Author: Bill Weinberg

Syria
Rojava

Bolton goes to bat for Rojava Kurds?

Talk about strange bedfellows! This week witnessed the surreal spectacle of US National Security Adviser John Bolton, the most bellicose neoconservative in the Trump administration, visiting Turkey to try to forestall an Ankara attack radical-left, anarchist-leaning Kurdish fighters that the Pentagon has been backing to fight ISIS in Syria. “We don’t think the Turks ought to undertake military action that’s not fully coordinated with and agreed to by the United States,” Bolton told reporters. Refering to the Kurdish YPG militia, a Turkish presidential spokesman responded: “That a terror organization cannot be allied with the US is self-evident.” Bolton left Turkey without meeting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who then publicly dissed the National Security Adviser’s stance as a “serious mistake.” YPG spokesman Nuri Mahmud, in turn, shot back: “Turkey, which has been a jihadist safe-haven and passage route to Syria since the beginning of the conflict, has plans to invade the region end destroy the democracy created by blood of sons and daughters of this people.” (Photo: ANF)

Syria

Reprieve for Rojava?

US officials say the timetable for Donald Trump’s withdrawal of all 2,000 troops from Syria has been extended from 30 days to four months. The statements came a day after Trump met with his ally Sen. Lindsay Graham, a critic of the withdrawal order, who was apparently instrumental in getting the president to blink—amid the predictable irruption of blustering and face-saving tweets. This may apply some brakes to Turkish preparations to cross the border to expunge the revolutionary Kurdish forces in northern Syria’s autonomous zone of Rojava. Residents of the Rojava town of Kobane, near the border, have launched a “human shield” encampment to block any incursion by Turkish forces. At the border village of Qeremox, the unarmed encampment was organized by Kobane’s autonomous administration, and has been joined by international supporters. (Photo of Kobani women at the Qeremox encampment via ANF)

Syria

Kurdish forces turn Manbij over to Assad: report

Following the announcement of a US withdrawal of its troops embedded with Kurdish forces in Syria, the Kurds are again making overtures for a separate peace with the Assad regime. Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) are reported to have turned over the flashpoint town of Manbij to regime forces—marking the first time that the Assad regime’s flag has flown over the northern town for more than six years. “The aim is to ward off a Turkish offensive,” said Ilham Ahmed, an official of the Kurdish autonomous administration. “If the Turks’ excuse is the [YPG], they will leave their posts to the government.” However, a Kurdish deal with Assad could cement the split between the Syrian rebels and the YPG, and holds risk of opening an Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in northern Syria. (Photo via Kurdistan24)

Syria

Turkey preparing assault on Rojava

Days after Trump’s announced imminent withdrawal of US troops from Syria, Turkey has started massing tanks and troop carriers on its southern border, preparing to move into the Kurdish autonomous zone of Rojava once American soldiers have left. Turkish forces are reported arriving in the border towns of Kilis and al-Rai, after Ankara’s foreign minister said they will push into Syria as soon as possible. Mevlut Çavusoglu told reporters that “if Turkey says it will enter, it will.” He said the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan is “determined” to move against the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia that is the central pillar of the (heretofore) US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). (Photo: ANF)

Please support CounterVortex!

CounterVortex needs your support! This is the first time we have asked our readers for money in a year, and three of you have responded for a total of $55—just over one-tenth of the way to our modest goal of $500. We think we have more than three readers. And $500 is just a quarter of our annual operating costs. Last year, we were able to raise $500, and we are depending on you again. As most of the American left succumbs to abject glorification of reactionary dictators, we think it is more vital than ever to keep alive one an intransigently dissident voice that still has fundamental anti-fascist principles intact—CounterVortex. If you don't think the pro-dictatorship position has become hegemonic on the "left," the latest example comes from the holiday statement just issued by Veterans for Peace (sic!) hailing the genocidal regime of Bashar Assad as the "secular, multi-religious Syrian state." Somebody needs to forthrightly repudiate this repugnant jive, and that responsibility falls to us. We are also the only website on the American left that provides ongoing, serious coverage of under-reported or downright forgotten wars in places like Chechnya, Mali, the Philippines and Colombia. Please give what you can to sustain our efforts.

Syria

Trump’s Syria withdrawal: bad news for Kurds

President Trump has ordered a rapid withdrawal of all 2,000 United States ground troops from Syria within 30 days. Hardly coincidentally, this comes just as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Pentagon’s main partner on the ground, are on the brink of capturing the last town in Syria still under ISIS—Hajin, on the banks of the Euphrates River. Also not coincidentally, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan just days earlier warned of an imminent offensive against the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia that makes up the core of the SDF. Erdogan said that Turkey will launch an operation against the YPG “in a few days,” adding that it is “time to realize our decision to wipe out terror groups east of the Euphrates.” The Euphrates River has until now served as a border between Turkey’s “buffer zone”in northern Syria and areas still under Kurdish control. Turkey is now preparing to cross it—with evident US connivance. (Image of SDF fighters via Rudaw)

Syria

Twins of genocide schmooze in Damascus

Omar BashirSeeking to legitimize his regime now that he’s reconquered most of Syria (with massive Russian military help), Bashar Assad has just welcomed the first Arab League leader to Damascus since the war began in 2011—none other than President Omar Bashir of Sudan, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur. The Assad regime’s official news agency SANA said the two dictators discussed the “situations and crises faced by many Arab countries,” stressing the need to build “new principles for inter-Arab relations based on the respect of the sovereignty of countries and non-interference in internal affairs.” The Assad regime is itself now credibly accused of genocide, with a mass extermination of detainees amply documented, not to mention serial use of chemical weapons and massive bombardment of civilian populations. Assad and his generals may yet face war crimes charges before the ICC. (Photos: Pinterest, BashirWatch)

Europe

The Yellow Vests and the carbon wars

The Yellow Vest movement in France scored a victory, as President Emmanuel Macron agreed to suspend a controversial fuel tax after weeks of increasingly violent protests. This may be concretely a win for the working class, but the fact that Macron imposed the tax in the name of reducing carbon emissions has provided fodder for anti-environmental content to the movement. Exploiting this moment, Donald Trump blamed the uprising on the Paris climate accord, tweeting: “The Paris Agreement isn’t working out so well for Paris. Protests and riots all over France. People do not want to pay large sums of money, much to third world countries (that are questionably run), in order to maybe protect the environment. Chanting ‘We Want Trump!’ Love France.” (Photo via CrimethInc)

New York City

Verizon threatens survival of CounterVortex

CountertVortex editor and main contributor Bill Weinberg (that would be me) is currently without phone service, and only intermittent Internet access, due to a Verizon equipment failure. The last Verizon chat-jockey I spoke with said "it is major cable issue and will need some time to be solved." That basically means they don't intend to fix it. I use DSL and a land-line—going through the old copper wires that Verizon is trying to phase out. If my service is not restored, I will have no means of producing CounterVortex—or the journalism I must write every day to pay the rent. Many people in New York and around the country are in the same position. We urgently must press Verizon to maintain the old copper-wire infrastructure we depend on—which they are required to do by law. (Photo: IBEW)

North America

After Pittsburgh, American Jews face a choice

The lines are starkly drawn in Pittsburgh—and, hopefully, across the country—in the wake of the synagogue massacre that left 11 dead. President Trump visited the synagogue, and was joined by the Israeli ambassador. This took place over the protests of Pittsburgh's Mayor Bill Peduto, who asked the White House to delay the trip in light of the sensitive situation in the city. While the rabbi at the Tree of Life Synagogue, the massacre site, welcomed Trump, many members of his congregation clearly dissented. More than 35,000 people signed an open letter to Trump from the local chapter of the progressive Jewish group Bend the Arc, stating: "You are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully denounce white nationalism." Hundreds demonstrated against Trump's visit under the standard of another Jewish progressive formation, If Not Now, with banners reading "ANTI-SEMITISM = WHITE NATIONALISM" and "ANTI-SEMITISM UPHOLDS WHITE SUPREMACY." (Photo via IfNotNow)

Planet Watch

Will world war be October surprise?

Will an "October surprise" in the prelude to the mid-term elections in the US be the outbreak of world war—that is, direct superpower conflict? Things are escalating fast on the frontlines with both of the United States' major imperial rivals. The US Navy's Pacific Fleet is preparing to carry out a "global show of force" as a warning to China, after a near-skirmish between a US warship and a Chinese destroyer in the disputed South China Sea. Meanwhile, NATO is planning to conduct its largest military exercises since the end of the Cold War, Trident Juncture 2018, along Norway's border wth Russia. This comes as Washington and Moscow are odds over missile deployments, accusing each other of violating the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty. (Image: Lockheed Martin)