Indigenous Christian Communities in Northeast Syria Are the Target of a Turkish Attack for the First Time in Over a Century
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Christian fighters of Sutoro (the Syriac Security Office) guard a checkpoint in Tel Tamr. Photograph: Reuters
Church bells rang out across the plains of northeast Syria, warning villagers to seek shelter from incoming air raids. It was the first time in a century that the Christian communities in the region were forced to take shelter from a Turkish attack.
“They want to finish the job started a hundred years ago in the Seyfo,” said Bassam Ishak, using a Syriac-language term for the 1915 genocide of Christians in present-day Turkey. “There is a solidarity among Syriacs and Assyrian political parties in condemning the attack, because of the history, for one thing, and second, because nobody wants to see a neighboring country come and attack their homes and force them out.”
Ishak, an SDC diplomat of Syriac-Assyrian origin, said that indigenous Christian ethnic groups used to be one-third of northeast Syria’s population, but many left during the Arab nationalist regimes of the twentieth century. There are no reliable statistics today, but Ishak estimates that there are only forty or fifty thousand Syriac-Assyrians left in the region.
In February 2015, ISIS attacked the Khabour Valley, destroying churches and taking hundreds of Syriac-Assyrians hostages. According to the Assyrian Policy Institute, the campaign “effectively end[ed] the Assyrian presence in the Khabour Region.”
Turkey plans to use the Syrian National Army, an alliance of Islamist rebels, for its operations in Northern Syria.
Related: Who are the Assyrians?
Modern Assyrians are Syriac Christians who claim descent from Assyria, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, dating back to 2500 BC in ancient Mesopotamia.
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“In the wake of the sudden American withdrawal, the various actors in the region are now poised to engage in a major conflict which could lead to the end of the Assyrian presence in Syria,” the Assyrian Policy Institute said in a Thursday statement.
“American withdrawal allows Turkish-supported extremism to be reasserted in the area.”Turkey plans to use the Syrian National Army, an alliance of Islamist rebels, for its operations in Northern Syria.
“They want to finish the job started a hundred years ago in the Seyfo,” said Bassam Ishak, using a Syriac-language term for the 1915 genocide of Christians in present-day Turkey
Modern Assyrians are Syriac Christians who claim descent from Assyria, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, dating back to 2500 BC in ancient Mesopotamia.
These are a very ancient indigenous people, who lived in the area long before the first Muslims invaded the area . . .
But speaking about the threat posed by Islam is considered racist in the United States. We aren't allowed to speak ill of Muslims or Islam. Our academic elite have declared Muslims a contributor to American diversity and we are supposed to allow Muslims to do to the United States what they have done in the Middle East. Any opposition to Muslims has politically become a war on Islam; that is simply unacceptable in the liberal enclaves of the United States. We are supposed to feel sympathy for Muslim refugees fleeing a civil war of their own making while ignoring what Muslims are doing in the region.
The United States does not have more than 2,000 military personnel in Syria. The United States pulls back a few hundred personnel and the entire region falls apart. And the US troops are still stuck in Syria. How does this arrangement benefit the United States?
The people in the region are obviously determined to kill each other. Why should it be the responsibility of the United States, alone, to prevent that? Europe is certainly capable of deploying 2,000 military personnel to Syria. Why the hell is the United States wasting so much money on NATO?
Apparently the global order has depended upon stupid Americans remaining stupid. If the people of the Middle East are determined to kill each, why should the United States intervene? Since Islam is a religion of peace then Muslims should certainly be capable of living with each other in peace.
How could they be stuck? Our Bone-spur-challenged leader has assured us they have been taken out?
(Don't tell me that Dear Leader's weakening of our military reaediness has gotten to the pointnthat we are unable to evacuate a mere 1000 troops out of a country like Syria?
Isn't it obvious? The European leaders are much smarter than our mentally-challenged president-- they are not sending their troops to die in the Middle East the way Trump is!
US To Send 3,000 Troops To Saudi Arabia
Why the hell is the United States wasting so much money on NATO?
And yes-- talk about "the United States wasting money!
We taxpayers are the ones paying for Trump's reckless Middle-East adventurism -- while he lines his pockets with money from his billionaire businesses at taxpayer expense!
Somehow military intervention seems incompatible with democratic tenets. Since liberating people appears to require brutal force then there shouldn't be complaints about the gun culture in the United States. Everyone in the United State should be staunch advocates for guns since that is the tool of choice for establishing democracy around the world.
Trump didn't involve the United States in the Middle East. Blame Eurocentric US politicians for that. And Trump's generals don't want to leave the Middle East. Mattis resigned because Trump wanted to remove US forces from the region.
Why don't we relocate the Pentagon to Baghdad? The military seems more concerned about Muslims killing Muslims than they are about the United States. Vietnam resolved itself after the United States withdrew. So can the Middle East.
Correct!
Very astute comment Nerm, very astute indeed!
BTW that's why the U.S. didn't cooperate with the Allies in WWII-- and why we steadfastly refused to take part in the Normandy Invasion!
Wrong analogy. The Middle East is Asian. Fighting in the Middle East would be more like the Pacific war; a war of annihilation. It was the Pacific war that made the world fear the United States.
Europeans would crap their pants if the United States conducted war in the Middle East the same way the United States conducted war against Japan. But it seems all too obvious that an unconditional war of annihilation is the only strategy that would stabilize the Middle East. Nothing in the Middle East is worth the United States committing itself to an unconditional war of annihilation.
That's the problem the United States confronted in Vietnam; the European model of warfare doesn't work in Asia.
You know you are an enigma.
You can post really well thought out theories
and then turn on a dime and start spewing nonsense like this.
While the US only has 2,000 people in Syria ( ignoring the armor, weapons, munitions and training we have gifted the Kurds),
the Administration has slowly sent 14,000 to Saudi Arabia along with billions worth of aircraft, tanks and "security measures" since May.
This week we are sending more planes, ,more drones, more Patriot and THADD systems and another 3,000 troops
all without any protest about protecting "our" Arabs, the same one's who carried out 911.
Do you have an issue with that?
It has been a total surprise to me that Nerm is not being booed out of NT, called an Islamophobe by some of the members here, declared to be a hater by SPLC, because he actually has the NERVE to be critical of Muslims. God forbid. If he were in some European countries, especially the Netherlands who convicted Geert Wilders of a criminal offence for not nicely pandering to Muslims, and Tommy Robinson incarcerated in Great Britain for actually calling a spade a spade, he'd be thrown in jail.
What I find interesting is that in the Middle East or Pakistan or many African countries the Islamist terrorists can burn down churches, kidnap schoolgirls and force them to convert to Islam and marry jihadis, rape Yazidi girls and women, threaten Christians and kill them if they don't convert to Islam, sentence people to death for blasphemy, and the mainstream media totally ignores it, but if an Israeli steps on the toe of a Palestinian the mainstream media posts headlines that Israelis are assaulting the Palestinians and the International Criminal Court will convict Israel for war crimes.
I was pointing out that Krishna's comment @2 was racist. The ancient indigenous people were living in the area before Muslims migrated into the region and encouraged the indigenous people to adopt Islam through enlightenment.
Only Christians invade regions, Muslims are not invaders. Muslims only migrate into a region and encourage adoption of Islam through enlightenment. Describing Muslims any other way would be racist.
Yes, I do have a problem with that. Our military presence in the Middle East for the sole purpose of maintaining 'stability' is contrary to the ideas of democracy and self government. Establishing democracy by force is not a democratic process resulting in peaceful coexistence.
If the United States is going to be responsible for maintaining 'stability' then the United States should conquer and administer the region. Maintaining stability requires democratic governance; not bombs and guns. Without democratic governance the region will be locked into perpetual war between warlords, despots, and strongmen. Without democratic governance our military will only be a mercenary force of hired guns operating at the behest of whatever despot controls governance.
The military is a tool of geopolitical force. And military force cannot establish democratic governance without killing the ideological opposition through warfare. If the United States is going to rely on the military to maintain stability in a region then the United States cannot be squeamish about the necessary methods. To maintain stability the military must annihilate opposing ideologies; the military isn't just fighting soldiers.
If the United States is not prepared to engage in genocide then the military is a wholly inadequate tool for stabilizing a region.
Krishna,
Unfortunately, what I have discovered is, the more historical facts that are presented, the greater the efforts by the quarrelsome ones to employ beavis and butt head logic in attempts to "sound" smart by coming up with assholistic interpretations of the facts.
I had one recently who actually used "logic" which actually supported my statements in efforts to try countering my statements.
...lead a horse to water...
When I first started using social media, I was amazed at the large number of really, really stupid people it attracted. O now bviously many had mental problems as well...
But no longer.
Now the low IQ masses online no longer surprise me (in fact I am often surprised when I come across someone intelligent!
I've seen the same thing! Amazingly, on occasion, the"facts" that they use to counter my arguments actually end up supporting what I've said!
And they're too stupid to realize it!!!-
Bingo!
Triple Bingo-- with a Cherry on top!
I am so disgusted by what is going on there, I can barely read this.
The Turks are doing what they have done for over a century; genocide. They are the inventors of modern genocide. And I don't understand this country. These are Christians being killed. It was sickening when it was our Kurd allies, but now we are turning our backs on Christians?
If I was Israel, I wouldn't trust this administration for a bloody second. Apparently genocide is fine when it is inconvenient for this administration.
The Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Turks...
A photo of Armenia women stripped and crucified by the Turks during the Armenia genocide of 1915/19.
BTW, for those of you who don't know Armenians are Christians.
The Kurds were active participants in the Armenian genocide. The Kurdish region in Turkey is adjacent to Armenia. The Kurds ethnically cleansed their region to establish autonomy over the region. The Kurds are separatists who have historically wanted to establish their own nation of Kurdistan and the Armenians were in the way. Europe made promises for creation of a Kurdistan when Europe was dividing up the Levant and Middle East. But the Europeans didn't keep their promises.
Turkish Kurds are Turks according to Europe's division of the region. Like it or not, the Kurds bear a large share of responsibility for the Armenian genocide.
Some Kurds did participant in the Armenian genocide. I have never denied that.
There is a couple of difference and this is not excusing the Kurds that were part of it. They have admitted their participation something the Turks have never done and have activitly denied that they did commit genocide.
Just like some Germans, Poles, French, Austrians, and Italians participated in the Jewish holocaust.
The Kurds in Turkey are Turks. And the Armenian genocide was predominantly focused in the Kurdish region of eastern Turkey. Oddly the first phase of the Armenian diaspora forced Armenians into northern Syria; the region of Syria now claimed by the Syrian Kurds.
As did some Romanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians and Slovakians. Shall we keep going?
By law people born in Turkey are Turks. You might want to ask a Turk if they consider Kurds to be ''real'' Turks.