BBC, “May’s government survives no confidence vote”, 17 Jan 2019.

BBC, “Brexit: Theresa May says MPs must ‘work together’ to deliver Brexit”, 17 Jan 2019.

May loses Brexit vote - what happens next?

United States Border Patrol at Algodones Sand Dunes, California, USA. The fence on the US-Mexican border is a special construction of narrow, 15 feet tall elements, that are movable vertically. This way they can be lifted on top of the ever shifting sand dunes (image Public Domain, Wikipedia).

Lest there be any misunderstanding, the position here is that the matter of a United States Southern border wall, fence, whatever, as any requirement of border control, is very important.

Border control there is particularly illustrative of a central matter, which is that border control is crucial to the management of populations in human and pervasive ecology; issues which include territorial carrying capacity - hence, at this border, the particular demographic is a secondary matter; salient there is the matter of Mexico’s massive population - Mexico City being among the most overpopulated cities in the world.

Nevertheless, the demographic and rule structure of The United States is already on a disastrous trajectory for Whites, will remain so, even with a wall on the south border.

While border control is essential at any rate, the worst case scenario of its instantiation would be that it will be used to lull complacency of propositional conservatism - “we Americans all being in the same relatively taken-care-of boat” - and further close us in and galvanize us into mulattoization; furthering the trajectory of those who left us susceptible for the Cartesian rule structure of the constitution and to the Jewry which weaponized it against our necessary discrimination both at the border and within the borders.

...galvanizing us with the demographic upshot of this manipulation unfortunately against a population that does have some warrant as native American behind them and which, for their nature, is highly ethnocentric. It is a demographic thus, which has been effective against integration with blacks, against integration with Whites, indifferent to Jewish violin playing; as such, in the most optimistic scenario, could be allied with other Asians and Whites against black power, Jewish supremacism and Islamic imposition over human ecological coordination (agreed, getting Mestizos to cooperate in ecological management is no small trick; perhaps Asians proper could help reason, coordinate and enforce such management).

Failing that is a default “alliance” by contrast in sudden, “conservative” implementation against Meztiso populations that looks suspiciously in line with Jewish interests against an Asian, Mestizo, White alliance as it would resist continued instigation of the Mulattoization of the broad mass of American Whites, while allying Jewry with increasingly rare White sell-out elites; whose precarious situation would be more and more prone to interbreeding with Jewry or the Mulatto mass.

Arno Breker, Die Partei: “Hunky” image from “the Reich.” Thimple but it thayth it.

Counter-Currents, Published by Greg Johnson.

Might is Right: Inequality & the Natural Order

Chad Crowley, 10 Jan 2019:

1,138 words

A central tenet of the Dissident Right is its absolute rejection of human equality.

          Very Inspiring.

          LOL!

DanielS goes into the enemy camp, continually hesitant, but inserts the time bombs that will bring down their campaign against White sovereignty and systemic homeostasis.

I’ve never seen Luke Ford so stressed (as I did the first time that I hung out with him briefly at the end of a hangout) and I’ve never seen him look so glum (the second time, when he gave me the floor with just him as an interlocutor). Actually, I take no delight in that. I’m sure that he felt pressure given his own position in defense of Jewry and from the Jewish friendly community around him to try to limit my message exposing the “objectivist” anti-“left” marketing campaign. Even so, I was able to say around 80% of what I’d planned - and some ideas will act like time bombs having gotten in there.

This was my first “HANGOUT” and not having opportunity to practice and get feedback as to how I might sound beforehand, I did not realize how persistently hesitant I was and how it was coming across. It was hard even for me to listen to myself the first time around in this uniquely bad delivery of mine. I hesitate constantly, but nevertheless, the content is there and I realized that the second time around listening to it - that it wasn’t all that bad for that reason. I take solace in the fact of knowing that I don’t have to speak that way and don’t usually, in normal conversation. I was in enemy territory, resources at risk, and that is cause for hesitation. But knowing that my position and resources are robust, it was alright to go ahead - I know that my program works now, it can’t be destroyed by the enemy. The best they can hope to do is distract from it, obstruct and try to bury it.

I am honestly not happy to see Luke looking so glum. It’s telling that he adds a link to Cofnas’ critique, like holy water against a goyim assault (I wasn’t impressed by Cofnas’ critique, BTW).

I come on at (2:20:47) and am confronted by Bob, the “bad cop”, the one with one dark eye-glass, lower right.

I had tested the water with him a few days before, on the evening of December 30th, in a Hangout called the “Victory of Social Justice Warriors.”

Seeing the Jewish sponsored meme that’s been promoted since 2008 - you don’t want any of that social justice warring, do you? - I saw it as occasion to join the conversation, which I do, late in the hangout (2:20:47) having just woken up (I’m in a completely different time zone).

(((Kyle))), comes on and tries to intimidate me with a strawman soliloquy

They had a little test or trap (depending upon how you look at it) waiting for me - three antagonistic, young interlocutors. One Jewish kid named (((Kyle))) was supposed to intimidate me with his brilliance. (((Kyle))) is a rather simple fellow, really, even if he can elaborate extensively on his simple cause - advocating his Jewish people (down with their program against “the left”). He interrupted my flow and straw manned me with soliloquys (he acted like I was “confused” - a typical Jewish canard), to clear up my “confusion” about Cochran, making some big deal about how I supposedly didn’t understand Cochran when he knew nothing about what I know, with my having made a few offhand, half joking remarks not intending any elaboration.

Luke Ford flanked by his good cop/bad cop

Then came a little “good cop /bad cop” pair against me. This Bob guy, goy, a Christian of the “irony bro” ilk (Irony Bro means obnoxious trolling with no pretense of trying to understand what the person you are trolling is trying to say, just bury them). Bob is the one with one dark eye glass - a flaming asshole who was attempting to bludgeon me with antagonism from the get go - “here, take this I.Q. test while you are waiting.” Sure Bob, I’ll do that. “Everything you say comes from 4-Chan” - going to show how he knew nothing about me, whipping out a comment perhaps applicable to Andrew Anglin. I have been to 4-chan briefly two or three times and derive literally none of my ideas from it; but that is the kind of immediate accusation this guy was rendering. He went on to say, “I can understand nothing you say” ...I rejoined that maybe his I.Q. isn’t high enough, idiot. (bad cop)

Salty Sage the “good cop” who tries to tell me that he’s on my side - yeah, right.

At the same time they had this other guy, “Salty Sage”, who claimed to be on my side. I don’t know where his two comments are now; but in the hangout and comments, Salty Sage would “kindly”, condescendingly, ‘re-interpret’ me for the others to understand on “friendly terms”. Then he added in the comments, that my “misdirection” (tries to turn the game around on me, as if I am the one giving misdirection, not Jewry; no, Salty Sage, I am the one diagnosing mis-direction), he tries to suggest that I am the one that is giving misdirection and that he sees it “sympathetically” as stemming from necessary contortions of circumstance..

When I called attention to the fact that Gottfried instigated this marketing campaign against “the left”, another “friend”, Ruston, said that I had a thing against Gottfried, thinks he’s great, and that everyone should read him. Then Salty Sage says he’s on my side (good cop). He groans when I say that Christianity is bullshit, then says he’s on my side (good cop Salty Sage is “on my side”, yeah right).

Anyway, that’s the context of my first hangout with Luke:(2:20:47); I make a few points that I don’t make in my subsequent talk, which is mostly me talking and Luke adding a few rejoinders. I didn’t get to say half of what I’d like to say, but the chat encouraged Luke to use the plausible excuse of my bad delivery to prevent me from subverting their position any further. Listen here: DanielS from Majorityrights talks with Luke on the topic of whether Jews are good for Western Civilization (and Europeans generally); you can listen here or Download the MP3: https://soundcloud.com/luke-ford-666431593/are-jews-good-for-western-civilization - Pinned by Luke Ford.

Brundlefly

Norvin Hobbs

One of Luke‘s frequent guests, “Brundlefly” (Jewish wife, Jeff Goldblum Avitar) tries his best to put the damper on my position in the comments (which I re-post under the fold) and was probably one of those who got Luke to shut down the discussion more quickly than he normally would (Luke typically allows discussions to go on for a couple hours and I had expected to say all I had planned to say, but wasn’t given the time). Brundedlefly starts-off amicably enough, while giving away the fact that he knows nothing about me, given his surprise that I am familiar with Norvin Hobbs.

Brundlefly, 1 day ago (edited): Lmao at this guy knowing about Norvin Hobbs

After some commentators who agree with me that Jewry is NOT good for Western Civilization, things get more antagonistic and I defend myself. Only two people seem to be directly on my side, “Kat Ruby” and “Jewel Citizen”, who seems almost like Soren Renner, but I’m not sure who it is….

ARE JEWS GOOD FOR WESTERN CIVILIZATION?

Iskandar
23 hours ago
No

Mephistopheles Ghost
22 hours ago
No

The Antagonist
23 hours ago
“Are Jews Good For Western Civilization?”. NO!

Sam Browne
22 hours ago
The answer is no….No they’re not.

United States of Post America
21 hours ago
Whites and Blacks have lived together in the South for 400 years.

United States of Post America
21 hours ago
Majority Rights is hard to listen too.

PersistentPatriot
16 hours ago
Are Termites good for log cabins?

Vegtam Returns
12 hours ago
If.by “good” you mean, enabling the mass invasion of Europe by hostile religious fanatics with low IQs then yes - Jews are very good!

gurugeorge
19 hours ago (edited)
Yes and no.  The question is really: are they a net good?  NAJALT, plus many great contributions to civilization have been made by Jews, so the question is whether the harm that’s been done by Jewish bad apples (as canvassed in, say, Kevin MacDonald’s The Culture of Critique ) outweighs the benefits brought by their fellows (e.g. the great academics, entrepreneurs, storytellers, technologists, etc.), or vice-versa.

The situation is rather comparable to the situation re. Muslims: survey after survey has found that while of course NAMALT, a worryingly large minority do wish ill on the host culture, or are at least willing to turn a blind eye.  It’s like that with the Jews: some good people who are very, very good, some troublemakers who are very, very bad, and a worryingly large minority who do wish ill on the host culture; so the question is whether the trade-off is worth it.  At the moment, it’s not looking good. 

All this is why wise people in the past always thought of the Jewish Question as a really, really thorny problem.  If you eject Jews from your culture, you risk losing many benefits and becoming something of a backwater; if you don’t eject them, you risk being subverted and having your culture and civilization destroyed from within.

General Patton
23 hours ago
The question can easily be decided by looking at one single issue; immigration.
Jews are, for the most part, open borders lunatics, hell bent on wrecking western nations with massive third world immigration.

Kat Ruby
19 hours ago
After listening from beginning to end, I get the impression that Luke doesn’t like you, Daniel. He uses PC gotcha, ‘you don’t like Jews’ which sets you up in a political correct world as a bad man. But Luke is civilized enough and his perspective as one of Jew’s step-brethren can be enlightening.

Brundlefly
14 hours ago
Kat Ruby probably because Daniel is so devoid of charisma that he felt like his time was being wasted.

Daniel Sienkiewicz
9 hours ago (edited)
@Brundlefly We’ll see if I am “void of charisma” and especially if the content I’m producing is a “waste of time”

99hoolio
20 hours ago
This guy is the anti-KMG. I don’t think I’ve heard a less fluent speaker.

Daniel Sienkiewicz
19 hours ago (edited)
It;s hard even for me to listen to my constant hesitations. It’s a shame because the content is there; but being aware of the frustrating delivery, I’ll be sure to be more fluid in the future.

rollo clevich
16 hours ago
@Daniel Sienkiewicz I now why you delivered a prepared script when you were on Sunic’s VOR show many years ago.

Brundlefly
14 hours ago
Daniel Sienkiewicz you need to raise your energy level bud. Also the bumping microphone is distracting.

Daniel Sienkiewicz
10 hours ago
Raise my energy level? The bumps and hesitance in my presentation were due mostly to a lack of experience in hangouts. I had (and have) energy enough for much more that I need to say. You sound like Donald Trump in your low energy criticism. Don’t worry, he had enough energy level to complete the raison d’etre of his presidency - to undo the Iran Deal for his people.

Brundlefly
10 hours ago (edited)
Daniel Sienkiewicz you speak in a low monotone. You have the charisma of a paper bag. Go back and read the chat to see how the audience reacted to your presentational style.

I went back and listened a second time, and I found your perspective unique and interesting. However, your presentation is so poor that I doubt you’ll get many opportunities to share it.

Daniel Sienkiewicz
9 hours ago
@Brundlefly I listened a second time as well, and didn’t think it was bad the second time around; and I have much more to say. I think your perspective is overly harsh because it is influenced by the fact of your Jewish wife. It is wishfully negative therefore - “the charisma of a paper bag.” I won’t bother looking at the chat because it is full of HASBRA-like trolls,  Christians, etc. They will take as antagonistic a view of me as possible. I may not get many opportunities here to share my view some more if the likes of you and your Jewish friends can help it, but its your loss. I will go elsewhere and they will be better off for it.

Brundlefly
9 hours ago
Daniel Sienkiewicz Lmao keep making excuses for being terrible radio. You pontificate for 25 minutes, Luke speaks for 5 seconds and you’re already cutting him off.

Daniel Sienkiewicz
9 hours ago (edited)
@Brundlefly I didn’t cut him off, he can speak all he wants*. I’m not making excuses. The content is there and there is more to come. I’m sorry for your predicament with your wife, but it’s not my problem. You can try disinformation on the basis of criticizing me and my style, but the content is there, it is informative “radio”, and there is more to come, probably with better style as well. 

*You’re talking about the moment when I didn’t want to be tarred with the singular idea that Jews “are parasites” In fact, I got derailed from saying that they are generally antagonistic as a pattern - a different matter from parasitism and also reason to separate from them.

AJC B
9 hours ago
Daniel Sienkiewicz Pop a couple of Modafinils two hours before the show. Wash them down with a double espresso or two but don’t forget the L-theanine!

Brundlefly
7 hours ago
Daniel Sienkiewicz I have no criticism of your ideas. I already said I thought they were unique and interesting. I’m offering you the constructive criticism that your presentation is bad and you should work on it if you care about influencing others with your ideas.

Regarding your poor interpersonal skills, you kept interrupting every single time Luke broke in.  Apparently, speaking uninterrupted for tens of minutes at a time in a sloth-like cadence isn’t enough for you.

Daniel Sienkiewicz
7 hours ago (edited)
@Brundlefly Thank you. I’m glad that you like my ideas and there are more to be heard. I have heard many intelligent things from you as well. I already readily acknowledged in my very first comment that it was even hard for me to listen (to me) for all the hesitancy in my speech (maybe because I’d “been out on the town” the night before) but whatever would be my excuse, I have already said that I will concentrate on doing better. Regarding my interpersonal skills, ultimately, Luke spoke, said everything that he intended to say and would speak every time he wanted. And that’s is perfectly fine with me.

ovfuckyou
6 hours ago
@Brundlefly “I think your perspective is overly harsh because it is influenced by the fact of your Jewish wife.” LOL

Daniel Sienkiewicz
6 hours ago
@ovfuckyou Yes, I think that motivated some of his harsh criticisms - charisma of a paper bag, snails pace, shit like that.

Brundlefly
1 hour ago
Daniel Sienkiewicz where’s the lie? You can’t refute my observations so you resort to ad hominem.

Daniel Sienkiewicz
36 minutes ago (edited)
@Brundlefly My very first comment was an acknowledgement that the presentation should have been better. I was unaware of how I was coming across with my continually hesitant speech in this, my first hangout. I said I’d be sure to do better in the future. You agreed that the content was there. ..but produced a flurry of comments under this and other comments - making ad hominum attacks ON ME: You were surprised that I knew who Norvin Hobbs was. Which means that you barely know who I am. But then you went on to draw full conclusions about me from this, my fist hangout - that I “have no charisma” - which you added to Kat Ruby’s comment below,; that I have “the charisma of the paper bag”, that you doubted that I’d get more opportunities to present my ideas because of my poor delivery” - I believe these “observations” are heavily influenced by the fact that my views are a threat to Jewish participation in White advocacy - and perhaps those married into Jewry, as you are. Recognizing the threat, the chat was probably encouraging Luke to truncate my message - I had about twenty percent remaining of what I planned to say - important stuff - would have headed off some of the misdirection that Halsey et al. were trying to put across in the subsequent podcast . But I have lots more more to say and don’t need to say it here; if you are going to insist on blocking me based on conclusions that you try to draw about “my lack of charisma” when, in fact, you know little about me. I was being attacked from the onset in my brief entry to the hangout the other day - so, the people here are not exactly rooting form me - and it is to be expected as I am in Jewish territory replete with trolls and trolling that will seize upon anything that they can to limit my message.

Brundlefly
28 minutes ago
Daniel Sienkiewicz I’m not blocking anyone. If you think this audience is hostile to your message, then you don’t understand the audience.

Daniel Sienkiewicz
1 second ago
@Brundlefly I disagree. I do understand the audience and the context.

Jewel Citizen
15 hours ago
There are two words in your title that do not belong in the same sentence let alone next to each other and I’m not referring to ”Western Civilisation”…

READ MORE...

‘They Hate Italians and Must Resign’: Salvini Attacks Mayors Resisting Harsh Immigration Rules”,  4 Jan 2019

The times when mayors of Palermo, Florence and Naples could cash in on illegal immigrants are over, Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said, vowing that those resisting the new policies will answer before law and history.

“Those who help the illegal immigrants, hate Italians,” Salvini said, blasting his opponents on Facebook and Twitter.

The minister from the conservative Lega Nord Party promised that the rebelling city heads will “answer before law and history.” And it’s no idle threat, as the former mayor of the Calabrian town of Riace is currently under house arrest on charges of aiding and abetting illegal immigration.

The feature image shows the Mayor of Naples standing among refugees, on the occasion of a football match. He can be seen in the centre of the picture, holding a white shirt reading “Football Against Racism”. November 2016.

“Certain mayors look back fondly on the good old times of immigration, but for them the party is over!” Salvini said.

By “certain mayors” he meant the heads of Palermo, Florence and Naples, who he gave the choice of resigning from their posts. The three mayors insisted that some parts of Salvini’s security decree aimed at curbing illegal migration to the country were unconstitutional and that they would refuse to follow them.

According to the new decree, migrants can no longer apply for full residency after a two-year asylum stay – but Palermo mayor Leoluca Orlando wants his city to continue this practice. Denying migrants access to health care and other essential municipal services would have an opposite effect and put them on the path of crime instead, he argued in the interview to the newspaper La Repubblica.

His resistance to the decree was “not an act of civil disobedience or conscientious objection, but the simple application of the constitutional rights that are guaranteed to all those, who live in our country,” Orlando said.

He also announced plans to take the anti-migrant rules to the Constitutional Court for the judges to rule on how they comply with Italy’s principal law.

The mayor of Palermo was backed by his counterpart from Florence, Dario Nardella, who insisted that his city wouldn’t cave in to the law that “expels asylum-seekers and, without repatriating them, throws them out onto the street.”

Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris said on Thursday that he was going to open the city’s port to Sea Watch, a NGO ship that had been involved in rescuing migrants trying to cross the into Italy on rafts and rickety boats. The vessel has been stuck in the stormy Mediterranean for more than two weeks now, with 32 asylum-seekers onboard.

“I hope this boat comes to Naples because, despite what the government says, we will let it into the port,” de Magistris said, adding that he “will be first to lead the rescue effort.”

Following his comments, Salvini reiterated that that all the ports in Italy were closed to migrant-rescuing ships.

Source: Amren via RT

Israel: African migrants told to leave or face imprisonment

BBC, 2 Jan 2019:

The migrants claim they are seeking asylum from persecution, although Israel views them as economic migrants

The Israeli government has issued a notice for thousands of African migrants to leave the country or face imprisonment.

The migrants will be given up to $3,500 (£2,600) for leaving within the next 90 days.

They will be given the option of going to their home country or third countries.

If they do not leave, the Israeli authorities have threatened that they will start jailing them from April.

The UN refugee agency said the controversial plan violated international and Israeli laws.

Israel’s unwanted African migrants

The Israeli government says their return will be humane and “voluntary”.

The order exempts children, women, parents of dependent minors and victims of slavery and human trafficking.

       
        People from Eritrea and Sudan make up a significant number of migrants in Israel

A spokesperson for Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority told the BBC there were currently 38,000 “infiltrators” in Israel, of whom just 1,420 were being held in detention facilities.

Israel uses the term “infiltrators” to describe people who did not enter the country through an official border crossing.

Many of the migrants - who are mostly from Eritrea and Sudan - say they came to Israel to seek asylum after fleeing persecution and conflict, but the authorities regard them as economic migrants.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that an unchecked influx of African migrants could threaten Israel’s Jewish character.

Related at Majorityrights:

Israel cajoles a drunken EU, confused of its identities, to sign-on to accepting African migration.

Africans Deported from Israel “Appear” in Rome

CrimeThInc., “The Threat to Rojava” 28 Dec 2019:

An Anarchist in Syria Speaks on the Real Meaning of Trump’s Withdrawal

Analysis Current Events

Following Donald Trump’s surprise announcement that he is withdrawing US troops from Syria, we’ve received the following message from an anarchist in Rojava, spelling out what this means for the region and what the stakes are on a global scale. For background, consult our earlier articles, “Understanding the Kurdish Resistance” and “The Struggle Is not for Martyrdom but for Life.”

I’m writing from Rojava. Full disclosure: I didn’t grow up here and I don’t have access to all the information I would need to tell you what is going to happen next in this part of the world with any certainty. I’m writing because it is urgent that you hear from people in northern Syria about what Trump’s “troop withdrawal” really means for us—and it’s not clear how much time we have left to discuss it. I approach this task with all the humility at my disposal.

I’m not formally integrated into any of the groups here. That makes it possible for me to speak freely, but I should emphasize that my perspective doesn’t represent any institutional position. If nothing else, this should be useful as a historical document indicating how some people here understand the situation at this point in time, in case it becomes impossible to ask us later.

Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria is not an “anti-war” or “anti-imperialist” measure. It will not bring the conflict in Syria to an end. On the contrary, Trump is effectively giving Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan the go-ahead to invade Rojava and carry out ethnic cleansing against the people who have done much of the fighting and dying to halt the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS). This is a deal between strongmen to exterminate the social experiment in Rojava and consolidate authoritarian nationalist politics from Washington, DC to Istanbul and Kobane. Trump aims to leave Israel the most ostensibly liberal and democratic project in the entire Middle East, foreclosing the possibilities that the revolution in Rojava opened up for this part of the world.

All this will come at a tremendous cost. As bloody and tragic as the Syrian civil war has already been, this could open up not just a new chapter of it, but a sequel.

This is not about where US troops are stationed. The two thousand US soldiers at issue are a drop in the bucket in terms of the number of armed fighters in Syria today. They have not been on the frontlines of the fighting the way that the US military was in Iraq.

The withdrawal of these soldiers is not the important thing here. What matters is that Trump’s announcement is a message to Erdoğan indicating that there will be no consequences if the Turkish state invades Rojava.

There’s a lot of confusion about this, with supposed anti-war and “anti-imperialist” activists like Medea Benjamin endorsing Donald Trump’s decision, blithely putting the stamp of “peace” on an impending bloodbath and telling the victims that they should have known better. It makes no sense to blame people here in Rojava for depending on the United States when neither Medea Benjamin nor anyone like her has done anything to offer them any sort of alternative.

While authoritarians of various stripes seek to cloud the issue, giving a NATO member a green light to invade Syria is what is “pro-war” and “imperialist.” Speaking as an anarchist, my goal is not to talk about what the US military should do. It is to discuss how US military policy impacts people and how we ought to respond. Anarchists aim to bring about the abolition of every state government and the disbanding of every state military in favor of horizontal forms of voluntary organization; but when we organize in solidarity with targeted populations such as those who are on the receiving end of the violence of ISIS and various state actors in this region, we often run into thorny questions like the ones I’ll discuss below.

The worst case scenario now is that the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (TFSA), backed by the Turkish military itself, will overrun Rojava and carry out ethnic cleansing on a level you likely cannot imagine. They’ve already done this on a small scale in Afrin. In Rojava, this would take place on a historic scale. It could be something like the Palestinian Nakba or the Armenian genocide. I will try to explain why this is happening, why you should care about it, and what we can do about it together.

To understand what Trump and Erdoğan are doing, you have to understand the geography of the situation. This site is useful for keeping up with geographical shifts in the Syrian civil war.

First of All: About the Experiment in Rojava

The system in Rojava is not perfect. This is not the right place to air dirty laundry, but there are lots of problems. I’m not having the kind of experience here that Paul Z. Simons had some years ago, when his visit to Rojava made him feel that everything is possible. Years and years of war and militarization have taken their toll on the most exciting aspects of the revolution here. Still, these people are in incredible danger right now and the society they have built is worth defending.

What is happening in Rojava is not anarchy. All the same, women play a major role in society; there is basic freedom of religion and language; an ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse population lives side by side without any major acts of ethnic cleansing or conflict; it’s heavily militarized, but it’s not a police state; the communities are relatively safe and stable; there’s not famine or mass food insecurity; the armed forces are not committing mass atrocities. Every faction in this war has blood on its hands, but the People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) have conducted themselves far more responsibly than any other side. They’ve saved countless lives—not just Kurds—in Sinjar and many other places. Considering the impossible conditions and the tremendous amount of violence that people here have been subjected to from all sides, that is an incredible feat. All this stands in stark contrast to what will happen if the Turkish state invades, considering that Trump has given Erdoğan the go-ahead in return for closing a massive missile sale.

It should go without saying that I don’t want to perpetuate an open-ended Bush-style “war on terror,” much less to participate in the sort of “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West that bigots and fundamentalists of both stripes have been fantasizing about. On the contrary, that is precisely what we’re trying to prevent here. Most of the people Daesh [ISIS] have killed have been Muslim; most of the people who have died fighting Daesh have been Muslim. In Hajin, where I was stationed and where the last ISIS stronghold is, one of the internationals who has been fighting Daesh longest is an observant Muslim—not to speak of all the predominantly Arab fighters from Deir Ezzor there, most of whom are almost certainly Muslim as well.

The Factions

For the sake of brevity, I’ll oversimplify and say that today, there are roughly five sides in the Syrian civil war: loyalist, Turkish, jihadi, Kurdish, and rebel.

At the conclusion of this text, an appendix explores the narratives that characterize each of these sides.

Each of these sides stands in different relation to the others. I’ll list the relations of each group to the others, starting with the other group that they are most closely affiliated with and ending with the groups they are most opposed to:

Loyalist: Kurdish, Turkish, jihadi, rebel

Rebel: Turkish, jihadi, Kurdish, loyalist

Turkish: rebel, jihadi, loyalist, Kurdish

Kurdish: loyalist, rebel, Turkish, jihadi

Jihadi: rebel, Turkish, Kurdish and loyalist

This may be helpful in visualizing which groups could be capable of compromising and which are irreversibly at odds. Again, remember, I am generalizing a lot.

I want to be clear that each of these groups is motivated by a narrative that contains at least some kernel of truth. For example, in regards to the question of who is to blame for the rise of ISIS, it is true that the US “ploughed the field” for ISIS with the invasion and occupation of Iraq and its disastrous fallout (loyalist narrative); but it is also true that the Turkish state has tacitly and sometimes blatantly colluded with ISIS because ISIS was fighting against the primary adversary of the Turkish state (Kurdish narrative) and that Assad’s brutal reaction to the Arab Spring contributed to a spiral of escalating violence that culminated in the rise of Daesh (rebel narrative). And although I’m least sympathetic to the jihadi and Turkish state perspectives, it is certain that unless the well-being of Sunni Arabs in Iraq and Syria is factored into a political settlement, the jihadis will go on fighting, and that unless there is some kind of political settlement between the Turkish state and the PKK, Turkey will go on seeking to wipe out Kurdish political formations, without hesitating to commit genocide.

It’s said that “Kurds are second-class citizens in Syria, third-class citizens in Iran, fourth-class citizens in Iraq, and fifth-class citizens in Turkey.” It’s no accident that when Turkish officials like Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu list the “terror groups” they are most concerned about in the region, they name the YPG before ISIS. Perhaps this can help explain the cautious response of many Kurds to the Syrian revolution: from the Kurdish perspective, regime change in Syria carried out by Turkish-backed jihadis coupled with no regime change in Turkey could be worse than no regime change in Syria at all.

I won’t rehash the whole timeline from the ancient Sumerians to the beginning of the PKK war in Turkey to the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the Arab Spring and the rise of ISIS. Let’s skip forward to Trump’s announcement on December 19: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.

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3:29 PM - Dec 19, 2018
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Has ISIS Been Defeated? And by Whom?

Let me be clear: Daesh has not been defeated in Syria. Just a few days ago, they took a shot at our position with a rocket launcher out of a clear blue sky and missed by only a hundred yards.

It is true that their territory is just a fraction of what it once was. At the same time, by any account, they still have thousands of fighters, a lot of heavy weaponry, and probably quite a bit of what remains of their senior leadership down in the Hajin pocket of the Euphrates river valley and the surrounding deserts, between Hajin and the Iraqi border. In addition, ISIS have a lot of experience and a wide array of sophisticated defense strategies—and they are absolutely willing to die to inflict damage on their enemies.

To the extent that their territory has been drastically reduced, Trump is telling a bald-faced lie in trying to take credit for this. The achievement he is claiming as his own is largely the work of precisely the people he is consigning to death at the hands of Turkey.

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