I feel for the people who believe in the US as a saviour .....
I was once helped by a kind turkish Iranian taxi driver in Paris and he was saying that he understood the fact that the US always had a keen interest in what was better for itself .... it didnt do charity but looked after it's own interests .... a lot of people who believe in the US as the Saviour should wake up to the fact that there are other world powers now and perhaps soon we should all learn to speak Chinese or some oriental language like North Korean . The hay day of the values of Liberty and cosmopolitan interaction are probably over. the kurds too are in the game of populism and nationalism and they have had their good day .... now that the world is being pushed towards being a "police state" (and Hong Kong is waking up to that) the "dark days are in and "enlightenment" and "humanity" (not humanism) as values are walking out of the door. I just hope that Turkey , which has miraculously and with great courage has already taken on thousands of refugees if not more .... will survive and prosper even for the sake of the people who need it to be a stable shelter for themselves and their families.
As they seek safety away from Turkish shells, Syrian Kurds burn with anger at Donald Trump’s betrayal
Waiting at a roadside depot, Hussein Rammo, a stooped elderly Kurd, his eyes wet with tears, had the look of a broken man. “Betrayal leaves the bitterest taste,” he said, his voice at a whisper as he discussed Donald Trump’s decision to abandon Syria’s Kurds.
“I am 63 years old and I have never seen anything like this. Before there was regime oppression and now we are getting betrayal. This is worse.”
Shells fired by Turkish forces thudded in the distance as Rammo shuffled towards an arriving minibus, along with several dozen other Kurds jostling for seats. Like thousands of others, they were desperate to flee Qamishli, and make their way to anywhere far away from the feared Turkish onslaught. The air and shelling attacks resumed on Friday morning.
Just days into the Turkish offensive against the Kurds in north-east Syria, the region’s biggest city is shuttered and empty. Fighters and those yet to flee make up the few people left on the streets. The bus depot along a rubbish-strewn road is one of the few gathering points left in a city now at war.
Rahima Osman, 52, was waiting with her two grandsons, 12 and three, to catch a ride to Hassakah, a two-hour drive to the south. “My sons have all fought for this cause,” she said, of the Kurds’ partnership with the US to fight the Islamic State terror group. “Two of them died as martyrs.”
Pointing at the youngest boy, Osman said: “This little lad was three months old when his father was martyred. His name is Farhan Lezin. I am taking them to a safe house, as far away from here as I can.”
Anger and confusion rippled through the crowd. “You’re mocking us by being here,” said one man, before he squeezed inside the closing door of a departing bus. Nizamuddin Ibrahim’s anger was more visceral. “After giving 5,000 martyrs, this is how they respond to our sacrifice,” the 41-year-old construction worker shouted. “We are poor people, we have nothing to do with this.”
Then came a family from Kobane, a town at the heart of Syrian Kurdish life long before the war. Kobane was almost completely destroyed in the fighting against Isis, and was again under attack on Thursday. “Many people are leaving town,” said Ismael Muslim Ahmed, standing next to his pregnant wife and clutching their infant son. “I’d say around 40% of the people in Kobane have gone already.
“I was in Aleppo and my house got destroyed, when I got back to Kobane, that house was destroyed too. I’m expecting it to happen a third time. The shelling has been intense.”
Ahmed said hundreds more fleeing Kobane had opted to drive south to the French-built Lafarge cement plant near Raqqa, from where the remnants of the US forces in the region are yet to depart. Some Kobane refugees have made their way to the base demanding that the US protect them, even as the country’s commander-in-chief continues to justify his decision to order troops home.
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