Just who is Turkey fighting?

I suspect the belated entry of Turkey into the conflict against the ISIS has guaranteed its failure. Washington, displaying its usual complete ignorance (or perhaps wilful blindness) of the many factions and tensions, has welcomed the attacks on the Kurdish PKK positions, labelling them 'terrorists' and, conveniently, overlooking the fact these were the only fighters on the ground having any success against the ISIS thugs. So, we let our 'ally' bomb them - as long as they also put a few bombs on the ISIS. I begin to think the US is incapable of learning from past mistakes and incapable of recognising that the 'enemy of our enemy is NOT our friend.'

It has been pretty obvious to everyone - except Washington apparently - that Turkey has been quietly supporting the ISIS against Syria's Assad. The Kurds defeating the ISIS attempt to seize Kobane, and their success at driving them out of the surrounding countryside there, plus successes against them on other fronts have obviously worried the Turkish government. The fear of a successful Kurdish military in Syria and Iraq is, in my view, the most obvious reason the Turks have finally decided to strike at the ISIS. It provides the perfect cover for their attacking the Kurds, and for attempting to weaken and destroy the Kurdish forces at the same time.

Were I a betting man I would put money on the next move being military strikes and occupation of the Turkish Kurdish provinces and an attempt to occupy the Kurdistan region of Iraq. In the interests of 'suppressing terrorist bases' of course. And Washington is going to go along with this, tacitly allowing the Turks to pull off a suppression of Kurdish nationalism. Just so we can maintain the status quo of the Kurds being split up between three or four 'states' created at the end of WW1 with no regard whatever to the original populations.

Turkey has called an emergency meeting of NATO for tomorrow, the reason is, I think, obvious. They want to declare a state of emergency in the Kurdish provinces and extract a promise from the NATO nations of 'non-intervention' in their 'internal affairs'. And the NATO powers will, proverbially, throw the only effective resistance to the ISIS on the ground, to the lions.

Expedience and politics is the major cause of much of the terror problem we face. It is not new, we've been doing it for centuries, and it has never brought 'stability', only laid the ground for the next conflict and the next 'enemy' to grow and develop. Already the Turkish action against the Kurds is producing a backlash. It will get worse, and the Turks know it, and perhaps are even deliberately provoking it. Their 'fear' of the PKK strengthening its position may well have led them into a dead end which may well now produce the very thing they are afraid of - an internal conflict that can escalate into a civil war while they try to contain the external threat of the ISIS. In fact, Turkey's action in attacking a group that should be an ally, is very likely now going to drive the PKK into joining forces with the ISIS.

THAT is something I think nobody will enjoy.

Turkey and the ISIS

In what could be a case of 'biting the hand that fed them', ISIS sent in a suicide bomber to blow up a lot of Turlish citizens. That may have been a serious miscalculation on their part. Turkey, obsessed with keeping the Kurdish population firmly under their rule and the Kurdish province in Turkey, has been tacitly letting the ISIS thugs do as they please along their border with Syria and Iraq. As long as it was 'only Kurds' in the firing line, no intervention, no restriction on the 'recruit road' across the border.

Now it seems to have come back to bite.

Politics makes strange bedfellows out of temporary expediency. West governments have fallen into the same trap, arming and supporting 'opposition to Assad', only to find we have armed and supported a monster as more and more of the 'anti-Assad' groups joined the ISIS. Turkey has made the same blunder, tacitly aiding and abetting the ISIS in its early stages presumably in the hope that this would force their restless Kurdish population into toeing the line. The reverse has happened, and this blunder may now cost Turkey dearly - and not just in further ISIS incursions and bombings. Turkey has a very chequered history when it comes to its 'minority' populations. Possibly the only thing that has prevented the Kurds suffering the same fate as the Armenians is that there are more of them, they occupy a large chunk of Eastern Turkey, and there are even more resident across the borders inIraq and Syria. Plus, of course, genocide is now a definite no-no in the eyes of the international community.

So Erdogan's refusal to allow Kurdish Peshmerger fighters passage to the relief of Kobani now seems like it will rebound. Perhaps is already rebounding. Western politicians would do well to remember this as well. Our recent history is littered with failures to grasp the concept that the 'enemy of my enemy is NOT necessarily my friend' and may well turn and bite when it suits them. Again and again, we have armed groups of 'freedom fighters' only to find their ultimate aim is as far from our 'vision' as it could be. Dare one mention the Russian inspired overthrow of the Afghan Kingdom by 'Marxists' which ruined a country and destroyed a complete society when the tribesmen rebelled? What did we do? Oh, we gave the Mujaheddin weapons, and they, in turn, morphed into the Taliban.

Similar situations have and still do, tear African populations apart. Where do the weapons in Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, and so on come from? Where did they come from originally? Ah, now that is the question ...

I learned recently from a police friend, that it is now generally agreed among security services that it has never been easier for dissidents to get hold of weapons, and it seems there are always people willing to bankroll them - once again falling for the 'the enemy of my enemy is ..." line. Well, I suspect Turkey is about to learn the hard way, that when it comes to 'terror' groups - they can never be regarded as 'friends.'

An Interesting Question

I read that Mr Putin is to 'review' the legality of the independence of the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. One can only wonder at what the NATO/US/EU response will be. Another Munich Accord a´la Chamberlain's 1938 agreement with a certain gentleman with similar ambitions for his country and people? Perhaps everyone should demand a 'review' of Russia's occupation of East Prussia, the so-called Kaliningrad enclave.

Mr Putin plans, apparently, to review the legality of his county's recognition of the three small states who, as historians will know, have been overrun and occupied by just about everyone in  the neighbourhood in the past. Their brief breath of freedom between 1919 and 1939 saw them first occupied by Nazi forces, then by the Soviets. Neither occupying power earned much love or respect. Stalin's deportation of 'natives' was followed by the implanation of native Russians, so now all three countries have fairly large ethnically 'Russian' populations - just as was the case in East Ukraine, parts of Georgia and several other parts of the former Soviet empire Mr Putin has 'reclaimed' in the interests of 'protecting the ethnic Russian population' ...

In 1939 Britain, France and the Empire went to war with Germany over the invasion of Poland. Now the question hangs in the air over whether or not we will stand up for the three small Baltic States. Is their membership of NATO and the EU worth the paper it is presumably written on? Maybe, maybe not.

One problem that I can see is that Russia is far better armed now than NATO, and far less restrained by concerns of 'sovereignty', morality or international sentiment. Should Mr Putin decide the 'recognition' is illegal, what then? Another Ukraine? Very likely, although, with his army already massed on the doorstep, I suspect it will all be over in a matter of hours -- long before any of our western leaders can even get their heads round the question of a response.

Which leaves them with the same option Chamberlain faced in 1938. Oooh, we'll impose 'sanctions' and then more 'sanctions' as we watch Mr Putin roll over Finland, Poland and perhaps even the Eastern States of Germany. Do anything to stop him? Oooh, can't do that, it would be unpopular in the ballot box, and we no longer have the means anyway.

So much for 'Peace' and the 'Peace Dividend'. So much for 'Peace in our time' at any price and at all costs. We seem to have forgotten the important mxim - Si vis pacem; para bellum.

Repeating History?

I wonder sometimes at the irony of history. Yesterday marked the 75th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland. It began with the bombardment of key installations in Gdansk (Danzig as it was then known) by the pre-dreadnought battleship KS Schleswig-Holstein, actually berthed in Gdansk on the grounds of 'protecting' the German 'minority' living there. Her 12 inch main armament did enormous damage, and her secondary 5.9 inch guns did even more, while in a co-ordinated thrust the army overran border posts and stormed into Pomerania and Poland's western provinces.

My local newspaper yesterday published photographic representations of the front page headlines of several newspapers published that day, and ran editorials pointing out how the propaganda of the period had mislead everyone. Thus, the irony. Reading some of the opening statements beneath those headlines (my abilities with the Sütterlin-style script make it a challenge!), one could be reading the pronouncements currently being made by Mr Putin concerning the 'obligation and need to protect Russian minorities' in former vassal states of the USSR. One could be excused for thinking they were written by the same speech writer.

History has a nasty habit of repeating itself, though not necessarily in the same places, or with the same outcomes. There is almost a feeling of 'here we go again' as western governments desperately try to ignore the rearmament that has been going on in Russia since Putin first came to power, and the naked aggression he has shown in 'reclaiming' parts of the so recently freed countries. Georgia was a trial run, the Crimea showed him just how toothless we have become. Now he's after the eastern half of Ukraine - with almost all the industrial development and the oil, gas and minerals. His air force makes an almost daily habit of entering Finnish airspace, and there are indications he's got his eyes on 're-absorbing' the Baltic States.

All of it using the same excuse used by Hitler in 1939 - to 'protect' the interests of his 'people' living as a minority in a 'hostile' country. The fact that his 'people' are being stirred up by his own agents to provoke a response, and that many of the 'leaders' of their 'popular resistance' movements are officers from the Russian Army is, of course, never mentioned.

That forces me to wonder; if the Ukraine/Crimea is to be Putins 'Südetenland', what will be our 'Poland' trigger to respond? What will be the likely outcome? Mr Putin has already openly warned that he will not back down, and that he will use his nuclear arsenal. Have we the guts to call his bluff? Or will the 'better Red than Dead' mindset hold sway and lead us into a spineless surrender?

Not a pleasant thought at this time of tension ...