As a multinational jihadist rampage continues to engulf Syria and
Iraq in a genocidal bedlam of massacres, crucifixions and beheadings, it
is acknowledged in the NATO capitals only with acute embarrassment that
the most effective fighting force arrayed against the Sunni Islamist
mayhem is itself listed by NATO powers as a terrorist organization.
The absurdly last-minute American airstrikes of recent days have certainly stalled the jihadist “Islamic State” in its effort to overrun Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government. But on the ground, the most effective armed defence of Irbil, and of the besieged Yazidi community in the Sinjar Mountains, is being mounted by the Syrian Local Defence Forces (YPG).
The YPG is the Syrian military wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (the PKK), outlawed in Canada, the United States and Europe mainly due to its long-running insurgency across the Iraqi border in Turkey, a NATO member. Until last year’s truce agreement between the Turkish government and the Kurdish-nationalist PKK rebels, Turkish Kurds had been subjected to brutal discrimination and oppression by the government in Ankara.
The Islamic State’s genocidal assault upon hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians, Yazidis and other minority groups in recent weeks constitutes the worst humanitarian catastrophe to unfold in Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s similarly genocidal campaigns against the Kurds during the late 1980s. It was only when the world’s attention was riveted by the calamity of thousands of Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar last week that the Obama administration was shamed into action.
For years, the PKK-YPG has maintained an intimate and affectionate relationship with Iraq’s marginalized Yazidis – followers of an ancient religion rooted in Zoroastrianism with both Muslim and Christian influences. Marxist and “hard left” in its founding orientation, the PKK-YPG has lately engaged in only the most friendly rivalries with its political adversaries in Iraqi Kurdistan – the ruling free-market Kurdish Democratic Party and the democratic-socialist Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Quite apart from the valiant fight YPG fighters have waged against the Islamic State’s jihadists in informal collaborations with the mainline U.S.-backed Kurdish peshmerga (“those who face death”), it is also exceedingly awkward that the Islamic State’s terrorist conquests in Iraq owe their origins to U.S. president Barack Obama’s abandonment and ultimate betrayal of the democratic revolution in Syria.
Read more: GLAVIN: Our best ally in Iraq is listed by NATO as a terrorist organization | Ottawa Citizen
The absurdly last-minute American airstrikes of recent days have certainly stalled the jihadist “Islamic State” in its effort to overrun Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government. But on the ground, the most effective armed defence of Irbil, and of the besieged Yazidi community in the Sinjar Mountains, is being mounted by the Syrian Local Defence Forces (YPG).
The YPG is the Syrian military wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (the PKK), outlawed in Canada, the United States and Europe mainly due to its long-running insurgency across the Iraqi border in Turkey, a NATO member. Until last year’s truce agreement between the Turkish government and the Kurdish-nationalist PKK rebels, Turkish Kurds had been subjected to brutal discrimination and oppression by the government in Ankara.
The Islamic State’s genocidal assault upon hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians, Yazidis and other minority groups in recent weeks constitutes the worst humanitarian catastrophe to unfold in Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s similarly genocidal campaigns against the Kurds during the late 1980s. It was only when the world’s attention was riveted by the calamity of thousands of Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar last week that the Obama administration was shamed into action.
For years, the PKK-YPG has maintained an intimate and affectionate relationship with Iraq’s marginalized Yazidis – followers of an ancient religion rooted in Zoroastrianism with both Muslim and Christian influences. Marxist and “hard left” in its founding orientation, the PKK-YPG has lately engaged in only the most friendly rivalries with its political adversaries in Iraqi Kurdistan – the ruling free-market Kurdish Democratic Party and the democratic-socialist Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Quite apart from the valiant fight YPG fighters have waged against the Islamic State’s jihadists in informal collaborations with the mainline U.S.-backed Kurdish peshmerga (“those who face death”), it is also exceedingly awkward that the Islamic State’s terrorist conquests in Iraq owe their origins to U.S. president Barack Obama’s abandonment and ultimate betrayal of the democratic revolution in Syria.
Read more: GLAVIN: Our best ally in Iraq is listed by NATO as a terrorist organization | Ottawa Citizen
