Friday, September 12, 1924. Second Assyrian Uprising and National Defense Day.

The complicated  Second Assyrian Uprising, or the Nestorian Rebellion, broke out in southeaster Turkey.  It was the second such uprising by Christian Assyrians who had returned to their homeland and was brought about due to intentional Kurdish misrepresentations about the intentions of the Turks.

Grossly outnumbered by Turkish and Kurdish forces, relying on promises of British intervention which didn't come, and with most of their fighting age men in British service in Iraq, they were defeated, although the British did end the war with the intervention of aircraft, and returned to Iraq.

In the US it was National Defense Day and the National Defense Test, test of the nation's radio system in an emergency took place.

A lot of military demonstrations and events occurred as well.

Casper participated in events.

Businesses stated their patriotism.

Last edition:

Wednesday, September 10, 1924. Eucharistic Congress, St. Mary of the Woods.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Catholic, Christianity, Music

Sunday, May 12, 1974. Divorce Italian Style.

Italians voted to retain the newly granted right to obtain a divorce, dating from 1970, in Italy's first public referendum.  The vote was 59% in favor of retention of the law.

Italian divorce or the lack of it, had actually been the theme of an Italian movie of several yeas prior, at the time that Italian movies and bombshell actresses were a big thing.  In the film, which I've never seen, apparently Ferdinando Cefalù, placed by Marcello Mastroianni, is married a 37-year-old impoverished Sicilian nobleman when he falls in love with his cousin Angela, a 16-year-old girl he sees only during the summer.

Ick.

So he starts to plot to kill his wife, and it goes on from there.

I don't think I'll bother to catch it.

Mastroianni is an interesting character, as his own marriage failed due to his infidelities, but he and his wife remained married throughout his life.  Asked once about it, he was horrified when it was suggested he should divorce, noting that he was Catholic and Catholics do not divorce.

Daniela Rocca, who played the devoted wife in the film, actually was rendered mentally unstable during it, and attempted to commit suicide. Stefania Sandrelli, who played the 16-year-old love interest, and ultimately unfaithful second wife, was actually only 14 years old when she played the part.

Leyla Qasim, became the first woman to be executed by Saddam Hussein's regime.  She was one of five Kurds charged with attempting to hijack and airplane and plotting to kill the Iraqi leader.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, May 9, 1974. Probable cause.

1970s, 1974, Disaster, Geology, Government, Japan, television, Watergate

Monday, March 11, 1974. The Obstinate

Imperial Japanese Army Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda formally in the Philippines.  He had been recently informed by his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, that the war was over.

Originally part of a party of four such soldiers, one who abandoned the group in 1949 to surrender, they carried out guerilla raids which ultimately reduced Onoda to the sole survivor.  Their ongoing obstinacy was frankly irrational as well as deadly.

He found post-war Japan disappointing and became a cattle rancher in Brazil.

Contrary to popular belief, he was not the last Japanese soldier still holding out.  At least one more, Teruo Nakamura, who was Taiwanese, was in Indonesia.  He was actually a private and of native Taiwanese background, with a poor command of Japanese and Chinese.  He'd be captured in December 1974.  Another, Fumio Nakahara, may have been holding out in the Philippines as late as 1980, although that has never been determined.

A ceasefire between Iraq and the Kurdish Democratic Party was subject to an ultimatum, which provided that Kurdistan could be autonomous.  The offer would expire without acceptance, and a renewed war resumed.

The United Kingdom tended its Oil Embargo related state of emergency.

Last prior:

Friday, March 8, 1974. Exit Brady Bunch

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part IX, Late Summer.

September 15, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Vasily Popov, commander of the Russian 247th Guard Air Assault Regiment, was killed in a counter-attack in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia area.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution recognizing Belarusian President Lukashenko as complicit in Russian crimes and called upon the International Criminal Court to issue a warrant for his arrest.

The Duma proposed blocking WhatsApp as part of the Kremlin’s effort to control the Russian information space. 

cont:

Pro Russian Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is critically ill.

September 16, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukrainian forces liberated Andriivka near Bakhmut.

September 19, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Six Ukrainian deputy defense ministers were fired on Monday as part of an ongoing cleanup of corruption in the Ukrainian defense department.

Post Soviet Union Ukraine has been plagued with corruption, as has post Soviet Union Russia.  This is no surprise, as the Soviet system encouraged corruption by its very nature, and so that post Soviet societies would feature a lot of it is to be expected.

Ironically, this fact has led opponents of supporting Ukraine, which is democratic and is fighting a just fight, to cite the corruption as a reason to allow the country to be conquered by Russia, although they don't put it that way.  While the country has featured a lot of corruption, Russia's is now endemic and currently not only that case, but watching modern Russia is a lot like watching Goodfellas in real time.

Following 2013's Euromaiden protest, the country has moved increasingly towards the west and has had a strong desire to join the European Union and NATO.  That is what has, in no small part, brought the current war about, as Putin, a Russian nationalist at heart, is opposed to that and sees Ukraine as a mere Russian province.  Efforts to join NATO have lead to a list of further items Ukraine must address in order to do so, once the war is over, and cleaning up corruption will no doubt continue.

The ISW is giving praise to Ukrainian offensive efforts near Bakhmut, which it cites as having kept Russian forces committed in that area, leaving the Russians unable to reinforce further south.  It's reporting that Russian forces in both areas are suffering severe degradation.

Iran v. Kurds

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has deployed unis to the border with Iraq in an effort to put pressure on Iraq to arrest Kurdish efforts in Iran.

Iran messes heavily in regional conflicts, taking an active pro-government role in Syria for example.  Here, however, the war in Syria and the conclusion of the war in Iraq has led to Kurdish semi autonomy, which has in turn lead to Kurdish activity in northern Iran.

cont:

Azerbaijan v. Armenia

Azerbaijan’s declared an “anti-terrorist” campaign in Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is under Armenian control. Armenian media indicated air raid sirens and mortar fire in the regional capital of Stepanakert had been observed.

Armenian forces recently trained with U.S. forces.

September 21, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

The Prime Minister of Poland has announced; "We are no longer transferring any weapons to Ukraine because we are now arming ourselves with the most modern weapons".

Poland and Ukraine have been in a dispute over grain, which has been flooding the Polish market as Ukraine's ports have been blocked, even while Poland has been a major supporter of Ukraine's war effort.

In spite of the way it's been portrayed, historically Poland and Ukraine have not gotten along and following World War One fought over their respective borders.  During World War Two, Ukrainian nationalist militias committed acts of genocide against Polish villagers.  The recent Polish support of Ukraine may reflect Polish animosity towards Russia as much as anything else.

U.S. Senator Rand Paul, who is a libertarian with isolationist tendencies, is holding up the most recent funding for Ukraine.

What both of these stories point out is that the slow moving progress of the Ukrainian offensive, while receiving support from some analysts such as those from the ISW, presents real problems in terms of ongoing Western support.  Ukraine's strategy, from those supporting it, is reputed to be a slow moving offensive using artillery to attrit Russian forces, made necessarily in part by a lack of air assets.  That may be correct, but if it is, Ukraine may find itself with decreasing material support from the West including the United States should the U.S. far right gain in Congress.

Wagner is withdrawing from Syria.

Cont: 

German Marder AFV, some of which appear to be beyond prepared Russian lines.

Ukrainian light armor appears to have pushed through Russian lines near Bakhmut, which would be significant, if substantial and correct.  Indeed, the fact that there are reports of this is significant as it would suggest Russian forces must be very downgraded in the area.

American Stryker AFV, some of which have also been reported having passed Russian prepared defenses.

September 22, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Russian Navy Admiral Sokolov, the Commander of Black Sea Fleet, was killed today by a Ukrainian missile/drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet's Sevastopol headquarters.

September 23, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Poland walked back its earlier statement about not transferring arms to Ukraine, indicating that what was meant that new arms it is acquiring for itself will not be transferred.

September 24, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

According to ISW, the Ukrainian Army has broken through Russian field fortifications west of Verbove in western Zaporizhia Oblast. This is not, however, the final Russian defensive line.

September 25, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukrainian forces are attacking north of Verbove appear to be close to surrounding the 56th VDV Regiment deployed in Novofedorivka.

September 26, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

The Ukrainian Special Operations Forces reported on September 25 that a precision Ukrainian strike on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet (BSF) in occupied Sevastopol, Crimea, on September 22 killed 34 Russian officers, including BSF Commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov.

Azerbaijan v. Armenia

Armenia effectively surrendered, and the subject enclave will be abandoned.  Armenia is blaming Russia for its peacekeeping forces being ineffective.

US v. ISIL

The U.S. announced the capture of ISIL official Abu Halil al-Fad'ani in a raid in northern Syria.

September 27, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Russian Navy Admiral Sokolov, the Commander of Black Sea Fleet, was in fact not killed on the Ukrainian missile strike on the HQ of the Black Sea Fleet.

A Russian drone strike cut the ferry ties between Ukraine and Romania.

September 30, 2023

Armenia v. Azerbaijan

Almost the entire population of the ethnic Armenian enclave Nagorno-Karabakh, some 100,000 people, have since Azerbaijan seized the region last week.

October 1, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

The emergency stopgap bill to fund the U.S. government for 45 days omits funds for Ukraine.

October 5, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukrainian drone attacks now occur inside of Russia daily.  Two Russian cargo jets were destroyed at the Russian air base at Pskov yesterday, with the Russians claiming that the attacks were launched from inside of Russian territory.

Ukrainians have carried out a second commando raid on Crimea.  The Russian navy has pulled out of Sevastopol and dispersed.

October 6, 2023

Syrian Civil War

A drone attack on a military graduation ceremony in the Syrian Homs, killed 80 and wounded 240.  Some civilians were amongst the casualties.

China v. Everyone

A Chinese nuclear submarine is reported to have been caught in a Chinese submarine net last December, resulting in its sinking and the loss of the entire crew.

October 7, 2023

Hamas v. Israel

Hamas launched a large scale offensive against Israel yesterday, sending both ground forces and rockets across the border.  Israel has termed it a war and has called up reservists.

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukraine has deployed snipers overseas against Wagner forces.

October 8, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Belarusian leader Lukashenko stated to newsmen last week, "I have to say that Zelensky is acting absolutely appropriately", a surprising statement from a Russian ally.

Hamas v. Israel

Russia bizarrely called for a ceasefire between the warring parties.

Civilian casualties are about equal so far, each standing at about 250 persons.  Hamas took hostages back into Israel.

Last prior edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part VIII. The high cost of freedom.

Sunday, April 22, 1923. Agrarian rise.

The British commenced their occupation of Rawandiz, in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurdish city is near the Turkish and Iranian borders.  The United Kingdom was occupying the country under a League of Nations Mandate.  The border was contested by the Turks, who had occupied the city only a year prior, which motivated the British to garrison the town.

The Bulgarian Agrarian National Union won the vast majority of the seats of the country's Parliament.  The agrarian party is the only such party to come to power by a majority of votes being cast for it outright.

The party was a founding member of the International Agrarian Bureau and part of a strong rising agrarian movement in Eastern Europe. The movement would eventually spread to Western Europe as well, but the rise of Communism and World War Two would effectively destroy it and its influence waned. The Bureau dissolved in 1971.

The Italian fascists cut 1B lire from the country's budget by cutting civil service jobs, leaving the deficit in the budget at 3B for that year.

A bomb exploded at Comiskey Park in Chicago, but didn't injure anyone.  Nobody was arrested from the explosion, but it was suspected that it was the result of the hiring of non-union labor to point the exterior of the ballpark.  

I don't know if it's related, but owner Charles Comiskey was notoriously cheap.

"Queen of the Pinups" Bettie Page was born on this day in 1923.  Page was a good student, but from a broken home.  After several attempts to get her feet on the ground she turned to modeling in her late 20s and rapidly became, by the early 1950s an infamous pornographic model and actress and one of the few individuals in that line of work whose name was well known.  In 1958, she experienced a radical conversion to Christianity, stopped her pornographic career, and devoted the rest of her life to her conversion, although she ended up marrying and divorcing three times in her life. Her divorces prevented her from being accepted in a new desired career of Christian missionary to Africa.  She was subpoenaed to testify in front of a Congressional committee at the time investigating the pornography industry at a time when there still remained sufficient public will to attempt to do something about it, an era that has now very much faded.

In making her switch, she dropped out of the public eye but oddly was subject to a large scale revival in interest in the 1980s, which is the only reason I've heard of her.  She was the subject of a major biography at the time, and I can recall reading a detailed review of it in The New Republic, which used to have fantastic book reviews.  In the intervening thirty years, all sorts of rumors had spring up about her, even though she remained alive at the time.  About as much as can reasonably be said is that she struggled with her mental health and had abandoned the life that brought her to a certain section of the public eye.  She shares that trait with many in the industry, including many Playboy models, which in fact she was one of.

Dying in 2008, Page is a sad tale of a very smart person whose early life slid into vice with grotesque and tragic results, but also one of recovery and redemption, if not full recovery.  It's interesting that the public focus was on her only when she was deep into depravity, and then again late in life when a pornified culture wanted to focus on her earlier image.

Of some interest, Page and Marilyn Monroe took the same path, at almost the same time, although Monroe's turn to modeling, including nude modeling, happened at a significantly earlier age.  Both women were the products of broken homes, although Monroe's was significantly more broken.  Monroe, moreover, was just a teenager when she was first a true model, and it was not until the late 1940s that she was photographed nude.  Ironically, Monroe was able to start a career in acting before the news of her nude photographs broke, and while she was Playboy's first (unwilling) model, she was able to escape the immediate implications of it due to the intervention of Life magazine, which ran the same photographs before Playboy as glamour photos in order to save her career.  Page, in contrast, began a rapid descent after first consenting to be photographed.  They were almost bookends in a certain story in the evolution of American morality and the portrayal of women.  Neither of them was able to really able to escape their early story, although Page certainly lived a much longer life.

Both of them would suggest that something about the Second World War and the culture that followed, including the release of false "studies" that the public was apparently willing to accept at the time had an impact on the culture, assuming that the war was merely conicidental in this story. That seems unlikely.

Wednesday, December 20, 1922. Rises and falls.

Sir Percy Cox, British Administrator for the Iraqi Mandate, agreed to a joint Anglo Iraqi declaration to create ea government for the Kurds provided that rival Kurdish leaders could agree on a constitution for the state, and to its borders.  

Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji.

Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji, who had appointed by Cox as the governor or southern Kurdistan, refused to go along with it and allied himself with the Turks against the British, destroying the opportunity for an independent Kurdistan.  He is regarded to this day as a hero in Kurdistan, but it can't help but be noted that his obstinacy may have frustrated Kurdish aspirations, perhaps permanently.

William Hays lifted the ban against Roscoe Arbuckle in the movie industry.

Poland appointed Stanislaw Wojciechowski as President of the republic.

Monday, October 10, 1921. Putative Beginnings

On this day in 1921the Federation of Central America, made up of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, came into existence. Tegucigalpa was the capital.  The treaty creating the union provided only for provisional delegates to its parliament, so in reality it never took off.

There have been numerous efforts to create such a union, following the end of Mexican claims to the region in the 19th Century. All have unfortunately failed, which has been a major contributor to the agony of the region in the 20th and 21st Centuries.

On states that failed, the Kingdom of Kurdistan was proclaimed on this day in 1921.

Encompassing a fairly small area of the region inhabited by the Kurds, all of which was within Iraq, the British put the putative kingdom down in 1924, and it was incorporated back into the British mandate in Mesopotamia in 1926 by the League of Nations.

Here too, if the state had been allowed to exist, much of modern history in the region would have been different, and potentially better.

The Yankees won game 5 of the 1921 World Series, regaining the lead from the Giants. The score was 3 to 1.

In other sports, a photographer caught a group of Army officers playing polo at Camp Grant., Illinois.

Polo, Camp Grant, October 10, 1921

Polo had become a big Army sport in the early 20th Century, and the interwar years were really its high water mark. During that period it was widely participated in and encouraged by the Army.  Polo became common not only in the Regular Army, but in the National Guard.
 

Hines was back at work photographing Appalachia, including the members of an African American 4H Club..

Miners cabins on the Elk River at Bream, W. Va. near Charleston. Others on slope beyond. A typical mining community here. Children go to Big Chimney school. Oct. 10, 1921. Location: Bream, West Virginia

Former 4H members who were attending an African American agricultural college in West Virginia.

May 2, 1921. Uprising in Upper Silesia

Polish insurgents in 1921.

On this day in 1921, the Third Silesian Uprising commenced in which Poles in Upper Silesia who sought to separate from Germany.  The uprising followed a plebiscite which yielded indefinite results and followed Polish fears that the British would support German claims to the region, which was proved to be correct.  The French supported the Poles.

During the fighting, the French somewhat supported the Polish insurgents and the British somewhat supported German forces in the region, but outside forces were barred from entry.  Ultimately the Poles prevailed.

On the same day the US announced that it would not mediate reparations disputes involving Germany and the Allies.  The French mobilized 50,000 men for anticipated Ruhr occupation.

Also on that day President Harding was visited by the American Waldensian Aid Society.

American Waldensian Aid Society, 5/2/21

While I'd never heard of it, it still exists, and is based in the Waldensian Church, a protestant church that claims a connection with the Waldensian heresy of the Middle Ages.  In 1975 it merged with the Methodist Church.

Harding appears to have had a busy day of meetings.

He met with members of International Association of Printing House Craftsmen, depicted above.

And also with the Alabama Congressional delegation.

And with Social Service School Workers.

Somebody he didn't meet with, but who was photographed that day, was Prince Zerdecheno, who claimed the title of Emir of Kurdistan, and his wife, May 2, 1921.

Elsewhere the famous hairpin turn on the Mohawk Trail and the Niagara Falls Fire Department were photographed.

August 10, 1920. Turkey and the Blues

Panoramic view of Lake Fairlee from Quinibeck Lookout,  August 10, 1920.

On this day in 1920 Mamie Smith recorded Crazy Blues, which would go on to be the first blues recording in American musical history to cross over the racial divide and be a general musical hit.

Mamie Smith

Smith would go on to have a short but successful blues career, but after her retirement from music things did not go as well.  She died penniless in 1946 at age 55 and was buried in an unmarked grave in New York City.  A gravestone was finally erected after a campaign to have one installed in 2012.

The Ottoman government signed the Treaty of Sevres in which they agreed to dismantle the Ottoman Empire, recognize Greek and Italian claims to Anatolian domains, and grant Armenia independence.

Signed outside of Paris, the Ottoman government was already fighting a revolt from Ataturk and therefor the treaty would never really come into full effect in the way envisioned.  Those parts of that would more or less be carried out were in those areas where the Allied already controlled Ottoman domains outside of Anatolia.

Regarded as an example of outrageous overreach by the Allies today, the treat wasn't completely without its merits.  The release of non Ottoman territories in Arabia, if only into mandates that were effectively European colonies, did recognize that those areas should eventually be independant, even though they definitely were not at the time.  Achieving a free Kurdistan and Armenia would have been a real achievement, the former of which has never occured and which continues to plague the region today.  Greek claims to the Anatolian mainland grossly overreached, however, and doomed any chance of acceptance of the treaty, which in turn doomed Armenian and Kurdish independence.

Photographed on this day in 1920, with "US" service lapel pins, campaign ribbons, Nurses service pin, and overseas stripes.  Still really don't know what more is here, but something is as it was a news photograph.

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi apparently killed by U.S/Kurdish strikes in Syria

Ironies abound.

We've recently been hearing how a U.S. presence in Syria isn't necessary anymore (and I'll concede that I both didn't think we should be in Syria in the fist place but, having gone in, we shouldn't leave and abandon the Kurds).

Now we find that Syria is hotter, ISIL wise, than we supposed.

And we've gotten Al Baghdadi, in a joint operation with the Kurds.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the leader of ISIL.  Not a huge amount about him is known other than that.  He's an Iraqi by birth and had some university education, apparently being a student of Islamic law while attending university.

ISIL started off as the Iraqi component of Al Queda and became active after the U.S. occupation of Iraq.  It's early history is murky but Al-Baghdadi quickly became its leader and has been ever since.  His death would therefore be roughly equivalent to that of Bin Laden's, which came about in a similar fashion.

He took his group in a highly radical direction, at least as radical as that of Al Queda, if not more so.  He proclaimed himself to be the new Caliph, a proposition that's dubious under Islamic law in his case, and found adherents for a brand of Islam that is uniquely severe.  Included in its views are the wide scale use of violence against all opponents and the routine use of violence against non Muslims.  Moreover, his group revived the line from the Koran allowing men to take concubines with "their strong right hand", although that was interpreted, apparently, to amount to forced marriage.* All sorts of horrors have accordingly resulted.

Al-Baghdadi has an odd connection with the U.S. in that he was the apparent direct detainer of American Christian relief worker Kayla Mueller.  Mueller was working with Syrian refugees in Syria but stunned Doctors Without Borders when she showed up with a Syrian boyfriend in Aleppo.  They put her on a bus back to Turkey the next day but it was ambushed and she was taken prisoner and forcibly married to Al-Baghdadi who reportedly repeatedly raped her while she was his captive.  ISIL attempted to force her to renounce Christianity while she was a captive, which she would not do.** She also reportedly acted as a protector and sympathetic ear for younger captive "brides" of Al-Baghdadi.  She was later a casualty of a Coalition air strike.

All of things brings a number of points to the forefront right at the point in which there may still be time to do something about them, even though its highly unlikely the United States under the current administration will.

This raid took place in northwestern Syria, the very region we're currently pulling out of.  While ISIL is an opponent of the Syrian regime in Damascus, our withdrawal or quasi withdrawal is to that regime's benefit.  What would have occurred if Damascus completely reasserted its sovereignty on the portions of the country not occupied by Turkey and Russia isn't clear.

Murkier yet is what would have happened had this are been occupied by the Turks.  The Turks have shown a surprising level of ambivalence recently in regard to Islamic extremist and their occupation of what amounts to an expansion of their border with Syria has resulted in ISIL adherents being freed and the insertion of radical Islamic Syrian militias.  If Al-Baghdadi's enclave had been found in their territory, which is admittedly unlikely, what would have we done?  This points out that even with the U.S. out, we're much better off with the Turks also not in.

That would raise again my point about UN Peacekeepers.  Not that this is going to happen.
_________________________________________________________________________________

*I'm certain many current Muslims would dispute that the Koran allows the taking of captive sex slaves but the fact of the matter is that it was at one time highly common in Islam and there is in fact a line in the Koran allowing Mohammed's male combatant adherents to have sex with women captives.  I'm  not a scholar on the topic so what the current counters to that within Islam are, I don't know.

In ISIL's case, however, the practice was widespread and apparently limited in the way it was originally was, i.e., the captives are non Muslims when forced into the relationship.  The Koran, however, may sanction taking slaves in that fashion (I don't think it actually requires the captor to marry the slave) but it doesn't appear to actually sanction rape.  That may seem like a distinction without a difference, but its noted here anyhow.  I.e., a woman forced into captivity in the ancient world in the role of  sex slave probably doesn't have a lot of choice in what she does.

ISIL does seem to depart in requiring that there be a "marriage" in these circumstances.  However, in the Christian view of marriage, no such marriage would exist as marriage requires consent of both parties and always has.

**The entire Mueller story was an example of monumentally bad reporting by the American press.

Mueller was only in Turkey as she was a Christian.  She'd previously gone to Guatemala in the same role.  However, Mueller was a Protestant of the supposedly unaffiliated type.

This particular topic is really badly reported in general as "unaffiliated" Christians in fact are affiliated, as they fit into the loose  American protestant tradition. This means that they aren't part of one of the "main line" Protestant faiths, but the "unaffiliated" churches are in fact fairly uniform in their theology and are affiliated, even if they don't realize it.

Her Christian status was nearly completely ignored by the Press.

As was the fact that she was naive.  Apparently the courage of her convictions really showed while she was a captive, but she never should have been where she was in the first place.

Turkish Sanctions Lifted

I hadn't even realized sanctions had been imposed when they came off, but President Trump lifted sanctions on Turkey that followed its invasion of northern Syria.

The invasion followed the American abandonment of the Syrian Kurds, lead by the YPK, which we've been following.  Following that, the  Turks have aligned with the Russians which are now jointly patrolling an occupied zone of northern Syria, also occupied by Syrian Islamist militias which have been executing Kurdish prisoners and releasing some ISIL affiliated ones. 

The sanctions, a type of strike back that rarely works, were supposed to address Turkish excesses in Syria and were proclaimed now unnecessary in light of a supposed cease fire worked out by the United States.  It's hard to see what deal we actually reached as the Turks achieved their goal and moved oddly closer to Russia in the mix, something they're likely to regret.  Overall, the long term results are likely to be unhappy for everyone, including the United States which comes out of the entire affair looking simply awful.  It's worst of all for the Kurds and what little democratic forces there are in Syria.

A Complete And Total Defeat

Turkey, a nation with a good, but 1970s vintage (maybe 80s vintage) military was able to enter northern Syria as we left, abandoning the Kurds to their fate.  Hence they took what amounts to either a Turkish/Kurdish/Syrian DMZ or what amounts to an expansion of their border south into Syrian Kurdistan thereby retaking a slice of land they last held in 1918.

And now they, the Syrian government, and Russia have entered into an agreement whereby the Russians will patrol the border with Turkey and will "clear" a border region 18 miles deep, with some exceptions, into Syrian Kurdistan.

The implications of this are vast.  It seems to signal the ongoing evolution of Turkey, under its current prime minister, into a rogue state that's increasingly aligned with enemies of the West.  It elevates Russia above its natural status into an increasingly important regional power broker.  And it's the open doorway for Damascus to regain the entire northern Syrian region, given that Syria and Russia are strange bedfellow allies.

As I've repeatedly noted here, I never thought the United States entering the Syrian civil war was a good idea in the first place, and that fact make me seem hypocritical here.  Had I had my way, the natural results of it would have been that Damascus would have won the civil war and be occupying the country all the way to its frontiers right now.  So doesn't this just do what my "If I were President" position would have done?

Not really.

For one thing, this day would have arrived much earlier and with much less bloodshed.  It wouldn't have elevated Syrian Kurdistan into a putative state, as has occurred, with which we allied, and then abandoned.  That latter fact would likely have meant that the incentive for increased YPK violence against Turkey would not have increased, as the Turkish action seems likely to do.  And while Russia would have been involved, as Syria's only ally, the victory wouldn't have elevated Russia's position in the region while decreasing our own, which has now very much occurred.

So the disaster enters a new stage, and not one pleasant to contemplate.  Moscow isn't going to put Russian troops into harms way for charitable purposes and there will be a price to pay for everyone, including Turkey.

All because we were short sighted when we entered, and even more short sighted when we left.

Syria. Leaving but not leaving, and it's all about the oil.

President Trump, in his recent abandonment of the Kurds, proclaimed that this was being done in order to fulfill a campaign promise of getting us out of foreign wars.  In essence, this appeal to the a very old conservative concept of isolationism was his reason for acting, he declared.

And it may have been. The concept that the United States should stay out of foreign wars and stay inside its own borders has been a very old one.  It dates back as a popular idea to the very founding of the country.  And it was a particularly popular idea in the pre World War Two Republican Party.  It lost the support of most people, including most Republicans, during that war, and indeed American isolationism is sometimes cited as a causal factor giving rise to the war.  I.e., by staying out of foreign affairs we stood by and allowed crises to develop until they came to visit us.

Trump seems to have always had the desire to pull out of Syria and was talked out of doing that last year. This year he did it.  If he was going to do it, it could have been done more gracefully, to be sure.  We won't go back over all of that as we've addressed it here earlier.

But what is remarkable is that we now learn that American troops are in fact not leaving Syria. They're just leaving this part of Syria. 

As earlier noted, I don't think we should have gotten into Syria in the first place, but now that we're in, I don't think we should have abandoned the Kurds. The Kurds, by the way, pelted departing American troops with tomatoes in a village the other day in order to express their contempt.  Those tomatoes can be regarded as landing on the entire nation, and deservedly so, if not deservedly so on the troops, who had nothing to do with the decision.

In informing the country that some Americans will remain, for the second time Trump linked all of this to oil.  The troops, he stated, remaining in Syria will "protect the oil".

Various U.S. administrations have been careful ever since first becoming involved in the Middle East not to link our presence there overtly to oil. Clearly, the reason the region is in the eye of any outsider has in part, and a very large part, to do with petroleum.  Without petroleum, much of the region would go unnoticed.

Which is not to say that everything is about the oil.  The American support for Israel has occasionally hurt the country fairly badly in terms of oil producing nations and Israel does not produce any oil, as a British government once pointed out to us.  And the rise of the radical Islam has caused us to take policy positions related solely to that. So it isn't all about the oil.

But President Trump has twice stated something suggesting that this is how he views it over the past couple of weeks.  I.e., he's an isolationist but sees our intervention as excused, at least in part, if it relates to oil.

And that view is emphasized by the fact that the United States is sending air defense troops to Saudi Arabia, a region which can darn well take care of its own air defense and doesn't need us to do it.  If withdrawing from the Kurds in Syria can be viewed as isolationist, putting troops into Saudi Arabia certainly is not.

All of this, of course, has made headlines, but perhaps Trump is just exceptionally open about how he views all of this.  He's opposed to Americans being in foreign wars no matter what their nature, it would appear, unless its directly tied to our economic well being.

That isn't how most people view it, however, including quite a few in the GOP.  We can't say by any means that people's reactions and views on this are uniformly consistent in how they were reached, but the recent moves here have not been popular, including with Republicans.

None of this seems to be having an immediate impact on the President, however.  Indeed, there's some suggestion that at this point in his administration the restraints that were present earlier have loosened to the point of disappearing.  That was a trend that has been developing for some time, but now seems fully here.  What that means we don't know.  Not even for the Kurds.

A "Ceasefire" in Syrian Kurdistan, maybe?

Yesterday the news was announced that Turkey had agreed to a ceasefire in northern Syria to which the Kurds also agreed.

Putative flag of Kurdistan since 1928.

There's some indication that the Turks may have agreed to the arrangement presided over by Vice President Pence due to the Kurds proving to be much tougher to beat than the Turks had anticipated. Turkey was always going to prevail in this offensive, but it was getting bloodied more than it had figured on.  And the Turks aren't willing to acknowledge that it actually is a ceasefire so much as a temporary negotiated halt in operations.

Flag of Turkey.

The agreement gets Turkey what it wanted, a 30km extension of its frontier into Syria.  In that sense alone it is a halt, as once the Kurds remove themselves, the Turks and their Syrian militia allies will come in.  The Kurds get the opportunity to evacuate that area without molestation, hopefully (although as of typing this out fighting apparently continues).  That's not insignificant, as they were going to lose anyway, but it's not like a peaceful resolution to this dispute. The Kurds who live in that zone are now effectively refugees.

Flag of Syria.

Indeed, the entire arrangement formalizes a sort of Golan Heights status for this strip of land and hence Turkey, long term, doesn't win either.  Syria will resent it just as it has the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights.  The Kurds will not accept it either.  Turkey may have created a Syrian militia manned DMZ, but the history of such zones isn't a happy one.  Violence between Syrian militia forces and Syrian government forces are nearly inevitable, and keeping troops in a DMZ makes them targets to some degree.

Flag of Iraq.

Indeed, in terms of long term goals, Turkey may possibly be the loser.  It's created a snake in the grass with Syrian militias that are likely not reliable and its stripped away any reason for restraint that Kurdish militias who were based in Syria might have had for not going after both Syrian Islamic militias and the Turks.  And by causing the door to open back up in the region to the Damascus government, it might have found a way for Damascus to reconcile with this region of Syria. . . as long as the U.S. continues to give some support to the Kurds.  If that's the case, regional Kurdish autonomy may take a step forward.

Flag of the YPG, which was the actual Kurdish militia in Syria.  It had branded itself something else in order to provide some cover from the fact that it is the armed branch of a Kurdish political party that has rebelled in Turkey within the past fifteen years.

On Damascus, the sober Business Insider both deplored Trumps betrayal of the Kurds while also noting that a long term victory by Damascus was always inevitable.  That's correct, and we've noted that all along.  Business Insider also decried President Obama's muddled backdoor entry into the Syrian civil war which we've also criticized from the very onset.  That put the US in the unrealistic position it went into and which resulted in the betrayal of a Kurdish ally of convenience.  It'll be hard to live down, to say the least, the U.S exit came in the worst way possible, which goes back to the old Colin Powell maxim that when you go into a foreign war, you should have a plan for getting back out.

Goodfellas and Shortsightedness. The disaster in Syria.

The Turkish advance in northern Syria continues on and no matter how well the Kurds may resist it, the Turkish forces, comprised of the Turkish army and Syrian militias, are going to prevail.

Those militias are a very problematic aspect of this and now, predictably, atrocities are occurring to at least some degree.  The number documented isn't large, but then the conditions for reporting it aren't ideal either.  The New York Times reported Syrian militias executing two Kurdish prisoners.  The Syrian Democratic Forces, allied to the United States, claim that their Turkish backed Syrian adversaries executed a female Kurdish politician and nine others, which was, as all such things seem to be now, filmed.

None of this is or should be surprising. The militias that Turkey has backed are Islamist militias, with there being some claims that former ISIL members are included in their ranks.  As both Arabs and Islamist they are not going to be kind to the Kurds, who are not Arabs and moreover who, while generally (not completely) Sunni Muslims as well. While they have, at least since the rise of Islam, generally been Muslims, culturally they tend not to be zealots and their political parties, which back their militias are almost always socialistic in nature.

The Turks, as we've seen in earlier threads on this disgrace, cite that radical socialistic nature as a reason for occupying northern Syria on the basis that the Kurdish militia in northern Syria has been terroristic in the past, which is in fact true.  Indeed, most Kurdish militias have sponsored guerrilla action in the past.  But in northern Syria they were our allies and now they're going to be severely treated by Turkish backed Syrian Islamist militias who are definitely not kind hearted.  Long term, what this means is that a chance to create a Kurdish region in northern Syria along the model that has been created in Iraq will likely fail and the Turks will in fact guaranty that those they are fighting now will entertain terrorism in the future.  There must have been a better means of handling this.

In terms of handling this, a letter from President Trump to President Erdogan has been released, a copy of which is set out below.

This letter is so peculiar in nature that the news media that ran it actually ran headlines verifying that it was not a fake.

It's really hard to know what to make of a communication like this.  President Trump has taken a lot of heat, deservedly, for abandoning the Kurds and Republicans joined the Democrats in droves to condemn their abandonment in the first instance in which the GOP has really broken ranks with the President.  Open condemnation of the President's actions has been common.  The President doesn't seem to know how to handle it and in a recent meeting with Nancy Pelosi he had what she described as a "melt down".

For decades now Americans have condemned career politicians and even career politicians do that, claiming that they aren't career politicians.  Trump is the first American President since Dwight Eisenhower who wasn't some sort of career politician and political insider, and we'd have to go back a very long ways to find somebody with no pre office political experience, assuming that we even could.  Harry Truman, Herbert Hoover, and the Bush's did have business experience, but they all had a lot of political experience by the time they were President as well.  In lacking any, President Trump was unique and his supporters claimed that uniqueness, including his business experience, would operate in his favor.

It doesn't seem to be and now, for the first time in my lifetime, I've heard people lamenting that the Oval Office is not occupied by a career politician.

One of the thing the President's supporters cited in his support is that he was a businessman with a long history of deal making, and he certainly cited that himself.  His critics challenge the actual degree of his success, but as I'm not familiar with his personal history, I'll forego commenting on it, and indeed, I'm taking this in a different direction anyhow.

People familiar with the long history of American politics will recall that New York contributed a number of really significant and gentlemanly candidates to the nation's political scene, including Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Al Smith.  There are numerous other examples. Given that, it's remarkable how in recent years, for some reason, that class of New York politician seems to have vanished.

New York itself has always featured a lot of extremely brash aggressive personalities, which is one of the reason that a lot of Americans from elsewhere are not keen on New York.  A social study of this from years ago actually concluded that it was weapons related, in that New Yorkers live in dense conditions and have traditionally been unarmed whereas Southerners, who traditionally have an exaggerated sense of politeness, were heirs to the use of commons for cattle raising and went about armed. The thesis is that armed people tend to be polite in the assumption that other people are also armed, whereas those living in dense conditions who aren't, tend to be rude so that they can get their way.

Whatever the merits of that thesis, recent New York politicians, including but not limited to Donald Trump, have been notoriously brash.  To outsiders a lot of what New York politicians say sounds like it came out of Goodfellas and indeed it seems like New Yorkers have taken up celebrating that sort of behavior.  Not all of them exhibit this by any means, but listening Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders (a transplanted New Yorker), Rudy Guiliani, and Bill de Blasio certainly leaves a person with that sort of impression.  Anyhow, while its an extreme view I suppose, the disappearance of the Brahman class in New York and the celebration of the Wise Guy image has, I suspect, seeped its way into the regional culture in a really negative way.  For most of the 20th Century no New York politician of any stripe would have told somebody not to be "a tough guy".  Now that seems very New Yorker.

People who like that sort of thing or who are behind a person anyhow will celebrate that sort of conduct.  Indeed, litigants sometimes like lawyers who are brash if they are working for them, for that reason alone. But almost nobody else does, which is important to remember.

Anyhow, I've wondered in recent weeks if a lot of the President's more troubling actions reflect is prior role as a businessman with few boundaries and being a New Yorker.  That experience isn't helping him now.

Nor do letters like this.  It's inarticulate, odd and unconvincing.  A letter such as this would only be effective upon somebody who had no choice but to "make a deal" or who was an accolade of the writer.  Erdrogan isn't in those categories.  His decision to go into northern Syria will prove to be a long term mistake, but that won't be evident to him at this time and he has no need to "make a deal" with anyone as he now has what he wants.

At least part of what he wants is motivated by a very unsophisticated political world view and a strong Islamist identity.  At the time of the first Gulf War he wasn't yet in power and Turkey remained what it had been since 1919, a highly secularized state.  Erdrogan has really made inroads into changing that.  Whether people are keen to openly admit it or not the founder of the modern Turkish state, Ataturk, held highly nationalistic and highly secular views, and it was effectively the case that Turkey's role as a leader in the Islamic world was suppressed.  The Turkish military viewed strong Islamic roles in the governance of the nation as antithetical to a modern Turkey and the other religions in Anatolia were largely removed from it due the wars of the first fifth of the 20th Century.

No matter how a person might view that, Erdrogan's emergence has really changed that and he's taken the country in a new direction.  A Turkey that would back radical Islamic militants would have been unimaginable as late as 1990.  Now its doing that.

Turkey is a NATO ally with a real role in regards to the southern flanks of that alliance, although that role is much less important now than it was prior to 1990.  It isn't acting like a nation seeking to fulfill that role.  Turkey always worried about the Kurds and there are numerous examples of it taking military action against them, but this new alliance with radical militias is distressing to say the least.

This will end up in a Turkish victory, and the Turks will install their militia in a strip along northern Syria.  But what then?  The Kurds are trying to make common cause with the Damascus government, but pulling that off seems unlikely.  The Syrians are, however, not going to willingly tolerate Syrian Islamist militias inside their own country.  Turkey is now courting Russia.

Long term, this is a disaster for everyone.  Shortsightedness in the extreme.

Betrayal and Duplicity

Over the weekend the news came that the Kurds, in control of northern Syria but under assault from Turkey, were close to making a deal with Syria such that their enemies the Syrians, whom they have been in rebellion against, will protect that region against the Turks.  This is apparently with Russian support.

It's hard to see this coming out well.

One thing that didn't come out well was the escape of a large number of ISIL prisoners from a Kurdish compound.  This was widely feared as a probable result of the Turkish assault and now it has happened.

And the United States is pulling all of its troops out of northern Syria.

It would be hard to find a worst set of news here.

This puts the Syrian government back in some sort of ultimate control of northern Syria, with all that means.  I think it unlikely that Damascus will tolerate Kurdish independence any more than the Turks are willing to.  And it elevates Russia, which is a second rate power that is a menace mostly because its big and it has nuclear arms, back towards the position of being world power.

It also makes the United States look foolish and cowardly.

And it raises questions about Donald Trump that you'd think he'd want buried.  Once again, in a matter where it didn't have to occur, the Russians have come out on top with there being no good explanation. The only acceptable explanation is a return of the US to a pre 1941 sort of isolationism, but at the same time we're pulling out of northern Syria we're getting into Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is perfectly capable of defending itself and in no way shape or form needs the US to do it.

Indeed, the fact that we're now going into Saudi Arabia demonstrates that the entire "not getting into" logic is at best pretty unevenly applied.  The only good explanation for going in there, to protect a nation that's capable of protecting itself against Iran, is that "it's about the oil", something that American administrations try not to encourage a belief in.

Indeed, in terms of friends, the Kurds are a lot more western and democratic than the Saudis, which are neither in any fashion.

And if it is to protect Saudi oil, why? The United States is now an energy exporting nation.  Not only can the Saudis protect their oil facilities themselves but, if they can't, perhaps those who depend on them can. That isn't us.

So, we betrayed somebody we armed, while going into protect somebody whose values are completely the opposite of our own, while causing our former field ally to make common cause with an enemy, and which also results in enemies escaping.

The Turkish border offensive in Syria and its slow progress.

Turkey announced yesterday that had succeeded in taking a major town in its offensive into northern Syria. 

Of course, stating that doesn't make it true. But what likely is true is that Turkey is making advances.

Or, rather, we should say that Turkey and a Turkish backed Syrian militia are making advances.

Which might explain things.

Last week we ran an item entitled Old Equipment about the Turkish army and, to a very small extent, the Kurdish militias, and their equipment. What was noted in that is the Turkey has a good army, but it's equipped with a lot of old equipment.  That shouldn't matter in what they're doing, however.

Well, be that as it may the Turks, or perhaps their Syrian militia allies, aren't doing all that great in their effort to push 30 km, or about 20 miles, into Syria and create a buffer zone between it and the Kurds in northern Syria.

Before we go on in that, however, we'd have to note that that particular goal is somewhat nonsensical in and of itself.  If the Turks extend their frontier with the Kurds 20 miles to the south, they still have a frontier of the exact same length, so their strategic position will not have actually improved.  Of course, they'll dump a puppet Syrian militia in the new border zone as well, so that's likely an integral part of their aims.

Be that as it may, an offensive of this type, given their arms, shouldn't have taken much more than two or so days, maybe three, but now they're that far into it and they're still slugging it out in border towns.

Of course, the Turkish army is a 1970s style mechanized army. The Kurds are light infantry, although it turns out that they also have artillery now and they were capable of shelling Turkish towns.  The fact that they're fighting in border urban areas, however, would demonstrate that the Kurds are not only doing better than expected, but they're using a strategy which puts Turkish combatants at a disadvantage.

Beyond that it shows some decline in the quality of Turkish forces, a decline that might in part be explained by Turkey also using Syrian militias which are highly unlikely to be as capable as the Turks or the Kurds.

None of this should be taken to suggest that the Kurds will win. But the Turks might get much more bloodied than they expected.  Part of this is for tactical reasons, they're fighting in urban areas and the Kurds are in fact fighting back.  But part of it may be that sixteen years into Erdogan's administration (if we include his time as Prime Minister and President), the Turkish army may not be what it once was.

The longer the fighting goes on the more problematic it becomes for Turkey. Erdogan has declared that Turkey will fight as long as it takes, but as a President of a democratic county where he is already controversial, an excessively  high casualty rate may not be something that he can really weather.  Fighting as long as it takes is always something that's is a problematic statement in a democratic society.  And additionally a long period of fighting will increase the regional refugee problem while at the same time making the Kurds appear much stronger than many may have supposed.  Even when Turkey establishes its border zone there will still be a Kurdish entity in northern Syria and it will be in close contact with the same in Iraq.  Ramping up a war against capable fighters who have, in the past, been willing to wage a guerrilla war inside of Turkey may prove not to have been terribly smart.