UPDATE II: The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (‘The Turkish Problem’)

Feminism, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Middle East, Socialism, States' Rights

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is often dismissed as Marxist–Leninist, or as “a fusion of revolutionary socialism and Kurdish nationalism.” CNN’s Arwa Damon describes the PKK’s ideology as “an idealistic philosophy, one that combines Kurdish nationalism with certain communist goals, such as equality and communal ownership of property.”

As the movement’s salient ideological features, Wikipedia lists Kurdish nationalism, libertarian socialism, communalism, feminism and democratic confederalism. Still imprisoned by the Turks, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan is said to have “abandoned Leninism, leading the party to adopt his new political platform of “Democratic Confederalism” (influenced strongly by the libertarian socialist philosophy of communalism).”

Öcalan himself described the PKK’s idea of governance as follows:

The democratic confederalism of Kurdistan is not a State system, it is the democratic system of a people without a State… It takes its power from the people and adopts to reach self sufficiency in every field including economy.

The PKK, it would appear, leans towards a matriarchy.

You have to be a tinny libertarian automaton not to hope this cohesive people is able, one day, to form a peaceful community of their choosing.

UPDATE I: About “the Turkish problem,” Patrick Cockburn writes this:

… US planes attacking Isis forces in Kobani had to fly 1200 miles from their bases in the Gulf because Turkey wouldn’t allow the use of its airbase at Incirlik, just a hundred miles from Kobani. By not preventing reinforcements, weapons and ammunition from reaching Isis in Kobani, Ankara was showing that it would prefer Isis to hold the town: anything was better than the PYD. Turkey’s position had been clear since July 2012, when the Syrian army, under pressure from rebels elsewhere, pulled out of the main Kurdish areas. The Syrian Kurds, long persecuted by Damascus and politically marginal, suddenly won de facto autonomy under increasing PKK authority. Living mostly along the border with Turkey, a strategically important area to Isis, the Kurds unexpectedly became players in the struggle for power in a disintegrating Syria. This was an unwelcome development for the Turks. The dominant political and military organisations of the Syrian Kurds were branches of the PKK and obeyed instructions from Ocalan and the military leadership in Qandil. The PKK insurgents, who had fought for so long for some form of self-rule in Turkey, now ruled a quasi-state in Syria centred on the cities of Qamishli, Kobani and Afrin. Much of the Syrian border region was likely to remain in Kurdish hands, since the Syrian government and its opponents were both too weak to do anything about it. Ankara may not be the master chess player collaborating with Isis to break Kurdish power, as conspiracy theorists believe, but it saw the advantage to itself of allowing Isis to weaken the Syrian Kurds. It was never a very far-sighted policy: if Isis succeeded in taking Kobani, and thus humiliating the US, the Americans’ supposed ally Turkey would be seen as partly responsible, after sealing off the town. In the event, the Turkish change of course was embarrassingly speedy. Within hours of Erdo?an saying that Turkey wouldn’t help the PYD terrorists, permission was being given for Iraqi Kurds to reinforce the PYD fighters at Kobani.

Interesting analysis.

UPDATE II: A column I wrote on 10/19/2007, fingered Bush for betraying the Kurds. While he doesn’t veer into opinion, Cockburn illustrated a similar dynamic, also in 2007:

… There are 100,000 Turkish troops just across the northern Iraqi border preparing to launch an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan in the hope of eliminating the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The US has labelled the PKK ‘terrorists’ and the Iraqi government – despite the arguments of its Kurdish members – has told the guerrillas to disarm or leave its territory. Iran has denounced the Iranian wing of the PKK as a pawn of Israel and the US, and intermittently shells its camps in the Kandil mountains. The PKK, which led the failed rebellion of the Turkish Kurds between 1984 and 1999 and had been largely forgotten by the outside world, is suddenly at the centre of a new crisis in Iraq. President Bush is due to talk to the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Washington on 5 November to discuss how to deal with the PKK without a Turkish invasion of Iraq being launched. The US army in Baghdad is worried that its supply lines through northern Iraq will be cut if the Turks declare an economic embargo or launch a military attack. …

The Obama Ebola Doctrine: Worship The Saints In ‘Spacesuits’

Barack Obama, Ethics, Foreign Aid, Healthcare, Nationhood, Propaganda, Pseudoscience, Terrorism, The State

“The Obama Ebola Doctrine: Worship The Saints In ‘Spacesuits'” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

… The Obama Ebola Doctrine (OED) was dictated during the second of two presidential addresses, this week, on Ebola. The message, delivered against a backdrop of demigods in freshly unpacked, white laboratory coats, was hardly subliminal. So serious was Obama, he even threw in references to a God not himself, something he rarely does.

The president used the word “troops” to describe the individuals stationed behind him. These public health workers were “serving” America (much like soldiers would). Theirs was a “sacrificial service” (much like that of saints). They were “citizens of the world, global citizens,” who were “leading globally” (as all you locals should strive to do).

Volunteering in Africa Obama has equated with American “patriotism.” Well of course. If being “citizens of the world” is the in existential state-of-being—then patriotism must be redefined. No longer does it mean the love of one’s country and countrymen, but love of The World. Go to West Africa, and you are demonstrating “citizenship … and public service at its best.” In Africa, you will be serving America, “the country that we love.”

The medics who rush headlong into the Ebola maelstrom embody “American exceptionalism” (unlike all those Americans who run businesses they didn’t build).

To the extent that America’s Ebola workers are motivated by “faith,” it is their “sense of faith and grace” that Obama has commanded all Americans to emulate.

The president is now defining for his subjects the very meaning of worship.

Aversion to Ebola, Obama mocked as “hiding under the covers,” indirectly associating precautions with cowardice, even venality.

His Holiness “saluted” Dr. Craig Spencer for “his service”— Spencer is the saint in scrubs who lied to investigators about his whereabouts. He had been gallivanting around Manhattan when already symptomatic.

Is Nurse Kaci Hickox next to be canonized? …

… The Bush Terrorism Doctrine was as follows: We’re fighting them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here.

The Obama Bioterrorism Doctrine runs parallel. BHO’s express objective is to convince Americans that if we fight Ebola in West Africa, it won’t threaten America: “If we [don’t] deal with this problem there, it will come here” …

… The complete column is “The Obama Ebola Doctrine: Worship The Saints In ‘Spacesuits,'” now on WND.

Nurse Diesel Despises Ordinary America. What About Her Defender?

Ethics, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism

Just back from treating Ebola-afflicted patients in Sierra Leone, Nurse Diesel, aka Kaci Hickox—contempt dripping from every word disgorged—threatened: “If the restrictions placed on me by the state of Maine are not lifted by Thursday morning, I will go to court to fight for my freedom.” (Taken from this week’s column.)

One doesn’t expect such gaping vacuity from Judge Andrew Napolitano (although he exemplifies left-libertarianism). The Judge told Megyn Kelly:

“We don’t have group guilt in America. We don’t have group punishment in America.”

Wow. That’s a serious logical mistake, as the clever Kelly pointed out:

“… this isn’t an attack on a group, but individuals who meet very specific criteria. In Hickox’s case, not only was she was working with Ebola patients in West Africa, but she showed a fever at the airport.”

There is no guilt or conviction here, Judge, only the right to exercise rights until these are brought up sharp against the rights of others. Think of someone who might be carrying Ebola as an individual strapped with invisible explosives. If asymptomatic, you can’t see the explosives, but they could go off in the future.

At WND, Dawg_em counters the Judge’s equally confused presumption-of-liberty column, writing:

It appears the good Judge failed to apply the principle that your rights are inviolable until you violate the rights of others. And her freedom to wonder to and fro certainly places many others at risk. I would think a simple solution would be to require all those seeking to help in the hot zones be told up front they will not be permitted re-entry into the US until a satisfactory quarantine period has elapsed.

Nurse Diesel:

Yes, The Plan IS To Import Ebola Patients

Africa, Barack Obama, Foreign Aid, Government, Healthcare, Morality

IT’S TRUE. What I reported earlier today, tentatively, has come to pass. The traitors who art in DC are considering using American taxpayer dollars to bring Ebola-afflicted foreigners to the US for treatment. Treason, theft and fraud have been rolled into one “Sensitive But Unclassified, Predecisional” memo, exposed by Fox News, denied and ignored by the malfunctioning mainstream media. (I’ve captures a section; the rest will have to be read on Fox News):