by Dianne Feinstein, right , who literally strikes the hand-clasping pose of “the happy merchant.”

1:21Trump Backs Broad Gun Reforms: In a meeting with lawmakers, President Trump expressed support for a “comprehensive” gun bill that would include stronger background checks and temporarily take guns away from high-risk individuals.Published OnFeb. 28, 2018CreditImage by Tom Brenner/The New York Times.

In a remarkable televised meeting in the Cabinet Room, the president appeared to stun giddy Democrats and stone-faced Republicans by calling for comprehensive gun control that would expand background checks, keep guns from the mentally ill, secure schools and restrict gun sales from some young adults.

ZOG’s forces will have a huge advantage over bolt-action weaponry.

Trump: “I told N.R.A. leaders its time to stop this nonsense” ... “I like taking the guns early ... Take the guns first, go through due process second.”

And if the second amendment can be compromised twice in this way, on the basis of spurious mental diagnosis and age restrictions, then they can violate it again, until eventually, functionally, you don’t have it at all ....“we define an assault weapons as”...

New York Times, “Trump Stuns Lawmakers With Seeming Embrace of Gun Control”, 28 Feb 2018:

In a meeting with lawmakers, President Trump expressed support for a “comprehensive” gun bill that would include stronger background checks and temporarily take guns away from high-risk individuals.Published OnFeb. 28, 2018CreditImage by Tom Brenner/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump stunned Republicans on live television Wednesday by embracing gun control and urging a group of lawmakers at the White House to resurrect gun safety legislation that has been opposed for years by the powerful National Rifle Association and the vast majority of his party.

In a remarkable meeting in the Roosevelt Room, the president veered wildly from the N.R.A. playbook in front of giddy Democrats and stone-faced Republicans. He called for comprehensive gun control legislation that would expand background checks to weapons purchased at gun shows and on the internet, keep guns from mentally ill people, secure schools and restrict gun sales from some young adults. He even suggested a conversation on an assault weapons ban.

At one point, Mr. Trump suggested that law enforcement authorities should have the power to seize guns from mentally ill or other dangerous people without first going to court. “I like taking the guns early,” he said, adding, “Take the guns first, go through due process second.”

The declarations prompted a frantic series of calls from N.R.A. lobbyists to their allies on Capitol Hill and a statement from the group calling the ideas Mr. Trump expressed “bad policy.” Republican lawmakers issued statements or told reporters that they remained opposed to gun control measures.

“We’re not ditching any Constitutional protections simply because the last person the president talked to today doesn’t like them,” said Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska.

Democrats, too, said they were skeptical that Mr. Trump would follow through.

“The White House can now launch a lobbying campaign to get universal background checks passed, as the president promised in this meeting, or they can sit and do nothing,” said Sen. Murphy, (D) of Connecticut.

At the core of Mr. Trump’s suggestion was the revival of a bipartisan bill drafted in 2013 by Senators Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Despite a concerted push by President Barack Obama and the personal appeals of Sandy Hook parents, the bill fell to a largely Republican filibuster.

The president’s embrace did not immediately yield converts. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said after the meeting that he was unmoved, repeating the Republican dogma that recent shootings were not “conducted by someone who bought a gun at a gun show or parking lot.” Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican who sat next to Mr. Trump looking alternately bemused and flustered, emerged from the meeting and declared, “I thought it was fascinating television and it was surreal to actually be there.”

With AR-15s, Mass Shooters Attack With the Rifle Firepower Typically Used by Infantry Troops:

When a gunman walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, he was carrying an AR-15-style rifle that allowed him to fire upon people in much the same way that many American soldiers and Marines would fire their M16 and M4 rifles in combat.

But Mr. Trump suggested that the dynamics in Washington had changed after the school shooting in Florida that claimed 17 lives, in part because of his own leadership in the White House, a sentiment that the Democrats in the room readily appeared to embrace as they saw the president supporting their ideas.

“It would be so beautiful to have one bill that everyone could support,” Mr. Trump said as Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and a longtime advocate of gun control, sat smiling to his left. “It’s time that a president stepped up.”

Democrats tried to turn sometimes muddled presidential musings into firm policy: “You saw the president clearly saying not once, not twice, not three times, but like 10 times, that he wanted to see a strong universal background check bill,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota. “He didn’t mince words about it. So I do not understand how then he could back away from that.”

Just what the performance means, and whether Mr. Trump will aggressively push for new gun restrictions, remain uncertain given his history of taking erratic positions on policy issues, especially ones that have long polarized Washington and the country.

The gun-control performance on Wednesday was reminiscent of a similar televised discussion with lawmakers about immigration last year during which the president appeared to back bipartisan legislation to help young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children — only to reverse himself and push a hard-line approach that helped scuttle consensus in the Senate.

Mr. Trump’s comments during the hourlong meeting were at odds with his history as a candidate and president who has repeatedly declared his love for the Second Amendment and the N.R.A., which gave his campaign $30 million. At the group’s annual conference last year, Mr. Trump declared, “To the N.R.A., I can proudly say I will never, ever let you down.”

But at the meeting, the president repeatedly rejected the N.R.A.’s top legislative priority, a bill known as concealed carry reciprocity, that would allow a person with permission to carry a concealed weapon in one state to automatically do so in every state. To the dismay of Republicans, he dismissed the measure as having no chance at passage in the Congress. Republican leaders in the House had paired that N.R.A. priority with a modest measure to improve data reporting to the existing instant background check system.

“You’ll never get it,” Mr. Trump told Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House Republican whip who was gravely injured in a mass shooting last year but still opposes gun restrictions. “You’ll never get it passed. We want to get something done.”

Mr. Trump also flatly insisted that legislation should raise the minimum age for buying rifles to 21 from 18 — an idea the N.R.A. and many Republicans fiercely oppose. When Mr. Toomey pushed back on an increase in the minimum age for rifles, the president accused him of fearing the N.R.A. — a remarkable slap since the association withdrew its support for Mr. Toomey over his background check bill.

“If there’s a Republican who’s demonstrated he’s not afraid of the N.R.A., that would be me,” Mr. Toomey said after the meeting.

The president appeared eager to challenge the impression that he is bought and paid for by the gun rights group. While calling the N.R.A. membership “well-meaning,” he also said he told the group’s leaders at a lunch on Sunday that “it’s time. We’re going to stop this nonsense. It’s time.”

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What stands logistically in the way is that the Kurds seek a homeland, and that would entail a piece of Syria, which Assad does not want to relinquish. However, the Kurds do seem prepared to negotiate with Assad for the right, somehow, to live alongside the Syrians, within what Assad would like to maintain or re-claim as greater Syria - parts of which Assad was forced to abandon in 2012. We should encourage their reconciliation and alliance; and for other ethnonations to ally with them despite the shit-hole nations of Turkey and Israel in opposition.

The Guardian,  23 Feb 2018: “Why are world leaders backing this brutal attack against Kurdish Afrin?”

Islamist militants – with Turkish army support – are wreaking havoc with a pocket of peace and sanity in the Syrian war.

‘Afrin’s population doubled during the conflict, as hundreds of thousands of mostly Arab refugees had come to shelter with its original, overwhelmingly Kurdish, population.’

Three years ago the world watched a ragtag band of men and women fighters in the Syrian town of Kobane, most armed only with Kalashnikovs, hold off a vast army of Islamist militants with tanks, artillery and overwhelming logistical superiority. The defenders insisted they were acting in the name of revolutionary feminist democracy. The Islamist fighters vowed to exterminate them for that very reason. When Kobane’s defenders won, it was widely hailed as the closest one can come, in the contemporary world, to a clear confrontation of good against evil.

Today, exactly same thing is happening again. Except this time, world powers are firmly on the side of the aggressors. In a bizarre twist, those aggressors seem to have convinced key world leaders and public opinion-makers that Kobane’s citizens are “terrorists” because they embrace a radical version of ecology, democracy and women’s rights.

Turkey’s attack on Syrian Kurds could overturn the entire region.

The region in question is Afrin, defended by the same YPG and YPJ (People’s Protection and Women’s Protection Units) who defended Kobane, and who afterwards were the only forces in Syria willing to take the battle to the heartland of Islamic State, losing thousands of combatants in the battle for its capital, Raqqa.

An isolated pocket of peace and sanity in the Syrian civil war, famous only for the beauty of its mountains and olive groves, Afrin’s population had almost doubled during the conflict as hundreds of thousands of mostly Arab refugees had come to shelter with its original, overwhelmingly Kurdish population.

At the same time its inhabitants had taken advantage of their peace and stability to develop the democratic principles embraced throughout the majority Kurdish regions of north Syria, known as Rojava. Local decisions were devolved to neighbourhood assemblies in which everyone could participate; other parts of Rojava insisted on strict gender parity, with every office having co-chairs, male and female, in Afrin, two-thirds of public offices are held by women.

Turkey’s attack on Syrian Kurds could overturn the entire region.

Today, this democratic experiment is the object of an entirely unprovoked attack by Islamist militias including Isis and al-Qaida veterans, and members of Turkish death squads such as the notorious Grey Wolves, backed by the Turkish army’s tanks, F16 fighters, and helicopter gunships. Like Isis before them, the new force seems determined to violate all standards of behaviour, launching napalm attacks on villagers, attacking dams – even, like Isis, blowing up irreplaceable archaeological monuments. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, has announced, “We aim to give Afrin back to its rightful owners”, in a thinly veiled warning to ethnically cleanse the region of its Kurdish inhabitants. And only today it emerged that a convoy heading to Afrin carrying food and medicine was shelled by Turkish forces.

Remarkably, the YPG and YPJ have so far held off the invaders. But they have done so without so much as the moral support of a single major world power. Even the US, the presence of whose forces prevents Turkey from invading those territories in the east, where the YPG and YPJ are still engaged in combat with Isis, has refused to lift a finger to defend Afrin. The British foreign secretary Boris Johnson has gone so far as to insist that “Turkey has the right to want to keep its borders secure” – by which logic he would have no objection if France were to seize control of Dover.

The result is bizarre. Western leaders who regularly excoriate Middle Eastern regimes for their lack of democratic and women’s rights – even, as George W Bush famously did with the Taliban, using it as justification for military invasion – appear to have decided that going too far in the other direction is justifiable grounds for attack.

To understand how this happened, one must go back to the 1990s, when Turkey was engaged in a civil war with the military arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ party, or PKK, then a Marxist-Leninist organisation calling for a separate Kurdish state. Whether the PKK was ever a terrorist organisation, in the sense of bombing marketplaces and the like, is very much a matter of contention, but there is no doubt that the guerrilla war was a bloody business, and terrible things happened on both sides. About the turn of the millennium, the PKK abandoned the demand for a separate state. It called a unilateral ceasefire, pressing for peace talks to negotiate both regional autonomy for Kurds and a broader democratisation of Turkish society.

This transformation affected the Kurdish freedom movement across the Middle East. Those inspired by the movement’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, began calling for a radical decentralisation of power and opposition to ethnic nationalism of all sorts.

Turkey starts ground incursion into Kurdish-controlled Afrin in Syria - Read more

The Turkish government responded with an intense lobbying campaign to have the PKK designated a “terrorist organisation” (which it had not been before). By 2001 it had succeeded, and the PKK was placed on the EU, US, and UN “terror list”.

Never has such a decision so wreaked havoc with the prospect of peace. It allowed the Turkish government to arrest thousands of activists, journalists, elected Kurdish officials – even the leadership of the country’s second largest opposition party – all on claims of “terrorist” sympathies, and with barely a word of protest from Europe or America. Turkey now has more journalists in prison than any other country.

The designation has created a situation of Orwellian madness, allowing the Turkish government to pour millions into western PR firms to smear anyone who calls for greater civil rights as “terrorists”. Now, in the final absurdity, it has allowed world governments to sit idly by while Turkey launches an unprovoked assault on one of the few remaining peaceful corners of Syria – even though the only actual connection its people have to the PKK is an enthusiasm for the philosophy of its imprisoned leader Öcalan. It cannot be denied – as Turkish propagandists endlessly point out – that portraits of Öcalan, and his books, are common there. But ironically what that philosophy consists of is simply an embrace of direct democracy, ecology, and a radical version of women’s empowerment.

The religious extremists who surround the current Turkish government know perfectly well that Rojava doesn’t threaten them militarily. It threatens them by providing an alternative vision of what life in the region could be like. Above all, they feel it is critical to send the message to women across the Middle East that if they rise up for their rights, let alone rise up in arms, the likely result is that they will be maimed and killed, and none of the major powers will raise an objection. There is a word for such a strategy. It’s called “terrorism” – a calculated effort to cause terror. The question is, why is the rest of the world cooperating?

• David Graeber is professor of anthropology at the LSE and author of Debt: The First 5000 years; he was involved in the Global Justice Movement and Occupy Wall Street

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