Syria & the Kurds, War & Peace: Who Decides?

the most fundamental bias you will
encounter amongst journalists in the mainstream press is neither left nor right is neither liberal nor conservative the most fundamental bias is the desire to have a story to tell in wanting to have a story to tell the journalist will choose a compelling story a dramatic story a story that comes to a clear conclusion that has contrasts of good and evil over a story that's ambiguous ambivalent uncertain dissipated aimless morally confusing there's a choosing of the story to be told and then there's the journalists effort to present himself or herself as having enough expertise to tell that story in the case of the recent events in Kurdistan in northern Syria northern Iraq bordering areas of Turkey and so on the Kurdistan II fable being told by the mainstream press is false and it's false whether it's being told from the far left the moderate left and liberals or the Conservatives I've seen absolutely nothing but lies here and you know there's this old hackneyed phrase learning the lessons of history you don't have to go back too far in history to learn the lessons to understand what's really been happening with with the Iraqi Kurdistan with various Kurdistan ik areas um 2017 2017 was not all that long ago let's let's just pretend this is hypothetical let's just say hypothetically in the year 2017 there was a vote in Iraqi Kurdistan there was a referendum where the public were invited to vote on whether or not they would prefer to be an independent country in the future so that's the kind of that's the kind of political event that takes a long time to stage-managed so everyone in the so-called international community had their opportunity to state their case to state their position on it so Barack Obama at the end of his term had his chance to speak on it and then actually that vote the referendum took place after the election of Donald Trump Donald Trump was in office he had his opportunity to speak the Prime Minister of France England Germany they all could have taken a immoral position one way or another on the question of Kurdistan becoming an independent country you know what they had the referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan and it was followed up by a civil war a civil war that anyone in the so-called international community could have intervened in or could have at least made a statement about and the opportunity for the Western powers to make their policy position clear on the future of the Kurds already came and went and it's not ancient history it was made absolutely clear to anyone paying attention in the year 2017 if there had been any doubt in your mind before what was the policy position of george w bush the future of kurdistan what was the position of barack obama on the future person anyone who even asked themselves this question knew the answer there never was any ambiguity but in case you were kidding yourself that this was in any way ambiguous it was made completely unambiguous ly clear in 2017 with the referendum and the brief but decisive civil war that happened thereafter hashtag spoilers in case you didn't know Iraq won the Civil War they suppressed the Kurdish independence movement they changed the borders they took back direct control of some very important oil fields economically important strategically important that was the end of the prospect of an independent Kurdistan and all the Western powers including Donald Trump himself sitting in the White House made their position clear they are opposed to they do not now support they never have supported Kurdish independence the creation of a new sovereign state for the Kurdish people never have Hey so the first fundamental lie in the current press coverage of what's happening in northern Syria and all of the adjacent areas with with the Kurds the first lie is saying that the United States have abandoned Kurdish independence Kurdish nationalism that they've abandoned it as if in the past they supported it okay I'm sorry if you had even said that in 2017 that would have seemed incredibly naive incredibly joo-hyun anyone who really knows politics and carrots politics could have taken you aside said no no no come on are you kidding they said this was never the playbook sorry at what point did george w bush save the american people that they were committed to fighting a war for the independence of the kurdish people to create a kurdish homeland as if it does that sound like something you could remember george w bush saying at what point did Barack Obama commit to something like that or ask for a debate in the debate of the Senate about America's official position on Kurdish an offensive never happened it was brief enough never even entertained now you can talk about why that is you can talk about the strategic factors that incline various Western powers to make that those decisions I think the more important question is not to ask why that decision is made it's to ask who decides and this is where we begin to question this terrible fiction this powerful fable of our times this is where we begin to question what is meant by quote unquote the international community the international community is an abstract term we use to console ourselves for the decisions that we the public do not make that we are not privy to decisions that politicians are not accountable to us for that are not transparent that we do not participate in we are never asked to vote in a referendum that's a contrast to Iraqi Kurdistan they at least they got a referendum did anyone ever ask the American people to vote on a referendum would you or would you not be willing for the next five years to support a war to prevent the Taliban from coming back to power in in Afghanistan you know that's that's a meaningful question to put to the American public and maybe how many million dollars are you willing to commit and maybe how many how many thousands of troops whatever it is that would be a really meaningful question to put the American public in a referendum what what if you put to the public in a referendum the United States are you willing to invade and conquer Syria in order to replace the regime of Bashar al-assad with another more democratic form of government would Americans vote in favor of that would Americans in the year 2016 have voted in favor of that proposal there never was a referendum the Pope we never gets all that it's not international community decisive thing there is this vague abstraction of the international community partly comprised of elected officials yes partly comprised of unelected technocrats and bureaucrats who meet in secret behind closed doors to make these decisions on your behalf with implications for you your sons and daughters died fighting the wars your governments are bankrupted by the billions in military budget being spent on it so on and so forth um but even if those meetings even if the decisions made by quote-unquote the international community even if those decisions were entirely made by elected officials it's impossible for the public to choose that elected official and hold them to account for a specific foreign policy decision like war in Syria war in Iraq war to create a homeland for the Kurds a future Kurdistan it's impossible if you ask someone in Germany why did you vote for this person as Prime they have to say back to you oh well I liked his position on health care or I liked her position on the economy there's gonna be a long list of issues packaged up in the one bowl ball and then they have to make that decision for who's in charge they cannot vote for or against one president or another one prime minister or another one leader or another on the basis of something as specific as their policy in Afghanistan their policy in Syria their policy for the Kurds right so you you must have direct democracy you must have disambiguated democracy where people know the decision they're making and they make that decision a lot of people felt that they were voting for Donald Trump because he was the anti-war candidate I remember those debates they were surreal it was very clear Hillary Clinton was promising forever war he thought the war would go on forever more Wars wars in North Africa wars in Syria Hillary Clinton was the pro war candidate and it's surreal to say now looking back but Donald Trump presented himself as and he was perceived as being relatively cautious about war relatively scheduled war he was the candidate saying that he wanted to bring back American troops from Afghanistan from Syria etc etc that these things had gone on for long enough he made various incoherent comments at that time he's still making incoherent comments now that one way or another he wants peace or at least less war so the deception presented by the mainstream press right now is in two parts that fit together very poorly the first part of the argument is that the Kurds always were the allies the United States and all kinds of wonderful things are then said about the Kurds many of them are not true for example it said that their secular why they're hardly Muslim at all yeah they're called secular when they're being contrasted to the Islamic state and other really extremist fundamentalist Muslims come on you gotta have your head examined anyway if possible form of praise is heaped on the Kurds and their ethno nationalist movements to have a nation-state based on their language and national identity all kinds of positive things about them that left-wingers would never say about israel which is also a country based on an ethe no national electoral religious identity and strength inconsistent thing here oh well every possible positive thing is said about the Kurds they're described as having being America's allies continuously until one day Donald Trump sent out these tweets and again no absolutely no Google level knowledge of what happened even as recently as 2017 completely intentional blindness to the whole history the last 20 years regardless we continue and yet if you keep reading a little bit further down the page of the same newspaper what you'll find is the admission that as soon as the United States of America made it clear they would no longer be supporting any side in northern Syria that they would be evacuating their troops the Kurds immediately almost that very day took up negotiations to switch sides and begin openly supporting the government of Bashar al-assad in Syria to begin openly working with and allowing themselves with the Russians the extent to which Donald Trump and the Russians were ever on opposite sides in Syria is going to be an interesting question for historians to puzzle at even during the election debates before an all Trump was elected he openly said that he saw the Russian presence there as being positive because Russia in the United States both were opposed to Isis the Islamic state that he thought the Russians could be some sort of civilizing stabilizing force in the region and maybe he was right it remains to be seen but the notion that the Kurds ever had any love or commitment or fealty to the united states or that the united states ever had any feel to your commitment to the kurds it's very difficult to sustain this illusion even when we're just looking at the events of the past one month in detail let alone when we're looking at the events of say the last three years in detail and you know coming back to my initial point in this video I don't think the journalists are doing this out of left-wing bias or conservative bias I see the Conservatives telling much the same lies at the moment for whatever reason I think the fundamental bias they're trapped in is the desire to have a story to tell and then to tell whatever the most compelling the most emotionally moving story possible might be there's less and less interest in the truth there's less and less interest in problem solving you know problem solving is fundamentally a very undramatic attitude towards a situation it's very humbling we said okay this is a situation with problems what can we do to help what can we do to make it better the answer to that question may be very humbling indeed the United States made the decision cynically or not a long time ago that they were not going to create a separate state for the Kurds that could have done it in northern Iraq most easily during the period in which they were occupying Iraq through military invasion and conquest they decided not to do that and there are considerations here like well if you create a separate state for the Kurds then probably turkey will leave NATO if turkey exits NATO then the conflict between Turkey and Greece Turkey and Cyprus all of that heats up the relationship between Turkey and Israel is also some strategic importance their relationship to the United States and Iraq is of strategic importance and even though you may think the Iraqi government is entirely a creature of American intervention those relations could break down Iraq could move closer to Iran both Iraq and Iran would actually be unified with one common interest fighting against a newly independent Kurdistan yeah yeah once you start placing out the dominoes on the field you start to see a lot of cynical Machiavellian reasons why quote unquote the international community would never make this decision to promote the creation of an independent Kurdish home and apart from the general principle of the thing of whether or not creating nation-states based on ethnicity is a good idea in the 21st century the international community also has no interest in supporting the Khmer Krom being returned to Cambodia they have no interest in Shan State becoming a separate country from Myanmar it's a pretty long list of ethnic independence movements that could be supported by the international community but now let's just take this down to the lowest level of the hoi polloi the members of the mob once more the wonderful thing about democracy is that if you let people vote if you let people vote in a referendum on these issues they won't think about it in those Machiavellian terms at all I think the majority of American people would not vote in favor of a new war in northern Syria I think the majority of American people would not vote to support the creation of a separate homeland a separate country for the Kurds and you know what I think they'd come to that decision in part on the basis of principle and in part on the basis of self-interest but I don't think they'd give the slightest thought to the cynical Machiavellian geostrategic considerations that currently are lurking behind this pleasing appearance we have of the so-called international community supposedly making decisions on our behalf for the greater good on a charitable basis behind closed doors guys democracy either you've got it or you don't [Music]