Re: War Clouds in Eastern Mediterranean
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Chris Slee
1. RKOB says: "We support the right of national self-determination of the Kurdish people". The problem is that he does not give any support, even critical, to those organisations fighting for Kurdish rights against the oppressive Turkish state - such as
the PKK and YPG/YPJ.
2. In response to my accusation of double standards, RKOB claims that there is a qualitative difference between the Libyan rebels' cooperation with NATO against Gaddafi
and the SDF's cooperation with the United States against ISIS. He says:
"The “little difference” between the YPG and the Libyan rebels is that the later started and waged the struggle independent and that the intervention by NATO (and their collusion with elements of the rebel leadership) was episodically."
While not very clear, this passage seems to imply that the YPG's struggle against ISIS did not start independently of the US. But in fact the YPG had been fighting ISIS
for months before the US decided to help them.
Secondly, the intervention of NATO in Libya was not merely episodic, as RKOB claims. It
continued (mainly in the form of bombing raids by NATO aircraft, but also with some presence of special forces on the ground) until Gaddafi was overthrown. For more details see:
NATO avoided sending large numbers of ground troops to Libya because of the experience of Afghanistan and Iraq, where US troops got bogged down in ongoing guerrilla warfare.
In Syria, too, US aircraft carried out bombing raids in support of local forces on the ground - in this case the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, which includes the YPG/YPJ). This cooperation continued longer than in Libya, because ISIS proved more resilient
than the Gaddafi regime.
Some US troops were also stationed near the Turkish border to deter a Turkish invasion of north-eastern Syria. Turkey's invasion of Afrin showed its intention to crush the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). The US was worried
that a Turkish invasion of north-eastern Syria would divert the SDF away from the fight against ISIS. This would enable ISIS to recover and grow stronger, not only in Syria but also in Iraq, hindering attempts to create a stable pro-US regime there.
Trump, however, withdrew US troops from the Syria/Turkey border, enabling Turkey to invade north-eastern Syria, grabbing a strip of land along the border. The AANES then
asked Russia for support in deterring further Turkish aggression.
Revolutionary movements and revolutionary governments often try to take advantage of rivalries and conflicts amongst different capitalist governments. Sometimes this involves
military cooperation with one state against another state which is a more immediate threat to the revolution.
I don't automatically condemn such cooperation. But there is always the danger of co-option. The movement may degenerate and abandon its original goals.
In the long run the only solution is the spread of the revolution.
3. RKOB denies that the Libyan rebels were racist. He completely ignores my discussion of the ethnic cleansing of the black people of Tawergha by the strongest rebel
armed group, the Misrata militia.
This does not mean that all the rebels were racist, but certainly a substantial part of them were.
Our attitude towards the current conflict between the Turkish-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) and the forces of General Haftar should be influenced by the attitude
of each side towards anti-black racism, and towards the refugees from Tawergha. This is because the struggle against racism is a very important aspect of the struggle for democracy.
I am uncertain whether there is any significant difference between the two sides on this issue. I will investigate further.
In Syria the SDF is fighting for a democratic society with equal rights for the members of all religious and ethnic groups. I am not sure that the same can be said of the Libyan GNA.
Chris Slee
From: marxmail@groups.io <marxmail@groups.io> on behalf of RKOB <aktiv@...>
Sent: Monday, 21 September 2020 4:21 PM To: marxmail@groups.io <marxmail@groups.io> Subject: Re: [marxmail] War Clouds in Eastern Mediterranean
You are simply wrong to claim that we don’t support the Kurdish national liberation struggle. In the document which you criticize we say: “As the RCIT has repeatedly pointed out, we refuse any political support for the bourgeois-Islamist Erdoğan government. We support the right of national self-determination of the Kurdish people.” (Thesis 7, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/war-clouds-in-eastern-mediterranean/) Similar we state in the more extended theses “Turkey and the Growing Tensions in Eastern Mediterranean”: “14. In terms of domestic politics, the Erdoğan regime is a government based on a bourgeois-parliamentary system which increasingly takes bonapartist features. However, calling it “fascist” as many Stalinists are doing is a silly caricature of the very term. Furthermore, another important feature of Erdoğan’s domestic policy is the intensified national oppression of the Kurdish minority. Revolutionaries in Turkey fight for a workers and poor peasant republic and the unconditional right of national self-determination for the Kurdish people.” (https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/turkey-and-the-growing-tensions-in-eastern-mediterranean/) What we don’t do – in contrast to you – is to support and cheer the YPG which serves as foot soldiers of U.S. imperialism since more than five years. Hence, your analogy with the Libyan rebels (which you continue to smear as racist) is unfounded. You say: “But RKOB seems to have a double standard. In 2011 the Libyan rebels were allied with NATO in the campaign to overthrow Gaddafi. Yet RKOB does not denounce them as pro-imperialist.” The “little difference” between the YPG and the Libyan rebels is that the later started and waged the struggle independent and that the intervention by NATO (and their collusion with elements of the rebel leadership) was episodically. The Western imperialists never could bring the country under their full control. Hence, not long after the downfall of Gaddafi the U.S. Ambassador was killed and nearly all imperialist embassies were evacuated. No NATO troops were stationed – may be some special troops operated in secret here and there but there were no military basis. You might also remember that Obama – in his final long interview - mentioned the military intervention in Libya as one of his big mistakes. Guess why?! And if the GNA government would be loyal servants of imperialist Great Powers why did they not support it with substantial military aid in the past years?! In contrast, they either stay neutral or support Haftar. Now compare this to the years-long relationship of the YPG and US imperialism. You have US troops on the ground, close collaboration, military bases – and all this since many years! One must be really totally blind to ignore the difference!
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