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1. What's going on with Pompeo, Ocalan & US policy? This is my post on Syrian War Crimes Report ordered under 2019 NDAA. By the time Mattis resigned this project should have been completed. What I have been reporting and attempting to prove via since Jan. may already be exposed.
3. The Bush41 1991 Gulf War exposed the brutality of the Iraqi regime including atrocities committed against the Kurds but still Turkey stayed the loyal NATO member permitted to share in US and NATO economic & military power and continued its own apartheid & war against Kurds.
4. In this ongoing brutal apartheid rose a Kurdish resistance group. Though viewed by the west in the context for other leftist groups as terrorist, to many Kurds they were views as liberators. Someone was fighting back. The leader Abdullah Ocalon is sitting in a prison
5. on an island in in the Sea of Marmara. He is known to the Kurds who revere him as Apo. He is a listed member of a US FTO. He is to many Kurds what Nelson Mandela was to South Africans under Apartheid. After a long period of isolation at the direction of Turkey's Erdogan,
6. his brother was allowed to visit him today. He reported that he is well. Sites on social media show Kurds celebrating. Dancing by the fire. Something may have happened. I won't dwell here on the war crimes committed by Turkey in Afrin other than to say they happened & continue
7. Afrin must be rid of all Turkish jihadists. They murder, plunder & commit sexual assaults. They are not dissimilar from ISIS. Many are ISIS. By now, if a proper investigation was done, we have evidence that can charge Erdogan his military and intelligence heads for war crimes.
8. Turkey's failure to join the ICC is irrelevant. Erdogan can be charged & arrested if he leaves Turkey and he knows it. The additional proof of his family connection to ISIS is now inescapable. We may be at a cross road. US policy makers can join an ISIS affiliate war criminal
9. or break free of the liability their misguided agreement with Russia has exposed them to. This could be a misreading of the signs. It may be that Erdogan is really going to attack US forces in Manbij. But unless Trump is completely turned by Russia our forces will defend.
10. I of course don't speak for anyone in the Mideast, but I have learned a lot in the past four years. The Syrian Kurds who fought along side US forces under the banners of YPG YPJ & SDF are not terrorist. They only threaten Turkey because many are Kurds &Turkey fears revenge
11. for the decades of brutality and dehumanization they have forced Kurds to endure. I think the Kurds have learned one important fact of war. You don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies.
12. All of Turkey's people deserve a future free of war and with benefits that their years of loyal membership in NATO should have earned. But war crimes & genocide must end. And a peace must come. Was today simply Erdogan's humanitarian act? Well, something else was reported.
13. For the first time I can recall a top US govt official, @SecPompeo, was reported to have said that everyone knows the #YPG are not terrorists. For the past 4 years nobody in US govt was willing to say that. They feared Turkey's reaction.
14. Pompeo will be interviewed tomorrow. Hopefully the confused signals that have come from Trump, Bolton and Pompeo will end and a coherent policy will emerge. But what needs to be said at least in private is that Turkey must end its apartheid or face South Africa level
15. sanctions. Remember, they were an ally too. And Turkey must leave Syria and stop its threats. Absent that I think Pompeo may have a report that is the strongest weapon that can be used against Erdogan: The Truth.
16. NDAA's Nuremberg tribunal: ‘‘hybrid tribunal’’ means a temporary criminal tribunal that involves a combination of domestic & international lawyers, judges, & other professionals to prosecute individuals suspected of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide.
17. Trump's tweets about attack on Kurds & need for 20 mile protected zone is consistent with how an administration might react that has a report that an ally was engaged in war crimes. I think caution is the wise policy. Let's see how this is addressed by Bolton and Pompeo.
18. Perhaps a unilateral ceasefire by PKK might be helpful. Allow only defensive actions. I think that it's pretty quiet so it's worth a shot. @DefenseIntel @USEmbassySyria.
