Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
On Sunday last week, Damascus fell to Salafi terrorists and other imperialist-aligned forces. Regardless of the flaws of the ousted government, this is a horrible situation for the Syrian proletariat as well as for the people of Palestine, Lebanon and others. We can only hope for the perseverance of the Syrian workers and the remaining anti-colonial resistance.
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Why are Russia, China, the Taliban worthy of "critical support", but Rojava isn't? US trade with China amounts to a total of some $50-60 Billion a year. Russia sells uranium to the US.
What is Rojava's sin? Surviving with the help of the US. The US gave military equipment to the Soviet Union, too, when they were fighting Nazis. They were even allies for a while.
Rojava is AES in the Middle East. They are the only socialist entity in all of Middle East.
Tin-foil hat mode: This Rojava hate is not organic. I mean you had Trotskyists joining ISIS to fight against the US, maybe this hate comes from them? I dunno. I just know the hate is unreasonable and certainly not in proportion to the "crime".
Trade is not the same thing as helping the US steal oil. The people in Rojava were and are in an unenviable position and it may deserve critical support in the future compared to the other imperialist collaborators in the region, but it's certainly not AES
Except the US didn't "steal" any oil. The oil extracted in Rojava was sold to the Syrian government and Iraq. Look at the map of pipelines in Syria. The US didn't carry it away in a big bucket.
Why does Rojava control those oil fields? Because they took them from ISIS, they weren't under the control of the Syrian govt. at the time.
So yeah, SDF stole the oil... from ISIS. The pil profits went to Rojava, the US didn't see a dollar from it.
How did they do that? By existing? By fighting ISIS in the northeast? By cooperating with the SAA in fighting the Turkish incursion into Syria?
It wasn't SDF that deposed Assad, it was HTS (and SNA). SDF is actually fighting the Turkey-backed SNA right now, as the SNA wants to take over Manbij.
The US absolutely did steal enormous amounts of oil, which contributed to the destabilization of the Syrian government and the suffering of the Syrian people, especially considering the crippling sanctions
Then you should clarify they hadn't stolen it for themselves. Syrian govt. feels robbed (justifiably) but claiming the "US stole" it implies that the oil ended up in the US or was used by the US.
The reality is that the oil was "stolen" by SDF (who are supported by the US). But as I said, Syrian govt. didn't control those oil fields when SDF took them, they were controlled by ISIS.
It's like if someone steals my bike, then a third person steals the bike from them and then I accuse the third person of stealing the bike from me. Sure, it's kind of technically true, but it isn't the same as if that third person stole it directly from me.
As recent events have shown, the SAA had no hope of retaking or holding those oil fields. If SDF had disappeared, and SAA controlled the oil fields, now those oil fields would be in ISIS/HTS/SNA/Tukey's hands.
If you look at the map of Syria, you can see that Syrian govt.'s areas of control were nowhere near those oil fields.
What was "SDF giving back the oil" supposed to look like? The SDF uses resources and people to defend the oil fields, they ship the oil for free to Damascus and in return they get... nothing. If the Syrian govt. had been more willing to negotiate DAANES autonomy they would have had a better chance of "getting their oil back".
No. Many stolen items are sold rather than being used by the thief.
ISIS was stealing oil, then the SDF took over the theft. The SDF was still stealing from Syria. It doesn't matter whether there was another thief in the middle.
It kind of does, because Syria was never able to take back those oil fields. Not when ISIS had them and not in the last 10 years. One could say that Syria had lost them for good once they lost them to ISIS.
IF, on the other hand Syrian government managed to retake all of its territory and the only holdout was Rojava, I'd be more willing to agree with your viewpoint. But as it stands, Rojava wasn't even the nearest immediate threat to the Syrian govt.
I'm gonna sound like a broken record, but the fact that SAA and SDF cooperated against a common enemy (Turkey, FSA, SNA, ISIS) and "Damascus" and Rojava were in talks to find a way to live in the same country, Syria, together, tells me that the differences between Rojava and the Syrian govt. weren't so great as to not be overcome.
Also, if you look at the volounteers fighting for Rojava there's a lot of ML/communist parties and organisations. Meanwhile the Trotskyists supported ISIS because "ISIS fought against the imperialist puppets Rojava".
One could, but it would be incorrect. Most occupations are eventually defeated.
I don't think anyone here would claim that Rojava was the nearest immediate threat to the Syrian government, or that they could never reach a compromise with the Syrian government. This does not change the fact that Rojava did collaborate with US imperialism for many years, and it's by no means socialist.
Rojava Kurds are native to Syria, they aren't occupiers. They are a people fighting for self-determination.
So did Russia.
What metric are you using?
"One could say that Syria had lost them for good once they lost them to ISIS." ISIS, not Rojava.
Yes, and it did not deserve critical support at that time.
It is not ruled by a communist party and its economy is capitalist. Having some workers' cooperatives does not make a country socialist.
My bad. But Rojava never meant to secede from Syria. They are still called DAANES today, administration of north-east Syria. Yes, they took the oil fields to fund themselves. But without any other source of funding (their main industry is agriculture) it was an attempt to secure a source other than US aid. We wouldn't fault a person stealing to feed themselves, in my mind it's the same thing.
As I mentioned in another comment, SDF could have done "whatever they wanted" in the areas they control, but they decided to build an egalitarian, democratic society that respected minorities and religions. What more can you ask for under the circumstances? Yet they did much more than that.
If a little "thievery" is the price for that, if I were in their shoes I would have done the same. Stalin was a bank robber, for example. I'm sure he stole from some people who were nice.
Right. But we can see that conditions can change. Also, I think there are degrees of cooperation. You cannot say that Rojava is the same as Israel, for example, when it comes to cooperating with the US.
There are only about 1000 US troops left in Syria. US has no intent on fighting Turkey or their militias, they didn't help SDF hold Manbij. It's unlikely the US would help the SDF fight against HTS if they decide they want the oil fields DAANES controls.
But let me ask you this, what would have to happen or what kind of conditions would there have to be for you to think that Rojava is a socialist project worth studying? There's no Syrian government for SDF to give back the oil to.
I would fault a person repeatedly stealing essential things required for another person to survive
In what sense are they egalitarian and democratic? A capitalist country, even if it's relatively decentralized, is neither egalitarian nor democratic in any meaningful sense
Like I said, it may be worthy of critical support in the future, but certainly not now
The first step would be to have a socialist, anti-imperialist government
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From a lengthy article (from 2016) analysing the economy of Rojava. written by a Russian Marxist (that's how he is described, don't know for certain).
Sure it's not full communism, but it's obvious they don't want to be capitalist.
Rhetoric is easy, but in practice, Rojava has no proper state, no vanguard party. Not wanting to be capitalist doesn't really matter if their economy is de facto capitalist, even if the welfare net is larger than in most capitalist countries or there's more local democratic participation.
It feels like I'm repeating myself at this point so I'm going to end it here
OK. I will just say that one must examine Rojava as it exists in its current conditions, and not compare it to some ideal.
Can you connect the dots ffs.
I'm stupid, connect them for me.
By this logic, one could argue that Israel has a right to every territory they take and the resources in them so long as they're able to use the brute force to do it.
It's reverse. You're saying Palestinians shouldn't be supported because they took money/aid from the US.
Is that what I'm saying or is that what you're pretending I'm saying?
At the end of the day, the only thing the YPG did was speed up the destruction of any sense of normality the people in Rojava could have experienced.
Why didn't SAA defeat ISIS in north-east Syria then? SDF didn't take the land from the Syrian govt. they took it from the ISIS caliphate.
Rojava is on the side of the US empire.
What do you mean by that?
in the global class war, they served the purpose of desestabilizing Syria, which like it or not was struggling against US imperialism.
But they didn't destabilise Syria. They fought ISIS who threatened their existance. They created an autonomous region to govern themselves because there was no SAA or Syrian government presence. SAA was not able to defend people in that region from ISIS.
DAANES (they were formerly AANES) had always stated that their goal is to preserve the integrity and sovereignty of Syria. They wanted to be an autonomous region under the Syrian constitution. They didn't want to separate or declare independence.
Syrian government and SDF were in negotiations (slow and rocky) but they did have a dialogue and limited cooperation.
As graineater said, they collaborated with the US to steal Syria's oil. This group is completely backed by the US and wouldn't exist without their support, like it can't get more blatantly obvious.
Their internal policies are irrelevant, they are US stooges and their funds come from imperialism.
So what should happen to Rojava and the Kurds and minorities in it? If DAANES disappears, the HTS and SNA will genocide/ethnically cleanse the Kurds.
What would be the communist and anti-imperialist thing to do in their situation?
Not doing the US dirty work?
And that means not defending themselves against ISIS.
Is ideological purity more important than survival?
why are you talking about "ideological purity" ? I don't support US stooges, regardless of their ideology, this does not mean i support ISIS either which is also an US stooge, they very well could be getting training in the US bases the SDF hosts or getting weapons through them.
You can't just say things like that without evidence. If you claim ISIS is training on DAANES territory, then you should back that claim up.
I have a problem with the "US stooge" label. We can recognise Rojava cooperates with the US, we can say they receive help, money, training, weapons... but we don't have to rob Rojava of agency. Why can't cooperation with the US be a temporary, necessary measure on their part, rather than an essential quality?
I have red lines, and working with the US to destabilize a country is one of them. If that's not a red line for you, what is?
You have to first realise that "red lines, and working with the US to destabilize a country is one of them." is a construct. Because for example my construction of what's happening over there is not the same as yours. You say "working with the US to destabilise a country" and I say that the country was already destabilised, and that the people of Rojava saw an opportunity.
I don't like the implication that Kurds have no agency. They do and they choose to work with the US instead of the alternative of being genocided.
Which is exactly what the usa wants to happen. This is exactly why the usa supported both ISIS, and the SDF. The suffering is their goal. Keep everyone fighting so they can keep oil prices low.
Revolutionary defeatism. Don't pick any side in the fight between the imperialists and the local bourgeois ruling class. Wait to see if the local government will fail while organizing a communist (not ethnic or religious) resistance to whom ever wins the fight. Save energy to fight when the victor is weakest instead of weakening themselves fighting for promises from the great satan that will undoubtibly be broken.
Rojava served their US-requested role of suffocating Syria and paving the way for the fall of Assad regime and victory of HTS. Rojava's role was to hold the longest frontline with the fallen regime's forces, be a host for US military bases and a launchpad for US attacks on Syrian gov forces, and most importantly hoard Syria's most viral resources such as oil, wheat and drinking water (which also yields electric power).
When HTS launched their offensive, Rojava attacked Syrian government forces in Deir Ezzor, only to retreat a week later and hand it over to HTS.
Watch my words, the US will abandon Rojava in 2025 now that their job is done, and you will see that they were nothing but useful idiots for the empire.