For U.S., Some Massacres are Permissible, For Instance, Kurdish Marxists

After only a matter of weeks the ballyhooed U.S. air campaign against Islamic State is being walked back by administration officials. Yesterday, according to a story by Mark Landler and Eric Schmitt, "As Islamic State Nears Conquest of Syrian Town, U.S. Presses Turks," Pentagon spokesman Kirby basically conceded that the Syrian Turkish enclave of Kobani (a.k.a., Ayn al-Arab) was going to fall to ISIS despite stepped up U.S. airstrikes:

Pentagon officials said that while airstrikes had succeeded in changing the tactics of the militants — dispersing them, forcing them to conceal their weapons and hide among the population and limiting their electronic communications — airstrikes would not be enough to stop them from seizing Kobani and other towns. 

“Airstrikes alone are not going to fix this, not going to save the town of Kobani,” said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary. “We know that. We know that ISIL is going to continue to grab ground and there are going to be villages and towns and cities that they take.” Admiral Kirby was using an alternative name for the group. 

Admiral Kirby also conceded that unlike in Iraq, where the United States has sent scores of military advisers to assist Iraqi and Kurdish troops, Syria offers no ready ground ally.

But is this true? Are there no ready allies for the U.S. on the ground in Kobani? There are, of course -- there is the YPG, the secular People's Protection Units, the militia of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian affiliate of the Turkish PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (see the banner at the top of the post). The YPG provided critical assistance to the Yazidis fleeing jihadi slaughter on Mount Sinjar in August.

And therein lies the rub for the United States. The Marxist PKK is listed as a terrorist group by the U.S., NATO; its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, abducted by the CIA in Africa 15 years ago, remains in a Turkish prisoner. Prior to Bill Clinton's U.S.-led NATO air war on Yugoslavia, the big Leftist bête noire in the late '90s was the U.S. supplying arms to Turkey to suppress the Kurdish uprising in the country's southeast.

So while no expense was spared by the U.S. to protect Erbil when Islamic State attacked the Iraqi Kurds, only 19 airstrikes have been called in over the last four days to defend the outgunned YPG fighters in Kobani. For some, particularly if you're a Marxist, massacres cannot be avoided. The Iraqi Kurdish pesh merga are drawn from the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq: the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan; both capitalist and both with longstanding ties to the CIA.

The game underway by Erdogan is to force the U.S. to adopt a no-fly/no-go zone in northern Syria. This has been a priority for years of those -- the U.S. neocons, the Turks, the Gulf monarchies -- who have trying to topple the Assad government since the Arab Spring. The Ghouta false flag chemical attack was a strong effort designed to achieve the no-fly/no-go zone.

The Obama administration is reticent because establishing such a zone basically guarantees jihadi control of Syria, accomplishing strategically the exact opposite of Obama's public statement to degrade and destroy ISIS.

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For some warhawk/neocon disinformation and cheerleading of the Erdogan perspective of going after Assad, read "U.S. Focus on ISIS Frees Syria to Battle Rebels," by Anne Barnard and Eric Schmitt.

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Not much news about yesterday's "March Against Capitalism" in New York City.