Russia vs terrorism

The action of Turkey in shooting down the Russian plane has exposed Erdogan’s complicity with ISIS. Whether it had infringed Turkish airspace or not, this does not give Turkey the right to shoot the plane down when it was posing no threat whatever to the country. Even Ankara’s staunchest allies are finding it difficult to defend Erdogan’s reckless action. It is pertinent to note that the US was unable to give categorical support for Turkey’s claims that the Russian plane was in Turkish airspace.

In responding to the incident, President Putin described the Turkish state as “the accomplices of terrorism”. That is exactly how Erdogan has been behaving during the long Syrian crisis and how Turkey has been behaving towards its Kurdish population over the course of many decades, in fact since the Republic’s foundation nearly 100 years ago.

The Kurds all too frequently bear the brunt of this terrorism from Turkey. During the recent election Kurds were victims of two major mass terror attacks at Suruc and Ankara where well in excess of a hundred people were killed. Just a few days ago the leader of the HDP was nearly killed in an assassination attempt. The Kurds inside Turkey and those in Rojava, Syria, who are fighting ISIS, continue to be bombed by Turkish planes and Kurdish towns such as Silvan in Diyarbakir are turned into virtual prison camps by the imposition of brutal repression and military violence against civilians. Turks have even started desecrating Kurdish graves showing that even in death the Kurds are not free from Turkish oppression.

The hypocrisy of Erdogan is simply outrageous: he complains about Turkey’s precious airspace being allegedly violated by Russia while he freely infringes Iraqi airspace on a daily basis to send Turkish planes off to bomb Kurdish positions.

The shooting in the air of the two Russian pilots, while ejecting from the plane, by “moderate rebels” also exposes the very ugly face of those forces that Turkey and the West are backing in Syria. These groups that Turkey is sheltering and supporting are in reality just terrorists and mercenaries, with little sympathy for western style liberal democracy or human rights. They must be defeated, not given a lifeline. What is needed now is a popular front against ISIS and all other such terrorists whose actions resemble Nazi fascism.

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This post was written by David Morgan