Please help save the United States from becoming a genocidal criminal.

Some quotations from the Salon article to make you proud, if you aren't I.

Is the Trump administration enabling genocide in Yemen? And will Americans ever pay attention? - Salon.com

The site of an air raid that hit a funeral reception in the Arhab district, 40 kilometres north of the capital Sanaa, on February 16, 2017. (Credit: Getty/Mohammed Huwais)

Most American antiwar activists had bigger fish to fry in Syria at the time. And those who focused on Yemen had become obsessed with the drone war, which was new and controversial, though it had a relatively low impact. But beneath the radar, the Saudis had begun blockading and bombing the ports of an already malnourished country that must import 90 percent of its food.

Saudi warplanes bombed the bridges and roads. They bombed food processing plants and aid warehouses. They bombed wedding parties and apartment buildings. And while the Obama administration curtailed arms exports to the Saudis, negotiated ceasefire agreements and chastised Saudi forces in public, humanitarian organizations began to warn of a famine that could kill millions.

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That was this last fall, when a Yemeni child was dying of hunger-related illness every 10 minutes or so. But as fall turned to winter and perhaps the most ignorant and callous president in American history entered office, the forced famine that had begun under a Saudi leadership, partially restrained by the Obama administration, descended into a hellish nightmare in which children are dying in the tens of thousands. 

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 While it has become quite common to refer to Stalin’s forced famine of Ukraine in the early 1930s, and Mao’s Great Famine of rural Chinese farmers in the late 1950s, as genocides, few if any have begun to speak of Yemen in such terms. 

So whatever the nature of the crimes now being committed in Yemen, we should not expect to hear much talk of genocide for years to come. Nevertheless, the pattern of the bombings and their resultant starvation beg the question of whether America is now contributing to a genocide. And the pattern of bombings suggests that the Saudis are deliberately starving Yemenis into submission. One might excuse them for bombing the ports and bridges, but targeting aid warehouses is unusually extreme and blocking food imports is both cruel and completely unnecessary.

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 It is not possible to take part in a forced famine without restraint and not be responsible for it. And with supposedly expert advisers around you, there is no excuse for failing to grasp your own role as a mass murderer. Righteous men have been going off in search of killers only to discover it was they themselves who committed the murder since at least as far back as Oedipus. Leadership is a lesson in self-discovery for even moral exemplars, but it is all the more so for the ignorant and righteous, who blame others while failing to look inside. 

Whether or not Trump is possessed of the moral development needed for such an inquiry, Americans themselves should begin to ask questions. In so doing, we may find that the phantom shadow of famine in Yemen points its ugly finger at our own callous ignorance. Somehow we are able to focus on everything else under the sun, but not the most horrific crimes to which our nation has contributed in several decades. It is time to open our eyes and see.

Timor mortis conturbat me.

Turkey, Europe, and the Kurds, a cautionary tale about historically occupying someone else's land

Well worth a read:

Understanding Turkey’s Anger With The West

by Cemal Ozkahraman on 18 April 2017

‘Who starts up in anger sits down with a loss’ (Öfkeyle kalkan zararla oturur) is a profound Turkish proverb. However, the wisdom of the proverb has not prevented recent Turkish anger with the West, the European Union (EU) in particular, and most specifically Germany and Holland. So why has Turkey become so annoyed with EU countries, when from its creation it adopted western civilization and strove to join the EU club, and has already made a number of economic and security agreements with the West?
To answer this question is tricky. Part of the reason is the migrants deal of 2016 (intended to prevent a mass influx of refugees into EU countries); Turkey claims that the EU has not kept its promise to financially support Turkey and, most importantly, that Germany and Holland did not permit Turkish ministers to hold meetings with their dual-citizens there concerning the Turkish referendum in April 2017 – won by the narrowest of margins, partly thanks to big majorities among Turks in both countries. But these are not the main issues. First and foremost we must scrutinize Turkey’s most profound sensitivities, which relate to state security and unification, and how the West, particularly the EU, has aroused these. There are two interrelated aspects to this: EU criteria regarding issues such as fundamental human rights, including the cultural and political rights of minority groups such as the Kurds; and Western support for the Syrian Kurds led by Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat (PYD) against so-called Islamic State (ISIS). The PYD shares close ideological links with Partiya Karkerén Kurdistan (PKK), which Turkey considers a threat to the security, and even the survival, of the Turkish state.

Turkish-EU Relations

Since the end of World War II, Turkey has become a member of several European and Western organizations, culminating in its formal application for full membership of the European Community in April 1987. This was considered beneficial for both the EU and Turkey. However, EU criteria, which were originally based purely on economic development and security, have expanded; fundamental human rights must be in place before new members are accepted, including political, economic and social-cultural rights.
The Turkish state and bureaucratic elites have seen such requirements, particularly in relation to the Kurdish question, as a threat to their state foundation. Turkey fears that the EU criteria would weaken the state, undoing unification. This has profoundly disturbed the state’s ruling elite, who have become skeptical about whether they should join the EU. Indeed, because of these concerns, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to hold a referendum on whether or not to continue entry negotiations.

Turkish Frustration

“There is no other friend of Turks but Turks” (Türkün Türkten başka dostu yoktur) is another Turkish proverb, relating to state survival. There is reason for this. Turks migrated to Anatolia in the eleventh century from Middle Asia. Remaining on other people’s land required founding a strong state. Turks, from the Seljuk Empire (1037) to the Turkish republic (1923), have built strong states to secure their survival, and have always seen individual groups or nations within their adopted territory as a potential enemy and threat to their state. Of course, there is good reason for this concern. Even apart from Iran, which it has always seen as its historical enemy, Turkey has never forgotten its Western enemies from World War I, the siege of its land, and the Arab Revolt of 1916, all of which could have led to Turks becoming stateless.
Nonetheless, in order to take its place in the globalized world, Turkey decided to overlook the philosophy behind the proverbs. In this respect, between the millennium and the Arab Spring of 2011, Turkey began to adjust its foreign policy, adopting a “zero” problems approach. It wanted to abolish its tradition of seeing every individual state as a potential enemy, both its neighboring countries and in the wider world. Turkey was after a bigger prize: to establish ‘neo-Ottomanism’, through which it aimed to regain its regional hegemony.
However, when Syria became embroiled in the Arab revolt, supported by Western countries, this obstructed the achievability of ‘neo-Ottomanism’. Also, as a consequence of the Syrian civil war, the rise of the Kurdish autonomous region alongside the Turkish border in northern Syria took place, sparking further Turkish anxiety. Things deteriorated further for Turkey when Western countries began to fully co-operate with the PYD-led Kurds in Syria against ISIS, which changed the paradigm of geopolitics in the region in favor of the Kurds. This development alarmed Ankara and was judged to constitute a death threat to the internal and external security of the Turkish state. This all resulted in Turkey’s aggressive attitude to Western countries, notably its potential EU partners Germany and Holland, with ‘punishment’ of EU countries by sending thousands of refugees into their territory.

Conclusion

Turks believe that the state is sacred for their survival; it is perceived as untouchable regardless of system, ideology, religion and method – it is above all. It may be the only nation in the world which refers to the ‘Father state’ (Devlet baba). EU accession criteria and, most crucially, Western intervention in recent Middle East politics, have not only stymied Turkey’s utopian ‘neo-Ottomanist’ project, but also caused great concern regarding its internal and external security through western support for the Syrian Kurds, with the Turkish public and state elite believing that it is creating another Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) in the Middle East. So while there is no doubt that Turkey’s recent anger has to some extent arisen from the EU’s dislike of the upcoming referendum, and perhaps to a limited extent the migrant deal, the most vital factor is the change in geo-regional politics, which has touched on Turkey’s most sensitive nerve, leading to an irrational and unproductive response, despite knowing that ‘Who starts up in anger sits down with a loss’.

A new, worthy, analysis of Syrian contenders, focusing on Iran

Read Syria: The Hidden Power of Iran | by Joost Hiltermann | The New York Review of Books,, an intricate, fact-laden review of various factions in Syria, focusing on Iranian involvement.

There are three missing or under-emphasised Syrian issues: 

(l) The article reduces the Iranian interest in a n gas pipeline from the Pars Natural Gas field through Syria to European markets to a mere parenthetical comment, and the Iranian delivery of gas to Europe, along with Qatar’s competing interest in a gas pipeline from that same field, is central to Russia’s involvement in the war. (see, e.g, Refugee Crisis & Syria War Fueled By Competing Gas Pipelines.

( 2) Saudi Arabia’s effort to use the Civil War disruption as an opportunity to create a first new Wahhabist State is hardly mentioned.  See, e.g, FPI Bulletin: Saudi Arabia and the Syrian Civil War.

(3)  The Syrian Kurds are the only egalitarian, non-sectarian, feminist force in the Middle East and a formidable fighting force, and its role is denigrated in the article.  The UN and all nations should support the Syrian Kurds.  That includes Turkey.See, e.g., A Dream of Secular Utopia in ISIS’ Backyard - The New York Times.

In all other respects the Review gives valuable, useful information on the Civil War.  It is the best of he recent articles on Syria.  Consider these provacative paragraphs:

These local conflicts are cross-cut by the standoff, mainly rhetorical but fought by proxy, and involving nuclear politics, between Israel and Iran. “It’s like a game of Risk,” an academic and political go-between in northern Syria told my colleagues and me last month. To forestall an Israeli attack on its nuclear program or an attempt at regime change in Tehran, Iran has long backed regional proxies that extend its power across the region. Foremost among these is Hezbollah, the Lebanese “Party of God,” which has been an integral part of what Iran calls its “forward defense,” taking the place of missiles that could effectively target Israel, which Tehran still lacks. Through Hezbollah, Iran can use Lebanon as a launching pad within fifty miles of major Israeli cities.

Yet Iran’s strategic posture is only as strong as the supply line that supports it. Until now, this has been an air route connecting Iran to Hezbollah via Iraq and Syria, but the Iranian government wants to consolidate this with a land corridor running from its own borders to the Mediterranean. This is not merely an accusation one hears in Tel Aviv, Ankara, Riyadh, Amman, or Abu Dhabi, but an aim that is acknowledged by Iranian analysts themselves, who describe it as a strategic necessity. It needs these routes to get arms to Hezbollah. That explains the importance of Iran’s alliance with the Assad government in Syria, and also why Iran and Hezbollah were in such a hurry after 2011 to prop up the Syrian regime when it was threatened with imminent collapse. (Iran has also long wanted to diversify its energy export routes, and has mooted plans to construct an east-west pipeline across Iraq to the Syrian coast.)

Highly recommended.  

WHY RUSSIA IS IN SYRIA

WHY RUSSIA IS IN SYRIA . Not the complete story but well worth a read.  d

Published by the Council on Foreign Relations

THE MAGAZINE  

SNAPSHOT April 5, 2017 

Terrorism and Counterterrorism Terrorism in Russia

Why the Problem Is Set to Worsen

By Ilan Berman

On Monday, the subway system of St. Petersburg, Russia’s second city, was the site of a massive bomb blast that killed 14 commuters and wounded more than 50 others. (A second, unexploded device was subsequently found and defused by authorities.) The attack marked the most significant terrorist incident to hit the Russian Federation since December of 2013, when a female suicide bomber blew herself up in the main train station of the southern Russian city of Volgograd ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics in nearby Sochi.

But it is also much more. Monday’s bombing is the latest sign of Russia’s worsening terrorism problem, as well as a portent of things to come.

THE COSTS OF SYRIA

Most directly, Monday’s attack in St. Petersburg can be viewed as blowback from Russia’s ongoing intervention in Syria. Since September 2015, the Kremlin has become a major player in Syria’s grinding civil war, establishing a significant—and open-ended—military presence in the country in support of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. 

Russia’s involvement has paid concrete strategic dividends, making it possible for Russia to reinforce its historic naval base at Tartus, establish a new air base in Latakia, and forward deploy an expanded naval force in the eastern Mediterranean, among other gains. But it has also made Moscow the target of Islamist ire, with both the Islamic State (also called ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, pledging to retaliate in Russia.

Monday’s attack may well have been the start of just such an offensive. Russian authorities have identified the main suspect in the bombing as 22-year-old Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Kyrgyz-born Russian citizen with links to radical Islamists. For its part, ISIS was quick to celebrate the blast (although it stopped short of directly claiming responsibility), suggesting that—at the very least—Jalilov’s actions track closely with its own plans for Russia.  

Monday’s bombing also lays bare a larger problem facing the Kremlin: Russia’s Muslims are radicalizing and mobilizing.

Today, Muslims make up the fastest-growing segment of Russian society. They are still a minority at roughly 16 percent of the population, according to the country’s 2010 census. But thanks to fewer divorces, less alcoholism, and a greater rate of reproduction, Russia’s Muslims are demographically strong. Some projections have suggested that, by the end of this decade, Russia's Muslims could account for a fifth of the country's total population. 

But this does not mean that Muslims are well integrated. Russian President Vladimir Putin has championed an ultranationalist identity that has shut out Russia’s Muslims from contemporary politics and society, leaving them vulnerable to the lure of alternative ideologies—Islamism chief among them. This can be seen in the growing influence of groups such as ISIS on Russian extremist groups like the Caucasus Emirate, the country’s premier jihadi outfit. (In 2015, segments of the group, which had previously been an al Qaeda affiliate, formally pledged allegiance to ISIS and its emir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.) Putin’s stance has also led to a growing number of Russian jihadists traveling to join the fighting in Iraq and Syria.  

The problem is poised to get far worse.

The true size of the Russian contingent in Syria has been the subject of considerable debate. But during a recent public address, Putin indicated that the country’s military intelligence service, the GRU, believes that as many as 4,000 Russian nationals, alongside a further 5,000 combatants from other former Soviet Republics, are now participating in the ongoing civil war there.

Putin's revelation was significant, since it suggests that the share of foreign fighters in Syria from the former Soviet Union is far larger than commonly understood in the West. All told, an April 2016 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated that ISIS had succeeded in attracting more than 31,000 recruits to its cause since its rise in 2014. Russian and Central Asian militants may thus account for nearly a third of all foreign fighters now active in the self-proclaimed caliphate. It’s no wonder that experts such as Yevgenia Albats estimate that Russian has become the third most frequently spoken language among fighters of the Islamic State.

WORSE TO COME 

For a long time, this state of affairs seemed to suit the Kremlin just fine. Far from preventing an outflow of militants to the Middle East, Russian authorities have facilitated their departure as a way of diffusing the country’s domestic terrorism problem. At the same time, Putin’s government has issued a raft of draconian new regulations—including expanding the definition of what constitutes extremism, requiring official permits for religious activities, and tightening oversight of the Internet—designed to maintain control over potential militants remaining in the country (and everyone else as well).

On the surface, this strategy seems to be working. Kremlin officials have publicly touted their government’s counterterrorism successes in an effort to convince the world that Russia is winning its fight against domestic terrorism. In November 2015, for example, Yevgeny Sysoyev, the deputy director of the FSB, Russia’s powerful internal security service, lauded the fact that Russia had succeeded in diminishing terrorist activity “by more than ten times” since 2010. But Monday’s attack provides a sharp counterpoint—and concrete proof of the country’s continued vulnerability to domestic acts of terror.

The problem, moreover, is poised to get far worse. Counterterrorism experts have long been concerned that the Syrian conflict could eventually produce an exodus of former fighters who would return to engage in terrorist activity in their home countries. These fears have become more acute in light of the recent battlefield reversals suffered by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and signs that the group is now shifting its focus to other theaters.

Given the size of the Russian contingent now present within ISIS, Russia is bound to be a principal target of this trend. Monday’s attack in St. Petersburg, in other words, may presage more to come, with all that this portends for the security and liberty of ordinary Russians.