By Alison Buckley
and Hamma Mirwaisi
According to
information obtained by BasNews, US attacks on Syria will pursue three targets:
the Syrian regime's forces; forces belonging to the Kurdish Democratic Union
Party (PYD), which is regarded as the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) wing in
Syrian Kurdistan; and the al-Nusra Front, which has been accused of committing
terrorist acts in Syria and is closely linked to the Islamist organization
al-Qaeda.
Zagros Hiwa,
spokesman for the KCK (Group of Communities in Kurdistan), the political wing
of the PKK, recently said that, "In light of these reports the group would not
support Washington's military intervention in Syria' (1).
The Kurdish people
under the leadership of the KCK (the umbrella organization for the PKK, PYD,
PJAK, and PCDK and others) are not against the interests of the US in the
Middle East. Their control of the oil, gas, and commercial gateways to Europe
for over 500 million people from Pakistan to Turkey and from Kurdistan to the
former Soviet Union countries necessitates prudence and co-operation in their
international relationships; approaches which they would be more than willing
to put into practise if given half a chance.
In a recent
interview, Kurdish leader Cemil Bayik discussed possible wider roles for the
organization in the region. He indicated that the KCK is ideally placed to
mediate as a religiously neutral, yet knowledgeable, influence, should tensions
rise between powers such as Iran and Turkey (2). But these possibilities could
be discounted by negativity in US attitudes to the Kurds. The fact that the PYD
is also seeking peace for the Kurds in Syria, and has never shown signs of
being anti-US interests in the region, raises questions about the legitimacy of
categorizing it with the Syrian government and Islamic terrorist organizations.
Fierce competition
for advantageous political partnerships in the Middle East might explain this
anomaly. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Massoud Barzani of the Kurdish
Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq are trying to use US power to
strengthen their interests in the region. At the same time Saudi Arabia and
Israel are looking to the US to protect their interests against Iran, while the
Prime Minister of Turkey and his partner in the oil business, Massoud Barzani,
want to second US military might against the KCK's military arms (PKK, PYD,
PJAK, and PCDK) in Turkish, Syrian, Iranian, and Iraqi Kurdistan.
But with such a
range of non-Western powers looking to the US for stability and a degree of
certainty in the region, why is the super-power siding against the Kurdish KCK,
whose essentially Western European-based ideology and policies have clearly not
opposed US interests in the Middle East?
Meanwhile, in a
desperate battle to avoid becoming sex slaves, Kurdish women in Syria are
fighting Islamic terrorist organizations such as the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, the
Islamic State of Iraq and al-ShÄ m, all of which killed American soldiers and
civilians in the Iraq the war. But while the peace-seeking Kurds have been
targeted by the US, none of these three notoriously aggressive organizations
are listed as marks for its proposed military action in Syria. Amongst the
bravest women in the world, surely the female Kurdish warriors deserve the
support of the world's greatest democracy in their struggle for safety and
freedom of choice?
While his wife and
two daughters, like other American women, live under the privileges afforded
them by western democratic laws, surely President Obama must abhor the
enslavement of women. Assuming this is so, why is his administration not
supporting those women fighting the Islamic terrorist organizations listed
above, which clearly defy all that the US stands for ideologically and morally?
No matter how the US
responds, we implore women's organizations around the world, and their members
reading this article, to speak out on behalf of Kurdish women in Syria.
References
(1) US attacks on
Syria to include Kurdish PYD forces and Islamic-Jihadists: PKK
5.9.2013
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2013/9/syriakurd898.htm
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