What a Week!

Turkey’s invasion of the Kurdish controlled northeastern part of Syria began, ended and dominated the news of the last week. Demonstrations worldwide drew thousands to protest Turkey’s aggression. Unfortunately, the one held on October 13 in Los Angeles was attended by a measly 350 or so people. More may have come and gone before I arrived (delayed because of a hike, more on this below), but that was a pathetic turnout. Given the number of Armenians living in the LA basin, the opportunity this presented to expose the vile essence of the Turkish state and the ever-so-slowly growing solidarity between Armenians and Kurds despite the horrors of the Ottoman era, this was nothing but an embarrassment for our community.  Of those present, at least a quarter were Armenians, with the rest being Kurds and other supporters.

On the ground in Rojava, as the Kurds call the area under Turkish attack, things have taken an interesting turn. When the U.S. betrayal and abandonment of the Kurdish-led forces left the latter to face the second largest army in NATO alone, they had no choice but to quickly come to an agreement bringing in Syrian forces accompanied by some Russian military. One ridiculous explanation of Russia’s involvement presented the reason as its historical pattern of “bullying” the Turks. This was all I caught of a radio interview with Soner Çağaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. While he cloaks himself behind a veil of critical analysis, that veil is gauze-like in its transparency. I’ve encountered his writings in the Los Angeles Times, and they manage to make Turkey look “respectable” when it is clearly not. So it is encouraging to see members of Congress and senators not falling for this type of poppycock and at least mouthing anger at Turkey’s actions and threatening retaliation in the form of sanctions. Let’s see if they materialize. It will also be interesting to see if Turkey and its religious-fanatic Arab forces get pushed back to the border.