WEBVTT - Turkish Drone Strikes in North and East Syria 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:09.400 What foreign my policy. I don't know. 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:11.480 I don't know, Guys, I don't know. I got like 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:15.520 trapped into this like pattern of doing introductions a certain way, 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.680 and I don't really I don't really feel good about it. 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:21.040 But how do you? How does one break their patterns? 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:26.680 Speaking of patterns, let's talk about Syria. 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:28.440 Beautiful. 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:31.640 Yeah, I understand what that meant. 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:34.960 I feel like one of the basketball guys when someone 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:36.680 lays him up and then he just does a dunk. 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:40.200 That's what I feel like. I don't know about Green 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.560 Green Bay Packers swish mm. 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:48.760 Hmmm, yep, go Tom Brady, okay, uh okay, sports sports 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:53.240 talk aside. I'm wearing my Rwanda football shirt today. We 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:58.240 were gathered here today and to talk about Turkey strone 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.160 strikes on their stye. 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.800 Y yay, not funny, not funny, yeah, the sday funny. 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:08.920 We're talking about like Turkish the continued Turkish military operations 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:13.480 across their border in northeast Syria, the area commonly known 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.080 as ro Java, and also in southern Turkey as well. 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:18.520 Yeah. 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:23.080 Yeah, So just to give some numbers around this to 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.560 start off right, and you're twenty twenty two, which there 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:29.400 wasn't a territorial offensive, so like you're not seeing like 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.920 troops on the ground. Turkey carried out one hundred and 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:37.240 thirty drone strikes in the Autonomous Administration of North East Syria. Yeah, 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.480 that's the place is more commonly known as Rojova, and 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.160 they killed at least eight WYPPJ members and sort of 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:50.480 WIPJ would be the Women's Protection Forces who are a 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:56.160 unit within the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is the armed 0:01:56.200 --> 0:02:00.640 forces of the an E s Autonomous Area Northeast Aria. 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.000 I will come at you really hard with acronyms in this. 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.440 I think if people haven't listened to Roberts series Women's War, 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.840 maybe the Women's War, that would be a good place 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.560 to start, because like we only have half an hour 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.200 of forty five minutes or whatever, and we can't explain 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.600 an extremely complicated conflict which has been going on for 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.440 twelve years in that time. So I think some grounding 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:26.880 in who is who and what is what you can 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.880 find it there, I guess. But it's that a fair 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:31.680 summary of who those people are. Robert. 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.240 Yeah, basically, so you had kind of the gist of 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:37.520 the story is that for a very long time, starting 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:41.760 in southern Turkey, there's been a Kurdish militant group called 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.359 the PKK. They were way back in the day, originally Maoist. 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.440 They had a bunch of internal power struggles within their 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:55.359 own organization and then wound up taking a pretty wide 0:02:55.520 --> 0:03:00.360 turn away from Maoism towards a kind of political theory 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.240 heavily influenced by the work of an American anarchist thinker 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.640 named Murray Bukchin. This was largely due to the fact 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:11.080 that their leader, a guy named abdolah Ajalon, got while 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.600 he was in Turkish prison kind of pilled on a 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:20.040 lot of these this kind of like fringe American libertarian 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:25.480 ish sort of political philosophy. Yeah, with this basically the 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.440 gist of it is this this kind of this kind 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.560 of synthetic, this kind of synthesis of a lot of 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.040 Bukchen's ideas with some of the stuff that Agelog had 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:39.040 been had been thinking about for years, kind of culminated 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:45.840 in uh political philosophy called libertarian municipalism, which is more 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.640 or less the governing philosophy that these different armed militant 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:54.800 organizations kind of clustered around the PKK in Northeast Syria 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:57.040 because the PKK for years were just kind of like 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.240 crossed the border in the northeast Syria when they were 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.040 fighting with the Turk and they had to get away, 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.320 and they had a bunch of inroads with local Kurdish 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:08.680 organizations in northeast Syria. And when the Asad regime pulled 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:10.520 out of the area in the early stages of the 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.800 Syrian Civil War, a lot of these groups that were 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.720 affiliated with the p PKK were kind of the best 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:21.520 organized organizations in the area, and so they took over 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:25.120 a lot of civil administration and basing a lot of 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:29.479 their their plans and you know, functional activities around these 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.479 ideas that Ajalon had been you know, writing about for 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.640 years and years, and so you kind of have this 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.680 mix of all these armed organizations that are to some 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:43.800 extent descended from the PKK, but are now much broader 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:46.800 than just sort of a Kurdish liberatory organization. These are 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:52.200 the folks who fought and defeated ISIS in northeast Syria. Yeah, 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.760 that's I don't know, there's there's so much to get into, 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.600 but I guess that's kind of the the broad strokes 0:04:57.600 --> 0:04:59.160 and all of these different because there's a bunch of 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.360 different militias. You know, there's there's militias that are kind 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:06.920 of more traditionalist Arab militias. There's there's Armenian militias in 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.160 the area. There's obviously these Kurdish militias, the YPG and 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.800 the YPG primarily Kurdish militias, but they all fight under 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.599 the banner of the SDF and to the Turks, they're 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:18.520 all the PKK. 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.440 Yes, I'm glad you mentioned all the different militias and stuff, 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:24.800 because it gets really confusing, like even I mean, I'm 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:27.640 Syrian and I'm just like, I cannot keep up. I 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:29.400 talked to my parents about it too, and they're just like, 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.919 that's it's it's complicated. So I think you did a 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.160 good job breaking that down. I also want to mention 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.560 they were the only people fighting ISIS in Syria. Yeah, 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.000 so I think it's pretty notable to mention. Yeah. 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.320 Yeah, I got a list of the found in groups 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.159 of the SDF. So this happens in twenty fifteen, right, 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:52.960 sort of earlier in the fight against ISIS, and some 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.200 of these groups had this sended. Latrin said, not from 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.560 the YPJ or the YPG. And Robbie said this to 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.200 you that they come from the FSA, the Free Syrian Army, 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:03.280 Like there's specifically the f s A around the Kabani 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.880 area contributing elements. There's a Syriac Military Council, so that's 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:11.920 a distinct ethnic group. There is the jayash or al 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:13.479 if I said. 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.560 That, right, uh no, but I can say, if you are. 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:27.159 Please do magical thank yoush. 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:29.800 Means army or like army Jish. It's it's annoying because 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.839 the English is spelled jish, but it's just a Jewish. 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:34.400 Yeah. 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.799 Yeah, the Revolutionary Army, army of revolutionaries, I guess more accurately, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.719 who are another mixed ethnicity group. They like Robertsent, include Turkmen, Armenians, 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.239 all kinds of different ethnic groups. So at this point 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:50.240 there the entity that is the SDF is a majority 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.360 Arab entity. And it's not like an ethnic Kurdish thing, 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.800 and and and the Autonomous Administration is not like a 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.279 kurdishth no state, which I think is something that people 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:06.839 can sometimes either confuse or conflate. But like that that's 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.120 not the case, right that That's not what this sort 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:12.480 of democratic confederalism is about, nor is it what's represented 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:15.120 in terms of the composition of the people that people 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:19.120 doing the fighting, right, So sometimes these groups will be 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.920 referred to on massos quote unquote the kurd. 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.880 You should by how kind of messy. My explanation was, 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.760 it is hard to walk people through this. Folks eyes 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:29.840 tend to glaze over, for one thing, when you mention 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:33.200 a certain number of acronyms. But this leads to a 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.880 situation whereby the US news is just like the Kurds 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.960 defeated Isis in northeast Syria. It was like, no, there was, 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:41.080 there were a whole lot of other people who did 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:42.200 a lot of dying. 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.520 When involved, and some Kurds who were not involved. 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:50.240 So also just so much infighting. I think that it 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.400 gets I don't know, it's it's a lot. 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:53.040 It is. 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.440 It is a lot like saying the Americans defeated the 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.600 Nazis and it's like, well, there are. 0:07:57.560 --> 0:07:59.680 Some other people who involved in the world. 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.280 Yeah, yeah, well yeah, I've seen some films from it. 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.280 And let me tell you, yes, I think I think 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.440 Ruben's right, like it collapses two things, right, like the 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.800 heterogeneity of Kurdish people, right, different Kurdish areas, of different 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:17.640 Kurdish movements, and the heterogeneity of the SDF, so yeah, 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:19.800 mainstream use sometimes yeah, because it's shocking. 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.680 It is also worth noting like Kurds are not certainly 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:28.040 not a like a monolithic group. For examine North the 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:31.760 Assyria is like flat lands lowlands, and there's a big 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.240 difference between the mountain Kurds and the Kurds who live 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.800 in these like lowlands, and traditionally even like a lot 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.240 of like bad blood and stuff between different groups, because 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.760 you know, that's just the way human beings are. 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:49.640 Like, yeah, yeah, it's really easy, I think for when 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.400 we're consuming news, especially news about the part of the 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.959 world that the populace here hasn't been spectacularly well informed 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.800 on to break things down into easy groups, right, Like 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:02.480 you'll see a lot as well, like Sunni and shi'ah as, 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:06.760 like the two categories that can exist within like and 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:07.520 then people get. 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.120 Very confused when there are categories within that when when 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:14.320 they're where there are Sunni groups fighting each other, and 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.640 the same with like Kurds or Turkmen or whatever, like 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.880 none of these groups are homogeneous. And sometimes yeah, if 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:23.000 you do, I get it. If you're doing a five 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.880 minute piece for TV, that's what you do. But here 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:27.880 we are not doing a five minute piece for TV. 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:31.560 So this is this has not been like Kurdish history. 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:33.680 One O one, please read some more books about that. 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.480 I'll put some in the sources. But what I want 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.359 to talk about today is some of these bairaktar attacks 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.960 on specifically YPG. Right, so the YPJ would be the 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.719 Women's Defense Forces, So that's a women's militia within the 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:53.680 SDF that, as Roberts said, it's based heavily. I guess 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:59.000 on the outlook of Abdulah Oscelin, who's sometimes called Appo. 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.960 Might use that for brevity here. So in one attack 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.679 in April twenty twenty two, three YPGA fighters were killed. 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.600 De la Jaleb, who had participated in the resistance of 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:13.960 the Sheik Masoud district of Aleppo. In twenty twelve, she 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.600 become a leading YPGA commander and participate in the fight 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.040 against ISIS, playing a leading role in the liberation of 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:23.440 the city of Mimbic Rahani Kabani. It's worth noting, I guess, sorry, 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.680 I stop every fifteen seconds to explain context that you'll 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.280 hear sometimes place names in people's names. That's because they're 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:31.640 like Norm de Geer, rather than that this is not 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:36.240 their legal name necessarily, but it's it's standard practice for 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:38.520 these people to take like a movement name or a 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.640 nom de gueer, much like Robert and I explained in 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:45.400 the episodes on Miamma, A lot of people do this 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:46.400 a lot of places. 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:51.400 Is that fair, Robert, Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:53.880 of Like oftentimes people just like take a name based 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:56.679 on their city that they came from, like Kobani or whatever. 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:59.800 But yeah, it's pretty much the norm that most people, 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.160 most fighters will introduce themselves by some sort of nobdaguere. 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.320 Yeah, and even some of the I know people who 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:09.880 are like British or American who have been over there, 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:11.559 who are over there, and they also have. 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.160 These Yeah, and there's a lot in that. One thing 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:16.599 you have to keep in mind is that, like a 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.600 lot of these people who are revolutionaries who consider themselves 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:23.640 revolutionaries have family in regime controlled parts of town or 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.680 parts of Syria or in you know, in Idlip, which 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:32.800 is largely controlled by these like more Turkish backed Islamist groups. 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.160 And so part of why you do this is like 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:37.959 I don't want my family like getting caught up in 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:40.319 this shit, like if they live somewhere else, like I 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.080 don't want to like bring that down on them. It's 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:42.760 just safer. 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.800 Yeah, just like when we did our episodes, right, we 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:51.360 had Miaok and Andy and Sarah. Another woman, as I said, 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:56.320 Rohani Kabane joined the YPGA in twenty fourteen. She fought 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.800 against ISIS. She was wounded. She participated after recovering and 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.920 that in the liberation of Rakka and she was the 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.040 co chair of the defense committee in Kabani. And then 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.120 there was the youngest, the youngest woman she just joined. 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:11.160 I guess or her joined at a young age and 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:16.480 she was called Kabani and she uh like she joined 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.079 after the fight against ISIS. She she was very young. 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.040 There are pictures I'll include the report. It's very sad 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:23.280 to see someone, Yeah, I think so. 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:25.800 Yeah, they look they look like there's a couple of 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.640 them that look like babies. Like it's it's really devastating 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:32.520 because it's I don't know, their lives are taken from 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:37.439 them and they joined to it's it's it's it's empowering, 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.520 and then it's devastating because it's just like they fought 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:44.440 so hard and then they they were assassinated, literally they 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:45.000 were murdered. 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:50.600 Yeah, it's when especially when you consider that so many 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.600 of these, like the women who fought against ISIS right 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.400 like and I think we could probably understand why women 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.400 would would want to do that, like wanted to create 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.160 a place where young girls could grow up and be 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:03.840 who they wanted to be and then do what they 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:04.600 wanted to do and. 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:06.880 Not have to. 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:12.040 Obviously like kaw Tao. So that's extremely violent misogynist organization 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.000 like ISIS, but also not necessarily have to fight either, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.400 and you know, could be self realized and whatever way 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.320 they wanted to. And so to see these people having 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:24.880 achieved their goal largely of I guess I still exists, right, 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.000 and I still continues to kill people. It killed ten 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:32.040 people yesterday, but that's the eighth of August, because you 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:36.640 won't hear this today. But to see these people who 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.040 have like successfully at least liberated the territory, and then 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:45.800 the young women are still dying but not finding ISIS, 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.040 but find Turkey, I can go on and give like 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.560 there are dozens of examples of this report. Another one 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.480 I'll just give in July twenty twenty two, there's a 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:59.439 YPJ commander called j Kabur and a fighter called barin Botan, 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.960 so one of them had been and then another one 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:09.400 called another YPG commander called Jian Tall Hidden Tall Hidden. 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.040 So these two women have been involved in the fight 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:19.400 against isis like from the beginning, having like liberated cities, 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:21.680 liberated territory. And then they were with this young woman 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.880 who was nineteen years old and had relatively recently joined 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.360 the YPG right and was killed by a drone strike. 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.320 It's like it's particularly galling, I think for me at 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.360 least two so that the YPG Information Office is someone 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.120 that I communicate with, like for work stuff, and it's 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:42.760 particularly galling to like wake up Brent and see that 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.280 on your phone, like to get a message and look 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.000 at a report, see a picture of a car like 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.320 blown to pieces. At the same time as like the 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.720 Birectori is a drone that Turkey has sold to Ukraine 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.760 in large numbers, right, which has been hugely effective in 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:00.080 destroying Russian armor. And like it's currently. 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.920 At least was it's it's it seems to not really work. 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.040 I mean a lot of stuff has changed obviously, like 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:10.680 new technology is extremely effective early on before there's countermeasure anyway, whatever, 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:12.040 we don't need to get nerdy about this. 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.640 Yeah, yeah, it's certainly. Like in the first months of 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.000 their war, the war in Ukraine became like a meme. 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.360 You you can buy a stuffed birector on et ceo eBay, 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.120 like like a soft toy, like a Teddy Bear. There 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.880 are songs about it. 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:32.080 It's not it's not great. 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.000 Yeah it was, and it was one of those things 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:38.760 where like, obviously I was happy to see effective tools 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.880 being used by the Ukrainians to like defend their home, yes, 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.000 of course, but I'm not ever going to get up 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:49.680 and stand the Turkish defense industry or yeah, defense like 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.240 industry for the for the record, I feel the same 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.320 way about like the people standing standing you know, different 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:00.000 US defense contractors making stuff like you know, long range 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.240 missile systems. Like no, I'm not, I'm not really a 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:03.880 fan of that. 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:04.680 Like I get it. 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.960 Sometimes, you know, when you're being invaded, you use the 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.840 tools available, But that doesn't mean we need to celebrate that. 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.600 Yeah, exactly. I think the tools are largely kind of agnostic, 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.920 and anyone who's sort of is making things to kill 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.960 people purely for profit, it's not necessarily a good a 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.880 good thing to do with your life, I guess and like, 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:29.680 it's just troubling to me to see people like cheering 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:33.280 this on without like it highlights one like the way 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:37.320 that people engage with conflict, especially online, especially in the US, 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:42.600 which yeah, it's not a computer game, it's someone's nineteen 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:46.600 year old fucking daughter. It's someone's mum or sister or 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:49.680 brother or uncle or dad or non binary relative. 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.720 The fact that you can buy like a stuffed fucking weapon, 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:58.120 like little drone thing on ebays. It's it's just so disturbing. 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:01.440 I really just don't like humans when I think about that. 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.639 Yeah, I understand why it happens this way, and I 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.600 understand why if your country is being invaded and you 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.760 can get more support from the international community by leaning 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:13.840 into this shit, you lean into this shit. But I 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:15.959 don't like the idea of like some I don't know 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:21.840 fucking accountant in Iowa watching hundreds of videos of like 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:24.639 Russian soldiers being killed and then like getting a fucking 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:30.240 Lockheed Martin tattoo, like the like the like like turning 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:35.639 turning your support for people you know in a deadly 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.800 military conflict into like fandom, treating it the way you 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.200 treat like a Marvel movie or whatever. 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:42.800 I find not great. 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.879 Yeah, it's just not like I understand why. Like I 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.520 wouldn't blame anyone in Ukraine for being super excited about 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.520 having bairagtos because it stops people burning their homes and 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:55.840 killing their children. Yeah, I would want that too. 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.399 No, just like if you're if you're like I have 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.879 a friend who I went like, we were in fucking 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.159 of Divka together, like sheltering with people from Russian shells 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:08.800 and stuff, who then went on to join the Ukrainian 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:12.280 military and has been fighting since the expanded invasion. If 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:14.920 he wants to share videos or watch videos of like, 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.720 you know, dead Russian soldiers from telegram, like that's war. 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.960 It's unpleasant, but I get it. Like again, if you're 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:25.960 some dude in fucking Wisconsin doing the same thing, I 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:33.480 find that pretty unsettling, Like yeah, because you don't need to, Yeah. 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:33.280 No, you don't need to. 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:35.280 You don't need to dehumanize those people so you can 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.439 kill them because you're not killing them. Yeah, but you 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.679 seem to have engaged in that same dehumanization which is 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:44.800 necessary for people fighting, because I don't know, maybe you 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:45.560 think you're helping. 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.760 It's hard to shoot people otherwise, Like Yeah, there's a 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.800 reason that's war hard to fucking banonet. 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.879 People, right, there's a reason that bannet training is one 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.840 of these things that's particularly just kind of it has 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:00.520 to be Ziland. You have to be horrible, you know, 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:04.480 like it's there's no nice way to stab someone. But 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.600 the yeah, it doesn't mean that you need to tweet 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.240 about it, especially folks who maybe aren't peracptice on the 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:16.119 ground familiar. That's what this looks like. So I wanted 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:18.560 to maybe get into a little bit. And there are, 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.320 as I said, dozens of these corone attacks. They're really 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:24.320 ramped up in early twenty twenty three, along with like 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.360 a kind of a larger air offensive. Right, they continue 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:32.720 to happen like almost weekly. If people want to, I 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:36.679 guess keep tabs. YPG Info is the YPJ's kind of 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:41.280 public facing press website. Roger Information Center is a good 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.280 English language resource. Both of those you can. 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:44.880 Find on. 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:53.800 X or if you you can also search of them website. 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.320 Can we just say X, No, we should say wink 0:19:57.320 --> 0:19:58.800 and the ludge. 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:02.960 Yeah, X is not in fact gonna give it to. 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:08.280 Us only like I will understand that way that I 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:08.760 like that. 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:13.080 Yeah, there's a narrow overlap there, buddy, Yeah, you shut 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.119 the get there. Yeah, you know what is going to 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:18.520 give it? And by it I mean the money that 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:23.480 pays our wages to us. What is it, James, It's 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.280 it's combination of products and services. 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:28.040 Wow, man, I love a good product. 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:29.040 Me too. 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.080 I don't love services. Actually, I'm very anti service. But 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:33.920 you know, we'll see, yeah. 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:34.080 We'll see it. 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.000 Might it might change your opinion, it might be something 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:41.720 amazing unlikely, probably gold. But yeah, let's hear from the advertisers. 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.720 All right, we're back. We hope you enjoyed those adverts 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.240 as much as we do. So I want to talk 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:02.640 about in the second half of the episode why Turkey 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:09.040 is using these drones to bomb people who, like we said, 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:13.080 have fought and largely defeated the territorial Caliphate of ISIS. 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:16.760 I did want to bring up one more drone instant actually, 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.240 which is particularly bad. So one of the things that 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.240 you often to see the SDF and specifically the YPG 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:25.760 and the YPG kind of accused of is having child soldiers, 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:29.879 are having recruiting people who are under the aged to fight, 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.439 part of a program they've implemented to stop this with 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:38.240 consultation with the United Nations is building education centers, right. 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:41.960 I'm not going to comment morally on who should be 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.639 fighting at what age, because I think it's one judgment 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:46.399 for us to make when we. 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:48.040 Met isis in the fucking streets? 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:51.640 Yeah, I look, I think there's a degree to which 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:53.840 people are being unreasonable about this. I met a number 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:56.560 of seventeen year olds. It's generally when people talk about 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.320 child soldiers, they are talking about seventeen year olds. I 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:01.880 have friends who's in the US Army when they were 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.160 seventeen years old. Like I have friends who were learning 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:07.600 how to drive a tank for the US military at 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:11.920 age seventeen. And quite frankly, if you look at where 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:16.560 like wars in history, sixteen to twenty years old, that's 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:18.280 most of the people who have fought most of the 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:19.479 wars in most of history. 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:22.080 That's like the way that it is. 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:26.280 It's not pleasant, but like when we are talking like 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:29.360 I certainly I would be very supportive of laws put 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:32.239 in place in our country to raise the age at 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:35.320