War is an area of uncertainty; three quarters of the things on which all action in War is based are lying in a fog of uncertainty—Carl von Clausewitz
Despite the West being obsessed with technological advance, it has not yet developed a fan strong enough to shoo away the fog of war.
“Assad is losing,” CIA-owned newspapers claim. “Assad is winning,” Syrian newspapers blare. How can one decide which one is propaganda?
Yet, as predicted here soon after violence broke over two years ago, even CIA-owned newspapers recognize that Bashar al-Assad is still in power and that a war is going on. Can more specific details be deduced from the ongoing violence?
Kurds crossing Peshkhabour Bridge
August 17, 2013, Courtesy BBC
Fog of War: The Second World War and the Civil Rights Movement
BBC Mumbles
Kurds near Peshkhabour Bridge
August 17, 2013, Courtesy BBC
On War
The CIA doesn’t own the BBC directly; Her Majesty’s Truly Sovereign Government acts as a trusted middleman. It was impossible to ignore this possibility when reading the British website in the morning of August 18. “Syria refugees pour into Iraqi Kurdistan in thousands,” was the article entitled. Beyond one interesting detail, the piece was mumbling, avoiding the use of particular words. It solves the issue by citing the UNHCR: “The factors allowing this sudden movement are not fully clear to us.”
The two pictures above belong to their report, which credibly claims that in recent days almost 20,000 Syrian-Kurds crossed the Peshkhabour Bridge into the Kurdish autonomous provinces in Irak.
“There was war and looting and problems…We did not find a morsel [of food], so with our children, we came here,” Abdulkarim Brendar, who trekked across the bridge with his five children, was quoted by the BBC.
Let me just add one more bit of the BBC report. It claims “While the reasons remain unclear, there has been a sharp rise in clashes between Syrian Kurds and anti-government Islamist militants.”
Wasn’t Sherlock Holmes British? Can’t they solve a third-class mystery? Yet, the problem was not their ability to solve the issue. Simply, the solution contradicts the Western narrative.
Areas of Majority Kurdish Settlement | Strategic Position in the Middle East
Assad Leads
I had little doubt what was going on; yet, I checked out Hebrew media. Israel has interests in Kurdistan+ hence it reports regularly on the developments there. The Hebrew report was not mumbling: Syrian-Kurds had crossed into autonomous Kurdistan in Iraq. Yet, also they didn’t explain the reason.
Due to the Israeli interests in the oil-rich area, I am subscribed to a newsletter published by Kurd-exiles in Germany. I get daily reports from them, and from time to time Kurdistan is mentioned here. On August 5, they published a truly odd article entitled: “Syria’s War Splits Nation Into 3 Distinct Regions,” written by Zeina Karam.
It was strange because it came at a time when Assad’s forces were making advances in the ground and the mercenaries’ leader Idris openly complained “the West leave us alone to be killed”.
In the analysis, the article claims “Tucked into the far northeastern corner, Syria’s Kurdish minority enjoys semi-autonomy.
“In the northeast, Kurdish flags now flutter proudly over buildings after the country’s largest minority carved out a once unthinkable degree of independence. Kurds, who make up more than 10 percent of Syria’s 22 million people, were long oppressed under Baathist rule. Now, they have created their own police forces, even their own license plates, and have been exuberantly going public with their language and culture. Schoolchildren are now taught Kurdish, something banned for years under the Assad family’s rule.”
Flag of Kurdistan
One can be almost fooled into taking out a dusty Kurdish flag and waving it out vigorously. Was Assad deposed? “Hey, the CIA is winning after all!” Not so fast, Mr. Cowboy.
Less than two weeks after its publication, the idyllic dream turned out being propaganda. The ongoing Kurdish exodus from Syria is well documented. The UNHCR is involved, worldwide reports show a clear image of thousands of Kurds fleeing Syria.
The Assad’s offensive in recent weeks ended in the mercenaries being expelled from several of their bastions. Weakened and unable to get the military supplies the West had spoiled them with in the past, they are moving next to the Turkish and Iraqi borders, bringing with them violence and war. They wouldn’t have opened a secondary front against the Kurds while fighting the stronger Assad regime.
Near the Iraqi border, Syrian-Kurds watched with horror the mercenary forces flooding what they considered an autonomous area. Unprepared for the uncalled war, they crossed into their cousins’ autonomic area, providing images of Biblical dimensions. A new exodus is taking place.
If you manage to look from the side, the fog of war turns out being nothing but a thinly disguised Western Iron-Curtain; its Stalinist moustaches carefully trimmed to camouflage reality.
Mr. Tov Roy is one of the frequent contributors for The 4th Media.
http://www.roitov.com/articles/syriankurds.htm
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+ Kurds are a significant group in the Middle East, with a population of over thirty million. Up to twenty million live in Turkey, almost eight million in Iran, another seven in Iraq, and almost two in Syria. The rest is scattered in surrounding countries, including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Israel, as well as a substantial European diaspora (3/4 of a million in Germany). An Indo-European people speaking an Iranian language and practicing mainly Sunni Islam, Kurds had several independent principalities and emirates until the 16th century, when they were conquered and split between the Iranian and Ottoman empires. After WWI, the Allies agreed to create several countries within the former boundaries of the Ottoman Empire. The never-ratified Treaty of Sèvres included an independent Kurdistan next to a large Armenia. However, Kemal Atatürk conquered these areas and forced the Allies to accept the renegotiated Treaty of Lausanne and the borders of the Republic of Turkey. This left the Kurds without an independent country. Additional Kurd territories were left within British Iraq and French Syria; these areas remained within those countries after they gained independence. In 1992, following the First Gulf War, the Allies established Iraqi Kurdistan in northern Iraq; this is an autonomous entity inside Iraq with its own local government and parliament. The area contains the sixth largest reserves of oil in the world and is rich in several other minerals and metals.
The situation in Turkey is similar. Many Kurds opposed their incorporation into Turkey. This has resulted in a long-running separatist conflict. The region saw major Kurdish rebellions in 1920, 1924, 1927, and 1937. Turkey’s Kurdish areas were a closed military area between 1925 and 1965. A guerrilla war took place in the 1980s and 1990s, until the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in 1999. However, in 2004, political violence increased, and the Turkish-Iraqi border region remains tense.
The access of Israel to the area is easy. Many Jews now living in Israel (like in Moshav Yardena-Beit Yosef—one of the settlements hinted at in The Cross of Bethlehem) originated in Kurdistan and know the language and culture of the area. This means that plenty of highly specialized Mossad agents would be available. In the rapidly changing Middle East, it seems that Israel is pushing for the split of Iraq and the revival of Kurdistan.