WEBVTT - What’s Happening In Rojava 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:04.800 Also media. 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:07.680 Hi everyone, and welcome to the podcast. It's me James 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:11.360 today and I'm joined by Danny. Danny's an engineering photographer 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:14.040 who lived in North East Syria from twenty eighteen until 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.919 twenty twenty three and a founding member of the RISE, 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.800 which is the Rajarva Information Center if you're not familiar, 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:22.599 and she worked for self administration Civil Engineering while she 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:24.360 was there. Welcome to show Danny. 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:26.440 Hi James, it's really good to be on Yeah. 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:28.240 Jas, thanks thanks for coming. I know it's like a 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:32.080 stressful time. So what I thought we would do is 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.520 there's been a lot of reporting on Syria that people 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.479 have probably seen if they're living in the US or 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:40.640 the UK. Nearly all of it has either excluded or 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:44.080 like footnoted what's happening in North and East Syria and 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.560 specifically in the areas that are under a self administration. 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:50.960 So I was hoping today we could give people a 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:52.879 little more introduction to what's happening there. There's been a 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:56.080 lot of like jubilation about what's happening in Syria, and 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:58.840 things have been very far from universally positive. 0:00:59.000 --> 0:00:59.120 Right. 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:02.520 There's a massive dis placement of civilians, ethnic lensing of 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.559 areas that have been captured by the Turkish Baksterian National 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.800 Army and genuine like peril for the self administration project, 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:12.120 the like of which we haven't seen for a long time. 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.360 So perhaps if listeners an't familiar, would you give them 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.200 the real basics of the self administration of the AA 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.200 ANDES and what it means and what's going on there. 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:25.720 Yeah, well that's a big question because it's like it's 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.240 a big project. It's been going on for quite some time. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.679 it really has. It's kind of been lost in discussions 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.119 and news about the Serian Civil War because it has 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:40.560 been such a complex, multipolar, multi access, multi ethnic conflict, 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.920 and it's been going on for what like thirteen fourteen 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:48.160 years now, yeah, coming up to fourteen years. The Kurds 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.560 in the northeast had been preparing for some time before 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.480 the outbreak of civil war back in twenty eleven for 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:57.960 something like this. Obviously they didn't they didn't know this 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.880 was going to happen. That they had been working on 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:08.840 revolutionary emancipation for decades, and in particular since around two thousand, 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:13.000 they've been working on this concept of democratic and federalism, 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.800 which is moving away from a sort of what they 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:20.960 call an old paradigm of Marxist Leninist thought to this 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:26.120 system they've now quite effectively built up there where democracy 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:30.520 is bottom up. It's structured around small communes and self 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.400 organizing units, cooperatives. There's a market economy, but it's not 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.760 a catalyst economy where there's sort of radical emancipation of 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:42.920 oppressed to people's particular women who are really centered in 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.240 the revolutionary process and organizing there. And I think because 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.560 they maybe you can't call them conflict avoided, that they 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:54.440 haven't avoided conflict. They very famously defeated Isis amongst other 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.639 groups in the northeast, they fought against Alan's Refront and 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:04.919 various other Hadi groups. They also didn't enter into serious 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.480 conflict with either their FSA as they were, or the 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.200 regime and the assad regime, and so they kind of 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.720 managed to carve out a sort of democratic and semi enclave. 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:18.480 I mean people who describe it as a state that 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.120 they quite vehemently say it's not a state in the 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:26.760 northeast of Syria. Whilst the worst of the fighting was 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.600 between the Assid regime and the FSA and groups that 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:34.280 came out of the FSA in the west and south 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:34.920 of the country. 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.480 Yeah, I think it's very good summary. I think like 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:41.680 it gets missed maybe because of how relatively successful it's 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:46.480 been compared to other democratization projects within Syria. It gets 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:50.000 missed that like when people are talking about what will 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:54.080 happen in Syria now bizarrely and I don't quite like 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:56.800 I don't quite understand how we get here, but people 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.240 seem to go to like Libya or I understand how 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:04.120 we get here process like orientalism and ignorance, but we 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:08.200 have a functioning democracy an example of like, it's not 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.200 just Kurdish people, right, it's lots of communities living together 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.320 in northern East Syria, and because of democratic and federalism 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.479 they're able to coexist and still feel that they have 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.640 enough sovereignty to be safe. Is that fair? 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:24.560 Yeah? Yeah, absolutely, And I think something that it's hard 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.720 to convey or fully understand unless you spend a lot 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.880 of time there or you're deeply involved with any of 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.240 these communities, is quite how hard that was to do. Yeah, 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.880 a lot of different ethnic groups, political groups that hate 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.800 each other, you know. Yeah, the Kurds, they brought in 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.600 lots of different policies like their right to be taught 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.640 in your mother tongue. When they took power twenty twelve onwards, 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:52.080 they were very keen not to just sort of replace 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.799 everything with Kurdish, make a Kurdish state, you know, start 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.440 being the oppressor and sort of be oppressed. They made 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:02.240 sure that they continue us An Arabic as the majority 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:04.719 language because it is the majority language. That the north 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.479 and east of Syria is still an Arab majority area, 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.960 and this is despite the fact that they've been pretty 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:14.279 horrendously oppressed by the Arab population through the Bath Party 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.360 and its oppressive systems for decades. So it has been 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:22.599 a pretty hard ongoing process to negotiate and to put 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.800 aside pretty serious conflicts between quite a few different groups 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:27.679 that exist there. 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:30.680 Yeah, it won't be any easier of across the whole 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.440 country than it was there, but like, they have a 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.520 system that works, and it's kind of frustrating to see 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:40.440 these discussions of what happens next that just ignore the 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.640 fact that there's a functioning multi ethnic democracy right there. 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:46.719 So if we do just look at women's liberation, you know, 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:48.760 I've reported from lots of places around the world, lots 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:50.479 of places in that part of the world, and the 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:54.560 difference is profound in like everyday life. It's not just 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.680 a kind of rhetorical commitment, right, Like, at least my 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.200 impression as a man is that, like, this is a 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.200 revolution by women, not a revolution and it's about women. 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:06.960 It's not a revolution by men that like seeks to 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.080 liberate women, says it's going to liberate women, you know, 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.200 with the US in verie Afghanistan saying it's going to 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:13.880 liberate women, and look what we got. And like the 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.280 difference in just the way people are able to live, 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.880 like every aspect of everyday life is completely different. But 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.520 that's in danger right now. The narrative I guess that 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:26.640 people will be familiar with from Syria is that the 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.160 state has been defeated, the A Sad regime has been defeated, 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:35.080 and that therefore the revolution has succeeded. But the A 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.919 Sad regime is not the only state in play in Syria, right, So, 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:42.760 can you explain the Turkish antipathy to the project in 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.520 northern East Syria and how that's manifesting itself currently. 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.239 Yeah, it's pretty hard to discuss any of the stuff 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:54.440 without talking about Turkey and without understanding where they're coming from. Yeah, 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:59.480 I think it's something that is said enough or understood 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:04.120 enough that the modern state of Turkey is an nationalist project. 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:06.720 And you know, I don't say that as a slur. 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.320 That's like a basic founding principle of the state. It's 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:14.240 a state founded on genocide and the mass for demographic 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:19.080 change across the whole country. And it's continued that way, 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.679 and there have been reforms for sure, but that's still 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:28.080 a founding principle. And even now sort of speaking a 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.080 non Turkish language in the Turkish Parliament is a pretty 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.080 serious violation. And the size of Turkey, the size of 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.520 its economy, the size of its military, the regional power 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.600 status they have in the Middle East means that they 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.480 have an enormous gravity. They have an enormous amount of 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.200 power over Syria. A lot of the goods and services 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:51.440 that Syria relies on coming through Turkey or rely on 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:56.640 the Turkish industry, and the Turkish military is a huge 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:01.960 supporter of their groups in the northwestam and the Syrian 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:07.720 National Army, and of course the Kurdish question within Turkey 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:12.600 is the main reason for their antipathy towards the What's 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.040 been built up in North East Syria. As much as 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:19.680 the self determination for oppressed people's minorities is something that's 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:23.280 an issue, the fact that it's Kurdish led, and in 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:28.680 particular it's emancipating for Kurdish people threatens this nationalist aspect 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:32.559 of their state, and they kind of they see it 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:34.199 something that needs to be nipped in the Bud right, 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:39.040 and they've they've sort of done that with Northern Iraq, 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:43.640 that the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq by essentially vassalizing 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.400 the KDP, the main party there, and they know they 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.520 can't do the same in North Eastyria, and the military 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:55.160 option is their best chance, their best hope of nipping 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.800 Kurdish emancipation in Kurdish sub determination in the Bud and 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.760 preventing it from sort of snowboarding across the region. 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:05.800 Yeah, I think we should probably mention that, Like I 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.280 guess if we talk about like the electoral method or 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:13.000 the electoral path people in Turkish Kurdistan, in Northern Kurdistan, 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:15.240 if you want to call it. In addition to the 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.760 arms struggle which has been there since nineteen eighty four, 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:20.839 they have also like tried to vote and repeatedly seen 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:26.319 their votes ignored or changed, or their elected officials removed. 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:28.200 Like this is within the last year, I'm not talking 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.280 about back in the eighties and nineties, and like Turkey 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.800 has been aggressively attacking any attempts at like self determination 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.520 within the country and then as you say, like militarily 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:43.679 attacking the Kurdish freedom movement within North and Eassyria. Do 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.680 you want to talk about the Syrian National Army or 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.040 the Turkish back Free Syrian Army, whatever you want to 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:52.200 call them, and explain, Like, I think part of what 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.120 we're dealing with is like that Turkey has a very 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.920 well established state media project and they seem to do 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.960 very well and like creating viral social media content. So 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.760 people might not be fully familiar with who the SNA 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.640 are and specifically like Turkey's role in creating them. Do 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:09.200 you want to explain that a bit to people? 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:11.880 Yeah, I mean this is this is one of the 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:14.920 reasons why I think it's so hard for people to 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.400 report on the Syrian Civil War. It's very hard to 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.839 convey like a simple coherent narrative of one side versus 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.960 the other, you know, like Ukraine versus Russia. The Russian 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.360 world and the Ukrainian world, because there are there are 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:29.440 so many different groups in the sna IS that it's 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.880 an important one and they are their group. Together with 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:37.720 this concept of the rebels that have liberated Syria, despite 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:41.079 the fact that they're not actually part of High Alshan, 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.800 the liberation movement as it calls itself, that have taken 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:50.520 over the Syria. Yeah, the Syrian National Army, it's it's 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.959 kind of like a loose collection of various some of 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:59.720 them called themselves brigades or groups. It's essentially a military 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:05.840 proxy force of Turkey. They don't have a coherent political framework. 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:10.120 They're not revolutionary groups. They're not liberatory or mancipatory. They 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:12.200 wouldn't describe themselves as that in the same way that 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:16.840 maybe HTS would. I mean, the Kurds in North Eastyria 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.480 describe them as gangs, which kind of sounds like a 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:21.440 propagana term, but when you actually look at what they do, 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.440 they really are like a sort of a criminal enterprise, 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.840 a criminal gang that's used as a convenient proxy for 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.640 force by Turkey because ultimately Turkey has like a massive 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:37.000 military then maybe is quite underfunded and not particularly ast 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.280 After the air force has suffered pretty seriously from the 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.800 fallout of the cop in twenty sixteen. But the army 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.840 is massive, it's relatively well funded, in their drone program 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:51.320 is huge. The thing that they struggle with is the 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:55.800 losses that are incurred against Kurdish groups, particularly the PKK 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.719 in the mountains between Ark and Turkey. And they need 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.680 to control that because they realized that they've been fighting 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.640 military because as you say, since the early nineteen eighties, 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.000 and they can't have a vitnance situation right of a 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:14.360 mass movement against their military occupation and against their military efforts. 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:19.640 And Syria, they can't afford financially or politically to get 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:23.840 into a quagmire there, and so by funding this sort 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.120 of collection of groups called the SNA, that's their way 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.760 of being able to incur pretty massive losses without having 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:35.720 to report on it, without that creating unrest or opposition 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:38.760 within the Turkish population of Turkey. 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:41.080 Right, And I think especially when like some of the 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:43.120 things the SNA have done, which we can maybe get 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:47.960 into in MANPJ like, it gives them a deniability that 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.520 wouldn't exist if that was regular soldiers doing that, Like 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.839 some stuff which is war crimes is I guess a 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.120 nice way of saying it, like a more sanitized way 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.080 of saying it. Horrific stuff, really terrible stuff. This has 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.520 been happening since at least twenty eighteen. But Turkey doesn't 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:04.640 have to be held accountable for that because, like you said, 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.360 it's not Turkish, it's not the Turkish Army. Do you 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.360 want to explain how the situation in North Syria has 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.599 changed since what was it like two weeks ago? A 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:17.520 week ago? I guess that they moved south from Aleppo 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.160 and start the HTS Largy with some support from SNA, 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:25.000 moved towards Damascus, and then the SNA launched its own 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.840 assault on the Self Administration. Can you explain a little 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:31.400 bit of what's happened there in terms of displacement and 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.400 in terms of the terrain that's the SNA have captured. 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:36.960 Yeah, it's been very fast moving now, as you say, 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:40.600 like it's only been two weeks since the Battle Aleppos started, 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.640 if you call it a battle. So the SDH, so 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:49.439 this is like the alliance of military groups that falls 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.480 under the remit of the Self Administration in the north 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.200 East Siria. So the YPG and the YPG are like 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.560 the most famous and largest components of this force, but 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:59.920 there are a whole bunch of Arab and Syrian and 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:04.280 Armenian units within the SDF. They held this sort of 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:09.040 salient pushing out into northwest Aria towards Afrin, which was 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.600 captured by the SNA in Turkey in twenty eighteen. That 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.760 was on one side finded by HTS and on the 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.400 other by the SNA. When things really kicked off, the 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.680 SNA started a pretty concerned campaign to capture this area 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:26.040 and own as Shedpa, and because of its position and 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:31.320 it's relatively difficult terrain and difficult logitical position to resupply, 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.960 they pulled back from that towards Aleppo and man Beach, 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.720 which is the only major city that the SDS still 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:43.680 held on the west of the Euphrates. It's the area 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.880 closest to Aleppo. They got hit pretty hard. If you 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:49.960 follow a live upday map or and you vie sort 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.760 of update maps, it looked like that. That's pretty quickly. Actually, 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.920 it ended up being a sort of large gray zone 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:01.840 of the gorilla attacks and potential still ongoing. It's been 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:03.960 really murking hot tell what's going on there, But essentially 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:08.280 there's a large area of uncontrolled but heavily contested territory 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:12.120 between Aleppo and the Euphrates River now and which the 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:13.920 SDF and the SNA have been fighting over. 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:14.880 Like. 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:16.120 One of the curious things for me is that the 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:19.360 Turkish Air Force and literally did not get involved for 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.200 a while, but after about a week they did, and 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.520 they started hitting man Beach very very heavily. And at 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:29.360 that point, when the center of man Beach started being 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.640 contested and for over, the US stepped in. We don't 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:34.080 know the details of it, but there seems to have 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:37.560 been some kind of negotiation whereby the suggestion is that 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:41.600 if the SDF fighters pulled back across the Euphrates, the 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.320 SDF would assure their protection from any further resorts. We 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.480 don't know how true that is, and we know that 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:52.480 today further negotiations on this failed. But it's really hard 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:56.240 to tell right now as we speak what's disinformation and 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:00.200 what's truth, because stuff's only coming out officially in ribs. 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.160 Traps, yeah, and stuff's coming out unofficially often that it's 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:09.280 just not true, yeah, every five minutes and getting blasted 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:12.960 by maybe people who just don't understand or who do understand, 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.920 but have a certain agenda to push on social media, 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.640 especially but on telegram too, and it can be really confusing, 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:20.720 it's really frustrating. 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.120 Yeah. For instance, like just before we came on air, 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:25.360 I saw a couple of videos being posted by pro 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:31.000 Turkish accounts purportedly showing mass troop concentrations lined up against 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:35.040 this border war waiting to invade. And I realized that 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.320 they were from two thousand and nineteen, when Sarah Kane 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:42.480 and Tellerbayad were invaded, and they were just reposting material 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:47.960 from then, you know, as disinformation on these movements and 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.600 whether in Ta's going to happen, what the negotiations between 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:54.720 the US and Turkey turned out to be. And the 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.280 truth is like right now, we don't know exactly what's 0:16:57.320 --> 0:16:57.680 going on. 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:00.640 Yeah, and like you probably won't and that's probably a 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.200 good thing. One other thing is that like the SDF 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:08.200 tends to have much better operational security discipline than the 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:12.240 SNA does, so you won't see as much of like 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:16.800 media with an SDF spin or people directly streaming. I mean, 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.680 one thing the SDNA likes to do is a war 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.600 crime and then post it on Telegram and so like 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:24.760 it can be easy to only see that and be like, 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.240 oh god, it's terrible, and it is terrible. Those things 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:29.919 are horrific. But like, because you're not seeing when the 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.720 SDF is making movements or making advances until a bit later, 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.040 until you get something from like an official press channel, 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:38.600 it can give the impression that the SNA is just 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:40.680 romping around, which is not the case. 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.320 Yeah, we saw this a few times when manbut is 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.879 reported to being captured by the SNA and they posted 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:51.080 video of themselves in the middle of the city, and 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.520 then an hour later, the SDF posted a video from 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:55.640 the center of the city of twenty or thirty dead 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.639 SNA litting about the streets and then flying their own flag. 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.840 So yeah, yeah, it's really it's really hard to tell. 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:05.920 It's also really hard as like anyone who cares about 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.600 the region has been there, is reported on it. Anyone 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:13.520 interested in the kind of politics that the Kurds are 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:15.920 built up in the region and others I should says, 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.960 you know, it's been a multithink project if you care 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:20.760 about that. It's really hard not to be glued to 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:23.399 social media to see what's going on, but it can 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.560 be quite detrimental to morrow it can be quite an 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.119 active self harm to be like constantly checking on this 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.080 because it's so mucky. Yeah, and as you say, like 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.639 things can turn around within two hours of infer or 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:35.720 distance for getting out there. 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.280 Yeah, And I think it's it's a super important time 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:44.080 to be looking at trusted sources and be considering if 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:46.320 you need to be on telegram that much, something I 0:18:46.400 --> 0:19:00.399 have been considering this weekend. So let's talk about like 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.520 right now, certainly the focus is on Kabani, right, but 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.920 there's also well, there's a lot of the self administration 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.639 that could potentially be under threat if Turkey decides to 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:14.120 go as hard as as it can against the self administration, 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:18.080 against the existence of I guess any form of democratic 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.960 project in northern Easteria of attempts to kind of bring 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:24.199 the whole thing under one government from Damascus. Can you 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:28.040 explain like what might happen, what people can do, and 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:30.600 like we should talk about what's at stake as well, 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.639 especially with the prisoner our whole, which maybe we can 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:35.960 come to after those two things, because I think that's 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.320 a lot to ask you one question, but maybe people 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.119 aren't familiar with our whole. We'll leave that one. But 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:43.040 can you explain at first, like what could potentially happen 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.640 if Turkey decides to go as hard as it wants 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:46.040 to hear? 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:48.159 I mean, I think the best way to answer that 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:50.679 question is to look at what's already happened. So in 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:56.200 twenty eighteen and nineteen, they already captured three significant cities 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:58.720 and that were under control of the self administration to 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.639 the first and most famously was Afrin, which was in 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.600 the far northwest of the country, like just north of Villeppo, 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:09.680 sort of jutting out into Turkey. That was a majority 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.040 Kurdish city. I don't know exactly, does it with something 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.440 like eighty or ninety percent, which I think is higher 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:18.320 than any other city in northern Syria. And it was 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.120 also like it's seen the least fighting of pretty much 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:23.560 anywhere in Syria by that point. So the war had 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:27.560 been going on for like what seven years, and Afin 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:31.480 was pretty much untouched. So it was in a pretty 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:36.280 good state. And Turkey and the SNA invaded just as 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.639 the war against ISIS was winding down, and I mean, 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.840 it's become a hell on Earth. It's been almost completely depopulated. 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:47.159 I think it's less than ten percent now Kurdish ethnically, 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:49.560 it has been ruled by a number of different groups. 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:51.639 We can say the SNA, but you know, different groups 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:53.919 within the SNA and have fought over it. At the 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:56.840 HTS at times have had control over certain parts of 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.600 the area, and there's been a in fighting. There's been 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:07.800 horrendous war crimes committed, great murder, thousands of disappeared people, 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.520 and as you say, they really like to openly put 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.920 videos out of them committing this stuff. I mean, they're 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:19.400 pretty shameless about it. There are some pretty disturbing videos 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:24.919 that they're mutilating the bodies of fallen WIPJ soldiers, of 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:28.520 coming some re executions, of wiping out whole towns. It's 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:33.879 been awful. And the same thing happened again in twenty nineteen 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:38.639 around in October when they captured as Sarah Khane and Talabayad. 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.239 And it's worth also pointing out that these were not 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:43.520 Kurdish majority city surprise, and so I think that Sarah 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:48.320 Karney maybe was about fifty percent and Telebiads, which is 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.240 kind of close to Kurbani, I'm pretty sure wasn't Kurlish 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:55.720 majority city. B was organized under the self administration and 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:58.560 it was organized quite effectively, and they committed the same 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:03.280 horrific crimes there. They are an anti Kurdish for so 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.679 if we can say that they are racist, they do 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:10.719 have a stated goal of committing genocide against the Kurts. 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:13.200 That's not an exaggeration. There's something they openly say. But 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:18.080 they don't seem to care who they steal from, or 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.480 who they rape or who they extort. Wherever they go, 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:26.159 it's death and destruction. And it still is now, And 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:28.439 there's still something like a quarter of a million internally 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:33.480 displaced people from these areas in North Essyria hoping to 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:36.040 go back and now having to see the situation get 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:37.639 even worse and not knowing if they ever well be 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:38.000 able to. 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:41.760 Yeah, and I think like you were talking about, like 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:44.560 we're seeing it right now in man Beach, right like 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.960 the SNA seems to lie. You be in controlled of 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:52.119 the city, albeit with YPG fighters kind of boring and 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:54.960 I guess in a gorilla role, so it would seem 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:57.280