An American professor exposes Erdogan’s “epic distortion of facts in Syria”

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On Jan. 7, the New York Times published an article by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the writer saw as “a masterpiece in historical revisionism better suited to Turkey’s state-controlled media, Erdogan relies upon most Americans’ lack of awareness of the situation on the ground in Syria and makes bold claims with outright falsehoods.”  Brian Glyn Williams wrote in The Hill.

For example, Erdogan begins by stating: “In 2016, Turkey became the first country to deploy ground combat troops to fight the so-called Islamic State in Syria.” The writer says.

He continues to refute Erdogan’s claims by explaining: “This is wrong on two levels. First, the United States deployed special forces to assist the outgunned Kurds in northern Syria in repulsing Islamic State fighters in October 2015, and is widely suspected of having dispatched covert forces to combat ISIS in Syria as early as October 2014.”

Second, when Erdogan deployed troops to Syria, the enemy the Turks were fighting in August 2016 was primarily America’s Kurdish allies, who Ankara defines as “terrorists.” These Syrian Kurds had just infuriated Turkey by capturing the town of Manbij.

The writer goes on stating, “Yet Erdogan bizarrely claims it was Turkish forces who “impeded [ISIS’s] ability to carry out terror attacks in Turkey and Europe.” The Kurdish conquest of Manbij thrilled the CIA, which gained a treasure trove of intel on ISIS, but sadly it also gave Turkey a pretext to launch a war on the Syrian Kurds.”

The professor noted to Erdogan’s outrageous statements about human rights, giving the example of al-Bab city which was devastated unlike the US and its allies SDF and the Iraqi army that avoided causalities among civilians, he said “Al-Bab, a former stronghold of the so-called Islamic State.” The reality is that al-Bab was conquered by the Turks only because of U.S. close air support and bloody fights that turned many neighborhoods into rubble.”

The professor asserts “Contrary to the assertion that Turkish soldiers went “door to door” gently fighting ISIS, the Turks deployed their air force, artillery and tanks to defeat entrenched ISIS fighters in al-Bab.” Noting that the objective of the Turkish invasion of al-Bab was to create a buffer zone, which would prevent the advancing Kurds of northern Syria from uniting their three democratic cantons into one homeland to be known as Rojava.”

Noting to Erdogan’s claims of stable al-Bab city, he wrote: This could just as easily describe the situation in the North Syrian Democratic Federation, liberated from ISIS by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). There, organic, democratic councils are ruling. Security is being maintained, schools and hospitals are being rebuilt with U.S. support, and there is rare harmony among peoples. The reality is that councils have been elected to govern in areas liberated by the SDF. There is no need for Turkey to invade this stable land, destroy the grassroots councils through mass arrests, as happened in Afrin in northwestern Syria, and put pro-Turkish jihadist fighters in power.

He adds: “Clearly, Erdogan wants President Trump to fulfill his Dec. 19 decision to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria so that Turkey can launch a planned attack on the Kurds. Erdogan promises ‘Turkey proposes a comprehensive strategy to eliminate the root causes of radicalization.’ Yet Turkey’s invasion of Afrin (where there was no ISIS presence) resulted in ethnic cleansing of Kurdish inhabitants. This sort of brutal anti-Kurdish repression will lead to the sort of radicalization seen among Kurds in Turkey.”

“Erdogan essentially has promised to turn the homeland of America’s stalwart allies into a cemetery. He portrays himself as an above-the-fray leader of a country that he falsely depicts as a benign player in Syria. The sinister reality is that Turkey has promised to bury the Kurds “in their ditches.” 

The writer goes on, “Bolton told Ibrahim Kalin, Turkey’s deputy head of security and foreign policies board, that Erdogan’s New York Times piece was “wrong and offensive.”

Brian Glyn Williams concludes his article as: “The stateless Kurds, the largest ethnic group in the world without their own nation, have loyally fought alongside the United States since the 1991 Gulf War. They have a bitter saying that captures their sense of betrayal by the world: “We have no friends but the mountains.” It seems they have at least one friend in Bolton, who is willing to put out his neck out to rebut the Turkish leader’s disinformation campaign and honorably establish preconditions to protect them from catastrophe as U.S. troops withdraw.