They are an authoritarian regime. Turkey is similar to Hungary in so far, that there is a cosmopolitan capital and the rest is rural. While the cosmopolits want a liberal democracy, the rural people usually don't want it. So, whatever democracy there is, the majority will vote non-democratic regimes.
It is simple to manipulate angry people with nationalist propaganda. You appeal to a sense of aggrievement to create unity among a marginalized group, manufacture an enemy to exploit fear and anger, and associate adversaries with that enemy to override rational behavior. Then exploit the divisions that creates in your enemy.
Facebook is the greatest gift to authoritarians in the history of humanity. It may be that a few hundred people will control the world at this rate.
Seek out more info?
PKK (and possible links with YPG) Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers%27_Party
PKK Website: http://pkk-online.com/en/index.php
PKK Guerilla TV (This is where they put online videos of their terrorism in our territory, killing our people): http://gerilatv.com/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish–Turkish_conflict_(19... https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/europe-and-central-asia...
I also would like to make a point on something but in order to do that first I invite you to imagine how is it like to fear just to travel some of your own country cities because when you are travelling there is a possibility of rocket or bomb ambush among the mountains. Imagine, teachers in those cities are captured and killed in your schools. Imagine regular people doing their job get rocket attacks thus get killed on a monthly basis. Imagine many more things like that could happen on a monthly basis in your very own country. Finally, imagine that this is going on for over 30 year and all of those attacks performed by single terrorist organization with ultimate purpose of taking control of approximately 1/4 of your country.
Now, do you think after thousands of death happend in your country for over 30 years, bombs detonated in your home cities. Would that death ratio still make sense while all of these events possibly still going on to you?
If still you think 1-5 ratio still make sense and we should stop defending ourselves against terrorists, I encourage you to do this mental exercise of imagining all of those events one more time and possibly see what are the typical reaction of countries towards this kind of hostility in their own lands. (Although I haven't done comprehensive research on 11/11 event, I think it possibly has potential to demonstrate how could one country go further when it faces with such terrorist attacks to stop it.)
What is special about 2019 ? Borders move, countries expand and contract. New countries form, old countries disappear. Happens all the time.
The areas that are being occupied by Turkey have been under ottaman rule since 1500s to WW-I, and only the last 100 years or so they were not! Countries like Syria, Iraq etc have borders that were drawn on maps by people who did not live there. So, long story short expect many countries in Middle East to reconfigure their borders, new autonomous regions spurt and old regions disappear.
Border changes happened all the time but the two world wars and the subsequent world order and bloc politics have frozen these changes. Now that post-war order is slowly crumbling so are the dynamics in various parts of the world.
Having strong equality between man/women shouldn't be the only parameter when you are picking up your allies. US and Turkey are member of NATO and we have operations together since then. (Including Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq). Situation for Syria is a little bit different here. Because, it is too close to Turkey. If you cut connections to Turkey, it will cost you more.
If hostile paramilitary forces were organizing attacks on the other side of the Mexican border at a time when the Mexican government and military itself had collapsed, I can promise you the US would have no problem establishing a safe zone beyond its formal borders.
"Turkey is the country that killed most ISIS fighters."
This is very doubtful and should either be supported by some facts or retracted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey%E2%80%93ISIL_conflict#2...
vs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_military_interve...
Coalition killed ~80,000 vs Turkey killed ~6,000.
Furthermore, no one is censoring them beyond their comment getting a bit more gray, downvotes are not the end of the world. We don't need a community of people justifying massacres because they're scared of retaliations from the same foreigners they're subjecting to brutal oppression.
There is no difference between “invading a country” and “establishing a security zone inside another country”.
It does become a lot easier for them to qualify as allies if they share core western values
A brief quote from the Wikipedia article:
Democratic confederalism is a "system of popularly elected administrative councils, allowing local communities to exercise autonomous control over their assets, while linking to other communities via a network of confederal councils." Decisions are made by communes in each neighborhood, village, or city. All are welcome to partake in the communal councils, but political participation is not mandated. There is no private property, but rather “ownership by use, which grants individuals usage rights to the buildings, land, and infrastructure, but not the right to sell and buy on the market or convert them private enterprises.” The economy is in the hands of the communal councils, and is thus (in the words of Bookchin) ‘neither collectivised nor privatised, it is common.’ Feminism, ecology and direct democracy are essential in democratic confederalism.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_%C3%96calan#Democrati...
It's pathetic that you're using this red-scare nonsense to justify a borderline genocide.
Kurdish YPG/Asayish Forces Once Again Kidnap Christians in Northeast Syria: https://wca-ngo.org/wca-news/press-releases/607-kurds_forced...
Kurdish YPG Unlawfully Closes Aramean and Armenian Schools: https://wca-ngo.org/wca-news/press-releases/613-ypg_illegal-...
Video Shows Christian Property in Syria Seized by Kurdish Forces: https://wca-ngo.org/wca-news/press-releases/591-video-shows-...
Very strong Western values, indeed.
Syria: US ally’s razing of villages amounts to war crimes: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/10/syria-us-ally...
The border security argument is a bit weak. You shouldn't need to cross a border to defend a border.
The EU, NATO, Japan, etc didn't start using that designation for nothing.
PKK also had an estimated 3000 child soldiers which were also used for terror operations and in combat in Syria: https://hrwf.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Child-soldiers-in...
The radical Kurds aren't going to win anything by engaging in it nor will the more moderate Kurdish groups gain anything by quietly supporting them.
Turkey has much to lose in the years to come by exposing their soldiers in Kurdish majority areas and they are only further alienating themselves from Europe and the world, especially if they get too zealous in the process. They haven't even faced any real resistance yet since they focused on Arab areas first. Their decision making won't be without cost.
There's no way this will be easy ride for them. Nothing in the middle east is ever like that. This is just downtime between the next major conflict. There's only so much to gain for anyone involved.
It is not logical to call some people terrorists when they are being massacred by a large professional army and try to defend themselves by whatever means they have. If the kurdish nation exists in 50 years, today's "terrorists" will be remembered fondly, just as the glorious french resistance is.