- "Erm….
No. Much, much stranger than that." Said the people of Kobani.
So the brave Kurds of Kobani come under attack from Isis and, with the help of US and UK bombing, they manage to drive Isis out of the town at the last second. Sadly, the time-line is much stranger than this wonderful Disney narrative of goodies prevailing over baddies.
So the brave Kurds of Kobani come under attack from Isis and, with the help of US and UK bombing, they manage to drive Isis out of the town at the last second. Sadly, the time-line is much stranger than this wonderful Disney narrative of goodies prevailing over baddies.
Time line -
- US starts bombing huge areas of northern Iraq and Syria at almost the same
time that Kobani comes under attack – ‘save Kobani’ starts to be used as the
poster child to raise support for the war.
- Days later, the media fills with stories of how the Kurds in Kobani are
losing to Isis, and still the US only launches a few token air strikes whilst
Isis tanks are free to drive through the open desert towards the town.
- When Kobani is almost lost, people start demanding that the Turks do
something as their huge army is literally only 1 mile across the border. The
Turks also do nothing.
- The Turks eventually spring into action! Aaaaand start bombing THE KURDS that
live on the Turkish side of the border.
- At almost exactly the same time, reports start to emerge from Kobani that the
fighters there – who by now only control a few blocks of the city – have been
massively reinforced with mystery weapons and new fighters, even though the
city is surrounded with Isis on one side and ‘Kurd bomber’ Turkey on the other.
- Within a few days, the hugely reinforced Kurdish
forces drive Isis from the town even though all these supplies arrived when
they seemed totally cut off.
WTF? This is one of those incredibly bizarre situations where the answers to
what really happened will only surface in 50 years time, if at all. But hey, lets have a go….
At first it looked that the US was letting the city of Kobani fall because the Turks did not want to help the Kurds, which is understandable when you consider that it has been at war with them for generations. But the bizarre twist where the Kobani Kurds get huge reinforcements on the same day that the Turks start bombing their own Kurds suggests that the poor town of Kobani was caught in some bizarre poker hand game of chicken between the US and Turkey.
The clue here is the media. Plenty of cities have fallen to Isis across Iraq and Syria, but the Western media has been all over Kobani for weeks, giving it the special focus that is usually used to justify a war ‘oh look at those poor people, we must beg our government to go and bomb them!’
The US started to look stupid however because the Turks were so set against the idea of allowing the Kurds on their border to be helped that they threatened to restart their own war on the Kurds if the US helped Kobani in anyway. For days both sides starred at each other over the remains of the city until the whole place was nearly lost and then, SNAP!
Who knows who folded first. Maybe the US was just too scared of Kobani falling because it would make their bombing effort look utterly pointless and they decided to resupply the Kurds with weapons and troops against Turkey’s wishes, which provoked the Turks to start bombing their own Kurds in case the victory would embolden the Kurds on the Turkish side. Or maybe the Turkish bombing started first to suppress the angry Kurdish riots in Turkey and so the US thought ‘fuck it, might as well save our own media necks now and help those guys survive, we need our photogenic symbolic victory.’
Who knows? Either way, both Turkey and the US sat there inactive for days, right up until the point where the city nearly fell in front of the whole worlds media. Then suddenly the Kurds in Kobani are hugely reinforced and the Kurds in Turkey start getting bombed.
Only Three solid things can be taken away from this;
- Firstly, the US and UK do not give a shit about how people are being treated by Isis, and
- Secondly, The US and Turkey have just had some sort of face-off. But its impossible to tell who won.
At first it looked that the US was letting the city of Kobani fall because the Turks did not want to help the Kurds, which is understandable when you consider that it has been at war with them for generations. But the bizarre twist where the Kobani Kurds get huge reinforcements on the same day that the Turks start bombing their own Kurds suggests that the poor town of Kobani was caught in some bizarre poker hand game of chicken between the US and Turkey.
The clue here is the media. Plenty of cities have fallen to Isis across Iraq and Syria, but the Western media has been all over Kobani for weeks, giving it the special focus that is usually used to justify a war ‘oh look at those poor people, we must beg our government to go and bomb them!’
The US started to look stupid however because the Turks were so set against the idea of allowing the Kurds on their border to be helped that they threatened to restart their own war on the Kurds if the US helped Kobani in anyway. For days both sides starred at each other over the remains of the city until the whole place was nearly lost and then, SNAP!
Who knows who folded first. Maybe the US was just too scared of Kobani falling because it would make their bombing effort look utterly pointless and they decided to resupply the Kurds with weapons and troops against Turkey’s wishes, which provoked the Turks to start bombing their own Kurds in case the victory would embolden the Kurds on the Turkish side. Or maybe the Turkish bombing started first to suppress the angry Kurdish riots in Turkey and so the US thought ‘fuck it, might as well save our own media necks now and help those guys survive, we need our photogenic symbolic victory.’
Who knows? Either way, both Turkey and the US sat there inactive for days, right up until the point where the city nearly fell in front of the whole worlds media. Then suddenly the Kurds in Kobani are hugely reinforced and the Kurds in Turkey start getting bombed.
Only Three solid things can be taken away from this;
- Firstly, the US and UK do not give a shit about how people are being treated by Isis, and
- Secondly, The US and Turkey have just had some sort of face-off. But its impossible to tell who won.
Finally, being born Kurdish is probably even
more unlucky than being born Palestinian.
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