The global media — to their credit – are focusing on the brutality of the US-backed Raqqa campaign, though they’re avoiding any serious reporting about how and why the Kurds are ethnically cleansing Arabs from Raqqa.
The Race for Raqqa is over, and the US-backed “Syrian Democratic Forces”, the majority of which are comprised of the Kurdish YPG militia, are on the verge of capturing Daesh’s self-declared “capital”. The operation is proceeding at a lightning pace after the Pentagon and its proxies carefully squeezed the terrorists for months, but it must also be said that the rapid battlefield “successes” are also due in part to the Kurds cutting a deal with Daesh. This isn’t a fringe conspiracy theory either, but a documented fact reported by Sergey Surovikin, the commander of Russia’s forces in Syria, who told the media just last week that
“According to available reliable information, in early June ISIL terrorists entered into collusion with the command of the Kurdish armed units, which are part of the Democratic Forces Union, left the populated localities of Tadia and al-Hamam located 19 kilometers southwest of Raqqa offering no resistance and headed toward Palmyra.”
I wrote about this relationship in my article about the Kurdish-Daesh-Saudi connection in Syria and Iran, which also makes it abundantly clear that my professional use of the word “Kurd”, unless otherwise and explicitly specified, always refers solely to Kurdish militant groups, NOT the peaceful and law-abiding majority of this demographic.
Chemical Weapons And Ethnic Cleansing
Alleged sarin attack in Khan Sheikhoun (A White Helmets photo, credits to the owner)
Taking into account the logical limits of what’s being referred to when I talk about the “Kurds”, it’s now time to take a closer look at their role in the US’ Raqqa campaign. Reports have come out that the US is supporting the SDF-YPG through the illegal use of white phosphorus, which is a banned chemical weapon. Combined with the heavy and indiscriminate airstrikes being carried out against the city, 160,000 civilians have been forced to become refugees and flee their homes as internally displaced people. This works out to more than half of the city’s pre-war population of 220,000, and it confirms what independent journalist and associate editor at 21stcenturywire.com Vanessa Beeley told RT just recently about how the US is making no attempt whatsoever to protect civilians. In fact, it can be cynically suggested, the large-scale population exodus taking place in Raqqa is actually a deliberate ethnic cleansing of the majority-Arab population of the city on a much larger scale than any of the similar crimes that the Kurds have been accused of before.
This conclusion isn’t as far off as one might initially think since the Kurds proudly proclaimed before the battle started that they will annex the city to their self-proclaimed “Democratic Federation of Northern Syria” once it’s in their hands. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone because the Kurds have been openly talking about their plans for months. In fact, I’ve been writing about the Kurdish-American unipolar strategy to internally partition Syria for over the past year and a half, and I listed off 13 of my most relevant articles in a piece that I wrote in January about the Russian-written “draft constitution” for Syria. The reader is strongly encouraged to check out those articles if they’re unfamiliar with what the Kurds have been plotting this entire time, as it’s really important to learn the background context about what’s motivating these “Neo-Marxists” to cooperate hand-in-hand with the US and geopolitically re-engineer a “New Middle East”.
“Hacked Elections” In “Kurdistan”
To get back to the urgent issue at hand – the ethnic cleansing of over half of Raqqa’s majority-Arab population – this is a “godsend” to the Kurds’ plans to “Balkanize” Syria through the expansion of their “federation”. It’s extremely doubtful to imagine that Arabs of any political disposition would rather live in a Kurdish-dominated statelet as second-class citizens than as equal ones within the Syrian Arab Republic, so the chances of the Kurds peacefully annexing Raqqa into their “federation” via a plebiscite are close to nil. However, if the Arabs were forced out of their homes due to egregious war crimes by the US such as indiscriminate bombing and the widespread use of chemical weapons, then it becomes much easier to “hack the vote” and create a public/international pretense of “legitimacy”.
The proportion of Arabs in the city would dramatically drop, which could comparatively increase the ratio of Kurdish inhabits which choose to stay. Moreover, many of the fleeing Arabs might be replaced by settler Kurds from the north, which could come to Raqqa to colonize it or simply do as emigrated Albanians frequently resort to in the Republic of Macedonia and arrive only long enough to vote before departing once again. Either way, the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Raqqa works in favor of the Kurds’ geopolitical designs for Syria, which in turn advance the joint American-“Israeli” Yinon Plan of dividing and ruling the Mideast along a modified “Identity Federalism” form of Ralph Peters’ 2006 “Blood Borders”. Most fleeing Arabs would naturally feel unsafe reentering to their home city and living as second-class apartheid citizens in a minority-dominated “federation”, so they’ll probably relocate elsewhere for their own safety and make the Kurdish colonization of Raqqa a fait accompli.
Speaking of colonization, the abovementioned developments vindicate all those – include the author himself – who previously warned that the Kurds were carving a “second geopolitical ‘Israel’” in the heart of the Mideast out of the territories of neighboring states, strategically employing “Weapons of Mass Migration” just like “Israel” did during the advent of its massive post-World War II colonization of Palestine. The only difference between what the Kurds are doing nowadays in Raqqa and the “Israelis” did in Palestine is that the former had been present in Syria for decades longer than the latter before they made their geopolitical power play. Apart from that, the “Kurdistan” and “Israel” models are identical and they also serve the same grand strategic goals of promoting unipolarity in the tri-continental pivot space of West Asia. Nevertheless, for as obvious as this is to any objective observer, it’s failed to generate any significant media attention, whether from the Mainstream Media or even its Alternative counterpart, and this deserves some further elaboration.
“See No Evil”
Regarding the Mainstream Media, they’re coy about recognizing the fact that the US is midwiving the de-facto birth of “Kurdistan” in Syria because Washington formally agreed to UNSC Resolution 2254 which nominally respects the territorial integrity of the war-torn country. This explains why any Kurdish statelet in Syria would remain sub-national for the time being and not lead to any formal independence such as what appears to be imminent in Iraq later this year following Erbil’s promised referendum. At the same time, however, this hasn’t stopped the US from promoting the “federalization” of Syria as a ploy to achieve the same outcome in form before the fact. Everything that the US is doing is an “open secret”, yet Washington has yet to give the signal to its media proxies that it’s time to “let the cat out of the bag” and officially declare the plan for what it is.
As for Alt-Media in general (key qualifier), there’s a certain embarrassment inherent with openly calling things for what they are because it would confirm that Russia was caught flat-footed in stopping this geopolitical plot. There are many reasons why Russia has been unable to prevent the internal fragmentation of Syria, but the most reasonable ones are that Moscow is strictly abiding by its military mandate to solely fight terrorism, its leadership has no political will to commit the forces necessary for reversing the political realities on the ground in northeastern Syria (which would ultimately lead to a tense standoff with the US that the Kremlin is doing everything in its power to avoid), and that there are certain unstated geopolitical “benefits” that Russia might be hoping to reap from the Kurds.
Each of these factors could take entire articles to explain, but thankfully for the reader, I ended up writing about this on several occasions in the past. My two articles about the Russian-written “draft constitution” for Syria, my piece about how Russia’s “de-escalation zones” are laying the groundwork for Syria’s “decentralization”, and my analysis about Russia’s energy diplomacy in the Mideast should hopefully answer any questions that the reader might have about these three motivations. To succinctly summarize, Russia adheres to its military mandate in order to avoid what its leadership seriously fears could become another Afghan-like mission creep, and it also doesn’t want another Caribbean Crisis (known as the “Cuban Missile Crisis” in the West) to develop over Syria. In addition, some in Russia (naively?) believe that leveraging Moscow’s historical relations with the Kurds could lead to their country fulfilling its grand strategy of becoming the ultimate balancing force in Eurasia.
Concluding Thoughts
Smoke rises after what activists said were airstrikes by forces loyal to Syria’s President Assad in Raqqa, which is controlled by the Islamic State (credits to the owner of the photo)
There’s no “delicate” way to say it – what’s happening in Raqqa right now is the large-scale ethnic cleansing of the city’s majority-Arab population through chemical weapons and indiscriminate bombing in order to create the on-the-ground conditions for “legitimizing” the expansion of the Kurds’ “federalized” statelet (the “second geopolitical ‘Israel’”). The Mainstream Media is holding back from openly announcing the obvious in a frail attempt to obscure its grand strategic plans until the day arrives when they’re undeniable, but also of course out of the self-interested pursuit to avoid being implicated in worsening the Immigrant Crisis.
As for most of the Alt-Media, they’re very reluctant to recognize that Russia’s policy of engagement with the Syrian Kurds has totally failed to pry them away from the Pentagon, so there’s a certain degree of wounded pride involved which is taking some time to overcome. Furthermore, by recognizing the US-Kurd campaign in Raqqa as ethnic cleansing, it would put enormous pressure on Russia to stage a “humanitarian intervention”, which to remind the reader, is beyond Moscow’s military mandate and could dangerously draw it into an Afghan-like quagmire and potentially lead to nuclear brinksmanship with the US, both of which the Kremlin will do anything to avoid.
Sadly, what this translates to in reality is that the Arab cleansing of Raqqa will probably go unnoticed in most of the global media, though it might emerge as a politicized subject after the campaign is completed. For now, however, it seems like both the Mainstream and Alternative Medias are content with only discussing the US’ chemical weapons use and indiscriminate bombing during this campaign, which is interesting to note because Western Mainstream Media usually never talks about such truths. Therefore, this in and of itself should be a glaring indication for all observers that the West is desperately trying to deflect from the ongoing ethnic cleansing that’s happening on the ground, though hopefully, Alt-Media will call them out on it sooner than later.
Andrew Korybko is a political analyst, journalist and a regular contributor to several online journals, as well as a member of the expert council for the Institute of Strategic Studies and Predictions at the People’s Friendship University of Russia. He specializes in Russian affairs and geopolitics, specifically the US strategy in Eurasia.
Featured image: Global Village Space
