Tag Archives: international terrorism
| Caught in the crossfire: why Western intervention in Syria must end
by Lindsey German
Terrorism is a product above all of Western interventions, argues Lindsey German. Only when they end will there be a chance for peace
The village of Tokkhar, near the northern Syrian town of Manbij, is the latest site of mass killings during an unending war that has gripped Syria for more than five years. The deaths of at least 85 civilians at the hands of US-led airstrikes on 18 and 19 July is a brutal reminder of the intensity of the war currently being waged and the horror experienced by victims caught in its crossfire. For caught in the crossfire the villagers in Tokkhar certainly were: bombed allegedly by mistake because those responsible believed they were targeting Islamic State fighters in the battle for control of Manbij.
The #prayforsyria hashtag, which has been trending for a while on Twitter, expressed widespread horror at the attacks. Many also asked why, so soon after the terrorist attack on Nice, the international response to the loss of life in Syria was so different. While Nice (and before it, the attacks in France, Belgium and Florida) resulted in an outpouring of emotion on social media, the changing of Facebook profiles to identify with the victims and the declarations that we are all with the victims, the sorrow expressed for the victims of US bombs in Syria is muted or in many cases non-existent.
The double standards are not about support for this kind of military action, nor simply ignorance. They lie in the sense imbued in western society that some lives are more important than others. But there can be no distinction between the killing of children leaving a firework display during a French holiday and the deaths of those huddling in a bombarded village in the middle of what is already a killing field.
It is hard for those of us living in the relative peace of western society to imagine what it must be like even to witness airstrikes on a daily basis: the noise, the fear, the constant quandary about where to move to in order to be safe. How many more are in fear of their lives?
Another reason for the differing attitudes to deaths in Iraq or Syria is that the wars in which our governments have been involved for a decade and a half now are for the most part, out of sight and out of mind. There are occasional controversies, momentary outcry over one event or another, “mistaken” attacks on hospitals and schools. But for most of the time no real discussion or explanation, nothing except pictures of people suffering misery which our intervention is supposed to alleviate. Of course it does no such thing, instead contributing to and worsening an ongoing war.
This war is being carried out by many different national powers and non-state actors, not just the Assad government and its various opposition. These include Isis, Russia, western allies, and interventions by various regional powers. All are deadly and must be opposed. The situation is reminiscent of the Thirty Years War in 17th -century Germany, where there were too many with an interest in continuing the war for it to be stopped.
US attacks carried out against Isis since 2014 have done little to achieve its supposed goal. Last year the British parliament voted to join in the bombing, supposedly to add its own unique contribution. In reality Britain’s involvement has been minimal; its Brimstone missile system has not been used, and only four airstrikes were carried out in March for example.
The debate in parliament was regaled in Churchillian terms about the need to stand up to fascism. On the contrary, acts like the Tokkhar bombing this week will lead to a rise in bitterness against western powers, and an increase in terrorism.
It is unlikely that those members of parliament who cheered so loudly in December will have the honesty to admit that they were wrong. There has been no minute of silence for the dead this week. But the truth is that the western intervention is not curing the hell that is the Syrian civil war, it is contributing to it. It hasn’t dealt with Isis, it hasn’t brought peace. Indeed its occupation of Iraq led to the Islamic State’s original formation, with allies such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey have doing much to sustain it.
Until western rulers realise that this kind of terrorism is the product of war and flourishes within it, and that ending the wars in the Middle East will be the only way to stop it, the people of Syria will continue to be caught in the crossfire.
| Turkish left state Erdogan’s party has Syrianised Turkey supporting sectarian terrorists
DIP (Revolutionary Workers’ Party), one of Turkish left parties, has issued communiqué on recent blasts in Istanbul. It states: “Those who dragged Turkey into the maelstrom of sectarian civil war and who thereby have Syrianised Turkey are responsible for the Sultanahmet massacre! The AKP and Erdoğan are guilty!”
“In Sultanahmet, one of the most touristic and central parts of Istanbul, a bomb attack of ISIL killed 11 persons and left dozens of people wounded. … From the political point of view, it is the AKP government and Erdoğan, trying to divide Turkey and the Middle East on the basis of sectarianism, who are responsible for this explosion. This has been yet another step on the way to the Syrianisation of Turkey. The AKP government is dragging Turkey into the maelstrom of sectarian war and every step of this government ends up with bloodshed and massacre. The AKP might drown in this maelstrom, but those who have lost their lives in the massacres are the toiling peoples and innocent persons”.
Left activists insisted that the Sultanahmet attack did not happen out of the blue. They had been warning for a long time that the takfiri-sectarian murderers were targeting in the Middle East not just Iraq and Syria, but also Turkey. “It had been pointing out that the AKP was leading Turkey down the road of Syrianisation and that Turkey was the mastermind of this reactionary war, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia. This vile attack against German tourists is a result of the quagmire Turkey finds itself in while trying to assume the leadership of the Sunni bloc. All this cannot be understood outside the context of the reactionary war policy of Erdoğan and the AKP government”.
Public statements of Turkish authorities provoked several questions and suspicions: “Just after the Ankara massacre, Prime Minister Davutoğlu caused a major scandal by replying to a question about suicide bombers, “We have the list of suicide bombers, but we cannot arrest them before the realization of the act”. Having stood by idly after the Diyarbakır, Suruç and Ankara attacks, the government announced the name of the attacker immediately after this incident. Although the media apparatus of the AKP is saying that the case was painstakingly solved, Davutoğlu’s past and the mystery around the attack leave not a few questions unsolved. The publicity ban imposed after the attack exposes the intention of the AKP government. The people of Turkey should ask: Was it one of those suicide bombers whose names were known by Davutoğlu yet remained free who spilt the blood of innocent people in the heart of Istanbul? Or was it one of those takfiri militants who pass the Turkish border freely who committed the massacre? Davutoğlu is guilty.
This massacre is caused by the AKP, which carried the reactionary civil war in Syria to Turkey for its political survival. The AKP, by claiming that this attack was a result of Turkey’s struggle against terrorism, absolves its own role in these massacres.
DIP pointed out that Erdogan avoided to name terrorists by their real name and instead of this criticized his Syrian politics: “Erdoğan’s speech is a complete abdication of reason. Erdoğan, in his statement, listed the organizations that momentarily crossed his mind and once again created a so-called “cocktail of organizations”. He said that the bomber was a citizen of Syria and he avoided pronouncing the word ISIL. While only 44 seconds of his speech were related to the bomb attack, he dedicated 10 minutes to attack the academics who had published a petition for peace and overtly pointed to them as a target. This is the reflection of a psychology of guilt. Agents of the sectarian war, instigated for oil by Erdoğan, himself candidate for the leadership of the regional reactionary forces and aspirant “Rais” of the Sunni world along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have killed in cowardly fashion innocent people in Sultanahmet. Erdoğan is guilty”.
But not only Erdogan was mentioned. “On the other hand, deputy prime-minister Numan Kurtulmuş said that what happened was a repercussion of the proxy wars in Syria. Kurtulmuş, by using the expression “proxy wars”, admits that the imperialists and the countries of the region, including Turkey, support, in one way or another, certain organizations in the Syrian civil war. The executives of the AKP and its spin-doctors have repeatedly said that Turkey was helping and protecting Turkoman and Sunni takfiri forces in Syria. It is the AKP that has sustained the stooges of war in Syria, whose relations with their bosses were called “proxy” by Kurtulmuş. The AKP cannot so easily wash its hands of the sectarian terrorism which was sustained by this same party. Turkey officially considers ISIL a terrorist organization. Turkey was recently constrained to withdraw its troops from the Bashiqa base near Mosul, whose presence there had sparked a reaction from the Iraqi government. Lo and behold! Suddenly ISIL attacks the Bashiqa base with rockets. Erdoğan and the AKP used this as an excuse in order to maintain Turkey’s military presence in this region, saying “this attack proves that we were right”. When the Iraqi government insisted on complete withdrawal of Turkish troops, with another uncanny coincidence, propaganda videos of ISIL’s attack on Bashiqa were uploaded on the Internet. Let’s not fall in for this collusion of the AKP and takfiri forces. Both ISIL and the AKP are guilty”.
At the and of its statement DIP calls the working class and the oppressed should unite against takfirism and its benefactor, the AKP government as well against the imperialists of the European Union and the USA.
| America’s Addiction to Terrorism
Forthcoming in December 2015
| Deadliest Terror in the World: the West’s Latest Gift to Africa
Nigeria’s Boko Haram are now officially the deadliest terror group in the world. That they have reached this position is a direct consequence of Cameron and co’s war on Libya – and one that was perhaps not entirely unintended.
| EU says charges against Turkey journalists ‘worrying’
The European Union (EU) has expressed concern over the arrest of two Turkish journalists on “espionage” charges after reports by the pair blew the lid off Ankara’s arms delivery to the Takfiri terror groups operating in neighboring Syria.
