The Honourable Lindsey Graham
United States Senate
290 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-4001
Dear Senator Graham
Protection of Kurds in Syria
I am writing, Sir, to express my thanks and deep gratitude for your humanity, honour and conscious conscience in being so genuinely concerned about the lives and fate of the Kurds in Syria and refusing to accept what almost any media report about the main consequence of President Trump’s withdrawal decision takes for granted: that the Kurds, who have been the most honourable, brave and reliable USA’s forces on the ground for over three years, would be left now to be massacred by Turkey.
1. Your meeting on Sunday with his Excellency President Trump and the satisfactory result you expressed in your statements after the meeting, had a great positive impact on millions of people in Kurdistan and it was in fact the best present for them for the new Year. That is why we look to 2019 with hope for peace, safety and freedom, a hope inspired and boosted by your Excellency’s statement that the President has agreed that any eventual withdrawal from Syria would be slow and very well-coordinated with the USA army and the coalition forces and would ensure that: “
1. ISIS is permanently destroyed.
2. Iran doesn’t fill in the back end, and
3. our Kurdish allies are protected.
2. You are absolutely right Sir that it would be a great folly if a great country that is being made Great again, would ‘outsource its own national security, the peace in the Middle East and the fate of its allies to ‘some foreign country’ and especially if this country is today’s Turkey under Erdogan.
A. Although a member of NATO, Turkey has never been a reliable ally to USA whether needed when the USA toppled Saddam’s dictatorship or in the fight against ISIS and Islamist terrorist groups in general or in enforcing sanctions against Iran. Also Erdogan has wrongly arrested US citizens to be able to blackmail President Trump.
B. It is sad if the President of USA with his greatest responsibility for the safety and well-being of his army and American people and peace in the world, fails to understand that Turkey has never been serious about fighting ISIS but in fact Turkey has been the main facilitating if not advocating force behind the creation of ISIS.
C. I am sure Your Excellency realizes that ISIS, before being a fighting force, is mainly a propagating fascist ideological fundamentalist Islamist terrorist group, and Erdogan shares their fascist Islamist ideology and publicly propagates it as the apologist ideology and historical restoration of his new Ottoman Islamist state.
D. His Excellency the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was absolutely right when he described the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, in 2016, as a “totalitarian Islamist dictatorship” and only “as democratic as Iran.
”In the last two years, his opinion has been vindicated by what has been going on in Turkey under Erdogan. According to a BBC follow-up: ‘’Since July 2016 more than 107,000 people have been removed from public sector jobs by emergency decree. Tens of thousands of others have been suspended. There have also been a large number of dismissals in the private sector, but precise numbers are hard to come by. Among those dismissed by decree since the coup attempt are soldiers and police officers, judges and prosecutors, doctors and teachers. Approximately a quarter of all judges and prosecutors have been removed from their posts. And a report on the state of emergency issued by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) says at least 5,000 academics and more than 33,000 teachers have also lost their jobs.’’
E. And who made the rise of the Monster ISIS and the elimination and enslavement of Christians and Yezidis by ISIS fascists possible? Ignoring all other factors but geography, this all happened through and in the neighborhood of Turkey. As an authoritarian regime, it is easy for Turkey to control its borders but actually Turkey deliberately opened its free-to-come-and-go borders and welcomed and armed thousands of Islamist fascists from Arab and Islamic countries, Europe and all over the world. Unfortunately, at that time CIA and Obama Administration colluded with this criminal machination in the Middle East. And this fact was testified by none less than Ex US Vice-President Joe Biden, in his famous speech to students at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University on Thursday, October 2, 2014:
‘’ US Vice-President Joe Biden has accused America’s key allies in the Middle East of allowing the rise of the Islamic State (IS), saying they supported extremists with money and weapons in their eagerness to oust the Assad regime in Syria “Our biggest problem was our allies,” Mr Biden told students at the Harvard Kennedy School. “The Turks… the Saudis, the Emirates, etc, what were they doing? They were so determined to take down (Syrian President Bashar al) Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tonnes of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad. These policies ended up helping militants linked to al-Qaeda and ultimately IS, he said.
F. In the same speech, Mr Biden has revealed another most significant and relevant fact about the nature, modality and usual Metamorphosises of so-called moderate Islamic groups in a way that create sudden and unexpected threats to world peace and humanity: ‘’ All of a sudden the regional powers that sponsored anti-Assad rebels awakened to the dawn of a major international security threat in the face of ISIS – now called Islamic State. After being essentially thrown out of Iraq it found open space and territory in eastern Syria and established close ties with the Al-Nusra Front which the US had earlier declared a terrorist group.’’
G. This shows the often-repeated fact of the ability for quick transformation and transposition by terrorist Islamist groups between Syria and Iraq as long as Turkey is supporting and sponsoring them. Commenting on the above admission of Mr Biden, former MI5 agent Annie Machon told RT:“
Perhaps, the Vice President is finally learning some lessons from history. It does not matter who you think your friends are going to be in the region. Very often they will be taken over or subsumed into a more radical group.”
And now unfortunately, it is exactly this LESSON that it seems has not been learnt by his Excellency President Trump: he sacrifices the Kurds who have proved that they can be 100% trusted and they DO the job, and he allies himself with dictators and with those who can never be reliable allies!
H. Turkey now has an army of almost 150000 of those al-Nusra and other similar extremist Islamist fighters who it intends to use [what for?] massacre the very people who have been faithful West’s alliance and eliminated ISIS with the blood of their brave sons and daughters and their endless enduring sacrifices? Isn’t it cruelly ironic that President Trump 1. boasts that it was HIM as a national hero who has eliminated ISIS and 2.offers the very faithful allies who have made this Victory possible and as sacrificial lambs to the blood-thirsty Erdogan who created ISIS and sponsors both fascist Islamist groups and fascist Islamist ideology and 3. By so doing undermines and eradicates the very Victory and great achievements made in Syria by the alliance of USA and SDF?
3. The President often justifies his new foreign policy of withdrawal and isolationism by saying that USA should not become the policeman of the world and use its money to support others. Both of these arguments do not sound valid in the case of supporting the Kurds and USA role in Syria. I have written about this to His Excellency Mr President. Too.
A. As your Excellency has clarified in your recent statement : ‘’ But we’re not the policemen of the world here. We’re fighting a war against ISIS. They’re still not defeated in Syria. I’m asking the president to make sure that we have troops there to protect us. Don’t outsource our national security to some foreign power. If we leave now, the Kurds are going to get into a fight with Turkey, they could get slaughtered.”
B. And there is no such a big force that creates a great burden to USA compared with Afghanistan and other parts of the world. There are as reported only 2000 troops. But they have achieved more than any other force in the history of the recent American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
1. American soldiers fought together with honourable brave Kurds day and night for almost 4 years, they fought together in the skies and on earth, ditch after ditch, mile after mile, village after village, town after town, city after city, with courage and conviction, with blood and tears, with countless sacrifices, with heart-breaking suffering of children and families, until they liberated north and east of Syria from Kobani and Manbij, to Raqqa and Deir al-Zor and at last Hajin.
2.Have crushed ISIS in almost entire Syria.
3. Have liberated and are controlling 30% of Syria.
4. It is the richest land of Syria with oil, water and agriculture. So, your claim that America has to for ever pay for the protection of others is not true in this case.
5. SDF has not only achieved a military victory eliminating the criminal caliphate of ISIS. They have at the same time built a new nation, a proto-democratic non-ethnic, non-sectarian, non-religious decentralised self-governing system in which all groups and communities co-exist peacefully and co-operatively and women play a leading effective equal role.
Dear Senator Graham,
4. Here we have a new model of fighting and achieving victory decisively with one hand and building the long-term permanent alternative to fascism, murder and destruction, on the other. That is what USA has failed to do in Afghanistan and Iraq: to create alternative empowered decentralised self-defending and self-governing communities that appreciate the US support and protect the values of democracy, peaceful co-existence and non-religious, non-ethnic, non-sectarian model of localized administration. This model has been achieved and functioning well and could be extended to the rest of Syria and in future Turkey and the Middle East? So, why so cruelly destroy what has been achieved with the joint blood, effort and sacrifices of Kurds, Arabs, Christians, Americans and a vast international coalition led by America?
5. I understand that his Excellency President Trump does not like reading long letters and reports. So, I have recently sent him a tweet to summarise the Kurdish position. I quote it below and hope you will make sure his Excellency President Trump will read it:
Sir, you say we don’t spend our money to protect others
And we don’t want to be the policemen of the world!
Kurds have 30 per cent of very rich land
Oil, water, and abundance of agriculture
And they have an army of 70,000 heroes
With thousands more
Living as a martyr
-Just as you have said before-
Who crushed ISIS and created victory
And now you plough their history
And leave them alone to Turkish wolves.
6. Finally, Sir, I will write below four quotes that give a poignant picture of the serious current conjuncture in the history and destiny of our nation. They are self-explanatory:
A. President Trump in September in his answer to a question by a Mr. Kurd:“We’re trying to get along very well,” Trump responded. “We do get along great with the Kurds. We’re trying to help them a lot. Don’t forget, that’s their territory. We have to help them. I want to help them. They fought with us. They died with us. They died. We lost tens of thousands of Kurds, died fighting ISIS. They died for us and with us. And for themselves. They died for themselves. They’re great people. And we have not forgotten. We don’t forget.”
B. Turkey said Kurdish militants east of the Euphrates in Syria “will be buried in their ditches when the time comes”, after President Donald Trump began what will be a total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. “Now we have Manbij and the east of the Euphrates in front of us. We are working intensively on this subject,” state-owned Anadolu news agency on Thursday reported Defence Minister Hulusi Akar as saying during a visit to a Qatari-Turkish joint military base in Doha.“Right now, it is being said that some ditches, tunnels were dug in Manbij and to the east of the Euphrates. They can dig tunnels or ditches if they want, they can go underground if they want, when the time and place comes they will be buried in the ditches they dug. No one should doubt this.”
3. “As soon as the US folds its tent and leaves, Turkey will immediately begin an air bombardment followed by a ground attack by the [Ankara-backed] Free Syrian army. Thousands will die, thousands will be displaced and will be given no haven within Syria. They will be turned away at the Turkish border,” said David Phillips, a former senior state department official, and the author of the new book: The Great Betrayal: How America Abandoned the Kurds and Lost the Middle East.
4. “Everyone is confused and scared. This will mean that Turkey will likely attack us. We are in shock because we thought the U.S. would help us achieve peace after ISIS. We didn’t think that they would help us defeat the terrorists and then leave us alone to face the horror of Turkish forces and its extreme factions,” lamented Mazloum Kurdy, a 33-year-old father and teacher from Kobane. “Now people are thinking to displace themselves from their homes here again, but nobody knows where a safe place to go is.” In his words, it is an ultimate betrayal by the United States.
“People are crying; they can taste the displacement that will come. They know it will be a cold winter and their first after ISIS,” Kurdy continued. “And for all the people who worked for the US, they have no place to go because they are wanted from four sides. From Turkish because they worked with the SDF, from the regime because they will be conscripted and forced into the Army, from the Free Syrian Army and maybe even from the Kurdistan government in Iraq because they worked with the SDF. We just don’t know.”
Dear Mr Graham:
It is depressing that in dealing with the most serious foreign affairs, his Excellency the President views his fulfilment of his campaign promises to his voters as simple as ticking the checkboxes without considering the context and consequences: I promised to withdraw from Syria, I order immediate withdrawal of our troops from Syria. Promise fulfilled. Checkbox ticked!
But what about HIS PROMISE to Kurds ‘ who died with us and for us’ to get along well with them and protect them?
Now all chauvinist and fascist Turkish, Arab and Islamist groups are thrilled and call SDF ex-USA mercenaries that must be humiliated and eliminated? Russia is encouraging Turkey to attack them the same as it did so cruelly and dishonourably in Afrin.
Of course, it is noble and honourable for President Trump to keep his promises to American voters, but at the same time in a way that also keeps his promises to the most reliable Kurdish allies and also keeps American honour, wisdom and values.
Sir,
I am encouraged that with the effective role of honourable American leaders such as your Excellency: American fairness, honour, justice and values will survive and pass this crucial test of the Syrian crisis.
But I am still concerned and our people are still very anxious and fearful as there are no political and practical plans in place. I appeal to you to work with the President and Senate to pass a resolution to enforce a no-fly zone over all the SDF-held areas, which the USA or its coalition allies can easily do even if it withdraws from north Syria, and to guarantee long-term protection of Kurds and their right to self-government enshrined in a new Constitution of Syria and their effective participation in any UN-sponsored political process aiming to end the brutal Syrian civil war.
Respectfully yours,
Kamal Mirawdeli (Dr)
Kurdish writer and academic and candidate of presidential elections in Iraqi Kurdistan region, July 2009.
Dr. Kamal Mirawdeli, a senior Kurdish Writer and second runner in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region presidential elections, July 2009. See below.[1]