Monthly Archives: May 2017

Iraq, Middle East, Syria, Turkey

A Briefing on The Complexities of the Kurdish Landscape in the Middle East

ETHNIC KURDS

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The Kurdish Peshmerga, many of them veterans, are spearheading the defence against IS militants in Iraq.

Conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Turkey have unleashed a tangle of political and military organisations among the Kurds. This is an article concerning who’s who in a struggle that is shaping the Middle East.

Up to 35 million ethnic Kurds are spread across Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran and are at the forefront of multiple conflicts reshaping the Middle East. In Syria and Iraq, US-backed Kurdish forces are leading the fight against the so-called “Islamic State” (IS).

However, “the Kurds” are riven by intra-Kurdish rivalries both within their respective states and across greater Kurdistan. As the United States backs Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, it has found itself in the middle of these rivalries and at odds with NATO ally Turkey.

The main intra-Kurdish fault line is between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – and its affiliates – and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Masoud Barzani, the president of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq (KRG).

A divided Kurdish quasi-state

The KRG has many characteristics of a state – an executive, legislature, judiciary and security forces – all recognised under the Iraqi constitution’s federalist structure. The United States, as well as European states including Germany, provide assistance to their long-time Iraqi Kurdish allies.

However, the Iraqi Kurdish army, known as peshmerga, or “those who face death,” are not united under the same command even though they cooperate. Barzani’s KDP and its main political rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), each have separate peshmerga forces.

The PUK is closer to the PKK, the Iraqi central government and Iran. These rivalries play out in Syria and with Turkey, which is close to Barzani and his KDP.

US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces

In Syria, the United States backs the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with weapons, airstrikes and about 900 Special Forces. Considered the best fighters against IS, the SDF is a roughly 50,000 strong force composed of Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen and Christian militia. It was formed in 2015 with US encouragement and in part to address Turkey’s concerns over the dominance of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The YPG and the all-female Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) are the armed wings of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a left-leaning Kurdish political party in Syria. Together they make up about half of the SDF.

Kurdistan Communities Union

The PYD, in turn, is a part of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), a pan-national umbrella political group established in 2005 by Kurdish parties. Alongside the PYD, the KCK comprises the PKK, the Iranian branch Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) and the much smaller Iraqi affiliate, Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (PCDK).

The KCK and its subset political parties are composed of various political, social and military subunits. They subscribe to the ideology of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been in a Turkish prison since his capture in 1999.

Though Ocalan continues to be the PKK’s nominal head, the de-facto leader of KCK is its co-chair, Cemil Bayik, one of the five founders of the PKK and a top leader of the group.

The PKK has carried out a nearly four-decade long armed struggle against the Turkish state resulting in the death of about 40,000 people. Turkey, the United States and European Union consider the PKK a terrorist organisation.

Turkey considers the YPG/PYD, as well as the SDF terrorist organisations for their ties to the PKK. This view stems in part from the fact that from the 1980s to late 1990s, the PKK and Ocalan operated out of Syria and Lebanon with the support of former Syrian President Hafiz Assad.

Syria kicked out the PKK in 1998 after Turkey threatened to invade, but then essentially handed over parts of northern Syria to the PYD shortly after the onset of the Syria civil war in 2011.

PKK under a different name?

The PKK and PYD deny that they have organic organisational ties. The PKK and PYD say they have a different substructure, command and ultimately different goals in their respective countries, Turkey and Syria, given the different political situation in each with regards to the Kurds.

Unlike the PKK, which primarily fights the Turkish state, the PYD/YPG is focused on fighting IS and on occasion Turkish-backed Syria rebel groups. The PYD/YPG has not sided with Assad, with whom they have a tacit understanding. It also has not aligned with either Islamist rebel factions or Turkish-backed opposition, saying it has no designs on Turkey and wants to avoid conflict.

But the YPG counts hundreds of Turkish Kurds within its ranks, including PKK fighters who transferred to the fight in Syria. The PKK has traditionally drawn about a third of its fighters from Syria, raising further questions over its links to the YPG.

Meanwhile, the United States has said it sees enough difference between the PYD and terrorist-categorised PKK to back the YPG and SDF units fighting in Syria. And, as that relationship has grown over the past two plus years, the PYD/YPG has sought to publicly distance itself from the PKK.

What binds the PKK and PYD, they say, is an adherence to Ocalan’s Marxist-Leninist ideology and a shared desire to beat back jihadist forces. Ocalanism incorporates women’s rights, human rights, environmentalism, communalism and ”democratic autonomy,” a grassroots form of federal governance viewed by its followers as a model for democracy in Middle East.

This political model contrasts with that in Iraqi Kurdistan led by Barzani. There, the system is based on family and tribal ties, crony capitalism and patron-client relationships.

Facts on the ground

Off the battlefield, the PYD has set up an autonomous political structure based on Ocalan’s ideas in areas under its control in northern Syria, known as Rojava. By creating facts on the ground, the PYD hopes to bolster Kurdish political claims in any future settlement in Syria.

Turkey fears Syrian Kurdish gains will embolden its own Kurdish population and create a PKK statelet on its southern border. This has created strains in Ankara’s relations with Washington, including setting up the prospect that Turkey could clash directly with the United States in one of the many attacks it has carried out against the YPG.

A sustained conflict between the SDF/YPG and Turkey would undermine a key US goal, namely defeating IS and rooting it out of its self-declared capital Raqqa.

The PYD’s detractors, including other smaller Syrian Kurdish parties, accuse it of monopolising power and repressing dissent. They also accuse it of allying with the Assad regime.

As a result, Barzani’s KDP has supported other Syrian Kurdish factions and, similar to Turkey, implemented a border embargo over PYD controlled areas, fuelling intra-Kurdish tensions.

The next conflict

Adding to those tensions, the PKK has created armed units among the ethno-religious Yezidi population in Iraq in their heartland around Sinjar to defend against IS. These Yezidi units pose a direct challenge to Barzani, whom many Yezidis accuse of abandoning them to genocide when IS swept through in 2014.

For the PKK, Sinjar is strategic geography. With the retreat of IS, Sinjar will provide the PKK with a potential land corridor and transportation hub linking Syria to the Kurdish group’s headquarters in Qandil. This route would cut south of KDP controlled areas, through Iraqi government territory and onto friendlier PUK dominant territory in the eastern part of the KRG.

Turkey seeks to prevent the PKK from establishing a second headquarters based in Sinjar. To this end, it bombed Sinjar last month and has threatened a military operation to root out the PKK from the area.

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Government, Legal, Politics, Society, United States

What Is Obstruction of Justice?

UNITED STATES

Ever since President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey last week the term “obstruction of justice” has been swirling inside Washington D.C. and across cable television. The rhetoric has somewhat intensified after the New York Times cited a memo from Mr Comey claiming that the president had asked him to shut down an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn following his resignation.

Using social media networking site Twitter, Senator Chris Murphy has asked about the exact definition of “obstruction of justice” and highlights the frenzy between Democrats and Republicans over its meaning. Mr Murphy tweeted with a link to the Times report.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse tweeted: “Yesterday, secrets to the Russians. Today, obstruction of justice? When does this end?”

But what exactly is Obstruction of Justice and how does it relate to the headlines that have been coming out of the Beltway?

Obstruction of Justice is essentially someone who intentionally intervenes or tampers with an ongoing investigation.

Obstruction of Justice

The Times wrote that the memo is “the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.”

“You can’t get in the way or do anything to impede an investigation that has already been launched and if you do you may suffer criminal penalties,” said William C. Banks, a law professor and Director of the Institute for National Security and Counter-Terrorism at Syracuse University.

The federal code has 21 statutes outlining the different methods of obstruction of justice, including the use of murder or physical force to disrupt a testimony influencing a juror, and falsifying records. But one of the statutes, 18 U.S. Code § 1512 also includes a general provision, explaining that someone who “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

But the key to proving obstruction of justice, explains Robert Weisberg, a law professor at Stanford, is that the intervention has to be propelled by corrupt motives.

“If it’s a threat, that makes it a crime. If it’s not a threat – but a request – it could still be a crime if the threat is motivated by a corrupt purpose,” Weisberg said.

The punishment varies, and usually depends on what the person was convicted for, but the maximum is 20 years of imprisonment if fined under the federal statute of 18 U.S. Code § 1512. In 1974, articles of impeachment drafted against Richard Nixon accused him of obstructing justice after he refused to hand over his tape recordings to the FBI. Nixon resigned, but faced no charges because Gerald Ford pardoned him.

In 2007, then Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff Scooter Libby, was convicted of Obstruction of Justice – in addition to lying to a grand jury and FBI agents – regarding the federal investigation into the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame and received a 30-month prison sentence before President George W. Bush pardoned him that June.

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Arts, Psychology, Science

Talking to Self is linked to Brain’s Intelligence

BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE

Self Talk

This internal dialogue, sometimes referred to as personal commentary, frames our reactions to life and its circumstances. One of the ways to recognise, promote, and sustain optimism, hope, and joy is to intentionally fill our thoughts with positive self-talk.

We all talk to ourselves, whether it’s aloud or silent inner talk. Although thinking out loud makes us look insane, science suggests it’s actually a sign of intelligence, not mental illness. Psychologists at Bangor University in the UK have found external monologues boost brain power to improve our focus and achieve goals.

Scientific researchers at Bangor University say our inner talk serves to control ourselves by helping us organise our thoughts, plan actions, consolidate memory, and modulate emotions. This inner talk evolves itself to talking out loud to further reinforce our approach to achieving set goals.

One of the scientists commented: ‘Talking out loud can be an extension of this silent inner talk, caused when a certain motor command is triggered involuntarily.’

For example, as children, we learn by talking to ourselves because this is part of our developmental immaturity. Psychologist Jean Piaget dubbed this “egocentric speech”, and realised toddlers begin to control their actions as soon as they start developing language. A 2008 study conducted by George Mason University found 5-year-olds do better on motor tasks when they talk to themselves out loud, whether it’s spontaneously or when told to do so by an adult, compared to when they are silent. The researchers noted as children begin talking to themselves, their communication skills with the outside world improve.

In the study, published in Acta Psychologica, Mari-Beffa and Alexander Kirkhan conducted an experiment where they gave a total of 28 participants a set of written instructions, and asked them to read them either silently or out loud. The researchers observed talking out loud actually improved the participants’ control over a task compared to what is achieved by inner speech. They believe much of this benefit comes from simply hearing oneself.

An auditory command seems to better control behaviour than written ones. Even if we talk to ourselves during challenging tasks, our performance tends to improve when we do it out loud, rather than silently.

“The stereotype of the mad scientist talking to themselves, lost in their own inner world, might reflect the reality of a genius who uses all the means at their disposal to increase their brain power,” wrote Mari-Beffa.

Similarly, previous research has shown talking to ourselves makes our brain work more efficiently. In a 2011 study, researchers gave 20 people the name of an object, (i.e., a loaf of bread or an apple), to find in the supermarket both in silence and then aloud as they looked for it in the store. The participants found the object with more ease when they spoke to themselves while searching, because thinking out loud helped spark memory. In other words, speaking facilitated search, meaning there was a strong association between the name and the visual target.

These studies suggest talking to ourselves is not only a way to control our behaviour, but it’s also something that we prefer to do by default. It helps us organise our thoughts. Psychologist Linda Sapadin believes talking to ourselves helps us validate important, difficult decisions. It clarifies our thoughts to determine what’s important and solidify any decisions we’re contemplating. This is often the way we’re advised to “talk it out” when we are faced with a problem.

This is why we often see sports elites like tennis player Serena Williams talking to herself during competitions to stay focused and achieve her goals. Perhaps adapting an athlete’s state of mind by talking out loud can act as our own motivational pep talk to improve our focus. Initially, talking to ourselves may seem like madness, but science argues it’s the habit of a genius.

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